Gothic - Divorce Drama Update

Nope. Bloodlines & Dark Messiah used Source. Divine Divinity 2 uses Gamebryo, same like Oblivion and afaik Gothic II (edit: nope, G2=self-developed), Obsidian and CD Project are using BioWare engines, Grotesque is using Trinigy. The Two Worlds engine is based on Earth2160-Engine (ok, self-developed, but based on an earlier engine)
 
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Nope. Bloodlines & Dark Messiah used Source.
Not true "rpgs" imho.
Divine Divinity 2 uses Gamebryo, same like Oblivion

Thats good then I imagine. If they dont spend all their time enhancing it with new features.
and afaik Gothic II (edit: nope, G2=self-developed),
Gothic III self-developed (AFAIK). No wonder every gothic release (german) was a buggy mess.
Obsidian and CD Project are using BioWare engines, Grotesque is using Trinigy.
Dunno anything about those games.
The Two Worlds engine is based on Earth2160-Engine (ok, self-developed, but based on an earlier engine)
Two worlds is having problems with their engine (horse riding i.e). And the game has received bad reviews. Lots of bugs and patches.

Developing a new engine is always both risk and timesink.
 
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Developing a new engine is always both risk and timesink.
Only if it is developed especially for one game and within a certain time frame with small developer capacities. Don't think that riding a horse is a special concern of the graphics engine, also gameplay bugs. This is not related to the engine. Bloodlines is also a good example that buying an engine isn't always the answer, you need people who can control it. HalfLife2 had better graphics and it's requirements were more moderate than Bloodline's. HL2 was released earlier than VtM.
 
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People do seem to go overboard on new engines these days, though, and it has to be a major expense of time and money to develop one from scratch.
How many games did Bioware/Black Isle make with the Infinity Engine?(--some might say too many ;) --)but it did let them produce a ton of games where the player was already comfortable with the UI and no great sums had to go for the engine.

It's a real shame about this happening to Gothic and PB. True originals in a world of xerox copies.
 
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Bloodlines is also a good example that buying an engine isn't always the answer, you need people who can control it. HalfLife2 had better graphics and it's requirements were more moderate than Bloodline's. HL2 was released earlier than VtM.

Bloodlines is perhaps the worst example you could find, because:
- Troika was done with the game months before HL2 was done.
- They were using an older code-base and had to constantly alter their game as Valve upped the Source engine.
- Troika was contractually obligated to release *after* HL2.
- Valve gave Troika *very* little support polishing things up.
- Troika was already near death ...
 
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Bloodlines is also a good example that buying an engine isn't always the answer, you need people who can control it. HalfLife2 had better graphics and it's requirements were more moderate than Bloodline's. HL2 was released earlier than VtM.

Incorrect. Bloodlines went gold before HL2, although they ended up both being released on the same day, November the 16th.

edit: oops txa1265 beat me to it.
 
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Only if it is developed especially for one game and within a certain time frame with small developer capacities.

So there are no failed games that had new engine with medium-large dev capacity? :)

Don't think that riding a horse is a special concern of the graphics engine, also gameplay bugs. This is not related to the engine.

The fact that horse can only walk on flat surface sure sounds like it might relate to game engine.

Perhaps we are talking about different things. What I mean is that the whole game engine should be copied. That includes everything (all the way to the tools that make the content) not just graphics so that the devs can totally concentrate on content.
 
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While I agree that would lead to increased content, gamers want more than just new content, they want new features.

We could produce the most amazingly content filled, non-linear text based adventures without needing billions in development costs. But gamers wouldn't buy it.

At no point is 'todays best engine' ever good enough for games far in the future. Even if Dark Age of Camelot, Morrowind, Oblivion, Divine divinity 2, Civ IV, etc. all use the same engine, each time it has had to be at least partly re-written for features.

We are heading to the age where middleware is needed to make the most out of a game within a time frame, but I thought even Gothic 3 used quite a bit as well.
 
