f13.net

Trailer here (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-official-the-witcher/63501).

My, Leliana is going rounds. First in DA, now in the Witcher.

(guess that's Triss actually, but still couldn't help the first reaction)

Oh hell yes.   :drill:

Sweet   :heart:

I really hope the combat is less boring.  I can tolerate a considerable level of boringness in my RPG combat, like in the KOTOR series, but the Witcher actually got me to quit playing...several times...because I got so tired of the annoying and boring combat.  I finally got through the game at some point if I remember right, but sheesh.

I can't wait.

I just finished the 2nd witcher book too.

I hope it's on console though since I don't really pc game anymore :(

I enjoyed the first Witcher. It managed to offer a pretty similar experience to recent Bioware games, while feeling refreshingly less linear and even retaining an illusion of meaningful exploration.  Here's hoping the sequel sports a compelling story.

Even if the Witcher 2 turns out to be lacklustre, CD Project Red have my sympathy vote for having the good sense to forgo DRM in their Good Old Games endeavour. (www.gog.com)

I'll be waving my pom-poms.

Found the combat quite more entertaining and clicky with some decent positional maneuvering and whatnot personally, very unlike KotOR really. Maybe it had something to do with selection of character's skills/talents? I recall the complaints about boring combat usually involved stuff along lines "you just spam the aoe fire thing and everything dies" while i made my Geralt pretty light on magic and mostly a swordsman.

Must be it. I had problems with the combat system in the beginning  as well, but after putting some points into melee the combats flowed and getting combinations done against enemies was quite fun.

I found this also. The combat was painfully dull in the beginning, but after getting like a 3 move combo chain, it really started to flow much better, almost like a rhythm game.

I also wonder if people who didn't like the combat in The Witcher didn't know that you can double top a directional arrow to roll or flip in that direction.  Because that along with the push spell are so essential in positionally dealing with a few strong enemies.

The Witcher is awesome, your mom sucks dwarf cock, etc etc

I actually found one or 2 women you could not shag in the last game.

Nonsense! Geralt's sexual charisma blotted out the sun. Who wouldn't fancy a tumble in the hay with a man who bears a striking resemblance to a corpse? Those two ladies must have been defective somehow.

Seriously though, not even the rather ham-fisted pandering to horny little boys made me stop playing, which probably means there was a pretty decent game in there somewhere.

Never got past chapter 5. Got extremely bored of doing nothing but run around town over and over again. Even with the patch to decrease loading times, I just didn't have the stamina. The plot was not that interesting, either.

Uh no. The combat was not terrible because it was hard, it was terrible because it was boring.

I managed to finish the game, but the combat was pretty much wretched.

Even at the risk of sounding like the endearing yet slightly retarded leader of the Witcher pep squad, I have to say I didn't mind the combat.

"Press once to initiate. Press twice if you're feeling adventurous."
Riveting stuff and best of all, right up my alley difficulty-wise.

As tmp mentioned, combat did have a slightly different feel and pacing to it depending on your specialisation and how obsessively you micromanaged.

Bah, the target date is supposedly Q1 2011.

Cock teases.

Looking forward to the sequel.

The combat was a bit boring, pick a style then click the mouse when the pointer changed. Was pretty meh once the novelty of the animations wore off.

Combat needed work but witcher was still one of the last good western rpg's before bioware shifted the focus onto mass effect style gameplay.  if anything i hope for some good old solo questing.

I'm going to laugh if Witcher 2 is the reason for upgrading my computer just like the first was.  Looks like more of the same with a higher level of polish perhaps.  That's fine with me.

This.

While I disagreed with much of Yahtzee's review of the Witcher, one line really sticks out well to me and was exactly what I felt like throughout the entire game.  "You attack enemies by clicking on them once, and then if you're really advanced, you click them again."

...I had to upgrade the 3870 to a 4870 to finish that game.  And even so, the game would just choke if you had some nice group combat going, or the wind was blowing just right.  Hopefully that gets fixed along the way.


It got annoying at the higher levels, where you didn't make it to stage 4 of a combo to see what it actually did before everything died.  Even so, melee combat was quite enjoyable.

Looking forward to #2.  #1 was very refreshing for an RPG.

I bought the first one for a friend and I have to admit never got around to it myself.  Will now buy without fail next time I see it discounted on Steam.

Gamespot has a fairly lengthy article up. (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2/news.html?sid=6254071&tag=topslot;title;1&mode=previews)

If I'm reading into that right, then all the "fighting" will involve extra party members.

It's not Steam, but Impulse has it for 10 bucks.
http://impulsedriven.com/twee

I liked the first Witcher, even with its mostly easy combat.

Looking forward to the sequel.

a_thread_00 rises from the dead.

New trailer up hyar (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65729) (checking it out at home later myself due to bewbies).  Still on track for Q1 2011 release.

Looks like he's had some MMA lessons.

No fucking kidding.

The guard at the very end was clever.

I got a really strange moment while watching that of remembering Ultima Underworld and in a good way.  I remember loving that game and how it was ahead of its time.  I've been kind of Jones'ing for something like that for awhile now.  Interesting.

I enjoyed the first one, and the second looks to more of the awesome.   I'm in for sure.

So yeah... DRM-free The Witcher 2 from GOG (http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2_preorder/).

TL;DR:

- DRM free, natch.
- Pay at release (ala Amazon pre-orders)
- $5 (10%) off.
- "EU and UK customers receive a store credit in USD for the price difference between their preorder price & the worldwide one."  FAQ lists it as ~$16 for EU and ~$6 for UK.
- One of: Beyond Divinity, Divine Divinity, Gothic 2 Gold Edition, Realms of Arkania 1+2, or Realms of Arkania 3 for free (or something else if you already have all five).
- The usual digital deluxe/premium edition stuff: artbook, soundtrack, maps, and such.

Edit: The only thoughts that come to mind are "I hope this works out." as this is pretty good set-up on the whole.  The analogy that springs to mind is Demigod and how that went less-than-well but this game doesn't have MP so there's no infrastructure to swamp on release day.

Edit 2: Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/) and Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com/witcher2) pre-orders are also up.  Same discount along with the artbook/soundtrack.  The game site (http://buy.thewitcher.com/index.php) mentions "cloud saving technology" under the pre-order with Steam heading so Steamworks would be a nice counterbalance to GOG's stuff.  No mention of it on the Steam page though.

Wow.  I was going to get it on the PS3 but I want to double-dip or gift it to someone just to support this.

Is that fancy-talk for "same kind of DRM as in Assassin's Creed 2"?

I'm guessing it just means the Steam version comes with Steam Cloud (http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/ov_cloud.php) which works perfectly well if you're not online 100% of the time and you can turn it off rather easily (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19407.msg816729#msg816729).  It's only DRM insofar as it's part of Steam (well, Steamworks).

It would be vaguely hilarious to offer a game in both DRM-free and draconian-DRM flavors though.

I'm torn, because I remember how badly broken The Witcher was when it launched. It got fixed (with bonus content) but, well, buying at launch is a big question mark.

I just saw this now. I was contemplating buying it on steam, if only they could confirm that it was indeed going to be without additional DRM, but I hadn't gotten up the bother to ask valve directly yet. However, even though they had the most asstastic PR-stunt I've seen so far, I feel GOG have more than made up for this with what I can only call an awesome line of new old games, so much so that I'm going to get this from them instead of Steam.

Squee.

As for the "same kind of DRM as in Asssassin's Creed 2", I'm of the same impression caladein is, i.e. that you can tell steamworks to save your savegames to "the cloud" if you want, but it won't absolutely require it, and it most certainly shouldn't bust your nuts because you lose your internet connection for a few seconds.

Actually, speaking of that, has anyone tested how robust the steamworks cloud technology actually is to being disconnected when it should try to save your game, i.e. does it give an error, does it store it locally to upload later on, or what?

Ok, that trailer was yummy. As long as they address the issues with spending six hours running back and forth accross the same part of town, I'll be all over this.

No, UBI is using either a heavily customized or proprietary DRM solution. Ties into their "Play" network.. thing.

I've used it with Torchlight before and it'll always save your stuff locally first.  I was able to easily keep a game going between my desktop and my laptop with Steam in offline mode 95% of the time.

Yeah, I just saw this on GOG, too, and had to double check to make sure I was on the right page.  Don't they mostly just stock old DOS titles?  It's like walking down the bike aisle at Toys 'R' Us and seeing a price tag dangling from a Learjet.

Probably getting this from GOG too, even though I have the first one on Steam.  I don't know how they plan to beat Steam at their own game, but the phrase "100% DRM Free" is a pretty damn good start.

CD Projekt owns GoG and also developed The Witcher.

Release date appears to be May 17th.  Pre-ordered, looking forward to this.   :awesome_for_real:

Australian version just got censored :( Apparently Aussies don't get sex as a reward other than a big FU.

Plus the game cost more for Aussies than Yanks - even though the AU$ is stronger. WTF???!!!!

Buggered if I'm going to buy it now  :oh_i_see:

Shipping 1s and 0s to Austrailia is expensive you know.

Can you not import or use steam gifts or something?

Well, until something like two hours ago you could've pre-ordered it at Good Old Games for $42.27 AUD. It's changed to $69.99 AUD for "licensing reasons".

