The Witcher Officialsky Witcherovda 2 Impressiovna Threadskaia

[Gerrard]

You know, they could have made the item properties display in a popup, not a fucking list that is scrolling despite being in tiny font.

Two things I'm really missing now: ctrl+click to loot all like in TW1 EE

Press space when opening a container to take everything, it's on the button by default.

 

[Antihero]

You know, they could have made the item properties display in a popup, not a fucking list that is scrolling despite being in tiny font.

Two things I'm really missing now: ctrl+click to loot all like in TW1 EE

Press space when opening a container to take everything, it's on the button by default.

Not the same thing. Anyway, I was able to use an unpacker on their archive now and look at the UI files. Think I'll try descrolling the inventory myself, unless the devs beat me to it.

Archive unpacker here in case anybody's interested in trying to mod it (not my unpacker): http://svn.gib.me/public/red/

You'll need to compile it yourself though. I've tried it, it works for me, although it's probably still a work in progress.

 

[Frau Bishop]

Played it for some hours and.. well, it's an action game. A very beautiful one, for young people with good reflexes and an animosity against stats and complex attributes. Mixed with bothersome minigames a la click LMB repeatedly, click WASD when they appear on screen, run swiftly from a dragon, click LMB and try to balance some armwrestling bar and so on.
Can't understand what all the fuzz is about, being a great new RPG (because there are dragons and swords?) and all. Gonna set it to easy difficulty as I'm already fed up with the action combat after the terrible tutorial, I just want the fights to be over asap and hopefully will enjoy some parts of the background story.
Because the story will make this game special compared to the other action game named TW2, Two Worlds 2. Right?

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Well finally a comment from someone with common sense.

It's funny how all the fanboys here cum over the improvements like graphix and action combat, yet completly ignore other weak aspects of TW1 that should have been improved upon on.
Tho things that interest me the most: We all know the Witcher 2 was painfully linear, with only a few choices at some points that usually resulted in a different cutscene. Has TW 2 improved upon that?

The other thing is the character system.
So as we all remember, the Witcher 1 char system was very reduced. It forced you to distribute your skll points very broadly at the lower and mid levels, which is why all characters end up pretty much the same anyway. Only at the higher ends of the skill trees did it allow for some customization. That being said, it's propably somewhere in the middle between being an extremly reduced ARPG character system and being a "bonus skill" system we know from different console action games, where you unlock additional powers for your character as you progress trough the game.


How would describe TW2 character system in comparison?

 

[Saxon1974]

Played it for some hours and.. well, it's an action game. A very beautiful one, for young people with good reflexes and an animosity against stats and complex attributes. Mixed with bothersome minigames a la click LMB repeatedly, click WASD when they appear on screen, run swiftly from a dragon, click LMB and try to balance some armwrestling bar and so on.
Can't understand what all the fuzz is about, being a great new RPG (because there are dragons and swords?) and all. Gonna set it to easy difficulty as I'm already fed up with the action combat after the terrible tutorial, I just want the fights to be over asap and hopefully will enjoy some parts of the background story.
Because the story will make this game special compared to the other action game named TW2, Two Worlds 2. Right?

Agree with this. I also don't like the way dialogs you choose turn into something else when spoken. Im not a fan of the heavy cut/scene games that seem to be the norm in titles now.....it makes me feel like im watching a movie.

This is definitely and action game. Trying to think about where its good as an rpg and the only thing I can think of so far is c&c. Stat heavy? Hardly any. Twitchy action combat.

Only positives are graphics and a little c&c. Ill play for a while longer too see if I change my mind but as this game doesn't feel like an rpg hardly at all why does the RPGcodex seem to like it so much?

Is it because its polish?

 

[Phelot]

Is it because its polish?

In a nutshell, yes.

Nah, just kidding. I haven't played it yet (hopefully tonight since I got my new vid card in to replace my dying old one) but a lot of the impressions here seem pretty good. Despite commie attacking him, Darth Roxor appears to think it's an OK game and along with Trash, I seem to detect that they genuinely like it as opposed to ME2's "Good for what it is."

And I don't know how many people are claiming this is a new era for hardcore RPGs with this, but I am not looking for an RPG in this game. I was looking for one in TW1 and didn't find what I was looking for. In the end I trudged through it because I loved the atmosphere. Pretty dumb reason to play a game, but I really wanted to like TW1. I suspect I'll be doing the same with TW2 and from the sounds of it, it'll be fun enough just exploring a beautiful world.

