The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Comrade Goby]

Is this game an incline or decline in cRPG's? Any verdict on that?

Incline. Ignore these nitpicking autists.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Did I really sound upset, Ulminati? If so, please, rest easy; I participate on this forum because the negativity doesn't bother me.

It's funny that virtually every game you mention up there is a 'throwback', or an homage. Do you reckon that might be triggering some nostalgia-driven positive association? At least, in terms of visual design or gameplay? Life's mysteries abound.

 

[circ]

Fuck the graphics and everyone who keeps harping on about them. Game is very pretty and atmospheric, and I don't even play on ultra. Why does nobody mention the broken ass controls and what steps CDPR are planning to take to fix them?

Also no cooking of meat. Or any other dishes for that matter. Even Arcania had that FFS.

I've now seen numerous screencaps over the last few days and absolutely none of them would have me saying I'm impressed by the game graphically. It's brown, gray and murky in color - even when not in motion it's blurry. People call DAI's colors too vibrant and unrealistic - but I suspect these people wear glasses or other ocular devices as reality is vibrant, not brown, gray and murky. And people are saying it's TOO vibrant and want to tone it down with SweetFX? What. The. Fuck. The color or temperature, depending on what you measure by, of the light is wrong too, something DAI doesn't have a problem with.

 

[bonescraper]

I just did the Botchling quest and damn, that's easily one of the most memorable quests of all time. It's just a great fucking story, disturbing, morally ambiguous and... touching. It IS emotionally engaging. Yeah, i felt bad for the baron, even though he's a wife beater and a drunkard (i guess that makes me a misogynist). I liked the game so far, but now i fucking love it.

What was morally ambiguous about it?

Spoiler

Baron is a douche and threw his miscarried kid in a ditch, causing it to become a vengeful botchling.

You have two choices:

1. Kill the botchling
2. Redeem the botchling

This is a pretty black & white situation. You have to do extra work for going the 'moral' route but it's pretty obvious what the moral route is.

I didn't say the choices were morally ambigious. The baron isn't as big of a douche as i first thought him to be. The wole set up with Ciri and that little girl he takes under his roof, and his whole confession paints him as a man that has a soft spot for children, and who meant to straighten his life out, but fucked up big time.

 

[uaciaut]

People lose the sense of wonder they walk into gaming with. Things that you learn to overlook for the sake of enjoyment in your youth start to gnaw at you, later in life. Coupled with buyer's regret and the looming notion that the hourglass, which seemed so full not long ago, is running down... well, what you see is what you end up getting. People want more value out of their time and money.

But the Codex certainly suffers from an overabundance of 'this is the worst thing that has ever happened, since the last thing that happened' hyperbole slinging edgesters.

Nope, not true, good try tho.

Codex loves flawed games, what this site hates more than anything is banal shit boring games, and they will tell you why they are shit. Thats all there is to it. I wouldnt have enjoyed games like poe or wl2 10 years ago in the same way i dont enjoy them today.

I would stil enjoy games like AP or VtMB today, flawed as they are, because they are fun to play.

That is the codex at its heart, a site that will talk about good games fondly, and shit all over bad games, and now, like in the past, most games are in fact banal shit boring time wasters, Its just that today theres more "hype" (more stupid idiots that cannot into thinking or objectivity) so people with good taste shitting all over them stands out more.

That's an interesting take. It must be pretty easy to ignore completely ignore his argument, label games as fun to play and boring and say codex is cool because codex likes fun to play games. I don't suppose you've ever ran into a game that you found fun while many other people on the codex hated and found boring, right?

There's a good reason to hate AAA titles in general and in a way the real golden age of gaming will probably never come back because you needed a specific time and frame for it to happen - people exploring a genuinely unexplored field with creating games, programming/coding for games and trying to fight with technical limitations of the time. I remember fondly the making of Fallout clips where they used a make-up artist and scanned faces to create talking heads, there's just something incredibly cool about that shit that i don't think i'll find again.