Two bits of news:

- GOG turns off IP Geolocation for purchases. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/10/er-australia-gog-drops-geo-ip-check/)  As one of the comments put it, "I just inexplicably moved to the UK."

- Pre-loading is supposed to be available sometime today according to the game's GOG page.

I am so psyched for this game.  I can't wait to try and fire it up and promptly watch my computer melt down from having to display more colors than just brown.

No announcement on a Steam pre-load yet.  The Steam "Witcher 2" entry still just shows "coming soon..."   :uhrr:

I have never played the Witcher, but I do enjoy that it doesn't pretend to be anything other then what it is.

If I recall correctly, there will be no pre-loading on Steam, just GOG.com.  Steam will open it up for download at release. 

 :tantrum:

Is the Witcher 2 PC only?  I thought it was coming out for consoles too, but I don't see it on amazon :(

They said PC first and then they'll consider the console version. It was only ever a "In a perfect world..." thought. I wouldn't hold your breath as they said the same thing for the first one and then realized it was a stupid waste of time.

But as of today, they give you the difference as a credit to buy other games on their website.

Edit: Tried it out, you get two redeem codes, one for a 5.99 game and one for a 9.99 game. In my case that means Baldurs Gate 2 and Temple of Elemental Evil for free. Worked without a hitch.

There's also a pick one of the following five reward for pre-ordering:

• Divine Divinity
• Beyond Divinity
• Gothic II
• Realms of Arkania 1+2
• Realms of Arkania 3

Any recommendations?

Not Gothic.

(Just wanted to beat Sky in here to recommend it)

Gothic 2 or Divine Divinity.

All of them are good in their own niche.

Realms of Arkania are seriously neckbeardy old-school experiences, the Divinities are Diablolikes with better story, and Gothic 2 is a prime example of the new age 3D action RPG.

Very NSFW but also very relevant and awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqqxccAa2qQ

Nice. It does make me wonder how edited the American version will be. Last time the American version was heavily edited at release and I ended up ordering from a UK store because I was annoyed that I was being protected from nipples.

FAQ says (http://www.gog.com/en/page/tw2v3)...

Though given gog.com no longer checks the IPs to determine customer's location, any possible censorship issues become somewhat moot?

That's the general effect, yes.

I'm poor this month, but I'll be making Witcher 2 my first GOG purchase. And not really because of the censorship issue either - the $AU is still very high, but local stores expect us to pay higher prices.

Launch trailer here for anyone who might be interested in viewing, might be slightly NSFW:

http://youtu.be/HedLjjlSy3Y

I hate the stupid pony tail thing on Geralt.

LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...

(1% of 16207MB)   :uhrr:

Three other trailers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3GjMm4y7M4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onlSyKhnWE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qwer4SwQQM

I was able to kick off the install before heading to work.  Yay.

The boobies start nice and early.

Time to Tits  should replace Time to Crate as the standard by which all games are judged.

So, do you import a save?

Speaking of saves, should one play the first game before getting this?

Dunno if anyone's interested but I just picked this up at frys for 35 bux. No idea how long they're gonna have that deal for though. It was listed as 50 bucks on the box but they had the price listed on the shelf for 35 bux and some guy who works there told me I'd have to have him print out a paper that I would take up to the front. (bastards didn't have any mint chocolate chip astronaut ice cream) Made buying a game I was already gonna get all that much easier. Loved the fact the regular edition had extra goodies for the heck of it like the soundtrack, coin/letter, papercraft, folded map. I wanted the giant geralt head super edition but they didn't have it and I probably wouldn't have been able to justify the price for something like that anyways  :oh_i_see: Between this and Terraria (just beat portal 2 the other day, got that at 30 bux during a sale) I'm pretty much set for the time being.  8-)

I never did beat the first witcher though... got to the end and got bored.  :heartbreak:

I got bored and realized I had the witcher somewhere in the games list on my steam account, and I fired it up. Is it just me or did they make the tits on the initial mage extremely jelly-like, or was it just something I imagined?

Sounds like a great niche for some middleware. Can be used for man-boobs as well.

I'd like to be posting some initial first thoughts on the game, but apparently they're 'optimizing' the Witcher 2 servers.  So you can't activate the game to finish installation and play. 

 :heartbreak:

Hm? Which servers are you talking about? Steam's?

Because I just googled and found http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-17-valve-calms-the-witcher-2-drm-concern

I thought only direct from GoG was SecuROM free? That post makes it seem all versions might be DRM free. I want to use my credit at Amazon but I can't figure out what if any DRM it has.


Is there an online activation key in your retail copy (besides the optional key to register for future DLC) you have to enter after installing to play?

Edit: Seems retail has (removable) activations. (Hope for Amazon DD you say?) At least there's no double-dip on Steam.

My understanding is the retail buy-a-box has SecureROM but electronic distributions don't, they just have some left over dummy files.

Yeah I had to put in some activation code for securom. :/

Had I known about this I'd probably have grabbed it off GoG instead. :P

Plot is fun. Dialog is fun. Game is pretty. Combat is now absolutely pants on head retarded, however. And the "how do you play" tutorial bits... don't explain a fucking thing because they always pop up and then immediately auto close for a cutscene.

Which NPC has the best rack so far?

Still in the prologue, and it is as kildorn said. Pretty, good dialogue, etc. But there is a serious lack of proper tutorials, in many cases telling me how to do stuff AFTER I've struggled for a bit to actually do it and then move on.

The thing that's really starting to annoy the shit out of me though, is the half second after every weapon-swing (unless you do a series of swings) where my character refuses to move. It's as if they added a "Do Not Move"-flag to the attacks so you can't move while attacking, but then proceeded to make the attacks not actually "end" until the entire animation has played out through the swing and then slowly and painfully back to the "idle stance". Gah.

Oddly, I've only seen one rack!

Given that it's the witcher, I totally expected a shag with the blonde officer they keep focusing the camera on the ass of. Didn't happen, but she's still on the boat with us, so I'm going with "90% of your screen time is your ass, you get nude at some point during this game"

VGG

I really want to go home NAO  N   PWAYYYY!

The game (retail box version at least) had to download some sort of activation patch before I could start playing the game.  The servers did eventually come back up. 

Overall, I'm liking the game so far, but the combat's feeling sorta bland.  Hopefully there's tricks to it I haven't picked up yet, because as has been mentioned, the tutorials are a bit lackluster at times.  Dice poker is back, so are the fist fights though they're now done via QTE.  They also added arm wrestling.  Once I sit down to mess with them all, should hopefully provide some cash, because so far I'm feeling very broke.  There's stealth portions to certain missions now, and you can't always fight your way out of being caught to finish the quest it seems. 

Plotwise, I'm liking it so far although I'm not far in.  I've already had some choices I made go sour pretty quick, so that looks to have carried over pretty well. 

Not until you finish your Arcanum playthrough.  :why_so_serious:

The Witcher 2 even has pre-game tits, as in right on the paper map they include in the box. That's gotta to be a new record...
Lot's of neat stuff in the package besides that, though Im a bit surprised they included a full printed game guide right in the box.

On the downside, it's been long enough from W1 that don't freaking remember the major characters or plot points from the first game, and W2 kinds throws you in as if you had just completed the first game mere minutes before.
Despite the customary "main character has amensia" BS, 10 minutes in Im still like could someone give me a plot summary of how I eneded up here with the nekkid sorceress again?  I mean hell, they start you with several minuites worth of cutscenes where you arent doing anything but they aren't terribly helpful from the "in our last episdode" variety...

The journal entries go a long way in helping to fill in the gaps (Hit "J").  But yah, it'd be nice if they were a little more obvious/helpful at the start.

Don't drink so much next time.

They had that in the first game as well. V. handy if you get stuck at some point.

I emailed CD Projekt and apparently other digital distributions outside of GoG and Steam have SecuROM.

So..... at one point you can hang out with the Blue Stripes and start drinking, making bets, and all that.......

What happened to the 'raft' :O

Returned soggy but undamaged, apparently. 

Apparently, my forgetting the first game has also apparently translated into me sucking at the combat in this one. I know it's different than W1, but the whole fighting multiple enemies where getting hit pain stuns you for a second makes combat harder than it should be.  One on one enemies, even heavies, no problem.  Two or three enemies? Doable with taking some damage.  But me vs 3 light and 3 heavy in the monastery courtyard = multiple deaths.  I can dispatch the lights easy enough, but no matter what hit and run or sign based tactics i have tried, the 3 heavies staying together make it very hard to hit one enough times to kill it without taking too many blows from the other ones.  Last couple of tries involved me using hit and run while under the shield sign, but apparently the damage received overloads the shield and it goes down in like 2 blows from the heavies, which doesn't give me time for more than 1 swing, and since you usually have to wait until you block before getting an opening on a heavy, kiting just wasn't working too well. 

I bought "throw dagger" skill on my level up, but can't seem to make that work (can't find a command for it and for all i know i have to buy/find throwing daggers too) so ranging them seems out.  The fire sign is too slow and not damaging enough; the push sign again, not enough.  I was hoping to find a way to unlock the gate and let in the king and other troops but haven't found a way to do that yet either. Trap sign i am going to play around with next, but it seems like a lot of work for a level 2 fight vs normal mobs this early in the game. (plus, i had to pull out the manual to even figure out what the signs did again; why aren't they listed in the journal?)

