Re: Gothic 4.

Ceowulf wrote:
"Static Void" <StaticVoid@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:465607d8$0$1357$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nostromo wrote:
Gothic 1 and 2 were originally also released in very poor shape. This
didn't affect the English versions since they were released much
later.
That's the price you pay for labours of love & innovative game
development, unlike certain other clone drek which shall remain
nameless ;-p.
Exactly! I'll take a glitchy great game like G3 over a polished, souless
turd like TES4 anyday anywhere anyhow.

I hate to say it, but now that I've finally got a machine that can play G3 without difficulties, I am finding it's a very poor quality game. No Nos, wait, calm, hear me out first! :)

BUT, BUT...!!!...<deep breath>

The quests are horribly implemented. Besides the horrible dialog system there is no detailed quest information, even less than there was in the G2. This is bad if you leave a quest for a while, and then want to finish it at a later date yet can't remember the details well. Hell it's just bad in general, the lack of information on what to do can be frustrating as hell.

Memory & a notepad - there is no substitute! ;-p
(or read a walkthrough/hint site <G>)

Actually, come to think of it, that's one of the things I also really like about LOTRO - it doesn't spoon-feed you quests & answers like you're a severe ADD sufferer, thank God! :)

This is immediately noticeable on one of the very earlier quests, you get told "Go get a Shy Deer meat". Right... ok, I kill one of the frustrating damn things, get two raw meat to add to my stack of 60 other raw meat (at least they allowed you to cook it all in one go now, but then countered this by making eating things SLOW and TEDIOUS by having to watch each god damn animation before you can eat the next one!). I go back to Chris, no option to complete the hunting training quest... okay, I go kill another one (frustrating as hell to get yet again, but that's ok, it's the only GOOD monster AI I've seen so far). Get another two raw meat to add to my stack. No good, still cant complete the quest. Kill another one, two more raw meat. Still can't complete the quest. Getting pissed off now, I look it up on the web. I need 5 raw meat from shy deer. Ok I should have 6 right, 2 per shy deer? Still can't hand it in. I can't find any more god damn shy deer, there are supposed to be 5 right? I give up on the quest after circling the area over and over. No hunting skills for me it seems. Cant skin wolves, can't learn from the next hunter trainer. A part of me also wont cook that huge stack of raw meat now for fear of "destroying" the raw meat I need to hand in should I ever find another shy deer! Blah.

You had to pick on the single-most frustrating, entirely *optional*, quest in the entire game Ceo? Blah. Not dignifying it with further response for what is 0.0000037% of the game. So there. ;-p

Next issue.

The monster AI is the worst I've seen in... well, since ever. Shoot a bloodfly, it buzzes, moves backwards/sideways a bit, then goes back to its start position. Do it again, repeat till dead. Shoot an Ogre, it levitates sideways a bit, then levitates back to its start position, repeat till dead. Shoot into a group of bandits a couple of times. Turn and sprint backwards for 3 seconds. Stop, go back, do it again as they've all reset to normal positions. Obviously its a pathfinding issue, I'm not shooting them from a location that is easy for them to get too. Well excuse me, imagine that, an archer who ISN'T shooting from 10 feet directly in front of the monster so the pathfinding AI has a chance to reach me, to shame!

I saw a little bit of this sort of thing, but not nearly as bad as you describe. What patches & user mods/fixed have you installed?

Next issue.

I'm working for the rebels, I've helped the rebel in the first town you go to, gotten him some stacks of weapons. Now what? He wont talk to me anymore. How do I start the revolution? I've got no information on what needs doing. Ok I could be thick, I accept that. Maybe I need to gain the trust of the orcs before I can kill em all? That's logical right? I've completed all the quests that seem "ethical" for the rebel side, not hunted down the escaped slave (oh boy That's a good hiding spot... yep, out of the entrance straight to the left on top of the hill, no one will find you there!), not gone looking for the orc merchants crates etc etc. But now what? The rebels don't have any more quests for me. How do I continue helping them? Do I have to get into the lighthouse to free the paladin? To do that I have to get the trust of the orcs... again, counter intuitive. I don't want to help the orcs out, but hey if I plan on killing them all later it doesn't matter right? Except that the manual says those who are known to associate with orcs aren't held in high esteem by the rebels. I don't want to be held in suspicion by the rebels... Blah again.

Yer thinking too hard about what's ahead yet to come, at the expense of just soaking in the game here & now at hand & enjoying yourself. I ran around for _hours_ just breathing in the environment & atmosphere - quests were not the main focus for me until much later - they kinda just happened along the way. Now, I'm not telling you how to play your game, but it really is more like a solo mmorpg than an offline crpg in this regard (w/o the asshats >:-). I found exploration & playing around with the physics alone to be quite enjoyable & rewarding. I did get bogged down with some quests toward *my* mid-game, but I didn't stress or push it to find out how & where to resolve them (which is not at all me usually ;) - I just went where the next adventure took me. Even so, it had enough storyline & direction to keep me going, with setting my own mini-goals at each turn, & to interest me for almost 3 mths. It's the only game where I welcomed almost every distraction at every turn because it enhanced my enjoyment, rather than detracted from the game; it's the only game where I happily played through an entire rainy night cycle outdoors because it was just THAT good & immersive! :)

Anyway, even thinking about the game is making me angry, it truly is a heaping pile of sh*t in my humble opinion. Keep in mind its just my opinion so yes I don't think everyone else should feel my way. In comparison to Oblivion... well, there is no comparison. Oblivion seems superior in every way. Hearing that G3 isn't going to be patched further makes me a very sad panda, I only played G2 late in its life, when it was well patched. So maybe G3 would've had potential later in life too.

I played from the 1.06 bugfest to the 1.09 semi-vertebrate form & found the game well worth the effort, despite the issues. And I only have a 3yr old system (X800Pro, AMD3400, 2Gb DDR400) which ain't the best platform to run it on. I think never truer words have been spoken than Gothic 3 is not for everyone & it's a shame that it's managed to polarise its target audience so much. I do agree though that with just a couple more months QA (plus a little re-design of a couple things to begin with) it could've been a legendary accomplishment. As it stands, I still like it more than Oblivion (at least I feel like there's a game in this sandpit, not just wet sand :), but would only give it a 7.5/10 overall, Fallout/Torment/BG2/VTMB being 9+ in my books.

--
Nostromo
.