Risen 2 - GamesCom Presentation Videos

Could we have some native German speakers make comment on the presentation and perhaps give a partial translation of what was said?

That would be fantastically dutiful of you and much appreciated. :)
 
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Only the inquisition has regular gun supplies. Other parties may have stolen a few, but that's it.
 
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There are games that have combined guns and magic, but pretty few western RPG's as far as I know. Arcanum comes to mind though...a pretty decent game in my book.
 
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Oh, and Wizardy of course...
 
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re: voodoo

Pirates and zombies? Wow they are really going for all the trendy, popular stuff.
 
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It's not all gun-based, Corwin. There are traditional weapons like swords and bows and one would suspect those old pistols aren't very accurate or fast.

Surely you don't have to play traditional mage in every game?

YES I DO, unless it's a game like Fallout. This has fallen off my 'to buy' list entirely; I'd rather replay G3!!
 
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Well, I think it's a shame you'd write it off so quickly but it's your time. I rather enjoy playing stealth characters but I certainly wouldn't write off a (potentially) good game just because it didn't have that particular class/style. Not to mention, PB hasn't revealed their intentions for magic, so surely it's premature to react so strongly at this point?
 
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I'm not going to write it off due to what they are doing with magic, I'm sure I will play this, just not really excited by it.
 
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PB were quite cryptic about magic in Risen and didn't give out any information until very late in the development, surely they won't risk getting rid of traditional magic altogether.
 
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Dear Green Place
It's not all gun-based, Corwin. There are traditional weapons like swords and bows and…

There will be swords but no bows. Bows and crossbows are going to be entirely replaced by guns.

Kostaz said:
surely they won't risk getting rid of traditional magic

The traditional crystal magic of the first part will be gone in Risen 2 though I guess that it doesn't really make that much of a difference whether a fireball is a crystal magic fireball or a voodoo fireball ;) . I'm sure they will have some of the traditional spells but I'd expect the majority of the spells to be non-traditional voodoo stuff with an emphasis on debuffs and summoning.
 
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I'd like to chime in and say that I'm delighted that PB is being creative with Risen 2 and trying new things with the gameplay mechanics, setting, etc. I loved PB's approach with the Gothic series and I really enjoyed Risen, which was more of the same, but after about 2/3rd's of the way through it started to feel a bit too familiar. I realized that I had essentially already played Risen before, but without the improved UI, character movement, and graphics. I have a feeling that I might run into this with Skyrim this year too, having already spent hundreds of hours playing Elder Scrolls games that appear to follow the same approach that Skyrim will.

I think it's important for developers to branch out and be creative; it's always far easier to simply do an improved or expanded version of what you have already done before, but you run the risk of growing stagnant with that approach. The Total War series is a great example of a franchise that has become creatively complacent, and even though I consider that series to be among my all-time favorites, I finally lost interest and passed on the newest release. They simply haven't done anything new with the series that would really get me excited about playing a Total War game again. I don't think that PB is at that point yet, but given their talent and creativity, I am much more excited about the prospects of an entirely new experience from them than I would be about a new PB game in yet another medieval fantasy setting with the same traditional roles to play. After all, wasn't it the fact that the Gothic series felt so unique compared to anything else on the market the reason why it was so immersive and memorable in the first place?
 
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See it's a a universal fact that the majority of people fear and hate change. So you see its not always a good thing.
 
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On a sidenote, I've been thinking whether the switch to the pirate theme had anything to do with Kai Rosenkranz leaving.
 
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Dear Green Place
On a sidenote, I've been thinking whether the switch to the pirate theme had anything to do with Kai Rosenkranz leaving.

He was their composer, right? If so, then I can't imagine why that would have caused him to leave.
 
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Kai Rosenkranz was definitely more than a composer, doing a bit of everything wherever one of his many talents was needed but -yes- his departure most certainly had nothing to do with switching the theme.
I don't think he ever was that influential on what PB did. It has always been Mike Hoge, Björn Pankratz and Michael Rüve who have been calling the shots.
There's an interview at WoR where Pankratz states that several team members were in favor of a pirates theme. He was the one who created the story around Patty in the first part so he was naturally one of the proponents of going all out pirates.
He says that they have always wanted to revisit the pirates setting after they touched upon it a little in Gothic 2 NotR. He is convinced that it will work out well for PB because of the popularity of the setting (PotC et al) and because the setting goes along well with the traditional rough style of PB games.
 
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Aargh!

Patty needs to come back. So does digging for treasures.
 
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Aargh!

Patty needs to come back. So does digging for treasures.

Patty is definitely in. She was in those videos linked before.

Anyway this is a case of RPG fans not wanting to trying something different :)

I don't see why you can't have nice RPG in pirates setting. If PB pulls it off, then it will much need breath of fresh air as far as setting goes in RPGs
 
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Just watched the videos at work with no sound (don't understand German anyway) until the audience questions start. I don't know how to explain it well, but frankly the melee combat looked really bad. I'm not talking just about the animations, but the combat gameplay too. The quick bout vs some field guard (or somesuch) and whole fight versus the "crabspider" ("crabspinne" or something) in the cave looked terrible - I mean Gothic 3 melee terrible. Melee worked just fine in Risen 1. Oh, PB do NOT fumble the melee again!

The inventory looked poor as well. Got a whiff of console interface there. I'm getting quite worried about Risen 2 after those videos. Hmm. Risen 2 has moved from my "must buy" to my "wait and see" list.

Also, pet peeve #274: If you're going to have muskets (muzzle-loading blackpowder firearms) in the game, do not, I repeat, do not make them these stupid semi-automatic magic-reloading thingies (like Fable did). Aaargh! Watching the dev shoot the boar, then run around with the musket in hand a short while and then shoot it again without so much as stopping, nevermind actually reloading the darn thing, was beyond disappointing. HAving muskets could be fun (shoot, then retreat to reload or stay and switch to a melee weapon), but these fairyland autoloaders sure are not. Might as well have machinegun magic wands. *grumble, grumble* C'mon PB, you ought to be better than this!
 
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Also, pet peeve #274: If you're going to have muskets (muzzle-loading blackpowder firearms) in the game, do not, I repeat, do not make them these stupid semi-automatic magic-reloading thingies (like Fable did). Aaargh! Watching the dev shoot the boar, then run around with the musket in hand a short while and then shoot it again without so much as stopping, nevermind actually reloading the darn thing, was beyond disappointing. HAving muskets could be fun (shoot, then retreat to reload or stay and switch to a melee weapon), but these fairyland autoloaders sure are not. Might as well have machinegun magic wands. *grumble, grumble* C'mon PB, you ought to be better than this!

I can see where you're coming from, and I think that firearms absolutely must be balanced and somewhat slow to reload, but they also need to function well as a gameplay mechanic. I love realism and believability in games, but there is a line between "realism" and "not fun." Quite frankly, having 100% authentic reload times for muskets (between 20-40 seconds) isn't what I would call enjoyable. They shouldn't be really fast either for obvious reasons, but I probably wouldn't want to use them at all if they were too tedious to use.
 
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