I'm probably missing something obvious that will make me feel like an idiot when i figure it out, but the best word I could use to describe the combat right now is "unforgiving".  Kind of like the ballista capture where if you charge straight at it, you might only learn there's two guys with crossbows hiding behind barricades near it when you die to bolts in the back.  While in an of itself combat being Hard is not a bad thing, it probably makes W2 less accessible to new players too.  I wonder what boss fights will be like in this game.

Oh yeah, one other thing in the early game that struck me as poorly designed..
 

My frustrations aside, I do like it.  Good ole dark and gritty fantasy world where it seems everyone is a right bastard from the king on down.  I have picked up so many herbs, plants and other miscellaneous crap for crafting that I cant wait to dabble in that.  Plus, I've been bored out of my skull for weeks with nothing to play other than Portal2, which while fun, doesn't take long to complete.

For the courtyard fight i've cut down the light guys first (entered the fight with the shield sign active to avoid any extra damage) then for the last three guys i've used couple of the stun bombs you start with -- a hit does some minor aoe damage but more importantly has a chance to stun each of the targets, and then you can one-hit kill these. Lacking bombs you could probably just keep firing the Ard at them, that one has a chance to stun and open the one-hit kill option too.

Took me quite a few tries too, but that's since i'm too stubborn to switch to the normal mode. yet.

edit: btw, i like the narrator's exaggeration in this one more than in Dragon Age 2, not in the least because it's ever-present in the journal entries.

edit 2: for the dagger throw think you need to buy/make them and then have them in the "selected item" slot, then you throw them with R key like you use the other consumables. Should be in the manual somewhere.

edit 3: oh yeah, and you get description for each sign in the in-game journal after you use it for the first time.

Game makes me a little motion sick, which is something I usually have no trouble with.  :|

I thought I was the only one!

I actually have to take a break after 1h due to nausea, and this is the first game I've ever played where this was an issue for me.

Turn off the motion blur and see if it helps? It's pretty excessive.

So after getting to act 2:

Combat is easier when you give it some time. I got annoyed, started over, and waltzed through most of act 1 the second time around. Things I learned:

1) Why does geralt get his ass kicked in multi target fights? It's combination of the "hit" interrupt causing stunlocks, and hits to the back causing double damage. So if you get hit by a knight while rolling away, there goes half your health instantly.

2) Once you leave the castle, throwing knives are the most lethal weapon in this game world, and I just made a stack of 30 or so and used them to cheese stupid monsters (the two queens from act 1? three traps and a lot of knives! My silver sword hits one for 12, my knife hits it for ~40)

3) The new combat system rewards rapid application of force, NOT skulking around trying to use parry and whatnot. It wants you to have the highest damage sword available, and just lay into things. Also: donut touch WASD while starting a swing. It will interpret that as something stupid, while just clicking swing will cause geralt to use the appropriate attack at the time.

4) Quen (the shield one) is the single best sign this time around. Not only does it absorb damage for your tiny health pool, it also prevents the "I got hit" staggers. So you quen up, run in and beat on someone, then roll out when quen drops and reapply. Note: in general DO NOT PARRY WITH IT UP. Your vigor regen is halted while quen is up, so parrying just burns vigor.


For the courtyard fight, I killed the lights, then just did a few loops of the courtyard while slowly chipping away with Igni.

So the controls are still touchy as hell and like to target the wrong thing (like swinging at something off screen, or being unable to loot certain bags because there's no way to get line of sight to it for a loot icon), and for fucks sake every time there's a cutscene Geralt loses a goddamned sword in it ("mommy, why does that man have two swords? Does he lose them a lot?") And this game should have been called The Witcher 2: Geralt copes with Monogamy. I actually like it. Triss is a bit of a HUGE SNARKY BITCH every time another woman appears on screen, but she seems to be a good influence on Geralt.

To echo that, once I learned to to switch between the signs and be willing to use them all in combats, things got a lot better.  Quen can be a life saver, and if you go into the magic tree, it'll start damaging opponents who hit it.

I also need to figure out if I can turn on hardware mouse somehow, the responsiveness is awful by default.

Just to save anyone from wasting their gold at the beginning of Act II if you end up in the army camp, the recipe for the Robust Kaedwanian Sword is bugged, if you craft it, you get a crappy shortsword instead.  The robust silver sword recipes, or at least the yellow meteorite one, work fine. 

Also, if you're still in Act I and foresee yourself wanting to craft lots of sword runes, buy the recipes for them before you close out the Act.  Now that I'm upgrading my swords, I can't find the runes or recipes anywhere in Act II, so I'm a bit hosed. 

Ah, thanks for the tip. I wasn't going to bother, but now I will.

Enjoying it so far.  Working my way through the prologue for the second time to get a better hang on the combat.

Thanks all for the advice on Quen.   :awesome_for_real:

Quen is the cheese of this game. I've simple stopped taking damage unless I screw up now.

Though fuck, in order:

QTEs in the middle of dialog scenes. In the order of "listen listen listen CLICK NOW OR IMMEDIATELY DIE"

Ending dialog with you in the middle of five dudes who already have blades drawn. Yeah, screw you for making me reload a save to at least have Quen up for the conversation, because I'm going to get hit IMMEDIATELY

Oh yeah, Quen is good stuff.   :awesome_for_real: :drill: :awesome_for_real:

And I was thinking the same thing about "Surprise! Click to not die!" and the sword loss myself.

Combat is seriously pissing me off. The way the target just changes so easily, you wind up doing some dumbass lunge into the guy at the other end of the pack of enemies, then die after getting chain hit in the back three times. For a superhuman mutant killing machine, Geralt is pretty damn slow and awkward.

Is there storage anywhere? There was in the inns in the first game, but not finding any in the Flotsam inn.

The manual, accessed from the launcher, has a list of abilities and their upgrades which I'd wish I'd read before spending the few points I've done so far.

Having to drink potions from the meditation screen is just dumb. Also, Geralt is a litterbug. The huge gaint list of recipes could have done with potion, bomb, oil tabs.

How I wish for the ability to put markers on the map.

The mouse is laggy, while the camera swings wildly at the slightest movement, even with sensitivity turned down.

Pretty disappointed so far. Hard to get into the story when most of what I'm doing is raging at the completely awful combat.





 

That sounds so perfectly European RPG. I'm pulled back into the days of Gothic.  :awesome_for_real:

to lock on a target just hit ALT and youll stop switching.

Switching on the fly is a pretty big part of combat. My issue with it and the controls in general are that it seems like there is some input lag of some form, and sometimes when you move the camera and highlight a new dude and hit swing, the game still thinks the last dude is the target.

It's almost like the dev team idolized the Assassin's Creed 1 combat system.  Minus parry being worth anything, which all but breaks the playability until you start spamming Quen or tumbling around like Jackie Chan.

Hopefully a patch for the combat issues is released before we all blow through the game.  Though with how many times I'm retrying several of the combat sequences on normal...

You can hit Alt to toggle lock on the currently selected target.

Regarding parry being useless, as far as i can tell it gets significantly more useful when you buy a talent which makes it stop 100% of the damage instead of part of it, and gives you 50% chance of instant kill on the riposte. Didn't get to try it yet, though.

Riposte is awful. The opening is tiny and before the swing, and most attacks can be parried but give no replete opening.

Damn the game is hard  :oh_i_see:

Game is kind of a mess, frankly. Much like the first one in terms of plot incoherency and laughable (or maybe just laughably translated) dialogue. Game is prettier but a number of the interfaces actually got worse (hi2u poker dice).

Kind of regret the preorder, was hoping they would take more strides forward in their 2nd game than I've seen so far. More of a $20 steam sale game than something I'd recommend buying at full price.

I haven't even started yet due to an upcoming vacation out of town.  I didn't want to get into it and then have to just put it down for a week. 

Sounds like I'll just let it sit and wait for a patch or two.   :uhrr:  Disappointed that it sounds like the game is as much of a mess as the first was at release.  Seems like they didn't learn much as a company and just cashed in as soon as they could on the goodwill fixing up Witcher 1 generated.

Well, if I recall correctly you loved the first one much more than I did so it may be the case that you'd like this right off the bat, I'm not sure.

Something about the dialogue makes me think of "trying too hard", can't really pin down why. Inventory management's kind of annoying [and mmo-style crafting? no ty], but in a different way than the original game. The game sure is pretty, though...

I managed to solve the nausea problem by turning off all blurs (motion blur and bloom were already off before, didn't help), so that one may be worth trying.

Turning off motion blur solved most of my problem except for during the boxing minigame, that still makes me feel a bit uneasy.

Over-the-shoulder watching has been far more entertaining than DA2.  Having to make difficult decisions rather than whether you want to pet the kitten and save the orphans or burn the lot of 'em down is nice, too.

YMMV

I like the story and gameplay a LOT more. But the combat suffers from a punishing learning curve and no real tutorial. I loathed the game until halfway through act 1, when I "got" how combat worked and restarted.

I kind of dislike the choices for the plot quests, because I think both sides are total fucking dicks. I honestly don't want to help either of them.

And yeah, somehow inventory management got Worse. I especially like that there are tabs for everything except "junk" sale items. So if you want to sell the loot whose only purpose is sale, you need to slowly scroll through every item in your inventory.

Also: keyring, and crafting journal for the love of fucking god. Those should not be inventory items you keep forever.

