f13.net

Witcher 3 is announced (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/02/05/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-includes-horse-riding-sailing-and-the-grisly-death-of-quick-time-events/)

It's going to be open world and supposedly larger than Skyrim in area.

Unless there is a PS3 version. I wont be playing.

But if there were, I'd rather play TW1 and TW2 first.

If I'd been told in the 90s that I'd one day be getting my gaming news from Forbes, I'd have split a gut from incredulous laughter.

I'm already looking forward to kicking  butt.

Fixed for lulz. But then again, this is the Witcher, where Geralt can fuck nearly everything. lol

I may not be a player of TW, for obvious reasons. PS3 player and PC doesn't have the power to play it. But one thing I've come to admire is Triss Merigold. One hot redhead.

Forbes 'gaming coverage' has actually been pretty good of late. So good that it clashed with PA (Yes, penny-unfunny-arcade) staff. (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/king-ben-kuchera.php)

Looks interesting. I might actually have to sit down and finish the first one. Then maybe move on to the second.

Truthfully, the game I'm looking forward to from CDPR is Cyberpunk 2077.

It's nice to see that they're ditching QTE.  Even though both Witcher 1 and 2 have had flaws, I've still found them to be great games, so yah, this will be on my buy list.

I'll wait till they show how combat works. Witcher 2's combat killed my enjoyment of the game. If they manage a decent control scheme this time I'll give it a try.

Squee, this'll definitely be on my to buy list.

This is a deep discount sale buy only for me, I really didn't care for Witcher 2 in the slightest.

Witcher 2 was the most enjoyable game I have played in quite a while.  I remember being completely useless for weeks going through the story.  This is a preorder for me as soon as I can through steam.  Also I am going to preorder the Cyber punk game.  Pretty much CDProjekt Red seems to be the new Bioware to me and the Witcher 3 is the only game right now I am really looking forward to.

You are a crazy person.

I liked Witcher 2 a lot as well. The combat was silly at times, but no more silly than AC games.

Can't be quoted enough.  The combat was hard to get into but the setting was so damn fun and full of interesting plots that I cant fault one bad aspect.

The screens are just stunning.

(http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/5/5/4/1/5/3/1360104418_2.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1183x-1)

(http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/5/5/4/1/5/3/1360104422_11.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1180x-1)

More Here. (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-06-screenshots-of-the-witcher-3)

How can this game be deeper than the taste of Tali's sweat?
For fuck's sake guys. Have a better taste.

 :roll:

ROFLMFAO


Yep definitely the only game i am waiting to preorder off of Steam.

Hey, at least he's not claiming DA2 was a good game.  :oh_i_see:

Buying on the strength of this alone:
(http://i.imgur.com/PF7mzOi.png)

 :heart: :heart: :heart: :awesome_for_real:

Cautiously optimistic.  I hope the their third attempt at combat is better than the first 2.  At least in the first Witcher you could pretty much ignore it after the Hound.  Once you got your silver sword, the combat just wasn't very hard, and it was at least viscerally entertaining.

The death of QTEs is reassuring.  Open world is a bit scary, just because I see them introducing bugs that make Skyrim's look tame.

Still looking to give Witcher 2 another shot, but my first go was so negative.  I need to find a way to make the combat ignorable. Easy difficulty, I suppose might work.  

Patches have made the combat much more tolerable.  You can block freely now even when you're out of stamina for instance.

It does. Once I realized why I was playing the game (story, not combat) putting the game on EZ mode made the whole exercise much more entertaining.

Your attitude to combat should be quick strike, roll away, quick strike, roll away. Occasionally you can hammer an opponent, but you aren't set up to take two or more opponents on head-to-head.

And if you want super-easy mode, go down the magic path. With your damage-reflecting Quen and AOE Igni signs most combat becomes trivial.

Oh, and chop down all the training dummies you see because after 10 (5 in the prologue camp, 5 in Flotsam with 2-3 in the corrupt Flotsam leader's area) you get a 10% bonus to XP gain.

Damn right. Why should people be forced to play a game when they want a story? FFS. It's not like The Witcher has a novel or some shit.
Once again, Bioware has the right idea.

I'm really having trouble understanding why you dislike that so much, given how much time you spend writing Let's Plays for visual novels.

The only way forward:

(http://masseffect.sfportal.hu/files/2012/02/mass-effect-3-story-mode.jpg)

Yes, apparently RPG = Visual Novels now.

Witcher 2 was the best roll playing game experience of the decade. You used to roll dice to make characters do things but now you cut out the middleman and roll the character directly.

Seriously, having a hard time with TWitcher 2 combat? Shield and roll made short work of most encounters. Only way I can see someone having a hard time with it is if they're used to pseudo-VN dreck like ME3, where even the highest difficulty was hilariously easy with biotic combo abuse.

Just like Skyrim, amirite?  :awesome_for_real:
So many cute newbies nowadays. One going all out to defend Bioware's Magnum Opus and now Potato's new Witcher May Cry.
I look forward to watching'em grow jaded.  :grin:

waaaaaat.   You guys are weird.

I'm doing OK this time and still on normal.  It's still really awkward.   I just wish it wasn't such a huge departure from how Witcher 1 worked, where you had better tools (at least early) for dealing with groups.  But considering the combat was awful in that as well, they had to try something.  Yeah, shield spam has been the go to strat so far. 

I guess we'll see if I can keep on this pace once I get to that ghost hospital.   I think it was there or a point shortly later where I started dying like a bitch to really stupid stuff.  This was, however, at launch. 

Witcher 3 black haired Geralt confirmed, polish tears flow like river  :ye_gods:

If places are too tough, back off and craft corresponding oil/potions - it's a strange concept to do pre-combat prep but that's how the witchers in the lore operate anyway, they don't rely on sword techniques and agility alone - alchemy is a huge part of their arsenal as well.

You are a fucking Psycho.

I'm enjoying how people are saying the combat at higher levels isn't bad because it can be cheesed by potions or shield rolling.

For one, potions aren't combat. It's supposed to be an outside mini-game of crafting that makes things easier. It has nothing to do with the actual combat play.

For the second part, Quen and roll isn't really combat either. You're flailing about like an idiot most of the time. The reason you have to do that as a workaround is because when you are faced with groups, the animations lock you into actions only to get faceraped by other people. So instead of actual attack and defense, it's stop drop and roll like you're constantly on fire. This technique didn't really exist at all in the other game because you had a group fighting style that actually worked.

Yrden and Aard is your crowd control signs that can make grps easier to handle.
There's also the magic tree that can make a lot of combat trivial by just spamming it at full power, triggering a killing blow when it causes a critical hit.
I haven't revisited TW2 of late, but the combat is more fun than TW1, most definitely.

I figure there was some kind of principle of realism at stake in the combat design of TW2, like they just couldn't accept things looking wrong even if it made the game feel more responsive.  The system desperately needs more animation cancelling and less actions which make you temporarily unable to control your movement.  It's ironic because the consequence of that design was fights in which you roll around like a loon.

i agree , this is why i found ME2 better than ME3. I get to do planetary exploration and stuff, crafting my gear, to make combat easier, without getting into combat while having combat advantages. I wish Witcher 3 will tack that in, chop some wood or mine ores to craft silver blades.

In all seriousness, TWitcher 2 combat was pretty bad, it just wasn't difficult. However, I'd take it any day over cakewalk 3PS rivals or the twitch rhythm game that was TWitcher 1 combat.

Ideally they'd either make it with proper RPG combat, or (more likely) accept that they're making a CYOA action game and design a combat system that can actually compete with the better games in that genre.

edit:

*question redacted*  Forget I asked.  Still wigging me out, however.

Stop saying TWitcher. Now.

TWitch--

(http://i.cubeupload.com/auJxSi.gif)

...ok.

Edit: I tend to use it it mainly because TW or TW2 could be confused with Two Worlds/Two Worlds II, and TheW2 just looks ridiculous. That and to an extent the twitchiness of the first game's combat. Not really meant to be a 'thing'.

I think it's supposed to be an rpgcodex thing. It's a magical place. (not really)

Anyway, TW3 is firmly in wait-and-see territory for me -- I'm still feeling a bit burned about my TW2 preorder. TW1 was a mostly enjoyable romp minus the combat and much of the dialog, but TW2 somehow managed to make both of those tihngs worse. Even if you ignore the QTEs, it wasn't engaging... or it may be that I just hate actiony combat in my RPGs, who knows!

If I know the combat is terrible and frustrating, in all likelihood I'm cranking the game down to easy just so I can scratch it off my list.

There have been a few times when this didn't even work and I hated the game too much. Two Worlds comes to mind and that JRPG about changing into dragons. Awful. Just awful.

Breath of Fire series?  I think I played one of those on the SNES.

Uggg, Two Worlds 2.   Intro was so bad I just couldn't go any further. 

I was thinking Divinity 2: Ego Draconis.

On a side, I loved Breath of Fire :Love_Letters:

You exactly described Witcher 2 for me, but I found the story elements completely awful as well (as far as I played before giving up on it), which I realize puts me in a minority around here*. I seem to recall hating the inventory system, really just the interface in general as well.

The Pool of Radiance that formatted your hard drive also comes to mind, but the all-time classic "too shitty to finish" for me is Lionheart. Still makes me kind of angry. Oh and I guess there are the Sky games, of which I only tried to play Risen.

Most of my other examples of just knocking the game board over and walking away are MMOs I think.

(*If I wanted fake tits, broken English, and unsatisfying options, I'd go to a strip club heyooo)

Yeah it was Divinity 2, I couldn't remember the name. God I hated that game.

Ohhh, that's Eurojank not a JRPG.

I literally finished watching that episode of Sherlock before browsing the forums, I lol'd hard.

Ah, very good. I get my regional crap confused.

You can see the change in Witcher combat within the first set of DLC. Within the Witcher if you got your timing right you could just click through enemies up close and cut them down in barrage of blows.

The DLC changed things in those missions so that hitting enemies didn't interrupt them as much, so you had to roll away / dodge or you'd get slaughtered.

And then The Witcher 2, with its attack and dodge approach, was a more fleshed out approach to that mechanic.

Bombs help if you are having group issues. Traps seem fairly useless though IMO.

I trapped myself once, too. This game's crazy on the difficulty if you didn't expect it.  :why_so_serious:

The magic trap (Yrden?) is the only one worth using. Except for the monster trap in Chapter 1 that makes the boss fight slightly easier.

Um, potions are part of the combat system. Thorough dialog  and side quests you can figure out what potions you may need to down before a fight. This not only goes for bosses, but other creatures that you build a profile of. Its completely in the lore, and potions and preparations are part of combat.

Its all right in the the job description of a Witcher.

I'm currently playing Dark souls, and find it funny that games combat is praised, yet its nearly identical ( Melee ) to that of the Witcher, it just lacks the prep part.

Brewing potions isn't combat, or part of the combat mechanics. You're reaching.

It's part of the game, and it's part of the design intent, but it's not at all about the combat itself.

Nope.

You going up against humans? Pop some + damage Humans, + swords , use fire bombs bla bla bla.

(http://becomeauthentic.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/iverson-practice.jpg)

We're talking about potion prep. Not fighting. Not combat. Potion prep.

Prep.

That you seemingly ignore.

Right, cause you never prep in good rpg's....oh wait.

ITS NOT PART OF COMBAT!  :roll:

Like i said, Its right in the job description of a witcher.

What is a Witcher (http://youtu.be/AzfFPONyjSw)

But it should be ignored and is "cheesy"?  :oh_i_see:

Guys, prep has nothing to do with the ACTUAL FAILINGS OF THE COMBAT MECHANICS.

Good grief, you're arguing different things. Just because you can make the combat easier with prep doesn't mean the combat itself isn't flawed.

Yes I agree that the beginning of the game is crappy because of the combat tying your hands with no spells or potions and a lot of people can't get past that, which is a shame.

However to say prep isn't part of combat is ridiculous since in just about every rpg out there you are prepping via items, spells, potions or what have you before you even get into a fight.  

Enchant your weapon in skyrim? Prep!
Combine a Red and Green herb in resident evil? Prep!
Catch a fairy in a bottle in zelda? Prep!

Saying witcher combat post intro sucks because you are only using your sword is counter to the strategy involved in nearly every action/rpg ever.

That's not what I said though. I said that just because you can use potions or roll around like a jackass to successfully navigate the combat problems, that doesn't mean the combat is good or even acceptable to higher levels.

Rolling is not the only way to avoid attacks, even with multiple targets. Also, 88% score on metacritic, pre-fixes. Those of you treating this title as some sort of abysmal failure are the ones reaching. Including when you are criticizing those who enjoyed the title as if we are some tiny minority of cave dwellers.


Loading my gun in Planetside makes combat easier, so obviously its flawed.

 :facepalm:

You aren't understanding what he is saying. You could kill everything in one hit with the same mechanics that the game uses and it wouldn't change the fact that he doesn't like the mechanics. It has literally nothing to do with prep or no prep or how easy or hard it is.

Don't even bother. He's already mentioned Metacritic scores.

I think the point we are talking past is that prep in all games is very much part of the mechanics. You can go entire action/rpg games without ever upgrading your weapons/armor/gear and then complain you are dying in one hit and that it takes forever to kill enemies.  That would be your choice but you'd also be "doing it wrong" to intentionally handicap yourself in that way.

Now maybe upgrading is a pain in the ass, or not fun but that's also a separate issue.  Witcher was not meant to be played without spells or potions and to it's detriment they took away those tools in the beginning of the second game, thereby making you not only feel that pure swordplay was the intended game but also that it was not fun(which it was not)

Yes I know Zelda/Megaman and lots of other games are fun BEFORE any upgrades and that issue is completely on witcher, but after a certain point in all games you should be upgrading your shit, usually though you simply are not given a choice in the matter.

Honestly, I don't know how to make it any clearer. There are all sorts of different mechanics in a game. Character statistics, items, economy, combat, story, etc.

These mechanics, while linked under the same game banner, can be judged on completely separate areas. I'm judging the combat mechanics compared to other games within the genre.

And instead we're getting into how the linkage between other mechanics of the game somehow make this irrelevent? No, it's a separate point.

In other words, if the part someone doesn't like is how you swing the sword, it doesn't matter at all how good or bad the sword is.

Well does he mean combat or swordplay? There's a difference.

Well, the sign casting and item usage is awkward as hell too.  Makes Skyrim combat feel elegant and responsive (mostly joking).

Take for instance the endrega (sp) queen fights in chapter 1.  There is nothing fun about those and it's largely just diving and running around like a goon, while you do pathetic amounts of damage (even buffed to the gills).  

I'm enjoying the QTE fist fights and arm wrestling more than killing monsters and shit.  That should not be.

