The Witcher 3

[Kitlope]

Heard so many wonderful things about this I'm finally currently downloading it from Steam. Not really my genre of game but back in my 1990's console days I used to play RPG's all the time. So hey, why not give it a go. Single player to fill my old man anti-social needs.

I'll post with my thoughts down the road.

 

[Kitlope]

I've played a couple of hours and all I can say is that it's unreal. The gameplay, attention to detail, graphics, story... it has it all. And runs nice too.

 

[Kenadian]

I've played them all but unfortunately never finished the second one because it just got a bit cumbersome 3/4 the way through. It started to feel very directed and even though that may not have been the case when measured against the first Witcher I just couldn't slog through it anymore.

The Witcher 2 was visually impressive though, wow :icon_eek:

I pre-purchased The Witcher 3 in December and have been watching this game develop for years. CDProjektRED is a terrific developer who actually listens to their community and it shows in the final product.

I believe The Witcher 3 has won over 200 Gaming Awards and so far I'm absolutely loving it. The visual fidelity in this game is second to none given its scope and it runs buttery smooth although my 670's did struggle a bit when recording.

I've already started publishing parts of my play through on our YouTube Channel and will publish all the main story quests and the more interesting side quests.

I'm just taking my time as this is the last tale in Geralt of Rivia's story so I want to enjoy every facet of it.

Incidentally, I have a free copy of The Witcher 3 that I'll be running a contest for so look for a post on that shortly.

Next up, Cyberpunk 2077; hopefully we hear news on that soon.

 

[little P]

I've been toying with getting this, everything I hear about it sounds great, but I've been here so many times before (game seems awesome, buy it and it's... meh) I'm a bit wary. I guess with the new Steam refund policy I could play a 1hr 59min demo...

I haven't played any of the Witcher games so far but I do like the look of this game. If I haven't played the other two am I going to be missing out on a lot? If anyone has played the other two could you briefly sum up the other two games stories so I can catch up?

It must be big as I can't remember any game being £49.99 on Steam...

 

[Kenadian]

No, you can jump into this game without ever playing the previous games. You can also import your saved games from previous Witcher titles.

You won't be disappointed in this little P, I can virtually guarantee it. It's simply amazing, very rich in content and the combat has gotten really polished.

I find (in the earlier levels at least), you have to approach combat tactically or you'll get dead quickly. It helps to draw enemy in close and out of view of their comrades especially when Archers are present.

The game really rewards you for exploring and just the sheer scale and diversity of geography makes every moment enjoyable. You can uncover quests simply by exploring, I've unlocked a few prior to even visiting a job board which is great.

Also, since it's dynamic weather, day/night, everything is affected by it. Monsters have different strengths/weaknesses depending on time of day and some (such as noon wraiths) are only present at a certain point in the day as their name suggests.

Great crafting system, ingame economy, leveling system, and not to mention a very detailed bestiary.

 

[little P]

Well, a Duke guarantee is worth it's weight in gold moose pats so I'll pick this up then

If it's another simshitty situation I'll be booking a flight over to the land of mounties to come and kick you in the vagina.

If I liked Skyrim would I like this?

I just watched a bit of your commentary and the tessellation on the lady's bum bum looked quite impressive so that may or may not have been another factor in my decision.

 

[Kitlope]

I've read that it's like Skyrim but better. There's even some talk that The Witcher 3 could very well be the best RPG of all time...

 

[Kenadian]

It's both bigger and better than Skyrim. This is a land in conflict and you happen to be a monster slayer dropped right in the middle of it. You can see it everywhere from deserters to burned villages to corpses hanging from a tree.

The world is both rich in content and surprising opportunities. I was actually completely at the edge of the map in a place where I thought I'd see nothing and there was loot there and a traders campsite further down the creek bed I was following.

Skyrim was and still is an amazing experience (modded) but the world and particularly the combat don't come close to what TW3 offers.

little P I'll be very surprised if you don't love it.

