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The Witcher 3: What Geralt Wants

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I started The Witcher 2 last week. I really like it, but it controls like poop compared to Dark Souls (the game I played directly before it). Worth continuing through the control frustration?

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That was my exact trajectory: coming out of DS, Witcher 2 was a huge step back. Once you get past the controls (play it on easy so combat's never more than a nuisance) and the winding intro, the game has a fun story and world to offer.

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I got to the first open villiage. Seems like my kind of game but damn that clunky movement. I get the vibe of a "single player MMORPG" when I play it. Which I'm certainly a fan of.

 

I'll give it another go. I've got 6 hours logged (again tried it on hard and got battered for a couple of hours before putting it back to normal, which seems to be the sweet spot for me), which flew past without me noticing. 

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I am SO looking forward to this game! Playing the first one made me read the Witcher books (those that I could anyway without learning Polish). I really like the familiar but different Eastern European take on the fantasy world. The first time I played the first game, I got about 70% of the way through when my laptop died horribly. Buying the Witcher 2 and finding out I could import my save spurred me on to complete it. I was enjoying the Witcher 2, but lost momentum again near the start of Act 2. Hopefully I will start over and finish before number 3 comes out! Reading the books really enhanced my game experience, as there were many nods to them in the games, and I could sometimes see where things were going before I would have otherwise.

 

I am off to E3 next week after winning a community competition to represent the one game I am looking forward to more than the Witcher 3 (Elite Dangerous). Our booth is only round the corner from CD Projekt Red so I am hoping to have a sneaky peek and chat :)

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I liked bits of the Witcher 2. Flotsam was great, but that Dwarven town confused the hell out of me with its winding streets. The latter parts of the game I can't remember at all...

 

The writing was decent, the music was excellent, the combat on normal difficulty was very repetitive and basically boiled down to rolling around all of the time, as I went swordsman route. Probably my fault, should've jacked up the difficulty. The thing I most enjoyed about it was the armour and enemy designs. Really memorable and intricate.

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Boy, I wished I liked this series, but the controls and combat never got me. Found it very obtuse, but this open world thing looks amazing.

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I think the main offender with the combat is that when you move the camera doesn't lock onto the enemy. That simple thing has been around since N64.

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The mod did not make an improvement IMHO, but then I did not have many problems in the first place.

About the books -- they have actually all been translated to English by fans (if you have some tolerance for typos, bad translations, grammar errors).

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I started The Witcher 2 last week. I really like it, but it controls like poop compared to Dark Souls (the game I played directly before it). Worth continuing through the control frustration?

 

I've decided to revisist The Witcher 2 on PC, since I completed it before on 360, and holy crap, playing it after Dark Souls' much more fluid and tighter combat mechanics felt weird. I feel combat gets a lot more interesting later on once more interesting enemies and settings appear, but that's just me maybe. As janky as W2's combat is, I feel it's still serviceable and engaging during more creative arenas. 

 

I'll try out that mod Nappi linked since it may help a lot with my problems. I'll report back on it once I've got it running.

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The witcher 2's combat is weird. It doesn't control anythign like dark souls. It is satisfying in it's own way, but takes getting used to. Also, while it has 360 controller support, I found the mouse and keyboard controls to me much better (and I usually prefer a controller for 3rd person games). I think the mouse/kb controls were just executed better by the devs (and were also made first).

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I also preferred the mouse and keyboard controls. I didn't have huge issues with the combat in The Witcher 2, but I'm definitely looking forward to the improvements they have talked about for The Witcher 3.

 

 

I'm having a surprisingly hard time in deciding how to purchase this game. I want to support the developers (CD Projekt seems pretty awesome) as much as I can and those pre-order bonuses are pretty sweet, but I man it would be nice to have all my games in Steam library*. Then again if the GOG Galaxy client (Is it a client? I just realized that I actually know nothing about this thing) is relatively lightweight and does the necessary updating for me (quite painful in The Witcher 2 if I recall correctly), then I might just settle for that. The third option is to wait and see what the retail version includes. The Witcher 2 Premium edition (which was the standard retail edition) was pretty epic (papercraft not visible for some reason).

 

 

* Obviously not going to happen because of Origin and Uplay and so on, but anyway.

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I'm always confused when people complain about the combat in either Witcher game because I had no issues with either game besides accepting that I needed to use alchemy to fight well. Oh. And besides the balance problems where certain signs are really overpowered. I think it was the fire sign in the first game and the force sign in the second game? I don't remember. Anyway.

I'm still confused.

Oh well. ):

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On my first playthrough I used the protective sign (Quen) all the time because I thought that would keep me alive. On my second playthrough I mainly just burned the shit out of my enemies using Igni. The latter tactic worked much better, but there was also a couple of years in between the two playthroughs so the developers might have released a couple of balance updates in the meantime

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I may have already asked this in the Witcher 2 thread, but can't remember the answer, so has anyone who has had issues with the controls tested this semi-official mod?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/06/20/witcher-2-combat-mod/

 

If so, did it make the combat more bearable?

 

Edit: Linked two pages ago by Codicier.. Oops.

I'm going to be playing it on my new rig so that I finish it before 3 comes out, so I think I will test this mod out... looks fun!

