Why is Gothic series so culty?

[Jelerak]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

 

[Cryomancer]

Great immersion + great worldbuildg

 

[Konjad]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

Could you name RPGs that you played and were special in ways you did not find in other RPGs?

 

[deuxhero]

Germans.

 

[Ghulgothas]

It did the impossible and united Russians, Germans and Poles into a single community dedicated to playing, discussing, modding and preserving it. Few games can claim to have a shred of the cross-cultural impact and significance the Gothic series has.

Immersion, versimilitude, world-building, roleplaying yadda-yadda. I also think it has some of the most entertainingly anachronistic English voice acting ever put into a computer game.

 

[Gregz]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

This mystery was solved a few years ago.

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included). Since it was the only game they could afford to play during their childhoods, they shill the shit out it:

DID YOU KNOW:
The reason poles love Gothic so much is actually the result of a secret german brainwashing operation?
The german government paid to have gaming magazines distributed to poland when poles couldn't afford video games, and included copies of Gothic(and Might and Magic, but that's for a later discussion) with them.
The poles spent their entire youth playing nothing but those two games creating an entire country dependent upon PB and ensuring the german economy stays propped up no matter what.

It helps to remember that most of the codex worships gothic because they couldn't afford to buy video games and it was given away for free in eastern europe gaming magazines.

every single eastern european i've ever met has claimed that heroes of might and magic 3 is the only videogame in existence

must have been another game they got for free in gaming magazines like gothic/gothic 2

 

[Sigourn]

It achieved the impossible by having action RPG combat that actually felt like you were playing an RPG. Every single skill increase mattered, every single weapon or armor that was better than the one before felt like it.

That to me makes it outstanding.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

To me, Gothic 1 and 2 are one of those games that don't really have any relatives, no "spiritual successors", games that continue the tradition or try to emulate its design philosophy etc.
With a game like Baldur's gate, you'll find plenty of games like it. You have Icewind dale, Pillars, Pathfinder, Tyranny, Neverwinter nights, Dragon age etc. Sure, none of them are as great, but they scratch the BG/cRPG/D&D itch.

With Gothic you have nothing else. Even PB abandoned most of what made the first two games great (with the exception of risen 1). The only games that come somewhat close to Gothic is Kingdom Come (and even that is a stretch) and recently Archolos. I guess some of the immersive sims do the trick (for me only Arx Fatalis) but that's it.

So here I am. Sitting at my computer, getting ready to fire up Gothic 2 and start a new playthrough for the 32nd fucking time, and you know what? I'll still enjoy the fuck out of it. Except maybe I'll skip the last chapter this time around.

I also feel the same way about VtMB.

Also, Morrowind sucks (never played it)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

To me, Gothic 1 and 2 are one of those games that don't really have any relatives, no "spiritual successors", games that continue the tradition or try to emulate its design philosophy etc.
With a game like Baldur's gate, you'll find plenty of games like it. You have Icewind dale, Pillars, Pathfinder, Tyranny, Neverwinter nights, Dragon age etc. Sure, none of them are as great, but they scratch the BG/cRPG/D&D itch.

With Gothic you have nothing else. Even PB abandoned most of what made the first two games great (with the exception of risen 1). The only games that come somewhat close to Gothic is Kingdom Come (and even that is a stretch) and recently Archolos. I guess some of the immersive sims do the trick (for me only Arx Fatalis) but that's it.

So here I am. Sitting at my computer, getting ready to fire up Gothic 2 and start a new playthrough for the 32nd fucking time, and you know what? I'll still enjoy the fuck out of it. Except maybe I'll skip the last chapter this time around.

I also feel the same way about VtMB.

Also, Morrowind sucks (never played it)

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...ion-rpg-now-available-on-early-access.102089/

 

[Shaki]

This mystery was solved a few years ago.

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included). Since it was the only game they could afford to play during their childhoods, they shill the shit out it:

It's hilarious that Americucks think that prices of games set by westerners could in any way stop Poles. When I was an europoor teenager in Poland, I literally just had to walk 5 minutes to the shitty market set up behind the train station, and I could get shitload of pirated CDs with all the games released in the last year so cheap it was basically free. Sure, sometimes some CDs had weird porn instead of games, or the games had Polish dubbing made by a Russian entrepreneur who didn't actually know Polish but didn't let that small detail stop him from following his dreams, but in general I probably played more games than Americuck "gamers", because I had to pay 1/100000 of their prices, and I wasn't contributing to the decline of the genre, because what I paid supported based bootleggers instead of jew gaming publishers.

It was before Gothic tho. By the time Gothic was released, we didn't even need to buy bootleg CDs, because we progressed economically and for every 100 poor poles there was at least one rich enough to afford a CD ROM burner, supplying the games to everyone who knew him for free. Back then you didn't even need cracks to pirate, because "DRM" in 99% of games was just a cd-key that worked on every single copy.

 

[turkishronin]

Imagine if Forklift Simulator was an RPG.
People don't like it when early-game quests in RPGs involve killing rats but I think it's much better than distributing sausages, sweeping the floor and collecting flowers.

 

[Disciple]

Imagine if Forklift Simulator was an RPG.
People don't like it when early-game quests in RPGs involve killing rats but I think it's much better than distributing sausages, sweeping the floor and collecting flowers.

One of the first quests in Gothic 2 is about getting an orc weapon. At that point in the game, newcomers to Gothic will have a hard time taking the most direct route to achieve that; i. e., killing one of the orcs marauding around the city.

