Gothic 2. The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos. More than just a mod.
What comes to mind with the word “Gothic”? Mary Shelley’s works? Architecture? 2003 film? Since we are sitting on a thematic site, the answer is obvious. Even if you did not play, you heard about the series of the same name.
In Russia and Europe, this is one of the most famous series of games. The series is so influential that not only games are still inspired by Gothic, but also frank clones. And the mods for the 2002 game come out regularly regularly.
Development.
The attention of The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos attracted last year. The list of changes was so large that literally the engine remained from the original, some mechanics, but the interface.
I’ll say in advance that I am quite cool about mods. My main claims are low quality of mods, lack of balance, excessive Petrosyanship, as well as violations of Laura and the logic of the world. And, a small spoiler, there are practically no all these shortcomings in Archolos. This is a huge mod that occurs in a new place, with its plot line for tens of hours, with voiced dialogs specially recorded by orchestral music, many scenes, new models, mechanic, with a bunch of secrets and all this. for free. After passing, I can confidently say that for such a mod is not at all a shame to ask for money, because everything is done at a very high level.
The creation of the mod began in 2016, after the developers got off from another fashion-long-built History of Khorinis, which has been developed since 2008. Yakub Tomchak, one of the developers of fashion, said that they tried not to add all the innovations of modern games thoughtlessly, but rather develop the ideas of the original. The developers decided to get rid of everything that they did not like in other games, while trying to understand what elements they like. At the same time, the creators of the archolos wanted to convey the same emotions that they had when they first launched Gothic. And it seems to me that they succeeded. The mod was so large that at one point they wanted to divide it into several parts, but in the end they abandoned the idea. At different times, from 10 to 200 people worked on it at the same time, including voice actors and musicians, and the developers themselves often associated the creators of the original Gothic to clarify the details.
After his release, Itim (where you do not need to suffer with a jump, installation and update) I decided to just run into it before the release of the second Elex in order to kill the time a little. And in the end, when Eleks had already left, I played for 15 minutes and without any regrets returned to the archite. And I don’t regret it exactly.
Plot
Events occur before the first part. We play for Marvin (who introduced the cheat codes in Gothic, he will understand the reference), the refugee who fled from his island with his brother because of the invasion of the orcs. At a certain moment, they are thrown out of the ship and then they try to survive as they can survive. The plot is solid, but not outstanding. However, we will be objective, and Gothic does not have a brilliant plot. In the first part, only the ties and the world are interesting, and in the third ending with the destruction of the gods. More focus was on characters and all the same world. However, many quests are made very well and most importantly are diverse. Yes, there are standard tasks where you need to bring 10 wolf skins, but their small number. Murder tasks are transferred to a special section of the search for investigation. And the rest have a production that is more serious than in the second part, and the conditions themselves differ. There is a stealth task, and detective with comparison of facts, and logical tasks, and tasks for memory.
Balance and innovations
The balance in the second part was pretty good, but the creators of the fashion decided to shake it and improve it. For example, earlier potions with a constant effect were stored in the inventory and waited for the moment when pumping the characteristics was too expensive. Now the characteristics have two values of “pumping” basic: initial and from teachers, but there are final, after all potions, things and Bafies. Respectively, shoot magic amulets before pumping and not drinking potions does not make sense.
Crafts and cooking were processed towards modern realities. Now the main character is not just frying meat (one thing at a time), but can also cook various dishes. And only the types of these dishes are more than 50. Everyone not only restores a different number of life points and mana, but can also have amplifiers, both temporary and constant. Similar changes have occurred with the creation of weapons, both neighboring and long -range combat (yes, now you can crash bows and crossbows).
The developers made a number of other changes. For example, the lock opening sequence changes at each load, which does not allow to save and go through the game with one master. Seeds were added that can be found in the stomach of animals, from which you can also cook potions. The resource production system now depends on a special skill that can be pumped from teachers for money (without a waste of training points), and the skill can also increase when using. The cost of goods during sale falls 15 times, so the main earnings are happening when the things are sold to special customers. Someone needs a limited number, and someone needs deliveries on an ongoing basis and this moment needs to be monitored on special boards with tasks (there are also published posters with the search and some tasks) in every new chapter. You can learn skills not only among teachers, but also with the help of special books. Ordinary books give experience when reading, and if you find and read a whole cycle of books on one topic, then this will additionally increase the characteristics, etc.D. Because of all these innovations, the game, although it retains its cakes, is felt fresh.
Advantages
What are the advantages of Gothic? For me, this is https://coincasino-pro.co.uk/ a feeling of freedom, an interesting study of the world, its landing and atmosphere.
As soon as you get into the first village, no one forces you to go through the plot, and you can simply explore the world, hunt for animals, perform optional tasks. Of course, there is similar in the same series with scrolls, but there are several differences. Firstly, it is compactness and saturation of the world. Their worlds are less, but the events and the elaboration of the world are higher. Secondly, it is a manual distribution of awards. The contents of the chests are determined not by the generator of random numbers, as in The Elders Scrolls, but lays down developers. And they tries to fill it with a useful loot. As a result of the chests there are less, but their value is higher.
