Gothic 3 - Rumor: Gothic 3 Uber-Patch cancelled

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Garrett

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5 months after a rushed out xmas-patch the promised big patch to fix all problems in Gothic 3 is still not available and the only news about it was from late march 2007 when Kai Rosenkranz claimed it is confirmed. Now there new rumors on the World of Gothic & JoWood boards that a new patch (or Mod Kit) will never see the light of day. Also, a report on PC Games draws the same conclusion from recent posts of PB Art Director Ralf Marczinczik. Let's wait for an official statement from JoWood or PB... More information.
 
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If this happens they will lose a lot of customers especially for the next game since people won't be able to rely on them making the game good. If this comes to be I will not buy anymore of their games and I will tell anyone I know not to buy their games.
 
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Well, if this is true, thank god (in an atheist way) I decided not to buy this game until they patched it properly. Would have been a waste of time and money.

Of course I still hope it is all rumors, since I can not imagine any surer way of destroying a companies image, and I really enjoyed playing Gothic I and II. It is hard to imagine that Piranha Bytes would choose to disappoint their customers twice, after making an effort to communicate their newfound honesty and steadfast support of them in the message boards right after it was apparent that Gothic III was rushed out too quickly. Should PB charge gamers for a program update they themselves assured would be made available for free by releasing it only through a Gothic III addon, this would be extremely disappointing.

Were there any news about a Gothic III addon recently?
 
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I wonder if they'll put the uber patch into the add-on??!!
 
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If they can't patch this software properly, I wonder how they will be able to put more content into it, which is supposed to be bugfree also...
 
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I have read the German forums intensely. And all I can see is Ralf telling people that PB can't say anything untill Jowood says something about the uberpatch. (or more precisely, Jowodd has to give PB to go ahead to say something about the patch).

Apparently, PB is forced to pay for the development of the 1GB patch themselves.
What's up with that? Since Jowood apparently does not pay PB for developing the patch to Gothic 3 which Jowood did force PB to rush out the door in an unfinished state...
 
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I think it's all about money ...
 
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Doesnt matter anymore, gothic franchise is already dead anyway and it was destroyed because of one thing: GREED
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....Am I the only one that still love this game? Right now it sounds like Jowood is just telling PB to not say a word about this patch. Which seems to be the common way companies treat the public nowadays. Bethesda is playing this game of no comment, so is Shifting Suns a relatively unknown company that produced Devil Whiskey and now Jowood. So I'll believe it when I read that PB or JW says they cancelled the patch which would be insane to do so if they ever want to have any kind of reputation within the gaming community.

Skav
 
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Were there any news about a Gothic III addon recently?

Yes, almost daily (in this thread at WoG where Ralf and KaiRo from PB show up nearly every day to answer questions from the fans). They were always talking about their "next project" but it is an open "secret" that the project is a Gothic III expansion.

I have read the German forums intensely. And all I can see is Ralf telling people that PB can't say anything untill Jowood says something about the uberpatch. (or more precisely, Jowodd has to give PB to go ahead to say something about the patch).

Then you haven't read it all. Ralf from PB dropped two bombs this last week. The first one was that he said that people should "not have any expectations" regarding the patch and then instead of providing any clarification on this rather disturbing statement (like if this was meant only in regard to certain features of the patch or in regards to the whole patch or whether the patch would come out at all etc) he posted even more disturbing stuff the next day like mentioning to people who still haven't played Gothic III yet (those waiting for the patch) that right now might be a good time to finally have a go at the game. And that answers about the patch or mod kit can not be made since the "wheels of business" are in motion at this time.
Since PB is under NDA, it seems rather safe to assume that these are very clear hints that the patch might have been cancelled.
Since German PC Games (and a few other German news sites as well I believe) picked up this story now, we should hopefully get an answer from JoWood soon.

Apparently, PB is forced to pay for the development of the 1GB patch themselves.
What's up with that? Since Jowood apparently does not pay PB for developing the patch to Gothic 3 which Jowood did force PB to rush out the door in an unfinished state...

