Okay, we did it. If, after our video about the impressive Gothic-2-Mod Legend of Ahssûn, if you felt like playing the role-playing game and wanted to download it, then it may not have worked. And GlobeLiveMedia is not entirely innocent of that. But neither are you.
Before you get out your swords and maces to give us a full pound (you didn’t really think we’d skip the joke, did you?) – let’s explain first, please! Our report caused a huge rush to the World of Gothic forum, where you can download these and many other mods.
The servers couldn’t withstand the load and even now downloads are only possible to a limited extent.
We spoke to forum admin Stefan Bollmann, who explained to us what exactly went wrong – and why it was both a source of joy and frustration.
There are even more curious stories about GLM and Gothic. Did you know, for example, that Petra is probably responsible for controlling the mouse?
Why are the servers buckled?
According to the admin, the giant mod Legend of Ahssûn has so far been flying pretty much under the radar, even with many die-hard Gothic fans, although he – like us – considers it a great highlight.
We have also published this video on the GLM Youtube channel, where it is currently almost 200,000 views. Apparently Legend of Ahssûn hits a nerve with many, because all of a sudden interested players stormed into the Gothic forum and started to download the mod. And unfortunately that was too much of a burden for the infrastructure.
It probably wouldn’t have happened before: At the time of the release of Gothic 3, World of Gothic had significantly more servers available. In 2006 the number of visitors was correspondingly high, so the costs could be reduced. Today it looks different, Gothic is no longer an issue for the masses. The capacities were reduced accordingly – nobody expected a sudden rush like this.
Incidentally, the operators of WoG do not earn any money with their work on the forum and describe the whole thing as a hobby project, which of course cannot afford excessively expensive hardware. Nevertheless, it is now being upgraded, as Bollmann explains:
“If we don’t make a minus, we are already satisfied. Because the number of visitors has continued to decline over the years, we have also reduced the expensive technology and have done well with it so far. Only the current rush could not have been foreseen. We have now rented a new server again and hope that the situation will soon relax a little.”
“Basically, the interest in Gothic and especially in mods is super great, even if it made us and especially our server admins work at first. So many great modifications have appeared in the past few years that they all deserve a lot more attention than just being celebrated by the hardcore fans who drop by regularly anyway. Legend of Ahssûn has now succeeded in doing that. You can try that with other mods.”
Even if many visitors were annoyed because the download did not work, the mood is not consistently bad.
Bollmann hopes that maybe people will find even more exciting mods when they visit the forum. Take a look, for example, at the huge Archolos mod that is supposed to offer 40 hours of role-playing.
Can I download Legend of Ahssûn again?
After the server has been restarted after the crash, it works again – however, all download slots are currently still occupied. That means you may have to be patient, but the second server is already running. Or you have a look at this thread in the forum, where users share useful tips that could make it work faster.
In general, the members of WoG are very helpful, some even make their private servers available to host patches and mods that are in high demand. If you have specific questions about downloads or the mod, the chances are good that they will help you.
More Gothic? If you want to pass the waiting time, then take a look at our five-part plus report about the turbulent development of Gothic.
Or you can listen to us on the anniversary podcast, as we indulge in memories of the valley of mines – and talk about mail from the lawyer.