Darnoc

Yes, of course. I mean, I wouldn't get far with writing a novel about BG2 without actually playing the game constantly in order to look up this and that.

There's a reason why I create so many save games, so that it is easier for me to look a specific scene up... I often reload an older save game, look at something specific, then jump to another place in the game etc. etc.

If you want another reason why Gothic was not that popular, take that the control was a true nightmare, especially in the first one.

I never had much problems with it, to be honest, I actually believe that their method of "control" is actually in the long run better than most I have seen in other games, especially the improved version of Gothic 2 is very good in my opinion. And "control" is not a criterium with me in RPGs. It is story, atmosphere, setting, characters... And those were all very good, even superb in my opinion. The second one was way better with the controls, by the way.

OK, perhaps I am a little biased, since I am German-speaking and actually quite proud of Pyranha Bytes' achievement. Not many good things come from Germany and Gothic certainly is one. And I just love the band "In Extremo", which appears in the first Gothic^^ *goes rolling himself a swampweed-joint, anyone wanna have some, eh?*

I live in Denmark, which is connected to germany by land, and I've never even seen either Gothic or Gothic II in the stores. I think it's also a matter of blaming Atari for not using enough money to get the game out of Germany, let alone give the game the publicity it (in your opinion) deserves. I buy every RPG I can find, but I've never found this game in Denmark.

I partially blame the producer (well, not partially, a huge amount of the blame): JoWooD-Productions. JoWooD has made many losses the last several years and that is the reason, why they were never able to do much advertising outside Germany for Gothic 2. They didn't even publish it themselves in English and the rights to the addon were never sold to anyone, so there won't be an English version.

So, basically you have this: A great game-series, created by a talented studio (Piranha Bytes, huge fan of them, since they actually talk with their fans and listen to them), but with a lousy producer. The result is disastrous for this great game. I hope, they will be able to pull it through with the third game, Piranha Bytes really deserves it. I mean, in which game can you roll yourself a joint and destile your daily ration of alcohol?   Also some things the characters in the game say are just absolutely hilarious, they really have a talent for dialogues.

There was something mentioned by you right at the beginning, Feanor, but it never came up again, unfortunately, in my opion: GOTHIC.

I agree that the first Gothic was only partially an RPG, because only in the beginning you had actual freedom. In the later stages of the game you were bound to a certain path. Gothic 2 ammended this. Gothic 3 will hopefully do it even better. The only reason, why Gothic and Gothic 2 weren't the hits they should have been, is this, I think: It's German (my mothertongue, by the way). Here in German regions, both games were indeed hits and stayed hits for a long time - there's a huge and active fan-community in German regions. But outside the German regions there is not much. I never played Gothic or Gothic 2 in English, so I can't tell, how much they changed. And as far as I know, "Die Nacht des Raben", the great addon to Gothic 2, was never published in English at all. I guess, though, the game wasn't much different in English than it was in German. So, why didn't it become the hit it became here in German regions once it was translated into English?

There are several points, which would definitely speak for Gothic and which make it a unique RPG-series in my opion. The Gothic-series has a particular style which is unique to it and no game or game-series was ever able to do it like Gothic: It is sinister, rough, tough and brutal. Well, it's not necessary "gory", but it is brutal. There's a difference. Gothic has this cruel, rough world, filled with criminals (you being one of them) and selfish persons; everyone has weaknesses and even the "good guys" (for example paladins and fire-mages) are not that good - paladins and fire-mages are arrogant, for example. On the other hand, some criminals are actually good (take Lee, my favorite, leader of the mercenaries and former general of the king). It's not a "nice-hero" world or "good-vs-evil", at least not clearly, since the hero is in fact a criminal himself, although he is the avatar of Innos (supposedly the good god, although I think he is an arrogant bastard, just look at his servants). In fact, the mentor of the hero is a dark-mage, a priest of Belial, the "evil-god", and the hero has an orc as friend (Ur-shak) and his other friends are all convicted criminals.

So, Gothic 3, if it is able to maintain or even surpass the quality of the former two games, could be one of the games, which could revive the RPG genre - if there wasn't the language problem. Not only is there the problem of translation, there is also a certain bias, I think, against foreign games (with the exception being asian games) - foreign to most of you, of course, since I am from a German speaking country. This bias is especially strong in the USA, unfortunately.