I enjoyed playing the game ok plot was as light as a feather but gameplay was solid and i enjoyed the music. Well worth playing.

Its an old game sexism in games was not really an issue when it came out. Well it was it was just not as big as today;) so I don't think that it was even in their thoughts when they made the game.

I liked the game, but got bored somewhere in the middle and stopped. Maybe I am just getting to old for prolonged fights.

I bought this and I can confirm it's completely DRM-Free.

EDITED: YES, I CAN CONFIRM IT's COMPLETELY DRM-FREE AS WELL.

Initially this post was wrong. I am very sorry.

Nope, it's a mild form of DRM, but still DRM for those that are absolutely opposed to it in any form. I was also under the impression that it was completely DRM-free though. Probably there's a no-DVD crack out there somewhere for that if you want to get rid of the requirement for the DVD in the drive.

I see your question was answered; I just wanted to confirm that I am really enjoying it so far but to let you know it's depth can feel overwhelming (one can get lost trying to decide what to spend their points on there's so many pages of options) and to reiterate the "clunkyness" of the controls.

I guess what I'm trying to say is anyone looking for a casual experience will probably be disappointed. You have to work at this game.

Yeah, I got the complete game from Amazon several months ago (oddly enough I'm pretty sure I paid $9.99 for it months ago now it's more?!?!???? Might be my memory being wrong again though). So I plan on installing the expansion at the same time I install the second game.

Wasn't the expansion to Gothic II similar to this??? Again, memory fuzzy, but I seem to recall that expansion more or less blending into the middle of things rather than being an-add on (in fact, IIRC, it made the whole game harder, not just the expansion areas).
Yeah, I can see how that would happen. I've been extremely close twice, but something keeps bringing me back.

I don't like reading walk thrus so maybe finding a rule set would help me too since that wouldn't bother me to read, but so far I feel like I'm "learning" it on the fly. There really is an awful lot of detail here, but that's kind of what I find really cool. I mean, one of the status effects your character can suffer from is smelling bad?!?!?! lol, that's some detail right there!!!

But I like the way it's laid out in that even though it's so much it can be overwhelming, I find the way it was done to be fairly easy to follow, i.e., the different categories make logical sense, so that helps. I think the real key for a newcomer is going to be to figure out what NOT to spend on "your" character because party members are available for those skills. I'm used to playing solo, and building my character for anything I want to do, but one may not be able to do that here with so many options, and a key therefore is probably going to be figuring out how to spread those skills out among party members. Shouldn't be too much of a problem I guess for most other RPG players, as most of them had parties as well, this one just feels a little different simply because you only choose and start with one character that is you.

Yeah, this is exactly what stumps me with many RPGs when they have rule set with which I'm unfamiliar. I tend to try to avoid walkthroughs, but I really, really hate wasting skill points on skills that are either useless or redundant. So I always try to find out what to avoid 'wasting' points on when I start a new game. It's an affliction.

I think the gothic expansion made some small changes to the game in general, yes. There are a few other expansions like this also, KoA comes to mind, where both expansions are more aimed towards low and mid levels. But in KoA it is still possible to go back and see the new lands and maybe get some good gear or do some other things.

In River of Time there are no incentives whatsoever going back, and it can be a bit of a drag doing so, especially since you will not get anything better that what you have at endgame. It is also not very quick getting to that point, so it is tedious starting a new game all over again just for it.

But, if you got the complete edition, then you are fine :)

Odd. The DVD disk I have I can install all the games and run them without the disk in drive. Also many others that reviewed the game at Amazon have reported the same thing.

Edit: I see from later posts you are talking about the complete collection. Maybe it's because I copied the disk files to a backup hard drive and then installed the game from the hard drive? I'm not using any crack file. I don't trust them at all.

One thing I haven't learned yet is what scale the skills (they're called "talents" in this game) are based on. I've spent several points on plant lore, boosting it up to 5, yet still fail more often than succeed in picking plants. Meanwhile, one of my other party members has Animal Lore of only 2, yet never seems to fail at "looting" killed animals. Might be a sample size issue, but man she hasn't failed a single time and I know it's been well over 10 or so attempts so far.

For folks reading and unfamiliar, the game has talents (and spells, of course, though that's separate) that are broken down into three broad categories, social*, combat, and special skills. (*might not be the correct name of the first category). Then there are several sub-categories under each main one, each with several talents in them, and each of those start at 0 (depending on your character at startup) and go to ???? (I thought 10 but not sure now after my plant lore experience above). IIRC there are about 5 or so "sub-categories" under the first main category (social*) and each sub-category has several skills within it.

Maybe that will give you a feel for the huge number of options here. Don't fret too much though, as the points to spend on those skills don't appear to be that hard to get (at least early). Improving your "base-ratings" costs a LOT though, and I'm guessing that's another area of decision making (do I save these points to improve my characters strength or spend them on talents???) and you add it all up and it just feels like an amazing experience that could be done literally billions of ways.
Well, you know, this may be another example of my bad memory. Maybe I didn't even try it without the DVD in there.

I'm going to go restart right now, so I'm gonna be sure to take the DVD out this time and see if it will run. Sorry, I may have jumped to conclusions. I remember getting that issue yesterday, but I dabbled a bit in a couple of other games too and it may have been one of them made add the DVD yesterday.

Oh shit, I WAS WRONG!!

Folks reading this thread should know that I was WRONG and that this IS IN FACT DRM-FREE.

I just tried it without the DVD in and it ran fine.

Oh man I AM SO VERY VERY SORRY for the wrong info. It was not intentional. My damn memory just keeps getting worse and it's so damn frustrating.

I AM VERY SORRY FOR THE MISTAKE. Gonna go up and edit that post in case anyone reads it later.

Awesome! Thanks for double checking it, OFG.