Still, I'm enjoying the narrative a little more this time.  I have the same general gripe that I did with Witcher 1 (which I loved, so shaddup):  it takes forever to do anything.  I'd blame lack of quick travel.

And you think rolling around is the only dynamic to the combat. You do not need to roll. If you just run in slashing and mashing buttons, yeah, you are going to think the combat is broken. You will die.

There is a way to speed things up a little bit, though you may not want to use it. Once you have the longer roll length upgrade (and possibly even before), it's actually much faster to roll everywhere than to run, if you can stomach how ridiculous it looks.

It's not just the combat that makes me repeat the 'roll playing game' joke over and over again.

 :why_so_serious:

So in other words Paelos is bad at Witchering and therefore it's the game's fault because potions?

If only I'd rolled more.

They hate you cause you rollin'?

Rolling all the time was a bit silly. As a expert swordsman and magically/alchemically enhanced mutant maybe i could parry more than twice? But my main problem was the targeting. A tiny shift in camera angle meant instead of the guy on the edge of the pack I was now targeting the center and Geralt was always happy to use his gap closer to leap in there and get stunlocked and die. Just dump the targeting and make it pure action.

I've read the rest of the thread, but it all goes back to this point.

It's not "cheesing", it's how they chose to convey advancement. I found Witcher 2 pretty frustrating for the first hour or so, but something kept me coming back (masochism?). Once I got a handle on rolling, and then unlocked some of the middle-level abilities, it became enjoyable. I very rarely used potions outside of the mini-boss fights. It was the occasional Sign and all the rolling that got me through. I certainly had enough resources to keep making them, just wasn't interested.

There's a fluidity to the combat I haven't experienced much in most other PC games. It's kinda like what they promised for Assassins Creed 3, but that feels stiff by comparison (though not as much as AC2 compared to Witcher). Maybe feels similar to Arkham Asylum fights except the cinematic bullet-time parts. I'm sure there's a trove of console games with better delivered similar concepts in combat mechanics. But I don't play on consoles.

But it takes wanting to get used to it.

I think it all comes back to this point, tbh.

I debated where to continue this discussion, but we might as well just discuss any Witcher stuff here at the moment.

So, I'm a bit farther into Witcher 2.  I'm at the end of chapter 2.   I think I'll actually finish it.

My gripes would still be the uneven combat difficulty, how long it takes to do anything, the UI, and the system performance.  The system performance crap can be annoying, the game just gets laggy as hell at times even though it is not taxing my system very hard.

The difficulty somewhat tapers off when you get to chapter 2.  This may be dependent on how you spec, but groups of monsters are pretty manageable and most stuff just isn't difficult to kill.  If you go down the swordsman path, you carve shit up pretty well.  I wonder if whirl changes your overall animations, because the flow seems to be a bit better and you don't seem to be animation locked quite as hard.  Plus, you get a ton of survivability down this path as well. 

The rest of the game outside of the combat is pretty much Witcher 1.  The contracts are a bit more fleshed out, which is nice.  The side activities are trivial with the difficult QTEs off. The story and plot progression has been interesting.  Iorveth's path has been very amusing and I'm glad it had you choose a path that would lead to a differing experience.

There's a lot of room for improvement for Witcher 3.  The game needs to be playtested a lot better than it has been and these developers need to listen to what their testers are saying.  I don't see how a play tester signed off on the early game, some of the boss fight mechanics, or all of the backtracking and running around you have to do.  Perhaps they need to pull in the secretary or concept artist and make them play the first chapter. 

PS4 confirmed.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Debut Gameplay Trailer  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ_G6XiHoUA&feature=youtu.be)

I hope they redo the combat from 2. It wasn't awesome, but I think they've almost stumbled across a really compelling character and store line that resonates with me in a way other IPs haven't.

This is the only title from an established developer that I am in any way excited about enough to preorder...

Not quite what you asked for, but there's a new Witcher 2 combat rebalance mod (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/20/witcher-2-combat-mod/) out now, made by one of the CD Projekt devs.

Witcher 2 combat was not bad enough to make me hate what is a great world/game aside from it so yeah...3 is a day 1

I have my eye on that. But I don't know how stable it is.

From what I hear it's pretty stable, but I worry about the overall balance of it, considering the same guy's mod for the first Witcher was an unbalanced mess, with nigh-invulnerable enemies.

I've read that some people think it makes the combat worse.  Multi-mob groups early on are even worse, since your parry doesn't stagger and he tweaked the roll.

I'll buy this day 1, but I feel there's a 50% chance I'll hate some aspect of it enough that I put it down until the inevitable Enhanced Edition patch.  I have no faith they'll get it right on the first try.

It was bad enough to me to that I didn't do any Witcher 2 replays, so unless I hear good things about the combat controls in 3 I'll be skipping this one at full price.

I hated it at first. But then for some reason I went back to it a few weeks later. Once I got the rolling down, the whole game got much better for me. But yea, they really want you to WANT to like that game.

In the end, the balance between decisions, combat, gorgeous environs and story itself, 3 is a day one purchase for me.

Yeah the rolling was crucial, but also at the start you really need to use *every* tool you have - rolling, swords (the correct one too!), bombs, signs, potions for hard fights, etc. Once you get a few levels and some gear you can specialise more successfully and the combat actually gets simpler the further into the game you go.

Not sure Witcher 3 will be a day 1 purchase - it's rare for that not to seem horribly overpriced to me. I am very used to playing games 6 months after release now at 50% or more off.

Some new nice trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c0i88t0Kacs

"Killing monsters"   :drill:

I just now started playing Witcher 2 for the 360 because it went down in price and I had a coupon.  It's hard.  Even on easy mode, it's hard.  The combat, I mean.  I don't really have the controls down yet, but I like it.  I'll definitely get the next Witcher because I've fallen in love with the main character and I get to stare at his butt while I play.

Yea I found the controls completely unintuitive after years of being trained by other action-y RPGs. But once you power through the learning curve, the game is very enjoyable. I loved it and the expansions so much Witcher 3 is a day one purchase.

The only advice I'd give is do not get hit. Avoid it by rolling a lot. I wish I had known that going in myself. :-)

I roll all over the place and swing wildly at the monsters and I usually live very nearly all the time mostly.

Try blocking and Attacking during the openings. Rolling will only get you so far, and its really kinda wasteful. With a block and opening attack you can down anyone in one hit.

It it the Enhanced Edition or can it be patched to that? I know some people don't patch games or even have their 360s online.   The stock version of the game can be a little brutal, but even at the EE, chapter 1 is a little difficult in parts (seriously, quit making excuses for the game, people).  Given that, only a couple fights (both boss fights) in Chapter 1 on the Enhanced Edition were save/reload affairs.   

My best advice would be level Quen up and spam that a lot.  Then focus on the sword abilities. That will help you deal with multiple enemies a lot better.  By the time chapter 2 rolls around, the difficulty smooths out a bit and you shouldn't have any further problems save perhaps the end boss battles in 3.  Another thing that can help is using stun if you find yourself in a tough close quarter fight.  A lot of humanoids when stunned can be 1 hit killed.

I really hate the slo-mo stun kill nonsense though it totally fucks up the rhythm of the fight also no sex cards. Witcher 2 was for me much less of a game than 1, even though they had tightened a lot of things to reduce jank which I appreciated.

It is the enhanced edition.  I'm level six and the only abilities are in the witcher skill set so far.  I need more vigor or stamina or whatever the little yellow bits are, because, yeah, that quen thingy makes my life much easier.  I don't want to bother with alchemy, actually, so I'll probably just put points in swordplay and some magic.  I haven't read most of that stuff yet.  I'm slow.  And then there's mutagens... haven't even began to look at that!  I also have to find out where to change my hair because the half ponytail annoys me a little.  I was forced to wear my hair like that when I was a kid and I hated it.  There seems to be a lot to do in this game which is nice.  I'm not sure they made a Witcher 1 for the 360.  If not, maybe I'll pick it up if I ever get a desktop again with a proper monitor.  It's even taken my focus of of Saint's Row 4 which I get in TWO FUCKING DAYS GODDAMIT!!!!

PS  I tried playing "dark" because I wanted the special stuff but I can't.  Even saving after every kill, I can't get very far past the dungeon bit.  "Hard" is hard, too.  So is "normal".  You have no idea how completely I suck at this game so far.

IIRCC, there is a lock on. May or may not help in some cases. I personally found Parry and attacking during openings very handy. Doesn't work as well with some of the monsters though, like the ones with unbreakable hits.


Remember everyone, when you give game play tips, you are making excuses. When Rasix does it, its just gameplay tips!

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82533/kanyelaugh.gif)

Dark's extra armours and weapons require a lot of grinding to get the components you need to build them.

Honestly, if you just want the story then play on easy and go with the Magic skills, so you can have a multi-hit magic shield that deals damage and place magic traps whenever you like.

Combat for me was to dodge around a lot, light attack, then dodge back. Especially during fights where it it you versus a number of opponents. Once you level up a bit, get some more skills and better weapons / armour, things become a lot easier.

Bombs can help too.

After spending time in the first few combats just abusing Yrden setups with risk averse style of engagement, I decided to go gung-ho on a pair of soldiers by the ramp, with no Quen up.
I got killed. I must be getting rusty.

Youtube 1m34s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqQ3LeBgGDM)

New trailer. Not terribly informative but better than a stone on the head*!

Btw, I genuinely recommend anyone to read the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski.

*Austrian saying.

We say "Better than a kick in the ass."  So it translated just fine.

Delayed until February of 2015  :heartbreak:

Need more time to remove jumping and rope arrows.

I'm not sure whether to be happy they are willing to postpone the release to make it better or concerned that they feel that they can't finish it in the next 9 months (for a christmas/end of the year release) like they planned.

There is a new trailer in town. (http://youtu.be/HtVdAasjOgU)

Still too damn far away.

I worry it will be the same as the last two. I'll anticipate for months, buy it day one, enjoy it for five hours, realize I hate the combat system and quit after chapter one.

Honestly, at this point people who are still buying games day one basically deserve to have wasted their money.

Unfortunately, it's true.  As I learned with Watch_Dogs. 

I don't have a problem throwing ~$20 at an indie dev to get them rolling to start.  I no longer will buy $60 AAA games on day one, though.  I make a lot of money, but I won't just throw my cash away anymore.

I bought W2 day one and loved it.  Combat sucked, whoop de freaking doo, was still incredibly fun.

Game will likely be a buggy piece of unbalanced shit until the inevitable "enhanced edition" comes out. And open world?  Good luck running it on last year's machine.

I'll likely buy on it on day one and not complete until a year later.  Par for the series.  I could save myself some grief and just get it on a Steam sale for 75% off at some point.


You tend to do a lot of it.  And it's somewhat required to advance through the story.  Combat simply sucking is one thing (like in Witcher 1.  It was dumb, but manageable), combat sucking in a way that gates your advancement is another.

It's been mentioned here before but I'll expand for the sake of clarity.  Combat sucked "at first" but once you got one or two spells it was infinitely improved.  I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything but saying two was objectively a bad game is ridiculous.

I'm about a billion times more worried about them making romance options awesome like in Witcher 1 again. Combat will be what it is. Its a great MC, plus a cool setting plus decent enough rpg story without retarded jrpg-style grinding AND hopefully the return of sex cards that I'm looking forward to.

Witcher 2 was a massive massive step down despite the modernized combat because the sex minigame no longer existed to make exploring and talking to everybody feel more worth it.

Yeah I think the sex card collectors would probably put that high on the list, but I'm not sure how it affects their intent to make the game for broader audiences.

New trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtVdAasjOgU#t=78)

Seems like it'll be as risque as 2. Didn't play 1. Hated the 2 combat until I loved it.

Really looking forward to 3. If they achieve even slightly more open world. I'm in. Shit, even if they just continue the story in the same engine, up-ressed for modern hardware, I'm in.

Probably not day one, but this is a definite purchase for me.

There will be no sex card cause You know... story wise Geralt is back to his beloved Yennefer.
I like Tyvin Lannister as Emperor Emhyr var Emreis :D

Like with the previous two gonna be day one for me purely as support for what they're doing. (well ok, and I actually liked the previous two, warts and all, so that's not much of a conflict)

Some nice new CGI trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcogCjLymeI

I couldn't be bothered to find the Witcher 2 thread, so I'm doing a brief hijack.

I'm thinking of playing this, but potions and crafting are major dislikes for me, especially in RPGs. Can I just put the combat down a level and play without them, and will the game still be fun?

One day I will try to play Witcher 2 again and not be frustrated with the combat....

You need potions to help with combat, but you can ignore crafting on easier difficulty settings.

Magic is considered to be the 'easiest' xp tree to go with in the Witcher 2 iirc.

Yes, I almost never used potions. I just put difficulty on easy and played through the story, and I had a lot of fun.

The combat is punishing for no reason, and it has nothing to do with skill for the most part. It has to do with shit like potions, min-maxing, and animation timers.

Ta.

Yeah I gave it a bit of a go.

Unfortunately it has a bit of that 'realistic graphics look very dated when they're even slightly superseded' going on. Shadow of Mordor flat out makes it look bad. Also the PC voice actor is the worst of the lot, which is really annoying. I think I've decided I'll just read a good book if all I'm getting out of it is the story.

So they're offering 16 free dlc, 2 per week: http://thewitcher.com/news/view/867
They've mentioned horse armor, beards and alternate costumes so far. It's a nice deal, sort of fluff that usually gets charged for.

Witcher 3 delayed another 12 weeks.  (http://en.cdprojektred.com/news/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-an-open-letter/)
I have to say that since this isn't the first delay for this game I'm having some doubts as to whether they can deliver what they are promising. I'll probably cancel my preorder and buy the game once it has been out long enough time for them to "fix things".  :oh_i_see:

You'd be crazy to have a pre-order in at this point. I like this series a lot, but this is obvious writing on the wall, and I refuse to fall for it anymore. Nobody delays things for awesome reasons in this day and age. It has to be so horrifically fucked up it's unreleasable and won't stop crashing. I mean honestly have you seen some of the shit that just gets to release now? Characters had no faces in AC4.

I'm frankly more suspicious of projects that don't roll back than ones that do at this point, personally.

I would be more positive about this news if it wasn't this company involved.  

I'm really hoping at this point that I can fight off my inner derp and hold off until the inevitable EE patch.  And by then all of you will have figured out the best way to deal with the combat.  I guess it'll depend on how desperate I am for a new game at that point.

edit: Man, reddit really has a hard-on for CDPR. 

