Gothic 3 Any word on next patch yet?

The reason for a possible ca. 1 GB patch has been explained in the WoG interview and their other articles around Christmas. Certain changes can only be made directly to the world mesh. For whatever reason the whole thing needs to be replaced to fix things like floating trees or missing sounds for visible objects, for example waterfalls. No idea if this really makes sense, but their reasoning was something like that.

All i'm waiting is them to fix

-robes skill
-missing jump attack
-?? skill
-poison skill which doesn't work.
-Improve armor is also missing
-fixing the 12:th paladin thing.
-And lastly i'd like to see merchants selling all kinds of weapons. Weapon balance as a whole is truly a tragic story.

add to that:

- animals chasing you way too slow and on a short distance
- very short distance of view on NPCs and animals (making bow shooting a nonsense)
- idiotic AI

Gorath: no it does not make sense - you could release a patcher that would recompile the world mesh on your own computer as this has been done MANY times before by many games - its a long patching process but in most cases well worth it

darghan said:

Gorath: no it does not make sense - you could release a patcher that would recompile the world mesh on your own computer as this has been done MANY times before by many games - its a long patching process but in most cases well worth it

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That is what I was thinking - but I just wonder if they think that by controlling the patch they can get a better handle on post-patch bugs ?

Other things to be fixed -
- No one in the game world trains the master thief skill (and murder is only trained by one guy in ishtar - not really a bug)
- NPC's walk through walls (orcs patrolling in montera and geldern) and monsters can fall through the ground and still attack from under the ground!!!

Surely if they used something like RTPatch then it could just update the parts of each file which needs to be updated?

The only way I could see it needing such a large patch is if it is in an interpreted language that has file validation checks. Is this possible? I know G3 installs the M$ Visual C++ runtime when you install it, this would at least explain why you need a higher spec machine than the graphics of the game would suggest.

txa1265 said:

That is what I was thinking - but I just wonder if they think that by controlling the patch they can get a better handle on post-patch bugs ?

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yeah .. that might be a possibility
i remember in the early days reading some thread in wog about the code of G3 ... and some coder (sounded like that) was saying that the game code is in a really poor state - so i guess its very hard for them to apply any patches at the moment - that might also explain the 1.12 patch released 1 month after 1.09 and fixing only smaller issues
bjon: it might explaing the size of the patch but not the spec issues - visual C++ runtime is installed with many games and it does not pose a problem - Visual C++ is actually one of the best choices for making games atm
and you can even have good all around engines written in java - the devs just have to think when making it
the game is slow because it has a poorly written and optimalised engine - e.g. the engine renders everything around the actor ingame and so uses insane amounts of memory and cpu power (both gfx and core)
modern and well written engines render only the objects in the vicinity of the player ....
anyways my guess is still on PB and JW bullshitting the ppl and holding them until the addon - jwood spent a horrible amount of money on developing this game and they want the money back real bad and real fast
in other words - patching the game will not pay the bills
and hell yeah - read some jwood forums on ppl asking if they will have to pay for the patch actually - look at the mods answers and read all of them carefully ... i really think they have been caught with their pants down

I´m sure we´ll see at least one big patch (number of fixes, not necessarily size) before the add-on. Gothic is mainstream in Germany. Their customers expect at least one more significant patch, if not more.
Holding content updates back for the add-on would be quite clever IMHO. Fixing broken or incomplete elements is one thing, but adding more depth something completely different.

Gorath said:

I´m sure we´ll see at least one big patch (number of fixes, not necessarily size) before the add-on. Gothic is mainstream in Germany. Their customers expect at least one more significant patch, if not more.
Holding content updates back for the add-on would be quite clever IMHO. Fixing broken or incomplete elements is one thing, but adding more depth something completely different.

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yes i agree almost completely
with one exception - G3 is not really mainstream in germany ... we are their neighbours (czech) and it is a very good and hot selling title but not exactly mainstream as was for Flashpoint in czech republic back then or Mafia
any yes the community expects a patch as well as i do

It still freaks me out hearing a 1gig + patch is a possiblity as the many years playing games just can't think of anything like it before.

I really liked Mafia, certianly not perfect but an amazing first attempt at an orginal IP.
I was really looking forward to Mafia 2 but Illusion couldn't agree or the company broke up not sure atm (it's been awhile) but something happened, so sad.

darghan said:

yes i agree almost completely
with one exception - G3 is not really mainstream in germany ... we are their neighbours (czech) and it is a very good and hot selling title but not exactly mainstream as was for Flashpoint in czech republic back then or Mafia
any yes the community expects a patch as well as i do

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I recall Gothic 3 setting sales records in Germany so I think it would be considered "mainstream" (whatever the hell that means).

I completely forgot an official post from two weeks ago.
Another patch is confirmed. Also that their won´t be "patches for money" or whatever you want to call it.

Free patches....that's the right response, there can be no other way, imagine the uproar if they put a price tag on bug fix.

The community manager even wrote paid patches are "not under consideration".

That's good news.

Gorath do you have any info what the new patch will focus on? I found the changes in the last patch rather insignificant.

No infos yet.

Acleacius said:

It still freaks me out hearing a 1gig + patch is a possiblity as the many years playing games just can't think of anything like it before.

I really liked Mafia, certianly not perfect but an amazing first attempt at an orginal IP.
I was really looking forward to Mafia 2 but Illusion couldn't agree or the company broke up not sure atm (it's been awhile) but something happened, so sad.

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sry i know its off-topic but the company did not break-up its just made some changes in the lead-positions - especially the development-lead position.
the company is working on a new project http://games.tiscali.cz/news/news.asp?id=20623
mafia 2 is also in works .. dont be afraid .. ive got some internal info as one of my friends is working there
The problem in the company was that Mr. Vochozka (owner) started 5 projects at the same time after having huge success with Mafia- the company fell into a deep financial crysis and had to fire some employees - it was a mistake and I think they will not do it again - anyways they are coming back in force ....

as for the patch - good news - still we will probably have a 1.09 to 1.12 type of patch - my bet - but i hope for a bigger one

Wulf said:

Free patches....that's the right response, there can be no other way, imagine the uproar if they put a price tag on bug fix.

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acually this is quite normal in custom software development first you get a product and then all the B class bugs are considered service and the client has to pay for repairing them - it requires a high-level of diplomacy though

@darghan,

Of course what you say makes sense, but specifically with G3 we have a more pronounced severance situation than was expected leading to some fans becoming disgruntled and losing loyalty to the gothic series. So now a more than normal generous act in the way of patches (or goodies) may indeed serve to make up some lost ground at least.

darghan
"mafia 2 is also in works .. dont be afraid"
Maybe the best news I have had about games in a while, thanks.