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Gothic - I'm having flashbacks to Ultima 9

Elzair

Cipher
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
2,254
If you want to play a mage, you should NOT join the Sect camp. Sect magic users can only learn magic up to the fourth level (out of six). If you want to play a pure mage, you should join the Fire Mages in the Old Camp (and later
the Water Mages in the New Camp
).
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
Restarted my game, invested heavily in strength and one-handed weapon fighting. Joined the Old Camp and became a fire mage. I was kicking all sorts of ass... then I get a blue screen and my save game is corrupted.

Fuuuuuuuccc.....
 

Shannow

Waster of Time
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
6,386
Location
Finnegan's Wake
I've been investing a bit of time in Gothic, and have just joined the Sect Camp and entered the Orc Ruins. And I've got to say, this game reminds me of Ultima 9, in the sense that it is *horribly buggy*. I have been required to restart twice due to two separate game-breaking bugs, and have encountered a couple of other glaring (but not game-breaking) glitches.

My other complaints about this game so far:

- Combat is way too difficult. I want to create a mage character, but it seems like fighter classes are the only ones who can lay the smackdown on orc warriors. The difficulty is also preventing a lot of exploration.

- There is a *lot* of running back and forth between the three camps. Boring.

- The magic system outright sucks.

I'm not far into this game, but I honestly don't understand why it gets so much more praise that Ultima 9. Yes, the story in Gothic is far more engaging, but the game is still a mess.
*facepalm*
 

Antagonist

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
484
Location
Glorious Vaterland
Restarted my game, invested heavily in strength and one-handed weapon fighting. Joined the Old Camp and became a fire mage. I was kicking all sorts of ass... then I get a blue screen and my save game is corrupted.

Fuuuuuuuccc.....

But since you use several savegames this was only a minor setback, right?
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
Yes, I have a save from a couple of hours back. Still, I'm not impressed by the game's poor stability.

BTW, I've just realised that the voice actor for the PC sounds quite similar to the voice actor for the Avatar from Ultima 9!
 

Miskoala

Novice
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
8
Gothic should be stable but it is an old game some people have problems because of new OS, and video card drivers.

I had played Gothic I 2 times, Gothic II 3 times, not always to complete but still I never had a crash or corrupted save, the only problem I had was with missing some main quest NPC in G2 in mine Valley (fixed with console command). Got stuck in mountain once in G2. There is also some bug that makes you not stop running when you open inventory in Gothic I. I had no other bugs.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Yeah, trying to play Gothic these days can be pretty buggy because of the age. It is a good game though, and gets better once you get used to it (though you should have played long enough to be used to it, now). There's a lot of WTF-difficult fights if you don't know who to fight and who to run from early on.

That said, I think the amount of running is a legitimate complaint. There is a shitload of running between the camps, especially if it's your first time and you don't efficiently gather up all the quests in one go. Because high level enemies are hand-place to discourage you from going anywhere (which, by the way, is a Good Thing), you end up walking the same 2-3 routes over and over and over again. There is really no justification to delay giving out the teleport stones until you're mostly done with all that running - a good compromise would have been to make fast travel between camps limited, or cost money, until you get the stones. The worst, of course, is when you run from one camp to another for five minutes then a random scavenger kills you.
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
Tigranes said:
The worst, of course, is when you run from one camp to another for five minutes then a random scavenger kills you.

That's bad. But the worst is when you climb a ladder, can't clear the top, fall, and die. Oh, and you haven't saved for an hour.
 

Antagonist

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
484
Location
Glorious Vaterland
Oh crap, thanks for reminding me of this bug. After years I had managed to repress the cruel memories of this engine fuck-up which made me rage uncontrollably after falling from the same ledge dozens of times and now you brought it all back. IIRC there was one especially nasty instance of this bug at the bottom of the old camp mine where I spent almost an hour in trying to figure out which buttons to mash to get out of the pit again.
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2010
Messages
7,428
Location
Villainville
MCA
*horribly buggy*. I have been required to restart twice due to two separate game-breaking bugs, and have encountered a couple of other glaring (but not game-breaking) glitches.

