I'm really excited about this game. Sadly I will be overseas without my gaming PC for all of next year, which means I won't be playing it for a while. Risen 2 and Mass Effect 3 are the games I will miss the most.

Yes! I'm looking forward to this too. I think Piranha Bytes, Larian and possibly CDProject (although I'm not a fan of the Witcher) are the only hope for modern RPGs. Sorry, I think Bethseda tanked years ago and make boring, broken single player MMOs. I don't know what happened to Bioware, I wish they'd make a good game again.

This was mostly about the graphics and world design but what alarmed me is that they are procedurally generating it, then fitting in the rest. The beauty of the Gothics and Risen is that they are lovingly hand-crafted and every hill, ledge, cave put there with design and intent, every encounter, every piece of loot. It's not random and it shows, it makes a huge difference to the experience.

I hope they don't streamline it too much (and I know they will) but still keep the challenge and fun alive. I really, really hope they don't go with the flow and make it easy and boring. We have enough of those games already.

This statement could be said about Skyrim...

The beauty of the Gothics and Risen is that they are lovingly hand-crafted and every hill, ledge, cave put there with design and intent, every encounter, every piece of loot. It's not random and it shows, it makes a huge difference to the experience.

I've played sixty plus hours and only done a few of the main quests. Spent most of my time just wandering and exploring. I'm thinking Bethesda finally got it more right than wrong. Skyrim shows how much attention to detail they put into it. They may even have studied the Gothic games to learn what made them cult classics.

Of course, lets turn a Risen thread into yet another of millions of Skyrim discussions.

I've also heard that Skyrim is a combination Gothic and Dark Messiah. If that was remotely true I'd buy it in a second but I got burned on Oblivion and Fallout 3 and honestly don't believe that Todd and company have enough imagination or ability to do that.

If you love those games, great. I don't. (I'm not trying to summon Creston or cause a debate) As to Skyrim, maybe I'll check it out when they patch it and mod it to hell in a year or so. I do that with most games anyways. Until then, I can't make a judgment on what you say is true or not, I'll just listen to what people here and elsewhere that I know have similar tastes to mine refute or confirm that it's a game I might like.

In the mean time, I'm looking forward to Risen 2 and hope they don't fuck it up by trying to be more like Oblivion. That didn't work for Gothic 3.

This was mostly about the graphics and world design but what alarmed me is that they are procedurally generating it, then fitting in the rest. The beauty of the Gothics and Risen is that they are lovingly hand-crafted and every hill, ledge, cave put there with design and intent, every encounter, every piece of loot. It's not random and it shows, it makes a huge difference to the experience.

Unfortunately, according to the video, it looks like they'll be using a terrain generator for Risen 2. We'll have to see how this affects the game.

Exactly, that's why I find it 'alarming'. It most definitely will affect it in some ways. It's hardly hand-crafted if you're 'fitting in the rest'. Like I said, one of my last hopes for a good RPG. (Of the type I enjoy).

While hand-crafted is better and I do dislike it when I see some obvious random stuff, I can't imagine liking a game like Risen and not even wanting to play Skyrim. They're so predominantly similar that liking one and outright dismissing the other just seems insane to me.

Just my opinion.

CreamyBlood you mentioned Skyrim first. It's a damn fine RPG like others you listed. They all have their strengths. It's no light weight. They do things in their game that are so far ahead of everyone, it's embarrassing. Risen 2 is certainly on the radar.

Skyrim is a boring single player MMO? Maybe you should play it before judging.. because clearly you haven't.

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 01:50:
Skyrim is a boring single player MMO? Maybe you should play it before judging.. because clearly you haven't.

Skyrim is like all other Bethesda games. I stopped after an hour because i was bored to hell. Me = incompatible with Bethesda RPGs since TES: Arena!

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This comment was deleted on Nov 27, 2011, 06:00.

I really think that comparing any Elder Scrolls game to a Gothic game and claiming they're similar is kind of insulting to Piranha Bytes.

Both games are quite different. Again, if you like Oblivion, I don't care. That's great. If you can't see the difference between them, that's okay too. I'm just stoked that Risen 2 is coming out and I hope they don't fuck it up and try to dumb it down. That's all. Carry on...

Yeah, I want this one too. Risen was fun although I didn't finish it yet. I especially liked the combat mechanics that almost everyone else bitched about. I thought it was more satisfying than just button mashing.