Unfortunately this isn't the first delay for the game and to quote the message last March for the delay:
"Yet we concluded that a few additional months will let us achieve the quality that will satisfy us, the quality gamers expect from us. Consequently, we have set the release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for February 2015. "
So they failed to achieve increase in "the quality" with the extra months that their original game lacked and now need 12 more weeks to get something releasable ready.

So you'd rather it come out sooner and buggier? I'm not sure I really understand the problem here. It's not like they're Chris Robertsing you here with a game that will never come out, and they have GOG income to float them until it is ready so they're probably not going to run out of funds by pushing it out a few months.

I mean yes, ideally every game would come out on time and bug-free, but that's not reality and I think cases like this where they go 'whoa wait' are generally far preferable to stuff that gets rushed out the door and needs an EE to fix. I expect the reasons I will hate this game to have nothing to do with its bugginess, myself.  :why_so_serious:

I've had a couple projects that I had to choose between 'delay by two months' and 'might be ok, might be a career-wrecking disaster' so it's not very hard for me to understand why they'd choose to delay. It's also better overall for their customers.

That assumes that the problems are fixable. It might be better for the customers if the game never existed.

My concern in today's market of games is that delays indicate huge issues. Ten years ago? I wouldn't have cared. Now? I'm thinking this thing might actually be piled in shit, and they are scraping away. Does that mean the customers might get less shit? Yeah, but at this point we're ranking the size of the steaming pile.

Granted, things might be rosy and they may just need to finish up some things. But lately we've been used to companies releasing that stuff anyway and polishing it within the few weeks of release as the players live beta the thing.

I'm sure you have a job in a sector where falling a few months behind the schedule and then when the new extended deadline starts to loom you can once again delay the release a few months but it doesn't usually inspire much confidence even if you explain those repeated delays as "improving quality".  :why_so_serious:

Honestly their mistake was in advertising an uncertain release date, not in any of the pushback stuff (IMO). These things happen constantly on software and/or IT projects internally, the only reason we know about this one is that they misjudged their release target and then *told* us what it was. There's such a thing as too much transparency.

They can delay as long as they need if it means their Cyberpunk game benefits from the fixes to their engine this hopefully entails.  :why_so_serious:

Saw a pre-order at $49.50
I can get $10 off.
Saw the release date - February '15
Wow. That's just way too long.

The problem is that the release is now actually May '15 instead and the stores haven't just updated it yet.

CD Projekt Red promises "no more delays" for The Witcher 3 (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-14-cd-projekt-red-promises-no-more-delays-for-the-witcher-3):

I dug up this old article to partly explain why I'm so peeved off by the delay and why it bothers me (though logically thinking the fact I did take the time to find it again doesn't speak well for me :why_so_serious:)

LOL damn pollacks.
I'm definitely not touching it.
Insane. Something must be really wrong for them to delay it that far.

They are their own publisher, with digital distribution platform generating money for them. They aren't hard pressed to RELEASE NOW or sink.

Reminds you of any other company with similar assets, which was supposed to release 3rd part of their game at some point in the past? :oh_i_see:

Hey man, it's winter.  It like, got cold over here and stuff.

Not sure I see the issue either. We are talking about a story focused CRPG here, not an MMO or some novel game concept were a "We can't find the fun!" moment can happen. It's also an issue of who says it. If CD Project Red (or Larian) says we need to delay to finish it properly I give them more credence than in case of some Kickstarter clowns who haven't yet proven they can produce a finished product.

If you read that article I quoted from (CD Projekt Red promises "no more delays" for The Witcher 3 (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-14-cd-projekt-red-promises-no-more-delays-for-the-witcher-3)) you'll see that they were practically swearing that there wouldn't be any more delays from the February date. The main point is that they seem to be having major problems with producing a finished product that wouldn't be a major disappointment to consumers (and since it's CDPR's biggest project so far it could be pretty catastrophic economic wise)

I guess it's wait and see. In May we will know what was really behind it. My personal guess is still that it's a case of CDPR having more freedom with these decisions due to being their own publisher and due the bad rep they got with the first Witcher being rather buggy. The Witcher 1 EE saw the entire German voice synchronization redone - with new voice-actors. I doubt they want to go through this again.

Agreed, sounds like they're trying to avoid having to publish an enhanced edition (which they had to do for both of the previous games).

For me it's just look like damage control before damage happens. Lessons learned from Ubisoft drama.
They wanted to patch it after release - but customers will shit all over it today.

So, the system requirements are out and they're pretty brutal:

Minimum System Requirements
 Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz
 AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
 Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660
 AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
 RAM 6GB
 OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
 DirectX 11
 HDD Space 40 GB

Recommended System Requirements
 Intel CPU Core i7 3770 3,4 GHz
 AMD CPU AMD FX-8350 4 GHz
 Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 770
 AMD GPU Radeon R9 290
 RAM 8GB
 OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
 DirectX 11
 HDD Space 40 GB

too brutal for me, in fact. Is there any possibility prices of NVidia cards like that 660 will be dropping some in the next few months, as they introduce more models with their new chips to replace the previous batch, or is that completely out of the question?

I'm going to play it on PS4.

I guess the graphic card is going to be the issue for most (is for me, HD 6950). And maybe CPU for people gaming on dual-core notebooks.


Regarding what's coming up:

nVidia
22th January:  GeForce GTX 960 (high end, GM206 chip)

February - July: More models of the GTX 900 series. GM204 and more affordable GM206 chips. Should also provide downward pressure for all current cards on the market.

AMD
March - August: Radeon R300 series. Tonga/Fiji/Bermuda chips. Both new high-end and rebranding of current models.

Edit: Mixed up GM204 and GM206. Corrected post.

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-Gj9DGH2/0/1050x10000/i-Gj9DGH2-1050x10000.jpg)

"an HJ" :sneer:

But for real, the requirements are what the fuck. I barely meet the fucking recommended but I can crush everything else I've thrown at it. I7 870 / GTX 760 / 8GB RAM.

These fuckers think they're Crytek or something.

This is going to sound ignorant, but... is 'HJ' meant to stand 'hand job' in that joke? Because that's all I can take away from it.

Yes. it's terrible writing. I assumed they were replaced with very small shellscripts a few years back anyway.

I read it as 'handkerchief', but now that I see it that's not how it's actually spelled.  :oh_i_see:

Well, these requirements read like someone just wrote something down quick without bothering to think too much.

CPU:
Core i7: That kind of gives it away already. Why i7? I am pretty sure the game wont benefit significantly from the hyper-threading it provides. Willing to bet that a Haswell i5 >  i7 3770.

Secondly the minimum Phenom II X4 940 is quite the slow-poke nowadays. In fact in Crysis 3 it is slower than Core i3-3220, which is a only 2 core CPU (2C / 4 threads). So if it runs on that it will run on anything that isn't awfully ancient.


GPU:
Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660
AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870

As frame of reference, it is said the PS/4 has about the raw power of an HD 7850.

The 7870 is hardly faster than that, but the (significant) difference is it is a 2 GB VRAM card. Which is why it's demanded here.

The Nvidia requirements confirm that suspicion. In benchmarks a GTX 560 is about as fast as 7870, so why demand a faster card from Nivdia users? The answer is, I think, that the GTX 560 is again a 1 GB card, thus they write 660 as requirement.


So bottom-line:
4-core CPU, no matter how old. Modern Intel 2-cores with HT (read: i3) maaaaybe too.
GPU: Any graphic card with 2 GB VRAM. (If it has that much it will have the raw power too, so that wont be an issue).

Who can't run it:
People gaming on notebooks without dedicated graphics cards.
People with only 4 GB RAM (probably).

Ahh excellent, it looks then like holding off a few months may pay off one way or another. And who know, maybe they'll delay this Witcher again in the meantime or it turns out terrible  :grin:

Your bottom line is anyone who doesn't have a card with 2gb vram is running a notebook with intel chipset? I think that's... imagining people upgrade their hardware much more often than they really do.

(75% of steam hardware survey doesn't clear that hurdle, btw)

*laughs* Ok, that's an excellent point. Lurking on too many hardware enthusiast forums skews the perspective a bit.  :why_so_serious:

Blame X-Box / PS-4 though. Suddenly there are ~ 6GB shared VRAM/RAM to waste for a console game and any that's going to lead to more demanding PC ports too.

That's scary, my 5 year old box clears those hurdles.

I would have asked if he needed some Mountain Dew and Doritos instead of an HJ.

Well I'm certainly never coming to you for comfort during a tough time.

Guess I have to ask.  Why the sneer?

Grammar. You can't get an handjob.

Depends if the aforementioned handjob is stressed enough or not (and yes, we're totally in-topic :P)

what's a handjob

Yes you can, if it's abbreviated. At least that's what all my english textbooks in school said.

"a handjob"
"an HJ" (because of the vowel in the pronounciation of 'H')

Granted the examples used in my EFL textbooks used LP's (fake edit: yes I'm old) and not handjobs (we're not THAT liberal) - as in a long play vs an LP - but the (grammatical) principle stays the same.

[edit: when talking about grammar at least get the spelling right]

 :uhrr:

Yes but in the comic strip are we supposed to assume that the character on the left was saying "you need an handjob" or more like "you need an aitch jay"? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-hUV9yhqgY)

I think we all need a break from the internet.

It's Penny Arcade so I'll always assume that the stupidest reason for a lame joke is generally the correct one. Also since Tycho is someone who adopted such a pretentious and grandiose style just for writing blog posts for a gaming site he probably is a grammar nut so yeah.

I'm seriously analyzing PA strip for grammar. I should probably stop, amirite?

Does anyone know if it will run with specs that are lower than the recommended? My two year old Macbook Pro matches everything except the 2 GB VRAM requirement (it#s only the NVidia G650M with 1 GB of RAM)

Guess it was already discussed, but I took it to mean he was actually saying the letters HJ out loud, in which case 'an' would be most appropriate.  Otherwise he would have written out Hand Job, and used 'a'.

But yeah, the fact I'm having this discussion means I should probably back away from the keyboard for awhile.

HJs are terrible, grammatically and otherwise.

When's the release on this? I feel like we've been talking about it for years.

Edit: May 15 2015.  First mentioned here Feb 2013.  That's not bad actually.

You must be circumcised.

This thread has taken a very personal turn.

If I get it right the M card series is weaker in general (e.g. 650m shows benchmark performance that's ~30% of what the minimum specs gtx 660 can pull off) so the amount of RAM is probably only part of its problems.

That would be your fault. Maybe you should play some Monopoly for relaxation.

Sure, winner gets "an HJ"?

Things are starting to get very meta around here.

So you want to collect one of those?  :grin:



(https://i.imgur.com/aQllKWz.png)

Back on topic. GTA V system specs are out, and besides being easier on the GPU, they are looking very much like Witcher. I guess 4 cores and 8 GB RAM is starting to be the new normal:

Saw the gameplay vid and don't see why this needs a high-end system.
I'm sure if you crank it up to max you'll need that kind of rig, but what if I just tone down the details? Or turn off the shadows?

Checked out minimum requirements for gta V and they were very sensible.

So anyone going to buy this? I'm very rarely a day one kind of person anymore, but this looks pretty damn good. Green Man Gaming has it for $38.99, but it is a GoG.com code instead of Steam.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/pc/games/action/witcher-3-wild-hunt/

I'm not entirely sure why you'd buy this one from steam to begin with, given that GoG is the same company that makes the game, and it won't be wrapped in DRM this way.  I preordered it from them last year, I really enjoyed both the witcher 1 and 2, launch issues aside.   It's one of the few games I have zero qualms about paying full price for.

I'm going to try and wait.  Both Witcher 1 and 2's launch issues were fairly severe although in different ways.  The "enhanced editions" and "director's cuts" fixed a whole lot of glaring issues both on gameplay and performance.  Hell, Witcher 1 had its longest chapter able to be completely derailed if you did things slightly out of order at launch. This is a lot more ambitious, so I imagine they'll fuck up in really grand fashion.

I know people love to slobber all over CDPR, but the 1.0 versions of their games, while fun, don't really pass cursory QA standards.  They're wrecks.  

edit: Of course, I'll probably cave and buy it, like I did with Witcher 2.  I'm a moron that doesn't learn from my mistakes.  Hope springs eternal.  :awesome_for_real:

Witcher 2's release bugs were pretty awful. I'm going to watch for Patch 1 overhaul.

"An LP" is correct because it's said "an Ell-pee".

Someone missed a page.  :why_so_serious:

That comment makes a whole lot more sense to me now.

$39 is so tempting, but I'm thinking this is going to destroy my PC based on what GTA5 is handled on it. I might have to snag a PS4 for this to start this next console generation up.

If you need a refresher course on why you should not pre-order, just replay The Witcher 2.

I got it free with my video card so I might give it a shot, despite having never played the previous games.

This is a game I desperately want to play but want to pay less than $5 for it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That describes my entire attitude to modern games. Except my threshold is more like $10.

Yeah, this is one I'm waiting on. For me I will be looking not just at bug reports but at what they've done with combat. I've never played an RPG where I've hated the combat system more than both of the Witchers. I like the setting and the writing and the sensibility, but when the game mechanics are keeping me from moving through the game, that's really something, because I'll put up with a lot in that respect.

The combat is 2 was horrific. The combat in 1 didn't bother me.

The combat in 2 got a lot better about halfway through the game once you've had a chance to upgrade the character significantly.  That said, I went down the combat tree both times I played through the game and wonder how different the playing experience would be if you focused on signs or alchemy.

I've never once dabbled in alchemy. I hate potions. I hate that mini-game. I hate everything about limited time consumables in games.

Seems like there's a bit of controversy between the developers and online retailer Green Man Gaming.  GMG is selling pre-orders for 35% off or $38.99 US compared to the standard 10% on Steam and Good Old Games (CD Projekt Red owns GOG).  GMG is selling GOG keys.  CDPR is questioning the legitimacy of GMG's keys while GMG says they're legit.  Looks like this may some sort of fight over CDPR offering more goodies on GOG than they are for other retailers.  I've bought 7 or 8 games from GMG and never had a problem so I wouldn't be too worried about getting scammed.

http://www.pcgamer.com/green-man-gaming-hits-back-over-witcher-3-key-row/

The headline of the arcticle is pure shit.

"Hits back" sounds like they have any legal right to sell games of whomever they please without the developers sayso. I bought games from them in the past as well, but that is a shitty move and I won't again if "We wanted to but they didn't let us, so we sell them anyway because we want to" is the only defense they have.

Heh, I know they're legit, but I find it funny that my credit card would never allow purchases from GMG the few times I tried.

They sound like petulant children. 

Yeah I picked this up on EA's origins. Take that, GMG.  :why_so_serious:

GMG price is back up to $60. Unless it's an Australia Tax that's even eating through a US proxy?

