Gothic 3 is the best RPG ever

[BLOBERT]

BROS I AGREE WITH JAESUN WHO KNOWS IF THIS IS GREAT OR WHAT BUT THERE ARE A MILLION OTHER THINGS ID RATHER PLAY FIRST

JUST HAVE HEARD TOO MUCH NEGATIVE SHIT

 

[Kraszu]

I did need the exp and cleared out nearly the entirety of Nordmar. And it did indeed burn me out. But even if you ignore most of Nordmar (and honestly, do you know you are safe to ignore it when you play it for the first time?)

You get a teleporting stones so you might as well check the Varant first (where you are send at the time by Xardas).

there's still stuff like fighting hundreds of orcs to reach the king.
Which is interesting, because it's quite different from the way the game handles most of Myrtana.

The chaos there makes it more interesting as well, I had to run from Orcs, and all but one rebel at the temple had survived, then I had dragged big chunk of Orcs to Guards that were defending the King.

 

[LittleJoe]

Gothic 3: It's Oblivion with grunge.

 

[JDR13]

I can only assume the OP is being sarcastic to some degree. While Gothic 3 does have its merits, there's no way you could seriously claim it as being the best evar.

Gothic 1&2 >>>>>>> Risen >> Gothic 3.

 

[Kraszu]

Gothic 1&2 >>>>>>> Risen >> Gothic 3.

G2:Notr & G3>G1>Risen.

 

[Chuck Norris]

I can only assume the OP is being sarcastic to some degree. While Gothic 3 does have its merits, there's no way you could seriously claim it as being the best evar.

Gothic 1&2 >>>>>>> Risen >> Gothic 3.

Oh look who's here. our Watchwitz bro JDR.

No I'm not sarcastic. I seriously consider Gothic 3 my most favorite RPG ( and game ) ever and I doubt anything's gonna top it. I just had a wonderful time with it and it was the only game that completely absolutely sucked me in to a point that I literally forgot myself and my surroundings. Of course, Gothic 3 is kind of a dynamic game. People get different experiences playing it. Looks like I had the best one.
Gothic 1 & 2 are both in my top 10. But Gothic 3 is something especial for me.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Question: Is the Steam version of Gothic 3 patched to the latest Community update already?

 

[sser]

Can anyone get Gothic 3 to actually run smoothly? It chugs no matter what system I put it on.

 

[Outlander]

Kai Rosenkrantz did the soundtrack (as well as the soundtracks G2 and Risen -- possibly G1, too, not 100% sure). Unfortunately he left PB so didn't do the soundtrack on Risen 2.

He did the music for G1 too, which is my favorite. That man is really talented and if I'm not mistaken he also did some minor programming in the first two games.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

KaiRo left PB? man that company's really gone to shit.

 

[Metro]

Question: Is the Steam version of Gothic 3 patched to the latest Community update already?

Since it's not an official patch, no. But you can apply it separately and it'll still run via Steam.

 

[King Crispy]

You know what? Based at least partially on this thread, I decided to try Gothic 3 again.

I happen to still have a copy, which I played through some back when it came out yet soon abandoned, but I figured with all the patches that came out, plus the latest CP, it had to be better.

Man, was I fucking wrong. It took me less than an hour to remember how incredibly shitty of a game this is. Thanks a lot, Chuck. Wasted time I'll never get back again.

Ban this motherfucker.

 

[Jaesun]

You know what? Based at least partially on this thread, I decided to try Gothic 3 again.

I happen to still have a copy, which I played through some back when it came out yet soon abandoned, but I figured with all the patches that came out, plus the latest CP, it had to be better.

Man, was I fucking wrong. It took me less than an hour to remember how incredibly shitty of a game this is. Thanks a lot, Chuck. Wasted time I'll never get back again.

Ban this motherfucker.

Out of curiosity, did you however like the first 2 Gothics?

 

[King Crispy]

Yes. Gothic 2 in particular was great, although I will admit I never installed NotR. I also liked Risen somewhat, but its faction shit started to turn me off. Not the factions themselves, but the tedious nature of running around trying to please everyone.

The "Gothic-like games" aren't really my cup of tea, but I can appreciate any well-done RPG. Gothic 3 is not one.

