Piranha Bytes RPG teaser site

[mkreku]

Thanks, Funky rock! It looks great! Let's hope that they'll show off some of the conversations, town views, character sheets and combat (mostly combat animation, since that has been a concern) in the next video.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Looks nice. I'll probably wait for a price drop though.

[mkreku]

I found these posts on the Risen forums and they were so interesting and good that I had to repost them here. They're written by an employee at Deep Silver, the publishers of Risen, and touches on the subject of what it takes to publish an AAA title, why Gothic 3 was such a failure and why he hopes that Risen will not step on the same mines:

 

It's not that you can't do games any cheaper - you can But don't expect to play with the big boys then Just to give you an estimation: you can calculate anything between 5500 and 8500 euros per capita and month in a development company. Not that everyone EARNS that much (stop dreaming :D) no - but these are the costs in which software licenses and IT infrastructure, food, rental space, logistics, your christmas party with open bar and everything else you can imagine (including the paycheque) is included. Now take this times the number of employees and you get something like between 2.3 or 3.6 mio euros burnrate PER MONTH for such a big team.

 

Multiply this by the numbers of months to produce such a game (15-18months) and you're at a whoppin' 40-50+ mio investment just for a developer like Crytek for the whole project as the worst case. You can then of course save some money by not allocating all people at once (you will have low staff at the beginning and at the end of the development time) so you might get it down to like 30 The only problem left: You haven't accounted a budget for motion capture, voice over, translation, render cutscenes, etc. and those production values are VERY important. So open you're wallet some more, you cheap investor

 

As for the marketing: I don't want to start with media buyout costs for TV ads etc. you know that it is horribly expensive. Something like 500k and one million for one 30 second spot (depending on the placement and frequency). For the production: Media is expensive, especially if you're talking X360, PS3 or Wii. Since Crysis was only available for the PC, they might have saved some bucks here and there. But all in all, it's realistic scenario.

 

[Other quoted post edited out]

 

I know what you mean. Sure there are platforms out there (especially consoles) which are benefitting from decent graphics. But if you're looking for highend stuff take a look at my calculations and you can guess how much you have to sell to get the money back from the customer. Especially when you see that several thousand are currently sucking the **** of Pirate Bay. I'm not someone who blames the pirates for everything but once you're aware of the sums involved here you begin to understand that their behavious is potentially ending some people's business. And if you as an investor got into such a project with all you've got, you better be angry at them

 

As for Risen we plan to release the game simultaneously worldwide. I say "plan" because there is currently no guarantee that it will happen because we are still calculating all the risks involved and some territories are not under our direct control. If you take a peek at Russia or Poland - we do have our publishing partners there who will publish the game (Novydisk in Russia, Cenega in Poland). We are working with them to translate and localize everything for their markets but grave decisions like full voiceover lies at their discretion, and depending on their choice the product might have some delay there (still speaking of weeks, not months). If those delays are benefiting the quality of the product, I'm all for it (generally speaking)

 

As for Germany being the target market for Gothic 3, it is true to some extend. First of all the choice of platforms was completely unsexy for international sales and marketing. If you want to buy some PC games in the UK, you sometimes have to look under the toilet sink in the shop because they don't sell any PC games anymore. The rise of floor space in the UK resulted in the disappearance of MANY small shops and only some specialists and the big chains like GameStop survived. What they are currently doing is getting rid of EVERYTHING that is not in the Top 10 of the sales charts. So even if you spend money like crazy for your game, if it doesn't make the Top 10 list you're a dead fish in the water. So the PC only decision was a nail in the international coffin so to speak

 

Second nail was the lack of usability. I still wonder how PB was able to ship G3 in the last weeks of development (they must have worked around the clock for almost several weeks) because the world was simply so huge, that the idea of a tutorial was completely abandoned. However a good tutorial is needed for the international market because the players there do not read manuals and they also don't want to die in the first 2 minutes. It's just frustrating as hell and not really meaning full. Don't get me wrong there is no sense in making a game as easy as that my grandmother can play it, but hey - if you boast 30+ hours of gameplay there is still a LOT of time left to make it challenging, right?

 

Third nail was undoubtly that the technical quality was not great at the beginning. In countries where consoles are dominating the PC is not the primary investment in the household, and those guys do have older hardware at home. So even if you did convince a console player to buy Gothic 3, his PC might have not been able to run it in all its glory.

 

All of those nails are now taken care of in the case of Risen. So I'm quite positive that Risen will be successful in the international markets. Do I believe that Risen will perform there as good as here in Germany? No because Piranha Bytes is still not a house hold name there and Risen is also not a sequel to a successful game series. However I hope that we can plant the seeds in the international players that our product is worth a look. And when we got their attention they will like the game because they will expirience something different than their typical RPG fast food

 

Kind of beats "our game is going to be awesome" or Rorie's "We can't tell you anything.. about anything.." standard answers, huh?

