Hello everyone, and hello to the GoG staff.
Well... when I got the E-Mail telling me that GoG had the RoA series on sale, I immediately jumped the opportunity to get it. My old CDs are getting scratchy and I don't know how much longer they'll live.
But after the installation came a bit of disappointment: Both games lack the CD audio tracks. As you'll see from the RoA 1 soundtrack download, those were much, much better quality than you'll get from MIDI, even with a good sound font, and add a lot of flavor to the game.
Is there any chance the download will get updated with the CD version of the games?
On that note: The soundtrack download for RoA 2 is VERY incomplete. What gives?

Thanks for the quick reply. A shame you couldn't post the whole RoA 2 soundtrack, as it really is awesome.
Good to hear you're working on it!

Well, you could take that nice realms2.gog file in your install dir, rename it to .bin, rename the realms2.inst to realms2.cue, edit it to point at realms2.bin instead of realms2.gog, mount it in a virtual drive and listen to the soundtrack :D

Well, maybe it's a new change, but my install doesn't have those files.

I understand GOG only has rights to the English version of the game, and while I understand that they are 'working on' updating the files with the CD versions (plus improved soundtrack presumably), what are the chances of this ever becoming available? Great games though, and I'm really grateful that GOG has been trying to make that extra effort for us (including the last update with the RoA2 intro).

My old install file (September 28, 2009) has 534 MB (560.789.484 Bytes). The new one has 71,6 MB (75.166.674 Bytes). As far as I understood this is due a rights issue that had them have to remove the CD from RoA 2 because they didn't have the soundtrack rights.

Damn, should have bought it earlier...

This is really bad... I have bought these games and was really looking forward to playing them but sound and music is really important for me. I want to play it with the music that it had made for it. I hope there is some way to play the game with its original cd music.

Did not realize this, I will have to see if I have that install. Thanks

Hello-
I cant make the games run-
Well they DO run-- QUITE sluggish and I have to keep pressing Enter all the time-
any way of sorting this out?
A true shame they are the very best RPGs ever.

I see years later the situation remains the same :\

This is a huge disappointment...when I spend money on gog I'd expect to have the best and latest version of a game.
Next time I'll think if to buy a game a lot more.

All I would say is when things like this happen GOG should be totally up-front and explain exactly what your getting BEFORE purchase. It's not good enough to say afterwards how disappointed you were but it doesn't matter because of how "cheap" the game was!

After all, if you went into a store and bought a budget game for under $10, got it home and found the game wouldn't install because the CD was all scratched up, you wouldn't say "it only cost a couple bucks so I won't take it back.

The fact that GOG has a strict no replacement/no refund policy which it adheres to totally means it needs to be totally up-front on every product they sell. Whatever the price - especially when they know they are selling a title less than in premium condition.

I too should've read this before, but i got too exited to get theese tremendous games of the past to get run under Win7 64.

Most Likely they were the last ones I buy here, cause this is not acceptable

Edit: And don't get me wrong: I get the fact, that you don't own the rights at the full Versions (as from CD), but merely the castrated disk-Versions.
It's better than nothing and I might have bought them anyway.
But now I feel hookwinged and betrayed. Not juridicaly: I know that You never claimed this Versions to be the complete ones... But you don't mention the Fact either. Instead you hide it in the FAQs (where I've (and apearendly many others) looked AFTER buying.)
And I admit to bee far to trusty in not looking up all possible Information before buying, but yes: I trusted GOG.... but no more, and thats a pity.

i just learned about this when i looked at a recent German re-release of the trilogy. so, not only are the GOG releases not available in the games' original language (German, of course) they are also incomplete, missing the CD audio as well as the Heldenedition content (Heroic Edition).

i just went ahead and ordered the aforementioned re-release (Nordlandtrilogie Heldenedition) on DVD. they are pre-configured with DOSBOX, fully patched (unlike the similar JoWood release), include German language and CD audio, and they are provided in the extended Heldenedition. i grabbed this for roughly $15, so $5 per game. great deal if you asked me.