Gothic 4 - Arcania

News from Tiscali Games on Gothic 4. Full quote:

Few lucky subscribers have received the June issue of German PC Games magazine in advance and thanks to that, we've got the first details on Spellbound's upcoming RPG:

• Fully titled Gothic 4: Arcania (as opposed to the previous subtitle Genesis).
• Story set 10 years after the third title and located on various southern islands, each having different climate zones and its own flora & fauna.
• Same as in previous titles, there'll be a hidden place (temporarily blocked by a magical shield/barrier).
• Weather changes, full day and night cycle plus the ability to temporarily cast a spell and change the time of day (e.g. from day to night when you need to slip past guards unnoticed).
• Aside few NPCs from the previous title, some monsters will have a fresh look (however, trolls look the same as in Gothic III).
• With the ability to climb and ride on beasts.
• Aiming for continuity, developers have gone through fan wishes on the forums and are planning on integrating some of them.
• Fully DirectX 10 compatible with advanced shader technology: standing under a tree, not only light will be realistically dimmed, but looking up into the sky, you'll see the sun behind partially transparent leaves.

Gothic 4: Arcania for PC, X360 and PS3 hasn't got a release date yet, it'll be done "when it's done" and won't miss out on this year's Game Convention.

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More information.

So now it´s "Arcania" instead of "Genesis"? Not sure if I like it, but it´s at least a bit better.

Gothic 4: Arcania for PC, X360 and PS3

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Please for the love of God tell me that the PC version has priority, with the others to be ports that will come later!

This 10 years later could be good as in not stepping/breaking the continuity and I was really worried when they were thinking of doing a pre Gothic. PB has always directly linked their stories this way if PB ever gets their IP back they can continue (if they wish) the official intended Gothic IP direction.

Arcania ??? Do they try to "use" the "Realms of Arcania" - Title ???

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Arcania ??? Do they try to "use" the "Realms of Arcania" - Title ???

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One of the members of Spellbound worked on Realms of Arkania. It's EDL on WoG.

EDL said:

My name’s Dietrich, but the nickname “EDL” will do. I worked most of my life in the RPG-business at a company called Fantasy Productions. We did the German versions of Shadowrun and Earthdawn as well as our own RPG called “Das Schwarze Auge” (Realms of Arkania). I worked as an editor and creative writer. When the first PC Games for Realms of Arkania were developed I did some dungeon design, beta testing and worked on the cluebooks. Later on I worked in the online business and spent my time as a Content Manager with online RPGs. Some years as a freelancer for different TV stations followed, but that’s another story.

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Source.

Interesting ...

Ah, and Alrik, the English Dark Eye trilogy is called Realms of Arkania, not Realms of Arcania.

Okay, I see.

With the ability to climb and ride on beasts.

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How about skipping this and directing these resources to the plot and the gameworld instead?

I do hope that some of the game mechanics from Gothic 1-2 make a return, I would really like the ability to climb and dive again.

JDR13 said:

I do hope that some of the game mechanics from Gothic 1-2 make a return, I would really like the ability to climb and dive again.

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True, I actually thought this to mean climbing on beasts...

JDR13 said:

I do hope that some of the game mechanics from Gothic 1-2 make a return, I would really like the ability to climb and dive again.

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Spellbound said that climbing will return. Nothing has been said about diving.

So far, it doesn't look great.

The title is bloody awful.

The ability to change time by casting a spell seems like a very silly idea to me, unless it would be a very rare spell needed to solve some puzzles/quests. It would be unfortunate if it'd ended as some kind of ease-of-use addition for the player.

Ability to ride a beast seem suspicious to me because it may mean that world will be unnecessarily vast and possibly without much attention to detail. I think that ability to shapechange into animal was very neat in G1/G2 and served well for faster traveling, as well as for stealthy infiltrations and combat tactics.

The ability to climb should be mandatory - vertical travelling gives the world additional perspective as well as more plasticity. Of course, the world has to be well designed from topografic standpoint to make it worth using, which was one of many strenghts of G1/G2. For bonus points I'd advice developers to include some reeeally huge beast/boss which you'd be able to climb on!
Diving should be also mandatory for the similar reasons as climbing and even more so since the story will be taking place on islands.

I'm glad of the timeline choice. Not only it will give the Hero chance to grow his long hair back, it will also give him a lot of time to spend lazying in the cottage so that he could be justifiably weak as a fly in the beginning of the game.

I don't care about advanced shader technologies.

As I see it, details don't indicate there's an abundance of inspiration within the creative team and they seem to be focusing much more on the form than the content which makes me suspicious that the game is developed for the sole reason of juicing some more money from the franchise.

Of course, my post is full of rather unjustified assumptions, so I am hopefully wrong and Gothic 4 will be a great game in the end (ideally before patch v13). But certainly not with the ridiculous Arcania title!!

Sounds to me like Gothic 4 will be much like Zelda: Ocarina of Time ...

Mount and ride the beasts? only that already makes me fear for the worst. There are still not enough games who did this right. Untill now it hasn't captivated me, but I will keep an eye on it because it is gothic4, although not anymore by the brains of PB

Bad as I hate to, I agree with DeepO and Titus. All the bragging is on technical features, and no story or character development. If you recall, that's what all the bragging was on G3 as well, the only difference was that we were exicted about that at the time. Since PB already had two incredible games behind them, it sort of went without saying that the third would be just as well written. Unfortunately we were wrong. So my way of thinking is that I couldn't care less if the sunlight is dimmer when I'm standing under a tree, tell me why I would want to keep playing the game!

It all sounds good to me, especially the climbing and horseback riding. I always thought Gothic was in a many ways a better successor to Daggerfall than Morrowind, and those were two of Daggerfall's cooler features.

I think of the original Gothic as a carefully crafted sandbox made with lots of pride and maybe even love. Let's hope Arcania rises to that same level.

As to the graphics, who cares?

DeepO said:

So far, it doesn't look great.
The ability to change time by casting a spell seems like a very silly idea to me, unless it would be a very rare spell needed to solve some puzzles/quests. It would be unfortunate if it'd ended as some kind of ease-of-use addition for the player.

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Yeah, I dislike this too... changing the time of day should have huge effects on the game world - it can't be a simple localised effect. Think of the impact of multiple magi with such abilities running around casting such spells!

About the only way I can see it working is to assume it shifts just the caster forward in time the suitable amount. And if so, I'd like to see that loss of time be a mitigating factor in use of the spell, make it a tactical choice with trade-offs to consider.

Still, can't blame the new developers on this one - this spell already exists in the Gothic universe (Gothic 3).

I fear that beats of burden are just the new arriving "fashion" in C-RPGs.