Pirhanna Bytes official statement about Gothic 3 (co/ WOG)
 

Posted by Sowilo (translated from German) on World of Gothic:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum…d.php?t=155684

This confirms what I have been thinking all along: that they bit off
more than they could chew. The world was too big and there was not enough time to do make the game the fans expected: something as good as G1/G2 -- just "more" of it.

For those interested, you can see the original German quoted in the link
to the WoG thread.

Thanks for that - it certainly does sound like they were a bit overambitious …

I think they are headed in the right direction…except for the new combat system & the limitation to world exploration (no climbing). They just cut themselves short on the time factor. I’ll bet you the game is going to kick butt three months from now. By then all the bugs will be history, the game balancing will have been addressed. Who knows, maybe they will even opt to do some optimizing in the games core so it runs smooth as a baby’s butt after a bath.

Respect.

Well if not in 3 months certianly with the expansion that has been at least in the planning stages since before the release according to JoWood shareholders meeting.

That was spot on, it seems they've realized their misstakes, unlike other developers, despite Gothic 3 being a far better game than most.

Only issues I can complain about personally are the technical issues, and the presentation of central characters(most of them have the same importance regular quest NPCs do).

A final thing I want to add that was not mentioned above is the lack of recognition to the main character - you liberate several whole cities and all you get is a "grats, big whoop, here, take a redicilously small amount of gold". In that town you should get cheering and celebrations and statues. Okay, so that was a bit too much, but some recognition at least would be nice, making the player and his actions feel important.

Sounds good. It was sad to see that Gothic 3 was prematurely released. I have been treated good by the game so far, the game is just incredibly difficult.

Although I can only see the game at 800x600 at medium detail, I love the landscape. I don't mind a bit if PB use the same set with increase density and refinements for an expansion or G4.

I don't find the game incredibly difficult, just certain things like avoiding Bloodflies and Boars a nuisance. Watched ONE BF kill 3 warriors!! That's just silly.

Indeed, the combat as a whole is not really that difficult, nor clumsy, but certain aspects of it certainly is - the stunlock thing is the worst, the only thing you can do about it is to avoid it by never letting them hit you. Also, I don't like the fact that you can't stop skills once you start them - reloading crossbows, powerhits, spells with long casting time, etc. Doing either one of those things at the wrong time(for instance if you don't see an enemy coming from behind) will often lead to pushing the F9 button..

To be honest, 1h weapons, especially dual-wield, is what needs rebalancing. Two-handed weapons can still kill all those stunlock beasts and such due to their range - you can keep the beasts away from you. Dual-wield, at this point, is pointless. The damage output is roughly the same as 1h, the range is the same, and you get less total armor because you don't use a shield.

"Also, I don't like the fact that you can't stop skills once you start them - reloading crossbows, powerhits, spells with long casting time, etc."
Exactly, its the animation taking Unrealistic priority over key stoke commands from us, its infurating but sadly I don't think PB will ever change at this point, since they have done this in past Gothics.

I think they did a great job. The new engine opens a LOT of options for them, too bad they didn't manage to get full potential out of it for Gothic 3.
Let's wait for that addon and Gothic 4. ;)

It takes courage to say something like this to the community. I give them credit for it.

With patch no. 2 the crossbow system will be completely revamped. Wait and see, I guess.

Class act. Gives me confidence in PB's ability to fix things. By the way, I thought that the crossbow system was pretty good as it was? Mind, I don't have the game yet. I guess I'll wait until I get some positive feedback after a few patches so I won't get disappointed. ;)

Hm. Weird thing about such a disappointing game, though, is that I stayed up until 2 am last night playing the damn thing. I'm also starting to understand how come all those imbalances didn't get caught -- it's because there are working strategies to deal with them, and once you start using them, you stop noticing. Not too late to fix now, though.

Just been playing around in Varant, btw. Looks and sounds cool. I think the very "Orientalist" take on the Hashishin is kinda tacky though. I'd really like to see a CRPG that does a take on Arab culture well, getting beyond those tired "Oh son of bargaining" style clichés. There's a huge amount of unexploited material in the Thousand Nights and One Night genre. Morrowind's Ashlanders were the closest I can think of. I wonder if Assassin's Creed could be it?

As another aside, I'd really like to see religion properly tackled in a CRPG as well. Mostly gods and temples are just heal-o-mats and spell-o-mats, with the occasional war cry thrown in for good measure. Yet both in myth and in history religion has motivated people to do all kinds of funky, heroic, and occasionally downright evil shit. Yet this dimension is very very rarely exploited in CRPG's. I can't really think of any off-hand, where religion was more than a label or a cliché. (In fact, the only game that I can think off-hand that does this well is Frozen Heart, a moderately obscure mod for a moderately obscure sprite-based space shooter/exploration game, Escape Velocity: Nova.)

Perhaps it's because we gamers (and game developers) are such a bunch of hellbound heathens…

Well I am pretty much forced to drop the idea of playing a pure mage because I just cant get past the liberation in Cape Dun to progress the main plot.

Kult, had a totally religious basis for its plot!! Fun game too.

I know KotOR 2 tried with Battle Meditation, but it was way too limited … you really need something that is large in scope to handle motivating the masses in such a way. Or moving from area to area gaining support using religion.

Kult did have a nice religious plot (or anti-religious ;) ), but the mechanics of how it impacted the experience were not much different than in other games.

The reason why there are not many religious games out there is because developers are smart enough not to step on anybodys feet. Even if you are making a completely new religion in a game, it is bound to be similar to one of the real religions, and that might hurt certain people.

Racism, religions, things that affect people on a very large scale in the world today are avoided in most games to keep the games fun and entertaining - even though some people want a bit of realism it's not worth the trouble you might get if you're not careful enough.

They do get away with sexism though(very male dominated worlds etc), but even this has started to trigger reactions, which is why we're getting more and more of these female hero games(and movies, it's the same thing in the movie industry).

At any rate, let's not turn this into a long debate. Personally I like Varant, it has its own charisma. The desert is slightly boring to walk through if you walk long distances, and a bit easy to get disoriented, but this is all part of the desert feeling. :)

I think Maylander have it staked out. Realism is a touchy subject, especially when it deals with oppressed real-life minorities. Surprisingly they get away with criminality and "evil" paths. The Gothic games have been very sexist so far, even beyond what to be expected in a medieval society.

I see different types of sexism - Gothic tends to be sexist by under-representing women.

But it is nothing like the DoA Beach Volleyball games, as mentioned here (and there is a link to a trailer for the game there as well.) His view of the development plan is hilarious …

But many other RPG's portray women in very negative ways, which I think tends to proliferate the 'immature & antisocial male geek' persona of the gamer.

How about the "all male" farm in G2 NoTR up by the mine pass? The one with the two beds pushed close together? I forget the dialog but they say the lack of women "works well for them" or something. Hilarious.