Incline Gothic turns 15 years

[Kontra]

Gothic 1 also has one of the best introductory segments I've ever played in a game.

True, but G2 tops it... You mentioned the animal behavior. Well in G2 they added a mechanic where some animals would hunt others. Maybe this was in G1 too but i cant remember. Anyway in fornt of Xardases tower theres a sheep. And i always wondered, whats that sheep doing there? Until it hit me, if you kill the sheep the wolf goes straight for its dead carcass instead of you. So its there solely to show of the "food chain" mechanic but theres nothing straightout telling you that... Instead before you reach the sheep, they put a rusty sword on the ground. So you pick up the sword, you see the sheep , and you put two and two together... lets try out the sword! Then you confront the wolf and he goes for the sheep... Damn elegant

 

[Junmarko]

I've been thinking about going without the DX11 stuff, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Another bug that made me finally pull the trigger was when I noticed the barrier-lightning storms were also absent. It's not Gothic without the barrier storms! Haha.

On a positive note, if you just settle with Gothic Patch 1.08k, Gothic1_playerkit-1.08k and G1Classic-SystemPack-1.1, you're still in for a treat. It's the most stable way to play the game, and it's finally playable at 1920x1080. You can also edit the "SystemPack.ini" and change "DrawDistanceMultiplier=1" to 3 and "DisableLOD=0" to 1 for some extra goodness It hasn't crashed once for me, and that's saying a lot. Gothic is renowned for being unstable.

Hopefully the modders are still focusing on compatibility with DX11 though, it does look good, just too many glitches/stability problems at the moment...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Finished Gothic twice, Gothic2 once, 1/2 of a heavily modded(fixed) Gothic3, didn't buy Gothic 4 (demo was shit). Enjoyed Risen.

Never tried NoTR. Worth revisiting if I am kinda been there done that?

 

[Murk]

Never tried NoTR. Worth revisiting if I am kinda been there done that?

That's almost exactly what NoTR is for. The new content, if done "at appropriate times" does dry up a bit toward the end of the game, but it keeps the majority from the beginning on very fresh. Also, the added difficulty is a nice touch for veterans who can kill orcs from the very start through patience n timing.

 

[T. Reich]

Gothic 1 also has one of the best introductory segments I've ever played in a game.

True, but G2 tops it... You mentioned the animal behavior. Well in G2 they added a mechanic where some animals would hunt others. Maybe this was in G1 too but i cant remember. Anyway in fornt of Xardases tower theres a sheep. And i always wondered, whats that sheep doing there? Until it hit me, if you kill the sheep the wolf goes straight for its dead carcass instead of you. So its there solely to show of the "food chain" mechanic but theres nothing straightout telling you that... Instead before you reach the sheep, they put a rusty sword on the ground. So you pick up the sword, you see the sheep , and you put two and two together... lets try out the sword! Then you confront the wolf and he goes for the sheep... Damn elegant

What if you're not a murderhobo and don't casually murder livestock?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What if you're not a murderhobo and don't casually murder livestock?

Kill Mud then.

 

[T. Reich]

I've decided to give Risen a spin for the hell of it, and I've gotta say that my first reaction to the game (when I played it on release) had been more positive - I see some flaws compared to G1/2.

Some things are still delightfully same: the early danger and feeling of powerlessness, the multitude of quests that gradually reveal the info on groups you're dealing with and often have more then one solution, and those solutions often depend not just on how you prefer to deal with things ("honorable"/"asshole") but also on what skills you have at your disposal and sometimes other quest states as well. The early exploration is fun as well.

What's worse than in Gothic:
1) Combat. Yeah, really, all you have is: left button for mashing the same forward attack sequence (side swipes are gone) + right button for blocking + some proto-rolling for manual evasion.
It does get slightly better as you level the weapon skills, but it's nowhere near the feeling of progression that you got in G1/2 when reaching the new mastery tiers.
2) Vertical exploration. They did away with freely navigable vertical surfaces and left the player with a relatively limited number of surfaces one could climb. Gone are the wondrous days of hiking god knows where because you managed to climb that weird ledge somehow. They are not all gone, but little remains.
3) Magic system I no likey. Maybe it's just personal, but it feels so much poorer (in terms of variety and usefulness) than in G1/2. You get 3x slightly different combat spells that you pump like weapon skills basically, and a number of utility spells that are usually much more useful in scroll form than in "rune" form.

That's all so far.

