Gothic 3 redux

[Gordon Cameron]

So I finally installed this, and was mucking around with it last night.

1. In a twisted way I like how sadistic the opening is. You are dropped into the middle of an orc battle and repeatedly beaten down. Run outside and get beaten down by scavengers! The game feels as brutal and unapologetic as an early Ultima, and in a way I found it strangely refreshing. Where do I go? Who knows! Run that way, oh look there's a house, go talk to the guy there...

2. Crazy swooshy cam, what is the deal with this? The problem of 3rd person camera/mouselook has been solved. It was solved by the time Heretic 2 came out. Why is there this weird system here? Does the patch improve it at all? Weirdly, inverting the mouse X axis seems to have no effect on this control. It's almost a deal breaker but I think I will force myself to become accustomed to it if I need to.

[Spect]

My copy of Gothic 2 sits unopened on my bookcase here, and my copy of Gothic 3 still awaits me in a bargain bin somewhere.

I'm an avid RPG fan, but for some reason I just can't bring myself to install G2.

Someone tell me I'm crazy, and I'm missing out on a fantastic RPG here. And mean it!

[Robert Sharp]

You are insane, Spect. I'm not joking or telling you what you want to hear either. Gothic 2 might be the best RPG I've ever played. It's better than any of the Elder Scroll series, IMO, because the actions you take matter. You are missing out on a fantastic RPG, and you cannot call yourself an RPG fan until you play Gothic 2.

Gothic 3 is buggy and has broken combat. I loved it, but I like the world. Gothic 2 is brilliant and highly recommended.

[Spect]

You are insane, Spect. I'm not joking or telling you what you want to hear either. Gothic 2 might be the best RPG I've ever played. It's better than any of the Elder Scroll series, IMO, because the actions you take matter. You are missing out on a fantastic RPG, and you cannot call yourself an RPG fan until you play Gothic 2.

Gothic 3 is buggy and has broken combat. I loved it, but I like the world. Gothic 2 is brilliant and highly recommended.

Better than Oblivion?? Wow, that's a helluva claim. I may just have to try it out....

[Jason McMaster]

My copy of Gothic 2 sits unopened on my bookcase here, and my copy of Gothic 3 still awaits me in a bargain bin somewhere.

I'm an avid RPG fan, but for some reason I just can't bring myself to install G2.

Someone tell me I'm crazy, and I'm missing out on a fantastic RPG here. And mean it!

Gothic 2 is one of my favorite games and one of the best RPGs out there.

[scharmers]

BZZZZZZZZZT

Fanboy alert on aisle 2. Gothic 2 also has one of the most frustrating power curves I've ever run in to. In G2, you pretty much can be beaten down right off the bat by anything. If you do happen to persevere, and get your character built up, you then hit a power wall where the new monsters can totally romp on you...but since you've killed all the newbie(?) monsters, there's nothing you can grind on to built up to the new monster level.

Great elements of design of G2, terrible power scaling. Killed it for me dead for me.\

Somewhere, there has to be a happy balance between G2's sheer-cliff progression and Oblivion's handholding "everything levels up right along with you" progression.

[Jason McMaster]

well, the idea is that you don't go fight the hard monsters until you've worked your way up on the easier ones. I absolutely loved that the mobs dont scale.

[scharmers]

That's not the problem. It's like monster progression goes like:

* First tier: lvl 0-1 trash mobs. (Although still plenty to whoop ass on a new PC).

* Second tier: lvl 15 not trash mobs.

* Third tier: god knows

There's nothing in between. Your PCs run of out bees and critters and whatnot right around the starting city, but your PCs are still nowhere ready to venture out in the wild world to face the second tier mobs. A bee/wolf-slaying master is no match for their first orc.

[marxeil]

I actually felt that after the third act or so, things start to even up and later you can tackle pretty much every thing. The nice thing is that still you can never get careless with how mighty you are. Didn't time your defense and attacks - you die. Take on many foes at ones - the same. It all felt much better then other RPGs I played.

Oblivion on the other hand - I dunno, maybe it was my crappy build but I felt like hitting a wall all the time. It also has a dead world. I hated it.

[Jason McMaster]

I really didn't have that much trouble with the game. I walked from the tower to the city, doing quests along the way and then when it was orc time, I died a few times, but I learned the combat system and out-fought anything I had a problem with

[Chuck]

And it will not run at all with Vista.

