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Gothic 3 doesn't really have much of a plot to be honest, the little there is you have to figure out from what is going on. There are still some things Purple hasn't done, but for the most part it's about wondering around doing random quests. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Sep 27, 2023 |
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Sep 27, 2023 09:42
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JustJeff88 posted:I knew that you didn't want to LP BG3, I meant take a holiday just to play it. Crystal Project is a good idea. It seems low on bullshit. Oh, yeah, I've already put like, 200+ hours into Baldur's Gate 3. Now I'm taking a break from it before I eventually give in and do another playthrough. 
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Sep 27, 2023 10:59
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If I can make some suggestions of old, not-too-lovely games, I would like to see you do one of the games in the Ravenloft/Menzoberranzan/Ravenloft trilogy. I'd also like to see one of the Final Fantasy Legend games, but I assume that you are a PC-only chap. I rather envy Purple is Passion... I still buy new games once in a while, but they tend to sit in my backlog. I was pleased to see that Red Dead Redemption was re-released on Switch as my black battleship of a PS3 is on its last legs. I intend to buy a physical copy on the 13th, but who knows if and when I will finish it. I already bought BG3 (on GOG) and Diablo 4, both of which I have barely touched. There's a new Luigi game coming out next month. Normally that would be a fairly big deal to me, but I have so many Luigi games in my backlog I probably shouldn't buy it. SIGSEGV posted:I'm gonna second that, I had no idea you even bit into the main plot at all. I am genuinely glad to not be the only one. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Sep 27, 2023 |
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Sep 27, 2023 15:00
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I replayed the game not too long after, right after redoing Gothic 1 and 2. Obviously, I struggled with the many changes they did with the way the story is told. But what got to me most is that I'm almost certain I recognize some ideas the original team had, but then these were modified due to the many meddlings this game suffered from. In particular, one of my theories is that at this point in the game, Xardas wouldn't be aligned with Adanos anymore. In fact, I expect both he and the main character were supposed to have quite the beef with Adanos, in the same way they couldn't stand the two others either. But the scant information about the possible why of this are thrown at you in a few phrases in obscure locations. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the final update, but man, I often daydream about what this game could have been without the tumultuous story it suffered from.
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Oct 2, 2023 21:02
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We genuinely never learn a lot about Adanos except that he seems to be extremely tired of Innos and Beliar loving poo poo up, at which point he usually interrupts their plans by killing loving EVERYONE who isn't near high ground and wiping the slate clear-ish.
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Oct 2, 2023 21:39
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PurpleXVI posted:We genuinely never learn a lot about Adanos except that he seems to be extremely tired of Innos and Beliar loving poo poo up, at which point he usually interrupts their plans by killing loving EVERYONE who isn't near high ground and wiping the slate clear-ish. So, basically, Adanos is the player character.
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Oct 2, 2023 22:11
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PurpleXVI posted:We genuinely never learn a lot about Adanos except that he seems to be extremely tired of Innos and Beliar loving poo poo up, at which point he usually interrupts their plans by killing loving EVERYONE who isn't near high ground and wiping the slate clear-ish. There's a few hints in the game that orcs happen to be first and foremost creatures of Adanos (when not corrupted by Beliar, that's his schtick). Orcs enslaving everyone with an iron fist happens to be just as heavy handed as flooding the world. I can't stop thinking there was originally supposed to be more about this.
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Oct 3, 2023 07:04
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Mindopali posted:There's a few hints in the game that orcs happen to be first and foremost creatures of Adanos (when not corrupted by Beliar, that's his schtick). Orcs enslaving everyone with an iron fist happens to be just as heavy handed as flooding the world. I can't stop thinking there was originally supposed to be more about this. I mean, all mortals in the setting, assuming Vatras' preachings are accurate, are "creatures of Adanos" in the sense that Adanos apparently made everything living. Then Beliar and Innos started telling said living creatures to organize fan clubs and fight each other.
