Gothic 1

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Free4Ever

Free4Ever

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Apr 20, 2025
I'm doing my first playthrough of Gothic 1... it's fun, I'm just going back from the Swampcamp to the Old Camp, and I've already checked out the New Camp. Getting the game to run well was easy enough, and the controls became natural within the first hour or so.

I was wondering, is there some trick to a more story-focused playstyle?
The combat is "just OK", I can get it down to 2H/1H soon enough, and I've got a basic grasp of the economy... but I easily lose immersion so I'm not going to grind at them hard. I heard that the Swampcampers, the Spliffcult, if you join them,
your magic gets capped at level 4 out of 6
, so if I were playing by-the-book I wouldn't pick them.

Gothic.webp
 
handsareblack2 said:
Gothic and Morrowind are practically siblings.
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Difference is Morrowind has a fantastic main story and decent combat (if you can accept the fact that it's just a 3D interface for dicerolls) and Gothic has a terrible main story and combat so bad people are still whining about it.
I guess Morrowind is the clean cut sibling who has a high-paying white collar job while Gothic is the sleazy sibling who sells weed and probably plays in a garage band.
What does that make Arx Fatalis? The autistic savant cousin?
 
I jumped in on Gothic 1 a year or two ago and was pretty impressed with it, but I struggled a lot. It felt like fighting against the game to try to understand how any mechanics worked, and I felt actively discouraged from exploring or experimenting because everything stomped my ass and everyone I talked to seemed lying and manipulative. Props to the game for creating such a ruthless atmosphere, not saying its a bad thing, but as someone coming in with zero knowledge, it very much felt like the game was telling me to fuck off if I wasn't already in the club. Like indie sandbox games expecting you to practically live on their wiki to learn to play.

I'll definitely come back to it some other time, like I said I was actually impressed with what I saw, but there's a lot of unintuitive shit that puts me off. I can break that barrier, sheer attrition is how I learned to play some of the more autistic STALKER mods and such, but Gothic 1 doesn't entice me into making that effort, it actively creates friction against that effort.
 
Lurkerish Kandor said:
I'll definitely come back to it some other time, like I said I was actually impressed with what I saw, but there's a lot of unintuitive shit that puts me off. I can break that barrier, sheer attrition is how I learned to play some of the more autistic STALKER mods and such, but Gothic 1 doesn't entice me into making that effort, it actively creates friction against that effort.
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It's super gratifying as you play it. The power curve is wicked. You just have to start off doing menial tasks when you begin and avoid danger. Remember, you are in a penal colony. You should be out microwaving peoples ramen and giving foot massages to all the big strong confident men around you, until you can methodically mop up the map.

With the combat system, all you need to know for now is that you need to increase melee weapon skill asap, and get more stronger. The clever thing about Gothic is that increased weapon skill means you begin to swing the sword properly and are able to connect multiple swings together. After getting some skill, and getting the basic controls and dodging down, you can literally kill any enemy in the entire game with an early game weapon.
 
I like how there is limited amount of enemies on the world map, and if you clean them up they don't come back. Being able to travel around the world freely is a much better reward than some stats increasing from an endless, boring grind.
 
Tablet County said:
I guess Morrowind is the clean cut sibling who has a high-paying white collar job while Gothic is the sleazy sibling who sells weed and probably plays in a garage band.
What does that make Arx Fatalis? The autistic savant cousin?
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What does it make of Gothic 2 and 3 then? And its clones?
I tried playing Gothic 2, but I got burnt with how repetitive the formula is: You start as a noob doing mundane chores that no-one wants to do, everyone is a dick to you, you can theoretically go anywhere but you can't as everything can one-shot you... And so on. What's funny is how the game was remade repeatedly, as Seeth says.
 
