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Gog.com giving away Dungeon Keeper for free
- jaachan 13y agoHm, I got a "You'll get an e-mail when your copy is ready", something about supply depleted or so. Can't even visit the game link[1] anymore. Guess it's in high demand? =) [1] http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper
- Argorak 13y agoGoG started doing this on their high profile offers. It's probably to avoid download servers being overloaded without frustrating users.
- Diederich 13y agoMight have been a burp; I got that e-mail right away, and downloaded a couple of them. :)
- AndyJ1972 13y agoI got the eMail straight away, with some great free games I wasn't even expecting. Ultima 4, DragonSphere, Treasure Hunter... But as yet no Dungeons for me :-)
- _delirium 13y agoYeah I got that first miscellaneous-free-games email immediately; got the Dungeon Keeper email about 90 minutes later.
- nolok 13y agoIn some previous sales their servers got overloaded and people ended up being unable to grab the game, and forgot to come back. I guess that's why they now make it this way
- pkorzeniewski 13y agoAnd Dungeon Keeper 2 [1] discounted to $1.49 which is a bargain :) [1] http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2 http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2
- nodata 13y agoShame it's Windows only :(
- nicholassmith 13y agoYou can download free Windows VMs from Microsoft, run them in VirtualBox and give it a whirl. It should work, in theory!
- rplnt 13y agoI believe you would be violating the eula/whatever by doing that. You might as well install and maintain your own windows to VM, without the 30 day limit.
- nicholassmith 13y agoA Hackers Newser violating a EULA? That'd be a first ;) As far as I know the EULA for them is use as you want for 30 days, then after that you have to reinstall it (or use an older snapshot etc).
- nolok 13y agoOr use the re-arm mechanism (for XP, it gives a total of 120 days). The desktop background after install of those VMs is a text wall of how to do that :)
- rplnt 13y agoThat's why I was suggesting just getting it from elsewhere, without the limit. But if it's "use as you want" then it's fine.
- LeoNatan25 13y agoAnd this is true free to play Dungeon Keeper, not the EA abomination on mobile.
- MartinCron 13y agoWhat a brilliant stunt this is. I only heard about Dungeon Keeper in the backlash to what EA is doing, now I am curiuos and GOG comes in to scoop up some good will. Nice.
- Karunamon 13y agoLooks like EA is directly involved in this[1]. A less charitable person would say it's their attempt to save face after their gaming media drubbing over their money-sink mobile version. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1xw0kw/dungeon_keeper_is_free_on_gog_for_next_48_hours/cff50bh http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1xw0kw/dungeon_keeper...
- logfromblammo 13y agoI seriously doubt it. I am having difficulty imagining EA giving away anything for free and without DRM.
- Karunamon 13y agoWell the alternative is that GOG is lying, since one of their verified employees said this in the linked thread.
- logfromblammo 13y agoGiven my biased and prejudicial opinion of EA, I haven't ruled that out as a possibility. On the other hand, EA is very large, so I also cannot rule out the possibility that its left hand is facepalming even while its right hand is giving all gamers everywhere the longest, fattest middle finger yet seen in the world of microtransaction-driven gaming.
- ap22213 13y agoSome classics in that list.
- kriro 13y agoI've spent quite some money on GOG but haven't really played many of the games. DRM-free is great though and I'm just snatching up stuff on sale here and there. I enjoy retroish games and have a pipeline of entertainment for years to come lined up so that's good :) Edit: Just checked, my collection contains 137 games
- dspillett 13y agoI've done similar with Steam seasonal sales and HumbleBundle's. I've got pile of games just waiting for the arrival of the mythical "spare time".
- MichaelTieso 13y agoGOG has been pulling off some fantastic marketing lately. Good for them.
- tlarkworthy 13y agoI did not like Dungeon Keeper first time round. The optimal strategy is turtle, making missions 3 hour affairs. Furthermore, you get to keep your best monster in the next level, so you need to mine every map to death if min/maxing. Multiplayer was very wonky strategically too. The outcome was decided in the first 10 mins based on whether you could out recruit monsters, but the death blow could not be dealt until about an hour later :s The actual concept was pretty amazing though. It certainly stuck in my mind for one of the coolest concepts for a game. Playing the baddie is always fun. Just the actual dynamics of the game were pretty flawed. I bought Dungeon Keeper 2 though anyway, haha.
- Chattered 13y agoIn the days when I had too much time on my hands, I used the editor to pit every combination of monster against each other in the arenas. The balancing was way-off, and monster's fighting abilities are inconsistent with their description in the manual. For instance, dragons, supposedly tough hombres, are singularly useless. No matter how many spells they learn, they only ever use their puny fire breath, presumably due to a bug. Your best troops are orcs by a large margin, followed by mistresses. At high levels, orcs can kill everything except the horned reaper in single combat, and are incredibly cheap to train (1/10 the expense of reapers, and 1/2 of mistresses). Build an army of these guys as soon as you can and you're sorted. It's a great concept, but for this sort of game, I thought Bullfrog's Populous: the Beginning, was infinitely superior. Get hold of that in GOG! It plays beautifully under WINE (even better than on Windows, and not arbitrarily limited to a maximum 800x600 resolution).
- tlarkworthy 13y agoThat's really interesting. Powermonger I liked better than populous. Populous was too many levels and maps were too big IMHO. I never understood the ecenomic strategy (build big houses or small ?) but I was quite young (small then big I spose).
