Game Journal: Gothic 3

written on Monday, Feb. 2, 2009

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

I guess I should keep those spoiler warnings going. Someone might care some day.

I killed the undead priest. I got a crown. I turned in a bunch of quests. Then I went somewhere else.

Observant readers may notice a dearth of gusto in the storytelling at this point. Gothic 3 is beginning to feel very much like a "been there, done that" sort of experience. I show up at a town. I run a bunch of missions (usually involving killing a bunch of stuff) to get in good with the people who run it. Then I go do it again somewhere else. I must admit, though, the event pictured below still managed to surprise me.



All rise for the Sandcrawler national anthem (which is the sound of the Sandcrawler next to you getting hit by an arrow). I was just picking them off, one by one. (I can one shot them if I get a head shot.) But one arrow missed and woke up the whole group. This is actually the reduced group. The very first time I missed, something like ten Sandcrawlers all reared up and charged me. "And Bender ran."



Eventually, though, they succumbed, and I took screen shots of all the bodies. It came to 27 Sandcrawlers, all told. Obviously someone would reward me well for this feat of daring.



500 XP and no gold!? You suck, and I hate you forever! Plus you're plotting against the guy who runs the town. So you double suck. I'm going to do bad things to you later. Mark my words.

I ran a bunch of errands for the people in this town and the town further east where they smoke (swamp) weed all day. There are some slaves I'd like to save, but don't know who'll take them and a water mage being held prisoner I'll eventually want to release. But for the time being, I'm sick of that grind.



So it's back to the other grind. I'm thinking if a scene of high adventure like this doesn't get me going, it's time to drop the game for a while.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

written on Friday, Jan. 30, 2009

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

Plot Summary
I finally managed to get the five (!?) temple keys together and open the temple. This unleashed a plague of undead upon the land. I hoped that by killing whatever was in the temple, I could stop the plague.

Continuation
It was slow going. There are lots of undead in the temple, and killing them is a pain. Skeletons aren't too bad, since I've learned how to spam them to death. But mummies do not work that way and must be picked off with a bow. Not many merchants sell arrows in the desert, so I'm at half my normal arrow compliment (normal being 1000 arrows).



You can see the mummy at my feet to the left and the one in front of me (also to the left). You can also see copious amounts of spider webs. There were absolutely no spiders. :P And finally, you can see my problem with exploring deeper into the temple since I can't use a torch and bow at the same time. Luckily, I had a bright (hurr dee hurr) idea.



Fire arrows! They don't cast as much light, but it's better than having to lure every mummy in the temple all the way back to the entrance. There was one bad guy that this wouldn't work on, though.



Meet the undead priest. Apparently he's what the prophecies were warning me about. The first time I met him, he killed me with one hit of a fire spell. The next time, (pictured above) I just peeked out to get his attention, then ambushed him at a corner. He still got a shot off, but this time I'd equipped two fire resist rings, so it only took off most of my health instead of killing me outright.

Normally, I hate saving and loading as game design, especially when the loading takes upwards of two minutes. But Gothic 3 has conditioned me. It's like the horrible load times are part of the game's relaxed pacing. I've even been rereading the last few issues of EGM (ever) while the game loads.

I guess the main difference is the pacing, the groove of the game. In an action game, I hate having to wait just when I'm getting into it or am at my most frustrated. But Gothic 3's combat isn't frenetic enough to get me worked up and is rarely frustrating. Once you know how to pull one or two enemies out of a group, combat's always pretty straightforward. Either shoot some arrows, run back a bit, and repeat, or wait for an opening, then hack until victory.

It's an emotional experience more on par with weeding a garden than actual combat.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

After paying Gonzales' exorbitant price for the key, I figured all I had to was sell the keys to the lead orc and waltz into the temple behind him. No such luck. He wouldn't even talk to me.



So I drew my sword. He got mad. When he got mad enough to chase me away from the settlement. I beat the snot out of him.



