[Dino]

1. What about smoking and drinking? Will there be alcohol and smokes in R3 and related quests, like the swampweed delivery in g1 and Cipher's package in g2? It would be hilarious if there isn't at least beer.

2. So there will be blacksmithing, but what about other forms of crafting, like spell creation, enchanting, alchemy, jewelcrafting, etc?

3. As far as the NPCs go, where do women stand(if any exist)? Are they more like maids and wenches rather than having leadership roles and power?

4. What's the inventory like in comparison to other PB games, which inventory style does it most resemble? Also, is it like Skyrim when you open the inventory and the whole game pauses so you can eat 90 cheesewheels while getting whacked?

5. Is there a limit to the amount of healing potions you can chug down from the action bar? Can you drink 350 potions all at once in the middle of a fight?

6. Is spell casting/channeling interruptable like in gothic 1, or is it more like gothic 2 where you cast your spell freely regardless if you're taking damage?

7. Any cheat codes or console?

8. Is there a secret guild of Owls who seek world domination and trigger hidden quests which allow the total control and annihilation of the planet?

[AshleyG]

Since we started about piracy... Seriously, unless you're some 10 yo kid with 5 euro allowance a month, come on you can buy the game...it's not too much expensive. There's reviews, you tube videos, forums etc to chack if it is fine.
But I understand it can be tempting to get the game in 1-2 hours as soon (or before) it hits the stores by laziness, or don't want to check reviews etc before trying it.

There's an issue with games: when you buy a product usually you know what it is (pancakes, soda, a mug, etc), but games... it's like buying a surprise box, you buy it for quite some money, and when you open the box you have no idea what's in it and can be either positively surprised or negatively and regret your 50 euros you'll never get back...

Pb should at least make a demo before the release.

Seriously, if they make a demo, release information about game length, gameplay videos, allow journalists to test it entirely, before its release, there is absolutely no reason to download it illegally.

Oh I should ask a question:
- Do you agree with me?

Anothe one:
- Is a demo or at least full game testing by some gaming reviewers before game launched planned?

[budweiser1979]

Some questions:

1) Will you keep the strenght, dexterity and mana skills from Gothic 1-3 and Risen? Personally I think character developing in Risen 2 was reduced, and I saw many "useless" skills. Yes, I like the fame system, but we should also be able to pick a lot of abilities..

2) Being a mage, are you able to choose from at least 2 different schools of magic, and a lot more spells than Risen 1 and 2?

3) Will it be possible to have slow mana regeneration, but balanced/weaker spells. If you dont implement regeneration, can you make it a console cheat (like you did in Gothic 1 and Gothic 2?). I think potionfiest games are boring, and this part of Risen 1 really annoyed me.

[Maladiq]

Two questions about the free camera:

1. Item pickup
   In R2, the free camera was particularly annoying because, unlike other games, the focus depended on the direction the character was facing. Not the direction the camera was facing.
   So when the hero stood besides a mushroom, you had to first turn the mouse to get the mushroom on the screen. And then you had to press W to turn the character in that direction as well. And only then could you pick the mushroom up.
   All other games I know with that dreaded free camera gameplay at least don't require that additional press on the W key. You look at something with the mouse, then pick it up by pressing the button. Done.
   How will R3 behave in that regard?
2. Camera lock during combat
   Other games with free camera at least are smart enough to lock it behind the character during combat. Draw your weapon and the camera automatically locks. Because they know that (at least on the PC) a free camera is hindering smooth combat. Mass Effect would be an example, IIRC. But R2 made the exact opposite: You could lock the camera with an unsupported INI setting but it did not affect the combat.
   How will R3 behave?

Please answer this, Harald

[Jenny PB]

Hello everybody,
because of the many questions, I think Harry could require a little support.
So I'll try to answer some of them, too.

Two questions about the free camera:

1. Item pickup
   In R2, the free camera was particularly annoying because, unlike other games, the focus depended on the direction the character was facing. Not the direction the camera was facing.
   So when the hero stood besides a mushroom, you had to first turn the mouse to get the mushroom on the screen. And then you had to press W to turn the character in that direction as well. And only then could you pick the mushroom up.
   All other games I know with that dreaded free camera gameplay at least don't require that additional press on the W key. You look at something with the mouse, then pick it up by pressing the button. Done.
   How will R3 behave in that regard?
   
