Gothic II
| Gothic II | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio |
 Piranha bytes
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| Publisher |
 JoWooD
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
November 29, 2002 | ||
| platform | Windows | ||
| Game engine | ZenGin 2.0 from Piranha Bytes | ||
| genre | Action RPG | ||
| Subject | Fantasy | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Keyboard , mouse | ||
| medium | CD / DVD, download | ||
| language | German | ||
| Current version | v2.60 | ||
| Age rating |
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Gothic II is the second part of the Gothic computer game series and, like its predecessor Gothic, was developed by the German development studio Piranha Bytes . The game was published in 2002 by the publisher JoWooD for Windows systems. In 2006 the sequel Gothic 3 was released .
action
Gothic II follows on from the first part. After the magical barrier falls, ore mining comes to a standstill. King Rhobar II orders his paladins to sail to Khorinis and get new ore. Upon arrival, the paladins take control of the port city of Khorinis . You send an expedition troop into the valley of mines to stimulate ore mining. Since the war raged in Myrtana , no more merchant ships have docked in Khorinis . Food is becoming scarce in the city and the militias are demanding more and more taxes from the surrounding farms. There is a peasant revolt against the city under the leadership of the great farmer Onar.
Xardas frees the nameless hero from the remains of the sleeper temple from Gothic . The last command of the sleeper before the hero banished him in Gothic was: "Come". The orcs are under the command of dragons followed the call and besiege the expeditionary force in the castle in the Valley of Mines. The hero is tasked with looking for the 'Eye of Innos' and getting it for himself. With this artifact it is possible to tame the dragons for a short time and to force them to answer some questions.
After some exertion, the hero finds the eye.
The hero questions and kills all four dragons in the valley of mines. With the ship of the paladins and a crew that the hero puts together himself, you drive to the island of Irdorath, where the last dragon is. The last dragon, an undead dragon, the Avatar of Beliars, is killed by the hero. Xardas absorbs the power of the undead dragon before she can re-enter Beliar's dimension. Xardas is now Beliar's avatar, but does not obey Beliar.
The crew and the hero set course for mainland Myrtana.
Game world
Gothic II is set on the island of Khorinis . The mine valley of the first part is not accessible in some places. In contrast to the mine valley, the main part of the island is covered by thick vegetation. The end of the game takes place inside the island of Irdorath . In contrast to the rest of the world, however, this is quite small.
Much of the island's population lives in the fortified port city of Khorinis , which is located in the west of the island. It is divided into the harbor district , in which poorer people live, the lower town , where the master craftsmen and traders pursue their occupation, and the upper town , in which the headquarters of the paladins and the houses of the richest and most distinguished citizens are located.
As in the first Gothic part, the game world includes creatures and animals to be defeated that are also on the paths to and from Khorinis. In addition to orcs and dragons, these are lizard people, various goblins and trolls , undead such as skeletons, zombies and seekers as well as, depending on the region, meat bugs, field robbers, molerats, giant rats, wolves, scavengers, grasshoppers, wargs, snapper, razors, snatchers, bloodhounds and flies, lurkers, monitor lizards, boars, swamp sharks and gas drones, minecrawlers, minecrawler warriors and shadow walkers. The plant world that can be picked provides strengthening of vitality and abilities.
In addition to the town, there are a few farms on the island. The farmers are partly self-employed and partly tenants of the local large farmer Onar . On Onar's farm is the mercenary camp, which is largely led by Lee. To the north of Onar's court is the Monastery of the Fire Mages. This is where the fire magicians and their novices live and practice the arts of magic .
The mine valley consists of five regions. Four of them shaped the dragons according to their wishes. The last region, the castle, is dominated by the people. Around this there are many smaller orc camps that completely surround and besiege the castle. The castle can only be entered via a ramp consisting of a destroyed battering ram . In the north of the mine valley is the Ork Wall, behind which the Orc troops gather.
Jharkendar , which can only be entered in the add-on, is located in the north of Khorini. There is a kind of microcosm that has developed independently of the other parts of Khorini. In the east there is a large swamp in which bandits live in a camp around the former Archbaron Raven. In the middle is an abandoned city of the Old People , in which the water magicians have taken up their quarters. Pirates have set up camp on the west coast. From there they kidnapped people from Khorinis to sell to Raven. The bandits and the pirates have recently been hostile to each other.
