Gothic 3 Bugs, broken quests, crash-spots, graphics errors, voice errors, etc...

How many times has your game crashed?


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SirDeity

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October 31, 2006
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I haven't finished the game yet but I've already encountered a lot of problems. Some are very minor and easily overlooked while others are continually frustrating. However, none are so major that the game loses its attraction.

I'll post everything potentially problematic that I encounter here in the hopes that people might post solutions to help me or others in the future who encounter the same problems. As I haven't yet finished the game, I'll post any future problems here as well.


Quest:
Destroy the rebel underground in Cape Dun!
- This quest was given to me by the orc, Uruk in Cape Dun while I was merely attempting to gather information from the orcs prior to my inevitable attack. After freeing the captured paladin and killing all the orcs, including Uruk, the quest still remained. It's been some time now and the quest still shows as current. It should show as Failed after Uruk is killed.

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally find it annoying to have quests in the current or active quest list when I don't plan to ever complete them. There should either be sensible way of failing the quest or manually choosing to discontinue the quest via some option in the quests screen. Only "main" quests should be mandatory.


Quest:
Kill the cattle in the stockyard.
- Just outside the farm closest the exit to Montera, near a tree behind a burnt down house you'll find some rebels. There are also 2 or 3 other small groups of rebels in various other locations surrounding Montera. There are two problems I've discovered related to these rebels.

First, and unrelated to the quest mentioned previously, they shouldn't be out there after you liberate the city and kill all the orcs. Even after the rebels take over the city after you kill the orcs within it, the rebels scattered around the outskirts of the city remain in place. Those rebels should've helped you liberate the city from the orcs when you killed the orc leader there (as the rebel spy told you). They also should've moved inside the city after recapturing it instead of staying outside.

Second, and related to the quest mentioned previously, the group of rebels that give you the quest to kill the cows to cut off the milk supplies to the orc mercenaries should have cancelled your quest to kill the cows after the city is liberated and the orc mercenaries killed. This quest still shows as current and it should be either failed or an option to discontinue it should exist.


Quests:
Bring hammers to Vandorn for the castle.
Bring pickaxes to Vandorn for the castle.
Bring saws to Vandorn for the castle.
- I noticed the information regarding this quest in the quest solutions thread. In it is mentioned that, rather than 5 saws, 15 are needed. However, that doesn't address all the problems. I searched every single merchant I've come across so far up to this point and managed to purchase all the hammers and pickaxes necessary for those two quests. I was unable to find any merchants selling saws, though. Unfortunately, I've already sold all the saws (all but the one I keep - I keep one of everything for personal use), but none of the merchants I sold saws to are currently holding any.

So anyway, since the quest for pickaxes is shown as a seperate quest in the current quest screen, and the quests for the other two items (hammers and saws) are also shown individually, I figured I could go and trade the hammers and pickaxes in, seperately, and get two rewards and return for the reward for solving the saws quest later. However, when I talk to him two problems occur. First, if I hand him the item he requested he'll take all of that item from my inventory rather than just the amount he requested. For example, he wants 20 pickaxes, but if you try to give them to him he'll take all of the pickaxes you have in your inventory. If you have 29 pickaxes, he'll take 29 pickaxes. Second, he'll take the pickaxes and give you some gold but not experience points will be rewarded to you. Furthermore, the quest still shows as current instead of moving to the completed quests list as it should. Therefore, despite the monetary rewards, you (or at least I couldn't) can't possibly finish this quest (according to the quests screen).

Also, as was already addresses elsewhere, the programming should be fixed so that he only requires the requested 5 saws rather than the actual (according to another source) 15 saws.

Finally, despite at least 10 different attempts using various strategies, I haven't been able to officially complete any of these three quests for Vandorn. This quest is a complete mess and should either be fixed or removed via a patch.


Bug in Gotha:
- Players naturally want to open chests and take items laying around when in a hostile area where they're killing off its inhabitants. My first time through Gotha, with the area swarming with undead, I naturally assumed it would be safe to look all the chests and items while hacking my way through the undead and attempting to clear out the evil within the paladin stronghold. However, even if you only loot stuff before the rebels move in and Gorn says he'll begin to rebuild, the next time you visit the stronghold of Gotha after the rebels have moved in, the guards at the entrance will accuse you of stealing things and will attack you (unless your theiving skill is really high and you use the skill to deny the crime). Since you looted all the items before they ever entered the stronghold, and since you did so while recapturing it for the rebels, they should be grateful and leave you alone unless you steal stuff after they're already there. In any other city or town or stronghold (visited so far), if you loot stuff while in the process of recapturing it, the rebels won't care or even say a word about it after they move in. It should the same for Gotha but it is not.