That doesn't make a lot of codex' hate for new games/AAA shit retarded though. People whining about Geralt going from fighting dragons in TW2 to fighting wolves in TW3, people whining about free open world exploration hitting the edge of the map in 5 minutes when you genuinely have one of the biggest maps to explore ever created and they didn't fucking promise you infinite exploring, etc.
Really codex is about as dumb as funny to read sometimes as gamespot/ign etc for the opposite reasons, neither starts from the idea that this is a new game let's look objectively at it, they either hate it or love it from the start and start throwing the good or bad while ignore the opposite.
TW3 has its merits and certainly has its' flaws, it is a fucking AAA title and certainly has a shitton of compromises made because it tackles a very large audience, that doesn't make it objectively boring or fun.

 

[Metro]

2013 Neogaffian Codexer apologist.

 

[JasonNH]

Come at me bros.

 

[Lhynn]

Did I really sound upset, Ulminati? If so, please, rest easy; I participate on this forum because the negativity doesn't bother me.

It's funny that virtually every game you mention up there is a 'throwback', or an homage. Do you reckon that might be triggering some nostalgia-driven positive association? At least, in terms of visual design or gameplay? Life's mysteries abound.

Did you miss the part where he didnt mention PoE or WL2? no mystery around here. Shit games will get heat, good games will get luv.

That's an interesting take. It must be pretty easy to ignore completely ignore his argument, label games as fun to play and boring and say codex is cool because codex likes fun to play games. I don't suppose you've ever ran into a game that you found fun while many other people on the codex hated and found boring, right?

Yep, games like omerta jap initiative i liked, while strategic mod was crap, tactical mode was fairly fun, i feel it wasnt given a chance solely based on that.

There's a good reason to hate AAA titles in general and in a way the real golden age of gaming will probably never come back because you needed a specific time and frame for it to happen - people exploring a genuinely unexplored field with creating games, programming/coding for games and trying to fight with technical limitations of the time. I remember fondly the making of Fallout clips where they used a make-up artist and scanned faces to create talking heads, there's just something incredibly cool about that shit that i don't think i'll find again.

Sure, you saying i should lower my standards for AAA?

That doesn't make a lot of codex' hate for new games/AAA shit retarded though. People whining about Geralt going from fighting dragons in TW2 to fighting wolves in TW3, people whining about free open world exploration hitting the edge of the map in 5 minutes when you genuinely have one of the biggest maps to explore ever created and they didn't fucking promise you infinite exploring, etc.

Thats called nitpiking, not hating. Theres a difference. That or some retarded newfag.

Really codex is about as dumb as funny to read sometimes as gamespot/ign etc for the opposite reasons, neither starts from the idea that this is a new game let's look objectively at it, they either hate it or love it from the start and start throwing the good or bad while ignore the opposite.

Nonsense, people can change their mind, you better put forth a good argument tho, but ive seen it happen.

TW3 has its merits and certainly has its' flaws, it is a fucking AAA title and certainly has a shitton of compromises made because it tackles a very large audience, that doesn't make it objectively boring or fun.

No idea, still gauging if its worth playing or not. compromises do tend to make games boring, banal experiences, they wouldnt be called compromises if they didnt make one part suffer in exchange for something else, in most AAA games, its quality in exchange for a bigger audience. This is only natural, but i do believe a talented team can make it work, or ignore said compromises and bring forth a good game that will sell millions regardless, this isnt very common tho.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've only been playing for a few hours but I like it a lot so far. The atmosphere and general flow of the game is definitely much more Witcher 1 than 2 (which is a very good thing), but combat mechanics are a refinement from 2, obviously. I'm playing on the hardest difficulty and you certainly can't spam or you get killed fast; the dodge seems to have replaced the roll as your go-to move in combat and it actually takes some timing, you have to pay attention to enemy animations. I just killed the

Spoiler

Noonwraith in the village well

and it was a pretty great low-level quest which reminded me of the Cemetery in Vizima from W1. I had to prepare with potions, oil and I had to read the diary to figure out how to beat the boss - it's a simple thing, this preparation, but it really adds up to the atmosphere of the game. I never had to prepare for anything in W2.

Dialogues are pretty well done, character models are quite believable and just exploring around is pretty entertaining - although I echo the sentiment expressed before in this thread that the map markers for points of interest make exploration a moot point - turning them off doesn't help much, either, because you know in the back of your mind that the game only has interesting things around them. The only thing that actually bothered me in the game so far is the herb gathering; it's banal shit boring, you don't want to do it but at the same time you feel like you're being dumb for not doing it, since you're going to need the ingredients anyway. They should have integrated herb gathering with monster killing, instead of making you stop every 5 meters to pick shit up.

