Arcania - 30 Minute Gameplay Videos @ GameStar

GameStar.de posted two gameplay videos (first video, second video) of their Public Viewing series, showing and explaining just about every aspect of JoWooD's and Spellbound's upcoming hack&slash RPG Arcania: Gothic 4. The vids are full of new infos. Highly recommended if you can understand German.
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The second vid is the more interesting one, focusing on story and quests.

Edit: So I've seen the video now and the guys in it say (a) the game is "dumbed down" (b) the quests aren't really that good (c) the world is not as "realistic" as in Gothic 1-3 or Risen and that the game has performance issues even on high end systems.

They also add that it is a nice game but that a Gothic veteran will be disappointed

Also that it uses zones, so it's no longer an open world game instead the main quest of each zone seems to be to get into the next one etc. I don't know if I heard right but you either won't be able to go back to an earlier zone or that earlier zones won't have anything to do in them anymore. I'm guessing the zones are replacements for the chapters from Gothic 1-2 which allowed new quests in the same world, now you'll only get a new part of the world with quests.

Also crafting/alchemy/cooking you can now do anyplace anywhere and don't need any utilities and therefore you won't see any accompanying animations.

Also regarding the first vid, combat works better with the controller because it has 360 range, while keyboard+mouse combat uses keyboard to determine attack direction. If they had used the mouse to determine attack direction it would have been a different story.

Roi Danton said:

The second vid is the more interesting one, focusing on story and quests.

Edit: So I've seen the video now and the guys in it say (a) the game is "dumbed down" (b) the quests aren't really that good (c) the world is not as "realistic" as in Gothic 1-3 or Risen and that the game has performance issues even on high end systems.

They also add that it is a nice game but that a Gothic veteran will be disappointed

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for a long time now I was thinking that this was going to be "the RPG" to watch out for, a game to blow away Risen and a game that would rank as one of the best RPGs ever. Aracania and Two Worlds 2 were the two games that I was eagerly following the development of. It looks like Two Worlds 2 is going to be the better game out of these two anyway. It looks like even with all this extra time that its another rush job and that it was indeed hurt by the problems at JoWood. If the game is anything like the demo, then its a true failure. Gothic 3 with all its faults was modded&patched up and now its a half decent game. I dont think Arcania will be able to be patched into shape - you can't polish a turd...

spiraling69 said:

for a long time now I was thinking that this was going to be "the RPG" to watch out for, a game to blow away Risen and a game that would rank as one of the best RPGs ever. …

Click to expand...

hmm, that's interesting because in the beginning Arcania was supposed to come out at the same time as Risen. And many here were comparing the two and Arcania clearly got the worst of it. Of course Arcania wasn't anywhere close to the development level of where Risen was at and soon Arcania became a footnote as most CRPG gamers loved Risen except for the ending.

A lot of the early comments on Arcania centered on poor graphics, lack of atmosphere, no npc's, poor combat and poor monster AI. It seemed to me there was pretty much if not a general disdain, at least a "oh boy, they didn't get this one right." There was even a time when the game went through a number of name changes.

For me, I'm more of a PB guy so while I was listening to the mostly negative commentary, I still had my eyes open for the game. I had no hopes that this would be a great game, but unlike the general vibe, I still thought it would be a fun game to play. And for me the Demo proved I was right (for me).

Originally Posted by spiraling69
"you can't polish a turd… "

Well actually you can, they proved it possible on Mythbusters, but I don't think even Macgyver could save this game.

What!? The hell he couldn't! All that game needs is some copper tubing, some nail polish remover, and a cup of ordinary household bleach....

I think they might be using this game as a whipping boy.

I haven't played it so I do not know.

But I want specifics. Compare the "bad" quests in this game to Risen & Oblivion.

I mean come on, I like both Risen & Oblivion but to say they had really original and creative quests is idiotic. And if this is more of the same why shit all over THIS game and praise them?

Of course Arcania could be THAT bad that it makes the Oblivion quests look good. (Risen was actually kinda creative now that I think about it, until the lizards).

Oblivions quest were almost all linear, but it had a fair number of fairly imaginative quests that involved more than go, kill, fetch. What they are saying here is that in Arcania they are both linear and unimaginative...