KaiRo:

Hello. Is this really true? Are you a “group of unfortunates”? Nothing is farer from us than to make you unhappy but the postponement of the release date to the year 2006 in fact bodes well for you. Just imagine you would find Gothic 3 under your Christmas tree, rush to your PC, install the game and savour a world full of … unfinished game mechanics, callow balancing and open plots. That’s not a beautiful thought, is it? .We want to make Gothic 3 really good and so we have resolved to do more than we could achieve in the projected period of time. In order to being able to keep our promises concerning the content of the game, we decided to spare you disappointment under the Christmas tree and to present you a beautiful game in the sunnier half of the year.

KaiRo:

Watch Peter Jackson’s King Kong in the cinema or get some snowball-scrolls and cast it on your friends, … or meet here at WorldOfGothic and discuss about Gothic.

KaiRo:

City gate of Geldern

The development of a computer game has several internal release dates and each release reflects the current status. Some releases, so called milestones, are presented to the publisher. With these milestones the publisher is able to keep track of the production. We had resolved to make a big step forward shortly before christmas in order to be able to have some days off and spend some time with our families. We’ve reached this target. The whole team got teary-eyed regarding the recent release and also JoWooD has been pleased about this great leap forward Gothic 3 made this month. Especially in the visual field our new lighting system has been exceptionally well received and the complex and fluently performed fights with motion-capturing-animations look extremly convincing in the meantime. That’s why we can celebrate Christmas with a good feeling and start afterwards with a lot of new energy.

KaiRo:

So near but yet so far...

KaiRo:

No, not for a long time yet. The speech recordings will take place while the game is in its final testing stage. By then last-minute alterations to the texts can be made which will accrue during the finishing of the story in the beta-stage.

KaiRo:

We still haven’t engaged all speakers and the casting still lasts. Of course we need a bigger diversity of voices as the world is much bigger too. We will consider that but there will be still some NPCs that will have to share one voice.

KaiRo:

Naturally, all reknown characters will have the same voice as so far if you mean that with “reknown” voices. If there will be also famous speakers isn’t certain yet.

KaiRo:

No. We don’t want to wait longer with the release than necessary and we either don’t want to release a game that is not a 100 % finished. The day we will finish Gothic is in no way the result of political decisions but simply the day we really finish the game.

KaiRo:

Actually this is not really a balancing act. We develop a game that meets our personal requirements and we hope that it will be successful. I’m sure that there are other concepts in the game industry to make more money in less time but this way we don’t even want to try out such a balancing act. Of course we have to pay attention to earn enough to bring in the high costs for development but we believe that our personal requirements will lead to Gothic 3 being successful. And the lively discussions in the forums and the briskness of the Gothic makes sure that we can work on our third baby in an optimistic mood.

KaiRo:

Unfortunately there were some ideas we had to discard with a heavy heart as they would have unnecessarily complicated the gameplay or would have simply cost to much money. Our dream of small video sequences in certain situations during the game bursted and instead we will continue telling the story with the game engine. Mounts have also been dropped as they couldn’t consistently be arranged with the world. Difficult decisions are normal in everyday life of game developers and mostly they are about the question if a certain feature is really important for gaming enjoyment or if it could rather spoil the game. 

KaiRo:

One thing’s for sure: The English-speaking market won’t be neglected in such a terrible way as the predecessors. If the release date will be the same will be decided within the next few weeks. Concerning the speech recordings there will be a huge logistic effort to cope with. For Gothic 2 far more than 150 000 words had to be translated and recorded – that’s about 10 houres of voice output. This amount will of course be again higher for Gothic 3 and if we would release both English and German version at the same time, we would have to engage, brief and record lots of speakers in a period of a few days. I’m personally very curious if and how this will finally work out…

KaiRo:

Once upon a time there was a cool guy who sailed together with a bunch of other cool guys through the Myrtanian sea until he arrived at the mainland. In front of his eyes there is a huge world in a huge mess. From the point of view of humans the war against the orcs didn’t go according to the plan and for the few survivors the situation doesn’t look good at all. Most humans have been enslaved and have to labor for the orcs. Only a few had been able to flee and strayed lonely across the land until they joined forces and from this time on they brooded about their insurgent plans. The capital Vangard has in the meantime become a kind of Gaul as the army of the king was there still able to defy the orcs to some degree. At least until the day the cool guy arrived at the seaport of Ardea.

KaiRo:

Actually it looks ... hmm, lets say ... quite good.

KaiRo:

Is it bright at night?

KaiRo:

The background of the story which is the basis for the plot in Gothic 3 along general lines already existed before. The war against the orcs is an issue since the first part of the series. King Rhobar II, the four realms at the Myrtanian sea and the desert Varant have already been mentioned in the intro of Gothic I. So it just makes sense for us to include the story of Gothic 3 into this established structure.

KaiRo:

Four authors are working on the story from the basic vision up to writing out individual lines of dialogues. Mike Hoge, Björn Pankratz, Mattias Filler and Stefan Kalveram design the whole story line and the game design initially on paper before it will be implemented into our the development environment.

KaiRo:

No but it is split up so that is makes sense; for example into regions or interests.

KaiRo:

Like every other universe the Gothic universe began with a big bang. In our case it had been in the head of Mike Hoge. He had the basic idea but since Gothic 1 the story had been developed by all of the authors in equal measure. Still all suggestions have to pass the Mike-test (it consists of a rating after having thought deliberatly about an idea within the scale “that sucks” and “not totally bad”) as he is the creative leader and is keeping the whole vision together. But afer 7 years of writing the story together they know each other well enough and they complement one another perfectly.

