Risen 3: Titan Lords - RPC 2014 Presentation

The original Gothic had a console-inspired control layout, which took a little while to get used to.

But it made a lot of sense after a while, and it soon became second nature. That's because it wasn't a lazy port - and the developers had actually put some thought into their controls.

I can't think of a more absurd statement. The Gothic controls were not console inspired, they were MADE for consoles. After falling back to PC only they transferred it to keyboard only.

The mouse support was patched in before the game went gold, because the press criticised the review built so much. You could not even use the mouse in the main menu!

And instead of implementing a real joypad control scheme they went with this hack job of a system. Gothic 3 remedied this, but G1 and G2 are my prime example for bad controls and catastrophic UI, which is loved by PC elitists and game masochists (AKA the "Souls" audience) only .

I am shocked how bad the presentation for Risen 3 was. All the things that went into the right direction in Risen 2 are reversed. So sad. I am still feel sorry for the money I put into the CE of Risen 1.
 
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You casul console whiners are so much fun to have around! ;)
 
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I can't think of a more absurd statement. The Gothic controls were not console inspired, they were MADE for consoles. After falling back to PC only they transferred it to keyboard only.

Pretty much the definition of console-inspired, right? It was designed for consoles, then adapted for PC for use with keyboard.

And instead of implementing a real joypad control scheme they went with this hack job of a system. Gothic 3 remedied this, but G1 and G2 are my prime example for bad controls and catastrophic UI, which is loved by PC elitists and game masochists (AKA the "Souls" audience) only .

Not exactly hard to understand, as very, very few people had gamepads for their PC back then.

Again, the controls made sense - and your reaction sounds a little extreme.

Also, I'm not in the "Souls" audience. But I don't mind adapting to great games - so long as the controls make sense and are reasonably comfortable.
 
That post wasn't even worth replying to imo. :)

I don't know if Sir_Brennus was intentionally trying to sound like a troll, but...
 
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JDR13

Exploration is a topic that PB has repeatedly brought up when talking about Risen 3, and it seems to be something they want to improve on.
Let's hope so. I may have ragged on Risen2 but I'm a big fan of the Gothic series in general.

I think part of my issue with R2 was that with pirates you expect a bit more flair - a bit more flamboyance even? And frankly, the gothic series have never really been strong on those attributes.
 
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I think part of my issue with R2 was that with pirates you expect a bit more flair - a bit more flamboyance even? And frankly, the gothic series have never really been strong on those attributes.

Risen isn't Gothic though. Sure, it's obviously very similar in a lot of aspects, but PB isn't obligated to stick with the exact same paradigm for every game. Despite being far from perfect, Risen 2 was a nice change of style to me.
 
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Hmm that combat looked very much like the combat in Risen 2. Similar power attack, basic slashing attack and so on. I hope the inclusion of proper magic will spice things up a bit.
 
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As much as I love Gothic and Gothic 2 - their worlds didn't have much in the way of visual variety.

? In Gothic 2 you have both green forests, winter landscape, rocky areas, swamps, desert, jungle, islands.. That's more environments than many/most RPG's, one of the things i really like about G2. But maybe i've misunderstod what you mean with "visual variety"..

I lost interest very quick with R2, that first island you arrive on is pretty damn dull (are the other islands better?).. i really hope its closer to Risen 1 (which easily was as good as Gothic's, halfway through)..
 
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? In Gothic 2 you have both green forests, winter landscape, rocky areas, swamps, desert, jungle, islands.. That's more environments than many/most RPG's, one of the things i really like about G2. But maybe i've misunderstod what you mean with "visual variety"..

Ehm, winter environments? I don't remember that.

In my memory, most of the areas blur together in visual terms - though I do remember some desert environments. Looking at screenshots from Google, pretty much all the areas share a very similar color palette.

https://www.google.dk/search?q=goth...Sp4gTQ-YDADA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=939

Gothic 3 had much more visually distinct areas, in my opinion.
 
I lost interest very quick with R2, that first island you arrive on is pretty damn dull (are the other islands better?)..

Yep, I would say that the Sword coast at least was a definite glimmer of the old PB peeking through. I used to say that if the rest of the islands was around that size or say 20% larger and relative openness of design I would have been more ok overall with the game's exploration (it would still not be up to the old standards though) alas the rest are pretty much corridors.

There is also not much visual variety overall (not even remotely close to Jharkendar levels naturally ;) ) as mentioned. Some would say this is "realistic" for a caribbean setting. I'd say its down to resource management and conservatism ;)
 
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Ehm, winter environments? I don't remember that.
...
Gothic 3 had much more visually distinct areas, in my opinion.

Vurt is referring to the "new camp" area in valley of the mines where the Ice dragon was.
Jharkendar also had a jungle. Caribbean beaches with a treasure island theme. Desert/grand canyon style area, Maya style ruins etc etc.

Gothic 3 had three distinct areas with a more or less consistent style within them.
 
