Good points! The big reason you could say the Orcs were evil is because of the whole enslaving humanity thing haha, but yeah, like we've both mentioned, you can earn the Orcs respect and be treated fairly decently by them (as proven by several NPCs).

My Gothic lore is more than a bit rusty, but didn't the Orcs originally live in Myrtana before being driven to Nordmar by one of the King Rhobars? I remember finding some lore in a cave in either Varant or Nordmar that mentioned something like that.

To me the Hashishin are the most obvious "evil" group in the game, if only because of what their entire economy is based on. While you can earn their respect, I don't recall any morally good or morally gray quests you could get from them, but that could just be my memory failing me.

I believe you are correct about the orcs being the original inhabitants of Myrtana. I have no clue as to the lifespan of the orcs, but they would presumably have some kind of memory of that. They themselves are not inherently bad, they believe in Beliar and are "only the strong" survive type. Theoretically, any orc slaves that prove themselves would be rewarded/well off as a result. The example would sort of be the mercenaries.

You can toss the coin and see the kind of actions the Chosen of Innos (King Rhobar) do. I don't quite remember the exact reasoning for betraying Lee, but it had something to do with the nobility not liking him. Rhobar was willing to compromise a good friend to keep the same level of power among some undeniably shady characters. Half of the people in the upper city of Gothic 2 are massive d-bags, yet the Innos paladins consider them to be great people (by their actions).

True the Hashishin are "evil", but also remember that they're religiously motivated in a world where religious belief physically means something. They want power over others because that is what their deity commands. Adanos is a threat to that power, so it only logically follows that they would want to take out his priests. What they do IS bad, but in that world you can't really blame them. I was just never a fan of them because I liked the Adanos guys.

I just always got the impression from Gothic 3 that there was never really a "wrong" choice. There were just choices. I loved that about the game.

Gothic 3 is an awesome game. It is not a real Gothic and not as good as its two predecessors (the second one being my favourite video game of all time), but still really good.
There have been many bugs, but most of them are fixed now, thanks to several community patches, the most recent (and most likely last) one being 1.75. The main quest is quite bare and uninspired, the combat system sucks and the performance is... improvable.
But the world is huge and interesting, most quests are fun and involving, the dialogue is actually good, if you ask me and finally the soundtrack is the best I have ever heard in any game till today.

Just give it a chance, play a few hours until you reach the first big city, do not worry too much about the main quest and simply enjoy the atmosphere and setting, then you will might like and learn to love this game, as I did.

And no, in my opinion Risen is not better, but at best on par. And I have played Gothic, Gothic II + Add-on, Gothic 3, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods and even Arcania (gods, this game is bad...), so I dare to say that I know something about this series.

Enjoy your weekend.

I really struggled with Gothic 3, just like I did with Risen. There's lots of reasons why everyone has played Elder Scrolls games, yet many have never heard of the Gothic series. There's LOTS of reasons. TES plays to the lore, it builds interesting characters and back stories that filter through all the games. When someone tells you about trolls or dragons, it's for more than just mission assignments. There's a real sense of connection between everything in the game world.

Gothic 3 on the other hand just tosses you into a large open world and basically says, 'yeah, like orcs have enslaved humans and stuff... and I don't know, go learn some spells or something.' Everything is vague, badly explained, and information is translated through piss poor dialogue and character voicing. You get dropped into the world without context, understanding, and have to limp along the first quests while noticing how awkward everything is.

Maybe the first two games are better. I don't know. I just know I'm getting too old and busy to be fumbling around with a badly designed game, trying to get some enjoyment out of it... and being told that the game does indeed get better, so long as I download 2 gigs worth of patches and mods. I'm sorry, I just don't think Piranha Bytes is a very good dev studio. Their games are loaded with confusing quests, stilted dialogue, and quite a few game play and graphic glitches. And if Gothic 3 is just another bad example... 3 games into the series, then I'm afraid of seeing where it will go from there. There's some real basic truths of game design that the team needs to learn before adding even one single texture.

Don't even compare these two masterpieces with this piece of junk.

And this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERoGUfQYLbI

Personally, I found it to be a highly enjoyable affair. If a little short (and I played it for over 40 hours). Had a lot of fun with it.

Gothic 2 is amazing. Basically, Bethesda games don't do it for me, they have their open world but I can never get into their games. The lackluster combat in the Elder Scrolls games didn't help either, neither did the generic sidequests. I played Morrowind till I was quite high level then quit because the game lost challenge after getting Dredric and Glass stuff. Oblivion couldn't keep me engaged for for than 4 hours. I boycotted all Bethesda games till today after the $2 hour armour DLC and getting butthurt after the Fallout 3 affair.

Gothic 2 was the game that pulled me in from the start to finish. Everything felt alive. The story hit with me. I loved the challenge in the combat and how my character progressed through. And there was so much to do. Finished the game wanting for more. Not many games/RPGs did that for me at that time other than Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape Torment.

I liked G3 tbh, I loved the first two, but I liked 3 a lot as well. I have never liked any of the ES games (only played from Morrowind on though).

I much prefer Gothic 3 over Risen 2.

I don't think anyone prefers Risen 2 over Gothic 3. There's no comparison between the 2 for me, Gothic 3 flat out wins.

Compared to what came after it - it's pretty decent.

Compared to what came before it - it's not that good.

I think the reason Gothic 3 probably had it the worst is couse Piranha Bytes were pushed really hard by the publisher (JoWood) and many things they wanted to do they couldn't and didn't had the time to em the way they wanted to. They tried to fix this with Risen. Let's remember they are the legitimate holder of the gothic IP now so a proper gothic game could happen in the future. Closest bet would be after Risen 3. It's different tale "should" it happen but they are confident enough they can do it right, am all in.

After seeing Risen 2 and what Risen 3 is shaping up to be? I'm highly doubtful that they'll come up with a game like Gothic. Risen 3 looks exactly like Risen 2, engine, game and graphics wise. Which means console, list based UI, action clickfest craptastic combat, tubular world, possible boring locales and everything else that's wrong with Risen 2.

There's an existing thread for Risen 3 here:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/risen_3_announced_for_summer_2014/page5

I really miss the combat system of Gothic 2, it was a good upgrade to the one from the first part, I wish they had developed this further (including spears and shields f.e.) instead of going the mindless clicky combat way all those console gamers demand. :/

To all of you who like Gothic 2, you should really play the first one with some minor tweaks (Widescreen, texture patch), it's really awesome.

Well, this game is sooooooo special that orcs are only diversion. If you want to have a real challenge, try the wild boars.

I didn't finish it, but stopped after some hours of playing but then I got it almost for free with a game magazine. It was published in the middle of development and that's how it plays. Everyone can find this information easily before buying the game.

I wonder why this is so? I always thought the only thing you can do with a console controller is fighting. So at least this part should not be that stupid.

And for Witcher 2 it kind of was the same. A click orgy without sense and mind I thought when I first saw play videos, although in the game then it was a bit better, but only a bit.