I think we've been through this a million times already. Kai Rosenkranz from PB himself confirmed last year that the release date was made in mutual agreement with JoWood after JoWood granted them an extension of the development time of over 12 months. The game was in development for over THREE years in total and PB was not even able to get their engine working during all that time. That's as if you would order some company to build a house for you and the company would not even be done with the skeleton after THREE years. The engine is everything. It's the basis... the toolset that the developers need to work with. It is saddening, disappointing and outright pathetic that the losers from PB can not get their fucking act together.
To be honest, I could fully understand it if JoWood would no longer be willing to shell out any cash for watching a bunch of fricking amateurs screwing around with an engine that they created themselves and that they can't get under control. That's just plain pathetic.
 
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Wow, ow ouch. They should have just used the gothic 2 engine.... I wouldn't care if graphics wasn't much improved from gothic 2 or even gothic 1 if the game was as good as those 2 games!!!
 
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I agree, I thought the graphics in Night of the Raven were fine and I could easily have played Gothic sequels for years. I mean sheeez, I happily played Might and Magic and there was no real graphic change in that game from sequel six to nine. As a matter of fact, if they brought out M&M 10 with no graphic changes at all it would be a day one purchase. The only thing I would demand would be that M&M would have to bring back flying.

I'm thinking they thought the PB folks felt they had to compete with Oblivion in graphic quality. It seems they just never got that it was the superiour game play that was their trump card.

Will someone give me a time machine and the abiltiy to speak German so I can go back in time and slap some sense into those folks . . . . please.
 
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Well, if this is true, thank god (in an atheist way) I decided not to buy this game until they patched it properly. Would have been a waste of time and money.
I haven't bought it yet, either. I made a mistake by playing Gothic2 so early on and had some bad luck with a few oddball bugs that really screwed up my game. So I decided to wait this time. Now I'll probably never play the third game. What a shame. Gothic is one of my all-time favorite games.
 
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The Gothic series is one of my favorites as well. I have not even installed the game up to this point strictly because I've been waiting for the patch. I didn't want an unfinished game to ruin my Gothic experience. If it doesn't come it will be very disappointing.

To be honest if the patch (that they've said is coming for months) isn't released I probably won't spend any money on games from the developer or the publisher ever again... no matter how good of a game they release. That's the only way I can make my opinion known... with my buying dollars.
 
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Wow. I was waiting for the patch before my first foray into the realm of Gothic. Now I don't know what to do. I'm not up on the history, but was one of the strengths of the previous two games that they were well supported?

As PC games evolved from labor of love to fun business to scary business with tight margins and giant risks, the whole "lifetime support for free!" model has seen a crosshair on its back grow larger daily*. I'm sure we all agree that a company has an obligation to get its game working as intended, preferably before they take your money, but at least soon after. Still, the costs involved in making a post--production patch (for free) must seem like a strange expense to executives familiar with the console game business model.

Say what you want about subscription fees, but at least they guarantee there'll be people working on the code. And of course, there are still some companies you can count on to support their products to the end, foremost among them the underappreciated-around-here Blizzard. We should make a list of companies you can count on.

*Using two mirrors, that's how you see something on your back.
 
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What are people moaning about? If you take the time to properly install all current patches, the game is rock solid. I've barely encountered any serious bugs at all lately, and combat is fine as it is if you just stay away from the classic 1h+shield approach (it's rather weak because of the short range on the weapon).

It's absurd to say that this patch was going to "fix everything". Not a whole lot left to fix in my opinion, G3 is a great game as it is, too many just lost faith after trying the unpatched version.
 
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....Am I the only one that still love this game? Right now it sounds like Jowood is just telling PB to not say a word about this patch. Which seems to be the common way companies treat the public nowadays. Bethesda is playing this game of no comment, so is Shifting Suns a relatively unknown company that produced Devil Whiskey and now Jowood. So I'll believe it when I read that PB or JW says they cancelled the patch which would be insane to do so if they ever want to have any kind of reputation within the gaming community.

Skav

Add THQ to the list with the exact same line from Iron Lore, the developers of Titan Quest:Immortal Throne.("We can't say anything about a patch,")

I think the new money guys running the big game publishers don't have much of a clue about pc gaming--console titles don't need to be patched, so why sink more money into a "finished" pc title?

Business isn't a one way street where you make something and people hand you their money. There is also a post-sales relationship that requires a certain involvement. It's called "customer support," which contributes to "reputation."
 
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I´ve added a small piece of info to the newsbit.
 
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