Review The Witcher is slow and the dialogue sucks

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Witcher, The

<a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1793#more-1793">According to Twenty-Sided, The Witcher</a>:
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<blockquote>... runs like an inebriated John Madden trying to run in the Boston marathon while pulling a busload of other John Maddens. The game is unplayable at the default settings. If I turn everything down I can get the game to look very terrible and still stutter quite a bit. Let me make this clear: At these settings the game looks far worse than Oblivion and yet still somehow runs slower. Considering that Oblivion was an appalling glutton when it came to GPU cycles, that’s really saying something. What is the game doing with my processor? Building fractals? Trying to find the last digit of Pi?
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...
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Which brings me to the sometimes off-kilter rhythm of the dialog, which I’m assuming is an unfortunate artifact of the translation from Polish. You click on someone. Then the screen fades out as it enters “dialog” mode. Then it fades in on the person you’re talking to. Then there’s this pause of a half second while they stare at you blankly. Then they speak, “Hi there.” Then there’s another pause. Then they wave. Then the view cuts to Geralt. Pause. “Hello to you as well.” Pause. Change view back to the NPC. Pause. “What can I do for you?” Pause. Back to Geralt. Then the dialog menu appears. It’s like seeing a power point presentation of the conversation. Lots of people complain about the voice acting in the game, but I think the voice acting is probably fine, it’s just that the delivery is sometimes borked. You could have Ian McKellen and Judy Dench doing the vocals and they would still sound like a couple of retarded androids with their voices coming out of these blank-faced people and with little pauses added in to make it sound like they forgot their lines. It doesn’t always do this, but it happens often enough to hurt the storytelling.</blockquote>
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I'm assuming most of these problems will be fixed in the Enhanced Edition.
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Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>

 

[Starwars]

I was always impressed by how The Witcher ran. The biggest problem for me initially was the loading times, but those were really cut down in the 1.2 (I think?) patch. I will admit that I get big slowdowns in the uh... The rich quarter or whatever that part was called.

I think he's right about the dialogue though. I also actually liked the voiceactors, but the direction and writing (perhaps due to translation) is way off. You never get a sense that these two people are actually talking to each other. It's like getting Oblivions NPC-NPC dialogues for the main dialogue system (though not as bad). It's very disjointed.

 

[Texas Red]

Is this a "review"? Didn't click on the idiocy-inducing link, but the guy spends 2 paragraphs complaining about minor irritants? Yes, that's exactly what both the casuals and hardcore gamers want to know, the time between between dialog choices.

I don't really understand his complaint about the performance, but then again, I don't function on the borderline retard level. Personally, TW was a true gift since I was able to play it perfectly, with very occasional lag, on GF 6600 and 1000 RAM. When you lower all of the settings to the minimum the game doesn't turn in to blurry mess ala NWN 2 or Oblivion.

I wish there would be some strong leader who would send the unwanted citizens to a sort of a mass purging system(for example, gassing chambers). Have you heard anything about this way of thought?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Why the fuck do I always get the "403" while trying to enter www.shamusyoung.com ?

 

[DraQ]

Can Codex afford hitmen?

One should be sent after the moron who wrote this, the other after people responsible for butchering the dialogues in English version.

Why the fuck do I always get the "403" while trying to enter www.shamusyoung.com ?

 

[MetalCraze]

Well TW IS the resource hog. Mainly because of Aurora Engine and only when it comes to memory. 1.2 didn't fix Aurora memory leakage (tm) problems, though people say 1.3 did. I haven't tried the new patch yet though. But that relates only to the memory and loading times.
I have a shitty PC by today's standards and TW runs pretty ok even on mid-to-high settings on my GF6600 and AMD XP 2500+ with 1GB Ram. So I honestly don't know about what that mediawhore is talking about.

Also dialogues are slow? What?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Which brings me to the sometimes off-kilter rhythm of the dialog, which I’m assuming is an unfortunate artifact of the translation from Polish. You click on someone. Then the screen fades out as it enters “dialog” mode. Then it fades in on the person you’re talking to. Then there’s this pause of a half second while they stare at you blankly. Then they speak, “Hi there.” Then there’s another pause. Then they wave. Then the view cuts to Geralt. Pause. “Hello to you as well.” Pause. Change view back to the NPC. Pause. “What can I do for you?” Pause. Back to Geralt. Then the dialog menu appears. It’s like seeing a power point presentation of the conversation. Lots of people complain about the voice acting in the game, but I think the voice acting is probably fine, it’s just that the delivery is sometimes borked. You could have Ian McKellen and Judy Dench doing the vocals and they would still sound like a couple of retarded androids with their voices coming out of these blank-faced people and with little pauses added in to make it sound like they forgot their lines. It doesn’t always do this, but it happens often enough to hurt the storytelling.

Something is seriously wrong with his PC.

 

[JarlFrank]

I wish there would be some strong leader who would send the unwanted citizens to a sort of a mass purging system(for example, gassing chambers). Have you heard anything about this way of thought?

1. Siehst du im Osten das Morgenrot?
Ein Zeichen zur Freiheit, zur Sonne!
Wir halten zusammen, auf Leben und Tod,
Lass' kommen, was immer da wolle!
Warum jetzt noch zweifeln,
Hört auf mit dem Hadern,
Denn noch fließt uns deutsches
Blut in den Adern.
|: Volk ans Gewehr!

2. Viele Jahre zogen ins Land,
Geknechtet das Volk und belogen.
Das Blut unsrer Brüder färbte den Sand,
Um heilige Rechte betrogen.
Im Volke geboren
Erstand uns ein Führer,
Gab Glaube und Hoffnung
An Deutschland uns wieder.
|: Volk ans Gewehr!

