randoM vidEo gAme News

[the_dog_days]

On 3/14/2021 at 8:09 AM, Wormerine said:

Gothic remake is underway, and it's developed by a newly formed studio in Barcelona. 

I think Gothic1&2 are games that could really benefit from ground-up remake - when it comes to combat I felt Souls games delivered gameplay wise what Gothic was aiming for back in early 2000s. That said, that's a high bar of quality to expect. I didn't play much of the demo due to my laptop not being able to run it properly, but from what I played and saw, it was pretty awful. I am not having high hopes for this one, but I will keep my fingers crossed.

I played the demo last year. It was terrible. I'll stick to the original with mods.

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, the_dog_days said:

I played the demo last year. It was terrible. I'll stick to the original with mods.

But are you sure the Demo cant be improved on around the criticisms you had  ?

[Malcador]

https://twistedvoxel.com/gta-v-update-1-37-title-update-1-54-greatly-reduces-load-times-on-pc/

Rockstar fixed the loading issue, officially.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

But are you sure the Demo cant be improved on around the criticisms you had  ?

Absolutely it can be improved, but what made it terrible was that it was the exact opposite in tone to the original Gothic.

OG Gothic starts out with you being read your rights, an official interrupts to hand you a scroll to take to the mages, official tells you doing so the mages will reward you, you agree and get tossed into the pond at the bottom of the cliff. Dragging yourself to the shore, you meet one of the old camp followers who lifts you up by the collar and punches your lights out. Then you meet Diego who makes it clear that the only reason he's being nice is 'cause he's there to recruit for the old camp and if you tell him about the scroll he lets you know that if he wasn't on kill-on-sight terms with the mages he'd kill you and deliver it himself. The first guards in town try to shake you down for protection money upon your entry into the old camp. Everyone treats you like what you are, the new bottom b****.

The demo had some unnamed or even introduced NPC toss you the scroll with no explanation, and they send you down in a pulley. After a pointless explosion and way too long cut scene you land in a cave within the magic barrier. After a combat tutorial with multiple raptors (who are easy to defeat) you meet Diego who immediately takes a liking to you (even compliments you on how 'skilled' you are even though he found you passed out). He tells you what the scroll is and where to take it and after reaching the old camp the guard is all polite and complimentary (no one paid you real compliments in OG Gothic) tells you to come on inside. That's where the demo ends.

The point is, OG Gothic was all about the grind to the top where as the demo for the remaster was all about power fantasy. It makes me thing the people who worked on the demo, at least, didn't really understand what makes Gothic so good.

[Lexx]

The demo was just godawful. All the ughs, and aghs, and the character couldn't stop talking to himself. The QTE combat scenes, the forced action ... it's was just bad, and I don't see how this can be improved without completely rewriting it.

[Wormerine]

3 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

It makes me thing the people who worked on the demo, at least, didn't really understand what makes Gothic so good.

It did seem that way. Hopefully, a lot of interest and from what I have seen a rather negative feeback, means the team who actually makes the game will take a better approach. That said, I am worried as it seems the idea to remake Gothic didn't originate from a passionate developer, but IP holder. And who knows what some suits would like Gothic to be. 

[Keyrock]

Me remembering the last Gothic game not made by Piranha Bytes.

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

Absolutely it can be improved, but what made it terrible was that it was the exact opposite in tone to the original Gothic.

OG Gothic starts out with you being read your rights, an official interrupts to hand you a scroll to take to the mages, official tells you doing so the mages will reward you, you agree and get tossed into the pond at the bottom of the cliff. Dragging yourself to the shore, you meet one of the old camp followers who lifts you up by the collar and punches your lights out. Then you meet Diego who makes it clear that the only reason he's being nice is 'cause he's there to recruit for the old camp and if you tell him about the scroll he lets you know that if he wasn't on kill-on-sight terms with the mages he'd kill you and deliver it himself. The first guards in town try to shake you down for protection money upon your entry into the old camp. Everyone treats you like what you are, the new bottom b****.

The demo had some unnamed or even introduced NPC toss you the scroll with no explanation, and they send you down in a pulley. After a pointless explosion and way too long cut scene you land in a cave within the magic barrier. After a combat tutorial with multiple raptors (who are easy to defeat) you meet Diego who immediately takes a liking to you (even compliments you on how 'skilled' you are even though he found you passed out). He tells you what the scroll is and where to take it and after reaching the old camp the guard is all polite and complimentary (no one paid you real compliments in OG Gothic) tells you to come on inside. That's where the demo ends.

The point is, OG Gothic was all about the grind to the top where as the demo for the remaster was all about power fantasy. It makes me thing the people who worked on the demo, at least, didn't really understand what makes Gothic so good.

From your descirtion, it looks like, they probably did not even play it, just got some vague script how the story should unfold

[ComradeYellow]

7 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

 And who knows what some suits would like Gothic to be. 

I can't imagine any "suit" taking interest in Gothic whatsoever.  The numbers just don't add up.  It just looks like a case of the wrong team for the job.

[Oner]

If you want the info without having to actually play it.

[Mamoulian War]

 

2 minutes ago, MellowYellow said:

I can't imagine any "suit" taking interest in Gothic whatsoever.  The numbers just don't add up.  It just looks like a case of the wrong team for the job.

the thing is, the remakes are the new hip thing after battle royale, so some suit probably wanted to ride the wave and expects free money

Edited March 16, 2021 by Mamoulian War

[the_dog_days]

3 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

It makes me thing the people who worked on the demo, at least, didn't really understand what makes Gothic so good.

I'm leaving this typo 'cause it pleases me thing.

[Zoraptor]

14 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

And who knows what some suits would like Gothic to be. 

