[KVCC]

Graphics look okay, honestly gothic 3 looked better. models look pretty bad to me...
Please please PLEASE make the A.I. actually believable! I'm tired of Gothic 1+2+3 24/7 schedule that everyone did everyday, they didn't even change their damn clothes.

It was, wake up, cook pot for 6 hours, have snip-its of conversations(not complete sentences) and go to sleep, and repeat.


Setting that aside, recently looking at arcania they are doing the atmopshere spot on, i mean the swamp jungle reminds me of the swamp in gothic 1 so much.... I have yet to see anything breath taking in Risen Screens....


But, arcania's combat looks pretty shitty, so lets hope Risen can do a good job on that.


With a huge-free roam game like this, combat and A.I. are the most important IMO

[cifre]

It was, wake up, cook pot for 6 hours, have snip-its of conversations(not complete sentences) and go to sleep, and repeat.

Did actually sat there for 6 hours to see them doing that? )

[Powaz]

I tend to play the game and not watch the NPC's for hours, when you play instead of watching the NPC's it's much better for immersion. Seriously you can stand and think that it's just a game for hours and nothing will help you if you don't want to immerse yourself into the world.

[KVCC]

No of course not. EDIT: And 6 hours in game was like 15 minutes in real life :P


But obviously in gothic 1 you can tell, the guard keepers stand in the SAME spot ALL day, shadows would get out of bed to stand near firepits and talk ALL day.


Its pretty obvious they never moved around. You could come back a day later, hours later, WEEKS later and see them do the same thing.

This wasn't fixed in gothic 2 at all, and gothic 3 its the same damn thing. Oblivions A.I. was buggy, and still nowhere near what I would expect(radiant AI anyone?) but at you'd always see something random or unexpected happen. Gothic's AI is scripted to HELL.


And it's nice to have scripted AI in quests and cinematic events, but when its overly used it just shows how lame the AI gets.



I mean if you think a "believable" world is people standing around the gothic camp sharpening the same sword over and over for the rest of their lives....well you need to get out more


A perfect example of this is mages and such that stand with their arms crossed(as SEEN in risen photos) that stand there ALL damn day!
I really hope they change this

[KVCC]

AI is part of playing the game silly!

It's not like I follow around NPCs all day, but sometimes I go hunting, sell some stuff, and just chill out in the towns for a little bit before doing more quests or anything. NPCs just dont really react to anything, im not sure if Risen as addressed any of this but I hope they can at least give NPCs a week schedule or something.


You make relationships with characters so its pretty vital to make their lives believable. It sucks to finish a quest with so-so mage just to see him sweep some tiles the rest of the game..

[Powaz]

Well I think I'll make you happy a little bit.

You see there are these gnomes in Risen, who plunder dead NPC bodies and run with your loot. All of this is not scripted at all, which means anything can happen with those gnomes while playing the game. I think this adds quite some immersion into the game.

Seriously, if you want to nitpick about something you'll always find something to nitpick about

[KVCC]

Well I think I'll make you happy a little bit.

You see there are these gnomes in Risen, who plunder dead NPC bodies and run with your loot. All of this is not scripted at all, which means anything can happen with those gnomes while playing the game. I think this adds quite some immersion into the game.

Seriously, if you want to nitpick about something you'll always find something to nitpick about

Well hey thats a start! I'm not nitpicking, but i'd like the PB team to focus on everything in the game.

As you can tell from Gothic 1 to Gothic 2, things changed a LOT.
Graphics improved, combat improved, spells improved, inventory and controls improved, but AI didn't improve THAT much.

But Risen is a 2009 game, you can't keep having NPCs AI like that.


I'm not asking for much, but what would be REALLY cool if each NPC could do "events" with you, so to speak.

The hunter going on long trips that take days, the mage and you looking for that lost magic crystal in the mountains, and so on.

Its cool that we got to do this a few times in the previous games but it was really a one time thing, "Hey lets hunt some wolfs!" Okay so now that the wolfs are dead....you gave up hunting..? What gives!


And my dream, which would enchance NPC interactions greatly(I doubt this will happen in risen but maybe a future PB game) would be to open up your own shops.


You know, a hunting shop selling bows and skins that you collect, and random NPCs coming as customers to buy, or a magic shop selling scrolls and amulets and plants or anything like that.


I mean, you can become a MASTER smith and create magic ore weapons, but to sell them you still have to go to that same guy that everyone else buys from! Doesn't make you feel like a very good smith does it?