Yay! Glorious victory. Hey. Why can't I open the temple door? What? I've only got four keys? What the dill? Maybe Kirk didn't give me his key, so I'll need him to come down here. Huh. Kirk seems to want to go off to see the desert raiders. Do they have the key? Oh. Kirk just wants to kill me.



Just look at him. So dashing. So commanding. So toast.

Finally, I took all five keys to the temple and opened it. There were some skeletons inside which I quickly killed. Then I heard noises coming from the orc camp. What were they so worked up about?



Oh. Undead coming from everywhere. This must be that curse Mezir was talking about. Well, at least he wasn't crazy.

After fighting alongside the orcs for a bit, I figured the best thing I could probably do was head into the temple and see if I could halt the plague at its source.

This shouldn't be so bad. Ancient evil. Undead. I think some water mage I met mentioned spell casting ghosts. I should have brought a picnic basket.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.



Mezir is busy digging around in the ruins. He says he's found interesting stuff. I figure maybe he's got a fire chalice, but when I look at his wares all he's got is booze and a pickaxe. His "prophecies" are all vague nonsense I don't really care about. Something about an undead plague. Whatever. But he says he knows where Ramirez is. I remember someone wanted me to find a guy named Ramirez when I first got to the mesa.

Mezir agrees to show me, in exchange for being escorted to some oasis. All we find of Ramirez is a bloody stain. We beat feet and head to the oasis.



Oh. So the slave camp is the oasis. In talking with Gonzales' guard, it came up that he fancied the redhead. So I buy her (300 gold cheap) and take her up the hill, finally earning an audience with the big man himself.



TEN THOUSAND GOLD!? Part of me thinks I should have killed him. But he had a lot of guards. He said I could get my money back from the orcs. I assume that means I could sell them my keys, get my money back, then follow them into the temple.

I remember some publicity for one of the games that came out last fall claiming to have solved the "Han Solo problem" (making it interesting to play in the gray areas). I think Gothic 3 beat them to it by two years. Of course, there are probably games for PCs in the 70s or 80s that did it, too. (Seven Cities of Gold comes to mind.)

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

The day started out with some dealings of dubious morality. I knew I'd be running the slave out to the orcs at the temple, so I figured I'd check the other slaver camp near the mesa city. Everyone had been asleep the first time I'd visited. It was more lively this time.



The merchant here had two dancing slaves for sale. The one in the foreground wanted to be wed to a successful merchant. The one with less clothes (and a run in her leg) said she wanted to be valued for more than her "dancing". It was creepy. I took off.

You know you're day is off to a weird start when delivering a slave to an orc labor camp is refuge.



Yep. Things look pretty normal here. Mean orcs with giant weapons standing over humans in collars. For Gothic 3, that's status quo. What wasn't status quo was the fact that the guy who was supposed to take the slave didn't want him. He said some guy named Mezir foretold that I was bad luck, so he didn't want anything to do with me. He said to take him to the orc leader, who also didn't want him.

Okay. Disequilibrium restored. Don't get me wrong. It was a great relief to be able to set him free and not feel all slimy, but since when do slavers ever not need slaves?

Then I got hit with the double whammy when the orc chief told me that I needed five keys to get inside the stupid temple. He had one, and some slave named Yussef had ran off with the rest. Fine. I'll track down Yussef.



Here's Yussef and his bulky friend Cruz. Well, they weren't really friends. In fact, I don't believe either acknowledged the other's presence. Maybe they were fighting.

Yussef gave up a temple key and informed me that the last key unaccounted for was with Gonzales, the ruler of the mesa.

Cruz said he'd had some valuable gear swallowed by a Sandcrawler in the north. So I went north.



Then I saw the boatload of lions and went back south to get Cruz.



He agreed to take me to the Sandcrawler in question... and ran west. Dufus. It was a good thing he fought better than he gave directions as the Sandcrawler had five friends.