We'll see.

 

[a budda]

Played it for some hours and.. well, it's an action game. A very beautiful one, for young people with good reflexes and an animosity against stats and complex attributes. Mixed with bothersome minigames a la click LMB repeatedly, click WASD when they appear on screen, run swiftly from a dragon, click LMB and try to balance some armwrestling bar and so on.
Can't understand what all the fuzz is about, being a great new RPG (because there are dragons and swords?) and all. Gonna set it to easy difficulty as I'm already fed up with the action combat after the terrible tutorial, I just want the fights to be over asap and hopefully will enjoy some parts of the background story.
Because the story will make this game special compared to the other action game named TW2, Two Worlds 2. Right?

prologue is shit
fights are easy (on normal) just don't get surrounded and use elixirs, signs or bombs
numbers and stats are very much in
QTEs switch to easy in options
armwrestling, fistfighting is optional crap (do you bash all rpgs where you can play shitty cards?)

good game so far
too many easter eggs - reminds me of f2 :/

 

[J_C]

I know it is not a hardcore cRPG, but the ones who say that the TW2 is just an action game with light rpg elements are virtually saying that Bloodlines and Gothic are just action games. Especially the former, since its character development was pretty shallow. It had twitch gaming mechanic, limited world, now as I think of it, it was less of an rpg than TW2.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

the ones who say that the TW2 is just an action game

...probably haven't yet finished the prologue.

 

[J_C]

Or that.

 

[Markman]

Well, I think its the best A- RPG since the old Witcher. More and smarter C&C, twitchy combat and amount of detail is amazing.
This is THE game I've been looking for. This game marks the end of .

 

[Trash]

If you don't like arpg's like for instance Gothic 2 then you won't like this. Simple. If you absolutely loathed Witcher, well, you won't like this. Simple. It's much more advanced than the Witcher was but it's still the Witcher. Want to get a good idea about the game without playing it? Go read the Rock Paper Shotgun review. It's pretty much spot on. If you played through the prologue and feel that you can make a well founded opiniated post on this game? Fuck off.

 

[Saxon1974]

I will admit im near the end of the prologue so I will post more impressions after the prologue....hope it gets better

 

[Frau Bishop]

fights are easy (on normal) just don't get surrounded and use elixirs, signs or bombs

My point wasn't about the fights being to hard. It is about me having zero fun fighting them, it's just a nonstop realtime action galore, hack, bomb, roll, slash, run... calling it action-rpg seems to be the nicest thing I feel capable of right now.
Using my leet and überfast WASD skills to prevent two or five guys from kicking my backside feels like replaying some beat 'em up I used to play when I was in my teenage years. Nothing wrong with teens playing beat 'em ups in 2011. But I'm not really in the mood to do it. And they shouldn't call their beat em up "rpg", that's just dishonest advertising.
Gothic or Gothic 2 never gave me the feeling to play some beat em up, maybe because it was lacking these ridiculous "Look at me, I'm so cool and fast!" moves. Geralt seems to try too hard most of the time.

@Trash
But, sure, I didn't finish the game so I can't say my opinion about it. That argument never fails to deliver, Mr Assassin's Creed.

 

[Trash]

Are you talking to me, bitch? The argument is that you can't judge a game based on the prologue. Not that you never finished the game and thus can't say anything about it. Now fuck off.

 

[Frau Bishop]

Precious little fanboy, don't be angry.

 

[Trash]

Kut

Nothing to say eh?

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Can't judge a game until you have played trough the prologue at least seven times.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

"My point wasn't about the fights being to hard. It is about me having zero fun fighting them, it's just a nonstop realtime action galore, hack, bomb, roll, slash, run... calling it action-rpg seems to be the nicest thing I feel capable of right now.
Using my leet and überfast WASD skills to prevent two or five guys from kicking my backside feels like replaying some beat 'em up I used to play when I was in my teenage years. Nothing wrong with teens playing beat 'em ups in 2011. But I'm not really in the mood to do it. And they shouldn't call their beat em up "rpg", that's just dishonest advertising.
Gothic or Gothic 2 never gave me the feeling to play some beat em up, maybe because it was lacking these ridiculous "Look at me, I'm so cool and fast!" moves. Geralt seems to try too hard most of the time. "

Not even a coherent argument, it's just an old fart waffling on.

