THE WITCHER 2 is upon us!

[RK47]

Errr. I think I can't recommend Witcher 1 - fuck it. This game is quite bad from my personal experience. The first part was linear, and doesn't really offer much in a way of flexibility, but once you get to the second part, they tried to add the freedom, trouble is, most of the tasks are very fucking mundane and the dialogs are shit, I am very doubtful ANYONE would find the investigation dialogue choices make any sense. They need a really solid rewrite if they wanted to salvage that section, but most of the investigation is a mess of fumbling through very short-dialog choices and clumsily cross-referencing to known facts.

This is my 2nd playthrough after not picking up the game for two years, and I still am not convinced about the writing for this investigation part. NPC with unknown daily schedules will often drive you mad in your first playthrough when they're not at expected locations, piles and piles of filler combat in the wilderness that you got so sick that you probably run away after 2 hours killing the same shit, combined with 'elite' boss spawns that 2-3 hit kill you, destroying a 30 minute gameplay that was unsaved would probably drive you to near quitting.

I just hit Chapter III and I'm still not convinced that TW1 is a good game.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Damn, I can't register my copy of the game for some sweet sweet DLC. Anyone else getting an issue with that?

 

[J_C]

Damn, I can't register my copy of the game for some sweet sweet DLC. Anyone else getting an issue with that?

VoD had similar issue. Maybe there is a problem with the servers.

 

[ironyuri]

At the end of Ch1 I'm getting the choice between

Spoiler

Roche and Iorveth

However, my concern is that there seems to be no clear neutral/Witcher path available to advance? Is this definitely the case or am I just not looking hard enough?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Damn, I can't register my copy of the game for some sweet sweet DLC. Anyone else getting an issue with that?

A bit more details if you please.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Damn, I can't register my copy of the game for some sweet sweet DLC. Anyone else getting an issue with that?

A bit more details if you please.

Welp, just tried again to get the exact wording on the error and it went through this time.

Also unfortunately I seem to be getting around 20FPS in low settings (Skipped the cutscenes so as to avoid spoiling Witcher 1 as much as possible since I wanted to check performance). Guess I'll try grabbing the brand new latest drivers and see if that helps any.

 

[Jaedar]

At the end of Ch1 I'm getting the choice between

Spoiler

Roche and Iorveth

However, my concern is that there seems to be no clear neutral/Witcher path available to advance? Is this definitely the case or am I just not looking hard enough?

Taking a quick look in my offishul game walkthrough there is no such path available. Taking a slightly longer look reveals that the two paths are completely different aside from taking place in roughly the same game area, so there is that.

I think I managed to register my game, but the DLC won't show up in the downloadable content menu. I'm guessing its a problem with their servers as I, upon registration, got forwarded to a webpage that was down(and is still down two days later).

 

[Stabwound]

Errr. I think I can't recommend Witcher 1 - fuck it. This game is quite bad from my personal experience. The first part was linear, and doesn't really offer much in a way of flexibility, but once you get to the second part, they tried to add the freedom, trouble is, most of the tasks are very fucking mundane and the dialogs are shit, I am very doubtful ANYONE would find the investigation dialogue choices make any sense. They need a really solid rewrite if they wanted to salvage that section, but most of the investigation is a mess of fumbling through very short-dialog choices and clumsily cross-referencing to known facts.

This is my 2nd playthrough after not picking up the game for two years, and I still am not convinced about the writing for this investigation part. NPC with unknown daily schedules will often drive you mad in your first playthrough when they're not at expected locations, piles and piles of filler combat in the wilderness that you got so sick that you probably run away after 2 hours killing the same shit, combined with 'elite' boss spawns that 2-3 hit kill you, destroying a 30 minute gameplay that was unsaved would probably drive you to near quitting.

I just hit Chapter III and I'm still not convinced that TW1 is a good game.

You do have some valid points. I can understand why some people wouldn't like the game, because it definitely has its bland points. I haven't played it in a long time, but I'm pretty sure one of the chapters is almost strictly running around the city talking to people.

To me, TW1 almost feels more like an adventure game with some light RPG elements. A lot of running around trying to find certain places/items/whatever and a lot of talking to people.

 

[commie]

So...this complaint about the ending. I'm understanding that the initial fork starts at the end of chapter 1 and maybe diverges further for other endings later on as well. With this in mind I wonder if the reviewers have had time to play through every ending to see if they all are 'weak', keeping in mind that they'd have to replay entire chapters. The PCGamer guy stated that he only tried a bit of the alternate options so maybe not. With such a game, maybe the endings themselves got a bit screwed and certain slides and cutscenes failed to trigger making the ending seem disjointed. It's not the first time something like this would have happened. I seem to recall Fallout or Fallout 2 having slides that never triggered at the end for example.

 

[Excidium]

A small question about the 1st chapter:

Spoiler

Is the trap you're supposed to get on the stealth sequence inside Lorendo's house courtyard just the metal frame contained in that chest along with the armor? I ask because I was expecting a real trap or maybe some plans to build one...

 

[Konjad]

How the hell is it possible to get into Henselt's tent in the second act? Roche takes some guards with him but few are left in the camp and two of them stands at the entrance to the tent. When they see me I get auto-killed by a cutscene where geralt gets hit by archers. What can I do? I need Henselt's blood and even if I mange to get into the tent I can't do anything except fight until I die (Henselt attacks me and he is immortal).

 

[Havoc]

How the hell is it possible to get into Henselt's tent in the second act? Roche takes some guards with him but few are left in the camp and two of them stands at the entrance to the tent. When they see me I get auto-killed by a cutscene where geralt gets hit by archers. What can I do? I need Henselt's blood and even if I mange to get into the tent I can't do anything except fight until I die (Henselt attacks me and he is immortal).

