Forums > Game Forums > Gothic 3 > How where the previous Gothics?
Indra was here (20755) on 2/17/2008 8:29 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
First exposure to Gothic, and despite the addictive process of getting new skills, overall as of yet, I'm not impressed. And I take back everything bad I sad about the lousy combat system of Witcher after experiencing this combat system.
How was Gothic 3 compared to 1 & 2 for you Gothic fans?
Parry, for the love of God how do you parry in this game....?
*says frustrated nameless hero after again being zonkered to death for the 100th time by a roaming wild boar.
â- (1623) on 2/18/2008 4:42 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
I really love the first two Gothics for their detailled worlds, great production values and their simple yet challenging battle system. Probably my favourite aspect of Gothic 1 and 2 is the fact that you were thrown into a world, governed by different factions, slowly getting to know them and at a certain point had to make an irrevocable decision which you wanted to join.
As for Gothic 3, well the world is definitely detailed, especially Myrtana, but what is it good for if the game freezes nearly every two hours (no exaggeration, that happened to me). Often the game would freeze while saving, resulting in the corruption of that savegame and, as if that wasn't enough of an outrage, in two instances it even overwrote all previous saves and therefore corrupted them ALL. I had to completely restart the game two times because of this. The retail version wasn't even close to completion. It was worse than Win98's first release. Anyone who thought Arcanum was bug-infested should play the unpatched version of this little bastard. Don't even get me started talking about the next to infinite number of "minor" bugs (that occurred about every 10 minutes). I had to reload the game countless times because I was stuck in the ground or an important NPC decided to walk through a wall, never to be seen again... This abomination of bug-festival (should be called piranha-festival) drove me INSANE! It all got slightly better after the first two patches, but if a company outsources patch support to the fans, that speaks for itself. But even if the game would've been completely piranha-free, I think it would be still inferior to its predecessors. The battles are a joke. They cannot even be considered whack-a-mole, cause there's zero need to move the mouse around, just dull clicking. But most unforgivable is that there is no irrevocable choice of whom you want to join anymore. That's what made the games so special... In Gothic 3 you change sides whenever you want to without any consequences at all. As for parrying, I forgot how that works, but it doesn't make much sense anyway. And you're right about that insanely strong boars. You can fight a 3 meter tall orc, armed with a 1 1/2 meter sword pretty early in the game, but the average wildboar can kill you instantly.
I have to stop now, only thinking about that nightmare of a gaming-experience makes me wanna hit something! Gotta find those tranquilizers...
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 2/18/2008 5:13 PM · Permalink · Report
I'm just in the beginning of the game, and all I can say is that I'm completely in love with the game's world and especially with its music. Also, my new computer is so powerful that the game runs flawlessly on highest settings. And I applied the latest patch; so far, no bugs or crashes. So I would definitely continue playing it, I love it so far.
How does it compare to previous Gothics? Well, it's way more user-friendly, easier controls (mouse, finally), feels smoother, less clunky, and prettier. That said, the combat is much more primitive than in previous Gothics. If combat is the only thing that bothers you, you might like the combat of earlier Gothics... it has more moves and is more complex.
Otherwise, I find the three Gothics quite similar, I love 'em all.
Indra was here (20755) on 2/18/2008 8:12 PM · Permalink · Report
One final thing: Do monsters and plants regenerate (like in Oblivion)? I hope it does, but I'm guessing it doesn't...now after restarting for the 3rd time, I'm focusing all my points just for hunting.
â- (1623) on 2/18/2008 9:39 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
Nothing in Gothic 3 regenerates.
About hunting: I did exactly the same thing only to find that it becomes completely useless later in the game. A single orc weapon gets you much more money than a whole bunch of furs and teeth and such.
I put most of my points on bow mastery and was proudly showing my brother (who was playing the game at the same time), that I only needed four shots to take down a troll. I wasn't so proud anymore when he told me he could beat trolls with only two fire balls although his character was only half the level as mine was... so much for "balancing".
Do yourself a favour and and put it all either on melee combat or magic.
Indra was here (20755) on 2/19/2008 7:50 PM · Permalink · Report
Gah, I'm not in the mood of restarting this crappy game now. Too many hours spent making up for it crashing on me. This game is just waiting for a trashing review and deserves every profane word in it.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/6/2008 8:10 PM · Permalink · Report
Dunno guys, are we all playing the same game? I'm still in the beginning, and I've killed every single wild boar and wolf I met so far. It's true that they are stronger than well-armed orcs, and that the orcs behave very stupidly in combat, but they are certainly not the insane killers as everyone describe them.
I did meet a lizard in a cave that killed me by repeatedly attacking, there was nothing I could do. Try a bow next time, maybe.
Overall, despite the strange things happening during combat, the game is amazing, so far. And I haven't even explored properly. Running around through the coastal area and doing quests for the rebels.
Note: the game didn't crash, freeze, or even slowed down once. Playing at maximum settings on everything.
Another note: I've applied the latest patch.