Graphical errors:
- Usually when I sit on a bench, it shows the character sitting in thin air in front of the bench rather than actually on[/] the bench. I also see characters, particularly the innermost merchant in Gotha, floating in the air above something. In the case of the Gotha merchant, he floats in the air above the counter. I imagine this is because there is rubble behind the counter and the characters can't stand on it. This should be fixed.

I should note, however, that these graphical issues might be due to the fact that I have most of my graphics and video settings down near minimum to reduce lag. I doubt it, though.


Crash-spot:
- In Vanguard, while cutting your way through the orcs in an attempt to clear the way to the king, you eventually come across a series of bridges leading to higher grounds. Near the first or (I think it was the second one) second bridge there's a ramp leading down to the stream. If you walk down the stream towards the open way to the left, just a few seconds beyond the point where you begin to actually swim, the game crashes everytime. I don't want to try this again, but I already repeated the process 3 times, convinced that there might be something to be found out there somewhere, and that the crashing was just my computer and not that specific location in the game. Unfortunately, after 3 crashes in the same exact area I realized in was a problem with the game itself. This should obviously be fixed.


Quest:
Okara needs more people
- I've already liberated Montera and returned it to the rebels. The quest to get more people for Okara still remains. In the quest information it mentions that I should find people near or at the farms outside Montera. I've searched several times and there isn't anyone to talk to about going to Okara. I think there might have been people to talk to about joining Okara before I recaptured the city for the rebels, because some of the named people at the farms that were there before aren't there any longer. However, I'm not sure that even these people would've join Okara even if I had talked to them prior to recapturing Montera. I already sent 4 people around Okara to Okara. These 4 people includes the 2 near the campfire inside the ruin near the nasty shadow beasts and vicious wild boars, the one scared guy inside the cave near the nasty wolves (sorry if any of these names are incorrect), and the one strong warrior guy outside the mine cave (the guy who asks you to clear the mine with him to gather the loot inside - inside the cave are several different ore, gold, and sulfer deposits). What other people am I missing? If any of them include people no longer at the farms outside Montera, then this quest must be broken and should obviously be fixed!
 
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Oct 31, 2006
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Continued...

There's also a small voice-over error at the king's castle. The character that trains you to become a better fighter (forgot his name) doesn't speak during some lines. The conversation just suddenly goes silent while the voice-screen is active. He continues to talk again very soon after this awkward moment of silence, but it's still an oddity worth mentioning.


Lastly, I'll mention that I have all the recommended hardware for this game. But even with all the recommended hardware (the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GTO video card, 3.6Ghz processor, and 2 GB of memory) I still have to turn all the graphics settings down significantly to reduce lag to a tolerable level. Also, without being able to pinpoint the specific hardware setting responsible, I have noticed that the higher the graphic(s) the more unstable and prone to cashes the game becomes. I've experienced crashing for various reasons including memory leaks, loading problems, and as mentioned previously, a specific game location. There may be other types of crashes as sometimes there isn't an error message after crashing. Twice now computer actually suddenly restarted in the middle of playing the game. This was probably due to overheating and not related to the game itself but I can't be certain.

After all that mention of errors, bugs, and problem areas in the game, it's only fair that I end this post off by saying that, despite all the problems mentioned here, this game is still brilliantly addictive and fun. I've been glued to it virtually every moment of my spare time. It's definitely a great game even with the errors. Thanks for reading and responding!

(I voted 5-10 crashes so far, but I haven't finished the game yet and most of those crashes were with moderate-high graphics settings enabled. Without the higher graphics settings I'm guessing I would've only exerienced half as many crashes.)
 
