Gothic 3 Gothic 3 Uber-Patch NOT coming

Gorath said:

This means they´re in pre-production. They write up the design documents, decide the art style, etc. Normal, nothing to get upset about. That´s what they have to do if they´ve decided to go the mentioned road for the content patch.

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I know all that . I am/was not upset about them being in pre-production of Gothic IV. If they want to, then they can go right ahead and pre-produce the Gothics all the way up to no. XXIV right now. No problem with me. But what is a problem to me is to sell that purely conceptual work as work on the patch. And I'm by far not the only one who feels cheated. Just look at the JoWood and WoG forums.

Here is your indication: PB has a couple of coders on their payroll. Choose one: (a) The coders sit in the office, eat pizza, drink coke and smoke like a chimney. (b) The coders sit in the office, code somethin, eat pizza, drink coke and smoke like a chimney.

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Haha, even though that was funny, we don't even know if they have any coders on their payroll anymore at all. For all we know, it could be that PB is currently only employing Mr. Rüve, Mr. Rosenkranz, Mr. Marcinzik, Mr. Hoge and that one intern whose real name no one knows (he posted as "Orkze" on WoG). Of course, it is quite likely that there are more people left on their team but as I said before, I am now more cautious and trying to only go by what is actually known.

You´re exaggerating. It was a lie.

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YIIIIIPPPPPPIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! ... so you finally do admit that it was a lie. That's all I ever wanted *g*.

Their announcement (GB patch) they thought very clever exploded under their feet when JoWooDs´ strategy change became clear.

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That's a possibility but I think we need to remember that JoWood's strategy change was not a new thing at the time or a surprise at all. JoWood already mentioned plans to bring Gothic to consoles in December 2005. I know that I was at one point in this past week speculating about a connection between the divorce and JoWood's console strategy myself but I'm fairly sure now that there is no direct link between the two at all. It's probably much more simple like really just a question of funding or JoWood wanting more (creative) control to avoid a second G3 disaster in the future or something other really basic.

What´s the big problem? Let me guess, you never lie?

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Oh, I do, but I kind of try to avoid lying in public to over 500,000 people if/when I do it. I have no problem with Kai Rosenkranz lying to his girlfriend because he's fucking his neighbor's wife but I do have a problem if/when he lies straight to my face about a fucked up product that I bought from his fucked up company .

Not much speculation. Ralf wrote in his Q&A thread that they now have clearly better tools then they had during the G3 development.

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Yes but those could be GameBryo tools or any other licensed engine. Or it could also be another lie. Or tools how they currently imagine them "in their heads", not actual tools as in existing software that you can actually work with. We do not really know that. Anything is possible with these guys as long as there is no ban on swamp weed.
BTW, I actually made a post in that thread myself and asked whether he meant their own tools or licensed ones. Unfortunately, this was shortly before the PB/JW divorce became official and so I never got an answer because the WoG mods/admins closed the thread to avoid it from getting bombed with questions about the divorce.

It´s not illogical because it´s cost effective and it repairs the Gothic brand. Was it wrong? Probably, but everybody can make mistakes. A small patch and tweaked balancing on combat would have been a better decision.
...
And damaged the brand.
...

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As I said, I think it would have damaged the brand just as much (or more) if PB would have kept us waiting for a patch until -what?- late 2008, early 2009? The next project would not have been finished any sooner than that.
I strongly believe that it would have made more sense to just wrap up Gothic III for good with a tech patch and then to just let it rest to be totally free of any old burden for the next game.
But -yeah- that's just my personal opinion and I guess there is no real "right" or "wrong" answer in this context. The most damage to the brand was done by releasing Gothic III unfinished. Anything else is unknown since we can't predict the future. However, since people tend to forget bad things rather quickly, I think it would have made sense to close the Gothic III chapter with one more hotfix and then to move on to Gothic IV with a definite promise to do a better job next time.

Mrs Berger is actually very nice. I´ve met her at the sound track event.
The PRs are chaotic even for JoWooDs´ standards. Their behaviour smells like panic to me.

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Hey, I don't doubt that she's pretty nice and she even looks half decent, too . But I don't trust in her abilities very much. Do you remember this one Gothic III promotional video that she moderated? It definitely had great.. entertainment value. Informational value? Ummm... not so much .
You're right though that JoWood didn't exactly leave the impression as if they were overly well prepared to issue an official statement about the divorce. I hope we'll find out more in a few days (mid June, I think) when the JoWood annual shareholder meeting will be held. Someone from the press or an investor just must inquire about the reasons behind the separation.
JoWood CMs Ivan Ertlov or Glockenbeat (forgot who) has also hinted at the fact today that JoWood is preparing another statement on the whole subject. Let's hope it's coming soon to shed some more light on the whole thing.

