Today I have for you a voluminous material that I have been working on for a long time. And this article is only the first part of three that I will devote to the Gothic game series. I always wanted to try to somehow talk about this series of games, because for me it became the entry point into the Action/RPG genre and after it it became my favorite to this day. I sincerely hope that the material will be interesting to you. In this text we will talk only about the first part of Gothic.
I will tell you about the history of the creation of the legendary game series. How and under what conditions the game was created? Why was this particular setting and this particular name chosen?? How much content was cut from the first Gothic? Did the game sell well?? And why is it so popular in Russia and Eastern Europe??
In addition to the text, I worked on a video version of the material, so I will be very glad if you rate it:
And for those who are not afraid of a large accumulation of letters – enjoy reading!
History of creation
The history of Gothic begins with Piranha Bytes – the developers of the game. The company was founded in 1997 Alex Bruggemann, Stefan Noul, Michael "Mike" Hoge And Tom Putzki. These four previously worked in the company Greenwood Entertainment, which developed games for MS-DOS.
Archive photo from worldofgothic website. From left to right: Alex Brüggemann Stefan Nühl, Michael Hoge and Tom Putzki
October 4, 1997 years, the guys began developing a very ambitious game.
Initially Piranha Bytes is 4 people. Stefan Nühl acted as Managing Director and took care of cooperation with external programmers. Michael Hoge was responsible for game and art design, drawing the game’s textures. Alex Brueggemann took care of the character design and animation. And Tom Putski created a 3D model of the game world.
The game engine was created by a team of freelance programmers. The game’s budget is unknown, but it is obvious that it was modest. Because this very engine was developed by three students from the city of Oldenburg. These students – Bert Speckels (Bert Speckels), Dieter Hildebrant (Dieter Hildebrandt) and Ulf Wohlers (Ulf Wohlers), who called themselves Mad Scientists. In fact, it was with their development of the engine that work on Gothic began.
The game prototype was a small demo version of a 3D role-playing game written in Pascal under DOS. Brüggemann, Nühl, Hoge and Putzki helped young programmers port the game to C++. The project was named Orpheus.
Fun fact – Maud, which takes Skyrim into the world after the actions of Gothic 2, it’s called – Gothic Orpheus Project.
The game world was also slowly created. Domed Valley of the Mines. According to some sources, game world inspired by the movie "Escape from New York", John Carpenter.
They also decided to change the name of the game. Instead of Orpheus Bert Speckels suggested choosing Gothic, as your favorite genre of music. Which everyone else apparently agreed to.
Development progressed as usual, and in February 1999, Piranha Bytes was able to find a publisher for their game. The company became it Egmont Interactive, which has released games such as Sanitarium And The Longest Journey.
Also in 1999, Piranha Bytes goes to E3 with a demo. There they find additional funding in the form of the company Phenomedia A.G. Piranhas, in fact, became part of Phenomedia.
Around this time Piranha Bytes staff has grown from 7 to several dozen people. Slowly, ideas about multiplayer come into the developers‘ heads, but they discard them in time.
Thanks to the engine’s built-in capabilities online games, to date there are full-fledged role servers. And at least one Russian server that is still alive. The masters there work out their rules, plots and ENT. Of course, this is not GTA V RP or ARMA, but still, if you are interested in such roleplay, take a closer look.
After all, what kind of implementation of multiplayer is there if the game at this stage is full of bugs?! ZenGin, game engine, came a long way with Orpheus before release, but bugs remained. It showed good draw distance, and a modified version of it was used for the development of the sequel, which speaks to its potential. But he also had enough problems.
Screenshots from an early Gothic prototype
The idea with multiplayer had to be thrown out – who knows how long it would have delayed the release. Yes, even without him there was something to work on. The release was approaching, and problems with management and inventory were obvious. But the soundtrack was okay. Created music for the game Kai Rosenkrantz. His works brought him many fans in Russia.
Finally, after several delays in the release date, the game was released March 15, 2001 years in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. October 30 THQ published the game in Europe, and November 23 Gothic reached the USA through the efforts of Xicat Interactive. The game came to Russia only in 2002, October 25.