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Oct 3, 2023 11:49
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Update 23: It's Finally Over So the vote was for the Adanos ending! Which is also the canon ending.     I hope you're all happy. I had to give up my nice, comfy immortality bathrobe in exchange for this sandy mess I got from Saturas.Since I didn't want to walk around naked and unarmoured, I zooped out to Saturas in Al-Shedim and picked up the somewhat-disappointing remainder of the Water Mage spellbook as well as one of their robes. I tried actual armor, but the ones I had access to(Nomad) were worse, defensively, and neither the orcs or rebels like me enough(50+% reputation) to have access to their best armors.     At least I look good in blue and the water mages are probably the least embarrassing group to be associated with around here.   ...y'all want to move so I can get everyone's destiny on the boil? Hello?These two idiots stand around blocking the furnace for ages, and when one of them finally moves, the other blocks enough that I spend a minute fiddling around trying to find the interaction zone.     That's all I get? Some sparkles? A nice little glowy? I'm regretting this already.        Holy poo poo, you actually did it! I mean, it was necessary for the future of the world, right? Throwing away my artifacts of ultimate power? Yeah, sure. Time for the next step. Good news: Zuben is already super dead. I took a stick off him. Hang on to that for plot reasons. Anyway, either convince Rhobar to come with us or kill him. ...come with us where, again? The Unknown Land! You know, the one that no one knows and which is completely non-descript. I'll just go to Vengard while you sober up.       Well, this looks nicely non-destroyed.  I'm just here for the king, where's he at? The castle, the only other place not a ruin here. Can't miss it. Watch me.      So, the castle over there is where we need to go, and barring some clunky acrobatics, the only real way is to do a big roughly S-shaped loop around the entire city.   There are, predictably, a lot of orcs here, and I generally clear them out with Adanos' apex spell: Hailstorm, available from Saturas after you blow up the artifacts. The Innos path gets "Word of Dominance" that lets you mind control humans, and the Beliar path is supposed to see the return of our old friend, Army of Darkness, but the devs forgot to implement it in the base game and I think the community patch restores it.    It's like Rain of Fire, but seems to more consistently kill things. I can only assume whatever arcane method it uses to determine if something gets hit is more lenient, even though it costs the same mana and seems to do the same amount of damage per damage instance. But nothing either in the game, or anything I can find on fansites, says anything about what damage spells actually do.         Honestly, without it to make these fights trivial, I might genuinely have petered out at this point. Just so many nameless, pointless orcs to murder.      The Unknown Land better have some other things to do than blowing up orcs.      There's genuinely nothing interesting to say about that trip. There are a few named Orc Commanders that give you extra XP if you murder all of them, but that's it.          I don't think you want any of what I'm promising.        Unless you're outright on Beliar's path or have murdered a LOT of rebels, I believe you can just walk in here and stand right in front of the king if you want.       So, of note here is that no matter what path you're on, Rhobar will always start with the first intro dialogue, as if you're on no path yet, before switching into path-specific dialogue. Redeemer? Oh, you'd like me to help save you now?  I'm sensing some anger.  It was a character-building exercise, and everything went as I, with the help of Innos, planned. ...do you actually believe this bullshit or is it a very bad attempt at preventing me from kicking your rear end up and down this throne room?    In the broader sense of "humanity"? Or in the sense of "Myrtana, the nation that sent me to a lovely prison island to get chased around by orcs, animals, orcs with animals, several dragons, multiple demons, more skeletons than you could shake a stick at and the occasional cultist as well"? Because I'd feel a bit sad about humanity, but Myrtana can hoover my balls. Look, okay, my balls aside, its time to accept the jig is up. You can pack your bags and come with me to a mystery world. We can do this peacefully. Asskicking time it is.  So, the tactical situation here is poor. Yes, we're about to see how Rhobar fights, Rhobar and EVERY HUMAN IN VENGARD, even the ones back at the teleporter stone location. Engaging Rhobar in a 1v1 duel is not going to go super well, human enemies tend to have some sort of honour, but there are fire mages here, and they WILL blow your rear end up while you duel the king, so it's time to run like a coward. Because there's a magical location nearby.     You see, right outside of the throne room is this little pile of crates that the AI cannot path over. The power of Adanos grants me the ability to use my knees. Get back here and fight me!  No.   