We all know from an early age what lies are, yet within commercialism and business, i believe "lies" can be viewed from a different angle and for a good reasons, especially where high media involvement is concerned.

The survival of companies and business set-ups can be crucially dependent on competitors *not* having their rival's information and to assist this, diverting or using smoke-screens is beyond doubt widely practiced to prevent competitors from gaining too much advantageous company knowledge...even in some cases where "insiders" or "moles" are utilised.

So when we see a divergence or so-called lies like we read in the media, let us not be too quick with our decisions, instead use fore-sight and wisdom and apply a sensible level of reasoning.

PB have had to re-adjust their direction, they must not be trodden into the ground - by using stealth, cunning and guile they can survive and deflect the blows inflicted by overpowering wheelers and dealers.

Long live Piranha Bytes.......David has out-moved Goliath...."come get some" (Duke Nukem)

Wulf said:

PB have had to re-adjust their direction, they must not be trodden into the ground - by using stealth, cunning and guile they can survive and deflect the blows inflicted by overpowering wheelers and dealers.

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I don't mind PB using guile, smokescreens, etc. to survive and possibly even gain some small advantage in this breakup.

However, to have told us (Gothic 3 owners and community members) that they were "working" on a patch, making progress on the patch, etc. and now to say that they were only working on it "in their heads" smacks of lying to their fanbase. I know that I (for one) am offended by this.

By pissing on and pissing off their fans like this they may have trodden themselves into the ground. I know I certainly won't rush out to buy the next game by PB.

Wulf said:

We all know from an early age what lies are, yet within commercialism and business, i believe "lies" can be viewed from a different angle and for a good reasons, especially where high media involvement is concerned.

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Sure, but a distinction must be made between whom is being lied to. Deceiving your competitors and deceiving your customers are two totally different things.

In my mind, from what I’ve read here, it's pretty much as Mo is characterizing it: PB lied to their fans. They can try to rationalize it all they want, but any reasonable person should see how they posted about the uber-patch all these months vs. this new revelation about it all being daydreaming as nothing short of plain old deception and manipulation. Gorath's argument about pre-production just doesn't hold water. What do brainstorming concepts and deciding on the art style of a new game have anything to do with fixing the combat system and missing skills of the existing game? That's right: nothing. PB led their fans on, which is pretty bad behavior, especially considering the unusual dedication of their fan base. Whether or not they had good intentions or were holding out hope that things would take a turn for the better with JoWood is beside the point.

Wulf said:

"come get some" (Duke Nukem)

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That takes me back. It also ended with something like "Now is the time for a little R&R" followed by some 'strange' noises.

On topic: We don't know weather PB was payed for the last few months by Jowood to work on another patch. It is also told that the trouble began in december 2006. PB is a Jowood too, a compagny and compagnies need to make a profit. We don't see everything here, so I refuse to say that either one of them is the "bad guy" here.
I still have more feelings of antipathy towards atari, a compagny that designed a strategy to fuck up Gothic 2 outside the German speaking countries by favouring Enter the Matrix.

Yeah, seems like there is no black and white here, just a mess. I tend to favor PB over Jowood, based on their track records. PB gave us the great Gothic 1 and 2 and then got in over their heads with the ambitious Oblivion-buster, Gothic 3. It is rare for a small developer to pull off an A-class game (Crytek being the obvious exception). Look at all the delays and feature removal that GSC went through before they got STALKER out the door. Surprisingly, they did OK.

Jowood, on the other hand, has a pretty bad track record, releasing mediocre and buggy games while flirting with bankruptcy. I guess that really, I support the creative guys over the corporate guys on principle...

Bartacus said:

On topic: We don't know weather PB was payed for the last few months by Jowood to work on another patch.

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We do know it. PB had no contract to make another patch. No contract means JoWooD did not pay.
The pre-production PB did was payed out of their own pocket. The PB devs even agreed to a cut in salary.
Which is also the logical reason for going the "develop for G4, then port to G3" route: it´s less expensive and especially it wouldn´t have cost their money.


