Things to come, information for you! news

As the summary states, I will now write a description of the mod the best I can.

1. Movement, combat, looting and gathering system.

• As all you Gothic veterans probably already know, this is a third person "Hack And Slash" style game. You will now move your character around the world using the W A S and D keys, and attack/block with the mouse buttons. Left click to attack, right click to block. The blocking system will be similar to that of PVK2. Hold forward for a high block, backwards for a low block (we might switch those around, depending on what is more convenient), left to block to the left, right to block to the right, and attacking works the same way. Blocking works with everything except magic. Magic will be used by holding the left mouse button. The spell is cast wherever you aim, just like firing a bow. Looting monsters, opening chests and doors, gathering and everything else you always did in Gothic was a very important aspect of the game, and probably the most fun! This system can be mastered with nothing but the use key ("E").

2. Character equipment and stats.

• We will have all the original Gothic stats and the same skill system (buying experience in a skill using learning points etc.). Equipping items will be like in the original game, press TAB to bring up your inventory, and select an item to equip using the use key. If enough requests come in, we might make movement and selection of items mouse controlled, but we are trying to keep it as close to the original as we can.3.

3. Being knocked out and dying.

• If you get knocked out, you will be unconcious for about 30-60 seconds, and if during that time your opponent looted your body, you will lose 5% of the money you have on you. If you are killed, you will respawn at the start zone or at your house (I'll explain that in a bit). You will not lose anything, unless you were looted, in which case you will lose 5% of your money.

4. For a MMORPG, thieving system was a bit unfair on players when they had their stuff stolen all the time, and I'll tell you how we sorted that out.

• You will still be able to lockpick, pickpocket, sneak and so on, but to make it more fair, you will never steal what a player actually OWNS. If you manage to break into a chest, it will have random stuff in it, which will refresh after a day. Same goes for pickpocketing a player or an NPC. You can still get caught though, only this is a bit different too. The guards are extremely strong, and you cannot defeat them alone. If you are killed by a guard, you will respawn in the jail. Depending on what you did to deserve being arrested (stealing, attacking etc.), you will spend from 5 to 30 minutes in jail. A feature we might add in the future is where if you get caught too many times, a warrant will be put out for your arrest, and players will be able to hunt you down and bring you to the jail for a reward. If we do add this (and I hope we do!), it will work something like this: Get caught 3 times in one day and a warrant will be issued. This warrant expires after 6 hours of gameplay.

5. The storyline

• The storyline will be true to Gothic. You are thrown into the game, and Diego is there to meet you. You will be able to customize the look of your character, and then Diego will ask for your name. From there, the line of quests begin. The storyline will progress, and once you have completed enough quests, you will be able to join a camp, and here is where it's a bit different. A MMORPG should never end as it did in Gothic, so this mod will be set in the time before the original game. But I've had an idea: if more than about 80% of the players like the idea, it will happen. We thought of making an event that happens after a certain period of time (which will be decided in the open beta) where the nameless hero is plunged in and does his thing like in Gothic, but you have the choice to follow him and help him in his quests and, eventually, to defeat The Sleeper. This event would take one or two weeks, after which, the players will be deleted and everything will start over. If anyone has ever played Diablo 2, it would be sort of like a ladder, maybe even with a ranking system.

6. The way we will handle the players and their information, and a short info about houseing plans.

• We are using a sql DB for this, so the server sends your information to the sql DB for saving, and when a player joins the world, it will load his/her character information. The world of Gothic: Eternus is split into zones. If a player reaches the end of a zone, he will join a server with the corresponding zone that has a free slot.

• Earlier I mentioned houses... The system isn't fully developed yet, but basicly you will be able to buy a house, in which you will have a chest which you can upgrade with better locks and the option to buy new items for your house. you will be able to store items in your chest and access them the next time you play. Many aspects of houses are undecided. Things may be changed or added.

Remember, this can and probably will change, depending on player/community feedback.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you are as excited about the mod as I am! :D