For some inscrutable reason, when I stand in this specific location drinking mana potions and casting Hailstorm over and over, I also slowly spin, which looked funny to me.    Predictably, this deletes everyone, EXCEPT for this one Fire Mage smart enough to stay out of reach. But he's not smart enough to win an Ice Arrow duel. I'm also kind of baffled by the magic implementation, all casters in Gothic 3 appear to know both Fireball and Ice Arrow, and pick between the two randomly. It's odd that they didn't add an Evil Bolt or something for Beliar casters(like Dark Mages and Orc Shamans). Having actual themed magic use would also help the factions feel a bit more different and... oh we're almost done, we're so close to being done.     drat, I should've said something cool like "this is how a prisoner fights!" before killing you. That would've been a cool one-liner. Oh well, I'm going to steal your stuff including your silly-looking scepter, that's the ultimate winning move.    One last throne for the road. Now it's just back to Xardas and this will all be over. Surely there won't be one last moron errand... surely...         It was incredibly funny, too, and I stole all his stuff. So, now we're done, right? All finished? Indeed, and it's a good thing you loot everything in reach, we're going to need that stick from Zuben and the scepter from Rhobar.  Well, I've been doing some research, you see, the scepter and the staff were made by an ancient civilization, the same civilization that made the portal. The same civilization made my shoe and my belt buckle, that doesn't mean they're going to open any doors. By which I mean: I'm older than you, smarter than you, and this is our one chance to get out of this stupid poo poo, so shut up. Shutting up, shutting up. So where's the portal? North of Geldern. Oh, cool, I've got a bunch of teleport runes, you want one? Gives me motion sickness, we're going to need to jog down there so we can get in one last round of combat encounters. Why of course, of course, let's get this over with.        What about all your friends? What friends? They bailed on me the first chance they got, stole my ship, stole my GOLD and didn't even leave me all my powerful gear!    Really? I thought they were important characters who'd help your rise to power and the completion of your fated tasks. Those losers? Hah! They- hang on, trouble up ahead.       A bunch of Hashishin just called "Killers" show up here and try to, well, kill the party, but I skipped past a camp of goblins, so they ended up stuck in a fight with them first. They die easily, no dark mages or anything.    So, your friends? Oh, yes, my "friends." Where to start?   Vatras? Runs off into a desert, tasks me to stab some black-clad goons and then sits around reading a rock for the rest of the adventure. Won't even help me kill stuff.   Lester? Oh, yes, another one for the desert. Gets himself captured, digs in the sand, claims to be learning ancient magic but just hits stuff with a mace, and if I ever want his help, I have to walk into the desert, find him, walk out with him, and afterwards? He'll just go back to the desert again! He can have his shovel and his sand.   Cor Angar? I think he's still sharpening his sword in Mora Sul. He wouldn't even help me until after I'd kicked his rear end. What is it with everyone and wanting their asses kicked? Should've named this kingdom Masochism instead of Myrtana.   Those rogues Lares and Diego? I'd figure you three would have a lot in common. Diego did at least help me do some killing, but only because I didn't let him get eaten by Snappers, Lares wouldn't even give me the time of day until I'd stolen poo poo for him. All these idiots should owe me and should be following me around as my personal army.    Lee and Gorn? Maybe the meatheads are more handy. Lee... oh, poo poo, maybe I should've told him I killed Rhobar. Oh well, he'll probably find out. Gorn got himself locked up. Again. Can't help me much from a cell.     So who's left? Hmmm... Milten! Ah, Milten... uh... he ran off to study magic and I never found him. Probably for the best, with the whole "fighting the gods"-thing I think he would've blown my rear end up with fireballs. And everyone else I brought to the evil island last time apparently just ran for the hills, stole all my poo poo and my ship... so they're the ones I miss the most, they're the smart ones.      Aside from the little pack of Killers on Xardas' doorstep, there are no surprises until about fifteen minutes later as we're almost at the edge of the Portal, where a bunch of Orcs and their shamans are standing around trying to fight us.     Hey, you know, I think this is my first time killing a paladin. This rules.     Following up the orcs are four paladins with flaming swords. But like everything else in Gothic 3(and 2, really), small numbers of humanoid enemies are hard countered by turning them into icicles with magic.      So where's the portal at? Are we climbing over this? Is there a secret door?    This is the portal. What. What... what the gently caress? What is this poo poo? THIS IS JUST A ROCK. A rock portal. What do I... what do I even do with the staff and scepter? Do I just... mash them against the stone?   