Why is Gothic series so culty?

[Cat Headed Eagle]

We need to redouble our gatekeeping efforts, men! The new generation is embracing our classics!



I'm not pointing fingers, but they're already within our midst!

She's part polish, though, so it's okay.

 

[curds]

We are taught that settling down and abandoning nomadic life was an essential step our Civ, but actually the Mongols dominated everyone of the settled people they could get their hands on precisely because they were nomads and thus were able to maintain the largest and best trained cavalry in the world.

Everything is backwards.

And where are the Mongols now?

 

[Berengar]

We are taught that settling down and abandoning nomadic life was an essential step our Civ, but actually the Mongols dominated everyone of the settled people they could get their hands on precisely because they were nomads and thus were able to maintain the largest and best trained cavalry in the world.

Everything is backwards.

And where are the Mongols now?

Mongolia?

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

We are taught that settling down and abandoning nomadic life was an essential step our Civ, but actually the Mongols dominated everyone of the settled people they could get their hands on precisely because they were nomads and thus were able to maintain the largest and best trained cavalry in the world.

Everything is backwards.

And where are the Mongols now?

Overdosed on nomadism. Serves them right, fucking vagabonds.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[toro]

We need to redouble our gatekeeping efforts, men! The new generation is embracing our classics!



I'm not pointing fingers, but they're already within our midst!

She's part polish, though, so it's okay.

She!?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

We need to redouble our gatekeeping efforts, men! The new generation is embracing our classics!



I'm not pointing fingers, but they're already within our midst!

She's part polish, though, so it's okay.

She!?

Believe it or not, biological women still exist out there.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Anyone remember if you get XP again when you KO NPC in Chapter 1 and then do it again in further chapters?
edit aight seems like not

 

[cvv]

Well, I suppose it depends on what you like. I don't think many games have surpassed them in terms of atmosphere, but I'd argue there might be a few that are bigger and better overall. If writing and characters are your thing, then I'd say The Witcher 3. If you're only about combat and exploration, then Elden Ring. Those games obviously have a huge advantage though in being many years newer.

No RPG has surpassed Gothic in this aspect yet and I'm not sure if there ever will be one.

I'm a hardcore fan of Gothic bc it was all about immersion and realism in a tough world where you're a nobody and the world doesn't give a shit about you.

It was such a stark contrast to gaudy, flamboyant, overstylized jRPGs or Kwan awesome button power fantasies.

But Gothic WAS surpassed by Kingdom Come five years ago. KCD is often presented as an Oblivion spiritual successor but it's much more of a Gothic's child. It pushes the same buttons in terms of immersion and the setting (an inept nobody in a tough world) but it's almost 20 years younger so it also looks the part, NPC' schedules and behaviour is light years more sophisticated and everything feels even more tactile and handcrafted.

Gothics, KCD and the Witchers are about the only modern western RPGs that give you the impression they were made by talented, inteligent, mature, adult RPG afficionados for people of the same ilk. All the other RPGs, although some of them are fun, feel like they were made by-and-for either idiots or children. Or both.

 

[Sykar]

Mature is when you can lay anything:

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

that female shrek might want to have that scoliosis checked

 

[Dadd]

She's just flexible

 

[samuraigaiden]

If your woman don't bend like that... she's probably alive.

 

[Sykar]

She can bend like a tree!

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Gothics, KCD and the Witchers are about the only modern western RPGs that give you the impression they were made by talented, inteligent, mature, adult RPG afficionados for people of the same ilk.

Gothics, KCD and The Witcher*

 

[Ryan muller]

nah, witcher 1 is shit

really cannot grasp any kind of mentality to justify it being better than 2 or 3 aside from maybe its alchemy system which is just very few to try to compare to everything witcher 3 did right.

 

[sosmoflux]

Witcher 1 had fantastic vibes and was a great game. You're shit.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

nah, witcher 1 is shit

really cannot grasp any kind of mentality to justify it being better than 2 or 3 aside from maybe its alchemy system which is just very few to try to compare to everything witcher 3 did right.

I prefer something janky but charming to corporate blandness.

Music: Witcher 1 basically had the medieval slavic vibe down perfectly. Not saying W3 didn't have good music, I quite enjoyed it (apart from the one that spams whenever you enter combat, got jarring after the 500th time), but W1 just has it locked down for how it fits the world.

Tone & Atmosphere: Partly due do the music, but the setup of Vizima outskirts, Slums, Trade Quarter, Murky Waters, etc. sets the tone perfectly of just different classes of humans. Not majestic, just dirty humans (and elves and dwarfs). Yes, there's the typical villager in W3, but it still feels like a fairytale to me, and that's DESPITE the battlefields of dead soldiers, etc. Hub worlds also worked better than open world.

