Game News Gothic 3 demo is coming on Nov 10

[Claw]

Why you make stupid post?

 

[SlavemasterT]

My biggest gripe about the demo: they mention Bethesda in the closing ad.

 

[Crichton]

I wasn't sure about paying full tariff for G3 or waiting until it hit ~$30 since I already shelled out $40 for NWN2, so I downloaded the demo.

Looks good, not too much stuttering, still probably worse overall from a graphix/performance standpoint than oblivion, but it's not like I'm going to reinstall OB to make a careful comparison.

Controls are mediocre which is a huge improvement over the wretched controls from G1/G2. Still a damn lot of hitpoint bloat, but combat feels better overall. There are some serious problems with NPC AI though; they just can't or won't block so it's easy to just swing until they're dead. (I've only fought they initial orcs and a few bandits, but they were really slow and unresponsive).

The animal combat does seem a little odd. Bloodflies look like they weigh 5 lbs but they can knock you down like they're Ray Lewis's bastard children. I got to watch 3 bandits fight a boar and it was an experience.

They quickly surrounded the beast (~250 lbs with spines like something from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they sure didn't make them like that when I lived in krautland). But it quickly chained some attacks against "Light bandit" #1 and fucked him up (and he slid back like he was on a disco floor. ITS ELECTRIC!). The next "light bandit" took a little longer, but he didn't have what it took either, however by this time, the boar's health was ~60%).

What followed was and EPIC CONTEST between the bandit leader, no mere light bandit, but a full "Bandit", slicing back and forth. He was losing on the exchange, but his opponent was badly wounded, who would prevail? Who!?! But then the boar chained a few "gruntamatic" attacks together and the bandit leader was down to ~20% health.

BUT WAIT, suddenly I heard barking, I thought it was a sound glitch, but it was the bandit leader's faithful friend THE WOLF, coming to rescue him. Together they hacked and bit at the boar....

But it still killed the 3rd bandit!!!!!!

Only to be eaten by the wolf.

It's got problems, but I'm going right back to playing after I finish this post and I'm picking it up on tuesday.

 

[Monica21]

I only have 1 Gig... guess that leaves me out.

I've got 1GB and the demo is running just fine. I'm getting some performance hits during combat, but nothing more than I would expect.

The demo is huge, just over a gig, and took awhile to download but I'm glad I did. I was worried about how the game would run, but I'm pretty pleased using the default settings.

So far, the game is a lot of what I've read on this forum. The environment is gritty and realistic, not unnaturally pretty like Oblivion. Combat is a little strange, so far I'm just swinging a sword without knowing if I've hit anything. I don't remember hearing any kind of thwacking sound, and I have to look at the enemy health meter to know if I'm landing any blows. I successfully killed the boars without having to reload (and unless I'm horribly directionally challenged, the demo told me to go east to find the boars when they're actually west), cleared out a cave, found some healing plants so the Fire Mage could teach me alchemy, and I'm on my way to find the rebel leader whose name I can't be told.

I haven't read too much about it for fear of spoilers, but I did notice faction reputation points for Rebels, Orcs, etc. Is it possible to join the Orcs?

 

[The Internets]

As a first time player to the series I'm very impressed. A few random impressions--

Instead of the forced stupidity of Oblivions "conversations", there's simply background 'chatter'. You feel like your catching part of a really important conversation, without having to actually hear one. It gets annoying after a while, but anythings better than:
1-"Hi"
2-"Indeed"
1-"You too"
2-"Indeed"

As one character walked past me I left clicked on him. "I'm going to rest" he said, and he did just that.

I walked into a cave and a giant creature stormed out. I ran out as quick as I could because I knew that battle would have ended badly. I never got that sense of urgency from Oblivion.

For all of the hype, Radiant AI turned out to be one of the worst AI experiments in the history of gaming. Characters had three states: staring at walls, drinking from one glass repeatedly, and walking around aimlessly. Gothic's characters actually feel like their going about their lives. Cutting wood, roasting a meal at the fire, it just feels more alive.

Not all creatures want to kill you. Turtles, hares, and deer are harmless, and most enemies only attack if you get too close. In Oblivion it felt as if you had to keep a football fields worth of distance to avoid a fight.

Well I'll be damned, the plants actually disappear when I harvest them.

Shorelines and cliffs. Sure Oblivion looks nice, but the actual landscape is boring, like a rounded ball of putty. Gothic actually has cliffs and beaches.

Hell yeah I just got smoked, but instead of cutting to some lame loading screen I'm just laying here, dead. It's like I'm in total control. I love it.

Some minor things that aren't so great:

Lens flair: Seriously, was it brings your kids to work day when they pounded that thing out? Why even keep it in?

