Why a remake? I've there gonna redo everything then write a new story.
The good of the original game was that it was an open world third person rpg and those were rare at the time, the story and setting didn't make it great.
+ they wouldn't piss people off because "this doesn't feel like the original at all!!!!" (i mean, no shit man, the original game is like 20 years old! no game will feel like its 20 years old unless its fucking 20 years old...)
There are alot more aspects the "Gothic feeling" than it feeling aged.
For many fans that has the reasoning that "it doesn't feel like the original Gothic 1 at all!!" its really a lot about that i think. They've played the game to death, they love it, they actually don't really want it to change in any way.
I meet these types of people all the time when i make mods and i e.g put up a comparison video, "the graphics SHOULD look low-res because that's how the original is! You ruined it!" That's pretty much what this is. If not then people should be able to come up with some really good arguments. From what i've seen its details that can be fixed, and quite easily.
I hope the devs or publisher doesn't let the hate get to them but instead that they read the critique and fixes it. i doubt they expected a response as harsh as this though.. might make them rethink or just scrap it completely.
It's not like all these new effects are great either.
Bloom still looks shit for 90% of the applications.
Chromatic abortion is retarded beyond belief and looks horrible.
That's not me saying everything has to look like Lara's tits or a tesla truck... but sometimes they go too far with their vaseline worlds.
Can be applied to mechanics as well, change too much about it and you get a different game. Not saying what is better or worse, but it will divide people.
I always go for combat mods in le witcher series and it does change the game but I always thought standard was horrible.
'hate' is better than indifference though, at least they give a fuck.
Sure sure, "never happen". They just put work into a "demo" that is just from the goodness of their publisher's heart. It's like the "hmmmzz not sure if it will happen, but if we get 1 million likez on fæcbꝏk, it will send a message that you really really wants it for realz and we'll mæk it no promises!" type of bullshit marketing.
'hate' is better than indifference though, at least they give a fuck.
Why spend useless hate on something that could potentially be something we've been asking for, if it instead could get good with some well founded critique of what's actually really bad. From what i've seen it's mostly nit-picking? And to do that on something which is probably a really rough demo, that's not useful, or helpful. I'm sure they know of e.g graphical shortcomings.
I do wonder how long they have worked on this, it could really help with forming an opinion on it. Is this two years of hard work, is this 4-5 months of work.. If its a quick demo done in no-time then its bloody fantastic i'd say, if its 2 years of work with 15-20 people, then yeah its pretty mediocre and they do deserve some harsh truths.
Last edited by vurt on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 19:52; edited 1 time in total
Pitch demos are not something rare. Well, public ones, they sure are!, but I don't see any inherent reason why it can't be a pitch demo that was decided to publish it online.
TWIN PEAKS is "something of a miracle."
"...like nothing else on television."
"a phenomenon."
"A tangled tale of sex, violence, power, junk food..."
"Like Nothing On Earth"
Pitch demos are not something rare. Well, public ones, they sure are!, but I don't see any inherent reason why it can't be a pitch demo that was decided to publish it online.
There is a reason why these demos are almost never released online to people. One reason is the bad PR from something not coming to fruition, and the second is, well, what is seen here, where people absolutely hate it and it will most likely hurt sales. But
Yeah, chromatic aberration is really getting on my nerves. I have astigmatism and see that cursed effect on the edges of my field of view, I really don't need it in video games too.
Yeah, chromatic aberration is really getting on my nerves. I have astigmatism and see that cursed effect on the edges of my field of view, I really don't need it in video games too.
For what it's worth, turning the Post Processing option down to Low here disables most of the silly overdone effects like motion blur, CA and so on. I believe it could be possible to add the specific .ini tweaks as per usual, though I haven't done any testing in this case (r.MotionBlur.Max=0 and r.MotionBlurQuality=0, r.SceneColorFringe.Max=0 and r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0 etc.). Some de-vaselineing is always the first step with UE4-powered games these days.
Sadly this demo has bigger and more fundamental issues for me when it comes to anything that involves the actual gameplay, which would need a complete re-overhaul that isn't part of the new vision(tm)
In terms of open world RPGs the best modern take on the genre to me was KC:D. Of course that was more of a TES game than Gothic. But Gothic would do well in a little more realistic rough world with as little as possible immersion breaking aids and not too much cineastic shit. That was never part of any of the PB Games anyway.
But thats just me. They are free to do as they chose of course. Maybe its better then expected. But so far, their vision isn‘t what I‘d like to see as an evolution of Gothic.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
The problem with this demo is that the overall developement philosophy seems to be very different from Gothic. Of course you can say that its a decent base that with a lot of polish can become a good game, etc. But unless the underlying way of thinking behind every decision changes to something similar those german dudes had 18 years ago, there is no way we can get Gothic. And i dont think just replicating the same design decisions without real understanding can be enough.
