ga-source.com 05/1999

22.05.1999


Gothic
Publisher: Egmont Interactive
Developer: Piranha Bytes
Scheduled To Release: First Quarter 2000


Written By: Bill J. McClendon
Posted On: Saturday, May 22, 1999


Do you like Tomb-Raider-style games, but sometimes wish they were a bit more complex? Or do you like RPGs, but don't really care for their overall difficulty and time-consuming nature? Ever wanted a 3rd-person RPG that was easy to operate, yet had enough depth to give it the "RPG" name? Well, it appears your wait is over, because Piranha Bytes is coming out with a game that you'll find very interesting. Gothic is a game that features the ease-of-use of Tomb Raider with the depth of RPGs... with the addition of some interesting twists. (Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain any screenshots to accompany this article.)
The land is in a state of war, with hordes of orcs invading from the north. Blacksmiths work day and night to keep the army supplied with weapons, but they can't manage to get enough ore fast enough for their purposes. Someone comes up with the idea of putting prisoners behind a magic sphere around the mines -- that allows only non-living items to exit -- to both control crime as well as generate enough ore for the army's needs. Since no living beings can pass through the shield, the mines themselves quickly develop into a series of armed camps (much like the ones in "Escape from New York"), and the strong rule.
Enter the player -- a new convict sentenced for some unnamed crime -- who is summarily sentenced and tossed through the shield to fend for himself. Welcome to the world of Gothic.
It's played from the 3rd-person perspective, a la Tomb Raider and Heretic II, and features a 3D engine, fully-modeled entities (players, NPCs, monsters, items, scenery), detailed enviroments, and some very nice texturing and lighting among other things. The first thing I noticed while Tom Putzki (one of the most enthusiastic designers I've met) went through the game with me was the simplicity of controlling your character; he claims that a player will need no more than ten keys to do everything in the game, and it doesn't seem an exaggeration. Sure, key combinations add extra movements and actions, but their usage is logical and intuitive.

There are four main character classes in the game:
• Warrior: The straight-up brute-force character; why use lockpicks when you have an axe?
• Assassin: Tricky and malicious, he uses brains with his weapons instead of brawn.
• Magician: Master of mystical might, he uses arcane powers to survive and prosper.
• Psionic: He uses the power of the trained mind to influence and control.

The way the game unfolds depends partly on the character type you choose -- different things are possible, and some unique areas/events are slated for each character type -- but the game can be mastered with any of the four. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and these strengths and weaknesses are, as the interface, straightforward and intuitive. Where this game will stand apart from the rest (though it really doesn't have any direct competition, as near as I can tell) is in two areas: world interaction, and NPC behavior.

World interaction in Gothic is well-thought-out and surprisingly complete. For instance, you see a torch burning in a sconce on the wall ahead, and you need a torch to go downstairs in the dark. In most other games, you'd just turn up the brightness on your monitor, but in Gothic you just grab the torch and take it with you. Or you shoot some arrows at an enemy in front of a wooden door; after he dies, don't forget to take the arrows you left embedded in the door and his body, because they'll be there waiting for you... just like they should be. Fighting an enemy that has an axe? If you kill him, that axe will be on the ground after he dies; as logical as that sounds, it's been my experience that such an event is rare in a game. Also, all the world items had consistent properties, but I'm not sure if they behave consistently -- for instance, one of the settlements inside the shield is made mostly of wood, and I don't think you can use the torch to set buildings on fire. (To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if you could, but I didn't have a chance to test it.)

NPC behavior, including that of monsters, can be summed up in a quick statement: They have lives of their own, too. They will -- and do -- have their own motives, desires, and tasks, and won't just stand around waiting for you to interact with them. In fact, more than once we had to actually interrupt an NPC that was busy with something else in order to talk to him. How cool is that? In another instance, Tom set the time to early dawn and we checked in on an NPC that had been in the process of fixing his house. After a couple of minutes, he woke up, yawned, stretched, walked over to his toolbox, rattled around in it, came outside, gave our character a look, and began to repair his front wall with the hammer he had. Every now and then, he cast a glance our way (after all, we were armed with a two-handed sword and stood staring at him), but didn't say a word; he just worked on his house.

