Witcher fanboys: the emporer is nakey.

[Ahzaruuk]

So how bad is the English translation? It's not like "Caution: Water under construction" is it?

 

[vrok]

Nerdrage harder you no-taste fagcunt.

Look in the mirror.

 

[kingcomrade]

undead dolphin hacker has always been a moron but he is totally trashing you guys in this thread and that is ridiculously funny

 

[Ausir]

The one thing that I find a bit strange is that the quest journal in Oblivion was roasted by the Codex for being too handholding, while the quest journal in the Witcher uses the exact same style of 'summary of what I've done-what to do next', and it receives a free pass. Are these types of journal entries only meant to be criticised if they are done by Bethesda?

The one in The Witcher only shows you where to go based on what you were told. E.g. you are told to go to a person's house in the quest, and you go there even though you find out that the person isn't there. In Oblivion, the quest compass would just show the person you need even if you had no way of knowing their location.

 

[bezimek]

undead dolphin hacker has always been a moron but he is totally trashing you guys in this thread and that is ridiculously funny

Second to that UDH ver TW fanboys 10:1

 

[Texas Red]

undead dolphin hacker has always been a moron but he is totally trashing you guys in this thread and that is ridiculously funny

Second to that UDH ver TW fanboys 10:1

Identified trolls do not win.

 

[bezimek]

undead dolphin hacker has always been a moron but he is totally trashing you guys in this thread and that is ridiculously funny

Second to that UDH ver TW fanboys 10:1

Identified trolls do not win.

Say that to Oblivion fans.

 

[ElPresidente]

Hmmm... perhaps I was simply wrong that I enjoyed myself with this RPG more than I have with any RPG in a number of years.

I hate it when I'm wrong about having fun and someone points out to me that I've been deluding myself. It makes me feel all insecure.

I think The Witcher is an extremely flawed game that remains fun despite its flaws thanks to an excellent sense of choice and consequence.

And for those unsure.. you are allowed to be a hardcore RPG nerd and enjoy Mass Effect. Of course that rule does not apply to Oblivion.

 

[Lingwe]

Many reasons, many of these tie into the quests themselves. I'll note some key points:

So it just confirms my suspicion that the "I did this now I need to do this" style of journal entry is only criticised for Oblivion because the quests are poorly designed, while in the Witcher where the quests have choices and consequences and are well designed it is fine to use that style of journal. It seems that people are just looking at the quest journal with rose-tinted or poo-tinted glasses depending upon which game it is.

1) In The Witcher, the quest objectives only serve to guide you along a path, and a creative player can find alternate solutions to seemingly common problems. In Oblivion, what was suggested of you is what NEEDED to be done, you never had ANY options. If you follow the journal EXACTLY in TW, you will not do 'as well' as you could. A good example of this is the detective quest in Act 2.

And yet you could follow the "I have to do this" directions, isn't this handholding?

2) The quests in Oblivion often did not make sense. You were not given information, then suddenly knew how to do things. Someone could tell you, "here's my watch, give it to my friend in Asshat Ville" and you'd suddenly know where Asshat Ville was, where his friend lived, where he was at that exact moment of that exact day, and never questioned as to why this guy is trusting some yiffy fur with his favorite watch.

The map markers were a combination of stupid Xboys not being able to follow directions and lazy designers not bothering to write directions once they got the map marker function. I went through and added directions to most of the quests and it only took me about three days (and I only did it for a few hours of those three days). As for the "I know where person X is" syndrome that is the quest arrow, not the journal entry.

3) The side-quests in The Witcher almost ALWAYS tie into the 'main plotline' of the game. Nothing is simply there. In order to complete the main quest, you had to complete some side quests (with C&C, btw) while figuring out and discovering how they tie into the main driving quest.

That is kind of irrelevant to what I said.

In Oblivion, every quest was completely seperate from everything else. Couple this with the lack of choices and your inability to fail quests unless you kill the questgiver, Oblivion's quests turned into nothing more than shitty MMO-worthy missions, and an overall stale and repetitive experience.

I know Oblivion's quests are bad, but the point I was raising is that the journal is accused of handholding yet it has the same style as the Witchers journal and I haven't seen anyone accusing that of being handholding.

Also note:

To those of you wondering why we don't care about TW's quest-tracking feature... many reasons:

1) They don't tell you the EXACT location of the objective. Just something that Geralt should know.

I.E.: If someone told him where they live, he knows where they live. The quest tracker is nothing more than an extension of Geralt's psyche.

2) You can turn them off. YOU COULD DO THIS IN OBLIVION AS WELL, but that brings me to point #3.

