Gothic 3 Gothic 3 Uber-Patch NOT coming

According to PB, JoWood and PB have just canceled their cooperation because they could not come to an angreement concerning a Gothic 3 addon or Gothic 4. That also means (according to PB) that there won't be another Patch for Gothic 3.

Edit: Just saw there already is an entry of some sort in the Gothic forum or somewhere - you moderators might as well delete this post.

Damn, finally bought and installed the game the other day. I was waiting on playing until the latest "uber"-patch came out.... Guess I'd best just start playing and ignore the bugs.

How does it feel? Finished enough? What ive read from the gothic boards its pretty much playable even with the current patches. Just avoid 1h weapon and shield because its hard like magicians in gothic2. Since archery is better in g3 than g2 it might be a good option to take care of the nasty small critters that knock out too easily in close combat.

I have been patiently waiting for many months for the uber-patch before trying a replay of G3. Got a new vid-card (7950gt) and finally re-installed the game. Same old endless tweaks, forum searches for modified .ini files, updating the tuning utility, etc. Finally, after a few days I have the game running reasonably well again with much improved graphics.

My question is, if a knowledgeable user can search out various tweaks to take the game from a laggy, very low framerate mess on installation and fix it up to run reasonably well, why can't the developers make similar changes and release them in a small patch?

It was taking forever to get the 'big' patch released and now it looks like it may never get done. Clearly many technical problems with the game have relatively simple solutions and at least these tweaks should be made available for the average user in a patch.

zakhal said:

How does it feel? Finished enough? What ive read from the gothic boards its pretty much playable even with the current patches. Just avoid 1h weapon and shield because its hard like magicians in gothic2. Since archery is better in g3 than g2 it might be a good option to take care of the nasty small critters that knock out too easily in close combat.

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Well, it seems my instinct to play an archer was the right choice, as I'm able to move around the world pretty freely and deal with all but the most challenging monsties (at least, in the first few areas). However, I've already run into some cringe-worthy clipping problems, such as a slain orc who was submerged to his waist head first in concrete!

The game IS fun though, and has plenty of that old Gothic feeling. Gothic 1 is still one of the best RPGs I've ever played. I suspect we haven't seen the last of the Piranhas.

If they both decide they don't want to supply a patch soon, then they could and IMHO should release whatever necessary coding for some of the great minds out here to develope a player made patch.

I agree, but I worry that if PB themselves were having problems with the patch (because of difficulties with the game engine), how much of a chance would community members have?

Cleric said:

I agree, but I worry that if PB themselves were having problems with the patch (because of difficulties with the game engine), how much of a chance would community members have?

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That is the thing, isn't it - this patch was supposedly a major reworking of the graphics engine and pretty much everything to make it all work and play better. This is of a far bigger scope than the monkeying around done with Bloodlines, for example.

Why should PB have had unsolvable problems developing the patch? Maybe the only problem was that they couldn´t come to an agreement with JoWooD on how the patch should be payed for?
Stefan Berger said the budget for the add-on and general legal issues were the problems leading to the failure of negotiations. The former could mean that PB wanted to develop a big add-on incl. the big patch while JoWooD prefered a technical fix and a solid add-on.

But to let their co-operation sour over such a thing? There had to be more. If it were that simple, they surely could have found a compromise. You don't end long-standing business relations just because you have a disagreement about whether it should be a stand-alone patch or one included in an addon. Money is a likely factor, but probably also a lack of faith in that either party could still deliver what each side wanted.

That's right. The patch did not play ANY role at all in the failed negotiations with JoWood according to PB's managing director/CEO Michael Rüve . Not that PB can exactly be trusted anymore but -yes- as you said, there definitely must have been something a lot more fundamental to bring that relationship to an end.
As we were speculating in the news comments thread, it's probably got to do with JoWood's intention to bring Gothic to consoles ASAP.
There's no way that PB could pull that off with their small team, their current engine (which was evaluated by Microsoft experts and deemed incompatible with the X360) and with zero current gen consoles experience. So it would seem quite likely that JoWood simply didn't want to continue the relationship because for PB to do what JoWood wanted (i.e. to become a multiplatform dev studio), it would have required a major restructuring and (re)building of the team at PB which would have cost a lot of money and taken a lot of time.

Actually, that sounds like a very solid piece of reasoning. You might just be totally correct!!

Of course the "general legal issues" regarding G4 Berger mentioned in the interview could mean everything. One possibility which seems probable to me is that JoWooD was willing to fund PB´s restructuring but insisted on options to publish the next Gothic game(s). AddOns on consoles are problematic, so it could be something like "G4 in 2.5 years, then G5 and G6 after 12 months each".


Does anybody know what a "first option right" is? I read somewhere a rumor that PB had such a thing for G4 and chose not to use it.

Gorath said:

Does anybody know what a "first option right" is? I read somewhere a rumor that PB had such a thing for G4 and chose not to use it.