Review with AG.ru
Despite positive reviews from journalists, the game failed to make any breakthrough in the market outside of Germany. The game was praised many: IGN, Eurogamer, and, of course, Gambling addiction. Even Nomad, in his restrained style, clearly praised the game, betting 70 on A.G.ru.
But this did not help in the US market. Came out at this time Wizardry 8 And Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It was hard to compete with them. Not only because the opponents are strong. And even because of the huge number of problems of Gothic itself.
The game was demanding on hardware, At the same time, it took a long time to load, the controls and inventory were unfriendly (what was associated with the initial focus on the console release. The choice of PC as the only platform occurred at a late stage of development). But the most annoying were the bugs, due to which some quests could not be completed.
Many problems have been fixed, but some had to be fixed by fans. After all, Piranha Bytes are closely involved in the sequel. Does the development of a sequel mean that the game was a financial success, or was it made more on enthusiasm?? Testimonies differ, but there is no exact information at all.
Michael Ruwe about the sales of the first Gothic
There is no official open information on Gothic sales. Michael Hoge, one of the developers, stated in an interview that the development cost several million, and only a little of it was returned.
German fan site World of Gothic claims that copies sold were in the "six figures". Managing Director of Piranha Bytes, Michael Ruwe, spoke about the numbers at the worldofplayers forum in 2009 "over 100,000 copies". But enough with dry numbers. Let’s take a closer look at what Piranha Bytes created?
Plot
The Gothic storyline became something unique to me when I first played it in 2002. And this feeling arose immediately from the beginning of the game.
Gothic meets with a small preface. The world in which the game takes place is called Mirtana. Myrtana is ruled by a king Robar the Second. He was a powerful ruler, but the war with hordes of orcs became a serious obstacle for the king. To defeat the orcs it was necessary magic ore weapon. For her extraction Robar tightened legislation, and now even for the smallest crimes citizens were exiled to work in the mines.
I had to secure this whole thing magic barrier, which was created by the strongest magicians of the kingdom. But something went wrong, and the creation of the barrier went beyond the control of the magicians. As a result, power behind the magic dome passed into the hands of the prisoners.
Now, in addition to the threat of orcs, Robar lost control of iron mining. He had to make a deal with the prisoners. They gave him the mined ore – he gave them food, slaves and other goodies. And so, with another such delivery, a new prisoner is sent to the colony – our main character.
As we know from Max Payne, developers love to put their faces in games. Michael Hoge, who painted the game’s textures, kindly chose his face as everyone’s favorite face.
From the very beginning, Gothic shows the essence of its world. As soon as Nameless gets into the Valley of Mines, the first thing he does is get punched in the face by local thugs. But then we are shown Diego – a much friendlier character. He will give some advice and recommend going to Old Camp – location of one of the three game factions. This is the spirit of Gothic. You can get in the face here anywhere. But you can also find good and loyal friends in this world. But let’s get back to the game factions.
Old Camp
So, Diego recommends his guys to us – Old Camp. The other two are New Camp And Swamp Camp. Each of them has its own moods and its own rules.
The Old Camp is the central force of the Mining Valley. Its head is Gomez. It trades directly with the outside world, making the Old Camp a powerful faction.
There is a certain hierarchy in the www.casinozodiac.co.uk camp. Eat Miners – unfortunate workers who mine ore for days so that Gomez can exchange it for benefits for himself and his associates.
Higher rank – Ghosts. These guys guard the outer ring of the camp and have a certain influence in the camp. Among them are most merchants and a few artisans.
Torus – guard from the Old Camp
Guards – these are the best warriors of Gomez. Together with them, Gomez was able to seize power in the valley. Now the Phantom, who faithfully serves Gomez, may well hope to be promoted to Guardian.
Top of the Old Camp food chain – Gomez and his barons. They live in the castle and reap the benefits of trade with the outside world. If you want to find women, expensive booze and fancy food, they’ll have it all.
