Risen 2 - A Pirate's Life @ IGN

Originally Posted by rune_74
I'm pretty sure this was the pc version…since it was calling for keys on the the keyboard….

Ok, I hadn't bothered to actually watch the video till now because I dismissed it as being the Xbox version after seeing Dhruin's post.

I just watched it, and I have to say I don't see much to complain about. The graphics look fine to me, and the atmosphere looks even better than Risen's. The monster design in particular looks great. My only complaint is that the video was too short and doesn't really show enough of the game to pass any kind of reliable judgment at this point.

"Especially in the US, people were shocked that you could die in the tutorial."

I really like how vunerable you feel in the begining, which you should in a RPG. It's a great feeling of accomplishment when you kill a monster at an early level, and it's really fearful to wander the landscape because you know you can die in an instant, it makes the "tutorial" a lot more fun and engaging instead of the usual bore fest. L2P fucking americans

Its naive of them to think its somehow possible please everyone. Dark Souls seems to be doing great, and it's supposed to be extremely hard all the way through..

Which video are you talking about? There's just the trailer in the link, maybe i'm blind..

Originally Posted by JDR13
Ok, I hadn't bothered to actually watch the video till now because I dismissed it as being the Xbox version after seeing Dhruin's post.

I didn't really watch it, either. I had it playing on the side, while I posted news, so I wasn't paying close attention. Still, the player moved to me like he was using a controller. I'll take a better look now.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
It's also not such a big shift for me. Pirates were one of the best parts of NotR and Patty's quest chain was easily the best part of Risen to me, so pirates are an integral part of their heritage. Didn't the ships have cannons, as well?

I guess it's the guns, and the deliberate shift to Pirates as a main theme, that makes it feel like its not the same "Universe" anymore (to me). I agree with what you say about Risen, and I agree that it's good that they try something a little different this time. And in and off itself, I am looking forward to Risen 2. It just seems to me that if they wanted to do a Pirate RPG, it would have been better to make it a separate IP.

you start out as a washed-up drunkard

Good. And I plan to continue that role…
Okay maybe adding some boobs in local taverns wouldn't hurt.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
Agree fully. I also find it odd that quite a number of people (not just here but also at the World of Risen forums etc.) are turned off by the pirate setting. The whole quest with that Captain Makarov (or was that the bad buy from Call of Duty? ) or whatever he was called (it was a Russian sounding name IIRC) and Captain Greg Steelbeard and Miss Patty Steelbeard was probably the most interesting quest line in Risen. Also the ending of the game strongly hinted at the likelihood that the search for Captain Steelbeard would be playing a major role in a potential sequel. Given the history of PB games and the general popularity of piratey stuff (see Pirates of the Caribbean) I don't find it at all surprising or alienating that PB chose this particular setting.

I'm not "turned off" - if anything I think the pirate setting has great potentiel. But it feels… off for a Risen sequel. Sure Risen (and Gothic 2 too) had piratey stuff, but this seems to be pushing it much farther than before and in the end Risen still felt like your regular medieval fantasy setting (kinda like Ultima felt like medieval fantasy… with a pirate town in it you know ?). The way Risen 2 is going, especially with the focus on guns feels like a different era altogether.

I'm confident the game will be good… but as I said it just feels like a different universe/IP at that point. But that's just a feeling that might go away while playing it, who knows.

That being said I'd suspect PB went that way basically to give Risen more of its own idendity rather than feeling like Gothic redux (which was basically Risen in a nutshell - not that I minded). Thinking of it, perhaps this is also related to the fact that the Gothic IP will be going back to PB soon - perhaps they intend to revisit Gothic down the road with its medieval setting and thus keep this aspect for Gothic while brining Risen in a different direction.

-Sergorn

I have high hopes for this game.

Sounds good. A different kind of setting works for me. There are surprisingly a lack of pirate themed games out there. It's not too much of a stretch to think that Risen's setting might have guns. Should have had them in the previous game if they are going to be in this one, but not really that big a deal.

