Risen 2 - PC Version Released

Well I haven't had any problems with most games. Only rage and now Risen 2 in the last three years. Guess I've been lucky.
 
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Sorry guys I have no problems with graphics or something and also I actually like plants shrinking (already posted it in another thread).
Dunno what to say more. On my machine it's nvidia GTX560 and latest (beta) driver. I also haven't seen game performance collapsing or something.
I'm really hoping those stuff will get addressed as soon as possible with a patch because the game is fun and I wish you can enjoy it as much as I do.
 
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Well I haven't had any problems with most games. Only rage and now Risen 2 in the last three years. Guess I've been lucky.

Luck is part of it. That's why you'll have some people say they haven't had any *significant* problems with skyrim and others who can't seem to get it to run worth crap. The strange of it is - both are probably telling the truth. I guess that's why it's sometimes important to point out when something is a technical issue (which can be hardware or driver specific - and sometimes be caused by strange combinations of factors in addition to sometimes being just bad code) and design choices (which can sometimes be just bad judgement.) As Gorath said, the pop-in could very well be the latter and some of the other artifacts and flickering may be the former. Different solutions and neither nescessarily something that will get patched (and one which is unlikely to be something that can be patched by PB - driver/nvidia software issues).

Since those kickstarters I backed/pre-ordered are a long way off I guess I'll take the plunge. Might as well play some Witcher 2 EE while downloading though - or is Drakensang 2 worth a try? Picked it up a while back but haven't played much - talk about goofy controls though.
 
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I've got an old computer, geforce 8800gts, duocore chip, been playing the game for 2 hours and no problems so far. I really like the setting. Hope you guys can enjoy the game too!
 
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Luck is part of it. That's why you'll have some people say they haven't had any *significant* problems with skyrim and others who can't seem to get it to run worth crap. The strange of it is - both are probably telling the truth.

Sometimes when I watch videos on youtube of people who have problems with games, I'll get a glimpse of their desktop. Some people have an absolute disaster on their desktop with every imaginable 'freeware' installed on their computer.

I'm also very OCD with what apps run at startup. The first thing I do when I install new software is check msconfig to see if that program is loading anything when my computer starts and usually I disable that from the get-go.

It isn't a crime to install a lot of programs (heck, it's a computer, that's what it's for), and I don't at all think that 'you're a bad person' if you do that. But I often wonder if the people experiencing the most problems running PC games are the same people who simply load their PCs with too much crap.

I often chuckle when I read some thread about a person having a lot of problems with Skyrim. Then they casually mention how they're running 52 mods. Such threads are often followed with the in-your-face-obvious-action to disable some of those mods and see if you have less troubles.

I myself like to run a clean ship. I know what every piece of software is for on my computer and go through a lengthy vetting process before I install anything on my computer. I frequently uninstall stuff as soon as it becomes apparent I'm not really using it.

My personal Skyrim experience has been relatively pain free. The only bugs I've had in about 130 hours is the weird nirnroot glow effect, one time my quicksave became corrupted, and one quest didn't clear my quest log when I completed it. That's about it.
 
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Sarcasm!? Gorram it jhwisner, I had the cannons all loaded, too!

I have definitely seen that growing-plants thing before. Was it Gothic 4's demo?
 
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or is Drakensang 2 worth a try? Picked it up a while back but haven't played much - talk about goofy controls though.

Drakensang: TRoT is the best game of its kind since the best NWN 2 add-on. Excellent game. It has pretty harmless controls, given the complex RPG system under its hood. I don't think there's anything to complain about apart from a few camera issues (like in every party RPG I'm aware of).
 
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*Sigh*

Anyone remember back in the day when PC games would just work without all this tweaking? You know, like Ultima 7 back in the DOS days.

Sarcasm or not... what I do remember is tweaking the shit out of autoexec.bat and config.sys to free up enough conventional memory. I remember making individual boot disks for nearly every frickin' game and all sorts of crap like that (if you would ask people to do that today -seriously- some of the younger peeps would call the police and they'd have you hauled off in a strait jacket).
I also remember having no (or later on at least no affordable) Internet during that time so you couldn't just download a patch or a new driver or even get help online from a forum. You had to wait for print mags to come out and hope that the CD included what you needed to fix a specific issue.

