Hi Sherryah

Happy to see you around.

Ah Nikopol, excellent game, the name even sounds good.

Am busy with Gothic Universe, Gothic 3 keeps crashing my PC, but hear there is a final patch coming out early next year.
I have lots of patience

What next Oblivion or Witcher

(out here demos eat up my whole months download facility)

Anne, did you start with Gothic 3 or have you played the other two already? Gothic 3 doesn't run very well for most people. I had a hard time, especially in the beginning, but finally got it running halfway decently. Gothic 2 runs like a charm and is the best of the series of games.

Two Worlds reminds me of Gothic and I enjoyed it.

Started with Gothic 3, nice graphics, played for a long time without any problems and then it just began switching my PC off. Am playing Gothic 2 now with no problems at all. Its very good.
Thanks

The shutdown could be due to heat. Can you check the temperature on your video card after you have played a while? Maybe the case needs a cleaning if it has accumulated dust. I haven't heard about a patch but that would be good news.

Have you updated you video card drivers lately? I had rebooting until I updated my drivers.

Thanks Pokey, will give those a try.
The patch is from the community team - 1.7, even has a teaser video.

:wave12:

Oh Pokey, I must thank you soooo much for recommending Gothic Universe :praise12:

Am still busy with Gothic 2 gold, but am really enjoying it. Nice to have a long game with a good story, don't want it to end. Fortunately I still have Gothic 1 and the rest of 3.

Cleaned my PC and checked the heat on my video card and they both seem to be fine. Can wait for the patch as I still have a lot to play.
Thanks again
Anne

And a Happy Christmas to all.

:kissy12:

Bumped, message for Pokey

Hi there. I see you are a big Gothic fan like myself, Pokey. However, there is something that puzzles me. I started with Gothic 3 close to release, but as there were no patches available at the time, had to stop midway. Then I got hold of Gothic 2, but I could make no sense of the story, as the nameless hero kept bumping into his old buddies from Gothic 1.

Then I got myself Gothic 1 , and after finally getting the hang of the very different controls, I managed to get myself through the game, and as I went along, lightbulbs kept going on for me, re Gothic 2.
Once I had completed Gothic 1, Gothic 2 suddenly made a whole lot of sense to me.

Now, I am curious to know how you guys make sense of Gothic 2, without having played Gothic 1.

This is why in another thread, I recommended the Gothic series as a second, later choice for a beginner. I adore the series, but Gothic one does have relatively difficult controls for people who are used to point and click, and IMHO, Gothic 1 is rather an essential starting point for G2. (However, not so much for G3, which is more of a standalone game)

Regarding G3: The vanilla game has a memory leak, which is why you eventually crash, the more you save. A possible remedy, is to completely exit the game every two hours or so, right back to desktop, and then re-initialise, to get rid of the memory cache problem. I personally applied the latest official and community patches, and so far, I haven't had any problems with my current playthrough. I also upgraded my RAM (especially for G3 ) from 2 Gig to 4 Gig. See how much I love the game?

Apparently the latest expansion, Forsaken Gods, has a fully patched version of G3 included. I've pre-ordered it, but there seems to be some kind of delay at my store.

Regarding Oblivion and Witcher: Although Morrowind is one of my favourite games of all time, one has to admit that Oblivion is "prettier" and perhaps a bit more user-friendly for an RPG beginner. These are both very free-ranging games in wich I have both spent years and years. I'm currently still playing both of them after many, many hours.

On the other hand, The Witcher (my favourite game of all time next to Morrowind and Jade Empire?) is more linear and story driven, - but what a compelling story it is! In style it is a bit more similar to an Adventure Game than the free-roaming worlds of Gothic, Morrowind and Oblivion, and the main character, Geralt, is one of a kind, and grows on you like moss.. (In a good way)

Knights of the Old Republic, Two Worlds, Jade Empire, the Sword Coast games -there are a lot of nice RPG's out there. (I just started a rather spectacular looking one called Rise Of the Argonauts -will start a thread on that if no-one else does.)

So, Anne, I feel rather confident that whether your choice will fall on Witcher or Oblivion, you will enjoy either of them.
Hang on,- it's Christmas! Could you not get both, as a gift?

I think the point is that there are a number of great games out there and no one should be dissuaded from playing one or the other, as it's all a learning experience and everyone forms their own opinion. After all, how can we learn what we like to play without trying.

All the RPG's mentioned here are great games and all have their own particular style and idiosyncrasies. Half the fun is deciding for yourself what you're going to play today, or tomorrow or the next day...

Hi Moondancer, thanks for your feedback.

Well I installed all 3 games from Gothic Universe and played the introductions, when I got to Gothic 3 the graphics were rather pretty and carried on with 3 till I came across the glitches.

Oh, thanks for the info about the saves to stop the crashing.

By this time I was totally absorbed by the story and read up everything I could about Gothic and had no problem following the story in Gothic 2.

Forsaken Gods will be out here shortly, pity it was given to new developers.

:wave12:

Hope Santa brings you lots of games

Anne, glad to hear that you are liking the Gothic games as much as I did.

Moondancer, I recommended Gothic 2 because I have read of so many players giving up on Gothic 1 because of the unusual controls. They didn't bother me, but I hesitate to recommend it for that reason. I do think it is best to start with the original game though it is not as good as the sequel.

Ok, I understand what you are saying, Pokey. What I can recommend, is that one could maybe read a "story summary" of Gothic 1, (Some mainstream gaming sites have these) if you really find the controls too awkward and if you are really sure that you are never going to play it.

I elected to push through with Gothic 1, as I am stubborn by nature, and was quite an experienced RPG gamer by the time I attempted it.

I'd like to mention to anyone who attempts Gothic 1 and who feels daunted by the controls at first, that I also felt that way, but when I just pushed on for a bit, I soon got used to the controls, and to me, they soon become like second nature.

I seem to remember that there are quite a few cheats out there as well, and at the very worst, one could always go through it in god-mode, just to experience the story, which is quite unique, IMO.

In the end, Pokey, what is important is that you and I are the same side - we both love the Gothic series.

Glad to see you are also a Gothic convert now, Anne!

Merry Christmas, everyone! :christmas:

If you get Gothic Universe, you can try Gothic 1. If you can't stand the controls, then move on to Gothic 2. The controls didn't really bother me at all, but they annoyed a lot of players enough that they quit. It is a good story, so it is best to start at the beginning and then you can see the changes that occur in Gothic 2. I'm hoping we are lucky enough to get another good Gothic game.

I would recommend Knights of the Old Republic, actually. It's not a Hack'n Slash game, and it has one of my favourite stories, great voice acting, still decent-looking graphics and is very easy to get into.

And you get to make your own Lightsabre! If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll love being able to use a lightsabre -- or two. Great games, these.

Put in my vote for Elder Scrolls:Oblivion.Also for the Icewind Dale games (IWD 1, Heart Of Winter expansion, Trials Of The Luremaster patch, & IWD 2).Have spent many a happy hour on those games!!