2. Camera lock during combat
   Other games with free camera at least are smart enough to lock it behind the character during combat. Draw your weapon and the camera automatically locks. Because they know that (at least on the PC) a free camera is hindering smooth combat. Mass Effect would be an example, IIRC. But R2 made the exact opposite: You could lock the camera with an unsupported INI setting but it did not affect the combat.
   How will R3 behave?

Well, the camera sytem is quite similar to the one in Assassins Creed, Witcher, Two Worlds or Dragon Age. You can turn the camera whenever you want and items has to be in the players focus to pick them up.

That is not true, piracy always existed, since the cassette tape was invented (I had games on cassette tapes when I was a child, I can't remember what system was that, it connected to the TV set). This is valid for movied, games, music and books. Yet nobody goes bankrupt because of piracy. Because there will always be decent people who will pay for the games. So the question is not "how are we going to stop piracy", but "how are we going to convince them to buy our product". With quality come sales. Kickstarter is the best example, you sell the game even before you make it. People just need to trust you.

So here is the thing: why would I trust you? You said that one of your favourite games is Risen 2. And not just once. Ever since Mike started taking steps back, and Bjoern taking steps forward, there has been a shift in the quality of PB games. Gothic 2 was amazing, but the story was a bit clichee. Gothic 3 had the right ideas, but lacked the direction. Risen 1 was in the right place, but it landed short. And then Risen 2 came and it was a disaster. Story wise, gameplay, mechanics, direction. Everything.

Can you convince me that Risen 3 will not be the same?

We have made many meetings and had long conversations to wrack our brains about things we can do better in Risen 3. We made longs lists with things and features that should be modified, left or added. At least Risen 3:Titan Lords is the third part of the series. But the world is more different, more open, there's more to explore and more to find. Minilocations are more individual and there are much more items to use or to use for crafting. The story is less linear and many quests just can be played if you choose the appendant faction. There are more individual quests at all. Magic is back, you can loot people, you can swim and much more. The fighting system is modified and more free. The story is dark and a little bad sometimes. Animations are made new by Motion Capture including, fight, dialogues, daily routines and monsters. Decisions have more impact to the world.
There are much more points i could tell you but at least you have to decide for your own. If you're not sure that you would like it, let's give it a try or wait for the first let's play. I often do so.
Hope you'll like it as we do.

1. What about smoking and drinking? Will there be alcohol and smokes in R3 and related quests, like the swampweed delivery in g1 and Cipher's package in g2? It would be hilarious if there isn't at least beer.

2. So there will be blacksmithing, but what about other forms of crafting, like spell creation, enchanting, alchemy, jewelcrafting, etc?

3. As far as the NPCs go, where do women stand(if any exist)? Are they more like maids and wenches rather than having leadership roles and power?

4. What's the inventory like in comparison to other PB games, which inventory style does it most resemble? Also, is it like Skyrim when you open the inventory and the whole game pauses so you can eat 90 cheesewheels while getting whacked?

5. Is there a limit to the amount of healing potions you can chug down from the action bar? Can you drink 350 potions all at once in the middle of a fight?

6. Is spell casting/channeling interruptable like in gothic 1, or is it more like gothic 2 where you cast your spell freely regardless if you're taking damage?

7. Any cheat codes or console?

8. Is there a secret guild of Owls who seek world domination and trigger hidden quests which allow the total control and annihilation of the planet?

To 1. Of course theres enough alcohol with different effects. Alcohol is the elixir for the player and there are quests about alcohol, too. Some of them are quite funny i think. I don't know something about smoking in the game.

To 2. There will be very many diffent things you can craft, so don't sell anything you find . I don't know if i'm allowed to spoiler them all, so i tell you, you should be pleased.

To 3. Yes we have women in the game and some of them are old and some are young, some are tough and fight and some are anxious. Some are nice and some are really bad...

To 4. The game will stop, when you open the inventory. So you can choose another weapon, drink something or change your clothes. We have spend much time into tuning and i needed this during playing.

