At that point, it wasn't clear that these camps would become the old, the new and the swamp camp. My second idea was a village on poles in the swamps and a third camp ('well, it ought to be at least three camps') that should be somehow different. I planned it to become a castle with an outer ring. A round circle with the old camp in the middle.

a goal for the player (get out of prison) and a motivation for the NPCs. Everyone liked the idea and it solved three problems at once: 1. First I thought about an island but then I came up with idea of a barrier (inspired by Escape from New York/L.A.). The world mustn't be too large (this would have been too much work) so I needed a plausible reason to limit its size. The vivid world: The game was supposed to have a plausible, not too nice (!), rather 'serious' world. The beginning: Three young programmers visit us and (inspired by Ultima Unterworld) want to create a 3D RPG. So I am able to say rather precisely which parts were 'stolen' and which were not. When we founded PB in 1997 (we were only four people by then), I was the only storywriter in the team and had to (or was allowed to!) come up with the setting and the main story. His posting is in German but you can find the translation below: Mike Hoge, the lead game designer of the Gothic series, visited our forums and talked a little bit about how he and the other PB employees created the world of Gothic.

Gothic 2 ring des wassers