The Witcher 1 Thread

[Western]

Slightly off topic, there's going to be a toolset released for this sometime before Christmas. If I find any specifics on that I'll post them up.

 

[Annonchinil]

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=86156

 

[scypior]

There's a whole shit load of choices to make throughout the game and I'm going to replay it right away to see how much different I can make it.

Yeah, however I wasn't happy when I was told of the first consequence of my choice - Geralt started to talk, and he pointed it out, that it was consequence of my choice from the prolog. Quite logical consequence, and nicely done, but I do not like to be somewhat 'directly' informed about this...

 

[Darkflame]

I've been playing for about 8 hours and must say that this game is very unique. It's really neat to face decisions where the longterm outcome isn't immediately recognizeable, and when I've seen other RPGs attempt this those choices have always been very predictable and/or morally polarized - the Witcher presents choices without steering you in a particular direction, or educating you at all on how those different decisions will play out.

One cool feature I haven't seen reviewers pick up on is the journal system - it's divided into a bunch of sections and as you encounter new creatures, NPCs, formulas, topics, etc, profiles of these are added to your journal, and these profiles are updated as you learn more about those subjects. Some quests are unperformable unless you expand these subject profiles through separate means - for instance, just knowing about drowners doesn't mean you can harvest from them, and the questgiver who tells you to kill them and bring back their brains as proof won't teach you how exactly to do that (nor will they point you in any direction so you can learn).

The consequences from your decisions aren't all long-term either - akin to older RPGs sometimes you will only have one opportunity to ask NPCs about certain topics. The world is very "alive" and evolving (so far), and the AI seems like what Bethesda was striving for but missed - NPCs are everywhere, they hold conversations and run to get out of the rain, the children run up and down the streets and play tag and remark on your ugly looks and whatnot. they all have schedules, etc. There are also scripted events that take place during different times of the day - if you don't happen to be in the area during a certain time you'll never get the quest.

This game has some of the best RPG game mechanics I've seen since Fallout and UW1, and if you get the chance to check it out I think you will like it. Sure there are nitpicks; NPCs have odd body language, sometimes the english translation is hard to follow, etc but these nuances are so minor in light of what the game does correctly. So far I'd give this a 9.5 out of 10, and I forgot to mention graphics. music or combat (all of which are very good as well, but you can check reviews and screenshots for that shit).

New players might be turned off by the amount of cut-scenes in the beginning - I briefly was, however this is merely the intro, the game really starts once you get to the outskirts of the first city. Alright, going back to play.

 

[SuicideBunny]

anyone with the uk, or better yet polish version willing to post brütal pics for comparison?
the german ce was multilingual ('cept polish), and that doesn't usually happen when there are different european versions.

 

[Oarfish]

Ok, fanboy attack time. How the hell did this end up with 7/10 - the same score he gave to 'Monster hunter unlimited'?

So, by my reckoning, The Witcher is only half an RPG. The role you play is non-negotiable - you're Geralt, a white-haired growly-voiced amnesiac anti-hero.

OMG, you can't choose your hair color and you have a significant back story, how can it be an RPG?

The combat tries to find the middle ground between the turn-based approach of, say, Knights of the Old Republic and the mouse-mashing of Diablo II.

KOTOR was turn based? You're an idiot. (edit:And so am I)

 

[Deleted member 7219]

The combat tries to find the middle ground between the turn-based approach of, say, Knights of the Old Republic and the mouse-mashing of Diablo II.

KOTOR was turn based? Your an idiot.

 

[Monolith]

It tries what? The good thing about the combat is that it's actually unique. It's easily the best RT combat I've ever encountered in a RPG. It managed to make both player and character skill meaningful and requires at least some thinking. Doesn't remind me of KotOR nor Diablo 2. And yeah, it's challenging.

7/10 is unjustified, no matter how you put it.

BTW, I got it on friday and I've been playing it like a madman since then. The best game I've played in the last few years.

