Game News Everything you've ever wanted to know about Gothic 3

[Paranoid Jack]

Any more specifics on an English release yet?

Looks damn good as far as the numbers go but as others have stated that isn't what is important to me... it is the game-play I want to see a bit more of. Though I will most likely pick this one up sooner rather than later.

Edit: Some UK On-Line retails have it listed as Oct. 13th just like the European release. But the only NA listing I have is on EBGames for Nov. 20th. I was hoping for a world wide release this time around. But I will most likely pick this up and hold off on NWN2. Of course CoH will also be coming out soon so who knows. And if VD & Iron Tower finish AoD I will be playing that first over any of these other three I have an interest in. So it looks to be a fairly good Fall lined up... so far.

 

[HanoverF]

As long as the exclusive quests aren't along the lines of. you're killing rats for the rogues guild, so you can't kill them for the warriors guild...

 

[Eclecticist]

When this bitch gets released I'm going to put down the paddle and get seriously excited.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

550 quests (minus exclusive ones) in about 150 hours? HAHAHAHAHA! I forsee deep, complex, far reaching quests galore! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That's about 3 and a half quests per hour or 16 minutes per quest on average. If as has been said, 25 of those belong to the main story and the main story takes about 50 hours to finish, then that's one main story quest every 2 hours. Throw in the mandatory side quests you're doing as well and that's not actually a bad thing at all.

 

[Binary]

YEAH!!! We just want the platemail bikinis

Your post is pointless, and Lord Chambers is actually right. You should not measure a game in terms of quest numbers, or any numbers for that matter. And good game should be coherent.

It's still an important factor. In the paper, would you prefer an RPG with 550 quests or with 10? 525 sidequests is very nice and doesn't force the player to do the pointless fedex ones *cough Baldur's Gate cough* to get more cash/skills/experience/whatever.

And why is my post pointless, platemail bikinis are a standard now!!1!!111!!!...

 

[Dhruin]

Any more specifics on an English release yet?

The European (including UK) release has been officially announced: Oct 13th. The US release is currently "Fall".

It's a simple matter to buy fron the UK if you are keen.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

YEAH!!! We just want the platemail bikinis

Your post is pointless, and Lord Chambers is actually right. You should not measure a game in terms of quest numbers, or any numbers for that matter. And good game should be coherent.

It's still an important factor. In the paper, would you prefer an RPG with 550 quests or with 10? 525 sidequests is very nice and doesn't force the player to do the pointless fedex ones *cough Baldur's Gate cough* to get more cash/skills/experience/whatever.

And why is my post pointless, platemail bikinis are a standard now!!1!!111!!!...

What the hell are you talkin about you stupid prick?
As someone else said before, numbers dont mean anything, its the quest qualitiy which is important.
To answer you stupid question, yes I would prefer the RPG with 10 quality quests over a RPG with 550 shit quests.
Hell, Fallout had maybe 20-30 quests, including every mini-mini-mini thing you could do in the gameworld, was it less fun? Was it a bad RPG?

And how is a high quest number preventing fed-ex quests you degenrated piece of shit?!
Logic suggest that the chance to have stupid fed-ex quests is much higher in a game with hundreds of pointless quests then in a game with a few dozens quests which are genuinly designed.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

I call shenanigans on it. There's no way those ten billion quests are all high quality, and the hourly estimate for completion is also way off. I'm guessing 20-30 hours for an average run through. And, if the voice acting sucks like the first two games, they can take those 550 quests and reinvest the money into better production values.

I want the game to be good, but I've learnt from the first two games and also don't believe PR talk.

 

[Elwro]

Voice acting in the Polish version was quite good. And after NotR came out, a long time after G2, it introduced new dialogue to old characters. CD Projekt used the same actors the second time, so the differences were minimal and only due to some side effects. Also, the voice of the Nameless Hero in the Polish version of both games is just perfect.
Unfortunately, the need for translation and new recordings seems to imply that we won't get the game on October 13th as everyone else.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

And, if the voice acting sucks like the first two games, they can take those 550 quests and reinvest the money into better production values.

