(General, Drakensang) Digital or boxed?

Hello everybody.

I really prefer digital downloads. In music, I download drm free lossless stuff. Now I will definitely buy the new Drakensang ASAP: I loved the demo. I downloaded the Drakensang I before; from gamesload.de.

But I feel uncomfortable with this solution, as gamesload packages want to phone home and need a response from a gamesload server.

Will I be able to play the game in, say, 10 years?
Will a Drakensang downloadable version be available in drm free?

What are your thoughts?

TIA

If you live in Germany, then you can get Drakensang for 10 Euros already boxed in the "Software Pyramide".

I cannot say anything about downloadable versions, though, because I clearly prefer boxed ones.

But you could also ask around in the official forums, at dtp themselves.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

If you live in Germany, then you can get Drakensang for 10 Euros already boxed in the "Software Pyramide".

Click to expand...

This is a good point: I probably shouldn't care if gamesload servers operate in 10 years; I'd be able to get the game for cheap anyway, it wouldn't hurt if the downloaded version doesn't work,,,...

In Germany I would buy retail. It's no problem to find dtp's games and the prices are usually also lower at retail. Maybe wait for a sale on Amazon. Somebody will have it for less than 40€.

As Alrik said, 10€ for the first Drakensang in the Software Pyramide.

DL versions often have the usual patch problem. It takes days or even weeks longer until you get the patches.

Another point is that DL versions are usually only the normal German versions. Quite often this means the games are cut (example: Fallout 3). Buying a boxed copy gives you the additional option to import from Austria.

Ae said:

But I feel uncomfortable with this solution, as gamesload packages want to phone home and need a response from a gamesload server.
TIA

Click to expand...

I have many games from gamesload and they don't ask me for internet access (I would see it in my firewall). Are you sure about this???

If you don't know anything about The Dark Eye, it MIGHT be worth it to have the printed manual. In the US it wasn't the greatest, but it did have some useful information.

Also if you do get it and have an ATI card let us know if you run into instances of atikmdag has stopped working, but has recovered (game usually freezes up for a minute or so sometimes crashing, but you should see the popup bubble when you QTD) problems. I gave up on finishing it because of this.

Not certain if it's shader funkiness in the game or just generally crap ATI drivers that fail to handle some things. (I have a mobility ATI GPU 4850 and it's what prompted me to get mobility modder .net and start using fresher drivers, but it didn't help… currently at 9.12 as 10.1 seems to be a cluster - - - - release. The Ubuntu installation was just plain broken and had to be manually fixed fro 64b at least as they forgot to put a link to a build lib in the right directory. Windows driver didn't seem much better… plus it's an OLD build from last December. Might be worth it if you have a newer 5XXX card though.)

Unfortunately I can't test it on an nVidia card ATM as my desktop died and am deciding about what to do to replace it(notebook ended up being faster anyways), but at this point I'm guessing it will be a while as I'm thinking of holding off for more USB 3.0 commonality and hex-core and/or Sandy bridge Intel Core CPUs… (Not expecting a miraculously decent CPU arch from AMD for some time so they're right out …)

cutterjohn said:

In the US it wasn't the greatest, but it did have some useful information.

Click to expand...

Similar to BG in Germany.

bkrueger said:

I have many games from gamesload and they don't ask me for internet access (I would see it in my firewall). Are you sure about this???

Click to expand...

For DraSa, Gamesload gave me an actvation code, which you enter at setup, I'm confident its being checked on some gamesload server then.

Ae said:

For DraSa, Gamesload gave me an actvation code, which you enter at setup, I'm confident its being checked on some gamesload server then.

Click to expand...

Ok, I thought you meant at every game start, not on installation/activation only. But I'm not even sure of it in that case.

Ae said:

For DraSa, Gamesload gave me an actvation code, which you enter at setup, I'm confident its being checked on some gamesload server then.

Click to expand...

How is that all that different than so many boxed games that do the same?

Drakensang 2 is - by the way - currently being sold by digital distribution sites, too.
One of them seems to have an exclusive in-game item : a kind of a strength potion.
Until it is confirmed, I call it a rumor, still.

I'm in a dilema with links with the OP. Not that I have the choice between boxed or digital but because I have the choice between developers and digital game sellers. I'm looking to get Torchlight and hesitate between 15$ at one usual digital seller and 20$ at developer site.

I feel the 20$ better spend and don't care that much for the 5$ lost. But, for future, have I more chance that developers continue support the game or that the digital seller continue support a game it sold?

I don't know, but the developers themselves are definitively closer to the "source", and might help, perhaps, if things occur.

Maybe you could ask them this questen themselves, via e-mail ?

In my case, I once e-mailed to the developers of a game that came with StarForce protection - and they sent me a patch to play the game without it !

I pick the developer version, they use an internal system protection checking once and allowing then 10 installs and then you email them if you want 10 more. When gamersgate use one of the classic one, and other don't mention. In fact prices was rather similar everywhere, because in various moneys ($, £, €!!).

I learned that a digital download version of Drakensang 2 comes with an exclusive item.

I expect these exclusive items (there are several ones now) to reappear for all in a collective "Gold" version, like with Drakensang 1.