Played twice. As smooth an experience as can be. Can't even remember crashes.

- Combat is way too difficult.

You thought this would be another free ride ala TES, did you? LOL

I want to create a mage character, but it seems like fighter classes are the only ones who can lay the smackdown on orc warriors. The difficulty is also preventing a lot of exploration.

That's the entire fucking point so you don't "conquer" the entire game world like fucking Hulk.

- There is a *lot* of running back and forth between the three camps. Boring.

True.

- The magic system outright sucks.

You outright suck. Why? I said so.

I found the magic system is poor because it's very rigid and the way controls work for magic is a lot less than ideal. Otherwise, I had no problem with it. Certainly better than spamming shit left and right and I like the the scarcity of magic.
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
I'm up to gathering the components for the Ulu-Mulu, and am glad that I have stuck with this game. It has improved significantly, especially since I acquired Fourth Circle spells. I also make multiple saves at any one time, which is just as well, as I had two more savegames corrupted.

Antagonist said:
IIRC there was one especially nasty instance of this bug at the bottom of the old camp mine where I spent almost an hour in trying to figure out which buttons to mash to get out of the pit again.

Yes, I had the same problem. You can't clear the ladders there, so you actually need to take an alternate route, which involves making an awkward jump.

villain said:
You thought this would be another free ride ala TES, did you? LOL

It was partly my fault. From the get-go, I invested heavily in mana, planning to make a powerful mage. Unfortunately, the spells that make a mage a powerhouse don't come along until late in the game. I also joined the Sect Camp, thinking that I would have the opportunity to become a guru. Yet the Sect Campers are the only ones who can't access Fifth and Sixth Circle spells! Hindsight = 10/10, right?

villain said:
I found the magic system is poor because it's very rigid and the way controls work for magic is a lot less than ideal.

True. But I think the lower Circle spells are virtually useless. They should be effective for the point in the game where you get them.

BTW, does anyone know what 'Control' does? Whenever I use it, my character emanates mind beams while his mana drains, and the target swoons. As soon as I cancel the spell, the target attacks me. What the hell? What is that good for?!
 

Nim

Augur
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
447
Control lets you take over other people, pretty sure it's only humans and not all of them. Nice idea but pretty useless ingame.
 

Revenant

Guest
Restarted my game, invested heavily in strength and one-handed weapon fighting. Joined the Old Camp and became a fire mage.

Personally, I think it is worthwhile to save EVERY learning point up to the moment you become a fire mage and then instantly learn all magic circles up to the fourth. When you lay your hands on the Firestorm rune, you don't need fighting skills any more whatsoever, so you can invest spare LPs into mana. This way you can play the game as a pure mage. And the only thing that you can't kill before becoming a mage is the queen in the mine, as without training your strength you can't equip a powerful enough weapon to bypass the queen's resistance.
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
OK, I finally figured out that you need to 'hold' the Control spell on an enemy for a prolonged period of time, and you actually take over the body of an enemy. Unfortunately, it can only be done with humans, and stronger enemies require way too much mana to take control of (over 80 mana points). So yes, it is virtually useless.

Sleep and Charm are *much* better value for mana.

Revenant said:
Personally, I think it is worthwhile to save EVERY learning point up to the moment you become a fire mage and then instantly learn all magic circles up to the fourth. When you lay your hands on the Firestorm rune, you don't need fighting skills any more whatsoever, so you can invest spare LPs into mana. This way you can play the game as a pure mage. And the only thing that you can't kill before becoming a mage is the queen in the mine, as without training your strength you can't equip a powerful enough weapon to bypass the queen's resistance.

Jeez, it would be a nightmare to get to that point with 10 strength, though. You can't kill stone golems with magic, (you need a blunt weapon + adequate strength), and the Ulu-Mulu requires 30 strength.
 

