The Witcher (PC RPG)

[Mazakiel]

Just started into Chapter 3 last night.  I wish I could just go on vacation a day or two and keep playing.  Unfortunately, I think I inadvertantly put myself on the path to side against the non humans last night by helping out Siegfried.  That seems to have had bigger consequences than I expected, as well as closing off a quest chain I had.  So...yay.  Not that the non humans are a pile of roses either.  Which, really, is a definite plus for the game. 

Also, the confrontation at the tower, and all of the investigating and stuff that led up to it was awesome as hell.  For once, reading the obscure books pays off in a game. 

[Sky]

I mentioned earlier how useful the journal was, I'm not kidding. I try to read everything in there, it's packed with good info. And yes, I'm trying to read all in-game books, you're about to hit another bit if you haven't already, that rewards having read Kalkstein's book. Even after reading and understanding it, I still needed a copy to answer all the questions.

I think at the end of Chapter 2 you can split the story three ways, humans/nonhumans/neutral. Triss kinda chewed me out for being neutral. Part of why I like the Siegfreid character, even though I had all the bad experiences with his faction in Chapter 1, I just couldn't side against him. Great stuff.

Anyone who likes western rpg should really pick this game up (the international version, because jesus loves nipples).

[Morfiend]

So I got to the swamp last night, and holy fuck, those red plants just rip me up, any advice would be helpful. I dont have trouble fighting anything but those, even when I get close and start comboing they still kill me before I can kill them. I tried both swords and so far its plants 7, me 0.

[Mazakiel]

Same one that gave me trouble.  What's even more fun is when they sprout with friends. 

Basically, the way I finally got it to work was go in using strong silver style, with a Swallow potion going.  If you can get in position before it's sprouted, charge up a fire attack as it's coming out of the ground, and hit it with that.  Otherwise, fire as you can.  Get in a position to its right or left, that lowers the chances of the game deciding you're wanting to run at it instead of attack it.  If you have the ignite talent for your fire attacks, that will help a good bit.  It's still doable without, it'll just take longer.  When you're at a 1/3 or so, you might want to run like hell out of range of its spit attack and let the Swallow potion restore your health back up, and then run in and finish.  The first one I fought, as I've mentioned earlier, was a pain in the ass, but using the tactics above, I finally got him down.  The next one I found, I had learned ignite, so it went alot easier once he caught on fire. 

Most annoying monster, in fact, would not be those things anymore.  The giant leech things are my most hated enemy, because no matter how quickly and how far I run as they die, the damn acid explosion hits me every time.  I can see why the bestiary entry for them says to not use group style, at least.  I can envision that being painful. 

As to choosing sides, the end of Chapter 2 indicated that I'd gone human, but I still kinda got bitched at by Triss about not taking a side.  So, while I could probably still go nonhuman, it'd be a harder road, as I know I've burned bridges with some of the nonhumans.  And while alot of the humans are pricks, choosing against them would kinda screw over people I do like, like Siegfried.

This game, long as it is, definitely seems like one I'll play once or twice more, just to take some different paths.  I can't think of a RPG I've loved this much in a long, long time.  Hell, a game period.  Yeah, it's buggy in parts, but 99% of it is just pure gold.  I can't wait to see what further games have in store from these guys. 

[Morfiend]

Most annoying monster, in fact, would not be those things anymore.  The giant leech things are my most hated enemy, because no matter how quickly and how far I run as they die, the damn acid explosion hits me every time.

Dont run, do an evasive move. If your playing in OTS cam, double tap a direction and he will jump away in that direction. I can get out of the acid explosion about 75% of the time like that.

[Sky]

I always forget about the dodge option. I always swing the camera around and run away just as I finish the final combo on those acidic guys. Actually, when I did my final swamp sweep, I was aggroing a bunch of drowned folks and leading them to an acid guy. Then kill the acid guy, run out of range, and he explodes acid all over the drowned, killing them :)

Vs the plant guys, it may have been the fire power that made it so much easier for me, because there's also a silver style that's linked to incineration, so you do extra sword damage if they're on fire or something. Some nice interdependence in the skill trees and you can customize them to your playstyle pretty well. I was initially worried about having enough talents (to cover all three styles for both swords), but by the end of Chapter 2 I almost had too many bronze talents, I was buying up stuff outside my core vision of the character.

