EvaUnit02 on 5/10/2008 at 16:37
(
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40628.html) Gothic 3 expansion: Forsaken Gods - Teaser.
Quote:
(
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,662135/News/Gothic_3_Forsaken_Gods_undndash_New_screenshots_and_first_performance_impressions/) source
Contrary to the main game that was developed by Piranha Bytes in Germany, the add-on, developed in India by Trine Games, has a smaller world which therefore is more populated with NPCs. Furthermore Trine Games set a high value on giving NPCs an independent life. There are a lot of changes on technical matters, too. The basic technology is still the Genome Engine.
New animations and new shaders for dynamic shadows and effects like heat haze will improve the detailed optics of Gothic 3 even further. There are a lot of changes to the combat system, too. Because of the heavy critique on the catastrophic performance, the Indian developers reduced the overall geometry rate and the range of visibility to receive a better performance.
Since Jowood's Community Manager Johann Ertl gave us the technical specifications of the demonstration PC and we were allowed to run Fraps on the system, we can estimate if the optimization work was successful.
On the system with its Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz), a Geforce 8800 GTS (512 MiByte) and 2 GiByte RAM, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods was running with 30 to 35 fps on average at a resolution of 1,024 x 768 with all details and quad anisotropic filtering. In areas with few NPCs or objects like trees, bushes or houses the framerate went up to 45 fps. On the other hand it dropped to 25 fps if a lot of objects and characters are visible.
The loading lags when entering a new area of the game, are still there, but show up randomly only. This is one of the things the developers have to improve a little. They still got some time until the scheduled release in November.We put a lot of screenshots in the gallery so you can get your own impression of the add-on's graphics.
Ouch, only managing 30-35fps avg on a machine with those specs at a pitiful resolution of 1024x768.
addink on 5/10/2008 at 21:25
Reduced visibility? For me some of the core attractions in Gothic are the landscape and its vistas..
*grumble* I'll probably pick it up anyway..
The_Raven on 5/10/2008 at 21:27
I wonder if this outsourcing game development to India is going to gain acceptance.
Hesche on 6/10/2008 at 08:44
Also pretty weak trailer. Probably going to skip that one (or wait for it showing up in the bargain bins) and go straight to Gothic 4.
gunsmoke on 9/10/2008 at 15:05
I am a huge, huge fan of the first 2 games (and especially NotR). I bought Gothic 3, and after an hour I uninstalled it, threw it on a shelf, and finally traded it to someone for a Half-Life 2 EP:1 gift. I felt ripped off by Gothic 3. It was the worst RPG I have played in recent memory, the world was too different from the first 2 1/2 games, and the performance was ridiculous. It crashed constantly, and the bugs were too many to count.
Why oh WHY did they bother expanding that piece of crap? It was embarrassing. They should just move the franchise on and forget about it. Honestly, Gothic 4 will probably be fucked, as well. It won't be Gothic w/out Piranha Bytes (and those hilarious dialogs :D ).
Zygoptera on 9/10/2008 at 20:25
There's an expansion because their contract with PB allows them to use "Gothic" for one sequel, and one expansion before it reverts to PB. That is presumably why they've renamed Gothic4 too, if it performs well they'll try using "Arcania" as a brand continuation to get around them losing the licence.
Oh yeah, and because G3 sold around 1 million copies.
addink on 9/10/2008 at 21:23
Also, the patches fix a lot of issues. But having a good system is still kinda mandatory.
And, yes Gothic3 takes some getting used to, but it is well worth the time. The world is huge and diverse and a joy to explore.
gunsmoke on 15/10/2008 at 18:02
Quote Posted by doctorfrog
And I can't even get Gothic 1 to run on my PC :(
What's the problem?
EvaUnit02 on 23/11/2008 at 16:33
So, has anyone played Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods yet? It was released late last week.
Zygoptera on 23/11/2008 at 23:49
You could check out the (**Warning** spoilers though the Arcania info gives most of it away) (
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=496903) thread at the World of Gothic if you want opinions. There's also some commentary at RPGWatch and Qt3 (both from the same guy, I recommend the (
http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=48942) Qt3 one for the JoWood FG ad). Not pretty.
I liked Gothic 3 (I'm slowly replaying it at the moment, hilariously my 7600GT plays it at 1440x full details perfectly fine excluding mandatory load pausing while some people with premium cards get slideshows) but this would be a distinctly marginal bargain bin buy even without the general reaction.
