Game News The Witcher demo in English

[Ausir]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, The

The English version of the demo of <a href=http://www.cdprojekt.com>CD Projekt's</a> <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com>The Witcher</a> has been released online. The demo contains most of the Prologue and Act I of the game. A list of mirrors can be found <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com/community/en/www/download_the_demo.html>here</a>. Note that the loading times in the demo are improved over the ones in the actual game, and are said by CD Projekt to be improved even more in the upcoming 1.2 patch.
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Cheers, <b>Arem</b>!

 

[Shagnak]

1.9 gigs...

Oh well, I'll dload it so I can see what the fuss is all about.

 

[Kingston]

Too bad you won't see all the consequences of your choices until act 2.

 

[Shagnak]

Well, when they say "most of the Prologue and Act I" I thought they meant all of the Prologue and then part of Act I, i.e. consecutive gameplay. But what you get is most of the Prologue, then some summary screen about what happens in the rest of the Prologue, then you're dumped at some village which is being harassed by something called "the Beast".

Lucky it does show more than just the Prologue, I guess, otherwise it would present itself as a railroaded slightly consolesque RPG.

 

[Crichton]

I've now played up to the village. I was planning on buying it based on all the favorable reviews and the demo has done nothing to change my mind.

The Good-
Pretty
Rumored to hold many meaningful choices
Nice music
Intriguing, if silly, fantasyland
Alchemy sounds fun

The Bad-
I'm stuck with an emo character that looks like a the bastard child of Gann from NWN2otB and some other, paler, faggot. He also has quite a mind of his own, frequently saying stuff that I don't want him to.
So far, the melee combat system is half a step up from G3, there is no missile combat system, magic is really simple. Not a whole lot of gameplay there, but it's still better than the pap you usually get in a single-character RPG.
The occasional dialog gaffe ("When you leaving?", No, when you leavin'?)

I'm hoping that by the time I get the full game, all the quirks will be worked out of restoring the original script.

 

[Dark Matter]

I'm at the beginning of the village area and wow, is the dialogue horribly awkward or what? It was fine in the castle section(where it was all just basically cinematics), but it reallly shows in the village area(where you actually have dialogue choices). I can't believe some people were actually debating about whether ME has better writing than TW.

Graphics are nice, but the setting looks like a generic medieval fantasy world from what I've seen so far.

I played the game in the top-down view(controls are a bit awkward in 3rd person), and the combat seems to be a few notches above the typical hack-n-slash action RPG.

The game also looks like it contains some lame MMORPG-style quests. I found a quest on the notice board in front of the inn that asks to collect ten pieces of some item for some guy.

 

[made]

I'm at the beginning of the village area and wow, is the dialogue horribly awkward or what? It was fine in the castle section(where it was all just basically cinematics), but it reallly shows in the village area(where you actually have dialogue choices). I can't believe some people were actually debating about whether ME has better writing than TW.

People have also mentioned that there's a vast difference between the Polish writing and the butchered English translation, you ignorant American fuck.

 

[Jasede]

As you know I am normally easy to go try and bash the Witcher for silly reasons, but I'll say, you ought to try to be careful when bashing a game's writing for its mistranslation.

Myself, I, too, would be perturbed if someone called Gothic's dialogue badly written based on playing the English version; the German is vastly superior. Same is true for Ambermoon and Amberstar and Albion.

 

[Madman]

Hm, why have they published the most boring part of the game? The Witcher starts at the end of act I...

 

[Ausir]

Because publishing further acts would be too much of a spoiler?

 

[Madman]

well, yes... But if they'd cut it a bit, maybe it would be possible to show a little more interesting part without spoiling the story? Eh, i don't know... Maybe i've expected to much.

 

[OSK]

I'm at the beginning of the village area and wow, is the dialogue horribly awkward or what? It was fine in the castle section(where it was all just basically cinematics), but it reallly shows in the village area(where you actually have dialogue choices). I can't believe some people were actually debating about whether ME has better writing than TW.

People have also mentioned that there's a vast difference between the Polish writing and the butchered English translation, you ignorant American fuck.