 

[Callaxes]

OMG, you can't choose your hair color and you have a significant back story, how can it be an RPG?

Learn to read, he says "it's half an RPG", besides what's wrong with wanting to customize your PC?

 

[Andrej]

Honestly, some of the dialog that's translated into english is pure rubbish. I feel that sometimes I'm not really sure what the hell my character and the NPC's are talking about - especially in cutscenes. It's all part of that "USSR" experience that comes with the slavic language translated.

However, appart from some dialogs hardly making sense (I don't get the impression that the person translating it was nativly fluent in English, but rather good at English and nativly fluid in Polish) a lot of the game is actually quite damn good. There's almost no handholding - which can at times be frustrating as all modern games seem to smother you with directions like the most overprotective of mums.

However, at times the lack of handholding makes you wonder if you can't complete the quest due to a bug or that you're just not doing the right thing.

Potions, weapon oils and such seem to actually play an important role in the game. Gone are the 3 minute buffs that you keep saving and never using, instead potions actually have signicficant effects and often last for atleast an hour, often up to 24.

Combat can either be really smooth and fluid, but sometimes it gets clunky as fuck. It's often either or, really. You realize that you've been standing still for a third of a second due to the enemy moving slightly before your attack sequence triggered. Also the transition from standing up and trying to deliver a coup de grace to an enemy can be really clunky with you running forward half a step, coming to a sudden full stop, realigning and then starting the attack.

Also, running around in the first area and having done most of the quests by now combat has so far been very easy.

More later. Gtg.

 

[Whirler]

Ok, fanboy attack time. How the hell did this end up with 7/10 - the same score he gave to 'Monster hunter unlimited'?

Readers gave it 9.6/10, Eurogamer still is full of crappy reviews.\

One nice user comment:

Gameplay - 9/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 9/10
Made in Poland - 1/10

 

[Kraszu]

OMG, you can't choose your hair color and you have a significant back story, how can it be an RPG?

Learn to read, he says "it's half an RPG", besides what's wrong with wanting to customize your PC?

Nothing if you find cosmetic choice, as much important as ones that game respond to, Larper.

 

[Monolith]

Learn to read, he says "it's half an RPG", besides what's wrong with wanting to customize your PC?

Like changing hair colour when the predefined character you're goint to play is called white wolf for a reason?

 

[ricolikesrice]

still undecided here, while usually seeing that known retards and dumbfucks (gamestar and eurogamer for example) give out mediocre reviews and rpg forums such as this one give praises is a clear "buy it" sign for me...... i still see way too much "OMG IT ROCKS" without going into details why, often enough by mostly polish posters (dont take this as in insult, i d be just as carefull if a german cRPG was celebrated mostly by german posters... hope you get what i mean...).

so, what exactly makes the witcher so great for someone who could care less about the books behind it ?

from what i read i can already filter that the whole combat/equipment system seems pretty challenging, innovative and fun - stuff like not carrying 100 armor/weapon sets around, having to prepare for tough battles etc. gets a definitive thumbs up from me if true, i m soo tired of crappy combat in cRPGs, even if they re otherwise fucking great (PS:T, arcanum, MOTB....).

but what else is there ? how s the choices and consequences ? is it merely that a few quests support branching ? the same is true for bioware RPGs too.
or is there actually choices and consequences "almost everywhere" like in fallout and MOTB , not just at major story points ? different ways to do quests ? good dialogue options ? etc etc

please highlight some more of the things that make the twitcher so great.

 

[Deacdo]

Just finished it...

WTF?!? Just how long *is* it?

 

[cardtrick]

Okay, guys, I downloaded this and started playing it. I'm maybe 5 or 6 hours in (still in Act I, but at least halfway through it).

I LOVE this game. I'm having more fun with it than MOTB, which I also really enjoyed.

I think the closest comparison is to Gothic I, but I like it a hell of a lot better.

