Preview Why You Should Sit Up and Take Notice

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher 2, The

<p><em>High fantasy has rarely looked better</em>, IGN concludes in their <a href="http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117720p1.html" target="_blank">The Witcher 2 preview</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Choices and Consequences that Matter</strong> <br /> Three opening scenarios multiply out to a full 16 different endings. That kind of scope is staggering, when you stop and consider the potential routes necessary to bridge you from one point to another through the game world. In fact, during our presentation, we were privy to the <em>entire</em> game schematic &ndash; a tangled mass of plot points, missions and interconnected events and scenes that looked more akin to a circuit board wireframe than anything. <br /> <br /> In practice, The Witcher 2 really does build on the first game's impressive choice/consequence backbone. Characters live and die by your decisions and entire missions become available or are never seen depending on your stance. <br /> <br /> In one example, the non-linear nature of the game allowed the developer to demonstrate two entirely different paths and radically different outcomes for the same area. Geralt, imprisoned and tortured in an underground dungeon, must escape. However, depending on whether or not you decide to play the game using stealth (and whether you were merciful to a particular character earlier on), you'll take two very different paths through the sprawling dungeon &ndash;and encounter entirely separate plot-developing side-characters and quests. With intricately written scenarios like this, we're guessing a few replays are going to be very much warranted. Roll on, 2011.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>C&amp;C - this time they do really matter! Promise.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com/#15691">RPGWatch</a></p>

 

[jazzotron]

Will one be able to import a save from the first game a la Mass Effect? Instead of receiving email from minor characters you can't even remember, I imagine you could receive letters via pigeon from minor characters you can't remember:

Dear Geralt,
Thanks for the fuck!
Yours sincerely,
Wealthy Townswoman

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Will one be able to import a save from the first game a la Mass Effect? Instead of receiving email from minor characters you can't even remember, I imagine you could receive letters via pigeon from minor characters you can't remember:

Dear Geralt,
Thanks for the fuck!
Yours sincerely,
Wealthy Townswoman

 

[Malachi]

The review actually makes me ... hopeful. How reliable are the IGN reviewers, though?

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Well, TW didn't need much to go from "good" to "great" and if IGN can be believed, they're certainly going in the right direction.

Anticipation levels definately rising with each preview... though I kinda wish it wasn't. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than bitterly dissapointed.

 

[waywardOne]

i think i've read the same "Your Decisions Matter!"™ boast for every rpg the last 5 years. my anticipation remains entirely unaffected.

 

[bezimek]

Will one be able to import a save from the first game a la Mass Effect? Instead of receiving email from minor characters you can't even remember, I imagine you could receive letters via pigeon from minor characters you can't remember:

Dear Geralt,
Thanks for the fuck!
Yours sincerely,
Wealthy Townswoman

 

[nomask7]

It will be crap, just like the first one. A crap game from crap people. I bought the first Twitcher used and then applied the enhancement. I'm so fucking glad I didn't support the idiots at CDProject.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

there's a video on gametrailers in which they make a presentation of the game, vomparing it with witcher 1. They have a picture of the game "choice and consequence structure", which will result in 16 endings. And by what I heard, it will have 3 different starting positions, corresponding to the 3 endings of witcher 1, but I don't know really if it will be based on the previous TW1 savegame.

Anyway, the only thing I hate about this is how the developers feel they are making the best thing ever. The classic arrogance:

"Our is the best RPG engine..."
"It's better than that fucking ugly game witcher 1..."

Oh yes, the game companies treats its sequels as if the previous game was shit.

The video:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-10 ... her/703360

 

[denizsi]

Too much emphasis on railroaded C&C eg. you get dungeon-raped and break out in either case. This is sounding more like Witcher Protocol by the minute.

 

[Phelot]

So, it's an adventure game with branching paths?

 

[commie]

Well if the schematic is to be believed it really deviates off early on and entire sections of game you will not see at all depending on your decisions. This isn't like a Bioware game where good or bad it doesn't matter until the last 20 minutes. Some of those 16 endings even end a lot earlier and follow their own distinct paths for a long time so you could finish the game early in some way just because of what you picked somewhere and never know where your decision leads until much later.

There are also the 'two different paths yet they meet again after the mission' type of things as well of course and these are what denizsi is thinking of with railraded C & C.

Of course, it could all end up being cut and be the same pseudo choices as in the first one(only different slides and the odd character change) apart from the big Order/Scoiatel choice towards the end.

Still, if they dared to show this plot tree, then it must have some basis in reality. I'm hopeful anyway.