 

[Metro]

Man, I thought you'd love it since it's a great Hiking Simulator™ -- but seriously, the massive scope of the G3 world was ruined by the fact the 'exploration' wasn't interesting. Which is why it's more of a hiking simulator than open world exploration game. If there's nothing particularly interesting to find be it items or quests or whatever in the endless tracts of forests, deserts, and arctic hills you put in a game (other than chests with randomized loot) then what's the point?

Also, seems like a good place to add that there are several conversion and/or total content replacement mods for G2 that are quite good. Velaya being one of the better ones.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Which is why it's more of a hiking simulator than open world exploration game. If there's nothing particularly interesting to find be it items or quests or whatever in the endless tracts of forests, deserts, and arctic hills you put in a game (other than chests with randomized loot) then what's the point?

I always thought, that was a point of Hiking Simulator, exactly (e.g wondering about without any purpose, except... erm... personal ones). If you have any non-personal purposes (e.g "the quest ones") there's no-hiking then.

Ps. Also, HK excluded any danger to the happy biker, right? So, traveling in the G3, in the contrast to, for example, Oblivion, is always a dangerous thingy (regardless to your level - wolfs, trolls - etc.)

 

[Skittles]

Metro, I'm still struggling to see your complaints about exploration. Let me try to illustrate how I find exploration still entertaining:

This map shows only major quest participants in the cities and only shows quest related caves and encounters with a few odd exceptions. It's not complete, though there's apparently a Gothic 3 Interactive map that's more complete, if anybody's interested. Similar maps to the above are available here.

I'd estimate very roughly that this map covers an area you can traverse inside of ten minutes at walking speed, to give some sense of scale.

In it, you can see four quest related mines to interact with (clear out, explore for loot, support by completing a quest), one bandit camp (Ivan) to clear out (also a quest of sorts), five quest relevant monster encounters (and dozens more that are not shown, including a golem, special monsters that you need to kill to harvest their poison glands, and a valley full of shadow beasts, to name a few), at least four 'hidden' quest participants (Runak, Bollock, the slaves and Maxin) that you need to find, two major ruin sites with loot, a secret rebel base (also important to discover to properly complete a quest), and, my favourite, a dragon on a hill that you can only access if you're the kind of game-breaking 'tard that tries to jump glitch over a mountain that looks like it should be an invisible wall.

Leaving aside the question of loot for a minute, there's a lot of stuff here that you need to find to complete or even initiate quests, most of those quests necessary to advance in the game's main plot. There are a lot of unique encounters that you only see if you explore. Without giving away even more spoilers, one of the 'hidden' people is necessary for learning one of the most powerful skills in the game, so that's a reward for exploration (and he is actually quite tricky to get to). Another quest giver, not hidden but off the beaten path, is necessary to find in order to access and create the best/second best (depends on the context) arrow type in the game, which is another important reward. In short, leaving aside entirely the question of loot, there are hard encounters, character advancement opportunities and quest objectives necessary to advance in the game out in the world. And they're densely packed.

The real issue, in my opinion, with the loot system is that it's not tied to challenge--the relative difficulty of finding a chest and dispatching nemeses along the way. But you talk as if all incentive to explore is removed. I don't see that. Instead, its crime seems to be that you have to explore every fuckin' nook and cranny if you want the best stuff. It seems like incentive to explore thoroughly is increased immensely. The only people punished by this system are people abusing metagame knowledge to try to go directly for the best equipment and skip all that exploration. I think their decision, while kind of obnoxious in its insistence on completionism, promotes exploration rather than undermining it. To draw a contrast, in Risen, I accidentally found the second best sword in the game about five hours in, during the first chapter. Nothing I found after that was even remotely interesting--the only better equipment was locked away from me at that point--and I just eventually lost my lust for exploration. The Gothic 3 system at least tries to deal with that effect.

It's certainly less optimal than properly designing the difficulty level to make it so that you acquire hand-placed and challenge appropriate loot in a natural progression. Risen only has some ghouls guarding the sword I mentioned, IIRC. Moving away from the dense design shown above and towards a map with clearer danger zones, with opponents that could cream a low level character, would allow them to hand-place loot, appropriate for challenge level. But then again, it's already been accused of being a singleplayer MMO enough, hasn't it? I think that a move in that direction would hurt exploration.

