Gothic 3

[Blue2]

Surprised to see that no one has made a thread about this game yet. The way you all clamoured over Oblivion I thought for sure someone would have heard of this game.

Its just been released in Europe, and expected to be released in N. America Nov 20.

If you liked Oblivion but found it it to easy, and are looking for more of a challenge and a deeper story line, yet keep your open world idea, Gothic 3 is for you.

And if you have the chance, pick up Gothic II which is another excellent game. Can't say enough about this one.

www.gothic3.com

Blue

[CptStern]

lol I was just about to post a thread about the game ..hehe good thing I checked first ..oh well might as well just post it here

a patch for Gothic 3 has been released in anticipation of tommorrows release ..some people who've ordered the CE have already recieved their copies

oh and here's a bunch of impressions of the game based on people who've played the retail version
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=141384

warning tons of spoilers

[Warbie]

Gothic 3 looks nice, but i'm a little concerned by reports of poor performance on even high end systems. Fingers crossed that it these issues have been exagerated, or that the patch fixes things.

//edit

some more impressions - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17636167&page=3

[Krynn72]

WTF? It was released?!!?! DAMN, I thought it was sometime in 2007! ****ing American media! Now I am going to shit my pants every day we get closer to Nov20.

... Why is it so long away? Thats like a month an a half. I am American! I want my Gothic 3 NOW.

[CptStern]

I'm considering ordering from the UK ..Nov 20th is too far away

[Warbie]

I might just stroll down the road and pick up a few copies, maybe build a fort out of the boxes just for the hell of it :)

[CptStern]

me plans trip to UK, packs map to Warbie's house, and bottle chloroform

[Warbie]

Arrggh /o\

Why not import? I've been getting stuff from the states and japan for years now. The internet is a wonderful thing :)

[CptStern]

cuz I dont trust you brits? :O


no I may very well order it ..however not everywhere ships to canada


lol that translated impression is hilarious:

wtf does this mean:

My God, see you shits out! “. Charmingly Sandra commentates when rising the effects of seven days Gothic 3. Unfortunately my wife is usually right, with which which says her. If a game of roles does not please me simply only well, but, then slope I pulls me completely into its spell to the safe-keeping draw. Thank God that does not happen often.


Most readers should know the prehistory to this final version in the meantime: a first master DVD contained after over three years development time still substantial of nose, but by cook Media at the beginning of of Septembers strange to say nevertheless to the press test was released. A Spielemagazin accepted the steep collecting main, and titelte with „nose scandal “and „giant disappointment “.

:O

[CR0M]

wow is it that time already? thanx for the heads up Blue ;)

unfortunately I won't be able to play this right away due to workload, so i'll just look forward to hearing what it's like from you lot.

Cap'n - buy the German version and rent a German (http://www.treib-stoff.com/rentagerman/info.htm)to translate it (and play it for you if you get tired. Kinda like a Stunt German.).

[Max35]

err...

[Aenama]

you rent me as a Traslateor :D

This is the first time ever that I have to import a game from my own country

[CptStern]

wow is it that time already? thanx for the heads up Blue ;)

unfortunately I won't be able to play this right away due to workload, so i'll just look forward to hearing what it's like from you lot.

Cap'n - buy the German version and rent a German (http://www.treib-stoff.com/rentagerman/info.htm)to translate it (and play it for you if you get tired. Kinda like a Stunt German.).

that's not a bad idea ..except for the fact they're all menz! (where's my german beer fraulein? (http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/pinupgirlclothing_1919_64805))

besides those germans look like ze angry germans you see in the movies

HALT HALT!!! STERN VAT ARE YOU DOING?!! DUMBKOFF!! and for ze last time So fragt man Bauern aus! (http://odge.info/german-english/So+fragt+man+Bauern+aus!.html)

[AmishSlayer]

From the impressions at overclockers it sounds pretty unstable and buggy. I'll wait for more reviews to even think about getting the US version.

Fake EDIT: Wow, it's been patched already :P

[CptStern]

first english review:

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=147535

Verdict: RPGrrreat!

Uppers
Gorgeous visuals
Open-ended gameplay
Impressive world
Replayability

Downers
Frustratingly tough combat
Somewhat buggy

[DeusExMachina]

Think I could run Gothic III on an athlon 3200 with a geforce 6600 GT?

[Max35]

I wonder if I could run it decently on an p3/512mbs RAM/ Geforce 6800 GT I'm more concerned about the RAM.