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there is an alchemist/firemage who i believe has a fire chalice that is trapped in a cave with undead/which aren't risen yet. i believe it is due west of the dairy farm. there is also a prospecter that is at a campfire which i believe is west on a hill top fairly close okara itself.

never had that problem in vengard

haven't seen those graphical bugs either, might be your graphic settings afterall

yes that gotha looting is a problem/bug, but just store your gold in a chest prior and let them 'teach you a lesson' -it won't affect your reputation anywhere esle.

the tools quest was quite a goof by piranha bytes. hopefully it is addressed in patch 1.10. i didn't have the problem you're having either time through but i did also notice that he took all my pickaxes as well. you can buy enough hammers in varant, any you can find saws all over but probably not enough to meet 15. you can get those off anyone sawing wood though through myrtana.

yes those rebels are useless in helping to liberate the towns. you'd think with all the setup in montera they would show up. but as far the quest being canceled since regardless of whether or not you are given a quest gothic 3 always allows you to complete a quest, so only if the quest requires you to give somebody something a quest will not be canceled. why should you be prohibited from crushing a rebel camp after liberating a town for them. you may decide you want to gain favour with the orcs even though you just worked against them. if you know you want to side with one faction then you should not take some of these quests as they will not disappear until you do the 'ill deed' you promised.

i'm glad you are enjoying the game, despite its many flaws!
 
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yes ive notice about half-a-dozen lapses in speech throughtout the game as well. i haven't turned on subtitles to see if there is actual text missing as well, or if both are missing, or just bad synching.

that restarting sounds like a graphic card problem /overheating or powersupply could be a possiblity as well.
 
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but as far the quest being canceled since regardless of whether or not you are given a quest gothic 3 always allows you to complete a quest, so only if the quest requires you to give somebody something a quest will not be canceled. why should you be prohibited from crushing a rebel camp after liberating a town for them. you may decide you want to gain favour with the orcs even though you just worked against them. if you know you want to side with one faction then you should not take some of these quests as they will not disappear until you do the 'ill deed' you promised.

Two things: first, I didn't promise anything. In attempting to gather information the quest was automatically given. In other words, there wasn't a prompt for me to choose to do the "deed." Second, I didn't say anything about crushing a rebel camp. The quest in hand is one where I'm asked to discover the spy or rebel in Cape Dun and kill him (since there's only one that I know of). If I liberate the city from the orcs thereby eradicating them from that area, they wouldn't be alive to care whether there's a rebel spy or "underground" in Cape Dun. In other words, if the orc leader is dead along with all the other orcs in that town, what orc would recognize my killing that one rebel in an already liberated town and what orc would care? The nearest orcs are a far, far distance away (I've already killed all the orcs and liberated all the cities nearby Cape Dun). Thus, I stand by my logic that there should be a cut-off point by which the quest is no longer relevant and should be failed or discontinuable.


Anyway, thanks for the reply! ;)
 
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you're right i misread it. but it doesn't matter. he is still alive and therefore you can kill him. the developers themselves stated in an interview that the world gives quests not the people, so it is irrelevent who is alive to hear about it as long as you can still adequeately perform the task. the world will know. whether or not this is realistic it was their design decision and intention and not a bug. i doubt they would redo all the quests in the game to change that precept to something else. at least that is a constant that can be counted on and you aren't penalized for completing a quest before you even knew about it which obviously isn't realistic but makes the game fair and doesn't force unnecessary reloads. this happened to me quite a bit as i tend to explore before heading to a town.
 
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I still have "Free Kliff from the orcs on the farm." Despite challenging the Orc to a duel and winning freedom ... then taking him back through the caves I worked so hard to clear ...
 
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Did you take him back to Reddock, and then talk to him?
 
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Did you take him back to Reddock, and then talk to him?

Certainly - and all of the associated quests, "Reddock needs a smith.", "Take Kliff to Javier, the rebel leader in Reddock.", have been satisfied.
 