Nope, it's $60.

Thanks for confirming.

Ok, I guess I'll wait two years or so in that case. No biggie  :awesome_for_real:

Conan did one of his clueless gamer segments, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfjLRuE1CLw

They could do with losing the feature where you bump into people and they stagger back, always found that annoying.

You should be using Nuuvem for new releases. It's a brazilian site, but if you use Hola to checkout, you're fine. Often times new releases are $25-30 USD.

Sure nuff, $30

Apparently Witcher 3 has joined the illustrious community of games where the beautiful demo graphics are nowhere to be found on the release edition.  When asked about it on their forums, a developer basically replied, "We don't want to address rumors."  I'm sure that's true, I wouldn't want to address rumors either if the answer to the rumor is, "Oh yeah, we stripped the shit out of the graphics to fit it on consoles, suck it PC gamers."

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing too.  Not going to buy Witcher 3.  I bought 1, thankfully at a bargain, and hated it.  I bought 2 not too long ago and quickly lost interest.  I really love rpg's so color me  :headscratch:

So no Witcher 3 until it hits the bin.

And I read thats just the standard setting and in can be cranked up to Ultra on Higher End Systems.

I guess we'll know the truth when the game comes out.

Some final cinematic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-l29HlKkXU

Graphics whoring is boring anyway, what I'm interested in is how they've built the game world. If it's another collectible-fueled open world game with a disjointed HURRY WE MUST SAVE THE WORLD RIGHT NOW plot, I'm going to sigh heavily.

I can only quote:

"There is no saving the world, here, no great evil force pervading the landscape, or a doomsday clock ticking down to inevitable destruction, with only you to stand in its way. The story of Wild Hunt is a personal one, set in a huge and unrelentingly beautiful world. And moving through it in that way makes you feel like a part of it, rather than an honoured guest, all eyes swung expectantly towards you." (from Telegraph).

I'll believe it when I see it.

No guise, we totally did not neglect the PC audience here.
PC master race for lyfe.
Even if we used gamepad to demo the gameplay on vids.
We have a tactical camera too.
And it's not broken.
Really.
Trust us.

They only sent out PS4 copies for reviews, but they promise that's only because their day 1 miracle patch for the PC wasn't ready yet but it totally will be by Tuesday guys!!!!!!!

(pc copies are available for review as of today though, so that's weird)

Might be available now I guess. The last word I'd read about it from any game sites was when the embargo was lifted a few days ago. At that point they didn't know when they'd get PC review code, just that the patch wasn't ready at the time which was what was keeping it from getting sent out.

Kevin VanNerd gave it a 10 on Gamespot.  I am not sure what to make of that, except that it moved my Interest Meter from zero to something greater than five.

He has a tendency to give high scores for RPG's but his writing usually shows which part of the game he wasn't happy about. He might have given dai a score of 9, but he also gave excellent reasons why I wouldn't like the game. He gave pillars of eternity a score of 8, but he also wrote why I would love it.

I didn't read his review for witcher 3, but that's because a friend already bought the game for me.

They have a very weird PR strategy for launch.

First they only send out PS4 copies because reasons but claimed that 'review copies for other systems are totally available guys'. Now they've apparently sent out PC copies. Secondly they have different embargos and embargo dates for reviews, video reviews and showing in-game video footage. So basically you can publish reviews but are still under embargo from publishing in game video footage that is not a video review.

A whole bunch of people were streaming it on Twitch yesterday.  I assume they just had special permission?  That seems like a thing lately too - giving popular streamers a copy of your game and permission to stream it.

The Giantbomb guys said on Wednesday that they are still under embargo and can't do one of their quick looks until later this week. Apparently because their quick looks are technically not 'video reviews' and are therefore still under embargo. They cited different embargos and embargo dates depending on content type as the reason.

So if there are Twitch users that stream the game, they either have special permission (which would be telling) or simply don't care about embargo dates (equally likely).

Review embargoes pretty much guarantee I'm not buying this thing for months.

Giant Bomb made a video on Friday: http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/gbe-playdate-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/2300-10194/

Yes I've heard but they had extremely short notice. They basically got told friday at noon that they could do it. They mentioned on another stream that they had to cut it short because they just got the news that they could do a vdeo stream on the witcher 3.

As I said the PR strategy is a bit weird and wonky.

Ok, so I got my PC reviewable code.

The game unlocks in 11 hours.

I literally can't even.

I should note, I don't blame any of the people involved in this for the weirdness of the reviewables of this game. Between Gog Galaxy, another piece of software, and "day 1 patch" I can kinda see how this became a clusterfuck.

Isn't a "Day 1" PC patch planned? Not that it matters to me 'cause I still have...*checks GOG Galaxy"....19GB to go on a 7Mbit line  :why_so_serious: . I decided to proceed with the purchase only today (27% discount 'cause I also have The Witcher 1 and 2 on GOG).

Just do us all a favor after the holiday weekend and let us know if this thing is worth buying now, or waiting until they unfuck it.

Seriously, fuck review embargoes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEg4F9csPzo

I guess I'll wait for a Steam sale a year from now.

Took me 1 hour to download 25GB. Yay Time Warner? :awkward:

I'm temporarily living in a VERY small village on the hills together with my girlfriend (citizens: about 300, lol), and 7MBit is the absolute best we can get; in two-three months we'll go back to civilization and I'll experience a glorious 10MBit fiber once again (yeah, long live Italy connectivity :P)
----

Anyway, speaking of GOG, HOW RETARDED the friend list on GOG Galaxy is at the moment? Would like to add some of you but currently the method is just ridiculous (only way is clicking on a username on the GOG forums)

I have zero plans on using GOG Galaxy regularly. I'm a bit upset they didn't give the reviewers Steam codes.

Why would you give out codes for your competitor's platform? Are you upset when EA doesn't give-out Steam codes for EA games?

Oh that's right, GOG is owned by the parent company.

lolololol

I retract my statement.

lol  :grin:

But hey, GOG Galaxy is shaping up to be simple, quick and very accessible, as far as we can see. Yeah sure, it's a replica of  something which is too far ahead to be caught, profit-wise. But I have a big library on GOG as well (mostly, well, "good ol' titles" plus a handful of new ones). Nice to have yet another alternative, especially when it comes to discount choices.

GOG Galaxy isn't necessary right? It's only for preloading? I'm not so anxious to play this as to install another launcher platform.

Yeah, let's spend all this money and hype on a simple, easy to use, no-frills pre-loading and patching software.

I played for about 20 minutes. I was not in control for 18 minutes of it.

Thanks Square-Obama.

Ugh. Desire to play, evaporating.

Don't worry:

(http://i.imgur.com/tW1evVQ.png)

you were but you chose not to.  :awesome_for_real:
they even gave you a space bar prompt to skip it.
Also on Nvidia 970GTX Ultra

So far I've pretty much enjoyed this every bit as much as I've liked the first two and have no real regrets on having preordered this after a few hours in.  The combat is still fairly janky, but the initial difficulty is tuned down from 2.  If you didn't like the other games in the series, you probably will continue to not like this one.

What if the only thing you DIDN'T like was the inebriated donkey combat model, but otherwise would have loved to have loved the prior games but never could get over the twitch-induced tedium?

The combat feels to me exactly the way the combat from 2 did, as far as I remember it, but it's been around a year since I finished it.

I haven't played it yet, but from what I've heard the combat is a little more forgiving in 3 vs 2.

How can you release it and not allow players to remap movement keys. With a controller it feels somewhat clunky. Didn't expect them to take a dump on PC players.

PC players always get shit on now with cross-platform. This is expected. You have to wait for the "PC Patch" that unfucks things typically.

Extensive tweaking guide on Geforce.com :

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/guides/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-graphics-performance-and-tweaking-guide

PC what now?  What's that?  Oh you mean those tablets that don't move and have wired connections? It's halfway through the 2nd decade of the 21st century, we can't bother with 20th century customers.

 :awesome_for_real:

I still have to finish Witcher 2, so I tried to skip the opening sequences as much as possible; played the tutorial, and of all the graphic whoring, which is really awesome by the way, one thing stood out for me: the incredible facial expressions, but especially how realistic the eyes are; never seen something like that in a videogame before (you know those "blank stares" we often get :P).

It's a game with good enough setting that is wasted on poorly-thought out mechanics.
If you can look past the disappointing combat that learned almost nothing from the previous game flaws, and the uninspired level up systems of +5% dmg, a UI lacking intelligence, crafting that involves busywork gathering of bushels and resource nodes and salvage - Witcher 3 may give you a reason to smile if you can tolerate all that shit.

But so far I'm not smiling at all.
This is a a sad joke.
The hyped graphic that never lived up to its promise.
The gameplay that remains completely trapped in sub-par RPG standards while its begging for a true action game mechanic.
Our fucking hero who just finished last game with a dragon kill now stands to die from two pounces of a common wolf, because video game writing!

http://www.gosunoob.com/witcher-3/how-to-rebind-keys-in-witcher-3/

Thanks. Figured it would involve fiddling with .ini file again. Will test it out because while I have gotten slightly more used to controller, it still feels odd.

I have to agree with rk47 on combat, its definitely a disappointment. Also I am sad that they went for the ubisoft sandbox playbook, its an open world with lots of things to do, but much of it doesn't feel like its worth doing.

I bought it knowing I would probably hate it, but that's my own issue to deal with.

I agree pretty much with what RK said so far. It's pretty enough that I'll give it a chance, but looking at the character sheet just makes me groan (and I like complexity).

Movement with the controller on the XBox does feel a little off. Almost feels like push strait forward doesn't quite actually go straight forward.

I bought a Nvidia video card today on amazon and they threw a code for this in for free.  Looks like the offer lasts until 6/1 for anyone interested, may take 7-10 days for the code (so if you're chomping at the bit, not a good plan).

I've never tried this series but guess I will now  :grin:  Hopefully not missing out on too much starting on #3.

Yeah I don't find the combat at a mechanical level fun at all. Maybe if you're obsessed with dark souls and crank up the difficulty - and can also abide the grind? I wouldn't know. The world-building however is pretty incredible. The best description I can muster is that the witcher hits every dark/realist fantasy trope out of the park that Dragon Age has managed to fumble (all of them). I'm having fun treating it like an enormous european game of thrones tv season more than a video game exactly.

Did you like the combat in Witcher 1?

Patch 1.03 is out (240MB or so):

Improves stability in gameplay and the UI.
Improves performance especially in cutscenes and gameplay
Fixes grass and foiliage popping that can occur after density parameters change
Improves Nvidia Hairworks performance
Boosted texture anisotropy sampling to 16x on Ultra preset
Sharpen Postprocess settings extended from Off/On to Off/Normal/High
Improves menu handling
Improves input responsiveness when using keyboard
Corrects an issue with stamina regeneration while sprinting
Fixes a cursor lock issue that sometimes occcurs when scrolling the map
Generally improves world map focus
Corrects a bug where player was able to fire bolts at friendly NPCs
Corrects an issue in dialog selections
Corrects some missing translations in the UI
Minor SFX improvements -Blood particles will now properly appear after killing enemies on the water
Rostan Muggs is back

Here's an interview on Eurogamer: "The Downgrade" is extensively treated:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-19-cd-projekt-red-tackles-the-witcher-3-graphics-downgrade-issue-head-on

I need a mod to remove level requirement from equipment because that's just stupid.

It's true, the combat system improves by leaps and bounds, I think, with each installation of the series (if that's what you mean?). I might just be impatient. Things work pretty well when you're alone fighting groups of three or four; there are lots of tools to take them apart in various ways that skillful use only improves. But larger group combat (more than a few enemies.. or some friendlies involved) gets pretty manic and doesn't seem to suit the mechanics in the same way. And I'm finding it difficult to anticipate and exploit the combat animations particularly of boss encounters -- and I'm not sure whether I'm really expected to do so (by skill) or whether I'm supposed to create a particular character build to overbear them on a more statistical level. Maybe someone with a better action rpg pedigree can develop a fairer and more robust perspective.

Right now I don't bother timing monster attacks. I abuse quen, do quick stabs, dodge away, if I got extra energy I use axii for a stun and/or slow. Bit of a cowards way to play but I haven't gotten timing for this game yet. Then again I was a shield coward in dark souls but I blame it on my gaming reactions being shot.

Yeah it's like... I got a recipe for a new silver sword that's far, far better than the default one, and it has materials I have access to right now... but it requires level 13 to equip.

Just... wat.

You guys act like level restrictions on weapons is an unheard of game mechanic...

Well, you can sorta see why they would do it in an MMO (even if I still generally dislike it), but this is a single player game.  Who gives a fuck if you can equip the uber-weapon.

Now we really are grasping to find things we can be annoyed about, aren't we?

This is a common mechanic in Single Player RPGs as well as MMORPGs.

Common shit doesn't mean it's justifiable. A lot of games are shit, they share a common denominator of shit features, shit bugs, shit gameplay, and shit writing, sometimes not all of them just parts of here and there.
So far I'm not seeing a good argument for this level restriction for Witcher 3. It's shit, it doesn't make the game fun and sorry to trample on the dev's idea of balancing a single player game.
No fuck that. Stuff a potato up your ass, CD RedProject.
It never was a thing in Witcher series until now.
They want to copy Skyrim, fine.
Give us open world to explore, fine.
So why in the hell do you restrict Geralt, the guy who slaughtered 100 drowners, beat a dragon in one vs one, an arbitrary restriction when equipping weapons and armor all of the sudden?
It adds nothing to the game. Just hassles and disappointments after exploring a high-risk-high-reward areas.
I'd be angry too if I found a Daedric Armor in Skyrim and not being able to equip it just because I'm level 2.
Never mind I'm not trained for that in Heavy armor, it weights me down, okay, and I couldn't get full armor rating benefit due to low skill, but the mechanics make sense.

Actually I think that's untrue. It's only common in ARPG's and only then because of the impact multiplayer has.

Its not just weapons and armors, standard humanoids and monsters have different levels as well, meaning that you can hack ghouls to pieces in one area, just to find yourself adrift in another area where you can't touch the ghouls and they hack you to pieces. The reason I mention this is because that exact thing happened to me.

I can understand why you would impose those limitations since you don't run the risk of making the player way too strong quickly, and you don't have to invent bigger and bigger monsters just to make the gameplay interesting. When I played skyrim I ended up oneshotting monsters left and right because of my weapon, and nothing could hurt me because of my armor and it killed my interest in the game.

We can all reminisce of earlier witcher games never having those limitations, but then we ignore that our weapons and armors was limited by which act we were playing.

