Gothic 3

[_BuRjaCi_]

I can't wait. A massive non-linear fantasy role playing game. Oblivion was just a snack to me. For someone who hasen't played Gothic I,II or the remarcable add-on GothicII:Night of the Raven this may seem as propaganda. But Gothic has immersion. There where magical moments in the game suspensions of dis-belief that where unique. In the darknes, low health sneaking by orc patroles trying to get into the castle with a unpreapared level 6 militia man. Fighting a powerful undead mage. The simple ability to go anywhere, exploring the wilderness hunting for throphies to sell
(rats don't drop bags of gold, from a wolf you can only get a hide, teeth... if you're skilled enough, perfectly logical) or
brew healing potions and rum. Having a friendly brawl with a fellow mercenary or a pirate. Smoking and selling swampweed. The feeling of power as a fully armoured paladin blown away by the sight of zombies or a poor novice chased by wargs and wolfs certain of death and cursing of not saving the game after activating the ancient mechanism and defeating the stone sentinel.

But that's Gothic 2, the only thing wrong with it was the story runing slow in the last third and for some the urelenting difficulty for beginners in the add-on.

But lets talk about Gothic 3

[DrSpike]

Never played the other games - I thought they looked like they sucked quite hard.

[Standup]

I'd never paid them much attention - looked like another FPS with a bit of role playing. Pleased to say i was wrong and Gothic 2 (1 is a bit dated but still good) is one of my favourite games.

For me it's everything that Morrowind wasn't. Its not too linear but small enough to keep a handle on everything; combat is good once you get the hang of it and i preferred the levelling system once i got over the 'is that all?' aspect.

As the OP says the most compelling part of the game is the immersion and the feeling that you're in a living world. Concentrating mainly on one small town and some wilderness allows the developers some depth and recognisable characters.

I just found Morrowind very flat, if pretty.

Downsides ? very tough at the start, tricky to get into, demanding controls and relatively high system requirements.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Well, the Gothic 2 graphic engine is dated by now and the system requierments aren't so high ( if you can run cIV... on your computer).

As I have said the imersion is excelent, I mean in how many games have you found so may ways to earn money. Mining for gold or magic ore, brewing potions from plants that you find growing in the woods, forging items, pickpocketing, geting your pay from the Landlord or turning in bounties to lord Andre, working on the farm,... (some of these are standard but everything you have ever seen in RPG is there, except gambiling I think, but I didn't miss that).

The story is very good if you can find the clues, stop now and then and listen to Vatras preaching to the people: ...and the human slew the beast and it entered into Beliars real... the same words that are repeated by your former mentor at the end of the game (anyone who has played the game knows what I mean)
The balance of the three ruling divinities:
-Inos the god of Fire and order, the bringer of law, followed by the Paladins wich are commanded by the Fire Mages ( the curch of Inos ), he spoke to man giving him magic to defeat the beast.
-Adanos the god of water ( lakes rivers, ocean - have you ever wondered why the Orcs stay away from the river in the valley of mines, or why the lost tempel of Beliar dissapeard onto a lost island in the ocean ), the preserver of ballance, followed by the ring of water (a secret organisation, the preservers of ballance who make shure that neither chaos or order are too strong, preserving freedom) and the water mages.
-Beliar the god of darkness and all thing unnatural, who spoke to the beast (this may be a reference to the orcs, the dragons or simply to the chosen of Beliar) and gave it a portion of his powers to destroy all life.

[_BuRjaCi_]

The memorable charchters Lee,Diego,Leste,Xardas the necromancer,Pyrokar,...

They did a good job on those, but they could have proveided more voices for the English localization and better speling on the covers of the Gold-edition (wich imbicile spelled Inos as Annos on the cover of the English localization ).

