unplayable

[ElectromagneticWarlock]

I finished the first gothic and it was an excellent game, even with its bugs and awkward controls. Now, gothic 2 is horrible. There are billions of bugs and some of them break the progression. I am trying it by the fourth time and my char is level 14 (82 strength, 49% two-handed skill, carrying that Paladin Two-Hander you find in a cave). Now the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Lares does not have the dialog option to take me to the water mages, so I cannot start that quest for the ornaments and the addon. Moreover, Cavalorn was not present in the Tavern’s ceremony and he is not with Vatras as he was supposed to be. He is in that place where you find him by the first time, completely naked. Yes, I have the recommended patches from the community, without them it is impossible to run the game on my machine. I am thinking about read the story in some place and then go directly to gothic 3. Besides, gothic 2 is too farming for my taste, too green-and-brown… I do not know. If someone knows where I can find the story in pdf, please give me a link.

[Carver]

Cavalorn doesn't isn't supposed to be on the meeting, and yes he should be in his underwear.
Did it still finished the quest for you?

Lares, I'm not sure though I believe there was a workaround. I can't find it at the moment.

As for the story I couldn't find a good description so here is mine:
Once you find all the ornaments the water mages activate the portal which takes you to a secluded part of the island. Here you encounter a group of pirates whom you do a couple of quests for in order to gain access to access to a camp in a nearby valley that consists of former prisoners of the colony. The Old Camp specifically. They are being lead by the former ore lord Raven, who is looking for a powerful weapon (The Claw of Beliar) that was created by an ancient civilization that lived on the same part of the island. They were ultimatly destroyed by Adanos for reasons I can't remember at the moment. It's been a while.

So the Nameless Hero had to infiltrate the camp and gain some reputation in order to get to the upper part of the camp, defeat Raven and obtain the Claw of Beliar.
The water mages are there to study the ancient civilization, and they assist you in your quest to get the Claw.

This should cover the basics of the Night of the Raven expansion.
I might forget or skip some parts from the main quest.

Afterwards you return to Khorinis and manage to gain access from lord Hagen to the former penal colony. A number of paladins are holed up in the former Old Camp, the outer ring has been destroyed by a dragon leaving only the castle standing, being besieged by orcs and a number of their people trapped outside when they were mining for ore.

After fighting yourself a way into the castle you are tasked with finding the missing paladins to get a report of how much ore they managed to collect. Turns out they barely managed to get anything.

A couple of minor quests later you have to find and defeat all four dragons located in the Valley. But, you're not alone on this. A number of mercenaries from Onar's farm have come to hunt the dragons and gain glory and some of them will help you fighting two of the dragons.
Once they're all slain you need to assemble a crew for the ship you just 'gained' ,and sail to the Island of Irdorath with a sea chart you obtained earlier from the monastery's catacombs.

Once you arrive on Irdorath you'll find that there are orcs lizardmen on the island, guarding it.
After journying you encounter the Undead Dragon. The big boss of the game and strongest of the dragons. Once you kill him Xardas will appear and absorb it's power. He tried this earlier in Gothic 1 with the Sleeper, but he was too weak after teleporting himself.

Nameless and company sail of into the sunset, leading to the opening scene of Gothic 3.

[ElectromagneticWarlock]

Yes, I found a patch named Ironkeep and it has resolved the problem by making the Lares’s dialog accessible again (it changed the textures too). However, my actual char is not my first, I was playing as an archer before and he was level 16 in the pirate camp. There was no bug then, I first made all the way with Lares to deliver the first part of the ornament and then I went to the Tavern for joining the Ring of Water. In that occasion, Cavalorn was in the Tavern. With my actual char, I made the joining ceremony before talk to Lares (I did so because I wanted the armour), and Cavalorn was not there. Now I am in peace with gothic 2, however, if I find any other quest breaking bug I swear I will never play this game again. Do you know what is great? In gothic 1, by the end, I found a teleport rune to the fire magicians. Then I went there and killed all guards an even killed Gomez and Raven. Now I have to kill Raven a second time!