The Witcher Revisited

[Ausir]

So. I vowed that I wouldn't buy it until a patch or fan-patch was released to restore the dialogue, but I was bored and I succumbed.

 

http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Unlocking_original_dialogues

[Tale]

It's kind of cool that, in Chapter 4,

you get to kill Dagon, a monster more than a little inspired by Lovecraft.

[jaguars4ever]

Word of advise when playing Witcher: Don't alt-tab.

 

You've been warned.

 

Ah, i just had to try it

 

I got a "Just-In-Time"-error and Visual Studio booted up, trying to debug Witcher.exe. This consumed 2.5 gig of my 4 gig of RAM and crashed the explorer.

 

What did you got?

A solid-multi-plane freeze, where pieces of Windows Task Manager, Geralt of Rivia, and MS Paper-clip interpose over one another, and where ctl-alt-del no longer responds, and neither does manual power off via power button, thereby requiring me to manually disconnect the main power cable before waiting 5 seconds.

 

[Musopticon?]

I can alt-tab fine, but only if I don't do it too many times in a row, and especially not during a loading screen. Heh, I used to alt-tab to msn every time a loading screen started, since it would load in the background while I chat aimlessly, but I stopped doing that because I had a crash when autosaving.

[Hurlshort]

Hmm, I've crashed twice to the desktop during the introduction. I'm running Vista and the 1.1a patch. I guess I might have to wait on 1.2. Oddly enoigh, it never crashed when I was playing on my old PC with XP, but it ran terribly.

[Starwars]

The Witcher didn't really grab me. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's just not my type of game though.

 

It's excellently made, but it's one of those games that have millions of little things that annoy me a lot, and eventually they break the game apart. Gotta hand it to the developers how they translated the setting and visuals to a game though. Art direction is spot on, and the game is just amazingly atmospheric. I was very impressed with this side of the game. I thought the voiceactors also did a great job, but unfortunately I think the direction is a bit off. And unfortunately I found the translation is terrible.

 

Hopefully it's a successful game financially though. Even though it didn't hit the spot for me, it's quite an amazing effort and it really feels like a unique game.

 

I might give it another go whenever the next patch is released though, supposedly it will reduce loading times. I'm usually rather patient, but I can quite honestly say that the Witcher is the first game where loading times have annoyed me to the point where it really hurt the game for me.

[Xard]

What things bothered you Starwars, apart from loading times?

 

I dunno, I just started it so no comments from me yet

[Tale]

One thing that bothers me is the translation is pretty terrible. Many conversations are disjointed and other times they're just jumpy. And it seems like there's two Geralt voice actors. One's good, the other sounds like he might be an intern.

[Meshugger]

The only things that bother me with The Witcher are:

 

- The loading times

- The translation at times

- The voiceacting is uneven

- Lack of unique character models (An important NPC has the same model as all the other merchants)

 

Other than that, it is really, really good.

[Tale]

- Lack of unique character models (An important NPC has the same model as all the other merchants)

It took me a while to catch on to this. In Chapter I you see several characters with what you think are unique models. Chapter II comes along and they end up on every street corner.

 

I'm in the last chapter and I want to say I can list the unique models, but I just know that I'll turn a corner and find an army of clones.

Edited December 17, 2007 by Tale

[Starwars]

Well, let's see. Some of these are more myself not being very compatible with action-RPGs, so keep that in mind.

 

-The combat system is not my cup of tea, though admittedly it's one of the best systems I've seen for action-RPGs. I'm just not a big fan of action-RPGs in general.

 

-There is a large presence of "go there and kill that" and "collect 10 blablas" type of quests. It makes sense since Witchers are monsterhunters, but it's still a design idea that I've really grown to hate in cRPGs over the years. Even though it's "justified" in the Witcher, I find it equally annoying here.

