Gothic 3 Event - Part 2
Gorath, 2005-08-04

Piranha Bytes- in conjunction with  JoWooD & Koch Media / Deep Silver invited the German speaking press to visit the sound track recordings for Gothic 3. The developers used the event to inform us about the technology used in their game, and what to expect when the game ships. They showed us mainly the visual aspects of game development, for example -  creating a house, landscape design and character animation. After the presentation,  members of the Development and Public Relations team  were available for interviews and small talk. I used the opportunity to a chat with designer Mike Hoge about the general direction the Gothic series is taking with its 3rd installment.
Please read our article about the recording session if you´re interested in the event and the music. The summary below only deals with gameplay aspects. It´s based on the interview with Mike and other things learned at the event.

Still the key feature: Gothic´s game world
Piranha Bytes made clear that "the world" was and still is Gothic´s most important aspect. They´ll do what they can to make it even more believable. Three things they´re working on is clearly improved pathfinding, AI and NPC behaviour. Gothic 3 can track every NPC´s actions on a global level, while Gothic 2 was only local. Group behaviour and scripting is much easier to handle now. The global news system allows precise control about the information flow between NPCs. All this heavily influences balancing, so it remains to be seen to what extend it will be used.
Technological advancement also works in favour of a more spectacular world. Now a typical scene will have about 6 times as many polygons as in Gothic 2, which simply translates to more details. The clearly improved animations should also have a positive effect. An NPC´s mood influences the way he moves. You can see whether a character is happy, drunk, tired, hurt or if he just stood up and is top fit.

Trend 1: More freedom
Gothic 3 wants to get away from the adventure-like structure of the first two games. In them you had to do a lot of things in exactly the correct order to reach the next chapter. The developers strive to avoid this in Gothic 3, in favour of more options and more freedom for the player, for example by offering a pool of quests to choose from rather than forcing the player to pick a certain one.
The game will be much more nonlinear than its predecessors. The main quest will be largely optional during most parts of game. Piranha Bytes wants to hit exactly the thin line on which the player _knows_ where to go to advance in the main quest but can choose to do many other things first, just because he prefers it that way.

Trend 2: Weaknesses fixed
Gothic´s biggest weaknesses were the clumsy controls and the high difficulty level. Gothic 3 will have adjustable difficulty and proven controls inspired by action-adventure games like Splinter Cell. Unfortunately we had a small communication problem because I played none of the games Mike mentioned to illustrate the new controls. What I understood is that it´s 3rd person over-the-sholder perspective, very close to the action and that it has been successfully used in other games before.
An alternative control setup similar to the classic Gothic system will also be included.

Misc.
Apart from the usual "more of everything" there´s another point I would like to mention. Character development will still be like it used to be, but this time skills don´t scale in percent. Instead of raising a skill a few percent you buy a specific bonus, for example a certain combo attack. This helps customize your character.