Gothic Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos mod for Gothic 2

[thesecret1]

Also, to update people who either can't or simply refuse to interact with the Polish internet (understandable), the "History of Khorinis" mod has been leaked in its very barebones alpha state, revealing that pretty much no work has been done since 2018 or so, and the creator or creators (unclear how many people are actually involved at this point) have taken the leak as an excuse to finally announce that they're dropping it. Pretty much exactly how you'd expect a decades-long fangame project to end - it's a miracle Archolos even happened in the first place, it was a bit greedy of us all to expect a second.

Guess Archolos team really did just shed dead weight with the split

 

[Konjad]

Also, to update people who either can't or simply refuse to interact with the Polish internet (understandable), the "History of Khorinis" mod has been leaked in its very barebones alpha state, revealing that pretty much no work has been done since 2018 or so, and the creator or creators (unclear how many people are actually involved at this point) have taken the leak as an excuse to finally announce that they're dropping it. Pretty much exactly how you'd expect a decades-long fangame project to end - it's a miracle Archolos even happened in the first place, it was a bit greedy of us all to expect a second.

Guess Archolos team really did just shed dead weight with the split

Yes, and the leaked mod was leaked because some dude pretended to be a girl that wants to become a tester, and once he sent to the project lead some woman's naked picture the lead instantly sent him files to become a tester.

Also some other people who do not work on the mod anymore shared that this lead was sabotaging their own work all the time, giving 'freedom' to do stuff then trashing it all because it's not according to his vision etc. Funny stuff.

 

[deama]

im interested in the hardcore mod, i always wondered why they didnt design the mod that way. arent the folk playing the gothics into "hardcore"?

That's more of a Russian thing, the Polish community seems much more focused on story (and completely OBSESSED with voice acting - no mod gets any attention without first and foremost mentioining their plans for the dubbing)

Akshually Potatoes are into hardocre Gothic action too - I still remember trying to play Returning 1.2 in Potato version, which was WAY harder than original.

Returning is a Russian mod, unless you mean the Polish version of Returning made it harder. Which, I mean, maybe that's possible, but the original already has bosses that take 15-20 minutes of straight attacks before they'll fucking die, so I can't imagine what they would have changed.

Is Returning worth playing? Seems fun. Are there a lot of bonus bosses? I understand there is a ton of extra content but some players say it is just bloat.

I would say it's worth it, but it's too crazy hard, they expect you to really know wtf you're doing, even on the normal "gothic" difficulty.
I would recommend to play it, pick the gothic difficulty, but up all the + stats to the max, like learning points, hp per level, etc...

Possibly even reduce max HP of enemies down to 80% or a bit lower even depending on how much you feel like playing the game for, and how good your metagame knowledge is.

But like was mentioned, the enjoyment from this comes from gaming the mechanics/systems, rather than enjoying the pretty incoherent story and cryptic quests.
Be prepared to google and delve into forums for the quests, especially later on.

 

[agris]

Also, to update people who either can't or simply refuse to interact with the Polish internet (understandable), the "History of Khorinis" mod has been leaked in its very barebones alpha state, revealing that pretty much no work has been done since 2018 or so, and the creator or creators (unclear how many people are actually involved at this point) have taken the leak as an excuse to finally announce that they're dropping it. Pretty much exactly how you'd expect a decades-long fangame project to end - it's a miracle Archolos even happened in the first place, it was a bit greedy of us all to expect a second.

Guess Archolos team really did just shed dead weight with the split

Yes, and the leaked mod was leaked because some dude pretended to be a girl that wants to become a tester, and once he sent to the project lead some woman's naked picture the lead instantly sent him files to become a tester.

Also some other people who do not work on the mod anymore shared that this lead was sabotaging their own work all the time, giving 'freedom' to do stuff then trashing it all because it's not according to his vision etc. Funny stuff.

classic modder

thanks for the tip on Dirty Swamp notpl

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

 

[Baron Dupek]

agris

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

I've heard praises, some people saying parts of the project were made better than Odyssey or Archolos even.

