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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings |OT| Plough 'Em All

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Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
jim-jam bongs said:
My excitement has me trying to finish the first game before this. In the interests of expediency, should I bother with side quests or just focus on the main stuff?

What chapter are you on?

I recommend doing most in chapter 2 since a lot of them play into the investigation, but there are quite a few that I skipped in the later chapters, especially on chapter 4 since they required a lot of gathering. Beyond chapter 2 I would recommend assembling the Raven armor (it's supposed to carry over) but many of them can be skipped since the more minor quests aren't likely to have an impact in TW2.
 

JWong

Banned
Okay, I should get through a full playthrough of Witcher. Any good walkthroughs that aren't crap? Cuz I think I remember trying to use the useless Gamefaqs ones which don't explain consequences well.
 

Van Buren

Member
jim-jam bongs said:
My excitement has me trying to finish the first game before this. In the interests of expediency, should I bother with side quests or just focus on the main stuff?

The way how Witcher does quests is that it splits the Main Quest into various threads that are weaved together as subquests. These subquests generally take place in the same locations of the sidequests, so it's probably easier to just collect them all and complete them in one go.
 
Kyaw said:
Its probably about the size of your first or something. But for a bust i expect to be a full scale one. :/

But then the CE with the bust isnt exactly that expensive.
I'm guessing we only get to download the game manual, guides and stuff on the release date from GoG?

Yeah, just saw a video of the head. It is right around fist sized. Which is actually much better than a full sized bust, unless you planned the headphone holder idea.
What I'm really excited about is a full sized! artbook. Can't remember the last time that happened. 200 pages, too!
 

woober

Member
JWong said:
Okay, I should get through a full playthrough of Witcher. Any good walkthroughs that aren't crap? Cuz I think I remember trying to use the useless Gamefaqs ones which don't explain consequences well.

If you've done a playthrough before and know the story, this is a good reference that I'm using for my 2nd playthrough:

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Decision_Checklist

Decisions are separated by chapter. Consequences are listed and they tell you how far reaching they get.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
SerArthurDayne said:
Yeah, just saw a video of the head. It is right around fist sized. Which is actually much better than a full sized bust, unless you planned the headphone holder idea.
What I'm really excited about is a full sized! artbook. Can't remember the last time that happened. 200 pages, too!

Not just a cheap artbook either, full of juicy info about development and character bios and more.
 

JWong

Banned
woober said:
If you've done a playthrough before and know the story, this is a good reference that I'm using for my 2nd playthrough:

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Decision_Checklist

Decisions are separated by chapter. Consequences are listed and they tell you how far reaching they get.
Hmm I think I remember using that before.

All I'm concerned about is sex cards and siding with Triss if it's between her and that bitch, Shani.

Thanks.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I should be able to run it Ultra, but I'll be making a tough choice between better AA or Ultra textures. Not upgrading from my 5850 till the next card series.
If it can fit in my case, WTF is up with these foot-longs?
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I've only just finished Chapter I (the end of which finally made me understand why people love the game so much), and I guess I was asking because the notice-board quests were a little pedestrian, but I guess that I may as well take them since I'll complete them in the course of doing the main quest as you folks pointed out. I really don't want to miss anything important but obviously I've left it until the last minute to play which leaves me with few options.

It's really grown on me already. I love the little touches, like how the peasants rush for shelter when it starts to rain. Although that did lead to a funny scripting bug when I pissed off the dwarf outside the inn while it was raining. Whenever I spoke to him he'd say "fuck off!" then walk away and into the rain, pause a few seconds then go "oh shit it's raining" and run back to where I was standing.
 
JWong said:
Okay, I should get through a full playthrough of Witcher. Any good walkthroughs that aren't crap? Cuz I think I remember trying to use the useless Gamefaqs ones which don't explain consequences well.
You doing it very wrong my friend. The Witcher is a very straight forward game for you to ruin it with a walkthrough. Adding to the fact that the choices made by the user, even if ends up not going like expected, are an important part of what makes the game special.

