Gothic (video game)

Infobox VG
title = Gothic


developer = flagicon|EU Piranha Bytes
publisher = flagicon|EU Egmont Interactive
flagicon|United States Xicat Interactive, Inc.
flagicon|Poland CD Projekt
distributor = flagicon|EU Egmont Interactive
flagicon|United States Xicat Interactive, Inc.
engine = Gothic Engine
version = 1.08k
released = flagicon|Germany March 15, 2001
flagicon|United States November 23, 2001
flagicon|Poland March 28, 2002
genre = Action RPG
modes = Single player
ratings = ESRB: T (Teen) 13+
USK: 12+
platforms = Windows
media = CD (2) or DVD (1)
requirements = Intel Pentium II 400 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB GPU
input = Keyboard and mouse

"Gothic" is a computer role-playing game by the German developer, Piranha Bytes. The game is characterized by an open-ended game world in which the hero must initially choose sides among a set of opposed factions (each faction having its own set of side plots), then slowly return to a central plotline common to the entire game.

Story

Prologue

The Kingdom of Myrtana is fighting an almost hopeless war against the Orcs. The only weapon Myrtana has against the Orcs is a magical Ore, found in the mines of the isle Khorinis. To gather more Ore, criminals are sent to those mines, even for minor crimes. King Rhobar II, the ruler of Myrtana, called the most powerful mages of the empire – 12 mages in total (later divided in to the circles of fire and water) – to create a magical barrier around the mining city of Khorinis to prevent the prisoners from fleeing. But something disturbed their ritual and the barrier grew larger than expected: the mages were also trapped. The prisoners killed the guards, who were trapped with them in the magical dome. Some of them continued to work for the King in the Old Camp ("Das alte Lager") led by Gomez, in exchange for food and other comforts not available to others. A prisoner named Lee founded the New Camp ("Das neue Lager"), seeking to destroy the barrier with the aid of the Water mages. Others joined the Swamp Camp ("Das Sumpflager") under the leadership of Y'Berion, trusting a god they call The Sleeper ("Der Schläfer") will lead them into freedom.

Plot

The Game begins with the Nameless Hero thrust into the barrier, and soon afterward befriended by Diego, one of the Shadows from the Old Camp. After the Hero has joined a camp, he is sent to the Swamp Camp to aid a ritual that is supposed to destroy the barrier.

The Hero has to reclaim a focus stone for Y'Berion, leader of the Swamp Camp. Afterwards, he must help another high-ranking Swamp camp member gather minecrawler secretion to help the novices contact the Sleeper. The Hero heads to the Old Mine and kills a Minecrawler Queen, securing enough secretion in the process. Afterwards his faction awards him with a promotion.

Next, the Hero must secure an Almanac that is needed for the invocation, from a band of Black Goblins. Finally, the ritual is ready to commence (thus begins chapter 3).

The ritual fails, and the hero is sent to the nearby Orc Cemetery to try and figure out what happened. After his return, he is sent to gather healing herbs for Y'Berion, who is ill. The Hero is unable to help him, and Y'Berion dies. Cor Angar takes command of the camp and sends the Hero (along with the focus stone and the Almanac) to the mages at the New Camp, to help in their escape plan.

The water mages plan to bust out of the barrier using huge amounts of ore to power the spell to free themselves; they, however, require the 5 focus stones to be able to do it. The Hero is sent to gather the remaining four focus stones. At each of the locations, one of the Hero's friends helps him. Milten (Fire Mage in the Old Camp) helps him at the Stonehenge, Diego (Shadow in the Old Camp) at the Troll Canyon, Gorn (Mercenary from the New Camp) at the Cloister Ruin and Lester (Novice of the Swamp Camp) at the Mountain Fortress. These four had forged a pact to help the Hero in his quests.

After the focus stones are secured, Saturas (leader of the Water Mages) wants the Hero to perform one more task - to summon other mages inside the Barrier, to help. At this point, the Hero is able to acquire new armor again. However, tragedy has struck! The mine controlled by the old camp has collapsed when the diggers breached an underground river. Gomez, leader of the Old Camp, used the ore from the mine to trade with the king. With his ore gone, he knew he would lose his position of power within the barrier, so he plans to attack the New Camp and secure their mine. The Fire Mages disagree with Gomez's plan and in a fit of rage Gomez slaughters all the Fire Mages (except Milten, who managed to escape) and marches on the New Camp. The Hero is deemed a traitor, and cannot enter the camp any more. If the Hero joined the Old Camp, he is now able to join the New Camp instead.