3. Deutscher, wach auf, und reihe dich ein,
Wir schreiten dem Siege entgegen!
Frei soll die Arbeit, frei woll'n wir sein
Und mutig und trotzig verwegen.
Wir ballen die Fäuste
Und werden nicht zagen,
Es gibt kein Zurück mehr,
Wir werden es wagen!
|: Volk ans Gewehr!

4. Jugend und Alter - Mann für Mann
Umklammern das Hakenkreuzbanner.
Ob Bürger, ob Bauer, ob Arbeitsmann,
Sie schwingen das Schwert und den Hammer
Für Hitler, für Freiheit,
Für Arbeit und Brot.
Deutschland erwache,
Ende die Not!
|: Volk ans Gewehr!

 

[hpmons]

I think for some reason it runs much worse on a laptop, so perhaps he was using that. I remember before a patch I simply got a message saying that it wouldnt run, even though my laptop was over the minimum specifications, and this happened to several people. Even now it can be slow.

 

[Jasede]

A game running awfully slowly is hardly a "minor irritant" and in an RPG, where dialogue is so incredibly important, having its delivery ruined is not minor either; it's in fact enough to cause people not to want to continue playing this.

 

[Texas Red]

A game running awfully slowly is hardly a "minor irritant" and in an RPG, where dialogue is so incredibly important, having its delivery ruined is not minor either; it's in fact enough to cause people not to want to continue playing this.

TW is well known for not being demanding and can be played by shitty, old computers. Obviously it's his problem and he should have asked for help on the forums. Right now he's only spreading misinformed lies.

 

[MetalCraze]

One of the guys I know actually completed TW on ATI FireGL T2 which is something like a little bit overclocked R9600XT. Of course not on max settings. And according to his words the game ran normally with occasional lagging.
(I tried running TW on R9600Pro - it ran like shit with everything on min though)

 

[hpmons]

Another thing the article said

Yet despite the complexity I never felt like I had access to the information I needed. What the heck is Toxicity? There is a bar for it right under the health meter. The tooltip explains that “Excessive Toxicity adversely affects Geralt”, which I managed to deduce all by myself. But how does it affect him? What makes Toxicity go up and how do I decrease it? Rest? A potion? A tryst with a bored housewife? More questions come to mind: Do I earn XP for killing monsters? How much damage am I doing? How can I tell if I’m using the right fighting style for the given monster? Despite all the screens and tutorial messages in the game I never felt like I knew how things worked.

Didnt his version come with the little booklet? Ok, most people may not read it but if you find something you dont understand it only take five seconds to check.

 

[Crolug]

Yet despite the complexity I never felt like I had access to the information I needed. What the heck is Toxicity? There is a bar for it right under the health meter. The tooltip explains that “Excessive Toxicity adversely affects Geralt”, which I managed to deduce all by myself. But how does it affect him? What makes Toxicity go up and how do I decrease it? Rest? A potion? A tryst with a bored housewife? More questions come to mind: Do I earn XP for killing monsters? How much damage am I doing? How can I tell if I’m using the right fighting style for the given monster? Despite all the screens and tutorial messages in the game I never felt like I knew how things worked.

Where the heck this retard came from? Planet Looser? I spit on people that try to review genre they don't understand and are too stupid just to properly read tutorial messages! FFS where is that Codex's hitman? This guy has to be stopped before he'll cause some more damage to the environment!

 

[Deleted member 7219]

His PC must be five-years old. I only have a mid-range computer but I can run everything on max at 1680x1050, and the dialogue never stutters either despite me only having on-board sound.

 

[Suicidal]

Yet despite the complexity I never felt like I had access to the information I needed. What the heck is Toxicity? There is a bar for it right under the health meter. The tooltip explains that “Excessive Toxicity adversely affects Geralt”, which I managed to deduce all by myself. But how does it affect him? What makes Toxicity go up and how do I decrease it? Rest? A potion? A tryst with a bored housewife? More questions come to mind: Do I earn XP for killing monsters? How much damage am I doing? How can I tell if I’m using the right fighting style for the given monster? Despite all the screens and tutorial messages in the game I never felt like I knew how things worked.

I take it he's stupid and blind.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

This guy is basically Yahtzee but an even bigger prick.

 

[MetalCraze]

No. Yahtzee is a prick but he isn't that retarded.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

No. Yahtzee is a prick but he isn't that retarded.

True.

 

[DraQ]

If there was god, he would have made it so that stupidity warped space like gravity does. Then excessively retarded people and groups would disappear behind their own event horizons. It'd also allow us to create superluminal starships using specially shaped chambers filled with densely packed retards as their prime movers.

 

[Darth Roxor]

(I tried running TW on R9600Pro - it ran like shit with everything on min though)

here, you have your answer. Radeons are synonymous with shit.

 

[Jasede]

Wasn't that nVidias?

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

(I tried running TW on R9600Pro - it ran like shit with everything on min though)

here, you have your answer. Radeons are synonymous with shit.

This thread is now ATI vs Nvidia.

 

[mondblut]

Why the fuck do I always get the "403" while trying to enter www.shamusyoung.com ?

Same here. Can't access it at work, but not at home.

Anonymouse.org opens it for me.

 

[mondblut]

His PC must be five-years old. I only have a mid-range computer but I can run everything on max at 1680x1050, and the dialogue never stutters either despite me only having on-board sound.

My PC is five-years old, and TW indeed stutters at lowest settings, but it would never occur to me to complain that a modern game doesn't run perfectly on a platform predating it for 5 years. However, it also never occured to me to try running Oblivion on it, and see how does it run on high settings, but I doubt it would do any good.

Still, the ever-brought issue of "this game has better graphics *AND* better performance than that one, so who's doing a shitty job on engine?" does have some validity, even if smells of ignorance.