I gave examples of modern remakes/re-imaginings from games older than Gothic that feel, look and sometimes even play the same, for the most part. You're trying to hard to come off as the totally reasonable guy because the demo sucks for most people but you happen to like it.
lol you're comparing a rough pitch demo to the final release version of various games.
Explain how that is even close to helpful or close to being realistic? I seriously doubt RE2 remake was 100% great at this stage either. You complain about lens flares on a torch, various U.I stuff.. at this stage i bet its not even 10% finished in the UI area. Combat is really the only area for serious concern imo, its something they really need to get right or it'll suck ass.
And no, i've given the demo plenty of criticism, but i also recognize it for what it is and have a more realistic approach to what it eventually could become with tweaking and fixing. Sorry for not hoping on the cool hate train directly when we get something we've been asking for, for so long.
Arcania was something we never asked for, it was terrible and they went for something entirely different. I pissed on the Arcania demo, with good arguments as to why it wasn't Gothic, and it was way beyond stuff like "ohhh my! the lens flare should be angled a little more to the right or it really isnt Gothic!"I didn't even need to touch on the combat, it was a game that just wasn't Gothic, everything was wrong with it apart from perhaps graphics. This isn't that.
I don't think they care about "true fans" feedback. I think they are just using Gothic brand for the ez marketing and interest gauge but they actually released demo to see if current consumer audience is interested in it (read: interested to buy it).
You have to realize that as a consumer base the old gothic fans are miniscule. They are less 1% of the whole market and I dont think they even reach 10% of the RPG audience. So in the end it does not matter what fans think of the "remake", videogameas are business for publisher and if there is enough interested in new Arcania (but this time bearing proper Gothic name) - there will be one.
lol you're comparing a rough pitch demo to the final release version of various games.
If what they have made doesn't capture what made Gothic great, why wouldn't I draw a comparison to games that perfectly capture their predecessors?
This is almost as dumb as the 'it's a beta!' response, using the progress of development to try and deflect any negative feedback when it literally exists to harvest such feedback. Why is this continually lost on you?
If you had any substantial critique maybe i'd take you more seriously. I don't see a problem with using "it's a beta" or "alpha" when it comes to explaining why something might not be 100% there either. We know how much a game can change even after a final version, if the devs are seriously interested and invested.
I don't think they care about "true fans" feedback. I think they are just using Gothic brand for the ez marketing and interest gauge but they actually released demo to see if current consumer audience is interested in it (read: interested to buy it).
You have to realize that as a consumer base the old gothic fans are miniscule. They are less 1% of the whole market and I dont think they even reach 10% of the RPG audience. So in the end it does not matter what fans think of the "remake", videogameas are business for publisher and if there is enough interested in new Arcania (but this time bearing proper Gothic name) - there will be one.
In the survey they have they seem really interested in the original fans, lots of questions about the original game and PB... Also "current consumers"? Uh they don't even have access to the pitch demo since you need to own at least 1 piranha bytes game for it to even show up. These are the people which are 100% of their market, or close to it...
If they were interested in the mass market of computer games this isn't exactly the game you make. This is a niche market aimed towards fans of PB, if they can get them onboard they know they can sell with profit, if not then the project is a fail and they'll rethink or move on.
I don't think they care about "true fans" feedback. I think they are just using Gothic brand for the ez marketing and interest gauge but they actually released demo to see if current consumer audience is interested in it (read: interested to buy it).
You have to realize that as a consumer base the old gothic fans are miniscule. They are less 1% of the whole market and I dont think they even reach 10% of the RPG audience. So in the end it does not matter what fans think of the "remake", videogameas are business for publisher and if there is enough interested in new Arcania (but this time bearing proper Gothic name) - there will be one.
In the survey they have they seem really interested in the original fans, lots of questions about the original game and PB...
This is to separate feedback into 2 pools: from original fans and from newcomers and see what each thinks of the remake. It is a simple math afterwards - if pool of newcomers is substantially large and their feedback indicates they'd play it in such way but with small adjustements - this is all THQ Nordic needs to know.
Quote:
Uh they don't even have access to the pitch demo since you need to own at least 1 piranha bytes game for it to even show up. These are the people which are 100% of their market, or close to it...
Not an issue, the games were bundled multiple times, at some point one of the Risen games were free. The reason they limited it to Piranha games is because they STILL need an RPG crowd. There is no point getting random feedback from FPS players, for example.
Quote:
If they were interested in the mass market of computer games this isn't exactly the game you make. This is a niche market aimed towards fans of PB, if they can get them onboard they know they can sell with profit, if not then the project is a fail and they'll rethink or move on.
