Realms of Arkania Trilogy being re-released?

EvilManagedCare · November 4, 2008

This is probably my favorite series. I was ecstatic when I saw on the EBGames/Gamestop website there was to be a release on 11/3/08 from Dreamcatcher games. I assume this would be a version runnable on today's computers.

However, Dreamcatcher's website has nothing mentioning it. I am under the impression Gamestop/EB frequently pull information with the slightest hint of release and post it on their site as if it's a done deal. Has anyone heard whether or not this series is being re-released?

I hope this is the case. Problem is, the title is so old I don't expect most places to carry it. This would be an awesome way to bide my time until Drakensang comes to North America.

TIA

Alrik Fassbauer · November 4, 2008

No, I know of nothing in this respect.

Maybe they mixed it with the forthcoming Gothic game ?

EvilManagedCare · November 4, 2008

Alrik Fassbauer said:
No, I know of nothing in this respect.

Maybe they mixed it with the forthcoming Gothic game ?

This is what I was afraid of. I can't imagine there would be much of an audience for the original RoA trilogy. Then again, some of the original Sierra adventures were re-released to run on today's computers, so who knows?

txa1265 · November 5, 2008

I have no idea ... I do a weekly thing for GamingWithChildren, and my source had it as 'Realms of Arcadia' ... but checking showed it as Arkania. Who knows ...

Gorath · November 5, 2008

Arkania = Gothic 4

Re-releasing The RoA trilogy theoretically wouldn't be completely impossible. The last known RoA primary rights holder ( = the guy who owns the remainings of the original dev studio) is working on Gothic 4 as producer. And the gatekeeper for DSA is also working on Gothic 4. JoWooD would have them available if they saw the need to convince them with money.
I don't really see this coming though. Arkania is the new name JoWooD wants to build on when Gothic reverts to PB.

EvilManagedCare · November 5, 2008

Well, EBGames is selling Realms of Arkania Trilogy for only $19.99. This gives me hope they simply haven't mislisted Gothic 4 somehow, as it surely will not debut at such a low price. I guess it doesn't matter anyway. I have a DOS machine in the basement and the DOS version of the Trilogy. But damn it, it's a pain in the ass to get those to work sometimes. Stupid Conventional RAM.

Gorath · November 5, 2008

That's indeed the original trilogy. A welcome surprise, which makes sense because the DSA right holders will earn money twice. First through the RoA re-release and then again when Drakensang comes out.
Hard to say if they'll include the standard versions or the bigger ones with high-quality sound track, which exists for at least one of the games. I wouldn't count on overhauled games. The best you can hope for is a pre-configred DosBox on the DVD.

Gorath · November 5, 2008

Correction:

Gothic 4 == Arcania != Arkania

Lurking Grue · November 5, 2008

EvilManagedCare said:
I have a DOS machine in the basement and the DOS version of the Trilogy. But damn it, it's a pain in the ass to get those to work sometimes.

You really should try running them with DOSBox (no need for a separate computer for DOS games). RoA 1 and 2 work fine on DOSBox v0.72. Don't know about RoA 3 as I don't have it, but I'd expect it to work just as well.

zakhal · November 5, 2008

Im pretty sure you can play the original trilogy (I have it on the shelf factory sealed still) on emulators like dosbox. Theres still not a single old game that I havent managed to get to run on windows xp - thers always one way or another.

Alrik Fassbauer · November 5, 2008

I have successfully played them I think, on DOSBOX, but that was I think at the end of last year.

The only problem is especially on Macs, which kind of "split" the CDs into an audio CD and a data CD into the system, so to say.

I experienced this meanwhile trying it out in the iMac of my sister at the end of the last year, meanwhile waiting of my new PC.

JDR13 · November 6, 2008

Gamestop also has a listing for it, it has 11-10-08 as the release date.

I'm assuming it has been recoded to run in WinXP\Vista? Or perhaps they will just include an emulator.

Alrik Fassbauer · November 6, 2008

I'd still assume they'd use DOSBOX.

EvilManagedCare · November 11, 2008

This must have been a cruel hoax by EB/Gamestop. This title is no longer listed as being released. I knew it was too good to be true.

Alrik Fassbauer · November 12, 2008

Or they mixed it with Drakensang ?

Alrik Fassbauer · December 1, 2008

There are strong rumors that this re-releasing might actually be true.

I didn't expect it.

Amazon Germany lists it, on DVD, and the distributor is ...

*drumroll*

JoWood !

Kunar and Ragon from the Larian forums believe that Jochen Hamma still retains the rights of Attic, and so he has the rights on the "Nordlandtrilogie", too.

He seems to work - according to them - on the next Gothic-franchise game. For JoWood, it seems to me.

EvilManagedCare · December 1, 2008

Damn I had come to some acceptance it was not being released. Now my hopes are up again. I'm good either way as I got my DOS box boot disk set such that I can run them again in actual DOS mode as nature intended-- not with some fancy schmancy emulator

Alrik Fassbauer · December 1, 2008

This is the Amazon advertisement :
http://www.amazon.de/JoWooD-Product..._1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1228138906&sr=8-1

zakhal · December 1, 2008

Alrik Fassbauer said:
This is the Amazon advertisement :
http://www.amazon.de/JoWooD-Product..._1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1228138906&sr=8-1

Is there anything new in this or is it just a rerelease of the previous trilogy? The collection has two reviews in amazon allready - do they metnion any new enhancements?

11 years ago they released Realms of arkania trilogy called "Die Nordland Trilogie" http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/realms-of-arkania-trilogy In ebay it costs up to 52 pounds:

Finding Realms of Arkania: All three of these games are available on CD for Windows. You can buy a 2-CD set with all three games bundled together, called the "Realms of Arkania Trilogy," which is the best value if you can find it (Amazon.com and CDAccess sometimes carry the trilogy, or you can try Ebay). Star Trail and Shadows Over Riva can also be purchased separately, but as far as I know, the only way to get Blade of Destiny these days is as part of the trilogy bundle or as abandonware (note that the usual security and emulation issues inherent in downloading DOS abandonware apply if you go that route.)

Getting Realms of Arkania to Work: The good news is, if you install the trilogy from CD, you don't have to do any work to get them to run; the conversion has been done for you. The bad news is, this won't completely free you from emulation errors. The mouse control doesn't work with Windows 2000 or XP on the first two Arkania games, forcing you to use keyboard control (only a minor inconvenience), and the automap on the second game frequently crashes Windows 2000 (a major one.) Also, if you import your party from the first game to the second, their character portraits will be permanently messed up. There's a patch to fix this problem linked to my Arkania resources page--it doesn't come bundled with the CD.
http://www.geocities.com/ataniel/arkreview.htm

Sounds like it should work with virtual PC + windows98. You can get virtual pc free from microsoft.

Alrik Fassbauer · December 1, 2008

Well, this version bears the DVD logo. I don't know, however, it will be with the songs in CD Audio, that usually were on the old CDs.
Sure, one could use DVD-Audio, but i don't know enough about DVD formats to tell what might be used here.

As far as I can see, nobody knows how the end product will actually look like.

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