Witcher update

[RangerRick]

Zedd,

So, how is the game? How about a quick review of the game?

I've read elsewhere that it's a very good game. One of the best RPG games in awhile.

I'm STILL waiting for my copy from GoGamer! :mad:

[Kalbrecht]

Maybe he's too busy sleeping with all the wenches in the game ;-)

[pcfreak]

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:


I bought The Witcher today and have played it for about an hour. I am very impressed with it so far. The graphics look very good, the user interface is intuitive and the gameplay just sucks you right in there!

The pre rendered scenes are excellent and really do set the ambience of the game off to a tee. There are three different perspectives from which you can control your character, although they are very similar. The combat is a point and click affair but this doesn't make you feel unattached like some games do.

I have a quick gripe, when you enter any building there is a delay in gameplay while the interior loads up. This wouldn't be a problem except that even for small, one room houses it does this. Apart from this there are no obvious faults I can see.

I couldn't give an in-depth review just yet, but on the surface it looks and feels great! I will post back with more info as and when. I have enjoyed the first hours play and had to drag myself away for a clan practice session or else I would have played it alot more:D:

Cheers,

Stuart

[Rafal Dudek]

So far it's awesome. One of the best RPG's I've played in a LONG time. I'm actually now looking forward into buying some books based on the story as well. Honestly the only thing bringing this game down are the load times. I'm running it on Vista 64bit full max details and game is smooth but it does take like 45s to load exteriors and like 20s for interiors. Game is also very stable, have not had a single crash and I'm in Act III right now. Bout half-way through the game, but I'm sure taking my time with things. I'm looking forward to replaying the game again but making different choices throughout the game. There is really no "good" or "evil" aspects, its really based on what you feel is moral. :):

BTW, anyone who is running vista and bitches about the game crashing, you need to download the Microsoft hotfix. This goes for Hellgate London too.

[Stiler]

I wrote one in the other thread but here goes again :).


In my opinon the Witcher is one of the best rpg's I have played in years. It's a bastion of the more adult themed rpg's of old like Fallout, Baldur's gate, etc.

It sports your general fantasy races such as elves, dwarves, and humans mixed in but rather then the cliche versions of the races they are more realistically supported on historical contexts within our history in terms of racism, problems, cultural divides, etc.

The atmosphere is top notch, from the excellent graphics (and this is on a heavily modified Aurora engine, but the dev's have did wonders with it and put a lot of things into it) to the great soundtrack and wonderful ambient sounds and details.

The music isn't over-bearing but rather soothingly settles into the back round and pops up at the right moments which some quite memorable scores.

The graphics are littered with some very good landscapes you'll find yourself hoping to see draped along a morning sky or a dusky cloud filled night. Along with some very nice small attention to details that most games wouldn't bother with. From idle wildlife (chickens, geese, frogs, dogs, a monkey looking thing that runs around you when you go near it, etc) to people running under rooftops and things when it starts to rain.

Now onto the gameplay :).

The combat could be a mixed bag for some people, I think it's quite fun without being over-bearing for some people. You have two main weapons, a Silver sword (which you don't get until Act 2 of the game) and a Steel sword. The silver sword is used for monsters that are more vunerable to it and the Steel sword is more suitable for humans and such.

With each sword you have three stances, fast, group, and strong. You will need to change stances depending on your enemies. Fast is good for quick and agile enemies, strong is good for armoured/slower enemies, and group is good for small groups of enemies.

On top of this you have access to various signs (magic) which you will find throughout the game that you can mix up the melee combat with, such as the Aard sign (think force push) or the Igni sign (fire based sign), among the others.

Now you might think since you play as a pre-made character, Geralt (as it is based on the Witcher novels, it wouldn't make much sense if you physically make your own character...) that the character development would be lacking? Nope, there are a TON of skills to learn. You have basically five tiers of skills to learn, with around 5 skills in each tier. This goes for each sword stance (so six total, 3 for each type of sword) all of your signs, then base attributes like Strength, Dex, Stamina, Int.

You first start out with bronze talent points, which you get three of by lv'ing up (and also can get one via a potion you can make). Then you start to get silver points as you hit 15, then gold at 30'ish lv I believe, not sure.

Now the bronze skill points work up to the second tier ofo a skill, afterwards you have two tiers of silver, then one of gold. The silver/gold points will become more scarce so you will really have to think about what to put them into and how you want to make your character.