[Nightshape]

"shop because they don't sell any PC games anymore"

 

Bull****!

[mkreku]

Second mood trailer from Risen is up:

 

http://risen.deepsilver.com/blog/pages/pos...mood-clip79.php

 

This time showing more of a harbour town. It reminds me of a colourful Khorinis from Gothic 2. That's a good thing (except perhaps the colours that remind me of Fable..).

[Promethean]

I hope the localization is good. Wonky translations hurt the atmosphere of the first two Gothics, even though they were good games (I'm playing through 2 right now).

Edited April 24, 2009 by Promethean

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I just hope the mood is like that in the final product.

[Promethean]

I just hope the mood is like that in the final product.

 

The Gothics are pretty damn good at establishing mood and atmosphere. Its definitely the one thing nobody has to worry about the game lacking.

[Llyranor]

I really enjoyed the Gothic 1 demo (nice sense of atmosphere), but never got around to playing the full games. It did Radiant AI better than Radiant AI ever did.

[Promethean]

I really enjoyed the Gothic 1 demo (nice sense of atmosphere), but never got around to playing the full games. It did Radiant AI better than Radiant AI ever did.

 

And like 5 years earlier

[mkreku]

Third mood trailer from Risen:

 

http://www.worldofrisen.de/video_18.htm?PH...162213b0cf98caf

 

They don't really tell you a lot these mood trailers, do they..? All I know by now is that pigs turn around some kind of axis in the middle of their belly and can rotate around their own horizontal axis on the spot..

[Kjarista]

The mood clip of the jungle looks impressive. All the movie clips look interesting.

[Morgoth]

So, the flash-based website is online! Click

 

It's very moody and definitely ups my appetite for more.

[Morgoth]

There's a video preview of Risen available @Gamestar

The previewer sounds like an annoying gaylord, but Risen itself gives me the Gothic vibe...which is a good thing.

[HoonDing]

The guy's getting whopped by a boar doing insane amounts of damage. Must indeed be a Gothic game. I like it.

[Morgoth]

Note the swearing. I mean, that's exactly what makes Priranha Bytes games such a believable, self-contained experience. It's the only series I know that doesn't use some cookie-cutter dialogs. At least in the Original German version.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Morgoth

[HoonDing]

Only problem with their previous games (especially Gothic 3) is the chronic scarcity of human females. But I guess in an island setting, at least, that isn't so much a problem.

Edited June 29, 2009 by virumor

[Morgoth]

This time, they have woman in it. Swearing woman, I presume.

[Oner]

Note the swearing. I mean, that's exactly what makes Priranha Bytes games such a believable, self-contained experience. It's the only series I know that doesn't use some cookie-cutter dialogs. At least in the Original German version.

I liked the dialogues in every Gothic 'cause it was like the devs thought "Hey, who the hell needs a serious fantasy setting, let's make a FUN setting!"

[mkreku]

Apparently the international release date is set to October 2. Yay!

 

Anyhow, Piranha Bytes released a gif explaining exactly how dark the nights get in Risen:

 

 

I thought it was pretty funny..

[Aristes]

hahaha That's great.

 

I might pick this one up.

[mkreku]

Tiny preview of the Xbox 360 version of Risen over at OXM: http://www.oxmonline.com/article/previews/m-r/risen

 

I really hope it sells on the Xbox 360 too..

[Morgoth]

Tiny preview of the Xbox 360 version of Risen over at OXM: http://www.oxmonline.com/article/previews/m-r/risen

 

I really hope it sells on the Xbox 360 too..

That game is practically unknown for the Xbawks crowd. But if they're smart they will just sell it as an Oblivion clone and everything will be alrighty.

[HoonDing]

That game is practically unknown for the Xbawks crowd. But if they're smart they will just sell it as an Oblivion clone and everything will be alrighty.

I can guess a lot of copies would be returned to store after the Xbawksers repeatedly getting their asses handed to them by even a tiny bloatfly.

[mkreku]

Small impression of Risen over at RPGamer: http://www.rpgamer.com/event/rtts2009/imp/.../risen-imp.html

 

It sounds like the shapeshifting magic that's always been a staple of the Gothic series is finally getting some good use. I've always wondered why they've never used it more in the previous games. Like when you could transform into a meatbug (the lowliest creature in the Gothic game).. why not make use of its diminutive size and let me crawl beneath locked doors and stuff? They've never really utilized shapeshifting in their quests and puzzles properly. Until now (I hope).