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2006-09-12 - Gothic 3 has reached Goldmaster Status

At 02:20 this morning Gothic 3 has been shipped to Sony Austria for replication. This means that after more than three and a half years of time development has been finished. Gothic 3 is scheduled for release on October 13th in various European countries

 

[Mejilan]

Tell me this has been picked up for US release, please.

 

[Ravager61]

According to EB its on tap for a Nov release.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Neat. I didn't know it was so close to release (regardless of in which country).

 

[antispin]

BRING IT ON!

 

[bigmit3737]

Any news on a demo being released?

 

[jakershaker]

So does it have the same shitty controls as always? The first 2 were hard because you had to fight the controls more than you fought enemies.

 

[syllogism]

For the billionth time, YOU COULD CONFIGURE IT TO CONTROL JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME OF THIS GENRE.

Back to Gothic III, so english and german version will be released simultaneously?

 

[spritex]

I got used to the G1&2 controls after a couple of hours playing. And I quite liked them after that...

 

[Blackace]

For the billionth time, YOU COULD CONFIGURE IT TO CONTROL JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME OF THIS GENRE.

Back to Gothic III, so english and german version will be released simultaneously?

do you know if it can take a game pad? a wired 360 controller and this game would be sexy...

 

[jakershaker]

For the billionth time, YOU COULD CONFIGURE IT TO CONTROL JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME OF THIS GENRE.

Back to Gothic III, so english and german version will be released simultaneously?

It was still damn hard to get anything that would resemble good controls.

Sry, but controls is what makes Gothic a substandard series, everything else is ace. They just need to polish their games a little, *hopes for Gothic 3*.

 

[-SD-]

Sry, but controls is what makes Gothic a substandard series, everything else is ace. They just need to polish their games a little, *hopes for Gothic 3*.

Actually, the controls were polished and also fully configurable, they do not need "fixing", like some people have said.

The challenging combat controls, no potion shortcut keys etc. was all intentional. You can change the combat controls to a one click hack 'n slash system and enable potion keys etc. by editing the Gothic.ini file.

If you look at the Gothic.ini (in Gothic 2) you'll find these:

useGothic1Controls=1
; ... if you set this one to 0 you will have another fight interface (one key to attack).
; we feel the gothic 1 interface is more challenging, so we set the old controls to default
; with the new interface, the focus nsc stays locked until you move the mouse. in this mode
; the side attacks are being accessed with additional side attack keys.

usePotionKeys=0
; ... with this value you are allowed to use the potion keys if set to "1". potionkeys do not work and are not visible in the keyboard settings if you leave this to "0"
; we feel potion shortkeys suck in gameplay, so you will manually have to enable them here

Gothic controls do not suck. You suck

 

[Blackace]

Gothic controls do not suck. You suck

What if the people who think the controls were bad (I am one of them) didn't care about potion hotkeys and all that? I just thought the contols were poor.. not quite game breaker but damn close...

 

[snaildog]

I'm playing through Gothic for the first time right now, and while the controls were awkward to begin with they're no problem at all after about an hour. I'm not excusing them, because they're not that well designed, but I've always liked learning the new controls in a game anyway and just see it as part of the challenge. We don't need standardised controls across each genre; part of the reasons I'm sick of first-person shooters is that a lot of them all play like the exact same game.

 

[GreenNight]

I have beaten Gothic 1, Gothic 2 and Gothic 2 Gold and I can say I wouldnt want the controls any other way. Hopefully I have the option to give Gothic 3 the exact same control structure.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Gothic 2 was pretty cool this might be interesting

 

[Xenon]

Gothic's controls are unorthodox but you can learn them with some effort. I think the main issue people have with them is the need to have to press the attack button and then hit the joystick to preform an attack. Also having no quick keys for healing potions(without hacking the ini) makes the game much harder than anything else out there. They were going for realism with this. They wanted to make it much hard to pull out a potion and heal mid battle.

I'm not saying its the players fault but the Madden effect comes into play here. People are just used to games playing a certain way and anything that differs from that is considered bad.

