New Community Patch out. v1.5

[Sergius64]

http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=148814

[JDR13]

This is great, I wasn't expecting this patch to be out so soon. Look at the changelog, it's huge! These guys have really done a great job. :worship:

[Sergius64]

Yeah, I randomly decided to check if they were even making one and see that it was just released :)

Good thing these guys are doing what the Devs should have done before the game was released.

[lanux128]

good job, guys.. it will come in handy for my next play-through.. :)

[Thaurin]

Do you really need to start a new game for these, by the way? I'm still (!) relatively at the beginning, but I'd rather go on with my save games if at all possible than start over. I'll even take for granted that not ALL bug fixes will work, if MOST of them do. :)

EDIT: Okay, so I answered my own question. From the notes:

Modifications may lead to problems during the installation of this patch.
Please remove them (including all files saved in the Gothic 3 folder) before the installation!

It is advised not to use old savegames, but instead start a new game,
otherwise compatibility problems might arise.

I think I'm gonna risk it, though.

[lanux128]

i remember reading at jowood forums that if the particular quest have already been triggered before installing the patch then the fix will have no effect on the quest.. in my case, since i'm already at level 40-something.. i'd rather carry on just as it is, warts and all.. :)

[lanux128]

in google mood, so found CP FAQ: Community Patch FAQs (http://forum.jowood.de/showthread.php?t=146793)

[JDR13]

Having a blast so far, this patch is excellent. I love how they fixed the different arrows(fire, headnock) to finally have the effects that they should.

[souha13]

I've been away from Gothic 3 since been extremely dissapointed by it when it came out. It is still a good game just not as magnificient as its predecessors so now when I got a new computer Id like to try it again.

I heard, and it seems likely, that a new official patch is not coming out. However how far has the community patches progressed. I prefer wielding a sword and going against enemies from close but from what I remember boars kept killing me at lvl 30+. Combat was basically about stunlocking enemies, one at a time. Is close combat better now or is everyone playing as a mage or archer?

[Sergius64]

I prefer wielding a sword and going against enemies from close but from what I remember boars kept killing me at lvl 30+. Combat was basically about stunlocking enemies, one at a time. Is close combat better now or is everyone playing as a mage or archer?

Community patches aren't going to change the fighting system, I doubt even Official Patches would do that to any significant degree. Fighting with a sword in that game is mostly just chain attacking until they die. Sure it harder against animals, but not to the degree you're describing.

As for playing mages... meh it's even harder in beginning, and get too easy and boring late on.

[lanux128]

yes, stun-locking is a real killer (pun unintentional).. :) i still find myself scampering away from wolves & boars if i hadn't saved for some time..

[Zaleukos]

I've been away from Gothic 3 since been extremely dissapointed by it when it came out. It is still a good game just not as magnificient as its predecessors so now when I got a new computer Id like to try it again.

I heard, and it seems likely, that a new official patch is not coming out. However how far has the community patches progressed. I prefer wielding a sword and going against enemies from close but from what I remember boars kept killing me at lvl 30+. Combat was basically about stunlocking enemies, one at a time. Is close combat better now or is everyone playing as a mage or archer?


Stunlocking wildlife was reduced significantly with one of the early patches (1.08?). It can still happen with wolves, jackals, and sandcrawlers though..

[Thaurin]

in google mood, so found CP FAQ: Community Patch FAQs (http://forum.jowood.de/showthread.php?t=146793)

Woah! I found this interesting:

When will bug XY be fixed? This would be most important.

Until Com Patch 1.4, our possibilities to fix bugs were very limited - we could almost only work on some errors in dialogues and quests. From time to time some items, perks or NPC related bugs could be fixed.

Although we have the code in our hands now, we didn't work our way through it yet. Without a proper and time consuming analysis, it's almost impossible to give prognoses about our bugfixing possibilities.

Well, well... so they have the code. Future community patches may be much more involving than up till now, I assume.

[Sergius64]

explains why v1.4 and v1.5 were so much larger then earlier ones.

