Björn Pankratz (game developer) playing guitar with his wife.

[Googolplex]

Hello.
Does anyone of you know the german developers PiranhaBytes?
They created the glorious Gothic series and are actually working on the Risen series.
In addition to horror games, I also like some RPGs very well.
Gothic was the best of all RPGs I ever played. Especially the first two.

So fantastic in story and atmosphere!!! Every day I have to think about this good old times in my life playing Gothic.
It is not a typical fantasy RPG, it's like the Frictional universe, something unique!

Gothic memories




And the devs are located near my home.
Björn Pankratz and his wife are both developers of PiranhaBytes and they are making some music for fun.

Wanted to show this!

[Traggey]

Known them, don't want to.

Risen 2 was by far the most boring game I've every paid fifty bucks for.

I enjoyed the first one but dear lord.. I have two let's play videos of it on my channel, I was super excited. I got no farther than those videos because I simply could NOT be arsed, it was boring, the graphics were dated and it was buggy as hell.

PiranhaBytes, no thanks.

[the dark side]

graphics = irrelevant. Bugs however are not....good. when i pay 50 Pounds for a game, i expect it to have been QA tested, even ONE bug tells me it hasnt been.

what made it boring in your opinion? everyone has different descriptions of boring.. i find Call of Duty drop dead boring, others find it super exiting, yet those same others find games like Blood II: the Chosen snooze inducing were as i'm practically fusion welded to the screen. boring is unique to each individual, so, come on Traggey, if your going to say the game is boring, please tell us why you found it so?

[Traggey]

graphics = irrelevant. Bugs however are not....good. when i pay 50 Pounds for a game, i expect it to have been QA tested, even ONE bug tells me it hasnt been.

what made it boring in your opinion? everyone has different descriptions of boring.. i find Call of Duty drop dead boring, others find it super exiting, yet those same others find games like Blood II: the Chosen snooze inducing were as i'm practically fusion welded to the screen. boring is unique to each individual, so, come on Traggey, if your going to say the game is boring, please tell us why you found it so?

I said the graphics were dated, not bad.

Why explain it to you, when I can SHOW YOU!
Have fun, I didn't.

I want you to pay close attention to the animation work, that was by far the worst.

[palistov]

My brother works at Valve. Why are we sharing random information with each other?

[HateSolstice]

How can anyone stand those shitty Gothic games? Ugh, the first one was bad enough that I wanted to kill puppies and actually eat authentic Asian food.

[Googolplex]

Yeah, Gothic is better than Risen.
But Risen was not buggy at all. Gothic is more buggy, but it is by far the better game.
You also need to know, this developer doesn't make games for american market. This are german games and they don't want to dump it down just because the americans would like that. Risen is a bit more casual than Gothic, but even a good game.

The graphics in Amnesia are also dated for a game from 2010. And as the dark side already said, it is totally irrelevant.
The devs also wanted an old-school style. This is a reason for the animations. They wanted!
It is not because they are not competant enough to make ultra real animations, it's their special style and people really like that.

But yeah, Risen is not so good as Gothic. Gothic was made more for a special niche.

---

How can anyone stand those shitty Gothic games? Ugh, the first one was bad enough that I wanted to kill puppies and actually eat authentic Asian food.

I already told you, it's NOT a game for american casuals.

This is why you don't like it. It's just made for a small group of decent people who understand art in games.

[the dark side]

oh...dear...

Graphics are a little bit Xbox 1, ah well, no problem, you can see what your doing, so, they will do. graphics are.."a nice little extra", id sooner have a game that runs on the way out of date "build" engine but plays brilliantly, than something that runs cryengine 3 but is just the usual run of the mill broken, boring "machined sausage" AAA game, its nice to hear some UK accents in a game for once too! (if i here one more "angry bronx guy" in a game i am gonna scream!) but,, oh dear.

i see what you mean about bugs, game freezing, broken AI (not good in any game, let alone rpg), the overdose of cutscenes isnt normally a problem in RPG, or for me (come on, i sat through MGS4..one and a half hour cutscene! o-u-c-h! good thing it was well written and beautifully animated), but, a bad script and a cliched to hell story that is chronologically disjointed are not what you want in an RPG, as the story is the game. i can see why you got bored, no one, not even i, want to sit through a Bad Story.

also, i Know its the tutorial, but a little bit of K-A-T-N wouldn't go amiss... i kinda miss the days of Baldurs Gate (spelling?), were there was a Sub Boss! in the tutorial level, even Final Fantasy has a little bit of K-A-T-N in the turorial, RPG is more than just walking round and talking, thats fine for some levels, and in any genre (NOLF prooved it can work even in FPS!), as long as its balanced with plenty of other types of levels action levels, platform sections, Vehicle sections, Puzzle areas, Boss Fights, etc . i mean, its fine to have a "slow" beginning to the story, as that allows the story to be given "slow burn", so it can be deeply fleshed out and expanded on giving you great charachters and a rich background lore, wich cant be done when the game runs at a million KMH, but i really think if a game is gonna do that, it should begin with one heck of a ding dong, either a flashback to a previous battle or, "in medias res" to get the player "amped" for the rest of the game and encourage him or her to go through the slow bit.

i get the feeling Pirahnah Bytes did "an EA" and rushed the game to market while it was still pre alpha, no Wonder you were dissapointed!

i think ill just stick to Risen 1, thanks traggey! you just stopped me making a mistake i think!

also, googolplex, ive said this to you before, just because a game isnt designed for American Teenage "deffmatch" trolls, it doesnt mean it has to have broken AI, an inexcusably slow beginning, and an overdose of badly written cutscenes.

the best games combine a strong storyline, great action, and Stratospheric Difficulty. thats the making of a proper game. just lacking action doesnt make a good game, it makes a dull one. ok, there is nothing worse than a game that is All out action, as that is every bit as boring as having none what so ever, perhaps even more so as "constant nuclear explosions" gets rather repetative. a game needs Balance. action, strategy, thaught and story in perfect alignment, those are the best games.

also, old school is a gameplay style, not a graphical style, to me the Ultimate game would have the very best Modern graphics (cryengine 3) with the very best old fashioned gameplay (NOLF with the "dynamic scaling" turned off), id pay 100 quid for that, let alone 50.

[Googolplex]

Risen 1 & 2 are both good games ans absolutely worth it.
The bugs especially in Gothic 3 was not because of a released Pre-Alpha by PiranhaBytes, it was the Publisher. The publisher wanted to release the game whether it was not ready.
But for me, I more like a good game with outdated graphics and bugs, as a modern warfare action garbage for american teenagers.

[the dark side]

i have, never, Never Tolerated bugs, i expect quality in return for my money. if i dont get quality, i want my money back, because i havnt got the quality i have paid for.

Piranah bytes should have just told the publisher to stick it and transferred to one who would give them the time to complete it (bethesoft, steamworks, etc), it is still there fault for not telling the publisher "were to get off" and just kotowing to them and rushing the game. you dont have to.

say what you will about valve, but, they take there time on games, they are done when they are done, and if EA comes along saying "realase now so we can beat modern warfare 905!" valve will just show them the door, sure, it means we probably wont see Half Life 3 until 2020, but it will be bug free, old school, and ported to console from PC, not the other way round. the way games should be made.

agreed, i'd sooner have outdated graphics and great gameplay than Anything that resembles cod in even the slightest way, but i will not put up with bugs, because ive paid money. so i want quality.