Just browsing their forums and there is no storage. So they added a whole new system of collecting blueprints and gathering of materials to craft weapons, armor, etc. but they removed storage.  :uhrr:

That's going to be added on the winter DLC, dubbed 'The Witcher's Stash.'  :why_so_serious:
But honestly, how's the dialogue? In preparation for the save game import, I decided to replay The Witcher 1, and my god. The dialog is terrible. Almost irredeemable in the first 3 chapters I endured.

Dialogue is essentially the same quality. I am planning to switch it to German with English subtitles to see if that makes it feel better.

A bit under 4 minutes in to full rear and frontal nudity. Not bad, not bad.

A couple of modded files that change weights:

Zero Weight for Everything (http://www.mediafire.com/?o0ph3lbdyboaymw) (GOG Forums Thread (http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/unlimited_carry_weight_mod/page1))
Reduces Weight of Crafting Materials (http://www.mediafire.com/?r0aojjmbjmevj6y) (GOG Forums Thread (http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/crafting_materials_weight_reduction_mod))

(If Mediafire doesn't agree with you, I put them up here (http://percentsign20.com/files/witcher2/mods/).)

Both of these are just a def_weights.xml file that goes into \CookedPC\items\ in your install directory.  You'll probably have to create the items directory.

As pants-on-head silly the combat is, the exploration itself is pretty damn neat. Running around the forest outside Flotsam feels old school.

A few quests into Act 1 and I just "got" how combat works as well.  And why everyone's turning off motion blur, heh.

Had too much free time and beat it twice. Pretty interesting how different the game plays out depending on act 1's finale.

For anyone struggling with combat get used to using Quen, Axii, and Yrden(trap sign). Regular Axii might seem lackluster but it upgrades well and it's very handy to be able to charm 3 things in a fight against 6-8. Also for multi-mob fights bombs + the alchemy bonus damage talent are extremely helpful.

Did they just quote the ring verse in-character? :ye_gods:

Does the regular Axii work at all, btw? I've used it a few times on various opponents, but it only seemed to stop them from fighting for a second, quite different from supposed charming things to fight on my side.

Guess I'd better finish Witcher 1. Though jebus, as everyone's saying, the dialogue is sometimes so fucking awful (in translation, maybe) and also sometimes the questing sequences are so screwed up. Last week I did the noonwraith thing with the bride and all sorts of stuff was coming out of sequence, or characters would be talking about things that had happened as if they hadn't happened, etc. Definitely kills the storytelling.

I'd like to replay it again but there registration is down and without that I can't upgrade to enhanced edition so fuck that. *sigh*

Just beat it, solid game I thought though they probably could have fleshed out the third act a bit more.

also...


 :drillf:

You have to hold the key down to charge it up. Don't think this is ever explained in-game.

Oh, geez. No i don't believe i've seen a mention of that anywhere. Thanks a ton, i don't think i'd figure it out myself unless by some freaky accident.

... and man, that would've been so handy to know in that damn nekker cave :why_so_serious:

I have never in my life died so many times in a tutorial. I mean honestly, 30+ deaths easily. And it just got worse after I went back to Normal from Hard difficulty, which makes me wonder what Hard would have looked like.

Yes sure, Eurogames, not holding your hand, blah blah -- but this is really some of the stupidest combat I have ever experienced in my life. The dragon sequence is just retarded. HEY LOOK I'M RANDOMLY ON FIRE AGAIN for 100% of my health in damage, OH WELL.

The tutorial chapter is indeed designed very poorly and could have used a lot more work, between the quickly disappearing explanation boxes and the outright dumb mechanics of the two dragon encounters, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have continued hadn't the first game been that good. Luckily the game picks up after that.
The playthroughs on youtube where people get increasingly frustrated with every failed attempt at the tutorial dragon encounters are quite hilarious once you've been through the ordeal yourself.

On Hard i died 30+ times in the dragon part alone. Admittedly, that's the one i clicked on first so got dropped in it with zero experience, and most of these were just attempts i quit mid-way after stepping into the goddamn fire for half of health worth yet. another. time.

In hindsight, i'm thinking the shield sign could've protected me while crossing that area under fire. Maybe. Maybe that was even the intention, to make the player use it there. I sure as heck ain't going back to check, though.

Although to be fair, as i keep playing i repeat the fights way more time than i should just to get them done with losing as little health as possible. It's quite satisfying when everything just flows smoothly.

(the endriag queens did make me drop the game to Normal, though. It made the whole difference between flailing at them helplessly without effect and actually being able to kill them)

I just hit these around level 7 or so.  After 15 tries with no visible health loss on the Queen and constantly getting one-shot, I figure I'll come back to this one later.

I just finished the Witcher one (so I can import a save) and am four hours into The Witcher 2.  First off I love the game.  I am playing on the normal difficulty setting and am still getting used to the radically different controls.  Combat has been really tough, unlike the first Witcher multiple mobs have more often than not meant death for me.  What I have figured out so far is that its really bad to focus on one mob.  I have had a lot of luck using swallow and switching targets more or less constantly.  I wish combat was a bit easier truth be told.  

I love the quest system as it stands I have had very few moments where I was thinking WTF (the only moment i can think of came in the begining).  The interface is much harder than before IMHO.  The reason for this is many but my primary frustration has been that the tutorial itself is in so small a script that I can't really read the dialog in the boxes.  It took me forever to figure out how to use potions since I couldn't read the script.  

The story so far has been awesome and I love the new minigames.  The fighting looks fluid and top notch and I am learning that there are definite consequences to even seemingly trivial quests.  Many times things have not went according to my plan.  The witcher in this game feels a bit different especially with the dialog options using "witcher magic."  I think overall its a real improvement.

So far, I am loving the game.  Best of all it doesn't constantly crash.  I can't tell you how frustrating the first one was due to the lack of stability.  

Was level 7 for me, too. Had upgraded silver sword and used damage + health regen potions (also the bleeding increase oil though dunno if that helped) Seems the key is to hit them on the sides/rear rather than on the head, the problem with that on Hard was they react much faster than on Normal and --without the roll range increase trait at least-- i'd never manage to get in a good position fast enough. On normal they became manageable, and between shield sign and the trap sign they went down quite fast, under two minutes each.  There's a power site located very near their spawn points as well, so getting the boost from that right before the fight may be handy, too.

I found the power site, and have (a/the?) silver sword upgrade.  It's just getting to their sides/backs to tag them!  Looks like trap sign is the missing component here, will give that a shot.

The combat in this one is simultaneously harder, more tedious, and has more interface annoyances than the combat in the first one, which is a pretty remarkable achievement.

The more I read this thread, the more it looks to me like this game is the kind where I should just wait for the five dollar sale of the enhanced edition a year from now.

Seriously, you guys make it sound like the worst kind of Eurojank.

Well no, it isn't like that, exactly. I think it is more a case for me of it not showing any real improvement over the first in the areas I actually care about. The first one was really only "OK" from my perspective, but got extra points for being their first effort.

It's still more polished by far than something like Risen.

It did hold my attention far better than DA2. :oh_i_see:

Must... not... argue...

So I figured out how to upgrade it but it doesn't work on my Win 7 machine. I go through the intro but get a black screen with the gauntlet cursor without the menu. Has anyone heard of that and do you know a fix? I'd like to go back and replay the witcher just for the hell of it.

The Witcher 2: Witch Harder.

You can't argue with an opinion, hah!

What I mean is that it's a good RPG if you can overcome the lower production values. If you like German-style RPGs you'll probably love it, just a hunch. I get that it isn't for everyone. I have an unusually high tolerance for *jank.

I even like the writing, which probably invalidates my opinion and makes me an idiot.  :awesome_for_real:

Plot wise, I think it's stronger than the first one. Just because it spends a lot less time doing stupid unrelated shit and actually keeps Geralt focused a bit more. Though it does take a lot of liberties with the plot in the end to basically just go "surprise! we weren't as deep as you thought we might be!"

The combat suffers from not only being harder at the start, but being harder to basic play while still being just as cheeseable as 1 (Quen + sword = dead anything as long as the fight doesn't start you in melee surrounded with no buffs up. Speaking of which: why does dude have to meditate in a quiet field to drink a fucking potion. It's not like he does anything with the time, he just looks like a man about to down a really terrible tasting shot without a chaser.) And it also has a framerate related input freeze issue. As your framerate drops due to shit happening, your inputs start getting dropped, to the point where at some points it completely locks you out of doing anything. During the last two fights of the game I had three points where I could only run around, not even move the camera, because it decided mouse input was lower priority than displaying shit going on. If I went into the menus, my mouse worked fine, but leave the menu and you can't look around, or even do keyboard actions like cast a sign or roll. That lasted until I took a hit, which is pretty much every hit I took. "Fine, I'll stand still do you can beat me because the game has control issues the fanatically faithful scream "l2play!" at for no apparent reason.

Overall? Solid RPG, but should be completely out of the running for any form of awards due to the input lag, the shit tutorial and gameplay until level ~5 or 7, and the inclusion of "click now or DIE" QTEs in a modern game.

Are you playing it in English? I have to assume that it is better untranslated.

Hm I wonder if this explains why sometimes I just inexplicably can't parry or throw a bomb. Dude is coming at me, I'm standing still with my sword out, I press E, and Geralt just stands there and takes it.

Yeah, that happened to me a lot.

