The Witcher 2 Catch-All

Oh no, I wasn't clear. DA:O was the opposite of overdesigned. Normal was also tough until you got a few levels in, it's spiritually pretty similar in a lot of way to The Witcher 2. There were a lot of things people complained about, The Fade, the Deep Roads etc that could have been fixed with a bit of focus testing, but they didn't. While I sympathise with the frustrations of people who didn't like those things I think the flaws made it a better game, for me at least.

I think that sometimes a game is better if it makes you want to gnaw on your desk occasionally. Highs are best if they follow a low.

*edit*

Ah now, you see. Danjo found the right answer that is seems the rest of us missed. CDProjeckt has given us all these toys to play with and we need to figure out how, and when, to use them. The onus is on the player to meet the challenge, or turn the difficulty down like a little girl. *raises hand*

I noticed something recently that might help people with inventory management. Junk items that you pick up don't seem to get put in any of the subcategories. They only show up in the "All" category. So, when you're selling stuff, be sure to scan through "All" for the junk. I had been in a habit of looking through subcategories rather than "All" when selling stuff.

Oooodrin. OOOODRIIIN! Love that quest. Almost skipped it but went back to complete it after I failed it on accident.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Why does he have two swords? Is it because he keeps losing one? Can girls be witchers too? :D

I don't know about girl witchers, but one sword is a regular sword for fighting (non)humans, and the other is made of silver specifically for monsters (monsters are weak to silver).

I'm getting ready to go into the mist in Vergan, and I must say this is a fantastically written game. I'm loving the lack of strict good vs evil; there have been many times I just have no idea who to believe. Putting those timers on crucial decisions gives great moments of panic, as much as I think WHYDOYOUDOTHISTOME, I love it. I think it's great that the player has no clear sense of who is right/wrong, and has no idea how their decision is going to affect things.

I think my favourite moment so far was in Vergan (pretty far into chapter 2):
[spoiler]When you're trying to figure out if Saskia was poisoned by the golden armour guy, I loved how the argument over who did it wasn't about who was guilty at all. It was about class hatred between the peasants and the nobility.[/spoilers]

At exactly the same point Forte and absolutely loving it as well.

Also, re the Triss related quest:

Spoiler:

The troll couple and their little domestic spat is genius

Forte wrote:

I'm getting ready to go into the mist in Vergan, and I must say this is a fantastically written game. I'm loving the lack of strict good vs evil; there have been many times I just have no idea who to believe.

One thing I'm noticing about TW1 versus TW2 is that there's little obvious "I'm choosing this side" options. Sometimes your choices do suck. I know when it comes around to a second playthrough I'm going to know most of the consequences of my actions, so I'm not rushing my first so I have those "ah, crap" moments when something I chose comes back on me. For example I 'failed' the Ogrin quest at the end, but really it's not a failure than a different (less optimal) way of resolving it, which makes me want them get rid of the red X when you 'fail' a quest.

Was finally able to beat you-know-who on Normal. My technique:

Spoiler:

Roll circles around him over and over while he swings at you, wait for his back to be turned, single tap strong attack, repeat. If you stay super close he doesn't cast shield; if you keep rolling laterally his Aard only hits 1/3 of the time; he doesn't seem to try grenades or fireballs. He will scratch you quite a bit, but if you get lucky he won't trigger too many bleed effects and you can beat him in maybe 3 or 4 tries. Note that I had the ability allowing Geralt to roll 200% regular distance.

I find it rather silly that a character reputed for his quickness fights like an ogre.

I bought this yesterday from Gamestop and look forward to playing it. How much will I miss if I didn't beat the first game??

Not much. I suggest you youtube the ending cutscene, though.

I noticed something odd today. Check out the airplaine trail in the sky. I dunno what it's supposed to be.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/qj13Pl.jpg)

A shooting star or maybe the comet people keep mentioning.

Sinatar wrote:

A shooting star or maybe the comet people keep mentioning.

Yeah, I figure it's just the comet. Looks more like an airplane trail, though.

I just came home from a week long trip, and I have to say I was pretty eager to dive into The Witcher 2 that was delivered while I was gone. Except it won't install, at all, and there is really no helpful advice out there I can find. The one thing that seems to work is to use a different DVD drive. And in my current case I'd have to buy a new one. It is just mysteriously incompatible with a drive I've never had trouble with before.

I'm pretty unsatisfied with the situation, there is hardly any information about it and the only suggested work-around (that doesn't require another computer/drive, neither of which I have right now) runs into the same problem. I'm completely unconvinced that the problem is with my DVD drive so much as a problem in their DVD that is causing the incompatibility.

Tannhauser wrote:

I just came home from a week long trip, and I have to say I was pretty eager to dive into The Witcher 2 that was delivered while I was gone. Except it won't install, at all, and there is really no helpful advice out there I can find. The one thing that seems to work is to use a different DVD drive. And in my current case I'd have to buy a new one. It is just mysteriously incompatible with a drive I've never had trouble with before.

I'm pretty unsatisfied with the situation, there is hardly any information about it and the only suggested work-around (that doesn't require another computer/drive, neither of which I have right now) runs into the same problem. I'm completely unconvinced that the problem is with my DVD drive so much as a problem in their DVD that is causing the incompatibility.