I'll take today over yesterday any day of the week, thank you! :)
 
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Sarcasm or not… what I do remember is tweaking the shit out of autoexec.bat and config.sys to free up enough conventional memory. I remember making individual boot disks for nearly every frickin' game and all sorts of crap like that (if you would ask people to do that today -seriously- some of the younger peeps would call the police and they'd have you hauled off in a strait jacket).
I also remember having no (or later on at least no affordable) Internet during that time so you couldn't just download a patch or a new driver or even get help online from a forum. You had to wait for print mags to come out and hope that the CD included what you needed to fix a specific issue.

I'll take today over yesterday any day of the week, thank you! :)

Yeah I remember having to get the Sim City 2000 (circa 1993) patch off a local BBS because AOL did not support FTP at the time.
 
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Hmmm...bit disappointed so far but it's very early days and it does feel like a PB game, so fingers crossed. I'm not usually too bothered by graphical glitches but the pop-in, texture flicker and balloon-plants are extreme - I get balloon-plants as I'm running immediately past them in some cases, so it's a weird LOD error if that's the cause.

Otherwise, they put zero effort into introducing the setting. Zero. It's not a real issue for me as a past player but they make no attempt to bridge the two games.

From a gameplay perspective, the combat reminds me (very early) of Gothic 3 without patches. Fighting animals is dull and not particularly fun without any skills or parrying etc to spice it up. I think I'll go guns just to avoid any real fighting.
 
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Want to try it but will wait. I have a feeling the game will be good, but prefer the technical details to be ironed out first. I've never done this with a PB game before so it's not easy, but I have Grimrock and life keeping me busy until the game is cheaper and improved technically.
 
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It's important to have the latest beta driver (301.24) if you're an Nvidia user. It made a significant difference for me.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

Choose custom install and uncheck the boxes for 3D Vision. You only want the graphics and PhysX drivers.

I have these drivers and without 3d vision. Did you see my video posted on previous page? Do you get those flickers in that location ?
 
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Judging from that vid.. I like that the world seems more open/sandboxy than Risen 1. I also like the more brown tones. What I don't like is how the NPCs stand in front of their home like a waiting used car salesmen. I have some hope for the title. Seems like it was unfinished and needed another six-twelve months of polishing.
 
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Unfortunately I had hoped it would be better. Combat is not even fun it gets boring when I have to hit a animal or person 20 times just to kill them. Hopefully it gets better as you progress or I see myself losing interest quick.
 
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The game finished downloading and I played around in the starting town for maybe 30 minutes.

The game does seem a little rough around the edges. When characters talk, there is this sort of weird jerkiness. And I agree there is a lot of pop-in. But more importantly, the game, at least the tiny bit I played, 'feels' like a PB game and I'm excited to continue tomorrow.

On a side note, I played the game a bit using NVIDIA 3D Vision and I was surprised by how good it was. NVIDIA rates Risen 2's 3D as 'fair' while it rates Skyrim as 'excellent.' I'd say it's the other way around if you ask me. I can't play Skyrim in 3D it's just aweful.
 
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Otherwise, they put zero effort into introducing the setting. Zero. It's not a real issue for me as a past player but they make no attempt to bridge the two games.

Considering the gigantic century plus leap that technology took in a few years not to mention the disappearance of magic perhaps they did not feel too much like dwelling on it ;)

From a gameplay perspective, the combat reminds me (very early) of Gothic 3 without patches. Fighting animals is dull and not particularly fun without any skills or parrying etc to spice it up. I think I'll go guns just to avoid any real fighting.


Yep, that was my take on it. It should improve with more skills though to something a bit better than that with combat skills. Getting fast and strong strikes and parry and testing against the powerful trainer guy (in the beta) already started to show some promise… That said I don't see melee against animals becoming anything better. It might even turn out to be a bit worse than CPed G3, you can't even strafe (much less dodge like Risen) there is no need to backtrack and time your hits etc …

I think Guns are a safe bet for anyone in it for the ambiance, questing and exploration…

Regarding the Pop-in, not to mention the horrid inflating plants,(and a bit on the world geometry but I wonder if that is an AMD driver issue) I wish they have kept the game's visuals more "modest" (looks fine to me) and did try to improve their horrible LOD algorithm. I have no problem with less than cutting edge visuals (hell Arx actually looks fine to me on my current replay with 16xAF and 8xSSA ;) ) but constant immersion breaking lessens my enjoyment of a game… It actually seemed worst than the beta when I setup the game last night :-/
 
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Judging from that vid.. I like that the world seems more open/sandboxy than Risen 1.

