Shades of Twilight

I’m now almost back to the same level as when I left my previous character. Current character level is 36, whereas I left my first character off at level 41.

There’s something to be said for re-rolling. First, things progress much faster now, seeing as I knew what quests were to be had, and thus going straight to that location to get it done. Also, 2nd time around, the quests completed were much “cleaner”, meaning that at least now I try to complete all the quests in the area before moving on to the next one. By doing this, I have actually stepped into Nordmar (and came back out) and also into Varant (and came back out too). Also, since now I know how to make money faster, and in greater quantities, I sorta “skipped” armours. I went straight from nothing, to Light Leather, and again I skipped “heavy armour” and went straight to Paladin armour.

In fact, right now my level 36 character is equipped almost the same way as my level 41 was. The only difference is now the skills are different – previously I had kinda ignored hunting skills and put points into magic. Now, I have forsaken magic and put them into hunting, because I want to learn that “Fight With 2 Swords” skills that is taught down south in Varant.

This time around, I also learnt that we can safely liberate up to 2 cities in Myrtana without having the Orcs go KOS on me, like I did with my first character. Or 3, if you plan NOT to ever talk to any of the orc chiefs. Being the cautious player that I am, I stopped at 2 – Cape Dun, and Montera.

Currently my character has just completed Trelis, and actually zoomed through liberating Vengard (Vengard doesn’t count as “liberating” since all orcs are KOS anyway). I remember the first time around, it took me 2 days to painstakingly lure the orcs out and slowly kill them. This time around since I am better equipped, plus my real-life skill at combat has improved, I killed the orcs off quicker and don’t need to lure them out like I did previously. I could literally charge into the building and finish off all the orcs and come out with like 3/4 health or so.

So last night, I saved right at Geldern. My original plan was to actually skip Geldern (since I already have done it the first time around) and go on to Sildern (which was KOS to me the first time around). However, I just HAD to stop in to grab that Paladin helmet 🙂 Anyway, tonight I should start to make my way out of Geldern and into Sildern.

However, there’s another tempting thought – I’m pretty damn close to Varant, and this time around, I remember I could learn Resist Fire from someone there although I forgot who. And, if I remember right, someone in the beginning towns also sell a potion of poison, and since I’ve just learnt how to poison my weapon …. *evil laughter*

Ok, guess tonight I’m gonna be making a U-turn into Varant first before heading back up north into Sildern.

Yep, I “re-rolled”. Gave up halfway, started a new game.

Ever wonder where the phrase “re-roll” come from? Well, if you’re not a Dungeons & Dragons player you wouldn’t make the connection. Back in the old days, before we played RPGs on the computer, we actually met up face to face with friends, sit around a table with some paper and pencils (and erasers too!), and actually played D&D without a computer! Amazing huh?

Well, to obtain your stats for your attributes, like strength, dexterity and so on, you used various sided dice, and you ROLL them to get a figure. To create a character, if I remember right, you rolled a 3d6, or, 6-sided die rolled 3 times, or have 3 of them and roll all 3 dice together. Yes, in D&D there are various dice of various sides… smallest was a 4-sided one… which looked like a tiny pyramid 🙂 The biggest die I have ever seen was a 100 sided one… almost completely round 🙂 Usually, to simulate a d100 roll, we’d roll 2 10-sided dice and used the digits that faced up as the figure.

So… now, the phrase “stuck”. To start a new character, we still “rolled” one up. To restart a game, we “re-roll”, although with computer RPGs now, we don’t really need to “roll” anymore. We can physically assign attributes etc.

Anyway, back to the original topic of the post. Yes, I restarted Gothic 3, all over again. And, my PC (or Player Character) is already level 41. Yeah, almost halfway through the game, and I re-rolled. Why?

Cuz, I got all the orcs in Myrtana mad at me.

I can’t go ANYWHERE near an orc, because they are now KOS (kill on sight) to me. Even orcs in “another country”, ie in Varant, or in Nordmar. How the hell they knew I was slaughtering their brethrens back in Myrtana is beyond me. I am pretty sure they don’t have telephones or faxes, nor mobile phones… so I don’t know how they magically all hate me.

Um, why were the orcs mad at me? Well… I kinda wiped them out in Myrtana heheheh! Every city I go to, I’d kill all the orcs and “liberate” the town/city for the humans. The bad thing this accomplished was that I haven’t been to 2 towns yet on the outskirts when the orcs finally went KOS on me right after I liberated Geldern, supposedly the “hub” of commerce. So, the next town I came to after that, I couldn’t even step through the city gates! The moment the orcs (and their human mercenaries) see me, they attack.

So I decided to leave the country and travelled south to Varant. At first I thought things were pretty cool since Varant wasn’t overrun by orcs. However, in one of the small towns out there, there was an orc gladiator. I couldn’t even get into the town without him charging me and having to fight him. And since he’s RED to me (hostile), it means when I strike the blow that takes him down, I kill him immediately – I don’t need to do any “killing blows”. That also means if I fight him inside the town, I’d get the whole town hostile to me since I “committed murder”, nevermind the fact they SAW him charging me first! I was merely defending myself!

In any case, in the 2 towns up in Myrtana, I already missed out on a bunch of quests simply because nobody would talk to me first. They all just…. attacked.

Sigh.

So, I re-rolled last night. This time around, since I’ve gotten better swinging the sword IRL, I do so much better against those “hard enemies”. Too bad though, now my first henchie, Copper from Reddock, died a warrior’s death against Ortega and his bandit friends. Qa’pla!

Since I killed Ortega before heading out to Cape Dun, Cyrus no longer has the dialog option to become my henchie because the only motivation for him to do so was to hunt Ortega. So now I’m left without a henchman, sigh!

Ok I have just done something I thought I could never do again – play an RPG till the wee hours of the morning (5am).

Yes, Gothic 3 is THAT gripping! Even Neverwinter Nights 2, which I had been waiting for, for 3 years, didn’t “grab” me like that. I just had to go to this other place, tell that guy I did what he wanted, and then, go to bed (yeah right).

And, I also finally figured out what the different colours of the NPC names mean (sort of).

Blue – in Party
Green – Friendly
Gold – Neutral
Orange – Irritated with you? May or may not attack you on sight.
Red – definitely hostile!

So now it is easier to tell whether I have had enough “faction” with the city before I go talk to the Orc leader. Once the names of the orcs turn green, I can go 🙂 And no, I am working for the rebels. Shhhh!!

However, what I still can’t figure out is how the hell you use the different arrows. Unlike typical RPGs where you have an inventory screen with a “paperdoll” where you can drag items to “equip” it, in Gothic 3 all you have is just a big inventory screen (thank god for no encumberance rules! My PC is dragging around stuff that would probably weigh like 50 tons now!), and to equip something you just click on it, and it should turn the background blue.

But, I still can’t figure out how to equip that Ice Arrow, or Fire Arrow etc. Since I always carry lots of normal arrows with me, my PC defaults to that. There is no way to equip the ice or fire ones UNLESS I put them in a chest somewhere, draw the bow as a weapon, and the game will automatically and randomly select one of the magical variants to “load” as ammo. THEN, I can pick up my arrows from the chest again.

It is also a slight oversight, methinks, on the part of the devs that we can’t “drop” items onto the ground, ie stuff we don’t want anymore. We absolutely MUST find a container somewhere to throw our stuff away.

Ah well, guess it’s time to hit the JoWood forums and see if I can figure out the answers….