AT LEAST GIVE ME SOME loving GLITTER.   A story that will not be told, I'm quitting, I'm DONE.   What would even have happened if I'd brought him? There's a spare Vengard rune inside Vengard itself that you can give to Lee. He's just a fighter, and Hailstorm doesn't know friends, he would've gotten his rear end kicked. I did him a favour not using him as a distraction.  Considering how fast he repopulated Gotha, I trust Gorn can pull this off. If he doesn't get locked up again. Oh, cool, the guy I didn't meet. Good for him.  Wait, why does Thorus give a slide? He was never a companion. He was barely even canon in Gothic 2!   Thank loving Adanos, these morons had better not keep stabbing each other, the entire point of this was to make that stop! ...oh, wait, didn't I forget that one town? Oh well. Like three guys in black edgy gear can't gently caress up the entire desert. I had expected these jokers to hang around and make something better, but I guess that just running the hell away makes sense, too.  ...is it too late to go back? Diego's got it figured out. He's got the only comfortable piece of furniture in this world. I'm regretting my choices! Turn this portal around! Not fighting? I get that. But why would you want to live in the loving ruins? Go smoke weed with Lester!   I don't really feel like I had any impact on that. Sure I did blow up some orcs incidentally but... whatever, Nordmar sucks. gently caress mountains.   I can understand how banishing his god's influence from the world might piss him off a bit. On the other hand it is pretty funny. So Lares will rob the others blind and go on Laresing. Reasonable.    Yes, they will be, because there were no sequels ever, for me to star in.No sequels, ever, for me to Let's Play. What a lovely coincidence!And I'll probate anyone who says otherwise, free me from my suffering. THE END Ultimately... Gothic 3 fails on every level, but also almost succeeds on every level. It has an impressively large world for the time... but it's lacking in content and several locations, like the caves, are literally copypasted. It needs more content. The factional war setup was conceptually cool... but too many decisions and quests were just "go here, stab this." Compared to Gothic 2 there were too few alternate solutions and clever options. You occasionally saw some good ones, like when you could lure some of the mercenaries out of Geldern while pretending to be helping them, to weaken the place for an eventual rebellion. The metaplot of "gently caress this idiot war, gently caress these moron gods" is conceptually interesting... but it doesn't actually kick in until the game is almost done, and there isn't really enough detail to the religions or the gods themselves to make it feel impactful. After the ending of Gothic 2 about getting everyone together to help out with the final villain... it felt like a letdown to split the gang up and not really let you get it back together. Gothic 3 would've also benefited from carrying over a few more Gothic 2 and Gothic 1 NPC's. The "ancient portal to the unknown land" is also really stupid. We already know there are other dimensions where demons and stuff come from, just say Xardas is making a portal to one of those instead, why does there need to be an ancient portal and an unknown civilization when they're not referenced until five minutes before the endgame and Xardas' explanation for why it works is "trust me bro, I read a book." I also wasn't making that part up, Xardas' reasoning for why the Staff and the Scepter open the portal is just "they were made by the same civilization  "The combat system for Gothic 2 and Gothic 3 is fine enough for single duels against humanoid enemies... but since they clearly wanted to scale up and have bigger battles for Gothic 3, they needed to fundamentally overhaul it to better handle large battles instead of having the strict lockon system. Do something a bit more Dynasty Warriors or something. It'd also have been nice if, for once, they didn't scale us down to having trouble fighting a single wolf. Gothic 1 and 2 had a reason for it, but 3 didn't, so scaling up to a combat system where you fight bigger groups of weak enemies at once, to really give you the "legendary hero"-feel, with occasional named enemy "hero" characters, would've been cool. Magic and everything attached to it was also poorly explained and super unbalanced. So to a large extent, mechanically, the issue with Gothic 3 is that they had an engine from Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 and they insisted on re-using it, but it just didn't really work for the game they wanted to make, at least not without really taking a wrench to it and tearing up the basic systems at the roots to rebuild. I'm glad that I finally finished this loving thing. Also, just to spoil everyone. This is the canon ending to Gothic 3. And you know what happens in the expansion, Forsaken Gods? The Nameless Hero just goes "ehhhhhh the world needs me anyway" and returns to mess up everyone's loving business again, because everyone didn't settle down and get peaceful enough for his tastes. It's incredibly stupid and I will not be LP'ing it. My next LP project will be Crystal Project, which is a really good game that I love and have poured almost 120 hours into already. The Endiest End That Ever Ended
