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The Witcher |OT| Damn all dissonances
- Thread starter Bossman
- Start date
dollartaco
Member
Mango Positive said:
I've tried, I've tried. I've often thought about a creating a "Making Love to the Witcher" thread with screenshots, but never have... It's an absolutely awesome RPG. Can't wait for the console version to play through again.
Prime crotch
Banned
I guess everyone who cared for has played it already, the game is almost two years old.Mango Positive said:
crowphoenix
Banned
I got it for Christmas, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. I've played through as far as I got in the demo, so from here on out, everything else should be new.
I picked this game up from Steam during the holiday sale. I played a few minutes to see how it would run on my machine and really enjoyed the combat for the short time I played it. This is probably going on the backburner, but I'm looking forward to when I get the time to play it.
Mango Positive
Member
Prime crotch said:
That's my point! We didn't know how good it was.
GreenNight
Member
It might pick up when the console versions drop.
Melhisedek
Member
Is this game modular? Like Oblivion/Fallout 3 modular?
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Mango Positive said:
This game is 5x as good as most the rpgs GAF pimps. Hopefully the console port will be good so it gets it's due.
Yo, linearity and openworld-ness are preferences.
But on that note, the Witcher mixes JRPG and WRPG conventions, and it does it smoothly.
Yes.
This is too linear for you if you hated the main questline in Oblivion because it requires you to go from point A to point B. How much do you hate linearity? In Oblivion, you make some choice that are permanent upon the world, that cannot be undone except by quickload.
The only difference in this respect is that instead of 5 equal-length medium-sized quest-chains to choose from and a bunch of small ones, this one has one very long quest-chain with tons of medium and small ones on the way, ones that are self-contained in each chapter. Also, the main quest is told through tons of awesome cut scenes with decent voice-acting, so its told in a much better form.
It's different, but if you prefer Oblivion over this it's not going to be because of purely openness--The Witcher has plenty.
For your convenience: I mostly don't like JRPGs anymore. TWEWY and Contact are the only ones I've been able to get myself to play, and that's only because they're so different.
But on that note, the Witcher mixes JRPG and WRPG conventions, and it does it smoothly.
Yes.
This is too linear for you if you hated the main questline in Oblivion because it requires you to go from point A to point B. How much do you hate linearity? In Oblivion, you make some choice that are permanent upon the world, that cannot be undone except by quickload.
The only difference in this respect is that instead of 5 equal-length medium-sized quest-chains to choose from and a bunch of small ones, this one has one very long quest-chain with tons of medium and small ones on the way, ones that are self-contained in each chapter. Also, the main quest is told through tons of awesome cut scenes with decent voice-acting, so its told in a much better form.
It's different, but if you prefer Oblivion over this it's not going to be because of purely openness--The Witcher has plenty.
For your convenience: I mostly don't like JRPGs anymore. TWEWY and Contact are the only ones I've been able to get myself to play, and that's only because they're so different.
bengraven
Member
Etelmik:
My perfect RPGs are like this:
I get the main quest and it says "go to point A", but I decide to spend 10 hours checking out B, C, D, E, F, etc. And each location gives me a number of quests. I finally decide to find out what's going on with the main quest and I still have about 10 sub-quests in my logbook.
I like spending 100 hours in a game and there are still areas I haven't been to. I've probably played 300 hours of Morrowind on 12 different characters and I can think of a number of entire regions of the world I still haven't been to yet.
Oblivion was a disappointment because while the world was massive, there were only a few quests in each town.
Fable 2 failed because you get about 6 quests, including the main quest, finish them, have to keep going on the main quest to open up another 6, rinse and repeat. I'm done with the game and other than some collection quests/"jobs" and one property (Fairfax), I have nothing to do.
Haeleos:
My PC can't handle even this.
My perfect RPGs are like this:
I get the main quest and it says "go to point A", but I decide to spend 10 hours checking out B, C, D, E, F, etc. And each location gives me a number of quests. I finally decide to find out what's going on with the main quest and I still have about 10 sub-quests in my logbook.