Press button, nothing happens, eat sword to the face. Press attack, Geralt stands there and tries to kill things WITH HIS MIND.

The engine is pretty, but buggy as sin.

Gave the Queen another dozen tries tonight.  Best go was 50%.  The stun effect either hits her for 5-8 seconds or maybe a second, no in-between, and the former is 1/4 times if you're lucky.

Might try again on easy, but this one's likely going back on the shelf for a patch or two.

Big List o' Mods (http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witcher_2/full_list_of_mods/page1)

:Love_Letters:

Cheese it with throwing knives.

I made the queen charge into a tree, rolled behind her and corner cheesed her fighting game style.  :drill:

English. My Polish is pretty weak. :-P

I think it's more about the structure and attitude of the writing rather than the exact literary content that make me enjoy it. Besides, I think I enjoy having a real character much more than I do the tabula rasa but generic badass that is popular.

Since it's always the third egg thing you open, I opened two, and trapped the SHIT out of the area with those free snare traps, and cheesed her charge that way, and spammed throwing knives (which hit for about 4x the damage of a silver sword. Apparently, they're magical silver throwing knives or something)

You just have to be aware of invuln frames from things. If you chuck one when they're hit by a trap or just hit by a knife, they're invulnerable and you'll just do a little brown puff of smoke. You throw, count to one, throw, repeat. This is usable to cheese ANY miniboss type fight in the game.

Am thinking the translation may affect things to a degree for this one -- i find the native version very good and enjoyable, but it uses a style and nuances which would be a bitch to fully convey, and stripped from them it might get pretty wooden.

Still, i'd think having conversations more in-depth than exchanges of the inane hollywood oneliners is a refreshing change from the recent standard.

The 'recent standard' is Dragon Age 2 which has the best (voice acted at least) English dialogue of any RPG I've ever played, so that may be working against them for me here.

Well, i'd include ME2 in there, too. Although it gets really acute with DA2.

The voice acting in BioWare games is top-notch, no argument. It's rather what's actually being said that drives me up the wall. But then i find the native VA of the Witcher 2 to be excellent and easily on par. So if that's different in the English version, it could be localization issue.

Odd. She only took me a few tries. Maybe 6 or so. Here is what I did. I saved right before opening the third pod. I then laid down a trap so I had manuever time. I then drew her back while dropping the occasional magic trap. I found you can hit her usually once or twice and then if you roll away and come back at her you usually miss her counter attack. There is also a cheesy way:

 Eventually you'll find she has a preset limit to how far she'll chase you, much like the other critters. It's more or less an invisible line in the ground she'll rarely cross. So you can just cheese it. Whack her, roll across the line and run until she turns around, run in, whack her some more. Rinse, repeat.

I only had to work hard on the first queen. I beat the second one into the dirt with very little effort but I think it had to do with a couple of levels and me using Quen extensively on the second queen fight.

I think the big difference was that Geralt asked questions *I* would ask and responded in ways *I* could have. I had more moments of "oh right, that is a good question, why is that?" than I've had in the past couple of Bioware games combined. The dialogue just felt sensible, rational, eventhough it was absolutely hammered by weird names and titles, more on basis of structure perhaps than the exact words.

To elaborate on what I meant by "attitude:" Characters are REASONABLE. Not all of them, not all the time, but if Geralt comes with a fair deal, people will pick him up on it. It isn't always about arm twisting, extortion, some kind of holy principle of NEVER reaching a sound compromise. Roche and Geralt had lots of "you do this, I'll agree to that" without a lot of high-strung emotions.

But yeah, there were moments of trying too hard. I'm not trying to pass it off as deserving of literary awards.

The English voice work is fine, although not as great as DA2. The mastering is a bit wonky too but I think it was believable enough. Thing is, since the writing (atleast the translated one) is rather dramatic, it works with the actors hamming it up a bit on occasion.

Example of what I mean: (skip to 5:55)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTyZ_o7-dgA

I think it's cute how the player seems genuinely surprised he got away with it.

I have a really hard time identifying with Geralt personally, which I guess is the opposite of you two. Mostly my problem is that it's hard to get into a character who's primary trait seems to be "I DON'T WANT TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING, STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE."

It may get better farther in though, I'm still mired in Act I. Mind you I may never get to see where it gets better if I can't get over the combat system, I'm pretty frustrated with it right now.

See, just the opposite with me. Geralt is just a man that wants to live his life, be with his woman(s) and kill some monsters. Yet people keep stepping in a fucking with his shit so he's got to fix it and while he does, he tries to do the right thing. That sentimentality is something I can certainly identify with.

That could very well be it. Geralt is to large degree about trying his darndest to walk the neutrality line and avoiding any sort of typical hero business unless there really isn't anyone else to take care of it, and this happens to be my preferred archetype that i fall into pretty much naturally. Plus i'd guess the fact i'd read the books before i got to play the games helps too -- gives much better idea of what he's about.

I think the characterization of Geralt was very nicely done.  It maintained a fine balance between having Geralt be a folk hero and a professional. To common folk, he appears as a hero (or freak, or murderer) because it's his job to do typically heroic deeds - to the ruling class, he's a meddling nuisence but not to be ignored. His unwillingness was well done I thought, stuck somewhere between a sense of duty and necessity and running off and screwing Triss until his prick fell off. There are several hints he's seriously considering the latter on a number of occasions, that his motivations for clearing his name are based in practicality, not principle. Geralt doesn't have to meddle, the kingdoms will roll on, bad and good things will happen but they will anyhow. He can help a certain goal but he's in the end just another guy.

I feel I'm being a bit aggressive, not my intention. I just thought the whole arc of the game was very efficient eventhough the pure production values don't compare to Bioware's heavy-weights.

I think the dialogue in this game if much better than in DA2.  In Dragon Age, and Bioware games in general, I always get the feeling that all the dialogue is very functional;  conversations are designed to present me with a particular moral conundrum or introduce a particular element of backstory.  Your companions talk to you as though they're writing in their diaries and everyone else is an opportunity to play the conversation minigame.  On the other hand, I find the dialogue in the Witcher relatively naturalistic and less calculated.

All of this is why I've enjoyed (watching) the Witcher 2 more than DA2.

Yes but I already knew you were broken.  :heart:

I admit I'm pretty much baffled by any reaction that thinks it even comes close writing/dialog-quality-wise, but not much point in going around a few more times. I will give it a couple more nights to grab me before I move it to the 'when I'm really bored maybe I'll grind through it' pile.

Wait, i'm confused now. I could understand the praise for the quality of voice acting in DA2, but are you now also saying that the quality of writing in DA2 is high and/or much better than what the Witcher 2 offers? Or am i misreading it...

Don't torture yourself on our behalf, eventhough I think it may very well deserve a couple of attempts if it doesn't stick the first time. There's no accounting for taste, however.

I think the moment that really won me over on the writing was the scenes when Foltest meets his children. Not original... but man, it's efficient.

- Go, Boussy.
- That's not my father.
- But it is your king.

Indeed I am. I would go so far as to say the dialogue writing (at least when translated into English) is well towards the bad end of the spectrum pretty much all the RPGs I've played in at least the last 5 years. It feels very stilted, a bit too TV-modern at times, and at other times it has a bit of very detectable non-native-English-speaker quality to it, like I'm listening to one of the German engineers at work. I'm sure a bunch of that is the translation and the delivery, I am still meaning to put it in German with English subtitles to see if that helps it get kind of a foreign film sort of flair to make up for it.

EDIT: I should say I *do* appreciate the generous use of profanity, that goes a long way on the 'feels like real speech' front and is something other games could stand to learn from.

Hmm i would chalk up the non-native-speaker thing to the translation (as i don't experience it in the native version) so that would leave us with the stilted and too modern. The modern thing is to a degree caused by the original author -- one of the spins Sapkowski put on his universe was the mages having fairly modern knowledge of genetics etc.

But perhaps more importantly, don't both these remaining complaints apply very much to DA as well? I mean, i don't see it as much of a drawback myself, but if there's one consistent impression i get from DA dialogues whenever i play, it's how pretty much all characters use educated language and how all of it wouldn't be really out of place in any modern tv drama (minus the bits tied to the social system etc, obv.) And i ranted already how unnatural the DA2 dialogues can feel, so no need to repeat it... so overall, still puzzled -- if these are complaints about the Witcher 2 writing then fine, but then why would the DA2 writing be viewed as much better?

I'd have to go back and find specific examples of the things that I remember bugging me which is probably too much work.  :why_so_serious:

EDIT: I will say that I'm pretty sure if it was all one way or all the other it would bother me less, there are just these jarring swings between styles. (That also happens in DA2 occasionally when you are playing dick-mode Hawke, to be fair.)

Yeah, so clearly I wasn't missing anything in terms of the combat, it's just more understanding the limitations of it and working around them with the tools you have.  There are some fights i try a few times and just have to walk a way from the game for a while lest i become too frustrated.  But usually when that happens, returning in another play session gets me through it the first or second time.  I did install the zero weight mod which has been a godsend, and dropped my graphic settings, which helped a lot for smooth flow.  Enjoying the exploration even if it doesnt always make sense i.e. going out at night from flotsom and getting attacked my giant insects, nekkers, and squirrels all at the same time like their a team.

Gotta love the little side conversation you overheard, including the "plough em all" song. :)

Worth playing if flawed.

