Gothicz.net: At that time you and the other guys were working on the story. Could you shortly describe the origin of the story? What of its part comes from your head?
 
Mike: I designed the whole story of Gothic 1. We were of course several dialogue writers but all of the guilds, background, setting and most of the main characters came from me. It took 3 years to get that all together and I have applied major changes to the main plot even 4 months before the goldmaster.
 
Gothicz.net: When Gothic 1 was released, was the game completely according to your vision, or you could use some additional time to finish what you wanted?
 
Mike: It is never enough. Apart from that, I think Gothic 1 could have used more polishing in the camps dialogues during the last parts of the game. People were still talking the same crap as they were doing in the beginning of the game and the hero could pick choices like "Hi! I'm new here..." in the 6th chapter. That was crap. 
 
Oh, yes, and there were the 4 Frineds of the Hero, which were supposed to have a secret meeting later in the game which never occured becauce we had no more time. Other than that (an a coouple of bugs) I'm quite satisfied with our first work.
 
Gothicz.net: What RPG games were your inspiration during the development of Gothic? What RPGs had you played before Gothic?
 
Mike: Ultima 6, 7 Dungeon Master and the like. Practically everything I could lay my hands on. I do it today, in spite of having a family. Sometines I go to "Do Not Disturb Mode" to enjoy games like Fallout 3.
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Gothicz.net: Mike, last question. If you had a chance to win the rights for Gothic back, would you consider it? Is there a possibility, that you ever develop another Gothic?
 
Mike: We get the rights to Gothic back when we have finished Risen 2. Why? Because we did only sell them to our ex-publisher for a certain amount of time
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