The Hero must now seek the elusive 13th mage, Xardas, who has turned his back to the other mages to study the Dark Arts. Unfortunately, he lives in a huge tower deep in the Orc Lands. After defeating his three guard golems, the Hero meets Xardas. Xardas sends the Hero to seek a renegade Orc shaman, Ur-Shak, in order to be able to peacefully enter the Orc Village (which guards the entrance to an ancient temple). The hero is sent to the Free Mine to get the help from an Orc there.

Unfortunately, the Free Mine is now under the control of the Old Camp. Gorn helps the Hero in his fight. At this point, the Hero is also able to get Wolf, a mercenary from the New Camp, to make him a special armor from minecrawler plates. Afterwards, the Hero proceeds to make the artifact required to get peaceful admittance into the Orc Village (an Ulu-Mulu).

The Hero battles against five undead Shamans to proceed further into the temple, but is unable to defeat the 5th. Xardas speaks of a magic sword, Uriziel, that the hero must get to progress further. In order to power up the sword, the Hero must trick the Water Mages, and use the mound of ore stored in their camp. Afterwards, the whole New Camp will consider the Hero a traitor. Uriziel can be turned into a magic Rune, if he is a mage.

Equipped with the finest armor (found in Xardas' old tower) and weapon in the game, the hero enters the temple to finally defeat the Sleeper. He succeeds in doing so, but is buried alive once the temple begins collapsing. The Barrier, however, has been destroyed.

Setting

"Gothic" takes place inside a penal colony on the island of Khorinis. The prison colony is surrounded by a magical barrier to keep the prisoners inside. Somehow the barrier expanded too much, swallowing more land than was expected and thus trapping a group of mages inside. The prisoners have divided themselves in three camps:

The "Swamp Camp" where weed harvesting acolytes pray for the Sleeper, sort of a reincarnation or important leader in the forces of Beliar. The Swamp Camp plays an important role in the game, because of the vicinity to the Orcs and most of the main quests take place there. The lowest ranking members of the camp are the Novices, who perform tasks for the Baals', who are the spiritual leaders of the camp. They are protected by the Templars. High ranking members of the Camp have the title "Cor". The Swamp Camp doesn't have an ore mine; they make ore by selling weed to the other camps.

The "Old Camp", originally the only camp in the colony, is governed by the ore barons that control the ore trade with the king. The king, who is hard pressed defending his land against invading Orcs must trade the highly valuable metal with the penal colony in order to stand a chance against his enemies, making the ore barons the richest and most powerful leaders in the colony. The Old Camp has one ore mine called The Old Mine, the biggest and oldest of the mines. The lowest ranking members are Diggers, who are forced to work in the Old Mine to survive. The Shadows and the Guards protect the camp. There is also a small group of fire mages who pray to their god Innos, the creator of all.

The New Camp consists of prisoners who got tired of the complacency shown by the ore barons. Some of them have become mercenaries or rogues, other provide food for the camp by maintaining rice fields; they help themselves instead of trading ore with the outside world. Inside the New Camp, a group of water mages, who pray to the god Adanos, the god of balance, made this place their headquarters. They are researching means to get free and believe that blowing the barrier to pieces with the power of the magical ore will bring them freedom. The New Camp has its own mine, the Free Mine.

The player can choose which camp to join but the quests get increasingly linear and the distinctions between the different factions wane in the latter parts of the game. The major difference is that Swamp Camp members cannot become mages, because they are limited to 4 magic circles (out of 6). However, they gain access to magic earlier.

It is worth noting that Gothic contains a specific colony slang for each settlement used by the colony's inhabitants in the German version of the game, that is very unlike to the language usually found in medieval inspired RPG and very similar to casual modern German.

Gameplay

The main character must complete quests and slay wild animals and monsters to earn "skill points" - used to increase basic attributes, improve skills, and learn trades. The Hero spends learning points by finding someone to teach him. Several skills have only one "level" (Sneaking, Acrobatics ), while the fighting skills (one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, bows) have two proficiency levels. If the Hero chooses to be a Mage (or joins the Swamp Camp), he will be able to learn Circles of Magic; there are 6 of them. The main attributes are increased in 1 or 5 point increments, up to 100 (they start at 10). However, with the use of potions, the Hero can surpass this limit.

The game places a special focus on the interactivity of the environment. For example, while anyone hunting wild animals can gather raw meat (an item that heals damage and can be sold) from them, this can be turned into fried meat (a much more effective curative) by making use of a stove or frying pan. Similarly, most of the activities other characters can be seen doing (playing musical instruments, stirring soup pots, urinating etc.) can be done by the main character as well (although with the exception of forging weapons these activities have little bearing on the game).