If it seems that way to you then PB has done a good job of creating that illusion ;) but in reality the game is less open and less sandboxy because there no longer is a large continuous world but the game world is broken up into islands and coastal areas instead. The open areas on the islands are also connected via "corridors" (usually one or two paths you can take to travel from one area to the next) so the experience is fairly guided while maintaining an illusion of freedom. It's easy to see through the scheme though. As usual they've done a good job on world design.

Otherwise, they put zero effort into introducing the setting. Zero. It's not a real issue for me as a past player but they make no attempt to bridge the two games.

Yep. The intro to the game is extremely poor and within the first couple of hours you're subjected to so many "WTF?!?" moments it's not even funny. It's best to just not think about the story really because as soon as you begin to use your brain you can't help but begin to wonder (warning mild spoilers from the very beginning of the game ahead):

- How is it possible that this guy is the same guy as the hero from Risen 1 ten years later? Face lift? Botox? What?
- How about an intro where you find out about what happened in the ten years since part 1? You know… an intro where we get a little backstory about how the hero ended up in Caldera and how the world advanced from bows to guns. Something like that. Instead we get an intro with some vague blahblah about the Titans and their lords who want to destroy the world because… yeah just because. Awesome! Not.
- How come that our supposedly turned alcohol addict hero is in top shape? You can see him w/o his shirt on the arrival at Takarigua. Pretty fit for a habitual drinker.
- What's up with Caldera? Where is the shouting, where is the drama, where is everyone, where are the people running about in panic trying to put out the fires or save what there is left to save?
- Where is the flowing lava? Come on. This is 2012. It should have been very little effort to just make a looping animation instead of the static lava in the background.
- Again what is up with Caldera and the Commandant having nothing better to do than scan the sea for arriving ships while the town behind him is burning to the ground?
- What's up with the guards doing their duty and exercises as usual and the prisoner? In a burning city that close to extinction you'd think they would all have better things to do like fight the fire or run like hell…
- Why does the city just keep on burning and burning no matter how many nights you spend in Caldera?
- What's up with the weird story of the Commandant that there is a debate of the High Council whether to give up Caldera as a last bastion? What fucking "bastion"? Look at the scene. The whole goddamn city is burning and the fire is maybe 100m/y from the fortress. WTF?
- What's up with the even weirder story later on Takarigua where someone tells you they are shipping sugar for the noblemen to Caldera? WTF? What noblemen? Where do they live? Are they so noble they have flame-retardant suits and live inside their burning homes?
- What the hell is up with the reunion with Patty? Could that have been just a little more unemotional please? ;) … Seriously that was so poorly done it is simply mind boggling. So we meet her again after "all these years" and all we get is a two-liner dialogue?
- What's up with the hero's mission vessel? Wasn't there that Kraken to worry about? Oh right. When we arrive at Takarigua the captain says that his ship was too fast for the Kraken. Umm… so why again do we need to go undercover and infiltrate the pirates to find out about Steelbeard's secret to travel the seas unharmed? I have a novel idea for you dolts: Just build some more fast ships. How's that for an idea? Sheesh.
- Not sure about the English version but in the German version the ship that is used for the hero's mission (passage to Takarigua) is being referred to as "Black Betty" by the Commandant and then later called "Elenor" by the Captain (Sebastiano). Huh? Strange…

… and that's just off the top of my head. The game spams you with illogical and inconsistent stuff during the first couple of hours it's not even funny and I'm still having WTF moments now while exploring on Takarigua, albeit thankfully much less than during the opening scene.
They really should have done a much better intro and a much better starting area. I find it inexplicable how they even managed to do such a complete shit job on this important part of the game. Was there no supervision? No one saying 'bad idea, do it again'? All of this stuff is so obviously flawed it makes me wonder about the quality of the "swamp weed" at PB ;) .
Luckily the game does have its redeeming qualities when the typical PB feeling sets in while exploring Takarigua but, damn, that blow to the guts from the beginning of the game is not so easily overcome…
 
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Ah well you might have missed the most crucial detail about my last post:
19562464.jpg


Sorry, just wanted a chance to use that old tired overused meme. But yeah, the reason I referenced Ultima 7 as that was the game that forced me to learn all about config.sys, auotexec.bat, himem.sys, manual IRQ and DMA assignment and driver loading. My point was that driver incompatibility issues aren't exactly a new experience for me with regard to pc gaming. PC gaming generally does take a little more effort on the part of the user, but if I didn't think it were worth it more often than not than I wouldn't still be gaming on my PC.

O yes what a pain it was to get that running! but it gave a lot of hacking skills!
 
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