Because voice acting is a helluva lot more important than quests, rite?

 

[Direwolf]

Actually I didn't mind voice acting in G2. Most of the guys were mercenaries, farmers and soldiers. Those kind of people don't even know how to speak properly. As for 550 quests... I call bullshit.

 

[Gambler]

In the paper, would you prefer an RPG with 550 quests or with 10?

I would prefer a better paper.

 

[Surgey]

Why have only 10 good quests if you can have 550 good quests? If they're all good, the more the better. It's not like you should automatically assume that because there are lots of quests, only 5 of them are good.

 

[Direwolf]

550 is too big of a number to be good. No way any team can handle creating 550 individual meaningful quests for any game. MMORPGs can pull that many quests off only because all of them are based on 10-20 different templates. So we must presume that PB are either full of crap regarding the number of quests, or there are only 25-50 hand-crafted quests and the rest are template based ones.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

And, if the voice acting sucks like the first two games, they can take those 550 quests and reinvest the money into better production values.

Because voice acting is a helluva lot more important than quests, rite?

Good voice acting is more important than 100 extra side quests which are likely to be fedex (if they pull off 550 immersive, complex quests then I'll be pleased and surprised), yes. A game like Gothic is all about immersion, and poor voice acting can really ruin that.

 

[Twinfalls]

And, if the voice acting sucks like the first two games, they can take those 550 quests and reinvest the money into better production values.

Hoy? Which were the badly voiced characters in either G1 or G2? And did any of them regularly change voices mid-speech?

The English Gothics may not have featured the Royal Shakespeare Company, but to say they were deal-breakingly badly voice-acted, and that money should be put into voice acting at the expense of content is either baiting or some fantastic retarditude.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

What I'm saying is, for me, immersion counts and many european games are ruined for me by awful translation and voice acting. Sentences that don't make sense, and so on. Darkstar One, for instance, takes a significant blow to its quality because the voice acting is so terrible (go play the demo). That Space Rangers game - the UK version at least - was like reading text that had been directly lifted from babelfish, and pretty much ruined a good part of the experience for me (the text adventures were a chore, nothing more).

The gothic games never had terrible voice acting but a lot of it, to me, really grated and constantly reminded me I was playing an often poorly translated game rather than getting immersed.

You are fine with that, cool. I am not and wish that publishers translating games would give a shit about getting more competant actors, and at the expense of a bunch of fedex quests (which is an assumption that I have stated before - if the quests are more interesting, things change) when there are hundreds of others on offer, I'll take it. Fedex quests to me are boring filler in a game, especially when repeated ad nauseum, which I'm assuming a fair few of those 550 quests will be. Filler quests vs improved gameworld immersion in a series that prides itself on its living world - an easy choice for me. Anyway, it's a purely hypothetical situation so doesn't really matter.

And if you think my views are retarded... meh, get over it. Who cares. Just an opinion, dude.

 

[Twinfalls]

Just an opinion, dude - you are retarded.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Sounds like I really touched a nerve D:

 

[Twinfalls]

I love myself
I want you to love me
When I'm feelin' down
I want you above me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me

Chorus:
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you
I touch myself
I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

You're the one who makes me happy honey
You're the sun who makes me shine
When you're around I'm always laughing
I want to make you mine

I close my eyes
And see you before me
Think I would die
If you were to ignore me
A fool could see
Just how much I adore you
I get down on my knees
I'd do anything for you

Chorus

I love myself
I want you to love me
When I'm feelin' down
I want you above me
I search myself
I want you to find me
I forget myself
I want you to remind me

Chorus

I want you
I don't want anybody else
And when I think about you
I touch myself
Ooh, oooh, oooooh, aaaaaah

Chorus

 

[deus]

Any word on combat control yet? Gothic 2 gave me mallet finger.