My main point here is to make NPCs useful, after you finish a quest sometimes NPCs wouldnt even talk to you, its just "Dont you have something better to do?" Wow, dude i saved your damn life!
Adding more and more quests wouldn't fix anything, some NPCs have tons of quests anyways. But there has got to be something PB can do, hell take your friend to the bar to get drunk? At least its an activity you can do. Take all your friends down to the pub and get high/drunk, whatever! It adds immersion and life to the characters

[Dykunas]

You don't know too much about game development do you? Your requests are unrealistic, a game with that much detail would take a decade of development, not to mention that it would require major funding, which nobody would be interested in.....

PB games are already pretty atmospheric, i can't think of a game that puts so much emphasis on little details, like the games of PB.

[TheDoctor]

I disagree with you, KVCC. I think the combat AI for Gothic 1 and 2 was incredible, much better than the AI in other RPGs. I also think that the NPCs were acting amazingly real since they actually did their chores, instead of just standing around, as in more or less every other RPG game ever.

However, I am certain that everything will have been improved in Risen.

[KVCC]

I disagree with you, KVCC. I think the AI for Gothic 1 and 2 was incredible, much better than the AI in other RPGs. I also think that the NPCs were acting amazingly real since they actually did their chores instead of just standing around, as is the case in more or less every other RPG game ever.

However, I am certain that everything will have been improved in Risen.

What? I never said Gothic's COMBAT AI was bad, not at all.

It was good for its time, back then it was okay. But honestly you dont see people repeating the exact same task over and over at the exact same time every day, they become robotic looking. At first it is really cool. It feels like a living world, seeing people do their chores and everything and so on, and this can be repeated every day to an extent. But eating at the same exact time everyday? Waking up at the same exact time? Talking to your friend at the SAME time everyday?
Thats where it gets a little too scripted.


And to the other post, thats why its my "dream" (ideas of opening stores and the like)
I dont expect that to happen soon..


But I've seen videos of Radiant AI, these things ARE possible, so in the near future we should be seeing some amazing AI out there.
I mean it isn't that difficult to have NPCs have a full real conversation, Oblivion did it.


Thats the new thing with RPGs these days, Change. We as players like to be immersed in the world, but not STUCK in it. Your put in a mining colony but no matter what you do to help everyone you still see that digger picking at rocks 80 hours a week.
You know like killing the king of a colony, really the colony should go havok, insane and out of control. Sure it makes your game completely different from that point on but it makes sense, your actions caused this and thats the consequence.

Look at fallout 3, you can decide to destroy a city in that game, if you do that you lose EVERYTHING, you never see those people again, but you open up other options.
It would be nice to have things like this in Risen

[Vedzitux]

What the hell.. Well, Gothic had something better than the other RPG's, it's the daily routine. I prefer that than stuff like in Oblvion when they either stand somewhere all day and then go to sleep or either go from spot A to spot B. Did you ever saw an RPG with all those things you named ? I'm kinda sure that you didin't. Besides other RPG's like Fallout 3, Oblivion had more devs and budget.

[TheDoctor]

It was good for its time, back then it was okay. But honestly you dont see people repeating the exact same task over and over at the exact same time every day, they become robotic looking. At first it is really cool. It feels like a living world, seeing people do their chores and everything and so on, and this can be repeated every day to an extent. But eating at the same exact time everyday? Waking up at the same exact time? Talking to your friend at the SAME time everyday?
Thats where it gets a little too scripted.

But it was scripted and you're actually the absolutely first person that I have met to complain about the NPC AI in Gothic. Yes, they do the same things every day at the exact same time, but I never noticed because I wasn't watching the damn in-game clock everytime I went into a town. Of course it's not as in real life, but if you compare it with Morrowind - which was released one year later and still was bulls*** in terms of AI, both combat and NPCs - it's fantastic. And I think it's still a healthy solution to creating realism which I really hope will be used in Risen, too.

You're nuts to compare the scripted AI in Gothic/Risen with the RAI in Oblivion (or Fallout 3, same game different name). That so called RAI was a joke, a scam and a complete lie. It more or less looked like bad scripting and Bethesda spent a very good time lying about how great it was pre-release. The conversation was also incredibly stupid, but I suppose you're trying to point out the fact that NPCs meeting other NPCs on the way to somewhere would stop to chat with eachother. Yes, I agree with that, it would be cool to have in a PB game.

