Steam - Arcania & Gothic Pack for 75% Off
 

Steam is offereing a complete Arcania + Gothic Pack for 75% off.

More information.

I finally caved and bought Arcania Gold at this price… I might even play it at some distant hard to fathom future ;)

I still haven't played the expansion yet, and I had it for a year already. So I understand.

As long as you forget all about it having anything to do with Gothic, it's not that bad. It's an average action RPG all-round.

Indeed that is the impression I got from the demo more or less.

But with so many highly anticipated stuff to play (and replay) next year, and with my gaming time reserved until the year end, it is extremelly doubtful it'll be any time soon…

At least having it in the Steam Library will make sure I remember of its existence if I find myself wondering what to play next at some point…

The one good thing about it is that it looks good and you can't say that "open world" RPGs are very common.

But that's about it for praise :)

Yeah it definitely looked pretty good iirc.

Is it open world though ? I got the feeling that it was a string of linear (with perhaps a couple of paths) connected maps ? They were seamlessly connected though right ?

Edit: Oh I would add music to the praise. I've heard it on youtube. Seelbach is pretty good imo.

I put it in quotation marks because it's not really open world. I actually forget exactly how it worked - but I seem to recall the areas being quite large, and you can explore them relatively freely.

But it's not as open as the Gothics, no.

Don't remember the music, hehe :)

Gothic 3 itself is also included ($2.49 separately) It's my understanding that a patched Gothic 3 is miles better than Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, which had a different developer.

Well I prefer KaiRo hands down but I like his stuff (in Risen 2 also). :)

He has a more cinematic and less low key orientation overall I think.

I find that most artists have their good days and bad days.

Who did the music for Gothic 3? Because that was FAR better than anything else I've heard in the Gothics. That said, I've always found the music in Gothic/Risen to be quite atmospheric. But G3 was on another level :)

It was again Rosenkrantz. It was the first time that they had enough budget for an orchestra and a professional composer to help with the arrangement (its hard to transcribe music for a whole orchestra without formal training and experience).

I loved his low key stuff from the first 2 ofcourse also. They did an excellent job of setting and supplementing the atmosphere in an almost subversive way as I am sure I've said often enough.

And yeah G3 music was amazing: ranging from the mellow to the low key to the eerily atmospheric to the bombastic with impressive deftness and aplomb…

P.S the G3 OST is a mainstay on my MusicLib on the Macbook. And every time I hear a piece it does a number on me to start a G3 replay… Damn Nostalgia ;)

any tips what to replay: gothic3 v1.75 OR forsaken gods latest patch v?.?

Yep, for lowkey music - it's excellent. But I prefer the more "cinematic" and moving stuff - as long as it's not just that.

I guess I have the same opinion as Ridley Scott - as he's also a strong proponent of "moving" music ;)

Incidentally, I love the music in nearly all his movies. Certainly the older stuff.

Hehe, Gothic 3 is possibly the best broken game I've ever played.

I was glued to the screen for 60-70 hours at release - and it took a LONG time before I had to accept it was too broken to finish.

The world was amazing.

You really should give it another try with the CPs (if you ever find yourself with absolutely nothing else to play and can spare the time ;) ). It really is objectively quite decent (my fanboy glasses aside ;) ) and playable right now and can look very nice with the right tweaking and on a decent system :)

(I know I had some nice screens uploaded somewhere… )

Edit: Ah there they are: Decent at any rate I believe…

I've played it several times with the CP :)

It's good - but I can't stick with it for more than 20-30 hours. One reason is that I don't really enjoy the combat - and I no longer have that "innocent" adventurous spirit I had when I first played it, because I know the limitations of the random loot and the story.

But I still want to one day give it another real shot :)

Hmm wouldn't touch Forshaken Gods with a 12 foot pole myself ;)

But maybe someone who has actually tried it can weigh in…

Yeah there is no way to completely fix that combat…
The guys at CP did a valiant effort and it passes muster for me but I really can't blame anyone being put off by it a little still…

That is one very clear answer. Downloading the 1.75 patch already for a gothic 3 adventure.

Just make sure you read their readme to see if the optional changes and various settings are really for you.

Even on default (and without the excessive tweaking I did to bring out the pretty in the screens I posted above) it should be a pretty decent experience…