Actually you couldn't turn them off in Oblivion at all. I had to mod it in so that I could have a toggleable quest arrow.

3) The game isn't fucking built around following a damn red arrow everywhere. The NPCs give realistically specific directions, and you are never tasked with going somewhere that you would not have a logical reason of visiting.

You absolutely COULD NOT play Oblivion without the trackers. The NPCs gave you little or no directions, and you would often have to travel to one of hundreds of identical caves to find a quest update.

This is agreed.

The one in The Witcher only shows you where to go based on what you were told. E.g. you are told to go to a person's house in the quest, and you go there even though you find out that the person isn't there. In Oblivion, the quest compass would just show the person you need even if you had no way of knowing their location.

But I was only talking about the journal descriptions themselves, not about the quest arrow.

My point is basically if there were quests in Oblivion without the quest arrow, and the quest giver gave spoken directions (which were then included in the journal) would you still just say "those journal entries are too handholding".

 

[Lord Chambers]

When someone calls for angry cunt shenanigans on the front page, you expect that it'll actually limit the amount of angry cunt schenanigans, but it's cool to find out that isn't always the case.

 

[Vault Dweller]

So it just confirms my suspicion that the "I did this now I need to do this" style of journal entry is only criticised for Oblivion because the quests are poorly designed, while in the Witcher where the quests have choices and consequences and are well designed it is fine to use that style of journal. It seems that people are just looking at the quest journal with rose-tinted or poo-tinted glasses depending upon which game it is.

Uh, no.

There is nothing wrong with "I did this now I need to do that" journal style. In fact that's what in-game journals are for. The problem and the difference is that Oblivion developers took it way, way to far, creating asinine instructions like:

You must find cave X
You found cave X, now go inside
You went inside, now find the altar
You found the altar, now place item X on it
You've successfully placed item X on the altar! Good job! Now...

I know Oblivion's quests are bad, but the point I was raising is that the journal is accused of handholding yet it has the same style as the Witchers journal and I haven't seen anyone accusing that of being handholding.

Style and execution are two different things. Both Baldur's Gate and KOTOR have the same combat style (round-based, DnD-based, pausable combat), yet they are completely different, and I don't think there are many people who wouldn't prefer BG-style combat to KOTOR combat. Same here.

 

[DefJam101]

So it just confirms my suspicion that the "I did this now I need to do this" style of journal entry is only criticised for Oblivion because the quests are poorly designed, while in the Witcher where the quests have choices and consequences and are well designed it is fine to use that style of journal. It seems that people are just looking at the quest journal with rose-tinted or poo-tinted glasses depending upon which game it is.

You cannot simply isolate every issue with a game's quest journal and attack them directly, everything melds together to form an either good or bad experience.

The combination of Oblivion's linear quests -with pointless outcomes -AND unavoidable quest trackering is what MADE IT HAVE BAD QUESTS. Not just one of those things.

It made the game nothing more than following an arrow around from point A to point B ALL THE TIME. Why? -Because the quests were so linear that there was only one way to go, they were so pointless you didn't even want to read the journal entry, and they were so vague that even if you wanted to try and play the game the 'realistic' way, you'd be wasting time exploring boring-ass scenery.


If you separate these issues, they don't really seem that bad:
-Linear
-Designed around a bad game mechanic
-Pointless
(Also: -Boring Scenery)


Everything in a game comes together to form the actual experience you get while playing it, you have to look at the bigger picture and how seemingly separate game mechanics actually intertwine constantly.



My point is basically if there were quests in Oblivion without the quest arrow, and the quest giver gave spoken directions (which were then included in the journal) would you still just say "those journal entries are too handholding".

If the quests only had one possible outcome (the one in your journal) then yes, I would call them too handholding.

Plus, the journal system in Oblivion is WAAAAYYY overboard. Every time you did ONE LITTLE THING you'd get a quest update, again with vague directions forcing you to use the arrow, no matter how simple the objective.

Oblivion didn't have tons and tons of horrible flaws that could be pointed out exactly, that's why it was such a genius marketing ploy (for good reviews). Everything was just made so shallow and showed a clear lack of effort on the developer's part that any chance of having a good game was ruined the moment you actually started playing it, and not just examining the 'features'.

TW is basically the complete opposite, because the game looks pretty damn ugly on top. Once you start playing it and see how all the pieces fit together, it starts to become an excellent game.

 

[caliban]

That's because TW has very good and fresh core design (quests, c&c, lore/info gathering as an important part of the game, etc) and "uneven" execution, while Oblivion's core design is total shit, so even if the game itself were perfectly made (and it's not), it still would've sucked.

