JoWooD - Universe Editions for Gothic, Spellforce & The Guild

Dhruin

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JoWood sent out a press release last Friday announcing bundled "Universe" editions of Gothic, Spellforce and The Guild:
JoWooD Productions to Release Universe Editions of their Most Successful Brands - „SpellForce", „Gothic" and „The Guild" - Soon to be Available as Brand-Bundles
Liezen, Austria, November xx 2007; JoWooD Productions is ready to start this year’s Christmas season with the release of a great new gaming series Top Brands such as “SpellForce”, “Gothic” and “The Guild” will soon be available as Universe Editions.
“Our Universe Editions will combine all parts of the most successful JoWooD brands in separate packages. This means that JoWooD will release “SpellForce Universe Edition”, “Gothic Universe Edition” and last but not least “The Guild Universe Edition” in their own brand bundles, explains Johannes Natterer, Senior Marketing Manager JoWooD Productions.
About “SpellForce”:
SpellForce is one of the most famous genre-mixed series in gaming history. The game combines real time strategy with role play gaming and guarantees an exciting mix full of magic, mystic and power.
Universe Edition contains:
• SpellForce – The Order of Dawn
• SpellForce – The Breath of Winter
• SpellForce – Shadow of the Phoenix
• SpellForce 2 – Shadow Wars
• SpellForce 2 – Dragon Storm
About Gothic:
Nameless but also a hero – For many years the nameless hero of the Gothic series has fascinated a worldwide community. Cold and bleak with a mystic charm, the Gothic brand has become one of the most successful brands in the role playing genre.
Universe Edition contains:
• Gothic 1
• Gothic 2
• Gothic 2 – Night of the raven
• Gothic 3
About The Guild (Europe 1400):
The 14th century makes its great appearance in the entire The Guild series. Players experience the hard and fascinating life of the medieval time. To be good or evil – it all depends on player’s decision.
Universe Edition contains:
• Europe 1400 – The Guild
• Europe 1400 – The Guild AddOn
• The Guild 2
• The Guild 2 – Pirates of the European Seas
Release: November 2007
More information.
 
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cool!
Special Edition
Platinum Edition
Collectors Edition
Director's Cut
Reloaded
Ultimate Edition
Gold Edition
Complete Collection
Deluxe

And now we proudly present... the UNIVERSE EDITION!

That's absolutely innovative!

:D
 
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I bought G3 when it came out but shelved it, waiting for the big patch that never came. After that I found Gothic 2+NotR for a bargain bin price and have since been looking for Gothic 1 so that I can play through the trilogy chronologically. Instead, it looks like I should have waited for this. Buying such a bundle for 1 game out of 3 seems like overkill.

While we're at it: Would I lose any enjoyment from the first game playing Gothic 2 before Gothic 1? I'm thinking of things like: would it spoil the story or would it be difficult to go back to more primitive interface/controls?
 
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cool!
Special Edition
Platinum Edition
Collectors Edition
Director's Cut
Reloaded
Ultimate Edition
Gold Edition
Complete Collection
Deluxe

And now we proudly present... the UNIVERSE EDITION!

That's absolutely innovative!

:D

Atleast in hardware the name can mean its actually worse than normal. Audigy 4 "special edition" is same as normal except it doesnt have a remote (it took me a while to figure that out since i bought the card from retail as "SE" and thers no packaging). 9600 "special edition" is much slower than normal 9600. I guess they try to sell them to "special" people.

EDIT: I think you forgot atleast "limited" and "silver" editions.
 
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I bought G3 when it came out but shelved it, waiting for the big patch that never came. After that I found Gothic 2+NotR for a bargain bin price and have since been looking for Gothic 1 so that I can play through the trilogy chronologically. Instead, it looks like I should have waited for this. Buying such a bundle for 1 game out of 3 seems like overkill.

While we're at it: Would I lose any enjoyment from the first game playing Gothic 2 before Gothic 1? I'm thinking of things like: would it spoil the story or would it be difficult to go back to more primitive interface/controls?