He's Canadian.

 

[Ausir]

People have also mentioned that there's a vast difference between the Polish writing and the butchered English translation, you ignorant American fuck.

He has the right to judge the product he buys in its out-of-the-box state, though - I doubt he speaks Polish and can play the Polish version.

 

[made]

"He's Canadian."

Canada being a continent all of its own.


"He has the right to judge the product he buys in its out-of-the-box state, though - I doubt he speaks Polish and can play the Polish version."

He certinly has. I was merely pointing out that people who have argued for Witcher's dialogue have likely played it in its original, superior form.

 

[OSK]

"He's Canadian."

Canada being a continent all of its own.

Though the name American can refer to anyone in the Western hemisphere, it's almost never used that way and the term tends to refer to citizens in the United States. If you walked into Canada and started calling them all Americans, I'm sure they'd correct you.

Localization issues.

 

[aries202]

I downloaded and installed the demo. After some or rather many problems, most of them having to do with the loooong loading times, when the game loads, I got to play the game. For some reason I couldn't understand why you guys liked this game so much, but then I hit the Outskirts of Vizima... And boy, did the game pull a fast one on me. I hadn't seen that plot twist coming - not even 10 miles away...

When I asked a girl in the inn here if she still was decent after dark (sorry, couldn't help myself), she actually scoffed at me. Now that's the c&c I want to see in an rpg, not the Bioware good, neutral, evil thingie...or the paragon/renegade that they call it nowadays.
I certainly understand why casual gamers enjoy this game - a lot. It is easy enough to follow what you have to do, just listen carefuilly to what you've been told, and do exactly what people tell you to do.

I don't quite get the combat system, though. I don't seem to be bale to figure out when the 'flaming sword icon' appears. Is it when I nearest an enemy or monster or is it when I'm somewhere in the middle? Sometimes, I just notice it, and it is gone, even before I can time my attack. The inventory is by far the best I have seen since the original Baldur's Gate series. It is organzied logically and you can easily get access to what you need to know when you need to do so. I also like the fact that you can't fight certain monsters untill you have learned something about them. Nice touch this is, me thinks...

As far as the environment goes, I haven't noticed that it is bland and meh. When compared to the game of which we do not speak, The Witcher is 200% percent better environment wise, simply because it portrays people as they might act in what you can real life. People won't talk to you (or rather Geralt) if you haven't proved your trustworthy. Even in Baldur's Gate 1, I'd found that this was sort of a problem. I mean why should some unkown peasant trust a complete stranger.
The Witcher solves this problem in a very clever and cunningly intelligent way, me thinks...

The quests are varied, and you get just the information you need from the npcs you meet. Sometimes you even have to do certain quests and tasks for the npcs before they trust you enough to telll you anythig at all. It makes sort of sense that you, as the wicther, would hunt down e.g. barghests, for some npc in the game. The quests seem to be well written and well designed. You need to talk to someone to find out what is going on. And then your journal is updated. The dialogue seems fine, to me, but then I didn't play the Polish version, so I really can't compare the two versions.

The point is that the story really is intriguing and just lives you little tidbits of information, so you keep longing for more, and to find out what has happened. Geralt obviously has lost his memory. This fact is used by the designers to get things going in a way I have never ever seen in a game before, not even in the Original Baldur's Gate series. I care about this world and the inhabitants in it. I want to find out what happened to Geralt and the world. In short, I do care --- not so much caring going when I play the game of which we do speak.

/aries202

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Myself, I, too, would be perturbed if someone called Gothic's dialogue badly written based on playing the English version; the German is vastly superior.

Which doesn't mean it's anything to jerk off to, though. And if it was that'd be more telling about the quality of writing in games than anything else. Not that it's bad - it gets the job done pretty well most of the time, but that's about it. The introduction of Gothic2 alone is enough to make one roll eyes ten times over. Blah, blah, bleh, blah, evil, dragon, you, blech, get, argh. GET! THIS! BOLLOCKS! FINISHED! ALREADY!

I think I'll give this demo a whirl too though.

