The Witcher (PC RPG)

[Engels]

One of my Raid 0 drives died, and the back up I have of my system pre-dates my Witcher installation by 24 hours, so although I'm back up and running, I have to replay EVERYTHING to the point I was at, which is the danged swamp area, towards the end. FUCK.

[trias_e]

I'm in chapter 2 and I really like this game.  I don't understand the complaints with the UI.  Seems fine to me.

My annoyances:

Load times are brutal.  Also, I need a SoW potion or something.  Combat can be sorta glitchy and frustrating sometimes.   I would like more inventory space.  Separate bag for herbs and potions would help so much.  Finally, the cutscenes are not polished at all.  Voice acting is pretty good, writing is good, but the characters can't seem to talk correctly.  Half of the time their mouth just stays still while they perform a ventriloquism act. 

Those things are definitely not enough to deter me from wasting all of my time on the game, that's for sure.

[tmp]

Yeah, I've primarily been using OTS because I'd rather use WASD than click-to-move over long distances, and trying to use WASD in either overhead mode actually also requires you to hold down the middle mouse button and guide yourself with mouselook. Terrible, TERRIBLE fucking UI.

In the overhead view you can simply hold down left mouse button on your character, and he starts running ahead, move mouse to either side (still holding LMB) and he'll make turn in that direction with camera swinging automatically to follow.

Took me getting up to half of chapter 2 to find it out by accident, and removed most annoyances i had with movement while out of combat... why it's not mentioned in starting tutorial, will never know.

[Mazakiel]

http://www.thewitcher.com/registration/en/www/patch.html

After long and impatient awaiting, the time has come - we encourage you to download the latest version of patch (1.2) for The Witcher. We have made a lot of effort to ensure that patch 1.2 has been tested in the best possible way, and at the same time to present it to you before Christmas, as we have promised. Patch 1.2 fixes, among all, the issues of older versions that were most commented on, such as long loading and saving times, loading/saving mechanism, removes many possible random crashes, as well as several minor bugs. Patch 1.2 works with older versions of the game, starting from 1.0, and is available for download from here.

I'll hopefully get to test out the patch tonight, I'd been waiting to play through the game again until this patch hit. 

[schild]

I don't see reworked gui as one of the patch things.

[Phildo]

My computer chokes on this game 

[hal]

Different people enjoy different games. I enjoy a lot of game types but I can get crazy about a good RPG with a good story/atmosphere. Before the witcher my robot Jesus was vampire the masquerade bloodlines. The witcher has the atmosphere/story in spades. It is OK if you do not appreciate it but you should be able to see it for what it is. Does it have issues? ya it does but for a Indy developer it is stinking magic. I am downloading the patch as I type this but if they can reduce load times I think they have a very popular game on there hands. This site is about games and this title has blown a fresh wind into a gender that has seen little activity over the past few years. It is gold. Very true to its self. Very gritty world, choices? ya but gray vs gray. Dispair is everywhere. Great storytelling. This is a game I will savor. Replay after replay.

[Rasix]

  Paragraphs.

Fixed load times might actually get me back to playing this.  As is, I don't like to suffer for my fun.

[Riggswolfe]

Paragraphs.

Fixed load times might actually get me back to playing this.  As is, I don't like to suffer for my fun.

Me too. I haven't played it since before Mass Effect came out and I actually tried a couple of times.

Frustrating swamp plants + long load = frustration.

BTW, I read on here to use fire on the plants. I tried but it doesn't seem to work very well. Do I need to be real close to them when I do it? My fire goes out in a big wave and doesn't seem to really effect the plant.

[Sky]

Yes, you have to be close, it's a PBAoE cone. You can level up the range on the talents screen.

I hope the save/load optimizations are good. It's really the only knock I have against the game.

[Morfiend]

I think I am going to start playing this again. I sort of drifted off and the load timee (Auto save times) got really annoying.

[Kail]

BTW, I read on here to use fire on the plants. I tried but it doesn't seem to work very well. Do I need to be real close to them when I do it? My fire goes out in a big wave and doesn't seem to really effect the plant.

I think you just have to wait until you get the "ignited" message, and then your heavy attacks will do more damage (assuming you have points in the talent that does that).

Also, there are two kinds of plants in the swamp: red ones and green ones.  I don't have any trouble with the green ones (maybe they're tougher on hard or something), and I think there is only one red one (though it spawns in a bunch of places) so you only have to kill it once.  The red plant is kind of a boss, so I just potioned up before I fought it and managed to beat it by spending a lot of consumables (before that, I thought there were a bunch of them, so I didn't want to blow potions every time I saw one).

[Riggswolfe]

BTW, I read on here to use fire on the plants. I tried but it doesn't seem to work very well. Do I need to be real close to them when I do it? My fire goes out in a big wave and doesn't seem to really effect the plant.

I think you just have to wait until you get the "ignited" message, and then your heavy attacks will do more damage (assuming you have points in the talent that does that).

I now have all the bronze talent points thanks to a glitch that let you reuse talent points infinitely. and a good chunk of the silvers too.

[murdoc]

Yeah, but does the patch actually fix the save/load times?

[bhodi]

Yeah, but does the patch actually fix the save/load times?

Yes.

[Mazakiel]

And the talent glitch as well. 