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Bloodlines is perhaps the worst example you could find, because:
- Troika was done with the game months before HL2 was done.
- They were using an older code-base and had to constantly alter their game as Valve upped the Source engine.
- Troika was contractually obligated to release *after* HL2.
- Valve gave Troika *very* little support polishing things up.
- Troika was already near death ...
Bloodlines was never done. They just stopped development. They could have polished the game these months if they had the money. ;)
Anyway, Bloodlines suffered from bad performance, although they bought an engine and although quality of the graphics was below HalfLife2. I don't want to blame them for this, personally I think Bloodlines is great.
Maybe a better example: Torn was cancelled because of technical problems with Lithtech engine.
So there are no failed games that had new engine with medium-large dev capacity? :)
The problem is, atm I don't know any AAA RPG besides BioWare games and Gothic, that didn't use a foreign engine. I count some Action-RPGs, some genre mixes, but nothing more. Maybe Vampire Redemption, but I think it's engine was based on Quake2, since id Software was credited. Give me an example. :)

edit: Got one, Ultima IX. But it was started as a 2D game with Ultima VIII engine. Don't know the reasons for this mess. It didn't like Radeons, only Vodoos.
Perhaps we are talking about different things. What I mean is that the whole game engine should be copied. That includes everything (all the way to the tools that make the content) not just graphics so that the devs can totally concentrate on content.
I think PB simply failed on developing this engine properly because they had no experienced engine programmers or because they could not concentrate on getting this engine run (only 20 team members!). In the end the team didn't have the capacities to make it better.
 
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This is going to take a herd of lawyers and a metric a$$load of paperwork to sort out ...
It looks like that's where this is heading, yeah. But that way the only winners are the attorneys. The best way to proceed from here is for both sides to stop, reconsider the value and long-term repercussions of what's going on right now, and give each other a break.

What about the fans? When do they become an important consideration? How do they get what they deserve? Do they need to hire an attorney too?

This is ugly, and it shouldn't come as that big of a surprise. Everyone who loves the Gothic games has warm feelings toward these people, but the truth is it got ugly the moment money was exchanged for something that wasn't worth it.

There's still time to fix this. That opportunity will end as soon as lawyers get involved.
 
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While I agree that would lead to increased content, gamers want more than just new content, they want new features.

We could produce the most amazingly content filled, non-linear text based adventures without needing billions in development costs. But gamers wouldn't buy it.

At no point is 'todays best engine' ever good enough for games far in the future. Even if Dark Age of Camelot, Morrowind, Oblivion, Divine divinity 2, Civ IV, etc. all use the same engine, each time it has had to be at least partly re-written for features.

Exactly. I'm one of those gamers. You can call me a graphics whore or question my intelligence (HAHA peeple wh0 leik teh sh1ny gfx r teh dumbfuXX LOL) if it makes you feel better but if I buy a new game at full price, then I usually want the maximum possible product quality at the time that the game is made.
Or to compare it to the movies... I'm not gonna go and watch a black&white movie anymore, and I'm also not gonna go into a cinema that only has stereo sound or small screens or crappy seats with little room for the legs etc. - If I pay EUR 8.00 - 10.00 for my ticket, then they better have huge ass screens, THX sound of the highest possible quality, comfy seats and maybe even digital projection for maximum image quality.

Don't get me wrong. I can fully live with there being an indie market and I also do not mind to buy and play older games for a budget price (in fact I'm currently replaying Icewind Dale and liking it) but if and when I pay FULL PRICE for a NEW game, then it had better be of excellent quality in every single regard or I'm not buying it but will wait for it to drop in price. There a few games on my list right now that I will get when the price is more to my liking but when I pay full price then I want the full treatment including top of the line graphics and art.
 
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We could produce the most amazingly content filled, non-linear text based adventures without needing billions in development costs. But gamers wouldn't buy it.

Id like to see old ultima style game with big world plus humongous amount of content aka interesting and imaginative plots and dialogue. Graphics not need to be oblivion class. Any average looking 3d game engine would do.