The "level restriction" mechanic in all the cRPGs before the introduction of "level restriction" was simply not letting you find anything too powerful until you were of the appropriate level. So the complain here is that they let you see the good stuff but not touch it, and it would be better if we simply didn't see it like in the old times?

Skyrim is one of the few games that can afford letting you break it because there is so much undirected stuff to do that going through it at any pace doesn't make that much of a difference. More story-driven games simply can't afford that, or you would be reading everywhere how trivial and boring Witcher 3 becomes as soon as you get the Sword of Winning +5.

With all that said, the "level restriction" feature has seriously been in cRPGs since forever, way before aRPG, sometimes hidden behind a skill level wall instead of a character level wall and sometimes making you bad at using a particular piece of gear until you had grown more, and this is pretty much the first time I heard anyone complain about it.

Again, almost every cRPG I've played does not have hard level restrictions on equipment. It started for me with Diablo 2.

What examples do you have of games that do utilise it and aren't Diablo clones?

In Divinity: Original Sin, you can use higher level equipment but it requires more action points  and is generally a bad idea.  The Fallout games have guns which require a certain level of weapon skill to use, which is technically possible to have at low character level but unusual. It seems like most open world games have some version of this mechanic.

So it sounds like this game has the exact same strengths (relatively good writing, an evocative world with a consistent tone) and weaknesses (frustrating combat.)  Is that right?

The first CRPG I personally encountered gear limits was Dark Heart of Uukrul in 1989, where you needed a certain Strength to equip some weapons. Strength was a trait that was improved by Level-Up. But it might be there were such limits before that as well, it certainly happened many times after that.

Requiring 13 strength is to me quite different than requiring level 13.  At least, if you have some influence over the rate at which your strength increases.

Well, that was the first that sprang to mind. I'm sure if I think about it there are games well before Diablo that even fit your quite narrow definition. So let me phrase the parameters, please.

Stats don't count as equipment barriers in your mind. Levels do. So how about Skill levels? Yes or No column? Do you have to be able to minmax from character creation on to wear every piece of equipment when you get it? Do shop items count or are we talking drops only?

You'll have to wait for next week, though. I'm off for the weekend and I have to play Witcher 3 when I'm at home. Defending the age old art of cRPGs to people that think everything started with Diablo is a workplace thing.  :awesome_for_real:

I can deal with the skill levels as a requirement.  But it is worth mentioning that with this and with stat requirements, I prefer to have the option of being able to still wield the equipment, with perhaps some kind of penalty.  I can remember quite a few scenarios where I have gotten an advantage from being allowed to wield an item I was not fully qualified for.

So why make this distinction, you might ask?  Because at least it has some basis in being logical.  Just putting up some random level number before being able to wield Greataxe +14 doesn't make sense if I am a giant ass Barbarian who should have little problem actually carrying the weapon, and who is otherwise proficient in Greataxes already.  When your game's rules do not make sense, you might as well not play.

These are just different abstraction layers, though. Str requirement means "Too weak to lift the weapon", Dex Requirement means "You'll hurt yourself when you try to use this". Witcher 3 is misses those stats, so the Level Requirement is a substitution for that. I don't try to say its ideal and I could live without that crutch as well, but its a rather well established crutch now.

I care more about a missing stash for items I can't yet use. That is more of a burden than having those items. I think the Pillars of Eternity stash function should be mandatory for all RPGs, realism be damned.

Developers love bad combat systems. They've become so simplistic that they make the world suck too, because a rigid level structure being the only way to create difficulty. I don't think anyone has done a simulationist approach to combat interaction since the 90s, and at this point I don't think there's anyone left in the games industry who can even remember the existence of such a thing. Souls games come closest and that makes them light years ahead of everyone else in playability.
 

The game grew on me. White orchard was a lackluster map but the second area has far better atmosphere and storytelling. There are still stuff I dont like about the game, but they have already been said, and it still beats the first two games by far.

Is there anyone that tried any mods that were good?

I agree. The setting is what draws me in and most of it does not disappoint.
Really loving the darker twist on things. There's no heroic knight slaying evil in this game.

Talking merely about size here:

Someone says it's HUGE and bigger than any other RPG, bigger than Dragon Age 3. Some say Dragon Age 3 is twice the size of Witcher 3.
It's not always reliable but http://howlongtobeat.com/ confirmes that Dragon Age 3 is way longer/bigger than Witcher 3.

Your opinions?

Please note that this has NOTHING to do with quality, it's just something I am trying to find out for my own dark purposes so thanks for your collaboration.

DA3 is mostly filler MMO quests that might as well be randomly generated. Dunno about Hexer 3.

 

Define "size"?  The reachable square footage of the game is different than the time it takes to cross the game which is different from the time it takes to beat the game or the time it takes to 100% a game or the actual data size of the game. 

Time to beat the game.

I'm now a heavily played weekend in and I've hit 5th level. I have recipes for level 33 armour. I think this is going to be a long game.

Shockingly, I'm actually enjoying the twitchy/dodgy combat in this. Yea, I spam a heavily upgraded quen, make judicious use of the crossbow, etc - but its kinda fun. I think the first time I went after a bear that was 4 level above me and won (barely) did it for me. The combat was just rather fun.

One minor difference in this from Witcher 2 that makes this far more enjoyable - crafting ingredients hardly weigh anything. In 2 I was constantly walking past corpses and chests, because everything weight too damn much. If I find loot I want to pick it up dammit.

Oh, finding feathers is a real bitch though.

UI is shit.
Only 2 slots for potions.
Going into inventory mid combat to apply oil.
What happened to my keyboard numberics? ffs.
Console controls on PC is a bitch

Console UI is ok (little too much scrolling through grids)
Strategy!
Oils are meant to be applied pre combat. Not hard to know what you'll be fighting if you pay attention.
numberics? Dunno, playing on console
Console controls on console work great!


Honestly though, I think I'm liking this more than past Witchers because I got this one on console. Just fits better. No, it doesn't perform as nicely graphically as it would on my pc, but it just fits the console scheme better.

At last, remappable keys.
PC master race.
Got to lvl 10, enter town, pick up level 25 quest.
Met lvl 25 bandits. Did 1% dmg per slash. They kill me in two hits.
Man, these guys should just head out and do bounties instead.

Decided to turn off all HUD elements except health bars , which only pop up during combat, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Removing that mini map is the best tweak I've done. Since I can run this pig on ultra settings I want to stare at it's beauty instead of a tiny corner the screen leading me to my next carrot. So it will take me a bit longer to get through the game, only downside I can see. I'm not too far in yet but already consider this the best of the 3. While the combat seems like it shouldn't, it works and feels good to me. Sticking with kb/mouse, I use a Logitech G13 with a Razer Naga so I never rebind keys in game anyway. I've experienced a little wonkiness trying to back out of certain menus with escape key, but otherwise the UI is fine, but then I'm also the jackass that never had any issue with the original Skyrim UI.

I'm also that jackass.

Me too.  I mean, I didn't love it, but I also didn't find it totally necessary to mod it.

Meanwhile, I have now caved to invisible pressure and bought a GTX 970 that comes bundled with this game.  Gotta wait a week or so before it gets here.  Have been kinda looking forward to playing it, but not at retail price.  Free is much better.

Enjoying the first 2-3 hours in White Orchard. Despite the fact I finished Witcher 2 a couple of days ago, I find myself whacking at monsters instead of using signs and all the tactics I carefully employed in the second chapter. Oh well, after all, Geralt is now a beginner all over again  :why_so_serious:

Pretty happy about performance: ranging between 45-47 to 52-55fps, with hairworks on (for PC and NPCs), medium shadows, high foliage, ultra textures. In the INI, I put back MipMap Bias to 0 (patch 1.03 value) and I also applied a small tweak to HairWorks: you can reduce the default MSAA on hair by adding "HairWorksAALevel= " to the [Rendering] section, and set it to 0,2,4,8 (8 is default, I lowered it to 4) and it's not as taxing as before on my system. Oh, and I raised the "TextureMemoryBudget" (again, in the rendering section) value from 800 (value for "ultra" texture settings) to 1024.

Movement and "general feel" of Geralt is definitely better with m+kb when I walk; running, especially when I have to turn, is quite off and feels delayed.

Wait till You see next map  :awesome_for_real:

I'm amused to see some of the general bitching and whining here. Bioware and Bethesda could learn a lot from this game. If for no other reason than decisions have real consequences. The writing is awesome, the graphics are great, the game is huge, I could go on.

One thing that took me off guard (in a bad way), is the presence of the Places of Power: yes, I know they have been included in the last two games, but, unless I'm forgetting something, they're not mentioned in the manual nor the in-game tutorial section .

If you decide to delay a certain secondary quest in the first Prologue area that brings you right in front of one (and maybe you're not into exploring every nook and cranny), you would assume you'll eventually start finding them later on. Plus, they're quite important this time because they give you a free ability point

I haven't given this a fair shake yet but something about the movement in this game feels clunky.  Like in the beginning tutorial where you race the kid I wanted it to feel like assassins creed but it felt like I had iron boots equipped.  I'm not sure if you turn slow or if there is momentum in the turn or what, maybe I'll get used to it.   

The hold button to stick to the road thing is pretty great though, I'm sure some games will be stealing that.

Other than that, it does look great.

Ok, managed to kill the first three 'mini bosses', 2 levels below the recommended level, but FFS the game should not have let me get so far into a quest to only change the quest level requirement balls deep in a dungeon. Sure, I could load a saved game and wipe out an hour or two of game play, level up somewhere else, but its just ...gah. Also, don't throw so many danged encounters at me that my weapon is all but busted before the final encounter.

Other than that, I'm digging the game. The story, the visuals. Even the combat mechanics, although still blargh are not entirely disheartening.  A little too heavy on freakin' potions and herbs. Shoulda been called "The Herbalist" or "The Chugger" rather than "The Witcher".

To be fair, thats a big part of what the Witchers are by lore. They win fights not purely by being badass, but by researching the monsters and preparing accordingly, seen from the first cutscene in the first game. Personally I find it good that they made less of a hassle about it in Witcher 3, I actually use Potions more often because I only have to keep hard alcohol in stock instead of rebrewing and rebrewing all those potions.

Whatever you do, don't take on crap beyond the recommended levels.
They hard-coded the whole encounter much like MMOs do. Anything that is higher than your level do a lot of damage and take less damage from you.
I honestly got tired of the whole pointlessly long hitpoint bar cause they're not challenging, just tedious to fight.

Maybe it changes or scales as you get higher level, but at level 3 I had no problems taking out a group of 5 level 7 bandits. Barely got scratched. I am playing on normal/default difficulty though. This game seems to want you to use everything at your disposal... potions, sword buffs, spells in most fights. The change to how you automatically refresh of all that stuff by meditating makes it easy to replenish often. You still need to dodge and parry, can't just hack and slash your way through this one, or at least I can't. I'm still in the noob zone so maybe it gets tougher later, but I've only had to run once from level 10 drowners that were under water and I couldn't figure out how to attack them submerged.

With the Crossbow. One bolt and they are dead.

I can manage red monsters a few levels above me (At Level 14, Fast Attack Style specced), but it takes rolling around like a bitch because you definitely can't tank most of them. Mobs with a Red Skull are just to be ignored and kept for later.

The only way to attack underwater drowners is with the crossbow.  You'll get it through the main questline.  

Most the stuff I've been fighting has been over my level a bit, but where it gets problematic is when it's more than I believe 5 levels over you.  When that's the case, it gets a big skull marker next to its name, and you might as well be hitting it with a nerf sword.  That's when it gets pretty annoying.  

At level 15 I killed a level 22 earth elemental with some patience and good dodging so, YMMV.

Still in White Orchard, there's just too many distractions  :grin:.  I spent all my starting cash on Gwent cards not realizing money was going to be kinda scarce at the start.   So I had no money for food and no way to heal, so things were a bit rough in the beginning.

I'm getting the hang of it now though, I've started actually using the signs and that helps a bunch.  Also I put a point in the daytime regen so that made a huge difference, I can actually fill up health without using a bunch of food.  Also I killed a bunch of wolves/rabbits, not sure if I can cook the meat yet but the raw meat is at least free and seems to work ok.

Why don't You just meditate for an hour?

It only regens health on easy and normal

I don't mind the combat this time. And the rest of the game is just great. I love the world--the feel of it, the aesthetics, the whole thing. The mini-narratives and characters are excellent.

My game of the year so far. 11th level, just had my first "Here are the consequences of that choice you made two weeks ago, live with it! BWAHAAHA!" moment. Those choices may not change the over arching plot, but its cool that they have a noticeable impact on things.

I'm just really enjoying the little details in this. If an NPC says something stupid that makes me groan, I appreciate the fact that Geralt's response usually starts with an eye roll and a sigh. Very rarely do I hear someone and immediately think, hey it's generic Nord voice number 2!

I caved and got this. I trust the story is going to be top notch, but gameplay is a big question mark. I went with the second highest difficulty and hope that all that crafting and looting and meditating will have purpose.

On that difficulty level, you'll need all of it. I'm playing on normal, and as a generally shitty gamer, I'm finding the difficulty hits the fun spot. I can take things higher level than me if I'm patient and careful, most boss type fights do require judicious use of signs and potions though. Quen is my friend.

how open-world is this?

Very. Basically you start in a large zone, with several small villages. You can explore to your hearts content - some areas will have tougher critters than others. There are POI markers on the world map. Only thing that keeps you out of areas is toughness of the inhabitants and the occasional locked door (usually because the area is quest related). Once you complete the first contract, you can move on to the second area. Its about 20 times bigger. Several dozen villages, multiple islands, and a couple cities. That's just the first of I think three huge zones. All the bodies of water are sailable, swimable, and fully explorable underwater.

I really like that there is very little "invisible wall" usage at all. if you can't climb a hill, you can usually find a way up the other side of it. Don't just fall down it, a ten foot fall can kill you in this. Most buildings are "in world"; loading screens only happen before cut-scenes.

It's very open.

It's surprisingly open-world, yeah. And there's a good variety in the areas--one thing I like is that if you think to yourself, "I bet there's something in that area" you're probably right, but it can be lots of different kinds of things.

The witcher contracts are fun--each one of the monsters takes some thinking, and I enjoy the CSI Witcher stuff.

So far main quest stuff has been very very compelling.  One of the things I really like is that there is stuff that you just plain know to leave alone, and it's got nothing to do with level markers or anything of the sort. About the only thing that gets a bit silly is when Geralt starts carving up a beach full of pirates and they can't really touch him--there should be situations where the game is like a good DM and says, "Come on, you're not Superman, you can't fight a whole army, you're dead now."

End game superior potions are overpowered.  :why_so_serious:
Also, mess around with Decocts more, no reason not to, since the Alchemy talent to increase maxTox is so cheap.