â- (1623) on 4/6/2008 10:01 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
Yeah, it's probably the patch then. I heard the latest one fixes most of the nastier bugs. But nevertheless, everything that I described actually happened to me, I just cannot bring myself to play it again to check out if it actually works better now, too many bad memories (yes, it was that bad). It's not that I didn't give the game a chance, I really wanted to like it as much as its great prequels. Believe me, if you had gone through all that frustration that comes with playing the unpatched version (or first and second official patch), you'd probably trash that game, too.
I almost feel bad for suggesting this, but if you really want to understand why others hate that game so much (and you are really bold), try playing the unpatched version. Note: You might wanna stock up on tranquilizers and replacement keyboards before that. ;)
Edit: By the way, I played the game on a high-end gaming PC similar to yours, not the lousy one you can see in my profile. Just to make sure nobody thinks I was an idiot for complaining about the game's bad performance when I had played on an old PC like that.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/7/2008 7:01 AM · Permalink · Report
Believe me, if you had gone through all that frustration that comes with playing the unpatched version (or first and second official patch), you'd probably trash that game, too.
No, I don't think I would. I never trash games because of technical issues. And it's not because they don't frustrate me. On the contrary, at one point I was about to leave PC gaming for good just because so many games were so buggy or downright unplayable. But I still don't feel like trashing any game because of that. Looking at the world of Gothic 3, hearing its music - how can I trash it? And I did try to play it before, unpatched, on my other computer, when I still didn't have the new one. Needless to say, it was nearly unplayable. But all I felt was the desire to buy a better computer and to wait till the final patch goes out. I never felt any anger towards the game or its developers.
The Fabulous King (1332) on 4/7/2008 10:45 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start JazzOleg wrote--] I never trash games because of technical issues. [/Q --end JazzOleg wrote--] And that's what I like about you.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/7/2008 4:22 PM · Permalink · Report
And that's what I like about you
It's nice of you to say that :)
Actually, I feel pity when people go nuts because of bugs and stuff. Pity to the people, not to the games. I don't really care if Gothic 3 is trashed or not; important is that I like it. But when I play a game I like, I want to share the happiness with other people, and then discover that they hated it because they were killed too much by boars. My enjoyment doesn't really depend on those things too much.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/7/2008 5:05 PM · Permalink · Report
The criticism that was mentioned in this thread so far, has been much more substantial than just that.
I know, I exaggerated to make a point.
â- (1623) on 4/7/2008 3:49 PM · Permalink · Report
So how would you rate the retail version? Call me old-fashioned, but when I pay 50 bucks for a game I think I can expect it to run at least halfway descent.
Don't you think that technical issues should at least have some kind of impact on how games are rated? It is one thing to forgive bugs, in favour of focusing on the game's creative content (I'm all for that, by the way), but it's a another thing to just completely ignore them. In another thread you said it would be unfair to trash games for such reasons. Quite on the contrary, it's unfair to ignore technical malfunctions in games, since that would mean a game with a great story, setting, characters and lots of bugs was just as good or hardly worse than the same game that runs flawlessly.
"And I did try to play it before, unpatched, on my other computer, when I still didn't have the new one. Needless to say, it was nearly unplayable."
Sure, it was unplayable, but that would have been the case anyway, because of your old PC. What I'm talking about is that the game itself was next to unplayable on any computer (even those way above the system requirements) for at least half a year.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/7/2008 4:14 PM · Permalink · Report
So how would you rate the retail version?
It depends on how much I like the game generally. Assuming that I give the game a rating of 5 out of 5 if it ran smoothly, I'd probably deduce half a point because of the technical issues.
Don't you think that technical issues should at least have some kind of impact on how games are rated?
For me, rating means only one thing: liking the game or disliking it. Any rating of a game, movie, book, etc. will never be objective because objectivity is impossible here. When I see someone rating a game 5 out of 5, that only tells me that he loved the game, nothing else.
If those technical issues bothered you so much, you have the full right to rate the game low. For me, they don't matter much, that's why I'm going to rate it high. That is, unless I find more important things in it that I don't like, of course.
â- (1623) on 4/7/2008 5:07 PM · Permalink · Report
"...I'd probably deduce half a point because of the technical issues."
Half a point deduction for the fact that the game was, as you say yourself "nearly unplayable"? That's totally out of perspective. If everyone thought like you do, we wouldn't be able to play any halfway finished games anymore, since the game companies had no reason to induce their programmers to actually deliver descent work, because people would buy the unfinished products anyway.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 4/7/2008 6:17 PM · Permalink · Report
Half a point deduction for the fact that the game was, as you say yourself "nearly unplayable"? That's totally out of perspective.
Maybe, but what can I do. That's the way I feel. I mean, I'm enjoying Gothic 3, that's what matters, right? I can't force myself not to enjoy it because of what you say. I can make an angry face and say: "The unpatched version was too buggy! What would be if all the games were so buggy?", but then the only answer that comes to my mind is: "if they were all as enjoyable as Gothic 3, I would thousand times prefer them over smoothly running, perfectly programmed games I don't enjoy".
MichaelPalin (1414) on 2/26/2008 2:35 PM · Permalink · Report
Death by boars is not the most humiliating thing that can happen to you in Gothic III, I have feared simple wolfs from the beginning to the end thanks to the stupid combat system.