 

[Daunt]

I've never played any of the witcher games, but from what I've heard / seen of this one, I've got to try it. I've finally DL it and will try it this weekend, especially since the fiance is out of town :icon_cheesygrin:

 

[little P]

I picked this up today for £19.99 through Gog.com so I'll be giving it a whirl tonight. Certainly looks interesting from the 10 minutes I played earlier setting it up. Some curious things already... it crashes if running fullscreen, so have to run it window borderless mode (as recommended by Gog.com tech support) which unfortunately means I can't use DSR as it only works in full screen mode. For once though it shouldn't bother me too much as this game looks pretty damn good in 1080p. Nvidia Hairworks is brilliant too just like it was in Tomb Raider. Worth the 5 fps hit when set to "all" I think.

The thing that convinced me was everyone saying how good the dialogue and storytelling is. That's what I'm looking forward to the most. Hopefully not having played (or knowing anything about) any other Witcher content won't hamper my enjoyment of the story, but I've already planned to read through the lore as much as possible at the beginning to try and immerse myself in it. I've already stumbled across some "drowners" and got owned. Need to practice a bit I think as I've got it set on a higher difficulty from the beginning.

I may have a few questions later tonight... but I'll report back how I find it regardless. I've set aside a few hours and some wobbly pops to really get into it.

 

[Kenadian]

I've had zero issues with full screen mode so I'm surprised to hear about it. My guess is though that if it is so prevalent CDProjektRED is doing all they can to correct it asap.

TERRIFIC DEVELOPER!!!

This installment of The Witcher has clearly made some pretty big changes to combat. Drowners were previously only a nuisance but now carelessness can see you dead one on one and two are lethal in the earlier stages of the game.

The best suggestion I can give you little P is to approach combat tactically regardless of enemy faced. Enemy can be drawn behind terrain, buildings, etc., so try and engage them separately and polish them off one at a time.

...and avoid packs such as dogs and wolves at all costs unless they're busy attacking something else or hunting. This keeps them occupied so you can safely dispose of them one at a time quickly.

If they come at you in a pack you're dead.

All creatures also have the ability to spook your horse so you can be bucked from the saddle only to fall into a world of hurt.

Some of the best done environmental and situation based combat I've ever seen in any game.

 

[little P]

Thanks for the advice Duke, really enjoying it so far. Had a bit of bad AI already where a single drowner wouldn't/couldn't attack me when stationary mounted on Roach on a bridge. It just stood there while I slashed it in the face until it died...

Also I've noticed this and needed to ask, on signs or posters in game I get this weird writing/symbols. Is this the same for you? All language/subtitles/Gwent cards etc. are in English so I wanted to check if this is a bug or is this lore?

p.s. Yennefer is a babe. 10/10 would Unicorn again.

 

[Kenadian]

Yes Yennifer is a true babe, wait until you see Triss Merigold. She's so iconic that I've seen many games recreate her armor such as in Skyrim (for example):

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4708/?

I've not noticed the issue with the signs but will keep an eye out for them.

Also, explore, explore and explore more! There is so much that can happen off the beaten track and so much to find it's worth the time.

Also, for camps where soldier loot is available the best way to rob them without being attacked is to lure in a pack of Wolves (for example). They'll be too busy fighting the Wolves to notice you're robbing them blind.

There's oftentimes very good loot to be found this way.

I've run into a few AI bugs as well but there not bad given the scope of the game. I think they have somewhat complicated routines they follow and terrain can sometimes get them stuck in the middle of them.

I've only run into it once or twice myself so it's not bad considering just how much there is in this world.

 

[little P]

Played it for a couple of hours last night.

Wow.

At first I didn't really like it, not sure what it was. After thinking about it for a bit it was because I felt like I was missing out on some "insider" information during the opening sequences. I felt like the game assumed I already knew who these characters were I was watching in the cut scenes and during gameplay the little quips and comments didn't make any sense. For once though I decided to have an attention span longer than a goldfish as I want to really invest time into this game, believing the payoff to be worth it after what I've read.