I'm actualy suprised that the game is is so unknown in global gaming, in my country it was listed as the most anticipated game by the readers (month after month since last year) of the preimere gameing publication and is considered the best role-palying experience (GI and GII) since the ancient Ultima series (the good ones). This could be a result of the slow translation form German into English and poor marketing from Pirana Bytes, but I had to wait just as long for it (since I don't understand German).


P.S.
the publication gave Oblivion 89 and described it as a good snack to help us wait for Gothic3,
Gothic 2 got 92,
Civilisation 4 got 82,
Galciv II got 90,
for reference 94 is the highest rating ever given to a game
( I think HL2 and two other games got it, I'm not sure)
A little trivia the first edition wasn't of high quality and was canceled for a year (it better had, it rated the original Civ at 60 ) but has improved vastley in the past decade and is light-years ahead of that PC gamer, PC format s*** (the localizations- wich failed and the originals), I think around 130 tousand people buy it per month, wich is a lot for a country of 2 million (where piracy thrives along with disrespect, from older generations, to computer gaming).

[Standup]

I've raised the games in several RPG posts and nobody replies (or carries on talking about Morrowind, BG, BG2 etc) and i sometimes wonder if it's me

It's not a widely published game so it could just be an undiscovered gem. I bought both my copies on ebay and the Gold edition (with expansion pack) has only just become available several years after the original release date. SO far as i know this is the only way to buy the english language expansion pack.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Yes , I'm basicaly sohocked that nobody knows about it, every one just starts taking about KOTOR ot Morrowind
(like you said).

I,eehhh... acuierd Gothic2, but it was such a good game that I actualy regreted it (I always BUY games that are of good quality) and bought the Gold version in a local store. I'm Slovenian (yes a European country, yes a EU member) by the way ( that little speck on the map sout of Austria) and bought it. Its wiedley available and is actualy selling quite nicley over here... (considering high piracy rates).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Gothic II was alright, but I didn't find it that great. Though I am looking forward to Gothic 3. Maybe they can make it a bit more compelling for me.

[_BuRjaCi_]

This is suposed to be a thread about Gothic III.

-Does anyone know what the story line will be?
As, I understand it the orcs are ravaging the lad but is the King dead or alive?
The mercenary's under Lee will probably be fighting the orcs but not with the paladins under king Robart.
The water mages are suposed to have a tower somwhere, do you think we will see any of the mages from Gothic I or Night of the Raven?

-Will the desert region be more like the americain style desert in Jarkhendar or will it bee a Sahara-like desert?
What about the soutern isles will they be included? The teritory is supposed to be three times larger then Gothic 2's combined valley of mines and Korinis. There are suposed to be 1000 npc characters oposed to the 400 of G2.
Considering the size of the land will that produce large densly populated cities and camps with large uninhabited regions?
-Will we see more depth to the quas-arabs like Abuyin and that guy in the Bandit camp; Where do they live ( near the potential Sahara-like region?)? They seem to be more "exotic" since the quasi-africains are said to originate from the southern isles and seem to be fully integrated (or asimilated) into the Gothic mediveal world , but Abuyin points to a possible "nation" what are they called?

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Never played the other games - I thought they looked like they sucked quite hard.

A game sucks when you play it and discover it sucks not when you ignore it based on prejudice.

[DrSpike]

Surprisingly, I agree.

[Traianvs]

So what's the release date nowadaysfor this game?

[Standup]

According to Amazon and the 'World of Gothic' website October 06.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Standup
According to Amazon and the 'World of Gothic' website October 06.

I can't wait.
The last time I felt like this was right before cIV came out. That was a dissapointment because of high minimum specs and the even higher ones that make the game run semi-well and the whole "20 minutes to recognize the DVD" wait.

I hope they take their time, not put out one third of a game ( like KOTOR2, I mean that could have been a good game ) or a bug riddled unplayable monster (why am loking at cIV 1.00?).

Are there any references to possible min. specs?

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Surprisingly, I agree.

Then, if the game has been rated from good to excellent... Why don't you try it?