Why is Gothic series so culty?

[sigard]

Oblivion is certainly a special game around here, considering it's probably the Codex's most hated game of all time

And yet Oblivion ( this hated game by codexers ) is special enough to get 99 place in the newest codex poll of best crpgs.
For comparison out of 14 games released in goldbox series only 8 ( almost half of them!) manage to even get 1 point or more and appear on the list which automatically means that according to codexers oblivion is better than 6 out of 14 goldbox games. And this gets even better when you actually check codexian list in details:



pool of radiance 26 place
Curse of the Azure Bonds 167 place
Secret of the Silver Blades no points no place
Pools of Darkness 99 place same as oblivion
Gateway to the Savage Frontier no points no place
Treasures of the Savage Frontier no points no place
Champions of Krynn no points no place
Death Knights of Krynn 178 place
Dark Queen of Krynn 221 place
Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday 119 place
Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed no points no place
Neverwinter Nights ( 1991 ) no points no place
Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace no points no place
Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures 124 place
out of all goldbox games on this list only 1, that's right 1 is higher on codexian list than oblivion.
One is on the same place and the rest 12 is lower than oblivion

That's right according to codexers in newest codexian poll:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...mwCeFhw6RoX_iMa8ZshNdZxEz4/edit#gid=238442825

Oblivion is better than 12 out of 14 goldbox games

Yet codexers pretends to be an elitists with supperior taste than non-codexian gamers

Not to mention that codexian edgelords that every day fap to and shill for goldbox games can't even be consistent and vote for this pathetic series in codexian polls

 

[Dadd]

western faggots will never get it

stance on the gothic series is a literal whiteness litmus test

Western "faggots" are literally white

 

[1451]

Everything is interwoven in Gothic 1 and especially 2.
And playing each act feels like speedrunning Resident Evil 2.
You are always thinking that you can repeat it and optimize the run.
This level of perfectionism is rare even in modern games.
Take Elden Ring for example, it has the huge world you can explore but it lacks the quests and npc interactions.
It's wider in scope than Gothic but it's a very polished action game essentialy.
Gothic is action and rpg and adventure, all in one.
If they kept improving it like From Software did with their games we could have had a masterpiece today instead of the abominations piranha is releasing.

 

[Zlaja]

And yet Oblivion ( this hated game by codexers ) is special enough to get 99 place in the newest codex poll of best crpgs

A game can be the most hated on the site without being hated by literally everyone. After all, a game strongly hated by say 50% of posters is more hated than a game that 90% of posters are indifferent/lukewarm towards. Also, "the most hated game" isn't necessarily the worst game, objectively speaking.

And finally, some people who vote in various Codex polls have either never or barely ever engaged in any discussions on the site, and therefore may or may not have opinions that don't really match the general "Codexian consensus" all that well. Which is not a crime, but it may sway certain polls in unexpected fashion.

 

[†††]

And finally, some people who vote in various Codex polls have either never or barely ever engaged in any discussions on the site, and therefore may or may not have opinions that don't really match the general "Codexian consensus" all that well. Which is not a crime, but it may sway certain polls in unexpected fashion.

The codex GOTY polls are more rigged than the last US elections.

 

[Konjad]

You are so severely retarded it's flabbergasting.

I am sure that you are butt hurt because I revealed your "expertise" in this thread. You must be one of Codex pozzers who claim to have played all Goldbox games hundreds of times, but at the same time you do not even know what game technology was capable of in 90s.

A word of advice: be careful what you post in your "General purpose Linux thread". I intend to read it and if I find out that are posting about stuff that you have no clue about I will not hesitate to call your BS again.

I'm not a fan of goldbox games (and dungeon crawlers), I only started liking RPGs since Fallout. If you're curious, here's a list of all the RPGs I've finished:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/personal-rpg-blog.108011/

You are welcome to share yours.

A word of advice: be careful what you post in your "General purpose Linux thread". I intend to read it and if I find out that are posting about stuff that you have no clue about I will not hesitate to call your BS again.

And calling my BS he did, quoting years old posts and correcting my 'mistakes', for example explaining that people should write "apt" not "apt-get" because it's shorter and quicker, but probably not being aware few years ago when I wrote the post there was no "apt".

 

[†††]

And calling my BS he did, quoting years old posts and correcting my 'mistakes', for example explaining that people should write "apt" not "apt-get" because it's shorter and quicker, but probably not being aware few years ago when I wrote the post there was no "apt".

I still write apt-get sometimes out of habit

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

You're comparing a normal gameplay element to a scripted event.