The writing in the DA games isn't bad, it is normally quite to very good (for a computer game). It's just very often in service to retarded plots and is very cliche, so it can only go so far.

The Witcher games suffer from being good in instances, but without necessarily forming a cohesive and consistent whole. Which is fucking annoying in a different way.

This is my feeling as well. Everybody in DA1 has the same tone, and they are all very modern in sensibility (which makes Morrigan's hilarious faux-archaic accent kind of grating) --  but it's very well-written and acted, for sure.

The Witcher games on the other hand definitely have much rougher edges -- but successfully give the impression that you aren't actually 100% sure what is going to happen at every single moment, exactly how everyone will react, etc. etc.

Analogy-wise, it's kind of like the DA games have great workmanship on top of tedious architecture. Like the best-built, highest-end set of suburban housing developments you've ever seen.

(ETA: Though to be clear I haven't played the second one yet, or much of the second Witcher either; perhaps DA2 is full of crazy-unexpected moral gravitas and dramatic nuance, I dunno. I keep stalling out 2/3rds of the way through the first one.)

So, it only took me three days of playing to discover there's actually a functional brothel in the first town. I fail at witching :ye_gods:

I think it has to do with a contrast of specific characters against the world.  DA is better crafted (mostly...), but it feels as if the world orbits the player.  The Witcher though feels more immersive and like you are a part of it and there are events out of your control.  I can also forgive bad dialog if the sentiments it evokes connect with me.  (I won't remember the specifics of what was said more than five minutes and I'm long trained on subtitled anime where the tone of what's said is more important than the actual dialog.)

Also the Witcher has fewer black and white choices, which is a huge thing for me.  I hate there being a clear dichotomy and that is something very prevalent in Bioware games.  Something they tried to get away from somewhat with DA2, but their writers need practice with.  It doesn't need to be between two shit factions neither of which you can stand.  It needs to be two opposing ones which have traits you like and can relate to.

My ideal game would have lots of 'good' choices for selfish reasons and 'evil' choices for altruistic ones, along with neutral responses that represent a guarded position rather than an apathetic one.  I know Ingmar and I have disagreed on that in relation to Star Wars before, so it's likely a big part of our perceptions in these two games.

Finally got my copy from Amazon last night and got a few hours in. Didn't play the first game but I'm really digging this. Game looks great even on my aging machine .. combat is already really fun - I think the learning curve has been a bit exagerrated, its a little frustrating at first but the roll move is hugely effective, and you really have a good variety of abilities to deal with baddies even at the very beginning.

This... you hit it right on the head for me.  This has been what has made the Witcher this time around so great an experience for me.  In the Witcher 2, I actually felt bad about not siding with one side.  So much so that I was severely tempted in two chapters to reload my game and redo the decision point.  I didn't, but that I was sorely tempted is in my opinion a sign of very good writing.

This is hands down my favorite RPG since Mass Effect 2.  I can not wait to get home to continue with the third chapter.  


One more meaningful aspect of the Witcher 2 that I appreciate:

I truly do not understand all the Witcher2 hate on Penny-arcade. They are making it seem like this game is SOOOO hard or that is it such a hugh stretch that once you know how to select a spell, you should actually use one? Or that if you swing your sword at the guy blocking with his shield and it staggers you, you probably need to wait for an opening before swinging?

Yeah the first courtyard battle was a bit rogue, and I think I died 3 times. But not the 47 times the PA guy said.

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-hfSTG72/0/L/i-hfSTG72-L.jpg)

I dont get this. The game told me to use "E" to parry and "Space bar" to dodge. After getting killed the first time, I figured maybe I should use some of these things the game is telling me to use.

Curse of the Azure Bonds and Secret of the Silver Blades *both* stripped you of your gear. And I am totally not spoilering that.  :-P

On the difficulty/tutorial front, the PA comic is spot on. The game never tells you how to throw items, for example, nor does it tell you what most of your spells actually do as part of the actual tutorial. It hearkens back to the old 'you have to read the manual to know what the hell anything does' days, and while you can go into your journal and read all sorts of 'oh so this is how things work' the game is quite terrible at actually walking you through anything to understand how it works for real.

:mob:

I think the penny arcade guys are way too spoiled on their video games. They play so many new games that are quite frankly, not a tenth as challenging as games used to be. Yeah the witcher has a steep learning curve but is it really the hardest game ever? Not by a long shot.

Yeah, PA plays like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCjzA-C647o

 :grin: I love watching this guy getting tortured. It's just so sweet watching him get killed over and over like a bad WoW raid video.
With full rage commentary.

The first ballista fight is a bitch unless you actually futz with abilities. Parry and Dodge will get you mauled by that 5 pull in front of it.

I actually just danced around the ballista. The fight is hard as hell if you try to take on all five guys like superman, it's the first fight, you aren't gonna be superman.

Makes me want to get the game.

Same here. I mean, the delicious tears...and the fact it was his first PC Game. HA HA HA. Popping his cherry. Blocking of comment....over 4000 dislikes.
I'll get this next week. Awesome work by Pollacks.

Thats sort of my point. A lot of players these days are used to playing as Superman through the tutorial, hell through most of the game. Its refreshing to me.

I also danced around and rolled, and used my magic. Only took me 3 or 4 tries. Also, if its too hard, play on easy.

The impotent rage commentary is hillarious. :grin:

edit: although it's probably topped by how he only realizes half way through pt.12 what the shield sign actually does...

It's not that it's too challenging, it's that the challenge is presented terribly. And yes, it is weird when the very first fight in the game is difficult enough to kill you repeatedly -- that's certainly an expectations thing, but the game does not provide you with any opportunity to practice how to do anything, let alone instructions as to how to do it.

I play lots of hard computer games and enjoy them -- in most games I set stuff to 'hard' to avoid boredom -- but I haven't gone back to the Witcher since I died 25+ times on the same sequence in the tutorial, almost entirely to random fire attacks from the sky for which the game provides zero feedback or warning.

It sounds like if I just select some shield spell or something the whole game will get easy mode, so I guess at some point I will go back so I can see what the story is like. But the combat is pretty much ass so far.

It's not random fire attacks from the sky. It's burning rubble on the ground, stepping too close to it will set you on fire and there's pretty narrow path between these. The attack from the sky happens only once i think, and it's telegraphed by having the dragon responsible for it hover in the air for a few seconds before it takes place.

QTEs stuck into RPGs is not a trend I hope catches on, it reminds me of the annoying 'oh nose sith attack, to the turret' crap from KOTOR. Only... more annoying.

Best line so far:

Heh. pt12: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9-j148iT8g

After the fight, he actually says "and I still haven't levelled up". That right there probably shows his background in gaming.

On phase three right now and this game continues to impress.  I upgraded aerondite and my armor (phase three was getting way too hard to not do this).  I am also experimenting alot with the mutagen system.  Its interesting but I am not noticing a whole lot of difference right now other than with the adrenaline rush ability.



On Dragons and Challenges (Warning Big Mega Spoiler)
 

Interesting, did you ide with Roche? Because that sounds like a completely different dragon fight than I had.

Yes, details in spoilers:

Started Chapter 1 and got to the first proper town last night. I have a giant hardon for this game, I haven't played an RPG this satisfying in years.

I want to go back to something someone said earlier in the W2 vs DA2 comments. After playing a bit of chapter 1, one of the things that really stands out is how the conversations feel much more organic in W2. Often I am not sure if the dialog I am about to select is to advance the quest, or just give me lore words. In DA2 the dialog felt almost like a minigame. I think the voice acting in DA2 was better, but the way dialog is presented in W2 feels more like real conversations. Also, I like that a lot of the conversations are with groups of people. Mostly in DA2 you where only talking 1 on 1, which in hindsight seems unrealistic now.

Patch 1.1 is out at http://en.thewitcher.com/patch/

they're having some issues with their file servers atm so it won't be retrieved automatically by the launcher.

On the other hand, Steam seems perfectly content to patch it by downloading the 9GB dzip file again...   :uhrr:

The patch removes SecuROM activation for retail/DD copies and apparently brings increased performance as a result.  :heart:

What a surprising revelation this must be to everyone  :oh_i_see:.

There's so much random 'oh, this might be useful for alchemy/upgrades/selling' crap scattered around and dropped by enemies (up to 6-7 items per monster!) that I can't imagine playing without an inventory mod. I'm kind of puzzled by enemies being unable to pass "zonelines", though it's useful to cheese super-annoying fights -- such as the endrega queens, or that cave with 7-8 neekers before I discovered the uberness of quen.

Dialogues still have that 'trying too hard' feeling in act2, though the plot's better than the original game so far IMO.

I die whenever I go out into the woods.

This method worked for me when all else failed :P
Apply Quen -> Attack with sword -> Roll away when timer for quen drops below 10 seconds -> Run around until you regain vigor -> Repeat

Alternatively, if it's something big:
Apply Quen -> Drop an Yrden trap > Roll back so monster goes into trap -> Attack with sword -> Roll away when trap effect vanishes/timer for quen drops below 10 seconds -> Run around rolling until you regain vigor -> Repeat

If you upgrade the Quen, this will get you through every non-boss fight in the game. More or less.

