Is it over for Piranha Bytes?

[Vergil]

I found modded Gothic 3 to actually be fun. I've been meaning to do a writeup on what mods to use/what settings for a while. The community did a lot of post-release work, modded Gothic 3 is underappreciated.

I'd like to see that.

I'd also be curious to see that. I still need to give Gothic 3 a try.

[rusty_shackleford]

re: gothic 3

My feedback from when I first played it:

Becoming very repetitive. The small selection of available gear is pretty boring. Same few enemy types everywhere, sometimes they get a new color if it's in a different zone.
There's not really much of a story at all and the the world feels pretty empty outside of camps/towns.
Enjoyed the Risen games much more than this.

Followed by:

Restarted with Alternate Balance off, using quest pack + content mod, enjoying it a lot more tbh.
Turn up the Entity.ROI in the ge3.ini to increase the radius the world simulates at(enemies appear, NPCs act, etc.,) Game feels like it was intended to be played with a super high setting but it makes the game lag pretty bad. 8000 is a decent compromise(4000 is default)

The content added by the quest pack + content mod is mandatory, the game feels unfinished without it and it was rather good/faithful additions.
Also suggest turning "Alternate Balance" off(can't remember which mod adds it, Community Patch perhaps?), as it feels like you're simply never increasing in power with it on.

[rusty_shackleford]

It looks like there's still an active modding community for G3 btw, with some big mods in progress.
https://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/f ... fikationen

Perhaps a separate thread if someone is willing to go through and figure out what the current state of G3 mods is

[Rand]

[wndrbr]

https://www.cdaction.pl/publicystyka/re ... ylko-u-nas

tl;dr

Bjorn Pankratz wanted Elex 3, other devs wanted to make a small-scale fantasy rpg (not necessary Gothic 4, something in the vein of Risen 1). Bjorn left, and now PB is being headlined by Mikael Ruve, PB's president. PB isn't finished, currently there are two unnamed publishers contemplating the idea of acquiring the studio. If they won't buy PB, then PB will likely try to use Kickstarter to fund their next game.

[Wretch]

Often happens when studios get bought or exist for too long. They become complacent and lazy. Only studio I can think of which is still going strong is fromsoft really.

And all From Software does is asset flip Dark Souls ad nauseum. Even Bethesda puts more effort into reskinning Skyrim. You can probably still fine dozens of animations and sound effects from Dark Souls in Elden Ring.

Sure most animations get reused but most studios do that. We still get plenty of new looking monsters with different attacks/abilities and great worlds/lore/music. And Sekiro/Bloodborne played quite diferently than dark souls or eldenring. Also no microtransaction crap and hot waifus. Only reason tho I didnt buy Eldenring was I knew the pvp would be shit in an openworld where you cant invade people like in the catacombs in dark souls3 and you always had to fight 2+ and couldnt even invade single hosts. That probably removed like 500hours gameplay for me. The pool of targets becomes just too small to invade with this many areas and only 2+ people and if you cant even choose the area with lots of trap/ledges to throw people down that sucks too. Was enough in dark souls3 that invasions prioritized 2+ but if those werent there you could annoy single hosts.

Reusing animations, models, and the winning combat formula in ds games is the only thing they got right with the sequels. The initial gimmick that made the games so popular (and was done very well) invasions and co op have only got worse with every iteration. Game balance and lore have gone down the drain as well. Their atmospheric storytelling used to be good and their minimal quests were acceptable for the time it was taking to make their games and the overall feel and scope of the games they were making. Now that they’re just making comically large open world games with stealth and crafting mechanics there is no reason to keep their “Zanzibart…forgive me…” nonsense. It was charming at first but it has become a parody of itself now.

I wish more game devs stopped these counter intuitive design practices of needing to reinvent the wheel every game and instead just made slight improvements here and there. If bethesda just kept cranking out morrowind or oblivion but with slight improvements in new regions with new quests they would be at the top of the industry. Even Skyrim would have worked as a template. Instead, look at them now. They’re irrelevant, humiliated, and about to go under.

Even though I think fromsoft has backslid in many aspects of their games they have gained undisputed dominance in the arpg genre by simply not breaking what works.

[Element]

Everything I've read about Embracer is that they've repeatedly, to their own detriment, given developers chances upon chances to actually do their job and have gotten nothing in return but failures.
Publishers like EA exist because developers don't deserve any better than EA. It's a shame gamers have to suffer due to developer incompetence.

Often happens when studios get bought or exist for too long. They become complacent and lazy. Only studio I can think of which is still going strong is fromsoft really.

And all From Software does is asset flip Dark Souls ad nauseum. Even Bethesda puts more effort into reskinning Skyrim. You can probably still fine dozens of animations and sound effects from Dark Souls in Elden Ring.

They oscillate between new stuff and a tried and tested DS formula when making their 'souls like'. DSII, Bloodborne, DSIII, Sekiro, ER. Think we'll be getting something new next.
Edit: Also From games have unique bosses. People pay money for a new challenge, and that's something that isn't copied from the previous games, even if there are superficial similarities.