Please post any news regarding patch #3 here.

I looked around the forum briefly and did not find any open threads centered around the discussion of patch 3. At the moment, all I know is that there will be a 3rd patch and that it will address a few combat related issues. As great as this is, it is obvious that there are a plethora of other problems as well as performance and content enhancements that are as of yet unaddressed. I know that there is a lot of news sleuthing talent here so let's put it to good use and fill this thread.

I may complain a lot but I haven’t given up hope! I apologize if there is another thread discussing this topic. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure this won't be the last patch and I would say it will again fix only several bugs. I would expect some more substatial changes to come out later and make the game more balanced.

I hope they manage to patch this up. Maybe they get another chance if they make a good expansion. I am not so sure we will see a Gothic 4 though.

I wonder how well the game sells. I wish it sells very well because I would like to see this game fully patched and - of course - I would like to see Gothic 4 one day.

Originally Posted by Danicek
I wonder how well the game sells.

I know in Germany it is already a huge hit, and I think it has sold well in Europe in general.

I wonder how it will sell in the US - I suppose it depends on how Aspyr does getting it to stores and how much the 'buggy mess' image hampers sales …

Sales in the US will depend on how much people are expecting/wanting Oblivion 2 instead of what they're actually getting!!

Originally Posted by Corwin
Sales in the US will depend on how much people are expecting/wanting Oblivion 2 instead of what they're actually getting!!

I don't know about that - I look at a game like Bloodlines. It sold the worst of all Troika games, in part because the Vampire subject makes it non-mainstream, but also because of Troika's rep for buggy games. So people waited, and heard of bugs including the infamous boat-crash. And Troika died …

Originally Posted by txa1265
I know in Germany it is already a huge hit, and I think it has sold well in Europe in general.

I wonder how it will sell in the US - I suppose it depends on how Aspyr does getting it to stores and how much the 'buggy mess' image hampers sales …

Yes, here in Czech Republic it sells very well (well if we measure it with other games, the non-pirate market here is still very small). It is good that they have success in Germany as well as in the whole Europe.

I liked Troika's first 2 games, but I have to be honest and say I would never even consider buying a game about Vampires, no matter how good it was. Bugs I can handle, if they are eventually fixed, that's why I'm still annoyed about DL; many of the problems were not fixed!!

I can't help but ask but why are people so harsh on Oblivion all the time? Why being so protective of G3 and PB? From my perspective Oblivion was a solid game out of the box which hardly can be said about G3.

Right now I'm feeling like a jerk for buying the premium G3 CE and then have put it on the shelf for a month or two until they fix it. I'm really getting fed up with the attitude of let's just release it and then patch the bugs, if it sells well.

Originally Posted by stealth
I can't help but ask but why are people so harsh on Oblivion all the time?

That's an excellent question. Almost every complaint I've heard about can be addressed with an existing mod. I'll never understand why RPG'ers who generally like things complicated can't be bothered to download and install some simple mods. It more fun to complain I guess. Look people are already complaining about Dragon Age!

JemyM: If its due to a spoiler please be careful, but why would a Gothic 4 be unreasonable. I have yet to finish G3 so I don't know how the story for this installment wraps up. Does the story simply hit a wall in 3 or is it due to sales and PR issues? I really hope that it's the story because I have a lot of faith in PB's game producing ability.

Corwin: I really got to hand it to you; your patience must know no bounds. DL was a very negative experience for me. Waiting for it to get patched must have been tough. I played the US release right when it hit shelves, that game made G3 and DM look like they were developed through divine inspiration. I sold it back at a huge loss and never looked back.

Originally Posted by lostnumber
JemyM: If its due to a spoiler please be careful, but why would a Gothic 4 be unreasonable

I don't know about any spoilers, but poor sales pretty much doom a sequel regardless of quality. Look at the 'No One Lives Forever' - it was winning Game of the Year awards while sitting at $4.99 in bargain bins …

Originally Posted by lostnumber
Corwin: I really got to hand it to you; your patience must know no bounds. DL was a very negative experience for me.