 

[agris]

agris

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

I've heard praises, some people saying parts of the project were made better than Odyssey or Archolos even.

promising.. but most people are [REDACTED], we need first hand accounts

 

[Alphons]

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

My friend finished it in 2021 in German (I waited for the Polish translation which came out last month) and he said the he enjoyed Archolos a bit more.

The game is big, easily 140 hours long even if you don't do every side quest.

Main quest is OK, you've probably seen most of the stuff elsewhere, but it's competent.

A good chunk of side quests allow you to finish them in several different ways, some even offer interesting dilemmas.
But there're way more fetch quests, more than in Archolos.

Most tracks are reused from G1 and 2, but new ones are great.

Takes a page from TES and Witcher crafting and everything is filled with crafting components. At the beginning it's fun as you have to scavenge to barely survive on crafted healing items, but later it's just vendor trash as you have better options.

Combat wise early game favors magic users and 1 handed weapons with STR, 2 handed and ranged weapons get better later around the second half of the game.

City of Asshun is slightly larger than Archolos, with 7 different apprenticeships to choose from as you progress through the main quest.
If you like stealing from houses, then there're some targets that have some good loot, but majority of houses have 1 chest with some gold and crafting stuff.

 

[agris]

crafting usually sucks, red flag

 

[Spike]

im interested in the hardcore mod, i always wondered why they didnt design the mod that way. arent the folk playing the gothics into "hardcore"?

That's more of a Russian thing, the Polish community seems much more focused on story (and completely OBSESSED with voice acting - no mod gets any attention without first and foremost mentioining their plans for the dubbing)

Akshually Potatoes are into hardocre Gothic action too - I still remember trying to play Returning 1.2 in Potato version, which was WAY harder than original.

Returning is a Russian mod, unless you mean the Polish version of Returning made it harder. Which, I mean, maybe that's possible, but the original already has bosses that take 15-20 minutes of straight attacks before they'll fucking die, so I can't imagine what they would have changed.

Is Returning worth playing? Seems fun. Are there a lot of bonus bosses? I understand there is a ton of extra content but some players say it is just bloat.

Ehhhh. At this point I would just wait for the creator's next project. He himself admits Returning was way too bloated and grindy and he plans to trim all that away with his new project, might as well wait another year or two if you haven't played Returning by now.

Will there be bosses in his next one? I did see he is making something new, yeah.

If you like bosses, Dirty Swamp blows Returning and Archolos both out of the water for diversity, balance, and creative use of the engine and mechanical limitations. And as an added bonus it's only 15-20 hours instead of ten times that.

Appreciate the recommendation! Exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. Does this take place entirely in a swamp area, though? Modders...

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

My friend finished it in 2021 in German (I waited for the Polish translation which came out last month) and he said the he enjoyed Archolos a bit more.

The game is big, easily 140 hours long even if you don't do every side quest.

Main quest is OK, you've probably seen most of the stuff elsewhere, but it's competent.

A good chunk of side quests allow you to finish them in several different ways, some even offer interesting dilemmas.
But there're way more fetch quests, more than in Archolos.

Most tracks are reused from G1 and 2, but new ones are great.

Takes a page from TES and Witcher crafting and everything is filled with crafting components. At the beginning it's fun as you have to scavenge to barely survive on crafted healing items, but later it's just vendor trash as you have better options.

Combat wise early game favors magic users and 1 handed weapons with STR, 2 handed and ranged weapons get better later around the second half of the game.

City of Asshun is slightly larger than Archolos, with 7 different apprenticeships to choose from as you progress through the main quest.
If you like stealing from houses, then there're some targets that have some good loot, but majority of houses have 1 chest with some gold and crafting stuff.

This sounds neat too.

agris

have you (or anyone else) played Legend of Ahssun? I'm definitely a quality > quantity guy, I'd love to hear impressions on it

I've heard praises, some people saying parts of the project were made better than Odyssey or Archolos even.

Never actually heard of Odyssey. This has an updated English version, correct?

Had no idea there were other interesting Gothic 2 mods outside of Archolos and Returning, let alone TC. Genuinely more exciting than most new AAA getting announced.

@Spike

Is Returning worth playing? Seems fun. Are there a lot of bonus bosses? I understand there is a ton of extra content but some players say it is just bloat.