 

[Kahr]

In which chapter exactly are you? Do you think you will complete it or stop after the second chapter, as it gets pretty boring?

1) Combat. Yeah, really, all you have is: left button for mashing the same forward attack sequence (side swipes are gone) + right button for blocking + some proto-rolling for manual evasion.
It does get slightly better as you level the weapon skills, but it's nowhere near the feeling of progression that you got in G1/2 when reaching the new mastery tiers.

Was it really that shallow? I remember the combat in R1 to be actually pretty fun, but haven't played it in a while. I thought it wasn't much worse than G1/2 combat.
I can understand the other two points. Especially the magic system is dumbed down as fuck.

Edit: Do i remember correctly that the Inquisitor way in the monastery was absolutely pointless, because there is nothing you can't learn as a mage from your Inquisitor comrades?

 

[T. Reich]

Well, the basic (unskilled) combat is quite shallow - you can perform a 3-stage basic forward attack that also moves you forward a bit. You can also block (with shield if you have it, or just with weapon - in the latter case it's useless against animals). And finally you can use movement+jump combo to quickly lunge backwards or sideways to manually avoid attacks (works ok vs humans and a necessity vs animals).
There are no sideways attacks and no special attacks at first, you get them later.
As you level your weapon skills, for some of them (axes primarily) you will unlock a "charged" attack that is slower but more damaging and can break through enemy blocks. Some "counter-parries" become vailable, and you DO get access to sideways attacks eventually.
It IS less clunky than the G1/2 combat, that's for sure, but it still has its share of awkward moments. And it's not that much worse anyway. I suppose, some people will like it better than in G1/2 even.
Oh, and the necessity to time your attacks is almost not there - all you have to do now is to time your attacks and blocks/evasion relative to your enemies'.

I'm still in chapter 1, having done all the bandit camp quests and messing around in the Harbour Town.
I'm still considering whether to go full min-max ezmode with str-based axe+xbow bandit, or to actually do a mage playthrough (I didn't use much magic during my first playthrough, plus I want to see what quests they have in the Monastery for the unaligned).
I'm definitely not going to join the Inquisition because it is indeed pointless.
Will probably play the game completely, I'm not a fan of abandoning games mid-way, even igf they gegt a bit stale.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

side swipes are gone

They're there though.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Well, the basic (unskilled) combat is quite shallow - you can perform a 3-stage basic forward attack that also moves you forward a bit. You can also block (with shield if you have it, or just with weapon - in the latter case it's useless against animals). And finally you can use movement+jump combo to quickly lunge backwards or sideways to manually avoid attacks (works ok vs humans and a necessity vs animals).
There are no sideways attacks and no special attacks at first, you get them later.
As you level your weapon skills, for some of them (axes primarily) you will unlock a "charged" attack that is slower but more damaging and can break through enemy blocks. Some "counter-parries" become vailable, and you DO get access to sideways attacks eventually.
It IS less clunky than the G1/2 combat, that's for sure, but it still has its share of awkward moments. And it's not that much worse anyway. I suppose, some people will like it better than in G1/2 even.
Oh, and the necessity to time your attacks is almost not there - all you have to do now is to time your attacks and blocks/evasion relative to your enemies'.

I'm still in chapter 1, having done all the bandit camp quests and messing around in the Harbour Town.
I'm still considering whether to go full min-max ezmode with str-based axe+xbow bandit, or to actually do a mage playthrough (I didn't use much magic during my first playthrough, plus I want to see what quests they have in the Monastery for the unaligned).
I'm definitely not going to join the Inquisition because it is indeed pointless.
Will probably play the game completely, I'm not a fan of abandoning games mid-way, even igf they gegt a bit stale.

Here, have your 1000th fist.

 

[Maggot]

I've always found backstep in G2 more useful than regular blocking since it also blocks attacks unlike G1.

 

[Old One]

@T. Reich : You may be right about the magic system in Risen (I don't remember it too well, truthfully), but the process of becoming and playing as a mage is the best of any of the games. Risen is the only time I think PB fully realized what they always wanted playing a mage to be like.

I've been thinking about going without the DX11 stuff, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Another bug that made me finally pull the trigger was when I noticed the barrier-lightning storms were also absent. It's not Gothic without the barrier storms! Haha.

On a positive note, if you just settle with Gothic Patch 1.08k, Gothic1_playerkit-1.08k and G1Classic-SystemPack-1.1, you're still in for a treat. It's the most stable way to play the game...

