Gothic 3 - Patch News

Gorath

Prime Evil
Staff Member
Moderator
Original Sin Donor
Original Sin 2 Donor
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
7,830
Piranha Bytes´ music wizard Kai Rosenkranz posted a few infos about the next patch in the official forum, followed by a further clarification.
Of course the posts are in German. Here´s a short summary and a few points based on other sources mixed in:
  • Is the patch confirmed? Yes.
  • ETA: Unknown. PB / JoWooD will only announce it when they are sure to ship on time.
  • KaiRo said they´re running into considerable problems in various areas while developing the patch.
  • Is it free of charge? Yes. Additional distribution methods are under consideration, for example including it on the next project´s DVD, but the usual free download options will definitely be made available.
  • Will the patch make it necessary to start over? No definite infos about this, but PB is evaluating it.
  • Size: Unconfirmed, although it seems safe to expect the dimension to be GB rather than MB.
  • Reason: "Changes to story / logic / world data / 3D data lead to a size explosion [of the patch]" (transl.)
  • The technical problems are solved (status -> patch 1.12). Therefor PB prefers to work on a well thought out solution instead of rushing the patch out the door.
  • Months ago PB has made clear they are well aware they can only ship a patch of this size once.
If you add up 2+2 it´s not unlikely PB could be pulling a Bethesda and ship the patch a few days before the "next project" everybody thinks he knows what it is hits the shelves.More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,830
Maybe someday they'll finish this. Disappearing landscape and floating trees really break the immersion for me. Great game, don't get me wrong, just not as polished as I'd like it.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
84
Location
Tennessee
Shipping it on the "next project's DVD" sounds very much as if there was an addpon in the works. It simply would make sense this way, imho.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Shipping it on the "next project's DVD" sounds very much as if there was an addpon in the works. It simply would make sense this way, imho.

Well, I think that they had to look at the possibility that some people wouldn't be able to get the patch otherwise. So those people will have to wait a while, likely.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,930
Well, I think that they had to look at the possibility that some people wouldn't be able to get the patch otherwise. So those people will have to wait a while, likely.

The patch will certainly also be included on print mag DVDs. Other options are asking a friend to download it or requesting the patch from the publisher. In Germany most of them send out patches on CD/DVD for free - although they make sure to wait some time to discourage people from going this easy route all the time. ;)
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,830
ETA: Unknown. PB / JoWooD will only announce it when they are sure to ship on time.

This was funny. They had no problem with releasing the game unfinished however.
 
Joined
Nov 6, 2006
Messages
54
I really don't see why they couldn't have released another small patch that just addressed quest bugs or made it so some skills actually worked.

It certainly does sound like something Beth did with the 1.2 patch, but at least with the Oblivion 1.2 patch we actually have it now, god knows how long it is going to be till the "next project" is released. And the other difference is Oblivion was actually close to bug-free for most people....
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,086
Location
Sigil
"... pulling a Bethesda..."

*ROFL*:rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl:

There are really curious ways of making oneself a name... aren´t there?!
^^

If this will really become a standing phrase?! :uneasy: :cool:


Ragon, very amused indeed
 
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
64
Location
Germany
yeah real close to bethesda
patch 1- 1mb patch 2- 5 mb (oblivion)
patch 1 thru 4 over 50 mb each final patch over 1 gig.

also the orginal oblivion was released ~7 months before gothic 3 and it took them 1 year for a 2nd patch. i don't think you've quite given gothic 3 and its much smaller staff quite a fair chance;)

also one of the main guild quests i had in oblivion was unrepairablely broken, which i see as a huge problem. gothic 3 may have crahsed more but i had no such game breaking bugs from gothic 3. and a few missing skills and detachable trees while certainly are annoying and show a lack of polish are squashed bugs on a semi compared to the contents of said semi that contains something even more awesome that a car name kit.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
1,386
Location
California
yeah real close to bethesda
patch 1- 1mb patch 2- 5 mb (oblivion)
patch 1 thru 4 over 50 mb each final patch over 1 gig.

also the orginal oblivion was released ~7 months before gothic 3 and it took them 1 year for a 2nd patch. i don't think you've quite given gothic 3 and its much smaller staff quite a fair chance;)

also one of the main guild quests i had in oblivion was unrepairablely broken, which i see as a huge problem. gothic 3 may have crahsed more but i had no such game breaking bugs from gothic 3. and a few missing skills and detachable trees while certainly are annoying and show a lack of polish are squashed bugs on a semi compared to the contents of said semi that contains something even more awesome that a car name kit.

