Drakensang Comes to those that Wait

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I have utilized all the links provided and they are a great help.

Unfortunatley, not only is their NOT a manual with the 'Complete Saga' disc, but they didn't even bother to put PDFs of the manuals on the disc either - very annoying.
 
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As expected. ValuSoft doensn't give a shit.
 
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Yes, the same can be said for the GamersGate version, which I promptly requested a refund for.

If enough people do this MAYBE ValueSoft will get the message...

BTW, Valuesoft gave me a PDF for the the first Drakensang. Maybe the demise of the devs had something to do with it?
 
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I'm surprised ValuSoft even packaged this up onto a DVD, honestly. No manuals, or even a real cover, is no surprise here. The lack of PDF manuals for the second game though? That's kinda funny, as it uses an RPG system that would be completely alien to non-germans. :)
 
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As expected. ValuSoft doensn't give a shit.

Yep. They can't even bothered putting it on the THQ sale going on right now on Steam along with other games like Titan Quest because ValuSoft is the blind, toothless redheaded stepchild of THQ.

On the other hand, I would say that ValuSoft doesn't give a shit because dtp doesn't give a shit about what happens to their games outside of Germany. They just hand it off to whoever will take it and don't even care what they do with it. It's not like Atari has done anything with Venetica, unlike, say The Witcher 2 which they have really promoted. Hell, they even promoted Daggerdale more than Venetica and it's not like that game is winning any awards.

At this point, I think we're lucky we're even getting non-German localizations of dtp games at all.
 
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Yes, the same can be said for the GamersGate version, which I promptly requested a refund for.

If enough people do this MAYBE ValueSoft will get the message…

BTW, Valuesoft gave me a PDF for the the first Drakensang. Maybe the demise of the devs had something to do with it?

The GamersGate (US) version is the ValuSoft version.

The devs probably didn't deal directly with foreign publishers.
I bet an English manual exists, but nobody could be bothered to make a pdf export or add a copyright for ValuSoft.
 
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There have been retail releases in a couple of European countries. The English manual does exist. See the NL release.
 
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On the other hand, I would say that ValuSoft doesn't give a shit because dtp doesn't give a shit about what happens to their games outside of Germany. They just hand it off to whoever will take it and don't even care what they do with it. It's not like Atari has done anything with Venetica, unlike, say The Witcher 2 which they have really promoted. Hell, they even promoted Daggerdale more than Venetica and it's not like that game is winning any awards.

At this point, I think we're lucky we're even getting non-German localizations of dtp games at all.

On the other hand, localized versions are hard to come by in some countries.

What I see here is the frustration of bitterness of the English-language RPG gaming fan base - which is just used to have games in "their" language *all of the time* - but now finds that parts of the English-languuage market is being treated like non-English speaking ountries have often been treated for quite a good time.

I know that this is ancient, but just look at games up to the mid-90s : non-localized English games were the NORM here in Germany ! Some distribiturs/publishers didn't even bother on translating !

Ultima - this whole series : Untranslated. Except Ultima 7. and NOT the add-on ! Which was, I think, not even sold within Germany. Ultima IX was also translated, I think.

Quest For Glory : Never released here in Germany at all - except the very last game.

What you experience now is nothing but what non-English countries have experienced for a long time. That the English-language market is delivered first, this puts you in a very good luxury position of having virtually EVERY game in your own, native language - or at least in a language that most of the world's gamers can understand. Some exceptions are Japan (or even the whole asian market as such), Spain and France. Next will probably be China.

In do understand this frustration and bitterness - because I hve too often felt it myself. Only vice versa.

nd I have no idea what could be done against it. Maybe "liberate" ValuSoft/THQ from their bias against European games (which they definitively seem to have if they treat the Drakensang series so badly that they just don't care if you complain on the lack of handbooks or not). And Atari - well they didn't do a too good job in some countries as well.

The only guess I can give is that this handling of the Drakensang games is a direct materialization of how they think about the Drakensang games - or perhaps european games in general ?

Are the original devs required to distribute the manual? Just dtp I would imagine, which still survives.

I really have no idea. Ask ValuSoft, they are responsible for this mess.
 