Another thing I love about the game is the goal. It isn't your usual "item hunt-fest" like some rpg's have become, rather the game is actually more about a role that you are playing, focusing more on the storylines and quests instead of just dangling some new item in front of you to go after. Don't get me wrong, you will find items and things, but it will not be the main focus/point of the game. You get new armour and can upgrade your swords/get a new one, but those you mostly buy instead of find. The main items you'll find are food, drinks, trinkets (jewelry, gift items, etc) and luckily books.

Books are a major part of the game tied into it more then your usual rpg's are. Because without reading the books in the game you will not be able to do some contracts and quests that require you to kill a specific monster. In order to kill certain monsters and get the item you first have to read about them to gain the knowledge of them, which will then be placed into your journal bestiary.

As well, books are also there to give you knowledge on the plant life around the world. Without reading ithe book that describes certain plants you will not be able to pick them nor know what potions you can make with them.

So finding/buying books will be a good money sink for you on top of the armour/weapon upgrades (which are quite high, I thought I had a "lot" of money after Act I but when I went to the armourer I realized I was actually short...).

Now onto the quests and such, the "meat" of the game.

The overall majority of quests I have found to be quite fun and interesting. Some even had me laughing a bit (The Odo quest, don't wanna spoil it for you) among others. Sometimes things may seem a bit weird from translations but for the most part it's not bad.

The voicework is generally quite good I think, especially for your character, Geralt. His voice sounds very much like David Bateson (The guy who voices Hitman) but I'm not sure if it's him. Even the secondary characters have some good voice work for the most part.

One of the main positive things about the quests in The Witcher is that there are consequences for your actions, and unlike other rpg's they aren't always simple to decide nor do you even know what the consequences are until you are much farther into the game (so you can't say, simply make a choice, then see what happens, then reload if you don't like the outcome). You will find yourself thinking you made the right choice, then find out you might have been duped. Even moreso you might come across a choice you have to make that you find is neither wrong nor right, but rather a more grey shade.

Now onto the few problems.

The main problem most people talk about is the loading time, as it can be quite numerous. I was originally playing the game with 1gb of ram. I had load times for exterior cells (outside/city) of around 45-60'ish seconds. Going inside buildings it was around 25'ish or so. The main problem is that the game doesn't cache the data for outside, it dumps it once you go into another cell, even for a small one-room hut. So you will enter the hut, have to load it, then spend just a few seconds inside and then turn aroun dand have to re-load the exterior cell. On top of all of this the game will auto-save which takes 20 or so seconds itself from time to time (generally it auto-saves after your journal is updated with a new entry in something). However in the newer patch they plan to allow you to turn off auto-save if you wish.

This was quite a headache for me, but I still felt the game was great and worth it. So I went out and bought 2gb of dual channel ram to use. With 2gb of ram my load times are MUCH MUCH better. Loadin exterior cells takes just around 25'ish seconds and interior ones are only around 5-8seconds or so. Saving is still around 20'ish seconds but it doesn't bother me.

Before I upgraded the ram I was running most things on medium, now I am running most things on high (minus grass and shadows, which I kept to medium). I run the game at 1680x1050 and it's generally smooth for the most part minus the initial load into a cell for a few seconds.

This isn't on a new rig either,
amd 64 3400
2gb 3200ram
6800 ultra.

The other problems are cutscenes. They lagged bad for me, sometimes the screen would be black and I would hear the people talking and then finally the graphics loaded but it was already half way through. Turning off depth of field (which is only used in cut scenes) helped a lot as did the ram upgrade.

The inventory can be a bit of a pain as well. There is no auto-sorting and you'll find yourself mousing over so many things just to see what it is, especially when it comes to plants and other things for potions or food/drinks.

With all of this said, I highly recommend the game if you are an rpg/adventure fan.

[RangerRick]

Bout half-way through the game, but I'm sure taking my time with things. :wtf:

how many hours do you have into this Zedd?

They say that there's around 80 hours of gameplay!

[RangerRick]

Thanks for the reviews!

Makes me want this all the more!

[Rafal Dudek]

:wtf:

how many hours do you have into this Zedd?

They say that there's around 80 hours of gameplay!