"Gothic" also has an unusual combat system which emphasizes carefully timed combinations of strikes.

Reception

Even before its initial release in Germany, "Gothic" got a lot of attention, to a large degree because of its virtually seamless game world that consists of one single area with the exception of three underground complexes. It was very well received on its release and was regarded as one of the best RPGs ever made.Gothic was received with moderate-to-high reviews in the US, but was overshadowed in sales by games made by more familiar companies receiving better marketing. The lack of polish the games showed (in terms of somewhat outdated graphics at the time of first release in the US, which was long after the original German release, and a host of minor bugs) also diminished its sales. Despite this, the considerable gameplay (30+ hours per game), replay value (through following a different faction's path through the game), and highly detailed world helped maintain a small but intensely loyal fan base.

Characters

Main

* The nameless hero, character controlled by player.
* Diego, a shadow in the Old Camp.
* Gorn, a mercenary in the New Camp.
* Milten, a mage in the Old Camp.
* Lester, a novice of the Brotherhood of the Sleeper.
* Xardas, an exiled fire mage turned necromancer. He is the Hero's main guide at the end of the game.

econdary

* Saturas, leader of the water mages in the New Camp.
* Lee, leader of the mercenaries in the New Camp.
* Lares, leader of the rogues in the New Camp.
* Thorus, gate guard at the castle in the Old Camp.
* Coristo, leader of the fire mages in the Old Camp.
* Y'Berion, spiritual father of the Brotherhood of the Sleeper.
* Cor Kalom, second most inportant man in the Brotherhood of the Sleeper and chief alchemist.
* Gomez, leader of the Old Camp. He is the most powerful ore baron and therefore the most powerful man of the colony.
* Cor Angar, leader of the templars of the Brotherhood of the Sleeper.

Technical

Engine

Piranha Bytes worked more than 4 years on the development of "Gothic"'s technology. [ [http://forum.jowood.de/showpost.php?p=1721712&postcount=32 Developer's post] "jowood.de". Retrieved on August 3, 2006] The engine was created completely in-house, [ [http://www.worldofgothic.de/gothic/index.php?go=faq Gothic FAQ] "www.worldofgothic.de (German)" Retrieved on August 3, 2006] with a modified version later used for "Gothic II". These are the only games to use this engine.The Engine's Codename is ZenGin, because of the *.zen file Technlogy.

Release and distribution

"Gothic" was first released on March 15, 2001 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, published by Egmont Interactive. The North American release by Xicat Interactive, Inc. followed more than half a year later on November 23, 2001.In February 2006 an international re-release was announced to prepare for "Gothic 3" – which received much more attention from international media than the previous games. In the course of the re-release an English demo version was made available at the official website. [ [http://www.gothic3.de "Gothic 3 website"] . Retrieved on August 3, 2006] The Demo contains a part of the first chapter of the game.In Germany and some other countries, "Gothic" is also available in a "Collector's Edition", bundled with "Gothic II" and "Gothic II – The Night of The Raven", and "Gothic - Fan Edition", including the official map of the Colony as well as a variety of extras.

Other releases in the series

* "Gothic" (2001) - first in German and then in English.
* "Gothic II" (2002)
* "Gothic II: Die Nacht des Raben" (2003) - German release of the expansion, only.
* "Gothic II: Gold Edition" (2005) - the Gold box of the game including the original "Gothic II" as well as the first release of the English version of the expansion, entitled "".
* "Gothic: Collector's Edition" (2005) - compilation of "Gothic", "Gothic II" and "Gothic II: The Night of the Raven".
* "Gothic 3" (2006)
* "Gothic 3: Collector's Edition" (2006) - Limited version with lots of goodies.
* "Gothic Universe" (2007) - compilation featuring all the "Gothic" games to date.
* "" (2008) - mobile adaption of the game, developed by Handy-Games.
* "" (TBA) - expansion to "Gothic III" a different developer, Trine Games.
* "" (TBA) - sequel currently being developed by another different developer, SpellBound.

Notes

External links

Official

* [http://www.piranha-bytes.com/gothic1/index.php?lang=eng Official "Gothic" website]
* [http://forum.jowood.de/forumdisplay.php?f=366 Jowood's "Gothic" forum]

Other resources

* [http://www.worldofgothic.com/ World of Gothic - "Gothic" fan site]
* [http://gothic.rpgdot.com/ RPGDot (Contains extensive information on "Gothic")]
* [http://almanach.worldofgothic.com/index.php/Main_Page Gothic Almanach - A Gothic series Wiki]