Arcania - Demo Released

[spiraling69]

Has there ever been a weight limit in a Gothic game? Games do run together but I think I remember being a human vacuum cleaner in all of them, especially early on.

It's pretty obvious the demo was switching into "fast forward" mode at the end. The Canadian Witch suddenly stopped following you after the Queen and you get a box full of goodies. Then you're suddenly seeing mid-level monsters. Then more loot. Then the whole cave suddenly changes. Then undead. It looks to me like, after the queen, they, removed the exit and spliced in two other dungeons with massively scaled-down enemies.

I strongly suspect all the heal potions and piles of arrows were put in for demo purposes.

Anyway, my own impressions….

I liked it quite a lot. The graphics were pretty impressive, IMHO. The sky was dull (they need to take a clue from Risen's sunsets) and some of the popout/popin was odd but the overall effect was great. Stereoscopic 3D was not even close, just as Nvidia said, which is a real pity.

I did feel pretty hemmed in, but no more than in Risen's demo.

Combat seemed good to me. I liked the archery - particularly the fact that I could miss easily. I do have to wonder what's with this extra-strong attacks the critters make, though. They were terribly slow. If that's going to be a constant of the game, they are going to need to mob us with a lot of critters, because those attacks are so slow that I could simply walk out of the way.

Acting varied from OK to "PLEASE PLEASE STOP, Eh!!! AAAAARRGGHH, Eh!!!!"

I never did figure out how to level up so I've got no idea what the skill system is supposed to be like.

All in all, it's looking fairly good to me. Definitely worth buying. Whether I'll play it before or after Two Worlds… that will be a tougher question.

Ive now played both the xbox and it on a high end PC. Im leaning towards the xbox belive it or not. Im enjoying the larger screen over slightly better graphics. However, on both systems I noticed quite a lot of grapgics "poping" with the grass and also the tree shadows seem to "stutter" as it slowly moves across the ground - very weak. The xbox version needs anti aliasing badly as most edges are quite jagged... Overall, Im not impressed at all. I thought this game was suppose to be a super "next gen" show case, but its not even close.

Over the past year I have been following this and Two Worlds II closely, trying to decide which one to buy. I thought Arcania had the lead, but after this demo, well I think I better get TW2 first, then Arcania next year. I bet JoWoods problems really are affecting the development of this game. I'd say it needs quite a lot of work if the demo is anything like the main game.

It's not the game we thought we were waiting for. Lets just hope that the final product is a couple of "levels" higher in quality on release day. ANd they did this just to fool us...

 

[Dajjer]

playing with dual core 2.93, with 8800 ultra, 4 megs and no problems. The engine seems stable enough although the 3rd person camera view is a tad too jolty. Graphics are fine and for me so is most of the game play. Now that I know my rig can run the game it will definitely be a purchase, probably (probably) day 1.

But on to the real bad.
There clearly is some dumbing down here as far as a Gothic game is concerned. And I don't believe it was needed at all. I think today's marketing types don't get how to handle CRPGs.

I hate that they took out climbing. It's one of the main elements that adds to a sense of open world exploration. I remember reading one Gothic developer (PB, Jowood?) stating a couple years ago they did not like the climbing aspect of the game. Too bad they weren't in touch with their fan base.

The invisible walls are nonsense and knocks the game down a whole notch. The non swimming was sort of explained in the game world but its such a lame excuse.

Oh well, the core game-play is fun so far but it does seem a tad off from a Gothic Game. Still, if this game was called "For the Love of Ivy" with no tie in at all to Gothic, it would be a major get. So I'll probably have to look at this game like the Faux Ultima 9 - a game I had a ball with but it was not Ultima.

 

[Corwin]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned that I really disliked was the absence of a mouse cursor much of the time. I really like to mouse over things.

 

[Maylander]

@Zloth
I agree with you regarding the dungeon and where it switched to fast forward. Also, you level up by pressing some hotkey that brings up talents (I think it was K, but I'm not sure).

 

[JDR13]

There seems to be an awful lot of people here who think the retail game is going to be radically different from the demo for some reason.

 

[Maylander]

Not the gameplay, but the progression. I believe two main things will be different:
- How open the world is. Even games like Risen and Gothic 2 had relatively small, closed off areas in their demos.
- How fast the progress is made. It seems fairly obvious that we're dealing with some serious fast forwarding, especially in the dungeon. This affects loot/gear/enemies.

 

[JDR13]

Of course the world is going to be more open, at least once you leave the starting island and go to Argan(?).

But that won't affect the fundamental changes they've made compared to the older games. Such as the many invisible barriers, and not even being able to enter water at all now.

It's not about the size of the world as much as how you're allowed to traverse it.

 

[Pessimeister]

Everything ran fine on my Quad core Q6700, Geforce 9800, though the demo was not a patch on the fun that Risen's demo was.

To be brutally honest, playing through this and hoping for any trace of that Gothic feeling was absolutely in vain. The demo is an abomination and an all out embarrassment to any self-respecting Gothic fan looking for that familiar, dark gritty feeling of exploring a world steeped in danger and power hungry men. Melee is a weak clickfestian and unresponsive snooze, worse than what was found in Gothic 3 and the writing is unimaginative, limp wristed, sentimentalist twaddle, without any hints of irony or the humour style from previous games. Voice acting was painful, the archery overpowered, the music purely perfunctory and not really adding to the experience.

My only half interest at the moment is in the game's treatment of King Rhobar, our former character. Fans will know that originally the nameless hero was based loosely on Michael Hoge's likeness from Piranha Bytes. Will there be any subtext here from the fallout between JoWood I wonder? (*albeit playfully)

This is a child friendly Gothic for those wanting an almost instant win, blending Fable and Zelda sensibilities with inanely generalised aspects of the original
games. Defending it and rationalising it will not assist in getting the message through to those responsible, that this is just not good enough to the
legacy.