St-st-studering: it's not terrible, but a little more smoothness would be nice.

Combat isn't particularly fun, but it feels more challenging than Oblivion, and it isn't as frustrating with the decent 3rd person view.

Anyway, this game already puts Oblivion to shame.

EDIT: Nice. Hard crash BIOS. Still better than Oblivion I say.

 

[WittyName]

I only have 1 Gig... guess that leaves me out.

I've got 1GB and the demo is running just fine. I'm getting some performance hits during combat, but nothing more than I would expect.

The demo is huge, just over a gig, and took awhile to download but I'm glad I did. I was worried about how the game would run, but I'm pretty pleased using the default settings.

Thanks. I'll give it a shot then. The large size of the file was what was keeping me from downloading it to test myself.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Sorry folks, any demo larger than 300 MB and the game sucks.

It's a rule.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I haven't read too much about it for fear of spoilers, but I did notice faction reputation points for Rebels, Orcs, etc. Is it possible to join the Orcs?

Yes.

 

[aries202]

HI

@ Monica

One of Gothic's 3 sellling points, imo, was and is that the Orcs no longer are stupid, brutal beasts. They apparently have intelligence, and you may or may not join the Orcs. Or at least join forces with the Orcs - which appararently have a (rational) reason for doing what they do in Gothic 3.

I won't sat anymore --- as to not spoil the game for you.

 

[Monica21]

I haven't read too much about it for fear of spoilers, but I did notice faction reputation points for Rebels, Orcs, etc. Is it possible to join the Orcs?

Yes.

Excellent. And thanks also aries. I haven't played the Gothic series so I'm not familiar with the (apparently long-running?) war between the humans and orcs.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I haven't read too much about it for fear of spoilers, but I did notice faction reputation points for Rebels, Orcs, etc. Is it possible to join the Orcs?

Yes.

Excellent. And thanks also aries. I haven't played the Gothic series so I'm not familiar with the (apparently long-running?) war between the humans and orcs.

In G1 and 2, it was only really a background thing; there's a big war between the two, the king needs more magic ore for weapons, sends prisoners to mining colony island, you're one of them. There ARE orcs, but they're tribal savages.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

Glad to see a few more people actually enjoying the demo and game here. On regular games sites (which cover all genres not focusing on RPGs) there seems to be about a 75% ratio of people that hate it and they post nothing but the negative.

The game is not perfect but if you played a previous version then you should have already known what to expect. The rough gritty feel add to the over-all experience of the Gothic games. At least they (PB) are consistent, right?

There are a lot of minor (well again minor to me, maybe not so minor to others) issues but the over-all game is far better than the Big O.

As far as RAM and having two gb versus one? I have two and I still get stutter on occasion so I think it is a performance issue and my hope is that PB will optimize it more. Though it seems to me that more and more games will benefit from two (or even more) gb of RAM.

Funny thing, I have a friend who I have been talking to about G3 and NWN2 telling him the good and the bad about each. He goes out and picks up Flight Sim X (or whatever) and he has been playing the latest Final Fantasy game for the PS2. So he loads the demo looks at it for a few minutes and uninstalls it. WTF?

Now that is the type of person who should not even download or make an attempt to play G3. If the graphics are far and beyond the most important feature of the game don't waste your time downloading this demo. In my opinion G3 is one of those things that gets better with time. Like a music CD that grows on you.

The graphics are good enough and even great at times but you have to have a powerhouse system (in some cases) to see them at their best. But don't let that stop you from checking out this game. It is far better than the Big O in almost ever aspect. My opinion of course but again if you liked the previous game(s) you will most likely love this one.

And if you're still not sure wait until another patch or two comes out and then check back on the forums to see how things have improved. At the very least pick it up in a year or two when you get a better rig. This game like the previous one(s) is going to be considered a cult classic. Though I would assume this one has already (or soon will have) outsold the previous two.

One last thing I would be willing to bet the praise for G3 will just continue to grow not decline like some of the other over-hyped uber shiny offerings of recent past.

 

[Pegultagol]

I've tried the demo also, and here are my impressions!

I've played the game on Easy setting, with High detail on 1024x768 70Hz or with medium detail setting on 1280x1024. Both are fairly smooth without any modification elsewhere, but with intermittent stuttering. The machine spec is A64 3500+ with 1Gb RAM and a GF 7900GTO 512MB. Music is rather superb. The demo seems to be version 1.09 so it's already patched and I wonder if it is going to be pre-patched on its NA release on Nov 20.

The introductory rendered cut scene started giving me doubts, as it really did not help set the setting of the game clearly. I guess as many details as possible might have been left out for those new to the series, of whom I am one. The details of the game world are sparse but divulged further into the game.

