Arcania - Official Site Launched

Dhruin

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I'm sure you figured it out from the countdown but JoWood and Spellbound have launched the official website for Arcania: A Gothic Tale. Screens, art, some background lore and minimum system reqs are all on offfer:
PC Minimum Requirements
* Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista
* Direct X Version: DirectX 9.0c or higher
* Hard Disk Space: 10 GB + 600 MB virtual memory
* DVD Drive: 6x DVD ROM Drive
* Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHZ, AMD Athlon 3500+
* RAM: 1 GB (Windows® XP), 1,5 GB (Windows® Vista)
* Graphics Accelerator: ATI 1800XT, Shader Model 3, 256 MB
Nvidia 6800, Shader Model 3, 256 MB
* Sound Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
The release date is shown as Winter 2009/2010.
More information.
 
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Looks fantastic to me...will be fun to have a ARPG game in as beautiful a setting as this is looking to be!

JoWood has produced several RPG and Stratagy games, will be nice to see how he does in the faster hack&slash ARPG model :)

Definitely one I will keep an eye on, thanks for the heads up!

Regards
 
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This game will suck. Why? Because of JoWooD:

Tatsächlich steht der Termin längst auf den Tag genau fest: am 25. Februar 2010 muss Gothic 4 im Laden stehen. So steht es im Vertragswerk, das Jowood im Oktober 2007 mit der Unternehmensgruppe BTV abgeschlossen hat. Deren Fonds »BVT Games Fund III Dynamic« finanziert die Entwicklung mit 3,49 Millionen Euro. Im Gegenzug hat sich Jowood laut Vertrag »zum Abschluss der Entwicklungs- und Programmierarbeiten [...] für die PC-Version bis spätestens zum 2.1.2010 verpflichtet.«

Source

To translate it for people who don't speak German: JoWooD didn't learn _anything_ from Gothic 3.
 
Exactly. What's the problem with committing to a fixed date? Every game has at least a target date when it starts. This one's is fixed because the fund needs a stable legal situation. So what?

You could have linked to RPGWatch btw. We found the whole thing out. ;)
 
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I guess he fears that the release will be rushed out which will lead to a bugged or unoptimized game... like Gothic 3.
And in that case I would reply that the problem with G3 as nothing to do with its bugs or optimization... but that's an old story.
 
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Sadly it is common that the publisher is blamed, when developers are not able to finish their game in time.
 
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Looks fantastic to me...will be fun to have a ARPG game in as beautiful a setting as this is looking to be!

JoWood has produced several RPG and Stratagy games, will be nice to see how he does in the faster hack&slash ARPG model :)

Definitely one I will keep an eye on, thanks for the heads up!

Regards

Well when I 1st saw the news, I didn't realize that this was basically Gothic 4 with a new Title when I first came across the review/news on RPGWatch

My bad heh

And with the ARPG tag on the main site I wasn't sure what "direction" Dreamcatcher/Spellbound was moving their game towards. So I guess this will be more along the lines of past games in the series and not the fast paced "action" RPGs I thought of at first.

Regardless, even if staying with the more conventional features of the past games in the series I'm sure it will be a fun and rewarding experience!

Hopefully Dreamcatcher /Spellbound will test and polish it enough so that the "community" doesn't have to spend 3 years patching it before it's close to what it should of been on release (Gothic 3 I'm looking at you)

Will definitely keep my eye on it's development.

Sorry about the mix up on the ARPG term, I personally wouldn't put the Gothis series in that category, more of a solid RPG...if they persist in using that term I think many with be mislead initially about what kind of game it is exactly.

Titan Quest, Diablo and Dungeon Siege are games that helped established the ARPG genre imo

A Gothic game should be considered a standard RGP...again, imo ;)

Regards
 
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I think it has style. I love the eastern euro fairy tale look.

WHAT?!? EASTERN Euro look? Dude, Gothic is all GERMAN and GERMANY (well, at least most of it... Berlin and all that poor man's Poland all around it does not count :biggrin: ) is in WESTERN Europe. WEST. WEST. WEST. WEEEEEEEEESSSSSTTT. Ya get that? W to the E to the S to the T. W-E-S-T.

Jeez...
 
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Sadly it is common that the publisher is blamed, when developers are not able to finish their game in time.
Of course he is - as soon as he tries to sell that unfinished game to devoted fans, sending some poor excuses a month after release.
 
Of course he is - as soon as he tries to sell that unfinished game to devoted fans, sending some poor excuses a month after release.
In that respect you are right. But you cannot blame a publisher for fixing a date in the contract with the developer. And that was the issue reported in those news.
 
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WHAT?!? EASTERN Euro look? Dude, Gothic is all GERMAN and GERMANY (well, at least most of it... Berlin and all that poor man's Poland all around it does not count :biggrin: ) is in WESTERN Europe. WEST. WEST. WEST. WEEEEEEEEESSSSSTTT. Ya get that? W to the E to the S to the T. W-E-S-T.

Jeez...

So we agree its East?
 
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But you cannot blame a publisher for fixing a date in the contract with the developer.

Actually, I totally blame them for setting a fixed date.
For two reasons: First, the game they have in the making is the one which has Gothic 3 as predecessor (and even worse "Forsaken Gods" - the stinker which makes every fan at least careful regarding the sequel. If you ask me, JWD should have treated the new Gothic part with more diligence.
Second, AFAIK the developer doesn't have any experience with full-blown RPGs. Not to expect some delays is just stupid.

I really hope I'm not right and Gothic 4 will be a good game - but I fear it will be the opposite.
 
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