Gothic 3

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Gothic 3
Gothic 3 Logo PC game Piranha Bytes.png
Studio GermanyGermany Piranha Bytes , Mad Vulture Games (Enhanced Edition)
GermanyGermany
Publisher AustriaAustria JoWooD , Deep Silver
GermanyGermany
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 October 13, 2006
platform Windows
Game engine Genome engine
genre Action RPG
Subject Fantasy
Game mode Single player
control Keyboard , mouse
system advantages
preconditions
medium DVD-ROM , download
language German
Current version v1.75.14 (Enhanced Edition / Community Patch)
copy protection Tagès V5.5.2.1 / X-Prot V2
From Community Patch  1.5.2 removed
Age rating
USK released from 12
PEGI recommended for ages 16+

Gothic 3 is the third part of the four-part Gothic computer game series from the developer Piranha Bytes . The game was released in 2006 for Windows systems.

action

The plot of the third part follows on from the events of Gothic II . The nameless hero leaves the island of Khorinis with the ship Esmeralda and returns to the mainland with his friends Diego, Gorn, Lester, Lee, Lares, Angar and Milten. They land on the banks of the Middle Kingdom of Myrtana near the settlement of Ardea and are directly involved in a battle with the orc occupiers. The orcs occupy Myrtana after a 10-year war and enslave the population. Only the capital, Vengard , protected by a magical barrier, can withstand the siege. Some rebel camps have spread out and are hiding from the orcs who are trying to stop any rebellions and destroy such groups. The Varant assassins have joined the orcs to keep out of the fighting, while the nomads oppose it. In Nordmar the Northmen defend their borders from the orcs, who want to put this area under their yoke as well. The nameless hero and friends split up after the fight and explore the mainland. The protagonist learns that the demon summoner Xardas commands the orcs and tries to find him and to confront him.

Game world

Gothic 3 plays on a fantasy game world divided into three areas : the icy Nordmar in the north, the Varant desert in the south and west and the densely forested Myrtana between Nordmar and Varant. The opponents differ from area to area. Scavengers, wolves, snapper, lurkers and monitor lizards can be found in abundance in the Swiss Plateau, many sand crawlers, jackals and lions in Varant and goblins, saber-toothed tigers, shadow runners and rippers in Nordmar.

With the exception of Vengard, the cities of Myrtana are ruled by the orcs. They always live in the city's castle, which can only be entered if the orcs have a certain reputation. In the depths of the forests one meets again and again small or large rebel camps. These can also have their central point in a cave. In Varant the assassins rule among the black magicians and in Nordmar there are some free clans of the people who have been able to push back the orcs from the north so far.

Factions

In Gothic 3 there are main and minor factions. These differ from the guilds known from their predecessors in that you cannot join any of these factions directly, but can only fulfill tasks that give you a reputation with the respective faction. The more reputation points you have with a faction, the better armor you can buy from merchants, and in some cases you need a certain number of reputation points to be able to enter certain locations. However, sooner or later in the course of the game you have to decide which main faction you want to join. The following factions appear in the game: rebels, Nordmarers, orcs, assassins, nomads and forest people.

Gameplay

Although the player slips into the role of the nameless hero like in the predecessors , his abilities can largely be adapted to your own style of play. What has remained the same is that you receive experience points for completed tasks, killed monsters, but also knocked unconscious opponents, which trigger an automatic level increase when a threshold is reached. For each new level you receive learning points for the individual development of the character. In contrast to its predecessor , the learning points for various NSC teachers can be invested not only in nine attributes that can be increased, but also in a total of 70 talents, which are divided into seven talent classes. These include combat, hunting, magic, blacksmithing, thieving, alchemy and other talents.

technology

graphic

A proprietary development called the Genome Engine is used as the graphics engine. At the beginning of the work, the manufacturer decided against licensing an existing engine, as none of the graphics engines available at the time would allow a game world without reloading zones. In addition to the seamless game world, the Genome Engine enables a high degree of foresight, a complex light and shadow system based on DirectX 9, a dynamic weather system, a depth of field effect, reflections, reflections and bloom effects without HDRR as well as support for the shaders - 3 technology and material shaders. The display of the vegetation is supported by the SpeedTree engine. Emotion FX 2 is used as the animation engine , the physics simulation is carried out by the licensed physics engine PhysX . According to the manufacturer, Gothic 3 is one of the first computer games to benefit from an optimization for dual-core processors . However, the dual-core optimization was first partially deactivated with patch 1.12 and then completely removed with the community patch 1.6, as the optimization was responsible for many of the game crashes (functions parallelized in threads were not thread-safe ).

music

The music was composed by Kai Rosenkranz and recorded by the orchestra of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Hans Jaskulsky, the taiko band " GOCOO " and the medieval band Corvus Corax . The vocals were performed with the choirs "FILMharmonic Choir" and "SAM Gospel Choir" and the singer Lisbeth Scott realized. The ethnic musicians Borislav Slavov and Benjamin Hessler also provided musical support with acoustic and electric guitars .