 

-The translation might be one of my biggest beefs, I found it to be very bad. Sometimes it's almost disastrous, especially in certain cutscenes where the camera shifts between characters in a rapid fashion. It's quite hard to follow at times, and sometimes it's laugh-inducing (there is one such example once you've left the Prologue and get the opening cutscene for the next area and a monster attacks). It's equally disjointed in regular conversations sometimes.

 

-The loading times have been mentioned, but it gets worse when coupled with how certain quests are designed. Not spoiling anything, but in Chapter 2 there is a large quest where you have to speak to a wide array of characters. Now, this quest is actually quite good in what it tries to do (but again, I think it's partly ruined by bad translation), but I think it was absolutely ruined in how much running back and forth there was. And couple this with the loading times, and well... I got rather tired of it. Then, there is the fact that there is a day/night cycle, which is of course nice. But when you have to wait for day/night constantly (or pretty often) and you have to go the inn to meditate, and there are once again loading times... gaaah.

 

-Lack of skills to influence the dialogues with. A small complaint perhaps, but rather important for me personally. Though it should be mentioned that there are definetely choices & consequences in the game, and some of them are pretty great. However, I wish it was a bit more subtle at times.

 

Definetely give the game a chance though. Like I said, I simply don't think it's a game for me for the most part. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a *lot* of work and love has gone into it, and I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

[Pidesco]

There's a mod out that allows you to improve the dialogues quite a bit. Search The Witcher's forums.

[jaguars4ever]

One thing that bothers me is the translation is pretty terrible. Many conversations are disjointed and other times they're just jumpy. And it seems like there's two Geralt voice actors. One's good, the other sounds like he might be an intern.

Good one = Christopher Lambert.

Intern = Vin Diesel.

 

[Pop]

Are you saying that Christopher Lambert actually has a good voice?

 

Have you even seen The Highlander?

[theslug]

Are you saying that Christopher Lambert actually has a good voice?

 

Have you even seen The Highlander?

HIGHLANDER!! WE HAVE YOUR WOMAN HIGHLANDER!

[Tigranes]

I do hate the long loading times (on my sad excuse for a computer it takes me three minutes to travel from one big quarter to the other, cause it saves, too), but apart from that, still loving it and on Ch4.

 

-The combat system is not my cup of tea, though admittedly it's one of the best systems I've seen for action-RPGs. I'm just not a big fan of action-RPGs in general.

 

On intermediate (and, admittedly, with quite a bit of lag) I find it challenging enough, I'm using alchemy which has a good solid system, and it manages to integrate the viscerality of action RPGs well. I wish there were more than five spells (lots of unique individual spells like "Wall of Fire" or projectile evocation would have been nice), but yeah. I guess it's just you not liking the style, which is fair enough.

 

-There is a large presence of "go there and kill that" and "collect 10 blablas" type of quests. It makes sense since Witchers are monsterhunters, but it's still a design idea that I've really grown to hate in cRPGs over the years. Even though it's "justified" in the Witcher, I find it equally annoying here.

 

I don't find it much worse than most RPGs these days to be honest. The only extremes are the 'Contracts', but those are not tied to any story and you can just ignore them. But then, I enjoy the combat, so I don't mind as much - I suspect if you find the combat a chore they are more annoying. I would indeed have liked to have seen one or two large, complicated sidequests with innovative solutions (there were a couple with potential, e.g.

Princess Adda and the catoblepas steak

, but ended up being fedex)

 

I'm not sure what's so bad about the translation actually, guys. I'm normally quite sensitive to that stuff, but apart from the very noticeable cuts, the dialogue appears to be pretty Biowarian - standard, does the job. The voiceovers hardly bother me since I'm a fast reader and skip half the voiceovers, and the important characters are done acceptably.

 

-Lack of skills to influence the dialogues with. A small complaint perhaps, but rather important for me personally. Though it should be mentioned that there are definetely choices & consequences in the game, and some of them are pretty great. However, I wish it was a bit more subtle at times.