Don't get me wrong but your actitude towards the game gives the image that its some kind of chore you must deal with and not an activity for extracting some enjoyment out of it.
 

Salaadin

Member
Dice said:
I should be able to run it Ultra, but I'll be making a tough choice between better AA or Ultra textures. Not upgrading from my 5850 till the next card series.
If it can fit in my case, WTF is up with these foot-longs?

Im planning the same thing. I was *this* close to getting a 6000 series card to replace my 5850 for TW2 but I talked myself out of it.

Has the ESRB description been posted yet? Its kinda humourous, minor spoilers:

This is a role-playing game in which players assume the role of Geralt, a monster slayer who must hunt down an assassin to clear his own name. As players complete quests, they use swords and magic spells to kill enemy soldiers and fantastical creatures (e.g., specters, harpies, spider-like monsters) in melee-style combat; attacks are often accompanied by slashing sounds and screams of pain. Blood-splatter effects occur when enemies are hit, and damage sometimes results in dismemberment or decapitation—blood stains and body parts occasionally appear in the environment. Other cutscenes depict gore and more intense acts of violence: a close-up view of a severed head; a restrained woman's eyes getting gouged out (off-screen); a character being castrated (not depicted) before his throat is slit. During the course of the game, some female characters are depicted topless; there is also a fleeting image of pubic hair as a woman dives into the water. Players can initiate brief cutscene sequences that depict varying degrees of sexual activity: a topless woman rocking on top of man; a man caressing a woman's back; a man pushing up against a woman's posterior—sexual moaning sounds can be heard, though the camera cuts away from explicit sexual acts. Some sequences depict a cocaine-like substance being cut into lines; another scene shows a man's back as he snorts the substance. Language such as 'f**k,' 'sh*t,' and 'c*nt' can be heard in the dialogue.
 
Refreshment.01 said:
You doing it very wrong my friend. The Witcher is a very straight forward game for you to ruin it with a walkthrough. Adding to the fact that the choices made by the user, even if ends up not going like expected, are an important part of what makes the game special.

Don't get me wrong but your actitude towards the game gives the image that its some kind of chore you must deal with and not an activity for extracting some enjoyment out of it.

Listen to this man and his great wisdom.
A decent rpg gets ruined by a walkthrough, and the Witcher especially so.

Just go along for the ride, see how things work out, accept the consequences of your decisions, have fun seeing how your mistakes play out.
That is the WHOLE point of this game, there is no frigging other point to playing it.

You can use the wiki to look up bits and bobs when you are stuck or don't know what a certain item is for or whatever, but for the love of god don't ruin this game.
 

Zeliard

Member
JWong said:
Okay, I should get through a full playthrough of Witcher. Any good walkthroughs that aren't crap? Cuz I think I remember trying to use the useless Gamefaqs ones which don't explain consequences well.

Dear god man, what are you saying
 
Zeliard said:
Dear god man, what are you saying

Bioware has literally broken gamers.
People now think that they need to look up choice and consequence in a game to not fuck up their savegame, corrupt their savegame or make their companions leave or miss out on the main armor sets.

Kind of like I'm damaged goods after final fantasy VIII decided to throw the first summon at you during the first boss fight half an hour into the game, without telling you that you had to steal the summon from the boss or never get it at all...
 
Salaadin said:
Im planning the same thing. I was *this* close to getting a 6000 series card to replace my 5850 for TW2 but I talked myself out of it.

Has the ESRB description been posted yet? Its kinda humourous, minor spoilers:

I think a 5850 will handle this game pretty much perfectly at 1920x1080 on Ultra... if it doesn't, I'll be surprised. You should get a level of AA as well.

The great thing about my 27" iMac for a monitor is that the pixel density is so high that even without AA it doesn't really suffer terribly from jaggies.