First, the cons:

Dialog is not the greatest. Sometimes it's perfectly acceptable, other times it's awkward. Mostly this isn't a big deal, and sometimes it's even fun in that "so bad it's good" movie kind of way. The various videos floating around give an accurate impression of the dialogs.

You can't customize the character of Geralt before play. (Personally, I couldn't care less about this, but I know some people do.)

Many quests can only be solved through combat. (This doesn't mean all quests, and combat is fun enough that it doesn't necessarily matter. The game does bill itself as an action RPG, though, so be warned.)

The neutrals:

Voiceacting is decent, at best. I have kind of high standards, and this doesn't meet them. It is, however, enormously better than Gothic I or II. There are plenty of misemphasized lines, and the lipsynching is poor.

The pros:

The setting is excellent and really cohesive. It's medieval fantasy, but dark and gritty, often with a bit of black humor. This game is immersive in the best possible way.

The game is beautiful. I don't care much about bad graphics, but good ones are a big plus. It looks far better than NWN2, and runs better too. Partly this is the engine, which seems very solid, but mostly it's the art direction, which is nothing short of inspired. This is the first fantasy world since PST and BG2 that is visually convincing for me. Man, when the camera in the opening scene pulls back and pans over to the Witchers' crumbling, half-destroyed castle glowing softly in the sunlight . . . I fell in love.One really nice effect is the depth of field that really makes cutscenes cinematic (in a good way). Be warned, however: depth of field is enormously system intensive, so the game will run worse during cut scenes than during normal play. If things seem jittery during the opening cinematic, don't panic. (You can turn this feature off if you want.)

Combat is quite fun. It's the best RT combat I've seen in an RPG, and the chaining of attacks works well. The choice of six different combat styles and five magic signs, with some nice synergies between certain signs and attack styles, makes for seem decent tactics. Animations are great, and fights feel pretty visceral, especially in the over-the-shoulder camera. I don't dread fights, which is more than I can say for most RPGs. Less tedious and less poorly balanced than in the Gothic series, but on the other hand not as closely based on player skill (this may be good or bad for you).

What really makes the combat shine, though, is the alchemy system. Simply put, this is fantastic. The alchemy system is integrally tied into the main plot, the combat system, and the character development. It's fun and seems to have some depth. This is by far the best alchemy/crafting system since Darklands, and probably surpasses that, too. There is an enormous variety of formulas available for you to create potions, which take the place of buffing magic in most fantasy RPGs. On the hard difficulty, some enemies will be immune to you unless you create and use the proper potions; on medium difficulty, you will at least have a hard time of things without taking advantage of alchemy. You can't harvest certain essential ingredients without knowing about them, and you can't make potions without the right formula, both of which serve to make lore/knowledge extremely important, which is great.

Speaking of lore. The journal! Dear God, the journal! This is absolutely innovative. At first it will seem overwhelming, but it's freaking fantastic. The journal has tabs for quests, monsters, places, characters, formulas, ingredients . . . er, I think there are a couple more. Anyway, anytime you learn something it gets an entry in the appropriate place in your journal, which may be updated later as you learn more information. What's so great is that these entries affect your game! They limit what potions you can develop, what items you can find, and what dialog options/quest solutions are available. I love this, and I can imagine this being a feature in future RPGs. If anyone remembers (Naked Ninja, maybe?), it's very similar to the knowledges feature I once proposed.

Choices and consequences; well, you've heard the hype. I don't have much more to say. I've only seen a couple of instances of these, but they've been solidly done, even if the exposition of the consequence is a little heavy-handed (I think this is going to change as the game progresses). You're not necessarily presented with dozens upon dozens of choices that make absolutely no difference, like in a Bioware game; instead, you have fewer choices, but each one of them has major consequences for the game plot. I like this a lot.



