The Guild 2: the medieval simulator/RPG/Action game - News

[Fresh]

I have a good feeling about this game & I just found out they've updated the official english homepage: http://www.theguild2.com/index.php?lang=en

And there's a sweet gameplay movie courtesy of german PC GAMES to be dl:ed here: http://www.gilde2.de/DieGilde2PCGames.avi

Fansite forum: http://forum.gilde2.de/forumdisplay.php?f=78

Check it out.

(I'm unsure in which genre this game goes, so I dumped it here in General. Feel free to move this thread if you want)

 

[Fresh]

Here's some hype from Worthplaying:

"The Guild II features a unique blend of RPG and life simulation gameplay that will appeal to the original game's fans in addition to new players seeking a novel gaming experience," said Ted Staloch, VP of Aspyr Media. "This long-awaited sequel offers players a beautifully crafted and immersive 3D world in which they can become part of history and even change it in real-time."

The Guild II will include an extended single-player campaign, including a comprehensive tutorial placed in the 14th century. In this age rife with intrigue and battles, players can rise through the ranks of society from a mere crafter to the city's magistrate, or they can choose the secret path of thievery to become a feared robber baron. The player's fate is completely their decision, but their decisions can change the course of history. Additionally, The Guild II features 3 different and beautifully crafted scenario maps, including a German Hanse campaign with the cities of Hamburg and Luebeck, as well as maps in Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest, and Lyon (France).

In The Guild II players can:

* Control the fate of generations of a powerful dynasty set in a realistic medieval world
* Become part of European historic events and even change the course of history -- Watch the citizens and witness unique events that allow players to be immediately connected to real-world events
* Marry, raise children, and experience friendship.
* Explore a beautifully crafted and immersive 3D world.
* Take part in a wide variety of different careers like merchant, priest, politician or thief.
* Create characters with special abilities, zodiac signs and even weaknesses that include such things as a disfigurement, jealousy or kleptomania.
* Play in a party of up to 3 dynasty members with different strengths and weaknesses.
* Hand down skills and fortunes to successors.
* Be challenged by powerful competitor AI.
* Take part in a unique multiplayer mode unparalleled in any life sim game.

Developed by 4 Head Studios, The Guild II will be released in the spring/summer of 2006 for the PC at a SRP of $39.99. For players who can't wait until Spring for more Guild action, Aspyr released The Guild Gold in November, which features the original game plus its expansion pack. Gothic II Gold is available for an SRP of $19.99.

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=30369

 

[Balor]

Sounds like Nextgen Darklands wannabe...
... and it sure sounds good!
I wonder if half of that feature list will be in the final game, though.

 

[LlamaGod]

I play the original alot and like it ALOT, The Guild 1 kicks ass.

2 better not suck, dang it.

 

[Fresh]

I play the original alot and like it ALOT, The Guild 1 kicks ass.

2 better not suck, dang it.

Im def. going to give the original The Guild 1 a try.

I can't believe I've barely heard anything about this game. Didn't they market it in the US perhaps? Are people suspicious of low-profile german titles?

 

[Jason]

I just saw the first one in Best Buy so it's not super-secret underground shit. It's probably one of those titles you pass by on a shelf but it doesn't stand out unless you're looking for it.

 

[Ugrok]

I played the first one and its a great game. Be sure to find the "gold" version (with the expansion pack), or your game will be flawed with bugs to the point of being unplaybale (thats partly why the game didnt have success).

But with the expansion pack, most bugs are gone, and its pure pleasure.
You begin in a small european town, and you have to set up a business ; would you like to be the local smith, or to be a master of circus entertainment? Would you like to manage a thieves guild ? You can even manage a cemetary !
Every house in the town is inhabited by characters, some are your opponent and will compete with you... whatever the cost. You can kidnap the mayor of the town and ask for a ransom. You can be voted inquistor in chief and torture your opponents. You can become mayor yourself. Heck, you can even buy a castle in the middle of the town, buy some cannons, and fire at your opponents building !
You can marry, have children, make them study. You hire employees, some will love you, some will hate you, some will die, you will cry.
Really its a very rich game. Give it a try.

