King's Bounty - Demo and Release Date

The demo for King's Bounty can be downloaded from the the 1C server and will probably be available soon at other locations as well. The demo includes the first city in the game, all three character types, multiple quests and dozens of spells.
The US releae date for King's Bounty is set for the 23rd of September and is distributed by Atari. In Europe it is being distributed by Nobilis, but the press release showed no release date for Europe though.

More information.

w00t! Downloading now. I will report back later.

EDIT: ouch much later. 21 hours to dload at 5.4kps

Fantastic! Looking forward to this, hope the european release date isn't too far off.

Yahee! I've been waiting for this game. Nice to see a Demo first

Dancing, dancing, I'm a dance machine

Ubbax

I searched for an alternative d/l site at 120 kb/s = 1hr 40min - total 688MB
(Gamershell/downloads)

Can't wait to use the T/B hexagons!

I heard the demo has starforce. Please let us know if it does.

leth said:

I heard the demo has starforce. Please let us know if it does.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately it appears to be true. You can see the Protect.exe and accompanying dll's in the screenshot.

While this is the new starforce approved for use in Vista by Microsoft I'm still hesitant to support it due to bad experiences with this copy protection as well as their support in the past.

I lost two Plextor drives to older versions of Starforce. Eventually they admitted that Starforced crippled specific Plextor models; I believe this info can now be found on their site. I'm not sure if that specific problem still exists but I have a new Plextor model installed in my current system.

Ubbax
"Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows." - David T. Wolf

Why should a demo have copy protection ???

Because by encrypting the demo exe with Starforce, they make the full version exe harder to crack. If they don't do it, pirates can use the demo exe as a reference when trying to crack the full version. This is common practice. At any rate, it's probably just the encryption system that's installed with this demo, though. Not the full Starforce-package. At least that's usually the case.

Yes it all appears protected as mentioned.

After installing i played for an hour and got to level 2 and made exit to check the countdown and at the second startup a menu reads:-

Kings Bounty (online) - Warning
Attention! Applications trial period is about to expire. To continue working with the app' after expiration of of tthe trial period, purchase a retail serial number.
Application's lifetimeis limited: 999 day(s) 22 hour(s) 0 minute(s) left.
Expiration time Sunday,June 12, 2011 10:57 PM.
Application's total working time is limited: 998 day(s) 22 hour(s) 30 minute(s) left.

There are select boxes..... 'OK' or 'Activate'
......................

Wulf said:

Yes it all appears protected as mentioned.

After installing i played for an hour and got to level 2 and made exit to check the countdown and at the second startup a menu reads:-

Kings Bounty (online) - Warning
Attention! Applications trial period is about to expire. To continue working with the app' after expiration of of tthe trial period, purchase a retail serial number.
Application's lifetimeis limited: 999 day(s) 22 hour(s) 0 minute(s) left.
Expiration time Sunday,June 12, 2011 10:57 PM.
Application's total working time is limited: 998 day(s) 22 hour(s) 30 minute(s) left.

There are select boxes..... 'OK' or 'Activate'
......................

Click to expand...

That's interesting, makes me wonder if it's associated with the
Star-force Discfree Technology
As explained at the link that version has this choice:

1.1. Removal of Protection drivers

DiscFree technology does not require protection driver. If you decide to check disc at first, the system asks you to install protection driver (reboot may be required). But if you decide to activate DiscFree technology the system suggests removing the protection driver.

Click to expand...

Wulf, from what I understand you just need to press 'OK'

You can also read the Official System Requirements here at the Atari Site:
Kings Bounty the Legend

Ubbax

Thanks Ubbax for that info, you are right, Frontline ProActive is used. (ver 5.50) ideal for demo's apparently
http://www.star-force.com/solutions/products/fl_proactive/
(the suggestion is that online distribution protection is getting "friendlier")

1c Multimedia is the mass market distributor.
http://www.v8.1c.ru/eng/about_1c/

The demo' runs very smooth with no problems (win-xp). On medium difficulty setting the combat begins fairly easy. A defeated opponents corpse stays on the battle grid and negates further use of that hexagon, good to use as a strategy ploy. Troop morale is a main trait, hero's movement is less than his (mounted) troops, a very colourful fantasy game with much magical effects, i suspect the game will get more difficult as it unwinds.

Are you sure you commented about this Demo, and not another? Defeated enemies, while leaving a corpse, will not hinder movement nor positioning of the occupied hex at all. The movement of the hero is nowhere to be seen, because he does not take part in battles. Morale, while having a certain influence, is very much the same as in the original, that means, army composition has some effect, but is not crucial.

The demo is quite useful to judge the game, it differs quite a bit from the original. Maily it's now a blend of King's Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic, Etherlord and Master of Monster. It's very playable, seems to be balanced, offers a wide variety of effects, abilities and troups. Sometime it is even a little bit to much, one will be drown in scrolls and in-combat effects (the summon animation seems to be a bit long). Combat overall is ok, focusing slightly more on ability useage and magic rather than pure one-on-one combat. Overland movement is maybe a little bit to much, especially because pathfinding is not very efficent right now, i got stuck quite a lot of times, even on short ways.

What i would change a little bit is Rage Summons (too frequent available right now), cut down scroll drops, and make the map more userfriendly (difficult to interpret). Available troops don't seem to restock, but this could be a demo feature, or i did not play enough (time/date is nowhere to be found, even though there seems to be a nightcycle).

You're not actually supposed to get Rage summons as early as you do in the demo, so they're a bit overpowered there.

Most of the overland stocks don't replenish - which, along with mostly randomized available creature types, forces the player to use variety instead of using the same army setup the whole game. Some stocks do replenish, with better creatures, as a result of completed quests and hero's status.

Hard and Impossible difficulty levels can get QUITE hard, particularly if playing a Mage.

@Demo Tester, sorry for the errors (i post far to quickly sometimes)

It is battle scene obstacles, rocks, bushes etc that often determined the attack (or defence) path through the hexagons. Also i should have said hero's troops eg: swordmen.
Once out into the open world the battle scenarios became better/smoother. Never once got stuck on pathfinding. The camera does indeed auto-zoom on some the final kills similar as in Etherlords.
Maps are local or overall and can be marked.

Got to level-3, Have 12 swordsmen, 8 bowmen, 6 bears, 14 Wolves and 8 priests.
The priests are great, they can heal and attack, even the wolves can use magic from the book!
Higher levels of rage determines critical hit probabillity while the 'anger' skill is the modifier for rage.

I find the game demo is far too easy, going to restart as a mage on difficult setting as suggested.

Thanks for everyone's impressions. This is one that's definitely on my list.

I played the demo a bit last night, enjoyed it.

Once I got out of the Tutorial area I set off on my 1st main Quest from the King...not having realized that I needed to "hire" more Troops, I soon found myself quite over matched.

The World is colorful and alive and the whole game has more of a "fun" quality rather than dark and dire.

Things I hope to see in the release is Key Re-Mapping, which may be possible but didn't see "any" Key Control options in the "Options Menu"

Would also like to be able to control the camera more(rotate angle/pitch) while IN a Battle.

I could move forward or back a bit but couldn't discover a way to change the angle at all.

I tried the keys I felt would be the most common choices, but without a Key Listing I may of just missed to ones being used.

Anyway, all in all a fun game.

ps - I really like the fact that you can Save at any point!

(Fairly New to Turn Based type games btw)

pss - also find it a bit odd that you never use your "Hero" character IN Battles...is this a norm for these type games?

thx

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Why should a demo have copy protection ???

Click to expand...

To keep the number of available unprotected .exes == 0.

Really enjoyed the demo. Can't wait for the game to come out. I found some non translated russian characters when I got myself the Zombie wife and crashed one time but overall very impressed

Also available at the much, much (much) faster Filefront:

http://browse.files.filefront.com/Kings+Bounty+The+Legend+Official+Demos/;2297720;/browsefiles.html