Yeah there's a bunch of bosses and they're massive HP bloat, with various abilities (including one-shot attacks because of course). There's a lot of content, but mostly fan fictional at best. It's also easy to miss in some (most?) cases if you play without a guide. Hope you're content with missing something (like quests and locations) in 200+h long journey...

If you prefer "quantity" over "quality" then Returning is for you. Last preferable version is iirc Returning 2.0 Alternative Balance.

EDIT: Thanks. Looks like there are Returning 2.0 Alternative Balance (2018) and Returning 2.0 New Balance (2020) (like the shoe). Still Alternative Balance? The same team did both and added a Dark Knight class to New Balance.

 

[Tacgnol]

Ahssun seems kind of cool, but the machine English translation is pretty trash from what I remember.

Hopefully, it gets a more thorough translation at some stage.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Also, to update people who either can't or simply refuse to interact with the Polish internet (understandable), the "History of Khorinis" mod has been leaked in its very barebones alpha state, revealing that pretty much no work has been done since 2018 or so, and the creator or creators (unclear how many people are actually involved at this point) have taken the leak as an excuse to finally announce that they're dropping it. Pretty much exactly how you'd expect a decades-long fangame project to end - it's a miracle Archolos even happened in the first place, it was a bit greedy of us all to expect a second.

Guess Archolos team really did just shed dead weight with the split

Yes, and the leaked mod was leaked because some dude pretended to be a girl that wants to become a tester, and once he sent to the project lead some woman's naked picture the lead instantly sent him files to become a tester.

Meanwhile, the guy from the Archolos team a few days later...

 

[notpl]

After a long absence in social media, the moment has come to break the silence and present to you our position regarding the recent events, in the light of which we cannot pass by indifferently.First of all, we would like to apologize for not giving you any official information regarding the development of "The History of Khorinis" for such a long time, and express our deep appreciation for everyone who continue to discuss the project. For this reason, we understand any concerns about the state of the mod. We are grateful for all signs of genuine interest, support, and your belief in our project, as well as the uplifting messages we receive in our Facebook inbox.

Moving on to the most important topics:

1. The File Leak and What Will Happen With "The History of Khorinis"?

Many people assumed various conspiracy theories, that the whole situation was supposed to be a marketing campaign organized by us, which was supposed to stimulate the Gothic community and make them eagerly anticipate the mod's official release. Unfortunately, this leak was as surprising to our team as it was to you, and the wave of misinformation showed that it is the perfect moment to break the "hard work in silence". Sharing an unfinished game build or any modification files would not make sense from a creative perspective unless it's for the sake of curiosity about an early version of the mod, after the release itself.

The conversation between the former team leader, Piotr, known as Dark, and the "attractive tester from Epic Games" is fake, and we did not recruit anyone recently, especially a tester. Long story short, there was a security breach, and our safeguards failed, resulting in the leak of the modification files. While it is an unfortunate matter and we do not take it lightly, we have been closely observing the community, and we greatly appreciate the constructive feedback.

The unfortunate situation, however, caused those who had been waiting for the modification for many, many years to wonder if it had any impact on the team's work, and also cast doubt on whether the work of the legends of Polish dubbing (thanks to whose cordiality the project was promoted, for which we are eternally grateful to them) will not be wasted.

We hereby declare unequivocally that "The History of Khorinis" project is still being developed and will continue to be developed until it is released in a fully playable version, and the situation itself has strengthened our team like never before!!

2. Current State Of The Project.

We are aware that the contents of "The History of Khorinis", widely distributed by third parties, raise significant doubts regarding its quality and progress, considering the high expectations. Therefore, referring to specific aspects of the modification:

a) Visual layer of the modification - it was mostly up to date, with the exception of certain 3D objects or armors/outfits that have not yet been updated in the files, the same applies to animations.

The state of the world in the materials presented by us earlier was different, so while they contained more visually appealing locations, they were impractical in terms of performance and player navigation. Another issue that is often raised is "why did it look so good in the videos, but is different in the game?", which is a matter of proper framing and editing, and the "holes in the map" do not look visually pleasing, so we always showcased the main locations that we preferred, being aware of the shortcomings of the external areas, which are too large and uninteresting – it’s something we wanted to ultimately change.