Revenant

Guest
If you perform only what is necessary to become a fire mage, there are no big troubles at all. If my memory serves me right, to begin training as a fire mage in the Old Camp you only have to do the shadow admission quests, go to the sect camp and do the Old Mine quest. Since you can ask people to escort you to other camps, inter-camp travel is not a problem for a feeble character (you even get the experience for the kills your companion does). In the Old Mine, you can have the templars do the dirty work for you. Whatever is left can be handled by an untrained character with little to no effort.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
You can do worse: there is a way to make a "kensai" mage that's nice if you've got the exp.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Well if we're talking about cheesing it you can just grab a dexterity ring and decent bow in the old mine by kiting out mine crawlers to the guards. Should be good enough to kill what you have to kill. You don't even have to kill the mine crawler queen, you can safely walk around the edges and collect the eggs.
 

the_shadow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
1,179
Finally finished. The game is much longer than I expected, considering that the game map is so small. I guess it's all the running back and forth that you do.

Either way, I'm pretty satisfied with my gaming experience, although I encountered about half a dozen more crashes related to sound files.
 

curry

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
4,010
Location
Cooking in the lab
Finally finished. The game is much longer than I expected, considering that the game map is so small. I guess it's all the running back and forth that you do.

Either way, I'm pretty satisfied with my gaming experience, although I encountered about half a dozen more crashes related to sound files.

I didn't encounter any bugs. I guess you're just bad with computers :smug:
 

Antagonist

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
484
Location
Glorious Vaterland
Congrats, now get Gothic 2 + Night of the Raven. The game is superior to its every predecessor in every aspect but setting. Just be prepared that Gothic 2/NotR is more unforgiving in the early stages.
 

coaster

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 5, 2007
Messages
222
Its also fairly easy to end up with a broken build in G2 NOTR (safest not to multiclass until you're familiar with the game) due to the way STR/DEX/mana etc cost more the higher they are raised. Also dexterity is king compared to G1 especiially early in the game, since there are now DEX-based swords, archery is very good for winning early XP without getting eaten by molerats etc and thievery skills rely on DEX which gets you gold/XP.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Unless you're going mage or pure ranged/dex character I wouldn't put any points in dexterity at all. If you're going melee you're going to need every LP you get for strength and 1 or 2H weapon proficiency. Especially strength considering the high requirements on the better weapons. You can fudge it a bit with +strength belt, rings, amulet but a melee character is going to need the +armor accessories.
 

Skittles

He ruins the fun.
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
983
Coaster's right, DEX up to 60 is a great investment in NOTR. Gets you the Master Sword, which is something like 100 or 110 damage, in Khorinis, not to mention the thieving upgrades. With the stone tablets and alchemy especially, I don't think you'll have any problems getting your strength up to par later.
 

CreamyBlood

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
1,392
Shadow, I'll pipe in my agreement, now that you made it through G1, do Gothic 2 Night of the Raven. I remember when I posted here or somewhere else about starting my first time and someone replied, "I envy you for being able to do it for the first time". I laughed but seriously, this is the last challenging and fun exploration, kick your ass RPG you'll play this decade. In my opinion. It wrecks everything else, makes it seem like kids-bits or whatever the expression is. Enjoy, then be forever disappointed with the state of modern gaming.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,089
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
I'll add some comment on the Ultima 9 comparison, as it is very valid. The two games are very similar.

Think of U9 as an early Gothic alpha build. Compared to Gothic 1/2, combat is piss-easy (it's even easier if your character is a Shephard, as he starts with the Charmed Crook, which is stupidly powerful for a starter weapon) and while there is exploration elements, the game world is divided into linear-dependant areas. Only near the end can you fully explore Britannia... and compared to previous incarnations of Britannia, you'll find it had shrunk alot. ;-) Some things are also in the most stupidest places. Did anyone know that there's a small sunken city north of Skara Brae that holds the Master skill for 2-handed swords? Diving down there to get it is a BITCH, and there's NO in-game clue to its presence in the game.

Melee combat in Gothic 1/2 is based on an odd concept for its time: Rhythm. You have to time your keystrokes correctly for the powerful combos to work. In all honesty, it's been so long since I've played Gothic 1/2 that I have no idea if I could just "pick up" the combat system, or if I'd have to spend an hour or two learning it all over again. Beats just clicking everything to death, though.

And no, I can't remember any bugs while playing Gothic 1/2. I DO remember the ladders being deathtraps, though.
 

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