Re: Fare Thee Well, Piranha Bytes

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:40:01 +0200, "Werner P." <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:

I loved the first two gothics, especially G2 had the vibe of an Ultima
10 which we never got!
But time has moved on, they did not!

The original "Gothic" will always remain my favorite game of theirs,
even though I will happily admit that its sequel was pretty much the
superior game in every way. But it had a grungy feel to it that felt
unique at the time, and was often self-deprecating without breaking
the immersion of the game.

"Gothic" also re-incorporated a lot of features that had once been
common in CRPGs but had gone missing after the switch to 3D. Stuff
like NPCs that lived and moved according to schedules, or would react
to you going into forbidden areas by warning you before attacking (and
would back down if you retreated). Or just crafting weapons; yes, once
that was a RARE mechanic in games. While none of these ideas were
unique to "Gothic", a lot of its contemporary CRPGs of the time were
simplified in comparison; NPCs were static quest-givers and the bulk
of the gameplay revolved around combat and loot-collection. "Gothic"
felt revolutionary.

But "Gothic" had another ace up its sleeve. It's world didn't feel
artificially compressed. In so many CRPGs, the world is a lot smaller
than it should be; so-called major cities are comprised of a few
hundred people, towns are separated by only a few hundred steps of
wilderness travel, and the tallest mountain peak is less than a
thousand feet above sea level. These cheats are, of course, an
acceptable break from reality to keep the game fun by cutting out a
lot of unnecessary dross (and because it's resource-expensive to
actually generate a uniquely huge world) but it adds a layer of
artificiality to the experience.

"Gothic's" game world was fairly small too... but it did it with the
excuse that the entire thing was a small valley enclosed in an
inescapable magic dome and occupied by an assortment of escaped
prisoners. This both solves the topological issue (why is the world so
small? Because it's not the whole world!) and the population issue
(why is the biggest city occupied by only 100 people? Because that's
about a third of the total people living in the area!). In "Gothic",
you weren't playing in an artificially compressed world; you were
playing in a tiny region of a much larger world that you just couldn't
access.

Unfortunately, both "Gothic 2" and -much more obviously- "Gothic 3"
were more expansive and scope, and were unable to utilize these
'developer cheats'. "Gothic 2" tried to sort of get away with it by
saying everything took place on one small island, but even so,
distances between locations were too small to be realistic, and the
biggest town's population was maybe 100 people when it should have
been several thousand (also, it had only four farms to feed
everybody). "Gothic 3" just gave up on the illusion entirely, and
featured a 'continent' -complete with distinct desert, temperate and
arctic regions- that was maybe five miles across total.

I still had fun with all those games, flaws and all. But the first
"Gothic" will always be my favorite.