Review CVG reviews Gothic 3 - 8.5

[Rendelius]

This is typical. Someone whinning about a great game like Gothic because combat doesn't play like NWN where you can kill a red dragon about 20x bigger than yourself with your bare hands.

I think rpgdot has announced a patch for the game:
http://www.rpgdot.com/#51156

LOL

Yes, Gwendo, I am playing the patched version.

The patch was released shortly before G3 hit the stores. It fixes some gamestoppig bugs, but introduces new ones as well, like, for example, a lens lare effect if you look into the direction of the sun, and might it be way below the horizon at nights or when you are in a cave.

Elander: Neither I am whining, nor am I comparing G3 to NWN. I am not, repeat: NOT complaining about the combat system itself, but the lack of balance.

Just to show you what I mean:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vu68ebISjHQ

Forget the first three minutes, they only show that you have no chance against a boar if you don't hit it before it hits you (bloodflies are worse, by the way). Start at 3:15 and see how a single boar keeps a couple of bandits busy for quite some time. Look at the speed of attack the boar shows. That's why people complain it is severely unbalanced.

I can live with missing textures. I can live with graphic bugs. I can live with NPCs falling through the ground or getting stuck in walls. I just stated that the game, as it is now, is unfinished and really ruins the fun you have with the complex and living world.

BTW: The german Gothic forum lists app. 25 broken quests discovered by now and many more balance issues, as well as technical flaws.

Is it that hard to acknowledge that Gothic 3 has been rushed?

 

[Whipporowill]

Is it that hard to acknowledge that Gothic 3 has been rushed?

Hardly a question about it. What matters is IF Pirahna will be able to rectify this in time for the early release not to hurt them too much. Anyone heard anything on next patch ETA or what it might contain?

 

[Rendelius]

Is it that hard to acknowledge that Gothic 3 has been rushed?

Hardly a question about it. What matters is IF Pirahna will be able to rectify this in time for the early release not to hurt them too much. Anyone heard anything on next patch ETA or what it might contain?

No word about that so far. My best guess is that they will take some time to see what people think would be high priority - they have to fix that first and let the minor flaws as they are for now.

My personal list would be: balancing - quests - NPC and companion AI - pathfinding - technical problems.

And my silent wish wold be that they take the distance blur out and introduce some nice LOD system. I hate to think that the nameless one has become nearsighted *g*

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Is it that hard to acknowledge that Gothic 3 has been rushed?

Hardly a question about it. What matters is IF Pirahna will be able to rectify this in time for the early release not to hurt them too much. Anyone heard anything on next patch ETA or what it might contain?

I hope it's not too much to ask that they IMPROVE THE FUCKING PERFORMANCE. If I can run Oblivion on high with little FPS trouble, there's no way G3 should be chugging along horribly on medium.

 

[Whipporowill]

I hope it's not too much to ask that they IMPROVE THE FUCKING PERFORMANCE. If I can run Oblivion on high with little FPS trouble, there's no way G3 should be chugging along horribly on medium.

Problem is that from what I've heard - perfomance varies a lot between machines, just as with Oblivion...

 

[obediah]

BTW, JoWood has a long history of releasing games way too early, and I am absolutely sure that they HAD to release Gothic 3 now, because they are in deep financial troubles and Gothic 3 was their only hot horse in the stable.

Fuck them. I watched Troika go under without buying Bloodlines, and I will watch JoWood go under without buying this bugfest. It's a shame that if it is patched up, it probably won't be until after the key initial sales period.

I look around and see that fans that used to make mods are now making patches, and that walkthroughs/FAQs designate as much space to avoiding bugs as to dealing with in-game situations and I want to blow up the whole fucking industry.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I hope it's not too much to ask that they IMPROVE THE FUCKING PERFORMANCE. If I can run Oblivion on high with little FPS trouble, there's no way G3 should be chugging along horribly on medium.

Problem is that from what I've heard - perfomance varies a lot between machines, just as with Oblivion...

Well, they should base all their improvements around what I want. And I want better performance. For me.

 

[hoochimama]

BTW, JoWood has a long history of releasing games way too early, and I am absolutely sure that they HAD to release Gothic 3 now, because they are in deep financial troubles and Gothic 3 was their only hot horse in the stable.

Fuck them. I watched Troika go under without buying Bloodlines, and I will watch JoWood go under without buying this bugfest. It's a shame that if it is patched up, it probably won't be until after the key initial sales period.

I look around and see that fans that used to make mods are now making patches, and that walkthroughs/FAQs designate as much space to avoiding bugs as to dealing with in-game situations and I want to blow up the whole fucking industry.

No more free rides! :twisted:

 

[obediah]

No more free rides! :twisted:

ah, now those were some good threads!

 

[Ladonna]

I would have thought PB were a little too large for Jowood to order around like that. They should have told Jowood to go fuck themselves and did what Bioware did with Baldurs gate; polish the fucking thing and release it in the new year.

 

[Jasede]

Exactly.

 

[suibhne]

Who knows, but this might have been more difficult for PB considering the international publishing agreements they also have this time around.

 

[elander_]

Looks like G3 is another Daggerfall, a game with great ideas and bugs when it was released. The Boar thing doesn't bother me. I think people must be thinking of Boars as the some thing as farm pigs. Some species can weight more than 100kg and can kill a man easly in a real context so if you don't bring your pre-conceived ideas into the game you will enjoy it better.

