Gothic 3 - Review @ RPG Codex

[Dhruin]

RPG Codex has posted their review (http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=137) of Gothic 3. The text spends quite a bit of time dealing with the factional aspects and here's a snip:
When you arrive into a new town, usually controlled by either the orcs or hashashins, you need to prove yourself first by completing different quests that the town folks will offer you. Each quest gives you some XPs and raises the local disposition. Once the town's disposition hits 75%, you are allowed to see the town's "upper management". The upper management is usually bloodthirsty and wants you to kill those who oppose them. Such quests (and a certain minor ones) raise the overall disposition with the entire faction. Once the overall disposition hits 75%, which would mean that you've almost eliminated the rebels and effectively closed the alternative career path, you are allowed to meet the orcish war leader.

You are given a lot of freedom, and you don't have to complete all the missions to get the disposition to 75%. The town missions are usually worth 85-95% (maybe even 100% - I’m not sure I found all quests) of the disposition, so you can pick what fits your character the most and ignore what you don’t like.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=2796)

[Dr. A]

At present, the most detailed and comprehensive review for Gothic III. Great job by Vault Dweller.

[JonNik]

Yes very good. Managed to skip over the worst spoilers too ;)

Finally someone centers on the faction aspect of the game.
That was the feature I was most hopeful for and it is sad
(but not unexpected) That most reviewers seem to disregard
it, consumed in harassing graphics (which when tweaked coupled
with a strong system are better than modified O's imho) and
performance (admittedly horrible, coupled with the bug deluge no
less) and the woeful balance (by far the worst issue with the game
but fixable... someday ?).

Though it is a bit early to say (Havent spend more than ~20 hours
with the game, then stopped ,still waiting for the blasted combat
rebalancing patch simply because I would hate to have close combat
to change on me completely mid game). I think I have to agree with
most things he notes (more so than his O review, though he was 80%
there too and just fell to some unjustified nitpicking towards the end imo).

Also a lot of positive views from the people at the codex in general from
what I can see. Refreshing to see, after all the constant bellyaching (most
probably justified for one reason or another but still...) you can find almost
exclussively on other forums...

[txa1265]

The 'Gothic vs. Oblivion' section alone was worth the price of admission ;)

[Wulf]

As a reviewer, he has a duty to readers be reasonably correct with his game info' - take this piece of his quote.....

[Once the overall disposition hits 75%, which would mean that you've almost eliminated the rebels and effectively closed the alternative career path, you are allowed to meet the orcish war leader.]

Absolutely not so, i have quite a number of towns "on hold" at the 100% stage and building up others slowly and nicely, no rebels killed, no orcs killed, in fact..no killing, it is the way of the "true eternal wanderer" as per the books. If the reviewer just cannot grasp the divine intentions of the storyline through his own gaming ignorance then they should stop reviewing and leave it to others that can vouch the outcome.

[Corwin]

I'd like to make a few smart comments about VD being a fanboi and didn't he realise the game sucks etc, but I won't, since as usual, he did a good job!! However, my one major criticism would be that he failed to mention the magic system, which to me is always important!! Bottom line- anyone who likes and enjoys the Gothic series, can't be ALL bad!! :biggrin:

[Acleacius]

Wulf
My take is that number your quoting is the Overall Faction number (he is refering to at that point) Not the local Town Rep, which I think you are suggesting, correct?

I would definalty have to say one of the best if not the best reviews I have read, certianly in the top 5. :)

[Danicek]

Very good review. Probably few mistakes and few unecessary spoilers...

[VDweller]

As a reviewer, he has a duty to readers be reasonably correct with his game info' - take this piece of his quote.....

[Once the overall disposition hits 75%, which would mean that you've almost eliminated the rebels and effectively closed the alternative career path, you are allowed to meet the orcish war leader.]

Absolutely not so, i have quite a number of towns "on hold" at the 100% stage and building up others slowly and nicely, no rebels killed, no orcs killed, in fact..no killing, it is the way of the "true eternal wanderer" as per the books. If the reviewer just cannot grasp the divine intentions of the storyline through his own gaming ignorance then they should stop reviewing and leave it to others that can vouch the outcome.
"Once the OVERALL disposition hits 75%..." Not the local disposition, which you could easily get to 100%, but the overall disposition with a faction.

