Game News GOG version of Witcher 2 DRM free, QA session and more

[deus101]

WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Toffeli]

Final version of Geralt.

Seems like they went rather extreme to get rid of the babyface look of the first trailer.
http://oi54.tinypic.com/15dulhl.jpg

 

[Burning Bridges]

That Geralt looks all right. He's supposed to be a mutant after all.

WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It may not really be designed as a PC exclusive, rather a multi platform game which is supposed to not suck. I think they will port it to consoles later, and are planning ahead because of the White Wolf fiasco.

I'd still cut them some slack, because at least they know how to make graphics look alright

 

[Ptosio]

I am at a conference with Gop right now, want me to ask him some questions?

 

[Mrowak]

I am at a conference with Gop right now, want me to ask him some questions?

Damn, it's too late, I guess but

'It seems The Witcher 2 went for more arcade gameplay this time around, boasting more console oriented controls. This rises questions if change of focus allow for more tactical oriented gameplay. Will it be the case?'

'While we are talking about the interface the combat in The Witcher I was widely considered as too easy even on the hardest difficulty setting. This even led to appearance of a number of mods such as Flash's mod or Full Combat Rebalance Mod. What steps did you take to allow for more challenging gameplay in the Witcher 2?'

'We could see on some of the released videos Geralt dodging blows by tumbling away from the target. While it looked quiite impressive the first time, the fact that apparently it was the only method of aboiding enies' blows make the battle encounter look rather silly - like in 'Roll Playing Game'. Will there be more animations added to allow for more options?'

"Choice and Consequences. The Witcher I prided itself on a large number of Choices and unique Consequences to them. However, it was not perfect. One of the most recurring accussations against their implementation was the fact that the Consequences were of very little importance in the end. Most of them only changed the fluff of the story i.e. how the events occured but did nothing to prevent / make them happen (Exception: the murder of Colman). The best example is the last fight with the Grand Master to which you are railoaded no matter if you sided with elves, order or stayed neutral. Arguably the only real consequence were the few slides shown at the end of the game.

Question - Will the Witcher 2 boast more profound consequences? Will we be able to influence who we fight, choose the place of the final battle and so on? Or will it be all cosmetic again?"

 

[sick]

'It seems The Witcher 2 went for more arcade gameplay this time around, boasting more console oriented controls. This rises questions if change of focus allow for more tactical oriented gameplay. Will it be the case?'

i dont get it, witcher 1 already had 100% pure arcade and consolized fighting, there was no sign of tactics at all (i used maxed out igni sign for 70% of the game). the difference is that now you will have 3 buttons - heavy hit, fast hit and roll instead of one and choosing fighting style.

'While we are talking about the interface the combat in The Witcher I was widely considered as too easy even on the hardest difficulty setting. This even led to appearance of a number of mods such as Flash's mod or Full Combat Rebalance Mod. What steps did you take to allow for more challenging gameplay in the Witcher 2?'

it was already said that there will be 'hardcore mode' inspired by demon's souls (whole fight system seems to be demon's souls rip-off, tomasz gop - senior producer is known as big fanboy of that game) where you have to avoid being hit or you die instantly

"Choice and Consequences. The Witcher I prided itself on a large number of Choices and unique Consequences to them. However, it was not perfect. One of the most recurring accussations against their implementation was the fact that the Consequences were of very little importance in the end. Most of them only changed the fluff of the story i.e. how the events occured but did nothing to prevent / make them happen (Exception: the murder of Colman). The best example is the last fight with the Grand Master to which you are railoaded no matter if you sided with elves, order or stayed neutral. Arguably the only real consequence were the few slides shown at the end of the game.

i guess asking for that before game release is pointless, every dev would say 'yes, there will be more consequences' no matter what's in game. gamedevs are big liar's.

and oh, here are recommended system requirements:

Processor: Inel Quad Core or AMD equivalent
Video card: GeForce 260 1GB VRAM/ Radeon 4850 HD 1GB VRAM
RAM: 3GB with Windows XP or 4GB with Windows Vista and Windows 7
HDD: at least 16GB

my PC is crying now

they also said that decision about possibility of console versions will be announced within two months so i still hope for good PS3 port

 

[Ptosio]

I am at a conference with Gop right now, want me to ask him some questions?

Damn, it's too late, I guess but

'It seems The Witcher 2 went for more arcade gameplay this time around, boasting more console oriented controls. This rises questions if change of focus allow for more tactical oriented gameplay. Will it be the case?'

'While we are talking about the interface the combat in The Witcher I was widely considered as too easy even on the hardest difficulty setting. This even led to appearance of a number of mods such as Flash's mod or Full Combat Rebalance Mod. What steps did you take to allow for more challenging gameplay in the Witcher 2?'

'We could see on some of the released videos Geralt dodging blows by tumbling away from the target. While it looked quiite impressive the first time, the fact that apparently it was the only method of aboiding enies' blows make the battle encounter look rather silly - like in 'Roll Playing Game'. Will there be more animations added to allow for more options?'