Everything was "scripted" in that era, i.e. NPCs could only perform routines defined by programmers, whether through state machines or behavior trees. Ability to plan independently given an objective was introduced later as Goal Oriented Action Programming, F.E.A.R is touted as the first game that implemented it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.E.A.R._(video_game)#AI

AI in the modern meaning (e.g. neutral networks) only became mainstream in the last decade or so.

You really do read like someone who discovered Wikipedia at 14yo and wants to have a go at being an expert on the internet with this stream of hot takes, so no surprises there.

 

[Arbiter]

And calling my BS he did, quoting years old posts and correcting my 'mistakes', for example explaining that people should write "apt" not "apt-get" because it's shorter and quicker, but probably not being aware few years ago when I wrote the post there was no "apt".

Will check when exactly "apt" was introduced and get back to you in that thread. I am convinced that it was introduced years ago.

As I suspected, the Linux thread is a goldmine of bad advice. You recommended Linux Mint to newbies: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/general-purpose-linux-thread.108219/page-38#post-6812542, a distribution that has a poor safety record because it was hacked several years before your post. At that time hackers added a backdoor to installation ISO images: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2994

With a distribution geared towards noobs they would not even have to be creative in hiding the backdoor, they might as well spawn a process named "you-have-been-pwned-by-1337-haxxorz-d" in the background and nobody would notice.

Remember kids, do not install patches, mods or utilities recommended by Konjad if you do not want backdoors on your gaming rigs.

This is hilarious, what else do you advise on apart from RPGs and Linux? Real-estate? Dating? Investments? Cooking?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

He makes some decent dieting posts in prosperland.

 

[Ravielsk]

Because Gothic is a rare glimpse into a future that never was. For a lack of better word its a game that took the principle of "do, don't tell" and fully demonstrated the full utility of it in a time when most games were figuring out how to not be excel spreadsheets with a graphical interface. Its a difficult thing to describe in text because there is no easy way to summarize it without making it sound "culty".
To put it simply most games today and back then effectively fake most of their mechanics in a way that either makes it so abstract that whatever they are faking is may as well not be there(almost everything that is not combat in CPRGs) or they do in such a heavily scripted and self contained manner that the feature is effectively irreplicable outside of it(witcher 2 stealth sequence).

Gothic side-steps almost all of it by instead making things functionally exist in the game world with little to no abstraction and ties it together in a way that makes it all make sense. For example stealing:
Why do you steal in Gothic? Because you are dirt poor and its the only way only way to quickly make enough money for any kind of upgrade.
How do you do it? You wait for them to leave their home and while nobody is looking you grab whatever you can.
Why is the only way? Because its a prison colony and the only job opening is a digger that gets paid on bread and water.
Why is it so expensive? Because its a prison colony and everything, especially weapons and armor are in very short supply.
Why do you want it? Because even a seemingly small upgrade of 10 ---> 14 is significant enough to allow you to deal with greater threats.

Compare that to say Morrowind where you do it mostly out of convenience because raiding a cave or two gives you more than enough money for almost all of your needs and you do it by ever so slightly crouching and casting telekinesis.

3D was not groundbreaking in 2001.

Maybe not 3D itself but a fully rendered world with a view distance past a few feet away from the character with no loading absolutely was. You need to keep in mind that the standard of 3D around the year 2000 was mostly based off of what you could get out of a PS1 and that was a lot of wobbly polygons with dithered textures and a NPC limit of 2-3 dudes. Reaching the old camp in 2001 and seeing about a dozen NPCs just strolling around was as futuristic as you could get back in the day.

 

[Jelerak]

Ravielsk , good description, thank you. So, the 'free-world' turned to be not-so-free.

Honestly, even the title 'Gothic' itself sounds like a misnomer for me. What 'gothic' is to be a prisoner at some ore mine in some 'very realistic' world, where NPCs are peeing around the corner, and the only way for you to upgrade is stealing?

It reminds me quite lively such very stupid modern fantasy fiction trend as 'dark fantasy' where drunk heroes with dirt under their fingernails must stop the horse constantly to pee and poop while riding somehwere amidst the rot-smelling landscape.

 

[Ravielsk]

@Ravielsk , good description, thank you. So, the 'free-world' turned to be not-so-free.

Free-world and freedom to do "anything you please" are not synonyms. You can go to pretty much every chunk of the map from minute one of Gothic and you can absolutely get there enough stuff to upgrade to your hearts content. Its 100% doable but highly improbable for a new player to execute without a lot of trial and error. Which is why I picked stealing as a example because its integration makes it the most viable and logically sensible option the player has on offer. Just like it would be in real life. That is part of being a fully realized world. The options are there but they are not equal in availability, utility and ease of use.

