rpgvaultarchive.ign.com 07/1999 12-13.07.1998 Week of July 11, 1999 Monday, July 12 Get Into Gothic Our friends at Piranha Bytes inform us they will be offering 15 gamers around the world the opportunity to appear as characters in their upcoming 3D real-time fantasy RPG, Gothic. This is the main text of the announcement received this morning: GOTHIC: GET INTO THE GAME - BECOME A COMPUTER GAME HERO The publisher EGMONT INTERACTIVE and the game developer PIRANHA BYTES are holding a worldwide competition to give 15 people the opportunity to become a character in "GOTHIC", the 3D real time action role playing game. Hopefuls can compete thanks to the co-operation of 12 magazines, who will each draw one winner (Partners are not confirmed yet! ) and the final three will be drawn directly through the Gothic home page, "www.gothicthegame.com", which will be established by the 1st of August 1999. The winners are being announced on a live broadcast at "www.gothicthegame.com" on Friday the 20th of August. To bring yourself up to date on Gothic, you might want to take a look at my Gothic interview, posted two weeks ago, with team members Stefan Nyul, Tom Putzki, Alex Brueggemann and Carsten Edenfeld. Tuesday, July 13 GA-RPG Interviews Gothic Team GA-RPG let us know about a Gothic interview posted this morning. Team members Tom Putzki, Michael Hoge and Carsten Edenfeld answer 10 questions, providing information such as these bits from Tom: on why the player starts in prison: Of course there is a reason... but at the beginning of the game the player doesn't know anything about it - the only thing he is absolutely sure about is: He is innocent. For more information you have to play the game ;-) on feedback from NPCs: Of course they will! They remember your actions, they will blame you if they witnessed something you've done, they will tell their comrades and gang members what you've done with them or to them.... and they will react on everything whether good or bad! If you kill a big shot from the Psionic sect, all Psionics will try to catch you and take revenge but on the other hand you've made new friends in the Old Camp who really don't like the Psionics... Just click on the link above to go to the interview which includes several new screenshots. In addition, you might also want to check out my extensive Gothic interview from a couple of weeks ago. Week of July 18, 1999 Wednesday, July 21 Stefan Nyul Visits VN Gothic Board Project Manager and Designer Stefan Nyul is the second development member who visited our brand new Gothic Board, where he invited readers to step in and ask questions: for the 22 team members here in Bochum, Germany, everything revolves around GOTHIC. We are working very hard to bring you this next generation RPG but this work is lots of fun too. We are very interested in your points of view about what can be read on the GOTHIC-page (http://www.piranha-bytes.com). We want to have your suggestions, want to know your favorites and dislikes regarding computer RPGs. We want to know, what you think. After all, this game is for YOU !!! The team is looking forward to your feedback. The Gothic team is awaiting your questions, so we welcome you to stop by, introduce yourself, and have fun participating in discussions! Wednesday, July 21 VN Gothic Board Now Open On behalf of our friends at developer Piranha Bytes, the Vault Network is pleased to announce the opening of our new VN Gothic Board where fans can discuss this 3D real-time fantasy RPG with members of the team. This is the message posted by Tom Putzki this morning inviting your input: Hi everyone! Welcome to the GOTHIC Board on Vault Network and thx a lot to Jonric for giving us from PIRANHA BYTES this opportunity to get in close contact with gamers from all over the world. We're looking very forward to your feedback, comments, questions and suggestions on our game GOTHIC. All core team members from PIRANHA BYTES will take a regular look to this board. We hope to get a lot of input here! Have a good time! For more information on Gothic, you can try both the company site and my Gothic interview with Tom and other team members from the end of last month. Enjoy! Tuesday, July 20 Gothic Screenshots At Gamers.de The German site Gamers.de has made available a couple of Gothic screenshots. A 3D real-time fantasy RPG, Gothic is being developed by Germany's Piranha Bytes. Egmont Interactive will publish the game in Europe, and a North American publishing partner is being sought. Spotted at AGN3D. Week of July 25, 1999 Saturday, July 31 Gothic Infobit Designer Tom Putzki posted a message on character classes and skills at our Gothic Board: We've got 4 different ways to compete the game: warrior - a tremendous fighter with all kind of weapon skills thief: the silent way with sneaking, lockpick, pickpocket