I think you greatly underestimate the size RPG playerbase - take a look at Witcher 3 or Kindgom: Dleiverance. Then play the Teaser - it is basically a copycat in terms of approach to the design of the game and gameloop, which s why you see many fans saying "it is not Gothic at all".
The problem is that it is commercially non-viable to make proper Gothic 1 remake:
- a lot of restrictions (you need to remake existing game)
- you never satisfy all the fans and part of them always will complain about some things not being 1:1
- the customer pool is exceptionally small, which means you either have to do it at a loss or reduce budget appropriately but then remake wont be marginally different from the quality of the original game, which in turn will lead to less sales
In the end, even if you manage to get the budget right while aiming at FANS and FANS only you still won't 100% of that market niche. It is basically impossible task from the project management standpoint.
Remaking the game for general audience using Gothic branding is WAY easier. Because Gothic is an RPG you can't just do it in a simpler manned RE2 Remake was done so you will have to make more liberties in the original genre, which means possible loss of customers (mostly from fan base pool) that wont like it, but because it is aimed at general, MASSIVELY bigger audience you can discard that loss with ease.
No, giving actual proper constructive criticism is the way to go, just hating and saying "shit sucks" or complaining about a lens flare won't help it in any way. Most people do not understand constructive criticism, especially not the steam users it seems. People i've spoken to on several RPG sites likes the demo (and they also take it for what it is = not the final version of the game).
Risen 1 was a good Gothic game, ELEX was decent but not really up there with Gothic 1-2. Gothic 3 was good too, but very rough..
I'm pretty sure they aren't too interested in if a lens flare is shitty, what they're asking for opinions on is the overall tone and direction, level design, characters, voice over, music. Its kind of obvious too if you answered the survey.
From the FAQ i read earlier today this seems to be a really rough sketch, and as that this is pretty amazing, they seem to understand what players wants, i mean its not exactly G1 converted to a linear Arcania experience..
@Civ01 its a rather far fetched conspiracy though, that makes very little sense.
@Civ01 its a rather far fetched conspiracy though, that makes very little sense.
Lole, that hand-waived argument dismissal. "LALALA CANT HEAR THOU"
Anyway, looking at the Steam review score history I can see it started from 56% (at that moment forums were filled with threads like "I'm a gothic fan and this is NOT gothic") and now at 78% and forums full of zoomers apologists "If you dont like it dont play it".
It is literally a picture painted of what I was talking about. They don't need gothic fans when they can amass a buying modern audience. Just a business bro, nothing personell.
Okay, I played this for 2 hours. Didn't finish because just before I got to the watchtower, there was that plank that was calling me to jump from it thinking I will fall in a water and find some hidden shit or something but it killed me. The problem is I saved before I jumped but probably the game saves few seconds after you press "Save Game" and when I tried to load it always showed me "You Died". And when I tried to load older safe, somehow everything got deleted and I had to begin anew. Ain't nobody got time for this! Maybe it was some bug with offline mode because my internet was down but whatever.
Honestly played the first Gothic only once and after I played Gothic 2 so I never liked it that much and can't if this one is similar game. But it doesn't feel like Gothic. I don't even know if it's possible to make a game feel like Gothic. I mean it was 20 years ago, we were much younger those days, Gothic was one of the first open world games back then and its charm was to explore and find hidden paths or gear on your own. I know this is just a short demo but they could've done it. I didn't see anything hidden, all were part of quests and too obvious. Another thing about Gothic were the unique factions. We still have to see how they are gonna do it but when I read "choices can have consequences" I got reminded of the stupid choice mechanic in Witcher 3. I know some people praise because it was complicated but it was an illusion. No matter what you do in that game you still go to the same places and have to complete the same quests in 99% of the time. Only the end game screens are different, slightly different dialogs (at least some were fun) and sometimes there are different characters on screen. Who even got so much time to play for 40-50 hours again just to see different 5 minutes in the end. I just watched a video for endings after I finished the game once. I hope it's not something similar here. Or even worse - like in ELEX where you could do all quests for every faction and only thing that changes are few extra quests for each of them. This "choices lead to consequences" is the newest trend in games nowadays but very few do it right.
The graphics are looking more like Arcania with all these flashy stuff in it. Surely every fan will agree we like it darker and cleaner.
And weirdly the combat reminded of Gothic the most. Because eve with all the tried to make it more complex in the end you still just slash until either your target is dead or you are running out of stamina and have to back off. The "For Honour wheel" was useful only vs humans but not that much. And some hits still don't register as such even tho you are very close to your enemy. Classic Gothic "feature".