But - that said, I'm mostly likely going to end up playing this game on my 50" Plasma while sitting on the couch holding my wireless Xbox 360 controller at 1920x1080 with 4xAA at Ultra and it will be FUCKING GLORIOUS!

Re: The ESRB posting, "clear his name" wtf? We all know the King was there and saw Geralt save the King? That's gotta be wrong... It's not like the ESRB would really get it through right?

Coming back into this thread after making the LA Noire OT makes me realise how much more I am looking forward to Witcher 2 than LA Noire!
 

dwebo

Member
I don't really see what's the problem with at least using this spoiler checklist. It doesn't really contain many story spoilers - just how to sex up all the ladies and important missables like that.

There's hardly enough time to even play through TW1 once before Tuesday, so you might as well make sure you see everything you want to see and not have to replay.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
dwebo said:
I don't really see what's the problem with at least using this spoiler checklist. It doesn't really contain many story spoilers - just how to sex up all the ladies and important missables like that.

There's hardly enough time to even play through TW1 once before Tuesday, so you might as well make sure you see everything you want to see and not have to replay.

Aw man. I'm still towards the beginning of Chapter III. Can I do it?
 

Van Buren

Member
ColonialRaptor said:
Re: The ESRB posting, "clear his name" wtf? We all know the King was there and saw Geralt save the King? That's gotta be wrong... It's not like the ESRB would really get it through right?

Spoilers for Witcher 1 follow. Do not highlight if you have not seen the ending of the game.
Foltest's power base was decidedly shaky after the Grandmaster's numerous plays at seizing power. It might be referring to Geralt being framed for the murder of the king seen in the initial reveal.

RedSwirl said:
Aw man. I'm still towards the beginning of Chapter III. Can I do it?

It's very much possible since the remaining chapters are short in comparison to Chapter 2.
 
dwebo said:
I don't really see what's the problem with at least using this spoiler checklist. It doesn't really contain many story spoilers - just how to sex up all the ladies and important missables like that.

There's hardly enough time to even play through TW1 once before Tuesday, so you might as well make sure you see everything you want to see and not have to replay.

I'm enjoying TW1 more than enough atm to just keep playing till I'm finished with it , and then start on TW2.

I see no reason to HAVE to play tw2 on release day, especially when still enjoying the prequel.
 

dwebo

Member
RedSwirl said:
Aw man. I'm still towards the beginning of Chapter III. Can I do it?
Suuure, that's like almost halfway through. I meant more getting a full 30-40hr game run within a week might be challenging for some folks.


SneakyStephan said:
I'm enjoying TW1 more than enough atm to just keep playing till I'm finished with it , and then start on TW2.

I see no reason to HAVE to play tw2 on release day, especially when still enjoying the prequel.
But think about all the sex cards you're potentially missing!
 
I finally got around to watching some of the gameplay videos. Well, I'm won over. I'll be getting this game. The environments are way too good looking to ignore. My only issue is how bogged down in fantasy is it? LOTR level or less involved? I'm just not much of a fantasy guy.
 

Salaadin

Member
ColonialRaptor said:
I think a 5850 will handle this game pretty much perfectly at 1920x1080 on Ultra... if it doesn't, I'll be surprised. You should get a level of AA as well.

The great thing about my 27" iMac for a monitor is that the pixel density is so high that even without AA it doesn't really suffer terribly from jaggies.

But - that said, I'm mostly likely going to end up playing this game on my 50" Plasma while sitting on the couch holding my wireless Xbox 360 controller at 1920x1080 with 4xAA at Ultra and it will be FUCKING GLORIOUS!

Re: The ESRB posting, "clear his name" wtf? We all know the King was there and saw Geralt save the King? That's gotta be wrong... It's not like the ESRB would really get it through right?

Coming back into this thread after making the LA Noire OT makes me realise how much more I am looking forward to Witcher 2 than LA Noire!

Yeah Im not too worried about my 5850. Its a good card and has been great to me game-wise. I only thought about changing before TW2 specs were released and I was obsessing over making it look good even though I had no idea what it really required.
 

