Review Zero Punctuation: The Escapist still hates The Witcher

[Ausir]

Also, saying that a Witcher's job is to hunt monsters is no excuse for the bad quest design.
Seriously, if I'd make an otherwise decent rpg, with a 'post office' quest hub that gives you mail delivery quests, people would complain "Hey dude, wtf, mail delivery quests suck, they are boring". Would saying "Well, you're playing a postman, what did you expect" serve as en excuse?
I doubt it would, a boring quest is a boring quest, no matter how you try to justify it.

The monster contract quests are entirely optional. And the game is based on a series of books, where Geralt is a witcher and kills monsters for money. So it would be silly if he didn't have those.

 

[Section8]

Also everybody bitching about the quest compass needs to keep in mind that The Witcher also has a quest compass.

By that logic:

* I have male friends. Said friends have dongs, because they are male.
* I'm now not allowed to bitch about someone rubbing a dong in my face, because I have friends that are similarly equipped to do so.

It's like the old scoutmaster giving his kids guns fable. Some woman complains that guns can kill, ergo training these kids to use guns makes them killers. He responds by saying she has all the equipment to become a prostitute - does that make her one?

Yes, The Witcher has a quest compass - that is entirely optional. Oblivion has a completely obtrusive version that is integrated like a fucking malignant tumour into the quest structures.

You don't call Jerry Seinfeld a "professional actor", do you? Dude's a comedian, not an actor, just like Yahtzee. QED.

No, but you could quite reasonably call him an entertainment industry professional.

Or more specifically a television personality - just like a newsreader, producer, actor, comedian, reality TV subhuman, etc. Just like how "games industry professional" can describe anyone from the suits at EA to the intern who brings Gabe Newell a steady supply of donuts and fried chicken every quarter hour.

 

[Ausir]

Why wouldn't I call someone with an Emmy, a Golden Globe and SAG Award an actor? What exactly is your definition of an actor?

 

[Annonchinil]

Also, saying that a Witcher's job is to hunt monsters is no excuse for the bad quest design.
Seriously, if I'd make an otherwise decent rpg, with a 'post office' quest hub that gives you mail delivery quests, people would complain "Hey dude, wtf, mail delivery quests suck, they are boring". Would saying "Well, you're playing a postman, what did you expect" serve as en excuse?
I doubt it would, a boring quest is a boring quest, no matter how you try to justify it.

The monster contract quests are entirely optional. And the game is based on a series of books, where Geralt is a witcher and kills monsters for money. So it would be silly if he didn't have those.

Except that they are boring, again I find it hard to believe that there is no way to make a monster hunting quest interesting. Or is that what nearly 30% of the book is, Geralt going and fighting random monsters for money, but you don't have to read those parts and they are entirely optional? I find it hard to believe that it is impossible to not talk about sidequests in a WRPG nontheless because they are purley optional.

On the dialogue and the use of modern slang I don't care what the author of the books stated, it is the equivilent of a Paladin goin "What up, homies?" and sticks out like a sore thumb. Some if it would still just be plain retarded had the modern words not been there, like when the old Witcher guy calls Trish "Babe" The general quality of the English translation is dissapointing, especially since I thought that CD Prjoect translated English games into Polish.

Finally I don't care about the games story, again Deus Ex and The Longest Journey gripped me from the beggening, while the opening part of the Witcher borde me to death and sank my expectations of the game. What kept me playing through Act 1 was the music and the setting. Whatever interest there was in the quest design related to its completion, like the fech quest to drug the child, not its actual implemintation. However not all quests are like that.

 

[Ausir]

Well, in the book the author can get away with just mentioning the boring monster contracts without actually describing them in detail, but in a game it doesn't work that way.

On the dialogue and the use of modern slang I don't care what the author of the books stated, it is the equivilent of a Paladin goin "What up, homies?" and sticks out like a sore thumb. Some if it would still just be plain retarded had the modern words not been there, like when the old Witcher guy calls Trish "Babe" The general quality of the English translation is dissapointing, especially since I thought that CD Prjoect translated English games into Polish.

Vesemir calls Triss a "babe" as in "baby", not as in "chick". He treats her like a daughter. The word "babe" long predates the modern slang meaning.