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Oct 3, 2023 13:33
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Thank you for your work. Your writing really carried this LP. There is also another Gothic game to not LP. Arcania! In which the nameless Hero has become the king. I only played 1 hour of it before I got bored but it could not have been very good ir people would have talked about it more.
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Oct 3, 2023 14:10
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A great evil has been defeated.
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Oct 3, 2023 14:19
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Thanks for LPing it! There was already a rampant theme in the first two games about how the protagonists and the gods didn't see eye to eye. The nameless hero defeats Beliar's champions in the name of Innos, but he himself isn't exactly a shining example of knighthood. Gothic 2 ends with Xardas' becoming Beliar's champion, only to immediately point out he has no intention to follow his directives, just as the nameless hero does what needs to be done but doesn't care much beyond that. Then, a short boat trip later, they aren't champion anymore because... reasons? Had they kept the previous story structure and just continued with having humans and people in general being aligned with the gods in name only (apart from the usual fanatics), and realize even Adanos isn't all that cracked up (the orcs are conquerors and slavers here working for Xardas, who is on the Adanos path, which says a lot about the god himself), it would have naturally set the stage for humanity as a whole saying gently caress this and banishing the gods, leading to the ending. At least what remained of the original team got to work on the Risen game, and it does feel like an actual Gothic game, so there's that at least. And it's pretty much a continuation of Gothic 3 scenario wise, as the game's intro starts with the Gods having been banished from the land, leaving humanity free. Thanks again, can't wait to see your next LP.
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Oct 3, 2023 17:13
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Mindopali posted:There was already a rampant theme in the first two games about how the protagonists and the gods didn't see eye to eye. The nameless hero defeats Beliar's champions in the name of Innos, but he himself isn't exactly a shining example of knighthood. Gothic 2 ends with Xardas' becoming Beliar's champion, only to immediately point out he has no intention to follow his directives, just as the nameless hero does what needs to be done but doesn't care much beyond that. I mean, even Innos' "faithful" were a poor example of, well, whatever he was supposed to be, God of Law and Order and Fire. Backstabbing acolytes, mages trying to get their new recruits killed, paladins being bureaucrats abusing their powers when people annoyed them, etc. and the ostensibly Innos-aligned realm, with King Rhobar as one of Innos' champions, was the creator of this entire apparently pretty hosed up society if the Valley of Mines and Khorinis were any indication of what the rest of it was like. As for Xardas and his behavior on the "Adanos Path," I think his main goal in helping the orcs, if you want to assume the story writers thought about it at all, was to cause enough chaos that himself and the Nameless Hero could yoink the Artifacts of Adanos in the confusion. If Myrtana held the orcs and Hashishin effectively at bay, they would have a lot less freedom of movement, they'd both be super criminals in the eye of the local law and the Fire Mages+Paladins would be a considerable nuisance. It would be nice if you could ask him about it, though. Just like "why the gently caress are you helping these big green dorkwads instead of moving on with the main plan." Though frankly that could probably have been a more interesting game, if there was a front line, perhaps some way into Myrtana but not all the way up to Vengard, and your actions could shift the front line, but the war wasn't quite decided yet, and certain people would distrust both you, Xardas and the rest of The Gang, and it would either require avoiding them, convincing them or killing them to make progress in places, and maybe a more party-based sort of game where The Gang(tm) could either be sent on missions or actually followed you and there was some kind of interface for trading gear and giving them stuff and and and... and if it was a good game it would be good! But it is not a good game. Rhobar claims that he got you sent to Khorinis because Innos had foreseen that your self-interested loving around would kill the Sleeper and the Dragons, but it's hard to tell if that's just him trying to save himself from a stabbing or what he actually believes, and I think it's more interesting if its the former, because I do desperately hate "JUST AS PLANNED" bullshit and that entire plan would have so many random elements that no one could have planned it out.