Like all good games, you will play this to death, and then, you will be bored with it. (I had 4 to 5 hours sessions of this game). It will seem repetitive if you dont change job often enough (but you can have multiple works).
But hey, which games lets you destroy an entire dynasty just because you dont like them? Destroy the fathers house, emprison his wife, tell lies about the daughter so that she is laughed at, assassinate the son, or just buy all their buildings with the money you make on their backs...

Damn, im gonna play it again.

Try it. I cant wait till this gets to the shelves.

Edit : In Europe the first game is named "Eurpa 1400 gold"

 

[Fresh]

Ugrok, thx for the mini-review. I like how gritty it sounds with the torturing and dynasty-destroying, etc.

 

[LlamaGod]

What I like about it is that every single person in the whole town is the same thing as you, a citizen.

The way things work, though, is that more things are open to those with more money, so most commoners are poor and can't do everything, but they have their own amount of wealth and earn money too (by working for other guildmasters, even your own workers are citizens with wealth, which increase every pay they recieve).

So while the Lower Class cant do as much as you (you start off as a Middle Class person), they can eventually become wealthy enough and have the potential.

Other people in your wealth class are exploring their options, too. Doing government work and such.


The game is just so open and the world is so formable that the town really feels living. The different and unique jobs and government offices add to this.

People go to church to beg forgiveness when they've commited crimes (usually once someone in an office rules something illegal), the thieves run around stealing, guards run around defeating things, people spend the night in the tavern, and general tradesmen's objects are bought and sold and influence the economy.

There's a bit of roleplaying in that your stats can direct the kind of way you'll conduct your business. If you're a good speaker, you'll find its easier for you get by by getting involved in government matters and bullshitting people around, whereas a combat guy can freely be a dick because nobody will fuck with him.

 

[aweigh]

This game definitely looks sweet, like my dick.

 

[Fresh]

Other people in your wealth class are exploring their options, too. Doing government work and such.


The game is just so open and the world is so formable that the town really feels living. The different and unique jobs and government offices add to this.

People go to church to beg forgiveness when they've commited crimes (usually once someone in an office rules something illegal), the thieves run around stealing, guards run around defeating things, people spend the night in the tavern, and general tradesmen's objects are bought and sold and influence the economy.

Sounds like what RAI would be like in an ideal world.

Question: When you start the gold edition you get two completely unrelated intro-movies. One is of you moving into the city as a child and the other is about you (?) as a necromancer/scientist. The second one also starts with "Let me recount with what happened". What does this mean? Are you starting from "the beginning" with the Gold ed of the game? Do you play the same character in the original guild as in the guild + expansion pack? The crazy intros has me somewhat confused.

 

[Ugrok]

Dont worry, you start from scratch with or without the expansion. You have more options available with the expansion installed, thats all.

 

[protobob]

I'm still bitter about buying the first game, only to find it full of bugs, followed by patches with even more bugs. When they finally fixed it they wanted money for it (Gold Edition). Meh.

I remember once I had the grand idea of starting out as a Priest of a minority religion, with the grand, almost impossible goal of converting the town to my religion. I had visions of generation after generation toiling away to convert the masses. So my Priest gets to work--everything was going great: Many children, etc. Finally my first character dies...and my heir is a member of the majoirty religion! Suddenly the game ends! I've achieved my goal! The majority of the town is now following my religion!

So, so so so, so. So. Sooooo Disappointing. Never played it again.

 

[Balor]

It shows:
Don't mess with religion, it'll rip you off in the end .

 

[dagorkan]

Are the expansions, "Pirates"/"Venice" worth getting in a bundle? $30 on Direct2Drive but I don't like downloading and I've seen the original in the bargain bins in shops.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Are the expansions, "Pirates"/"Venice" worth getting in a bundle? $30 on Direct2Drive but I don't like downloading and I've seen the original in the bargain bins in shops.

Venice is NOT worth getting. The version on Direct2Drive doesn't have Venice in it, though. Guild 2 and Guild 2: Pirates of the European Seas are about as high as you want to get for right now. Venice is buggy as hell. In fact, the save game corruption is really bad.

