But I did finish the game in reasonable play time!Indeed, what the added requirements do, like I indicated above, is make such a scenario like DeepO described a lot more difficult in reasonable play time. (*)
This is quite an extreme scenario though and I personally can't imagine having fun spending that much time in the game (in one go) so I can put it away for ever (I rather replay it every 1-2 years).
I haven´t spent more than 100 hours in the game .
Also, remember there´s a second part to jack of all trades - master of none.
I´m quite sure my primary attributes (strength, dexterity, ancient knowledge) were all fairly low compared to what a more specialized build would have throughout the game.
I actually think the game lends itself really well to a kind of completionist playthrough, especially when one plays the game for the first time (and without a walkthrough) - what constitutes the main quest is nebulous for a long time and even when one reaches the point where it becomes clearer, it´s still not all that apparent where one must go, what has to be done and what isn´t mandatory to get to the ending credits.
In the other similarly open world games, if one wishes one can comfortably follow a silver line of a main quest till the end, but not so much in Gothic 3 (and I consider it to be one of the game´s biggest strengths, even though I wish the main plot points and quests were more elaborate).
Even though I´ve ultimately decided to go for a "Xardas ending", liberating Varant and Nordmar still felt like important things to do and I did some cleaning in Myrtana for balancing purposes as well (got rid of king, liberated two cities, wiped out one rebel camp, iirc).
That said, I did play the game in a way to get most out of it in one go since I was pretty sure I won´t be replaying it ever again (of which I was less certain after having finished the game and of which I´m even less certain now, partially thanks to this thread ), but due to the above mentioned structuring, doing so felt "natural" anyway.
Developing my character in a sorta jack of all trades-y way was precisely what kept the fun flowing - once bows became boring, my character was good enough to switch to sword & shield etc., though I have to admit I have found combat at times tedious in the first half of the game and have used companions liberally in it. The slowly gained flexibility certainly brought a good deal of fun to the second half.
Anyway, that was a lot of OT babbling, sorry .