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Alc0p0pz
Village Dweller
Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 10
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(Firstly, what is with this message board code where the 'new topic' button can only be found when viewing a current topic? Annoying ...)
Gothic.
I bought it on Friday and I'd guess I'm about 4/5 of the way through it. But, I doubt I'll finish the game. Read on to find out why.
After browsing this forum for a few days, it looks to me like for the majority, Gothic is one of the 'love it or loathe it' games. However, just to be awkward, I can't decide which camp (  ) I fall into.
What's good ...
- The freedom within the game world. Yes, you can go whereever you want at any time. (However, the critical path through the game is actually very linear.)
- The 3D engine. Much as I love the Infinity Engine games (and they do have beautiful prerendered art) nothing comes close to the feeling of immersion that a first or third person viewpoint brings. The engine is comparable to, say, Thief (about four years old) but this doesn't detract. With a high-end system (Athlon 1.4, GF3, half-gig RAM) it runs smoothly, and certain parts actually look very beautiful - the Swamp camp at night, for example.
- The interface. I freely admit, while playing the demo, the one thing which would have otherwise stopped me from buying the full game was the interface, but, like others have commented on, once you get used to it, it's actually fantastic, because almost all commands can be executed without moving from a small number of keys. However, the documentation that came with the English version is f*cking dreadful, and were it not for this forum and JemyM's excellent FAQ (thanks for your efforts, JemyM, btw
 ) I would have missed out on many things. For example, I discovered how the trading interface works by trial and error, and I actually had to come onto this forum and search to find out how to swim underwater. For two such fundamental things to be omitted from the manual is inexcusible.
- The melee weapon character animation. My Templar is now a master with two handed melee weapons. Wearing the Heavy Templar Armour and wielding some f*cking big two handed sword, he looks like a Samuari. Excellent.
- The relatively clever monster A.I. Almost all RPGs feature stupid A.I. which simply runs straight at you as soon as it notices your presence. Not so with Gothic's creatures. They circle, strafe, run away, run back again, work well in packs and generally get your nerves but it's very refreshing to see this.
Now the bad stuff. What I didn't like ...
- Bugs. I have noticed that a few fanboys are of the opinion that Gothic is one of the least buggy RPGs ever, but I find this difficult to believe. Certainly, it has many more bugs than BioWare and Black Isle Studios Infinity Engine games. The classic bugs with these kind of games are often found in going into a certain area too soon, talking to (or killing!) a critical NPC at the 'wrong' time, doing things in an order which the developers didn't expect, thus breaking quests etc, and in my experience, Gothic is riddled with these faults. Thankfully, due to my intelligent and defensive save game techniques I didn't lose much to these bugs, but I can see that a younger gamer or one without as much adventure/RPG experience could easily get very frustrated.
- Instability. I had the notorious 'soundcard' bug which makes Gothic crash to desktop when fighting more than about three enemies simultanously. Again, without searching this forum and finding the solution (which in my case was changing sound provider from EAX2 to DirectX) I probably would never have gotten further than the first minecrawler dungeon. Also, Gothic crashes approximately half the time I alt-tab out. I hate that. Another annoying bug I noticed is that every time the game starts, it sets my speaker arrangement to 2 speakers, so I have to alt-tab out to use the AudioHQ to reset my speakers to 4. Very irritating. Once I had resolves these issues, the game was significantly more stable, although it still does crash to desktop rarely and for no apparent reason.
- No character customisation. It's a 3D game - it wouldn't have taken long to include a mode which allows the choice of 'skin' before starting the game. Hairstyle, build, gender, clothes - nope. You are stuck with the one you get. Disappointing. Also, when I joined the Brotherhood camp, I was hoping my skin would change so that I'd look like the other Novices and Templars, with a shaved head, body, and tattoos. Nope. Again, a disappointment.
- Magic. The Magic system plain sucks. Firstly, it suffers from another classic RPG problem which is that the spells are not balanced. Some are powerful, others, useless. This is obviously not the case with melee and ranged weapons - they do 'what it says on the tin' - whereas choosing a rune or scroll is like playing the lottery. 'Charm' - oops, you lose. 'FireStorm' - hey! you win!. Also, the graphics here are dire. 'Light' and 'Healing' look nice, but the other spell effects look cheap and tacky.
