Gothic - Matt Chat

Dhruin

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The latest Matt Chat video sees Matt Barton tackling Gothic:
It's Gothic time! Yes, finally, after countless requests, Matt Chat covers the 2001 German CRPG Gothic. Of course, this game launched a trilogy, and apparently Risen is keeping the lineage alive. Lots of fun stuff in this game, and some pioneering stuff like the ability to skin animals (you can even get their teeth and claws!), cook food (grilled chicken!), and much more. Plagued by one of the slowest starts in any CRPG, though, it hasn't attracted the attention that it really deserves. If you can get through the first 3-4 hours of it, you'll be hooked. Just don't blow all your ore at the swamp weed stand!
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This guy is such a troll sometimes. "Slow start"? Gothic's introducing the player to the Valley is one of the best starts in non-party RPGs ever! And it makes sense...

You receive some advice and are on your own in a hostile territory, trying to reach the Old Camp. What's slow about this start? ;)
 
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I think that all the Gothic games and Risen have slow starts, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on your perspective; the eventual payoff and satisfying sense of accomplishment is very rewarding to patient players. While I don't mind this approach and actually enjoy it for the reasons stated in the previous sentence, I can also completely understand why someone would criticize the beginning portions of these games for being too slow or even tedious. Again, it's the payoff that eventually comes later which makes the Gothics rewarding.
 
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I've only watched a few 'Matt Chats.' This one was really not very good. He doesn't really talk about the game in as much as you just sorta watch him experience it for perhaps the first time. I don't know if this is representative of all his work, but the video is a waste of time imho.
 
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I watched about the first 10 minutes. Matt's childish humor started getting on my nerves at that point.

I have to agree with Elwro though. Gothic did not have a slow start, especially when you compare it to most crpgs. After the introductory cinematic, you're thrown directly into the game world. There's no tutorial whatsoever and very little hand-holding.

Compare that to the majority of games today where you spend the first hour following onscreen prompts on how to walk, jump, and draw your weapon. Then you usually spend another hour or more just to get out of some kind of starting dungeon, etc., that's usually filled with pathetically weak enemies.

Gothic let you experience the world immediately and forced you into survival mode right from the beginning. I wish more of today's games did that.
 
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I have to agree with Elwro though. Gothic did not have a slow start, especially when you compare it to most crpgs. After the introductory cinematic, you're thrown directly into the game world. There's no tutorial whatsoever and very little hand-holding.

Compare that to the majority of games today where you spend the first hour following onscreen prompts on how to walk, jump, and draw your weapon. Then you usually spend another hour or more just to get out of some kind of starting dungeon, etc., that's usually filled with pathetically weak enemies.

Gothic let you experience the world immediately and forced you into survival mode right from the beginning. I wish more of today's games did that.

I guess I should have watched the video…I misunderstood what was meant by "slow start." I assumed that meant how weak your character is when the game starts and how it takes awhile to truly "get things going," as well as how careful and patient you initially have to be in order to progress. From a more literal standpoint - i.e., being thrown into the world right off the bat without having to go through a long "introductory/tutorial sequence," the Gothics do not have a "slow" start.

edit: After watching the first five minutes of the video (Matt's retrospectives are too unfocused for my tastes to watch the whole thing), I'm pretty sure that what he means by "slow start" is what I explained earlier in the thread. And I kind of agree with him. When I take into account how awkward and off-putting the control scheme and interface of Gothic 1+2 initially are as well as how much "grinding" you have to do over the first 2-3 hours or so in order to be able to truly start holding your own and enjoying the game, it does have a "slow start" in that respect. Again, I personally don't have too much of a problem with this, as the "slow" start of the game leads to the reward of a satisfying feeling of progression and accomplishment, but it takes a fair amount of patience to stick with the awkward and somewhat frustrating feeling of the first few hours in order to get to the point where the Gothics begin to truly shine.
 
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Gothic hooks you from the start, and is one of the best rpgs in history.
 