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Oct 3, 2023 17:21
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Interesting concepts, underwhelming execution, reaching a bit too far beyond grasp, a classic tale, I absolutely did not see the story come close to its close. I do appreciate the theme and style of the ending being "gently caress this, time to leave." because it's a pretty human reaction to dealing with the nonsense that is that kingdom's situation, IDP, interplannal displaced persons.
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Oct 3, 2023 20:18
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Thanks for the LP, Purple! You made the best you could out of a bad game. I'm looking forward to your next one of Crystal Project.
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Oct 3, 2023 20:23
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Thanks for suffering through this for our entertainment. It's good that removing the influence of the gods never have any bad repercussions. Ever.
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Oct 3, 2023 22:20
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Wait the ending is "we left this mortal coil and...buy our next game!"???
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Oct 3, 2023 23:20
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kw0134 posted:Wait the ending is "we left this mortal coil and...buy our next game!"??? "next time, on Gothic Ball Z, the protagonist will have to go through another gigantic training arc for no real reason"
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Oct 3, 2023 23:36
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The truth is that Gothic is a Wuxia series, one that doesn't accept itself. If it did you'd have good jumps and cool traversal tools that'd feel good to use.
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Oct 4, 2023 00:01
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 This time I'm going to play a good loving game and none of you can stop me enjoying it.
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Oct 4, 2023 02:44
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Thanks for the ride, mate. I enjoyed watching the king and his court get cheesed to death.
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Oct 4, 2023 05:51
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Also, somewhat belatedly, I want to say thanks to everyone who followed the thread, read and especially everyone who left a comment. Even if it's just a "lmao" or a "nice" or a single smiley, knowing people are following along is one of the things that makes LPing a game worth the time and effort.
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Oct 4, 2023 18:13
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Thanks for the great LP of a very flawed game! I have such a soft spot for Gothic 2, and I really wanted to like Gothic 3 but just couldn't get there. It was nice to see it through to completion (and to not have to suffer the worst bits of it myself).
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Oct 4, 2023 23:57
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Thanks for putting yourself thru this.
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Oct 5, 2023 05:32
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PurpleXVI posted:Also, somewhat belatedly, I want to say thanks to everyone who followed the thread, read and especially everyone who left a comment. Even if it's just a "lmao" or a "nice" or a single smiley, knowing people are following along is one of the things that makes LPing a game worth the time and effort. You're welcome lmao
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Oct 5, 2023 16:57
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Thanks for the great LP Purple, I've really enjoyed it! For all its faults I've always had a fondness for this game and the LP will save me from actually replaying it anytime soon, rose-tinted glasses etc.
Private Speech fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Oct 5, 2023 |
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Oct 5, 2023 17:17
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Thanks for playing this so that we didn't have to.
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Oct 5, 2023 17:25
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I worry for your mental health sometimes, Purple. Even the Great Dane* can take only so much Eurojank. *There's actually a Danish man in the NFL Hall of Fame already called this, but it's not trademarked.
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Oct 6, 2023 02:24
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PurpleXVI posted:and if it was a good game it would be good! But it is not a good game. Hehe, yeah, I think at the end of the line it can really be boiled down to that. Thanks again.
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Oct 13, 2023 12:02
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