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Gothic 3 sells half a million

Shannow

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The_Nameless_Prick said:
Gothic 1 is the best of the Gothics. I liked Gothic 3, but I hoped it would raise the platform on the Gothic series, not change it. That being said, I hope PB learns from their mistakes and takes future add-ons/Gothics more seriously. It's too bad, though, I really hoped G3 would be the port in the storm, oh well. i am curious about PB's future plans, though.

Mike Hoge said:
Allen voran steht die Entscheidung, die Welt in jeder Reihenfolge durchspielbar zu machen. Das ist glaub ich das Problem bzw. die Wurzel des Problems gewesen.
They realize that making the game too open was the source of most of the problems.
Blörn Pankratz said:
Trotzdem werden wir das nicht nochmal so machen.
They won't do it again in that way.
Mike said:
Irgendwo stand gerade die Frage "Was wollt ihr daran optisch noch verbessern". Ich würd sagen, gar nichts.
They don't intend to implement any new graphic engines.
Mike said:
Das Problem ist ganz klar. Was wir versucht haben, ist natürlich, mit dem Spiel in die Richtung zu gehen, dass wir es einer größeren Zielgruppe zugänglich machen. Sprich auch Leute, die mit dem ganzen Gothic-Scheiß nichts zu tun hatten, sollten einfach mal das Spiel starten können, ein paar Orks verkloppen können und daran Spaß haben. Das hat viel besser geklappt, als die Community zufriedenzustellen...Unser Plan wär natürlich gewesen, beide Spielergruppen happy zu machen und das hat so nicht ganz funktioniert. Wir werden natürlich, das haben wir ja gerade schon gesagt, wieder ein Stück zurückgehen, um auch die Leute aus der Community wieder happy zu machen. Auch weil wir das selber wollen...Dieser ganze Aufbau, der ist an manchen Stellen gut gewesen und davon hat Gothic 3 definitiv zu wenig und davon wollen wir auch gerne wieder mehr reinnehmen, aber es ist an manchen Stellen auch - so ist zumindest mein Empfinden - an manchen Stellen zu determiniert, zu wenig frei...Also totale Freiheit ist glaub ich der falsche Weg gewesen.
The problem is that they wanted the game to appeal to casual gamers. They are sorry that the game lost appeal for their old fanbase. They wish to appeal to both. Thus they intend to rethink their design and go a little backward to their older games.
@GhanBuriGhan: While this doesn't mean that they'll stop catering to the casual gamer, it does mean that the add-on/gothic4 will be better (from our point of view) than vanilla gothic 3.
 
Self-Ejected

dojoteef

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Messages
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500K is excellent. For example, the NPD report states that Star Wars: Empire at War was the 4th top selling PC game of 2006. At Next Generation, they have another report detailing the top 100 games of 2006 by sales. According to that report, Star Wars: Empire at War sold 420K units.

So if selling 420K units puts a game into the top 4, being beat out only by WOW and The Sims, then I would say 500K is pretty damned excellent. Congrats Pirahna Bytes.
 

GhanBuriGhan

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Shannow said:
@GhanBuriGhan: While this doesn't mean that they'll stop catering to the casual gamer, it does mean that the add-on/gothic4 will be better (from our point of view) than vanilla gothic 3.

Dein Wort in Gottes Gehörgang.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Not "Gotte's"? Finally another German on the internet who doesn't fall prey to the "Deppenapostroph".
 

Shannow

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Jasede said:
Not "Gotte's"? Finally another German on the internet who doesn't fall prey to the "Deppenapostroph".
A guy actually tried to tell me that e.g. "God's" was wrong in english too. What do they teach kids nowadays? Although it's not as bad as "währe" ;)
 

Limorkil

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Jan 19, 2004
Messages
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With games like G3 I tend to wait a while until many of the bugs get sorted out, and it comes down in price. I do not know if there are too many people that do the same, but with RPGs it seems like a solid strategy. I think some games sell longer because the people that buy them do not feel the need to rush out and buy them day one.
 

elander_

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The casual gamer is just a myth/excuse that has already been nullified. Most players are 30 and play at least 24 hours a week and much more than 2-3 hours in a row.

The next myth/excuse is that quality doesn't sell games so games need to be dumbed down for the casual gamer. I would translate this by saying incompetent people can't sell quality games, and we know some people that are very competent in areas like graphics and gameplay design but are a disgrace in usability or coding or production or all of these, and we also know people that are the other side of the coin.

But usability is 1) based on solid statistics made by professionals with professional methods and not just queries made by sales departments posing as statistics and 2) usability is a discipline not only of computer science but universal to other engineering fields. One of it's rules is that correct application of usability principles should not remove features from the original product but simply change the way the user interacts with the product and improve it's usability.

I wouldn't say that Gothic 3 is a better game than it's predecessors but most of its features were maintained and expanded upon while the game actually appears to be easier to play except for obvious bugs. Other people should follow the example and some game review sites should get some instruction when they brag about helping the casual player.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Jasede said:
Not "Gotte's"? Finally another German on the internet who doesn't fall prey to the "Deppenapostroph".

The worst thing is still when I see things like "Zwei Rindersteak's" in the menu at the restaurant. This gives anyone who got a clear mind absolutely severe eye cancer.
 

Elwro

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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
I have one word for you: "Potatoes beaten Polish country-folk style" in a menu of a Polish reastaurant.

