Arcania - Preview Extract

Dhruin

Dhruin

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World of Gothic has an extract of a recent Arcania preview in PC Games.de. The extract is long enough to qualify as a full preview article and here's a sample:
The biggest part of the Arcania game is set on a completely new island, where a fresh Nameless Hero steps into the spotlight. The young adventurer discovers that his village is destroyed by the troops of King Rhobar the third. He vows to take revenge and sets out to become strong and able to push King Rhobar from his throne. The new hero will meet several known game characters from the previous games. Among them are Diego and the wizard Xardas. In Arcania one will find its way on two islands, of which one constitutes about 90% of the game world. The game world isn’t bordered by any invisible barriers except that the NH cannot swim and will not go beyond a certain depth in the water.
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More information.
 
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Skill points can now be freely invested in ‘close combat’, ‘long range combat’ and ‘magic’ skills without the need of a teacher.
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And that's another reason for me to NOT buy this game. This is NOT Gothic, nor a successor to it, more a different game that uses similar names.
 
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Bartacus said:
And that's another reason for me to NOT buy this game. This is NOT Gothic, nor a successor to it, more a different game that uses similar names.
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I have to agree, the more I hear about this game... the less I want to play it. :-/

Also...

The game world isn’t bordered by any invisible barriers except that the NH cannot swim and will not go beyond a certain depth in the water.
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Are they serious? First they took away diving, and now you can't even swim?!?
 
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Does everyone have to swim? ;)
 
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Krzychu said:
I don't get it, what's with the "no swimming" deal. It's the same in Risen. Why??
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You cant swim in risen either? Damn, that's very very disapointing.

And yes many new games games doesnt have swiming or diving, i love diving, it really adds to the gameworld to have secret underwater areas, sunken ships to explore etc.. i dont get it :(

Finding teachers is also a part of the fun with playing a RPG imo.. why dont they just do "Gears of Wars" or something similarily braindead and soulless since they obviously dont understand the genre.
 
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Krzychu said:
I don't get it, what's with the "no swimming" deal. It's the same in Risen. Why??
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You mean you don't get why we wouldn't like it? Didn't you play Gothic 1 or 2?

It was a lot of fun to discover additional places that you had to swim to, or caves that could only be reached by diving, even if there weren't very many.
 
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Ah well ... I just pre-ordered at GameStop, due in April 2010 according to them. I'll give it a shot ... can't be worse than Two Worlds or Dark Messiah or Dungeon Lords, I figure ...
 
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Dungeon Lords wasn't without its charms :)

This, Arcania, however... I'm trying hard to give it the benefit of the doubt, but inside all my warning lights are going wild.
 
JDR13 said:
You mean you don't get why we wouldn't like it?
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No, no :) - I don't understand why the devs decided to not include the ability to swim, since it was such a cool feature in both Gothics. There was no diving in in G3. And now Risen (as well as Arcania, but I'm not that interested in it)... why?
 
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DArtagnan said:
Dungeon Lords wasn't without its charms :)

This, Arcania, however... I'm trying hard to give it the benefit of the doubt, but inside all my warning lights are going wild.
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I absolutely agree ... I didn't just pick those three games at random ... :)
 
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Krzychu said:
No, no :) - I don't understand why the devs decided to not include the ability to swim, since it was such a cool feature in both Gothics. There was no diving in in G3. And now Risen (as well as Arcania, but I'm not that interested in it)... why?
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The most likely explanation is that it takes extra work, and apparently isn't perceived to be worth it.

In my opinion, it was one of the cooler aspects of Ultima 9 - a game which did underwater exploration in a nice way.
 
DArtagnan said:
The most likely explanation is that it takes extra work, and apparently isn't perceived to be worth it.
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That's the only logical explanation I can see, but would it really be that hard to implement it?

The reason I'm concerned about it is that no swimming means either "invisible walls" or a lack of inland water, which immediately makes the landscape a little less imaginative and a little more boring.
 
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Krzychu said:
That's the only logical explanation I can see, but would it really be that hard to implement it?

The reason I'm concerned about it is that no swimming means either "invisible walls" or a lack of inland water, which immediately makes the landscape a little less imaginative and a little more boring.
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I'm guessing it's about the animations required for swimming/diving/floating, as well as having to design the landscape/meshes for underwater environments in the terrain.

Not that I'm an expert, but those two would require quite a bit of extra effort.

If you ask me, who's an explorer before ANYTHING else in a CRPG, it's definitely worth it - but in terms of revenue - it's definitely NOT. Why? Because we're all going to buy this game anyway, now aren't we :)
 
Krzychu said:
That depends which game you have in mind. ;)

Ahh, well, they can make up for the exploration value with climbing, but still...
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True, I forgot about Arcania... Which is pretty stupid of me, considering this is a thread about that game :)

In that case, you got a point. Swimming and underwater exploration just might be the kind of feature that'd make me buy it.
 
DArtagnan said:
If you ask me, who's an explorer before ANYTHING else in a CRPG, it's definitely worth it - but in terms of revenue - it's definitely NOT. Why? Because we're all going to buy this game anyway, now aren't we :)
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Me? Yes. For many, as Krzychu said, it depends on whether you say Risen or Arcania.

... just saw your reply ... agree - swimming might help. But really, it is part of an overall design approach that the game just doesn't seem to have.
 
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DArtagnan said:
In my opinion, it was one of the cooler aspects of Ultima 9 - a game which did underwater exploration in a nice way.
Click to expand...


Strange coincidence that you mention that game, a friend of mine just gave me a copy of U9, and I was debating whether or not it was worth playing...
 
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