- Combat. Like I said above, when one becomes a master with a weapon, the animation looks great, especially when using the 4x forward attack, complete with a spinning blade. However, in real combat, this never works, because you get 'interupted' whenever hit. (The interuption thing is f*cking annoying - arrows/bolts knock you off ladders etc) I found melee combat on the whole to be a very tedious experience which ultimately requires nothing more than action-left, action-right, action-left, repeat until enemy dies.
- The economy. Very weak. Once you have learnt the hunting skills, and once you realise that all the camps can be easily looted, you will not need to worry about money (Ore) again. Buying equipment is only really a financial problem in chapter one.
- Useless skills. Acrobatics, sneaking, pickpocketing, all useless. This makes playing as a Thief-type character impossible, or at the very best, useless.
- Too time spent travelling vast, empty distances. Toward the end of the game, you get teleportation runes, which speeds this process up somewhat, but even these are fixed to teleport to certain areas, meaning that endless running between places is still necessary.
So to summarise the game.
I certainly would not recommend it to people without a good knowledge of PCs. Very young players, or casual gamers will have no chance. I wouldn't recommend the game to fans of Cleric and Mage classes either. The magic system is rubbish. For Fighter classes, yes, the game might be worth playing, and I recommend that you train both sword and bow, omitting both the redundant thief skills, and the crappy mana-based Mage skills.
As an alternative to Gothic, I recommend Thief - The Dark Project to people who like 3D games with lots of atmosphere requiring brains rather than brawn. To RPG fans, I recommend waiting for Dungeon Siege (April 2002) for more action-oriented gamers, or for Neverwinter Nights (who knows with all the legal crap between Interplay, Wizards and BioWare) for roleplaying gamers.
For me, Gothic is an average game.
6/10 |
Wed Jan 02, 2002 4:52 pm |
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Brak
City Guard
Joined: 06 Dec 2001
Posts: 146
Location: Tucson, AZ USA |
A 6 out of 10, prepare for some comments from forum-goers who disagree. I will simply point out a few things I have noticed. Like there is a New Topic link at the top of the page when viewing the entire list of topics.
Some of the things in the game that bugged me are clearly done on purpose because it makes the game more realistic. When you are struck by a weapon and receive a huge wound you should be interrupted as inconveinient as it may be. And taking an arrow to the ribs while climbing a ladder, come on now, that's gotta hurt. Perhaps if the coders had more time, an event like that would have run a check against your dexterity score before dertermining whether or not you fall. I kind of expected that when I loot a body that the game would pause or something, but no...enemies in the area attack me while I am trying to loot, annoying but realistic and a departure from infinity games where you can look through your inventory, trade items etc. all while the game is conveniently paused.
I do agree that the manual is the worst excuse for documentation I have ever seen in a game. And I do agree that the game is extremely buggy. However regarding the bugs, I do want to point out that some of the things we see as bugs like broken quests are in some cases excusable and in some cases not. If I do a quest in an order that the developer did not plan for thus breaking it, this is poor design but may or may not be considered a bug. But one of your examples where you kill someone and break a quest, well I think that adds to the realism. I think it is less realistic that someone be invulnerable until they say or do something later in the game. But since this is a standard tactic many developers use, it is seen as a bug when you screw it up by killing someone who is important later on. Sometimes developers plan for alternate solutions to quests if you kill the original person that was to play a role it it's completion and perhaps some of that could have been done here especially along the critical path of the main storyline. But I think it is interesting that I don't know who I can kill and who I can't because they might be important later on. Very real. You made some good points, but ultimately I think some of your opinions are based on your prior conditioning from other games and the methods their developers used to design quests. I think Gothic has made some very simplistic design decisions based on the assumption that it would make the game more real (and save them money in the development process while making certain things less convenient for the gamer). This I do not mind as much as you seemed to and look at it as a refreshing change that (just like the infinity games) requires a lot of saving.