[MatthewF]

There's nothing in between. Your PCs run of out bees and critters and whatnot right around the starting city, but your PCs are still nowhere ready to venture out in the wild world to face the second tier mobs. A bee/wolf-slaying master is no match for their first orc.

I did pretty decently against my first orc, but only through sheer sneakiness and determination. It's basically a run, slash, run, slash, jump somewhere he can't hit you etc etc fest until the thing is finally dead. But I do wholeheartedly agree with you -- you go from shit you can kill easily to shit that can practically 1 shot you with nothing in between. You basically have to find every single trash mob in existence and kill it before you even approach an orc. I know I spent the majority of the beginning of the game doing just that.

[Gordon Cameron]

I'd probably put Gothic 2 in my top 10 alltime CRPG list. I loved Oblivion too, though.

I don't recall the initial power curve being too awful. The mid-low part, when I was first forced to confront orcs, was harder. But it was also kind of cool that an orc is a really scary thing. Edit: Oh, I guess that matches Scharmers' description.

I agree with Scharmers that happy mediums exist, but I didn't find Gothic 2's difficulty to be a deal breaker or even *that* excessive. This was a few years ago, though. Maybe I have been softened by WoW in the intervening years.

Interestingly, there is a dark side to Oblivion's hand holding rubberband approach. On more than one character I've hit a nasty wall once I get into the mid levels. (This was playing it unpatched with the standard aka "broken" leveling system.) On my first toon, I remember running in sheer terror on more than one occasion from a will 'o' wisp, for example...

[SpoofyChop]

I enjoyed the game more than the original Gothic although I agree that it could be difficult.

It was also pretty long. Definitely enjoyed Oblivion more than Gothic II, warts and all.

[Spect]

And it will not run at all with Vista.

That's a non-issue. I've avoided Vista thus far and I'm planning on buying another copy of XP before they stop selling them in June.

As for the difficulty curve, I seem to recall running into a wall in the first Gothic, which may be the reason why G2 is still in the box.

I'm going to take the plunge and give it a run-through. It can't be any worse than Dungeon Lords was.

[Robert Sharp]

Everyone said Gothic was too hard, and I agree that the combat is really tough at the beginning of the game. And yeah, the first orc is tough. But you adjust your tactics and you get better at taking them on. They key is to specialize. Get good at something and adjust your fighting style to that. I never really had major problems with the difficulty, as many have.

BTW, I love Oblivion. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I just think Gothic 2 is better.

[Ergo]

The Gothic series divides people into two camps--you either love it or hate it. I am in the latter camp.

[unbongwah]

Gothic Universe (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8654618&st=Gothic&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1195600208401), which contains the complete series, is down to 20 bucks now.

Any particularly good mods for Gothic 2 or 3?

[roguefrog]

That's not the problem. It's like monster progression goes like:

* First tier: lvl 0-1 trash mobs. (Although still plenty to whoop ass on a new PC).

* Second tier: lvl 15 not trash mobs.

* Third tier: god knows



So this is like going from killing Kobolds to getting fucked by Mindflayers who just so happens were dominating the entire kobold tribe from the lower dens. Awesome.

[malkav11]

It's worth noting that you can beat up pretty much everyone in the mercenary camp for exp and phat lewts with zero repercussions. (Not *kill*, the two are distinct in Gothic games.)

[marxeil]

On my first toon, I remember running in sheer terror on more than one occasion from a will 'o' wisp, for example...
That was when I closed then game, removed disk, uninstalled.

[Marcin]

That's not the problem. It's like monster progression goes like:

* First tier: lvl 0-1 trash mobs. (Although still plenty to whoop ass on a new PC).

* Second tier: lvl 15 not trash mobs.

* Third tier: god knows


Yes! This is exactly what I ran into! I faked it for a while by finding a dinosaur morph scroll and by ripping up on everything in sight while it lasted, but it wasn't enough to bring me up to speed with the rest of the world's deadly population.

It's a pity, because as far as convincing worlds and NPCs go, Gothic 2's was excellent. Citizens had schedules, would react to a variety of actions you did, all were actually *doing* something - not milling around and talking about crabs - and the notable NPCs were downright kooky.

Maybe I could just cheat to see the rest of the game...

[MatthewF]

So this is like going from killing Kobolds to getting fucked by Mindflayers who just so happens were dominating the entire kobold tribe from the lower dens. Awesome.

Oh god, that was horrific.

[DoomMunky]

Hmm. I've been looking for a badass RPG to tide me over until Fallout 3.