[CR0M]

"On the downside, the danger of spreading your skill-base too widely and unforgiving combat will make it a bit too challenging"


WOOOOOO \o/

Finally a game with some challenge to it.
THAT is not a downside.

Anyone know yet if there is an option to play first-person?

[DeusExMachina]

You find a game forcing you to focus on a handful of skills challenging? Every game does that.

[Krynn72]

You find a game forcing you to focus on a handful of skills challenging? Every game does that.

No, the reviewer does.

[CR0M]

You find a game forcing you to focus on a handful of skills challenging? Every game does that.

no, i find tough combat challenging. And developing a focused skillset rather than being jack-of-all-trades suits me better.

[Krynn72]

Anyone know the system reqs? I did a quick internet search (including their site) and couldnt find them.

[CR0M]

Go to the official forum here (http://forum.jowood.de/forumdisplay.php?f=462) for details (if it isn't still too jammed up to work).

From a movie I just downloaded:

"50 hours gameplay for an average player doing the main quest, with 500 sub quests.."

[Krynn72]

Go to the official forum here (http://forum.jowood.de/forumdisplay.php?f=462) for details (if it isn't still too jammed up to work).

From a movie I just downloaded:

"50 hours gameplay for an average player doing the main quest, with 500 sub quests.."

Yeah, I tried their forums too, but I keep getting a server is too busy message.

And that last part you quoted... made my head explode all over my monitor. I hope you are happy with yourself.

I really really cant wait for this game. Im broke, so I cant afford it, but my birthday is on the 17th, so i could probably get enough from that to buy it! I sure wish I was playing it right now though.

[Gargantou]

I just bought the game, only to realize the minimum states 1024MB of RAM, I only got 512MB, guess I need to wait for that new comp in a few months :(

[CR0M]

First impressions (after playing for 15 minutes):

One of the worst examples of unfinished and unpolished coding I've ever seen, within the first 5 minutes I counted over a dozen graphical errors with texturing, just walking around within sight of the start, the worst being black transparent ground all around my character and nasty horizontal spikes in the foliage.

Performance is pitiful compared to Oblivion, although how is beyond me as Oblivion looks 10 times nicer. Unoptimised is an understatement. However, medium settings make it at least playable (if somewhat ugly - just think dungeon-seige and you're there).

But the worst game killer of all are the frequent pauses and freezes as it loads stuff. These happen within a few seconds of each other if you are covering a lot of ground, ALL the time, sometimes freezing the game for up to 10 seconds at a time. So if you just want to stand in one place and admire the glitchy view, this is the game for you.

Don't know about the gameplay or storyline yet, will write more when (if) i'm able to get further into the game.

[Gargantou]

CR0M, have you patched your game?

[CR0M]

Yus, as I downloaded the patch last night it was the first thing I did before playing for the first time.

Brief update:
Disabling Depth of Field caused the black holes in the ground and some other glitches so i'm gonna have to leave that on, which is a bitch as it's a system hog and it kinda defeats the object of being able to adjust down if you need to :/


Will mess with other settings later to see if I can get rid of some of the other nasty effects.

Another unnecessarily poor element that isn't actually a defect is the big plastic looking lens flare. Man does that look crap. Solution: Don't look at the sun :D

Ambient sound is way too sparse - with the naf music turned off it's like not having the speakers on at all...

On the upside: the clouds are nice and fluffeh

[Krynn72]

Every one of their gothic games has been buggy as hell. It doesnt really matter to me, since I still loved both of them.

[CptStern]

doesnt sound all that playable ..disappointing ..however hopefully patches will address these problems before the north american release .. I do not want this to turn into another dungeon lords (what a piece of crap that was)

[DeusExMachina]

Hmm, guess it's not so bad the game comes out late here. Should be all patched up by then.

[Aenama]

:(

[Warbie]

It seems shocking that games are released in this state. I'd rather wait another 6 months and get something that is finished.

[AmishSlayer]

WOW

This video just made me laugh my ass off and made me want to stay completely away from this game.

http://www.jtwibble.btinternet.co.uk/gothic3combat.wmv

[Gargantou]

Amish, good for you, the guy is just rushing at the beast, you can't do that with every animal, I've been playing for a few hours, and whilst the combat can be annoying at times, it's not out of stupidness, but just out of hardness, it's a fun game and to judge it completely from that vid is stupid.:\

[AmishSlayer]

Amish, good for you, the guy is just rushing at the beast, you can't do that with every animal, I've been playing for a few hours, and whilst the combat can be annoying at times, it's not out of stupidness, but just out of hardness, it's a fun game and to judge it completely from that vid is stupid.:\

The fact that the boar killed multiple town guards, the boring-looking combat, the bad AI shown by the guards, the fact that you don't seem to even die (obviously I don't know for certain - the guy got owned by the boar over and over and never died), and the reports I'm hearing about lots of bugs and poor performance (although the video seemed to have pretty good performance - maybe he had a really good rig - I probably wouldn't be so lucky with a medium-range rig) are the things that are keeping me away right now.