The game's technical performance is below what I had expected - I have a decent rig though and can run it well enough, but I honestly hoped it would run better. Still think it looks fine and plays well, so not too bothered.

All in all, I think it's a really good effort for a big budget game; I don't feel my intelligence is being insulted like I did with DA:I, mechanically it's engaging enough and the writing keeps me interested in what I'm doing instead of just going through the motions. It might get worse as the game goes on (developers tend to put a lot of work in opening areas), but so far I can't say I've regretted buying it at full price.

 

[Rivmusique]

Is this game an incline or decline in cRPG's? Any verdict on that?

action rpg for mainstream (mainstream game of throne style) and its very good at that. its not good for what it is, its excellent for what it is.

Is it? Seems like it, like Witcher 2, has gone with the range based attacks that Arkham, Assassin's Creed and Shadows of Mordor use, rather than a more 'the player chooses what the PC does, it's up to them to get it right' that great action games like DMC3 or Blade of Darkness use (both quite different, obviously, but it's in the player's hands when it comes to combat in both). That ranged based system obviously came about from people looking at the air swings that can happen in action games when people input wrong, so they created something where the character will always do something sensible and swing at an enemy. When it is done well (best in my limited experience, Arkham Asylum) it's borderline playing itself, stand near enemies, press attack, game decides on doing a long range attack or short range attack all on it's own, both are effective and the rooms cleared in no time. Poorly, (worst I've seen is Witcher 2) and the range detection is off so the character is doing animations that would make sense if he were leaping across the room to hit someone, but he is attacking someone right next to him, or air swinging even though you wanted a long range attack. Even worse in Witcher 2 is that the long range attacks were extremely slow, pretty much not worth using so you'd never really want them going off.

Now, Witcher 3 seems to have sped up the long range attacks, maybe it's gotten better at deciding which to use in any situation (even if not, if it's quick enough, long range can feel fine even if being used right in front of an enemy). But this system just doesn't give the control that great action games do, as melee attacking has just become "point in their directions, press attack and the game will take care of the rest. It'll look really good to anyone not playing though!". There's still defense to worry about at least, it mercifully hasn't gone for the instant kill counters that those others do, but infinite no-drawback rolls/dodge isn't great either, especially if rolls make you as unhittable as Witcher 2. I don't think this choice for looks > gameplay should ever be considered "very good".

 

[Toll]

Wow. I came here to see what the Codexer's think of The Witcher 3. Half of you are a bunch whinny tosspots that can never be satisfied by another other than some obscure niche game that is OK but gets massive extra points for being obscure. As soon as it's a AAA title, lolnopeitisbad.

 

[DeepOcean]

Wow. I came here to see what the Codexer's think of The Witcher 3. Half of you are a bunch whinny tosspots that can never be satisfied by another other than some obscure niche game that is OK but gets massive extra points for being obscure. As soon as it's a AAA title, lolnopeitisbad.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php

That is a good place to start. I think you were so occupied inventing your imaginary codex that you missed the real one.

 

[circ]

Maybe.. Maybe.. Witcher 3 is just shit. I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition for I think 2 weeks now but I make no fucking excuses for how bad it is. I guess I like the scenery, having something to do. I don't know. But I wouldn't say - oh guys, it's not so bad, give it a chance. Mass Effect 3 is easily the better game, ignoring the ending or last third of the game - but I do so wish it had been made using Frostbite 3.

 

[Night Goat]

Maybe.. Maybe.. Witcher 3 is just shit. I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition for I think 2 weeks now but I make no fucking excuses for how bad it is. I guess I like the scenery, having something to do. I don't know. But I wouldn't say - oh guys, it's not so bad, give it a chance. Mass Effect 3 is easily the better game, ignoring the ending or last third of the game - but I do so wish it had been made using Frostbite 3.

 

[circ]

I can live with that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I had to prepare with potions, oil and I had to read the diary to figure out how to beat the boss - it's a simple thing, this preparation, but it really adds up to the atmosphere of the game. I never had to prepare for anything in W2.