I probably should have went into more detail on my original post... if you enjoyed the Piranha Byte games for the world design you will be surprised with Skyrim. I mostly enjoyed the Gothic series and Risen to some extent because of their world design. There is no comparison between Gothic more realistic approach and say Oblivion's Disneyland world design. Let us hope that Piranha Bytes has learned from their mistakes with G3 and Risen. Because Bethesda definitely has and far exceeded anything they have attempted in the past fifteen years. Not saying it's perfect but so very much better than Oblivion.

I would still love to see Piranha Bytes and Bethesda work together to create a new IP.

This comment was edited on Nov 27, 2011, 20:53.

CreamyBlood wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 08:23:
I really think that comparing any Elder Scrolls game to a Gothic game and claiming they're similar is kind of insulting to Piranha Bytes.

They're similar in many, many more ways than they are different.

And Skyrim is ten times better than Oblivion, so if Oblivion is what you are going off of then you should expand your knowledge.

No such thing as a terrain generator... the reality is unless you actually have an extremely strong landscape engine there is no actual way to do "caves" or intrusions in terrain without very cheap and obvious trickery. To do caves, you need the ability to edit the terrain mesh directly, and most "normal" engines use simple height-maps. With no real ability to alter specific parts of a mesh in a 3d-editing style way (like extrude/bevel/etc...)

This is also why in Skyrim you see absolutely no "great" open cave systems with over-arching architecture or land mass.

Theres some caves and solitude but these are actual models intersecting with the real terrain, and not part of the terrain...

Or basically said, to have real terrain you need to literally make the terrain in a 3D-App and not by height-map.. that means exactly 1 person can make the terrain, or you spend 2 months to make sure it "connects" properly and all the sectors align to the neighbors perfectly. (because obviously you need to make terrain partitions, as 1 huge world is far too large to edit directly)

This looks like a very different direction for the series, but not like gothic 3 which felt influenced by oblivion. It feels like they are taking this in an artistic direction that everyone is on board with and makes sense. I found it interesting that they are basically forcing you to be a pirate, where the other games have a more complex faction system. Hopefully player choice doesn't get tossed out. And yeah, the terrain generation thing could be a mistake as well. I love their worlds more than anything. What he said about not too small and not too large is I think why gothic 1 and 2 worked so well and gothic 3 failed so miserably.

No such thing as a terrain generator... the reality is unless you actually have an extremely strong landscape engine there is no actual way to do "caves" or intrusions in terrain without very cheap and obvious trickery. To do caves, you need the ability to edit the terrain mesh directly, and most "normal" engines use simple height-maps. With no real ability to alter specific parts of a mesh in a 3d-editing style way (like extrude/bevel/etc...)

Terrain consists of more than just caves. There is definitely such a thing as a terrain generator. Bethesda has been using it for years, as have many other developers. It randomly generates basic terrain, at which point the artists jump in and start tweaking things and making stuff look more natural. This is also the point where they start adding unique features like caves, rocks, trees or other structures.

Well thats obvious.. i do not expect them (anymore) to sculpt the whole terrain.. like Gothic 1/2 had..

Point is they could not "sculpt" the terrain to do anything fancy and advanced even if they wanted to.

StingingVelvet wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 10:14:

CreamyBlood wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 08:23:
I really think that comparing any Elder Scrolls game to a Gothic game and claiming they're similar is kind of insulting to Piranha Bytes.

They're similar in many, many more ways than they are different.

And Skyrim is ten times better than Oblivion, so if Oblivion is what you are going off of then you should expand your knowledge.

I can't think of many ways. Extensive dialogue, intertwined quests, choices and consequences, factions that make a difference, difficult combat, leveling that makes sense, hand placed encounters and loot, no quest compass. Maybe exploration is similar.

As to Skyrim, I don't know. I've heard everything from 'it's marginally better than Oblivion' to 'it's like Gothic with Dark Messiah Combat'. I certainly don't believe the latter. Now I can add 'ten times better than Oblivion', which means ten times better than shit, to me. I won't know until I try it, maybe next year when they patch/fix/mod the interface and fix whatever other problems it has. Just not interested, got burned on Oblivion and I don't believe the hype. Just because millions of people like it doesn't mean I will.

I'm just hoping that PB stick to their roots and make Risen 2 similar to their other games.

Paranoid Jack wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 09:43:

I would still love to see Piranha Bytes and Bethesda work together to create a new IP.

Please god, no. Let PB do their thing and let Beth do theirs. We saw what happened with Gothic 3 when they tried to go more like the Oblivion route. Plus what can Beth bring to the table that PB doesn't already do much better? I can't think of anything. Bethesda already has millions of fans that enjoy what they create, we don't need to make whats left similar to it. That's like wanting every FPS to be like CoD, which is what is happening. Please, no.



This comment was edited on Nov 28, 2011, 06:30.