KaiRo:

Absolutely! For example mounts were intended to be integrated into the game in the beginning. Naturally it wouldn’t have been sufficient if we integrated them without a comment but we would have had to do that very carefully concerning the story line and the gameplay. When we decided not to introduce mounts we had to rewrite the corresponding parts of the story.

KaiRo:

Daily!

KaiRo:

Hourly :-). Just kidding. 

KaiRo:

We develop the technics ourselves and so we can form the story according to our visions. That makes it possible for us to make the engine to measure regarding the intended requirements. So first the gameplay and the story are designed and then we dicuss the technical feasibility. In some cases ideas have to be rejected or altered and story authors and programmers try to compromise but in most cases the authors have a feeling for the feasibility of an idea.

KaiRo:

I think that’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? :-) Of course not! Er ... I assume. 

KaiRo:

Well, the orcs are not reknown for their patience and sometimes it could happen that there is an axe in the hero’s way if he wants to pass.

KaiRo:

As it has already been reported on we enhanced the AI of Gothic 3 by a global level. Strictly speaking there are two new lebels which will exceed the interpersonal level: the city and a world level. How information on the deeds of the player will spread will depend on the level for which this information is relevant.

KaiRo:

After playing it the first time I would decide spontaneously if I think I could still discover new fascinating things if I played it again. Playing the game once again will be more exciting this time as there are no linear strands any more. 

KaiRo:

I think to be glad isn’t the right expression for this. I don’t exaggerate if I tell you that all our fans are the main reason why we still have that much fun doing our work. Personally I’m again and again impressed by the fact how fast a news I posted spreads within the community. If I put an update on the official website your reaction time is often below 5 minutes and that really amazes me. Regarding that there are people like you who keep an eye on our development and who appreciate every detail we release alone makes the job at Piranha Bytes to a dream job. As composer I naturally was happy that the pieces of music in the download area have been accepted in such a positive way long before the game will enter the market. You are so to speak an indicator for us if we are on the right way and your faith in our work is a present for which we can only return the favor as we put all our heart and soul into this project as possible in order to create a wonderful game for you. 

KaiRo:

Of course. In the beginning we’ve had members of Piranha Bytes who have been in charge of retaining an overview of the discussions in the forums and to point out to point important questions out to the team. In the meantime this has changed as nearly every Piranha is reading the forums himself. WorldOfGothic is not only our gate to you but also your gate to us and we get many ideas and helpful suggestions through it.

KaiRo:

No, at present this unfortunately makes no sense. We get it straight that we should state hardware requirements in the near future but we simply don’t know it. The engine is still not optimized and there is too much content to be added to estimate the requirements. We’ve already stated our expectations but we currently can’t tell you more about that..

KaiRo:

No, the physics-engine only helps us to make the world more realistic. When talking about a physics-engine many people first and foremost think of a gravity-gun or funny balancing-riddles. But there are lots of more basic features like checking collisions or the proper falling of items which are managed by the physics-engine. So it is an important part of the Gothic 3-engine though the player may not notice it immediately.

KaiRo:

No.

KaiRo:

Other needs? No, our hero doesn’t have to care about such primitive things like basic needs. He doesn’t even have to eat if he doen’t want to. Frankly: There are many things player will be able to do on a voluntary basis and in some cases he will be rewarded for doing so. But it won’t become an obligation.

KaiRo:

Runic-magic has disappeared what will cause that all wannabe mages (like paladins) won’t be able to use it any more. But there is still elemental-magic and there are also some people who can handle it. For elemental-magic one won’t need scrolls or runes but rather extract magic energy directly from the near environment.

KaiRo:

You can’t explain this in a general way. Most perks can be learned from teachers and every teacher has his own requirements. One will only train you if you are strong enough, another one can be bribed or a third one wants you to share his interests.

KaiRo:

As the modding-community is near to our heart we all at Piranha Bytes expect that there will be a mod-kit. Unfortunately we don’t know when we will be able to produce it and how it will exatly look like. Our editor is in its current version not appropriate to be released as it is firmly integrated into our development environment and it doesn’t function autonomously. This signifies an amount of work we presumably cannot spend in the pre-release-time schedule.

KaiRo:

At the moment solely the finishing of the game plays a decisive role. As is known we are not in time that’s why it would be a luxury we cannot afford. Of course, a big modding-community would be great but we hope they will forgive us if we publish the editor after the game.

KaiRo:

Piranha Bytes. JoWooD would for the reasons you mentioned above profit of a modding-community but we are the ones who have to develop the game with this editor and the more comfortable the editor is, the shorter is the time to develop the game and the less gray hairs will grow on the developer’s heads.

KaiRo:

Lisbeth has sung in California while I gave instructions from my computer in Essen. We had some difficulties to agree on a date as Lisbeth has been busy with the recordings for the film Narnia and additionally worked with Stephen Spielberg and John Williams on München. I’m absolutely satisfied with the results. In January we will start with the post-production and then we will mix her fantastic voice with the ochestra-tracks.

KaiRo:

For me this topic is extremely up-to-date as I’m busy with setteling the remaining questions concerning a soundtrack-CD. Still there is nothing for sure but it seems as if there won’t be a CD included with the game but perhaps a bit later with the special edition of the game.

KaiRo:

We will deal with this subject during the beta-tests and the speech-recording sessions.

KaiRo:

Agreed, here I’ve got an exclusive piece of music for you.  It’s a dungeon theme. The final mix and the mastering of the music will, as I said, take place in January. We wish you a merry Christmas and a good start into the year 2006!