Okay.

I must admit, it feels pretty clunky so far. The voice acting is embarassing.

The melee just feels silly. Why? Because with every swipe of my sword, my character takes about three steps forward. And the creature just sort of backs up. So in order to kill a wolf, I basically push him all the way across the field, not getting many hits in until I can back him up against something. And then half of the time, due to clipping, he just disappears into the object, and starts to heal himself.

Also, I have no idea what to do or where to go. The guy on the beach told me to go back to the village to talk to Diego again, but Diego is gone. Another guy told me to go to some other town, but I cannot find it on my map.

The game feels VERY unpolished, almost unfinished. On the other hand, it's pretty, and I like how open the world feels, like in all Gothic games. Perhaps I need to find a good online guide to the game.

It is a big game world and I recall having trouble finding people. This guide may be a help:

http://guides.gamepressure.com/gothic3/guide.asp?ID=1501

As I remember it, the game world in Gothic 3 moves on. This means if you linger or wander around too long on the beach, Diego will have moved away from the village and gone somewhere else.

I'm surprised you have a map yet? In all the Gothic games, you'll need to buy a map, or to get a cartographer to draw you a picture of where you'll be going next...or anyhwere, I think?

Pokey

Karsten, that sounds like a challenging way to find out where you are. Were the maps expensive?

Ray

Yeah, on the moving on thing. I did spend a bit of time at the beach (hey, a hero has to collect flowers, right?) and now Dorn is gone from the village. He was supposed to be my guide for the next destination.

Pokey, I'll check out that guide, thanks!

Ray, I'll be interested in how you feel about the game after a few days' play. I had framerate issues and had to give up, but I keep thinking I should load it up and give it another shot with my newer computer.

Okay, progress report time.

This game has a LOT of problems, but, just as with the first two games, the series' strengths are still there: an insanely open game world that just sort of feels like a real place with real consqeuences.

I'm used to the very immaculatlely (sp?) tailored Bioware RPG worlds, with their high degree of polish and the feeling that the game designers are taking care of me at all times.
The world of Gothic 3 is untamed, rough around the edges and has very few helpful hints (the map, for example, is next to useless).

I've decided to play G3 with as few hints as I can possibly deal with. I'm treating it as a very dangerous, challenging world that I need to make my own way in.

That being said, the two biggest gripes I have are 1) the game freezes for a few seconds every 40 seconds or so and 2) death is FREQUENT and so quick saves and reloads are necessary, and both take FOREVER. Tedious.

Also the quest log is simply atrocious. There are several defunct quests still in my log that are not finishable, so they are going to be there bothering me for the rest of the game. They won't move to the "failed" list, where they should go.

How do quests get in this state? Well, because the game simply forgets that I am still working on them. Example: The escaped slave wants meat, but you can only complete that quest if you give him meat immediately. He forgets all about it if you don't. But there stays the quest, cluttering up your log. Same thing for the "kill the wolf packs around the town" quest. I've killed them, but the quest giver has completely forgotten that he asked me to do it. Pretty shoddy.

Plus, NPCs simply disappear. To move the game's overarching quest forward, I must have Gorn escort me to the secret rebel stronghold. The only problem is, Gorn is GONE from the first town. Gone gone gone. So I am going to try to find the place on my own, but I'm not sure the game will even let me do that.

Still, despite all of the problems, I'm having fun. I sure hope Jowood demands that G4 be more polished, though.

Ray, I found the rebel stronghold on my own, so you do not need Gorn. There is a cheat that will place you at the NPCs location. I had to use it late in the game, when a character I needed to see was missing. There was no other way to get to him. With all the problems, I still enjoyed the game with its huge open world.

Eeeek Ray, I do remember many discussions about this game being glitchy. I hope you are able to enjoy it despite its problems.

As far as I know, there's a patch out, official for the game, that fixes a lot of bugs. And then there's the Community Patch, version 1.74 (I think) that fixes even more bugs.

If you havent yet, Ray, please patch the game as this will help a great deal with a great many issues e.g. bugs.

As for the map being less than helpfull, it has been so in all the Gothic games. However, plants you've picked won't grow back again...

Also, a hint is that try not to clear everything before moving on. Repercussions throughout the game will happen.

And, as far as I remember, in all the Gothic games, people move on. And also, in all the Gothic series, as I recall it, if you don't do something right away, the quest cannot be finished. This leads to a sense of urgency that I personally like...

The slave that wants meat wants if now and here. If you don't deliver, he'll probably have gotten meat from someone else.

As far as how expensive the map are, I can't remember.

Here is an overview of the different patches (up till oct 5th 2008 - scroll down to read ChrisGer's post)

http://justadventure.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1223194129

As I've said above, the Community Patch should now be version 1.74 (I think?)

Thanks Karsten

Yes, thanks!

Wow. The quests are so easily broken in this game. You can loot a cabin, sell the loot and not realize you're selling future quest items which cannot be recovered. That happened to me with Kadok's hammer in Silden and I'm afraid it's happened with a similar quest regarding a halberd. This has happened to me in nearly every town. I wonder if the main quest is this flimsy?