I will admit, I have never really played the first Gothic, it was one of the few games where I just couldnt get past controls. But Gothic 2 just kept giving me the impression I have described above. After your post, I am seriously considering giving first Gothic another shot...

And as for Skyrim, areas actually have a minimum and maximum level (yea it scales if your level is between those - however, after you enter an area, it remains locked at the level you first entered it) there and if you never encountered an enemy you could not beat, you should consider yourself lucky - I got my ass kicked on several occasions already, and a few opponents I only beat by spamming healing potions. Still, dragons always scale and it sucks, Ill give you that - a mod is bound to be realesed for that sooner or later.

What? I got killed at low levels by high level enemies pretty often. Sabertooth tigers were especially brutal if you tried going North too quickly.

It's not like I didn't die occasionally. But that was mostly due to being unprepared or not watching my health. The way potions work is also not encouraging a "carefull" approach. As long as you have enough potions, nearly no enemy is unbeatable.

Oh, and I have a correction to make: giants and mammoths. But I never went after them on low levels, but I once stumbled onto a giant during a dragon fight. Instakill. I still avoid them whenever I can.

Maybe I was a bit fast in my judgement, thinking back, I did avoid the "bigger ones" during the first few hours (outside, that is). But I never felt the thrill or fear I had while traversing through the forrest in Gothic at night.

And maybe playing a "sneaky backstabbing char" is too easy. Most fights I win by backstabbing or "backbowing". I haven't yet tryed how an two handed heavy armor char would fare.

Anyway, Skyrim is an awesome game and I'm having great fun with it. Way, way better than Oblivion ever was. Especially with the new textures it looks marvellous, imo (although load times increased). Never the less, it looks better and runs faster than Obivion on the same machine, that alone warrants praise.

Skyrim will chew you up and spit you out unless your a mage... i had to scrap 2 chars because i messed up there skills... being a archer with backup dual handed is insanely tough

unless your a min/maxer then whats the point your going to be disappointed regardless then...

Gothic is brutally, brutally difficult. And the controls are indeed horrible. On top of that, you can easily "misslevel" your char, as there is only a fixef amount of XP to gain. Not a single respawn in the entire game (only during fixed chapter changes, but there are only around five of them and they hardly add new animals). The atmoshpere was everything for me in this game, but I don't know if I would go back again now. And if I would, I probably would use cheats or at least a guide. I'm no longer that hard core ;-).

But it is by far one of the most rewarding RPGs to play and especially to win.
What? I'm playing a lvl 41 archer/one handed/sneaker assassin with the occasional blocking. My perks went mostly into one handed/light armor/archery with focus on health and stanima development. And I'm doing fine. I never really grinded any skills and maybe trained only each five levels, especially non combat skills (that might cause problems). So far only sneaking is at 100, one handed at 80ish and archery at 70ish. Using an ebony bow(elven and glass arrows mostly) and chillrend as mainstay weapons (and an ebony dagger that does the insane 30x damage with Dark Brotherhood gloves and perks).

I can avoid most open fights and whenever I'm really in trouble my potions last. I'm having a blast with the game and can't really complain about the difficulty. The only "reloads" I need to make is if I stumble into a camp of enemies and can't take them out one by one.

Well I just fast traveled away from the wolves with out the a fight which I didnt know I could do so thank you.


Oh yeah, and I play BOTH the gothic series and TES thanks you very much