Game looks stunning as well. Day one purchase for me.

I think it's great to see PB branch out and try something new. While I certainly wouldn't have complained if they had gone the tried-and-true route previously established with Gothic/Risen, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing; Risen, while a very solid game overall, felt just a bit too familiar. Simply put, I had already played that game before, albeit with worse controls and a clunky U.I. set in a larger world. When a developer stops trying new ideas, new games from that studio fail to capture the imagination to the same degree as before. Change for change's sake isn't a good thing either (as we've seen before with multiple studios), but a new game that uses the elements that worked in previous releases mixed with new ideas that improve upon these elements in a creative new setting can lead to great experiences. I'm sure that PB is the type of studio that can pull this off; their worse release thus far is Gothic 3, and I still enjoyed that game, so I'm confident they will make a solid game with Risen 2.

Me personally I'm getting tired of dragons and pirates they seem to be the in thing right now. I said it before I never tire of any fantasy or medieval setting contrary to others saying there sick of it.

Will it be a bad game I doubt it and I will try it out sometime but it doesn't feel the same game or setting to me .

I agree with Nerevarine change for change's sake isn't a good thing. Just ask Bioware.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Me personally I'm getting tired of dragons and pirates they seem to be the in thing for rpgs right now. I said it before I never tire of any fantasy or medieval setting contrary to others saying there sick of it.

Will it be a bad game I doubt it and I will try it out sometime but it doesn't feel the same game or setting to me .

I agree with Nerevarine change for change's sake isn't a good thing. Just ask Bioware.

How many pirates RPG we had recently? I am only aware of the expansion to Two Worlds 2 (even then its an expansion)

I'm a big fan of pirate settings, and though I'm kinda sceptical about integrating a "serious CRPG" into such a setting, I have every confidence in PB.

I too was kinda underwhelmed by Risen, but there's no denying it was a quality title - and better than the vast majority of similar open world games. So, it will take quite a bit of failure from PB before I start losing interest in their titles.

With all that said, my "gut feeling" tells me that they're on the road to becoming more accessible and casual - and only time will tell if they can manage to do so, without losing their strengths in terms of great balance, challenge, and the all-too-rare plausible and serious tone.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
I hope PB won't take ques from the U.S. feed-me-with-a-spoon-and-reward-me-NOW mentality that we have here. People worldwide, more than not, want games to be challenging and purposefully NOT easy - particularly RPGs type games.

Considering the wild popularity of the just-released Dark Souls (and it's sobering level of difficulting) I think the pendulum is at last swinging away from make-it-easy-and-instantly-gratifying and heading back in the other direction of 80s style challening. I hope Dark Souls will be a commercial success as well as a critical one to keep this momentum going.

I'm currently replaying Gothic 1 which is quite challenging and ridiculously interesting. Playing it again after all these years is great because while I have some idea of the game from having played it over a decade ago, I've also forgotten quite a lot about it making it interesting to play all over again.

In G1 I constantly die. I constantly don't have enough skill points. I constantly don't have enough money (ore) to buy things I NEED. I frequently have to reload to earlier saves because a choice I made earlier on had an outcome I don't want. And I love it.

The tutorial of Risen 2 will be easy - that's the whole deal of including a tutorial in the first place. That however doesn't mean that the game will not get tricky later on. In a game with about 40-60 hours of playtime (depending if you're rushing through or explore and craft a lot), there is plenty of time later on to tighten the screws on the player

Originally Posted by doberlec
In a game with about 40-60 hours of playtime (depending if you're rushing through or explore and craft a lot), there is plenty of time later on to tighten the screws on the player

From what I've heard, Risen 2 should be significantly longer than 40-60 hours. Risen was around 30-40 hours, and the devs have stated that Risen 2 will be approximately three times the size of its predecessor.

I'm pretty sure doberlec knows what he's talking about, at least if its the same doberlec that works for PB

Personally i dont think it was anything wrong with the tutorials in the Gothic's or even in Risen, it just made the beginning of those games more exciting and engaging, and that's rare, tutorials are usually a complete bore fest (…to repeat myself).