Is Gothic 2 too old, now? I guess that's subjective. Gothic 3: worse than G2? And do either of them work on Vista?

[Jason McMaster]

3 works on vista last time I checked. I also had 2 running on vista

[espressojim]

That's not the problem. It's like monster progression goes like:

* First tier: lvl 0-1 trash mobs. (Although still plenty to whoop ass on a new PC).

* Second tier: lvl 15 not trash mobs.

* Third tier: god knows

There's nothing in between. Your PCs run of out bees and critters and whatnot right around the starting city, but your PCs are still nowhere ready to venture out in the wild world to face the second tier mobs. A bee/wolf-slaying master is no match for their first orc.

You know, at the beginning of each act ALL the mobs respawn, down to the level 0 trash? So, I had a blast going as far as I could in the world before I went to the next act (and it's pretty clear when you transition.) That way, you can level up as much as you can, and explore a ton. When you "ACT UP", you'll get plenty of new mobs to play with, and now you'll have some new toys as well (spells/weapons/etc.)

I loved the HELL out of gothic 2. I remember the discovering all the nooks and crannies in the tower where you start, and finding all that loot, and books to read, and little items. Then you walk down the path, and to the left there's a little hidden walkway that opens out onto a lake with a waterfall, and you can dive under the water and find an underground cave, and get reagents and such.

It's like the devs put little treasures everywhere, and reward exploring with neat little bits of stuff. The world feels very hand made, and very dense with neat things to see and do.

[Dan_Theman]

3 works on vista last time I checked. I also had 2 running on vista
I have Gothic 2 AND 3 both installed and running on my Vista 64. I seem to vaguely recall a patch workaround when I installed G3, but my walkthrough AAR is currently buried on the severs being used to resurrect OO so I can't be sure at the moment. Anyway, they both run beautifully in case that was holding someone back from giving the games a try.

[Desslock]

Gothic 2 is also on my top 10 RPGs list. Concur that it's not as easy as typical North American RPGs, and that there's some aspects of the interface/controls that can seem cumbersome at first until you spent some time with the game, but it's ultimately extremely rewarding, and the depth of its world is only topped by Oblivion and Ultima VII.

[routlaw]

Any particularly good mods for Gothic 2 or 3?

Not a mod per se, but there is a pretty beefy community patch for G3:

http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=151286

[Johan O]

I'll second, or third or whatever, that Gothic 2 is great. The expansion is great as well. Of all the crpg's I've played I think G2 is the one that has given me the most joy of exploring. The world feels so alive, and the possibility of running into and fleeing from critters beyond your competence to handle makes the exploration all the more interesting. It is a lot more interesting trying to climb atop hills and precipes when you know there is a possibility that you will be rewarded with a perma stat boost herb, and run the risk of bumping into a shadowbeast who will make mincemeat out of you for a good part of the game. Unfortunately I thought the last map was a bit of a letdown.

I thought the second was much more enjoyable than the third though.

[DoomMunky]

I thought the second was much more enjoyable than the third though.
Any particular reasons for this, or just a general sense of sameness?

[Robert Sharp]

The second is tighter and more focused. It has much better combat, too. The third suffers from over-ambition for one thing, but more importantly the combat is simply broken. I don't mean that it's bad. I mean it is broken.

[Marcin]

You know, at the beginning of each act ALL the mobs respawn, down to the level 0 trash?
That was distinctly not my experience. I triggered an Act before I was sufficiently leveled up, and the world repopulated with the level 15s mentioned above, including the starting area and town.

I was actually having a blast since I thought I could make progress even not being leveled, and got to the Orc-held lands and castle by mostly running away (hate the combat anyway), and then I tried going back only to be greeted by things that easily 1-shotted me. Including the *spoiler* dudes wandering all over the place.

[DoomMunky]

Grrr, there's no way to buy Gothic 2 online...

[Robert Sharp]

Grrr, there's no way to buy Gothic 2 online...


What?

http://www.amazon.com/Atari-1575956624-Gothic-II/dp/B000069D75/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1210886616&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Aspyr-11131-Gothic-2-Gold/dp/B000BNJMIM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1210886616&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Dreamcatcher-DVD55841MB-Gothic-Universe/dp/B000VPRAFM/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1210886616&sr=8-3

Take your pick.

[DoomMunky]

Ah, phooey, I meant Digital Download. If it were on Steam, I'd buy it right now.

