Piranha Bytes vs Jowood

VS.

Anyone who follows the Gothic series will immediately know what I'm talking about here, for those who don't:

Jowood was the publisher for the entire Gothic series, as well as flagship titles like Painkiller and Spellforce. For publishing these games they quickly received powerhouse status in the industry in Europe and even started making major headway into the american and even the Asian markets (their E3 booth was well-received for several years running)... but that was before every developer of worth jumped ship.

You see, Jowood had a little problem called greed. For years they straddled their developers with unrealistic development schedules and pressed them into releasing unfinished games, Gothic 3 being the worst offense in this thread.

Much to their credit Piranha Bytes still released quality titles, and made the Gothic series a go-to in RPG design that influenced many other titles in the early 2000s. Even Gothic 3 was eventually fixed due to the extreme loyalty of their fanbase, well-earned from their hard work on the earlier titles. This caused one Piranha Bytes developer to say "We have the best fanbase ever." Doesn't that give you a fussy feeling? No? Ok then...

Even with its early flaws, its difficult not to nostalgia hard every time I think about running around Gothic 3. (image taken with Gothic 3 gametool)

...but after the release of Gothic 3 they had enough with Jowood. The split happened mostly behind the scenes, but it was quite obvious to anyone what had happened. They Forced Piranha Bytes to release a title before it was finished, tarnishing their sterling reputation thus far with a buggy release, so they left.

Jowood even tried to milk Gothic 3 for more money with a horrible expansion pack. Way more buggy than the original game... but noone bothered to try to fix that piece of crap.

But then Jowood, being the greedy buggers that they are (or were, but i'll get to that later), forced Piranha Bytes into a legal battle that they were ill equipped to win, taking away the profitable Gothic series from the developer. This led to the release of a huge dissappointment of a sequel Gothic 4. This title, developed by Spellbound interactive, divorced itself from every aspect that made the Gothic series unique and good. Instead of the living atmosphere of the Gothic series thus far, fans had to sit through a 'wax museum' experience with as much life as a dry turnip.

An awful boring experience compared to any one of the other Gothic games. If you feel like running on a linear railroad train, then give it a try.

Jowood has a history of taking rights to their developer's own intellectual property away when they leave, trying to do it again with the Stargate SG-1 franchise less than a year later. Luckily for everyone involved Jowood was embarrassingly forced to admit that they had no legal right to that intellectual property, and never had in the first place. Perception Pty still holds the rights to that series, although the game that they first made for it (Stargate SG-1: Alliance) under Jowood has been held in lymbo ever since, with no sign of further development.

Shortly afterwards Gothic 4 came out. Amoungst poor reviews, sales only totaling 200,000 units (only 40,000 in america link ), and a whopping 10 million dollars in resultant debt... I wonder how hard the good people at Piranha Bytes laughed.

So in the end Piranha Bytes left and signed on with a new publisher, Deep Silver. Since then they have released Risen (which won critical acclaim and continued the 'true' Gothic storyline) with their biggest project yet Risen 2 (financially and otherwise) in development.

Risen 2 will be Piranha Byte's biggest project yet

Oh, and the greedy publisher? What of them? I'm happy to report that as of June they have announced their attempt to gain solvency and finance their massive debt failed. They are officially a defunct company in bankruptcy, which will soon be bought off by a European distributor with their executives that made those idiotic business choices all fired.

To add a note for the fans and a 'happy ending' if you will: Insiders say Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes have expressed interest in buying the Gothic property back from the now defunct company Jowood. This buy is thought to be dependent on the sales of Risen 2 after release. So, if you want to see the Gothic series back in hands that know what to do with it, go preorder Risen 2. Good guys should get rewarded, no?

Arcania: Gothic IV Preview, Part 2

Preview part 2: Impressions, changes, and E3.

                Think those goblins have a chance? :)

With all the excitement over the new storyline, new hero, and overhauled graphics the one thing that overshadowed all this in the minds of diehard fans was new gameplay.