Irdorath is an island west of Khorinis on which the eastern Beliar temple is located. The orcs use this island as an advanced base for their invasion of Khorinis. The undead dragon that commanded the invasion of Khorinis is based here in a cave.
Gameplay
Character development
The character receives experience points for fulfilling orders, so-called quests, and defeating opponents, through which his "level" is increased. Each time you level up, the hero's life is increased. In addition, the character receives 10 learning points with which he can improve his skills with the help of teachers. This includes archery, fighting with one-handed and two-handed weapons, forging, cracking locks, theft and magic. The following status values can also be increased: Strength, Mana and Dexterity.
Guilds
In the course of the game you can decide which of the three main guilds you want to join. The urban militia (later paladins), the mercenaries living in the countryside (later dragon hunters), and the novices living in the monastery (later fire magicians) are available. As in the first part, the game requires a guild membership in order to reach the second chapter of the plot and thus continue the course of the game. In addition, the joining of secret or underground guilds, the Ring of Water and Cassia's thieves' guild, tw. only possible in the add-on "The Night of the Raven".
technology
The graphic engine already used in Gothic was used for Gothic II and the add-on . In addition to the extended range of vision and a larger number of polygons for the wire mesh models of the objects and characters, the game above all offers higher-resolution textures for depicting landscapes.
reception
Reviews
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According to the website Metacritic , Gothic II is ranked 33rd among the best PC games of all time according to user ratings (as of April 26, 2020).
Awards and sales success
By January 31, 2003, within two months, over 100,000 copies of Gothic II had been sold in Germany , which gave the game a gold award from the Association of Entertainment Software Germany (VUD), which has now been dissolved .
According to the online magazine Golem.de , the main game had sold more than 200,000 copies and more than 100,000 copies of the add-on by February 2004 .
In January 2005, the announcement by the French publisher Bigben Interactive about the release of the game in France said that more than 350,000 pieces were sold in Germany (“across the Rhine”) and that Gothic would hit the whole of Europe with 500,000 copies.
According to the German game journalist Jörg Langer , Gothic II sold 200,000 times both at the full price of 50 euros and at the “hammer price” for 10 euros each.
The Gamestar gave the game an award at the Game of the Year 2002 in the category: Best RPG.
Gothic II: The Night of the Raven (Add-on)
| Gothic II - The Night of the Raven | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio |
Piranha bytes
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| Publisher |
JoWooD
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
August 22, 2003 | ||
| platform | PC ( Windows ) | ||
| Game engine | ZenGin 2.0 from Piranha Bytes | ||
| genre | Action RPG | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Keyboard , mouse | ||
| medium | CD / DVD | ||
| language | German | ||
| Current version | 2.6nfx (2003) Unofficial script patch (2005) |
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The Night of the Raven is the official expansion for Gothic II . It fits into the plot of Gothic II . The add-on complements the main game with new tasks, new locations, new weapons and new characters. Due to a revision of the game mechanics, the level of difficulty has been increased significantly at the request of the community. Most of the plot of the expansion to the newly accessible Jharkendar peninsula takes place in the first third of the main game.
action
Already at the beginning of the game, Xardas tells that Raven, who is already known to the nameless hero from the first Gothic, is looking for Beliar's claw, the counterpart of the Eye of Innos. Stone guardians of an ancient culture are brought to life and Khorinis Island is struck by earthquakes. In addition, people are disappearing from the city of Khorinis. The hero goes on a journey to solve these puzzles. In the city he is taken into the ring of water. He arrives at Jharkendar through a portal. The missing people were kidnapped by pirates and sold to the bandits to work as cheap labor in Raven's mine in the Jharkendar swamp. To get to Raven, the hero sneaks into the bandits. In the end you meet Raven, who has already got the sword 'The Claw of Beliar'. The Nameless Hero kills Raven and takes the sword. The water mages stay in Jharkendar to research the history of the ancient people who previously lived there.
Modifications
In order to be able to play mods with Gothic II , the add-on Die Nacht des Raben in the current version 2.6 is required in any case , since the creation of modifications was only made possible by the extension. In addition, GothicStarter version 2.6f is required, which allows you to easily scroll through the installed modifications and start them accordingly. Over 100 mods have been developed so far. Some acquaintances are z. E.g. VarusBikerEdition, which adds some new features to Gothic II - The Night of the Raven and introduces various new NPCs, various side quests, etc. Another very well-known modification is called "The Return" and originally comes from Russian modders, but was replaced by a German team completely translated into German. This modification extends the original game significantly by introducing a completely new main quest, various side quests, a variety of NPCs and items into the world. In addition, the previously known ending will be expanded by two more chapters and an alternative ending will be added. Furthermore, a functioning server for multiplayer has now appeared.