 

They do this in a slightly different direction from western developers, and don't seem to rely on the same set of 'developer's tricks'. Some speech skills would indeed have been nice, though; I think, leaving the Talents system as it is now, having 'special skills' you can learn from quests or characters (a la Fallout's special perks) would have been nice; e.g. reading that book on seduction actually giving you a tangible skill on eloquence, or stuff like that.

[Tale]

Just beat the game. I'll try to minimize spoilers.

 

Quite frankly, I think it's a novel worthy story. That is to say it's that good. Of course, that's also ignoring the poor english localization. The overall story is just good. To compare it to Mask of the Betrayer, I'd say MotB had more interesting characters, Witcher had a better story.

 

I thought it did very well what it set out to do, as well. Blur the lines between good and evil. Sometimes it did fall short, at one point a character tries blaming Geralt for all the bad things that have happened so far, which is a point easily defensible against. At least in my game. However, the ultimate villain of the game was a sympathetic character to me. His position isn't entirely new, as I'm sure I've seen it before, but the way they presented it along with my realization of who he is had me feel sorry for him in some ways.

 

Another flaw in the game is that it's uneven in a way. Chapter 2 and 3 feel like just one long chapter. When I hit 3, it felt repetitive. But once I was done with that, smooth sailing.

 

 

Triss just gives gigantic hints as to the identity of the final villain. And then a bunch more hints come at you. It's kind of funny, but right at the end they nearly bludgeon you with it just in case you missed it.

 

Edited December 18, 2007 by Tale

[jaguars4ever]

Great story indeed. I love the way the philosophy you feed

Alvin

effect the

Grandmaster's

views. Best plot twist since K1.

 

By the way, which way did you folks go faction and romance wise?

 

For me: The Order (the racists) instead of the Scoia'tael (the terrorists), and Shani (the nerdy but gettable chick) instead of Triss (the manipulative biatch).

[Tigranes]

The faction decision really did put me on the spot for a while, and I tried to role-play it too. Throughout Chapter 3, since the game made it quite clear I couldn't stay neutral, I was unconvinced the Scoia'tael's quest would ever really succeed; and it felt like the nonhumans were most likely doomed to a shadow of their former existence. That said, it wouldn't be bad for the humans to wake up and realise what the fruits of their xenophobic policies were, and while I could count on the Scoia'tael being reasonably straight with me, and needing me as much as I needed them (due to their beleaguered status), shaking hands with the Order would involve me with allies whose identity are even more in doubt, and I wasn't confident on getting the help I needed while dancing out of the trouble from all the high politicking and scheming of the humans.

 

With the romance bit, though I chose Triss, since she seemed more able to help; and

judging by her conversation with the sorceress in the mirror at the start of chapter 3, at least if she is attached to me by romance, she is less likely to use me completely.

 

 

Just getting into Chapter 4.

[Tale]

I went neutral. I also chose Triss because she seemed more capable. Lol at those who think they couldn't stay neutral.

 

Great story indeed. I love the way the philosophy you feed

Alvin

effect the

Grandmaster's

views. Best plot twist since K1.

 

I thought it was far better. It actually took into account your actions instead of being a very straight script. However, I'm only theorizing on that point. I wonder how much of what I said previously effect that dialogue.

Edited December 18, 2007 by Tale

[SteveThaiBinh]

Just a quick note to point out that Tale has very helpfully started a Witcher thread in the Spoilers subforum, so anything spoilerish should go there instead.

[Kaftan Barlast]

All my friends hated The Wicther, even the ones who really like fantasy CRPG's. What's the forgiving factor?

[Xard]

Everyone else has loved the game?

[Tale]

Well, your friends aren't complete freaks (though they are YOUR friends). I almost came to dislike the game at Chapter 3 for my previously stated reasons.

[Tigranes]

Kaftan: personally, I'd ask not what's the forgiving factor, but what's the damning factor - the majority of the game is good, and I think Tale would agree despite his point about Chapter 3 being a bit draggy. I'd say its a pretty similar game to Gothic 3 actually, but a bit closer to Black Isle traditions.