Main Entry:
babe Listen to the pronunciation of babe
Pronunciation:
\ˈbāb\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, probably of imitative origin
Date:
14th century

1 a: infant baby

 

[Bluebottle]

Except that they are boring, again I find it hard to believe that there is no way to make a monster hunting quest interesting. Or is that what nearly 30% of the book is, Geralt going and fighting random monsters for money, but you don't have to read those parts and they are entirely optional? I find it hard to believe that it is impossible to not talk about sidequests in a WRPG nontheless because they are purley optional.

Which really makes them less of a game-breaking disappointment and more of a missed opportunity. I do tend to agree though, the monster quest could of easily been made more interesting by having unique, large monsters to take contracts for, which required somewhat of a more involved hunt or developed story. The best case would be something similar to the first act presented as an optional contract to kill the beast.

 

[Hory]

The monster contract quests are entirely optional. And the game is based on a series of books, where Geralt is a witcher and kills monsters for money. So it would be silly if he didn't have those.

Let's not blame the books for uncreative game design. They could have very well made some interesting quests from these contracts. The more serious problem is that the other quests are just as straightforward (at least in what I've played from Act 1). Fed Ex heaven.

 

[Annonchinil]

Except that they are boring, again I find it hard to believe that there is no way to make a monster hunting quest interesting. Or is that what nearly 30% of the book is, Geralt going and fighting random monsters for money, but you don't have to read those parts and they are entirely optional? I find it hard to believe that it is impossible to not talk about sidequests in a WRPG nontheless because they are purley optional.

Which really makes them less of a game-breaking disappointment and more of a missed opportunity. I do tend to agree though, the monster quest could of easily been made more interesting by having unique, large monsters to take contracts for, which required somewhat of a more involved hunt or developed story. The best case would be something similar to the first act presented as an optional contract to kill the beast.

Mass Effect got criticized for lame exploration elements that were optional. Anyways its not just the contract quests that are boring, don't forget the fetch ones.

 

[Annonchinil]

Well, in the book the author can get away with just mentioning the boring monster contracts without actually describing them in detail, but in a game it doesn't work that way.

On the dialogue and the use of modern slang I don't care what the author of the books stated, it is the equivilent of a Paladin goin "What up, homies?" and sticks out like a sore thumb. Some if it would still just be plain retarded had the modern words not been there, like when the old Witcher guy calls Trish "Babe" The general quality of the English translation is dissapointing, especially since I thought that CD Prjoect translated English games into Polish.

Vesemir calls Triss a "babe" as in "baby", not as in "chick". He treats her like a daughter. The word "babe" long predates the modern slang meaning.

Main Entry:
babe Listen to the pronunciation of babe
Pronunciation:
\ˈbāb\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, probably of imitative origin
Date:
14th century

1 a: infant baby

I am sure all those other terms are still in use...not.

Anyways what's your excuse for Trish calling herself a teenager?

I don't see how you can argue that the dialogue in The Witcher is good. Its not even unintenionally funny like Resident Evil 4, the jokes are quit lame also.

 

[Hory]

The dialogue has a certain realism to it. The state that the characters are in comes through, as opposed to the "emotionally neutral" characters from many other RPGs.

Anyway, why does the Firefox spell checker underline "dialogue"?

 

[Ausir]

I am sure all those other terms are still in use...not.

Anyways what's your excuse for Trish calling herself a teenager?

What's wrong with using the word "teenager"? As I said, it's a fantasy world, not our middle ages.

From Sapkowski's preface to one of his short stories (rough translation):

When "The Road of No Return" was published in "Fantastyka", Maciej Parowski did some edits to it that weren't consulted with the author - after all, why treat a debutant with kid gloves? The victims of the editor's eraser were mostly phrases that shouldn't be used in fantasy, because "they didn't speak like that back then". Therefore, in the story printed in "Fantastyka", to my astonishment, I saw "arrogance" replaced by "hubris" and "intelligent" became "wise". Because I'm a strong defender of the theory that fantasy is not set in any "back then" and any archaisation of the language is pointless, I eliminated Parowski's corrections from the following version and returned to the virgin typescript. I leave it up to you to determine, whether the text became better or worse because of it.