However, my one major criticism would be that he failed to mention the magic system, which to me is always important!!
I agree, it is a flaw that leaves the review incomplete, but I didn't have time to play as a mage.
...
Thanks for the positive comments, folks.

[txa1265]

"Once the OVERALL disposition hits 75%..." Not the local disposition, which you could easily get to 100%, but the overall disposition with a faction.
That was my assumption, thanks for confirming.

I agree, it is a flaw that leaves the review incomplete, but I didn't have time to play as a mage.
I'm playing as a mage and will report when I'm done, but unfortunately I can't see myself finishing up before our trip for Thanksgiving long weekend ... so it will be next week or so before I can write my review(s).

[HiddenX]

I agree with this review: Gothic 3 = make your OWN story - choose YOUR way, much more than Gothic 1, Gothic 2 and of course Oblivion.

The game mechanics need more fine tuning - some bugs must be fixed (ambient sound), so a solid 80% is ok. I'll add 10% if everything is fixed.

[Gorath]

Good review. Finally a reviewer who takes the game seriously.

[TheMadGamer]

Strangely, I enjoy both Oblivion AND Gothic 3 at the same time. Guess I'm a mutant of some sort.

[txa1265]

Strangely, I enjoy both Oblivion AND Gothic 3 at the same time. Guess I'm a mutant of some sort.

I think many of us do, but some of us feel it was quite over-rated.

[Arma]

Nice review. Made me think about picking up the game eventually and giving it a try. Though I should play Gothic 2 first ...

[Maylander]

As previously mentioned - the G3 VS Oblivion part was great, made me chuckle when I read about Oblivions wall-staring inhabitans.

I read some comments though, it seems he had no idea what strengthening potions are, hence why his endurance bar is always grey. Took me a while to figure that out too, really helps out.

Oh, and don't get me wrong, Oblivion is a good game and all, Gothic 3 is just better, has a higher replayvalue, and gets accurate or below accurate scores while Oblivion gets scores it simply doesn't deserve. There's just something about how a fairly mediocre game is being labelled "the best RPG ever" that really gets on my nerves.

[bjon045]

hmm rpgcodex says my IP address is banned. I guess because of my ISPs proxy server. Guess I will have to wait till google caches it.

[Nonymous]

Wait 6 months... The price will drop, the product will be patched & people will have mods out for it.

Never will I understand the logic of getting any software zero-day for full retail price.

[Dez]

Best g3 review so far :)

[Arma]

Wait 6 months... The price will drop, the product will be patched & people will have mods out for it.

Never will I understand the logic of getting any software zero-day for full retail price.

You understand that the most revenue from a single player game is made on the sales in the first several weeks? So if a game deserves it, is good, you like and would like to support the publisher as to continue making games you like, you should buy on day one?

[Corwin]

I usually pre-order every game I'm interested in!! Games are my relaxation and entertainment, so I don't mind paying full price.

[Dhruin]

This is my main "hobby", so a difference of a few dollars to play something when I want to and support the developers is pretty trivial.

[txa1265]

This is my main "hobby", so a difference of a few dollars to play something when I want to and support the developers is pretty trivial.

Very true - and just the way I support local and small businesses, so do I like to support devs and pubs who strive to produce stuff of interest to me. That makes it worth buying 'local' and paying day-of-release prices.

[Wulf]

Some further explanations re: review quote - - ->

[Once the overall disposition hits 75%, which would mean that you've almost eliminated the rebels and effectively closed the alternative career path, you are allowed to meet the orcish war leader.]

After reaching the the 75% reputation of the locale' and are allowed into the upper quarter of the town - from then onward there is a further 25% possible gain up to 100%. Some of the tasks associated with this 25% can further contribute to the overall G3 world disposition percentage. So reaching the 100% in all possible towns quests could actually tip the 75% in the G3 world without having joined any faction.