In theory Gothic has got all the attributes of a Bethesda game done far better, except for actually being a Bethesda game. As with most publishers, Nordic suits want the next Skyrim, and a Gothic remake is a cheap way to try for it.

That's also why we won't get a faithful remake by a passionate developer; because a faithful remake would be niche and ignore all the 'advances' of the past 20 years.

[Lexx]

I never connected Gothic with a Bethsoft game. The gameplay is just way too different.

Also yes, remember the last Gothic game that wasn't made by PB .... hint: It sucked ass. Gothic 4 was a joke. Oh, and that time they hired some indian studio to make an addon for Gothic 3 .... hilariously bad.

[Keyrock]

Both Bethesda (developed) games and Piranha Bytes games are jank, just in different ways.

Bethesda games look beautiful (nightmare fuel faces notwithstanding) and polished on the surface, which makes them appeal to the unwashed common masses. However, they are jank and somewhat shallow deep inside. To be fair to Bethesda, they also tend to have some legitimately fun and/or amusing hooks and are very moddable.

Piranha Bytes games are jank on the surface and definitely lack polish, but they are full of substance deep inside. They don't immediately grab your attention like a shiny AAA game does, but they are very rewarding if you are willing to look past the jank and the always poor combat.

[Oner]

8 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Also yes, remember the last Gothic game that wasn't made by PB .... hint: It sucked ass. Gothic 4 was a joke.

But so did Gothic 3? And as much as I enjoyed Elex, PB keep making the same game over and over and after 6 games they still aren't able to fix the jank and in some ways got worse.

[Lexx]

Yes, Gothic 3 also wasn't that great. However, Gothic 4 is topping it in every area and if I remember right, the G3 addon wasn't even finished. The community had to finish it with like a million patches.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Lexx

[the_dog_days]

1 minute ago, Lexx said:

Yes, Gothic 3 also wasn't that great. However, Gothic 4 is topping it in every area.

Gothic 4 was so bad it made me reconsider Skyrim, which I initially hated.

[Keyrock]

Gothic 3 at launch was a complete train wreck. With all the community patches and add ons it's quite enjoyable. That doesn't excuse the launch state of the game and a huge chunk of the work to make Gothic 3 playable and somewhat complete was not done by PB.

[Keyrock]

14 minutes ago, Oner said:

But so did Gothic 3? And as much as I enjoyed Elex, PB keep making the same game over and over and after 6 games they still aren't able to fix the jank and in some ways got worse.

Yeah. As much as I love PB, and I most certainly do, they deserve criticism. My biggest gripe with them is how $#!+ the combat always is. In a weird way, Gothic 1 has the best combat they've ever made, at least when compared to their peers of the time. Pretty much all action RPGs had janky garbage combat back then. Since then PB's combat design has taken half a step forward. Meanwhile, the industry as a whole has taken 5 steps forward in terms of combat design.

Edit: Could we get PB and Platinum Games drunk and have them make a baby game together? It would either be utterly brilliant or a Hindenburg-level disaster, but I GUARANTEE it wouldn't be dull. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Keyrock

[Oner]

11 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Yeah. As much as I love PB, and I most certainly do, they deserve criticism. My biggest gripe with them is how $#!+ the combat always is. In a weird way, Gothic 1 has the best combat they've ever made, at least when compared to their peers of the time. Pretty much all action RPGs had janky garbage combat back then. Since then PB's combat design has taken half a step forward. Meanwhile, the industry as a whole has taken 5 steps forward in terms of combat design.

Edit: Could we get PB and Platinum Games drunk and have them make a baby game together? It would either be utterly brilliant or a Hindenburg-level disaster, but I GUARANTEE it wouldn't be dull. 

My issues with Elex were that at the very beginning you were so piss weak you could only kill the single weakest enemy in the game (baby moles or something?) and even then I started a quest that put two bandits into their hangout spot so that was a pain too. Instead of Gothic's 3 camp start, enemy power levels and the f*ing minefield left you stuck in the wanna viking camp and getting up to baseline competence was a massive chore. Then at some point I got to a high enough level that suddenly everything became killable, the question was how much ammo I needed for it.

[the_dog_days]

17 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Edit: Could we get PB and Platinum Games drunk and have them make a baby game together? It would either be utterly brilliant or a Hindenburg-level disaster, but I GUARANTEE it wouldn't be dull. 

Japanese, German group mating? Think I saw that one.

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, Oner said:

My issues with Elex were that at the very beginning you were so piss weak you could only kill the single weakest enemy in the game (baby moles or something?) and even then I started a quest that put two bandits into their hangout spot so that was a pain too. Instead of Gothic's 3 camp start, enemy power levels and the f*ing minefield left you stuck in the wanna viking camp and getting up to baseline competence was a massive chore. Then at some point I got to a high enough level that suddenly everything became killable, the question was how much ammo I needed for it.

I actually like that about Elex and PB games in general. I HATE level scaling with the fiery passion of a million suns. I like starting out as a weakling and crushing enemies beneath my boot at the end, it's why I overlevel whenever I can in a game when I feel the endgame coming. That said, Elex may be a bit extreme, even for my tastes, in this regard. 

I actually walked across the map to the Clerics' base about an hour into the game, probably 7 or 8 hours earlier than intended. It took A LOT of save scumming to make the trip. 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Keyrock

[uuuhhii]

atleast piranha games have unlimited inventory

something so simple and obvious so many rpg still struggle with

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Edit: Could we get PB and Platinum Games drunk and have them make a baby game together?

That's an odd combo. Though I suppose people liked Nier, though I thought combat in that game was rather broken thanks to jRPG mechanics. 
I thought, the most interesting thing Gothic did, is changing animations as your learned to weild weapons. The only game that sort of did that was Dark Souls, when wielding weapons we don't have right stats for.