Story: Overall, from a technical point of view, W1 has the best written plot & ending. You can argue "writing" is better in the others, and while W1 had B-movie charm to it, W2 and W3 were too bland to make me believe its "better" simply due to production value. W2 I can respect, but not W3.

Either way, for every fuck up Witcher 1 had, I can give one in the other games. The problem is, W1 fuckups are funny/charming, W3 fuckups include awkward exposition that ruins the scene.

I mean, I can keep going and going but it's simpler to just name the things W3 did better (not going into combat, beating a dead horse with that convo already). Witcher 3 did stay faithful to Witcher 1 designs (apart from Geralt, which I didn't like), but Kaer Mohren and other places. Additionally, Hearts of Stone was the best part of all 3 Witcher games, which is a shame they immediately fucked it with Blood & Wine. I don't even hate this game, but I can rarely praise it for things I believe they did well because of the dickriding from everyone.

Gothic (I only played the first) was a game I thought was gonna be in my all time favourites, but the second I got derailed into the generic save the world mission is when it just became "good" to me. But that's still better than Witcher 3, because I never got to feel more than "meh" until HOS, which was them immediately shut down by Blood & Wine.

TL;DR Witcher 1, though Eurojank, is charming and has important aspects that are the best in the trilogy. Witcher 3 is bland and corporate, but dragging out the same bland NPCs and dialogue in a pretty open world is enough to trick the masses.

 

[Ryan muller]

nah, witcher 1 is shit

really cannot grasp any kind of mentality to justify it being better than 2 or 3 aside from maybe its alchemy system which is just very few to try to compare to everything witcher 3 did right.

I prefer something janky but charming to corporate blandness.

Music: Witcher 1 basically had the medieval slavic vibe down perfectly. Not saying W3 didn't have good music, I quite enjoyed it (apart from the one that spams whenever you enter combat, got jarring after the 500th time), but W1 just has it locked down for how it fits the world.

Tone & Atmosphere: Partly due do the music, but the setup of Vizima outskirts, Slums, Trade Quarter, Murky Waters, etc. sets the tone perfectly of just different classes of humans. Not majestic, just dirty humans (and elves and dwarfs). Yes, there's the typical villager in W3, but it still feels like a fairytale to me, and that's DESPITE the battlefields of dead soldiers, etc. Hub worlds also worked better than open world.

Story: Overall, from a technical point of view, W1 has the best written plot & ending. You can argue "writing" is better in the others, and while W1 had B-movie charm to it, W2 and W3 were too bland to make me believe its "better" simply due to production value. W2 I can respect, but not W3.

Either way, for every fuck up Witcher 1 had, I can give one in the other games. The problem is, W1 fuckups are funny/charming, W3 fuckups include awkward exposition that ruins the scene.

I mean, I can keep going and going but it's simpler to just name the things W3 did better (not going into combat, beating a dead horse with that convo already). Witcher 3 did stay faithful to Witcher 1 designs (apart from Geralt, which I didn't like), but Kaer Mohren and other places. Additionally, Hearts of Stone was the best part of all 3 Witcher games, which is a shame they immediately fucked it with Blood & Wine. I don't even hate this game, but I can rarely praise it for things I believe they did well because of the dickriding from everyone.

Gothic (I only played the first) was a game I thought was gonna be in my all time favourites, but the second I got derailed into the generic save the world mission is when it just became "good" to me. But that's still better than Witcher 3, because I never got to feel more than "meh" until HOS, which was them immediately shut down by Blood & Wine.

TL;DR Witcher 1, though Eurojank, is charming and has important aspects that are the best in the trilogy. Witcher 3 is bland and corporate, but dragging out the same bland NPCs and dialogue in a pretty open world is enough to trick the masses.

bruh. this is way too vague

witcher 1 literally introduces one of the most WTF plot holes in the whole franchise as something natural and ok for the story in the form of alvin, which makes absolutely no sense seeing as ciri is literally the last heir of the elden blood and still this boy exists for no reason and the entire plot surrounding him is terrible

combat is the absolute worst of the entire series and started the thrend of making any weapons that arent swords useless (as they wouldnt have the witcher moveset)

quest design is extremely subpar for the most part

and the dialogue quality is pretty crap

i cant for the living hell see witcher 1 as less bland than witcher 3 when witcher 3 has actual characters. bruh, compare shani in the witcher 1 to shani in witcher 3 SHE HAS LITERALLY NO SOUL, that character speaks like a wall, it makes no sense to her to be so fascinated with geralt after 1 freaking night of sex and it feels like a freaking walking dead episode

same to triss. wtf, she basically used geralt while being in the whole council of wizards thing and it feels way too creppy that she basically want to rebuild the same relationship geralt had with yen and ciri using alvin as her tool.

its just weird, souless, buggy and janky as hell
cant see, cant understand and it feels like somewhat of a "dont accepting AAA design" mentality

 

[sosmoflux]

This guy watches one youtube video on a game he didn't play and bases his entire worldview around it, damn. Pure Redditcore.