So while I agree that TW could use some improvement, it is generally a step in the right direction and it's possible that the sequel will be better, more streamlined and detailed. Oblivion, on the other hand, will remain a crap game, no matter how many updates and improvements are thrown on top.

 

[MasPingon]

You must find cave X
You found cave X, now go inside
You went inside, now find the altar
You found the altar, now place item X on it
You've successfully placed item X on the altar! Good job! Now...

Actulally that's how The Witcher journal looks like

 

[JarlFrank]

You must find cave X
You found cave X, now go inside
You went inside, now find the altar
You found the altar, now place item X on it
You've successfully placed item X on the altar! Good job! Now...

Actulally that's how The Witcher journal looks like

But in Oblivion it pops right into your face all the time. You just entered the cave. *ZA-BLING!* A message window appears that almost covers your whole screen and tells you what to do next.

 

[Micmu]

pops right into your face all the time. You just entered the cave. *ZA-BLING!* A message window appears that almost covers your whole screen and tells you what to do next.

Quest-related books, scrolls and notes were even funnier - pop-up with detailed instructions what to do next (plus GPS tracker updated) before you got the chance to open and read the book.

The Witcher at least gives you a chance to inspect the books for yourself.

 

[ElPresidente]

Why are we spending so much time discussing the journal systems used?

Frankly the journal used in Oblivion is hardly the game's biggest problem and the journal used in The Witcher is not what makes the game so enjoyable.

Oblivion gets a smack around the head because at no stage do you feel in control of the plot or your characters development, the things that make an RPG an RPG. In effect Oblivion is GTA on horseback.

The Witcher doesn't need that smack about the head because it actually feels like you have control. Sure, you are limited to areas based on which Act you are in but within each Act it feels like you have a say in the world.

Well that is certainly how I see the distinction between the two in the argument of which is a good RPG.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oblivion gets a smack around the head because at no stage do you feel in control of the plot or your characters development, the things that make an RPG an RPG. In effect Oblivion is GTA on horseback.

GTA has more choices, gameplay-wise, and is more fun. And the AI is not dumb as straw.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

Oblivion gets a smack around the head because at no stage do you feel in control of the plot or your characters development, the things that make an RPG an RPG. In effect Oblivion is GTA on horseback.

GTA has more choices, gameplay-wise, and is more fun. And the AI is not dumb as straw.

I have actually claimed that for some time now.
If Oblivion is a Fully Fledged RPG then GTA is a Fucking Fully fledged RPG.

 

[ElPresidente]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Oblivion is as good as GTA.

GTA is significantly better but they are playing in the same - non-RPG - arena.

 

[Norfleet]

Style and execution are two different things. Both Baldur's Gate and KOTOR have the same combat style (round-based, DnD-based, pausable combat), yet they are completely different, and I don't think there are many people who wouldn't prefer BG-style combat to KOTOR combat. Same here.

The poor execution of KOTOR combat compared to BG can be blamed on a single factor: The absolutely shit interface. In BG, you can view the action from an angle which lets you see your surroundings, your party, and your opposition. In KOTOR, the camera is fixed to the currently selected character's ass. In BG, you can select one or more characters by simply drawing a box or clicking on them. In KOTOR, you can't: You can select only a single character to be moved at a time, and you cannot order him to move and then order someone else to move. Only one person may move at a time. In BG, you can target a spell effect by simply choosing which spell you want and then clicking where you want to throw it. In KOTOR, you can only throw your spell effect at an enemy. You can't really tell WHICH enemy very easily, and this massive imprecision in placement detracts from your ability to actually aim anything, as you are unable to attempt to lead the target. Also, the entire NWN/KOTOR engine family carries a distinctly mushy, unresponsive feel to orders, whereas Infinity always seemed much more responsive to any orders issued.

 

[roshan]

Also, I don't see what the big deal about hyperbole is when the Codex is built on it. When you see someone cut into a ripe turd, rase the chunk of shit to their mouth, then pop it in a savor the taste, what other reaction is there than hyperbole and disgust?

The worst part is when they have the gall to defend their turd-eating. The socially retarded mouthbreathers get up in your face and show off the excrement-filled crevices between your teeth. They breath and spit into your face, logorrhea turned into diarrhea as their shitstained spittle and shiteater's breath washes over you.

Just so with defenders of The Witcher, as any other philistine hypocrite. You are no better than a moron that sings the praises of American Idol while mocking America's Next Top Model in the next breath. No matter what your preference, you're still eating shit.

You are clearly talking shit.

 

[ElPresidente]

Evidently from their inept use of the word hyperbole.