I fully acknowledge that this is an example from Myrtana and in the past you're complained more about Varant and Nordmar's relative emptiness. Who knows? Maybe I'll burn out. But that's more or less how every PB game has been for me so far--the first 50% is heaven and the last 50% is what separates me from the satisfaction of completing the bastard. Gothic 3 changed some things about the formula, but it wasn't random or purposeless, and it isn't a mere hiking simulator.

 

[Metro]

In it, you can see four quest related mines to interact with (clear out, explore for loot, support by completing a quest), one bandit camp (Ivan) to clear out (also a quest of sorts), five quest relevant monster encounters (and dozens more that are not shown, including a golem, special monsters that you need to kill to harvest their poison glands, and a valley full of shadow beasts, to name a few), at least four 'hidden' quest participants (Runak, Bollock, the slaves and Maxin) that you need to find, two major ruin sites with loot, a secret rebel base (also important to discover to properly complete a quest), and, my favourite, a dragon on a hill that you can only access if you're the kind of game-breaking 'tard that tries to jump glitch over a mountain that looks like it should be an invisible wall.

I don't really consider that 'exploration.' Sure, you have look around a bit to find the mines to complete the quest but you're given the actual quest in town. That's more like a positive since there's no quest compass (or is there... I honestly can't remember). Same with Ivan and the monsters. You get those quests at a central hub and (as you pointed out) those things are all a fairly short distance away from said hub. The ruins and such... loot... yes loot... it's superfluous in this game. Hell there's so much of it they charge ridiculous sums of gold for the armor (another design flaw tying it to a reputation and gold grind). Of course, PB never really could do the balanced economy thing. Usually you stop looting things in the second or so chapter of G1/G2. That's a whole different discussion regarding scarcity, though, but it still ties in to exploration. There's nothing fun about finding a cave with a gold chalice in it when you already have fifty thousand gold. The shadow beasts... eh... why even kill them? Experience? There's no shortage of that in G3 just sticking to the main plot lines. Loot? Nope. Their skins? Same as loot. Challenge? I guess... The rebel bases are just more quest hubs. I never considered finding them as part of exploration. They're really not hard to find and are part of the main plot line.

Leaving aside the question of loot for a minute, there's a lot of stuff here that you need to find to complete or even initiate quests, most of those quests necessary to advance in the game's main plot. There are a lot of unique encounters that you only see if you explore. Without giving away even more spoilers, one of the 'hidden' people is necessary for learning one of the most powerful skills in the game, so that's a reward for exploration (and he is actually quite tricky to get to). Another quest giver, not hidden but off the beaten path, is necessary to find in order to access and create the best/second best (depends on the context) arrow type in the game, which is another important reward. In short, leaving aside entirely the question of loot, there are hard encounters, character advancement opportunities and quest objectives necessary to advance in the game out in the world. And they're densely packed.

I'd say the only quest related thing that requires any kind of exploration off the beaten path (moderate amount of poking around you do in any game or even MMORPG) are those extra people you recruit for rebel camps. Some of them can be tricky to find. I can't speak for the arrows because archery always seemed to be brokenly overpowered in G3 given some highly suspect AI. But the fact that a world is densely populated does not mean it has good exploration. It means there's a lot of content and I never denied that. It's just that a lot of the content is fairly dull and most of it isn't particularly hard to find... just like in MMOs.

Instead, its crime seems to be that you have to explore every fuckin' nook and cranny if you want the best stuff. It seems like incentive to explore thoroughly is increased immensely. The only people punished by this system are people abusing metagame knowledge to try to go directly for the best equipment and skip all that exploration. I think their decision, while kind of obnoxious in its insistence on completionism, promotes exploration rather than undermining it. To draw a contrast, in Risen, I accidentally found the second best sword in the game about five hours in, during the first chapter. Nothing I found after that was even remotely interesting--the only better equipment was locked away from me at that point--and I just eventually lost my lust for exploration. The Gothic 3 system at least tries to deal with that effect.

