trying to get combat down, how does it work? can i only slice while moving forward?

You can do a forward slash, a right slash, or a left slash (done respectively by holding the action key and pressing forward, right, or left arrow key). Remaining stationary and performing a right or left slash when the enemy advances can work particularly well against many enemies, particularly various animals. You can also parry by holding the action key then pressing the down arrow key (many human opponents can be beaten easily by alternating between forward attacks and parries). You can also do a quick leap backwards (which also causes you to automatically parry) by pressing the down arrow key in combat. Also keep in mind that the combat in Gothic 2 is much more tactical than twitch, so you'll want to watch your enemies, learn their movements, and carefully time your attacks, as just trying to button-mash will get you killed very quickly.

thanks, i kinda went into it with an elder scroll of oblivion mentality and started hacking away lol.

this game is awesome, by my first impressions but its kicking my ass lol. got utterly murdered by 2 flies, while out looking for bandits which would surely massacrer me. i need the bandits dead so i can get an Apprenticeship with the blacksmith though :p

At the beginning you're definitely a serious weakling, and it will take a little while before you become significantly less squishy. Until that point save often, and when you see enemies try to pull them away individually or in small groups. It also takes a while to learn how the individual enemies move, and bloodflies can be a bit tricky to figure out until you've fought a fair number of them; human enemies are a bit easier to read, but you'll definitely want to try to take them on one at a time until you become significantly stronger.

As for getting the apprenticeship with the blacksmith, it can actually be a bit easier to take his first challenge (getting an orc weapon), as if you go hunting with Bartok you'll come across an orc and he'll do most of the hard work in taking it down.

If you join the thieves guild. Don't join the militia before you get into the thieves guild or key quest givers won't talk to you.

edit: BTW, you can choose an optional mouse oriented control in the config file which is a little more normal.

All great cRPG's have hard starts, like Gothic, Drakensang, Risen and Two Worlds. I is wise to do town quests and when travelling to stay on the road.

The very best mod for Oblivion, for example, as far as I am concerned, is Martigen's Monster Mod, as it does just that. It puts weaker creatures and Bandit's etc near towns and on roads, on the basis any dungeon near a town would get cleared out regularly by town guards. Also with patrols, bandits and creatures near the road would get thinned out too. As you went into the wilderness however, due to little human contact, creatures could breed longer, bandits could train longer, and therefore as you came across them, they would be much tougher. What MMM also did, which few other cRPG's do, is have factions, so that wolves would be more interested ion sheep than humans, unless they were starving, in which case they might even attack their own! By spawning different types of creatures in different ways, you would have packs of wolves of different sizes, some would have just fed, some would be starving, some would be large and brave and others small and cowardly. All this was random!

The Gothic series comes closest to this MMM mod, and has a "Radiant AI" system that knocks the pants off Oblivion's!

thanks i'll look in the config now.

i see what you mean, on gothic 2 if your being chased by a wolf and you pass a sheep they will attack them instead.

i also like how the animals go into a threatening stance, giving you a chance to back off. makes them seem for like animals than monsters, unlike other rpg's.

i cant seem to get thorben to trust me, first i thought he would after i got the blessings, then i thought he would when i became a citizen.

If you mean trust you to teach you the lockpick skill, then IIRC you need to report to him the outcome of the quest about the girl in his house (the one you get from the merchant across the street).

If you paid for her, he'll teach you right away, otherwise you'll need to pay him back first.

thanks, some reason cutscenes are all black, how can i fix this? i am on windows 7 64 bit.

Are you sure? I think timing matters, ie, if you speak to him after extorting it from Gretta AND after giving it to Matteo, he basically (as I recall) mumble-grumbles and says whatever. If you still have the money, he demands it back. At least, that's how I remember it. Then again, me and memory are conflicting concepts :)

One thing you might want to check is the following thread: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/gothic_series/gothic_2_new_player_tips_and_help

It's basically spoiler-free, and there are a lot of tips me and other users posted, like how the combat works, some spells that are considered useful and a few other miscellaneous things.