I like spending 100 hours in a game and there are still areas I haven't been to. I've probably played 300 hours of Morrowind on 12 different characters and I can think of a number of entire regions of the world I still haven't been to yet.
Oblivion was a disappointment because while the world was massive, there were only a few quests in each town.
Fable 2 failed because you get about 6 quests, including the main quest, finish them, have to keep going on the main quest to open up another 6, rinse and repeat. I'm done with the game and other than some collection quests/"jobs" and one property (Fairfax), I have nothing to do.
Haeleos:
My PC can't handle even this.
bengraven said:
Witcher doesn't have an open-ended in the vein of Elder Scrolls, but it still has TONS of (somewhat) optional side-content to explore in every chapter. Disregarding the very short prologue, the basic setup consists of a new chapter starting along with at least one mainline chapter quest. This number can expand to 2 or more mainline chapter quests going concurrently. During these chapters, you can also open up one or two dozen more sidequests, most of which are optional, and most of which also somehow tie into the mainline quests.
The result is a multi-layered quest-based experience that can be tackled in almost whatever order you want. Sure, the actual experience is very story-driven and reliant upon the completion of the core quests, but the majority of the side-quests are woven so beautifully into the main narrative that progression feels surprisingly open-ended. I basically always leave the main story quests for last, but because I do every single side-quest available (in whatever order I want), I've got most of the chapter's storyline completed before I ever intended to... without skipping over or missing content.
Some quests are mutually exclusive, since decisions you make will inevitably affect later quests and main story drivers, but that's the nature of this kind of RPG. Helps with the replay too, at that.
I love Elder Scrolls, but the Witcher doesn't really sacrifice all that much fun and exploration by dodging the open-ended world layout. The end result is a much more focused experience. Disclaimer: I consider Oblivion to be one of the shittier mainline Elder Scrolls games. Without mods, that game was completely fucking broken.
Mango Positive
Member
Des0lar said:
3 days in a row of only getting 4 hours of sleep.
Callibretto
Member
bengraven said:
I felt I get too easily sidetracked with Oblivion and as results, while I've explore a lot, I don't remember much of it either since some of the sidequests are pretty random.
in Witcher, most of the sidequests are tied into the main storyline, I haven't beat Witcher yeat, but if chapter 1-3 is any indication, than I like how The Witcher handle it's sidequests.
basically, there's a mystery cases in each chapter and all sidequests you do give you hint and clues about what really happened until you get into the final quest of that chapter where you make your decision based on your hint and clues and be a judge of some sort at the end of the chapter.
it's a little bit Detective Conan and Kindaichi-ish in that sense, and I loved it. even better when you realize that no one is innocent in this game's world, so choosing shich sides you want to stand with is not an obvious good or evil options.
Whatever you may expect, the game will crush that ceiling heavily. I fucking love this game to death. Favorite RPG since a very long time. I lost my savefile due to a format (stupid me) and now I'm replaying it. I'm at Chapter 3. Only complaint I have is that characters are duplicated a lot. It's really bugging me. I never been bugged while playing Fable 2 for example (brought it up since I finished it right before this) or other new-ish RPGs. Other than this, it's a gem. In my top 5 of this generation, easily.Des0lar said:
Des0lar said:
Why not read the 11 page thread you're posting in?
Also: The Witcher has been spoken about on this very forum for a long time...You forget, it's a very niche title, developed in western europe, and requires a somewhat powerful system to play...
Is there any reason GAF isn't starting a dozen threads each week?
suikodan
Member
Des0lar said:
Wow, expect a lot of things:
Expect a somewhat slow beginning, wondering what you're getting into.
Expect after that a strong second chapter that brings you back into the game.
Expect some surprises when you're thinking that you've seen it all.
Expect an ending that is both satisfying and mysterious.
(And if you're more "console" than PC)
Expect to buy the game again when it's out for consoles. :lol
I'm amazed at how polished this game seems to be post-EE patch.
