Gothic

[Googolplex]

Hello friends of RPGs, I think it's time to open a seperate thread about Gothic and probably here will come some new people who would give it a try. Gothic was released in 2001 and was one of the first open world RPGs with fully implemented NPC voices. It's not a mainstream game - Gothic was made by a small group of students which wanted to create their own dream and something unique. Unlike most of other RPGs you will not be a strong superhero who has to kill monsters to get skill points and then creating your own character. In Gothic you are a normal weak person who was pushed into a mining colony which is like a "prison" and you have to survive. There are a lot of Adventure elements and the story is totally unknown at the beginning.
For everyone who would like playing a hardcore RPG, he shouldn't miss the Gothic series. I like it so much, because it's different to other RPGs and has an awesome rough atmosphere. With this thread I also want to release my "support" for the games.



From the idea to the game

Once upon a time, in which real RPG heroes carried pages of documents with all their character values in order to prove their identity and as the population of a RPG world stood at the same places day and night to always apply quests to the hero, it came to pass... something like this could be the story that led to the emergence of the Gothic series begin.
Founded in October 1997 in Bochum under the name "Piranha Bytes" a small game studio that made itself the task of creating a RPG, as the world had not seen before. Much wanted to do differently, better, more innovative.

Why Gothic?

Even where the final name of the project comes, the devs can explain, "We were looking for a name that was a little darker, dirtier, dirtier than the usual fantasy titles. Just as our game should be like: no flowers and Fantasy Bees, no funny cuddly trees, but something more "substantial". The word Gothic has several meanings. Among other things, it is a synonym for barbaric, gruesome, dark. Even the literary genre gloomy horror novels, the Gothic novels, it gave the name. Literary classics in the genre such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula or the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, a particularly sinister medieval image is often invoked in order to intensify the feelings of the reader and cause shivers. What was more, a game that was a dark story in an archaic world, to name a Gothic? By the way: the same named modern youth culture and music scene, however, has nothing to do with the game.
"The launch of Gothic was when three students presented a written RPG demo in Pascal in Greenwood", Alex Brüggemann said. "The demo reminded of Ultima Underworld and we had a great desire to make an RPG, because we are all RPG fans and private do not really want the economy simulators at which we have worked at Greenwood."
The scenario of the game itself is quickly outlined: In a huge open-air prison, whose magical boundary makes escape impossible to fight several groups of prisoners in a profoundly medieval world for influence and power. Three camps watching each other, jealously protecting their vested rights and interests. In there another nameless prisoner is thrown. And he succeeds in what even the magicians who created them, seemed impossible. But this is just a kind of side effect of the struggle with the obligatory story.


Gothic sets new standards

Indeed, Gothic should be different from much of what distinguished role-playing so far. More realism was the watchword. Piranha Bytes did not pursue on extensive character stats as well as on the improvement of individual complex values, where the player do not always know for what character skills are exactly for. Gothic should therefore be more plausible, because you no longer had to upgrade your own game character massively with points. Intuitive level improvements should take place and it should be done directly in the game world, not on any administrative screens with tables of numbers.
For credible implementation of this idea, the teacher helped, NPC in the game world, from which the player dialog could learn certain skills. Without a slider or menu operation in a character sheet. This also contributed as other typical features of the game at a phenomenal feeling. An initially rudimentary crafting system, where you forge directly into the game world on the anvil and sharpen a sword on the whetstone and then could actually received a sharpened sword in your inventory, increased the realism. New or at least never consistently implemented as were the daily routines of the NPC in the game world. Hardly an NPC standing all day in the same place, all went their own activities and to substitute the place to find a daily schedule. Woke up a digger in the morning in his hut in the old warehouse, so he washed next to a puddle and then went to an other NPC at a campfire to share some camp gossip at some point again in the evening to go to his tent and sleeping . Such behavior contributed significantly to the credibility of the world.
Added to this was the dynamic day and night cycles, which let the player actually experience the passing of time. At night you could put in a bed and sleep in order to wake up the next morning feeling refreshed again and continue adventure. Even the NPC responded understandable to the player's actions. Who pulled out his weapon, had to reckon with appropriate defensive reactions on the part of the NPC in the vicinity, including the right spells.
Fights were not turn based or indirectly controlled, but immediately implemented. This action-packed approach was rather unusual for RPGs. Direct sword fights that have not been calculated in the background with cube results, it was more usual for shooters with fantasy setting like the Heretic / Hexen-series by Raven Software. This approach also causes the acquired skills of the game character were less crucial but more those of the player at the keyboard led. Also it contributed to a more direct experience, because it's not the character who defeated an opponent because of so many points in a certain skill, but because the player himself had been clever enough.