The version of the game for most countries was censored. The girl in the Old Camp, who periodically took a bath, was wearing a bra. What was not in the original German version.
Velaya is the same girl. Remember the drawing from the game?
The special inhabitants of the Old Camp are fire mages. They ended up inside the barrier due to an error in creating the barrier itself. And now they are forced to live in the very den of the beast – among those whom they were supposed to lock up.
New Camp
The complete opposite of the Old is the New Camp. Well, that is, as the opposite – they have a similar structure.
Eat Scrapers – analogues of the Miners from the Old Camp. Eat peasants, who grow rice for schnapps. All these guys are not very strong or simply do not want to fight, so they engage in crafts and give most of the spoils to the top of the camp – the Thieves and Mercenaries.
Thieves – analogues of Ghosts. Among them are also full of artisans and merchants. Their only trade is theft. It’s not that there aren’t thieves among the Ghosts..
Training of mercenaries and thieves
Mercenaries – respectively analogues of the Guardians. These are the best warriors of the New Camp. But their leader and goal are different.
Leader of the New Camp – Lee. The king’s former general, who was sent to life imprisonment on false charges. Unlike his fellow inmates from the Old Camp, Lee does not want to sit behind the barrier. Grabbing water mages and a bunch of like-minded people, he founded the New Camp. The purpose of which was to protect water mages. And the goal of the magicians is to destroy the barrier and get the hell out of the Valley of Mines.
Ore mountain in New Camp
If in the Old Camp the elite sit quietly and reap the fruits of the hard workers’ work, then in the New Camp freedom reigns. Which is limited by the right of the strongest. There is no corruption here, which reigns among Ghosts, but you can get hit in the face by the first person you meet, simply because he doesn’t like you. These are the disadvantages of freedom. On the other hand, if you have enough strength, you can come up and hit someone you don’t like. True, I wouldn’t touch the water mages.
Swamp Camp
The most specific camp is the Swamp Camp, or the Cultist Camp. These guys smoke swampweed and talk to some deity – Sleeping.
A typical vacation for kids at a swamp camp
In addition to waiting for the coming of their deity, they mine and sell that very swamp to other camps. But don’t think that these guys are some kind of Rastafarians and are not able to resist other camps. Their Sleeper granted magical powers to his faithful followers. Guru swamp camp – powerful sorcerers. And they are protected Guardians – the best warriors of the swamp camp. They are armed with two-handed swords, which are the strongest. In addition to their strength, Guardians have a fanatical faith, which makes them extremely dangerous soldiers.
Guardians patrol the camp
Well, the labor force of this camp is Novices. Shaved bald pilgrims of faith in the Sleeper do everything from collecting grass in the swamps to giving-and-bringing classes from the Guru.
Head of the Swamp Camp – Yu’Berion, The Sleeper originally appeared to him and bestowed his power. He gathered like-minded people and founded a new faith and a new (Bolotny) camp.
Gothic does not rush the player anywhere – we can explore any of the camps to our fullest before deciding who we want to join. But a choice must be made – otherwise you won’t progress through the plot.
Views of the Valley of Mine
Enjoy this time, because after choosing a camp we will have to get on the rails of the plot. Which tells a linear but interesting and original story.
This story revolves around sleeping, whose symbol can be seen on the cover, in the main menu and when starting the game. Whichever camp you join first chapter, at the beginning second you must talk to Yu’Berion and find the unitor. This is one of the stones that was used to create the barrier. Just 1 unit and crawler saliva will help Y’Berion establish contact with the Sleeper. By the way, we also have to get saliva. As a result of the spiritualistic session, Yu’Berion will lose consciousness, but the vision showed the Orc Cemetery, where one of the gurus, Idol Lukor, went.
During the passage of the second chapter (like any other), you are free to explore the map and visit any camp. I highly recommend visiting Stary if you have the required version of the game. There’s a group there In Extreme gives a virtual concert. This concert, where only a song was performed Herr Mannelig, was carried out by the efforts of Tom Putzki and was available in the German version of the game.