I'm not that far in yet, but so far the save/load times do seem to be quicker overall.  Though the very first time I go to load or save a game after starting up, the screen takes awhile to transfer over, which is new.  That used to only happen after I'd been playing for quite awhile in one stretch. 

[dusematic]

Where's the most legit place to buy this online? For download.

[Mazakiel]

For the US version:  http://www.atari.com/us/thewitcherbuy/

For the EU boobified version:  http://boutique.gamesplanet.com/campagne/promo.html?partenaire=15&jeu=TheWitcher&affilie=official


With the exchange rate where it is at the moment, the EU version will probably be around $70-75, unless it's changed drastically since a month or two ago. 

[Rasix]

For the US version:  http://www.atari.com/us/thewitcherbuy/

How nice of them to sell you features Steam provides (and better) for free.   

[MournelitheCalix]

I have been wanting this game since it came out but I refused to pay for the version the censor deemed fit to provide me access to.  Anyway I found out that Fry electronic's sells the UK version in the U.S. and you don't have to go through t he US dollar to pound conversion ratio.  Just a heads up for anyone else out there who might have been like me, wanting to purchase the uncensored version without being raped by US to foreign conversion rates.

[dusematic]

I really don't care to pay 25 dollars more for like 3 CGI boobs.  You guys are loopy.

[Morfiend]

I really don't care to pay 25 dollars more for like 3 CGI boobs.  You guys are loopy.

If you read the thread you will notice that gogamer has the international version for like $3 more.

[Kail]

Or you can just download the mod, if you want.  Has all the european cards in it.  Doesn't change the in-game models, but that's like one character, I think.

[Trouble]

This game is a lot better than I thought it'd be. This is what I hoped Oblivion would be. And man is it long as fuck, either that or I just suck.

[hal]

New patch is out guys. Load times are better. They are still there but shorter pauses. Life is good.

[GenVec]

This thread needs to be +spoilers so I can effusively praise the game.

Made my top 20.

[Slayerik]

I stalled as well due to save/load times. That and I just banged Shani so that conquest was completed!

Might have to fire her back up.

[Trouble]

You can bang shani again and get a second card later on.

[Riggswolfe]

Ok, I'm in Act 3 now. I replayed about an hour of Act 2 to bang Shani.

Great game with the fixed load times. I took a small break from it to play some Orange Box and because I had a CTD and lost about 45 minutes of progress. (I'd gotten lazy about quick saving. D'oh!)

I really do enjoy the hell out of this game.

[Slayerik]

You can bang shani again and get a second card later on.

Nice. Looks like I'll start playin again...LOL

And the new patch is great. Soooooo much better now.

[JWIV]

If gogamer would stop fucking around and find a copy of the game to send me I'd be playing this.  As it stands, they may or may not be out of stock right now.   

[Rasix]

Just finished it. LONG GAME.  With  better load times and a lot less running back and forth I think it could have been shorter. The end reveal was umm, predictable (in a good way, nice subtle textual clues)  before the big, obvious clue.  Of course, depending on what action you pick, Geralt may just shrug it off (this somewhat bothered me) and fail  to (or purposely not) connect the dots.

I can't help but feel I made some major wrong choices in the game, but I think that's perhaps just how the game is.  I don't think the game is meant for any decision to have warm and fuzzy consequences (some do), but chosing between the racist zealots and the civilian killing terrorists was a no win situation.  On side is morally repugnant and misguided while trying to do the right thing and the other side is delusionally idealistic and murdering civilians like it's going out of style. It was a choice of "you're doing it wrong" and "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG". Perhaps I should have stayed neutral, but choosing the lesser of two evils seemed to be the right choice at the time.   One gripe I have with the decisions is that your motivations for choosing a particular path isn't always represented in why Geralt chooses a side.  Some additional clarifying points in dialog options would have been nice, but they have done better in this respect than most games.

Liked the game a lot, flaws and all.  Some of the last portions of the game seem to have been put together quickly with some glariing design omissions, but they did a good enough job.  I could have used a little more closure with the main relationship option I chose.  Hell, at least the entire prologue was stable.  I didn't have a single CTD, when there seem to have been plenty from act 4&5. 

Closing thought/edit: This game may be good enough to make my top 20, but I'm still a little bit on a high from finishing it.  It's definitely one of the best western RPGs I've played in a long time and a completely different beast than Mass Effect.  A little more polish and this would have been an instant classic.

[dusematic]

I'm on chapter 2 right now.  Got the game basically because of this thread, otherwise I never would have heard of it.  It's pretty sweet.  I'm pretty sure my guy has superaids by now, but hey, he's having fun. 

Oh, and Rasix, you can choose not to help either the racist fucks or the non human resistance.  I stayed neutral.  I play my character as a decent dude, but I'm not picking up causes that don't concern me.  Oh, and there was some hardcore shit being said by Dandelion at Shani's party.  Some seriously HARDCORE shit.

[dusematic]

Also, I bought the game after the new patch came out, and haven't noticed any long loading times.  However, my comp is a behemoth, so ymmv.

[Rasix]

Oh, and Rasix, you can choose not to help either the racist fucks or the non human resistance.  I stayed neutral. 

Yah, I know. I just guess I really didn't like the Squirrels and their tactics. Just sucks at the end when you realize what you helped establish.