The soundtrack was included on CD with the Collector's Edition of the game and also released separately.

Soundtrack

  1. Title Theme - 3:56
  2. Opening Sequence - 0:56
  3. Xardas Tower - 1:46
  4. Vista Point - 2:57
  5. Ruinfields - 2:39
  6. Dark Presence - 1:41
  7. Orc Camp - 1:11
  8. From Silden To Trelis - 1:56
  9. Ominous Woods - 2:07
  10. Showdown - 1:39
  11. The Dig - 1:52
  12. Slaves - 1:11
  13. Divine Powers - 1:38
  14. Vengard Theme - 1:11
  15. Exploring Myrtana - 5:23
  16. Revolution - 1:12
  17. Northmar (Upper Level) - 1:34
  18. The Creation Of The Barrier - 1:32
  19. Vista Point Reprise - 1:30
  20. Desert Sun - 6:38
  21. Welcome To Varant - 0:45
  22. Northmar (Lower Level) - 2:55
  23. Sad Strings - 2:55
  24. The End - 0:55

Bonus title

  2. End Titles (bonus track) - 1:45
    piano piece
    Artist : Kai Rosenkranz
  3. In My Dreams - 4:08
    Music and Text: Esther Berlansky , Bob Kane
    Artist: Alice Taylor
  4. Is Nomine Vacans - 3:42
    Music and text: Andreas Kolinski
    Interpret: Corvus Corax
  5. Welcome To The Bronx - 3:47
    Music and text: Andreas Kolinski, B. Breuning
    Artist: Shelly Quest
  6. Bring Back The Magic - 3:51
    Music and Text: Andreas Kolinski, Steve Baltes
    Remix : Steve Baltes

Speech output

The voice output was implemented with the help of 30 speakers. According to the developer, they synchronized around 25,000 lines of dialogue, which together correspond to around 18 hours of speech output. In addition to well-known speakers from the previous parts, such as Christian Wewerka as the Nameless Hero and Bodo Henkel as Xardas, Christian Schult , the son of Rolf Schult , dubbed King Rhobar II in the German version of the game.

copy protection

Gothic 3 is not, as previously thought, with the Star Force - copy protection features, but with Tagès protected V5.5.2.1 / X-Prot V2. However, this was removed with Community Patch 1.5.2. The decision was made to take this step because some international Gothic 3 versions use a different copy protection than the European versions, which led to incompatibilities with the Community Patch.

Development history

The test version of Gothic 3 still contained numerous bugs (bugs), so the time allotted for the mass production version of the game was withdrawn and production began late. However, the announced release date was met. A patch appeared on the day of the release, which mainly corrected errors relating to quests and the interaction with party members and changed details of the user interface. According to Michael Paeck from publisher JoWooD , "[...] there are still a few small things to change, but nothing essential to fix."

In contrast, however, is the statement by Mike Hoge, the responsible producer at Piranha Bytes: “The fact that Gothic 3 was unfinished when it was released sucks. That people get upset about it is justified. We knew that Gothic 3 would not be bug-free when it was released, but we underestimated the extent of the problems that we would still have in the Goldmaster version. "

Five more official bug fixes ( patches ) appeared later . a. Corrected various causes of crashes, numerous graphic errors and the so-called memory bug that led to the loss of saved games. Since the game was not error-free even after the last official patch v1.12, another patch and an editor were in the works, according to the publisher. The separation of developer Piranha Bytes and publisher Jowood, however, meant that no further patch was released.

Community support

After the work on Gothic 3 by Piranha Bytes, developers and modders from the fan base agreed to develop so-called community patches with the support of the right-wing publisher Jowood in order to fix the remaining problems and deficiencies, some of which were serious. Several community patches have been published over many years. With the last community patch 1.75, which was the largest at 1.48  gigabytes , substantial improvements and corrections were made to the game, making the game playable. Added support for widescreen monitors, some new graphics card options (such as Fast Approximate Antialiasing ) and a shader cache , which should reduce jerking in the game flow. It was made available on April 27, 2012 by the Community Patch Team and officially authorized by the new rights holder Nordic Games , who had taken over the brand and license portfolio of the meanwhile insolvent publisher JoWooD. On April 2, 2012, the Swedish publisher announced two new editions of the game, the Gothic 3 Gold Enhanced Edition and the Gothic Complete Edition , each of which is based on version 1.75 of Gothic 3 .

