Hi all,
I too have just invested in a copy of this beautiful edition. I was hesitant because it's very expensive, but it seemed too good a chance to miss. As a Mac user, primarily, I only have the Mac version of Heroes V, which doesn't include the expansions, but I shoud be able to play the PC version on my Intel Mac.
Anyway, my copy has just arrived today, and the quality of the printed book is
stupendous! Really, really superb. I couldn't be more pleased with the book itself. It's an absolutely lovely hardback production with full-colour printing throughout. The pictures on this thread do give a good idea of what it's like, but they don't really convey the superb production quality. And it's not just an art-book; it has brief but interesting text describing the production process, and shows early concept shots of the game and ideas that were discarded. All most interesting.
As Magelord says, the box itself, and the rest of the packaging, is immensely tasteful, but again, the photos don't do it justice. As you might guess from what's in it, it's pretty huge (the space it requires is probably the worst aspect, actually, though I'm not complaining really!). The box is produced in a very attractive matt-white finish, but the printing on it combines shiny gold for the lettering, Ubi logo and griffin image with a non-shiny, plastic overlaid, buff-coloured print for the background swirls. The same style (minus the shiny gold print) is carried over to the book cover, card box and other printed material inside the box. It's really beautifully done.
Anyway, for all those of you who are interested in getting a copy while it can still be had, I got mine from the Amazon France site. I tried to find it in all the other Amazon-supported countries, but their French site was the only one to stock it. And here's the link:
http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=nb_ss_w?__mk ... .y=0&Go=Go
The site is, of course, in French, so you have to be able to decipher at least some basic French in order to get through the ordering process. But since it's exactly the same as the English version, but just in a different language, that isn't difficult. It even seems to recognise your existing Amazon login details. (Or it did for me; I'm in the UK, and therefore normally use the UK Amazon store.) Actually, I was surprised to find that the box that arrived for me this morning was labelled 'Amazon.co.uk' on its outside, like anything else I'd order from Amazon UK, even though it came from the French store.
Someone asked if the contents are in English, and this bothered me too. Magelord is correct to point out that it's an English package except for the backing card, which is in French. That's correct.
However, in my case, the user guide was also exclusively in French. I assume that's the case for Magelord too, though it'd be helpful if he could confirm it. It's no big deal, though. Although this user guide is important in that it has the three H5 game serial numbers printed on its back cover, apart from that you really don't need it. The much more important faction guide reference is in English, and is also of a higher quality (in full colour throughout; the user guide is just mono-printed). So the French-only user guide is a slight disappointment for me, but it's the item of least importance that could have been in French rather than English, so I'm just relieved that everything else is in my native tongue! Presumably the user guide will also be available in English as a PDF on the Heroes V DVD; I haven't checked that yet, but the DVD that contains Heroes I, II and III has all the manuals in a number of languages, so I expect the same will be the same with Heroes IV and V.
Anyway, a very expensive box overall, and it took me a while to persuade myself to buy it, but it's really of superb quality, and I don't regret it at all. Especially because of the book, which is just fantastic.
Sneaky!!