Gwent was really easy until it wasn't.  This one guy has a bunch of spies, decoys and scorches.  If I steal his spies with my own decoys, he just steals them right back and then scorches my most powerful units.  We traded a bunch back and forth last night and nearly emptied our decks.  I was sure I had him, until he hit me with a scorch using his very last card and knocked out my strongest siege unit and beat me by 1.  Fuck that guy.

E: It's the innkeeper in Oxenfurt who gives you Yennifer's card.

He was tough, though I did beat him. The guy in the castle after chapter 1 raped me though.

I'm finding I'm winning 95% now. Three war horns, two spies, two healers, two decoys, two heroes, multiple frosts.
It's a surprisingly fun little game. I usually try to focus on giving him melee spies in round one and then frosting them to gain the early advantage. Like all ccgs - card advantage is king.

Decoys to steal his spies seems to be the right strategy, but he had a bunch of medics in reserve and threw them right back at me in the next round.  I think I need to build up my deck a little more before trying him again, I only have one usable hero and medic thus far.

I played Witcher 1 about halfway through and never finished, but lost my saves. So I never really played 2, because I never finished 1.

Realistically, does it really matter if I had played the first two to get into the third? I recently tried to play 1 again, and just don't really like how old it feels.

TW2 is pr. crap too. Especially with how they handled boss fights.
TW3 took some cues and improved things here and there, but still have room for improvement.
It's probably the best of the three. It's a rare case of improved sequels. Not perfect, but good.
But for story knowledge and stuff, you will miss a few here and there. There are a lot of things they lifted off the books too that will be a complete mystery to newcomers.
Check the Glossary if you're unfamiliar with characters. Most of them have a past with Geralt, and it's annoying when they act familiar to Geralt with you being unaware.

I found the reverse annoying.  When Geralt already had an opinion of a character and I had no clue on who that character was.  I found that annoying since so many of the friendly/hostile interactions seemed forced.  I found that annoying since there is obvious history there I just am not aware of it.

Games need to be very clear when they are pulling from books. It's an annoying facet to me as well.

Yeah, I had those "Am I supposed to know this person" moments as well. It was easier to integrate when Geralt was supposed to be Amnesiac, but he flat out says he has his memories back in this one and now all these people I am supposed to know grate somewhat.

Reading their character bios where the gaps are filled in helps, though.

I also had some of that.  I ended up just going to youtube and watching a synopsis of the first 2 games & books.  I don't know that it was necessary but it did fill in some back story.

The leveling in this game is weird.  I did every possible thing I could find in White Orchard and ended up being BARELY level 3 when I moved on.  Someone else I talked to said they were almost level 5.   Seems like killing monsters doesn't really give XP so now I'm not sure how much stuff I actually missed.

I really like some the dialog in this game.  I find myself playing some of the scenes a couple times just so I can see the different ways they play out. 

I read one of the books after playing the first game and enjoyed it.  It's definitely worth looking into, and absolutely helps make sense of everything in the series.

Also, I totally kicked that guy's ass in Gwent yesterday and it only took me one more try.  Must've played 12 spies between the two of us.

Awesome fix applied to fix a money exploit today.  :awesome_for_real:

Link to Gamespot article with detail...
CD Projekt Red deploys the "Bovine Defense Force Initiative." (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/witcher-3-infinite-money-exploit-fixed-in-the-best/1100-6427861/)

To level up one mostly rely on Quest Completion EXP.
The main quest gives you the most experience, even for trivial tasks like meeting or advancing a quest by talking can grant you 500 EXP

I really like how I can be somewhere for one thing, be doing the Witcher senses, and suddenly discover that there's some other questline or badass monster nearby or criss-crossing my path without me having any intention to do that.

Did White Orchard, then entered Velen. I hadn't done much in terms of side quests in WC, so I was delighted when I realized the new zone was largely too dangerous for me and I didn't have enough stuff to support adventuring.

Itemization is pretty bad. I really wonder why they never attached a unique loot with a deep, involving quest instead of just dropping you treasure maps you bought off vendors to hunt down crafting recipes. And these crafted sets are way ahead of the rest of stuff you can find in the wilds. Very odd misstep.

Yeah, itemization is all over the place. Beat some random bandits at level 4 and get a lvl 23 recipe. Beat a mini boss at level seven and get a level 2 sword.

I want to love the game. I like the setting, characters, the world building, but there's just so many small annoyances. It's a death by a thousand cuts.

I think it's a worthwhile experience, enough that you should lower the difficulty if you feel it's a hassle to bother with itemization to keep up with the enemy levels.
T

So whats the general best practice on breaking things down for crafting materials?  I've really started having issue with encumbrance and I'm wondering if I should be breaking down all these candelabras/platters/broken rakes or selling them or just not pick them up.   I feel like I have an entire inventory full of stuff I don't care about but I'm afraid to sell something I'll need.  Also I feel like I should have found some saddle bags by now but I haven't. 

Breaking down those junk will save up a lot of space.
Coin is easy to pile up anyway. Finished the game with 5000 coins extra.

buy saddle bags

Break down or sell all your junk, it serves no other purpose.  Saddlebags can be found at various merchant.  Go to Oreton in Velen to buy the 2nd tier one, and you can get the 3rd tier one a little later on in Novigrad once you've progressed the main quest a little.  You could also win the 2nd tier one from the horse race sidequest near Crow's Perch.

Sweet, that quest was worth a ton of crowns too with all the betting, thanks.  Now to go on a breakdown spree.

I keep 25 of everything but the junk items and sell of the excess items, keeps the encumbrance manageable.

Money is certainly not a problem is this game. I stand at 10000-15000 surplus since leve 12 or so.

The saddlebags start getting common quickly. At 14th I have 160lb carry capacity. I keep feeling like I may be progressing the main story line too quickly, and then I find a level 37 crafting recipe.

I like the fact that the side quests and monsters give you limited xp compared to the main, because I can run off in to the woods and do a bunch of random things without worrying that I'll massively out level the story. Yet its still enough to advance if I find the main story getting too hard.

Anyone know if there is a potion of skill point reset at that level range, or do I have to wait to "fix" my missteps?

There are a few vendors that I've found carrying the Potion of Clearance to reset your skill points.  They cost 1000.  The easiest to get is from one of the merchants in the main square in Novigrad.

This is literally the first RPG game where I dont reload if the outcome of my decisions is not what i've expected to be.

Yeah, absolutely. The outcomes are always interesting and character-enriching. I also think the game pretty much takes the Bioware model of good/bad and burns it in a trash fire. "My" Geralt is a pretty distinctive version, in my own thoughts--he gets really pissed if you trick him, he has tons of sympathy for the little people and for certain monsters, he's fairly trusting, but each of the quests is done so well that I don't have to metagame think about what "my" version would do, it's a very organic, in-the-situation kind of decision, always, and I'm never thinking about what I need to do in order to get some kind of in-game power-up or benefit. I don't need that kind of motivation to want to do the stories.

I'm really amazed at how good the writing is even on trivial mini-quests. I was racing across Skellige to deal with some wraiths at a lighthouse and there's some sheperd shooting at sirens with a bow, so I stop to help him out. I was thinking, "Hey, that's odd, I haven't seen NPCs just spontaneously fighting monsters on their own like that" and then when the sirens are dead, there's actually a brief dialogue where Geralt says, "Hey, good shooting" and the kid says, "Hey, gotta learn to shoot those fuckers, they're always going after sheep", or something to that effect.

There must be at least 150 characters who have distinctive enough personalities in the game to be memorable on their own, who don't feel just like Tough Guy #1.

So is there any carrying over of saves and decisions in Witcher I and II?

I got this free from the new video card I bought and when I went to install it I found I had Witcher I and II on GoG that I must've bought on a sale or Humble Bundle or somesuch. I usually don't like starting a sequel cold so I installed Witcher I and gave it a try. Good God... :ye_gods:

Is there any point to suffering through this janky gameplay and wretched voice-acting in I? Or is it like II where I heard it gets better after the tutorial?

All Witchers are excellent games, the jank is just a setback.

I don't find that playing witcher 1 is that important, but you will lose out on a bit if you never played witcher 2 since many of those characters are around in witcher 3. There are a few minor details that are carried over from saves but the game allows you to simulate witcher 2 saves in an early conversation during witcher 3.

If memory serves you get a slightly better pair of swords as well to start with importing W1 games to W2.  I noticed no impact from my W2 choices save an NPC that may or may not be around to help you During the Seige.  That was kind of dissappointing to because of how strong the Iorveth path narrative was in W2.

A word of warning, crafting is broken in 1.05. Every crafted item is flagged like a potion (you can't craft one if you already have one in your inventory), making some recipes impossible (like Superior Swallow which needs 2 Vitriol). Just drop the crafted item to the floor, craft the second one and pick the first one up again as a workaround.

So I am on my third play through of the Witcher 3, and this time on "Deathmarch" going full alchemist. I am at the beginning in "White Orchard" specifically on the "Lilac and Gooseberries" quest line and not being in a hurry I looked at the rest of the environment I skipped through on previous play through.  I noticed opposite to the nilfguardian commander in the ruin a wall that could be broken apart with Aard.  So I platformed up the castle exterior, confirmed you could aard the wall down, and went looting the body/container I saw behind the locked porticullis.  It contained a key called "Scratchy key".  This key opens the porticullis.  When I opened it an event played where a nilfguardian patrol comes back decimated, many soldiers on stretchers and then on an operating table two doctors talk about amputating a knee from another soldier and giving him something to bite  down upon so he doesn't bite off his tongue.


I was wondering if anyone else came across this event and I was wondering if it was somehow connected to the quest where you get and decide what to do with a medicine box.  If so man, what better evidence that this game has been lovingly crafted to make choices matter.  Kind of brings back planescape torment type discoveries.

Ah, so that's what's wrong with the crafting. Was driving me nuts.

One thing that's bothering me: the consequences of choices can be too random because you have no idea whether killing a Schlorfbader is preferable to killing a Gegelbonger. Geralt is supposed to be good at his trade.

 

You mean you can accurately put sentient monster's actions in a book like they'd stick to it all the time, regardless of the circumstances?
The Bestiary has all the facts like their physical strengths, weakness, method of manifestations, and other witcher science related text.
How you want to deal with it, whether with bombs that are not even on the list, or signs that are highly recommended, is up to you.

No, I want finding out info as a gameplay mechanic. Like they already have CSI Witcher, but I want it with results that inform upcoming choices instead of being a glorified breadcrumb trail. I know it's a higher standard than most games out there, but CD Projekt is clearly capable of it.

Except some choices can't be informed by witcher skills. Take the hunt for the leshen, if you've done it. There's an ethical question there that's not resolvable by knowing more about the monster--though Geralt's witcher knowledge means he sees the ethical problem coming very early on.

Usually I hate when I don't know which choice is the optimal one, but for some reason it works in the Witcher 3. Maybe its the character of Geralt. He gives more of a fuck than he should according to the side effects of his mutation, but thats still remarkably little. Having a soft spot for the weak, beying loyal to his few friends, and hating lynch mobs (rooted in his own past) are his only motovations beyond "Killing monsters for gold". Get into this mindset and it works.

That fucking cabaret questline.....I really got emotional to the point where my decisions were too hasty

I just did that one last night.  Figured I would bang one or two quests out quickly after dinner, and I did not see that coming at all.

I love the look of mingled boredom and existential dread that some of the shopkeeper NPCs get when you ask them to play Gwent.

Maybe they could just add a "how the fuck should I know?" option that just rolls a dice.  :why_so_serious:

If you have VIP status with Greenman Gaming (no idea how I got it) you can buy this for $36 US right now.

VIP just means you have an account.

That's the kind of VIP I can get behind.

I've been enjoying this sufficiently that I decided to do  a second playthrough (partly because I couldn't finish the Gwent thing due to having started it too late) and wow, some of the outcomes on major questlines are REALLY different if you make different choices. I did the Crones content very differently this time early on and the end result really startled me--I found out that I got the comparatively "happy" outcome the first time.

By the way, I'm not sure why everyone thinks the Witcher world is nothing but bad people who have bad endings to their stories. A lot of the people on Skellige are comparatively benign and likeable and you can definitely improve their lives; the mastersmithing quests help out two likeable people who are in difficult situations; and so on. And some folks are just plain complex, neither bad nor good, in interesting ways.

Yeah it's like humanity. It's not all shitty outcomes. It's just that most outcomes are shitty.  :why_so_serious:

I know I'm late, but I just finished the main storyline for this and wow this game is great.  A bit slow at the start but once things picked up I neglected most of the side quests and exploring to just interact with the main characters and the story just pulled me along, to the point I could barely wait to play again when I had to stop for trivial things like work and sleep.  I hadn't been that drawn into a game for a long time.  Trying to decide now If I want to start a new game on the hardest difficulty or do the new game +.

I'm holding off a proper playthrough because I decided to immerse myself into the lore even more by reading the books; I almost finished the second collection of short stories, then onward to the main series of novels. Boy, Yennefer is an annoying bitch (and a hot one at that, yes  :drill:)

I took last week off as vacation and needed something to do so I bought this game, I didn't want to buy it at launch because they seem to need at least three months to fix all the bugs.  I like it but the very forced "hey you tried to be a nice guy so we're going to throw an absurd twist in to make your choice have dark consequences" shtick is tiresome.  The game is pretty but not very diverse, it's mostly the same graphics everywhere.  The exploration winds up being one of four outcomes every time, if I wasn't so ocd I'd just stop caring about all the damn question marks on the map.

It's a distant third to other comparable games like skyrim and inquisition.  Distant fourth if we widen the category enough to throw in gta five.

Third or fourth is still great through, I'd tell anyone to buy it.

Edit: I had to cheat to find it enjoyable though.  Twenty damn crowns as a reward for a half hour long quest?  That wouldn't even cover the repair bills.  And with so much combat it's absurd you don't just regenerate to full health after battles.  I can't imagine how much damn water and raw meat I'd have had to consume by now...  And why can I kill an underlevelled wyvern with a few sword swings but any level two idiot with a shield has to be wailed on forever or I have to roll around him until I get behind and attack?

Yeah so my "tell anyone to buy it" would be have a large, "must be on PC and download the console cheats" caveat.

Edit2: Oh and fuck Gwent.  Did anyone playtest that shit?  Why does it tell me whose turn it is every time with a big time wasting popup, I know it's his turn if I just played a card ffs.  And if I'm simply trying to get through a game quickly the enter button doesn't work the first five times I mash it to play a card.  And holy hell do other people have radically better decks, I'd have to spend dozens of hours playing innkeepers in the hope of finding one of those strength ten cards.  Or the strength zero spy cards...  The first time I saw someone use a battle horn card that just doubled the whole row's strength my jaw dropped at how ridiculous that is.
SubEdit3: Oh damn Gwent again, I just found out the damn Scorch card doesn't kill strength 10 enemies so I lost because it killed my damn trebuchet...

