Gothic 2

[mr burns 132]

Those games are getting dangerous, seriously!

The higher the details, the more realistic the characters, the greater the world the more will one be stuck in this world. Players will go home, close the shutter and play till late at night. That might realy cause isolation!  

All this discussion about ego-shooters and the risk of increased agression is, in my eyes, less important. I think isolation and waste of time is much more of a risk!

of course some people will go wack on these games, but others won´t.

it´s probably the same as with the D&D boardgames (or pokemon    ), these 2nd ego kind of games will allways be a welcome diversion for bored people and they know how to handle it.

gothic3 is looking awesome, wonder what the recommended system settings are  

[Daddl 10]

Hey, that's what we (lucky ones) have a wife for. To get us away from that machine and out into the fresh air, meeting other (real) people and to learn talking about more than CPUs & GPUs, FPS, coding & other nerd stuff. It works, trust me!

There's always some time for a good game - and if it's just a weekend sometimes or a few hours once in a while. Without loosing all social contacts, too. If you risk getting lonely in the process it's got more causes than just the game (that's the addiction, not the reason you become addicted).

Anyways, this is about the Gothic series of games. So let's keep it on topic. If you want to start discussing the general effects of gaming on people's social life, please open another thread.

As for the system specs: I would guess a modern system (AthlonXP 3200+ or P4 3GHz, 1GB Ram and a good DirectX 9 GFX card) should run it fine. After all they plan to release it this year.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

did you mention/see the trailer of Gothic3 or did you not?

Well anyway you got the link now!

http://www.worldofgothic.de/dl/index.php?go=downloads&file_id=153

[Daddl 10]

Nice find! The teaser site didn't have that on when I looked last time. Graphics look awesome, especially with those rhinos charging through the woods!

[marcusjm 0]

Have they implemented riding in this?

I'm surprised that not more fantasy RPG:s have that.

BM

[Baphomet 0]

The game could have been good. However as I recall I really hated the fact that the animations sucked... the controls sucked and the combat although better than something like Diablo... still sucked. I recall something about my not liking the camera either... but either way. The weird character animations which looked almost stop-motion'y to me at times and the weird controls left a bad taste in my mouth.

Couldn't enjoy it.

As a side note. The weird animation problems weren't an issue of performance, as the game itself ran at decent frames. It just had really lousy animation.

[Daddl 10]

I think you recall wrong - the animations, at least in the second part, are quite ok. The controls were also quite easy after you got used to them. Also, just because a game doesn't use the standard FPS controls doesn't mean it's hard to control. All you have to do is take a bit of time to get used to them.

Pity, you missed a great story.

[Baphomet 0]

A story is just something that makes the bits in between gameplay more enjoyable.

I still say the animations were cockeyed and something felt just not quite right about them.

[Daddl 10]

Well, I guess in that case we seem to have different opinions about what the point of roleplaying games is. In my opinion the story is the main thing with that kind of games (in contrast to shooters or games like OFP), and everything else secondary. In an rpg you are part of the story, wheras in other games the story just delivers the context for your actions.

[kavoven 4]

RPG= Role Play Game == Story!

Without a story you have no RPG!

[EiZei 0]

RPG= Role Play Game == Story!

Without a story you have no RPG!

Lack of story doesn't seem to reduce the popularity of certain hack'n'slashes or not to mention MMORPGs.

Don't get me wrong, I think plots are severely lacking these days, hell, I was playing infocom text adventure just 15 minutes ago.

[Baphomet 0]

A plot is nice, but. If it restricts your ability to create your -own- experiences, I really don't care much for it.

Daggerfall, Fallout, and Jagged Alliance 2 were my all time favorite RPGs, they all had gameplay that I could really engage myself in that didn't result in a bunch of monotonous clicking and redundant battles that were resolved by selecting attacks from a menu or whatnot. (*coughfinalfantagaycoughcoughcough*)

You can still play a role and not be hindered or constrained by a rigid plot, and I think a lot of the time the emphasis of story versus gameplay is just an overcompensatory defense for a lack of good design. There's nothing saying you can't have a reasonably good story and actually have fun while playing the game. In my opinion, a story should complement what you choose to do. Not force you to constantly make comprimises with the game just so you can see the next cinematic.

[Daddl 10]

A plot is nice, but. If it restricts your ability to create your -own- experiences, I really don't care much for it.

Well, while I have to admit that Fallout 1&2 were great RPGs, I never considered jagged Alliance to be one. For me Jagged Alliance was more a kind of tactical/strategy game. Fun, but not a typical RPG. And Fallout had it's boring hack&slash parts, too - just think of all those random encounters (oh, no yet another scorpion/bandit filled hideout...).

So maybe that's it: you prefer more tactical fighting with less story, while others prefer a dense story that may (in your opinion) somewhat limit their freedom but otherwise provides them with a great atmosphere while still letting them choose their own paths. Gothic definitely belongs more to the latter sort of games. That doesn't make it a bad game (on the contrary!), just one that doesn't suit you!

As for cut scenes - I haven't seen any rpgs in ages where the story was told primarly through cut scenes. That kind of story telling is only used in shooters like OFP or similar games.