The largest Gothic II modification to date, "Odyssey - on behalf of the King 2.6", on the other hand, not only exceeds the length of the original game, it even reaches Gothic 3 in terms of length. More than 200 hours of playing time await the player. In addition to 642 quests, new features, many new worlds, a complete voice output, lots of new monsters and guilds, a story is told in seven chapters that takes place at the time when the nameless hero goes to Myrtana.
Open source re-implementations
With REGoth is since 2017 open source , freeware - reimplementation of the original game engine for Gothic and Gothic II: Night of the Raven in development that will enable future natively to play the game on Linux and Windows. The team has set itself the goal of correcting technical errors and increasing performance and compatibility with current hardware. The project was founded with the idea of implementing a native co-op mode in the game. The integration of an interpreter for the game's internal scripts should also make it possible to play existing modifications.
Web links
- Official website of the developer Piranha Bytes
- World of Gothic - an extensive German fansite with current information and downloads, as well as a community.
- Extensive databases on Gothic 2 and the add-on Die Nacht des Raben
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Luibl: Gothic 2 - test, role play, PC. In: 4Players.de . November 29, 2002, accessed June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Mick Schnelle: Gothic 2 in the test - Outstanding role-playing game from Germany. In: GameStar . January 1, 2003, accessed June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Gothic 2 in the Gamezone test. In: Gamezone. December 3, 2002, accessed August 12, 2019 .
- ↑ Tanja Bunke: Don't torch for long! In: PC Action . No. 12/2002 . Computec Media , December 2012, p. 76-81 .
- ↑ Thomas Weiß: Successor to the German role-playing game. In: PC Games . December 20, 2002, accessed June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Metacritic: Metacritic - best PC games according to user rating. Retrieved April 26, 2020 (English).
- ↑ VUD-SALES-AWARDS - January 2003. (No longer available online.) In: VUD . January 2003, archived from the original on April 22, 2003 ; accessed on August 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Thorsten Wiesner: Gold Edition for Gothic II comes in March 2004. In: Golem.de . February 20, 2004, accessed August 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Bigben annonce l'arrivée de Gohtic II en France. (No longer available online.) In: afjv.com. January 3, 2005, archived from the original on October 20, 2005 ; retrieved on August 21, 2019 (French): “Sorti en November 2002, Gothic II était plus qu'attendu et n'a pas déçu! The new episode de la saga cumule plus of 350,000 pieces outre-Rhin, toutes éditions confondues. La tornade Gothic s'abat sur l'Europe entière avec plus de 500,000 copies. "
- ^ Jörg Langer : Budget games - backbone of the game industry. (No longer available online.) In: Jörg Spielt. Archived from the original on June 29, 2007 ; accessed on August 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Game of the Year 2002: Mafia. In: GameStar . February 14, 2003, accessed June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Piranha Bytes: Add-on Patch 2.6 . World of Gothic. October 22, 2003. Retrieved on August 4, 2011: “ The patch fixes various bugs in the game. These include improvements in the story (e.g. dialog changes), changes to the game balancing and some engine bug fixes. "
- ↑ Fizzban: Unofficial addon script patch . World of Gothic. March 26, 2005. Retrieved on April 5, 2011: “ Since no further patch for DNDR 2.6 is expected from the PBs, I have created an unofficial patch that fixes some of the worst bugs. "
- ↑ Gothic 2 Die Nacht des Raben Test report In: pcgames.de September 14, 2003. Accessed November 30, 2010.
- ↑ Downloads → Gothic 2 → Mods overview on World of Gothic of Gothic 2 mods (accessed December 30, 2011)
- ↑ Degenerated: REGoth-Engine forum contribution by the project founder Degenerated in the forum of World of Gothic (accessed May 27, 2019)
Gothic (2001) | Gothic II (2002) | Gothic II: The Night of the Raven (2003) | Gothic 3 (2006) | Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung (2008) | Gothic 3: The Beginning (2008) | Arcania - Gothic 4 (2010) | Arcania - Fall of Setarrif (2011)