 

[Claw]

I am sure all those other terms are still in use...not.

So, you were totally wrong about the term being too modern - but your argument stands because the opposite is true? I love your reasoning. Proving you wrong proves your point!

Also,

an affectionate or familiar term of address (sometimes offensive when used to strangers, casual acquaintances, subordinates, etc., esp. by a male to a female).

You can turn it any way you want, there is no angle from which you don't like like an ignorant git. I suppose "I can't lose if I don't admit defeat" is good enough for you, though.

Let's not blame the books for uncreative game design. They could have very well made some interesting quests from these contracts. The more serious problem is that the other quests are just as straightforward (at least in what I've played from Act 1). Fed Ex heaven.

You know, that debate occurred how long ago? Three months or so?
Trying to claim victory in a battle that was won before you joined is kinda cheap.
To your credit though, you gave people the chance to just ignore you by pointing out that you didn't play past Act 1.

Of course, I have to admit I haven't played TW at all yet (although I hope to recieve my copy any day now) and don't know if this aspect gets better, although the general consensus seems to be that the game does get alot better overall after the first Act.

 

[Hory]

 

[VonVentrue]

The video might be considered by some to be relatively good in terms of sheer entertainment - however, that guy is wrong on so many levels that I do not find it funny.

And seriously, given that he finds The Witcher (or its interface) too complex, he should probably have his head examined...

 

[Morbus]

It's zeropunctuation after all. He's gotta find something to criticize... And I don't believe you expected him to be perfect. Cut the guy some slack. So what? He doesn't know how to wittily criticize The Witcher? Where's the problem? He's just another one fooling around...

 

[Needle]

Cut the guy some slack. So what? He doesn't know how to wittily criticize The Witcher? Where's the problem? He's just another one fooling around...

He's getting paid for it. But all he did was saying "Fuck this shit. This game sucks and everyone who likes it sucks. I can't be even bothered to play it. Instead, I'll go and dub over the painkiller intro."

Failture.

 

[dagorkan]

Cut the guy some slack. So what? He doesn't know how to wittily criticize The Witcher? Where's the problem? He's just another one fooling around...

He's getting paid for it. But all he did was saying "Fuck this shit. This game sucks and everyone who likes it sucks. I can't be even bothered to play it. Instead, I'll go and dub over the painkiller intro."

Failture.

True. The guy is a complete loser.

Only because there are so many morons in the world does he have a lucrative job.

 

[fastpunk]

OK, not that I agree with Yahtzee on the quality of TW but this review was epic! He was getting a bit flabby lately.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Anyway, why does the Firefox spell checker underline "dialogue"?

Because it's set to U.S. English? You can get other dictionaries for Firefox 2 at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3 or install a plugin spellchecker http://www.wikihow.com/Install-a-Spell- ... to-Firefox

 

[Ausir]

According to my dictionary, both dialogue and dialog are acceptable in US English, while only dialogue is acceptable in UK English.

 

[Shagnak]

Where I work we use both. "Dialogue" for human discourse, and "dialog" for informative pop-up windows in our software. It would seem that our programming packages have been infested with evil capitalist (amerikan) virii.

 

[Zetor]

First off, I played the game through until the (decent, if not providing any closure) ending. Yahtzee was unnecessarily harsh in some aspects (the game is not "overly complex", lulz), but he also had a lot of good points.

The horrible fetch-quests were already mentioned (I just completely ignored them after I got enough $ to get my good armor in chapter 2), but plenty of the storyline quests were annoying fedexes too under the guise of "investigate this" or "research that". If this was indeed discussed 4-5 months ago in some other thread, I humbly ask for forgiveness!

Combat was challenging up to chapter 3-ish, at which point I got enough skill points and signs to kill any enemy I wanted with minimal effort; just an autoattack-fest with occasional igni kiting and using the "fear" bombs + group style when enemies clumped up on me. But then, this is also the case of many other RPGs, if the player "plays their cards right", they usually start to overpower the enemies in mid-late game.