The PC is thrust into a battle as the game starts into a tutorial mode, and I am just standing there not knowing who started the fight, as the cg ended with the orc boss staring down at the NPC. Kinda confused that the other orcs in the nearby area, like the patrol at the farm in the east do not know about the skirmish. It is weird that your party members soon depart separately.

Combat seems fun and intuitive, with only two mouse buttons and directional buttons for some varied swordplay. Wonder how better the character would become with higher mastery of weapons. Archery is fun and quite cool that you can pick up your own errant arrows on the ground. I don't know how to use magic, though.

Nice interface that seems to have everything under one menu system. The quest log only lists the dialog from the conversation that lead to the quest being listed. Very nice touch that the map of places can be used to categorize the quests. I've accidentally turned off the quick item selection bar and can't seem to reactivate it, lol. I am also confused about the compass, which turns in the opposite direction that the character turns, it would be nice to have some definite markings on the fringe to designate what direction is North and so on. LP system is neat but it is strange that the only way to improve a skill so far in the game is through trainers, along with a nondescript way of showing the actual improvement. I would have preferred improvement of a skill based on the amount of in game usage.

At the outset, the game looks like any other generic action rpg, but it reveals its depth as one begins to venture out and discover various flora one can collect, wildlife that one can hunt, among other things like day cycle and environmental effects that soon become apparent. I get the feeling that any character would have varying amount of skills in everything, certainly not maxed across the board. I find how the wildlife interact rather neat, such as when hungry wolves attacked a scavenger in droves.

In the end, I left quite impressed by the game. It ran rather stably, as the only time it crashed was when I changed resolution during the game. It has some nice trappings for immersion, and the pacing is quite brisk with interesting things to do popping up all around in quests and exploration. I'll have to play more for the overall feel of the game, but it looks like Gothic 3 has almost everything going for it in terms of gameplay and features. Wish there could have been more dialog options and a bit more character customization though.

 

[aweigh]

I've been meaning to ask: what the hell does the lock-on button do? I thought it locked you on to your target if you held it down but it doesn't seem to do absolutely anything.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

Pegultagol, a few things to help.

In G1 & G2 the Nameless Hero was a prisoner on an island which at the end of game two him and his friends leave via ship. The ship you are on in the intro movie. Though the movie doesn't say much it conveys what you need to know. Orcs are converging on and attacking the village. It's a bit of a poorly done tutorial since you get thrown in the mix and have stupid pop-up windows in your way during a combat situation. Not a great idea but it works, I guess.

North is always the top (upward) unless otherwise noted on any map. Same with the compass.

To turn on/off the quick-item-selection or quick tabs hit F1 thru F5 all seem to be the same but you may be able to create five different rows for F1 thru F5. I just have no need for that since my character is a ranger (big game hunter) type with melee skills to compliment his archery.

I have yet to try magic so can't go into detail there either. But I will say I enjoy the use of trainers more than the automatic increase you get just by using a skill in game.

As far as my experience don't alt-tab to desktop or you will never get back in-game and will be forced to ctrl-alt-delete. It's rough but not a big issue. I just save a lot.

Glad you like it. Remember it just gets better as you go. Not much as far as dialog in the first village and some encounters are very short while others have numerous and sometimes unnecessary responses available. Again I would like to hear from a native German to ask them if their version is the same or did we just loose something in the English language translations done by a less than stellar translator? :wink:

Oh, about the quest or mission logs... G3 has a lot to be desired. Good thing I rarely use that feature. Unless I haven't been playing for a few days/weeks and need to refresh my memory as to what I was on about. I think the person responsible for the quest log should be publicly flogged but they might enjoy that.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

I've been meaning to ask: what the hell does the lock-on button do? I thought it locked you on to your target if you held it down but it doesn't seem to do absolutely anything.

Lock-on button? I don't see that listed on the rear of my manual. I think you are referring to the combat lock on option in the menu, yes?

If so that just changes how you handle combat. It's a preference thing so try it both ways and see which you prefer.

EDIT: My bad, I am thinking of another game. I don't see any lock-on in the options either. I know most games offer a lock-on for combat facing purposes my assumption is that is also the case here.

 

[aweigh]

Either I'm crazy or I'm seeing a Lock-On/Focus button in the controls menu. I'll take a screenshot later, gotta go to work now.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

I am starting to wonder myself. I could have sworn there was one in the menu when I installed but then when I check for it again... well, now there isn't one. Not to mention F6 the Quick Save button is not functioning any longer. Ah, well. Still enjoying it 90% of the time.