Honestly, even the title 'Gothic' itself sounds like a misnomer for me. What 'gothic' is to be a prisoner at some ore mine in some 'very realistic' world, where NPCs are peeing around the corner, and the only way for you to upgrade is stealing?

It reminds me quite lively such very stupid modern fantasy fiction trend as 'dark fantasy' where drunk heroes with dirt under their fingernails must stop the horse constantly to pee and poop while riding somehwere amidst the rot-smelling landscape.

American, are we?
"Gothic" is a reference to the middle-ages(12th-16th century) because during that time that was the prevalent type of architecture. Gothic as a game takes place during a fantasy equivalent of that time period and derives its aesthetic from that. Its not trying to be dark or edgy that is simply how a human settlements were during that time period. If anything its whitewashing the setting by not including more shades of brown around the every settlement, if you catch my meaning.

 

[luj1]

Gothic is good but not great. It can be skipped, just play Morrowind instead.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Big open worlds are gigantic garbage. Gothic 1 & 2's Penile colony + Khorinis + Jharkendar are perfection.

 

[curds]

"Gothic was not ground breaking because some games had certain features first"

Next you're going to tell me that Doom wasn't ground breaking, because Wolf3d did FPS before it.

 

[curds]

Actually, Wolf3d wasn't even groundbreaking.

Wizardry already had first-person perspective and Commander Keen or some shit already had shooting.

 

[Arbiter]

Maybe not 3D itself but a fully rendered world with a view distance past a few feet away from the character with no loading absolutely was. You need to keep in mind that the standard of 3D around the year 2000 was mostly based off of what you could get out of a PS1 and that was a lot of wobbly polygons with dithered textures and a NPC limit of 2-3 dudes. Reaching the old camp in 2001 and seeing about a dozen NPCs just strolling around was as futuristic as you could get back in the day.

Outcast wasn't half bad in 1999:

 

[Arbiter]

"Gothic was not ground breaking because some games had certain features first"

Next you're going to tell me that Doom wasn't ground breaking, because Wolf3d did FPS before it.

"Doom wasn't ground breaking because Wolf3D came before it" - FALSE

"Blake Stone and Corridor 7 weren't ground breaking because Wolf3D came before them" - TRUE

 

[toro]

Maybe not 3D itself but a fully rendered world with a view distance past a few feet away from the character with no loading absolutely was. You need to keep in mind that the standard of 3D around the year 2000 was mostly based off of what you could get out of a PS1 and that was a lot of wobbly polygons with dithered textures and a NPC limit of 2-3 dudes. Reaching the old camp in 2001 and seeing about a dozen NPCs just strolling around was as futuristic as you could get back in the day.

Outcast wasn't half bad in 1999:

Outcast is not an RPG.

 

[Arbiter]

Outcast is not an RPG.

It's not, but why is copying technology from other genres considered groundbreaking? Was Might & Magic 9 groundbreaking because it run on LithTech 1.5?

 

[toro]

Outcast is not an RPG.

It's not, but why is copying technology from other genres considered groundbreaking? Was Might & Magic 9 groundbreaking because it run on LithTech 1.5?

Why are you retarded?

 

[luj1]

Outcast wasn't half bad in 1999:

Outcast is a cult game. Won Adventure Game of the Year in 1999 among tough competition. 1999 was possibly the best year in gaming history.

 

[Arbiter]

1999 was possibly the best year in gaming history.

System Shock 2
Age of Empires 2
Alpha Centauri
Quake 3 Arena
Unreal Tournament
Everquest

 

[Gastrick]

I also think it has some of the most entertainingly anachronistic English voice acting ever put into a computer game.

 

[Gastrick]

I remember it being an enjoyable, but bad and flawed game that required a tolerance for clunky action adventure games. Funny that people cared about the "lore" and "worldbuilding" of an open-air prison. That it's tiny as well and only has 3 towns, and makes you run back and forth everywhere to make it seem larger than it really is (until the end of the game with purchasable speed potions). The C&C boils down to being able to use a powerful spell vs. getting the best armor, since the story melds into the same path eventually.

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

It isn't really "radiant A.I.", just characters looping through daily schedules. Walk here, interact, stand around, walk here, almost head to sleep for the entire night, repeat. If Ultima 6 & 7 had this first and weren't obscure games either, they'd deserve more of the credit.

There's four-five animals in the tiny forest who don't respawn, it isn't much of an eco-system.