Gothic - Divorce Drama Update

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

But is it the use of CGI that makes it lousy? No! The first one was better than either remake *despite* lousy graphics and effects, not because of them.

Ancient graphics don't make Jeff Vogel's games *better*, but neither do they get in the way of them being good! However, they are a major roadblock to them being commercially successful.

Originally Posted by chamr
Is it, though? From what I read here, PB isn't putting up much of a fight,…

Who knows? I certainly don't.

I'm mulling over all the speculation, chamr. People wondering if they'll ever get the completed product they bought, if this will result in a big legal battle over who owns the rights to what, if this will be the end of PB or if this will be the end of Gothic as we know it. You might not consider it ugly, but I'm sure you'll agree it isn't pretty.

Originally Posted by chamr
Doesn't sound like an impending battle to me. Sounds like resignation.

It may well be resignation. I doubt that PB has the financial resources to fight a legal battle with JoWood.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
…
Or to compare it to the movies… I'm not gonna go and watch a black&white movie anymore, …

Question:
You didnīt go and see "Schindlerīs List"?

"Ed Wood" and "Young Frankenstein" are true bows before the classics of the old, even in the contemporary "colour era", as is "Sleepy Hollow"īs reduced palette and style.
"The Ring" also resorts to similar technique, though not for that particular notion.
Ts, ts, donīt dispose black&white so easily - "I find your lack of faith disturbing".

This "graphics ho" buzz is rather too one-dimensional for my taste.

It remains true, though, that G3 didnīt live up its promises in the crucial other fields (at least for RPGs - depth, characters, dialogue, ambient, continuity etc.). Before all because of THAT it doesnīt deserve full price.

But donīt hook the make-or-break treshold for great C-RPGS to state-of-the-art gfx predominantly. Thatīs shallow.


Ragon

Originally Posted by Cleric
It may well be resignation. I doubt that PB has the financial resources to fight a legal battle with JoWood.

Itīs more likely they remain silent to avoid getting in the way of their lawyers.

Originally Posted by txa1265
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!

Apart from that, I still consider the (longer) works by Charles Chaplin masterpieces.

And Miss Marple (played by Margaret Rutherford) is simply cool. My sister and me we are great fans of her !


By the way, is it possible to actually have the best, greatest and most good-looking engine in a game and havbe it NOT being immersive at the same time ?

Because all engines are only done for immersion, I think.

Originally Posted by Squeek
Who knows? I certainly don't.

I'm mulling over all the speculation, chamr. People wondering if they'll ever get the completed product they bought, if this will result in a big legal battle over who owns the rights to what, if this will be the end of PB or if this will be the end of Gothic as we know it. You might not consider it ugly, but I'm sure you'll agree it isn't pretty.

I agree that in general it's ugly and sad. In my post I was referring specifically to this idea that there will be some kind of protracted and messy legal battle between PB and JW over the patch and G4. My guess is that one of two things is going to happen at PB: they just drop Gothic and move on to something new, or they go under. All indications I've seen point to PB just not having the resources (and maybe not even the desire) to fight a long and expensive fight with JW.

Originally Posted by Ragon der Magier
Question:
You didnīt go and see "Schindlerīs List"?

No, I didn't .

"Ed Wood"

and "Young Frankenstein" are true bows before the classics of the old, even in the contemporary "colour era", as is "Sleepy Hollow"īs reduced palette and style.
"The Ring" also resorts to similar technique, though not for that particular notion.
Ts, ts, donīt dispose black&white so easily - "I find your lack of faith disturbing".

Read the 2nd paragraph of my post. I accept and acknowledge that there should be a market for "artsy" (indie) stuff but it's not my cup of tea nor will it ever be mainstream, no matter how good it is.

It remains true, though, that G3 didnīt live up its promises in the crucial other fields (at least for RPGs - depth, characters, dialogue, ambient, continuity etc.). Before all because of THAT it doesnīt deserve full price.

Fully agree with that. Wish I hadn't bought the CE for full price either .

But donīt hook the make-or-break treshold for great C-RPGS to state-of-the-art gfx predominantly. Thatīs shallow.

I didn't. I said "maximum possible product quality" and in the 2nd paragraph "if and when I pay FULL PRICE for a NEW game, then it had better be of excellent quality in every single regard".
Nowhere did I say that I meant the quality of the graphics only and I didn't. As I said, I meant it in every regard.
Contrary to popular belief, good graphics and good gameplay are not mutually exclusive.
Gothic and Gothic II are great examples of games that had both at the time they came out. Or Deus Ex… or S.T.A.L.K.E.R… or Oblivion (*ducks* ) or Morrowind or the Thief games and the list goes on and on (especially if we would include FPS gems such as the Jedi Knight games or HL 1+2 etc etc etc).
There are a lot of games that fulfill the criteria of being highest possible quality in every regard and I think most people who buy (full price) games just simply want and desire the full, whole, quality treatment instead of making compromises.

my priorities for games:

1) addictive gameplay concept
2) entertaining and fun
3) challenging
4) great tory - interesting dialogues and persons
5) stability
6) grafics and sound
7) handbook and box/cover-art
8) great size / long time to play through / replay is fun
9) extras / collector edition etc.
10) good publisher/developer support

I still think they should simply create new, defrent rpg, maybe a bit defrent then gothic, so people can get something new. Maybe even some sort of scifi rpg…with PB, they could make it cool. Or regular fantasy rpg too.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Ancient graphics don't make Jeff Vogel's games *better*, but neither do they get in the way of them being good! However, they are a major roadblock to them being commercially successful.