To 5. If you want to drink all your potions, you can do it. But i never had so much and i tried not to use too much, because they're expensive and you need your money.

To 6. Enemies can interrupt you, so be careful.

To 7. Sorry I don't know, yet.

To 8. If you find them, tell me.

- Is a demo or at least full game testing by some gaming reviewers before game launched planned?

I don't know what is planned, yet. But usually there will be something.

1) Will you keep the strenght, dexterity and mana skills from Gothic 1-3 and Risen? Personally I think character developing in Risen 2 was reduced, and I saw many "useless" skills. Yes, I like the fame system, but we should also be able to pick a lot of abilities..

2) Being a mage, are you able to choose from at least 2 different schools of magic, and a lot more spells than Risen 1 and 2?

3) Will it be possible to have slow mana regeneration, but balanced/weaker spells. If you dont implement regeneration, can you make it a console cheat (like you did in Gothic 1 and Gothic 2?). I think potionfiest games are boring, and this part of Risen 1 really annoyed me.

To 1. We modified the system of Risen 2 and generated perks that will be supported more in the game. Some skills and perks are new (magic for example) and some are not longer available. You should choose your skills wisely.

To 2. I don't want to spoiler too much but yes there are many more spells as in Risen 1 or 2.

To 3. Most spells have got a cooldown.

I hope you got an better idea of our game now. There will be more information (including ingame-things) in near future, of course.
Kind Regards, Jenny

[Andante]

Some questions, Harry (or Jenny ).

1) Will all the "regions" be different islands (Risen 2 model) or will there be also regions that share the same festland borders?

2) Will there be any snowy regions?

3) You have implemented swimming in R3, to what extent is swimming applicable? Can you swim freely wherever the hell you want, or is swimming applicable only in predefined quest related points?

4) A somehow spicy question, can you reveal to the community what exactly the hero wears when the game starts?

5) Skeletons, Ashbeasts, Ogres, Wolves, Lizardmen, Scorpions do any of these R1 guys make a reappearance in R3?

6 ) Can you equip a 2 handed sword in R3?

7) Are there still pirate items, outfits or weapons to equip in R3?

[Maladiq]

Hey, Jenny, thanks for the answers. And love your ava

Now, a few questions:

1. Will we finally get levels back? It sucked in Risen 2 that we didn't have levels.

2. Will there be trainers who don't ask for money? I am sick of paying for that.

3. What kind of problems would arise from free climbing that you felt the need to script it? Wouldn't it have been easier to script places where you can't climb?

4. What is the number of human NPCs that we will find in the largest settlement? What will be the size of it?

5. Does the mysterious necromancer have a name, or will he be nameless?

[CzarnyAfgan]

PB - sorry for my last explosion, but I am little dissapointed.

Can you explain me why your team decided, that there will be no shields in Risen 3 ?

[Michael Rüve]

To 1. Of course theres enough alcohol with different effects. Alcohol is the elixir for the player and there are quests about alcohol, too. Some of them are quite funny i think. I don't know something about smoking in the game.

Which of course will net us at least a "M" age rating with ESRB (USA) once again. Well, nothing new really.

[The Ore Baron]

In Gothic 4, Nameless Hero was called Rhobar III, and new protagonist became the new Nameless.

In Risen 3, what will the old Nameless Hero be called now that there is a new protagonist? Steelbeard II? The Captain? Titan Slayer?

[Nikolai81]

In Risen we could use a large variety of melee weapons, however we could only forge swords, and the artifact weapons we could obtain were also swords. Consequently, I used swords in nearly every playthrough. Not using swords meant limiting oneself to only three viable weapons (or so) throughout the entire game, whereas with swords you could constantly upgrade. Come to think of it, I don't think we've been able to forge anything but swords in any Gothic or Risen game. Perhaps it's too demanding to create crafting animations for axes, hammers, staves, etc.? In any case, will the weapon crafting in Risen 3 be more flexible?

The sword-wielders have gotten away with this for too long! Something must be done... they even have a weapon monopoly in the emoticon section here. I bet it was the sword-lobby which funded all the outrage against the introduction of gunpowder in Risen 2. They even got to me.