Ummm... I'm not sure which Oblivion you are talking about but the game that goes by the name of Oblivion and that was made by Bethesda that I played had a mod (so much for "unrepairable" no. 1) that fixed that one guild quest almost instantly after release (I'm assuming that you are talking about the mage guild quest and a missing body). Secondly, that quest was also officially fixed via the first patch that was released three months after the game was released (so much for "unrepairable" no. 2). Thirdly, that bug is a rare occurrence that only ever affected a very small number of players.
Finally, it made a hell of a lot of sense for Bethesda to leave Oblivion alone for the most part (the game was rock stable out of the box for the vast majority of the players) so the mod community could unfold in peace. A patch orgy (that would have been completely unnecessary... what for anyway?) would have interrupted many modding projects because of potential version conflicts and incompatibilities. Frequent patches would have annoyed, frustrated and potentially destroyed the ES modding community. That would have been plain stupid of Bethesda. It definitely made sense to take a wait and see approach and to learn from the community how they would put the ES construction set to use. Then patch when it's inevitable because you need a clean code base for the expansion. That's what they did. That's why you haven't seen a million patches.

Gothic III on the other hand is a totally different (sad) story and there are definitely still game-breaking bugs in the game (save game corruption is still being reported, NPCs falling through the world etc.). Just because you haven't experienced one of those bugs doesn't mean that there are none (just like the Oblivion bug that you experienced does not happen to everyone by far). You need to see the bigger picture and stop thinking of yourself and your own experiences as the center of the universe.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,201
i would never want to take away the center of the universe title away from the reigning champ but insults aside i was not referring to that quest and i never have nor should i be required to use mods. its obvious that you like the mod community but i don't share much in common with the average gamer so why should place my faith in their unknown abilities. i am of the mind to believe in the developer who is making the game. if there is something wrong with the game in my opinion then they have let me down. i don't play games because i want to share the experience with someone else or their version of what they think the game should be. obviously i have used some single player content over the years but with the exception of bloodlines i have never kept a mod installed (and that was after playing the game 3 times first). you care about bethesda, i care about pirahna bytes i think that pretty much somes up our viewpoints.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
1,386
Location
California
I agree, you shouldn't have to mod a game to fix things that should never have been wrong in the first place.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
you care about bethesda, i care about pirahna bytes i think that pretty much somes up our viewpoints.

No, it doesn't because the Gothic series -despite the piece of crap that part 3 currently still is (I'm still hopeful regarding the patch though)- ranks quite a bit higher on my list of favorite RPG franchises than the Elder Scroll series.
Any semi-objective person would have to be able to see though that Gothic III and Oblivion just don't compare on the level of quantity or the level of severeness of bugs. Gothic III loses that "contest" in every category.
There are a lot of things I didn't like about Oblivion but bugginess wasn't one of them. And if you look around on the usual (RPG/fansite/official) forums then you will quickly find out that even most Oblivion haters can agree that Bethesda did at least do a pretty good job at polishing the game. Might also want to take a look at the reviews for both games. But who am I kidding? A true fanboi will always keep their eyes and ears shut to any voices of reason ;) .
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,201
Patches should absolutely be free of charge. But I'm not sure about the supposed fact that "all technical problems are fixed". I've played 1.12 for, I think at least 60 hours or more and have not encountered a single quest-related bug. But there are still weird 3d-related issues with people walking through huge rocks, boars attacking from caves below the character (=attacking, and hitting, through the ground). I guess such issues are unfixable, then.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
589
Great news! Sounds like they are working on something much bigger than a standard patch (new story elements etc). With a little luck they'll release it just in time for when the urge for a replay starts to kick in for me ;)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
453
Supposedly (gossip from December? I don't remember :)) they were going to completely change the combat system, which'd be a good idea, imo. (Just think about combat with mutliple opponents, which always means "multiple PASSIVE opponents".) I'm not sure how did they want to do it, though.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
589
Great news! the large size definitely gves away that it will fix more than just regular stuff.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
2,468
Back
Top Bottom