Latest officicial word from JoWooD: They say they alone have the exclusive right to make Gothic 4, its sequels and Gothic derivatives.

This means PB will never make another Gothic.

Just read this news bit about Ubisoft...could PB ?

"Last week, France-based developer and publisher Ubisoft reported record earnings for the previous twelve months, to the tune of 680.3 million euros (approx $917.1 million). Now the second-largest independent games company in Europe is on the lookout to acquire some smaller fish, according to a report from Reuters.

The company's chief financial officer, Alain Martinez, told Reuters that the company was currently considering two to three acquisition opportunities, primarily development studios. Although he did not name the companies on the radar, he did mention that if the deals went through, that they would set Ubisoft back in the range of 1 million to 20 million euros (approx $1.3 million to $26.9 million).

Ubisoft chairman, Yves Guillemot, said at a news conference, "The idea is to stay cash positive, but we remain on the lookout for acquisition opportunities."

Ubisoft was founded by five brothers of the Guillemot family in 1986 and has developed titles including Red Steel, Rayman Raving Rabbids, XIII, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas. In 2005, the company acquired MC2-Microids, then bought the Driver franchise from Atari in 2006, and acquired Sunflowers--the German publisher and developer best known for the Anno series--this April. "

mudsling3 said:

Just read this news bit about Ubisoft...could PB ?

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PB is ripe for the picking, so yes. The news bit didn't say what Ubisoft was shopping for, so I guess we can only wonder what PB might have to offer.

I think we can assume PB isn't sitting on much cash right now...they don't own the rights to the Gothic brand, apparently...there's the work they've been doing for Gothic 4...I don't know. How much is it worth to pick up an entire development team?

If Ubisoft is comfortable making a German acquisition, then you pretty much have to think it's possible. Wow.

I doubt it. Smaller developers are only interesting if they come with a AAA IP. Or at least an A IP with potential.

Take Sunflowers for example. Ubi got the most successfull German franchise ever. Anno ... sold more than 5M copies. Now they have a safe no.1 hit in Germany, 30% of the studio (Related Designs) and almost a monopoly on the genre because they also own The Settlers through the acquisition of Blue Byte.

Good. I would hate it if they got acquired.

Still, the low end of the range is only $1.3 million. That's awfully cheap.

Right. 1 - 3 M could be okay if you take into account how much it costs to find experienced employees. And it´s still solid money to share among the PB owners.

I also doubt that Ubi has plans to acquire PB. As Gorath said, PB does no longer own an attractive IP (if what JoWood's Seidl is saying is true anyway but what he said and how he said it, it sounded much more determined and more factual than the previous statements about the Gothic IP) so that makes them an unlikely target for a publisher of Ubi's calibre.
Secondly, PB has absolutely zero experience in the consoles market except for their very old plans from 1998/1999 to bring Gothic I to consoles (the PS1 I believe). Ubi is all about the consoles market though (just look at all their uber crappy ports like SC4, GRAW or R6 Vegas) so that makes PB an even unlikelier target.

But who knows...? Someone or something must be funding PB right now or they would already be out of business so maybe we will indeed hear about an acquisition or at least successful negotiations with a new publisher real soon.

PB's talents and work ethics are plainly evident in all their games. Beside management, they need better financial and personel resources to reach their aspiring and lofty goals. I would bet my money on PB.

I'd bet mine on the legal teams involved in all this mess!! Until that is sorted out, I can't see anyone risking an aquisition!!

By the way, there are now a few official words at the English WoG forums from Ralf Marczinczik who is the art director at PB. Here's the link to his profile so you can just look through the posts that he made to this thread today by yourself:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/search.php?do=finduser&u=47655

Yeah, I know Moriendor, but there's also a PB/Jowood basher who's up for a fight with me.

Bartacus said:

Yeah, I know Moriendor, but there's also a PB/Jowood basher who's up for a fight with me.

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Oh, really? Who would that be?

Let the patient Gothic 3 die - the game is incurable and is suffering from more than one illness.

I hope that PB is giving birth to another great medieval fantasy game - the game should be vaccinated against all childhood illnesses like:

a) too big
b) too early released
c) cut off features and content
d) not balanced
e) not finetuned
f) like Oblivion
g) unlike Gothic 1
...

well I'll tell you something people, If was in PB's position, I would just drop Gothic brand and start new. From what I see, story is pretty much finished anyway. Better start a new, legendary game like gothic 1 was in those times.