10 years ago Piranha Bytes has released Gothic 3. Fans around the world were waiting for it and have marked the day in their calendars. But how did our team experience the launch? We’ve asked 5 members of the Community Story Team for their memories:
Hero3000
When Gothic 3 was released back in 2006 I had an old computer with a Shader Model 2 graphics card. The game wasn’t running well on this setup and so I needed a new PC in 2007. Once it ran smooth on my PC I found all those bugs and the killed my motivation to play the game. That was when I starte reading and posting on the World of Gothic forums and began to create graphics mods. That was the beginning of my Gothic 3 modding career.
For a long time I was active as a bug finder and helped the CPT out with bug reports. I always was happy when I found out that mdahm and the others erased another bug. Somehow I never managed to quit Gothic 3…
MadFaTal
There’s not much to say about. It wasn’t yesterday.
Gothic 3 was the last game I’ve preordered. Unfortunately it arrived two days after release day.
I can’t remember any bugs. What stopped me was the liberated Gotha. After that I just didn’t want to play anymore. After I’ve reloaded my save game 40 times I’ve finally managed to bring this guy to the city alive. (Wolves are really tough guys) So I came back to be celebratd as big hero. But what happend? “We’re searching for you thief. Attack!” Pure frustration and that’s it.
After some Gothic 2 mods I’ve installed the Quest Package 3.?. But really inspiring was the Consequences Mod. That’s when I started improving and optimizing Gothic 3 myself.
but you know the rest. Somehow I got accepted by the CSP and still have fun improving Gothic 3.
Maybe I’ve got to install it again after 10 years.
Maryn
I exactly remember buying Gothic 3 about 1 year after release, despite having read that it didn’t reach the quality of its precursors. So I decided not to buy it first. But nostalgia and my love for Piranha Bytes games finally won.
I really didn’t play it too long. The disappointment was too big. Much reminded me of Gothic 1 and 2 but the story was a huge letdown.
I didn’t touch Gothic 3 for a long time. When I found out that there is a Community Patch I started to play the game again. This was the first time I finished the game, but only slow because I couldn’t motivate me enough. Especially the fights became annoying. The many revolutions weren’t authentic.
But I consumed as much as possible of the world. When I was done with that I was again disappointed. This time by the poor ending. I was expecting to explore the Unknowen Lands with Xardas. I had the expectation that there the stories of all three games would be connected. So I was surprised when I went through the portal and immediately saw the credits. There wasn’t even a video but just images.
A few years later I read that the CSP is searching for support. I knew that Gothic 3 really needed an improvement. I was student of Electrical Engineering in an early semester. I thought that it would be a great way to get some project experience And now I’m still here. 😉
HerrFenrisWolf
After finishing Gothic 2 including The Night of the Raven it didn’t take long and the first reports about Gothic 3 appeared in some gaming magazines. There were artworks of a female Northmar resident with a huge sword and an Orc choking a Scavanger. Many of my friends were fans of Gothic and made me aware of the series. It was at my friend’s house (the internet in my parents’ house was poor) where I first saw Gothic 3 gameplay from the Games Covention (or was it already Gamescom?)… and we were amazed. The Hashashins in Varant, combat with two swords, the castles. We were hyped. After it was released I read the first reviews in magazines and on World of Gothic. That’s why I knew all the bugs and that it was completly different to the former games but I somehow suppressed it. I didn’t know anything about hypes, bugs or the video games industry at this time.
I gifted myself a Gothic 3 Collector’s Edition for Christmas and liked it for some time. I can catch a slave for an Hashashin hunter? The druids have their own culture? A desert filled with temples? Ice-cold mountains with barbarians? AMAZING!
But after some time I started being disappointed. What I disliked most were the poor story, the look of the four friends and the missing fractions.
I realized what I was missing in this game. While I started looking at several mods in the WoG editing forums I read a user’s proposal how Gothic 3 would have been a better game. A few months later Impidimpi was searching for help for this project. Join the army they’ve said! Since that time I’m here with short breaks.
George
I can’t remember my first contact with Gothic 3 exactly. Just that it happend about three years after release. It was one of my first RPGs. It was impressive with its huge world. I can’t remember any bugs due to the already available Community Patches
In late 2010 I started another run. This time with CP 1.74. But my enthusiasm faded quickly as I could remember all the quests. So I had the idea to create my own quest. My favourite search engine guided me to the WoG editing forums. The tutorials in it helped me.
Since I’ve joined the CSP Gothic 3 is THE video game for me. I want to add a sentence from a tweet I came across. It describes my feelings about Gothic 3 pretty well.
Andrew Traviss: Give a man a game and he’ll play for a day. Teach a man to make games and he’ll never play one for the rest of his life.When I look back I’m happy that Gothic 3 didn’t offer any modding tools back than as creathing them was one of the best parts of Gothic 3 modding.