[Maladiq]

EDIT: found an old picture I made Illustrates my point pretty well.

Spoiler:(zum lesen bitte Text markieren)

[Bild: mapssc.jpg]

EXACTLY! G2 was pretty tubular. Example: You get out the back door of Khorinis, 2 tubes to the left (valley with boat in forest and the path to the lighthouse), and 2 to the right (valley with cave and path to the inn). From the inn you have a tube to the monastery, a tube to the abandoned hunter camp, a tube to Onar's farm, a tube to the Valley of Mines). And so on. So yeah, G2 was full of tubes.

But here comes the art of it. Why we never perceived it as a tubular world? Well, because of this:
1. The walls of the tubes were cleverly hidden by vegetation. And the vegetation had hidden loot behind it.
2. Each tube varied in width, being tight in some points and wide in others.
3. The tubes had occasional splits in them, other hidden tubes where you could go somewhere else (a cave for example), or a ledge you could climb.
4. The tubes were sometimes adjacent to some open areas to explore (for example forests, which were basically the only truly open areas to explore).

And they were right. Open terrain is boring if you can see it all. Sure, it would make for one or two great vistats, as in Gothic 3, but overall it is boring. As long as they have well thought tubes, I don't have a problem. Just don't make them as evident as those in Arcania. Or in Risen 2.

Oh, and Risen 1 had some well done tubes as well. It was full of them, but they were done really good.


So this is not what concerns me about Risen 3. It's the fact that the settlements are a joke, just like in R2. I expected the pirate camp, the LAST pirate camp of ALL pirates to be more than two buildings. Those settlements shredded all sense of immersion and ruined it.

I guess I will write a preview for world of risen and compare all aspects of Risen 3 with Risen 1 and 2 and the Gothic series.

[SacredGamer]

You won't get an open game with massive landscapes like Risen 1 or Gothic 3 until Xbox 360 and PS3 are considered as target platforms or PB does not find a more talented porting company than Wizarbox.

Just to counterweight the negative opinions here, I will definitely buy the game on day 1. It's better to play a game with some flaws (yet to be seen) than spamming a forum all the time with negativity.

Yes get rid of WizarBox
I will be playing on consoles...and WizarBox's trackrecord is horrible to say the least, they will not put forward a good representation of your game on consoles.

And thanks for the summary @ICFabian

[Eldred]

Here's what got me disappointed:

You should note though that my impressions are only based on about an hour of playing a limited demo, where only roughly two thirds (maybe less) of Taranis was accessible. In principle a farm could be somewhere else further away from the monastery (even though it would not be the most sensible thing to expect). Also the missing explanation of Maras sea beasts could come somewhere else in the game, so I would not be concerned about that (at least not yet ). The same is true for any other lore, story, landscape or even NPC daily routine related impression you can get from anyone that did only play this demo.
It feels better than Risen 2 that is what counts for me at the moment.

[Skazzy]

Eldred - Really wish that this was the case and I have misjudged a good try to a "return to the roots" PB game.

[Morgannin09]

The difference between the design of Gothic II and the design of Risen 2 is that in Gothic II, there were a number of different ways to get by these somewhat tubular paths, most importantly being able to climb. Gothic II was also an immaculately crafted landscape, where it seemed like every detail was carefully considered to make the landscape make sense and enjoyable to explore. Risen 2 was very bland and unimagined, for the most part. They had a few landmarks, and then just gave you paths between them, artificially lengthening the paths by making them wind around mountains and cliffs that you were unable to climb. Their smaller size also just gave the developers less opportunity to make them interesting. Gothic II's entire landmass may overall be smaller than Risen 2 (I can't say for sure), but it's more enjoyable to explore because having so much of it open at once means there's a lot more to see between the important destinations. Between Khorinis and the Dead Harpy, you have one path leading to some bandits and a lighthouse, another path leading down into a dark valley with a deadly cave, one path leading to a small farm, and from this farm you can reach a dense, spooky forest, or cross a bridge to reach a cemetary, some caves, and a ruined homestead behind some rocky barriers. Even if you go the straight path, you find a cart full of loot and a cave with a mysterious chest. Stray to the left from there and you will find yourself on the path to the monastery. That's a whole handful of ways to get distracted and go exploring, even though the Dead Harpy is a two minute jog from the city gate.

[Skazzy]

So we will get the promised official demo on a let's play by a german let's player Gronkh?!
[Bild: Sjg0l4K.png]

[Eldred]

So we will get the promised official demo on a let's play by a german let's player Gronkh?!
[Bild: Sjg0l4K.png]

Yes Gronkh is doing the gameplay promotion video in the nextcouple days probably in 20 minute parts, so if the demo he got is identical with the RPC demo it should be about a week long Let's play with daily episodes.

[Skazzy]

Thanks Eldred for the info. Looking forward to see a proper gameplay video.

L.E. - Almost forgot to ask, can I watch it live somewhere? Or is it a payed/subscription based livestream? Also, from that timetable every game is one hour apart from each other, yet you say that we would get only 20 mins.

[Ravenhearth]

That's just Gronkh's time schedule (he's playing and recording Risen 3 from 17 to 18 o'clock). He will upload the gameplay footage to youtube.

[Skazzy]

Ahh, ok got it- thought initially that I was, somehow, missing the whole action.

[Eldred]

Thanks Eldred for the info. Looking forward to see a proper gameplay video.

L.E. - Almost forgot to ask, can I watch it live somewhere? Or is it a payed/subscription based livestream? Also, from that timetable every game is one hour apart from each other, yet you say that we would get only 20 mins.

Maybe he will do 30 minute parts or longer as he does for Amalur, depends on his liking and probably the overall length of gameplay he gets out of the Demo. We'll see.
His commentary and probably the game language itself will be german though.