So I took some time out from the game and had a little read up of what's gone on before and also the descriptions in game through the menu helped a little.

After I struggled through this I have eventually figured out the following:

Turns out I'm a bad ass witcher dude and I'm actually a big softie who is after another booty call from some hot sorceress and nobody can spell Jennifer.

Some old dude who's got the same eyes as me (is he my secret Daaaaad?!) is helping me out because he's either a. got nothing better to do or b. want's a bit of the sorceress himself before he kicks the bucket. Judging by the redness and size of his conk I have deduced he is also a raging alcoholic.

Some little kid is hanging around who never does anything anyone says and is basically an annoying little troll.

I have pretty f'ed up nightmares. Need to lay off the goats cheese at night.

I need to get better at defending myself as my back, face and pretty much everything else is covered in scars. Seriously, when someone/thing is attacking I should probably get out of the way before I'm more scar tissue than flesh.

There's an awful lot of people "hanging" around.

Roach needs to man up, he keeps throwing me off every time he spots a rabbit.

I have no idea how I won that card game but HA! IN YOUR FACE SCHOLAR BITCH!



I'm really enjoying it so far, looking forward to diving in to the Witcher world again soon. Glad I picked it up and persevered

 

[little P]

Holy Roleplaying nirvana Batman...

Duke, you weren't kidding, this game is fantastic...

I had a weird bit where a General came in while I was learning how to bow to some Emperor and asked me a load of questions and I had to choose some answers which I'm pretty sure was the game making some changes based on my answers as I hadn't played The Witcher 1 or 2. I was pretty impressed by that as although I had no way of making an informed choice to the questions (as I had no idea about the situations he was asking me about) the answers were varied enough to allow me to make a choice based on the Geralt I want to be.

The first encounter with a Griffin was quite something too, as I'm playing it on a hard setting it was definitely a challenge and I had to have several stabs at it (and the Griffin) to be able to move on with the story.

I think I'm going to do a few more of the story quests and then take a break from that and go wandering.

The weird symbols persist though, even on things like maps (as pictured below).

Duke do you get these or does it say real words. I'm guessing it's some kind of Norse language maybe?

One thing I would like to change is that if you turn subtitles off (which I like to do as they are distracting during cut scenes etc.) it turns all subtitles off. So when you are walking around the castle and people are talking in another language you have no idea what they are saying (if subtitles are on then they appear above the persons head who is speaking).

It would be nice to have an option where subtitles are only shown if someone is talking in a foreign language.

 

[Shilka]

you bought the russian version of the witcher or something?

 

[little P]

That's what I was thinking!? I bought it from cdkeys.com and redeemed through gog.com, it didn't say it was the Russian version

Everything else is English as well... :icon_neutral:

http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-pc-cd-key

 

[Kenadian]

I'll have to double check but I'm pretty sure my maps aren't like that at all. Each place has a lore type invented name to it but at least they're legible.

It honestly looks like you're playing in a different language however keeping the subtitle stuff in English.

I know what you mean about having subtitles off but most games do it this way. The only time I choose to have subtitles on is when I'm creating YouTube Videos but the remainder of the time I keep them off for immersion.

If I were you I'd just turn them off because you don't know what's being said in English half the time so why do you need to understand what they're saying in The Witcher?

 

[little P]

lol well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

Yeah if you could check the signs, posters, anything in game that will have text. Because I may just be having some kind of brain fart or something. Everything else is in English, menus, HUD etc.

 

[Shilka]

After carefull study I've come to the conclusion that your map, as well as your ingame signs, are written in the Glagolitic alphabet, an ancient slavic alphabet, that nowadays has been replaced by Cyrillic. If there's Glagolitic writing in the witcher it is usually written in polish, so if you want to translate your strange writing, first use the picture below to get the letters, then use a polish to english translator and you should be just fine.

Happy translating!