Basically the worry was that with new developers the ‘soul’ of the game might be ripped out and replaced with other popular (so shiny) tweaks that other games in the genre had received. Namely; over the top camerawork on cut scenes, dumbed down game play meant to draw a bigger audience, and a divorcing from the ‘solid’ feel that the combat in Gothic games has always had.

Gothic fans are used to mowing these guys down, looks like they are getting tired of it. 

For the most part, these fears have been belayed by the Dev’s continued insistence that they will stay true to the genre, but some changes have definitely been made.

For one, there will be no more trainers. While the developers have alluded to ‘some’ skills needing a special individual to unlock, for the most part skills can be allocated at any time through a familiar (to other games) skill/character screen.

The main skills are, at the time of E3;

Mettle: The primary melee skill: Melee maneuvers, attack strength, and stamina regeneration.

Vigour: Shield maneuvers, stamina, health.

Stealth: Ranged attacks, backstabbing and stealth attacks, and affects health.

Precision: The primary ranged skill: Mana, ranged attacks, ranged power.

Then the magical skills:

Zeal: Fire spells, mana regeneration, magic power.

Dominance: Electricity spells, mana regeneration, magic power.

Serenity: Cold spells, mana regeneration, magic power.

 Seen here is one of the new 'Runegates' that players will use to zip around the new world.

Every skill point in a given ‘tree’ gives a percentage increase to your primary attributes 16 points to any given tree maxes it out, more on primary attributes after the demo hands-on.

The character receives 3 skill points every level up, and every skill tree is also capped at your current level, preventing you from putting more then 1 skill point in a skill tree each level.

After pumping a certain amount of points in a skill tree you will unlock spells, moves, abilities, and other nick nacks like mana and health regen.  

An unfortunately very familiar formula, but I withhold judgment until we have seen the results and balance of the new system.

Nothing like the smell of black goblin blood in the morning. On a side note, no longer will Orcs be the primary enemies in Gothic 4, but you will still see quite a few. 

What is fortunate is that early talk of the crafting system being scraped was completely off-base.

From the press demo there will be both alchemy and equipment crafting. Although, it is still unclear what form it will take other than being learned from recipe scrolls, and some individuals in the world.  

Another great improvement over Gothic 3’s botched journal system will be an actively updating beastiary, along with pictures and full descriptions as you encounter them in the world.

 Swamp sharks and bloodflys and swampweed! Oh my. 

Details about the equipment that will be available in the game is also very encouraging to us diehards.

Every culture in the game will have its own style, which shows on the equipment from each of the 6 cultures thus far revealed. A common example is from your starting town. A small fishing village; the people have carved fishes and nets in to the armor and weapons that their people use.

Bring it on shorty!

Lastly, the combo system has been revised somewhat with a 3 mouse or keyboard buttons lining up a different combos. Some other powers work by charging up through the levels of power you have achieved, meaning you won’t be spamming that ‘kill everything in sight’ fireball twice a second. Again, more on this will be in the demo hands-on… which I see just came out! 

Continued in Part 3: Demo hands-on!

Arcania: Gothic IV Preview

Part 1: The history of the series, and the new developers.

From the first “Welcome to the colony” Gothic was a hit in Germany and North America. With its sarcastic main character and its enormous replayability, RPG fans immediately fell in love.  

The original Gothic I and II touted a unique game experience combined with a solid game engine developed in-house (4 years in the making). A special focus was placed on day night cycles, realistic NPC schedules and habits, and interactivity with the game environment; I’m sure we all lovingly remember cooking 500 pieces of meat for 20 minutes <3.

Gothic I

The Gothic epic started with our (famously) nameless hero making a name for himself by freeing the slaves unjustly thrown into a magical prison and forced into mining magical ore for the King’s war against the Orcs. The dark wizard Xardas, a prison camp taken over by the prisoners, and a cult of ‘swamp weed’ loving fanatics all added to the involving story.

