Gothic 1 - from the perspective of an indie developer 

You have it backwards, RPGs are meant to be complex systems, players and fans of RPGs don't want simplicity of systems, otherwise you are not making an RPG you basically are making an Action game with watered down elements of what an RPG is, this is where someone like Todd Howard went wrong with Skyrim and you risk the difference between making a game that is progressive like previous Bethesda titles, or mundane garage that could have been better. Old RPGs were so good because there were choices and you had consequences to those choices, which is the hallmark of what makes an RPG and RPG, these days it kind of sucks because systems have to be put into place so people who cannot seem to make an intelligent choice need convenience options basically stripping the point of the genre away.

@@nocturnal101ravenous6 Hello, thank you for the comment! I do not necessarily agree that RPG-s are meant to be complex, however, I generally agree that complexity is a net positive (however, I think it is entirely possible to create an overcomplicated system). But I think you might have missed the point of my video. I am not against complex systems. I do not say that a Skyrim or a Fallout 4 is a better RPG than a Baldur's Gate or a Divinity Original Sin 2. However, I made this video from the perspective of a solo developer. If you are solo (or in a small team) you will need to cut corners somewhere. And becasue of that, you will need to focus on the essence of each systems. Let me give you an example. Equipment is very important in an RPG. The more slots you have the more variety and choice you have (both in terms of stats and visuals), and in an RPG it is important. Also, there is the feeling of progression as you obtain more powerful armour. If you are a solo dev, you might not have the time to balance and design that many individual pieces. But, for example, you can focus on the progression and visual part; just like Gothic does, and offer armours as single items, but tie it to progression in the story. I totally agree that a multi-slot armour system is better, but if you develop solo, you will have to make sacrifices.

@@bencemervay Solo is tough but an RPG is biting off more than you can logistically chew, what you want to focus on is action based games with light RPG elements, and advertise it as such don't fall into the trap of just calling it an RPG like AAA studios seem to like to do, it's rather embarrassing for them. Small dev teams are manageable Diablo from condor games(before being called Blizzard North) was a small dev team, Larian was originally 13 people in a basement that were very ambitious. It's possible it may not be practical focusing like you said on specific aspects that you can manage and make perfect systems is always better than having rag tag half finished ones. Solo development you only have so much time unfortunately, However I do believe in the future most games are going to be made by small 20 and under dev teams mainly due to AI which can spot and test code at quick rates compared to the over bloated corporate structure like what was stated by the old Obsidian director about newer game development. 1 thing I will say to you passion overcomes all and games always show when you have people that have passion behind their work, that always propelled the industry forward.

@@nocturnal101ravenous6 tbh RPG means literally Role Playing Games - the thing is most video games focus a lot on the "Games" and they forget about the "Role Playing" one. Skyrim is a great example of being a action rpg with a huge focus on the game itself as - without mods - you have very little control over your character skills and expertise (or like most people you will - sooner or later - go for sneak-archer build because its superior to everything in terms of efficiency). There is no hard line what a RPG is but overall it should focus on role-playing a fictional character so obviously more customisation options = the stronger the RPG system.

@@lordtea7688 There is absolutely a "Hard Line" on what an RPG is, RPGs were created with the creation of D&D and GURPS, the sole tenant of an RPG is to make choices and there to be consequences to those choices, The very first ARPG was Diablo, Diablo from Blizzard North is a turn based game sped up into realtime and there were consequences to your choices that Defined 1- Your Character 2- The Environment aka the world space 3- The Narrative. Just because you have elements of something does not make a full blown version of that very thing is. Skyrim is very very stripped down especially when compared to all the previous versions in the series, Bethesda/BGS was always Progressive and did things that weren't really done before, unfortunately when Todd Howard took over he simplified all the Games, there is a reason mechanically why New Vegas is considered the best Fallout game in the series, Obsidian Entertainment was made up from people from Black Isle Entertainment, People like Sven from Larian have gone over this multiple times and Studios like Larian have continually out sold Publisher Expectations, RPGs were never a niche of the gaming community, they were the gaming community until even long after Call of Duty came along, Blizzard was extracting 14 million subscribers on a monthly basis at their height for above 10$ a sub and that is a watered down RPG experience that doesn't qualify as an RPG, its an MMO that is all with RPG elements, Zelda games are not RPGs they are Fantasy Action Adventure Games.

I hope that with the changes introduced in the previous months, Unity will be able to alter its course for the better. I still prefer C# over C++ and blueprint, but being proficient in only one engine (especially one who retroactively changes the TOS) is not the way to go.

@@bencemervay What are your thoughts on Unreal after 3 months? I've been learning UE5 and the basics of Blender for the past 6 months or so, but this is my first time using using a big game engine so I don't have any first hand experience to compare to.