Despite the repeated "you must join a faction" call within this review, joining a faction is NOT a pre-requesite of G3. in fact it is officially stated by PB - - "you can choose to join one of several factions or go it alone"

So please! - pay more attention to the not-so apparent storyline that is hinted through the books and dialogues of the Gothic-3 game.

"In the beginning the nomads roamed the land and the eternal wanderer led the way" (book-1) - - it could not be more obvious.

[Maylander]

Yep, you can kill every single NPC in the game, not pick up any quests, and still complete it.

[RatavuK]

Very good review VD ! Keep on reviewing. I heard the guys at RPGcodex are waiting for a NWN2 review.

Currently i'm playing the G3 demo with a Radeon 8500 and it's playable with low settings. But i will have to buy another GFX card before i will buy the full game.
But i'm still enjoying the demo a lot. The battles are much too easy compared to the previous gothics. I hope PB will patch the balancing issues.

[Nonymous]

You understand that the most revenue from a single player game is made on the sales in the first several weeks? So if a game deserves it, is good, you like and would like to support the publisher as to continue making games you like, you should buy on day one?

So I should buy a buggy, rushed product so I can encourage the developer to program more buggy rushed products & the publisher to actually put it on shelves?

I'm tired of products that have patches for them before they're even on the shelves. I want value for my dollar. Instead of giving crack addicts clean needles so that they can stick themselves that much more, I'm sending them to rehab.

Game reviewers have gotten PWNED when it comes to reviewing buggy games. It's gotten to the point where the attitude is, "It's buggy but, besides the bugs, it's OK." No - It was buggy. Note to developers - Fix the bugs. That's your JOB. It's not my job to be paying you to be a beta tester, bring home v1.0 & discover that the devs have another 2 months of bug-squashing & game-tweaking on their hands.

Send the publishers a message - Don't deliver the goods until you've got good product. Buying it zero-day retail does nothing but reward them for rushing product out the door to satisfy the bean counters & stock holders.

[Dhruin]

Sending a message is a bit different to what you originally said.

Never will I understand the logic of getting any software zero-day for full retail price.

If I am a software producer and I get it 100% right -- polished and bug free -- what message am I getting from you? You're still waiting 6 months for the price to drop, right?

[Bigpapa]

It's pretty unfair to blame only PB about releasing unfinished games, way i see it, it's more like a trend nowday's, i haven't played (m)any bug free games for ages.

[txa1265]

And now consoles are picking up the bad habit ... while the 'I told you so' may seem nice, it is the wrong direction - console quality should have shamed PC makers into releasing stable game, not the other way around ...

[Naked_Lunch]

The only thing I do not like about Gothic 3 is the progression of the game. Once you've liberated a town, you're pretty much done there and you just move on. The towns are also a lot smaller and the NPCs (at least so far) just aren't that interesting at points.

That said, it's still a goddamn amazing game in it's scope and the sheer amount of things you can do is astounding and yet will still be overshadowed by Oblivion, which is a shame really. Gothic 3 is truly a next-gen game in the sense where it matters: gameplay.

[Corwin]

Yep, that's why I hop around from place to place, doing a quest here and one there. I never complete everything for one place, so I prolong all 'real' choices!! That, is a play style which works with this game!!

[txa1265]

I love seeing what a town looks like after I'm done ... some people say 'we owe you so much' ... it is nice :)

[Wulf]

I must agree Corwin that this 'prolonging' of the quests appears a good strategy (tactically speaking) - i always use this approach.
Piranha Bytes dialogue writers seem to imply this is having a "general overview" - having all relative quest options (apparent and not-so apparent) in an open queued state so that they can be chewed upon and digested before making the next move. Just how long one can go in this state seems varied and subjective and relies on individual players own methodology, and of course is wisdom based.

[Gorath]

The only thing I do not like about Gothic 3 is the progression of the game. Once you've liberated a town, you're pretty much done there and you just move on. The towns are also a lot smaller and the NPCs (at least so far) just aren't that interesting at points.