We kicked their butts, and I got another fire chalice. The fire chalices are apparently some major story point. I've got seven of them so far. I think once I have twelve of them, I'll be able to go into the frozen north and give them to the fire mages. That's probably important.

But in the meantime, somebody has been spreading rumors about me. Better go see what this Mezir guy knows.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

First thing being first, I scouted out the merchant's guards to see if they could be reasoned with. They couldn't.



Not pictured: the two other guards I lured out of the camp with promises of delicious candy.

After claiming my reward from the merchant, I decided it was time to trudge up the hill and enter the mesa city proper.



Lotta slaves, lotta merchants; lotta guards. Seriously there are something like a half dozen merchants in the town. Most towns in Myrtana (the green lands to the north) would have one or two. But chatting with them would have to wait. My first stop in a new town is invariably...



the arena. Arena's are handy for multiple reasons. They give good XP (experience points). They give renown, which can be good for getting in to see city rulers. And they often give unique loot for winning the final round. In the case of this arena, it gave me a sword called the Moon Blade. With my reputation shored up a bit, it was time to explore the city.



Okay. The tents at the entrance may not have looked like much, but the streets behind the palace look great. Now this feels like a prosperous merchant city.

Speaking of merchants, or rather to them, I found out that many of them are obsessed with some nearby temple, probably in the giant stretch of ruins outside. One of them even has one of the two temple keys, which he trades to me for a promise. The fool! BWAAAHAHAhahaaa!

Ahem.



I get the other key from Kirk. A mercenary in a local pub who will take me to the temple. I was planning to search the entire collection of ruins anyway, but I'll keep his offer in mind. I'm also supposed to deliver a slave from one of the merchants to the orcs in the ruins. They also want to get into the temple, so I may have to sneak past them to begin my looting in earnest. But it's late. We'll see about all that tomorrow.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

I continue combing the desert. And there's a lot to comb.



The worst part about the scrub area is the lack of monsters. It was nothing but a long boring herb hunt. But it ended. Then I went in search of a back way into the forbidden city of Ishtar.



I have the acrobatics skill and could probably find a way to slide down into the city, possibly onto the wall, then down the dome, and so on. But the guards would hate me, so that's not really worthwhile. I was hoping more for a secret cave or a disguise or something. The guys who live here are arguably more evil than the orcs, so I don't really want to bother getting into their good graces. I'll probably end up doing it anyway, just in the course of normal hunting.



I remember the days when a single wolf was dangerous. Now I take them down six or seven at a time, chasing large packs across the desert and picking them off when they stop. After dispatching something like forty wolves and poking around the smaller settlements near Ishtar, night began to fall. It was time to find a place to rest.



See those towers to the left? That's a city, with the largest ruins I've ever seen between me and it. It would still be a while until bedtime.



That did not, however, stop me from exploring a cave along the way. Since it's always dark in caves, exploring them at night is "free". (Yes. I am certifiable.)

Eventually I made it to the outskirts of a city and found a merchant who wasn't using his bed. Apparently the men he hired to guard his possessions robbed him and took off. I took advantage of his frustrated insomnia and caught some winks in his bed. I'll probably pay him back tomorrow by hunting down his former employees.

Ah. Another rich, full day.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

I'm combing the desert. It's laborious work as the desert is large and well populated. But I'm carrying over one thousand arrows. So I'm at least set for ammo. I guess I shouldn't be so upset about fighting ogres and trolls and such. Sometimes I avoid them because they take too many arrows. I mean, look at this.



Zoom in. Look at it close. That's three in the forehead, one in the mouth, and one in the neck (or maybe a little down and to the right of the neck). That's a lot of arrows for one guy. It's also a lot of kiting.

(Kiting is an MMO term for when you run around with a guy chasing you, like a kite, kind of.)

In the grasslands, I was big on saving content for later, leaving trolls and ogres behind. But in the desert, I'm thinking not so much. I just want to cleanse it. We'll see how that works out.