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I have a magic toe-nail, I keep it on my foot
Brak |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 6:30 pm |
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Chewriter
Village Leader
Joined: 24 Dec 2001
Posts: 78
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It's definitely a taste thing. I didn't enjoy thief very much.... I liked it at first, but there was something about pretty much standing or squatting 75% of the time waiting, and timing. It may have been the particular missions I was on at the time, but I tried all the thief games. Graphics were so so. I'd recommend Summoner, Rune, or even Evil Islands (The worst voice-overs ever made) before Thief. And though many like Thief, I don't think it compares to this game. |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 7:27 pm |
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Guest
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I think I agree and disagree on many of your points. I think you may have been discouraged by too many bugs. Most of the bad things you mentioned either were resolved or can be resolved.
I had some graphical problems at first, but all it took was a driver update. After that, I don't think the game crashed on me more than 2-3 times during the entire game and those were during loads. I could even restart the game without a problem, so I didn't even need to reboot. Compared to other RPG's I'd say the bug count is average. Some of the best games I ever played were more buggy.
I think its unanimous that the interface could have been done a lot better. On the bright side, after you know the interface it doesn't slow you down or effect gameplay. I'd say that this is the most forgivable flaw in the game.
I definitely agree that the manual has some inexcusable ommisions. Without these message boards I never would have known how to move one item when buying/selling.
I also agree about the economy. They could have balanced this better. Even how it is, it never took away from my enjoyment of the game. All the best items don't need money anyhow. Everything is either given, stolen, or found.
A custom character look would have been nice, but I would MUCH rather see the artists put their effort into other areas. A custom look is forgotten minutes after starting the game.
I think that the graphics are the most misunderstood and underappreciated aspect of this game. What other games have had this large of a seamless gameworld? There have only been a few and the graphics in Gothic blow them away. Have you EVER seen a game that had a forst that felt as realistic. I saw one guy harping on the fact that the distant forest is just a large flat polygon. That is true, but it is exactly that effect that makes the forest feel so dense and real. I can't agree with your comparison to Thief. Thief was a level game. The levels are small and give you that "playing in a shoebox" feeling. Gothic is wide open and mostly seamless. It takes a special graphics engine to do that. It can't be done with a modified Unreal or Quake engine. I would much rather have medium quality in a seamless world than high quality in a level based world.
To me, Gothic is the best RPG since the old school Ultima games(Underworld and The Black Gate). The infinity engine games lacked something and the combat was tedious and repetitive to the point that I would quit before the end of the game. The Elder Scrolls games lacked personality. There is something about Gothic that made the NPC's come to life. I actually found myself liking, disliking, and hating different NPC's and that is something that no other game has ever done.
I'd give it a 9/10. It would be a 10/10 if they would have done a normal interface(mouse, paper dolls, etc), had an accurate manual, and balanced the economy. |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 9:02 pm |
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Bourrie
Village Leader
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 78
Location: Belgium |
Alc0p0pz, your bad stuff isn't bad stuff for everyone, it's only your personal opinion:
1) Bugs
Only the attack of Gorn in the free mine looks not logic to me! That was the only "bug" I've noticed, playing it several times!
2)Instability
Not for me! P III 1000 Mhz, 256 RAM, Sound onboard 128 PCI, Geforce 2 MX 200! They've worked three years on that game; it's certainly not rushed!
3) No character customisation
Gameplay is certainly not better with different skin-possibilities!
4)Magic!
That's freedom! You can use the magic you want, why complaining!
5)Combat!
Weak in the beginning, strong at the end! What's wrong with that! I've also enjoyed Severance with its complicated combatsystem but it's another kind of game!
6) The economy!
Hard in the beginning, easier later, again what's wrong with that! It's part of your freedom! You can earn ore on very different ways!
7)Useless skills!
Again again that's the freedom in this game; you don't have to learn them, if you don't want to!
 Too time spent travelling vast, empty distances!
No prob with that; I've used the speed-potions and I've buyed all bloodfly-scrolls I could get to use for travel. It was very funny!
But that's my opinion, just don't call them generally bad, only because you find them bad!
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Servire Qui Serviunt |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 9:04 pm |
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Alc0p0pz
Village Dweller
Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 10
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Thanks for your considered replies. I have read them all, despite the fact I'm about to comment on the thing immediately above ...
quote:
But that's my opinion, just don't call them generally bad, only because you find them bad!