                  Anyone teleport/bloodfly in and kill everything in sight right after you got locked out? Good times...

We were introduced to many complex and interesting characters, the most memorable of whom manage to stay out of the way and simultaneously influence events. These characters end up being mainstays of the Gothic story throughout the three games (and beyond).  

The story ends with the magic barrier keeping the prisoners in destroyed, the hero trapped underground, and the great Sleeper slain. The atmosphere of the prison colony was so diverse, unique, and gripping… stopping the tale there would have been a crime ;).

Gothic II, Night of the Raven

A much wider scope of the story, and a bigger world! The sequel took the Gothic experience to the next level, as we all hope sequels will. Add to that one of the best expansion packs ever made, and Gothic II really secured the Gothic series’ place as a must have in any RPG fan’s collection.

The new game was filled with great moments like coming back to the old prison colony to find it torn by war, and a continued storyline with all your old pals from the first game.

                                                                        Oh Diego, you and your shenanigans. 

We find through the course of the story that our nameless hero is not just a wanderer, but a chosen of the gods. After our hero saves the day (again) he finds that his old pal Xardas has had designs on his own place as a ‘chosen’ leaving many questions and our hero setting sail for the mainland…

Gothic III

This is where the Gothic series hits the rocks a bit. While the excellent story and even larger and more involving world are present in this title, they are hampered by unfortunate game-breaking bugs.

Through tremendous efforts by the community (and up to a point, the developers) the game was wrangled in to a relatively bug free state with a series of player made patches. So finally we were able to appreciate the real Gothic III, and there was much to appreciate!

                                                    Massive world? Check.

                             Well... lost again, but I'm sure if I keep going in a straight line everything will be... ah crap.

An overhauled graphics engine made the Gothic world come alive in ways that it hadn’t been able to previously (except in our imaginations).

As for the storyline itself, it really tied up the loose ends of the series nicely with our hero discovering the true motivations of the mysterious wizard Xardas and our companions becoming part of the mainland of Myrtana.

Depending on your choices, the game ended with either the Orcs or men winning the war, or neither winning and the gods being cast out of the world to let the peoples choose their own destiny.

The last was the ‘assumed’ ending for the series in the short game: Gothic: Forsaken Gods, which sought to tie together Gothic III and Gothic IV.

This game was… for the lack of a better word a ‘flop’. In many ways even buggier then Gothic III at its outset, it met with bad reviews and frustrating game play.

Again, it was patched and eventually became playable. It told the story of our hero who, upon seeing that conflict was once again fomenting, comes back to the world to show humanity and Orcs a better way.   

Arcania: Gothic IV, new developers?

That’s right, Spellbound studios has taken over the series. The rights to make a sequel were taken away from Parana Bytes by JoWood because of the faulty release and bugs of Gothic III, along with other internal issues.

Spellbound is best known for the Desperado series. All real time strategy/action hybrids, they were met with fairly good reviews.

The first year or two of development were fairly hush hush, with only a handful of interviews and screenshots getting out. That said, the first screenshots were quite striking, with the new lighting effects and character models being top notch.

              Wow! A foggy morning.

        Again, a wow factor. Like what you see? Then you will probably be glad to hear that you can visit every landmark you see in this screenshot!

Showing their commitment to the series, JoWood extended the release date and significantly increased Spellbound’s budget when they found that the game wasn’t holding up to what they had come to expect from Gothic. This both frustrated and relieved fans, who had been worried about the lack of new information but anxiously awaited the release.

 Now thats some detail! They really know how to breed them in that fishing village. 

The extended release date and eventual ‘Open letter’ to JoWood and Spellbound from the fans who wanted more content led to more interviews, videos, and screenshots being given and shown.

The new Trailer!

  

Continued Friday in Part 2: Early impressions, hints at story and gameplay changes from the previous Gothics, and E3.