Bout 30+ It's pretty much all I've been playing. Sneaked in some hellgate but put that down till they fix the damn game. I'm also reading alot of books and lore found in the game too as it contains some interesting stuff =]

I like the idea of elves and dwarves being a minority race and are hated throughout the land. Always hated how the elves were the most respected and highest powered race etc etc :p:

[Chylde Roland]

I'm really enjoying this game too, it's such a breath of fresh air in the RPG genre, I almost can't believe it.

Gamespot gave it an 8.5, but if you read their review, be VERY careful. They spoiled some major plot points from the first act for me, so I didn't read the whole review. I quit reading once that happened. Once I complete the game, I'll go back and have another look at the review.

[fraggmatic]

Started playing the Witcher a couple days ago. Somehow my uncensored UK version took longer to show up. So far, I don't know what to think about this game. Sure cinematics look sharp and captivating, the story is engaging, but I just can't get into it. The deep immersion I get when playing FPS or first person action titles is just not there.

Maybe it's due to the OTS camera and fighting controls. You basically click on foes and watch the battle take place, with some added combo moves if you click again, and again...and again. But geez, this is kinda watching the action vs doing the action. Not my style of fighting! I want to feel I'm holding a sword and swinging it. Well, out of boredom playing the Witcher yesterday I started replaying "Dark Messiah Might & Magic" to get some real action going.

Also, I think the painfully long load times between maps and scenes are show stoppers and kills immersion. How can you feel compelled to play when you have to wait that long (here I'm talking about 2-3 minutes to load a level folks). May be future patches will correct this one.

It's usually the first impressions that count...and so far I'm not too impressed.

[pcfreak]

Hi Fraggmatic,

I can't understand how the loads times are so long for you? The longest I have ever had to wait is 40 seconds or so. I would have thought load times would be significantly faster on your system, going by it's specs.

I know it's a basic question, but have you tried running defrag and disk clean up?

Cheers,

Stuart

[fraggmatic]

Yeah I was stunned by the level loading time. Not sure what is happening here. Other games load quickly, like Call Of Juarez DX10 with max textures/shadows in 10-20 sec. In the Witcher it seems the disks aren't actually doing much "loading" (disk activity low when loading levels). May be there is a glitch with how the game interacts with the video cards (loading textures, etc) on my crossfire setup. I'm gonna play a little with the video settings (disable CF) and defrag the disks. Hopefully it'll run a little better. Thanks for your help though.

[SupaTroopa]

I believe Zed mentioned above that he was also having long load times.

[Stiler]

I was having long load times at 1gb of ram, went to 2gb and now they are 8'ish seconds for interiors, 20-25'ish for exteriors.

This is running at mostly high settings @ 1680x1050 as well (grass at medium, and motion blur turned off).

As far as combat goes, well most rpg's don't have very engaging combat really. At least with the witcher it feels a bit more fast paced and you can actually dodge/move away unlike many others where it's auto-attack/dodges are based completely on die rolls and such.

Combat gets more fun as you train in higher skills and unlilke more combo's/power up your signs.

Walking up to a group of four people, using my Aard sign, knocking down some and stunning others and then doing some nice fatality moves isn't getting old for me at least.

[RangerRick]

Did some testing on load times.

saved game load- 50 seconds
into a building, cave, crypt- 10 seconds
out of " "- 25 seconds

All settings on high. System specs are in my sig, and no overclocking.

[Stiler]

Hmm, 50 seconds for save game loads? That is quite high, mine are around 20seconds and my system isn't nearly as high end as yours.

amd 64 3400
2gb 3200ram
6800ultra.
Are you running on Vista or windows XP? IIRC there were some problems with it and vista that they were working on.

Plus the upcoming patch will hopefully fix some loading problems (they really need to cache outside cells and such).

[Rafal Dudek]

I'm in Act 5. Game is still awesome. Can't wait for future addon content releases along with replaying the game with a different perspective =]

The initial savegame load takes about 50s. Loading into outdoor settings take 40s. Loading into indoor settings take 20s.

I'm running Vista 64bit ultimate.

[RangerRick]

Hmm, 50 seconds for save game loads? That is quite high, mine are around 20seconds and my system isn't nearly as high end as yours.

amd 64 3400
2gb 3200ram
6800ultra.
Are you running on Vista or windows XP? IIRC there were some problems with it and vista that they were working on.

Plus the upcoming patch will hopefully fix some loading problems (they really need to cache outside cells and such).

I'm using Vista.