I reviewed both the regular *and* Collector's Edition

It's the top game in Norway at the moment, and has had quite a few good 85-90% reviews entitled "Be prepared to cancel your social life for most of November" and so on.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I don't know about that - I look at a game like Bloodlines. It sold the worst of all Troika games, in part because the Vampire subject makes it non-mainstream, but also because of Troika's rep for buggy games. So people waited, and heard of bugs including the infamous boat-crash. And Troika died …

I always had the opposite opinion, that being that vampires were pretty mainstream - Buffy and all that… plus not being a typical fantasy setting allows it to "hide" some of the negativity towards rpgs (stats and numbers etc.).

Anyway, being released the same day as HL2 wasn't the best idea!

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
That's an excellent question. Almost every complaint I've heard about can be addressed with an existing mod. I'll never understand why RPG'ers who generally like things complicated can't be bothered to download and install some simple mods.

Because some of Bethesda´s decisions show a lack of respect for their customers.
The interface suffers from consolitis. Modders fixed this within days - but why should a customer have to download a mod if the solution was obviously trivial? Bethesda never should have shipped the PC version without an optimized interface.
The German translation contains masses of bugs and incomprehensible abbreviations (written German is usually longer than English). It can only be correctly described with the word "incompetent". Modders fixed a gazillion bugs, more than 1500 AFAIR. Bethesda decided not to address the issue, even though it was clear they had insisted to do this part of the localisation in-house. The pretty good manual and voices were done by Take 2 Germany.
Then remember the first few downloable mini add-ons.

Originally Posted by ShadowMoses
I always had the opposite opinion, that being that vampires were pretty mainstream - Buffy and all that… .

That was my thought when I looked into the sales numbers, and apparently while the TV show was very popular RPG-ers want high-fantasy stuff, plus it was rated for adults in most locations.

Oh come on Gorath. How many times do you think we got german text on the screen in the english Gothic 2 / NoTR? Plenty. At least Bethesda designed the game so that modders could go ballistic with high quality contributions. How much respect does Bethesda get for that? Not a hell of a lot. Read the official forums - they get spit in the face in the modding forum 24 hours a day and its sickening.

I'm no Bethesda fanboy, but bottom line is - Oblivion is pretty much fixed if you take the time to install some mods. That's a HOLY HELL of alot more than you can say for good ole broken ass Gothic 3.

Originally Posted by ToddMcF2002
Oh come on Gorath. How many times do you think we got german text on the screen in the english Gothic 2 / NoTR? Plenty.

You have no idea how broken Oblivion´s translation was. It was much worse than overlooking 100 words in the whole game. It was "All your base are belong to us" niveau.

At least Bethesda designed the game so that modders could go ballistic with high quality contributions. How much respect does Bethesda get for that? Not a hell of a lot. Read the official forums - they get spit in the face in the modding forum 24 hours a day and its sickening.

That´s a shame. They deserve a lot of credit for their modding support.

I'm no Bethesda fanboy, but bottom line is - Oblivion is pretty much fixed if you take the time to install some mods.

That´s not the point. Most users ignore mods. The only way everyone can get the full experience is if Bethesda delivers an official patch. Even if they only relabel a mod. Only box plus patches counts. The rest is optional.

That's a HOLY HELL of alot more than you can say for good ole broken ass Gothic 3.

Well, we can talk about this in 6 months.

Originally Posted by Gorath
That´s not the point. Most users ignore mods. The only way everyone can get the full experience is if Bethesda delivers an official patch. Even if they only relabel a mod. Only box plus patches counts. The rest is optional.

Well it sure is a big shame then. Its an awefully enormous achievement to not play because people won't consider mods. That is afterall, one of the chief advantages of the Besthesda open architecture.

Even playing some of the lighter rebalancing mods like Franscesco's you'll get your head handed to you pretty quickly Risk reward! Obscuro is still king though - if anyone cares.