Gothic 3 The Very First Try

Hey There!

I've played G1 as it came out. It was _the game_ back then. Somehow i missed G2 and G3 until now. Some time ago I've got hold on those nice original CDs and started playing G2+NotR. I've finished it today and it was _awesome_. I still had some time, so i thought to start G3 + CP 1.72 and see what's it offering.

And just after that i was like....what the hell...is this some joke? It was a total dissappointment. The whole scenery, artwork, world, environment, sounds, music, animations, voice acting. Eh, its _terrible_. At first i thought i was in a cartoon or something. Odd movements, ugly colors, stupid designs and then came the fight. I've killed my first orc, then my second, then my third then i died. Or not? After a few seconds i've stood up and started beating up the orcs again. This was just too much for me. In G1 and G2 the orcs were tough. Maybe too tough in G2, but anyway, i'm a human, they're orcs. They're supposed to be tougher then me at the begginning. And the other thing that they can't kill me. Man, this is just so lame. All the dark mood were washed away. The country is at war for god's sake! Why are everybody so happy and everything is so shiny?

Well, i think I'll walk back to G2 and start it over with a pure Mage.

I'd like to hear Your experience and opinion on G3 as well. I'm kinda said, because i really want to see the end of the story, but this first try was a total disaster for me.

Best regards!

ScOut3R said:

And just after that i was like....what the hell...is this some joke? It was a total dissappointment. The whole scenery, artwork, world, environment, sounds, music, animations, voice acting. Eh, its _terrible_. At first i thought i was in a cartoon or something. Odd movements, ugly colors, stupid designs and then came the fight.

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The world, environment, artwork, and music in Gothic 3 are all excellent. Maybe you need to tweak it a bit. What kind of hardware are you running? The animation and voice acting are pretty bad though.

I agree that the overall game in general is disappointing, but only when compared directly to the first two games. It's still better than most crpgs released in the last 5 years.

ScOut3R said:

I've killed my first orc, then my second, then my third then i died. Or not? After a few seconds i've stood up and started beating up the orcs again. This was just too much for me.

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You can't die at the very beginning of G3, that's basically their way of doing a tutorial. Once you reach the first Rebel camp you will no longer be invulnerable. I would highly recommend giving it another chance.

Yeah that tutorial segment was just a poor design choice. It alienated lots of folks by plunging them into an irritating mass battle without giving them a chance at exploration. Its a great game though, you shouldnt miss it.

shuddering from the orc encounters from the previous games, i actually run and hid during the initial battle. only after a while i came out and took a swing at the orcs but by then the NPCs had done the job.

but seriously the graphics needed some tweaking out of the box. everything was so shiny that it hurt my eyes. it was like on-stage for 'sound of music' play.

The world, environment, artwork, and music in Gothic 3 are all excellent. Maybe you need to tweak it a bit. What kind of hardware are you running? The animation and voice acting are pretty bad though.

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Well, maybe i wanted so desperately compare the graphics to the other two games, but they had to adopt to standards and expectations at the time they were developing G3. But all in all, i think the objects ar odd sized and the whole atmosphere is different. My PC is a C2D with 4G RAM and a Radeon HD4870, so i think it won't be the bottleneck. I've put everything on high, enabled AA and AF, though i haven't seen them to function. Anyway, i'll try to tweak it a bit.

I agree that the overall game in general is disappointing, but only when compared directly to the first two games. It's still better than most crpgs released in the last 5 years.

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That's true that a lot of happened between these games and in the last 5-6 years we haven't got anything great. Well, i liked NWN and of course i live ME and TW, but they're different than the G series.

You can't die at the very beginning of G3, that's basically their way of doing a tutorial. Once you reach the first Rebel camp you will no longer be invulnerable. I would highly recommend giving it another chance.

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I see. Well, it stinked like a tutorial because of the popups, but it never occured to me, because the two previous games was like: "you're there, if you're dumb than a scavenger will kill you." It's just strange to teach The Nameless Hero with orcs how to fight.
I'll definitely give it another try. I've reached Reddock and heard that Xardas is leading the orcs. Now that is strange! I can come up with two theories: 1) Xardas knows better than the humans and he just helps them in his own way, or 2) he couldn't control the power Beliar gave him. I think i'd like the first option better.

Anyway, the very end of G2 was great. The short clip with the Companions arguing to drop the gold in the see because it was too heavy. After that the beginning of G3 is just lame.

Yeah that tutorial segment was just a poor design choice. It alienated lots of folks by plunging them into an irritating mass battle without giving them a chance at exploration. Its a great game though, you shouldnt miss it.

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I'm sure i'll give it another try. I can't miss the story. At least i hope that the story is good enough to get used to the other things.

but seriously the graphics needed some tweaking out of the box. everything was so shiny that it hurt my eyes. it was like on-stage for 'sound of music' play.

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Exactly! G1 and 2 were dark, like the mood in the colony and on the island. The whole game was a bit darker in graphics and in mood also. It was really good. Now it's like Oblivion, everything is so shiny and colorful. It's just too strange for me.

Hey There again!

I'm through my second run. I think it was much better. I was open minded, tweaked the graphics - though i still couldn't get AA and AF out of the game -, and played a few hours. Right now I'm around lvl 7, have a good relationship with Reddock, visited the nearby settlements, etc.
Besides the combat i'm starting to enjoy this game, though i haven't explored much, but i'll keep going.

i'm not sure whether the latest CP has an option for this but when playing with patch 1.12, i disabled them via the graphics card control panel.

you can also out check this thread here.

lanux128 said:

i'm not sure whether the latest CP has an option for this but when playing with patch 1.12, i disabled them via the graphics card control panel.

you can also out check this thread here.