Skellige and all the damn aquatic question marks cured (overloaded) my ocd, still made a pretty good dent.

The thing is that Gwent is pretty easy to beat once you get the basic schtick, but yes, innkeepers with decks that the million-dollar swells back in the Big City would and have killed for seems kind of like meeting bandits in TES: Oblivion dressed in daedric armor.

I do wish a few of those Skellige question marks way the fuck out there were more unique. Feels like a serious downer to spend all the time getting to some little rock only to find it's some shitty average thing.

As for the quest rewards, I'm overflowing with money in my playthrough and all of the cash I receive is basically useless.  I haven't had any issues with coin and if they gave me any more it wouldn't matter.  Halfway through the second chapter and I had over 10k.  And you can regenerate pretty much instantly after a battle by meditating if you want to.  All of your health comes back even with one hour of meditation.

The Autoheal via Meditation doesn't work on the higher difficulty setting, though.

You could just turn the difficulty down then.  It stands to reason that if you want autohealing after combat/with meditation you would also want a lower difficulty setting.

I know, that was meant as information for you. Money is slightly less useless at higher difficulties where you at least have a minor money sink with healing items. Not that it ultimately matters, though.

I just finished this over the weekend finally and really enjoyed the last 12 hours or so.  I have some issues with the movement, combat, inventory, crafting... but I found the story quests so compelling I let that little stuff slide a bit.

I guess that's where it stands with me as far as Skyrim.  I  think the game play in Skyrim is more fun/diverse and you can do more 'crazy stuff' in Skyrim which keeps it entertaining but overall I thought the story in Witcher 3 and the story quests in Witcher 3 were much better.

Hey, look behind you!! A 17GB patch!! (Required to play the first, upcoming expansion):

http://www.gog.com/news/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_patch_110

Thirteen page-long changelog.

The new DLC is getting very good reviews. I'm finishing up Mad Max and I think I'll dive into this game for reals this time. Looks to be a commitment.

I have 100 hours into it and 25% completion. No idea how far I am in the story though.

Yeah, the last thing I need is more content right now.  I finally got back to this last weekend. I've been banging away at it all week and I still don't feel like I've even dented the first real map.  There's almost too much stuff to do  :ye_gods:

I'm waiting to get back into my current play because I want the romance fixes.

If i'm not mistaken the latest patch added some dialogue and such for the other romance choice (if not both? not sure) If that's what you mean by the fixes.

Oh, good. I thought that was coming bundled in the new DLC.

Finished the main storyline over the weekend. I really love this game. The story had me engrossed, the combat while repetitive still felt fun throughout, and even at 130 hours played I had a lot left to do. I also got an ending that felt satisfactory. Best game I've played in a while.

Anyone try out the new expansion yet?

Picked up the expansion, put about 10 hours into it.  It changes up the combat in a mostly positive way (on hardest difficulty, at least), but the story seemed contrived and silly and didn't interest me.  The new enchantments are 99% worthless, and you need about 40k gold on hand to unlock them all.  I would only recommend it if you're still really into the game and just want a few new areas to explore and a few new dinguses to collect. 

I just bought this with the Thanksgiving sale. I feel like I'm roleplaying Geralt who is roleplaying Inspector Butters.

And I'm 5 hours in and I'm still level 3 in the White Orchard. I have a feeling this will take me a long time.

Try and finish as much as you can in White Orchard before moving on. I didn't and felt very under powered. I put in almost 200 hours and didn't come close to finishing everything.

The only part I'm struggling with is ranged stuff. Mapping that to my middle mouse wheel sucks so I'll have to come up with something else.

I had a hard time using mouse and keyboard as well so I just switched to an Xbox controller. It was much easier.

Yeah, I'm usually a keyboard/mouse player and had a really hard time getting into the controls.  So much so that I just stopped playing after about five hours and put the game down for ~3 months.  Looking for a new game to play one day I decided to give it another shot but with my Xbox controller and it all came together for me.

I can't stand controllers anymore, so I'll remap the thing, but yeah it's obvious that (as usual) PC controls were a complete afterthought. Nobody in their right mind would ever mind something to the middle mouse wheel that required action combat.

Except it wasn't an afterthought because they're primarily a pc development shop.  The controls for the witcher games have always been kinda  :uhrr:.  That said, the crossbow button is more often than not completely unnecessary outside a few specific monster types to bring down fliers.  The bigger issue is trying to use the bombs.

Luckily I play on normal because I'm not in this for the challenge. If I wanted to challenge myself I'd play PvP games.

I'm level 9 and in Velen. I've been playing for 15 hours. This game is absurdly large.

I followed around a glowing dead fetus to meet quest objectives. 10/10 would fetus again.

That's the thing I've been lamenting for the last few days.  I'm trying to finish this up before my kid is born.  I don't think I'm going to make it, and I've been putting some serious time into this.  I've only cleared up through act 2 or so.  I have no clue how much I have left because i'm trying to avoid spoiling it, but it just refuses to end.

I'm playing this game normal and my reflexes are plenty slow enough to get me killed by random mobs. I like how every encounter needs some strategy beyond swing swing ballerina of death. Level 12 currently and I'm at a cross roads when it comes to meta gaming. Knowing I get every skill eventually how does the skill system work. Does my tier 4 (if I unlock that far) skills carry over the passive benefits from tier 3 and 1 or do I have to equip every skill in that tier in order to get the full benefit.

I'm level 13 and put most of my stuff in combat. It seems to help, although gear matters way more.

For the reflex-challenged people, the Axii upgrade is a godsend.
It makes 1 v 1 less risky and can turn 2 v 1 into a less challenging proposition very quickly.
If it's still not enough, invest on Quen to absorb hits. Then you can stop investing on Signs and move on to making your sword attacks hit harder cause there's nothing like Axii and a nice heavy slash to the back.

I went heavy into Yrden and used that to cheese almost every single boss fight in the game.  It was pretty silly, but at the same point, I'm pretty sure almost every single build gets silly overpowered in that game.

I'm still only level 4 (!) but I just use Quen and swords. Seems to work fine so far, though I'm a hella roller in some battles...

This is really the smoothest introduction they've had in the series.  Combat feels right about where it should be.  Way less awkward than 2.  Visually impressive and less of a hog than the previous iterations.  I'm impressed.

There is a lot of red and green early on, which messes with me a bit.  But at least the red glows in most situations.

One giant bug (level 32 Venomous Arachas) monster in this in viking dome I'm obsessed with killing because for some reason this encounter sucks my soul. Lots of poison, has a snare, comes with level 20 buddies (i'm level 20 so its sad) and the monster hits like a truck and knocks my alt queen shield clean off (with me in it). I think I have a strategy of shielding the poison, light attacks, dodging (not rolling) the physical attacks, and burning it with FIRE. I feel really bad at the game in a good game since I've yet to kill it and I'm in normal difficulty.   

There's one witcher decotation that turns all poisons you receive into healing, makes all those bugs a joke.

I didn't use the healing version of the anti poison potion but I did remember that curing poison is a thing. Made the encounter doable, but I wouldn't call it a joke.

Everything I do in this game seems to make things worse for the people involved and the general populace as a whole.   :oh_i_see: 

Still, loving this.  When you're tired of the stellar narrative experience of fucking up the entire world through good intentions, you can do some map completion and side activities. 

Can't say I care for gwent though.

I didn't pay attention to gwent at first but after a while it really, really grew on me. Once you get a deck with some spies it can have a kind of crazy frenetic feel to it.

There are a few fun quirks to it. My deck still isn't great, no hero cards or anything. Just playing merchants trying to build a decent basic deck and I've gotten to where I can mostly whip the merchants on the first try.

Love the decoy card with some dragon card that destroys the highest melee if total melee is over 10. So many times they have two 5s and a few others, I slap down the dragon, nukes both their 5s, next turn pull him back in my hand to use the next round.

I also like the way it  basically forces you to balance all-out mayhem on the first hand with saving enough for a second (and possibly third) round. Third rounds are sooo tough.

On tough matches, you essentially have to play for the third round--it's a matter of trying to tease your opponent into blowing out some of his resources to win a second.

Yep, that's what still trips me up against the guys with better decks (the Baron thus far).

This game will take me years or until I get into minecraft again. I'm still in the region around Crow's Nest at level 11, just running around the countryside enjoying the view and enjoying finding tons of little things to do.

I finally started this game last week, maybe level 9 now?  And Rasix hit it on the head for me, Lawfull Good Giralt sure does make a mess of things.  Enjoying this game so much though.

I dunno, overall he seems to be improving things in my game and I'm playing as a pretty good person. I've only regretted one decision, when I just knew an npc was lying (and they even gave me a dialog option that would've led me down that path) but I decided to be a dopey good guy and set some evil free to bite my shiny metal ass later on. He plays best as cynical good guy. I like that there is a strong vibe of helping people, but ultimately letting them deal with the consequences of their actions (or inactions). Probably more of a Neutral Good in my case.

I've never gotten the argument that Geralt does nothing but make things worse, or that his world is nothing but mud and shit. It's a more realistic fantasy world than pretty much any other, for sure, and so there's not as much adolescent wish-fulfillment power fantasy shit going on. There are definitely narratives that are going to turn out bad no matter what you as Geralt do (and most of those were already trending bad whether or not he shows up).

I have been pretty surprised on two playthroughs that you can make some situations really strikingly worse or relatively better, in ways I didn't expect.

But the big upshot of it all is that almost all of the side quests are in fact narratively interesting. The stakes feel real, the storytelling is good, the characters are well-drawn even when they are in relative terms just sketches or suggestions of fully-fledged characters. And everything around the Baron is really involving--that's all astonishingly original writing for a game of this kind.

Yeah, just roving around the barony has been one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I'm not one to nitpick too much when the overall package works so well together. They wove in some of the main and subplots pretty nicely, too. And like the Gothic series, it's not level-scaled so there are still moments of 'oh crap maybe later' *run for the hills*

And the meandering underground areas, oh crap big bad guy at the end of this long area, mark it for later exploration. Explore another cave somewhere else...that eventually leads to the same boss...noooo!

I like the voice acting and the graphics are just awesome. Tie in good music and ambients and it really pushes the immersion nicely. Really my only complaint thus far into the game is the sound of Quen breaking is abnormally loud compared to the rest of it, really hammers my subwoofer...which is not good for fiancee approval factor. Otherwise she loves the game, so I just try to skip Quen when she's around (or worse, napping).

That's great to hear Khaldun, I can definitely say I see myself giving this game another playthrough myself, just to see those differences you mentioned.

Last night I just about completed all I want to see in Velen for now, Baron's story is very well done indeed, even my wife watched me play for a bit, which she never does.

In the later game, by the way, there's less variation. In general the character work in Skellige strikes me as more upbeat, less Gothic. There's some choices you make that make interesting differences but not mind-bogglingly different ones, and some of the most morally charged "decisions" are inevitable though they may make you decide as the player to take a particular approach to the romance with Yennifer.

To be expected, really. So many start the journey, so few finish.

Well, don't despair; after all, thanks to modders, now there's.... (NSFW)

Beat the game in death march (toggled over to the harder difficulty after I got full build). Kinda interesred in what an alchemy only build would look like or a signs + alchemy. But teching that way from the start. Definitely game of the year.

The only complaint is that geralt none romance ending could have been better.

The card game is growing on me. Had a tough monster deck opponent (for my crappy deck anyway), the smithy chick in the baron's place. She has a ton of summoning duplicates.

Round 1 I put a spy on her side to stack my deck, figured I'd throw the first round. She oddly passes, so I ice my spy down to 1 and play my lowest card to steal the round. 4-1

Round 2 we just duke it out. I blew out a ton of her troops with a special unit, but she doubled the melee line and just kept throwing stuff. So I put in everything I had to draw her out, then decoy back my best card when she runs out of cards. 19-116 (!)

Round 3 as monster, she keeps a card but I nuked her best melee cards and my lowly best card of 7 is able to beat the 5 card left on the board. 7-5

I was pretty happy since she has whipped me every time I've tried to play her.

Monster Gwent decks are pretty much the IWIN button unless you get really lucky, at least that's what I've found.

Northern Realms deck is easiest for me to win with. Monster deck actually has a big disadvantage if you know how to play with it--it can pull in a lot more cards than the deck owner wants to have to play. You pretty much have to count on losing the second round to a Monster deck owner--your goal is to make them pull in a lot and have nothing left later. They're incredibly vulnerable to a Scorch card if you time it right.

Yep, having her dump all her cards on the table in round 2 is how I won.

Do you win cards from random people? Or is card acquisition mostly through shops/gwent quests?

Certain characters have specific cards, the rest are randomly earned from playing inkeepers or purchased from shops.

DLC launch trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZP1W6D6aZA

Patch 1.21 (featuring improvements across the entire game, most notably with the various character sheets) is already out.

Change log (http://wpc.4d7d.edgecastcdn.net/004D7D/mkt/document/Changelog-1.20-ENG_l9fczl2s3h.pdf)

Blood & Wine DLC proper will come out in about 3 hours.

Time for the ultimate playthrough  :drill:

Apparently people care about this, so:

(http://i.imgur.com/hr2EOvD.jpg)

Is my beard growing??   :ye_gods:

Any way to make movement in this game not horrible? I'm not a fan of the combat system generally, but I think the controls just make it even worse.

I'm trying to like this, and have even put the difficulty down to story mode to try and get around the stuff I don't enjoy (consumables/inventory mess, third person real time combat) but still can't get in to it.

There's "alternative movement" I think it's called - tinker with that on/off setting and see if it helps.

I'm actually really enjoying this on Death March. Prepping for battles and gathering I like a lot.

That and toggling fisheyes witcher senses off made it far more enjoyable to do things in the dlc. Working my way through blood & wine now.

I had to do these things, too.  It was making me srsly seasick.  It's still not perfect, but it's much, much better.  I also dl'd some of the overall gfx quality mods, too, and it's even more beautiful than before.  You have to be wary of some of the mods, though, because there seems to be a lot of compilation errors.  I'm sure they can be fixed but since I'm just starting this game, I won't be using mods that change the gameplay anyway.  Yet.

I love this game very much.  So far.

I don't find the movement too bad except for the horse, which is so annoying that I just run everywhere. Plus you can't pick herbs while you're on horseback, which is fair enough I suppose.

