Gothic III

[BHWolf]

Gents,

 

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Here are the details of my machine:

 

AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor 4800+

nForce SLi Motherboard with dual Channel DDR

2 GB DDR (PC2700) (2x1GB)

300GB SATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer

2 x NVIDIA 7800GTX PCI-Express Graphics

20" Flat Screen Viewsonic VP201B

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Comfortable pair of surround sound headphones with mike

Microsoft Cordless keyboard

Logitech G7 Mouse

Windows XP Home

 

Any suggestions on how to tweak the Ini files; at the moment I intend to take a lead from the post on the offical forum, but would value the voice of experience.

 

Cheers.

[Malchik]

Here are a couple more bits of useful info that are nowhere to be found in the booklet. I think we are meant to be psychic.

 

Occasionally you will see a skull on a short black stick poking out of the ground. If you have a spade, clicking on the skull will let you dig up buried loot.

 

It will save you a lot of grumbling later on in the game if you note down where the paladins are when you meet them.

 

Whether you side with the orcs or not, those orcs in Vengard and camped outside and all Orcs in Nordmar are always hostile.

 

Do not keep on stealing in a city if you have been told you are being watched. The whole place can turn against you if you are caught again.

 

Remember most orcs and npcs are not killed in a fight using melee weapons. Read the booklet to learn how to finish them off. If a quest requires someone to be killed it means killed!

 

The game has one feature I find extremely frustrating. NPCs are very weak compared to wildlife. It has two corollaries. Firstly, if they ask you to join them in a hunting expedition THEY ALWAYS DIE! No matter how good you are. The only way to complete the quests and get points is to find out where they plan to go. Go there alone and kill off all but one of the beasts then accept their quest. Secondly NPCs can be attacked by marauding monsters. This applies to NPCs that give quests, are needed to finish quests and that are unique trainers. They can be killed when you are not there to see what happened.

 

Some bugs I am aware of:-

 

You cannot learn brew poison except via the keyboard. Don't attempt to learn it in game. You waste 2500 gold every time you do.

 

There is no trainer for improve armour (although an expansion is planned so maybe that will change).

 

After helping the water mage Nefarius he will continue to follow you for no reason.

 

The nomads outside Braga will not help you liberate the city although they say they will. (Other nomad groups at other cities will help.)

 

One final piece of game lore. At first sight there is an obvious choice between good and evil. However from the little bit of information you can glean from the booklet and in game, it is clear that King Rhobar was just as acquisitive and oppressive in the past. The only difference is that his oppression is done in the name of a different god. Something to chew over as you proceed with the game.

 

That's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to ask any questions.

[SerpentofShadow]

That's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to ask any questions.

 

What kind of character (skills wise) did you make?

[BHWolf]

Thanks again Malchik. :)

 

Will tweak the ini file as recommended by Mythos in the official forum when the game arrives tomorrow, and put all the good advice into practise.

 

Regards

[Malchik]

I played quite a long way the first time before discovering the game was screwed. With that experience to go by I learned that lock-picking at all levels is desirable early on as are hunting skills. (Many quests require trophies and there is money to be made from selling those not needed for quests.) I like the look of dual wield fighting so I used sword as a weapon. Other skills it is useful to have as soon as you can are prospecting, basic smithing and the six 'special' skills. In alchemy, certainly learn how to create healing potions. With the need to use some learning points on increasing hit points and endurance, I didn't have much left for the magical side. You can raise ancient knowledge to at least 240 without using learning points which also discouraged me from the magic route. However I will probably play one more game using spells rather than swords. It doesn't change the comments about hunting etc. though.

 

I am currently at level 68 with plenty more yet to do and 70 unused learning points. You can't get so far if you support one faction early on.

 

BTW in game you have the opportunity of brewing permanent potions. All require the ingredient King's Sorrel in combination. This is rare and you need 4 of them to complete quests. It means you'll be limited in how many such potions you can create. Choose wisely. You can eat the ingredients that you combine with King's Sorrel to get permanent increases of half the amount of the potion. If it says 'endurance +2' it means permanently as opposed to +2% which is temporary. There is a mistake however for Cactus Flower where the +8 is simply an error.

 

I'd be interested to hear what other people advise as I'm sure my view is personal.

[SerpentofShadow]

I'd be interested to hear what other people advise as I'm sure my view is personal.

 

Well, I only have my character up to level 18 at the moment, but I think is turning out good so far. Have Strong Fighter (Second sword skill) and Strong Archer (second bow skill). I have the first two lockpicking skills and Make Excuses (just recently acquired so haven't tried it yet). I meet all the requirements for dual wielding, and looking forward to that. Got my HP up to 304 which was really worth it. Have all but skin reptiles (need to get that) of the taking trophy skills.

 

I saved and tried the shield skill. I reloaded rather quickly and never considered that again. In my opinion shields are near worthless, at least in the beginning. Unlike Gothic 1 and 2, blocking seems pointless. Good defense is a good offense seems to be what the devs want. Tried using a quarterstaff and was not impressed with it. Range should be a tad longer IMO. Loving the bow and arrow, especially that head shots deal more damage. With strafing it is easy to take out enemy archers.

 

So while I am still rather early on I have learned enough that should I restart things will be a lot easier. A big mistake I tried was killing the demon in the castle... place starts with a G. Gotha or some such. Could make it up to him, but my "friend" and I just couldn't deal with all the skellies.

[BHWolf]

.........Occasionally you will see a skull on a short black stick poking out of the ground. If you have a spade, clicking on the skull will let you dig up buried loot.

 

..............That's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to ask any questions.

 

Finally my copy of the game came through and after patching to 1.09 and tweaking the INI I have began the game.

 

These markers referred to above, are these the same as those in grave yards? If so I am left clicking on them as one does to a camp fire, with a shovel in my inventory but nothing happens.

 

Cheers

[Switch]

As far as I can see, no. You only encounter them in Varant, and they're as Malchik describes... a sort of skull and crossbones on a short stick. I've tried it myself, and it works. It doesn't seem to work on normal graves, I've attempted that as well. ^^

[BHWolf]

As far as I can see, no. You only encounter them in Varant, and they're as Malchik describes... a sort of skull and crossbones on a short stick. I've tried it myself, and it works. It doesn't seem to work on normal graves, I've attempted that as well. ^^

 

 

Ah :unsure:

 

I'm attempting to rob graves as I have not ventured that far abroad.

Mind you cleared out a monster infested mine at rank 7 until I came across a pair of what I would escribe as dragons! :ohmy:

Decided Tunnel crawlers and orges were my limit at that rank. :P

 

On a more serious note. :rolleyes:

 

Is there a way of adding music files to this game? Having searched the various folders it does not appear to be as user friendly as Oblivion.

[Malchik]

Can't help you there. I usually turn music off as it gets irritatingly repetitive. G3 has quite a lot of music though with special files for each region, Ishtar and the Palace in Vengard etc.