Game News Gothic 3 patched to 1.6

[Elwro]

Tags: Gothic III; JoWood Productions

The long-awaited patch for Gothic 3, made by both the game's community members and Spellbound, has finally been released. Grab it from <a href="http://www.patches-scrolls.de/gothic3.php">here</a>. Don't be surprised that a game previously patched to 1.12 should now be patched to 1.6, the new numbering follows the one for the pure community patches. The above link includes also the incremental (or decremental in this case) 1.12 -> 1.6 update, although be warned that some features will only work if you begin a new game. An excerpt from the huge <a href="http://www.iphpbb.com/board/ftopic-17048899nx82467-610.html">changelog</a>:<blockquote>- Frozen NPCs and creatures will unfreeze after a while in any case.
<br>
- Flag "application can handle >2gb addressets".
<br>
- Perk "Orc hunter" works now.
<br>
- New memory manager implemented to improve performance and stability.
<br>
- Error handling in memory pool improved.
<br>
- Fixed memory allocation error when saving.
<br>
- Memory is now freed correctly.
<br>
- Improved memory allocation for memory streams in filesystem/streams.
<br>
- Remaining memory impact during save/load reduced from >100MB in some cases to typically less than 1,5MB - thus increasing game stability significantly.</blockquote>I wonder if a patch fixing the combat system is possible at all...
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</A>

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Looks promising. Can anyone comment on the performance/memory management improvements?

 

[Higher Game]

Good, maybe it will be playable on medium for an 8600 GT now...

 

[Jung]

Tried it on my 8800GT-OC, and it is still pretty jerky. Load time is painful, even with 2G of ram. Still, it's playable I guess.

 

[Saxon1974]

" Frozen NPCs and creatures will unfreeze after a while in any case. "

Is this related to combat? The combat is why I can't play this game.

 

[Hazelnut]

Hey, should have gone for high end DX9 rather than low end DX10. My X1950pro plays it at (almost) full details.

 

[ghostdog]

From what I've read in their forums, it's another game that can't utilize dual cores so whatever graphics card you have you'll be playing it with half of your processor's power if you have a dual core cpu.

 

[MasPingon]

If it doesn't fix a bugged combat then it's shit for me. Is it really so difficult to do something with 5 attacks per sec?

 

[thesheeep]

I started playing again.
All in all, it seems to run a lot more stable now.. and I imagine that it also runs a bit more smooth, though I may be wrong.

Loading times are still a pain, considering how often you die to creatures that do their bugged spam-attacks on you

It really IS fascinating how they fix everything in this game, except the biggest letdown...
Limiting the attacks a creature can do per second would be a HUGE step forward (waiting until the actual attack animation finishes before starting a new attack would be just like.. wow nice!). And it is not THAT hard to accomplish.

I wonder how long it will take this time until I become too frustrated to go on.
At least it will run better this time, decreasing the rate at which my frustration will grow

 

[Morbus]

Hey, should have gone for high end DX9 rather than low end DX10. My X1950pro plays it at (almost) full details.

Full details here, 1280 @ ~35FPS average. 2Gig DDR2@800 5-5-5-15, Core 2 Duo €6550 STILL not overclocked. Same VGA as you, ASUS here.

:EDIT:
As high end a EAX1950Pro may be, it's nothing compared to a 1950XT... It like doubles the framerate.

 

[Kingston]

Frozen NPCs and creatures will unfreeze after a while in any case.
- Flag "application can handle >2gb addressets".
- Perk "Orc hunter" works now.
- New memory manager implemented to improve performance and stability.
- Error handling in memory pool improved.
- Fixed memory allocation error when saving.
- Memory is now freed correctly.
- Improved memory allocation for memory streams in filesystem/streams.
- Remaining memory impact during save/load reduced from >100MB in some cases to typically less than 1,5MB - thus increasing game stability significantly.

Hmm, methinks there's a general theme to these fixes.

 

[thesheeep]

Frozen NPCs and creatures will unfreeze after a while in any case.
- Flag "application can handle >2gb addressets".
- Perk "Orc hunter" works now.
- New memory manager implemented to improve performance and stability.
- Error handling in memory pool improved.
- Fixed memory allocation error when saving.
- Memory is now freed correctly.
- Improved memory allocation for memory streams in filesystem/streams.
- Remaining memory impact during save/load reduced from >100MB in some cases to typically less than 1,5MB - thus increasing game stability significantly.