The world itself is something the project has been grappling with for a long time. Initial vague ideas, non-original parts of the world "filling the terrain" that would serve as a link between the main locations, and ultimately poorly utilized energy focused on things like fixing the roof tiles (trees haven't been moved for a long time). The world was once ready, but even then, it was not fit for use. We tried half-measures and painstakingly improving individual parts, which later proved to have poor results as it would have been faster to start anew than to keep fixing it repeatedly.

Despite many talented 3D graphic designers working on the modification over the years, there has never really been anyone who wanted to help in the long run, and their rotation in the project has been significant, resulting in inconsistent stylistics in many places. There are also areas that are too large, offer nothing interesting from the player's perspective, and filling them with monsters doesn't make sense. Our intention was not to deceive the community into thinking that the world is complete and everything is fine. We simply operated under the assumption that we could create a good and satisfying exploration experience, and as the harsh truth revealed, there is still some work on our part that needs to be done.

Smaller and interesting, original and cohesive. That's the domain we want to stick to.

b) Storyline - this is something that has undergone significant changes recently, and many ready-made content that we have created over time has not yet been implemented into the game. Through the storyline, we primarily mean the reorganization of all quests in terms of quality (where they were of low quality, duplicated motifs from other quests, or simply required expansion).

This also applies to the main storyline, for which, between October and November last year, we decided on smaller or larger changes (on paper, we have not yet introduced them into the game, so it is not playable from beginning to end practically at all, despite many character and dialogue files).

We care about making the main storyline as engaging as possible, with the side quests properly complementing it in the game world rather than overshadowing it, which unfortunately is a common domain of other modifications, and from which we want to learn a lesson. However, in our opinion, we previously failed to achieve it, by holding onto dialogues and the general framework of the story from "primary school days", hence these changes are necessary.

c) Organization of work - Our activities for the sake of the mod left much to be desired for a long time. Therefore, recently, with the project's best interest in mind, we made significant changes to the team structure. Among the most important changes, we can include the replacement of the project's CEO (which happened some time ago), where the previous project coordinator, Dark, was replaced by another long-time member who has been actively involved in the mod with us - bringing a breath of fresh air to the project.

We have also opted for a smaller, more condensed team composed of the most dedicated individuals working on the mod, resulting in discussions that led to parting ways with 26 people.

3. Financial Support Issues.

"The History of Khorinis" is a non-profit project, and the initial financial matters were associated with the "Nestors" project, where without the invaluable support of the voice acting fans and the actors themselves, we wouldn't have been able to achieve this or it would have been very challenging.

We have had many discussions in recent months within the team, about whether we should continue to have a support function for the YouTube channel, considering our low activity on social media. We have decided to close such a possibility. We don't hide the fact that the prevailing atmosphere also played a significant role in making this decision. All previous donations and expenses related to the mod development have always been (and still are) documented and available for our supporters.

4. Recruitment.

Recently, we have received various inquiries from individuals willing to help in co-creating the modification but ultimately did not receive a response from us. In light of the recent events, we have also decided to keep the recruitment to our team closed. ALL previous individuals who have contacted us in the past months will receive feedback from us.

5. A few words in conclusion

We admit that many of the fragments of the mod presented by us as completed have undergone reediting. We understand any criticism regarding this aspect and see plenty of room for improvement.

The planned release in 2020 was bound to fail given the way we had been working, and time has verified that deceiving ourselves would lead to such a result. The premature announcement of the release date was evident even in the, in our opinion, dissatisfying "release trailer".

The project was never a scam or a ticket to anything; anyone who thought that way, earlier working on the project, likely encountered a harsh reality. The gratification for all of us would be the release of a cool mod that will at least partially appeal to the fans of the earlier Gothic games.

Despite not having a completely clean sheet, we don't want to transform the project into something else, create divisions, or pretend that nothing has happened, as it wouldn't change anything, and the team is still ready to take action.

Amidst all this, though in rather atypical circumstances, we have reached a happy ending. We will be gladly responding and clarifying any unclear aspects if needed.