Go to crates. Go right, past the tents, near the cliff. Go behind kings tent. Use Aard on bunch of crates. Go around. Wait for the to go away. Enter tent. Anal rape the king. Remember. You need anal kings blood.

 

[commie]

How the hell is it possible to get into Henselt's tent in the second act? Roche takes some guards with him but few are left in the camp and two of them stands at the entrance to the tent. When they see me I get auto-killed by a cutscene where geralt gets hit by archers. What can I do? I need Henselt's blood and even if I mange to get into the tent I can't do anything except fight until I die (Henselt attacks me and he is immortal).

Why are you asking for help so damn soon? It's not like it's THAT elaborate. You do this a lot? I can see you coming back here in a few days hurr, durring how the game is too easy and there's no puzzles in RPG's anymore, and whining about the decline.


As for all the rest:

What do all you fuckers want from TW2? They improved the combat no end from TW1, yet now it's too hard OR too easy. They put in more elaborate C&C but oh now there's too many cutscenes. They make an NPC schedule, yet they don't make NPC's angry when you steal stuff(incidentally like in almost every RPG and including the Codex Trinity). WHAT THE FUCK??

 

[asper]

What do all you fuckers want from TW2? They improved the combat no end from TW1, yet now it's too hard OR too easy. They put in more elaborate C&C but oh now there's too many cutscenes. They make an NPC schedule, yet they don't make NPC's angry when you steal stuff(incidentally like in almost every RPG and including the Codex Trinity). WHAT THE FUCK??

This. The Codex' bitching is really ridiculous.

 

[Excidium]

Some people exaggerate a lot, true. Some things are a matter of preference, true again. But let's not generalize, many complaints are valid.

They make an NPC schedule, yet they don't make NPC's angry when you steal stuff(incidentally like in almost every RPG and including the Codex Trinity). WHAT THE FUCK??

The point of adding an NPC schedule is to make NPCs behave more realistically...why is it so absurd to complain that they don't react to theft?

 

[Data4]

Even though it seems no one here has the hardware to play with the graphics settings maxed out, has anyone taken a look at it just for shits and giggles? Good God, even the most mundane things look wallpaper-worthy. Runs like a slideshow, but it's a very, very nice looking one.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

They put in more elaborate C&C but oh now there's too many cutscenes.

So, going with your logic, they would have been unable to implement this "elaborate C&C" without the cutscenes? Really?

 

[J_C]

Even though it seems no one here has the hardware to play with the graphics settings maxed out

Are you sure about that?

Ok, I admit that Ubersampling is off, but everything else is on max.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I have set everything to max as well, including ubersampling. I turned off motion-blur and bloom because I didn't like it. The game runs fluidly, no crashes, no corrupted saves, no problems at all. Even the savegames are only ~2mb size. Compared to TW1 they improved a lot on the tech side of things.

 

[J_C]

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT!

I don't know how many of you noticed, but the game makes lots and lots of save games. By the end of the game, the save game directory surpasses 1 gigabyte, and it is not easy to find an earlier save if you looking for a specific one.

Someone from gog.com made a useful application which could come in handy It will allow you to scan, preview and delete or backup a set of savegame to free up some space on your computer.

Preview :
http://www.adnx.net/w2_save_cleanup/preview.png

Download :
http://www.adnx.net/w2_save_cleanup/w2_ ... up_0.5.zip

I didn't try it myself, but others on GoG said that it works fine.

 

[Data4]

Even though it seems no one here has the hardware to play with the graphics settings maxed out

Are you sure about that?

Ok, I admit that Ubersampling is off, but everything else is on max.

I have set everything to max as well, including ubersampling. I turned off motion-blur and bloom because I didn't like it. The game runs fluidly, no crashes, no corrupted saves, no problems at all. Even the savegames are only ~2mb size. Compared to TW1 they improved a lot on the tech side of things.

Well, MOST here lack the hardware, based on comments I've read. Ubersampling does make a difference, but it completely kills the framerates. I've also turned off bloom and blur for aesthetic reasons. I think it looks better for playing without it, but it does make for some nice and moody screenshots.

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Even though it seems no one here has the hardware to play with the graphics settings maxed out

Are you sure about that?

Ok, I admit that Ubersampling is off, but everything else is on max.

Same here, only I also turned off motion blur but only because I don't like it. Game is indeed fucking gorgeous. In fact, I can't recall seeing anything better. Who'd have thought CDP would show up the big guns (Crytek, Biowhore etc) as the new standard setter in the graphics/art department alone.

 

[Trash]

You do need a pretty hefty rig to get all the shiny. Bizarrely enough it's still looking pretty decent on lowest settings. More like a 6 year old game that way than the usual castrated crapfest you get by turning down the options in other games. It scales pretty well.

 

[MicoSelva]

Even though it seems no one here has the hardware to play with the graphics settings maxed out

Are you sure about that?

Ok, I admit that Ubersampling is off, but everything else is on max.

Same here.

+1

 

[Darth Roxor]

They put in more elaborate C&C but oh now there's too many cutscenes.

Cutscenes = C&C. More news at 11.

They make an NPC schedule, yet they don't make NPC's angry when you steal stuff(incidentally like in almost every RPG and including the Codex Trinity). WHAT THE FUCK??

I don't know how you define 'codex trinity', but if we agree that it's stuff like Arcanum, Fallout, PS:T, I advise you to launch those games again and check what happens when you browse through people's belongings.


Goddamn apologetic cocks.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

I'm getting seriously pissed with this "click the mouse to do something awesome" shit. When exiting a cave, instead of just jumping quickly I have to click near every fucking ledge and watch an animation?

But the game picks up considerably after prologue