Gothic - Divorce Drama Update

Hey Cm,
I think you should expand your signature to say this:

True friends - You cry I cry. You hurt I hurt. You fight I fight. You jump off a bridge, I get a paddle boat and save your retarded butt. :lol:

You may be right.

PB news:

http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?p=3600378&#post3600378

1) PB is working on a new non-Gothic title (but with the old virtues of Gothic 1)
2) No Gothic 3 - patch /addon will be released by PB
3) A new game engine is already in development

Interesting. If I'm reading the as-usual-mangled babelfish translation right, they're not putting up a fight with JoWood over G4 or anything else, for that matter, and actually wish them luck. Also, no mention of funding or a new publisher for their new game. Wonder how they plan on funding it? Maybe they invested the profits from G1 & G2 really well!

The KaiRo message after is an interesting read as well.

In my heart i knew KaiRo wouldn't let us down...."with Gothic 1 virtues"....see, the fans do come first.

More details from the various PB posts today:
- PB doesn´t have unfinished work on the GB patch. Their plan was to update the technology for Gothic 4, make among other things a new combat system, and then make it work with Gothic 3. The result would have been the GB patch.
- Michael Rüve (I hope I don´t confuse all the posts ) is surprised that JoWooD is suddenly so enthusiastically in favour of another patch. He means it had sounded a bit differently the last 6 months.

Both points make me think Ralf is right. JoWooD is only applying an old marketing technique called "stealing the thunder". They announce hugely positive things to take the focus away from the bad news.
IMHO it would be a miracle if somebody developed another patch.

Wulf said:

In my heart i knew KaiRo wouldn't let us down...."with Gothic 1 virtues"....see, the fans do come first.

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You're kidding, right?
It was KaiRo who promised around christmas that PB would properly fix Gothic III. It was him who promised that they would address all of the remaining engine bugs and balancing issues. It was him who said that they would "betray themselves and their company policy" if they would leave the Gothic fans standing out there in the rain if they would leave them with an "unfinished" game.
He said all that with no if's and but's (like "if we can come to terms with JoWood" or "as soon as the ink on the new contract is dry" or anything like that).
It was also him who posted to that community thread at WoG several times a week, pretending as if everything was rosy.
Aaaahhh.... *failure to take deep breath* ... you know what KaiRo can do? He can shove his pretending to be the no. 1 community pet attitude where the sun don't shine!

/puke at PB

You´re taking this too personally. Pretend he´s a normal community manager. Then it looks much better.

Heh... "Der patch kommt"... Somehow with that sentence they managed to convince me they were actually working on it.

Gorath said:

"stealing the thunder". They announce hugely positive things to take the focus away from the bad news.

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Not exactly. Stealing someone's thunder means you preempt their day in the sun by either revealing the good news before the other person had a chance to, or by making an announcement of your own that is better than the announcement the other person had planned on making. In either case, it doesn't mean distracting the audience away from bad news by focusing attention on some good news. That's got another phrase associated with it that isn't coming to mind right now, for some reason...

Gorath said:

You´re taking this too personally. Pretend he´s a normal community manager. Then it looks much better.

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It's hard to pretend as if it was like that as long as he is acting like everyone's best buddy . You know what? Now it also makes sense why Ralf and Kai suddenly discovered their "love" for the community a few months ago and why they began to participate in that community thread almost daily.

The reason they gave (to live up to their rep that they gained from winning a community award) was one fat lie. Where were they before? Before Gothic III was released or in the months right after the game's release? Right. Pretty much invisible.

No, Sir. They already knew back then that the negotiations with JoWood had failed and so the sneaky little suckers befriended the community over all of those weeks because they knew exactly that when the failure to deliver a patch or more "true" Gothic games would become public that there'd be a shitstorm of unparalleled proportions ("unparalled" for the Gothic community that is). Their sudden "love" for the community was in reality just preparation for that shitstorm so they could be sure that they got the fans on their side when the "bomb" exploded. Which worked for the most part. There are enough blind PB fanbois who even want to donate their own cash(!) to keep PB afloat. It's completely ridiculous.