 

[Ryan muller]

This guy watches one youtube video on a game he didn't play and bases his entire worldview around it, damn. Pure Redditcore.

or i actually played the game and saw it was shit before replicating codex's hivemind.

c'mon atleast troll better

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

witcher 1 literally introduces one of the most WTF plot holes in the whole franchise as something natural and ok for the story in the form of alvin, which makes absolutely no sense seeing as ciri is literally the last heir of the elden blood and still this boy exists for no reason and the entire plot surrounding him is terrible

I don't care about any of the shit you book lovers seethe about. Either way, Alvin was a much better character than Siri both in how well they're integrated into the game's story and in their likeableness. Alvin is an annoying little brat too, but he's a kid. Ciri is the worst character in all 3 games. Both games also try to do the Geralt as a father/mentor route, and the Alvin one works so much better.

Alvin is a kid who has no one, no one looks for him when he's in trouble unless he's useful for something, with raw, unfiltered power. His curiousities change based on who you gave him to (Shani vs. Triss). He's found playing with a dog when Shani raises him vs. looking through a magical site and getting caught with a demon if he was with Triss. That's already more (logical) C&C than anything to do with Ciri. Then we have his worldview which is shaped based on what you say to him about playing a racist game towards Elves, your response to him wanting to become a witcher, and what you tell him during the Scoiatel attack when he's scared and distressed. At the end, he doesn't even want to kill you, he's literally trying his best to have Geralt by his side to save the world (Amazing twist about Jacque being Alvin, much better story than W3). He wants the man who raised him, who shaped his views.

Contrast all of that to Ciri relationship. It shoved it down my throat when I didn't give a fuck, while the only C&C is some arbitrary number of how many dialogue choices you made with her that are "protecting" vs "let her do what she wants". How any of that correlates to her decisions at the end (Become Witcher, Empress, etc.) I have no idea. Since you called my first post "vague", maybe you can try not being vague yourself. I don't know why I have to explain the intricaces of the story to you.

combat is the absolute worst of the entire series and started the thrend of making any weapons that arent swords useless (as they wouldnt have the witcher moveset)

Has the best animations of the trilogy, and who gives a fuck about other weapons? It's not like they could be properly utilized in the others anyways.

Combat isn't great, its innoffensive. W2 combat is terrible, random animations and getting hit despite your player model being out of the way (because it wasnt pure action combat yet). W3 got the pure action combat, which was essentially just rolling around like a madman against regular bandits who are somehow stronger than a massive monster due to level scaling. Boring.

quest design is extremely subpar for the most part

This applies to all the Witcher games. However, W1 masterfully weaves the side quests into the main story like none other. Nothing is useless in W1. W2 did some interesting things, experimented, which was nice but made it disconnected at many points. W3 has none of that. It's not groundbreaking or innovative, its the same exact thing all the time. There's no strategy or thought. You mash a button and look at red tracks on the ground, which is basically just a quest trail marker for your next boring fight. JFL you think that consitutes good quest design.

Bloody Baron was good, Crones was pretty good, Novigrad whole quest chains were terrible, etc. Again, for someone who says I'm "vague", you sure give no specifics yourself.

and the dialogue quality is pretty crap

i cant for the living hell see witcher 1 as less bland than witcher 3 when witcher 3 has actual characters. bruh, compare shani in the witcher 1 to shani in witcher 3 SHE HAS LITERALLY NO SOUL, that character speaks like a wall, it makes no sense to her to be so fascinated with geralt after 1 freaking night of sex and it feels like a freaking walking dead episode

same to triss. wtf, she basically used geralt while being in the whole council of wizards thing and it feels way too creppy that she basically want to rebuild the same relationship geralt had with yen and ciri using alvin as her tool.

"Council of Wizards"

Actually, after getting to this part I realized I wasted my time even trying with you. You're actually a fucking retard, if you want to suck off W3 you can do it on reddit. I know there's many people who are more than happy to call me out on liking Witcher 1, but are atleast literate enough to make it a challenge to defend lmao

I also don't subscribe to the "Triss used/raped Geralt" thing, that's something they purposefully put into the later games to break the relationship with Triss specifically because they were bringing Yen into the mix randomly.

Also, your one example of Shani means nothing. Shani was a DLC character, in the shortest DLC, which I also said was the best part of the entire trilogy.