"Choice and Consequences. The Witcher I prided itself on a large number of Choices and unique Consequences to them. However, it was not perfect. One of the most recurring accussations against their implementation was the fact that the Consequences were of very little importance in the end. Most of them only changed the fluff of the story i.e. how the events occured but did nothing to prevent / make them happen (Exception: the murder of Colman). The best example is the last fight with the Grand Master to which you are railoaded no matter if you sided with elves, order or stayed neutral. Arguably the only real consequence were the few slides shown at the end of the game.

Question - Will the Witcher 2 boast more profound consequences? Will we be able to influence who we fight, choose the place of the final battle and so on? Or will it be all cosmetic again?"

Yep, besides the lecture room was filled with hordes of potato-eaters hungry not only for the potatoes but also for information about the Witcher, so I only managed to ask one of my own questions regarding the dialogue system; I also wanted to ask about that thing Elwro had mentioned but I wasn't really let to ad besides on the presentation it didn't look all that bad, certainly not the Mass Effect level. Of course some of your questions were addressed , but let's start from the beginning, shall we?

So, I should probably mention that officially it wasn't even the presentation of the Witcher 2 but rather a lecture on "Translating the means of expression of the books to the language of New Media" or other shit like that, organized by a student research club at some college, but of course the public was hungry for action and demanded that Gop (a senior producer) show us some real stuff as soon as possible which of course was precisely the thing he did.

As for the presentation, a quick summary for you:

- Gop treats RPGs as the electronic/interactive equivalent of reading a book.

- sadly, there's little support on the author (i.e Sapkowski) side and the team receive very little feedback regarding the Witcher Universe but they're doing quite well without it and that's an old news anyway.

- this is a PC exclusive as of now. Console versions are planned, but not in the works and their eventual fate will be decided based on a reception of a PC version.

- the combat system is distinctively RPG and "heavily based on rolling" which was emphasized on one the slides.

- in practice, for me and apparently most of the public it seemed very chaotic but Gop assures us that it feels very tactical when you're the guy playing the game.


- game is hugely customizable and tailored to suit various gamestyles and tastes. For example, storyfags can practically get rid of a "combat as a challenge" by setting the difficulty level to easy while for the combatfags fighting may prove to be very tactical and rewarding, exploration- and itemfags may give vent to their deviations by examining every location using the witchers' medallion, alchemyfags will have their fairly developed oils and potions system etc.

- combat certainly looks way too biased towards magic/signs., and, as I mentioned, very chaotic but it too is to be highly customizable so you can choose between variety of styles, including setting traps, throwing bombs, using magic, relying on oils and potions, different style of fencing (you can for example block the attacks of other swordsmen, lead them to loose their balance and counterattack) etc.



- Geralt looks the way he looks and his hair moves the way it moves and if somebody don't like it then Gop "is sorry" for that. Curious thing: one of the merchants in the dwarves' city shouts EMO!!111 at the top of his lungs after seeing Geralt passing by.

- you can see the way the dialogues look like in the released videos - for me the "Mass Effect Effect" of the dialogue system didn't turn even half as bad as I'd imagined; generally you CAN see the line Geralt is to deliver, of corse sometimes he adds something from himself, but the same happened in the first installment either. What breaks the, er, immersion are the pauses between the lines - CDP-R is aware of this issue but it's not that easy to address and they decided they'd rather focus their resources on some other areas.


-boobs in the Witcher 1 were childish, they've grown up now (the developers, that is).


-the character development is talent-based and has implications on the game world. For example, if you're an alchemy freak, your character will become, well, a freak, which may in effect turn off some of the NPCs.


- there were numerous claims on have the players' actions affect the game-world and the story-line, this time for real, but we were spared any firm examples as this would have been spoilers.

-pretty much every quest is non-linear and there are multiple ways to end them. Your choices deeply affect the world and the attitude of the other people towards your character blablabla...

- there is a new minigame - armwrestling (fairly unimpressive, if you asked me); also, mechanics of boxing are changed and it is now quite difficult to win.

- Geralt will not be the only playable character.

- the quest log is now kept in a form of a book, or a tale told by Jaskier (Dandelion) - we were promised it would be fun to read.

-Gop and the CDP-Red team didn't play DA2 due to the lack of time, but he is assured the the Witcher 2 is a "different class of an RPG" as compared to Dragon Age 2.

- Polish and English language versions of the game are being prepared simultaneously and overseen by some Polish-American guy to assure coherence and adequate quality of both.



Kudos to Colegium Civitas for setting up this event and of course to Tomek Gop for showing up and answering our questions with uncommon patience.

I'll edit this post as soon as I realize I omitted something important.

 

[asper]

Sounds good, thanks for the info.

Too bad the combat will probably be shit, but I can live with that.

Holy moly, Geralt is not the only playable character?

 

[Ptosio]

Holy moly, Geralt is not the only playable character?

Well, in a presentation, player assumed a role of Dandelion for a part of a quest. This matter returned later in a Q&A session and when one guy remarked that such occurrences were obviously short and limited, Gop answered in a style of "And how do YOU know that? You'd be suprised".