As for Guild 2, it's pretty damned nifty. I've been playing a game of it for a few days. I have a family who has the father who is a Craftsman and the mother who is a Rogue. I started with the father, bought a mine and staffed it while looking for a bride. The mine was cranking out gold bars to keep me in money. I married a rogue. I bought a title so I could own more buildings then bought a robber's nest outside of town. I bought a sword and armor for the rogue. After levelling up the rogue, a bit and getting money flowing from the robber's nest, I bought a foundry.

I was levelling up the rogue's skills to make her a nasty killer. I upgraded the buildings so they could produce more. I made some platemail and a full helm for the rogue at my upgraded foundry. I bought another robber's nest right across the road from the first robber's nest so I could double my men on the road. Basically, very little was getting in to my town after that because I was robbing everyone that came to town. :D

With all the money I was making at this point selling my goods I was making and all the goods other people were making which I stole.. I decided it was time to go in to poltics. Because my character was a highly levelled up rogue, it was pretty easy to get in to office. I could bribe a lot of people who were neutral to make them like me. The ones who didn't like me, I just murdered when they left town.

In fact, I would murder people who'd run for my office. Eventually my crimes caught up with me, though. I was accused of crime. Which crime, I have no idea because I had two pages of crimes at that point. So, I promply marched to the town where I was accused and murdered the accuser. When the trial came, my accuser didn't show up so I got off.

Oh yeah, fun game.

 

[Jason]

Ask Saint whether Venice is worth spending your money on. Here's a hint: it was developed by the people who did the recent Gothic 3 expansion.

edit: Doh! He already beat me to it.

 

[dagorkan]

I noticed a lot of angry people on their official forums about the 'Gold' expansion

Played the demo twice but it's way too short (one 'turn'... I was in Summer of 1400 but the next thing it changes to is 1404 and it's instantly Game Over?). Just gives you the time to build a shop and sell your first cartload of goods. The kind of possibilities you mentioned does sound intriguing even though I don't like Sims games much. Is it true you have to micromanage all the trade routes? I read that unlike in the prequel if you go off to another village or get sent to court or whatever and your workshop runs out of resources your employees will stand idle, wasn't clear if that was an old unpatched version.

Got into a fight with some robbers, combat looks quite boring. She had a knife and apparently some armor and I had just my fists and we just traded blows for five minutes until I killed her (with nearly half my health left)

 

[Elwro]

I remember doing something funny with one of my characters who achieved the rank of Bishop. I think I brought a rich guy to trial, and using my authority sentenced him to donate a huge sum to the church or something like that.

 

[Helton]

Ask Elwro what he did with one of his characters who achieved the rank of Bishop.

edit: Oh damn he alrweady posted it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Got into a fight with some robbers, combat looks quite boring. She had a knife and apparently some armor and I had just my fists and we just traded blows for five minutes until I killed her (with nearly half my health left)

Most highwaymen are pretty weak, even the ones you hire. I've never tried armoring them because I can sell an armor for about twice as much as the cost of hiring a new highwayman. Also, you seem to lose anything on your highwaymen when they die. Heck, you seem to lose everything on a character when they die as well.

That's one thing I don't like about the game. All mercenaries and highwaymen seem to have daggers and swords which disappear when they die. I think it would be a lot better if they didn't have anything when they were hired and you could loot weapons from their bodies once they die if they have weapons. Outfitting of highwaymen and mercenaries should be part of the economy as opposed to the ethereal swords that they have when they're alive and turn back to ether when they die.

I always augment my puny highwaymen with watchtowers to shoot the people they're robbing.

I noticed a lot of angry people on their official forums about the 'Gold' expansion

The "Gold" is just Guild 2 and the Pirates of the European Seas expansion.

 

[Callaxes]

2 questions:

1. Is it better then 1400?

2. I used to play as a guardsman. Is the combat now bereable or skippable (quick combat option)?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

1. Is it better then 1400?

I never played 1400, but there's a fairly popular mod that adds new things to Guild 2 which makes it similar to 1400. The mod is called Back to the Roots. It's only for Guild 2 with the first expansion, though.

2. I used to play as a guardsman. Is the combat now bereable or skippable (quick combat option)?

Venice adds Mercenary buildings, which I guess would be similar to being a guard. Too bad Venice doesn't work.