Gothic Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos mod for Gothic 2

[Tygrende]

They should have enabled you to kill every NPC and display that message if you do, rather than making them immortal.

First they would have to actually adjust who gets the "essential" status. There's no reason for city guard #2048 and random travelling merchant #4364 to be immortal. If they actually displayed that message we would play in a constant state of paranoia.

 

[PanDupa]

Holy shit! Is this for real! It's actually as good as the originals (G1 and G2)?

Not as good as originals, better

 

[JarlFrank]

They should have enabled you to kill every NPC and display that message if you do, rather than making them immortal.

First they would have to actually adjust who gets the "essential" status. There's no reason for city guard #2048 and random travelling merchant #4364 to be immortal. If they actually displayed that message we would play in a constant state of paranoia.

There's no reason for those guys to be immortal in the first place.

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

Spoiler

What i found most retarded regarding the invincibilty is that evil alchemist in the sewers who wants to create a rat army. (It's a guard quest.)
You can decide to kill him on the spot or let him show you his laboratory.
If you decide to go with him he just becomes invincible and that's it.
Kinda lame.

 

[Sloul]

agris you can climb a bit further on the right side, then navigate to jump onto the opening. But it's not easy. There is a bit of loot inside.

 

[JarlFrank]

Spoiler

What i found most retarded regarding the invincibilty is that evil alchemist in the sewers who wants to create a rat army. (It's a guard quest.)
You can decide to kill him on the spot or let him show you his laboratory.
If you decide to go with him he just becomes invincible and that's it.
Kinda lame.

Yeah anyone who can be killed in a quest becomes immortal as soon as you decide to let them live.

 

[Danikas]

Spoiler

What i found most retarded regarding the invincibilty is that evil alchemist in the sewers who wants to create a rat army. (It's a guard quest.)
You can decide to kill him on the spot or let him show you his laboratory.
If you decide to go with him he just becomes invincible and that's it.
Kinda lame.

Nope you can still rat him out to city guard.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Since there is an achievement for it, I think I missed a quest regarding the Valerio Brothers and a will. Is that Merchant as well?
I did complete other quests there regarding a poisoning, the slacker nephew, and the Volker ambush.

 

[Anthedon]

Since there is an achievement for it, I think I missed a quest regarding the Valerio Brothers and a will. Is that Merchant as well?
I did complete other quests there regarding a poisoning, the slacker nephew, and the Volker ambush.

You missed that one, it's not faction specific.

 

[Whisper]

Not as good as originals, better

Mod is better than original game?

 

[Tygrende]

Not as good as originals, better

Mod is better than original game?

To call it a mod is unfair really. Like calling New Vegas a Fallout 3 mod, or Fallout 2 a Fallout 1 mod. It's an entirely separate, full scale game.

 

[Maggot]

Considering they're reusing the engine, all of G2's assets, and just slightly tweaked the gameplay, it's not an entirely separate game, but one built off the original with the convenience of having all the time in the world to finish the project and not having to start from scratch.

 

[agris]

I think you're underselling it some Maggot; on a pure asset basis, there are many modified and some new. The city of Archolos is not just the city from G2, the swamp town is not just from G1. There are new NPC models, new textures, new items, new skins and even new animations.

On a mechanics basis, it is also not a 1:1 with either G1 or G2. Rather, it is a refinement of G2's systems.

It is much more a Gothic 3 to Gothic 2, much in the same vein as Fallout 2 was to Fallout 1.

 

[Maggot]

I don't think I am. I've seen this before with other successful mod teams that made amazing total conversions, but once left to their own devices with their own engine, setting, and assets where they have to start from the ground up, they make shit. Just look at M&B Viking Conquest compared to Beyond Mankind. Not that this is guaranteed to happen, but at it's core it is still Gothic 2 in a new area with new quests and some extra stuff attached (which is why I like it).

 

[notpl]

I don't think I am. I've seen this before with other successful mod teams that made amazing total conversions, but once left to their own devices with their own engine, setting, and assets where they have to start from the ground up, they make shit. Just look at M&B Viking Conquest compared to Beyond Mankind. Not that this is guaranteed to happen, but at it's core it is still Gothic 2 in a new area with new quests and some extra stuff attached (which is why I like it).

I mean, you're right and you're wrong. This "mod" contains more unique assets separate from the game it's based on than most sequels do. Definitely way the fuck more than fallout 2 added to fallout 1, as an example. But you're also right that the team had some kind of advantage working with an existing game. Mixed advantage, to be fair - modding gothic in 2021 is significantly harder than creating a similar game with modern tools, from an engineering standpoint.

Also, as has been stated dozens and dozens of times, the team has never had any intention of making any kind of separate game, or any other gothic mod, so it's a weird thing to bring up. They're done, this is done.

 

[agris]

Maggot would you argue that Fallout 2 was not “an entirely separate game”, as well?

Is no game that reuses assets and engine - while telling a new story with a new map, dialogue, quests and characters - worthy of being described as it’s own distinct entity? To me, this is Gothic 0.

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

Mixed advantage, to be fair - modding gothic in 2021 is significantly harder than creating a similar game with modern tools, from an engineering standpoint.

Doubt. They can reuse like 80% of the assets.
Also while the Gothic script is probably cancer it's nothing like learning real programming.

 

[The Wall]

These guys are better Piranha Bytes then modern Piranha Bytes. If I was publisher at THQ Nordic, I'd give them contract tomorrow to make Gothic 3

 

[Robber Baron]

real programming.

Like coding your own engine real? Because most devs nowadays just mod and assetswap base Unity or UE

 

[The Wall]

Making video games was historically never easier, in every sense, then today. Only reason why we don't see dozens of studios who make games like Archolos is: small balls. Too many weak sperms who rely on publisher for funding, Discord and Steam forums for game design and Unity for programming. Where are crazy, passionate, 20somethin kiddos, those Avellone, Sawyer, Tim Cain and others were in 90s?

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

real programming.

Like coding your own engine real? Because most devs nowadays just mod and assetswap base Unity or UE

Maybe smaller indie studios.
But for example Piranha Bytes or Spiders still have their own engines.

These guys are better Piranha Bytes then modern Piranha Bytes. If I was publisher at THQ Nordic, I'd give them contract tomorrow to make Gothic 3

Apples and Pears. Sure the Archolos team can create an amazing mod for a game from 2002.
But why do you think that they could create a commercially sucessful game?
They have infinite time for modding.
They don't have to live from it.
They don't have to do all the messy stuff Piranha Bytes does. (developing an engine, assets, animations)
Why would THQ Nordic even hire people with no formal skills in game dev? (No programming skills, art design skills, etc.)

 

[Robber Baron]

Why would THQ Nordic even hire people with no formal skills in game dev? (No programming skills, art design skills, etc.)

I would've looked in the direction of the mod's project lead, since building a team and then making that team finish a succefull project takes some organisation skills.

 

[Sjukob]

Why would THQ Nordic even hire people with no formal skills in game dev?

I don't know, it works for every other studio.

 

[agris]

Formal skills, hah. Please, get in line to take out $100k USD in student debt to get a bachelors of art in “game design” or “game writing” from a for-profit liberal arts school in the US.

Those people are just churning out games of comparable quality to Archolos - right?!

 

[JarlFrank]

Finishing a mod with fully featured new landmass, new art assets, new quests, a complete story that makes sense, with good writing, professionally quality (!) Polish voice acting, a solid English translation of the texts, and fixes to several gameplay issues of the original game (like how they made perma-bonuses to stats independent from the learned stat) is way better proof of "formal skills" than any degree.

In fact, it's not just "formal skills" they have, but practical ones.