Gothic 3

[newc0253]

the graphics in Gothic 3 seemed fine, the 10 minutes i played.

 

it was the blandness of the setting, art direction and gameplay that failed to grab me.

[Bos_hybrid]

Gothic 2 was a superior game with less bugs x10, but it was just good, not great IMO, polish is something those games never had.

[Gorgon]

So I gave the game a decent chance, played it for over 7 hours last night. And guess what, the combat mechanics are borked, as in they do not work. Whether you are on easy, medium or high difficulty there are only two options for winning a fight.

 

1. Shoot them at range with a bow, and run when they get close (safest)

 

2. Nibble at their shins with your weakest fastest attack to interrupt them. If you don't, they will, and you will be dead in a matter of seconds.

 

I'm trying to scrounge up enough XP to buy the shield block skill, but I'm not holding out much hope that it will stop interrupts. So far, frantic button mashing presents the only hope of winning a fight with a sword.

Edited September 12, 2008 by Gorgon

[mkreku]

So I gave the game a decent chance, played it for over 7 hours last night. And guess what, the combat mechanics are borked, as in they do not work. Whether you are on easy, medium or high difficulty there are only two options for winning a fight.

 

1. Shoot them at range with a bow, and run when they get close (safest)

 

2. Nibble at their shins with your weakest fastest attack to interrupt them. If you don't, they will, and you will be dead in a matter of seconds.

 

I'm trying to scrounge up enough XP to buy the shield block skill, but I'm not holding out much hope that it will stop interrupts. So far, frantic button mashing presents the only hope of winning a fight with a sword.

This is unfortunately true. It'll get better (as in not much more fun, but less dying) when you can afford paladin armour and boost your skills. Also, spend learning points on hitpoints. It's lame, but it's much easier running around with 800-1000 hp than with 200 (or whatever you start with). Luckily the healing thingies in Gothic 3 are percentage based so you'll need the exact same amount of them whether you have 10 hitpoints or 1000. Oh, and even when you're level 50+, be prepared to die if you happen to run into a pack of wolves..

 

Gothic 3 is a game that's horribly flawed, yet I think it's better than 90% of what's out there. It probably says a lot more about the other games than it does about Gothic 3..

 

Ps. Don't liberate the towns too early. Take your time to travel around and solve quests (there are over 500 of them, big or small) and get a feel for the game first. There are three possible paths to take throughout the game, but they don't become obvious until you've travelled a lot. Also, every town/camp has a teleport stone hidden somewhere, make sure you find them all. Finding them all is like a mini-game in itself!

[Moatilliatta]

Gothic combat has always being a bit crazy. Where else is the preffered tactic for killing a troll to run around it in circles.

Germans are crazy people and as such their games are crazy.

[Morgoth]

Not crazy but....uh, let's put aside insults for a moment.

 

Anyway, the only crazy thing to me is when Piranha first announced Gothic3, they promised that they would make combat their first priority, meaning that they'd first develop G3 as an action-adventure, and then fill in the rest (i.e. the RPG stuff). Look how that turned out. TNH just fights like a dork. Wild, aimless beating with a portion of luck determined the outcome of a battle. Now I really wonder how they're gonna make combat work in Risen. If they screw that one up again, they're not just crazy, but plain and simple dumb!

[mkreku]

Not crazy but....uh, let's put aside insults for a moment.

 

Anyway, the only crazy thing to me is when Piranha first announced Gothic3, they promised that they would make combat their first priority, meaning that they'd first develop G3 as an action-adventure, and then fill in the rest (i.e. the RPG stuff). Look how that turned out. TNH just fights like a dork. Wild, aimless beating with a portion of luck determined the outcome of a battle. Now I really wonder how they're gonna make combat work in Risen. If they screw that one up again, they're not just crazy, but plain and simple dumb!

I'm pretty sure the developer responsible for the combat in Gothic 3 won't make the same mistake again. He was really hurt when people complained about the combat in Gothic 3 and has promised to not make the same mistake again. Let's hope he keeps his promise. Unfortunately I forgot his name.

[Morgoth]

I'm sure it broke his heart - literally. Because I prefer a new designer handling the combat. Thankyouverymuch.