Gothic's combat system has been a frequent point of criticism for the series, and with the third entry Piranha Bytes has attempted to make the fighting more streamlined and intuitive. Now, the game uses a two mouse button system with a soft target lock. When fighting multiple enemies, the game will automatically target the one over which your cursor tends to hover, and to attack with the currently equipped weapon or spell you simply click the left mouse button. Melee weapons have context-sensitive attacks assigned to both the left and right mouse buttons. For example, swords have a vertical slash assigned to the left button and a quick horizontal swipe assigned to the right. There are also various other options. Holding the left mouse button winds up for a strong vertical attack, while holding the right mouse button blocks. Blocking then clicking the left mouse button performs a slow but particularly powerful blow. Other weapons have different systems, though most them seem relatively similar. The setups for longer weapons such as staves take advantage of those weapons' crowd-control potential by having large sweeping strokes for the powerful attacks, and so on. From what I can tell, most spells and bows do not have these multiple attacks, as their functions tend to be more specialized. Combat, as well as the rest of the game, can be played either in first or third person, depending on player preference. It's tough to get a sense for how the combat holds up over time based on a relatively short preview session, what with the game's emphasis on unique skill development. Right now it seems like the streamlined point and click aspects may make it too simplistic. Hopefully later hands on impressions will provide a more thorough understanding.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Just an opinion, dude - you are retarded.

Youre acting like the Oblivion kiddies on the ESF forums. Get overt yourself and your precious Gothic 3.
Im looking forward to it myself, but thats no reason to react on every critique like a 12 year old ESF regular when someone says something bad about his holy grail.

Now, I don't know about the american voice acting, since I played the gemran version of G 1 + 2.
However, as a german player, I know the feeling of playing a shitty voiced translation of US Games. And yes, it is hurting the atmosphere, it is annoying, it can spoil a otherwise great game.
Voice acting is not more important then good quests, but if theres voice acting it has to be done properly

Though Mr.Teatime, you argument that they should use money on better voice acting instead of higher number of quests is a bit flawed.
Its usually not the developer who is responsible for international marketing and translation, but the Publisher. So the guys at Piranha bites will have very little to no influence on how well their game will be translated and voiced in other languages.

 

[elkston]

550 is too big of a number to be good. No way any team can handle creating 550 individual meaningful quests for any game. MMORPGs can pull that many quests off only because all of them are based on 10-20 different templates. So we must presume that PB are either full of crap regarding the number of quests, or there are only 25-50 hand-crafted quests and the rest are template based ones.

Naah. PB does not do "template" quests. My guess is that they when they give the number "550" it really means 550 quest operations. Each quest is broken up into perhaps 1 or more "mini-quests" and they are actually adding up the mini-quests to inflate the actual quest numbers for marketing purposes.

For instance, lets say there is a quest to retreive a holy dagger. That could be broken down into several mini-quests: 1) find the map for its location 2)locate the secret passage on elkston isle 3) get the dagger , etc. etc. By counting up all these inidivdual tasks that must be done to do the quest, I can see them coming up with a huge number like 550.

But regardless of this fact, lets remember that this is Pirhanna Bytes. They have not let us down (in a major way) for 2 1/2 games. They know what they are doing. They are not suddenly going to just implode and release a total mess. Even if the number is exaggerated or even false, lets give them the benefit of the doubt. There will be some cool quests in the game and it will remain a deep, exciting action-RPG experience.

 

[elkston]

The gothic games never had terrible voice acting but a lot of it, to me, really grated and constantly reminded me I was playing an often poorly translated game rather than getting immersed.

Did you actually play Gothic I? Because if you did you would know that while Gothic 2 did have some moments of questionable translation, the first one was nearly flawless (and better voice acted too).

Seriously, I did not know Gothic I was originally a German game until I read up later about it. The localisation was very good and this is coming from a native English speaker.

I think this time around, they are really pushing for a big presence on the International scene and they will put a lot of effort into making the translations and voice acting beleivable.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Well most of the moments of shoddy acting and translation I'm thinking of come from G2 with the expansion. I played far more of Gothic 1 than Gothic 2, actually. I remember the engine in G2 having some nasty problems, dunno if that was just my PC or not but I got some horrible framerates.