But really, PB have always been masters at AI and realism. I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but you're either overreacting or having too high demands for the AI in games.

[KVCC]

What the hell.. Well, Gothic had something better than the other RPG's, it's the daily routine. I prefer that than stuff like in Oblvion when they either stand somewhere all day and then go to sleep or either go from spot A to spot B. Did you ever saw an RPG with all those things you named ? I'm kinda sure that you didin't. Besides other RPG's like Fallout 3, Oblivion had more devs and budget.

Whew I knew someone would get mad sooner or later.


Just ideas man ! If just one of any of those ideas where in Risen it would be awesome. Mainly giving you and NPCS better party adventures(when you get a NPC to follow you)

But it looks like I've said too much. Just my ideas people, no need to get rude, and dont say I dont like G1 2 or 3 because I LOVE all three and completed the first 2..(still playing G3 with 1.72 patch)

You can never "demand too much for a game", im just being creative. Hell if I knew how to do this stuff I would be creating my own game right now. But i'll leave that up to the pros.

[catalinux]

In Gothic 1 we had the 2 templars traveling from Sect Camp to Old Mine every day. Also in Gothic 2 we had some triggers making NPCs changing their routines (Canthar for example).
You are right, at some point the daily routines get bored, but lets face it - it's a matter of time. It would take time to implement hundreds of thousands of code lines just to make the world more credible. And time is money. There is also another aspect - if the daily routines would change periodically, you'll have big problems to find the people you are looking for. For example, lets say you have to buy a specific item from a specific merchant. But he is not in his shop. His wife tells you he might be at the church. You go the church, but he isn't there. Where could he be? At the bordello? You check the bordello but he isn't there. You return to his house by the night but he still isn't there. Maybe he went for a walk and the wolves ate him?
Unpredictable routines are nice but can complicate the game.
(Unfortunately) Those games are not meant to last forever. This is why we have (sometimes boring) daily routines. Just like in real life.

[The EvilAlex]

KVCC I think you should spend more time in forests.

A.I isn't that tech demanding as graphics, it's more effort demanding, and as I understand you want PB to make something of a life simulator that covers every aspect of the game...Well looking at are tech(PC) now it's pretty possible, now all we need is a publisher that will support PB for 10 years and we will have the most atmospheric game ever.

[TheDoctor]

By the way, the liberating triggers in G3 wasn't bad either. You'd take over complete towns and at one point bring life to an abandoned one. I think that's more noteworthy than the a-bomb quest in F3 which becomes available about 5 min into the game.

[KVCC]

By the way, the liberating triggers in G3 wasn't bad either. You'd take over complete towns and at one point bring life to an abandoned one. I think that's more noteworthy than the a-bomb quest in F3 which becomes available about 5 min into the game.

Yeah that was really cool.


Unfortunately after you save that damn city noone there has anything to say to you, noone more quests or anything like that. And you could easily gain enough reputation to liberate cape dun within an hour or two, which is somewhat stupid to trust someone that quickly.

I just think some actions the hero should initiate , and some the hero shouldn't. Maybe a town should be liberating by its own, its like the entire world of gothic wont move until you say "go". Kinda gives you a god feeling when really your just that poor sap trying to make gold and survive just like everyone else.

I'm sure Risen will improve the AIs city life a lot, Gothic 3's cities where HUGE, so i cant wait to see what risen has to offer. At the very least i know the story and atmosphere will be great

[TheDoctor]

You can count on it, like the rest of us

And Gothic 3 wasn't very well made. The best parts were the graphics which imo still is the most beautiful I have ever seen (Gothic 3 > Crysis) and the incredible music score though it did not fit in gameplay. But G3 is an unpolished diamond. Risen will "justify" that, though. I hope.

[KVCC]

Indeed.


Can't WAIT to play demo, sucks that its gonna be released days before October 2nd... I hope we get a demo once it goes gold that would be awesome, or a month before release.

[The Hound]

Actually I didn't like the liberation quests from Gothic 3...after liberating a town all those named NPCs with personality were replaced with some unnamed NPCs that had absolutely no pesonality and no quests...well there were exceptions like the paladin and swineherder from Cape Dun or the mage from Geldern...but those were clearly not enough...and what about Trelis? Faring? And I just couldn't understand why the rebels hiding nearby(reddock,nemora,okara etc.) wouldn't come at all in the liberated city...come on at least some of them should have moved to the town if not all...