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I'm always confused when people complain about the combat in either Witcher game because I had no issues with either game besides accepting that I needed to use alchemy to fight well. Oh. And besides the balance problems where certain signs are really overpowered. I think it was the fire sign in the first game and the force sign in the second game? I don't remember. Anyway.

I'm still confused.

Oh well. ):

 

In Witcher 1, I found it generally inexpicable which enemies would give me a hard time and which wouldn't. I'd go into a fight thinking that I had everything right, get absolutely rocked, then come back again a little later and have no problems with virtually the same setup. Also, the actual act of combat had very little variation as it was the potions you took beforehand that generally determined whether you were going to win or not. I also didn't find any of the spells all that useful, but maybe I was just trying out the wrong ones. I mostly used the push type spell.

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I'm quite fond of the first two games, but that trailer did nothing for me. Ultimate killing machine, go on a quest to rescue a woman, an ancient evil awakens blah blah. I know that's a good way to sell the game, and I trust that this one will have more nuanced and subtle parts just like the other two, but it still turns me off a bit hearing that hollywood film trailer narrator with an unnaturally deep voice talk about it.

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I don't think you're... rescuing a woman. At least that's not the impression I got. I think you're hunting her. (Although I think it might be Yennefer you're hunting for, who you probably don't know if you haven't read the books. Basically she's Geralt's old flame and a sorceress. If it is her, there'll be some Shit Going Down with the king guy. Who knows.) Also the wild hunt has been an element of the games for a while. It's not an ancient evil, it's a force that chased Geralt around in the second game. Well, I guess it could be considered an ancient evil, but I don't think that's ever how it was presented. I think it's more like the grim reaper of the world of Rivia. Geralt "got away" from death and that's why he was being hunted... I think. That's how I remember it. I could be way wrong, it's happened before. If I'm not, I can only assume it's the same for this woman. 

 

Ultimate killing machine... well, yeah, Geralt's always been that.

 

Okay I'm done editing my post sentence by sentence now...

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Yeah I assume its Yennefer. She was mentioned in 2 a few times, but otherwise she's only mentioned in the books. The wild hunt was also in the books and the first game. I think Twig is right, from what I remember, but yeah, it isn't an ancient evil. In 2, it was mentioned that Yennefer was killed, so presumably she also escaped death.

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The only weird thing is the woman is shows has white hair. Yennefer has black hair as far as I know, and that seems like a weird thing to change in a video game where you're not dependent on finding the right actress, etc. That said, she is a sorceress and was once a hunchback before magically making herself more beautiful OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, so I guess it's not out of the question to change her appearance again.

Hmm I don't normally speculate this much about video game stories. I feel weird.

 

I fucking love The Witcher. I need to reread The Last Wish and also read the other books. I just found out there are three translated books besides The Last Wish. Oh man.

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 Also the wild hunt has been an element of the games for a while. It's not an ancient evil, it's a force that chased Geralt around in the second game. Well, I guess it could be considered an ancient evil, but I don't think that's ever how it was presented.

 

For those curious, the Wild Hunt is a legit piece of folklore.  Historically a harbinger of doom, and possible indicating the death of those who see it, but not necessarily an incarnation of the Grim Reaper.   I've never taken it as being evil per se, more like it's a force of nature. 

 

I played W2, but honestly can't remember how much the Hunt was explained, or how much similarity it had with the classic versions of it.  I remember really digging parts of that game, but it's one that just didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me.

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Oh yeah, the wild hunt was also in Dresden files, among other things. I have heard of it. This one doesn't look a lot like the classic legend, though. I think I will also reread The Last Wish, and maybe the others.

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Ah! I don't remember it being portrayed as a harbinger of doom, but I played it like the week it came out so I can't make any promises as to how correct my memory is. That sounds entirely plausible, although I'm fairly certain I do remember that the Wild Hunt was chasing Geralt because he escaped death. Either way, yeah, the force of nature angle is sorta what I meant to get at and failed.

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Yeah I assume its Yennefer. She was mentioned in 2 a few times, but otherwise she's only mentioned in the books. The wild hunt was also in the books and the first game. I think Twig is right, from what I remember, but yeah, it isn't an ancient evil. In 2, it was mentioned that Yennefer was killed, so presumably she also escaped death.

I know, I know, I just thought the bad guy voice over was so cliche. I'm excited for the game, it's just the trailer I didn't like.

 

The only weird thing is the woman is shows has white hair. Yennefer has black hair as far as I know, and that seems like a weird thing to change in a video game where you're not dependent on finding the right actress, etc. That said, she is a sorceress and was once a hunchback before magically making herself more beautiful OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, so I guess it's not out of the question to change her appearance again.

I think it's Ciri, not Yennefer. We do see Yennefer in the trailer though, she's on screen with Geralt and Triss.

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So I've only played 2 at it was quite a while ago and I'm also currently quite pissed

Yennefer didn't appear but featured quite heavily in the story telling of the witcher 2. She was the driving force for geralts action, like she was his undying love (even though he was boning trish). So, yennefers "dead" or something very much like it, she was taken by the wild hunt.

Now, in the witcher 3 she's somehow escaped from the wild hunt and has white hair (if hanging out with a bunch of demons doesn't turn your hair white I don't know what will) but she's probably been let go on purpose to lure Getalt as he's the real prize.... Just ruined the twist for myself and you x

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