That's a shame. I don't think anyone here has had that problem, but I think most ordered from gog or steam.

I'm sure this probably isn't the problem, but it's the only thing I can think of. Is your hard drive formatted in NTFS?

Ugh, that sucks. Is your drive's firmware up to date? That's the only thing I can think of.

Tannhauser wrote:

Except it won't install, at all, and there is really no helpful advice out there I can find.

Try the things listed here: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witc... (run the installer in xp compatibility mode)
and here: http://en.thewitcher.com/community/ (copy the install files to your hard drive)
otherwise get in contact with them.

From http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article... (needs registration)

The other major new entry of the week, released on Tuesday rather than the Friday of L.A. Noire and most other new games, is PC exclusive The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game debuted at number five in the all format charts and sold three times more than the original game in its launch week.

That's the just UK charts.

Wow, that's awesome. Glad to see a developer's hard work and a publisher's pro-consumer stance rewarded.

Scratched wrote:

From http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article... (needs registration)

The other major new entry of the week, released on Tuesday rather than the Friday of L.A. Noire and most other new games, is PC exclusive The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game debuted at number five in the all format charts and sold three times more than the original game in its launch week.

That's the just UK charts.

That's also probably just counting retail copies right? Not gog/steam, etc?
Good news regardless.

Scratched wrote:
Tannhauser wrote:

Except it won't install, at all, and there is really no helpful advice out there I can find.

Try the things listed here: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/the_witc... (run the installer in xp compatibility mode)
and here: http://en.thewitcher.com/community/ (copy the install files to your hard drive)
otherwise get in contact with them.

I see there's a workaround for the DLC problem there. Must try that when I get home.

I hope it sells well enough for them to justify developing another PC centric title. The Witcher did sell decently, but that was over a long period of time so comparing launch figures might not say much.

kyrieee wrote:

I hope it sells well enough for them to justify developing another PC centric title. The Witcher did sell decently, but that was over a long period of time so comparing launch figures might not say much.

And with a re-release as the enhanced edition, which they needed as initially it had the buggy reputation.

One thing that will be interesting is whether they take it to consoles. Once polished up I'd like to think that has the potential to be quite lucrative for them, which could let them expand. Not bad for only their second game.

While I'm all about CDProjeckt Red getting their games on the consoles I'm not sure it would make sense for them to put this particular one out on the current gen.

The game will require a lot of trimming to even run, and certification is apparently a torturous and expensive process so I think they may incur more expenses than it would be worth. Especially because most of the people who are most interested have bought the game already, or are waiting for a price drop on PC. While conventional wisdom says the money is on consoles it's also a big risk for a smallish company.

Apparently through development they've been doing monthly builds for the 360, and they've got some impressive streaming tech in the game. With 512MB RAM to play with there's certain things they can't do which are on the PC side, so the install may shrink a bit to fit on 1/2 discs and the progression through the acts would allow for a good place to split it.

As for expense, I think a lot of that is how much they want to spend. It's not only the big publishers putting out stuff on the consoles. CDPR seem like a sensible company that don't throw money around frivolously.

Scratched wrote:

One thing that will be interesting is whether they take it to consoles. Once polished up I'd like to think that has the potential to be quite lucrative for them, which could let them expand. Not bad for only their second game.

As much respect I have for CD Projekt, for them to port the game to console would be a task that would hurt the company.

Now if a publisher wanted to buy the rights to make a console port I think it would be a good idea for CD Projekt so long as it included a clause that forbid Obsidian from having any part in the console version.

Well, if they have been doing regular 360 builds through the process even after dropping the console release then it would make sense. It's just down to certification then.

Tannhauser wrote:

I'm pretty unsatisfied with the situation, there is hardly any information about it and the only suggested work-around (that doesn't require another computer/drive, neither of which I have right now) runs into the same problem. I'm completely unconvinced that the problem is with my DVD drive so much as a problem in their DVD that is causing the incompatibility.

Sorry for your troubles. Problems like these is what has driven me to Steam and Nvidia.

You might want to try a work/library PC and copy the DVD to a thumb drive/portable hard drive and then copy to your PC hard drive.

Good luck to you!

I can understand the concern though, and companies do need to play to their strengths. Plenty of 'strong' companies have gone to the wall in the past for doing things the wrong way, or just bad luck. From what I understand, it's something CDPR has kept an eye on and put forethought into, not just "Hey guys, we're done with the PC version. Can we shoehorn this onto a few completely different systems to milk it a bit more?"

Scratched wrote:

I can understand the concern though, and companies do need to play to their strengths. Plenty of 'strong' companies have gone to the wall in the past for doing things the wrong way, or just bad luck. From what I understand, it's something CDPR has kept an eye on and put forethought into, not just "Hey guys, we're done with the PC version. Can we shoehorn this onto a few completely different systems to milk it a bit more?"

Seems like they're doing a console version to me.

Thanks for the help guys, I tried most of that stuff before I posted with no luck, which was why I was so frustrated with the problem (that, and its sheer arbitrariness). However, I got into contact with CD Projekt support and they authorized the GOG version for me with no hassle. Which is pretty awesome of them.