These two topics were mentioned in the developer Q&A at WoG. Both were conscious decisions by the developers - and nobody likes them. ;)

[Bigpapa]

Yep, that's why I hop around from place to place, doing a quest here and one there. I never complete everything for one place, so I prolong all 'real' choices!! That, is a play style which works with this game!!

Just like i do and did with previous Gothics! ;)

[Corwin]

Yes, it's nice not to have to follow some linear plot line!!

[Naked_Lunch]

Indeed. Gothic 3 shines in this department as it is truly non-linear, not just as in "take this quest now or take it later while you do some fed-ex guild quests" but in "do whatever you want whenever you want, but face the consequences." It's fantastic, it really is. I haven't seen anything like it since Ultima VII or perhaps to be a bit more obscure, Prelude to Darkness though that was rather flawed as you sitll had to follow threads of plot, just different ones with different consquences.

Gothic 3 is the epitome of a sandbox RPG.

[lilithn]

Yes, I knew we would have a true and honest review of G3 by a true rpger not from an FPSboy (almost wrote Action Boy but Fallout is sacred) thinking that after Oblivion any of them has any basis to review an RPG :D
That's right.
Love you VaultDweller.

[Wulf]

The style of presentation of this review is clear and well layed-out, well co-ordinated sections that progress into the next that lead to a great read. This is supplimented with some great screenshots that are coherently placed within the review flow details. The final touch of some light-hearted words suggests with no doubt VD as a likeable guy with a professional viewpoint.

Yet, as an rpg player portraying to others the game details for demonstative purposes, as to why the player has travelled from town to town with a greyed-out endurance bar indicating nameless's afliction/illness that does not get corrected seems somehow ignorant and out-of-place as far as quality reviews are concerned.
This, coupled with leaving out details of the magic system overview and and failure to emphasise the freedom not to join a faction path, makes me give this review a score of 7 out of 10, were it not for these detailed ommisions, who knows? a 9 or even 10 could perhaps have been achieved. :)

[VDweller]

Love you VaultDweller.
Love you too, sunshine.

Yet, as an rpg player portraying to others the game details for demonstative purposes, as to why the player has travelled from town to town with a greyed-out endurance bar indicating nameless's afliction/illness that does not get corrected seems somehow ignorant and out-of-place as far as quality reviews are concerned.
Honestly? I didn't even notice. So what? Does it suddenly cast doubt on anything I've said about the game in my review? I hope not.

This, coupled with leaving out details of the magic system overview and and failure to emphasise the freedom not to join a faction path...
From the review: "Nothing is forced on you, nothing is mandatory - NOTHING AT ALL - so everything is in your hands and up to you. " As you can see, it's clearly emphasized in nice capital letters. Agree about the magic system though.

[roqua]

I disagree about the magic system. Is a review only good if the reviewer played every type of character?

Should he have started a new magic user character and threw a couple spells before reviewing? What if the experience of playing a mage changes drastically 3/4ths down the line?

Saying a character type system must be included in a review would be like saying a reviewer of Kotor has to play through at least twice to get a heads up on the good side and light side. This is unnedded. An acurate review can be given with one play through with one character, unless that reviews knocks a system they didn't try or says the game has no replayability when it does.

What if he played through as a mage and wasn't able to give as much info from a melee perspective. Also, he obviously made a faction siding decision. So he missed out on other content that wasn't needed to review the game.

I played a good chunk into G2 and never made one potion. Would a review by me of the game be incomplete without adding anything in about it. It would be stupid if I said the alchemy system in G2 sucks when i didn't try it.

I'm just happy that rpgwatch (based on dot reviews) and rpgcodex reviews at least requires the reviewer to play the game enough to know enough about it to write a solid review based on solid experience with the game, unlike the trend of most reviews where it is abvious the reviewer didn't get very far into the game.

[Corwin]

Sorry, roqua, but we were not suggesting that VD should have played as a mage before writing his review, just that he should have written something about the magic system employed in the game so that people who enjoy playing mages, such as myself, would have some idea what to expect!!