[JDR13]

I've never had any problems with stunlocking since starting my game with the 1.5 patch. Some creatures do manage to get a fast chain of attacks against you, but I've found that simply tapping the right mouse button can break that chain.

[Elwro]

OK, now this is ridiculous.

Today I upgraded my rig to 3 GBs of RAM. I put the /3GB switch in boot.ini (Win XP), everything seems to work fine. I thought I could finally play G3 without any problems.
But No.
When I run somewhere (=make the game load new areas), after about 20 seconds the game starts running slower and slower, almost to a halt. It's completely unplayable. It worked a lot better when I only had 1 GB of RAM.
The loading times are improved, but little good it does to me now...

Could anyone help? Could it possibly be related to the 1.5 community patch? Should I reinstall? Or should I put some secret codes into the INI file or what? I'd appreciate some tips.

[Sergius64]

You don't just need to set Windows to use more Ram, you also need to run the patch that tells Gothic 3 to be using more RAM. There's some user patch out for that, search the News Thread on Gothic 3 v1.5 Community Patch, its mentioned there.

As for running slower and slower, it sounds like its still using the Hard Drive, maybe you're still telling windows to use a Large Pagefile? Still it should have been using the RAM first. I don't know how it was playing well with 1 Gig for you.

[Elwro]

It wasn't playing particularly well, but I tinkered with the INI, turned some things down, turned some other things up (creature visibility etc.) and had fun for about 30 hours, so it definitely was playable ;-). Now it's unplayable, so it's a big difference.
I'll see about the pagefile, thanks. I certainly didn't change its setting after buying the new RAM.
And thanks again - for the info about the user patch, I'll search for it.

[Acleacius]

Anyone else experiencing problems again with the copy protection?
After I installed 1.5, it won't recognize my dvd anymore, no matter what I do and they all of s sudden stop putting in an Uninstall feature, damn it. :(
So I can't even get in the game to see if it's slowed down the loading time again, as it did in the original release.

Thanks. :)

[HiddenX]

And thanks again - for the info about the user patch, I'll search for it.

It's close: 3GB Hack (http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10764&postcount=25) :)

[JDR13]

Anyone else experiencing problems again with the copy protection?
After I installed 1.5, it won't recognize my dvd anymore, no matter what I do and they all of s sudden stop putting in an Uninstall feature, damn it. :(
So I can't even get in the game to see if it's slowed down the loading time again, as it did in the original release.

Thanks. :)



Acleacius, are you using the Gothic Universe edition, or is it an original Gothic 3 DVD?

[Lethal Weapon]

Good thing these guys are doing what the Devs should have done before the game was released.

It's not the devs' fault. Jowood rushed the game out of the door and while PB were working on a huge patch, Jowood 'left the table'. No amount of community patching will ever reach the PB standards, they were planning an improved combat system, new textures and an add-on amongst other things. Now PB are working on a brand new game with a bigger and better publisher (http://www.kochmedia.co.uk/) (the link is for the UK division), Jowood faces financial problems and the Gothic brand is in the hands of an inexperienced dev team. No offense to Spellbound, but they have yet to prove themselves as PB's equals, Gothic is PB's creation and the fact that Gothic 4 is going console is not particularly reassuring either. I say the opposite.

[Acleacius]

G3 dvd, JDR13. I couldn't get it to recognize so I reinstalled patch 1.12 and it works again. Additionally it seems the 1.5 changes stayed, so I maybe in good shape and will be keeping a cautious eye open for problems as I just started a new game to give it a try. :)

Edit
Sergius64. Lethal Weapon is right PB ( dev) even had a patch complete or near completed over 1 gig and the publisher refused to pay PB for their hard work.
Yet after they fired PB, kept the right's to PB's world for at least one game, they magically found their wallet.
Problem solved, they wrestle away someone else's property, fired them and hired someone else cheaper.

Sort of makes you want to jump up and cheer for the greatness of corporatism. <bitter sarcasm> :(

[JDR13]

Just so everybody knows, the Gothic Universe edition of G3 does not work with the 1.5 community patch at this time, it won't recognize the disc after being patched. I'm currently playing a game that was installed from the Universe edition and patched with 1.5, but with my original G3 DVD in the drive.

http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?p=2184981

The problem will be fixed in the next patch or a hotfix will be released.

