Why do you believe PB did not create patch pieces if you doubt everything else they´ve posted?
Because I have decided to stop speculating for the most part (not totally
) and to concentrate and focus on what was actually said. And what they said is that all preliminary work that would have been required to a) make a Gothic IV and b) make a major content patch for Gothic III exists in their head only.
Source:
Post by Mike Hoge of PB
JoWooD threatened to sue them to get hold of any patch pieces they´ve created so far, for free I assume. It´s in PBs´ best interest to define as much work they did as "not specifically part of a G3 patch". Law suits are expensive, even when you win.
OK. That's some
major speculation on your part though that JoWood threatened to do anything
. My feeling tells me that PB was obliged to deliver a certain number of patches and that JoWood has no means or power to force them to make more patches. But that's just total speculation as well, of course.
And why are you so worked up about a "head patch". Where did they say such a thing?!
See above for the link to Mike's post where he explicitly stated that any work that has been done so far exists in their heads only. I did not make this up. There is absolutely no indication that a single line of code has been written since the 1.12 patch was released. But they (Ralf and KaiRo)
pretended as if code was actually being worked on every time they talked about the patch. That's a big, fat lie if what Mike is saying is true. I mean when someone tells you that he's "working on a patch", do you assume that he is mentally making plans for a patch or would you expect that
actual work is being done. Of course, you would expect actual work. This "exists in our heads only" part of Mike's post is the most ridiculous bullshit ever.
They´ve created detailed concepts for G3A and G4 to pitch them to JoWooD. When the negotiations slowed down it would be logical to think they´ve recycled their G4 concept into another game and started to work on a prototype. The coders have worked on engine and tools to allow more scripting and more depth. Who says that they didn´t also fix some technical stuff and save it in the "next project" directory while they were at it?
See, that's
major speculation again
. Let's focus on what Mike actually said. Mike said "in our heads only". You can't save something to a directory in your head nor can you work on tools in your head or write code in your head (OK, you can maybe but it's not exactly very productive).
And don´t you agree that the only way to fund such a big patch as the one planned was including it as a by-product in another game´s budget? That´s what they tried. Their plan would have avoided to do the same work twice. A perfectly logical business decision.
No, that's actually the most illogical business decision that they could possibly make in my opinion. As a Gothic fan, I appreciate their plan (if true) to properly patch Gothic III to the extent that they were supposedly planning to do it. But it would have been pretty dumb of them to impose limits on their new project. Think about it. They wouldn't really have been free to make certain decisions for Gothic IV. For almost
every single decision, they would have needed to ask themselves 'Hmmm... sounds cool but can we do it and still achieve what we want to achieve in regards to the Gothic III uber patch? Is this the most efficient way to go about it?' etc - Honestly, that sounds like a complete nightmare to me.
The most
logical decision would have been to wrap up the old and to start on the new project with full focus on the new project and only the new project alone. That would have given them the freedom to do anything they want with Gothic IV.
That means that the best logical option would have been to issue another patch for the most pressing concerns and then to fess up and cancel any further patches. Seriously, what good would a Gothic III "content patch" have done in 2008? People were extremely impatient already. A further delay of the patch would have likely hurt them more (reputation-wise) than another quick tech patch and the announcement of no further patches. Or as we say in German "Lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als Schrecken ohne Ende" (English: Rather an end in horror than to suffer through more horror with no end in sight).
So the most logical decision (IMHO) definitely would have been to first seal the Gothic III chapter for good and to start new projects free of the old burden afterwards.
Come on, PB might be n00bs in some ways
but they aren't complete n00bs in the gaming business. If they seriously presented that concept to JoWood (development of mega G3 patch in parallel with new game) then they must have lost their marbles somewhere along the way.
No publisher in the world would approve of that concept. If they fund a new game then they want the developer to focus on the new game. No publisher indirectly funds the finishing of an old game (that they have already funded in whole), especially if that game has sold a nice, solid 500K copies.
As I said, I'm trying to go by what PB said so we have to believe them that they really had this idea of parallel development at some point but actually it's not very credible that they ever presented that concept to JoWood. And if they did, then Seidel probably called the security to have them removed from the building
.
Me: They said that the relationship with JoWood broke apart months ago already and that JoWood has not shown any interest in any patch ever since then.
Gorath: Really, where? I think Rüve said JoWooD knew it a long time ago. IMHO PB only knew it for a fact when they´ve issued the PR. See below.
Here where Rueve said... "
I find it remarkable that JoWood is all of a sudden popping onto the scene and acting as if they were the saviors of humanity by talking about "patches" and "force to deliver". Now, after many months. Months in which they did not care overly much or at all (the community managers of JoWood are not JoWood). And a long time after it became clear to them that our cooperation has ended (or have they been looking for a new developer "since weeks" just for the heck of it?)".
Doesn't sound to me like their relationship all of a sudden ended just last week or a couple of weeks ago but a looong time ago already. How long is what we don't know though. True.
Your mistake is the assumption that the relationship has ended a long time ago. IMHO it formally ended with PBs´ PR.
I don't think so. It became public then, yes, but it seems from what Rueve said (see above) that JoWood knew for a long time already. Maybe (speculation alert!) they even made provisions like a mutual termination contract, weeks or months ago already.
JoWooD, like every other publisher, has nothing to gain by giving a definitive "No!". Nothing. The sooner PB knows it´s over the sooner they will look elsewhere, find funding and become competition. A "no" cuts ties.
Hehe, who says that JoWood said "no"? Remember the "PB had an option and didn't use it" rumor? But that's once again just -right- speculation again, unfortunately.
Did you look at JoWooDs´ PRs in both German and English (or better denglisch) ? They are a complete mess. Hectic, inconsistent, not without typos, not identical in both languages, and one English PR included German date & company infos. Furthermore JoWooD reacted with lots of aggression, naive promisses (patch by a different team? LOL!) and outright embarrassing moves (The public G4 ad, parts of Berger´s interview). All this tells me that JoWooD was surprised by the official point of time and the way PB broke with them.
Yes, they probably were surprised by the timing but that does not have to mean anything. It could be that this Berger chick who is probably usually responsible for translating German PRs was on vacation or a business trip or whatever and so someone else had to do it. It's definitely a bit messy but what else did you expect from JoWood?