[Bild: witcher_animation.gif]

[Delicieuxz]

Which of course will net us at least a "M" age rating with ESRB (USA) once again. Well, nothing new really.

And I suppose telling them to go F--- themselves would only increase that rating to an "R".

[iab]

Well, the camera sytem is quite similar to the one in Assassins Creed, Witcher, Two Worlds or Dragon Age. You can turn the camera whenever you want and items has to be in the players focus to pick them up.

But this camera system is not used in skyrim, and the Dragon age fans are not really crazy about the free camera in DA3, too.

Skyrim does have a blanced carema system, both fixed and free camera exist, this is good, because the advantages of both camera system are kept. The only problem happens when we draw longer the view distance, the trace is strange... Seems like this disadvantage comes from the switch betwen the orthographic and perspective projections... not so sure though.

Edit

May i ask if there is a hot key that can be used to fix the camera's view angle?

There should be no special difficulty for implementing this, i think.

[PB_Harry]

PB - sorry for my last explosion, but I am little dissapointed.

Can you explain me why your team decided, that there will be no shields in Risen 3 ?

There will always be some features which can't be implemented without any great effort and from our point of view it makes much more sense to put our effort in other features which are more important than shields for example. But we hope you will enjoy our combat system even without shields

Some questions, Harry (or Jenny ).

1) Will all the "regions" be different islands (Risen 2 model) or will there be also regions that share the same festland borders?

2) Will there be any snowy regions?

3) You have implemented swimming in R3, to what extent is swimming applicable? Can you swim freely wherever the hell you want, or is swimming applicable only in predefined quest related points?

4) A somehow spicy question, can you reveal to the community what exactly the hero wears when the game starts?

5) Skeletons, Ashbeasts, Ogres, Wolves, Lizardmen, Scorpions do any of these R1 guys make a reappearance in R3?

6 ) Can you equip a 2 handed sword in R3?

7) Are there still pirate items, outfits or weapons to equip in R3?

1. Our regions are far away from each other. Hope this answers your question.

2. No comment, sry.

3. You can swim whereever it makes sense. So have fun young dolphin ^^ - But of course we have some kind of borders because our levels aren't endless ^^

4. Yeah I can ...but some guy aims with a .44 Magnum at me right now so let us pospone this question.

5. We have started our Bestiarium. So just wait and watch what creatures Risen 3 will offer

6. Nope

7. no comment

Hey, Jenny, thanks for the answers. And love your ava

Now, a few questions:

1. Will we finally get levels back? It sucked in Risen 2 that we didn't have levels.

2. Will there be trainers who don't ask for money? I am sick of paying for that.

3. What kind of problems would arise from free climbing that you felt the need to script it? Wouldn't it have been easier to script places where you can't climb?

4. What is the number of human NPCs that we will find in the largest settlement? What will be the size of it?

5. Does the mysterious necromancer have a name, or will he be nameless?

1. No, you gain XP / Glory and if you have enough you will be able to increase your attributes.

2. Our world will not offer the german health and welfare system - so prepare to make some money otherwise you're going to have a tough time ^^.

3. I'm not good in technical details. But if you can't climb to a location that doesn't mean you're not able to reach it anyways

4. I'm too lazy right now to count them but let me say that a high number of NPCs within a location doesn't lead to more quality. Example: Placing 100 NPCs is no problem but bringing them to life (daily routines, dialogues, quests, etc) is quite a task and the effort for just one location isn't going to work out if your world is big (!) and other locations need some NPCs too . So we decided to create plausible locations with a suitable number of NPCs.

In Gothic 4, Nameless Hero was called Rhobar III, and new protagonist became the new Nameless.

In Risen 3, what will the old Nameless Hero be called now that there is a new protagonist? Steelbeard II? The Captain? Titan Slayer?

He will be called "His Holiness" ..........not. You'll see if you meet him

In Risen we could use a large variety of melee weapons, however we could only forge swords ...

Risen 3 will have a wide bunch of weapons but smithing swords is always a good thing wheter you like it or not ^^

May i ask if there is a hot key that can be used to fix the camera's view angle?

There should be no special difficulty for implementing this, i think.