[Gryniaris]

I wonder, if there is any masochistic enough people playing this buggy crappy Gothic 3, after the Witcher ...

[JDR13]

I wonder, if there is any masochistic enough people playing this buggy crappy Gothic 3, after the Witcher ...


You obviously know very little about the game.

[Acleacius]

I wonder, if there is any masochistic enough people playing this buggy crappy Gothic 3, after the Witcher ...
Yes, thanks for sharing your deepest darkest secrets, you must be feeling naked, atm. :)

Actually you might have clicked on the wrong thread since the Gothic 3 and Witcher thread is right next to this one about the community patches, but I will leave my joke. ;)

[Bartacus]

I wonder, if there is any masochistic enough people playing this buggy crappy Gothic 3, after the Witcher ...

The Witcher isn't a bad game, but it certainly isn't at the same level of gothic 1 or 2. Gothic 3 with all the patches is a good game -> not more bugs then the Witcher today. The most annoying fact from the Witcher is the frequent load/save screens during gameplay. I rather waite one long time (or even better lik the previous gothics 2-3 times) then that constant waiting for entering a house.

[Gryniaris]

G3 is in my sell for 2 years waiting for a patch or an expansion that will made it playable. its a disaster of a game.
Witcher is one of the best games ever made in par with classics like B.G. and so on...
G1 was an excellent game but to buggy to be a classic. G2 was OK But unfinished even with the add-on.
You have to be blind and deaf , if you cant see those facts...

[JDR13]

G3 is in my sell for 2 years waiting for a patch or an expansion that will made it playable. its a disaster of a game.
Witcher is one of the best games ever made in par with classics like B.G. and so on...
G1 was an excellent game but to buggy to be a classic. G2 was OK But unfinished even with the add-on.
You have to be blind and deaf , if you cant see those facts...


No offense bro, but there's not too many people here who are going to agree with you, and for the record it doesn't even sound like you've played the first 2 games.

G1 was too buggy to be a classic?? What bugs are you refering to?

G2 was unfinished?? Please humour us, what didn't they finish?

Btw: G3 hasn't been out for anywhere near "2 years"

[Maylander]

It's been out for roughly one year, not two. Also, regarding G2 with NotR - I rate that one in particular well above The Witcher. The atmosphere, freedom and overall gameplay is superior to pretty much any game I've played. I do consider BG2 the overall best RPG, but I have to admit I replay G2 more often these days.

G3 reminds me of The Witcher in a way. Don't get me wrong - the two games are very different, but they both have certain annoying factors that makes it impossible for me to rate them among the top RPGs (despite the fact that they both have potential to be there).
G3 issues:
- Lack of depth, both in terms of story and characters. Used to be very buggy, but anyone claiming that it still is simply hasn't played the final version. It's not more buggy than the average game nowadays.
- Combat balance: Some weapons/spells are simply redicilously good (bow, ice lance/firebolt, orc halberd, and a few others), while others make group combat a real pain.
The Witcher issues:
- Loading: The loading is beyond painful. In most areas it's not really an issue, but when you're in areas with lots of small houses and have to enter/exit houses a lot to talk to people, it becomes unbearable unless you have a top notch computer. I actually find myself thinking "oh dear, another house, can I skip this one?", which is a real shame, because I love to explore game worlds.
- Combat: Not many people actually complain about the combat, but I do. Not because it's bad in any way, but because the options you are given are not actually real. It's not a matter of "being able to" use various forms - you *have* to use certain forms on certain monsters, or you'll simply never kill them. It's not a matter of skill, it's a simple matter of figuring out which forms kills what types of monsters, and then you can click your way through the game. Oh, and don't give me the "it requires a lot of thinking and skill to pull off the timing" - it doesn't. You certainly haven't played many games if you find the timing of the clicking in The Witcher particularly difficult.