[Azure79]

I thought about picking this game up now that I have a computer to run it and I find myself at a RPG drought. Then all the horror stories about being killed by one pig after killing a camp of orcs scared me away. I don't want to pay for a product that frustrates me.

[Morgoth]

I thought about picking this game up now that I have a computer to run it and I find myself at a RPG drought. Then all the horror stories about being killed by one pig after killing a camp of orcs scared me away. I don't want to pay for a product that frustrates me.

Exactly, I suggest to stay away from it as far as possible, even if you could get it for free.

 

However, feel free to pick up the upcoming (standalone) expansion "Forsaken God", and write down some review here, will ya?

[Azure79]

I thought about picking this game up now that I have a computer to run it and I find myself at a RPG drought. Then all the horror stories about being killed by one pig after killing a camp of orcs scared me away. I don't want to pay for a product that frustrates me.

Exactly, I suggest to stay away from it as far as possible, even if you could get it for free.

 

However, feel free to pick up the upcoming (standalone) expansion "Forsaken God", and write down some review here, will ya?

 

If I hear that the combat has received a major overhaul then I will definitely be interested.

[mkreku]

I was lazy and didn't have the energy to dig deeper for a more positive thread on Gothic 3, but.. Community patch 1.7 is out! This will be the final patch and after reading the changelog I can understand why!

 

http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showt...d.php?p=8871228

 

Some excerpts from the changelog:

 

"If the hero answers Kaelin's question "Say, are you very busy right now?" with "yes", the hero will say "yes" now instead of "no"."

 

Too bad they changed that. It always made me laugh out loud because it felt like my character was revolting against my decisions or something :D

 

"Size of Diego's head corrected."

 

This is how you know a game is f-ed up: One of the main character's head is too small..

 

Anyhow, the patch is 880 MB. I haven't tried it yet myself.

[Slowtrain]

"Size of Diego's head corrected."

 

 

That's awesome.

[mkreku]

OK, I've installed the patch and tried it out. I must say, I am absolutely blown away. THIS is how Gothic 3 should have been from the start!! I have NO stutters anymore! No crashes (from the first few hours of playing)! My fps is through the roof and that's with EVERYTHING on max (except shadows because they made the game flicker for some reason)!

 

They fixed the jump feature so it now works as intended (in vanilla Gothic 3, your character jumped randomly when you pressed jump and 50% of the time he didn't even jump at all), so I've been jumping from rooftop to rooftop, having a blast (until I fell down and died).

 

I turned on the alternative balancing and new AI and holy crap does it make a difference. You know, the Gothic community actually thought Gothic 3 was too easy so they've made it tougher :D I love it! I got my butt kicked in the beginning of the game when you're supposed to liberate Ardea from the orcs. Fat chance, I got beaten to a pulp two times before I hid behind a barrel and let the villagers handle themselves!

 

Now you actually have to retreat, block, take advantage of your enemies mistakes. It's dead hard, but if I could learn the combat in Gothic/Gothic 2, I am sure I can handle this.. after a while..

 

---

 

I'm still in awe over the performance increase. I can almost not believe it. From 20-30 fps and stutters every five seconds to silky smooth 60-100 fps and NO stutters (except occasionally when the hard drive is working, like in every other game on earth). How on earth did they manage that? I'm so impressed. They also improved loading times immensely and saving is hassle free now with a safe saving routine (it always keeps two save files of every save and never overwrites anything unless it has complete redundancy).

 

Maybe now I'll finally be able to actually finish Gothic 3 too.

[Slowtrain]

Is that a total fan-created patch? Or are there developers involoved?

 

 

Its always a little gross when fans have to fix games that developers can't be arsed to bother fixing. I didn't pay the fans 60 USD.

 

 

 

Cool deal on that patch though.

Edited March 24, 2009 by CrashGirl

[mkreku]

Is that a total fan-created patch? Or are there developers involoved?

 

 

Its always a little gross when fans have to fix games that developers can't be arsed to bother fixing. I didn't pay the fans 60 USD.

 

 

 

Cool deal on that patch though.

The engine modifications are made by Spellbound, the company hired to make Gothic 4 (or Arcania: A Gothic Tale as it's supposed to be called in the US). I'm guessing they've been upgrading the engine for Gothic 3 simultaneously as they've been building it for use in Gothic 4. The new AI is almost certainly theirs too, it's impressive.

