Gothic 3 1.74 vs Risen

[Jaime Lannister]

In Gothic 3's favor:

Better graphics (at least with 1.74 patch)
Better framerate
Non-linearity past the first few hours

In Risen's favor:

Atmosphere
Challenging, fun combat
Controls that make sense

Piranha Bytes stories are always at least a little bit retarded though, so neither game wins there.

Also Risen has female characters for the PC crowd.

 

[Metro]

In Gothic 3's favor:

Better graphics (at least with 1.74 patch)

Debatable but I'm not a graphics connoisseur.

Better framerate

You seem to be forgetting the constant stutters that even the community patch doesn't fix. So... nope.

While Gothic 3 does have non-linearity it's just rife with poorly implemented game play mechanics that pretty much ruin any enjoyment of the game. The combat is atrocious (yes, even with fan patch), clearing/liberating cities/camps is tedious to the umpteenth degree, awful world design where you could no longer climb, having 99% of chests randomized and forcing you to hunt out X number special chests to finally get special/magic weapons, said randomization basically ruining any point of exploration since even if you found some cool cave with ogres or whatever the loot would be no different than a chest you find five feet from Ardea (the starting area), and well... just countless other horrible design decisions like the stupidly prolonged casting animation you perform on drinking a potion. I understand what PB was trying to do with G3, it was fairly ambitious but -- whether they were rushed or just flat out failed -- they fell on their face quite soundly with the finished product.

I put about 60 hours into it playing the Innos path. I still had quests to do in Nordmar but I just went ahead and pushed to finish the main quest because killing orcs two dozen at a time again and again wasn't very fun and it just felt like meaningless filler.

Risen, on the other hand, was not particularly ambitious. They played it safe. It's basically a modernized version of an amalgam of G1 and G2 both in thematic elements, questing, monsters, etc. And while it has all of the drawbacks of G1 and G2 it has most of the benefits making it a much better game than G3 on the balance of things.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

You seem to be forgetting the constant stutters that even the community patch doesn't fix. So... nope.

It's loading a new cell, the alternative is linear corridors that every other "open world" game has.

 

[bhlaab]

Risen runs wayyy better than Gothic 3 does for me. That first battle against the ogres in the very beginning of G3 shouldn't still chug as much as it does this many years later.

I'd also say that calling G3's graphics better is nuts. Though I'll admit some NPCs in Risen have weird insect faces for some reason.

 

[someone else]

Gothic 3 has more towns than that one in Risen . Risen has bad dungeons and Gothic 3 has none.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

In Gothic 3's favor:

Better graphics (at least with 1.74 patch)
Better framerate

Both are absolutely false statements.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Risen runs wayyy better than Gothic 3 does for me. That first battle against the ogres in the very beginning of G3 shouldn't still chug as much as it does this many years later.

I'd also say that calling G3's graphics better is nuts. Though I'll admit some NPCs in Risen have weird insect faces for some reason.

G3 1.74, all settings very high, 1920x1080 looks fantastic and has no framerate hiccups besides cell loading.

Risen on medium, 1600x900 looks mostly ugly and the framerate goes down all the time despite the fact that the open world consists almost entirely of small linear corridors.

Gothic 3 has more towns than that one in Risen . Risen has bad dungeons and Gothic 3 has none.

False, Gothic 3 also has bad dungeons, it's just that the story revolves around the towns which makes more sense considering the context of the game.

 

[bhlaab]

Look I know getting G3 to run well is voodoo with zero rhyme or reason or logical throughline but I'm playing Risen on Very High with anti aliasing and all that shit and its environments look gorgeous and the framerate dips below 40 only very rarely.

Meanwhile Gothic 3 chugs and coughs and sputters if more than two birds dare to be onscreen at the same time. And those cells must be pretty fucking small considering the amount of hiccups I get. It's really frustrating because I want to play the game but it's just unbearable.

 

[sser]

Bullshiiiit. I can run Risen silky smooth with no problems at all on high and my comp isn't even high-end anymore. I can't run Gothic 3 worth shit because the way that engine loads information. I would be willing to bet that Gothic 3 will forever run like shit no matter how far technology moves past it. I really want to like Gothic 3, too.

 

[Shannow]

Hmm, replaying Risen right now and it is quite ugly even with all bells and whistles turned on. I only like the lighting. TW2 spoiled me
But this is the first time I hear of it not running well. With G3 it always was a lottery, not really dependant on the power of the system but on the setup.