My friend, this is exactly what a review is meant to consist of! If I didn't state the things I found bad to be bad (and the things I found good to be good!) what would the review be? Very short, is the answer! When you buy a gaming magazine, or read an online review, how many people do you think write it? Reviews are one person's opinion, which is why I have been disappointed on more than one occasion when I've relied on a review alone, and not tried the demo before buying. |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 9:28 pm |
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Bourrie
Village Leader
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 78
Location: Belgium |
That's indeed the reason you have to read as many reviews as you can, before buying a game if a proper demo of it was not released before! I've read several German reviews before I've tried the demo! Those reviews convinced me to try the demo And only that demo convinced me to buy the game, even it was in German! So we're unanimous about the fact, a review can't say a game's good or bad! It's only a matter of personal opinion, and even that makes a game not bad or good!
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Servire Qui Serviunt |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 9:59 pm |
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Radar75
Village Dweller
Joined: 01 Jan 2002
Posts: 8
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I must admit, I was dissapointed that I couldn't get my head shaved or any tattoos. I was also looking forward to having things to waer besides armor, like helms, cloaks, armor augmentations such as being able to buy peices of armor (I.E. shoulder add ons, thicker breast/side plates, orniments) to customize your armor and make different characters truly unique. Head dresses. Sounds dumb huh? But when i saw the furs on the Merc armor the thought of a wolf Head dress poped into my mind. Just the look of only a faint pair of human eye peering out from under a wolf face seemed cool to me. Sheilds, I didn't really miss them much, but I being able to really pick up some extra armor would have made one handed weapons worth while later in the game (Provided they were tweeked a little). Other than that, I didn't really have to many quarlles about the game. |
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 10:18 pm |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
quote:
On 2002-01-02 16:18, Radar75 wrote:
I must admit, I was dissapointed that I couldn't get my head shaved or any tattoos. I was also looking forward to having things to waer besides armor, like helms, cloaks, armor augmentations such as being able to buy peices of armor (I.E. shoulder add ons, thicker breast/side plates, orniments) to customize your armor and make different characters truly unique. Head dresses. Sounds dumb huh? But when i saw the furs on the Merc armor the thought of a wolf Head dress poped into my mind. Just the look of only a faint pair of human eye peering out from under a wolf face seemed cool to me. Sheilds, I didn't really miss them much, but I being able to really pick up some extra armor would have made one handed weapons worth while later in the game (Provided they were tweeked a little). Other than that, I didn't really have to many quarlles about the game.
I agree - possibility of wearing more items - helms and (as in many other RPGs) can just improvment of this game (just my opinion  )
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 10:36 pm |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
quote:
On 2002-01-02 10:52, Alc0p0pz wrote:
For me, Gothic is an average game.
6/10
My opinion 9/10 (simply because I really enjoy to play this game)
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Wed Jan 02, 2002 10:38 pm |
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Alc0p0pz
Village Dweller
Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 10
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Umm, turned out, I was more like 9/10 of the way through ... did anyone else think the very end was a bit lame? I mean, I was expecting to fight the Sleeper, die and reload like about 50 times ...
*shrugs*
Ah well, Gothic is uninstalled now.
I highly doubt I'll be playing it again.
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Fri Jan 04, 2002 3:05 pm |
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Guest
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Ah. The best games are designed so that you have to die and reload many times to get past a certain point. That's what I call FUN! |
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Fri Jan 04, 2002 6:51 pm |
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Max Killen
Exalted Potentate
Joined: 04 Dec 2001
Posts: 1112
Location: Why not Minot? |
quote:
I highly doubt I'll be playing it again.
All people can't like all things. Some number one games bore me to death. Some games have puzzles that are just to complicated to figure out. Some games you have to keep a regular log book to keep track of what your doing. Gothic to me, creates a relaxing enviroment, it doesn't have any real complicated puzzles, the monsters aren't impossible to kill, they get harder to kill as your level increases (which, by the way, is how it should be), and again to me, it's a very fun game. It doesn't take it self to seriously and it does a replay value. Again this is my opinion. If we all shared the same opinion, we would all be sipping rice schnapps under a coconut tree in Jamaica or somewhere.
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Fri Jan 04, 2002 7:11 pm |
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