[Desslock]

Also, the Gothic 2 expansion pack was unique in that it essentially offered a "directors' cut" of the original game (aside from adding new areas and quests, etc.) Some quests had different resolutions, there were additional characters and quests in familiar areas - it made the original game really entertaining to play again with a different character class, which is one of the fundamental problems most RPG expansions have (unless they continue the story, rather than addin intervening material)- it's often a lot less interesting to go back months later just to get a few more items and see a much smaller new area than the original game offered. Gothic 2: Night of the Raven revitalized the entire experience in a way few "add in" RPG expansions have.

[Jonathan Blow]

Part of the fun of Gothic 2 is that the world is *dangerous*. You aren't supposed to be able to fight a lot of the things you run into, not for a long time. You need to seek out the things you can fight, and run like hell from the other stuff. This is part of what made the game so different and interesting.

[Marcin]

Part of the fun of Gothic 2 is that the world is *dangerous*. You aren't supposed to be able to fight a lot of the things you run into, not for a long time. You need to seek out the things you can fight, and run like hell from the other stuff. This is part of what made the game so different and interesting.

They got that part down; it's just that they didn't provide it throughout and at some point you hit a brick wall if you don't go forth and kill every single thing in every act just to keep up with levels.

There's also the little detail of the combat being atrocious, which didn't make me want to fight anything. :P

[Peter Frazier]

I was toying with the idea of starting a new thread titled 'Gothic 3 redux' two weeks ago, Gordon- let's hook pinkies and make a wish!
Unlike you, I found the beginning ridiculously easy and was soon power-leveling my way through Nordmar. It was only after I started single-handedly freeing a couple of towns from orcs that I found that this was a bad thing to do early on because it breaks the desert quests- there are some towns it is now impossible to enter without combat once you become an enemy of the orcs. Watch out for that.
One of the cool things in the game is the way that there is almost an ecology happening in the game- you can walk into a fight between animals and wait for them to beat each other up before slaughtering them all. It'd be nice to see a game with that developed even further. It was somewhat dismaying to play Oblivion with a high view distance and see everything standing mutely, waiting for you to approach before they come to life.

[Dhruin]

Depending on my mood, G2 + NotR is my favourite game - it's at least in my top 5. The cohesion and atmosphere of the gameworld is unrivalled in my opinion.

It can be hard but I never had to do the grinding a lot of people describe. It's a different mindset than the typical western RPG and you need a different approach. That first orc? Run like *hell* back to town and have the guards and townsfolk kill it for you. I'd suggest those that ran out of mobs hadn't explored far enough - and when you encounter something scary, you run like hell.

[DoomMunky]

Hmm. This is new.

This was just posted on my blog:

Saw (but couldn't reply to) your QT3 post wishing for a digital download of Gothic II. Not sure if you're only comfortable using Steam, but www.gamersgate.com has both Gothic II (game plus expansion) and Gothic 3 available for download at $14.99 each, not a bad deal if you can't track down a physical copy. For what it is worth, I purchased Puzzle Quest from that site and had no problems. Good luck! The site looks legit and I like the idea of playing the game tonight, but it's sorta weird to be tracked down.

Not terrible, just a little weird.

Edit: But hell, ask and you shall receive. Thanks, warweasel!

[Robert Sharp]

Gamersgate looks legit? Is that what you mean? Of course it's legit.

[DoomMunky]

I've just never heard of it, and it was a little weird to be 'found' like that.

[tiohn]

So would someone who really wanted to like Oblivion but ended up hating it enjoy Gothic 2?

[Robert Sharp]

Possibly. What didn't you like about Oblivion? If it was scaling monsters and a world where your choices didn't seem to really matter, than Gothic might be for you. If you want more spells/items/etc. then Gothic is inferior in that regard.

[Dhruin]

I've just never heard of it, and it was a little weird to be 'found' like that.

GamerGate is owned by Paradox. As in, the historical strategy specialists. It's as legit as it gets, unless being European rules them out. ;)

[Gendal]

So would someone who really wanted to like Oblivion but ended up hating it enjoy Gothic 2?
The biggest difference between the two for me was the sense of exploration. Oblivion was larger and supposedly had all handcrafted dungeons but it's obvious they just went ape shit with the ol' copy and paste keys. Entering a random dungeon you found in Oblivion was mostly pointless and almost always with out risk thanks to the leveling system. In Gothic it's dangerous, exciting, and possibly rewarding in unexpected ways. Gothic makes exploring eff u en.