Re Moriendor [You're kidding right]

Not really Mo' - i understand all of what you say but this is something a little strategically deeper where PB have had to 'stoop to conquer' so to speak. Kai has had to move in mysterious ways so he could surface for air. By circumventing the so called 'dire' situation this way, they can get back to a functioning reality....a classic 'en-passant' checkmate move, the master leads the way.

Wulf said:

Re Moriendor [You're kidding right]

Not really Mo' - i understand all of what you say but this is something a little strategically deeper where PB have had to 'stoop to conquer' so to speak. Kai has had to move in mysterious ways so he could surface for air. By circumventing the so called 'dire' situation this way, they can get back to a functioning reality....a classic 'en-passant' checkmate move, the master leads the way.

Click to expand...

Oh... oooohhhh... mmmmmkkkkayyyy... sure, why didn't I think of that before? Now that you mention it, KaiRo's "lies" all make perfect sense, of course. Silly me .

chamr said:

Not exactly. Stealing someone's thunder means you preempt their day in the sun by either revealing the good news before the other person had a chance to, or by making an announcement of your own that is better than the announcement the other person had planned on making. In either case, it doesn't mean distracting the audience away from bad news by focusing attention on some good news. That's got another phrase associated with it that isn't coming to mind right now, for some reason...

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Okay, thanks for the explanation. I was of course paraphrasing everything.
PB announces their divorce and JoWooD hastily counters by announcing G4 and confirming that the community means everything for them and the patch will come.
I think this can be seen as "stealing the thunder", although it doesn´t really matter. It´s quite obvious both are trying to say what the fans want to hear. How much truth is in it? Everybody can form his own opinion about this.

As much as I love PB's previous games, I have to agree with Moriendor on this one. I remember all those posts by KaiRo... making us all believe that things were moving forward with the big patch no matter what. Now PB doesn't even seem willing to finish it on their own and release it.

When Wizardry 8 came out Sir-Tech was pretty much out of business. They officially closed their doors, but the dev team still released an "unofficial" patch. The only reason it was called "unofficial" was because the company was defunct and they knew they couldn't support the patch. But they released it anyway (and nobody paid them to do so).

PB could do the same thing if they gave one flying piece of s*** about their customers. I'm sorry, but if a patch that was promised, and promised, and promised isn't released I won't buy another PB or JoWood game... that's the only way a customer can speak his mind in today's world... with his buying dollar.

I know... you'll say "Oh, if they release a super-duper game that is just awesome and everyone loves it... you'll buy it narpet". Nope, sorry, I won't. I have enough CRPGs to last me several lifetimes. I'm not going to support a company that can't support its customers.

My 2 cents.

narpet said:

As much as I love PB's previous games, I have to agree with Moriendor on this one. I remember all those posts by KaiRo... making us all believe that things were moving forward with the big patch no matter what. Now PB doesn't even seem willing to finish it on their own and release it.

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Okay, assume they want to make it. Who pays? The patch hurts them two times: 1. JoWooD´s next Gothic ( = the competition to PB´s next RPG) will be strengthened and 2. The opportunity costs, which has a double importance here because they have to pay the developers busy with the patch while they do not contribute to the news project, leading to a later release.
One of the new posts said that PB already worked under partial abdication of wages. In an ideal world the developer would make at least a technical patch. But how can PB possibly do it if they risk the whole company?
If JoWooD now really is in control of the Gothic brand, especially hold all rights to G2 and G3, the correct order is: JoWooD contracts PB to make a patch. Then PB makes the patch and JoWooD pays. No contract, no patch.
Did you notice that JoWooD neither said they had tried to hire PB for another patch nor that PB had refused to make another (paid!) patch? JoWooD is attacking PB at every opportunity this week. If PB was to blame for the missing patch, can you imagine JoWooD wouldn´t exploit it? Conclusion: JoWooD probably didn´t request another patch.