I understand their desire to make a difficult game and agree that most of these types of games kind of hand it to you on a silver platter. The problem is that at low levels you don't have the tools. You basically end up having to cheese it by running around like a retard while waiting for cooldowns. It doesn't exactly feel skillful to beat things that way.

But they didn't make it a truly difficult game. True difficulty coming from having to think and plan out strategies. For me all the difficulty came from the awkwardness of the controls, so its all bullshit difficulty.  Figuring out who to attack, how to attack, the strategy, was not difficult. Getting the bastard targeting to comply was another matter.

Finished the game and the ending is unsatisfying. So many things obviously going to resolved in 3.

Also wth was the point of the sword recipe that uses a dragon scale if they don't even let you loot the dragon?

The Eternal Battle sequence where you have to play as a guy without secondary weapons, signs or the ability to roll and fight multiple opponents? The guy that decided on that needs to drawn and quartered Nilfgardian style in the town square. Had to cheese it with agro range pulling singles/duos.

I'm a bit curious how other choices would play out, but then I think how I'd have to do all that crap combat again and my motivation wanes.

I loaded one of my witcher 1 saves at the beginning, couldn't tell who my ally was from the load, and didn't really seem to effect anything.

There's couple spots where you have literally a second to click on the body and hit space to get the stuff before the cutscene triggers, because after the cutscene the body/loot is no longer there. Don't know if it's a bug or just oversight (or if that's even one of these situations) but it can be irritating to say the least.

It's a feature, not a bug? :P Intended to make the game more challenging, obviously. :oh_i_see:

I have to so disagree with this. Yes the prologue, specifically the ballista courtyard fight, was the crucible in which I learned the basics and yeah it took a few deaths. The first cave near Flotsam you come to where you're swarmed by Nekkers was another reminder of how the game plays that slapped me with a few deaths, as well as the wraiths in the abandoned insane asylum, which was by the way an awesome quest with a nice choice at the end. Pretty much since these encounters I'm a badass in the woods around Flotsam, with a ridiculous surplus of bombs to soften up any situation and Quen to hold my hand in dark times and make me feel better. There's a whole parry/block system I'm not even using because I prefer rollin' like a boss around fools. If I can get one enemy isolated I can poke the fucker full of holes with ad hoc combos that flow easily. The Witcher works best with an economy of movement, every input considered, and if I click once in excess and hit dead air after an enemy has already gone back to the mud I'm a little disappointed to put Geralt out for that pointless swing.  I'm almost level 9 and I'm hoping for some more challenging combat at some point, because right now shit like Nekkers and those tree crabs are trivial for such a badass, let alone any humans with a deathwish that are fool enough to step up to Geralt.

On a side note I kept getting the feeling that the world itself is set up similar to Fable, but comparing this game to any Fable title (as much as I've liked them in the past) really just highlights how infantile Fable is in every way, from NPC interaction to combat. Could one even imagine Geralt ripping farts in NPC faces? Witcher 2 is a huge reality check for what a game like this can be.

Also I just have to complain. Inventory management is fucking ass. Beyond ass. About the worst I've ever seen. Somehow notably worse than the first game's. I have old quest items I can't get rid of, no way to sort the inventory, all my recipes show up in the inventory as items and must be kept to be used. No recipe book or memorization. No reliable way to store the assloads of crafting materials eating up all my weight. No idea if I need them or not.

I do love the world and the characters, and the story is ok. Overall I agree with assessment that it's a great game with some deep flaws (most of which I expect will be patched).

To reiterate a few points here, playing through on hard:

1.   The inventory system is an abortion.  I am forced to save the game every time I go to the store in case I miss-click one and have to buy back an item for 10 times its costs.  There is no rhyme of reason to the crafting and i never know what is useless crap and what are important reagents (like for example nekker hearts which are used in rune crafting runes, need to keep those!).  there is no "junk" tab so i have to wade through the entire inventory to get rid of useless crap, also books and designs add to the clutter, and there is no indicator reminding you whether or not you may have already read a particular book.  Also, there is no storage.  Normally I have a hard and fast rule of no modding on my first run through, but I made an exception here and downloaded a reduced item weight mod because I was getting so annoyed.

2.  Combat is terrible.  I'm sorry, but it is.  Its incredibly frustrating and finicky, with target switching for no apparent reason and no default to add "keep hitting the same target" option.  Yes, I know alt locks you onto one target, but if you go a certain distance away from your locked target (not very far) you lose target lock...  Grrrrr..... This is made worse by the inability to pause so you can tactically assess the situation.  This all changes when you hit about level 12 and can invest 6 points into the magic tree to upgrade quen and get a few points of vigor.  At that point every combat is a total joke, including mini-bosses as quen turns you into Jesus McAwesome.  Boss fights are still difficult, but mostly because they are full of "OMG click here right now or you will instantly die!!!" mechanics.

3.  Story is pretty interesting, but to be honest all of these characters run together.  Which king are we talking about now, who is that dude that everyone should act like I know?

4.  Choosing logical conversation options can make folks angry and cause you to fail quests:

eg..

i will probably play through once, but there is no way in hell I would ever buy dlc for this and I most likely will not play through again.

As i play more i find the dynamic targetting a bonus rather than obstacle, since in 1 vs a bunch situations switching targets frequently allows to effectively keep them stagger-locked and unable to hit you. So that target switching is something you want to do, most of the time. Plus, targetting a guy at distance and moving to hit them works just as well as rolling away in terms of dodging, with bonus of actually doing some damage.

The target doesn't switch for no reason btw, but it selects whoever happens to be in the center of your view. Some sort of reticle could probably help people here.

Anyway all this becomes quite moot after you invest a point in the talent which unlocks hitting more than single target (since these additional hits work for stagger too, and it no longer really matters who exactly you hit)  It turns fights like 1 vs 10 on a staircase into bloodbaths in which you rarely take any damage, and that's without any shield signs (which means you have some accumulated vigor to hit for more than minimal damage, which also helps)

They say all DLC is going to be free :grin:

There a dragon scale in Phillipa's room in the last chapter and the battle where you don't have any abilities as a ghost? You still get parry, a skill people never use so they forget it works and it works like a motherfucker in that fight.

O'k I have beaten it now doing both Roche and Iorveth's path on normal.  Just some observations, first off its amazing how well the writers blended both paths together.  The only conflict I noticed came during a sequence with a certain sorcerous at the end.  She said several things that weren't right and Geralt said one thing that was pretty dumb since it assumed an even did n't happen that did just moments before.  Other than this one sequence, this was a fantastic job.  Roche's path in my opinion is not as good as Iorveth's path.  While Roche was definitely more polished, I enjoyed Iorveth's path a lot more and it felt a lot more epic.  Now one more thing on dragons and this is a huge spoiler so don't look if you don't want to be spoiled:

On Dragons Pt 2
  

Agree about Iorveth's path. The highlight of Roche's path was really the end of Act 2 which seemed to really influence Act 3 a lot. Having said that Iorveth is what DA has been needing.

How significant was the performance increase from the patch? I wasted a lot of bandwidth only to find out it looks like crap on my computer when I finally get it to a runnable framerate.

The single most satisfying moment in the game was while on Ioverth's path in act3...

So far its been kind of meh for me.  Story is good and I've banged a few whores but theres way too many cut scenes and the combat is pretty bad.  A better tutorial would have helped too.  Overall, I've enjoyed DA2 more.

Yeah, I ran out of steam around mid-act2 due to overall "meh" / repetitiveness / annoyance (QTEs? seriously?), and fired up... Wizardry 8, of all games. When a 10-year-old oldschool dungeon crawler feels more fun and immersive than the most recent crpg blockbuster, I know that something is wrong... either with the game or myself. :why_so_serious:

I'll eventually finish TW2, but just not feeling it atm.

Fuck the industry, this is how you present yourself to the gamers

CD Projekt announces a new game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-72e5v_hnjo

hah; well, that's one way to announce you have a job opening :awesome_for_real:

Lol. Love the fine print on the M rating!

President Obama got the game....

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110469-Polish-Prime-Minister-Gives-Obama-Witcher-2 (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110469-Polish-Prime-Minister-Gives-Obama-Witcher-2)

"Daddy has a game for you guys...check it out..."
"What is it daddy?"
"Ooh looks like it's finished install...it's about this monster slayer..Geralt. From Poland!"
"Ooooh, scary.. where is that?"
"*laughs* Doesn't matter...you'll learn...let's try....New game!"

*Watches the intro.*

 :uhrr:

*Closes the laptop*

"Malia. Sasha. Go to your room. Now."

Another patch today (1.2) with lots of goodies inside - fixing probably all of bugs mentioned in the thread

http://www.en.thewitcher.com/patch1-2/ (http://www.en.thewitcher.com/patch1-2/)

What they are talking about???

"Islamic–themed and similar textures have been deleted and/or replaced."

If this is serious: Sigh. :oh_i_see:

Can't believe someone would visit a brothel and watch the wrong kind of carpets.

I haven't read the thread for fear of spoilers but have a question.

I very much liked the first Witcher but it was really, really rough and buggy until it was all patched up.  How is this game doing bug wise, should I buy it now or wait six months for their "fixed" version like they did with the first?

Only experienced a one bug really, although it's quite annoying -- occasionally if you toss the petards the camera manages to get stuck in odd mode which pretty much renders you unable to fight until you take some damage and the view mode resets back to normal. Don't know yet if it's fixed in the most recent patch. And the petards aren't really needed on the lower difficulty levels, i'd gather.