Didn't know he worked for PB, if indeed he does. So I guess earlier reports about the size are wrong?

I also got the strong impression that this game was somewhat larger than 40-60 hours.

Originally Posted by vurt
Personally i dont think it was anything wrong with the tutorials in the Gothic's or even in Risen,(…)

Yep, the Gothic 1 tutorial was the easiest of all.
( there was none ).

PB is doing PB games. They are re-making the same game over and over for more than a decade. And I love it.

Originally Posted by Sergorn
I'm not "turned off" - if anything I think the pirate setting has great potentiel. But it feels… off for a Risen sequel.

Personally, I donīt think so.
One of my complaints in regards to Risen was lack of depth/lore of the setting - Gothic games were never exactly "lore-heavy" games, but, at least the first two, had well defined settings with own identities and specific themes, whereas Risenīs, besides being partially derived form G2, was largely nondescript.
The mystery surrounding the volcano was played well for a while, but once it turned into frigginī lizardmen swamping the world, it became clear there was no depth or distinctiveness behind the curtain whatsoever.
So basically, to me thereīs nothing off in putting emphasis on pirate aspect for Risen 2, because the predecessor hasnīt clearly defined setting anyway and since for me, as for some others, the pirate bits in Risen represented the most interesting stuff narrative/character-wise, I think this particular direction makes a lot of sense.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
With all that said, my "gut feeling" tells me that they're on the road to becoming more accessible and casual - and only time will tell if they can manage to do so, without losing their strengths in terms of great balance, challenge, and the all-too-rare plausible and serious tone.

Iīd add laidback tone to the mix, but otherwise this sums my current stance towards the game as well.

Originally Posted by JDR13
From what I've heard, Risen 2 should be significantly longer than 40-60 hours. Risen was around 30-40 hours, and the devs have stated that Risen 2 will be approximately three times the size of its predecessor.

The world is supposed to be approximately the size of Gothic 3 (which may be 3x the size of Risen's world, I don't know…) but no one ever confirmed whether that included the sea or if it was just land mass.
As far as I can think back, however, I have never heard of a number greater than 60 for the game length so I don't think that there has been any change at all.

Originally Posted by vurt
I'm pretty sure doberlec knows what he's talking about, at least if its the same doberlec that works for PB

Doberlec has never worked for PB. He is a Deep Silver employee. He used to be the community manager and has advanced to the ranks of brand manager.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'm a big fan of pirate settings, and though I'm kinda sceptical about integrating a "serious CRPG" into such a setting, I have every confidence in PB.

I don't know about "serious". From Mud and the pot smoking swamp dwellers in Gothic 1 to Fred and the silly gnomes in Risen… PB games have always had humorous elements and all of their games have had a USK 12 German age rating (and as we all know Germany is usually pretty strict when it comes to gritty! and dark! and mature! games).
In true pirate fashion, Risen 2 will have either a parrot or a monkey as a companion on your shoulder that is supposed to spice things up with sometimes helpful and often times hilarious comments so the humor in Risen 2 is definitely covered. A gnome companion has also been all but confirmed so it's hard to imagine that the game will be super serious.

With all that said, my "gut feeling" tells me that they're on the road to becoming more accessible and casual - and only time will tell if they can manage to do so, without losing their strengths in terms of great balance, challenge, and the all-too-rare plausible and serious tone.

Not sure what that is all about. With the exception of the NotR expansion which did turn Gothic 2 into a fairly challenging game, I'd say that PB games have always been very accessible once you got over the initial control scheme issues (especially of Gothic 1). There has always been enough in-game help like every NPC telling you to stay on the roads and stuff like that. The games have also been very easy to play since Gothic 1 was originally supposed to become a Playstation game. All of the game's functions easily fit on a console controller.
I find it strange that people like to think of PB games as hardcore RPGs. They have always been RPG-flavored action adventures to me.