Oh and if you decide to try Gothic 2 (and I recommend you do) make sure you start your game with the Night of the Raven expansion. Can't recommend that enough.

[Gordon Cameron]

I thought the McDungeons in Oblivion were a lot of fun. There's inevitably some sameness with such a huge amount of content, but the variety of creatures, traps, architectural styles, and loot, made wandering into a random mine/cave/ruin/fort one of my favorite activities in the game.

[Warning]

I finished Gothic 1 and loved it. Just loved it, warts and all. I didn't get around to Gothic 2 until a year or so after its release and the game just kicked my ass. I completely ran into the wall where I couldn't keep up with the higher level monsters and I'd killed all the easier ones. I gave up on it.

But I seriously get the desire to play through Gothic 1 every now and then.

[habibi]

Um, I thought this thread is abt G3.. bummer....

[interman]

It was only after I started single-handedly freeing a couple of towns from orcs that I found that this was a bad thing to do early on because it breaks the desert quests- there are some towns it is now impossible to enter without combat once you become an enemy of the orcs. Watch out for that.


Yep, this is exactly what I did, and the game broke at like 95%. I wanted to punch and kill things. I spent all that time pulling mobs from the cities, slowly liberating them on my own, and I guess the devs didn't expect that.

I'm a huge fan of the series though (finished 1, 2+exp), and I need to be done with the third by the time the next one is out. The patches seem to fix a lot of stuff, so maybe it's more playable now.

[Gorath]

Not a mod per se, but there is a pretty beefy community patch for G3:

http://forum.jowood.com/showthread.php?t=151286

The community patch is now the official patch. One more is announced, but it can take months until it´s released.

G3 Universe comes with G2 Gold, which means G2 with an already included NotR. Installing them alone is unfortunately impossible. Most people in this thread are talking about G2 vanilla. NotR increases the difficulty level quite a bit, adds a new world with ca 30 hours of content and several 100 little details to the old world.
The only useful mods for G2 Gold are a texture update and a difficulty changer.

[Alex Dolce]

Did they ever patch Gothic 3 so that it doesn't run like crap? I know my PC is getting on in years, but boy does G3 punish it.

[Gordon Cameron]

Yeah, I didn't even try to install G3 until I had upgraded my comp. This based on Desslock's recommendation that you need a beast of a machine to run it smoothly.

[Jason McMaster]

Desslock is right, it didn't run well on my old PC and it wasn't bad

[Sam Jones]

The last Community / Spellbound patch made the game really unstable for me, and also made it run slower. I can't wholeheartedly recommend it.

[Dave Markell]

Grrr, there's no way to buy Gothic 2 online...

Nope. Try Gamers Gate (http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?page=product&what=view&sku=DD-G2G&cat=rpg) for a direct download version.

[DoomMunky]

Done! $15 later, I'm a proud owner of Gothic 2 Gold.

I'm taking the Gothic 2 discussion over here (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=44524), so as not to poop up this G3 thread any more. So go, you sexy graphics people, go!

[DoomMunky]

The second is tighter and more focused. It has much better combat, too. The third suffers from over-ambition for one thing, but more importantly the combat is simply broken. I don't mean that it's bad. I mean it is broken.
I'm still wondering how it's broken. Too easy to exploit? Too easy to be owned?

[Peter Frazier]

It's too easy- just mash the button and the AI keeps on being knocked off balance. Animals are still tricky though, since they can't be unbalanced.

[Gendal]

I'm still wondering how it's broken. Too easy to exploit? Too easy to be owned?
Heh. Both.

It's really just bad. In every way it's worse than the previous games, which was pretty disappointing since nobody believed it could actually get worse. You can muddle through it still, and if the buggyness is mostly gone by now then it's probably worth it. I was loving the game despite the combat till the bugs just crushed my desire to play.

[Gorath]

The combat in Gothic 3 suffers from serious balance issues, lack of reward for using the more complex moves (read the manual, it sounds great on paper!), stunlock and a somewhat unfinished feel. It´s simply broken. The community patches made it work a bit better, but completely fixing combat is impossible for an amateur team. Kudos to them for fixing hundreds of small and not so small issues though.

The combat in Gothic and G2 (both "classic" and "new" system) on the other hand works correctly. It has its weaknesses when fighting multiple opponents, but it reacts as you expect it to, it gets the job done and offers a nice balance between player skill and character stats. Obviously PB didn´t really hit the mass market taste with their idea to use an "action key" (CTRL or the LMB) and then select your action with ASDW, plus combos when you get better. But that´s just a matter of taste.