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Ah sorry, i was a bit ambiguous. I meant that even if i turn on AA and AF i can't see them functioning. I've read a lot of threads about it and my final conclusion is that AA and AF simply isn't working in G3.

ScOut3R said:

Ah sorry, i was a bit ambiguous. I meant that even if i turn on AA and AF i can't see them functioning. I've read a lot of threads about it and my final conclusion is that AA and AF simply isn't working in G3.

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Not sure about AF, but I tried every trick in the book to get anti-aliasing working in Gothic 3. I eventually just gave up and increased the resolution as high as I could.

The manual for the 1.70 patch says that "Edge Smoothing for Shader 2.0 and higher" was implemented.

ScOut3R said:

Hey There again!

I'm through my second run. I think it was much better. I was open minded, tweaked the graphics - though i still couldn't get AA and AF out of the game -, and played a few hours. Right now I'm around lvl 7, have a good relationship with Reddock, visited the nearby settlements, etc.
Besides the combat i'm starting to enjoy this game, though i haven't explored much, but i'll keep going.

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Good for you, I gave this game three chances but every time it was horrible and I finally gave up. Everything in this game sucks. Everything.

I love Gothic 1 and 2 but really hate 3. It's unplayable.

Actually the CPT included Anti-Aliasing but it wasn't the traditional way it was something called Edge Smoothing.The only way to have the usual Anti-Aliasing is hardware Anti-Aliasing which should be enabled out of the game.

ScOut3R said:

Hey There again!

I'm through my second run. I think it was much better. I was open minded, tweaked the graphics - though i still couldn't get AA and AF out of the game -, and played a few hours. Right now I'm around lvl 7, have a good relationship with Reddock, visited the nearby settlements, etc.
Besides the combat i'm starting to enjoy this game, though i haven't explored much, but i'll keep going.

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If you really hate the combat you can become a godlike mage and shoot everything down with fireballs.

A short warning:
Do not free the cities before you've explored the whole country. The Orcs will attack on sight when you're past the point of no return.

JDR13 said:

Not sure about AF, but I tried every trick in the book to get anti-aliasing working in Gothic 3. I eventually just gave up and increased the resolution as high as I could.

The manual for the 1.70 patch says that "Edge Smoothing for Shader 2.0 and higher" was implemented.

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Yep, but at 1680x1050 on 20" it just ugly withouth any AA.

Good for you, I gave this game three chances but every time it was horrible and I finally gave up. Everything in this game sucks. Everything.

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The only thing that keeps me on the track is the story. I'm interested in the final ending.

Actually the CPT included Anti-Aliasing but it wasn't the traditional way it was something called Edge Smoothing.The only way to have the usual Anti-Aliasing is hardware Anti-Aliasing which should be enabled out of the game.

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I've tried enforcing it through the Catalyst Control Center, but without any success.

If you really hate the combat you can become a godlike mage and shoot everything down with fireballs.

A short warning:
Do not free the cities before you've explored the whole country. The Orcs will attack on sight when you're past the point of no return.

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Yep, i'm thinking about a mage, but that'll be with G2. I have to replay it with a pure mage. It's much more fun!

Thank You for the hint!

Just wait. The further you get in the game the better it gets. You'll forget all about the AA issues once the brilliance of the landscape design and architecture sets in. Its pretty amazing really.

ToddMcF2002 said:

Just wait. The further you get in the game the better it gets. You'll forget all about the AA issues once the brilliance of the landscape design and architecture sets in. Its pretty amazing really.

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I agree. I played it in 1280x1024 resolution, and only noticed the jaggies for the first few minutes. The landscape in G3 was so well done that not having AA wasn't a big deal to me. I still think the foliage is the best I've ever seen in a video game to date.

ScOut3R said:

Exactly! G1 and 2 were dark, like the mood in the colony and on the island. The whole game was a bit darker in graphics and in mood also. It was really good. Now it's like Oblivion, everything is so shiny and colorful. It's just too strange for me.

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Bloom and that other lighting option are the culprit. I found the shinyness of the game to be blinding with those turned on, especially when wearing metal armour in the desert!

EDIT: It's not ONLY that, but HDR makes the transition from bearable to outright painful!

Unfortunately it's not only HDR's fault. It's also fault of colorful textures, you can't turn them off and enable darker ones

First time I've heard anyone complain about Gothic 3 being too colorful. Did you mean "too bright"? The colors match the setting perfectly imo. You have to keep in mind that you're in Myrtana now, not on Khorinis. It would be a bit redundant if they had used the same color scheme as in the first 2 games.

I thought there was an autumn patch for gothic 3, but I'm not absolutely sure that it still works with the last patches.

Just wait. The further you get in the game the better it gets. You'll forget all about the AA issues once the brilliance of the landscape design and architecture sets in. Its pretty amazing really.

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I was away for a weak, but i'll continue playing. I'm really interested in the story after all.

I agree. I played it in 1280x1024 resolution, and only noticed the jaggies for the first few minutes. The landscape in G3 was so well done that not having AA wasn't a big deal to me. I still think the foliage is the best I've ever seen in a video game to date.

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Well, it still hurts my eyes and i don't think that i'll get used to it, but i won't stop playing the game because of this. Though it's a really bad downside.

First time I've heard anyone complain about Gothic 3 being too colorful. Did you mean "too bright"? The colors match the setting perfectly imo. You have to keep in mind that you're in Myrtana now, not on Khorinis. It would be a bit redundant if they had used the same color scheme as in the first 2 games.

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Yes, too bright and too colorful at the same time. I know that this is Myrtana, a continent and not an island but still G1 and G2 was much darker in mood, setting and textures. I miss these from G3.