Whether gamers would buy it I dunno. Is it really true that only graphics matter? Are there not plenty of games that dont have max graphs but still sell? i.e Blizzard games (i.e warcraft3 battlechest or diablo collection that has huge amount of content) have sold for years and years even though the graphs are far from oblivion nowadays.

We are heading to the age where middleware is needed to make the most out of a game within a time frame, but I thought even Gothic 3 used quite a bit as well.

Apperently the middleware was of very poor quality considering all the troubles. I guess the age is not ripe yet. :)
 
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Is it really true that only graphics matter? Are there not plenty of games that dont have max graphs but still sell? i.e Blizzard games (i.e warcraft3 battlechest or diablo collection that has huge amount of content) have sold for years and years even though the graphs are far from oblivion nowadays.
I totally agree. To some degree, content can outweigh presentation.
 
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Or to compare it to the movies... I'm not gonna go and watch a black&white movie anymore, and I'm also not gonna go into a cinema that only has stereo sound or small screens or crappy seats with little room for the legs etc. - If I pay EUR 8.00 - 10.00 for my ticket, then they better have huge ass screens, THX sound of the highest possible quality, comfy seats and maybe even digital projection for maximum image quality.

So you wouldn't go to the cinema to see reruns of some classic great? I think those are the most awesome movies; movies that you missed when they came out or want to on the big screen again. :D

Of course, the seats and the screen are still hi-tech. ;)

That said, I'm still enjoying games that were released ten years ago. Okay, I admit that I wouldn't want to pay full price for them.
 
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So you wouldn't go to the cinema to see reruns of some classic great? I think those are the most awesome movies; movies that you missed when they came out or want to on the big screen again. :D

Of course, the seats and the screen are still hi-tech. ;)

That said, I'm still enjoying games that were released ten years ago. Okay, I admit that I wouldn't want to pay full price for them.

Right. That's why I actually wrote "FULL PRICE" in all caps and emphasized it again later in my post and mentioned that I am replaying Icewind Dale at the moment (got the cheap DVD bundle of Icewind Dale, HoW, Icewind Dale II a few months ago). Just like with games, reruns of old movies should IMHO be down in price as well, of course.
 
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Gothic itself is a good example of a game that doesn't need top class graphics. At the time G1 and G2 didn't have spectacular graphics, but the atmosphere was still great, and the gothic world is still so lively if you go play those two games. Fans even forgave them tons of bugs and a random crash now and then, because they had other qualityes that outweighted the problems by far. For me, g1 and g2 are unique games that I can play at any time and will never get bored of. They're timeless, just like point and click adventures, which are hand drawn (Broken sword, Escape from monkey island, etc. this games will always look good). G3 however was a bit off path for the reasons that have been stated many times and I won't mention them again. It just doesn't have that gothic feeling in it to full extent.
 
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So you wouldn't go to the cinema to see reruns of some classic great? I think those are the most awesome movies; movies that you missed when they came out or want to on the big screen again. :D

There is a difference between watching something like the original King Kong (1933) in B&W with planes on strings because that is what they *could* do, watching a movie like Zelig done that way 25 years ago to suit a style, and if you went to what should be a current action release and it was in black & white and you saw matte lines as if you were watching the Death Star Assault from Star Wars in '77!
 
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It looks like that's where this is heading, yeah. ...
This is ugly, ...

Is it, though? From what I read here, PB isn't putting up much of a fight, and has even said that JoWood may have the rights to produce G4. Now Gorath has made reference to JoWood hinting they'll finish the G3 uber-patch with another developer. What has PB said? "We can't finish the patch", and "we'll compose our goodbye post for WoG forums soon". Doesn't sound like an impending battle to me. Sounds like resignation.
 
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There is a difference between watching something like the original King Kong (1933) in B&W with planes on strings because that is what they *could* do, watching a movie like Zelig done that way 25 years ago to suit a style, and if you went to what should be a current action release and it was in black & white and you saw matte lines as if you were watching the Death Star Assault from Star Wars in '77!

Actually I prefer the planes on strings film. Jackson's CGI fest was well, tripe.
 
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