 

[Jarmer]

and while the controls were awkward to begin with they're no problem at all after about an hour. I'm not excusing them, because they're not that well designed, but I've always liked learning the new controls in a game anyway and just see it as part of the challenge. We don't need standardised controls across each genre; part of the reasons I'm sick of first-person shooters is that a lot of them all play like the exact same game.

exactly... I felt the same way the first time I started on Gothic 2.

and as for Gothic 3, man I'd love to get this one, but I think it'd make my 9800xt implode on itself.

 

[snaildog]

I think the main issue people have with them is the need to have to press the attack button and then hit the joystick to preform an attack.

I think calling it an 'attack button' throws a lot of people off. In combat it's the 'lock on' button, just like the Z button in Ocarina of Time, and the arrows are the attack buttons. Works fine for me.

And yeah drinking potions in the middle of combat is one of the ridiculous things that should be gone from all RPGs. In Gothic there are enemies that you just can't beat until you're the right level; in a lot of games you can get through tougher enemies by just stocking up on healing things, but in this you just have to be able to beat them in fair combat. Makes the game a lot more fun for me.

 

[syllogism]

PC Gamer preview:

"It's hard not to feel a little sorry for the creators of the Gothic series. Few gamers are aware that a surprising amount of what made Bethseda's Oblivion so great in early 2006- loads of voiced dialog, elements of its combat system, and its life-like AI routines that allowed NPCs to go about their daily business in a lifelike way- had already been done brilliantly in Gothic 2 back in 2003. Clunky controls and an unwieldy UI led to relatively weak sales of G2 in the US, so there will be plenty of gamers coming to Gothic 3 this fall thinking it's merely an Oblivion knock-off. Oh, how wrong they'll be. In fact, Gothic 3 is shaping up to be the Oblivion many of us wish we'd gotten.
G3 is a first/third-person RPG set in a fantastical open-ended land filled with over 50 unique monsters, 50 spells, countless weapons, armor, loot, and quests. Its class-free character development system lets you train your character in a wide variety of physical combat disciplines and magical powers. Sounds familiar, right? But unlike most RPGs, G3 places you in a land after it has suffered a major defeat, one that has no relation to anything you did in earlier chapters. Orcs have invaded the world and made mankind their slaves, and you're one of only a handful of free humans remaining. It's up to you to decide if you want to go out of your way to save your fellow humans or your own hide.
What I found most interesting and surprisingly invigorating as I played an early build of G3 is the absence of a sense of impending doom. The worst, it seems, is over, and rather than running around in a panic, closing "dimensional gates," I felt like a real adventurer in a real medieval land, taking missions at my own pace without feeling like I was being forced down a path.
That's not to say that the world was sitting around waiting for me. In stark contrast to Oblivion, if you don't finish many of the quests in G3 within a certain period of time, events will play out on their own. For example, you may be asked to help the humans storm a castle that has been overrun by orcs. You can go along on the raid with your AI buddies and help turn the tide, but if you don't, and you go to that castle later, you may find that the battle has already happened and that either the humans or the orcs have won.
Graphically, G3 is up there with Oblivion- a little worse in places (e.g., low-res ground textures), but a little better in others (e.g., draw distance)- and the world has a grittier, dirtier, more lived-in feel. One aspect where it has Oblivion beat hands-down is load times: Once G3 starts up, there are none- the world streams in seamlessly.
As someone who loved Oblivion and appreciated its huge variety of voiced dialog, even I must admit that the game's limited number of voice actors made NPCs seem generic, but Piranha assured me that G3's 20+ hours of voice dialog are being recorded by a whopping 25 actors, hopefully ensuring that the game's hundreds of unique-looking NPCs also have distinct personalities.
With its controls and UI finally up to modern standards and the series' revolutionary features blinged out like never before, Gothic 3 is poised to give ravenous RPG fans their largest, juiciest meal since Bethseda fed them at the start of the year." -Greg Vederman

 

[zon]

****, why does it have to be released only seven days before NWN2?