When Wizardry 8 came out Sir-Tech was pretty much out of business. They officially closed their doors, but the dev team still released an "unofficial" patch. The only reason it was called "unofficial" was because the company was defunct and they knew they couldn't support the patch. But they released it anyway (and nobody paid them to do so).

Click to expand...

The difference: Sir-Tech owned Wizardry. It seems PB doesn´t own Gothic 3. The sad reality seems to be that JoWooD is in charge.

PB could do the same thing if they gave one flying piece of s*** about their customers. I'm sorry, but if a patch that was promised, and promised, and promised isn't released I won't buy another PB or JoWood game... that's the only way a customer can speak his mind in today's world... with his buying dollar.

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Okay, that´s your decision. You can be sure nobody fucking cares about it.

its great to see them going on.. New game with extraordinary feautures/story, sounds quite like another "gothic 1", a sleeper hit one could say, heh.. Regarding latest drama, sad things happen, but life must go on. Hopefully they'll get new contract with a another publisher, and hopefully they have also learned from their mistakes. and most of all I can't wait to hear more info about their next game.

And yep..what comes to jowood's latest role of playing some kind of robin hood is disgusting..If they were really as "worried" about the fans as they claim now, the patch would have been released ages ago. If they wish to prove I'm wrong, fixing g3 would be a great start for that direction.

What comes to pb, well they aren't innocent, but atleast they aren't pretending something.. I belive they wanted to release the patch but jw refused to pay. Or why would pb LIE about patch? It doesn't make any sense. Sure covering their ass from the angry mob could be a reason, but its Jowood who makes a decision whether pathc is needed or not. So far they haven't been intrested in fixing the game. The patch has always been more or less in jowood's hands.

Gorath said:

Okay, that´s your decision. You can be sure nobody fucking cares about it.

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You're right... and that's the sad part. Not about my decision specifically, but the decisions of those who choose to make a statement with their buying dollars. There just aren't enough people willing to give up playing that latest super-cool game created by the developer/publisher who screwed them the last time with the then-latest super-cool game. So we (the consumers) never let them (the developers/publishers) really know how we feel. We just keep taking it up the a**. And in a world of millions of PC game consumers there are always going to be more cattle who are willing to keep buying the crap that these companies shovel out their doors.

And I'm not putting Gothic 3 down... I can't... I haven't played it yet. I actually expect to enjoy it quite a bit. I'm just talking about how we as consumers are treated. It's been said so many times (not by me) but it's true... if you bought a car and it had as many troubles as Dungeon Lords had out of the box you would get your money back if it wasn't fixed immediately. I know cars and games are not comparible... but the point is still valid. If everyone who bought DL when it came out returned it and insisted on getting a game that worked as promised, or their money back, that would have made a huge statement. But as it stands you can still find DL in stores like Wal-Mart and online at Amazon (here and here) at full price. If the statement had been made by enough consumers you wouldn't see that product anywhere. Just like if every vehicle Ford produced wouldn't start until you had tried 30 or 40 times, Ford would be out of business unless they fixed the problem immediately.

But it all still boils down to the fact that you're right. Nobody cares about the few people who decide not to buy a product from companies that have screwed them before, because for every one person willing to give up missing out on a potentially great game there are thousands willing to buy that game whether it's great or it's crap... even if they know how the company behaved the last time.

So PB has been working on Gothic 4? They intended to release a massive patch for the third game using the stuff for the fourth game, including a new game engine? Well, that actually does make sense, and it's worked out well with other games in the past.

Still, that's not the same as working on a patch. Not exactly.

I suppose they will just have to put that development work toward the new project. Otherwise it all goes down the drain since they're not doing Gothic 4 after all. What else can they do? That sounds like their best option.

If they had succeeded with their plan and updated Gothic 3 the way they said, I imagine everyone probably would have been satisfied and probably would have bought the next game.

If there's any love left for PB, this would be the time to give them the benefit of the doubt. JoWood certainly isn't giving them a break. If they're going to get one, it looks like it will have to come from the fans.

The folks over at PB had better start eating some humble pie fast.