rpgvaultarchive.ign.com 06/1998 05.06.1998 Gothic Instant Update ===================== Wow, that was fast! Look what landed in my mailbox from the Gothic team as I was posting the previous news story. So, what can I tell you right now? The release date will be in the first quarter of 1999 - we hope so :-) A publisher is not found yet, but we didn't want to make a deal in an early state of the project... at the moment we are working on a second demo-version (full playable) and with this stuff we will visit interested publishers. I wonder if they can write games this quickly too. 8-) New RPG: Gothic =============== Gothic (not to be confused with Gothica) is a title in development from Germany's Piranha Bytes Software. The website contains several good-looking screenshots and some interesting information about this "3D Realtime Fantasy Roleplaying Game". Here's a sample. "It's important for us to give the player optical feedback. Meaning, when a player wants to advance his abilities there are no meaningless numbers merely increasing from 67 to 68 but the effect of the skills you have learnt are visible in your character." For example, at the beginning of the game every character will chop about with his sword like a lumber jack would do with his axe; if he trains sword fighting with a master of the sword, you will actually see the improvements: His fighting moves will become quicker and more accurate. Alone the way he holds his weapon will not go unnoticed. These "optical" improvements are for the whole range of skills included in GOTHIC. The two different classes of magic (which are absolutely independent from one another) work along the same lines. The untrained fireball from the normal magic class would just about manage to light a cigarette - for those among us who are not subject to this craving - a candle ;-) - with suitable training, however, you can cast "surface fire" with a mere wiggle of your fingers. In the psionic magic class you will soon see what happens if you try to control a monster, whose psychic abilities are far beyond yours...... BIG mistake! Thanks to Gamer's Alliance for spotting this one. /////////////////////////////// Week of June 14, 1998 Friday, June 19 Desslock's Gothic Interview =========================== Desslock has put up an interview and preview of Gothic from Piranha Bytes. Here is a description of this upcoming RPG: GOTHIC is a third-person perspective single-player/multiplayer 3D role-playing game with action components, set in a sword and sorcery fantasy world. On the surface, this doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary. While the RPG genre seems to be making a comeback of late, in the past we've seen both multiplayer and action RPGs, not to mention the countless single-player and sword & sorcery themed games. German Developer Piranha Bytes intends to bring all these common elements together in uncommon fashion, providing an in-depth storyline with detailed gameplay but not skimping on the pure eye-candy department as has been the norm for RPGs over the years. The premise for GOTHIC is deceptively simple: For crimes against the kingdom, you've been handed a life-sentence in the royal prison mining colony. A magical one-way barrier ensures that what goes in alive, doesn't come out the same way. Your goals are, in order of priority, to stay alive and to escape. What could be easier? There's one additional little detail you might also like to know. This prison is self-administrating. That is to say, the inmates run the asylum... Head over to Desslock's RPG column to see what all the fuss is about.