Game News Gothic 4: Genesis for PS3, XBOX 360, and PC

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Gothic 4: Arcania

Gothic 4 for consoles, brought to you by technological progress, greed, and a fucked up publishing system. <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28002>Here is a link</a>:
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<blockquote>JoWooD Productions Software AG is proud to present Spellbound Entertainment AG as the official developing team for Gothic 4.
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One of the most convincing and central arguments for choosing Spellbound, was the scope of RPG experience brought in by Spellbound team member Jochen Hamma, who was involved in creating the legendary „Nordland Trilogy“ based upon the Pen & Paper RPG „Das Schwarze Auge“.
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Furthermore, Spellbound has created own tools for achieving exceptional standards in Quality and Quality Assurance. Both parties are confident to produce a game of highest quality, and Spellbound intends to focus on the traditional strengths of the brand, setting new standards in the original, authentic Gothic essentials.
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At the Games Convention 2007 in Leipzig, Mr. Jochen Hamma, Spellbounds Executive Producer, is showing the first facts and plans to curious fans and special interest media, outlining which strengths are essentially to be intensified, and which weaknesses are tagged for elimination.
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Gothic 4 is being developed for PC and Current Gen console systems, a release date will be announced in the coming weeks.
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The Spellbound Entertainment AG is one of the leading German Game developers. The company based in Kehl has been responsible for the creation of more than 20 games. Spellbound got known internationally by its Desperados and Airline Tycoon series that sold worldwide with great success.</blockquote>It's hard to find a better developer to set new standards in the "Gothic essentials", whatever they may be, than a fabled developer of Airline Tycoon.
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Desperados 2 was a highly acclaimed game with a 65% meta score. Airline Tycoon set new standards, recognized by a 70% meta score. The Airline Tycoon sequel perfected these standards, getting a 71% meta score. It's clear that the good times for the Gothic series are about to roll.
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[Shannow]

Hey, at least "Spellbound team member Jochen Hamma, who was involved in creating the legendary „Nordland Trilogy“(Realms of Arkania)". Can somebody specify what "involved" means?
He made coffee for the devs,
He had an affair with one of the devs,
He was lead designer and responsable for every feature that is liked by the codex?

 

[Vault Dweller]

He was one of the producers. The real guy in charge was Guido Henkel, who later ended up working on Jagged Alliance and Planescape: Torment.

 

[MountainWest]

/RoA credits/ Jochen Hamma - Battle Sceneries, Executive Producer

 

[Oarfish]

Furthermore, Spellbound has created own tools for achieving exceptional standards in Quality and Quality Assurance.

Good to have that there in the announcement. Anyone would think shipping broken software had been a recurring problem for PB.

And cross platform too, good. There was no good reason for any of the Gothics to be PC only.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

To be fair, Desperados was a nicely done Commandos clone, as was part 2. The low scores are somewhat unjustified.

Doesn't change much though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

To be fair, Desperados was a nicely done Commandos clone, as was part 2. The low scores are somewhat unjustified.

From what I've heard the game somewhat sucked, so...

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Which one? 1 or 2? There was some critism regarding 2, but part one was a good game for anyone who likes this Commandos type of game.
If you're information is solely based on metascore, you could just aswell say that their past games perfectly fit Gothic 3's metascore and thus they're the ideal company to make it.

Like I said though, its not really relevant. Desperados was anything, but not an RPG and all they have experience with so far are low-budget, low-value titles. So yes, they'll propably suck as devs for G4.

 

[obediah]

To be fair, Desperados was a nicely done Commandos clone, as was part 2. The low scores are somewhat unjustified.

From what I've heard the game somewhat sucked, so...

From what I've heard they are nicely done Commando clones that somewhat sucked, so...

UPDATE!: I've also hear that while there is some criticism regarding part two, part one was a good game for anyone who likes this Commandos type of game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Which one? 1 or 2? There was some critism regarding 2, but part one was a good game for anyone who likes this Commandos type of game.
If you're information is solely based on metascore, you could just aswell say that their past games perfectly fit Gothic 3's metascore and thus they're the ideal company to make it.