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Slow start? This clown is talking through his butt-hole. G1 & 2 and NoTR are two of the all-time best CRPGs out there. You feel like you've really accomplished something the farther you progress and grow. Even after playing all of them several times, I still enjoy the games and take pride in bagging my first Shadow Beast in each play-through. There's always something new to find or do or explore that I missed on previous plays.
 
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I'm pretty sure that what he means by "slow start" is what I explained earlier in the thread. And I kind of agree with him. When I take into account how awkward and off-putting the control scheme and interface of Gothic 1+2 initially are as well as how much "grinding" you have to do over the first 2-3 hours or so in order to be able to truly start holding your own and enjoying the game,

Maybe he should have chosen a different way to describe it then. I just don't think "slow" is the right word. I can definitely say I enjoyed the game right from the start.

I can understand why some people would feel that they're grinding in the early stages though. Most modern crpgs allow you to level up a lot faster in the beginning and get some decent loot early on. The fact that PB's games make you scratch and claw from the start is one of the things I like about them.
 
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Maybe he should have chosen a different way to describe it then. I just don't think "slow" is the right word. I can definitely say I enjoyed the game right from the start.

I guess I just personally found the controls and character movement awkward in the beginning stages of the game, but I adapted and eventually got the hang of it. It certainly didn't prevent me from enjoying the game, but it made it a bit of an adjustment period at the beginning with no experience playing the game.

I can understand why some people would feel that they're grinding in the early stages though. Most modern crpgs allow you to level up a lot faster in the beginning and get some decent loot early on. The fact that PB's games make you scratch and claw from the start is one of the things I like about them.

That's pretty much exactly how I feel. I loved the feeling of progression and genuine sense of accomplishment that came with eventually reaching the point that you could take on more and more challenging foes. It's one of those games where you really feel that you earn the success that you have, and it's designed in a way that doesn't cross the line into "unfair" or "cheap" difficulty simply for the sake of being called "hardcore" (I'm looking at you, Dark Souls ;)). I like this approach (when implemented correctly like the Gothics), but I can see why others would find the first few hours off-putting, frustrating, or intimidating. I find such views as valid complaints even if I don't necessarily agree from a personal standpoint and would argue that the beginning is carefully designed for a rewarding, meaningful payoff the further a player progresses.
 
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You couldn't wait till I was done editing my post? ;) jk

Anyways, as far as others finding it the way he describes it, I'm not seeing too many here. :)
 
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You couldn't wait till I was done editing my post? ;) jk

Didn't know you were editing ;). Quote has been fixed :)

Anyways, as far as "others" finding it the way he describes it, I'm not seeing too many here. :)

Well, I think many here have nothing but the highest of praise for the Gothic series ;). Not that Gothic isn't deserving - it's a great series (along with Risen) and Piranha Bytes is a fantastic developer in my experience.
 
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I am sure I have mentioned this before, but I tried the Gothic demo in a period that I was starting to feel I was about done with computer gaming. I mean seriously a grown man spending all that money every 6 months or so on hardware just to move bits of drawing across a bulky computer screen? absurd!

30 minutes into the demo I was phoning my geek friend (having just paused the game) to see if I could get some parts on the cheap to make this damn thing work smoother in higher settings… True story :)
 
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Gothic IS one of the best RPG out there, if you haven't finished it you haven't got a clue about real RPG, and i've played fallout1,2, arcanum, baldur's gate,planescape:torment and all that.

it does NOT deserve the trash talk from matt.
 
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I am not a big fan of his style of doing these myself, but I think its great that he gets these old classics some well-deserved attention. Humour is always a hit-and-miss thing.
 
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Yeah, I don't think Matt is much of a narrator. He tries too hard to be witty and comes across as been rather immature at times. Maybe he should understudy the folks at GiantBomb - those guys are hilarious!

But it's always good to see Gothic being unearthed for current times :)
 
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