 

[Monica21]

In G1 and 2, it was only really a background thing; there's a big war between the two, the king needs more magic ore for weapons, sends prisoners to mining colony island, you're one of them. There ARE orcs, but they're tribal savages.

So, you're back on the mainland and the orcs have taken over?

It is far better than the Big O in almost every aspect.

After minimal playing time, I agree. I'm already much more engrossed in the game than I expected to be, so it will be a definite purchase for me. One thing I thought was interesting though, after exiting the demo, there's a screen with a quote from a magazine (can't remember which one) stating "Gothic 3 is poised to give ravenous RPG fans their largest, juiciest meal since Bethesda fed them at the start of the year." By my impressions, Gothic 3 seems to be an action RPG, but does it far better than Oblivion does. At least they don't pretend that there are 100 ways to find a diamond. No, you can't play as a female, or go shirtless and wear nipple rings around rebel camps, but the choices you make have a real impact on the gameworld.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Tip: You can dig up graves if you have a shovel.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

Tip: You can dig up graves if you have a shovel.

No way... something I never thought about trying. All graves or just certain graves? And I have yet to find something to mine though I trained to make my prospecting twice as beneficial.

What is the best resource for info on the game? I know the official forums should be good but I want someplace with no spoilers just info on game-play possibilities... like what you just mentioned.

So, you're back on the mainland and the orcs have taken over?

Without ruining anything. Yes, the short of it is the war between Orcs and the Mora ended badly due to Fire Mages & Paladins loosing their ruin magic. So the Orcs took over, they have enslaved part of the human race, while letting others serve them as mercenaries. Yet others have chosen to fight back as part of the rebellion.

 

[Crichton]

Impressions after playing the demo-

Everything looks ok except for the combat. Things to be fixed:

Everything attacks too fast, especially animals.

"Stunned" effect lasts too long.(combined with the above, you can just keep pressing attack and your opponent will never get a hit in unless you trip over some terrain or something to give them some breathing room.

I was just about willing to except not being able to "block" animals' snouts with a sword, but I can't do it with a shield, WTF?

Backwards movement is way, waaaay too fast, animals can move backwards faster than they (or my character) can walk forwards.

The knockdown effect should take mass into account so you don't have 50 lb scavangers or 10 lb bloodflies knocking down 200 lb armored humans.

The grunting effect needs to be reserved for big hits to avoid the "grunt-o-matic" rapid fire animal attack LOL-fest.

People shouldn't fly back like they were hit with a shotgun just because that hit killed them.

THRUSTING. I almost got used to not being able to thrust with a pointed sword in the previous gothic games, now my character has a spear, and he can't thrust with it. He swings it like they stole the animations from a baseball game. This is the equivalent of Bethesda agreeing to put spears back in, but giving them the two-handed weapon animations.

The humanoid AI is just way too static, combined with the high attack speeds for the PC, it's like the orcs are moving in slow motion.

(the usual) HP bloat, it should always be possible to kill or be killed with one well-placed swing/thrust.

All non-combat stuff seems to be floating along ok, I haven't seen any penalty for sneaking in armor though, may be another holdover from the old days.

SPOILERS-

I killed two "shy deer" but the quest is still hanging there. Are there other "shy deer" or did I screw things up by accidentally cooking the meat?

Edit: needed some way of making the spoiler less noticable.

 

[Lumpy]

As a first time player to the series I'm very impressed. A few random impressions--

Instead of the forced stupidity of Oblivions "conversations", there's simply background 'chatter'. You feel like your catching part of a really important conversation, without having to actually hear one. It gets annoying after a while, but anythings better than:
1-"Hi"
2-"Indeed"
1-"You too"
2-"Indeed"

Lee: "... a mudcrab yesterday."
Diego: "Horrible creatures..."
Lee: "You have to watch what you tell people."
Diego: "... a mudcrab yesterday."
No matter how stupid they sounded, Oblivion's NPC conversations were much better than Gothic's, which looked preety much like the above. They at least had some sort of coherence, and sometimes gave barely relevant information about the game world. Too bad Oblivion's PC-NPC conversations were not much better than the NPC-NPC ones.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Tip: You can dig up graves if you have a shovel.

No way... something I never thought about trying. All graves or just certain graves?

Not sure. I clicked on a grave accidentally and my character grabbed a shovel and started digging. I found some ore, a silver cup, and some money. Pretty cool, eh?

And I have yet to find something to mine though I trained to make my prospecting twice as beneficial.

You will. Go to Nordmar.

What is the best resource for info on the game?

At this point it's the Codex.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I killed two "shy deer" but the quest is still hanging there. Are there other "shy deer" or did I screw things up by accidentally cooking the meat?

I didn't do this quest, but the usual number of marked creatures is 3+, so I assume you missed at least one.