All in all I feel that both G3 and The Witcher are good games, but as I've described above: I just can't ignore certain issues. This is why I will still rate G1, G2, BG2, etc in a league above G3/Witcher.

Still, we're talking about rock solid RPGs here, games I'd gladly recommend to anyone. :)

[Gryniaris]

No offence bro, but there's not too many people here who are going to agree with you, and for the record it doesn't even sound like you've played the first 2 games.

G1 was too buggy to be a classic?? What bugs are you referring to?

G2 was unfinished?? Please humour us, what didn't they finish?

Btw: G3 hasn't been out for anywhere near "2 years"

No offence bro, but i think that you are saying bu...t.
i play G1 3 times - 1 for every path and i love every second of it. But the game was really unstable and if you don't remember that then your memory isn't very good...
G2 with the add-on was excellent, more stable and looking better but only for the first charters in the "New World".
The old world in the lastly charters was very boring, filled with orks and very little story in it. They probably rushed it out.
I played it one time until the end but in the second and third time, like mage and mercenary, I just couldn't afford to finished - I was bored after the third charter.
And don't you dare to say again that i didn't play the games or you will make me really angry >:O..

[mute]

Interesting to read about the patch development!!

That until the uninterest part of *this game is better then that game*.

Well, when too kings fight, the looser is no lesser king then before. Unless he is conquered... or eaten. ;)

Anymore info about the patching. Anything new on the horizon? Seems like when witcher is finished i will be able to play this gem (game) again!

[Bartacus]

G3 is in my sell for 2 years waiting for a patch or an expansion that will made it playable. its a disaster of a game.
Witcher is one of the best games ever made in par with classics like B.G. and so on...
G1 was an excellent game but to buggy to be a classic. G2 was OK But unfinished even with the add-on.
You have to be blind and deaf , if you cant see those facts...

That's what you are, imo, if you see the witcher as the best rpg from this decade.

[Bartacus]

- Combat: Not many people actually complain about the combat, but I do. Not because it's bad in any way, but because the options you are given are not actually real. It's not a matter of "being able to" use various forms - you *have* to use certain forms on certain monsters, or you'll simply never kill them. It's not a matter of skill, it's a simple matter of figuring out which forms kills what types of monsters, and then you can click your way through the game. Oh, and don't give me the "it requires a lot of thinking and skill to pull off the timing" - it doesn't. You certainly haven't played many games if you find the timing of the clicking in The Witcher particularly difficult.

You even call it combat? I would call it a gothic 3 clickfest. The combat is boring me already in chapter 1. I wonder weather I'll finish this game or it becomes another Morrowind/Oblivion.

[JDR13]

No offence bro, but i think that you are saying bu...t.
i play G1 3 times - 1 for every path and i love every second of it. But the game was really unstable and if you don't remember that then your memory isn't very good...
G2 with the add-on was excellent, more stable and looking better but only for the first charters in the "New World".
The old world in the lastly charters was very boring, filled with orks and very little story in it. They probably rushed it out.
I played it one time until the end but in the second and third time, like mage and mercenary, I just couldn't afford to finished - I was bored after the third charter.
And don't you dare to say again that i didn't play the games or you will make me really angry >:O..


I'm still waiting for you to list all those bugs you mentioned in Gothic 1, what are they?

So Gothic 2 felt "rushed out" you say? In what way? You never gave any examples.

I'll try not to say anything that will make you angry, Lord knows what might happen if you get angry. :rolleyes:

[Gorath]

Relax, guys.

[Acleacius]

I see what the problem here is, Gryniaris is German so he is refering to have played the German version of Gothic. Iirc all the German members here mentioned Gothic and Gothic 2 were buggy at release, but since many people here responding have played the English version, we didn't play the buggy version.
Yay, I win and I want a cookie! :cake:

Anyway Gryniaris seems to be comparing the original state of release of Gothic 1 & 2, to the the original release state of The Witcher, which is where his flawed logic begins, since Cd Projekt had much more time and money to build than did PB. :)


In regards to the CP 1.5 anyone using mistress_larisa & Maroder, awesome Map Pack need to get the updated version to work with 1.5. :)

http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=160812

[Gorath]

Gothic took approxiamtely 3 months (March 15th 2001 - June 30th or so) until it was in decent condition.
NotR couldn´t be finished at release because the bodies of two dead NPCs were missing, and you obviously couldn´t loot their inventory.
G2 was playable but needed to be patched.