 

[ChristofferC]

I don't see why they would make long mutually exclusive branches in the game. Most people will only play the game one time. Hell, most people will never finish the game.

 

[commie]

I don't see why they would make long mutually exclusive branches in the game. Most people will only play the game one time. Hell, most people will never finish the game.

Well that's the thing isn't it, if they DON'T do it then the 'Dex will be enraged but general gamers will love it!

Here we have a developer that at least is planning to make quite a revolution in C & C with lengthy, mutually exclusive branches, and who knows, maybe they won't get cold feet or the task overtakes them and they DO IT? It would certainly be something revolutionary in this day and age, and I'm sure people will replay it for this, considering that the game in any playthrough is supposed to be a bit shorter than the first one, which itself wasn't so lenthy that replaying would be tedious.

I'd rather spend 100 hours on TWitcher 2, replaying it differently several times than spending the same amount of tme wandering through cutpasta dungeons in Oblivion the one time(as many do).

 

[deuxhero]

Will one be able to import a save from the first game a la Mass Effect?

No. But you will be able to import one ala wizardry/quest for glory/first few ultimas/Eye of the Beholder . (Yes, they have confirmed TW1 saves can be imported, one of the first things revealed about TW2, though at the time they said it they hadn't decided what exactly to transfer).

 

[Luzur]

kinda like Fallouts 200+ endings.

 

[commie]

kinda like Fallouts 200+ endings.

Well that's not quite the same is it? I mean the game was mostly the same location wise all the way through. The 'endings' were just slides telling you how you affected things here and there, and these are the equivalent of those slides in Witcher all through the game when you let Abigail go free or kill Captain Vincent. The Witcher didn't count these as 'endings' yet in Fallout they are somehow counted as such which is silly. There is only really one ending in Fallout 2 and maybe 2 in Fallout(if you count getting vatted voluntarily an 'ending').

 

[Flatlander]

the non-linear nature of the game allowed the developer to demonstrate two entirely different paths and radically different outcomes for the same area.

 

[DraQ]

*faps cautiously and somewhat distrustfully*

 

[Silellak]

*faps cautiously and somewhat distrustfully*

 

[zeitgeist]

I don't see why they would make long mutually exclusive branches in the game. Most people will only play the game one time. Hell, most people will never finish the game.

A RPG isn't supposed to be a movie or a book. It's perfectly normal, in a decent RPG, for a player to miss even the major parts or plot points of the game. It's not supposed to be a linear narrative. However, it's much better when this happens organically during the normal course of the player roleplaying his character (supported by the game mechanics preferably, not just LARPing), than the blatantly obvious choose-your-own-adventure style of plot branching prevalent in modern RPGs that still include this as a feature.

 

[Derper]

kinda like Fallouts 200+ endings.

Well that's not quite the same is it? I mean the game was mostly the same location wise all the way through. The 'endings' were just slides telling you how you affected things here and there, and these are the equivalent of those slides in Witcher all through the game when you let Abigail go free or kill Captain Vincent. The Witcher didn't count these as 'endings' yet in Fallout they are somehow counted as such which is silly. There is only really one ending in Fallout 2 and maybe 2 in Fallout(if you count getting vatted voluntarily an 'ending').

I think he is talking about F3 and the Bethesda hypemachine. Just saying, lurk moar and all that.

 

[DraQ]

I don't see why they would make long mutually exclusive branches in the game. Most people will only play the game one time. Hell, most people will never finish the game.

By this logic making the ending is equally redundant.




As for TWs, what I really missed in the first game was any sort of connection between build and available branches - something that marks a true cRPG. Sure, Geralt is pretty well defined guy and it wouldn't make much sense to involve him in retard dialogue if he didn't pump his intelligence high enough, but stuff like alchemical and magical abilities being required for some branches would help the game a lot.

 

[Elwro]

I like the fact that one of your choices in Act III of TW necessarily excludes one ending. Made sense, after some decisions there's no coming back.

 

[Mhain]

Anyway, the only thing I hate about this is how the developers feel they are making the best thing ever. The classic arrogance:

"Our is the best RPG engine..."
"It's better than that fucking ugly game witcher 1..."

Man, they are doing it so that they could actually sell the game.

I once made a basic party based RPG with TB combat that had ZX Spectrum style graphics. I advertised it as "a homage to the games of old... Something I have made in my spare time...", and noone even downloaded it. If you don't do these stuff, people who would enjoy the game often don't even download it. Honest description also makes others act from a more commanding position: Players feel the need to complain and bash your efforts, thus reducing the interest even more. Lying is a good thing when the person you are lying to will actually benefit from the lie.