I'm sure there's tons of people out there that can get past these things (probably fans of previous Gothic games that I haven't played).

[CR0M]

Saturday Update:

After an all night til 5am session of adjusting settings and trying some of the basics, i've reached a couple of solid conclusions.

1 - The cause of the insanely low frames per second falls to the real time shadow system, and nothing else. Unfortunately the official forums are still down so I can't get any info on whether there are any ini tweaks that can help, as with oblivion. And so far other forums don't seem to discuss constructive optimization at all. Maybe that's just cos it's still early days.

Anyway, settings: Banged everything up to highest with little or no drop, but as soon as you enable shadows - even low detail - BANG you lose half your fps. Stick it on high, and you're in need of a monster rig.

There is a problem in that the detail sliders are a bit pointless as they don't really work as sliders at all, but switches. Things are either off or on, or no different. I won't even go into how messed up the sensitivity and audio sliders are :/

This is how the shadow slider works:
Shadows Off = no shadows. mmmm dungeon seige tastic.
Shadows Low = shadows on buildings only
Shadows Medium = I can't work this one out, it seems to be the same as 'low'
Shadows High = everything is shadowed (which does admittedly look rather fantastic when the sun comes up).

So in short, shadows ON, shadows OFF, daniel san.

You might be thinking 'what's the big deal? turn em off and play.' But really, the environment makes half the atmosphere, and this is an rpg - I want believable and immersive, and these shadows add so much to that. I don't want off or on, I want a quality slider so that I can play AND have (even if jaggy) shadows. Call me picky.

Lets get this in perspective here - the recommended spec in the box and in the manual is a 3ghz cpu, 1.5gb memory and a 6800. That's recommended, not minimum. My system [athlon 3200+, 2gb memory, 6800 ultra] is old but it should run this, as it had no problem with oblivion once it was tweaked. It does, but only with no shadows. Lets face it, if I wanted to play a game that looked 5 years old I'd rummage through my game shelves and play one.

2 - The gameplay is... accentric. Like the video AmishSlayer shows, combat is odd - your recovery time takes longer than the attacks raining down on you, so from the very first hit you can do absolutely nothing but stare in disbelief as a pig or wingless chicken or flying prawn bites you over and over and over and over for 15 seconds until you die screaming like an amateur dramatist auditioning for a B movie bit part.

This might be the way the game's difficulty mechanics work, it might be that later you can withstand these attacks and actually fight back once you have gained the skills and armour. Or it could just be a critical programming error. Until any of us have advanced further into the game I won't hold judgement on this one.


But on the upside:

Good news for First Person players like me as this is something the devs have actually spent time thinking about, First Person mode is exactly that - you look down, you have arms and legs and a body. (and you can turn your neck 360 degrees like in the exorcist, which made me lol last night). You unsheath your sword and there it is in front of you. You stand in the sun or equip a torch at night and your shadow stretches out on the ground at your feet and casts up against walls and furniture. If you have shadows on full, that is.
Though strangely, it has no head...


If optimized, balanced and bug cleaned, this could easily be the game for PC gamers Oblivion was supposed to be. It's big, it's complex, it certainly isn't dumbed down in any way whatsoever. And after ridding the black texture holes of yesterday and wondering a bit further into the land I did find that it does actually look amazingly good.
This is one to get into in a few months time when it all works properly, so don't give up on it yet ;)

[Gargantou]

CR0M, you are aware that Oblivion pretty much has no shadows except the treetop shadows and the character shadows, right? Or am I missing something here?

[Warbie]

That boar fighting the npc guards was hard as nails :) The guy with the long sword got owned.

[Gargantou]

Something guys need to keep in mind, enemies in this game are not 'auto-level adjusted' like say Oblivion, every enemy in certian areas are restricted to x-y levels, so perhaps he conscously ran into an area with high-level boars?

[AmishSlayer]

high-level boars?

Doesn't that sound a bit silly to you in the first place?

[DeusExMachina]

I'm sure there'll be cheats, hacks, mods, and exploits to let me enjoy the game :p.