 

The other fixes (dialogue/spelling/head resizing/quest fixing/NPC and item placement/etc.) have been made by a team of the community. They have fixed several thousands of bugs during these patches. This last patch fixes over 700 bugs in itself! The changelog is MASSIVE:

 

http://snorre.jowood.de/~community/Gothic3...hangelog_en.txt

 

It's an amazing achievement.

[Azure79]

What about the annoying combat like the animals continuously knocking you down and killing you?

[mkreku]

What about the annoying combat like the animals continuously knocking you down and killing you?

I don't know. I've been so cautious that I haven't been killed by any animals. Yet. I should try and see if they can stun-lock you again if they get the chance.I would be surprised if this wasn't fixed though.

[Tigranes]

Not having played any other Gothics, and having struggled for good 10+ hours with release version Gothic 3, the impression I got was an Oblivion Done Right. As in, a sandbox game but with factions that aren't retarded, a more challenging and complex combat (that was unfortunately bugged to death), a world design that isn't the result of a spasm from a twelve year old and lots of wandering, questing, etc. Oh, and the loading times that helped me read two books.

 

Of course, that also means that my impression was the world was far too big for its own good and it would probably get pretty weary after mid-game (much like Oblivion), especially since the story and characters didn't seem that strong. No idea if I'm right, but I did have a blast for those first few hours (I mean, why else would I have put up with the freeze-every-60-seconds thing?)

 

So yeah. I might try it again if I can find the CD.

[mkreku]

Not having played any other Gothics, and having struggled for good 10+ hours with release version Gothic 3, the impression I got was an Oblivion Done Right. As in, a sandbox game but with factions that aren't retarded, a more challenging and complex combat (that was unfortunately bugged to death), a world design that isn't the result of a spasm from a twelve year old and lots of wandering, questing, etc. Oh, and the loading times that helped me read two books.

 

Of course, that also means that my impression was the world was far too big for its own good and it would probably get pretty weary after mid-game (much like Oblivion), especially since the story and characters didn't seem that strong. No idea if I'm right, but I did have a blast for those first few hours (I mean, why else would I have put up with the freeze-every-60-seconds thing?)

 

So yeah. I might try it again if I can find the CD.

Yeah, the developers themselves have claimed that they made the world too big and that they didn't have neither the time nor the resources to fill it to the usual Gothic standard. That's why, in caves, you'll see the same syndrome that plagued Oblivion: chests with randomly generated content. For Risen (their next project) the world will be about the same size as the original Gothic and everything will be hand placed again. Still, there's enough to do and see in Gothic 3 to make it interesting. If none of the 550+ quests takes your fancy, then there's always exploring to do. Not everything is hand placed, but there's still lots and lots of stuff to find.

 

I'm never bothered by wandering in a game, but I don't think the problem is that bad in Gothic 3. If you look carefully in every town/village/camp you visit, you'll be able to find teleport stones that lets you immediately teleport between them. Sure, you have to walk to all the places initially, but after a while you can zoom around the gigantic land in no time.

 

I've played some more now and the game is decidedly harder with the new AI! I haven't been stunlocked by wolves (so I assume they removed that "feature"), but then again, I didn't survive for two seconds when ambushed by a wolfpack so I don't know if they didn't stunlock me because they can't anymore or if it's because I sucked so much and immediately died.

 

The best part of Gothic's world is how honest it is. If something is there, it's really there. If you see a window on a house, you can look in from the outside and look out from the inside. Nothing is painted on. If you see it, you can climb it! With the working jump, you'll be able to climb almost anything. No invisible walls. Ever. I can't get over how cool that is. The only thing missing is more interaction with the world. I would love to be able to roll around the barrels that are everywhere. Break the crates. Tear down the fishnets that are hanging to dry in the villages (or at least have them sway in the wind).

 

I'm having a blast, even though it's a bit tedious to start from scratch again. And I'm only level 5 or so because combat takes a lot longer now that everything fights back. Let's see if I manage all the way to the end this time. I won't try to do ALL of the quests again, that's for sure!

[Sargoth]

If I had picked that game up today, I would have hated it. But its better than what comes out of Bethesda by far