While the chief of the Swamp Camp is unconscious, the deputy will be the guard Kor Hangar. He sent you for Lukor, who has gone a little crazy and will try to kill the hero. And when you return to the swamps, you will find out that Yu’Berion is dead.
Now you need to go for help to the Water Mages who are in the New Camp. "The sleeper turned out to be a demon" – this phrase will force them to help. Saturas, the main water mage in the Camp, will ask you to find the remaining units. If the barrier was created with their help, then maybe they will help destroy it. There is no other plan – so all third chapter We are looking for units.
During one of the quests to find a uniter, we will have to be a meat beetle!
In total you need to find 4 units. Moreover, in every place where the unit is hidden, an assistant will be waiting for you. Gorn, Diego, Milten And Leicester – everyone has their own business in the place where the hero is looking for a unit. These guys have been friends with each other for a long time. Leicester – one of the Novices of the Swamp Camp, Milten – the youngest fire mage, Diego – our savior and the Ghost from the Old Camp, and Horn – Mercenary in Lee’s service. We help them, find the units and find out from Saturas that we now need the help of the fire mages. After all, they created the barrier together – they must destroy it together.
These guys are determined.
That’s just at the very beginning fourth chapter we learn that Gomez killed all the firebenders, with the exception of Milten, who managed to escape. Well, if you play for the Old Camp and become a magician, then there are two of you. Diego will warn you at the entrance to the camp that Gomez has gone crazy because the old mine collapsed. In fact, Gomez has lost all his influence, because no mine means no ore. No ore – nothing to trade with the king behind the barrier.
No matter what camp you belonged to before, for the Old Camp you are now a traitor, and they will try to kill you upon meeting. If you were loyal to Gomez, you can now join the New Camp. For some reason You can’t defect to Bolotny. In any case, now Saturas has only one way out – to look for Xardasa. This is one of the fire mages who participated in the creation of the Barrier.
All the magicians who participated in the creation of the barrier
Interesting point. According to the plot of the game, Saturas says that Xardas was a certain 13th magician, who led the water and fire magicians in creating the barrier. That’s just Mike Hoge, one of the creators of the game, denied this information. He saw the heresy about the 13th magician during the development of the script. Apparently, one of the freelance “assistants” decided to contribute. He fixed it, but by the final version someone changed the dialogue with Saturas again. Xardas was a fire mage, and when he left the service of Innos, Milten was accepted into the vacant position.
Well about Milten.
Page from a Gothic comic
The game’s publishers helped publish comic according to Gothic. Egmont Ehapa published 44 page comic, who told the backstory of Gothic. Our friend Milten occupies a central role in it. The comic will tell about that, Why did he end up in the Valley of Mines?, and about his first steps in the Old Camp. Gorn, Lester and Diego are also involved in the plot, so you can learn more about their friendship. Now the comic is a rarity, the printed edition is almost impossible to find. But in electronic form there is even a translation into Russian.
The main character turns out to be the first person to see Xardas in many years. Surprisingly, Xardas doesn’t mind helping. That’s just the path to destroying the barrier lies through the Sleeper. He will not blast ore or engage in other obscenities. Xardas sends us in search of an orc shaman who will do something for us Ulu-Mulu. With this thing, the orcs will not attack us, and we can easily get to their city. The rest of Chapter 4 is devoted to the search for ingredients for Ulu-Mulu.
Killing orcs is quite possible. But Ulu-Mulu must be created
And when this stick is ready, chapter 5 will begin. Here you don’t have to enter the orc city in peace – you can kill them all. We need to get to the temple under the city and destroy the orc shamans who gave their hearts to the Sleeper. Here we will find legendary sword Urizel, who has lost his strength. The chapter is very linear, almost all the action will be in the temple. Only at the end will Xardas give a task – to go to his old tower and find stronger armor for himself. There you can also find teleportation rune to the Old Camp and destroy everyone there. While all this is happening, Xardas is preparing a spell that will restore Urizel’s power. But there is one nuance.. In the form of a mountain of ore.
