Gothic 3

[Lemur]

Hmm, there are some YouTube samples of gameplay up, and they're not the most encouraging things in the world. This one, in particular, makes me very worried.

[edit]

Although chicken fighting looks pretty amusing.

[Fragony]

From what I heard the graphics are terrible, and the game very sluggish. And like the other Gothics it's released in beta fase.

[Stig]

From what I heard it's Oblivion but 5% less on graphics and a far more entertaining world.

Will there still be a demo?

[Husar]

Ok, my turn now.

As a proud German, city member of the developers(not that this means anything) I do of course have the game for over week as I said already.

First off some screens, since they are 1280*1024 I will only post the links:
My settings as preset by the game:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-43-20-39.jpg
A herd of friendly Bisons:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-42-40-31.jpg
The contrst between high and low detail, if you have a uber graphicscard, you can set it to high and/or tweak it in some ini to set it further away:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-42-04-37.jpg
Fighting against some Urvieh:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-39-19-14.jpg
A castle guarded by orcs:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-35-20-62.jpg
A troll and waterfalls:
https://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i...3-41-29-98.jpg
Ok, before I start a huge list, here is my Photobucket album:
http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...85/Gothic%203/

I have uploaded a lot there and may upload more later, they're all unedited(except for making them jpg and a bit of compression for Photobucket).

Ok, IMO the game looks a lot better in motion than on any screen and I use only medium details. The big contrast between low and high detail bothers me only slightly, I may even be able to set it higher, but so far I'm satisfied.
There are bugs in the game and the developers know it and one really admitted that they ****** up some things. The fighting can be really weird because some enemies either attack in such rapid succession that you will be stunlocked until death if you cannot survive more than 10 or so hits from them. Some other enemies rarely get to hit you because you kinda stunlock them. The devs say on this is they are working on the fighting system though it may not be completely fixed by the second patch(that may arrive before international release).
Now the world is pretty huge and demanding, 2GB are said to be required to play fluently because of the constant streaming of the completely seamless world, DualCores help here because the second core can do the streaming.
There are still bugs like I can see the sun through terrain and buildings, even in caves, I would guess the bug videos sum them up though I personally didn't get all the bugs that were reported.
Now the world in itself is pretty great with few drawbacks, Nordmar, the northern icy part is supposed to be dangerous which in the game means a lot of enemies everywhere and since the combat system is still unbalanced, this can be a nightmare, imagine five goblin shamans with fireballs(three or four fireballs could kill me on level 40 or so with 600hitpoints) and you are a sword fighter...not to forget about the other normal goblins around.
Especially moving around with NPCs who mindlessly run into such hordes can be a pain in the rear there.
Myrtana in the middle is mostly woods and orcs(unless you help the rebels and free Myrtana), worst enemies are boars because of their rapid attacks.
And then there is of course Varant, the desert, which I like a lot so far.
The dialogues there are IMO a step above the dialogues in the other two parts and I like the personality of some of the Assassins, though they are pretty unforgiving.

Well, I wrote so much even though I should know I am not good at writing.
I just want to add I may upload more screens today and the devs are working on patches and admitted their timeline was too short(they couldn't easily delay it for several reasons like buying shelf place in some countries).
I am curious on how they turn out and will keep you updated.
And since my skills for reviewing are so bad(at least LEN said that ), you better ask questions, in the meantime I will enjoy the game however buggy it may be, the world still drags me in.

[Stig]

you said we could ask question well here they come:
In which way can I make my character. Can I choose, Orc or Human, and then have 20 different options, or can I change everything as in Oblivion and the Sims 2?
Can I also choose female or male?
Do you get to choose Combat, Magic, etc as in Oblivion?

[Fragony]

Those are a far cry from these Husar, they look like Gothic 2. Ah well, don't have the hardware for this game anyway, shame because I like the Gothics, a nightmare to control but good stuff for the hardcore rpg lover.

Which I am not really, more Disgaea YAY

[Spino]

Apparently Gothic 3 also has a memory leak which is why it might be sluggish on some people's machines.

[Husar]

you said we could ask question well here they come:
In which way can I make my character. Can I choose, Orc or Human, and then have 20 different options, or can I change everything as in Oblivion and the Sims 2?
Can I also choose female or male?
Do you get to choose Combat, Magic, etc as in Oblivion?

You cannot choose anything, because as in all Gothic parts, you are the nameless Hero.

And Fragony, some of the preview screens were made in 3DS Max or so, parts of the detail got dropped because of performance issues and keep in mind that I use medium settings, yet it looks better than Gothic 2. On high texture detail for exmaple my 128MB GF 6600GT passed out and got me some 3 fps or so. Feel free to PM me about donations for a new card.

Concerning some questions, there are answers and statements directly from the Piranha Bytes developers in german and english(translated by fanpage staff).

[Daimon]

From what I heard the graphics are terrible, and the game very sluggish. And like the other Gothics it's released in beta fase.

Neh, they aren't that bad..

I love the game but the problem is i can run Oblivion just fine but this one's keep lagging as hell just not normal anymore. I tweaked here and there and it's now a little bit better but still

But i just wait untill the patch is there it should solve many problems like the "Stun Animations bug" (The most annoying) and the lag will be solved to ^^ In 5 weeks