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Are the original devs required to distribute the manual? Just dtp I would imagine, which still survives.

Everything regarding publishing, distribution and marketing is the publishers' responsibility. Radon Labs was certainly not needed to change two lines in a Word document and forward it to ValuSoft. Or to put a received pdf (or Word document which has to be converted) onto a master DVD.
 
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@Alrik: My sentiments are not just motivated by my own personal desire to play these games, although that is a factor. If the international versions of this game were promoted better then maybe we all could have had more games in this series and the developer could have been saved.

An RPG will always be a niche genre but if you can combine sales from many different countries you can still sell quite a bit of copies combined. I think CD Projekt did a pretty good job of this with The Witcher 2. Of course they also had the support of publishers like Atari. They probably could not have managed such a big budget game if it were just marketed to the Polish audience.

But as far as knowing how it feels to not have localizations in my language, I do play some JRPGs from time to time and for years many have been Japanese only, including some really good ones, so I understand the frustration. There actually does exist not just console RPGs but also CRPGs in Japan but they pretty much never get translated.

In any case, since the localizations in other languages for this game already do exist it seems like a waste to not promote them. If THQ doesn't care about it then give it to someone who does or dtp can sell the other localizations themselves.

Since most PC sales are digital downloads these days it's not like they have to deal with getting it into stores in various countries, all they have to do is get it on Steam, Gamersgate etc. It's not that hard. Other European companies don't seem to have any problems doing this like Kalyspo, Paradox etc.
 
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So we know that dtp sold at least both english and benelux localizations with printed manuals. Were those included on their discs as PDFs? If so, there is no excuse for ValueSoft not to distribute the same PDFs.

BTW, GamersGate tried repeatedly to contact ValueSoft about their omission, but ValueSoft wouldn't respond or was unreachable. Pretty shitty all around, eh?
 
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So we know that dtp sold at least both english and benelux localizations with printed manuals. Were those included on their discs as PDFs? If so, there is no excuse for ValueSoft not to distribute the same PDFs.

BTW, GamersGate tried repeatedly to contact ValueSoft about their omission, but ValueSoft wouldn't respond or was unreachable. Pretty shitty all around, eh?

Which is funny because I found the damned PDF of the English manual to TRoT in about 30 seconds by doing a Google search. It was on some file upload site that someone had posted it to, but still, it's not that hard to come by. I'm not sure how much lazier or indifferent ValuSoft can get.
 
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Well, damn, I'll go ahead and get it at the next sale and google the manual for D/L. But that means I'll have to give up on protesting with my wallet, all 5 bucks of boo hoo. I'm sure dtp has taken notice… ;)
 
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You can use the Drakensang manual too. The mechanics are very similar.

Benelux usually gets English releases.
 
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Personally, I'll never understand why Belgians don't want games in thrir own languages. I just fail to understand it.
 
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Personally, I'll never understand why Belgians don't want games in thrir own languages. I just fail to understand it.

Only feasible for the French-speaking Walloon part.

Quality translations are expensive and hard to come by for small languages. The Nordic countries also get English version. And I actually prefer it that way, since the games that do have Swedish translation available (Football Manager) dont tend to use very good Swedish. I rather deal with English than with a mediocre translation.

This largely correlates with countries not dubbing foreign movies (but I can think of a few extra reasons to be against dubbing of movies).
 
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What I see here is the frustration of bitterness of the English-language RPG gaming fan base - which is just used to have games in "their" language *all of the time* - but now finds that parts of the English-languuage market is being treated like non-English speaking ountries have often been treated for quite a good time.

Personally, I've never felt anything like what you describe here. There are plenty of games that I've heard about from other countries (particularly from Russia) that I would be intersted to play if they marketed them here in the U.S.

But I've never been frustrated or even angred when such games don't materialize over here.
 
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True. I am not angered by the lack of games in english, just crappy no manual practices that seem to becoming de rigueur for the industry.

I just got burned again. I got Call of Prickpryiat from Amazon at a great deal of $10. Those fucks just gave me a DVD with no manual. If I had known that, I would have downloaded it for less. Assholes!

I think we should have an occupy game distributor movement. ;)
 
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