We persuade Milten to help us get to the mountain of ore kept by the water magicians. Alas, we need to take all the magical power into the sword. Otherwise the Sleeper cannot be defeated. If you played as a magician, then Xardas will make you a magical Rune from your sword. He can also teach the sixth circle of magic and give him a necromancer’s robe, which is not inferior in protection to good armor.
And here is the hero of the occasion, so to speak
All that remains is to kill the Sleeper, who all this time had Kor Galom from the Swamp Camp. If you can handle the beginning of the game, you will also get through the last battle. Moreover, there is no need to hit the Sleeper directly. Need to pierce the hearts of the orc shamans who give him strength. This will complete the plot of the first part.
Gameplay
Maybe the plot seems weak to some, but combined with the gameplay, Gothic gave an unrealistic impression. It was so detailed for that time that it was amazing. And the ambitions of young developers were visible around every corner, because some features of the game even had to be cut, although their remains can be found.
Here is the cover of one of the collection of deleted content in Gothic
This and multiplayer, which I spoke about at the very beginning. Additional locations, similar to the exit from the valley near the Old Mine. It was planned to be destructible, to be able to set fire to wooden things, to hide in barrels and much more.. much other. There are entire documents in which you can see all sorts of unrealized things from the first Gothic. We will see some of this in the sequel, but much will remain in the form of unrealized ideas.
It’s scary to think how many years of development it would have taken to achieve what Piranhas originally planned. After all, the final product was distinguished by the enormous development of its game world.
The hunt was already in the first part, but it will be developed in the sequel
I think it was precisely because of my warm feelings for Gothic that I still have a love for details in games. This applies to both global moments and small ones. For example, the faces of all human characters are unique. Some of the hundreds of face textures were created from photographs (as in the case of the main character). With the help of the editor, they could be combined with different head types and skin tones, which made it possible to preserve them even in the sequel uniqueness of each NPC. You rarely see such meticulousness anywhere now, let alone the year of release!
Or here changing animation of sword strikes. Initially, the hero waves his weapon at random, to the best of his knowledge and experience. But after training with a mentor, he already confidently holds the sword in his hand and delivers sweeping series of blows.
After training, the hero will no longer hold a one-handed sword with both hands
By the way, pumping here is unique and very interesting. The Nameless One gains levels for which experience points are awarded. They can be spent with a teacher who will teach you how to use a weapon or some useful skill. Unlike The Elder Scrolls, the hero cannot learn to wield a sword at the level of an arena gladiator on his own. He needs a mentor. And this is logical, because, as in real training, it is important to establish the technique before learning how to perform any movement. It will be difficult to do this without a teacher, you must agree.
There are also reverse side. To simply improve your strength or agility, you also need a teacher. Although, it would seem, isn’t it possible to simply become stronger by constantly fighting with a huge two-handed sword?? But this is already the case, thinking out loud.
The same characteristics window. The symbol of the Sleeper is even here.
Returning to the combat system. Fighting people in Gothic has an important difference from fighting monsters. Killing a human NPC with a melee weapon is special in Gothic. A crossbow, bow or magic kills immediately, but close up we will knock out the enemy. To kill a person, you need to purposefully approach an NPC while passed out and stick a sword into him. This is a unique mechanic that fits perfectly into the world of the game.
After all, in Gothic you can punch the face of almost any NPC. After Chapter 5, only Diego and one of the water magicians remain immortal. This idea will find its development in the third Gothic, where there will be no immortal NPCs in principle.
The combat system also has its disadvantages. For example, an incomprehensible system for hitting the enemy. I think many Gothic players have noticed that sometimes a blow to an enemy goes through, but no damage is done. After several such pokes, one in ten hits and, praise Innos, we still cause damage! With high-level monsters everything is clear – it is obvious that only a critical hit passes through them, the probability of which can be viewed on the character characteristics screen. But why can’t you hit an ordinary lizard at the beginning of the game?? Unfortunately, I did not find an explanation for this system.
It’s hard to explain in words. In the game we hear the sound of a hit, but the HP bar does not change.