Other than that it seems solid (if hard, especially in the beginning)

Overall, most of the bugs have been minor. 

Except for one.  During the last two fights in the game, somehow the game decided that bombs would fill my adrenaline bar instead of magic, so I was unable to use the heliotrope sign at all during them.  It would have probably been helpful. 

On sale for $5 less than the preorder price on Steam...   :uhrr:

Heliotrope doesn't work at all on the second to the last fight anyways ;)

My main bug was when trying to throw bombs or daggers, I'd randomly get locked into a funky state where I couldn't move the mouse or press any button but movement keys until I took damage (actual damage, quen hits didn't count), and this would keep happening in fights where getting hit = lolyoudied, especially when you couldn't turn to avoid it being a back hit <3

While I like much of the game I can barely stand to play it because the combat and other systems are so badly done.  With all the years of fantasy games how could they make the simple act of opening and going through a door so incredibly awkward and frustrating?  Every single instance of the "quick mash this button over and over again" mechanic is also really damn lame.  It's like I have to wade through shit to get to the good parts.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938963/witcherdragonage.jpg)

While this made me laugh, the last laugh was on me since my moldy DVD drive decided it wasn't going to read disc 1.

Finished it twice. Well worth the play. Some parts could be improved, but got overall good feeling from it. Looking forward for more.

The Panel Tweaks (http://www.witchernexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=87) mod (unzip and drag into CookedPC) makes sorely needed inventory / crafting improvements.  Dedicated junk tab, inventory sorting, better crafting ingredient selection, etc.  I also tweaked the user.ini for graphical and fps boosts which I can post later if anyone wants it.

If the side quests stay as engaging as the incense side quest in Flotsam (at least 5 different ways to proceed in conversation, thank you OCD) and combat doesn't start grating on me in the way it has for others in this thread then I'll stay quite happy and impressed with how far this has come from the first Witcher.

wITCHER 2 news

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/103810-cd-projekt-red-sued-over-the-witcher-2s-drm-removal.html


LOL....

New patch on horizon (1.3) with i.e inventory junk tab and item storage in inns.

http://www.pl.thewitcher.com/media/upload/Changelog%201.3.pdf (http://www.pl.thewitcher.com/media/upload/Changelog%201.3.pdf)

So, there's some big 2.0 version coming next week:


I don't see patching in the fun on the listed features, but I will probably give it another chance when this comes out.

Just forget about it. If it ain't fun, it can't be fixed.

I was tempted to pick this up but all the "this ain't fun!" from people really soured me on it.  I want a good game to play sadly and haven't had a good candidate lately.

Why wasn't it fun?

Cause people die a lot even at lowest difficulty. Goddamn pollacks, why can't they make games without challenge that scales to the player's levels?
I wish they follow Bioware's footsteps of easing the difficulty level that made me feel like a Champion and partake in felicitations that involve cute elves with funny lines and witty repartee, not these dirty, grimdark for the sake of being grimdark foul-mouthed elves and other denizens of Witcher World. I find it hilarious that it's the best thing they can come up in an already established IP. I'm not familiar with Sapkowsky's work, but my god David Gaider made him look juvenile.

My complaints are upthread somewhere, and on the game-feature side, difficulty level wasn't really my issue, so much as it was responsiveness and interface stuff. I think it felt hard mostly because Geralt would often not do what I wanted him to. I have hopes they've cleaned that up by now, but I as I am spending this weekend blowing away my system due to mysterious Windows lockups I won't know anytime soon. (I still think QTEs have no place in an RPG, too.)

I'm sure the story/dialogue are as strange as ever but I can get past that as long as the actual gameplay is... playable.

This one is definitely on the gut-punch side of eurogames. It reminds me of early EQ1, where it was so easy to fuck up, that alone made or broke you as a fan. They don't explain enough about how things work and the pre-2.0 UI was unresponsive enough it made Dragon Age 2 look like Modern Warfare 2.

That's been improved alot; however, the stupid GCD associated with spell-casting is still there. Or, lemme say, I assume it's some sort of GCD. That's the only logical reason I could see spells sometimes instantly firing and other times require a random number of Q or # key hits.

Once you get into the teen levels, and as long as you didn't gimp yourself, things start to feel more like how modern Western games usually start you out. None of that prelude insta-death. The arena really helped though. And man I wish the new tutorial was there at launch. I'm kinda surprised they released so much content now, but maybe they're pushing a holiday marketing effort so wanted to lower the barrier. This is the perfect game for the summer lull. Not sure it'll stack well against the Fall set.

They're a little nutty about going above and beyond the long tail of support as it were.  Witcher I was much the same way.

Just downloaded it. Need an RPG fix. Will see how it goes.

Didnt go well. Wont run worth a crap on my system. $40 down the drain sense Steam doesnt do refunds.  :oh_i_see:

Try these settings if you have a 6850 1gb or equivalent (works great for me at 1920x1080, lowest fps i see is 40ish) by pasting into X:\Users\Sand\Documents\Witcher 2\Config\User.ini (make sure to use this user.ini, there's two of them!) and don't open the settings gui editor after pasting (edit: just paste the [Engine] part to enable custom settings and put in your own resolution under [Viewport]):


Set VSync to 0 if tearing doesn't bother you and you can lower shadows.  If you have more ram on your card (2gb+) you can up TextureMemoryBudget, or less than 1gb lower it.

I believe this is new - the intro from the Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition:

Assassination of a king - it's beautifully handled CGI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ajukUlRKdA&feature=player_embedded)

Xbox 360 edition coming out soon.

Damn, I'd forgotten how much I love that bald-headed jerk's character design.  That is one sexy intro.

Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition April 17th Yay!


Behold You Stand Before a Head Crowned (New Cutscene):


The Trailer for the Enhanced Edition:


Improvements:
-  New Cutscenes
-  Apparantly "Hours" of brand new content
-  All of the Improvements & DLC
-  New Interface & Controls
-  New Intro and Outro
-  Addition of many new characters and locations including some that have not been announced.
-  New "adventures"


Best of all those of you who are like me and bought it on PC,  this is going to be yours apparantly for free. 

Pollacks giving away non shit games. What are they thinking?

They already did this in the Witcher 1 as well. Its called customer service, and they take that quite seriously.

I'm waiting for this Enhanced Edition to grapple the game again. So I'm quite excited they game me a date. Yay!

New controls, huh? The difficulty I had controlling Geralt was my biggest complaint, maybe I'll give it another go.

Well shit.  I just upgraded my RAM, so was about to pick this back up, but if the EE is right around the corner, I think I'll hold off.  God I love these guys though.  Awesome support for their games.

Guess I should wait for the next Witcher game to get an EE before I purchase it.  I can see this getting me to play it through.  Witcher 2 was a day one purchase for me, but it was such a pain in the ass to play that I didn't get very far. 

Looking forward to this.  Date is a little close to D3 release date for comfort (will take a herculean effort to beat in time).  Sorry, SWTOR, doesn't look like I'm going to have time for you anymore.

I never got around to the second one, really enjoyed the first one. Looking forward to this on steam xmas sale 2012.

I'll give it a chance to have patched some actual fun in. Not like it costs me anything.

Missed it myself, but The Witcher 2 EE released earlier this week.

Downloading it, will check it out again in a few weeks.  Hopefully teh fun has been patched in...

It still feels really clumsy.

Never mind the game, the patcher is horrible. I keep getting random disconnects (that force a restart from scratch), and the one complete download I got was corrupted.

edit: http://en.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/29831-patch-downloader-always-fails/  :uhrr: :uhrr: :uhrr:

edit2: because no one clicks on links and this is just too funny -- they want you to manually compare 32 digit hexadecimal hashes. 36 of them. Using the mk.I eyeball.

On the plus side, the launcher's graphics config screen now displays properly if you're not using the stock Windows font size.   :why_so_serious:

Just saw this came out on 360.  Have they made any announcements for a PS3 version?

I forgot how hard this game is at the beginning

Finished the Enhanced Edition last night.  Some thoughts:

So this is on sale as part of the Autumn Steam sale - I still can't work out if people enjoyed it or not...

I found it unplayable with a mouse. If you don't have a controller I wouldn't bother.

I found it perfectly playable, and that was before the patch that made the combat more accessible. Story and emotional attachment wise I prefered the first one (already starting to forget what happened in W2), but I think most people say W2 was superior in that department as well.

Every time I start it, I just find the tutorial so unfun in its mechanics that I put it aside, thinking I'll come back to it later.

Play it on easy, and the game is tolerable due to the shitty combat.

Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Thanks all.  I dont have a controller, so thats probably done it for me.

You can probably bump the difficulty back up once you hit chapter 2.  It gets to be a little more even there.  Plus, you'll actually have enough levels to adequately deal with groups. There's less dumb boss fights there as well.

Honestly, the tutorial was the hardest fight in the game. Which is hilarious if you think about it.

Except the tentacle monster thing, but that has a gimmick you either do right, or you die. QTE 4TL

Man I STILL remember that tutorial. It really was the hardest part, all that flipping. I found it manageable on the keyboard. But if not for how awesome the world looked, I'm not sure I woulda powered through.

I don't remember the exact tentacle monster encounter, but I did a subconscious shudder when I saw those words. So it musta been painful :-)