Simply awful. /end bitterness vent

 

[Twinfalls]

Hello Codex reader!

The demo really is awful beyond belief. You can't satirise it, it's nearly a complete parody.

 

[fungus]

Yes, it is a demo. So I fully expect some things to be changed - namely I expect that the second part of the cave was a showcase, so they'll change loot distribution and you wont get shiny hammer and plate amour so early. Also, the enemies there may have been scaled down in raw power - health, damage done. But:

* Invisible barriers, water you can't walk in deeper than waist, dying when jumping off cliff for no good reason, jumping in geometry. That stays, it's fundamental.

* Easy fights. While there enemies may be scaled up, what they were lacking was AI, their strong attacks were ridiculously slow, normal attacks couldn't reach you most of the times if you mashed your buttons. That seems design to me.

* Linear world. Yes, I expect in full game the world to be bigger, but the amount of gating in demo makes me think that the full game won't be much better. Else, why gate the demo at all? Why it is you can't go to mushroom cave before meeting Diego (even if you couldn't pick up mushrooms then). The strength of Gothic was not a very big world, but a very rich world, (almost) fully accessible from the beginning - and you soon learned no to stray away from path, cause enemies would destroy you. And I think I read somewhere that the main world will consist of a few big areas that will be unlocked when you reach them, then closed again. Gating!

* Bland writing. Really, I couldn't give a damn about the village or Ivy. I fully expect them to be dead by the time you get back from caves. And so what? Now I will have to go and seek revenge? But the story told me "This is your girlfriend, you love her", but gave me no reason to actually care. If anything, she is a annoyance.

As for weight limit, I don't expect it from a Gothic game and it's no problem with me. Doesn't break my immersion.
But, what pissed me off was fight with Diego. Yes, it a friendly spar, not a fight to death, and Diego has got old. OK. But still, easily defeating Diego being a level one shepherd with a stick made me die a little bit inside. It was Diego after all, a bad-ass I've known since the beginning of Gothic 1. And he wasn't one to get beaten by shepherds.

 

[Pessimeister]

Hello Codex reader!

Hi Twinfalls. Yes, I definitely 'channeled' some of your response into mine, since it captured my experience best from what I'd read so far... hope you don't mind.

A couple more irritating facts:

Killing the bloated black cotton wool excuses for wolves so easily is a travesty in a Gothic game, as is being able to rip apart a stone golem with arrows. (Try it in Gothic and see how successful a strategy it is...)

I'm replaying G2+NotR at the moment, thus I'm certain that this nasty experience will fade from my memory. Kudos to fungus for his point about the super-hero quality to the reappearing Diego.

 

[Hindukönig]

It all has been said. This is not Gothic 4, the name changing didn't help anything.
I just hate it.

I don't know if it has been mentioned before, but I for my part really wonder why the new hero is nameless? He is a sheperd, well known in his village, wants to marry … it doesn't make much sense that nobody calls him by his name.
It just feels like the devs were saying: "Why should the NPCs bother if you attack them, why should we make an open world, why should the fights be hard? It is a REAL GOTHIC, BECAUSE THE HERO HAS NO NAME!!1"

Meh.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I bet you'll see the "epic loot" quite early on, it's exactly what the ADHD kiddies, that the game is obviously designed for, wants.

This ADHD ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder

To me, this statement is rude towards people who have it.

To be brutally honest,

Interesting choice of words. I have never thought of using them that way.

 

[Kostas]

In-case anyone's wondering what's the difference between the colour settings,don't waste your time.
I found those on WoG:

 

[Elwro]

There seems to be an awful lot of people here who think the retail game is going to be radically different from the demo for some reason.

This always happens when the demo is bad and many folks were looking forward to the game. I remember making the same mistake with Lionheart, I tried to convince myself (and others) that there's no way the full game will be like the demo... and it was :-(

 

[Maylander]

I don't remember the Lionheart demo, but wasn't it combat oriented? So basically, the only good part (Barcelona) was not in it? I wouldn't exactly call it representative of the game then, as the Barcelona part is really good. If the rest of the game had been anywhere near it, it would've been a classic.

 

[Elwro]

Yes, it's true, it didn't contain Barcelona, but a few wilderness areas and a dungeon. Problem is, the majority of the game unfortunately consisted of wilderness areas and dungeons, so the demo was actually representative of the full product. (I remember noticing you got XPs for sneaking around enemies and that I wanted to believe that it will be possible to finish the game as a stealthy rogue, avoiding most of the foes...) The Barcelona part was nice, although the stat and experience system was already broken there. The beginning of Lionheart is fun as an atmospheric adventure game with some choices.

 

[Dasale]

I wonder why I got enough fun from Lionheart up to consider it a better RPG than many other even if it would not make my top 20 but a top 30. i wonder this because it seems to have been the only player who enjoyed it. It's a little like Dungeon Lords but at least for this I quoted sometime some people agree with my positive feeling, for Lionheart never.

 

[huggster]

The following link as a huge spoiler and lists all the items available in the full game as inventory icons. Do not follow if you don't want to be too spoiled.

http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=171944

The quantity seems similar to the Gothic series which is reassuring in a way?

 

[bemushroomed]

I would have been very surprised if the quantity of items was any lower since it's kind of low already in the Gothic games compared to many other RPG's.

Alrik Fassbauer: It's rude to say ADHD gives you a low attention span? No, it's a fact I wasnt 100% serious though but there is some truth to it that many kids (or people overall have it). It doesnt mean thats why games are getting dumbed down, but at least its a theory