For the power of magic!

"The History of Khorinis" Team.

Nothing to see here, folks, just give us another decade or so to polish up.

 

[Spike]

Would you, fair codexians, recommend I play this now instead of waiting for the hueg 2.0 update? I usually only play big RPGs like this once, but I wonder if it's worth it to play now (after Enderal) and just replay it when they release the survival aspects. The reason I want to wait is because of the new enemies they are going to introduce. The team themselves are telling me to play now but I wanted to see what you would recommend, lads.

 

[Krivol]

Would you, fair codexians, recommend I play this now instead of waiting for the hueg 2.0 update? I usually only play big RPGs like this once, but I wonder if it's worth it to play now (after Enderal) and just replay it when they release the survival aspects. The reason I want to wait is because of the new enemies they are going to introduce. The team themselves are telling me to play now but I wanted to see what you would recommend, lads.

Play now, replay when 2.0 is out.

 

[Paul_cz]

Would you, fair codexians, recommend I play this now instead of waiting for the hueg 2.0 update? I usually only play big RPGs like this once, but I wonder if it's worth it to play now (after Enderal) and just replay it when they release the survival aspects. The reason I want to wait is because of the new enemies they are going to introduce. The team themselves are telling me to play now but I wanted to see what you would recommend, lads.

If I had known there were more updates on the way I would have waited. I totally loved the game but yeah. I thought it was finished when I played it.

The game is huge though so I do not think I will replay it anytime soon.

 

[sosmoflux]

Anyone got intel on Update 2 & Hardcore mode?

 

[cvv]

Anyone got intel on Update 2 & Hardcore mode?

The new features include: -Expanded world incl. new locations, secrets, events, enemies, weapons, armor -New customization options: facial hair and hairstyles for the protagonist and skins for the dog -Expansion of character builds, among showcased things were new spells incl ones that appear to be fire magic which was previously unavailable, new enchanted arrows, new potions like damage deflection potions, summon upgrades at shrine of beliar, rune upgrading -Minigames: arm wrestling, card game, tic tac toe and a shell game -Hardcore DLC, this was announced already but this is the first actual preview and it looks like it expands enemy behaviors with stuff like human opponents being able to kick you offbalance and roll and trolls throwing stones at you -Fixes and QOL changes

 

[sosmoflux]

Yeah but when is it coming out

 

[Junmarko]

Yeah but when is it coming out

Last I heard it was sometime late this year.

 

[Jvegi]

I wonder if it's worth it to play

No.

 

[Junmarko]

I wonder if it's worth it to play

No.

^This bloke paints his toenails, so understandable he would not like Archolos.

It is absolutely worth playing, 2.0 looks like it will add quite a lot of content though, so if you can be bothered waiting I probably would.

 

[Darth Roxor]

i don't paint my toenails and i didn't like archolos either

 

[thesecret1]

i don't paint my toenails and i didn't like archolos either

You are a disgrace to your country.

 

[Konjad]

i don't paint my toenails and i didn't like archolos either

No wonder, you have played Arcania so long that you've finished it, so it must have left an irreversible brain damage hence you can't enjoy quality anymore.

Actually, nevermind, your opinions about RPGs were shit long before you've played Arcania, so it must have been something else. After all, something drove you to complete Arcania.

 

[Ryzer]

i don't paint my toenails and i didn't like archolos either

No wonder, you have played Arcania so long that you've finished it, so it must have left an irreversible brain damage hence you can't enjoy quality anymore.

Actually, nevermind, your opinions about RPGs were shit long before you've played Arcania, so it must have been something else. After all, something drove you to complete Arcania.

NOOOOOOO How dare you don't like our game full of FedEx quests? NOOOO

 

[Konjad]

i don't paint my toenails and i didn't like archolos either

No wonder, you have played Arcania so long that you've finished it, so it must have left an irreversible brain damage hence you can't enjoy quality anymore.

Actually, nevermind, your opinions about RPGs were shit long before you've played Arcania, so it must have been something else. After all, something drove you to complete Arcania.

NOOOOOOO How dare you don't like our game full of FedEx quests? NOOOO

Dude, he finished Arcania.