So posts of "I can run Risen silky smooth with no problems at all on high and my comp isn't even high-end anymore. I can't run Gothic 3 worth shit because the way that engine loads information." are quite pointless. A similar system might run G3 just fine...

 

[Metro]

You seem to be forgetting the constant stutters that even the community patch doesn't fix. So... nope.

It's loading a new cell, the alternative is linear corridors that every other "open world" game has.

G3 stutters because the engine is terrible. I'll never understand G3 apologists. The game is mediocre at best.

Risen has bad dungeons and Gothic 3 has none.

Risen's dungeons are basically on par with G1 and G2 -- they were nothing exceptional. Actually, they're arguably better since there are a couple of ways you can handle the obstacles in Risen dungeons whereas I don't remember those options in G1/G2. I could be wrong, it's been a while.

 

[Raghar]

I never had a hiccups with G3. I also used only official patches.

I wonder is it yet again problem with ATI, or are you boys victim of a too powerful GFX card syndrome?

 

[Metro]

I never had a hiccups with G3. I also used only official patches.

Bullshit.

I wonder is it yet again problem with ATI, or are you boys victim of a too powerful GFX card syndrome?

I guess if you consider an Nvidia 9500 GT too powerful then... yeah...

 

[Gord]

I never had any real performance issues with G3, neither on my old nor on my new pc.

I do agree to some degree with Metro on the gameplay issues though.
At some point it just gets insanely tedious to play. I played a mage (and probably made a mistake here) with alternative balancing from the community patch activated.
You certainly have to specialize now, but it takes ages until you finally are able to play smoothly with a mage (i.e. without running away after every second spell to drink a potion).
Furthermore spells are pretty much limited to either ligthning or fireball and that frost bolt spell for most of the game, as almost every other damage spell takes ages to cast - so long in fact that you get knocked over before completing it.
Seriously, who came up with that stupid casting delay for the fire wave spell?
Had some fun with the summoning/control spells though.

Anyway, after freeing Nordmar I pretty much lost interest and stopped playing. Maybe I'll go back to it eventually.
Might try to push forward with the story - didn't even liberate Myrtana yet.

 

[Konjad]

In Gothic 3's favor:

Better graphics (at least with 1.74 patch)
Better framerate
Non-linearity past the first few hours

In Risen's favor:

Atmosphere
Challenging, fun combat
Controls that make sense

Piranha Bytes stories are always at least a little bit retarded though, so neither game wins there.

Also Risen has female characters for the PC crowd.

lol, people are falling for it.
8/10

 

[Raghar]

I didn't finished G3 not because of stuttering, I seen none, but because of retarded story and bit silly system. Also I want RPG, not a beat up game. Cities felt unfinished, it didn't have ecosystem, it's been quite long I tried that. And it also unnecessary tried to do some continuity.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Regarding G3's loot randomisation (posting b/c many folks get this confused):

- while the chests are initially randomised, the lootlists change every time you find a chest;
- the more chests you find, the higher the chance of finding rare/good items in the next chest;
- quite a few items are preset to drop after you find 'x' number of chests.

The result is that it doesn't matter what area you do FIRST - you'll still get reasonable gear progression regardless of which zone you tackle. BUT the system is actually skewed more towards explorers and completionists than a fixed loot system, as you need to discover a certain number of chests before you can get the better gear/sets.

So instead of being able to make a beeline to 2-3 'good' chests and forgetting about the rest, you are always better off if you explore and find as many as you can. In fact, simply stumbling over a couple won't net you anything worthwhile - you need to make an effort to explore and try to find them all.

Not saying it's necessarily better - for me, randomised loot makes quests less interesting and kills immersion. Having said that, I wasn't bothered by G3s because the chests were a small part of the game, and the rest of the loot was preset. But if you're massively into 'gotta explore and find all the stuff', then the system is designed around that.

 

[Shannow]

I never had a hiccups with G3. I also used only official patches.

Bullshit.

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 90#1730090

 

[Raghar]

You forgot to tell us what GFX card you have.

 

[Metro]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 90#1730090

And I say again: bullshit. People probably just dismiss the stuttering as cell loading like the guy above. Or maybe by some miracle 10% of the player base found the game ran well but the overwhelming numbers/feedback from people suggest otherwise.

You forgot to tell us what GFX card you have.