Very much my thoughts while doing this exact quest. Those little bits of research seem like moronic "point-and-click" when you deconstruct them, but if you take them together, they made me actually care about the whole context of my actions. It caused what people like to call "immersion". Pretty often in games I get bored because I fail to slow down and experience what the authors had prepared for me (usually because they haven't prepared shit), and these small things help.

Think of how this quest would have been done in DAI: go to point A, take quest, go to point B, kill bad guys, return to point A, get reward. The W3 version felt like a folk tale throughout and I dug it.

All in all, I think it's a really good effort for a big budget game; I don't feel my intelligence is being insulted like I did with DA:I, mechanically it's engaging enough and the writing keeps me interested in what I'm doing instead of just going through the motions.

You said it yourself about DAI.

 

[cvv]

Maybe.. Maybe.. Witcher 3 is just shit. I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition for I think 2 weeks now but I make no fucking excuses for how bad it is. I guess I like the scenery, having something to do. I don't know. But I wouldn't say - oh guys, it's not so bad, give it a chance. Mass Effect 3 is easily the better game, ignoring the ending or last third of the game - but I do so wish it had been made using Frostbite 3.

CDPR could certainly learn something about landscape design from Biowhore. DAI does look more appealing, the scenery is more interesting and varied. I actually thought this simple aspect of DAI was pretty fucking amazing. Thing is, it's the only one. Basically everything else was thin shit. W3 is nothing like that. Except a few technical annoyances almost everything about the game is very, very good.

Oh and the colours ARE oversaturated. It's CDPR's trademark. In W2 it was the nuclear red, now the game has an annoying yellow/orange/brownish tinge. SweetFX can get rid of that.

 

[Metro]

Wow. I came here to see what the Codexer's think of The Witcher 3. Half of you are a bunch whinny tosspots that can never be satisfied by another other than some obscure niche game that is OK but gets massive extra points for being obscure. As soon as it's a AAA title, lolnopeitisbad.

Oh hey, another 2013 Neogaffian newfag.

 

[DosBuster]

guys i havent seen a black person yet im really scared and hurt by this

 

[Atchodas]

There are just too many skinheads in polland thats why there are no black people in twitcher .

 

[deranged]

What about LGBT ? DA:I was clearly defending the rights of the LGBT community but all I see in Witcher 3 is macho attitude, boobs and straight sex.

 

[Perkel]

And then some M$ lawyers in the back raised their eyebrows so back to the marketspeak we go:

We don't agree there is a downgrade but it's our opinion, and gamers' feeling can be different.

Well game did improve massively in certain areas like renderer and characters. This is why he says that.
Problem is that other parts were downgraded like various assets polycount and complete lack of tesselation

 

[prodigydancer]

Witcher 3 is just shit.

There's no denying it.

 

[Notorious]

Are they still pulling the "unforeseen consequences" bullshit? As in your actions have some twisted outcomes that turn them bad even if you intended them to be good and you have no way of knowing? Like every single time?

So far all C&C I've seen has been very logical. An example from Velen:

Spoiler

There's guy called Bloody Baron, and you run into some of his men in a tavern. The situation may end either peacefully or violently depending on your dialogue choices. I ended up killing the guys, so later on, when I had to talk to the Baron and went to see him at his castle, every civilian there went inside and locked their doors while the Baron's men came out and tried to kill me. Eventually I had to find a secret entrance to get inside the castle as the inner gates remained closed. There's another encounter with the Baron's men later on, and that too can end up violently depending on your dialogue choices, as if you tell them that you're a witcher they'll realize that it was you who chopped up their buddies. I also think there might be a small side quest available there if you solved things the peaceful way. Several dialogues also change slightly based on your choice. There might be more, but that's what I've seen so far. I don't think the choice changes the actual story in any way (you still get to see the Baron, do all his quests and so on) but there's still a nice mix of both cosmetic and gameplay-influencing C&C there, especially since the initial choice seems rather trivial at first.

Eh, sounds interesting enough.

My problem with TWitcher 2 is that you got binary choices and the outcome would often be twisted, thus rendering my choice useless. But I guess that's why so many people love the series, because it's dark and gritty or whatever.

 

[Makabb]

Will wait till next month till the proper action game is released....... Batman Arkham Knight d1p