The controls for gothic 1 and 2 are pretty similar (NoTR does not change any controls). As far as plot, well, yes the very beginning of two shows what happened at the end of 1. Whether that is a very big deal probably depends on the person. Personally I don't think it ruins the first game because the story wasn't the strongest aspect of the first game, the setting, characters, and gameplay were much bigger thrills. The intro to two spoils who the main nemesis is in the first game, which is actually a mystery for a while in that game.
 
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... and have since been looking for Gothic 1 so that I can play through the trilogy chronologically.

While we're at it: Would I lose any enjoyment from the first game playing Gothic 2 before Gothic 1? I'm thinking of things like: would it spoil the story or would it be difficult to go back to more primitive interface/controls?

You can get Gothic 1 with the printed manual here.
You can get for about 15$ U.S. shipping included.

About playing the 2nd before the 1rst, not that big of a deal.
They're 2 seperate games.
I played the 2nd before the 1rst and didn't mind it.
The controls are the same.
 
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cool!
Special Edition
Platinum Edition
Collectors Edition
Director's Cut
Reloaded
Ultimate Edition
Gold Edition
Complete Collection
Deluxe

And now we proudly present... the UNIVERSE EDITION!

That's absolutely innovative!

:D

Expect even more creativity for 20 bucks next Christmas. ;)

It´s necessary to ship "new" product into retail ca. every 6 months because the channel kicks out old stuff that does not circulate fast enough. The remaining units are returned for a refund - or fresh games. New name -> different SKU -> new product!


Of course everybody is talking about the Gothic bundle in this thread. Nevertheless let me use this opportunity to recommend the SpellForce series once again. SF2 was my favourite game last year, and the reviews said the add-on was at least as good. The whole bundle with its 5 games has ca. 300 hours of content!
SF is an action-RPG & RTS mix. Or better the only convincing one. ;)
 
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I bought G3 when it came out but shelved it, waiting for the big patch that never came. After that I found Gothic 2+NotR for a bargain bin price and have since been looking for Gothic 1 so that I can play through the trilogy chronologically. Instead, it looks like I should have waited for this. Buying such a bundle for 1 game out of 3 seems like overkill.
You can download Gothic directly from Piranha Bytes. The unlock key costs 10 bucks.
If you know somebody in Germany you can alteratively get a "Fan Edition". It comes with German & English Gothic and some additional stuff like wallpapers and material provided by fan sites on one DVD. Cost 10-15 EUR.
Forget about the manual. It sucks.

Gothic can be tweaked on PC faster than 1 GHz / 512 MB. New textures, unlocked frame rate, added concert, better sky. Definitely worth it.

The G3 Community Patches repaired 100s of small things and even fixed a couple of bigger problems like missing perks. Highly recommended. 2 GB RAM also. ;)



While we're at it: Would I lose any enjoyment from the first game playing Gothic 2 before Gothic 1? I'm thinking of things like: would it spoil the story or would it be difficult to go back to more primitive interface/controls?

G2 before Gothic is close to zero problem. The dialogs refering to Gothic are optional. You can simply say "Do I know you?!" and skip potential spoilers.
I would recommend to play Gothic before NotR though. Both because it uses a lot of NPC from the first game and because you need to know Gothic to appreciate all the small improvements NotR makes over the superb G2. Read my review at RPGDot for more details.

G2 has two control schemes:
1. "classic": Gothic with a few enhancements.
2. "new": Maps simple combat options to the mouse. That´s easier.

Obviously (1) is the correct choice if you want to go back to Gothic after G2. And if you play Gothic first because you already know it.

The Gothic controls are not "primitive" btw. They are mostly simple and fast - but unfortunately not intuitive. 95% of the reviewers on the English intarweb were just too stupid to understand them.
Here´s 50% of the controls compressed into one sentence:
[CTRL or LMB] + forward triggers almost every interactive element!
 
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Gothic Universe is an absolute steal at only $29.99 any way you look at it, even if you're only missing 1 of the games.