The G3 patch stories in this thread are not precise enough. PB was quoted in two print mags with slightly different statements (paraphrased) saying that "at least the last few patches" or "all patches" have been paid for by PB. JoWooD probably would have corrected this quickly if it had been considered as untrue.
So we can safely assume that PB paid the patches out of their own pocket, and at some point stopped working on further patches, for various reasons. The two most obvious being, I think, that further patching was a money leak which endangered the company, and that the negotiations with JoWooD about G3A and G4 lead nowhere. I´m not trying to excuse their decision, but at least it´s understandable. With Gothic taken out of their hands, they´ve discovered they were riding a dead horse ...
Official word is that the missing "big patch" does not exist. Not even partially. I´m not sure if that´s the truth though. PB would have had to hand over all the pieces, and the fans would have expected JoWooD to hire somebody to puzzle them together. It was easier for both to say the whole thing was still at a concept stage.

[Acleacius]

Maylander, that's a damn good summary and much of my experience too. :) I am glad everyone is not jumping all over you, as they do me for saying The Witcher is not perfect, yet has classic RPG potential with a little patching. :)

Thanks for that, Gorath. :)
Would PB have had to hand over their self financed work, since it was their world and work, not sure the publisher would have rights to it?
Iirc, reading that the publisher only had right for G4 and Gothic is still PB's world but the publisher has the right to do a game in the world. At least I hope that's correct, it would be even more upsetting if the publisher had somehow hijacked PB's world IP completely. :(

Shouldn't the publisher be paying for the patches, at least partly? I mean hell they are now paying someone else to do the work, well according to what I recall reading they are working on a patch for G3 and G4 title.

[Gryniaris]

First of all I'm not a German as Acleacius told. I use to play the English version of G1 and G2. And I agree that probably CD P. had more time and founds than P.B. :)
But G1 was really unstable, even with the patches. I remember myself catch up in corners, very often crashes in desk etc.
G2 was stable but very bud and boring after the 3rd charter. but i can forgive P.B. for that because totally was an enjoyable game.
But for G3, PB are Guilty for betrayal >:O. Because not only they make it very "Americanised" - means de cerebrated, simplified, Round headed and totally simpleton - but they left it unfinished, no patch or add-on to make it playable.
And dear Gorath, i don't give a horse shit if Jowood - the most retard company in game industry - financially be fool them,because they select him as their publisher. And second because they left the G3 unfinished and their fans, that they run like wildfire to purchase the game, with a worthless pile of sh..t.:wall:

[Bartacus]

Gothic 1 was very playable even without any patch. I think something got mixed up by your pc, cause everything was ok here. Gothic was boring in chapter 6, but all the previous chapters were of superb quality (certainly compared with the Witcher)
Gothic 3 was unfinished and if you go wondering at the World of Gothic forum, you will see that PB already appologised for it. The game however has patches (release patch, 1.08, 1.09 and 1.12) released by PB. This means that you're full of shit when you say they left in unpatched. An addon means that you need the rights to make one and you should know by now that Jowood has those rights, NOT PB!!
A developer needs a publisher more then the other way around, so it's not always a real choice for a dev. Don't forget that Jowood did a good job for Gothic 2 in Germany (Atari fucked up in the rest of the world). It's only logical to go for the same publisher for the next Gothic, is most likely what PB had been thinking.
Gothic 3 certainly isn't a worthly pile of shit, but I'm beginning to wonder weather you know what that means.