Hmm, methinks there's a general theme to these fixes.

Hmm... Yeah, that "Perk" seems outstanding.

 

[Elwro]

It's a theme to what I've chosen out from the changelog. I really think memory handling changes are important.

 

[Gnidrologist]

I'm replaying Gothic NoTR now. Boy, does G3 seem bland compared to that masterpiece of a computer game.

 

[Saxon1974]

I started playing again.
All in all, it seems to run a lot more stable now.. and I imagine that it also runs a bit more smooth, though I may be wrong.

Loading times are still a pain, considering how often you die to creatures that do their bugged spam-attacks on you

It really IS fascinating how they fix everything in this game, except the biggest letdown...
Limiting the attacks a creature can do per second would be a HUGE step forward (waiting until the actual attack animation finishes before starting a new attack would be just like.. wow nice!). And it is not THAT hard to accomplish.

I wonder how long it will take this time until I become too frustrated to go on.
At least it will run better this time, decreasing the rate at which my frustration will grow

The part I hate is the stun lock when you hit and enemy where you can just left click any enemy to death makes it unplayable to me. How hard would it be to remove the stun lock when you land a blow?

 

[Morbus]

The part I hate is the stun lock when you hit and enemy where you can just left click any enemy to death makes it unplayable to me. How hard would it be to remove the stun lock when you land a blow?

Do as I do: set the difficulty to easy and forget about the whole thing. Combat sucks? Then make it stupid and dumbed down, and pretend it's not a big part of the game. Well, it kinda isn't if you look at it in a certain way, but pretending doesn't make things better. Gothic 3's combat is just plain awful.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Have any of you guys played as a mage? Does it make combat more interesting/good?

 

[Morbus]

Have any of you guys played as a mage? Does it make combat more interesting/good?

It's real time hack and slash, what do you want it to become? That said, playing a mage is very cool :D It's less boring and overpowering, but it's very cool.

 

[Shannow]

Playing as a mage is ass-kicking on steroids. It made the game much more enjoyable for me simply because it made the bad combat less of an obstacle.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Well, i was just seeking redeeming points that would make me play this decent, but quit uninspired game once more. If playing the mage makes combat bearable at lest, i'm sold.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, i was just seeking redeeming points that would make me play this decent, but quit uninspired game once more. If playing the mage makes combat bearable at lest, i'm sold.

It does, since the only broken combat is melee.
As a mage or archer, you basically walk around like in a 3rd person shooter.

 

[ghostdog]

How exactly do you build up your character in G3? As far as I remember, from the 15 minutes I played it, when you start there is no magic in the world and all you have is melee combat. At what point do you get to use magic? Can you choose classes like in the previous games (merc, paladin, Mage) , or is it just what skills and abilities you choose when you level up? Also, could you create a good mage/archer , or is some melee skill always required for survival?

 

[thesheeep]

It's just the skills.
And you get magic by people who can teach you or at shrines.

Remember, not magic itself is dead. Only RUNE magic.

 

[Shannow]

How exactly do you build up your character in G3? As far as I remember, from the 15 minutes I played it, when you start there is no magic in the world and all you have is melee combat. At what point do you get to use magic? Can you choose classes like in the previous games (merc, paladin, Mage) , or is it just what skills and abilities you choose when you level up? Also, could you create a good mage/archer , or is some melee skill always required for survival?

You probably have to get along without magic for the first 2-4 hours of the game. You level up and buy points in old knowledge. When you have enough points in old knowledge you can buy spells at shrines and certain teachers. Basically you only need fireball. Then you level up some more and buy mana. If you push on into more difficult parts of the storyline you can get manaregen quite early. After that you are pretty much set up. Combat still isn't a complete walk over but it is much easier compared to melee.
There are no "classes". But all they did in the other gothics was restrict certain equipment and spells. Now you can pretty much learn everything.
After you get some xp under your belt there doesn't seem to be any need of melee for survival (although I havn't finished the game yet, and I might be in for surprises). You do need to fight in arenas in melee for certain quests though. Most fights were tougher than if I had skilled for melee but still possible (with the odd reload).

 

[fastpunk]

I see they've improved performance a bit. So I gotta ask:

How would an Athlon XP 2200 with 1GB of RAM and a Radeon X1550 handle this game?

If it's any help, NWN2 works fine on 1024x768 with medium details (except shadows). I heard G3 and NWN2 are engine mates... but I don't know if that's actually relevant.