Potion for a free silver talent was nice in Chapter 2, as well.

[rk47]

To fight those acid exploding guys without worrying too much of the explosion, brew a potion that resists acid damage. Drink it, Aard, Stab. :) Or give em 2 strong slashes then follow up with one cast of Igni from range. Double tap a direction key to make sure you won't get hit.

[JoeTF]

Later on (when you pack enough hitpoints) you would use those leech things as grenades against drowned things.

Plants are SUPER EASY after you get little idea - burn the damn weed. Set it aflame and watch it die from distance, really satisying:)

Worst part for me was 3 act boss - scripted and buggy as hell. You don't really fight the boss but dumb programmer who botched the script.

[FatuousTwat]

So I got to the swamp last night, and holy fuck, those red plants just rip me up, any advice would be helpful. I dont have trouble fighting anything but those, even when I get close and start comboing they still kill me before I can kill them. I tried both swords and so far its plants 7, me 0.

There is one that is right past the clay pits that I guess is a boss (it drops a trophy). It tore me up till I drank a blizzard (pretty much makes you invincible).

I was kind of wishing there would be more boss type monsters, I seem to have only gotten 2 (cockatrice and that plant thing).

[LK]

Apparently this is an unsung song of PC gaming? I decided to get this after seeing SomethingAwful's 10/10 review of it.  The discussion here helped though! But it was funny to see that my local gaming store didn't carry it.  Online delivery FTW...

[rk47]

Welcome to the club. Enjoy the art. And Saving the World...15 seconds at a time.

[UnSub]

Apparently this is an unsung song of PC gaming?

That's because all the real gamersare playing Hellgate: London. That game has phat lewtz, yo.

[Tebonas]

The fighting sucked at first, but the game dragged me in anyway. That definitely makes it the spiritual successor of Gothic.

[GenVec]

My opinion of this game puts it on the level of Deus Ex. After a couple of hours of play I realized that I had been doing the PC equivalent of watching Disney films my entire life, and have now happened upon Blade Runner. I bought it on Friday, beat it after some intense gaming by Thursday morning, and immediately wanted to play through it again to see the alternate resolutions.

Cons: Long loading times, resource-hog in some areas.

Pros: Morally relativity, unpredictable characters, adult storyline, excellent cutscenes and progression.

I found the fighting to be quite fun when you pump a few silver talents into group silver or steel... there's nothing like wandering into a pack of enemies and leaving a lot of headless corpses in your wake. Magic is useful, and the game can  actually be pretty tough on the higher difficulty - I had a lot of trouble with some bosses, most especially the Beast at the end of chapter 1.

Some of the situations were just too awesome. Dicing for Alvin's life, choosing between a women's rights vampire orgy and a puritan rescue mission, and the deeply troubling ending come to mind. Some parts actually made me laugh, which is shocking - try telling the Lady of the Lake you want to quest for the Holy Grail, for example.

There were a lot of flaws, of course - chapter five and the epilogue didn't measure up to their predecessors, some of the translations seem a bit weird, and a couple of monologues about "global cooling" seemed really out of place. Still amazing though.

And you get to fight **EDITED FOR SPOILERS** a prominent character from the Cthulhu mythos. How fucking awesome is that? Who knew they had even heard of **EDITED** H.P. Lovecraft?

[Sky]

HEY THANKS FOR TEH SPOILER

Wtf?

Anyway, there's one point where a character asks you to invite someone to a party. I invited the obvious character and the game progressed as expected. I reloaded and brought a hooker instead, hoping for a threesome or something and she got all insulted I'd bring a hooker, and the other character had already had relations with the hooker. It was pretty funny and showed that they put a little thought into different events.

[schild]

My opinion of this game puts it on the level of Deus Ex.

I'm going to play this game now. If you are wrong, I'm going to stab you in the face with a syringe full of lupus.

[Mazakiel]

It's one of those games that everyone needs to try, basically.  It's going to be hard to go back to alot of console RPGs after playing this one.  It's just that good.  It's like a mishmash of Baldur's Gate, Planescape, and Fallout, and just pure awesome. 