But the quests, damn. If that is realy true then i hope they fix it fast or they may well go down the same road as Bloodlines.

PS: Check this video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vK-jmUO3kh0& ... ed&search=

Fighting with bare hands is suicide. Fighting with one sword is better but gives little parry protection. Fighting with two swords or a sword and a shield offers the best protection.

We also need to time the moves correctly in order to parry or attack. This depends on who or what animal you are fighting.

 

[Rendelius]

Actually, the game isn't THAT bad. I restarted it on the easy level, and while fights against humans are too easy now, I manage to survive boars

The atmosphere of Gothic games is still there, and after a pretty slow start, things get better. The game is performing ok on my machine, but sometimes I wish I had a better framerate in fights, when timing is crucial.

I didn't encounter a quest bug so far, had two game freezes and noticed a couple of graphical glitches, like butt ugly water and transparency on parts of the distant landscape. Leveling goes too fast for my taste, and some things are distracting, like that most chests can be emptied, only some are owned by characters.

But all in all, the game is pretty nice.

 

[elander_]

The game is performing ok on my machine, but sometimes I wish I had a better framerate in fights, when timing is crucial.

That explains a lot about why you become so frustrated with the combat. Action games require a steady framerate to be playable. Anything bellow 20 fps aprox. will turn an action game unplayable. Funny that tb doesn't have any problem with this.

Noticed a couple of graphical glitches, like butt ugly water and transparency on parts of the distant landscape.

Turn off anti-aliasing if you haven't already.

 

[Micmu]

...I restarted it on the easy level...

Wh00t? There's a difficulty option now?

Fucktards.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

There's always been a difficulty slider, I'm quite sure.

 

[Micmu]

No, there wasn't.

 

[Twinfalls]

Discrete difficulty levels (rather than an unbalanced slider) was announced a while back.

Its clear we've got to be patient and wait until more than one patch is released. That video Rendelius put up of the boar taking on a whole camp of fighters and refusing to die, tells us there's some real problems.

 

[Rendelius]

The game is performing ok on my machine, but sometimes I wish I had a better framerate in fights, when timing is crucial.

That explains a lot about why you become so frustrated with the combat. Action games require a steady framerate to be playable. Anything bellow 20 fps aprox. will turn an action game unplayable. Funny that tb doesn't have any problem with this.

Noticed a couple of graphical glitches, like butt ugly water and transparency on parts of the distant landscape.

Turn off anti-aliasing if you haven't already.

Well, actually framerate in fights isn't the real problem. Even witrh everything turned down and playing a game that then looks like 1995, the problems are there.

And yes, I have turned AA off in the graphics cards control panel. With it, I would be playing on small isles of land in a sea of transparency

You know what's funny? They start off with the NVIDIA logo (the way it's meant to play), but in reality, you need an ATI card and a tewak to be able to play with AA. And they don't even have HRD, but - as it seems - a strange implementation of bloom...

 

[Elwro]

Whoa, that's strange...

 

[Claw]

So how couldn't you have noticed, Claw?

Maybe I'm just lucky.

If a bloodfly poisons you, you better reload instantly, because you won't survive the battle.

Actually, I got a funny story on that. After I read that comment, I was poisoned for the first time. Thankfully I dispatched of the fly quickly and then started searching a scoll of cure poison in my inventory. I swallowed a health potion in panic, then found the scroll only to notice I was out of mana! Thankfully the poison had worn off by that time.
So yeah, when a bloodfly poisons you, reload. When you encounter a boar, releoad. G3 is teh unplayable.

But run across a wild boar, and you are dead one out of two encounters. You have no problem taking out orcs, but meet a waran and you are gone.

With a scythe I can take on a boar or wolf easily. With a sword boars are very hard, but the problem isn't attack speed, it's being hit while knocked down. Normally, enemies stop attacking when you're down, but sometimes animals will continue to attack and hit. I consider that a bug. Maybe the high attack speed causes it, but I see the real issue as being hit while down.
The warans have always been big, evil lizards with a deadly charge. I also like the effect when the boar knocks you down and then sends you flying. Maybe it'd be better balanced if they had one powerful charge from a distance and were less powerful afterwards. I think that's how it was in G2. I'd hate to see it gone completely.

Another example why my statement that the game was rushed big time holds true: The 7800 GFX I own is listed as a supported card. However, if I turn on antialiasing, I have seas of transparency on the ground and get texture errors.

As have I with a GeForce6600GT. I never said G3 wasn't rushed. The only thing I am talking about is the issue of animals' attack speed.

 

[denizsi]

With a sword boars are very hard, but the problem isn't attack speed, it's being hit while knocked down. Normally, enemies stop attacking when you're down, but sometimes animals will continue to attack and hit

So you expect NPCs and creatures to "wait" 'till you stand up again? And consider it a bug when they don't? WTF?

 

[Kraszu]

As for the performance from what I had read 1.5gb at least of ram is very important.

 

[Claw]

So you expect NPCs and creatures to "wait" 'till you stand up again? And consider it a bug when they don't? WTF?

Well, it's not entirely correct. Normal by humans miss a person on the ground, and a power attack is too slow to hit before the person has time to stand up.
Animals however seem to have no problem hitting a person on the ground and can knock you down without the delay of a slow power attack used by humanoids, and most of the time pause after knocking me down long enough for me to get into a sitting position from where I can strike back. It's not like they go for a smoking break, it's just a tiny pause. Unrealistic as it may be, it works fine for me - when it works.