to number #4 and #5:
After the Joowood/PB split there is a small number of new trolls with massive posts at WoG that are very likely with Jowood associated - they are bashing PB and defend Jowood whereever they can.
There postings are so 'unnatural' they cannot be 'normal new users' - that's more than evident.
Ummm... so what? If they are trolls, don't feed them then
. Besides, I'm sure that the hyperactive, overzealous mod team of WoG is/has been taking care of these trolls swiftly. I have personally had two troll-free and free of insults (I swear
), PB-critical posts of mine deleted. Depending on their mood and whether they see it or not, they are deleting anything and everything left, right and center that goes against the gods of PB. Then they claim their right that it is a private board for fans and that anyone who doesn't agree with the extremely tight pro-PB moderation can go and f... themselves. Great forum that. Really.
But even if #4 und #5 is not true - if #3 happens an no official patch will be released then Jowood has downright lied at least twice:
Before the release Jowood has said:
lie 1) Gothic 3 has no A bugs and is nearly bug free
It was not really JoWooD who said that but it was a private matter of Johann Ertl, the Community Manager, who
repeatedly said and made it very clear that the "mead bet" (where he bet that G3 will not have any cat A bugs on release) is only a private "fun" thing of his own and that it has nothing to do with JoWooD.
Besides, his bet was based on the promise of PB to have all category A bugs fixed on the day of release (with the release patch). PB did not manage to keep their promise (well, they did in a way... after they -this only a likely rumor though- manually downgraded all cat A bugs to lower category bugs).
Not really Ertl's or even JoWooD's fault, especially since JW had absolutely nothing to do with it.
JW would never ever promise such a thing ("no category A bugs") since it would basically be an invitation for lawsuits and class action if it turned out otherwise. Again, they may be dumb but they are not
that dumb
.
In summary, it was a pretty stupid bet for Ertl to make since most bugs will only become apparent when the masses start hitting the game but that's Ertl's personal problem and a problem of his purse really. At least he and a few folks who got their mead in the end probably had a few good laughs when they got drunk.
lie 2) After patch 1.12 they have guaranteed to release a final big patch
Well, whenever they (they = JoWooD community management) were talking about a patch, it was based on the word of PB that they (PB) were working on a patch. Hell, KaiRo and Ralf said it a million times in posts that were mostly made at WoG that there'd be another patch. Why shouldn't the JW CMs Glockenbeat and Ertl believe them? Ertl mailed them repeatedly, too, (he says he still got the copies in his 'sent' folder) and inquired about the patch. He received a "we're working on it" and "we'll be taking care of it" and "give us just a few more weeks" response every time. It was PB who were "guaranteeing" that there'd be another patch. The JW CMs just passed on the info.
Whatever it was that finally led to the separation of PB and JoWooD it must have either come as a surprise for both parties (so the situation just changed and all of their previous statements all of a sudden turned into "lies") or PB were lying about working on a patch for all of these months, i.e. they might have lied to us and also lied to the JoWooD community managers.
The JW CMs passed on PB's lies to the public then. Passing on information (whether the info is true or not... they can't know that and it's not their job to find out either) is their job.
It's not Ertl's or Glockenbeat's fault if they were misinformed by PB. Both parties said that a patch would be coming. One party (JW) said it based on the information they received from the other party (PB). Only PB really knows whether they were ever working on a final patch at all. Their statements are pretty conflicting. "Yes, we did work on it but only in our heads" sounds pure silly though and is hard to believe.
And what Berger (JoWooD marketing) said after the separation is that they are "trying hard" to find a replacement for PB. He never promised or guaranteed that a patch would be made. He's not (completely) stupid.
Ah, the good old "I have insider info" kind of stuff
. OK. We'll see about that. It could be true since PB is obviously getting funding in some way from someone or they'd be gone already. It's strange that any such cooperation between PB and Koch isn't prohibited by contract though. Koch was the co-publisher of Gothic III. It can't really be in JW's interest (assuming that JW and not Koch dictated the terms of the contract) to allow PB to switch to their co-publisher just like that. Oh well, I guess we'll find out one day when the new projects of PB are officially announced. Thanks for the link!