No, it's there. You apparently just forgot to read it.

Not saying it's necessarily better - for me, randomised loot makes quests less interesting and kills immersion. Having said that, I wasn't bothered by G3s because the chests were a small part of the game, and the rest of the loot was preset. But if you're massively into 'gotta explore and find all the stuff', then the system is designed around that.

That's what I was getting at. I know there are certain chests out there flagged as 'special weapon chests' or whatever but the way it was implemented just made it worse than the ability to track down those two or three super chests via a walkthrough. What really bothered me about it is that it killed the exploration. Obviously G3 had a larger world than Risen but... it was generic and bland. There was no reward for exploring short of the joys of a hiking simulator. And, quite frankly, Varant and Nordmar was a lot of empty nothingness for the most part.

Might try to push forward with the story - didn't even liberate Myrtana yet.

Have fun with that. You're going to need to kill about two hundred or so orcs. Although as a mage you can just use some huge nuke -- a lot less tedious than with a fighter.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I just gave Gothic 3 another look a few days ago with my new rig and it still has a shitload of hiccups that are annoying as fuck. Risen worked like a dream even on my old rig. Don't know about better graphics either. Both are more or less on the same page. Same engine and all. I'd have to give Risen a slight edge at least for the better and more sensible art style.
The only pro Gothic 3 has going on is the non linearity and different enviroments. That's it. Everything else about it is shit. I really tried to give it another chance again, but I can only take so much of that shit combat.

 

[Metro]

Oh, and I just have to share this random bit of internet wisdom I found on some obscure YouTube video of Gothic 1:

Gothic 1/2 at level 1

Cant even wield a sword, you equip 2h weapon and he barely lifts it off the ground. You meet an Adult scavenger and it totally annihilates you. Every NPC in the game hates you and wants to kick your ass and steal your ore.

Gothic 3/4 at level 1

Doing backflips and spins n shit, cleaving through anything that gets in his way. You can take on entire villages by nonstop clicking the attack button. Everyones really nice and all has a good opinion of you, even the orcs.

 

[Shannow]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... 90#1730090

And I say again: bullshit. People probably just dismiss the stuttering as cell loading like the guy above. Or maybe by some miracle 10% of the player base found the game ran well but the overwhelming numbers/feedback from people suggest otherwise.

No. You're just being a moron. Sorry, I have to break the news. G3's engine is fucked up. There are still people for whom the game ran perfectly fine (me among them). Just because you (and many others) encountered problems doesn't mean that everyone encountered them. I don't dismiss your claims of "stuttering" as "moron probably played on a Radeon 9500 or some other shit card with 4 year old drivers on max settings and now he comes whining..."
And why don't I do that? Because I'm not a fucking moron who believes his experiences have to be the same as everybody fucking elses.

Fucking morons...

 

[Metro]

G3's engine is fucked up.

Uh... exactly. And it's not just 'some people' who experience the stuttering it's the vast majority. The game has a reputation for it. You're in the minority. Be thankful for that I guess but it's hardly evidence that the engine isn't seriously flawed and the performance, for the majority, is sub par at best. Hardly supportive of the OP's claim.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Oh, and I just have to share this random bit of internet wisdom I found on some obscure YouTube video of Gothic 1:

Gothic 1/2 at level 1

Cant even wield a sword, you equip 2h weapon and he barely lifts it off the ground. You meet an Adult scavenger and it totally annihilates you. Every NPC in the game hates you and wants to kick your ass and steal your ore.

Gothic 3/4 at level 1

Doing backflips and spins n shit, cleaving through anything that gets in his way. You can take on entire villages by nonstop clicking the attack button. Everyones really nice and all has a good opinion of you, even the orcs.

Yeah. I played Gothic 2 first, then 1 and then 3. I seriously felt like the ultimate badass when I could take on my first Orc. With Gothic 3's beginning where I shred through a whole village of Orcs I instantly knew something was very wrong with the game.

G3's engine is fucked up.

Uh... exactly. And it's not just 'some people' who experience the stuttering it's the vast majority. The game has a reputation for it. You're in the minority. Be thankful for that I guess but it's hardly evidence that the engine isn't seriously flawed and the performance, for the majority, is sub par at best. Hardly supportive of the OP's claim.

But doesn't Risen use the same engine as G3?

 

[Metro]

But doesn't Risen use the same engine as G3?

According to this, no.