[Gryniaris]

Gothic 1 was very playable even without any patch. I think something got mixed up by your pc, cause everything was ok here. Gothic was boring in chapter 6, but all the previous chapters were of superb quality (certainly compared with the Witcher)
Gothic 3 was unfinished and if you go wondering at the World of Gothic forum, you will see that PB already appologised for it. The game however has patches (release patch, 1.08, 1.09 and 1.12) released by PB. This means that you're full of shit when you say they left in unpatched. An addon means that you need the rights to make one and you should know by now that Jowood has those rights, NOT PB!!
A developer needs a publisher more then the other way around, so it's not always a real choice for a dev. Don't forget that Jowood did a good job for Gothic 2 in Germany (Atari fucked up in the rest of the world). It's only logical to go for the same publisher for the next Gothic, is most likely what PB had been thinking.
Gothic 3 certainly isn't a worthly pile of shit, but I'm beginning to wonder weather you know what that means.

Bart, Belgian chocolates aren't any good. Only Austrian and Swish.:)

[Bartacus]

Oh no, you've attacked me where it hurts: chocolates.

A smart man would have noticed that my signature always looks like that of another member at rpgwatch.

[Dasale]

Gothic 1 with all the fix? => I never crash, are your systems really clean?
Gothic 2 merged with NOTR with all the fix? => Ok some crash clearly linked to the number of savegame. Strangely Gothic 3 had the same problem for me, not a major problem in my point of view.

I always ask myself who design the game? Obviously it's not the distributor of the game but I believed it was often the producer of the game except for design tuning and for some game it was the developer of the game. Nobody can give more precision about this?

[Bartacus]

@Dasale Piranha Bytes is the developper of the games Gothic 1, Gothic 2 (with NotR) and Gothic 3. Jowood was the distributor together with either Koch Media or Aspyr (or sth like that for the English - US version) After patch 1.12, Jowood had the rights of future gothic releases/addons/patches. PB has nothing to do with any future patching nor the community made patches (created by Gothic fans with a little support of Jowood).

I hope this clarifies it a bit for you.

[Acleacius]

Jowood had the rights of future gothic releases/addons/patches.
All future or just the 4th game? I had thought only the 4th game but it's hard to keep up since I don't speak German.

[Gorath]

The situation hasn´t changed since we had all those long discussions.

[Acleacius]

Apologizes, my memory has became confused, maybe due to seeing confusing post. :)

[Bartacus]

It would be weird to see a gothic 5 without a gothic 4 + I don't think that PB will create another gothic ever now.

[Wulf]

With a new install followed by the 1.12 patch then the 1.5.2 community patch the game runs exceptionally well - i can find no faults as yet. Saved games load in 20 seconds, slight 300ms lags (almost un-noticeable) when loading refreshed areas. Killed 8 wild boars and 10 wolves right at the beginning without the slightest problem. I havn't altered or adjusted any settings, no tweeks needed, set on normal difficulty as default straight out of the box.

This is how it should have been presented from day one. It plays as smooth as silk, i would recommend anyone who was initially holding back to give it their full effort provided their rig is up to date they won't be disappointed.

Best regards and a big thankyou to the Community team.:beer:

[Acleacius]

Only important bug I have not seen addressed, is the Music volume bug which does NOT lower when NPCs are talking, which leaves you in the dark or forces you to turn on Conversation text. Could someone please bring this up, it would be a huge improvement.

Thanks. :)

[JDR13]

I don't think it's a bug that the music doesn't automatically lower when npc's are talking, many games are like that, I think the bug is that it's too loud to begin with.

The default level is way too loud, and you really need to lower it to 5% or lower, or else it's overpowering. I play with it set at 2%.

[Acleacius]

Humm, I guess, though I really can't think of a single game that steps on NPC to PC conversations and it sure sounds like a bug to me, as I can't think of any other description. Well Bloodlines did till all the fans complained and it was fixed in 1.2 official patch, if you don't think it's a problem hopefully someone else will report it.

[Zaleukos]

One additional problem with the voice acting is that it seems like the game sometimes shift to a perspective where the characters doing the talking are obscured, and then has the environment "soften" the dialogue the same way as it would be if you were walking past a building with people talking inside.

[Acleacius]

Good point I forgot about that one, Zaleukos.
Voice volumes will not stay at a consistent volume during NPC to PC dialogs.