 

[Frau Bishop]

Re: Kut

Now fuck off.

Nothing to say eh?

Not even a coherent argument, it's just an old fart waffling on.

 

[HanoverF]

For a game purported to be for the pc gaming ubermensch it sure reeks of being a console extra retard baby

 

[odrzut]

My thoughts:

I play it on minimum settings, in 800x600, on my laptop with ATI Radeon 545V, Pentium T4500, 2,3 GHz, 4 GB RAM. I don't know how many FPS it achieves, but its enough to not stutter. Only problems I have with ui is too small font.

I'm near the end of the 1st chapter.

Story is great, dialogs are wastly superior to the first part, quests are original and interesting, and I didn't have one fed-ex, or kill X monsters of type Y quests so far. Some quests involved moving things between places, but it felt natural, and didn't required much backtracing the same path over and over.

Mechanic for fighting and dialogues definitely is there - there is even option to show small window in the bottom right corner of the screen, where you can see rolls of dices, and which skill was activated with what result. Still, fighting is heavily reflex based.

There are dialogue skills, "jedi mind trick" is my favorite. Dialogue skills, and some other develops thorught use, not by leveling up.

Leveling up only allows player to assign points into skills like fighting, alchemy or magic.

Crafting is easier than in TW1, and ingredients are abound (but maybe it's because of the place the 1st chapter is going on in). Much more things to craft, bombs and traps really matter this time. Alchemy feels slightly less important (because potions are only allowed before fight, so it's inconvenient). Still, some fights are almost impossible without alchemy (or maybe it's my poor reflex).

You probably want to turn off difficult QTEs in the options. QTEs is the biggest fail of TW2 IMHO. Timed dialogs are not so bad, because there's not many of them. I've seen it 2 times so far, and it made sense for both to be timed.

Fist fighting is actually worse than in TW1 - it's QTE ffs.

Stealth is completely optional, but not as badly implemented, as I thought it will be. Still - fells like another minigame.

C&C - better executed than in the first (at least these, that I've seen so far). Also - they really made many, many quests you won't find in the first playthrought. I'm watching Toegoff LPs of this game (with some delay, so I won't spoil my game, and althought main choices we made the same, games are still different, because of minor details, that really matters.

Overall I'm really enjoying this, mainly because of story, atmosphere, and fighting (in this order). Fighting is consolish, but damn, it's rewarding (because it's fair and not too easy - most errors will kill you).

9/10 (but I'm biased potato).

Story of this game has some spoilers for Sapkowski books, that weren't released in English yet. Not too big spoilers, but still.

 

[Quilty]

Gotta say I can't remember seeing textures done this well. Truly impressive.

I do miss the folkish feel of the game. The monster lore was done much better in TW1 and most of the monsters felt like these weird, unnatural things that posed a threat to the small human settlements. Of course, not all monsters were done that well in TW1, but I had the feeling most of them were backed up by a good story (the drowners, as someone mentioned).

 

[Trash]

Yeah, I liked the way the monsters were represented much more in the original Witcher. They presented the lore better and it had indeed a much more folky feel to it. Geralt in the Witcher 2 is a badass who does some pretty epic stuff and occasionally takes a contract on the side. In the Witcher it often felt more like you were actually doing a job with some epic shit on the side. A usual game day was getting rid of the pesky drowners near the shore, removing that ghoul from the crypt, banging the peasant girl and playing some dice in the tavern in the evening. It just felt smaller in a way and I personally liked that.

EDIT: Do wonder if we ever get the rest of the Sapkowski novels. Seeing as how the two they released were translated horribly and they skipped one of the two short story collections that served as a prequel.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

EDIT: Do wonder if we ever get the rest of the Sapkowski novels. Seeing as how the two they released were translated horribly and they skipped one of the two short story collections that served as a prequel.

Translated horribly to the point where I shouldn't read 'em? I chucked them on my Nook a while back with the intention of getting to them eventually, but if they're poorly translated to the point of being a pain to read maybe I shouldn't.

 

[commie]

The Potato Troll in the DLC is pretty cool though. Other monsters are more generic, nothing grotesque and disturbing like the Fledders, but then again maybe we get fancier beasts later on.

@ odrzut
That's the kind of thing I like to see in such a thread. Actual impressions, pros and cons from someone that actually played the game instead of just bitching mindlessly.