I ditched the DX11, and you're right, it's a lot better without it. I had forgotten about the storm effects in the sky from the energy barrier. They really are necessary.

The only thing I added after the patch, playerkit, and system pack was Freddy's texture mod, which is nice.

 

[Murk]

I liked the utility spells in Risen.

The biggest issue with the combat in R1 is that the basic unskilled state is too good. You already have a 3 hit combo that you can chain pretty fast, and while charge attacks and lateral blows are good, you can survive really well without ever getting any of those extra abilities simply by pumping STR and getting stronger weapons. The fact that weapon skills also moderated how much damage each hit could do in G2 was a big deal.

IMO if they made you a worse combatant from the start, it would have been a very good call.

 

[Valdetiosi]

Gothic 3 gave me mixed feelings the first time I tried it. On the other hand, combat felt like button mashing, as you could stunlock people by mixing strong and light attacks, so enemies couldn't have a chance to hit me, that is until I encountered beasts. And then realized the game loves to crash when I reload a save.
Now with community patch installed, I could get back on the game and it feels like the game would have been what Oblivion should have been. Occasional stuttering from sliding camera, but I can live with it.

Reading all about Gothic 2 & 1 has made me interested to play them out as well, would like to see how much they differ from 3.

 

[Old One]

The main thing about Gothic 3 is that it's not really Gothic. It's an okay game on it's own, but not as good as Gothic 1 and 2 and also a significant deviation from the formula. Risen is closer to what Gothic 1 and 2 are than is Gothic 3. I could list everything I dislike about Gothic 3 but it wouldn't make much sense to you until you've played the originals.

...in G2 they added a mechanic where some animals would hunt others. Maybe this was in G1 too but i cant remember.

Yes, it's in G1 too. I was travelling from the New Camp to the Free Mine last night and I came across a wolf attacking two molerats. The animals don't normally mix, but if you can get them together and get them to ignore you, they will attack each other.

As I'm re-playing G1, I keep noticing how good certain parts of it are. For example, I can't recall another game in this genre that had a better approach to forests. Forests in Gothic are not simply places with lots of trees. When you're outside them, they're treated sort of like buildings or formations - you can't see far inside until you enter. Once you're inside, you find that they're dimly lit even during the day, and have a completely different environmental feel from non-forest areas. It's a nice effect.

 

[Junmarko]

Been watching this dude play the L'Hiver mod for Gothic 2. It looks pretty impressive, I might install it for my next playthrough.

Apparently they are adding even more mechanics to it in the next version, as if it wasn't intense enough. Check out the W.I.P page and the change log!

 

[Arrowgrab]

As I'm re-playing G1, I keep noticing how good certain parts of it are. For example, I can't recall another game in this genre that had a better approach to forests. Forests in Gothic are not simply places with lots of trees. When you're outside them, they're treated sort of like buildings or formations - you can't see far inside until you enter. Once you're inside, you find that they're dimly lit even during the day, and have a completely different environmental feel from non-forest areas. It's a nice effect.

And then you immediately get fucked by a wolf or three. And by that I mean eaten. So in that respect, it totally captures the continental European / Germanic folk tale feeling.

 

[Murk]

Hrmmmmm that l'hiver mod looks semi-interesting. If it's complete/fully fleshed I may give a swing and see how it is. At the least, more g2 I guess... but I'm so untrusting of fan made content =(

 

[Eirikur]

Despite having played through G2:NotR more times than I can remember, I've only played as a Paladin or Fire Magician once each. And those were on my 1st and 3rd playthroughs, respectively. All subsequent playthroughs (10+) have been as a mercenary.

I think being a merc suits the character and the storyline far better than any of the alternatives. The 'scoundrel' personality, the snide comments, the background from the penal colony, camaraderie with fellow former convicts, the inevitable thievery, having a merc attitude to working cross-factions, joining the Circle of Water, cooperating with a Necromancer, hints at being the Chosen of Adanos in the expansion, wielding artifacts of both Innos and Beliar, etc. Everyting screams opportunistic, pragmatic, irreverent, mercenary. You may become a Paladin or a Fire Magician, but the Nameless Hero will never act as one or feel like one.

The Gothic series is likely one of the reasons why I always tend to play fighter/rogue or ranger characters in RPGs. I keep recreating my mercenary...