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

Whoops. Sorry for the late post. I've grown fond of the standard 6AM updates. In keeping with the theme of Gothic 3 as comfort food, I am reminded that quantity can be more reassuring than quality.

So here's you're quantity of me for the day.

As you might expect, it includes dinosaur punching.



I had just gotten to Trelis, a small castle near the southern border. I'd been doing the usual: exploring ruins, helping villagers; running errands for the orcs to get them to trust me. I'd just done a questionable deed of telling the orcs that it was a human druid who had killed a bunch of villagers and decided it was time to do some more exploring.

After wandering a while, I heard sounds of conflict. I rushed forward to see to slaves being attacked by Snappers. I waded in and helped them out. After the Snappers were dead, the slaves just kept walking. They didn't have special names (like "frightened slave" or "escaping slave"), so it was very odd to see them out and about unsupervised.

As they came upon more Snappers and Ripperbeasts, they would throw caution to the wind and attack. It made no freaking sense. I kept them alive through ten Snappers and two Ripperbeasts, all the while wondering, where could we possibly be going? What scripted event could this possibly be for? Eventually they managed to provoke an entire bandit camp and I couldn't save them. But it was entertainingly surreal while it lasted. The two slaves with no fear apparently found what they were looking for.

On the plus side, they led me to the desert, a welcome change of scenery.



Cue Lawrence of Arabia music. :)

Game Journal: Gothic 3

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

Yay! It's Oblivion by Germans!

But wait, Oblivion ended up stinking.

Apparently the Germans do it better.

Technically it's still got some major issues. Loading the game takes three minutes. There are frequent pauses in the game for no apparent reason (resource caching?). And my entire system runs slowly after I've played it, suggesting that it consumes disgusting quantities of memory. And this is a game made in 2006, so probably no machine could run it when it came out.

But the gameplay is functional, or at least broken in tolerable ways. And there's no encumbrance, so it's a pack rat's delight. The skill system and leveling up isn't a travesty like Oblivion. There's cool stuff to find all over. When you kill / collect it, it stays gone, which is a mixed blessing as it makes traversing some areas a little redundant. But it also helps with navigation as a barren area means you've been there before.

It's also pretty.


They used an out of focus effect on distant terrain to speed up draw time and give the game a some what more ethereal vibe. (You'll have to click through to the larger image to really see the effect.) This also goes well with the music. Which gives the game a nice feeling of adventure, but with a very relaxed pace. In fact, I haven't felt this way playing a game since Outcast, a Belgian action adventure game from 1999.

Here's a little night time exploring.



I generally only use torches indoors, where it's required. It's kind of a pain though, because I can't use torches and my bow at the same time, and the bow is the safest way to kill most enemies. Seriously, if a wolf starts attacking, it won't stop until you are dead. There's no blocking. There's no running. There's no counter. You just die. Did I mention that loading takes three minutes?

At first, I mostly took pot shots and ran away. Eventually I leveled up enough so that I can one shot normal wolves. One shotting is the equivalent of a stealth kill, so now I can wipe out a whole pack in relative safety. So even though I'd say the combat is fundamentally broken, it's basically worked out in the long run.



It feels a little wrong, though, hating on the indie games and liking something as glitchy and formulaic as Gothic 3. But it's like comfort food. Comfort food that will kick your ass if you're not careful, but still. There's always plants to pick, bad guys to fight, quests to run, skills to buy. And it's possible to level up and kick butt. Even playing with the Oscuro mod, Oblivion always felt like it was buffing up the monsters every time I leveled, making the game a pain at all times.

I wanted the experience I'm getting in Gothic 3. Some places I can just sweep through. And some places (generally with ogres or trolls or golems) I stay the heck out of, knowing that once I've leveled and geared up, I'll be back to beat them until candy comes out. It's as nature intended. :P