Granted I am running on an i7 920 w/a 4850 card and 9GB RAM(yea). But sheet these load times SCREAM and with everything maxed, the game is silky smooth. Entering random houses loads faster than the autosave meter trailing it.
I held off all this time until I had a proper gaming rig, but looking back now, this game easilly would place in my top 3 of 2007. Easilly(2008 for EE fixes I guess).
I do wish there wasn't a delay when looting corpses. I often have to sit and wait a second or two hovering over a carcass until the lootable context icon appears. Is that normal?
Granted I am running on an i7 920 w/a 4850 card and 9GB RAM(yea). But sheet these load times SCREAM and with everything maxed, the game is silky smooth. Entering random houses loads faster than the autosave meter trailing it.
I held off all this time until I had a proper gaming rig, but looking back now, this game easilly would place in my top 3 of 2007. Easilly(2008 for EE fixes I guess).
I do wish there wasn't a delay when looting corpses. I often have to sit and wait a second or two hovering over a carcass until the lootable context icon appears. Is that normal?
bengraven
Member
Mejilan said:
That actually sounds kind of awesome, I must admit. I liked the idea of playing a fantasy game I can get "lost" in, but if it's seriously about 60 hours worth of sometimes optional content, I'm happy to give it a try. I just finished Fable 2 with only 25 hours logged after trying very hard to stay away from the main story and I'm feeling burned for THAT kind of RPG.
Also: I agree with you that Oblivion is the weakest of the series. What I'm looking for in a wrpg is a huge part of Daggerfall and Morrowind, but I'm fiending for a well told, adult story.
Uncalled for.
bengraven said:
I think you'll be happy. As long as you walk in knowing that it's not Oblivion (or Morrowind) and that it's not trying to BE like those games, you'll be fine. Similarly, don't expect to spend hours and hours trawling through landscapes looking for random caverns, ruins, castles, and such. Most every location in the game is there for a reason, and while you can explore them at whim once the chapters open up enough, keep in mind that you probably WILL have to go back for the purposes of a quest or five. On that note, the journal is so fucking awesome, that you can easily keep tabs on all of your quests and what their current statuses are. Hell, I generally did every quest in one area until I ran out, then selected my next area to explore by looking through my journal and counting out where all of my quests wanted me to go next. The area with the most quests pointing me to there would win! It's great fun! :lol
As a bonus, the game isn't even all that expensive, and you might be able to find good deals if you look hard enough. I think Steam had a good price on it not too long ago, which might still be going. I paid full price for the EE, and I'm fucking thrilled. One of the best original CRPGs I've played in YEARS.
Finally decided to forego my DRM phobia and install my xmas gift. Awesome so far. The only problem was that I wanted to see if I'm up-to-date with my game. Oh god, rant incoming, skip ahead.
The EE pack is swell and all, but I swear to $deity, whoever thought that the patch check would work that way ought to be flogged.
Don't tell me I have v1.4 and then tell me to get patch v1.4 - it doesn't make sense, but in a twisted way there's a possibility that it could. Don't tell me to download a patch I do not need.
Do NOT send me to the non-EE patch site with all the bonus content that's already in the EE. ESPECIALLY not the 1GB patch (100KB/s servers are fun!) that's just the SE->EE patch. Grrrrrrrrrrr.
And then the patch subsection of the site itself. This is not a good user interface. If there are only four steps to follow, then list them in an easy-to-follow way, like the checkout at a retailer: Step by step on separated pages. Do not connect step one and three with a line. Do not rely on gimmicky selection screens, just give me a freaking list. Separate the info for cripes sake. Cramming everything and the kitchensink, including unrelated stuff on one single page is just insane. Augh.
Maybe I'm spoiled by gog.com, but still. Same guys, and such an outright shocking difference in ease of use and general UI design.
Now on to the game. Looks really enjoyable so far. Sorry for the meltdown, but ... I had to rant. I just spent quite a bit of time navigating a website I'll likely never see again and downloading patches I do not need at glacial speeds instead of playing a game I was/am very much looking forward to.