 

[Dark Matter]

When I asked a girl in the inn here if she still was decent after dark (sorry, couldn't help myself), she actually scoffed at me. Now that's the c&c I want to see in an rpg

Huh?

 

[MasPingon]

Actually there is no c&c, you will do her anyway

 

[aries202]

When I asked a girl in the inn here if she still was decent after dark (sorry, couldn't help myself), she actually scoffed at me. Now that's the c&c I want to see in an rpg

Huh?

-ehm-

I think her name is Vesna? We just had a nice little chat, and she said 'no, I am decent girl' and I just picked the 'are you still decent after dark' dialogue option. And then she just turned away from me with a sort of disgusting looking mine or air. That's a first ---
for me anyway - in videogame...

Even if I'm set up to her anyway, as you say it, this is still great choice&consequence (c&c) to me, because when I tried talking to her again, she remembered what I have said, and scoffed (e.g. was didn't want to talk to me) at me. In a typical Bioware game,
I would just have been able to just talk to her again. I really don't want to sleep with a lot of women in this game, so I hope I can choose not to do so...

 

[dragonfk]

I really don't want to sleep with a lot of women in this game, so I hope I can choose not to do so...

Real life dillema. To sleep or to not to sleep.

 

[Crichton]

Dark Matter wrote:
I'm at the beginning of the village area and wow, is the dialogue horribly awkward or what? It was fine in the castle section(where it was all just basically cinematics), but it reallly shows in the village area(where you actually have dialogue choices). I can't believe some people were actually debating about whether ME has better writing than TW.


People have also mentioned that there's a vast difference between the Polish writing and the butchered English translation, you ignorant American fuck.

The way the dialog is set up can't have anything to the translation though. Whenever I get to the end of a one of the tiny dialog branches, the character repeats their little "hello" string with voice, so every time we get to the end of a topic I get the dwarven blacksmith shouting "what!" at me. This is a lot more awkward than bioware's "let me ask you about something else...." Better voice-acting would improve it, but it's just a stupid way to set up a dialog tree.

In a related note, the amount of dialog that I have no control over bugs me and now it's branching out into emo-guy actually doing shit without consulting me. He gets himself blind drunk while talking to some fat fuck with magical plants and then I have to fight the plants and some more glowing green dogs while stumbling around drunk. So we've got the consequence, but what happened to choices?

 

[aries202]

As for the fighting the -ehm- plants and dogs, try using your aard sign on them. And then do a quick combo on two on the plants while you need to deliver the blow of death to the dogs.

I don't think you can escape doing the main quest in this game like you can in that game of which we dont speak. The story need to progess so you need to earn Odo's trust by slaying his -ehm- plants...

However, if you read have taken everything you see in sight, you should have a potion of 'cat' with that enables you too see in the dark , it is really highly effective...

I agree that the 'what' sence after every completed dialogue is a bit silly, but perhaps this is what 'dwarves' say in this game? or maybe the 'what' sentence were translated directly from
Poliish? I even get the 'what' at Odo's place. I might have expected form a commoner, but certainly not from a man of Odos's wealth and position. And I rather liked that you could see & watch the effect of your drinking (too much) when you fought the plants at Odo's place.

Still, minor details, me thinks. This game is so amazing that I would buy it tomorrow (or yesterday :!: ) if I had the money for it.

 

[Crichton]

As for the fighting the -ehm- plants and dogs, try using your aard sign on them. And then do a quick combo on two on the plants while you need to deliver the blow of death to the dogs.

The drinking doesn't interfere much with the timing on the ole' clicky-click, so I just kept clicking until everything was dead (as usual). The problems I had with the drinking were:

a) It's stupid. Emo-guy is told that there are dangerous monsters in the area (both the green doggies he's been fighting and now, evil shrubs) and he decides the best way to fight them is to drink himself insensate

and

b) The stumbling is as slow as fuck, I feel like weighting down the "W" key and grabbing a book.

 

[made]

Not like dispatching them is hard either way. Just go back inside and sleep until the morning when you're done. I've found the explanation Odo gives for the whole situation rather amusing.