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Vurt is referring to the "new camp" area in valley of the mines where the Ice dragon was.
Jharkendar also had a jungle. Caribbean beaches with a treasure island theme. Desert/grand canyon style area, Maya style ruins etc etc.

Gothic 3 had three distinct areas with a more or less consistent style within them.

I remember the ruins and the desert areas - but as you can see in those screenshots, they're not terribly distinct, visually.

It's all rather subdued and brownish.

Maybe that's just me.

I'm a big fan of powerful and warm colors :)
 
Gothic 3 had much more visually distinct areas, in my opinion.

Gothic 3, in my view, was visual marvel. Even the forest area was just beautiful. The vertical area design in Gothic 3 was also excellent and it will take one ages to just visit these areas.

There were variety in the areas and colors in Gothic 1 (did not play 2 yet), but I think that the game engine was limited at its time to some limited colour palettes and resolution.

From this conference presentation, Risen 3 colours and contrast look very good.
 
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You say that like its a bad thing ;)

Already scheduled a marathon for sometime next year :D
 
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I remember the ruins and the desert areas - but as you can see in those screenshots, they're not terribly distinct, visually.

It's all rather subdued and brownish.

Maybe that's just me.

I'm a big fan of powerful and warm colors :)

Did you ever get to Jharkendar?

I wouldnt say it's any more or less brown than G3.

G3 is still extremely impressive visually, you can tell they put a lot of effort into it (too much probably).. Even though G2 is relatively small you get the feeling that you travel far. That's a great achievement i think.
 
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Did you ever get to Jharkendar?

The only time I've been beyond that old camp area from Gothic was upon release, more than 10 years ago. I can't remember the names of places or anything like that.

But I never completed it, so I might have missed some more diverse areas. That said, I do remember going out of my way to explore as much of the world as I had access to.

I wouldnt say it's any more or less brown than G3.

We'll just have to differ on that, then :)

It's also been a while since I played Gothic 3 - but I have these powerful memories of towns near giant waterfalls and, as someone mentioned, a fantastic sense of verticality.
 
as someone mentioned, a fantastic sense of verticality.

Nordmar and some areas above Geldern are prety good on that. I'd say G2 does a better job of it in Jharkendar especially. Generally speaking G2+NOTR is better imho from a world design/exploration standpoint even if it does try to cram too many things in a small space (but it does so masterfully and preserves suspension of disbelief).

More distinct, less repetitive, more interesting locations and hands on touch. A hands on touch that G3 sorely needed regardless to its breadth (that gave the design the necessary space to breath) and size (and fantastic music) really helping immersion.

No arguing about the looks of course. It looks even better in my system now than the tweaked screens I have posted a while back, with a healthy dose of downsampling. :)
 
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Nordmar and some areas above Geldern are prety good on that. I'd say G2 does a better job of it in Jharkendar especially. Generally speaking G2+NOTR is better imho from a world design/exploration standpoint even if it does try to cram too many things in a small space (but it does so masterfully and preserves suspension of disbelief).

Agreed. Gothic 3 wasn't very good for exploration apart from the magnificent vistas. The way they opted to have loot randomly generated was a gigantic mistake.

They obviously had too much ground to cover, literally.

More distinct, less repetitive, more interesting locations and hands on touch. A hands on touch that G3 sorely needed regardless to its breadth (that gave the design the necessary space to breath) and size (and fantastic music) really helping immersion.

Well, I don't know. I'm not really a huge fan of Gothic 2 - as I felt it was essentially more of the same using a nearly identical engine. Though I absolutely adored Gothic, the sequel just wasn't different enough for me.

Not saying G2 isn't fantastic, because it kinda has to be, as an expanded Gothic.

Incidentally, I feel exactly the same about Fallout 2. A much bigger game and it probably has more cool stuff - but I had my fill of it with the first game.

Gothic 3, while heavily flawed - felt and looked like a new game in most ways - and I've always been an immersion-freak.

While it's relatively weak on exploration, it's extremely powerful for immersion. At least, it was upon release.

It took me a good 50 hours or so to realise just how broken it really was.

Oh, and yes - I do think the music was a surprisingly big factor when it comes to transporting me to that world. Amazing atmosphere.
 
Gothic 3, while heavily flawed - felt and looked like a new game in most ways - and I've always been an immersion-freak.

While it's relatively weak on exploration, it's extremely powerful for immersion. At least, it was upon release.

It took me a good 50 hours or so to realise just how broken it really was.

Well as we have discussed in the past, I've finished it three times with the CPs so I am in that extremely small minority that was eventually able to forgive that initial mess and enjoy the hell out of it.

Not claiming that the CPs made a masterpiece out of it or anything. But for undiscerning souls like me (and that is only half a joke tbh ;) ) Just improved it more than enough to make the experience (and the long hours I've invested) worth it for me. Definitely a looked forward to part of that future (if RL allows) marathon :)
 
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