@@kamilbeben9900 hey! Thank you for the question. I really like unreal. Eventually I want restart my rpg project in it. I really like the tools that come built-in with unreal, and not just that, but unreal builds tools that developers actually need, not like what unity did with ziva. Also, the quixel assets are very good, although they are definitely not a good fit for every single game, but still, one should at least appreciate such high quality stuff being free. I think unreal is a great choice, however, the same applies to unity or to most engines out there. You really need to find the perfect engine for the project you want to do.

​@@bencemervay I saw huge potential in quixel library as well, but after a few weeks of trying to actually build an area using realistic assets I came to the conclusion that I'm wasting time - doing realistic graphics is very time consuming, even with all these assets provided (blending them together, tweaking some parts, and there's always need to do something custom that you can't find in the library). Right now I'm experimenting with stylized graphics, it still looks good if the whole scene is consistent and is much less time consuming to implement

@@kamilbeben9900 I once tried photoscanning a book, it looked good with quixel assets (the video about this is on my channel). But yeah, if I would use quixel assets in a game I would probably alter the textures (to something cartoony).

Thank you for the reply! I hope you will like it! :)

That's my thoughts as well. I've been playing around with procedural generation for a few weeks in unreal but came to the same conclusion, small but dense worlds are much more interesting and enjoyable, procedural generation is best left to handle unimportant visuals like foliage placement.

I really like your video style, so of course :)

Agreed. I do not often see games in which wild animals go to sleep, for example.

@@bencemervayThat's actually something Elden Ring did recently that I thought was pretty rare

Good choice! I tried to keep the video spoiler-free as much as possible, but of course I had to spoil a few smaller quests. I hope you will have a good time with the game! :)

If you get it to work and like it, Gothic II is even better

I am glad you liked it! :)

​@@bencemervay And I am glad you enjoyed this brilliant (albeit flawed) gem enough to make a video about it! You have fine taste, my man :D

Thank you for the compliment!

Hi! Thank you for the kind words! I have a few more games which I would like to review in the future, so stay tuned!

Köszönöm szépen! :)

Yeah, it is scary :D

I understand your fear, I still feel it myself sometimes. Start small! That way you will gather knowledge and confidence! I have faith in you! :)

Hey, if you ever decided to try gamedev - start by writing a design document describing in detail all of the mechanics, general idea of the world and significant storylines. This way you'll have a list of problems you'll need to learn how to solve, it's really much less intimidating to start learning how to use a game engine when you have a set path. Also, design document is extremely helpful while talking about the game with other people you might want to work with - even small RPGs are very complex pieces of art and such problems are best handled in a small team.

Hey! Thank you for the kind words :) I wish you luck on your game!

​@@bencemervay Of course, you too!

Do you mean terrain from Gothic 1?

@@bencemervay yes 🥺 there's lots of nice pics on pinterest of it, it always looks excellent

Yes, the remake feels a bit odd to me. Does it look better? Yes. Does it look right? Not really. And I cannot explain what feels strange about it.

Nice! How did you like it?

@@bencemervay In terms of argument presentation it's really good, you made some points that i forgot about in my video :) Also 20:34 that's some THICC ass xD

@@lordtea7688 I am glad you liked the points I made :)

I do not know if such a comparison is possible. In some aspects, yes, Gothic 1 is better (eg. combat, npc behaviour). In others, Morrowind is better (story, lore, maybe exploration). I think it boils down to personal preference. For me Gothic 1 is better, but I think I am biased.

@@bencemervay Thank you for answering the such a joking question.

Nope

Yes of course

​@@bencemervaygothics Exploration is better

Hello! The 'Colony' is part of the Gothic franchise, owned by Pyranha Bytes who are owned by THQ Nordic (at least I think that is the current situation). So I cannot make a game that is set inside the Colony; I do not have the rights to use that location. I have a couple of ideas where my game will take place. I do not necessarily want the player to feel trapped, but what I want is to have a small open world and a good ingame explanation for why the map is small. Maybe it is an island. A canyon. A cave system. It does not matter.

@@bencemervayOk, better question. Do you want player to feel powerful?

@@danieladamczyk4024 Towards the end, yes. In the beginning: no way.

@@bencemervayThen i wish a good luck, but the game you cooking aint for me.

@@danieladamczyk4024 that is fine. Not every game is for everyone. You should play with the stuff that appeals to you. Also, my game is very very far from being ready.

I do not fully understand what you are saying. To my knowledge, Nehrim and Enderal are Elder Scrolls mods (Oblivion and Skyrim, respectively), I do not know how they connect to Gothic.

@@bencemervay they are games made on Bethesda engine, full games. And they are Gothic at core, the SureAI that are the devs not even try to hide the references. And they are German.

Helló! Még nem gondolkoztam rajta