Complistic

Member
I think guides are fine but only after you've played through a game blind your first time. Looking stuff up on your first play through is the worst thing you can do.
 

Zeliard

Member
The Big Rig said:
I finally got around to watching some of the gameplay videos. Well, I'm won over. I'll be getting this game. The environments are way too good looking to ignore. My only issue is how bogged down in fantasy is it? LOTR level or less involved? I'm just not much of a fantasy guy.

It most certainly is not LOTR-style high fantasy. It's much closer to low fantasy. Something like what Bioware attempted with Dragon Age but just turned it into LOTR redux.
 

Van Buren

Member
The Big Rig said:
I finally got around to watching some of the gameplay videos. Well, I'm won over. I'll be getting this game. The environments are way too good looking to ignore. My only issue is how bogged down in fantasy is it? LOTR level or less involved? I'm just not much of a fantasy guy.

There's magic and magical creatures, but it isn't high fantasy. If anything, the first game was driven by morally ambiguous social and political issues.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
ColonialRaptor said:
I think a 5850 will handle this game pretty much perfectly at 1920x1080 on Ultra... if it doesn't, I'll be surprised. You should get a level of AA as well.

I don't think that's true, we had impressions of a 3.5Ghz X4 + 6850 which is only a tiny bit slower than a 5850 and it was said that it ran a bit jerkier on Ultra than on High, it didn't say Ultra was unplayable or anything, but just that it was a bit worse, aka not perfect.

I'm not going to bet even a 5870 would run ultra perfectly, and that's around 15% faster than a 5850. Though it did say a 6970 ran ultra perfectly, and that's not tooo much faster than a 5870, so we'll see.
 

JWong

Banned
Zeliard said:
Dear god man, what are you saying
Dear god man, I've finished the game 4 times already.

I don't want to think about wasting time screwing up what I don't want for my import save.
 

Salaadin

Member
Minsc said:
I don't think that's true, we had impressions of a 3.5Ghz X4 + 6850 which is only a tiny bit slower than a 5850 and it was said that it ran a bit jerkier on Ultra than on High, it didn't say Ultra was unplayable or anything, but just that it was a bit worse, aka not perfect.

I'm not going to bet even a 5870 would run ultra perfectly, and that's around 15% faster than a 5850. Though it did say a 6970 ran ultra perfectly, and that's not tooo much faster than a 5870, so we'll see.

Yeah Im not thinking its going to be perfect but the full game will have individual tweaking so Im hoping"perfect" might just be a small graphics change away. If THIS LEAKED CONFIGURATOR SHOT is real, then they are allowing a lot of little tweaks here and there. I usually dont play with ALL of the bells and whistles although I do crank things up as high as I can. I really want the best textures and am willing to turn down a few other things to get a stable FPS.



gillFTR said:
Where does it say we can play one day earlier?

I emailed them about it and they replied:

Hello,

The rest of the game will be available the moment it is released. This will happen on May 16, 10 PM GMT and, to my knowledge, is the fastest you can get The Witcher 2 anywhere, at least as far as digital distribution is concerned. Having almost the entire game on your drive at that point helps a lot, too. ;)

May 16th, 10PM GMT = May 16th 6PM EST (3PM PST).
Minsc also posted a similar quote but I cant find it.
 

Zeliard

Member
JWong said:
Dear god man, I've finished the game 4 times already.

I don't want to think about wasting time screwing up what I don't want for my import save.

Individually hand-picking decisions while already knowing their consequences for import?

Tsk tsk.
 

JWong

Banned
Zeliard said:
Individually hand-picking decisions while already knowing their consequences for import?

Tsk tsk.
Naw, I just want to bang every girl. That's what governs my decisions... except that one Shani card.
 

Zeliard

Member
JWong said:
Naw, I just want to bang every girl. That's what governs my decisions... except that one Shani card.