After the mainly technical corrections to the Community Patch Project, content gaps and inconsistencies in the story and atmosphere of the previous Gothic parts are to be corrected by the Community Story Project (CSP). A release date has not yet been set.

In 2014 an additional patch and a data optimizer for the last enhanced version 1.75.14 became available, which fixed some of the remaining problems.

Modifications

One of the first modifications was limited to texture changes, specifically the change of the season in Myrtana from summer to autumn.

The most famous and most extensive modification at the moment is the so-called quest package, which integrates around one hundred additional tasks into the game and is available with German voice output from version v3. Most of the speakers come from the Gothic fan community. The current version v4 is compatible with patch 1.74 and contains some improvements in gameplay compared to v3, but no new quests.

For Gothic 3 there is no modkit published by the developers for creating or changing the world. That is why the development of modifications has become more difficult compared to the predecessors of the series . Such tools were, and still are, developed and made available occasionally by fans.

With the community patch 1.75 a Modkit called Genome Lite Edition was delivered with which game content can be changed and added.

Other platforms

For mobile phones , an offshoot was released on January 15, 2008 under the name Gothic 3: The Beginning by Jowood or its label Dreamcatcher . The plot of the game developed by HandyGames takes place around 140 years before the first Gothic part.

reception

Press review

editorial staff rating Later assessment Awards
Bravo Screenfun 1- (11/2006)
Computer picture games 2.77 (satisfactory) (12/2006)
Gamers.at 91% 88%
Games current 69% (1/2007)
GameStar 86% 87% (after patch v1.12)
  • 2006 PC Game of the Year
  • Best German game
  • Best adventure game
GamingXP 91%
PC action 87%
PC Games 88% 81% (07/2007)
PC PowerPlay 67/100 79/100 (after patch v1.12 in February 2007)
4players 68%
Games world 81%

According to the review aggregator Metacritic , Gothic 3 received mixed reviews internationally, which is reflected in a Metascore of 63 out of 100 points. The user ratings on Metacritic were a good bit better with 7.5 out of 10 points.

Awards

Gothic 3 won the German Developer Award 2006 in the categories of Best International PC Game , Best Story and Best Sound . In the Best German Game category , it only achieved 3rd place behind Anno 1701 and SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars .

At an award ceremony of the German computer game magazines GameStar and GamePro , the game received the Game of the Year 2006 award from GameStar readers. It also won in the categories Best Adventure Game PC and Best German Game . The winners were determined through a survey of the magazine's readers.

Sales figures

As early as the first week of sales, 150,000 units of Gothic 3 went over the counter, as PC Games reported on October 19, 2006, citing JoWooD and Deep Silver .

In December 2006, two months after publication, publisher JoWooD announced that the game had sold more than 350,000 times. The German trade magazine GameStar rates this as a great success, especially if you consider that sales in the USA have not yet been included and the title only recently started in Russia and Poland.

Subsequently, the game continued to sell well, with half a million copies sold at the beginning of March 2007.

Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung (Add-on)

Gothic 3 - Götterdämmerung
Gothic3 götterdämmerung-logo.png
Studio IndiaIndiaTrine Games Mad Vulture Games (Enhanced Edition)
GermanyGermany
Publisher AustriaAustria JoWooD
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 November 21, 2008
platform Windows
genre Action role playing game , computer role playing game
Game mode Single player
control Keyboard , mouse
system advantages
preconditions
medium DVD-ROM , download
language German
Current version v.2.01.08 (Enhanced Edition)
Age rating
USK released from 12
PEGI recommended for ages 16+

On April 14th, 2008 JoWooD announced an expansion for Gothic 3 , which was released on November 21st, 2008. In this add-on open questions from Gothic 3 are answered and a transition to the fourth part ( Arcania - Gothic 4 ) is created. The add-on can also be run without the basic game.

The add-on appeared internationally under the name Forsaken Gods , while in German-speaking countries it was called Götterdämmerung . This name was determined through ideas from fans with subsequent voting. Developer was not Piranha Bytes , as usual from the previous parts , but the Indian development studio Trine Games.