For Poles: "Ziemniaki bite po polsku" :D
 

stargelman

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GhanBuriGhan said:
Shannow said:
@GhanBuriGhan: While this doesn't mean that they'll stop catering to the casual gamer, it does mean that the add-on/gothic4 will be better (from our point of view) than vanilla gothic 3.

Dein Wort in Gottes Gehörgang.
Amen, Bruder GhanBuriGhan.
JarlFrank said:
The worst thing is still when I see things like "Zwei Rindersteak's" in the menu at the restaurant. This gives anyone who got a clear mind absolutely severe eye cancer.
I quote agree. Unfortunately, as everywhere else, the number of idiots seems to be on the rise.
 

Kraszu

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GhanBuriGhan said:
However, they also claimed that one of the things that G3 got right was how it became so much more accessible to casual players. Sound familar? (source: german WoG interview).

What exactly was done for casual games, lover difficulty level, combat system?
 

Shannow

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Kraszu said:
GhanBuriGhan said:
However, they also claimed that one of the things that G3 got right was how it became so much more accessible to casual players. Sound familar? (source: german WoG interview).

What exactly was done for casual games, lover difficulty level, combat system?
Yes. Also an open gameworld where you can basically go everywhere, independent from your level. Sound familiar?
 

HardCode

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Shannow said:
Kraszu said:
GhanBuriGhan said:
However, they also claimed that one of the things that G3 got right was how it became so much more accessible to casual players. Sound familar? (source: german WoG interview).

What exactly was done for casual games, lover difficulty level, combat system?
Yes. Also an open gameworld where you can basically go everywhere, independent from your level. Sound familiar?

No, it doesn't sound familiar. Try to go some places in G3 at a low level and see what happens. Don't try to taint G3 with a reference to that FPS with swords.
 

suibhne

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Shannow said:
Kraszu said:
What exactly was done for casual games, lover difficulty level, combat system?
Yes. Also an open gameworld where you can basically go everywhere, independent from your level. Sound familiar?

Er...there's nothing like that in G3 at all. Have you actually tried, you know, playing it? Most of the world is basically non-levelled. For an extreme example, try heading to Nordmar right out of the gate and let me know how it works out for you.

The difficulty level in G3 is no lower than in G2 right out of the gate. The primary difference is that the skills are balanced differently and you can increase in power very quickly, but this isn't all that different from vanilla G2. It is, however, very different from G2 with NotR, which totally rebalanced G2 and made it much harder.
 

Shannow

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HardCode said:
Shannow said:
Kraszu said:
GhanBuriGhan said:
However, they also claimed that one of the things that G3 got right was how it became so much more accessible to casual players. Sound familar? (source: german WoG interview).

What exactly was done for casual games, lover difficulty level, combat system?
Yes. Also an open gameworld where you can basically go everywhere, independent from your level. Sound familiar?

No, it doesn't sound familiar. Try to go some places in G3 at a low level and see what happens. Don't try to taint G3 with a reference to that FPS with swords.
I haven't played the game yet, but:

Björn Pankratz said:
Und jetzt ist es so, dass du anfangen kannst, in der Wüste zu spielen mit einem Level 1 Charakter und du kannst es spielen.
He says, you can basically play in the desert with a lvl 1 character. As i understood it, the desert is one of the more difficult areas?
The interview also mentions level scaling. (Albeit better implemented than in O.)
From your "reactions" i guess it plays differently than Oblivion ;)
 

suibhne

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Shannow said:
He says, you can basically play in the desert with a lvl 1 character. As i understood it, the desert is one of the more difficult areas?
The interview also mentions level scaling. (Albeit better implemented than in O.)
From your "reactions" i guess it plays differently than Oblivion ;)

There seems to be some scaling, but it's not very noticeable. E.g., you don't visit an area at low levels, find low-level critters, then return at a high level and find high-level critters. You also don't encounter low-level Orcs and then high-level Orcs, or low-level Shadowbeasts and then high-level Shadowbeasts. Liberating the smelter is the same at low-level or high-level. Etc., etc.

Note that long-time players of the Gothic series might see more evidence of level-scaling than actually exists, because you start off much stronger in G3 than in previous installments. It's much easier to take down a Shadowbeast early on in G3, for example, and I found this disappointing - but the Shadowbeasts don't get harder as you level, so they're not levelled. Because of the higher starting power level, G3 throws some Gothic "lore" out of whack - e.g. wolves are more problematic than Shadowbeasts, which is ten kinds of crazy. But that doesn't mean the Shadowbeasts are actually levelled down to you; starting at 100 Strength is pretty high.

I've read there's some levelling for NPCs, but I honestly didn't notice any.

As for the desert, it's actually easier in many ways than the main part of the island (because the desert is more sparsely populated - it's generally easier to avoid enemies), while Nordmar is by far the toughest area. You could pretty easily take a low-level character to the desert. The difference between G3 and Oblivion, tho, is that doing so in G3 means avoiding combat rather than fighting hordes of level 1 Goblins. :lol:

I took a low-to-mid-level character into Nordmar, not knowing what I was getting into, and I was forced to avoid most fights through stealth or just running like hell. Going back now, things are easier, but the fights haven't levelled up to me - just as they weren't levelled down in the first place.
 

Elwro

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Some areas of the desert (at least the initial ones) are definitely easy. Some parts of the middle area of Myrtana are waay more difficult, and Nordmar would be straight impossible for a 1st level char.
 

neuromantik

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It's nice to know that even if I'm not really a one in a million guy, I am at least a one in five hundred thousand guy.
 

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