Another small issue (well for me it's a big one) is collecting ore. I mean when they put 20 ore nuggets on the ground and you have to press on every single one to get it. That pissed me off in ELEX. And I never liked it in Gothic. Either make bags/bundles more common or just stop spreading them like they are fallen apples. Sure I don't have to collect them but it's annoying me and in the beginning you need every coin.
Last edited by PredOborG on Tue, 17th Dec 2019 12:13; edited 1 time in total
Lole, that hand-waived argument dismissal. "LALALA CANT HEAR THOU"
Anyway, looking at the Steam review score history I can see it started from 56% (at that moment forums were filled with threads like "I'm a gothic fan and this is NOT gothic") and now at 78% and forums full of zoomers apologists "If you dont like it dont play it".
It is literally a picture painted of what I was talking about. They don't need gothic fans when they can amass a buying modern audience. Just a business bro, nothing personell.
Not really, i just don't think it makes sense to use the Gothic franchise to appeal to the "mass audience". If someone really wants to make a RPG to appeal to the mass market there are waaaay better ways of doing that. THQ Nordic aren't exactly a mass appeal publisher. They are pretty specialized.
There is also nothing that makes me think this will be Arcania or something like Assassins Creed. i'd certainly like to see a single proof that it's going in that kind of "mass appeal" or modernized direction. It's very easy to just come up with a conspiracy about anything, especially if you have no arguments or proof of any kind, just some vague feeling that you are right. Sorry bro, i don't fall for it.
Not really, i just don't think it makes sense to use the Gothic franchise to appeal to the "mass audience". If someone really wants to make a RPG to appeal to the mass market there are waaaay better ways of doing that. THQ Nordic aren't exactly a mass appeal publisher. They are pretty specialized.
No it isnt. It is insanely hard for a medium-sized publisher to market completely new IP, let alone deliver something from a team that never had such experience. Hell, THQ has mediocre success even with existing stuff.
vurt wrote:
i'd certainly like to see a single proof that it's going in that kind of "mass appeal" or modernized direction.
Okay, entertain me. Tell me how much Gothic 1, being 1:1 remake just with overhauled GFX would sell today. Surely, with your 30+ experience on the vidya market you can explain me why would it make sense for THQ Nordic to spent dozen or two millions on 2000 game remake for a small handful of people.
A 1:1 copy would be stupid since that would include the cumbersome inventory system and the less than optimal combat system.
The game would be interesting to anyone who's interested in similar games in the genre; Witcher, Kingdom Come, Risen, Dragon's Dogma etc. We can already see it's not going to be a 1:1 copy because they have changed characters and story somewhat, it seems to have more dialogue, at least in the start (not a good thing imo).
I think the appeal is bigger than ELEX or Risen actually. People do tend to like the Fantasy genre better overall. It has the mass appeal that the sub genres PB seems to want to explore these days might lack.
THQ Nordic seems to be doing really fine. Too bad i didn't buy stocks 2-3 years ago...
And about the IP, it still doesn't make sense, even you agree because you say it would be a game for a handfull of people (not that i agree with that but). why would newcomers care for the Gothic IP if they aren't familiar with it in the first place. Then a new IP would make more sense + you wouldn't piss off the old fans with using Gothic in something that doesn't feel like Gothic, that would be idiotic and makes no sense. They tried that with Arcania. People got pissed off. If that game instead had differentiated itself from the Gothic universe then people probably would have been more forgiving and more accepting, that i'm very sure of.
The ONLY real reason current Gothic 1 isn't very appealing to newcomers is 1) outdated graphics 2) outdated UI 3) outdated combat. It's not like this game is COMPLETELY different from say Witcher 3, same people could easily be interested in Gothic.
Both yes and no. There's actually a way to kind of cheat, you just need to know the trick then you can beat any enemy and not getting hit.. so that's not exactly optimal. When i played through the game the first times i didn't know about it and i did enjoy the combat. Going back to it though, no, the combat has quite a terrible feel to it really.. its non-responsive and mostly a drag, the overall control of the character is rather sluggish too. Swimming is also confusing. Inventory is strange when you're not used to it, it would turn off new players.
The game could be improved in numerous ways really. And sure, i guess you could say "modernized", but not everything has gone to shit in modern games. I'll gladly take some of those modernizations but i'll gladly skip if it dumbs it down too much. There's a fine line somewhere where old and modern can meet. Witcher 3 did it pretty well, combat was kind of shit but passable, it seems to be the same in all of those games (elex, risen, dragon's dogma..)
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It's like the "hmmmzz not sure if it will happen, but if we get 1 million likez on fæcbꝏk, it will send a message that you really really wants it for realz and we'll mæk it no promises!" type of bullshit marketing.
Sure I don't have to collect them but it's annoying me and in the beginning you need every coin.