[roqua1]

I understand. And I remember you love mages, but let me ask you this. What would you be looking for in any game review minimum? A brief description of the magic system? A critique of it? What sets the magic system apart from, say, ranged combat or fighting with a spear instead of a mace? Afterall, in the Gothics, and most games, the magic system is just a different way of causing damage and relates almost exclusivley to combat.

And in games where it provides utility, it provides it as an alternative to another way to accomplish something. Pick the lock or cast open lock? Same result.

A create example would be the Quest for Glory series. In part one (Heroe's Quest at the time) you could climb up and get the object, throw a rock and knock it down, or cast a spell that would retrieve it. Basically three ways for the three classes.

And what if a reviewer is like me, who never plays a mage in a single character game. I could hardly give a well formulated opinion since any experience playing a mage is not fun, so I couldn't say, "playing a mage is fun and the magic system is great compared to {another game}. But if there has to be an obligatory stement on the magic system, does tehre also have to be one on ranged combat?

While we are on the subject, lets say it was a review of Fallout or another game where diplomacy is a viable alternative to combat. Would the review have to go into great detail on this, or just mention that the game provides diplomacy as an option to avoid combat or solve quests without bloodshed. Doesn't sneaking and thievery skills also accomplish this in most situations?

Another question I have would be isn't magic use in almsot any game with magic use standard fair for the most part, only needing a mention when it deviates from the norm, such as bloodlines or arx fatalis (and both of the magic systems in those games really are standard fair, just in one every character uses "magic" in a limited way, and in the other you make pictures to use magic.

To be fair, I guess the same could be said for melee combat. I guess G1 and G2 had notably different melee combat than the norm, but almost every game's combat could be summerized just by naming the type of combat it is. Its TB, its RT, its RT w/ P, its Twitch. But that isn't true for Tb or twitch since G1/2 made a different kind of twitch, and TB can use action points (FO), or set amount of actions (D & D), have a lot of options (ToEE) or very few (most other TB games).

Well, I'm kind of getting off course, but the first 3/4ths of this post made sense.

[Corwin]

You make some valid points, and I would likely answer YES to most of your questions. However, as the way magic operates in G3 is different from the way it did in the previous games, then I feel some aspect of this should be mentioned!!

[roqua1]

My question wasn't so much aimed at this review, as reviews in general. Or the review precess. Reviews are kind of a hot topic lately, and I think this this is a good time to get some long standing questions I've had addresses maybe, especially since a lot of people in this post write reviews.

And your reply brings up another question. A lot of reviewers who are reviewing this game in particular never played G1 or G2, so they wouldn't be able to compare and contrast the differences in the magic system of G3.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

However, my one major criticism would be that he failed to mention the magic system, which to me is always important!!

I heard that the mage is far too powerful in Gothic 3.

[Maylander]

Only later in the game, and only if you have mana regeneration.

[Corwin]

Mana regen is VERY powerful, but it does take some time to acquire it!!
Roqua, I get annoyed about people reviewing G3 who haven't played the earlier games, but I can understand why/how this happens!!

[Naked_Lunch]

Then again, a sequel should be good enough on it's own without having to have previous knowledge of the series and whatnot. Though I agree it's good to be acquainted with the earlier games, it shouldn't be a necessity.

[Wulf]

The Gothic-3 magic system deserves a full long page or even a chapter of it's own, yet because of the main inabillity of many players to grasp the full depth of it early on (and i don't mean the agressive part of it as in combat) but the implications to the storyline of changes made through magic, transposing, summoning, and especially "quest completion by magic only" (which is implied in the hinted suggestive storyline) - - then in retrospect it would take a brave man to even atempt a full evaluation as parts of it lean to subjective/differing gameplay theory, he would have to know the magic system inside-out.

This of course is no reason why a general outline at least of the magic system couldn't be offered in full comprehensive style game reviews - in mini reviews it wouldn't matter.

[Gorath]

The omission of the magic system in almost all reviews is the publishers´ fault. Publishers should make it a habit to supply reviewers with an additional CD with savegames. G3 is way too long to play more than once for review purposes. The game´s structure favours melee combat early on.