I bought it just to have a second copy of Gothic 1, because those game cd's are gettin old. ;)


BTW: Gothic 3 with the 1.5 community patch is great, It's still not quite as good as the first 2 games, but it's very close. I haven't encountered a single bug in my current playthough(about 30 hours in), the only negative is the insanely high system requirements.
 
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Considering I have been holding off on purchasing Gothic 3 because I really wanted to play the expansion, Night of the Raven, for Gothic 2 first I was happy about the Gothic Universe announcement last week.

Today while out for lunch with a friend we wandered into an EBGames Canada. I was ecstatic when my buddy tapped me on the shoulder and handed me the Gothic Universe box. I asked the clerk how long its been in the store and she informed me it's been on the shelf in Canada since the end of last week. Neither Best Buy nor Future shop have it yet.

Considering it sells for $29.99 and Gothic 3 was sitting on the shelf priced at $34.99 I'd say it's definitely a bargain.

Granted there's nothing in the cardboard box but 3 DvDs in paper sleeves. Being I'm a lover of manuals this didn't impress me. Of course I do have the original copies of the first two games and you really can't complain about the price. Then again considering it sells for roughly the same price as Gothic 3 they could have at least included that manual. Oh well it's called milking for reason...

Surprisingly EBGames didn't have any of the other Universe bundles and apparently have not received any of them yet.

Ubbax
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away." - unknown
 
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Personally I'm most interested in The Guild among the listed title (already have the Gothics). How thoroughly have they fixed The Guild 2 after it's initial fairly broken state?
 
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Personally I'm most interested in The Guild among the listed title (already have the Gothics). How thoroughly have they fixed The Guild 2 after it's initial fairly broken state?
I may be wrong because I didn´t follow it closely. Anyway, what I´ve heard is that The Guild 2 is in pretty good condition with the latest patch. And that the add-on adds quite a lot of variety to the game. I can´t say how (un)buggy the add-on is though.

It´s a safe bet that no further patches will be released. 4Head Studios had to file for bankruptcy a couple of months ago. They have been evacuated into a new company by dtp. A consequent and honorable move by dtp. 4Head, now AHead I think, are working on the Mata Hari adventure game for them. Lucas Arts legends Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein are doing story and gameplay, 4Head makes the rest of the game around this.
dtp as Germany´s leading adventure publisher is direct competition to JoWooD since the latter has bought The Adventure Company. I expect them to veto any support beyond contractual obligations, unless it has a direct positive effect.
 
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Are these universe releases exclusive to US market or will they be available in continental Europe or at least UK?
Any info about the content in the boxes? Any printed material (manuals, maps...) or just plain discs.
 
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Are you sure the Spellforce Universe includes all 5 titles? This description at GoGamer only mentions the base 1 and 2 games. http://www.gogamer.com/Spellforce-U...VproductId24019096VVcatId444710VVviewprod.htm

Strange. The PR on press.jowood.com explicitly lists the content of the bundles. All 3 boxes include all games and add-ons. The DreamCatcher site though only talks about SF1 and SF2 vanilla.
If you plan to order through GoGamer you could mail them and ask for clarification. I would be surprised if the boxes included less in North America.

Edit: A detailed pack shot could clear it up. There´s a sticker in top left corner.

Are these universe releases exclusive to US market or will they be available in continental Europe or at least UK?
Any info about the content in the boxes? Any printed material (manuals, maps...) or just plain discs.

They´ll probably be released in all territories JoWooD / DreamCatcher / The Adventure Company cater for with their own distribution or distribution partners. This means North America, DACH, parts of Eastern Europe (though CDV), the UK, Scandinavia and most of Old Europe.

Content: Unclear. Probably only a couple of DVDs. Manuals on disk as pdf. It is possible that the bundles come without copy protection though. It´s often dropped somewhere down the value chain to save a few cents per game.
 
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Are these universe releases exclusive to US market or will they be available in continental Europe or at least UK?
Any info about the content in the boxes? Any printed material (manuals, maps...) or just plain discs.

The press release came through a UK gaming wire service, so I would think the UK is a safer bet than the US.
 
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