Like the main program, the add-on was criticized for numerous bugs after its release, including those that had already been fixed in the main program by patches . In an interview with the game magazine GameStar, the project manager Michael Kairat admitted these mistakes and justified them with an overly ambitious project schedule.

A larger official patch was released on March 23, 2011 and was developed by Mad Vulture Games . This fixes many bugs and provides new content and graphic improvements.

The game world of Götterdämmerung was taken over from the main game, but the desert of Varant and the icy region of Nordmar were omitted. The add-on does not contain any new play areas.

action

The story of the addon continues at the Xardas end of the main game. The gods in the game have left the world, but there is no peace in Myrthana. Different factions fight each other, which is why the Nameless Hero decides to return from the Unknown Land to bring peace and unity to the empire. The nameless hero and Xardas observe from a strange dimension how Thorus as the leader of the orcs and Gorn's rebel troops wage war. After a difference of opinion between Xardas and the hero, which ends in battle, the nameless man returns to Myrthana. In the course of the game the player in the form of the nameless hero has to choose one of two paths: You either follow Thorus who leads the orcs from Trelis or Gorn, who has settled in Gotha as the leader of the rebels. At the end of the game the hero declares himself regent and gives himself the name King Rhobar III.

reception

The reviews of Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung were mostly negative. Metacritic aggregated an average rating of 44 out of 100 points based on 10 reviews, while the average rating of users is even lower.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gothic 3 Enhanced Patch ( Memento from June 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Nordic Games, Patch for Gothic 3 to upgrade to the Enhanced Edition (April 27, 2012, English)
  2. ↑ PC Games Hardware, Issue 10/2006
  3. ↑ PC Games Hardware Online: Gothic 3: Technology talk with engine programmer Philipp Krause
  4. ↑ PC Games, issue 10/2006
  5. ↑ Piranha Bytes: Website for the Gothic 3 Soundtrack ( Memento from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Michael Krosta: Special: Gothic 3. In: 4Players . July 22, 2005, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Gothic 3: Special - Event Report. In: Gameswelt . July 12, 2005, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Gothic 3: Soundtrack in the Collectors Edition. In: GameZone. September 19, 2006, accessed September 28, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Gothic 3 Original Soundtrack - Kai Rosenkranz. In: Amazon.de . Retrieved September 28, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Piranha Bytes: voice recordings - Gothic 3 is brought up ( Memento from December 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ JoWooD (Ed.): Gothic 3 Manual . S. 50 ( akamaihd.net [PDF; 3.4 MB ; accessed on July 12, 2019]).
  12. ↑ Winfuture (July 10, 2006): Gothic 3 comes without Starforce copy protection
  13. ↑ Gothic 3: Community Patch released
  14. ↑ GameStar Online (October 12, 2006): Gothic 3: First patch released
  15. ↑ Krawall.de (October 20, 2006): Gothic 3: Interview with Michael Paeck, JoWooD
  16. ↑ GameStar Online (October 26, 2006): Gothic 3: Patch 2 almost finished, admission of guilt
  17. ↑ Piranha Bytes: Piranha Bytes and JoWood go their separate ways, press release of May 22, 2007, pdf document
  18. ↑ Jowood Forum on July 7, 2007: The Patch Project ( Memento from September 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (archived)
  19. ↑ PC Games (December 20, 2007): The next official patch for Gothic 3 will be released in early 2008
  20. ↑ Rainer Schuldt: Gothic 3: Fan-Patch 1.6 released . Computer picture . February 8, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  21. ↑ Andreas Sebayang: Gothic 3 Community Patch should fix almost all bugs - More than 700 changes in the last community patch . Golem.de . March 23, 2009. Retrieved April 3, 2011.
  22. ↑ Gothic 3 Gold Enhanced Edition and Gothic Complete Collection will be available in stores soon. In: World of Gothic. March 9, 2012, accessed June 24, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Thilo Bayer: Gothic 3 Community Story Project - Update: comparison pictures and YouTube video . pcgameshardware.de. January 3, 2010. Accessed on July 16, 2011: “ After the fans of Gothic 3 had already improved the role-playing game with Community Patch 1.7, the modders are now working on the Community Story project. "
  24. ↑ Zandr: [Release Gothic 3 v1.75 Update Pack] ( English ) worldofplayers.de. April 20, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2014: "" a new Gothic 3 Enhanced Edition v1.75 Update Pack (International) ""
