Quote: Posted 05/29/04 20:48:14 (GMT) by 3lb3r3th

Quote: Posted 05/28/04 17:41:35 (GMT) by Georg Zoeller

Quote: Posted 05/28/04 17:16:26 (GMT) by Son of Neil

Quote: Posted 05/28/04 00:13:37 (GMT) by Georg Zoeller

Quote: Posted 05/25/04 19:31:07 (GMT) by Son of Neil

as i said before stuff like this Click Here is imo one of the best ways to prevent warezing.

That's a picture of the Ultima Ascension Dragon Edition, which cost about 120USD at the time it was released.

you are wrong, the picture is from the normal version - that i bought. it costed 70sFr. at that time in switzerland (80 DM or 40US$).

now talking about the dragon edition pal...
Normal Edition:
-Ultima IX install CD
-Ultima IX play CD
-Ultima Online: The Second Age Game CD (with one month free membership)
-The "Journal" booklet (all about the ultima universe, the avatar, history and so on)
-The "Book of Magic" booklet (all about the magic in the ultima universe)
-The Install booklet (the regular game booklet)
-8 Virtue Tarot Cards
-40cm x 40cm Cloth Map of Britannia (i guess made out sinthetic fibres, because it looks and feels very silky)
-"Gobelin of Time" (a mirrorfinish piece of paperboard, with the gobelin of time on one side, and help about the game controls on the other)

Dragon Edition:
-all the content from the normal version
-the "journal" and "the book of magic" have a sinthetic leather cover
-an ankh pendant that can be attached to a necklace and worn
-the ultima collection CD that contains Ultimas I through VIII, including Ultima VII add ons: Forge of Virtue and Silver Seed
-The Ultima IX Soundtrack
-A high quality illustration reprint of the ascending avatar
-a certificate from richard garriot


what do you say eh?

I wasn't aware of that, guess that's for the US version only. I saw a "Normal Edition" a friend of mine bought, but it didn't have anything like the stuff in the Dragon Edition I bought - probably the usual "European Version", sigh. However, the trend towards cutting distribution and manufacturing costs by the publishers remains. Most games in europe come in DVD boxes already, while the US market to have settled for those smaller cardboard boxe for now - not much space for anything special in there (unless you create a special edition).

Seriously, if you (or your distributor) spends tons of cash on developing things like unique serial imprints (or hires a third party to do this) on CD/DVD disks and the involved research to come up with this and on customer support because the crap isn't working anymore again + replacement of disks because people are simply not aware that their drives are too old...

And the alternative is so simple, so elegant.
Sure its more difficult to produce nice addon material and multiple handbooks and cloth-maps. Ok, not as easy to ship because a simply bigger/heavier case, but actually WELCOMED by the players...

And what do we get ? DVD-cases... thin, noninformative handbooks... good thing NWN came in a normal box...

*crap*

No-cd patches take usually 2 days to show up. Playing through the game to find out if contend from the handbooks is needed and WHERE (of course its somwhere in the games code, good luck in searching - as long as you don't use the same sheme for every game, but nobody would be that dumb, right?) usually takes much longer, EXTREMELY long in the case of game with the depth of ultimaIV for an example.

Someone from Atari wants to save a few pennys again i guess ? THERE IS YOUR COPY-PROTECTION SOULUTION. They can ignore it as much as they want, its still the best way to do it, period.

ceterum censeo ambulatiuncula esse delen

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