Inventory management was a throwback to the 1990s. I personally didn't mind rearranging my inventory every 30 minutes and making routine trips to the "bank" (except for chapter 3, ugh) to store the excess materials, but really, making a separate reagent bag with unlimited capacity (and reducing the backpack's capacity) wouldn't have hurt the game imo. Oh noes, this probably makes me an RPG-lite Oblivionite! Burn the heretic.

Load times were really, really bad in chapter 2 and 3, but tolerable after/before that. I actually skipped almost all sidequests in chapter 3 because loading the market quarter + autosave took 10-12 MINUTES every time. There was an entire sub-zone in the market square that was only used for a "showdown" sequence and was inaccessible for most of the chapter (but still had to be loaded every time), they could've moved it to another zone completely. This wasn't a problem in other chapters, though.
Yes, I patched to 1.2 and my PC doesn't suck (could use more RAM, but eh).

The 'shades of grey' thing was kind of a red herring (even though I plan to replay the game at one point and joining the squirrels). Both factions were pretty much the "bad guys" (in)directly responsible for many of the bad things happening to Geralt, and of course staying neutral made 'em both want to kill him. Still, at least giving the option to take a side is better than 95% of the ultra-linear "RPG" crap out there.
Originally I thought the "piss someone off and they won't ever talk to you again" thing was a nice touch, except that all it takes for them to forget your actions is to exit and re-enter the building.


-- Z.

 

[Au naturel]

I am guessing the whiners here did not play the game on Hard. If you ever decide to, we will see if you still regard the monster contracts as easy. Many times it became a fully planned affair where you would have to think about what potions to use, when to use them and how you could go about fighting different beasts, not for the hell of it; because you wouldn't win without this kind of preparation.

In any case, I have found this game to be the best RPG since Arcanum. And Geralt has been an excellent character. If only it had more nuanced combat, along with a more open map, it would totally thrash Gothic 2, though I would probably put it on par at the moment, with each having different strengths.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

Well, in the book the author can get away with just mentioning the boring monster contracts without actually describing them in detail, but in a game it doesn't work that way.

On the dialogue and the use of modern slang I don't care what the author of the books stated, it is the equivilent of a Paladin goin "What up, homies?" and sticks out like a sore thumb. Some if it would still just be plain retarded had the modern words not been there, like when the old Witcher guy calls Trish "Babe" The general quality of the English translation is dissapointing, especially since I thought that CD Prjoect translated English games into Polish.

Vesemir calls Triss a "babe" as in "baby", not as in "chick". He treats her like a daughter. The word "babe" long predates the modern slang meaning.

Main Entry:
babe Listen to the pronunciation of babe
Pronunciation:
\ˈbāb\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, probably of imitative origin
Date:
14th century

1 a: infant baby

Oh that's much less cheesy. I can see it now just like in that offspring song: give it to me baby, aha aha.

 

[Morbus]

Where I work we use both. "Dialogue" for human discourse, and "dialog" for informative pop-up windows in our software. It would seem that our programming packages have been infested with evil capitalist (amerikan) virii.

Actually, and even though I though otherwise before, it's not Virii, becasue it would have to be Virius/Virii, which isn't the case. It's not Viri as in Virus/Viri because Viri means men. In fact, virus has probably no latin plural, so the best way to pluralize is probably viruses, in english, and whatever else way in other languages. It is POSSIBLE that all latin laguages don't have a plural word for virus either (due to the language's way of pluralizing words) and it's simply virus/virus, being that there IS, in fact, a plural of virus, only it's an homonym word. I can't speak for french people, but I'm pretty sure italian, spanish and portuguese (protuguese for sure) have that for virus: virus/virus. The correct translation for portuguese, and possibly spanish, of the latin word "virus" would actually be "viro". However, due to the relatively late general usage of the term, and due to it being mostly unused in past centuries, it is POSSIBLE that the -us never got into -o as it did in other words. I know spanish people say foro insted of forum, portuguese people, for instance, say fórum (with the stress for phonetic purposes), and that's possibly a similar case.

All in all, virus' plural, in english, is viruses. If you wanna sound latinish and stuff (which somehow many english natives have a very hard time trying to), you should probably go with vira or something...