Gothic 2 G2, first playthrough, NotR yay/nay?

Drithius

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Hello!

After finding that RPGdot closed up shop, I just recently stumbled into this site and am hoping people still play Gothic II :)

After several half-hearted Gothic II installs in the past, I am looking to finally experience the game. I just had one major question before I commit... As I understand it, Night of the Raven modifies the entire game and cannot be accessed without beginning the game anew. As a G2 noobie, should I first play the game without the expansion installed to get the most out of it? Or does the expansion not affect the original game that much, but merely adds to it?
 
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I'd recommend playing without the addon for the first time. Then replay with the addon, but using a different character class (faction). It's totally worth it and you'll appreciate the good bits the expansion brings in more. But the difficulty level of G2+NotR may be too high for a newcomer ;-)
 
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I would also suggest you play G2 vanilla first as a mage. Then play it again with NotR until the end of chapter 2. NotR has its own ending. You can stop there if you want. Choose a fighter this time.
The add-on makes a couple of big changes and hundreds of small. It adds 25 hours of content in the first two chapters, including another world. The difficulty level is hard for today's standards.
Practically the overhead will be ca. 10 hours. You save some time because you know the location, and can save more time if you choose to accept the new dialog options to bypass the newbie quests. They're of little practical value though because you need the XP. ;) It makes sense to try alternative quest solutions while you replay though.

Of course you can play G2 Gold immediately. Just be prepared to play really tight.
 
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Well, the game is a whole lot better with the add-on, but very difficult. If you have a lot of Gothic 1 experience, you can probably get by, but if you are relatively new to the franchise as a whole, I would certainly recommend playing vanilla first.

The biggest difference, in terms of difficulty, is that the add-on requires you to maximize your character, or you'll have a very hard time beating certain creatures. You really need to know exactly what kind of character you intend to end up with (what skills, weapons, spells, etc) and not waste any skillpoints. In vanilla, you can pretty much blow skillpoints all over the place, and still get a decent character.
 
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No way! Life's too short to waste time on vanilla G2! Go for the glory! Sacrifice your body!! NOTR is just way too impressive to let sit on the shelf.

.... It is pretty stinking hard though. ;)
 
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If it gets too hard, you could try NOTRCustom which allows you to change a few things like XP and health per level, etc. Search on WorldofGothic.
 
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I'd say it depends on:

1. How likely you are to replay
2. How well you cope with unforgiving games

In reality, most people don't get around the replaying games (we polled this recently). The addon is simply fantastic, so if you are time-poor or don't have a history of replaying games, consider jumping straight in - it adds too much to just play vanilla and then never get around to NotR.

On, the other hand, if you really do replay games, you'll appreciate the differences all the more.

It is (relatively) hard, so go into it with your eyes open!
 
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If it gets too hard, you could try NOTRCustom which allows you to change a few things like XP and health per level, etc. Search on WorldofGothic.

I recommend this option too if you're not one that likes the replaying of a game.
 
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that's a good idea and as far as appreciating differences between the two - well, vanilla G2 simply felt incomplete. It's not an issue of G2 being a totally awesome game and NOTR just makes it even more incredible, it's more like G2 with NOTR is incredible but without NOTR the game is just okay. In my mind G2 with NOTR is the true worthy successor to G1, and because G2 and expansion are so integrated it's not worth bothering with vanilla first. Sure you might reload a few more times playing with the expansion, but if you are a slow gamer with limited time (like me) it is worth it in the long run.
 
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i played NOTR first and even though i managed to finish it, i felt that it was quite tough. but after installing the NOTR version, you can't go back to plain version. or is there a way?
 
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i played NOTR first and even though i managed to finish it, i felt that it was quite tough. but after installing the NOTR version, you can't go back to plain version. or is there a way?

Not that I'm aware of. Trust me though, you'd never want to!
 
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Not that I'm aware of. Trust me though, you'd never want to!

yes, that's true. i am of the opinion that i got the best of both with Notr expansion.
 
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that's a good idea and as far as appreciating differences between the two - well, vanilla G2 simply felt incomplete. It's not an issue of G2 being a totally awesome game and NOTR just makes it even more incredible, it's more like G2 with NOTR is incredible but without NOTR the game is just okay. In my mind G2 with NOTR is the true worthy successor to G1, and because G2 and expansion are so integrated it's not worth bothering with vanilla first. Sure you might reload a few more times playing with the expansion, but if you are a slow gamer with limited time (like me) it is worth it in the long run.

I don't think G2 felt incomplete. It was a great game without the add-on. That's why the shock was so big when it became clear how much better it gets with NotR.
 
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Gothic 2 < Gothic 1 < Gothic 2 + NotR

And like Gorath, I do think that Gothic 2 was already a good game and thus more then ok. It's like the LotR movies -> The extended edition is a lot better then the normal ones, but I liked the cinema version back then too.
 
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There were many times when I was playing vanilla G2 that I was thinking, why is all this detail put into the world right here and nothing going on with it?? (eg - the old tower at the top of the cliff where Dexter is located in NOTR). That was unlike G1, where almost every interesting spot eventually served a purpose. So, yeah, G2 was a good game, certainly not bad, but again, why waste the time? It's not like they took away any content from vanilla that you would miss by playing NOTR straight from the get-go.
 
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I'd second the recommendation of doing Vanilla G2 first (possibly as a mage) and then just play the first two chapters with NotR if Drithius has the time.

NotR add stuff to the story in chapters 1 and 2, but it also makes character building a bit tedious in the late game (for instance using a lot of stat enhancers too early could weaken your char greatly towards the later chapters). Grinding dragon snappers in chapter 4 is just not fun in NotR which made me stop at that point. At the same time chapter 1 and 2 arent THAT much more difficult compared to vanilla.
 
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I reinstalled and have been playing without the expansion and am glad with all these posts saying the expansion makes the beginning even harder. As is, I've already found myself very frustrated at times with the difficulty.

I'm having a great time exploring, but it's aggravating to be felling goblins, field-diggers, and even an occasional shadowbeast... only to come up to a pack of wargs :( I guess that's part of the charm - no hand-holding; still, I'm glad it isn't even harder!
 
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The first two chapters are still quite enjoyable with the expansion, you just have to be even more careful with which fights you pick. The main difference in difficulty is that you need to be very careful with your character build, or you might be at an annoying disadvantage in the later chapters when you run into tougher enemies.

Avoid Wargs, skeletons, and orcs until you have heavy militia armour or some equivalent. Gothic 1 and 2 usually lets you run away from the more dangerous parts fauna while still leaving room to finish the quests. Once one gets used to that kind of thinking it makes the world feel more immersive:)

And armour is key to survivability. Gothic armour subtracts from damage done rather than affect hit chance (so it is different to AD&D), making every point count.
 
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