 

[jebsmoker]

why does any game that has specific qualities in it that no other game has surrounded by a cult following?

if you like a specific game that's one-of-a-kind, there's your answer - because something about it registers with you

 

[Humanophage]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

This mystery was solved a few years ago.

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included). Since it was the only game they could afford to play during their childhoods, they shill the shit out it

It is massively popular in Russia, and it was never distributed this way. Shaki is correct that pricing is entirely irrelevant because all games were pirated with the exception of jewel versions. The difference is probably that it didn't have a high advertising budget, so it couldn't break into the markets that are heavily affected by things like gaming events or consoles. On the other hand, when it was placed on equal footing, it achieved about the same success as Morrowind/Oblivion.

It's not really "cult" (as in "niche with a small hardcore following"), just a mainstream well-loved game everyone knows like Diablo, Starcraft, Civilization, Doom, etc. You can find it on any normie's list if you exclude the zoomers.

 

[luj1]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

Gothic is like Morrowind, plus the jank and minus the style.

 

[octavius]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

Characters that seem like adults, instead of overgrown kids. Some of them even have mustaches.

A working "Radiant A. I" and eco system.

 

[Arbiter]

I enjoyed Morrowind much more.

 

[Arbiter]

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included). Since it was the only game they could afford to play during their childhoods, they shill the shit out it:

So you are saying that Europoors could afford computers but not games? Or did they play Gothic on toasters?

 

[Cassar]

To my shame (or luck?) I never played Gothic games. What is there so special in them that I wouldn't find in other RPGs?

This mystery was solved a few years ago.

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included). Since it was the only game they could afford to play during their childhoods, they shill the shit out it:

Neah, Gothic and Heroes 3 were well liked because they were awesome games. You could hear kids on the street, on one side of the sidewalk they were going to a net caffee for a Counter session. The otherside was going for a Heroes 3 session. Game got 90+ in magazines, it was on the cover, etc. Gothic 1 and 2 were liked because of the freedom, the freeform gameplay, choice and consequence. People were talking on forums how they handled this and that situation, sharing events that happened to them in the game. Fallout, Baldurs Gate 2 and Gothic were landmark games in eastern europe because they were awesome. Computers were much more expensive than derpsoles. Console games were universally mocked and disliked and considered for kids

 

[Darth Roxor]

Europoors got it for free in gaming magazines (The CD-ROM was included).

I'd like to see you fit Gothic 1 in a mag when originally it was released on 2 CDs (and Gothic 2 was 3 or even 4). It was included only in 2006 on a DVD, which was long after everyone had already played it.

What you are describing was the case for Fallout, not Gothic.

 

[Cryomancer]

Gothic also has one of the best orc genocides in the RPG history.

 

[The_Mask]

So you are saying that Europoors could afford computers but not games?

I don't know how it went in Western Europe, but in Eastern Europe most PC parts that came in were really, really cheap. All you had to do is know a little bit about what to buy, and how to assemble them. At the time, that wasn't that complicated, but still... it required some gray matter.

Software, however, was VERY expensive. Especially those pieces coming from known developers. So that's why between 1995 and 2000, there was a HUGE piracy wave when it came to videogames.

This wave went on until 2005, but it slowly died down because as soon as 2001 hit, Eastern Europe started being hooked up with fiber optics. Basically if any games/RPGs were "given away" with gaming magazines from 2001 until 2005, it was to retain readers. That's why, for example, most people pirated HoMM III, but Gothic 1, they might have gotten for free.

I hope that solves the mystery for you.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

I gotta be honest, my first contact with Gothic WAS through a magazine (Score 147). It had Gothic 2 (without Night of the Raven), Disciples 2, demo of Heroes V and plenty of other stuff. But I'm pretty sure the price was accounted for.

 

[Arbiter]

Gothic also has one of the best orc genocides in the RPG history.

That would be WarCraft.

 

[1451]

Because for its time, Gothic 1 and 2 were groundbreaking games.
Today we see them as these old games with crappy graphics and animations but back then nothing else could compete.

 

[Cassar]

So you are saying that Europoors could afford computers but not games?

I don't know how it went in Western Europe, but in Eastern Europe most PC parts that came in were really, really cheap. All you had to do is know a little bit about what to buy, and how to assemble them. At the time, that wasn't that complicated, but still... it required some gray matter.

Software, however, was VERY expensive. Especially those pieces coming from known developers. So that's why between 1995 and 2000, there was a HUGE piracy wave when it came to videogames.

This wave went on until 2005, but it slowly died down because as soon as 2001 hit, Eastern Europe started being hooked up with fiber optics. Basically if any games/RPGs were "given away" with gaming magazines from 2001 until 2005, it was to retain readers. That's why, for example, most people pirated HoMM III, but Gothic 1, they might have gotten for free.

I hope that solves the mystery for you.

Pc parts were exceedingly expensive. It was the same price as western nations. Absolutely not cheap. What was there though, were a lot of second hand stores that sold more accesible parts and computers, but those were older parts. The only place gamers would see new parts and imaculate, white cases were through the store windows. We all had the beige, dirty, second hand cases. And fiber in 2001 ? Nearly nobody had regular slow ass internet, what fiber ? In 2006 one of the major internet providers here had a 1.5 MB/s line for maximum. Cable.


Like i said, Gothic got its reputation as soon as it came out, not many years later when it was offered for free. In RO, Gothic 1 the full game was given late 2004 and Gothic 2 was given late 2006, when G3 launched. The games were reveered long before. As soon as they launched, like i said. Lots of people were hyped waiting for Gothic 2 preciselly because how awesome Gothic 1 was