[Skazzy]

We will see indeed, maybe today will be "the day" when we will actually play/upload some gameplay...

[Ravenhearth]

Here we go (part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_Xjgru_pY



Another information from the german magazine Gamestar: The second (or third) faction are the "demon hunters".

[Skazzy]

At last...here we go. Thanks for your post!

[Zocky]

Hm, in this vid, it doesn't really look all that bad actually. What i liked a lot, were little details. While he talked with that dude at start, the bird was flying around, flew down to ground, stood there a bit, and flew off again. Small detail, but really loved it.

[Morgannin09]

Certainly seems like more attention to detail. While I have no idea what they were talking about, the dialog seemed more hefty than Risen 2, like each character had a lot more to say. Maybe this is just because this is one of the opening areas, though.
The fact that he was able to get away with stealing and beating people up, without his victims even holding a grudge, is annoying. It looked like there was text under their names when they were knocked to the ground, same way Risen 2 had the "Offended" tag when people wouldn't talk to you, but it disappeared as soon as he stood up. Maybe this is a glitch.

The cadet practicing his spells was a nice touch. Haven't really seen that sort of thing since Gothic. Gothic II and Risen had people practicing with their weapons, but Risen was too poorly animated to take seriously.

Mendoza was pretty cool, actually. I would have liked to know what he was talking about, and why he's following the player, though.

Still peeved about the glowing hand when you do a power attack. I don't think that's necessary.

Hope to see some real combat and landscape design in the next video.

[Ravenhearth]

The fact that he was able to get away with stealing and beating people up, without his victims even holding a grudge, is annoying. It looked like there was text under their names when they were knocked to the ground, same way Risen 2 had the "Offended" tag when people wouldn't talk to you, but it disappeared as soon as he stood up. Maybe this is a glitch.

"Bewusstlos" means "unconscious".

I really hope that there will be some consequences for stealing and beating people up. And I think there will be (people atleast being angry for some time).

Mendoza was pretty cool, actually. I would have liked to know what he was talking about, and why he's following the player, though.

Nothing really interesting in my opinion. I also doubt Mendoza will be with the player at this point in the final game. Edit: No, I don't. I think the hero meets him at the beginning before or after he lost his soul.


Another thing: There are three sections in the questlog: current, all and crew. Does that mean that there will be a lot of quests especially for the crew (Mendoza, Jaffar...)?

[The Ore Baron]

* Facial animations are definitely better. Faces seem to be more varied and look better, but hair meshes are really off-putting and look terrible. Walking animations of NPCs are still very stiff. Environments seem to look a little better - less foliage (more realistic), higher-res textures. Armor textures could look better, armors themselves seem very flat.
* New hero looks a bit like NH from Gothic, I like that.
* Main character is wearing Captain Morgan's coat - Morgan was a minor character in Risen 2, but he was not a captain. Strange. Morgan DID serve as Slayne's helmsman, so maybe he took over the ship after the Nameless killed him?
* Character development seems to be somewhat more complicated and interesting. Close combat (stabbing, cutting, slashing), ranged combat, cunning and toughness make a return. Voodoo is replaced my magic. New stats - influence, tricks and spirit. Why tricks are separate form cunning is beyond me. Influence might have something to do with strengthening your party members and persuasion options in dialogues. It also seems to be a required stat for some skills - picking pockets, possibly. Spirit could provide some passive bonuses based on your soul alignment. Just some guesses.
* Sitting down on things is a nice addition and a throwback to the older games. Trivial, but nice to have.
* Nice to see some readable books... A chance to see some lore.
* I also like how there's an animated skeleton in the corner of the character menu. Makes the menu looks less static. Would love to see more details like that, perhaps a spider crawling through the menu at irregular intervals.
* +1 Soul for giving gnome a bottle of rum? If the maximum amount of souls is 100 and you start at 50, I don't think it will be hard to reach it. +10 for killing a bandit. +30 for killing all Shadow Lords. There better be some good reasons to act evil from time to time.
* Glory makes a return. I wanted experience, but whatever, it's trivial.
* A lot of reused assets... the storehouse has the exact same design as every storehouse in the previous game. At least the ship has a different interior.
* I wonder why there were three numbers on the locked chest... 20(40)/10. Maybe 20 is the 'hard' skill, and hero has some trinket equipped that increases his lock-picking skill by another 20?
* People not getting mad will probably be fixed in the final release.
* Trader has more than one lockpick. No more skeleton key, apparently - multiple lockpicks probably means they break.
* Gnomes have navels, but no nipples. Weird.

[Ravenhearth]

* Main character is wearing Captain Morgan's coat - Morgan was a minor character in Risen 2, but he was not a captain. Strange. Morgan DID serve as Slayne's helmsman, so maybe he took over the ship after the Nameless killed him?

The Inquisition sank Slayne's ship. Maybe it's just a different character.

* Character development seems to be somewhat more complicated and interesting. Close combat (stabbing, cutting, slashing), ranged combat, cunning and toughness make a return. Voodoo is replaced my magic. New stats - influence, tricks and spirit. Why tricks are separate form cunning is beyond me.

Do you mean "Fingerfertigkeit"? "Tricks" isn't a matching translation I think. But it might be useful for lockpicking etc.

* I wonder why there were three numbers on the locked chest... 20(40)/10. Maybe 20 is the 'hard' skill, and hero has some trinket equipped that increases his lock-picking skill by another 20?

I agree.

* Gnomes have navels, but no nipples. Weird.

Maybe it's because americans seem to be allergic to nipples.

[Michael Rüve]

Maybe it's because americans seem to be allergic to nipples.

Or maybe because Gnomes are not mammals? Who knows...