Gothic and fans

After its release, the game was an instant success, some long weeks ranked in the top places of PC games sales charts, beating countless players alike. The press was enthusiastic and awarded scores. In a test of PC Games it calls "Gothic is a paradise for role-players, explorers and adventurers." Other testers praised the game and rated it better than the former competitors Ultima IX Ascension - one of the rare time RPG with 3D world, however, many players had little disappointed.
Should not remain unmentioned that Gothic was at first very full of bugs. Including numerous bugs that completely prevented a game from. Important door winches could no longer move, story-related quest items disappeared without a trace from the inventory, important NPC did not start its dialogue, so that the story did not intervene to advance, on some graphics cards, Gothic was not working. After several patches, however, the game gets more bug-free. Of the remaining, smaller issues have been fixed out by many later community users.
The active modding community was then with the successor "Gothic II: Night of the Raven".

You can try the official english Gothic demo (250 MB):
http://www.piranha-bytes.com/gothic1/index.php?lang=eng


Support (here's everything you need to enjoy):

You should remember, that it's often not very easy to get old games running on modern systems, but Gothic runs very well. There are just a few issues, so that you find all fixes here in one single bundle! You just have to extract the archive, copy all files to the game directory and overwrite the existing files.
Note that your games must be already patched to the latest versions before using the fixes!

Gothic: 1.08j
Gothic II: 2.6
Gothic 3: 1.75.14

Fixes for: Gothic
http://www33.zippyshare.com/v/HamdJTBS/file.html

Changelog
- Fixed possible crashes of missing game files.
- Added widescreen support by correcting the FOV.
- Fixed some visual bugs in the world (black box in the swamp).
- Updated Miles Sound System.
- Enhanced level-of-detail to the maximum quality.
- Enhanced view ranges of objects and plants.
- Fixed a problem in video scaling, where the videos were not shown on modern OS.
- Support for really high resolutions.
- Diverse ini tweaks & optimizations.
- A lot of system compatibility fixes (full changelog).
- Removed 25 FPS limitation of the engine.

Password for the archive: gothic


Fixes for: Gothic II Night of the Raven
http://www43.zippyshare.com/v/ze2DR8yR/file.html

Changelog
- Added official script-patch.
- Remastered a broken video that caused a game crash.
- Added widescreen support by correcting the FOV.
- Changed menu font color from yellow to red for a better visibility.
- Included VDFS-Patch.
- AA and AF support by graphics driver.
- Fixed a problem in video scaling, where the videos were not shown on modern OS.
- Support for really high resolutions.
- Diverse ini tweaks & optimizations.
- A lot of system compatibility fixes (full changelog).
- Increased global view range of the world.

Password for the archive: gothic


Some visual differences:

Original
http://fs2.directupload.net/images/150725/kxww5yvz.jpg

With ini-tweaks
http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150725/6ef9hsb9.jpg



Gothic Complete Collection @Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Gothic-Complete-Co...ref=sr_1_1

This bundle comes with all three Gothic games and AddOns in a box!
And you have the possibility to play Gothic II classic and Gothic II Night of the Raven, which is a fully integrated AddOn. Don't play the classic version, because with the AddOn it's like a Gold Edition with many improvements and extra content integrated in the main game.

What you should know:
Gothic I and II are designed to play without mouse. There is of course mouse support, but don't be worried why it's not really accessible. For moving you should use the arrow keys instead of WASD. And for actions (picking up items or talk to NPCs etc.), you have to press "ctrl" plus one of the arrow keys!

Move: Arrow keys
Char Sheet: B
Quest Log: N
Sneak: C
Inventory: Tab
Melee Weapon: 1
Ranged Weapon: 2
Jump: Alt + Arrow up
Actions: Ctrl + Arrow keys

And don't change the brightness settings! The game is gloomy how it wants to be. This is important to enjoy the maximum experience in the rough world of Gothic!







And at the end an "easteregg" that happens in the old camp, where the group "InExtremo" is playing a concert.
But in some international versions of the game it was cutted out, because of marketing/copyrights.