I understand that argument (and even mentioned in one of my many previous discussions over the game) and my conclusion was that I'd much rather have the fixed locations and deal with 'exploiters' or people just stumbling on to a site at random. There are also at least a couple of ways you could make them 'exploit' proof (if desired) like the non-scaling enemies you mentioned or have access require certain skill proficiencies you'd only obtain at certain level thresholds, etc. To me, the 'completionism' method of dispersing loot is poor design. No argument will convince me otherwise. I'm not going to make the 'immersion' argument because I rarely get immersed in a game, anyway, but the method they choose in G3 is little different than just spawning a sword out of thin air after you've killed X number of creatures (assuming no respawns which I don't think there are in G3), or walked Y number of in-game miles or some other goofy a-a-a-achievement unlocked gimmick.

In regards to your Risen example, I'd wager you probably didn't have the strength/proficiency to wield it at the relatively early time you discovered it. And while that might somewhat ruin the anticipation of finding gear that you'll use in between it prevents you from being decked out and using the best of the best armor within a few hours simply because you looked in a guide or stumbled on a certain location.

It's certainly less optimal than properly designing the difficulty level to make it so that you acquire hand-placed and challenge appropriate loot in a natural progression. Risen only has some ghouls guarding the sword I mentioned, IIRC. Moving away from the dense design shown above and towards a map with clearer danger zones, with opponents that could cream a low level character, would allow them to hand-place loot, appropriate for challenge level. But then again, it's already been accused of being a singleplayer MMO enough, hasn't it? I think that a move in that direction would hurt exploration.

How so? I suppose it's subjective but whenever I stumble on a location with monsters that kick my butt the first thing that pops to my mind is: hey there must be something really cool there, I can't wait to level up and come back. Of course, some people prefer the scaled approach where you can go everywhere and do everything allowing them to 'explore' at their leisure. But where's the fun in a game where you can visit and accomplish everything at level one? The reason G3 is accused of being a single player MMO is because the vast majority of the quests are dull and others are excessive grindfests like city liberation and clearing Nordmar of orc camps (something I opted out of, btw, since playing the Innos path I had already slaughtered about 200+ orcs in Myrtana and didn't feel like repeating the process ad nauseum for something that would make no difference in the game). As an aside, a better way of handling city liberation short of a straight out fight would have been to assign a number of quests to npcs throughout the city that would help make the liberation easier. Not just 'give us X weapon bundles' but maybe 'slip this poison into the water in the barracks if you have the poison ability' or 'smash the guards weapon stockpile if you have X strength' or 'free some more prisoners to help in battle if you have Y lockpick proficiency to open the cell doors' or 'scare away some guards by performing a magic trick if you have Z ancient knowledge skill' etc. etc. It's design decisions like that which are severely lacking in G3. Again, I applaud their ambition but frown on their execution. The game just feels like a big sandbox mmo where you tool around and see the sights.

 

[Skittles]

So, to do this backwards...

When I said it's less optimal than designing a natural progression, I meant what you describe. You can't get the high level loot that breaks the progression without leveling up--I just meant that challenge should be a real barrier to acquiring good loot. Part of what I was getting at was that I didn't feel there was enough challenge in Risen or after a certain point in G2 preventing you from getting to good stuff. It was too much like working to hit a minimum level of combat effectiveness and suddenly everything's eminently attainable. G3 tries to compensate for that using this artificial loot progression. The zones bit was me speculating about alternative strategies to increasing challenge--by making exploration tangibly more of an expedition into hostile territory than the small, dense layouts of PB games in general allow for, if that makes sense.

I'm less worried about designing a game to avoid exploitation than I am about making the game consistently challenging and rewarding. As such, I'm appreciative of a system that makes the next frantic fight with three trolls rewarding, loot-wise,

Maybe we've gotten to a major difference in tastes. I like finding ridiculous fights. I love the cave with two dragons, I love the massive cavern with two dozen gargoyles and minecrawlers, and I love the valley of shadow beasts. Not only is it good from a challenge standpoint, but it contributes to a sense of progression--I've finally built a character capable of taking on those opponents and I find it rewarding to go fight those enemies. Similarly, I think it's rewarding just to unlock new skills, new advancement options for my character, which aren't tied to strict XP gain.

Besides those two non-loot rewards, there's the idea of quest advancement/discovery. I think you exaggerate or misremember the number of quests initiated outside of the major hubs. Often quest chains will start in a hub or at least somebody will give you a general idea of what's in different directions, but I estimate that between 30%-50% of quests are actually initiated outside of the hubs (depending on how you want to identify hubs)--and I consider getting new quests a reward for exploration. You often receive no more than a "somewhere to the north" mention (Runak, Bollok, the slaves from Silden, the Shadow Sceptre) or nothing at all (Mazin) when you have to find somebody or something to advance in a quest.