The EE pack is swell and all, but I swear to $deity, whoever thought that the patch check would work that way ought to be flogged.
Don't tell me I have v1.4 and then tell me to get patch v1.4 - it doesn't make sense, but in a twisted way there's a possibility that it could. Don't tell me to download a patch I do not need.
Do NOT send me to the non-EE patch site with all the bonus content that's already in the EE. ESPECIALLY not the 1GB patch (100KB/s servers are fun!) that's just the SE->EE patch. Grrrrrrrrrrr.
And then the patch subsection of the site itself. This is not a good user interface. If there are only four steps to follow, then list them in an easy-to-follow way, like the checkout at a retailer: Step by step on separated pages. Do not connect step one and three with a line. Do not rely on gimmicky selection screens, just give me a freaking list. Separate the info for cripes sake. Cramming everything and the kitchensink, including unrelated stuff on one single page is just insane. Augh.
Maybe I'm spoiled by gog.com, but still. Same guys, and such an outright shocking difference in ease of use and general UI design.
Now on to the game. Looks really enjoyable so far. Sorry for the meltdown, but ... I had to rant. I just spent quite a bit of time navigating a website I'll likely never see again and downloading patches I do not need at glacial speeds instead of playing a game I was/am very much looking forward to.
...and I haven't saved in forever!
I love this game so far, just got what I assume is the first card before the game crashed while loading the first city. Looking forward to collecting the rest of the deck. *cough*
Also, I got what could be described as a full-on OCD hardon. Herbalism & Monster recycling??? I will probably spend most of the game mixing shit together, or harvesting ingredients.
Premature minireview:
AGAINST: float-walking people, a metric shitton of clipping errors (especially in cutscenes or character closeups), some glitchyness
FOR: Artwork, voice actors, story/setting (so far), and nearly everything else
Conclusion: Awesome. Graphics whores and tech freaks will probably break out in hives when playing this, but even they and hopefully everyone else will enjoy the atmosphere and gameplay this game has to offer.
Minsc
Gold Member
Mejilan said:
Ah, yes. That whole thing threw me for quite a loop as well. :lol
All I need is to get the idea in my head that there might be a newer version, which that fucking check does on purpose I tell you, and well, I hope they don't get charged for bandwidth, because I must have downloaded that 1 gig patch atleast 5 or 6 times before it completely properly, then I don't think I ever decided to install it.
Man, what is it with this game and crashing... Dang thing crashed yesterday a couple of times, crashing random drivers from time to time. Once it even took out the chipset/IDE drivers. Windows crashed hard (frozen mouse pointer, looping sound and everything) after losing all drives. Hasn't happened to me in a long-ass time. My PC didn't even want to do a warm boot, got stuck when initializing the drives. Had to switch it off and on again. And no, that wasn't overheating. Temps stayed well below anything threatening throughout. Case was open by coincidence, too. Nearly gave me a heart attack, I thought my main HDD had died.
At least it's so addictive that I immediately resumed playing. I'm looking forward to getting back to it tonight. Autopsy time.
Yeah, still in Chapter 2, but there's so much to do (and buy).
Why is the onscreen medallion going nuts when meeting a certain character with a fancy hat and a predisposition of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong after a certain event? It normally does that only when ... Hmmmmmmmm. If this is a bug in the game I'm gonna be sad. If not, awesome. Twists within twists. Yay. Love the story.
For some odd reason I find it mildly amusing that Geralt seems to f_ck the everloving daylights out of everything that's bipedal, female, and incapable of running faster than him. Everytime he encounters a differently-modelled female there's this unspoken question of "So... what will your card look like?".
I'd really like a more active movement scheme though. For example, why can't Geralt scale the houses and run across the rooftops? Would have been awesome. At least jumping... Doubt the engine could handle a more "3D"/"interactive" aspect though, it already seems to be pushed to its limits. Plus it'd have probably tripled the budget. So for now, I'm content.