[Zaleukos]

Yeah, and it gets pretty annoying as you cant do anything to change the camera angle while talking:p

[Gryniaris]

Just let the corpse to rot in peace ...

[Lurking Grue]

Saved games load in 20 seconds, slight 300ms lags (almost un-noticeable) when loading refreshed areas. Killed 8 wild boars and 10 wolves right at the beginning without the slightest problem. I havn't altered or adjusted any settings, no tweeks needed, set on normal difficulty as default straight out of the box.
Holy stun-lock, Batman! If what you write is true, I might give G3 another go after all. My two biggest problems with G3 (as of v1.12) were the unbearable loading/saving times and the stun-locking boars and wolves (from hell).

[Wulf]

@Lurking Grue...welcome.

G3 tends to go a bit faster after it has 'warmed up' (some kind of memory cache equalising?) - there are still memory leaks issues that are being addressed so it would be best to wait just a bit longer for the official G3 - v1.6 patch (almost ready) which will really make G3 shine.

[fragonard]

Waiting for 1.6 is probably best, but... 1.52 really is a big improvement and worth playing. One thing to note is that since 1.6 will be revising the save structure, a new game will surely be required.

[Vio]

I remember the new developers saying something about joining forces with the community patch team for further patches.

[VPeric]

Yup. And apparently, they didn't lie either... (http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3490)

[Zocky]

Does anybody know when will 1.6 patch come out? I was just thinking of buying g3 as I will soon have new computer and will finally be able to play it for the first time, and I'd like to play it with this new patch, so any ideas when it's going to be released?

[Gorath]

Nobody knows. The only thing they confirmed, at least I think I remember it, is that the deadline for new material for the patch was a few days before Christmas.

[Zocky]

Looks like it's released:
http://forum.jowood.de/showthread.php?t=151286

[txa1265]

Great news! If anyone starts with this I would love to hear how it plays.

[Gorath]

It seems the new patch adds a lot of stability on cost of lower performance. Most people only have 3-5 fps less, but others 10-15 fps.

[JDR13]

This is great, it is compatible with any existing version of Gothic 3, so there's no need to restart a current game!

[Wulf]

Copied from Glockenbeat's post...

[As a sidenote which is not mentioned so far:

The patch is compatible to every available version of Gothic 3.
Furthermore you don't need to start a new game but may use your old saves, but we recommend starting a new one since some fixes will only work when you did.]

Regards

[JDR13]

Out of the entire changelog there are only 7 fixes that require a restart, none of which are very important.

[Wulf]

Just for reference what might those seven fixes be ? - havn't checked them out yet.

One good thing i have noticed - the highlight focus now only shows if there is loot to be had, this saves all the searching of all dead bodies - if it highlights then there is loot, a lot simpler.

[JDR13]

Just for reference what might those seven fixes be ? - havn't checked them out yet.




The following fixes will only become effective when a new game is started, but not in already existing savegames:
- Strafing speed of ogres and goblins has been adjusted.
- Female slaves do not wear weapons or shields anymore.
- The Orcs in Al Shedim now react to the death of one of them with aggressive behaviour even if the player already handed all five artifacts to one of the gods.
+ Some orcs now sell orcish weapons as well as their standard equipment.
- The perk "orc slayer" now works
- No unnecessary level up messages are being displayed anymore when the hero is transformed into an animal
- Experience the hero gained while being transformed into an animal is not lost anymore when turned back into a human being

[Wulf]

Thanks JDR13, that is very interesting info especially the last one...

[Experience the hero gained while being transformed into an animal is not lost anymore when turned back into a human being]

Now if this is true it will bring an awesome change to the game. I personally have always suspected and wanted this to happen but it never worked no matter how determined i tried yet was highly suggested by the Druids.

[JDR13]

I wasn't even aware that I was losing experience gained that way. It doesn't bother me that much though, because how many kills do you get as an animal anyways? I'm playing as a Druid\Mage right now, but I almost never kill anything while transformed, it seems somewhat underpowered to me.