The study of the world was one of the strongest aspects of the game, and this was carefully preserved in the archite. The study of the world rewards: in every nook, the developers in manually scattered rare things, which makes you even more diligent to explore this world. And to the question: “If I climb there, will there be a reward there?”, the developers usually answer:” Yes “.
This cave is in no way connected with any task. And you can get here through a hidden underwater cave U *spoiler *.
As for the atmosphere, it is very in the spirit of Gothic. Take one quest for example. The head of the pirates, a very hot guy (not in the sense in which you thought), tells you to collect the load that has scattered after shipwreck. Having examined and collecting how much I could on the coast, I returned to him. Seeing that I brought about a third of all the load (which I did not know then), the pirate told me that either I was a thief or stupid, in any case, I no longer need this here. And without special ceremonies, just stabbed me.
This is the spirit of Gothic. This is realistic fantasy, it is very mundane, consistent and logical. In most RPGs, the hero becomes “chosen” very quickly, sometimes in the first 10 minutes of the game, and does not change his status throughout the game. At the same time, the scriptwriters cannot always come up with their chosen tasks. Therefore, your main inquisitor-mag-kunari personally hunts for boars to get a peasant of meat, sucks ore from the rocks with his hands and brings the guard a bottle of Winz. In Gothic, we also at the end became chosen, but came there with a clear feeling that we had achieved this with our labor, and not the fact that the scriptwriters sent this to us. Even in order to just achieve the status of a citizen you will have to endure ridicule, you will have to try and spend more than one hour. And for access to the upper city you will have to really sweat. But you see the growth of your character. Which consists not only in the fact that now you are killing the Snopper one left. A couple of tens of hours ago you helped to pull the weeds on the field, but you help the refugees arrange their life. After another 20 hours, you join the guard and investigate the murder, and after some time you alone go down to the mine with Roem Retrzunov in search of a missing group.
Flaws
The game also inherited the game from Gothic, and with it, unfortunately, bugs and departures. Departures are irregular, but occur. In 100 hours I had a dozen colors on the desktop. The departures themselves occur at random moments, so it is better not to forget to persist, and it is better to have several slots.
So at a certain moment one of the sibs was renamed the other and did not allow me to persist.
Still a very serious bug, when the character begins to slip and hungs in such a pose (and they can’t be controlled at this moment) – sometimes the “ESC” menu calls the game and sometimes not.
Also at one point, the game sobbing and the character did not give out the desired plot dialogue – he stood in front of the bed and the scene did not begin. I solved the problem by sleeping in this very bed and thus moving the NPC.
Next time, the game did not give out the final dialogue with the Master of the Meeting about the completion. The problem turned out to be that I did not have an announcement that the masters were looking for students. Why it was necessary – it is not clear.
A couple of times, it was so that I could not interact with any NPS or subject – this was decided by preserving and loading the game. Another time, with a dialogue, the camera hung and did not allow anything to do anything. Once this happened when Marvin tried to move away from the interlocutor before the dialogue, and since there was a wall behind him, he could not move away (but he tried very hard). Another time, I hooked the triger of the conversation exactly at the moment when the interlocutor decided to go to bed – the camera changed the location, fixed on it, but the dialogue did not open.
The remaining bugs are small. Then the sound in the location will begin to grind, as if he is constantly trying to start it, but something does not give him. Then when running there is a feeling that the character pushes back a little and so on.
Finally, I advise you to transfer the game to the window mode so that you can turn the game without any problems.
You can read and decide that the game is funny, but this is not so. In fact, I played out for a couple of dozen hours and did not find a single bug, and then in one hour I had three departments. Maybe it was so lucky to me who knows.
And separately I want to note the skew towards dexterity. Most single -handed weapons require dexterity, and not strength, moreover, dexterity requirements are lower than for power (although it may explain to me in the comments that there is less damage than from strength and everything is amazed, xs). Goblin berries (forever increasing dexterity) is easier to notice and feel more. And raspberries (when eating 25 pieces are also permanento increasing dexterity), it costs the merchants cheaper, and heals more than apples that increase strength. In general, there is discrimination on a power ground.
Well, cluttered inventory strains. After some tasks, quest things do not disappear, the keys occupy a separate slot, there is no sorting, the display that you read there is no note, collecting things (because they may be needed for tasks) forces you to store all this garbage and find some specific thing it may not be so simple.
Also, for some, the problem may be the lack of localization. But the language in the game is simple and the basic English level is enough for understanding. Moreover, the original language is Polish, and translated with internal forces and this is noticeable. Here and there there are typos, and incorrect synonyms, and the sequence of phrases is wrong and Roger That all sorts. So, if you have excellent English, then it will be even for the detriment of it, since after reading dialogs the blood will periodically pour from the eyes. At the moment, the mod is translated into Russian and talk about its readiness by 60%. We’ll see us.
When starting, I did not expect that the mod would be so big and worked out or the fact that I would stuck here so. After the release, he received many positive reviews, and at the end of the year I received a reward as a mod of the year according to Moddb. The same reward was received by Garry Mod, Natural Selection, Brutal Doom, Black Mesa and many others, most of which later came out in a paid form. It remains only to wish them good luck and I hope that their next project will be no worse than this.
And what are your impressions of the fashion? What you liked and what’s not. Or maybe you have not launched or heard about it at all. Write your opinion about him in the comments.