- Chattered 13y agoAh, you want Populous: The Beginning, not the original Populous. The original Populous is a simulation. Populous: The Beginning is a fully 3D real-time strategy game, where you control individual units.
- ansimionescu 13y agoI've been watching DK on gog for a long time, thank you so much for saving me some bucks!
- frik 13y agoIt would be great if GOG would provide also the Win32 version (which works with minor glitches on modern Windows). GOG provides the DOS version that runs using Dosbox and feels a bit slower. Btw. to increase the resolution make it fullscreen with Alt+Enter and then press Strg+G to double the output. Hint: to rotate the map, press Del / PageDwn. To zoom press Pos1 / End.
- Chattered 13y agoI'm pretty sure the D3D versions are included, but by default it fires up DosBox. Good luck getting them to work on the latest windows though. I remember having issues getting them to work even on XP.
- frik 13y agoIt's only the DOS version, as I said. The original CD back in 1997 contained both the DOS and Win32 version. The DOS version has a lower resultion and runs slower in Dosbox even on a high-end PC. Nevertheless, I love the game and had played it the last few days, one level per night ;)
- kzrdude 13y agoDungeon Keeper is the only game I've ever enjoyed in a localized, swedish voice version. It's really very well produced.
- frik 13y agoYes, true. The german voice-over is in my opinion even better than the good original english one. GOG provides only the English edition, good that I have still the orginal german CD edition.
- Argorak 13y agoThe evil assistant is one of the best voiceovers ever in german as well.
- belgianguy 13y agoOdd, I have that same sentiment with the Dutch voiceover for DKII, seems Bullfrog really worked out the details there.
- hdivider 13y agoI've always loved GOG's value proposition: DRM-free, old-school exe installers on your disk, no activation needed, no limit on the number of installs, can redownload at any time with all associated assets. No confusion over who actually owns the games. You buy a copy of a game, not some ill-defined permission to play a game. I'm just concerned these constant promotions will condition their customers to always wait for the next massive sale, never paying full price for anything. Isn't that unsustainable?
- asb 13y agoI think they've been forced to follow the market there. In the early days they criticised this approach in interviews, and stuck to just two pricepoints ($5.99 and $9.99). As they've expanded, they've increased the range of pricepoints and now you have things like the Telltale Games adventures which have massive RRPs but are ~75-85% off in a sale http://www.gog.com/game/tales_of_monkey_island http://www.gog.com/game/tales_of_monkey_island
- benologist 13y agoI think it's sustainable, it's not exclusively about getting the games cheaply it's also about removing the consequences for buying games you don't like. If I buy a game on GOG or HumbleBundle and never play it I don't feel any remorse, and I do it again and again and again.
- canvia 13y agoI think that you underestimate most people's overwhelming desire for instant gratification.
- Silhouette 13y agoI'm not sure the economics of the gaming industry work the way most of us would intuitively expect. Gabe Newell has published some fascinating information about how Steam evolved to its current model and the effects of their short-term, massive-cut sales. Spoiler: They can be very profitable, because you increase your number of sales by a much higher multiplier than you reduced the price.
- tgb 13y agoThey've also got Temple of Elemental Evil at 80% off at the moment. That's one of the most under-appreciated D&D games I've ever played. The turn-based combat is rich and interesting without dragging to a crawl. Unfortunately it's marred by bugs, though the unofficial patches alleviate most (but not quite all) of that problem. It's the closest to a true pencil and paper experience I've ever had on the computer.
- nolok 13y agoFor those interested note that ToEE, while good, is about combat and combat only. The story and npc are not interesting (compared to the other games in that sale).
- JohnTHaller 13y agoWhatever you do, do not let your enjoyment of Dungeon Keeper tempt you into even installing Dungeon Keeper Mobile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdoBwezFVA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdoBwezFVA It's the new poster child for the suckage that is Free to Play games with In App Purchases.
- pjc50 13y agoI assumed this promotion was GOG using the news about Dungeon Keeper Mobile's awfulness to attract attention to their own (great) service. Popular games of previous years, cheap, no DRM, no IAPs, no weird social network tentacles. Just games to enjoy.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- verisimilidude 13y agoDungeon Keeper Mobile's complete, abject failure (as an enjoyable game) is the reason I went to GoG and purchased the original last week. I can't be alone. Maybe GoG saw a trend in purchases like mine and decided to act.
- prezjordan 13y agoI'm curious where most HNers would draw the line between Doom's "Get 3 levels for free, pay us $50 for the rest" and something like Candy Crush's "Play the whole game for free, pay us $x for any x to get more out of it." I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here, because I am very much against in-app purchases. But, when you think about it, you can play Dungeon Keeper Mobile for free, or you can pay something like $20 (or $10, or $5, maybe even $1) to get more out of it (boosts, etc). So where does the issue lie? I here a lot of people saying "Well they reel you in with a free app and then make you pay for it!" but isn't that exactly how shareware works?
- TheSOB888 13y agoYou can't really play it for free. That's the thing. It's basically unplayable without payments. Why people don't just avoid it, though, that's beyond me.
- eponeponepon 13y agoBetween this and De La Soul, looks like my entire weekend's entertainment is going to be free..!
- xhrpost 13y agoI had some great fun playing DK and it's sequel years ago. What amazes me is that there hasn't been any A-title clones made of it in all these years. Closest I've seen is the indie title War of the Overlord, still in development though.
- luuk2305 13y agoGood to know! brb, telling this to my friends. All of them. Which is 3.