Ah, understandable. Still so curious how the import feature will work. Or rather, what exactly it will do.
 
Minsc said:
I don't think that's true, we had impressions of a 3.5Ghz X4 + 6850 which is only a tiny bit slower than a 5850 and it was said that it ran a bit jerkier on Ultra than on High, it didn't say Ultra was unplayable or anything, but just that it was a bit worse, aka not perfect.

I'm not going to bet even a 5870 would run ultra perfectly, and that's around 15% faster than a 5850. Though it did say a 6970 ran ultra perfectly, and that's not tooo much faster than a 5870, so we'll see.

Well, I'm running a 5970 so I'm sweet (as long as Crossfire is properly supported). Although, even the 5970 I doubt will be able to handle 2560 of this game, however optimized it is it's just too much for the card... it's gotta be.

If I can't run this perfectly (ie; 60fps) on Ultra at 1920 with at least 2xAA I'll most likely be buying another 5850 and going TriFire.

BUT - I think I'm going to regret ordering the physical copy from Amazon now. All you guys who went digital and who live in the states will be playing on Tuesday and I probably won't be playing until Friday (or possibly even not until the next week 23rd of May). That really really sucks.

If I buy a game on Steam, is it possible to then gift my copy of it to someone else and no longer own it any more?
 

Dizzy-4U

Member
Zeliard said:
Still so curious how the import feature will work. Or rather, what exactly it will do.
Pidgeons will be carrying letters from people that you met in the first game.
j/k
 

Exuro

Member
Minsc said:
I don't think that's true, we had impressions of a 3.5Ghz X4 + 6850 which is only a tiny bit slower than a 5850 and it was said that it ran a bit jerkier on Ultra than on High, it didn't say Ultra was unplayable or anything, but just that it was a bit worse, aka not perfect.
You need to take into consideration that previewers were advised to not run at Ultra settings as they weren't completely implemented/working properly. We'll need the final build to see how/what builds run Ultra settings.
 

Salaadin

Member
ColonialRaptor said:
If I buy a game on Steam, is it possible to then gift my copy of it to someone else and no longer own it any more?

You mean buy a game and then after its in your Library, gift it to someone else? I dont think thats posisble. Gifting is done at checkout :(

Why not cancel your amazon order, get from GOG, preload, and play with us next monday? Or Tuesday if you go with Steam.


Gully State said:
For those of us looking to squeeze a bit more performance, let's not forget that AMD cards can do MLAA.

If TW2 takes well to MLAA, I might turn off all in game AA and just go with that. I tend to get better performance from it. It can be kinda hit or miss with some games though.
 
ColonialRaptor said:
BUT - I think I'm going to regret ordering the physical copy from Amazon now. All you guys who went digital and who live in the states will be playing on Tuesday and I probably won't be playing until Friday (or possibly even not until the next week 23rd of May). That really really sucks.
Well with the lack of pre-loading, and everyone slamming the Steam servers at once for 16 gigs of content, it could be Wednesday when some of us start playing.
 

Nezabyte

Neo Member
After getting frustrated with the spoilers I found in the wiki when I needed help figuring out what to do next, I discovered that Witcher is available on the Universal Hint site :) very helpful without giving too much away.
 

Exuro

Member
Shalashaska161 said:
Anyone know if the GoG version be activated on Steam? Trying to figure out where to buy this for when I finish TW1.
No.

toasty_T said:
The bonus content is 6gbs? If the servers are taking a beating that could add hours.

Damn it Steam.
More like damn it CDPR for not letting Steam users get a preload. :(
 
For those of you who played the first witcher, how comprehensive was the manual and guidebook? Were there spoilers? What could we expect out of the ones for the second game?

Also, changed my avatar for the occasion. I'll be playing it in spirit with you guys!
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
jim-jam bongs said:
So... would it be considered too excessive if I bought the GOG version in addition to the Steam version?

*shrug*, I have the CE + the Steam version coming.
 
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