Also, the combat can take a little getting used to at first, especially if you just skipped reading the manual at first like I did.  It's not 'click-click-click' like Diablo, timing's important, and clicking too soon in a series of attacks will interrupt the chain.  After the first chapter or so, you also have to be ready to fight smart, just wading in to a big group of baddies can get your ass handed to you real quick.  Like in the robbery mission.  Granted, I've not focused on the group styles as much, so I could see how that might change things, but really, the 2nd and 3rd chapters have taught me the value of using alchemy and the different traits of the spells.  And as best as I can tell, trying to use the group style against enemies in armor is the quickest way to get a beat down. 

As to that party, I ended up taking the hooker, because the few I tried to ask, there wasn't the option to ask.  It was definitely entertaining though.  Some of the other stuff mentioned here, I'm not at yet, but some of it sounds like something I somehow missed.  Which encourages a 2nd play through even more. 

[GenVec]

there's one point where a character asks you to invite someone to a party.

I think that's what made the game for me: the proliferation of non-combat related content serves to break up the pace and provides interesting opportunities for player input. Picking an NPC to bring to a party and getting different results depending on whether you take the drunken dwarf, the hooker, or the uptight Knight? That's awesome. I played through that party four times to see different reactions for each person.

Fighting through an army of thugs to free a damsel is pretty cool too, but i've done it a million times in dozens of games. That's not the type of material that's going to have me reloading just to try a different style.

[Mazakiel]

Some of the non-combat stuff is pure gold.  Like when some of your friends grab you and you all go drinking. 

[Sky]

That goddamned lush Dandelion convinced me to spend a few talents in drunken skills. That boy likes to drink.

That spoiler edit was entirely ineffective. I think you're also wandering into spoiler territory listing the npcs you can bring to the party. I was intentionally keeping it vague....C'mon, let's try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. Maybe start a new thread if you need to post spoilers to discuss things, I still haven't read the Bioshock spoilertastic thread.

[murdoc]

How was that even considered a spoiler edit? 

[rk47]

for those who liked the flashback arts take a look at these spoilerish gallery. 
I think they shd've included a gallery in the game for us to take a look at it...
http://www.gamebanshee.com/thewitcher/flashbackimages.php#null

[Morfiend]

HEY FUCKERS. ENOUGH WITH THE SPOILERS!

[JoeTF]

for those who liked the flashback arts take a look at these spoilerish gallery. 
I think they shd've included a gallery in the game for us to take a look at it...
http://www.gamebanshee.com/thewitcher/flashbackimages.php#null

That's like taking spoiler to the whole new level 
I'm going to look at it after I played a few times just to be sure I didn't miss anything, but not bloody now.

[KallDrexx]

ugh last time I order a game from the UK.  my copy from dvd.co.uk still hasn't arrived yet 

[Morfiend]

I used Gogamer.com they had my international copy on my door on release day.

[Ironwood]

I'm left wondering how I missed this.

The Thread, The Hype, the Whole Fucking Game.

Hmmm.  I may pop out to the shops now.

[FatuousTwat]

I think the reason you missed all the hype is because there hasn't been any. The only reason I knew about it is because I was big into NWN a few years ago when The Witcher was announced and a few of the sites I frequented mentioned it because it would be using the same engine.

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv46t7ZqaGE

[Mazakiel]

The only reason I know of the game is because of this site.  I haven't even seen it on the shelves here in town.  I consider myself very fortunate to have given it a shot though.  I've pretty much been praising the game to everyone I know to try to get more people to play it. 

[DarkSign]

It's about time that a game with real choices and consequences has rolled around. And whaddaya know...gamers arent complaining about it...they're liking it. Witcher and MotB give hope that real RPGs still get produced.

[Samwise]

The swamp section is irritating me.  I hope I'm done with it soon.

[Big Gulp]

The swamp section is irritating me.  I hope I'm done with it soon.

Seconded.  Plants and constant Drowned Dead attacks are getting on my nerves.  Sometimes you just want to go from point A to point B without hacking your way there.

[Sky]

Eh, often I just run past them and fight whatever sticks around when I get to my destination.

[GenVec]

Plants and constant Drowned Dead attacks are getting on my nerves.  Sometimes you just want to go from point A to point B without hacking your way there.

Try equipping one of the charmed red ribbons in your ring slot. Keeps drowners from getting anywhere near you (unless you run up to them).

[Chenghiz]

This game just ate my Wednesday. D: