Age of Wonders 3

Jag · Post by **Jag** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 9:52 pm

JetFred wrote:I canNOT believe this and Warlock 2 are coming out less than 2 weeks apart. Come on, summer teaching schedule...

Well some of us can play Warlock 2 right now so we can play AOW 3 uninterrupted.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:57 am

Reviews are starting to pop up, in the mid-70's to mid 80's range, with the biggest complaints being lack of variety in units, when was already known, and some problems with multiplayer, which, if you are like me, won't matter.

Still, based on the commentary I would have thought Gamespot would give it a higher score.

I'm guessing that if a pre-release discount hasn't popped up somewhere by now, it's not going to. Still, I can't shake the feeling that as soon as I place my order GMG will offer it with a 20% off coupon.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:27 am

That Gamespot review seem to be an outlier. All/most of the other early reviews so far are falling between 8 and 9, including the German ones, and the Gamespot review is being pretty roundly criticized from what I've seen. People are saying that, from the reviewer's video, he appears to have played the game in total for about a half hour and never even got to the class/race distinctions he complains about. In other words, it appears to be a lazy, half-ass job.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:46 am

Don't get me wrong - the only reasons I haven't pre ordered it already are 1) I don't care about an extra scenario since I will be playing random maps once I learn the systems and 2) that GMG coupon I feel I will miss out on.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:14 pm

tgb wrote:2) that GMG coupon I feel I will miss out on.

I'd be surprised if there're any discounts at all prior to release since Triumph is self publishing this.

And here's your Eldritch Horror. A really nasty unit that can be summoned by the Sorcerer class.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:48 pm

Nothing a can of Raid can't take care of

.

I'm still on the GOG/Steam fence. On the one hand I expect it will be available when I wake up Monday morning from GOG, and Steam may not have it until later in the day. On the other, I've been spoiled by the convenience and auto-updating of Steam. Then again, if I hold off for a few hours on Monday it will give me an opportunity to save $40 in the (unlikely) chance this turns out to be another Elemental/SotS 2/Rome 2 clusterfuck.

stimpy · Post by **stimpy** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:01 pm

But what does Billy Bob Thorton think of the game?

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:23 pm

stimpy wrote:But what does Billy Bob Thorton think of the game?

Well, since according to the Wikipedia, "As an influential actor, Thornton is known for his diversity and wide range. He has received President's Award from Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films". From that I think Billy Bob would approve this game.

tgb wrote:I've been spoiled by the convenience and auto-updating of Steam.

I guess I just don't understand when I hear this from people. Download a patch and click on it. How hard is that? I always get games from GOG when I have the choice. I like to know that it and its patches are sitting on my backup drive and since they are DRM free, I can do whatever I want with them. Including installing them on PCs with no Internet connection or Steam. For me that outweighs any minor inconveniences like patching manually. But then again, some GOG games like the new Eador have a built-in updater so that's not even a consideration there either. I have no idea how Triumph will handle updates for AoW3 though.

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:26 pm

Patching and the built-in communities and chat functionality goes a long way when your game collection is in the hundreds.

A well-timed out of town work trip has me considering picking up AoW3 on release day. Hmmm...

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:10 pm

Zaxxon wrote:
Zaxxon wrote:In. What's that? I was already in? Well...

In.
QFT.

Triple quoting yourself? Isn't there some sort of mandatory penalty for that?

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:12 pm

Pyperkub wrote:
Zaxxon wrote:
Zaxxon wrote:In. What's that? I was already in? Well...

In.
QFT.
Triple quoting yourself? Isn't there some sort of mandatory penalty for that?

Mods are exempt.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:06 pm

tgb wrote:Nothing a can of Raid can't take care of .

I'm still on the GOG/Steam fence. On the one hand I expect it will be available when I wake up Monday morning from GOG, and Steam may not have it until later in the day. On the other, I've been spoiled by the convenience and auto-updating of Steam. Then again, if I hold off for a few hours on Monday it will give me an opportunity to save $40 in the (unlikely) chance this turns out to be another Elemental/SotS 2/Rome 2 clusterfuck.

I hate the way GoG updates games. Steam all the way.

Butterknife · Post by **Butterknife** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:09 pm

I preordered it. I am very excited for a new strategy game, hopefully it is excellent. I have been watching several gameplay videos and it certainly looks promising. The other day I saw someone forge their own items, I didn't even know that was in the game. I preordered on Steam, mainly so that I could do the achievements (I like tracking my progress in games like this through the achievements, that is the only way I was able to tell I had played every civ in Civ5, for example.)

I am planning on working a half-day Monday just to spend more time playing. Hopefully it releases before noon.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 11:01 pm

This is not the place for this argument, but I went through a brief phase of thinking I should have been buying games DRM-free whenever possible. But to some extent, all a company has to do is stop supporting a game, and when operating systems and hardware specs move on, you no more own it than you did when it was on Steam. Say what you want about digital media, all we are doing is renting intellectual property. And this from me, a massive hoarder of physical and digital media.

So weighing the advantages of GOG vs. Steam, I come out 50/50. Except the massive Steam library creates a snowball effect where someone like me, with over 1300 games in Steam, would be stupid confused to have game libraries in more places than necessary. That puts Steam at 51%. And, as in many legal situations, 51% = 100%.

So in short, I'm hoping for a sale on a key that I can activate on Steam. But I realize the self-publishing affects the chances of that.

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:45 am

JetFred wrote:But to some extent, all a company has to do is stop supporting a game, and when operating systems and hardware specs move on, you no more own it than you did when it was on Steam.

This isn't true at all. For one thing, you can always just keep an older computer around. For another, you can still play old DOS games on Windows 7x64 (not sure about 8 because I refuse to buy it). It requires more effort than a native Windows 7 game, but it's not like DOS games were without effort to start with.

Hell, you can play old DOS games on your phone I'm pretty sure. You can certainly play old NES and SNES games on smartphones.

Malacheye · Post by **Malacheye** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:17 am

Back to Age of Wonders 3...

I cant understand all the 7's and 8's out there on the reviews of the Beta game. I have watched all the developer play test demos and any "lets play" utube walk-throughs I could get a hold of and it looks absolutely fabulous.

Here is a comment from the Incgamers review:

"As time went on, I found myself playing Age of Wonders 3 so much that I started to adapt to all these changes, finding that they aren’t really as bad as I thought." He goes on to say that it has eaten 40 hours of his life and then at the end gives it a...eight?

*sigh*

Sometimes I cant understand what these critics are looking for. At the same time, I'm secretly hoping that there arent a few game breakers, cuz I already pre-ordered it at full price. Please, please, please dont be the disappointment that the first Fallen Enchantress turned out to be.

Greybriar · Post by **Greybriar** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:04 am

baelthazar wrote:
tgb wrote:Nothing a can of Raid can't take care of .

I'm still on the GOG/Steam fence. On the one hand I expect it will be available when I wake up Monday morning from GOG, and Steam may not have it until later in the day. On the other, I've been spoiled by the convenience and auto-updating of Steam. Then again, if I hold off for a few hours on Monday it will give me an opportunity to save $40 in the (unlikely) chance this turns out to be another Elemental/SotS 2/Rome 2 clusterfuck.
I hate the way GoG updates games. Steam all the way.

Updating is the only thing I like about Steam. GOG.com's method is so unappealing that I have dozens of games I have purchased from there that I haven't even installed yet while I wait for them to be updated. The least they could do would be to provide patch notes to let us know what was changed or added. Then we would know what the "Updated" tabs on the games in our game libraries are about and whether additional content has been added, the game has been patched, or just what is going on. I don't know whether a GOG game should be uninstalled then downloaded and installed again. And I'm not even going to go into the version numbers GOG.com assigns to its games. I can't believe GOG.com hasn't addressed these issues.

That did not keep me from ordering Age of Wonders III from GOG.com however. DRM-Free was the trump card for me.

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:24 am

Zurai wrote:
JetFred wrote:But to some extent, all a company has to do is stop supporting a game, and when operating systems and hardware specs move on, you no more own it than you did when it was on Steam.
This isn't true at all. For one thing, you can always just keep an older computer around. For another, you can still play old DOS games on Windows 7x64 (not sure about 8 because I refuse to buy it). It requires more effort than a native Windows 7 game, but it's not like DOS games were without effort to start with.

Hell, you can play old DOS games on your phone I'm pretty sure. You can certainly play old NES and SNES games on smartphones.

If having to keep an old OS working or use an emulator doesn't fall under "to some extent", I don't know what does. It's not so simple as that, when digital media has to work to be worth anything. So like I said, I see the appeal. I'm just split on it. And I intend to pay less for a Steam version than I would for a GOG version, too, if possible.

Factors for me include not really having time to play it anyway, so I'll like it more, the less I pay, and the easier it is to deal with. Even only incrementally easier helps.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:58 am

I still play AoW1 and it's 14 years old. It runs fine on Win7. I install AoW2:SM on every new PC I get and it's over 10 years old. If AoW3 lasts as long in playability as its predecessors, I figure DRM free is a good way to go. With this game in particular, I don't feel like gambling on what the future holds for game publishing. AoW1 was co-developed by Epic Games and published by GOD. That's how much things change in 14 years.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:28 am

I have a 9 years of service badge for Steam, and I think there are those with 10 year badges, so it's been around at least 10 years and given they have their own console coming I don't expect them to go away anytime soon

dbemont · Post by **dbemont** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:44 am

ColdSteel wrote:I guess I just don't understand when I hear this from people. Download a patch and click on it. How hard is that? I always get games from GOG when I have the choice. I like to know that it and its patches are sitting on my backup drive and since they are DRM free, I can do whatever I want with them. Including installing them on PCs with no Internet connection or Steam. For me that outweighs any minor inconveniences like patching manually. But then again, some GOG games like the new Eador have a built-in updater so that's not even a consideration there either. I have no idea how Triumph will handle updates for AoW3 though.

Yeah, that's how I see it, too. It's been forever since I had trouble installing a patch. Not so long since I had trouble playing a game through Steam -- nor infrequent. But then chat and built in communities and multiplayer just don't matter to me, so I can see how other people would go the Steam direction.

But just the fact everyone's here spinning our wheels over Steam vs. GOG shows how hungry we are for this release.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:49 am

dbemont wrote:But just the fact everyone's here spinning our wheels over Steam vs. GOG shows how hungry we are for this release.

QFT. I can't believe I actually want the weekend to just be over with already.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:54 am

Yeah, I'm jonesing for this pretty badly.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:06 am

I learnt a long time ago not to get overly excited for any game - that's the path to disappointment. It will be nice to have a new strategy game, but that's about it for me

Frnk55 · Post by **Frnk55** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:41 am

IceBear wrote:I have a 9 years of service badge for Steam, and I think there are those with 10 year badges, so it's been around at least 10 years and given they have their own console coming I don't expect them to go away anytime soon

I have a 6 year badge and was thinking where the hell I was during those other 3 or 4 years I didn't realize Steam was around. Must not of caught on right away.
Anyway I love GOG's but I'm opting for the Steam way because of the auto updates.

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:21 am

Looks like my gaming cycle will consist of D3 Expansion, Warlock 2 and AoW3.

I won't be playing anything else anytime soon ^^.

Tomorrow!!

Butterknife · Post by **Butterknife** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:01 pm

Malacheye wrote:Back to Age of Wonders 3...

I cant understand all the 7's and 8's out there on the reviews of the Beta game. I have watched all the developer play test demos and any "lets play" utube walk-throughs I could get a hold of and it looks absolutely fabulous.

Here is a comment from the Incgamers review:

"As time went on, I found myself playing Age of Wonders 3 so much that I started to adapt to all these changes, finding that they aren’t really as bad as I thought." He goes on to say that it has eaten 40 hours of his life and then at the end gives it a...eight?

*sigh*

Sometimes I cant understand what these critics are looking for. At the same time, I'm secretly hoping that there arent a few game breakers, cuz I already pre-ordered it at full price. Please, please, please dont be the disappointment that the first Fallen Enchantress turned out to be.

8s are a good sign. Frankly, there is no way that mainstream reviewers are going to give a turn-based fantasy game a 9 (and nobody gives out 10s, although I really don't understand why). The only turn-based game I know that can pull a 9 is Civilization, and that is because it is a juggernaut. Seeing 8s across the board is really encouraging for a niche title. On to tomorrow!

Zaxxon · Post by **Zaxxon** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:07 pm

Those of you that preordered on Steam: does this one support preloading? I ask because I will be in a hotel tomorrow, and don't want to rely on spotty WiFi for the bulk of the download if I can avoid it.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:41 pm

There's usually a preload a few days before the launch if there is one. There isn't one as of this morning so I don't think there is one

Jag · Post by **Jag** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 4:29 pm

Countdown timer http://countingdownto.com/countdown/age ... down-clock

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 6:53 pm

Jag wrote:Countdown timer http://countingdownto.com/countdown/age ... down-clock

I wouldn't rely on that. If it were right, Steam would be unlocking this at 9AM PST, which they never do. It's either Midnight, 10AM Pacific (usually), and on rare occasions, 1PM Pacific.

The real question will be what time GOG unlocks it. I start my gaming when I get up (usually around 4AM) while tlr sleeps for another couple of hours. Whoever has it available at that time will get my order. If both do, I'll probably go with the Steam version, unless I read about a reason not to.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 7:29 pm

tgb wrote:I wouldn't rely on that. If it were right, Steam would be unlocking this at 9AM PST, which they never do.

According to the developer (Tombles) that posts in the AoW3 forum thread on Something Awful, the following is the plan for the Steam release:

Yeah, the plan is 9-10am PST. This is in no way guaranteed though, just what we're going for.

What I want to know is when GOG usually releases new titles for download. Anyone know?

JetFred · Post by **JetFred** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:06 pm

Arrrgg, I'm about to drop the $45 to Steam...I haven't paid that for a game since...I can't remember.

Jag · Post by **Jag** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:33 pm

tgb wrote:
Jag wrote:Countdown timer http://countingdownto.com/countdown/age ... down-clock
I wouldn't rely on that. If it were right, Steam would be unlocking this at 9AM PST, which they never do. It's either Midnight, 10AM Pacific (usually), and on rare occasions, 1PM Pacific.

The real question will be what time GOG unlocks it. I start my gaming when I get up (usually around 4AM) while tlr sleeps for another couple of hours. Whoever has it available at that time will get my order. If both do, I'll probably go with the Steam version, unless I read about a reason not to.

That's directly from a Developer who posted it on Steam. I've gone GOG, so that's all I care about.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:37 pm

Somebody on the GOG forums said that they usually release games at 7 AM Eastern US time. I sure hope that holds true this time.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:50 pm

ColdSteel wrote:Somebody on the GOG forums said that they usually release games at 7 AM Eastern US time. I sure hope that holds true this time.

If true that would be 4AM Pacific - right when I start my gaming day, making GOG the winna!

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:03 pm

I'm ready for a wonderful evening

abr · Post by **abr** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:23 am

For those of us not in the US: GOG is offering gift codes to offset regional pricing for AoW3. For example, in the US, you would pay 40 USD, but in Germany, it would cost you 40 EUR = 56 USD. In this case, GOG will give you gift codes worth 16 USD.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:54 am

Well, it's the 31st and .....nothing.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 6:15 am

dbt1949 wrote:Well, it's the 31st and .....nothing.

There's a link to a countdown clock just a few posts above yours. If you use that, you'll see that the game won't be out for almost 6 hours.