  25. ^ [Announcement & beta release Gothic3 Clean Up] ( german ) worldofplayers.de. April 6, 2014. Accessed on January 9, 2015: “ The G3 Clean Up tool is intended to significantly alleviate the typical Gothic3 reloading stuttering. Furthermore, it can put the guru in his place due to lack of memory. "
  26. ↑ CzarnyAfgan: Discussion - GENERAL Gothic 3 FIX WISHLIST TOPIC ( English ) worldofplayers.de. June 9, 2013. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
  27. ↑ Publication of the QP4 at World of Gothic: Worldofgothic.de
  28. ↑ List of some Gothic 3 tools: Gothic3.net ( Memento from February 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  29. ↑ PC Games : Gothic 3: New patch 1.75 fixes bugs, brings ModKit and changes the game balance
  30. ↑ a b Christian Klaß: Gothic 3 - Patch and mobile role-playing game on the way. In: Golem . December 21, 2007, accessed June 24, 2019 .
  31. ↑ Will Freeman: Gothic 3: The Beginning. In: Pocket Gamer. January 16, 2008, accessed June 24, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Gothic 3 ( memento from November 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at gamers.at
  33. ↑ Peter Konhäusner: Review: Gothic 3 . gamingXP.com. October 18, 2006. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013.
  34. ↑ Gothic 3 for PC Reviews. Based on 39 reviews. In: Metacritic . Retrieved September 28, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Jens Ihlenfeld: German Developer Award 2006: Anno 1701 and Gothic 3 in front. In: Golem.de . December 14, 2006, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  36. ↑ Denise Bergert: German Developer Award 2006 - The winners have been chosen. In: GamePro . December 15, 2006, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  37. ↑ Rene Heuser: Game of the Year 2006 - Gothic 3 and Nintendo clear the most prizes. In: GameStar . February 2, 2007, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  38. ↑ Already enormous sales figures. In: PC Games . October 19, 2006, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Andreas Frischholz: Good sales figures for Gothic 3. In: ComputerBase . December 21, 2006, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  40. ↑ Michael Obermeier: Gothic 3 - Jowood publishes sales figures. In: GameStar . December 21, 2006, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Simon Holthausen: Gothic 3 cracks 500,000 - worldwide success. In: Eurogamer.de . March 9, 2007, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  42. ↑ a b Peter Schramm: About MVG. In: madvulture.de. 2010, archived from the original on March 26, 2011 ; accessed on April 3, 2011 (English): "Being part of the" Community Patch Team "formed to fix the great but bug-baiten" Gothic 3 "game, Mad Vulture Games was taking care of major coordination work, 3D model fixing and lots of other work for the Gothic 3 add-on "Forsaken Gods" Enhanced Edition, also being the producing company. "
  43. ↑ Andreas Philipp: Gothic 3 - Forsaken Gods: Expansion announced! In: Gameswelt . April 14, 2008, accessed August 18, 2019 .
  44. ↑ Gothic 3 - Götterdämmerung published. In: Gothic3.com. Accessed on September 27, 2019 : "Although it is titled as an add-on, the game can also be installed and played without Gothic 3."
  45. ↑ Gothic 3 AddOn - the name is fixed. In: JoWood .com. May 26, 2008, archived from the original on June 1, 2008 ; accessed on August 18, 2019 .
  46. ↑ GameStar interview with Michael Kairat Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung - Jowood answers questions from the community. In: GameStar . November 28, 2008, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  47. ↑ Gothic 3 - Götterdämmerung: Producer Jowood apologizes. In: Computer Picture Games . Retrieved September 27, 2019 .
  48. ↑ Christian Fritz-Schneider: Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung - Enhanced Edition Patch for download. In: GameStar . March 23, 2011, accessed August 18, 2019 .
  49. ↑ Christian Schmidt: Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung - Same game world, updated graphics. In: GameStar . August 20, 2008. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .
  50. ↑ Michael Lucas: Gothic Retrospective: Götterdämmerung. In: TVGC.de. March 1, 2017, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  51. ↑ Daniel Boll: Gothic 3 - Götterdämmerung: Review. In: GBase. January 6, 2009, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  52. ↑ Daniel Matschijewsky: Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung in the test - Contaminated with bugs - again. In: GameStar . November 23, 2008, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  53. ↑ Marion Lenke: Gothic 3: Götterdämmerung - It really dawns ... In: PC Games . April 5, 2010, accessed September 27, 2019 .
  54. ↑ Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods for PC Reviews. Based on 10 reviews. In: Metacritic . Retrieved September 28, 2019 .