Another interesting (and, I must admit, refreshing) aspect to NPC interaction is that they also initiate interaction and they have the same desire for items that you do. Remember Diablo, and dumping all your extra stuff by the fountain knowing no one would mess with it? Forget that in Gothic -- a dropped or placed item doesn't stay where you dropped it for more than a minute... and if it's a weapon, I'll guarantee it won't stay on the ground long enough for dust to settle on it. As to interacting with you, they'll react to not only your presence, but your state as well. If you come up to an NPC with no armor and no weapon, they'll be haughty or snide or condescending... but if you're packing a two-handed sword and some serious armor, they'll bow, snivel, grovel, or run in fear, depending on their basic attitude. They also react differently to a sheathed or drawn weapon, too, which has some interesting possibilities. To top all this off, there are going to be approximately 200 (that's right, two hundred) NPCs in the finished game. Perhaps I should say "at least 200," because Piranha Bytes is determined to include as many as space will permit.

Speaking of armor and weapons, all the items in the game have been modeled to scale, and all have logical attachment points to your character. One of the mantras for the Gothic team seems to have been "what you see is what you get," and the visuals that I've seen certainly reflect this. If your character has a two-handed sword, he sheaths it on his back, and unlimbers it over the shoulder; if it's a short or broad sword, it goes on the hip, and is drawn across the body. (I should mention the animations are very fluid -- based on a skeletal system -- and they're smooth as well.) The only weapons you don't see are the ones you're not currently using, and the arrows for the bow magically appear out of thin air, as there is no quiver. Aside from those two things, everything you're currently equipped with is visible... to both you and the NPCs/monsters.

Combat is as straightforward as the rest of the game. Press the left attack key, and he attacks from the left; press the right, it comes from the right. Magic spells are selected with a key, and the strength of the spell when used depends on both your skill with it as well as how long you hold the key down before you release it -- the longer you wait, the more powerful it is. Psionic spells work the same way, for the most part. One notable ability for psionic characters is the ability to "possess" another creature; once successfully cast, the camera switches to the creature you've possessed, and you can do anything with that creature that the creature is capable of... including casting the creature's spells, if it's a mage. The drawback to this possession is that you stand perfectly still while you're possessing the creature, but as soon as you take any physical damage whatsoever you pop back into your own body. Neat.

Increasing your abilities is a staple of any RPG, but how do you tell if you've gotten better at something if you don't have any stats to refer to? Simple -- what you see is what you get. I watched the warrior class increase his ability with a sword in the demonstration, and instead of seeing a stat increase by a point, I noticed that the warrior gained an extra attack form... he was able to attack over the top as well as from side to side. After a bit, I asked Tom if the warrior's swing was a bit faster as well, and he smiled and said, "Ah, you noticed that." Every increase in a skill that's relevant is (and will be) accompanied by a visual representation of the increase, be it an extra swing, an extra spell effect or duration, or what-have-you.

The monsters themselves looked good, but all I was able to see were the models; Tom noted that the AI for the monsters was not yet complete and was removed altogether for the show so as not to give any false impressions of how good or bad the AI was.

So, all this gaming goodness has to come at a price, right? Well, it appears that the price for Gothic is the hardware you'll need to run it -- the projected minimum specs are a P2-300 with 64MB of RAM and a 3D accelerator. That seems a bit high at first, but when you consider the Starsiege-like horizons, 32-bit graphics, NPC interaction and non-interaction, digital and dynamic sound and music, estimated 100 hours of gameplay, and the numerous and extensive animations, it doesn't seem so bad.

This one looks solid, and may just carve itself a niche between the 3rd-person adventure game and full-blown RPG. It has the depth without the complexity, and that's something I hadn't known I was missing until I found this one. Look for it to be released first quarter 2000.