I'm no programmer but I guess they think otherwise because there is no "easy" if you're developing games. And for your question: I don't think there will be a hotkey.

[mkreku]

But the world is more different, more open, there's more to explore and more to find. Minilocations are more individual and there are much more items to use or to use for crafting. The story is less linear and many quests just can be played if you choose the appendant faction. There are more individual quests at all. Magic is back, you can loot people, you can swim and much more. The fighting system is modified and more free. The story is dark and a little bad sometimes. Animations are made new by Motion Capture including, fight, dialogues, daily routines and monsters. Decisions have more impact to the world.
There are much more points i could tell you but at least you have to decide for your own.

Awesome. Great answer, Jenny.

Although I might miss the weird hand gestures and stilted jumping from the previous games..

[sterea16]

When you came out with Risen3 : Titan lords and release a press information you told us you will come back to the roots. In my opinion i don't see such a great thing , according all of your answers. I may be wrong , and i hope so , i didn't play the game yet , but here comes my question: how does Piranha Bytes define this "back to the roots"? A small part of the answer may be here: http://www.pluto13.de/docs/20140225_...cement_ENG.pdf ....

[Jenny PB]

Hello everyone,
after reading a few threads i want to explain you how we deal with your criticism. I answered this question before in a german thread and now i try to say it in english.
After the release of Risen 2 there have been a lot of threads about the topic "That is good and that's crap." There were many different wishes and sometimes it became a little bit confusing. So we have created a list to evaluate what is really important to you and what is possibly just wanted by individuals. Then we have counted how often a feature was mentioned to prioritize them. For example : dragons are favoured by one and swimming by 20.
So we had a list of features that were obviously important to you and then we evaluated what is feasible and what is not. So if 3 smaller features were easier to realize than 1 large, we rather decided to choose the three little ones. Furthermore we have to consider that different features bind different staff and working hours. We are very proud that many things could be realized with Risen 3. Many of the features have been revealed yet like swimming, more different locations, a more gritty story, magic, looting and much more. I sadly can't tell you all of them now but we hope you'll be pleased and will like the result.
Now we look forward to the role play convention in may. You will get more information about our game soon.
Nighty night everyone!

[Delicieuxz]

In conversations, are there banching dialog trees with different outcomes - with good and bad outcomes possible, and with varying degrees of good/bad outcomes possible - and with multiple varying-degrees of good/bad possible within single conversations?

In Risen 2, all roads led to Rome... or whatever - all dialog was really only one perspective, and all dialog would be clicked through until none remained. No branches, no differing outcomes, no Role-Playing.

If R3 doesn't currently have an approach that allows for dynamic and unpredictable dialog, and immersive reactions, might such possibly be incorporated into the game prior to its release?

It's a #1 quality-factor in RP games, and contemporary RP games forget this, and consequently end up being mere action-adventure games, extremely-falsely-labeled as RPGs.

[The Ore Baron]

Last I saw her doing yesterday was playing the game and noting what should be tuned (or fixed). Game consistently defeated her at one point, defeated a very experienced playeress who took part in designing to boot, so that part called for more tuning.

This reminded me: will there be a behind-the-scenes video for Risen 3? I would love to hear more stories about the daily developing process itself, like the one Rüve described, or like the story of how Hoge trained a voice actor to sound angry Things like that, not just a list of cool features that were added in the game, like Risen 2 developers' diary videos were like; there was very little behind-the-scenes material in them Almost felt like PB reviewing their own unreleased game.

EDIT #1: Will the old Nameless be voiced by a new voice actor, or one of the previous two?

EDIT #2: Will we have a chance to visit some locations from the previous games?

EDIT #3: Will we get a teaser for the soundtrack? A theme of exploring the first island, for example.

EDIT #4: Why do we get two PB representatives, but not one Deep Silver representative? I remember in the World of Gothic forums, there was this guy Maurice who answered a lot of our questions in an informative, straight-forward manner. I liked having him around.

[Forward]

Are there going to be any large cities?
npc's daily routine interactivity, what can you tell us about that?
what about npc's with no names? (not story related) do we have them in r3?
running (like in gothic 3)?

just yes or no might be enough.