[CR0M]

CR0M, you are aware that Oblivion pretty much has no shadows except the treetop shadows and the character shadows, right? Or am I missing something here?

of course.
my gripe is that to achieve the same shadows as oblivion ie. character + foliage, completely cripples G3.

[VictimOfScience]

WOW

This video just made me laugh my ass off and made me want to stay completely away from this game.

http://www.jtwibble.btinternet.co.uk/gothic3combat.wmv

I started crying from laughing so hard! I had to take my earphones off to get a break from the hilarity!!! AWESOME sound effects!!!

[Shadow-warrior]

Boars are just a little too tough...

[Cerpin]

Haha, I just knew this game would utter crap, like the previous ones.

[Aenama]

The previous ones are 2 of the best games ever made.
even though now it looks like crap,Im sure a few patches will fix it.

[Core407]

That video wasn't as bad as I was led to believe. He doesn't seem to have much problem with the boar when he actually attempts to fight it, and about 2:26 in, he dominates a boar with his sword.

I never was a fan of the combat, but if there's an option for first person, I'd give it another shit.

Edit: That NPC combat was brutal, though.

[Sainku]

Have any of you ever tried to fight a boar in real life? Well I have and let me tell you this, its pretty freakin tough. This is not a game for kiddies. This isn't that consolized oblivion crap. The enemies aren't catered to your level so little billy down the street doesn't get killed. This is a game for REAL pc gamers. :rolleyes:

[Core407]

Have any of you ever tried to fight a boar in real life? Well I have and let me tell you this, its pretty freakin tough. This is not a game for kiddies. This isn't that consolized oblivion crap. The enemies aren't catered to your level so little billy down the street doesn't get killed. This is a game for REAL pc gamers. :rolleyes:

Sarcasm?

[Warbie]

Oh, I didn't realise this was a game for real pc gamers :laugh:

[Sainku]

Sarcasm?


Yep. This game looks pretty unpolished and is definately not what I was hoping it would be. I think i will save my money. That post was pretty much a reply to the people who think this is a more "grown-up" oblivion. This might have been the wrong thread though, I think i got this thread and "Bethesda to announce new game Nov1st: Fallout3?" mixed up. At least I gave some folks a chuckle who thought I was serious :)

[Shadow-warrior]

Bethesda are not worthy to wash my socks - dumb sh!ts, but come on, a hundred punches to a boars face is a little too much in anyones book... put that in your signatures and suck it!

[AmishSlayer]

Yeah, I feel games should be challenging and all and didn't like the way Oblivion was scaled...but making boars that tough to fight (when they're apparently one of the first quests in the game according to the guy that made the vid) is just silly.

[Krynn72]

Its probably just like the other two games. Its ridiculously hard at first, then hits the "perfect" difficulty mark for the last 3/4 of the game. At first you can get your ass kicked by an 8 year old kid with a stick and paper shoes, then you can take on an orc or two with relative ease (orcs being a rather difficult enemy).

[CR0M]

I took out those very same boars last night, it's one of the 500 sub quests. The secret of combat is to get the first hit in, then keep manically slashing with a sword. Or lure one away from a mob with arrows and then hit it with a melee weapon. Just don't let them take a bite out of you, as soon as they get a hit in you're finished. It is possible to get away sometimes after you get knocked down by running like crazy, but you lose your weapon every time you hit the floor which sucks if you found / forged something good.

Bugs and lack of polish aside, i'm finding that the storyline and side quests are sucking me in much like morrowind and outcast did. The sub quests are well thought out and have a knock-on effect with your progress, unlike oblivion. The immersion is pretty awesome. You feel like the world is populated and alive, and the npc's don't seem stupid like in Ob. The AI is a little predictable in combat though but the size of the mobs balances the difficulty. Just think Guild Wars and use the same combat technique.

Oh yeah - having problems with sound now, 5.1 screws up certain effects, the mixing is poor and the volumes are just screwed. That'll learn 'em for using Doom3 sound technology. :hmph:

Core407 - the first person option is quite good for a 3rd person game, if you don't mind having to jump back into it every time you leave the inv screen and after opening chests etc. You can even look down and see yourself breathing, sawing wood, swinging a weapon etc. Just don't expect too much from the humanoid models though - I've never seen people modelled this badly.

This game takes getting used to as it doesn't play like any other, it's quirky, twitchy and awkward sometimes, but you do get used to it's faults after a while. It's growing on me, and knowing that i've only scratched the surface makes me want to play it more :)

[VictimOfScience]

Guys, just mod Oblivion if you don't like the scaling. Just because it wasn't included doesn't mean it spoils the game! DIY! Its still a great game, just as this will likely be in 6-12 months. :dozey:

[CR0M]

just as this will likely be in 6-12 months. :dozey:

Quoted for mellon farming truth.