For now. *eyes sequel*
At least it's so addictive that I immediately resumed playing. I'm looking forward to getting back to it tonight. Autopsy time.
Yeah, still in Chapter 2, but there's so much to do (and buy).Why is the onscreen medallion going nuts when meeting a certain character with a fancy hat and a predisposition of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong after a certain event? It normally does that only when ... Hmmmmmmmm. If this is a bug in the game I'm gonna be sad. If not, awesome. Twists within twists. Yay. Love the story.
For some odd reason I find it mildly amusing that Geralt seems to f_ck the everloving daylights out of everything that's bipedal, female, and incapable of running faster than him. Everytime he encounters a differently-modelled female there's this unspoken question of "So... what will your card look like?".
I'd really like a more active movement scheme though. For example, why can't Geralt scale the houses and run across the rooftops? Would have been awesome. At least jumping... Doubt the engine could handle a more "3D"/"interactive" aspect though, it already seems to be pushed to its limits. Plus it'd have probably tripled the budget. So for now, I'm content.
For now. *eyes sequel*
What is your OS version?CTLance said:
Vista 32bit had some issues with it.
This link helped me (didn't have a single issue after that).
Gonna try that userspace memory thing when I get home. I'm on Vista 64Bit, but I doubt that's the problem. All drivers are up to date. Currently I'm blaming the graphics card drivers, and my dual monitor setup.
<rant>I remember running into a heap of problems back in the Win2k days when trying to play e.g. Dawn of War, with the configurator crashing and/or displaying nonsense and the game itself going bonkers. Still, that was two Windows generations ago, I had hoped it was fixed by now. Looking at the CCC I have little doubt on whose fault that is though. One of these days I'm gonna find the SOB that invented that piece of trash, and his gruesome fate will be spoken of in horror for generations to come.</rant>
Anyway, I'm gonna electrocute me some golems tonight after doing every(?) quest in the city.
Game is a blast so far, although the swamp is a bit of a bore - tons of Drowners and their palette-swapped pals; I hate those guys - not worth the two to three clicks it takes to kill 'em, and thanks to the red ribbon they're mostly just running away anyway. So what's the point? At least there's the bloodzuigers and wolves to mix things up a bit. The former have a bit of a curious design though. Leeches... with legs? I :lol'd.
<rant>I remember running into a heap of problems back in the Win2k days when trying to play e.g. Dawn of War, with the configurator crashing and/or displaying nonsense and the game itself going bonkers. Still, that was two Windows generations ago, I had hoped it was fixed by now. Looking at the CCC I have little doubt on whose fault that is though. One of these days I'm gonna find the SOB that invented that piece of trash, and his gruesome fate will be spoken of in horror for generations to come.</rant>
Anyway, I'm gonna electrocute me some golems tonight after doing every(?) quest in the city.
Game is a blast so far, although the swamp is a bit of a bore - tons of Drowners and their palette-swapped pals; I hate those guys - not worth the two to three clicks it takes to kill 'em, and thanks to the red ribbon they're mostly just running away anyway. So what's the point? At least there's the bloodzuigers and wolves to mix things up a bit. The former have a bit of a curious design though. Leeches... with legs? I :lol'd.
tahrikmili
Member
I'm currently playing NWN2. Should I get the Witcher or Mask of the Betrayer next, GAF? Which one is better?
I found NWN2's narrative and characters rather boring to be honest, but I hear MotB is something else entirely, so I can't decide.
I found NWN2's narrative and characters rather boring to be honest, but I hear MotB is something else entirely, so I can't decide.
I love the game but the FPS loss annoys me a lot, the large crowded areas like Vizima Merchant District give me like, sub-30 FPS. Even at the lowest settings the game doesn't run at 60fps in those areas. Which is weird, my computer should more than be able to handle it.
It might be my ram though, while I have an 8800GT and a Intel E8500 I only have 2gigs worth of ram on Vista 64.
It might be my ram though, while I have an 8800GT and a Intel E8500 I only have 2gigs worth of ram on Vista 64.