Also, "no characters".
Thaler, Kalkstein, Abigail, Adam, Adda, Berengar, Carmen, Vincent etc....
Do you need me to keep going or you just gonna admit you're a retard?

 

[Wunderbar]

quest design is extremely subpar for the most part

Vyzima Confidential is more intricately designed than the entirety of W2 and W3.

 

[Ryan muller]

I don't care about any of the shit you book lovers seethe about. Either way, Alvin was a much better character than Siri both in how well they're integrated into the game's story and in their likeableness. Alvin is an annoying little brat too, but he's a kid. Ciri is the worst character in all 3 games. Both games also try to do the Geralt as a father/mentor route, and the Alvin one works so much better.

Has the best animations of the trilogy, and who gives a fuck about other weapons? It's not like they could be properly utilized in the others anyways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oYA7-6rARo

Combat isn't great, its innoffensive. W2 combat is terrible, random animations and getting hit despite your player model being out of the way (because it wasnt pure action combat yet). W3 got the pure action combat, which was essentially just rolling around like a madman against regular bandits who are somehow stronger than a massive monster due to level scaling. Boring.

level scaling is off by default since the release of the game. it didnt even released with level scalling options. did you played the game? also, dont paint tw1 as tactical combat. this is disgusting.

This applies to all the Witcher games. However, W1 masterfully weaves the side quests into the main story like none other. Nothing is useless in W1. W2 did some interesting things, experimented, which was nice but made it disconnected at many points. W3 has none of that. It's not groundbreaking or innovative, its the same exact thing all the time. There's no strategy or thought. You mash a button and look at red tracks on the ground, which is basically just a quest trail marker for your next boring fight. JFL you think that consitutes good quest design.

Bloody Baron was good, Crones was pretty good, Novigrad whole quest chains were terrible, etc. Again, for someone who says I'm "vague", you sure give no specifics yourself.

so quests are completely intertwined with you are already doing right? all right, i call how much depth shit like Hot potato or the skull collecting side quest had, truly fantastic. no, in reality theres a shitton of fetch quests and even the supposedly good ones are terrible since they are all about backtracking throught big locations, going back and forth to deliver on items or see different characters in specific places

the problem? not only its a hell of a lot more boring than it should be, but you can fail quests depending on conditions you didnt attend to but you also can do it by sequence breaking something, the worst part? said quests still get tracked on by the terrible quest tracker in the game, which will show it up as if it wasnt failed, which is stupid and make the journal terrible, even worse than morrowind's pre tribunal (which is saying something)

in particular, Raymond's crypt quest is notorious for being terrible due to how badly the quest tracker works and how buggy the thing is.

Witcher 3 quests are in another level due to how many of them usually have large stories with quite lot of CnC and you can actually get invested at them. even freaking witcher contracts have some good twists at it, not to count some side quests influencing the outcome of things in the main narrative such as who lives and who dies or if you will get to know X character in first place.


a game without fetch quests where all quests are directly tied together to the narrative and has extremely well designed quests doesnt exist. closest to it is fallout 1, which has 1 fetch quest in the whole game. what can i say however is that by nature, tw3 quests are objectively better than the badly designed quests in tw1.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

also, dont paint tw1 as tactical combat. this is disgusting.

illiterate dumbfuck.

the problem? not only its a hell of a lot more boring than it should be, but you can fail quests depending on conditions you didnt attend to but you also can do it by sequence breaking something, the worst part? said quests still get tracked on by the terrible quest tracker in the game, which will show it up as if it wasnt failed, which is stupid and make the journal terrible, even worse than morrowind's pre tribunal (which is saying something)

skill issue, git gud.

you dont need a journal tracker at all in that game, but I now understand why you think w3 is such a revelation.

Witcher 3 levels are in another level due to how many of them usually have large stories with quite lot of CnC and you can actually get invested at them. even freaking witcher contracts have some good twists at it, not to count some side quests influencing the outcome of things in the main narrative such as who lives and who dies or if you will get to know X character in first place.

It's like reading a reddit comment. You were dropped on the head as a baby, that's the only way you can claim CnC in Witcher 3.

level scaling is off by default since the release of the game. it didnt even released with level scalling options. did you played the game?

Yes, every single side quest and every map marker. I saw as much of that game as possible. Level scaling exists, which it shouldn't at all, ON TOP OF THE FACT there's level 30+ lowly bandits sitting around stronger than huge monsters. My point stands.


Everything you say is garbage, not even worth going into detail about it.

 

[Maxie]

nah, witcher 1 is shit

really cannot grasp any kind of mentality to justify it being better than 2 or 3 aside from maybe its alchemy system which is just very few to try to compare to everything witcher 3 did right.

you will delete this post and donate to some polish charity