Don't you think it's a shame we have to now be beta-test gimps for every game that gets released though? I do.

[VictimOfScience]

Don't you think it's a shame we have to now be beta-test gimps for every game that gets released though? I do.

Yes. I just hope the US release sees some fixes before it drops....

[Gargantou]

Guys, just mod Oblivion if you don't like the scaling. Just because it wasn't included doesn't mean it spoils the game! DIY! Its still a great game, just as this will likely be in 6-12 months. :dozey:I've actually just gotten myself a new PC decent enough to run Oblivion, I played through the game on the 360, what mods do you recommend for loot/enemy scaling issues in the game?:D

[CptStern]

good insights into the game Crom ..despite your problems (our rigs are similiar) it looks like you're enjoying the game which is says something about the game ...I just hope it's in a far more playable form by the time it makes it's way to north america ..i've purchased several Aspyr games (they used to be exclusively a Mac developer) so from experience I know they're fairly competant

[Gargantou]

Ain't Aspyr simply publishing the game in NA and distributing it? Or are they making a Mac port of Gothic 3 or something?

[CptStern]

just a few tweaks here and there to ensure it's more "friendly to american audiences" ..but the added delay will ensure that the biggest problems will be patched before the US version is released

[VictimOfScience]

just a few tweaks here and there to ensure it's more "friendly to american audiences" ..but the added delay will ensure that the biggest problems will be patched before the US version is released

Good news for now it seems then.

[CR0M]

what mods do you recommend for loot/enemy scaling issues in the game?:D

The only one I would recommend is Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, it's by far the best.

And for a neat graphical improvement straight off, download Slof's Horses if you haven't already.



Aye cap'n i'm enjoying it more and more, hopefully you're right about it being a little more stable by the time it passes newfoundland.

[Warbie]

There's no time to post in this thread, Crom!

I plan to pick his game up in a few months, get beta testing!

[SlamDunk]

just a few tweaks here and there to ensure it's more "friendly to american audiences"
No gameplay tweaks, though, just superficial alterations, like the intro has been made so that it explains things more clearly (narration, I believe) and the game credits are of course slightly different. So... gameplay-wise, the US & Euro versions are exactly the same.

[CR0M]

ok this is as far as I can go with gothic 3. The performance is just waaaay too slow to be playable anymore, after managing to get onto the official forums for a few minutes before they died again I saw that this is a common problem, many many people even with top spec machines are getting the same thing, but nothing can be pinned down as the cause. All posts by people with genuine grievances are locked, deleted or flamed to hell by over zealous childs, which is kinda like the weeks following the release of HL2 when there were 2 even camps of 'I've got Stutter' and 'But it works for me, so tough shit bud' and the almost naziist clamp down on any negative feedback. :borg:

Pluto 13 needs to acknowledge that there are issues here and Gothic 3 needs serious sorting out, until that happens it's going on my shelf - guess i'll just have to do some work instead :rolleyes: (at least until Dark Messiah, anyway)

Good luck, the colonies...

[CptStern]

ah that sucks ..well at least I hadnt ordered my copy from a UK retailer ..I think I'll wait for the US release

[CR0M]

...and then give it a good coupla months...

[DeusExMachina]

Man, what an Oblivion killer.

:p

Well, should be in a few months anyway...

[Krynn72]

I just started playing today. So far it seems exactly like Gothic 2, with a new story and better graphics.

So I think it really depends on how much you liked the last 2 games. They were some of my favorite games ever, and I can see this one being no different. Loving it so far.

[venturon]

Man, what an Oblivion killer.

:p

Well, should be in a few months anyway...

Oblivion was dead before Gothic III came out. It simply isn't fun.

[CR0M]

update -

Ridiculously long load times / regular stuttering pauses:

The G3 community has discovered that the cause of this is the DVD copy protection, which although not as nasty as Starforce, is quite similar. There is already a no-CD crack available on torrents which apparently fixes the problem. I may try this sometime over the weekend.*

Behind-the-scenes loading freezes:

It's looking more and more likely that the cause of all the stuttering (even on PC's with 2gb + is due to a fault in the ini where a default memory value has been set waaaay too low. From what i've read so far, upping this value increases the amount of memory the game uses and drastically cuts down on the stutter to the point of being tolerable.

*Disclaimer - I don't personally condone downloads that can be used for piracy purposes. But neither will I accept software that doesn't work as it's supposed to after I pay for it.