Here, Here I second that opion. While graphics doesn't play a major role in Jeff's games, story and the fact that it is just a fun game does. Also while Jeff's games might never be a main stream success, they are definatly a success due to the fact that he has stayed in business for so long. There is a market for these games, it's just not the biggest market in the world but it is profitable or Jeff wouldn't of been able to make games like Exile to the games that he is making now Avernum, Bioforge and Nethergate. All of them have similiar sound and graphics but all of them also have a great story and are just basically fun to play all the way through. I had a blast playing a Celt against the Romans.

This is my boomstick! It's a twelve gauge, double barreled Remington pump.

Of long guns, I admit to never owning shotguns, but not to lacking knowledge of them. A pump action Remington (or any other brand) has a single barrel. Double barrel guns do not require a magazine or loading mechanism. You manually insert the two shotgun shells into the two separate barrels' firing chambers and reclose the shotgun after firing the two shots.

A riot control shotgun issued to a police patrol sergeant has a magazine beneath its barrel in which four to seven shotgun shells can be loaded. After each shot, he can then pull back on the slide grip, ejecting the spent shell, and when he returns the slide to its forward position, a fresh shell is chambered, ready to be fired.

I seem to remember more than one FPS in which a pump gun was featured. Maybe a non-shooting person sees the shorter (than the barrel) tubular magazine below the barrel as if it is another "barrel", which it is not.

Originally Posted by Kiwi
Of long guns, I admit to never owning shotguns, but not to lacking knowledge of them. A pump action Remington (or any other brand) has a single barrel. Double barrel guns do not require a magazine or loading mechanism. You manually insert the two shotgun shells into the two separate barrels' firing chambers and reclose the shotgun after firing the two shots.

Ummm dude it's a quote from a movie "Evil Dead". I may have misquoted but I don't think I did. I don't think there ever was an SMart either. Thanks for the info though on the guns, but I just really liked that part of the movie.

"This is my boomstick! It's a twelve gauge double barreled Remington, S-Mart's top-of-the-line. You can find this in the sporting goods department."

Being the correct quote.

"Evil Dead"? Sorry, whatever that Grade Z something might've been, simply passed beneath my grownup's radar. Something for what we called teeny boppers when I was a teen, most likely. 'Course, a majority of films the past couple of years (maybe even 4-5 now) wouldn't even register as tiny blips, being so far outside the criteria that I established back when "B" movies were in the minority, rather than the majority, of available titles at the local Block Buster (or maybe I should allow myself to be dated even farther back by admitting my favored film viewing seat was in my car at the Drive-in Theater at the edge of town . . )

Incidentally, the Remington Combat Shotgun (pump model) was based on the model 870, with a shortened barrel, and lengthened magazine, but Google didn't find me as good a Remington photo as the one with this article about the Belgian FN (Browning) pump gun: http://www.gunweek.com/2004/feature0201.html

Originally Posted by Kiwi
"Evil Dead"? Sorry, whatever that one was, simply passed beneath my radar. 'Course, a majority of films the past couple of years wouldn't even register as tiny blips, being so far outside the criteria I established back when "B" movies were the minority, rather than the majority, of available titles at the local Block Buster (or maybe I should allow myself to be dated even worse by admitting my favored film viewing seat was in my car at the Drive-in Theater at the edge of town . . )

Whatever?? Evil dead is Whatever?! How dare you?? The evil dead trilogy is among the best films ever made. It will make you feel horror, cry, laugh, etc.
Its a cult classic, everybody likes it and its been continiously refered to in everyday populism.

You must live in a barrel/hate entertaining movies/life in general etc.

Moving back to the topic a bit, but with all their lawyers floating around right now, perhaps we, as customers need to find out what our rights would be to return a game that was not finished on release and is giving the impression that it will never be finished? I wonder if 50k requests for a refund would have any impact?

Originally Posted by Cm
Moving back to the topic a bit, but with all their lawyers floating around right now, perhaps we, as customers need to find out what our rights would be to return a game that was not finished on release and is giving the impression that it will never be finished? I wonder if 50k requests for a refund would have any impact?

This came up ad nauseum with Dungeon Lords - ideas for lawsuits, class actions, and so on. The problem gets down to defining 'unfinished' and whether or not there are contractual obligations stated or implied regarding the entire gameplay experience.

The thought of gamers taking some sort of legal action against the publishers/devs is noble, or perhaps a better word would be 'gratifying'.
But no matter how bad some people feel they were cheated buying G3, I don't think you could ever make a sucessful arguement that it needs to be returned. Too many people still enjoy it for what IS there, myself included.

I would never attempt it, though sending both parties an email requesting info on how to get a refund would be fun…. As Jabber said, the idea does give me some gratification.