and assassinating mage: several magic spells with different levels plus mana regenaration psionic: several psi spells and will power Every character can use a sword of course, but a mage will never be as good as a warrior. Then we have some skills which can be learned from all different characters like talk to orcs and taming beasts. Hope this helps. Gothic is real-time 3D fantasy RPG in development by Piranha Bytes. Germany's Egmont Interactive will publish. Saturday, July 31 3DGN Previews Gothic 3D Gaming Net sends word of a new Gothic preview which includes an interview with members of the development team. Written in the site's characteristic off-the-wall style, it is an informative piece on the upcoming 3D real-time RPG from Piranha Bytes. Here's an excerpt: I really like the "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) idea being implemented here. It's a hassle to go through a hundred different character statistics like in most RPGs and pick/alter each one to make the character you want. In Gothic, you just play the character you want, and the development of the character will be seen on screen, not through different menus. Sword swings become quicker and more accurate, magic spells increase in power, monkeys cower when your name is mentioned, etc. All of these effects are working towards keeping you focused on happenings in the game and not having to work your way through hordes of menus before you can cast your first spell. Sticking with the WYSIWYG principle, the environment will be very realistic. When an enemy is killed, the weapon falls to the floor with a clash and can be picked up by you. An axe can break down a door or open a chest, and a torch will give light in a darkened hallway. Each NPC (Gothic should feature over 200 of them) will go about their daily activities. A man working in the mines will wake up each morning and get to work, something you can watch in action. Most RPGs feature a magical "shift" in which night becomes day and everyone is suddenly awake, but Gothic will stick with reality instead. You might even have to interrupt someone to get his or her attention. This article, in my opinion by far the best one I've ever seen on this site, offers a good opportunity to bring yourself up to date on a game which has been rather under-publicized to date, likely due to not having a North American publisher as of yet. After checking it out, you might also want to pop over to our VN Gothic Board where you can communicate your comments and questions to the team. Tuesday, July 27 Gothic Screens At Screenshots.de The appropriately-named German site Screenshots.de has posted a collection of 33 Gothic screenshots. As readers know, Gothic is a 3D fantasy RPG being developed by our friends at German company Piranha Bytes. You can find out more about the game which includes interesting features such as visual feedback for skill advancement in our recent Gothic interview with four members of the team. Spotted at our network affiliate, Blue's News. Tuesday, July 27 Gothic Infobits Team members Stefan Nyul and Tom Putzki dropped by our VN Gothic Board this morning to provide a couple more infobits: Stefan on the difference between magic and psionics: The basic difference between magic and psionics is, that magic is the more traditional wizardry like casting fireballs, turning invisible, teleport to distant locations, throwing lightning and stuff like that. Our psionics are the mental powers that are used to manipulate minds and levitate things. Tom on examples: Magic: fireball, transform (into other creatures), heal (self & others), lightning... Psionic: human control, windfist, forget... Stefan is the Project Manager for Gothic while Tom's responsibilities include level design and marketing. Monday, July 26 Gothic Infobits Tom Putzki from the design team at Piranha Bytes stopped by our VN Gothic Board board this morning to answer a couple of questions: on magic and psionics: We have two different types of magic in GOTHIC.... one more common with magicians throwing fireballs and stuff like that, they need mana to cast their spells; the other magic is the psionic power, only used by the members of the psionic sect, they need will power to cast their spells and these spells are spells of the mind like controling other humans. Hope this helps! on player character options to start the game: No, you just push the START button and play the game, you'll develop your character and make the choices what you want to learn and in which direction your character expires during the game! For more about this 3D real-time fantasy RPG, check the Pirahna Bytes site and also our Gothic interview with Tom and three of his colleagues from late June. Then hop onto the board to present your questions and comments to the team.