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I also read about that first option right at this stock market website (Boerse Express) and found that stuff highly interesting and fairly credible.
The "first option right" means that if JoWood were to continue the Gothic franchise then before they can ask anyone else or contact any other development studios, they must first offer a publishing contract to PB.
The pieces are slowly coming together now. It's beginning to make sense. PB and JoWood both needed some security for a long lasting relationship so JoWood probably acquired the right (via contract... not the IP via the patent office) for at least one Gothic III sequel and PB had the rights to be the first to sign a deal for any new projects.
The big question that remains is why PB didn't make use of that right. I would assume that it has to do with the stuff that I mentioned above. They realized that -under the conditions of the contract that was offered to them- they just can't pull it off and maybe there was a very human component, too, like "Gothic burn-out" that played a major role as well. Or does Gothic III look like a "labor of love" to anyone? Thought so .

JoWooD had to offer PB a contract or the contract they will offer the next studio?

Gorath said:

JoWooD had to offer PB a contract or the contract they will offer the next studio?

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That's a good question . It's highly speculative what the contract (the contract that possibly grants PB the first option right - if there is such a contract at all) might have said. Of course, they can't just offer PB a contract of the kind like "Go and make Gothic IV for a nominal sum of EUR/$ 1.00" just to get rid of them .
It must at least be a "reasonable" offer... whatever that means. Whatever it is/was, they would have been well advised to make it as concrete as possible because provisions such as "reasonable" are a sure fire way to lead a contract to end up in court to have a judge determine what's "reasonable" .
I'm sure that their lawyers know that so maybe the contract (again the one over the possible first option right and future projects in the Gothic series) just said "unchanged conditions +x% for every new title in the series" (with G3 as a reference point and special provisions like a major deduction of the total sum in case of the development of an add-on). Who knows?

Sounds a lot like an American soapie, or sitcom!!

Bottom line, does anyone think another patch will ever be released?

Only if JoWooD pays PB to make it - and if they are willing to remove resources from their new project.
JoWooDs´ claim that another team will make a patch is completely unrealistic. It´s not impossible though. Maybe JoWooD indeed has the sources and pays the new dev for several months to read and understand 1.5M lines of code, followed by more months of bug fixing at a slowly increasing speed. So technically speaking it´s not lying.
JoWooDs´ other try, to check if PB is judicially obliged to deliver whatever patch pieces they have developed is probably a bluff. If PB had to hand over anything for free JoWooD would have demanded it a long time ago, at latest after their decision to change developers.

A paragraph in the contract about the duty to make patches upon request for a defined time sounds logical. I wouldn´t be surprised if the period is one year. But even then the correct order is: JoWooD asks and pays PB to make the patch. If the clause simply said "4 patches" the story is over.

If JoWooD were serious about the patch they would publicly announce an offer for PB to develop it, including the budget. The pressure for PB would become unbearable. "No" would be no option.

Gorath said:

A paragraph in the contract about the duty to make patches upon request for a defined time sounds logical. I wouldn´t be surprised if the period is one year. But even then the correct order is: JoWooD asks and pays PB to make the patch. If the clause simply said "4 patches" the story is over.

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Right. Or they might have agreed upon a certain number of patches that they might have already reached (if it was three patches) so that PB has no further obligation to deliver any patches/support (as long as all category A bugs have been eradicated).
Whatever it is, it is messy as long as PB claims that there is nothing left to fix or that there are no more category A bugs. Then JoWood would have to go to court, hire a neutral consultant to assess the code (which would probably take at least a year alone) and then a judge would have to decide on what support PB still "owes" to JoWood based upon that assessment.

Anyway, what we do know for sure from PB's Michael Rüve is that PB has no patch. He said "we can not be forced to deliver something that does not exist" in response to a question from a fan about the possibility of JoWood demanding any new patches or current patch code.
When PB was talking about the patch in the last six months, they were only talking about plans and about laying the foundation for future projects "in their heads", i.e. they have not done any actual work at all it would seem.

So it is extremely unlikely that we will ever see another patch. The only thing that might potentially help is if JoWood has a contractual right to demand patching until the product is "technically flawless" or something like that.
If PB should acknowledge that the product is in fact not technically flawless in its current state then there is a small chance that they might hack together a technical hotfix for the remaining engine, memory and crash issues.
But if they put up a fight and tell JoWood to deliver proof for further patching needs, then JoWood would probably just let it rest (in fact, they did already choose to let it rest until now... they broke up with PB months ago already and obviously saw no need to demand further patching yet), blame PB in a press release and move on.
A content patch, however, including balancing changes, changes to the combat system or maybe even additional lines of (unspoken) dialogue seems totally out of question. If anything at all, then there's a very, very, very slim chance (depending on what the G3 contract says) that we'll see a technical hotfix.