Newcomer 42 said:
What does it make of Gothic 2 and 3 then? And its clones?
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Haven't Gothic devs been quite literally just making Gothic over and over under new name and occasionally setting ever since they released Gothic? I guess it would make them consistent, if nothing else. Morrowind may be a clean-cut sibling with a high paying job, but every single one of it's children was more retarded than the next. Only reason people liked those games was due to the studio that made it, guarantee neither Oblivion or Skyrim would be anywhere near as big as they are if they came from some random European studio nobody has ever heard of.
 
Newcomer 42 said:
What does it make of Gothic 2 and 3 then? And its clones?
I tried playing Gothic 2, but I got burnt with how repetitive the formula is: You start as a noob doing mundane chores that no-one wants to do, everyone is a dick to you, you can theoretically go anywhere but you can't as everything can one-shot you... And so on. What's funny is how the game was remade repeatedly, as Seeth says.
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worked for metroid
 
Lurkerish Kandor said:
I can break that barrier, sheer attrition is how I learned to play some of the more autistic STALKER mods and such, but Gothic 1 doesn't entice me into making that effort, it actively creates friction against that effort.
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I mean... once you break the barrier the game's over, right?

I like that I still don't know if I can take the ore I mine at the New Village out-of-town... I know that the miners there have to hand theirs in, so I did that too the one time I mined. But maybe it wasn't necessary? I don't feel like getting stabbed by the guards on my way out to find out.
 
Dave. said:
Anyone hyped for the gothic 1 remake?

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I wasn't before and certainly am not now. Women play a very small part in the game but still this looks insulting. Gomez is pathetic too.

I recommend playing the original. It aged fine. I played it for the first time last year and finished it. It's not terribly obtuse for an old classic. I had to look up one thing during my playthrough.
 
Elix is made by the Gothic devs but is set in sort of futurish maybe, kind of not, atmosphere. You get rekt for the first 20 hours of the game, then it slowly starts to flip, then flips and you're charging down massive enemies that you ran scared from for hours. Feelz gud man.

Interesting story as well, massive world map, the place feels alive.
 
hawkisnight said:
I wasn't before and certainly am not now. Women play a very small part in the game but still this looks insulting. Gomez is pathetic too.

I recommend playing the original. It aged fine. I played it for the first time last year and finished it. It's not terribly obtuse for an old classic. I had to look up one thing during my playthrough.
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I’d like to say this is apart of some “agenda” but I’m utterly convinced trannies work in character design and because they’re so brain rotted from tranny porn, they’ve completely forgot what women actually look like.
 
Dave. said:
I’d like to say this is apart of some “agenda” but I’m utterly convinced trannies work in character design and because they’re so brain rotted from tranny porn, they’ve completely forgot what women actually look like.
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No it’s just the prettiest woman metahuman can muster.
 
The only serious blemish on this gem of a game is how poorly it controls. Everything else about it puts even many modern RPG's to shame.

The game just oozes atmosphere. The whole Colony feels like a believable living world whose rules and relationships make sense. Your adventure in it starts with you getting punched in the face and that just sets the tone for the rest of the game - this really is a harsh, oppressive place that doesn't even give a shit about what your name is, and it's full of ruthless assholes who will beat you up, rob you, lie to you, take advantage of you. You have only a small group of friends you can trust and depend on here. I believe this is why the game developed such a cult following in the ex-communist European countries - it felt very relatable while/after growing up during the wild 90's.

The progression is extremely satisfying because it's not just numbers going up, but it's intimately tied to the characters around you and your relationships with them. You're not given anything easily and it really feels like you meaningfully grow into the top dog in the kennel and the world reflects that. It really makes you feel like you're getting stronger because at one point you'll find yourself being able to push back and not have to silently take other people's shit anymore.

I like the overall geography of the Colony, too. The camps are very different from each other - be it their overall design or philosophy - and everything to me was just big enough to feel real, but small enough not to make backtracking and moving between camps a chore. It's just a shame the game doesn't retain its openness for longer, quest-wise it gets very linear in the second half of the game.

Dave. said:
Anyone hyped for the gothic 1 remake?
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No. Even if I wasn't already tired of all the goddamn remakes in general, I don't believe they can replicate the feel of the game.
 
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