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I don't know if this qualifies as a bug per se, but in Nordmar, I talked to Rune in his hut and he told me to take 5 bear steaks from the hut to the woodcutters - and then he called me a thief and attacked when I took them. I assume if you get the quest from him durng the day when he's outside the hut it's no big deal. To get around it I talked to him, stepped outside 'til he went back to bed, then snuck in and took the hams.
Another thing (not a bug but a quest related oddity) I noticed was the quest to escort Ronar to the hunting cabin - if you complete all his dialog options before going, he takes a route that passes by the woodcutters camp and then through a lot of beast-occupied terrain to get there, but if you don't ask him who else he would go hunting with until after you leave the village, then he takes a sharp left and goes to the south bridge that you might (or might not) have cleared of orcs earlier. I already had and this turned out to be an easier path, though wolf packs kept materializing whenever we got to the hut (packs that I swear weren't there when I went ahead to check it out). Eventually I got him there alive. I think the most aggravating thing about most of the escort quests I've done so far is the fact that the person you're escorting is supposedly a local, and an experienced hunter or whathaveyou who knows the area well and what hazards it holds... and then they run right into a belligerent herd of rhinos or wolves and get killed. Eeesh! Oh, or the unarmed slaves who decide they really have to run over and start punching some jackals. Trying to not kill them by accident while getting the jackals off them was particularly annoying... it's almost easier to just knock down your companions and hope they stay down until you've dealt with the beasts.
Oh, and I've been playing with the subtitles on and there are a few points where the subtitles say "Yes" but Nameless says - "No!" Pretty funny.
One more: In Lago I did all the quests I could and found out just who it was they had locked up in that cell (though I had a pretty good idea already), and I then beat up Fabio (and he died - like a monster, no finishing blow needed, he just died... I didn't WANT to kill him, I just wanted his key!) and took his key and let the prisoner out - no one says anything about it, and the prisoner just walks over and starts smoking a hookah. He's got a couple lines of dialogue, but nothing profound. I also went to Shakyor the Lion who's hanging around right outside town, just waiting for the right time to go liberate it, and he tells you all this great stuff about rushing in together to liberate the place - and then when you say "Let's go!" he just stands there smoking his swampweed while his lion paces around. I went ahead and started liberating the town myself (and that's when I discovered that I was better off before I got the Master Swordsman perk- the knockdown ability is actually counterproductive, as far as I'm concerned) and no one seemed to care. I wiped the place out except for the couple of non-responsive folks and a whole lot of nothing happened. I haven't figured out if there's something else I'm supposed to do, but that's all pretty frustrating. I went back to an earlier save.
 
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If you talk to the prisoner after releasing him, you will get some additional options!! I think you are supposed to kill Fabio.
 
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Well, it's not unlikely, that the people who experience crashes several times per hour have fallen victim to faulty hardware. Sometimes, it's not that obvious to determine. E. g. my rig would run stable for days, except when playing Gothic 3 for a while. Also, I bought it less than a month ago, so hey, what could there be wrong with it ... I finally bit the bullet and let some RAM testing software run again, which did not find anything wrong while running for hours - but did, when the rig was under heavy load just before (like the one Gothic puts on it, especially in the Myrtana cities). And in fact, one of the RAM sticks was faulty and produced tons of errors under heavy system load (only). Absolutely smooth sailing since exchanging it (with 1.09).
 
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The game has crashed well over 20 times for me, but I've completed it four times so the amount of crashes is not really that high for me if you count crashes per run through the game.

All in all I see loads of crashing and bugs in all games these days - NWN2 for instance, the game I started playing after G3, has loads of quests that are easily broken if you do not trigger everything in the right order. It also has quite a few crashes and other issues (altho not quite as many as G3). At least, all complex non-linear games where quests can be solved in various ways have tons of bugs and glitches.
 
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This game has a global A.I. problem which makes people get possessed about finishing some unknown agenda at some unknown location. Many people just stroll away on some completely irrelevant path and usually just go into their own death.

But this Mason guy and his two rebel friends outside Montera are genuinely crazy in the head. They will go slowly towards the farm like they are enjoying the fresh air, one by one, and then get killed by all the mercenaries there. And, you don't even have to be around for that to happen! You just work your ass off around Myrtana for weeks and when you come back he is done for. It is suffice to say that Mason's death breaks a whole bunch of quests in Montera, regardless which path you want to take (rebel or mercenary). So, be warned! Do his quest as hastily as possible and get him to tell you who is the undercover op before he dies like a moron.

When somebody claims he enjoys this game I just can't help it not to believe him...
 
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Since I turned all the graphics down to the very minimum possible, the game hasn't crashed at all. The graphics suck this way but at least I can enjoy the game until I buy my new $300.00 video card next month (just for Gothic 3). Anyway, I'll let you all know how it runs with the graphics maximized with the new video card sometime next month.