An update on Gothic 3 patches. I´ve read on the biggest fan site World of Gothic that their recommended upgrade path is:

1. update to v1.12 (might be the US version out of the box, so check before you update!)

2. a) single core CPUs -> official community patch v1.60 -> the 1.12 to 1.60 version
b) dual core CPUs -> unofficial community patch v1.52

That was the recommendation for the German version, but I don´t see why it shouldn´t be true for the international releases.

[Sam Jones]

b) dual core CPUs -> unofficial community patch v1.52


So you're not supposed to upgrade to 1.6 (the Community / Spellbound patch)? for multicore machines? That's perhaps why it was crashing/grinding so much for me. I'll have to try 1.52.

[marxeil]

So you're not supposed to upgrade to 1.6 (the Community / Spellbound patch)? for multicore machines? That's perhaps why it was crashing/grinding so much for me. I'll have to try 1.52.
Perhaps you should try running it on a single core.

[Sam Jones]

Perhaps you should try running it on a single core.

I played and completed the game using only the official PB patches when it came out, and it was *much* more stable than under 1.6, and ran faster. If there's any instability running with multiple cores in 1.6, then Spellbound has introduced it to the code, which kinda undermines the point of a patch.

[Misguided]

I absolutely adored the original Gothic. I finished it, which is rare for me.
Gothic is probably the most rewarding game I've ever played, in the sense that as you progress through it, you really feel like not just your character, but YOU get better. The only thing that comes to mind that's close in this regard would be Shiren. I also really admire that they made the game feel rather open-ended, even though it always guided you to where it needed you to be. It's a shame that Gothic suffered from such terrible documentation, which made the game confusing for those trying to play it.

I tried G2 at some point, but didn't get into it.

[Gorath]

So you're not supposed to upgrade to 1.6 (the Community / Spellbound patch)? for multicore machines? That's perhaps why it was crashing/grinding so much for me. I'll have to try 1.52.

Well, *I* haven´t tried any of these community patches. JoWooD would of course say you should install v1.60 no matter what because it´s an official patch. I would rather believe WoG though.
v1.52 is the unofficial CP which removes the disk check, includes 100s of small fixes and is still based on v1.12 technology. If it runs correctly it´s certainly a huge improvement over v1.12.

v1.60 is the Spellbound & Community patch. AFAIR they wrote a new memory manager and sorted some other technical things out. I heard they actually removed some half-assed DualCore stuff. No idea if it´s true, but it would explain why the game runs slower on DC machines and faster on SC.

[Gendal]

I tried G2 at some point, but didn't get into it.
Did you try it with the Night of the Raven expansion? That made all the difference for me for some reason.

[marxeil]

I played and completed the game using only the official PB patches when it came out, and it was *much* more stable than under 1.6, and ran faster. If there's any instability running with multiple cores in 1.6, then Spellbound has introduced it to the code, which kinda undermines the point of a patch.
I guess so, unless the patch contains gameplay fixes that you'd want to have. If 1.6 has issues with multiple cores then running it with a single core might circumvent that and enable any worthwhile fixes that 1.6 has.
I am trying to make up my mind if I want to get this. GamersGate is selling it for 15$ right now. I loved G2 and played it twice, the second time with NOTR. Is the combat issue a game killer?

[Sam Jones]

I am trying to make up my mind if I want to get this. GamersGate is selling it for 15$ right now. I loved G2 and played it twice, the second time with NOTR. Is the combat issue a game killer?

No, not at all. It's clearly not quite *right*, and it's not massively satisfying, but it's also not "broken" as others seem to suggest.

G3 is a good game, and big. There's a lot in there to enjoy, and if you liked the previous games, you'll enjoy this one. $15 is a steal.

[Misguided]

Did you try it with the Night of the Raven expansion? That made all the difference for me for some reason.

No, I picked it up at release (think I had imported it, actually). I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't like Gothic the first time, either.

[Benhur]

I have Gothic 2 AND 3 both installed and running on my Vista 64. I seem to vaguely recall a patch workaround when I installed G3, but my walkthrough AAR is currently buried on the severs being used to resurrect OO so I can't be sure at the moment. Anyway, they both run beautifully in case that was holding someone back from giving the games a try.

Shoot, I wish I could find it. I installed G3 after getting a new vista rig last year to. It would run like a slideshow; it was unplayable. If anyone knows where they can find a vista patch or workaround I'd appreciate it.