The last weekend of August saw the 10th edition of Moddertreffen – the traditional meeting of Gothic modders in Germany. The history of these gatherings goes all the way back to 2008 and, like this year, they were usually held at Castle Hessenstein. I attended and took the opportunity to present previously unpublished material from the Golden Gate 2: Heart of the Goddess modification under development, as well as watching the progress of other projects.
Das Wappen, Gothic-UnZENity, Gothic Tales, Gothic Online Untold Chapters – at Moddertreffen, attendees had the opportunity to see presentations of these modifications as well, and even take part in testing. The creator of the Ninja expansion, the coordinator of the Gothic Reloaded Mod project, and the creator and long-time tester of the Legend of Ahssûn modification were also at the meeting.
Projects
Das Wappen
Players got a big update on the progress in an article from 2 months ago. In turn, being at Moddertreffen, everyone was able to play its current version – which I also took advantage of. As part of the presentation, the creator of the modification – aebo – played it, explaining the implemented mechanics.
Its author is very fond of animations, which is why, as he said, he created more than 100 of them in the modification. What impressed us (i.e. the modders present there) the most was the animation played by two characters simultaneously and synchronously. You can see them in the video below (from 59:40 to 1:00:00).
This as well as the other presentations were recorded using the “guerrilla” method. But you can still see a lot of Gothic content in them. As well as feeling the atmosphere of the meeting. Before watching, be prepared for a shaky camera, noise, or rather bustle (mostly in German), sometimes bad lighting and beer.
While playing Das Wappen and exploring the world, I occasionally had the feeling that I had already been here. Certain parts of the game world contain fragments of the Colony, but as you go further you see something new. Just like when playing Das Wappen Prologue, it felt like I was playing Gothic 1 again. However, before we can all see and play this modification in the native language, a translation is needed in addition to publication.
Golden Gate 2: Goddess Heart
Most of this presentation was a compilation of already published material, but this time with German subtitles. I also showed material new to all players. In the course of the gameplay, Morris – the main character – will take part in the Hunting Feast, which also consists of a couple of competitions. One of them is a duel titled “Don’t drink with me?”. During this, the task is to drink all the bottles of booze faster than your opponent (footage from 11:25 to 14:06).
In this excerpt you could also hear the soundtrack of the hunters’ camp, by Adam Dzieżyk. As well as necessarily seeing part of the camp itself. The player’s opponent in the competition takes another bottle, which gives the impression that his behaviour is intelligent. After drinking a certain amount of booze, Morris as well as the NPCs become drunk. This makes it difficult to walk and you then have to be careful with every step to stay on time.
In the shot from 15:18 you can see objects invisible to the player in the game. Thanks to which bottles are set up, NPCs can move and the camera is played before the first duel.
Gothic UnZENity
The developers are aiming to port Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 to the Unity engine. They are currently focusing on VR1 implementation. JaXt0r – the lead developer of Gothic-UnZENity – brought with him a VR kit containing goggles and two controllers so that everyone could test the current state of their project. Below you can watch the tester play Gothic in VR, while everyone was able to watch what he was doing, on screen.
The image we see projected by the projector is the same as the one viewed at the same moment by aebo (who was testing at the time). In this shot, the tester can be seen grabbing objects from the table in the throne room in the Castle from the Valley of Mines and throwing them (excerpt from 34:03 to 34:33).
In the following excerpt from the video, you can see (from 39:26) how JaXt0r presented how VR in Gothic works and the team’s further plans. The VR mode is to be implemented – in addition to the original Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 – also in modifications, multiplayer and COOP mode.
Gothic Tales and Gothic Online Untold Chapters
Gothic Tales is a pen-and-paper game, the author of which has prepared on a website the ready-to-download materials required to play it. It also consists of 3D models that can be printed with a suitable printer. The project is entirely in German. Interestingly, exactly on the same weekend, a Gothic Tales fan convention also took place in a castle: the castle of Tannrod.
Gothic Online Untold Chapters is, as the name suggests, a Gothic online server. If you want to play it, you can find out more in the project forum. The presentation of this project was also recorded and, like the previous ones, in German. However, you can watch what the game looks like:
Moddertreffen
10 participants, 3 days, 5 projects and 2 crates of Limobier beer – it is not only because of these numbers that I am glad I decided to go to the modders’ meeting. I had the opportunity to meet in person with people I have only written with online so far. I come from Poland and if such a meeting takes place in my country, I will definitely attend.
You can see all the photos from the event at moddertreffen.de. Thank you to Tobias Wolfgart for capturing the event also in video form.