So I count three (or four) things separate from loot that reward exploration--challenging fights, character progression options, and the initiation/advancement of quests. Or, barriers to advancement, opportunities for advancement, and route for advancement--exploration is tied to forward progress in the game. You could certainly call exploration still boring if you don't find the combat challenging or fun, if you don't care about those character advancement options and if you think the quest design is bad, but poor exploration seems like the last thing to attack the game on.

But what I'm not getting from you 100% is what would make it better exploration. What's the missing interest factor for you? Is hand-placed loot the only thing you'd change? What else?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I wouldn't call a broken piece of shit anything less than a broken piece of shit, regardless of how many "fans" have "worked" to "repair" "it".

tell me more

 

[Metro]

No offense but I've pretty much exhausted myself on this topic. I don't think any further explanation on my part will flesh out anything new (or particularly interesting) at this stage. We'll just have to agree to disagree. My opinion is hardly the barometer of how a game is to be judge, simply one man's opinion.

 

[FUDU]

I felt the same as Crispy, so I leveled up a bit, got some good equipment, and then just went on a walk about, avoiding city's and towns. The game still has a lot to offer without all the faction crap. Much better that way.

Fuck liberating city's.

 

[someone else]

My opinion is hardly the barometer of how a game is to be judge, simply one man's opinion.

WELL THATS JUST YOUR OPINION NOT A FACT!

 

[toro]

It is true that the G3 world seems 'bland' compared to Oblivion/F3/Skyrim, but at least is more real than stumbling upon another cave/portal/shit every 10 steps. In other words, I prefer Gothic and Risen worlds.
And I played 2/3rds of the game before I gave up. In my case the problem was the combat, cause with or without CP, the combat simply sucks. It is broken.
The elegance of G1/2 combat is gone and for a melee character, it will revert in no time to a mindless button mashing. Also stupid things like armor don't deflect animals damage, which made boars kill you even at high levels.

 

[sser]

My experience with Risen, and actually a short gameplay trip with Gothic 3 before I could no longer stand the massive FPS drops, was that the environments seem inherently dangerous. A key part of adventuring is the danger of it. Not knowing what lies ahead, and that if anything lives in a dark, brooding cave it is most likely something that will wreck your shit. In the PB games you stare into caves with the moss hanging over the entrances and the world outside chirping and singing for you to come back to the safety of the road while the cavern is giving a dull whistle, a sound of water dripping somewhere, and is that a heavy breath you're hearing? And you say fuck it, I'm Mr. Adventurer, and I will go into this cave! And then you promptly get totally trashed by some monstrosity within seconds because there exist creatures who don't give a fuck about your "sense of adventure". That element of adventuring, the idea that shit can kill you and you should not face them until you are ready, that some places are NOT SAFE... that element is 100% missing from most modern RPGs.

 

[FUDU]

Yep, the world, sounds, visuals, and atmosphere of Gothic 3 are what I like about it. The underground areas, in the gothic games just drip with atmosphere. Way more foreboding than any place in a TES game. It would be ashamed for all that to go to waste Crispy.

 

[Konjad]

Crispy, if you haven't played Gothic 2 NotR then move yer arse and do so! That's one of the best games ever (and the exp/lvl system was reworked so it is also one of the best as well. You won't become overpowered until really late game and only if you work hard for it). G2 actually sucked a bit in comparison to G1 (G2 had shitty story, graphic was too colorful and mediocre-fantasy-like and a damned dragons, but NotR fixes all that, well, except being colorful but it's no longer shitty fantasy, it becomes mysterious and beautiful fantasy). And one of the bests soundtracks ever, if not the best. It helps a lot to the atmosphere. NotR is one of these amazing games that won't ever be copied but you will adore them forever.



Only Arcania is better

 

[Konjad]

Also I'm surprised PB don't copy their level system from NotR to their next games. It was perfect. I guess it's too hardcore for average player because you actually have to struggle to survive if in an disadvantaged position and cannot nuke everything with your sword from the get-go as in all other Gothics/Risen/cRPGs in general?