I'm getting used to the combat, Blood & Broken Bones is what I've settled on, which makes the fights feel 'fair' to me, i.e. I can take opponents who are a higher level than me as long as I prepare properly, use signs and consumables sensibly and they're not ?? level.

I have modded away the level restrictions on gear because that felt stupid, especially for crafted gear, and I've modded my carry weight limit to 9000 so that I can mostly ignore the inventory management crap. I'm playing this to kill monsters, have sexy sex and enjoy the stories with bonuses of enjoying the scenery and playing the occasional game of cards, all of which it's doing admirably!

Please elaborate for the lazy  :grin:

I'm playing on Blood & Broken Bones (in italian they decided to name it "Blood & Tears" :D) too and I agree it's the perfect "medium".

As I progress with my playthrough, this game is dangerously becoming what I think will be my favourite CRPG ever, mostly because of the intensity combined with the "density" of the whole experience and how every detail of the game, even some of the most meaningless sidequests, are wonderfully crafted.

Ultima Underworld 2, Deus Ex, BG 2, Ultima 7 pt 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment (these are the ones I appreciated the most)...Yes, I think it's up there with those (including all the downsides Witcher 3 and the games I listed have, yes).

P.S. to be fair, my excitement might also be due to the fact that I recently finished reading the books, so I'm even more immersed in the whole narrative.

Weight Limit removal mod (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/3/?).

I'll edit in which level restriction mod I used later, on a different PC atm. No Item Level Reqs mod (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/983/?).

Highly advise the Nexus Mod Manager (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/modmanager/) and Script Merger (http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/484/?) for a smooth mod installation experience!

Lucas, I'm pretty sure it's my favorite CRPG. At the very least it's tied for my favorite with U7/7.5.

Apoc, yeah yeah NMM. Blah, been avoiding it this long! Thanks, I'll load up that mod when I return to the land of unicorns.

My mods (they all work with the latest 1.22 patch):

Warning: one of these mods (maybe one of the "realistic contrast") cause long loading times when you choose to reload the latest save after you die. That doesn't happen when you load a save after you boot up the game or if you want to choose a specific save after you die. Anyway, it's a bit annoying but not that troublesome, IMO.

The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project (texture improvement):
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1021/?

All NPC Scabbards including DLC:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1569/?

Common Eyes:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1513/?

No More Rolling Down Stairs:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/497/?

Realistic Contrast Textures (Environments) and Realist Contrast Textures Characters (I only chose NPCs and monsters, not that ugly Monstrous Geralt thingy):
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1505/?
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1530/?

Colored Map Markers:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/938/?

Native Depth of Field:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/1558/?

Lore Friendly Witchers (I only use the lore friendly eyes, but True Mutantism is nice as well):
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/390/?

No Dirty Lens effects:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/347/?

I think the HD reworked mod might be the culprit there because I use that too and get 15-20 sec loading times off of an SSD.

I've killed the tree and the witches ate the children.  I don't care.  I would do it again exactly the same way.  Kill em all.

So, after 88 hours (and about 161 hours of /played, including "false starts") I finally reached Skellige  :ye_gods: :drill: . Current playthrough started back at the end of May, when the company published "Blood & Wine". Yes, this is a epic  :grin:

And when you, umm..."arrive" in Skellige, and that awesome little piece of music starts (even moreso when you reach Kaer Trolde)....You just fall in love with the game even more  :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:

This is the piece I'm talking about ("The Fields of Ard Skellig"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NknjE2SBPxw

And this is more of an instrumental version straight from the game, not included in the official soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nye44KnLIXQ
-----

Some more mods you might find interesting:

Weather:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/751/?

Aqua:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2087/?

Peepers (IMO it's better than "Common Eyes" I listed in a previous message. It's also not compatible with "Lore Friendly Witchers"):
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2087/?

Character Lightning Fix:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2032/?

Blood:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/900/?

Splash:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/901/?

No Time for Gwent:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2060/?

I have 163 hours played. Haven't finished Blood & Wine yet. I think I am holding off only because I don't want it to be over. This is the greatest game I have ever played. The soundtrack is amazing.

I finally did Blood and Wine (I did Hearts of Stone on an earlier playthrough).

I am just so in love with this game all over again. Blood and Wine is fantastic. If it doesn't end with Geralt writing to his lover (I went Triss this time) and telling her to drop Kovir and move to Touissant, stat, I will be disappointed, unless it turns out that Touissant is actually a horribly corrupt illusion cast by an evil spirit, which I wouldn't put it past the game to do.

To all of you who played it, regardless of the platform, would you play this with a joypad of mouse+keyboard? And why?

I'm finding KB&M suck and controller is better but not much so. It feels more fluid with the controller, even though it still has other issues I dislike. You don't run into unintuitive control dynamics that dislike KB&M either, such as tab then mouse around a wheel for your quick-select, and mid-mouse button for crossbow/ sigils or q for only sigils.

Controller

...because it controls better?

I tried again with this. Combat is just so boring and crappy that it ruins what seems to otherwise be an interesting world.

I really ended up liking the combat after I got used to it. I still don't like the version of it in Witcher 2.

There is a setting that minimizes combat and maximizes story that I'd recommend.

I agree with Khaldun.  Coming to this after playing Witcher 2 makes it feel so much better by comparison.  I mentioned in the other thread that I was trying out a Signs build lately and it's a lot smoother than a dodge-roll heavy fast attack build.  Less dodging, more wrecking everything with Igni and exploding Quen.

Never mind. After playing for 20 minutes and seeing how many references I was missing from the previous games I purchased Witcher 1 and decided to start from that.

You'd almost be better off reading the re-issued translations of the books, which are pretty good. Witcher 1 is a pretty dire game at times.

The combat in 1 is disgusting, but at super easy should be not too bothersome. Also, alchemy is not needed at that difficulty level. So far, I am loving the way the story is delivered so no regrets.

So I just finished my first playthrough of this game, although I haven't gotten to the expansions yet, and I have lots of thoughts about it.  It's easy to see why this game has gotten so much praise from fans and from the media. The game's reach is within its grasp, and it feels like the fully realized version of the game they've been trying to make for a decade.The writing is overall very good, probably better than the novels it's based on (although I've only read them in translation.)   The way the game produces rich characterization is much more polished than recent bioware games, which tend to develop their characters by having a lot of conversation options designed to reveal a character's opinions by tricking you. This game is much more subtle.  The narrative is also ambitious:  the vision of fatherhood and responsibility is perhaps not very sophisticated, but it's an unusually mature theme for a game to be built around, and the structure of the game really works to produce emotional intensity in the Geralt-Ciri relationship.  I got the good ending, but the game tricked me into thinking I had the bad ending, and I found myself genuinely upset.

 There's a good sense of pacing and lots of little details that make the game less frustrating than it had to be: there's almost always a conversation option to instantly teleport to where you need to be if the process of getting there wouldn't be intrinsically interesting. They also finally found a balance between looks and gameplay for combat, where the predecessors were almost unplayable.  That said, the level design and art-style, while visually appealing, are a disaster for gameplay.  Movement through space is always difficult, riding your horse is a nightmare of stopping and starting because of tiny obstacles, and I still can't find my way around Novigrad after spending dozens of hours there.  I've read comments that the the game would be better without a minimap, and I agree that you spend way too much time following the GPS directions, but the whole world would have to be rebuilt for that to be possible. The Witcher 3 is a more sophisticated game than its obvious competitor for best open-world game of all time, Breath of the Wild, in terms of narrative, but Zelda is way ahead in its ability to create a coherent aesthetic experience.  Witcher 3 feels like the apex of a particular kind of video-game, but its still very video gamey and expects its player to have a lot of experience with the systems and expectations of its genre.

While the game is very successful at creating a world filled with justified and unjustified violence without feeling exploitative, I'm uncomfortable with the use of casual violence and bullying by the player.  There are lots of conversation options in which Geralt threatens to punch or intimidate people who haven't done anything except their jobs, and sometimes you can't do anything else. You frequently kill innocent henchmen while allowing their boss to live, and nobody ever cares. In general there's a macho aesthetic, one which feels intrinsically Eastern European, that makes me uncomfortable with the game's power fantasy. The writers largely avoid being degrading towards women and are clearly invested in an assault on prejudice and racism, but their vision of masculinity is filled with machismo and one-upmanship.  The game's philosophy of making you choose between the lesser of two evil philosophies falls apart in Skellige, the land of vikings and moral clarity, perhaps largely because in Skellige people punch each other more and kill each other less.  The game seems to be saying that if there were a little more casual violence between individuals there would be less systematic violence done by the state, a worldview which I associate with the unreflective right (perhaps explaining this game's popularity with the 4chan crowd.)   I guess what I'm trying to say is that Putin would probably like this game and that makes me wary of it..

I agree on some of the experiences of moving through the world--Novigrad in particular doesn't feel like an organically coherent environment, compared to some of the rural areas.

The question of Geralt's casual violence is complicated. Essentially the game wants to say about its setting that: a) this is a world suffused in violence, but most of it petty and interpersonal. e.g., not a world where the powerful keep the powerless under boot heel, but where even the relatively powerless do unpleasant but not transcendently awful things to each other. But also it's a landscape disordered by war, where banditry and a kind of lawlessness reign. This explains something of Geralt's complicated attitude towards threats and killing. I find he's pretty consistent in the writing: banditry justifies a harsh response; violence between gentry or townsfolk or kinfolk requires him sometimes (usually reluctantly) to take a side but he's often restrained in how he acts. Violence by the powerful towards the powerless forces him either to accept it or allows him to restrain it, with little in between. He's essentially a cousin to the Man with No Name in spaghetti Westerns--not necessarily noble, but also not willing to just accept the status quo and ignore everything he's seeing. The setting is unwilling to allow him to be Petey Pureheart, because anyone who acts like that is faking it for sinister reasons. It's not willing to let him be a complete sadist or monster, because he's a specific character with a specific morality.

The source material is part of what makes this complicated--it's sometimes a very clever postmodern-inspired subversion of existing European fairy tales and folklore, but it's also sometimes an original vision that rises above pastiche and subversion.

Your comparison to westerns makes a ton of sense, and the way the games in particular have portrayed the daily grind of being a witcher is reminiscent of Western heroes.  The hero comes in and provides the cathartic violence that's needed to save the day.  He can't stick around afterwards, but the people don't really want him to anyway.  I think I didn't see the connection because the plot structures of the stories borrow more from Conan-style sword and sorcery and the games and novels from epic fantasy.  I'm convinced by your argument that there's a direct connection between the state of the world and Geralt's bullying behavior as part of his limited capacity to act in response to it. On the other hand, I think the Witcher 3 errs on the side of letting the player as Geralt have his cake and eat it too, like in the silly quest where he lectures a set of monsters on how just and fair he is in his treatment of them, gets to be morally superior and obviously in the right, and still gets to feel like a badass by killing the werewolf who just won't listen.

For sure. But that's straight out of the books--Geralt is kind of a weird witcher, most of them just wade right in and kill the fuck out of the monsters, even Vesemir, who is otherwise kind of fake-gruff but heart-of-gold.

What Geralt in the books usually wants to know is: is this monster sapient, is it capable of restraining its hungers, desires and needs? A few monsters--mostly higher vampires, succubi, a few others--fit the bill and he will generally spend some time reasoning with them or assessing them. If it's a monster that's closer to a force of nature--something that can't help but do what it does--he doesn't hesitate. But most of those kinds of monsters in the Witcher setting are the consequence of human misdeeds--they're ghosts or spirits whose predation was set in motion by an injustice done to them. So often Geralt wants to know how it happened, and only partly because that's part of the way he discovers what kind of monster he's dealing with and the specific countermeasures he has to employ. It's also because he usually wants to at least have everyone know how it happened and who is responsible. He's almost trying to educate peasants and villagers about how not to have monster problems.

He also typically makes a big show, again *very much* in the model of the Man in Black or other spaghetti western heroes, of giving the greedy and stupid every chance to not piss him off or put him in a situation where he's got to kill them. That doesn't apply to redshirt bandits and guards as much, but even there, a pretty classic set-up in the games and books is Geralt showing up in a bar and really, really trying not to kill the local thugs but ending up having to.

I have to say that one of the schticks from the books that I absolutely love in Witcher 3 that wasn't as effectively done in 1 and 2 is the way Geralt investigates monster infestations or killings in the more detailed quests. It's pretty great, and significantly original in the fantasy genre.

I keep looking at the 50 dollar price of this thing and hesitating as that is a lot of money for me.  :heartbreak:

It does not help that I didnt finish the first witcher, but stu=opped when I got to the first city. Twice. I ams rolled me eyes atthe constant crowds of women throwing themselves at him.

The base game is $30 and you can probably grab it for $15-$20 on gog/steam sales.

I just bought the super-duper, all-included version in the July Steam sale for $24.

Andrzej has woke up from his drunk sleep. Now wanting 60 kk PLN from CD Project RED.
At first he was offered % from sales, but didn't think it will work - he asked for around 10k USD. Now pissed. I don't think I can provide any English link  :oh_i_see:

Asking for US$16 million.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-02-witcher-author-andrzej-sapkowski-unsuccessfully-demands-more-money-from-cd-projekt

Sucks to suck.

Never, NEVER give away a percentage of profits if it's offered and ALWAYS ask for that shit, even if it means less upfront money. Way too many unscrupulous motherfuckers who will make stupid bank off of you for something you didn't think would make a lick of money.

On the other hand, Brandon Sanderson in response seriously considers giving them the rights to his Mistborn series for free. (https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9kxeb8/cd_project_red_is_getting_sued_by_the_author_of/e743lm3/?context=1)

One gets the feeling that he's not a very nice guy, honestly. And a bit stupid. Whatever he's getting in residuals from the new publications of the books is 100% due to CD Projekt. He'd be an obscure author in Polish only otherwise.

That would be fuckstupid if he gave them the rights and didn't ask for royalties or a percentage of the profits. The rights alone should never get sold without any thought to how much money can be made from the property. I've looked at this from multiple angles and have decided that if you have someone wanting to merchandise your IP, you better extract the most residual income you can out of the deal because whoever you are dealing with is sure as fuck thinking about their long-term extraction potential.

Doesn't he get some money from the Netflix deal too?

Yep, he will (TV series is entirely based on the books, and books alone); but that doesn't stop him from being Mr. ForeverGrumpy towards CD Projekt. In past interviews he somewhat recognized he messed up when striking the original deal with them; now it seems quite a personal thing that goes beyond business.

And the only reason he's getting that deal is because of the games.  So fuck that guy.  I hope Netflix fucked him on their deal, too.

Nothing wrong with not getting royalties for a deal. Many many many times it's better to get money up front.

Issue was not being a limited use license for just that one project.