 

[Old One]

As I'm re-playing G1, I keep noticing how good certain parts of it are. For example, I can't recall another game in this genre that had a better approach to forests. Forests in Gothic are not simply places with lots of trees. When you're outside them, they're treated sort of like buildings or formations - you can't see far inside until you enter. Once you're inside, you find that they're dimly lit even during the day, and have a completely different environmental feel from non-forest areas. It's a nice effect.

And then you immediately get fucked by a wolf or three. And by that I mean eaten. So in that respect, it totally captures the continental European / Germanic folk tale feeling.

Yes. But to be fair, there are a couple of NPCs who early on warn you not to go into the forests.

The forests are really well done, though. They feel like a completely different environment from the normal areas. They also have leaves falling here and there, and different ambient sounds with the occasional snapping branch, like something might be following you. I also noticed wolf packs attacking molerats in the forest.

Now that I've finished my G1 re-playthrough, I can comment on some other things. In addition to forests, there are many, many "nice touch" details. One I had forgotten about is that streams and rivers have currents or varying strength. If you want to cross a river, you have to angle your swimming direction upstream to counter the current. You can also jump into a certain river near its source high in the mountains, and ride the current down a series of waterfalls all the way to the swamp. No only that, but some monsters (lurkers, primarily) will enter water and swim after you if you try to escape from them that way.

As you get later in the game, you start to fight trickier enemies who will try to block and counter, or sidestep or jump out of the way of your attacks.

This is a game where a great big horde of small, weak enemies can be quite lethal. There's one instance of a goblin swarm that comes to mind...

The latest versions of the patch, playerkit, and systemkit have improved stability a lot since the last time I played. Almost all the scripting bugs have been fixed, and I only had two mysterious crashes during my entire playthrough. I have no idea what caused them, but they only occurred once each, and didn't happen again after I restarted and reloaded. One was in the Fog Tower, and the other was in a certain late-game dungeon. Both of those places were, at one time, virtually unplayable because of the constant crashing.

In short, the playthrough I just finished was the most bug-free game of Gothic 1 I've ever had.

 

[Kontra]

Hrmmmmm that l'hiver mod looks semi-interesting. If it's complete/fully fleshed I may give a swing and see how it is. At the least, more g2 I guess... but I'm so untrusting of fan made content =(

I played it. Its a great mod, i had a lot of fun with it. Even though it has a french sounding name its in fact made by Russians. You know what that means... Its hard as hell. Harder than G2NotR. I found about it in this topic

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gothic-i-ii-mods.90755/

and this was the post that made me try it out

I was trying it yesterday and it looks amazing (considering G2's age), but there's a ton of gameplay changes with it that follow the modder's motto "if it's not broken, then break it". Two hit killed by the tutorial wolves. Healing plants can't be eaten to heal. Animals no longer provide meat. Can't rest in owned beds (i.e. almost all beds). Arrows cost 10 gold each (for fuck sake! 1000 gold for 100 arrows), etc.

A real shame, because it looks great.

All these things, sounded great to me! Yeah arrows are costly but the bows hit harder this time around. Animals do give meat but you have to learn skinning first... Cant remember how was it like in vanilla. And you have to pay for a bed which is only fair.

The only thing i didnt like was how they removed ancient language learning... Those tablets wouldve come in handy. Oh well you cant have it all.

But try it out... You wont regret it. Just be super careful and hunt every xp you can.

 

[Murk]

I don't mind the added difficulty at all considering I've probably beaten G2+NOTR like over a dozen times now. I'll definitely be trying it out once my new pc parts come in. Thanks for the info m80.

 

[Junmarko]

I don't mind the added difficulty at all considering I've probably beaten G2+NOTR like over a dozen times now. I'll definitely be trying it out once my new pc parts come in. Thanks for the info m80.

This is planned for 0.9.5:

▶ Changed/added a lot of new models
▶ Added a lot of details in the Valley of Mines and Khorinis and a few in Jharkendar
▶ Added new interactive objects
▶ Now two handed weapons have 4 levels instead of 3. The previous Master animation has been pushed forward to 75%. Current 25% is the old 30%, the 50% has a new animation, based on Alex Draven's work. This was made to make more difficult to train two handed to Master and compensate for radius and damage. And simply because training it to 60% was too easy
▶ Added new parameters - thirst, hunger, fatigue. The information is displayed only when the value passes 50%. When these parameters are at 100%, the hero starts to lose health. Added barrels with water to deal with thirst. Sleeping is now limited
▶ Added items weight. A new parameter has been added - maximum carrying capacity. It depends on the hero's strength. When the maximum allowed weight is passed, the hero loses the ability to run and fight effectively. The weight indicator is always displayed. Added a belt that increases maximum carrying capacity
▶ Remade forging system. Now to make a blade you need to go through Forge -> Anvil -> Bucket -> Crafting table -> Whetstone
▶ Now you can't craft a sword without crafting the previous one first
▶ Added improvement for the last swords from Harad ("Fine bastard sword" and "Flamberge") which you can learn from Bennet's and Jan's books
▶ Special Paladin's weapon now does additional damage to undead
▶ Added new skill - armor crafting. Now all new armors and armor improvements in the mod depend on armor crafting skills level (Carl teaches the levels as you progress through chapters)
▶ Added a unique new armor which is based on the temerian armor from The Witcher 2. This is the first unique armor you can wear through the whole game
▶ Added new skill - Leather tanning. Bosper can teach you how to tan skins at special tables after you bring him his skins. The leather is required for forging
▶ Added new skill - Prospecting. Added new iron and magic ore veins in Khorinis and Valley of Mines. The ore can be harvested without the skill, but the amount of harvested ore depends on the skill (The skill is learned from Harad's apprentice, Bennet's apprentice and a miner in the Valley)
▶ Added new skill - Bow crafting. Now Bosper can teach his apprentice in bow crafting (bows are from Returning 2.0). After learning a bow, the arrows are learned automatically
▶ Added new skill - Wood harvesting. Woodcutter Grom can teach you this skill. Now several trees can be cut down to obtain a wood blank for bows and arrows. To craft arrows you will need to cut the blank on the wood saw. The wood can be gathered without the skill, but the gathered amount depends on the skill
▶ Added new still - Enchanting. Available only to Mages. Taught by Selivan. Now when mining ore NH also gets various gems that can be used in enchanting. The higher the Mining skill - the higher the chance to get more valuable gems. All usual enchantments are learned automatically when learning skill. Special ones are learned separately (but there are only 2 of them so far)
▶ Added some new models from Carnage Graphics Patch (Mark56)
▶ Added new animation for frying meat on campfires (Mark56)
▶ Added animated furniture (Mark56)
▶ You can now fry meat in portions on campfires and stoves (campfire animation is used)
▶ Added animation for sarcophaguses
▶ Protection from cutting damage is now displayed (Using MARVIN-mode can mess up the proper display)
▶ Added health regen at 160 strength and mana regen at 160 mana to compensate for the acrobatics bonus. Regen turns off if you have a debuff from thirst, hunger or fatigue
▶ New areas and implementations of the mod were added onto the maps of Khronis and Valley of Mines
▶ The hero's starting parameters were lowered because of the large amount of xp overall
▶ Mages can add/remove the hood on the light robe on the crafting table (thus you won’t ask me "where can I find a hooded robe?")
▶ If you collected the bounty for Canthar then in chapter 3 Sara will not dissapear, but instead change her routine, because the citizens don’t want to miss her new talent
▶ The main menu now doesn't change after changing res and is positioned how it was intended. Added a background for options menu. The skill windows is a little stretched to fix text problems of large res
▶ A few more unimportant changes
▶ A few fixes and changes from the last version.

 

[T. Reich]

You may become a Paladin or a Fire Magician, but the Nameless Hero will never act as one or feel like one.

That's the beauty of it! The dialogues clearly reflect the inner integrity of the protagonist's character. He's not a malleable "make it what you want" kind of player character, he's got a specific personality. All the choices you make in the game are more of a "means to an end" choices and not "character growth" choices. We are talking about the guy who feels at home with pirates and is as much of a murderous cutthroat as the next bandit, except that he's also smart enough to understand that there are other ways to solve a problem other than violence.

That's one of the reasons why over the many, many playthroughs of G2 I have only joined the paladins once and also chose to join the mages fairly often. While being a mercenary is obviously fit for our hero, being a "righteous" paladin is not. Now, becoming a fire mage is hilariously ironic because on one side you sort of join the group of monastic followers of the god of law and light, on the other hand you never forget who you are and still behave and speak accordingly. The best and most hilarious (for me) episode showcasing that is when after becoming a fire magician you can stroll up to the ship's guardian and bullshit your way through with the line "are you implying that I - a mage of fire, servant of Innos - am capable of petty theft?" Indeed, how could a mage of fire do such a thing?