Mages win here. Spells do not make such mistakes, and protection from magical damage is more difficult to find than from ordinary attacks. There are many types of protection here. With the help of rings and amulets you can even achieve something balanced. It’s a pity that the helmets were cut from the game.
But enough fighting, let’s just enjoy the world of the game. It is not for nothing that this aspect of Gothic inspired by the Poles from CD Projekt RED when creating your iconic Witcher.
What is its peculiarity?? The fact that it is made by hand as much as possible. Yes, the world turned out to be small, several times smaller than the second part of TES. IN Daggerfall players saw an incredibly huge world with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS NPCs, with whom the main character can talk. A Gothic offered a small and cozy world of the Valley of Mines, in which there were not a thousand NPCs would be, let alone hundreds of thousands. But in Daggerfall, such a volume was created due to scripts and algorithms that formed the artificial world. But “Piranhas” did “hand work”. Making a fuss in the spirit of “Gothic is cooler than TES” is not the purpose of the article. Respect each other’s tastes.
Sometimes it’s just nice to stand and look at the views.
NPCs communicate with each other, they have their own daily routine. Everyone is engaged and creating that very manual illusion of the living world. In addition to everything, they react to the actions of the hero. Approaching with a drawn sword or breaking into someone else’s house is a bad idea. As in life, no one here will be happy about this. NPCs will draw weapons in response, and the situation will become tense. Why are there NPCs, even monsters in the forests between the camps live their own lives, clearly showing the law of the jungle. A strong auror is capable of attacking a roaming molerat. And if hunters go on a spree next to him, they will quickly regret it.
Gothic gave a “sweet feeling of freedom”. At the same time, they had to invent the world of the game “Piranhas” – they did not have any reference point or license under which to make the game. What to fill the world with, where you can go in it and where you can’t, how it works – all this had to be decided by ourselves from scratch. Separately the main character helped with the dive, who is a simple guy. He is not the chosen one, he is no one’s bastard. He’s just a guy who was thrown into prison, after which he was given into the hands of the player.
The independence of the world was amazing
Literally six months before the end of development “Piranhas” decided to provide full voice acting for the main character. Neither Fallout, nor Baldur’s Gate, nor Daggerfall – no one could boast of the voice acting of the main character. Of course, many RPG players want to associate themselves with the character on screen, and the character’s voice can be detrimental to immersion. But in Gothic there are no problems with this. Players could easily identify with the hero despite the lack of customizable appearance and voice acting.
Tellingly, the character’s original reactions in the form of shaking his head and hands in dialogues have been preserved. It was with gestures that the main character was supposed to react according to the initial plan. But the talking Nameless One looks much better.
Of course, this does not mean that the game is verified in detail. Quite the contrary, it’s like this heap of ideas, which "Piranhas" had when creating Gothic, created chaos, the consequences of which had to be eliminated for a long time. Both official and fan patches. This can be called a “trick” of the developers. The release of the third Gothic was accompanied by epic bugs with boars, which we will talk about in more detail in subsequent videos, and Elex (the studio’s latest game) also did not shine with optimization at release. I think Obsidian’s collaboration from the time of Fallout: New Vegas and Piranha could create a game that would simply destroy computers with its implementation.
Getting stuck in textures is a classic
Even now, in order to run the game normally, you will have to try very hard, calling on Innos’ blessing along the way. And then, in a dark corner, ask Beliar for help. And there is a huge chance that even this will not help. Of course, there is still Adanos‘ help… but it’s better to use a ready-made build of the game from certain resources. It will be easiest this way. I think the developers will understand you. Moreover, many Gothic fans have a copy of the game on Steam, on disk, and also on GOG.com to the heap. But no matter where you buy it, it will work extremely unstable.
Let’s hope for a remake. But it’s being created by the Spanish division of THQ Nordic, which has little in common with Piranha Bytes. But, who knows, maybe they will come up with something that the creators of the original will envy.
That’s all I have for the first part. This is my first experience of creating such material, so I will be glad for constructive criticism. I will continue to do it one way or another. But I would like to correct the mistakes that are visible from the outside.
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