Risen Picks and Pans for the devs

Uriziel

Sentinel
Joined
October 18, 2006
Messages
248
First off, anyone that knows me realizes that I love PB and the games they have produced. This will likely turn into a long commentary, but I would buy Risen again.

First on my agenda, fire the idiot that came up with the idea of the shaking crap from the volcano. Make him/her work for JoWood for the rest of their lame careers. I hate them with a burning passion and hope they get carnivorous genital camel fleas. And if that doesn't convey my point, let me give you some insight....I did NOT pay several hundred dollars on a high-end video card, and select max setting, to watch a friggin shaky screen. DUH!

There is more. PB I luvs ya, but you missed a huge chance to use the volcano to it's fullest. Did it cross your mind to use the volcano's activity and tie it to quests? For example.....hero has to go to X location to get whatever, but as he clears the way...drum roll please...the volcano erupts and lava blocks the hero's path causing/allowing him to go a new direction or solve a new puzzle. THEN the shaking makes sense and is tied to an event.....and expands how the designers use the limited landscape area for exploration. It "can" be used to add a time element, but please don't do that. I hate timed quests.

My next disappointment was in creature variety. I haven't done a head count, but it seems like we had more in the "G" games. I liked the new creatures, and wet my pants when a ghoul is coming at me, BUT the variety was lacking.

The game world was too small. It was well designed and used different levels, but it was too small. The multi-level design was very good, dungeons were great, caves were great, mines were great...but it was all too small. Maybe 20% more would be about right for me. And whoever did the caves...god bless them. They were awesome. The use of crystals lighting the way was far superior to having to whip out a torch. To me the caves were a design highlight.

More about creatures.......the gnomes were an absolute perfect fit into Risen. The humor was spot-on, as was their destructive power. I still fear the ghouls and don't wish to face several gnomes or a cheiftain. The ghouls and gnomes are the best creatures in Risen and rival the orcs in the "G" games. The others I will forget, but not gnomes or ghouls.

Now to my biggest disappointment of all........in-game friends. What happened? Where are they? In "G" games we had dialogs and made friends. We had the fab four we connected with and could count on in a terrible world. In Risen we had??? Well, for me we had Patty....and I liked the Luis character but it had very limited in-game use. Oh, and we had Sara for 2 minutes at the start and end. Whoopie! *yawns* I replayed G more times than I can count and oddly enough, I looked forward to seeing old friends in the game. In G3 and now Risen, you have totally ignored relationships in the game. There are FAR more NPC's, but most have single uses and once that is done with they are useless and never talk again. The NPC bond created in G was part of it's magic.

DRM........stop using it. It does not stop pirates and ONLY punishes PAYING customers. Wake up. Stop it! Nuff said.....don't make me send ghouls.

I'll let your little baby-sized very tiny lil pea-brains absorb what I've said....then there will be more. But remember ya did good on Risen. I don't want good, I want great next time. So pay attention!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
248
RE: Friends. Don't forget "Fred" the skeleton. He's my buddy. And when he dies... another "Fred" just comes back and I'm like hey buddy how's it going. Let's go kill stuff.
 
Joined
Mar 8, 2009
Messages
49
I thought the world design was superb in this one. And in fact, they actually really did get 0% loading this time. No area had a separate map. I guess the price we paid for this was a bit smaller world. Though the density rocks!

I also appreciate how they spent more time designing traps & puzzles in the dungeons. This was totally forgotten in Gothic 3 and just grazed over in the other games.

Agree with you on the friends part. I thought Patty was a strong character, but another more prominent male friend couldn't have hurt. Lester/Gorn/Diego/Milten -- where are you when we need you?
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
389
Location
North Carolina, USA
My feedback so far (I'm not far in yet) is as follows:

* extinguish torches. I know, it ain't 'real'. But damn if it wouldn't be useful.
* font options. This is personal preference, but I'd like to see the option of different fonts in a patch. This will likely be implemented in a mod (there's one for the Russian version already, in the mods forum) but it would be nice as part of an official patch. I'm not fond of the font they've used; it's similar to the one from Gothic 1 and I wasn't fond of it then.
* tweaked jumping. This is just... weird, currently. Too floaty, too unresponsive. Please, just tweak/fix it.
* camera distance. It's a little thing, but I'd like the game to remember the distance I had the camera from my character, for when I exit buildings. I like to set it as far away as possible. Currently, I have to zoom out again, every time I leave.
* hotkeys for items. Another thing I'd really like to see is the game remembering when I pick up more healing herbs/potions/whatever. As it stands, if I set potions to be hotkey '3', and then I run out, the hotkey box disappears. When I get more potions, I'd like it to automatically show up again. Currently, I have to reset potions to '3' every time this happens. A small, but annoying little thing.
* distance of 'item highlight text'. I'd like this to be adjustable. Some people may prefer it to be when you're almost on top of the item; I'd like it to show up slightly farther away. Once again, personal preference.
* shorter animations. Some people may strongly disagree about this one. I would like the ability to halve the time the 'action' animations take, pretty much all the way around. Opening/closing chests, opening cabinets, doors, getting into bed, cooking meat, etc etc.
* chests stay open. As mentioned elsewhere. I'd like a chest I've searched to stay open. Perhaps chests where I've left items inside could stay partially open?? Locked chests should have a very visible LOCK on the outside. A big one. That you could see from a distance.
* see items with weapon unsheathed. I know I'm holding a sword & shield/staff/bow... but I'd still like to be able to SEE the items around me. Even better, I'd still like to be able to pick them up, perhaps via a SHIFT-leftclick. Or ALT-leftclick or ctrl... or whatever. You get the idea. This is annoying and just could be implemented so much better, imo. It's not gamebreaking, but it's just frustrating.

Oliver
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2009
Messages
73
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