Anyway, that's it for my mini review, I'm going back to the game. I highly encourage veryone here to buy it. I'm having a lot of fun. While MOTB was great, it didn't do anything new; I enjoyed it because it was a throwback to the classic games I love. The Witcher has some of that, although the throwback in this case is to Gothic rather than PST, but it's also really innovative; maybe even groundbreaking. The journal system, the combat system, the depth of the alchemy system, the focus on choices/consequences, the gritty medieval world . . . it feels quite unique, and I really love it.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention. The quests may bother some people. They really are mostly combat, and often they're along the lines of "kill 10 foozle." However, this doesn't bother me at all. In PST (unlike, say, NWN2), I didn't mind that TNO could come back to life after fights, because his immortality was central to the character and the plot. Similarly, I don't mind that some of your sidequests in the Witcher revolve around hunting monsters, because a Witcher is in fact a monster hunter. When things make sense, they are much less annoying.

Oh, and also: the sex stuff. First of all, this is a much smaller deal than people are making out. Second, it's surprisingly well integrated into the plot (so far I've slept with two women, both shortly after saving their lives) and unintrusive. It kind of adds to the fact that in some ways you're roleplaying an action movie hero. Anyway, it's just not a big deal, and I actually find it fairly tasteful.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

The box says 80 hours, but that is mostly if you go for a
LOT of Side quests and a lot of the Fluff material.

I think you can blast through it on easy pretty fast if you really really want to.

Say 40 hours or so.

And then you still have all the Choices that have TRUE Consequences

Edit.
Well after reading cardtrick's MINI review i am going to try to reinforce his statement's with a "I TOTALY AGREE" and add some of my thoughts.

The Journal is great and even if it in the start it looks overwhelming it is pretty easy to find what you are looking for.
That most missions are combat makes perfect sens because of the fact that Geralt only really asks for Witcher Work which is Hunting and killing monster...for money. So it makes sens.
There are other type of quests, but you are a Monster HUNTER after all.
The sex scenes so far have all made sens to me they were never really out of character or in any way forced on you.
It was always some one you saved, Payed, Seduced or needed you for something.

So far i am well into Act 2 and i am loving every minute of it.

 

[Monolith]

please highlight some more of the things that make the twitcher so great.

Here's what I like most about it (in that order):

1. The setting:
It's coherent, unique and makes sense in itself. The world is depicted as full of injustice, prejudice and hypocrisy. Monsters roam the countryside to make living even worse and sometimes the worst monsters are human beings. Great graphics, art, level design, sound and consequently the atmosphere make it shine even more.

2. The character (his personality and strongly related to that, the dialogues):
Geralt is a Witcher, a fucking mutant, a brute, a merciless sword for hire - but somehow, still on the good side. In a world like that he's a necessary evil and usually treated like that (except by a lot of women). Dialogue is fun because that's where his personality shines through, not more (except, perhaps, being well written and at times authentic). Because he's a Witcher asking for and getting quests makes sense. HE makes sense.

3. The gameplay:
Looking out for information (plot, quest, monster or alchemy related), the use of alchemy and knowledge to fight certain monsters, the absence of grinding and loot-hunting are all unique, different and interesting. The thought-out skill system, some mini-games and the fact that I'm always broke don't hurt either. EDIT: I forgot about the choices and consequences. It's not Fallout, but there are some, meaningful and have longterm effects.

4. Combat:
Manages to make both player and character skill meaningful and requires some tactical thinking (styles, magic and use of alchemy). Besides, it's challenging, chosen skills make a difference and it looks damn good.

5. The story:
Although it's mostly linear so far, it's a great reflection of the setting and thanks to Geralt's and the Witchers' interesting background, absorbing enough to draw me in.

Just for the record: I've yet to read the books, I'm playing the Polish version (relevant because of dialogues) and I'm about 20 hours into the game (possibly halfway through chapter two).