I noticed a couple new bugs. One particularly rare but annoying one occurs immediately after porting into a city. This actually only happened to me once right after porting (warping) into the Hammer Clan village (using the teleporter rune). There was a Hunter (common NPC character for that village) nearby who for no apparent reason decided to attack me. I just teleported into the village and didn't do anything wrong. I hadn't stolen anything at all from the village during any of my prior visits either. I didn't break any obvious rules. He just drew his sword and had at me. It kinda annoyed me and I couldn't break from my role-playing so I let him chase me outside the city and I murdered the jerk. The front guard didn't like that but thanks to my bluff/lie skill I was able to deny the crime successfully. Anyway, it was still strange that an NPC would randomly attack me like that. Another thing that's strange is that when this NPC hit me with an arrow, the nearly NPCs drew their weapons and came after me as well. I didn't fight back... they just joined in the persuit for me when the arrow stuck in me while I was running and unarmed... maybe I teleported on his toes or something? Hehe

The get pelts for jensenger or whatever his name was (the NPC outside the wolf clan if I remember correctly) quest won't go away. I've already completed it. I gave him all the pelts and got the money reward (don't remember if I got any experience or not) but the quest is still shown as current in my quest book.

These are minor but worth mentioning... if there's another patch they should have text briefly show up alerting us that our journal has been updated whenever new quest information is added to a quest. Just an idea to kick around...
 
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I noticed the game crashes a lot in the midlands. The snowy areas of Nordmar or the northern part of the map never cause problems. Not sure why but green areas cause me to crash frequently. I'm up to at least 10, maybe 15 crashes or freezes so far with graphics near very minimum.
 
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I finally bit the bullet and let some RAM testing software run again, which did not find anything wrong while running for hours - but did, when the rig was under heavy load just before (like the one Gothic puts on it, especially in the Myrtana cities). And in fact, one of the RAM sticks was faulty and produced tons of errors under heavy system load (only). Absolutely smooth sailing since exchanging it (with 1.09).

Might have been a voltage issue, it your mainboard doesn't supply enough vDimm faults can appear under heavy load - this will only show up on certain sticks that might have a small defect. Increasing the voltage might eliminate the defect, however getting a replacement is the best option as you did.

I do get crashes quite often (played for 4 hours and got 2 crashes to desktop) however I suspect it is because I am running 1.07. 1.09 and 1.08 just do not install for me, I keep getting install shield errors, which is wierd because all the other install shield installations/updates i have work perfectly. I have even tried manually replacing the particular install shield engine that Gothic 3 (1.08 and 1.09) uses but no luck. The 1.07 update works fine for me. I am on the european release not the american one (makes me wish I ordered it from stateside).
 
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I suspect that most the people who voted on the number of crashes they experienced were people who still hadn't finished the game yet. The total number of crashes for the average person through their first FULL course of the game is probably higher than the 1-5 number. I hate to think I'm just THAT unlucky...=p
 
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Might have been a voltage issue, it your mainboard doesn't supply enough vDimm faults can appear under heavy load - this will only show up on certain sticks that might have a small defect. Increasing the voltage might eliminate the defect, however getting a replacement is the best option as you did.
I thought of that as well and raised the RAM voltage by 0.1 volts during my tests. Didn't make a difference though.

MemTest86 had reported the errors at the same memory offsets again and again, this doesn't support the theory either, I think (mind you: it only did it, after the system was under heavy load).

As it's a new rig with warranty on it, there was no problem with exchanging the stick after showing the guy a picture of the memtest error fest and explaining, that the defect only occurs after the system was under recent load.

I repeat my statement: If you're regularly experiencing crashes with varying Guru messages when running around (especially in Myrtana, personally I didn't have a single crash in Varant and only a few in Nordmar), it's possibly not Gothic's fault. It makes no difference what your patch level is. Good way for stability testing is activating marvin mode, enabling god mode and "idkfa", and then teleporting to many different cities (goto Montera or whatever) and starting to wreak havock with all sorts of different magic. With the faulty RAM stick, Gothic would often crash right after the goto command for me. And after crashing it for a few times this way, immediatly start a Prime95 "Blend" torture test. For me, it had always reported an error within seconds that way.
 
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