Gothic 3? Perhaps. Although the score reflected mostly the performance issues. Previous Gothic games meta scores are:

Gothic 1 - 82%
Gothic 2 - 79%
G2 exp - 95%

Anyway, I've heard that the first Desperados was ok, but the second sucked. I played neither, so if you say that they are decent games, I'll take your word for it.

 

[kingcomrade]

this just in, Sonic Team to develop Planescape: The Torment Wars Kart Racing

 

[Lumpy]

Gothic is pretty much generic fantasy, who cares what happens to the franchise? PB lives, so it's all good.
Really, who gives a fuck about Myrthana, Khorinis and all that shit? The first Gothic had an original premise (which wasn't used well though), but the rest could be easily replicated in another setting.

 

[Texas Red]

this just in, Sonic Team to develop Planescape: The Torment Wars Kart Racing

This just in, Bioware team to develop a new Sonic game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Gothic is pretty much generic fantasy, who cares what happens to the franchise? PB lives, so it's all good.

The question of whether or not PB can survive without its recognizable Gothic brand is yet to be answered. Developing new brands is a very risky business.

 

[Morgoth]

Gothic is pretty much generic fantasy, who cares what happens to the franchise? PB lives, so it's all good.

The question of whether or not PB can survive without its recognizable Gothic brand is yet to be answered. Developing new brands is a very risky business.

Most definitely. They don't need a 10+ Billion budget to make their games, they're a small team of ~20 people or so. Besides, PB has a huge fanbase in Germany, and that alone already secures the revenues. If the PB logo is on the box, the Gothic fanboys will buy it immediately. In Germany, at least.

 

[Vault Dweller]

From German PC Games:

- Graphics and sound: Spellbound want to use Gothic 3 as a benchmark. They want to achieve a technically competitive product with audio (including voice-overs) and visuals at least as good as Gothic 3.

- Story and gameworld: They want to stick with the theme in the previous games, i.e. a European setting, gruffy characters, and they want to return to dividing up the story in chapters.

- RPG elements: The skill system is supposed to be greatly improved compared to Gothic 3.

- Interface: Same as PB did for Gothic 3. They want to further improve the accessibility for people new to the series while offering fans of the original games options to achieve maximum "backwards compatibility".

- Community: They (and JoWooD) are planning on active community support throughout the entire dev cycle. The plans include regular community Q&As and a higher degree of forums activity. The feedback is supposed to have a great amount of influence on the game design (yeah, right ). They also want to invite members from the community in regular intervals so they can test-play the game. A first community meeting of that kind could be happening in mid 2008.

- Motivated team: Hamma said that in his ~20 years of working in game development, he's never had such a motivated team. They are certain that they will achieve a quality result.

- Release date and platforms: Release date is unknown. Plans are to port the game to X360 and PS3. They already got the dev kits for consoles. The PC version will be released first.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

R.I.P.

Gothic

2001-2006

 

[Lumpy]

they want to return to dividing up the story in chapters.

I think it's pretty clear what this means.

 

[Dogar]

That the game will have a structured narrative, like the first 2 Gothic games? I'm not sure what you mean.

 

[Monolith]

"...for PS3, XBOX 360". That's all I need to know for now.

 

[MountainWest]

Can't say I'm up-to-date on consoles, but are they equipped, hardware-wise, to handle a big world without loading zones? I enjoy the flowing (occasionally stuttering) world of Gothic.

 

[Lumpy]

That the game will have a structured narrative, like the first 2 Gothic games? I'm not sure what you mean.

A linear one. I couldn't see Fallout working with Chapters, for example.

 

[tardtastic]

When I first read the title of this newspost, my brain get all confused up and somehow mixed up the order of the words and concepts relating to each word, so that I thought Gothic 3 would be released for the Genesis. and i was all excited because the last console i bought was a 32X but then i read it again and my hopes were smashed to pieces

 

[Oarfish]

are they equipped, hardware-wise, to handle a big world without loading zones

Oblivion.. which had some pretty hideous popup issues. I'm guessing that you have to do some pretty serious thinking about how you lay out the DVD so you can serially read in data for surrounding zones. I don't think the current gen consoles can get away with assuming a hard drive, and the seek time on DVDs is poor.

 

[Hazelnut]

I agree with Lumpy, in that I couldn't care less about the Gothic universe. What interests me is the game mechanics and play. Good luck PB.