IMO the game couldn't live just of its story, but every other aspect could singlehandedly justify at least a 70+ rating. But here we got them all in one nice package. I'd also like to add that I've yet to encounter one single bug. Although the game crashed once, after I've played for about 12 hours straight (yeah, I feel so fucking nerdy writing that...). The only issues I have are seldom problems with the camera, not perfect cut-scenes (sometimes they end abruptly, leaving you unprepared surrounded by enemies) and that I have to walk long distances frequently. Loading times are a bitch but I got used to it. If you want to know anything specific, just ask.

 

[MasPingon]

Just finished it...

WTF?!? Just how long *is* it?

I'm playing about 45 hours and I'm still in 3rd act.

So far there was couple of things which I didin't like( some dialogs, inventory, prologue), but but it turns out to be a fckin great game with the begining of the 1st act, and it's still getting better.

 

[Haraldur]

Given that I am an annoying person who prefers to watch anime and foreign films with subtitles rather than a dubbed version, is it possible to have the original Polish dialogue with English subs? If not, would it be feasible for, sometime in the future when I have a PC that can run this game, someone to have made a mod for that at some point?

Not important, I know, but it would be a nice touch.

 

[cutterjohn]

So did you guys ever find out if it runs under win2k? (I'm still running it too, and have no plans to change it until something forces me to require DX10, which will also prod me into another new GPU, hopefully 9XXX series nVidia cards will be out by that time with all the 8XXX foibles worked out...)

When I do spring for it, I'll definitely be ordering a UK copy as I'm not at all interested in religious nutcase thumper censoring. They're almost as bad as muslims.

Reviews:
I'll toss in my $0.02 even though it's been days since this was discussed, for RPGs I usually read RPGWatch & codex reviews, the forums of both sites, and the c.s.i.g.rpg newsgroup. If still undecided I'll also check the review aggregation sites and maybe read a few of the reviews listed there as well.

General games:
Try to check the official forums, various other site forums, newsgroups(if any), and review aggregation site review listings.

Demos are important, if I'm still undecided at this point, but only if they REALLY are representative of the game.

I find trailers and screenshots to be wholly unimportant, along with all the other PR interview, diaries, etc.

Engine:
IIRC I read in an interview early in the year where someone from CD Projekt said that they ripped out the original engine's renderer and replaced it with their own. Made me kind of wonder as one would expect the renderer to be a big part of engine... (The interview was about when they were looking at various engines to possibly buy to use for Witcher...)

 

[scypior]

cardtrick - nice review

You know, I didn't make such long review not because I am fanboy from Poland or something, it's just isn't as easy for me to write such long posts in English

 

[bozia2012]

I wonder what more can the industry do to ruin this game:

- bad translation (this is the worst crime against a book-based RPG)
- censorship (LOL)

I also wonder Who will be dumb enough/ignorant to play censored version?

In Germany they censor blood&gore (true?) - YAY! we all know that not only axes but swords are also blunt weapons so no flying body parts. No lets remove blood or make it green - we all know killing zombies/aliens/mutants is OK while killing degenarate bandits/peasants (even in self-defense) is bad so no visual gratification for it.

In US of A they censor sexual content (true?) - how much of it (only boobies)? We all know Triss has this dreamy stare because she wants to marry Geralt and have his kids (and to finally loose her virginity she kept for so many years). We all know driads/trolls/drowned do care what they wear - they're humanoid of course!

People don't kill/rape/torture each other (maybe they do in some degenarate/unwashed slavic countries)!

 

[dragonfk]

Engine:
IIRC I read in an interview early in the year where someone from CD Projekt said that they ripped out the original engine's renderer and replaced it with their own. Made me kind of wonder as one would expect the renderer to be a big part of engine... (The interview was about when they were looking at various engines to possibly buy to use for Witcher...)

I seem to recall more recent interview with a developer and he stated that CDProjekt did change 70% of the original code from Aurora.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

I also wonder Who will be dumb enough/ignorant to play censored version?

*raises hand* I live in the US and I have this rule where I don't pay money for porn.