So how is Archery?

Is it worthwhile investing in a crossbow and getting crossbow skills? ..and/or bows? I usually prefer the crossbow, though.

To me bows suck bigtime. When you shoot the arrow it drops quite a bit, so aiming is kinda hit and miss…literally. The crossbow is of course much more powerful and goes straight to where you aimed it.

Hm, in other words, it's very similar to what it was with Gothic 3. Thanks.

The thing is, the Gothics really developed as time passed, i.e. what you could do with the later bows was much more impressive than the early ones… so it's hard to judge the archer experience from the initial stages.

Is the hero holding the bow correctly this time, like in G1 and 2?

I remember seeing an old screenshot in which I thought he was, but in one of the latest videos I saw him using it like some sort of a chainsaw or minigun, which made me cringe. He was holding it horizontally and pulling the string to his chest/heart instead of to the ear where you can actually aim.

Does anyone have experience with that? Is it maybe just a beginner's "feature" in that he can't use bows correctly because he isn't trained yet? Maybe his stance improves with better experience and skills? Or does it look like that throughout the game?

That's kind of a big point for me. I don't like melee, I don't like crossbows and I don't really see a mage in that guy, so archery would be perfect. But not like that.

My guy is currently aiming correctly when using a bow. I have not invested any LP in bow so my character is a n00b bow user. I've also only been using a short bow so far.
Maybe the horizontal aiming that you have seen only happens with other types of bows or at higher levels… or it doesn't exist at all in Risen. I have no idea. But we can rule out the n00b level and the short bow for sure .

Whew, thanks, I'm so glad to hear it. I think I mistook a video of Gothic 3 for Risen, because it was linked to in one of the Risen threads. Didn't pay too much attention. I assume the archery stance is one thing the community patch for G3 couldn't and didn't fix?

As for Risen, I still want to finish up one or two other games first. But I'm very much looking forward to it now!