The Witcher catch-all

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The Witcher Catch-All.

I run the game in window mode so I can alt tab while it loads.

I don't suppose the engine ha a feature to display framerate? I've played with settings to no noticeable effect, and have decided that the engine just 'feels' a bit sluggish with how things are displayed. But it would be nice to know for sure. Then again, maybe I'll just install FRAPS and do it that way.

I haven't gotten very far in the game yet, but I like what I've seen so far. It feels more mature than most RPGs, the mechanics seem pretty nice so far, etc. Not much to say until I've gotten a bit further though.

I've been trying to get into this. I don't really play too many RPG's, but all the talk about ambiguous moral choices and the detailed story got me interested. I don't really mind the game too much, but I feel like after 2-3 hours I'm still learning how to play it.

I'm about where you are- in the Vizima area of Chapter 2. I just keep getting frustrated feeling like I'm not playing it correctly or something. For example, I need to enter the crypt area to find someone for a quest, but doing so without a light source seems like certain death. However I have no idea how to find a torch, nor any idea how to make the Cat potion. I get that you need to do it during meditation, and you need the ingredients, but then where do I get the ingredients? Oh, I need books? Where do I get the books? Oh, I have to buy them? How do I get money? Oh, I sell things... where do I get things to sell?

There just seems to be so many steps to doing something, and even with the tutorials, I'm having a hard time figuring out the right way to do them. I feel the same way I felt first playing Morrowind, which was my first RPG ever- just lost with no idea how I'm supposed to be playing the game (though after learning how to play, it became one of my all-time favorites). I think I just need to stick it out a little longer, learn the mechanics, and THEN I can start enjoying it. Because it does seem like theres a good game there.

I'll also say the dialogue seems really strange- not sure what it is, the conversations just feel really unnatural. I guess this is a translation issue?

It also seems like the combat could be a little tighter as well. Something about the animation, maybe how it registers your mouse clicks, feels wishy washy and unspecific. It's hard to tell what effect your clicks, or lack thereof, are actually having on your characters actions. This is even worse in the fist fighting mini-game, where I was totally lost about what my clicking was making my character do.

And I won't even get into the skills tree. I have a hard enough time learning how to perform activities in the game world, I have an even harder time knowing what kind of benefits certain skills will warrant me, which ones I should choose, etc.

So yeah, probably a great game for those who have played a lot of other RPG's, but for an RPG noob, its overwhelming and frustrating so far.

Oh yeah! Performance – on the plus side, my aging 6800 GT manages this pretty well on medium settings. So that's a nice surprise.

MoonDragon, I think you end up getting the drugs you need off a Salamander body in doing one of the quests in the Temple District (as opposed to just finding it), but I forget exactly which one that was.

Spoiler wrote:

[color=white]My best guess is there was a canned sequence in a particular location that lead me getting the drugs, but I forget wear it occurred. Have you gone back to Raymond's house lately? I think one of those sequences occurred there. Might've just been a sequence in the streets of Vizima at night, though.[/color]

Also, I'm getting on towards the end of chapter 2 now (I hope!) and I've had to do some back and forth to the swamp area to keep the plot rolling. If you're stuck, I'd highly suggest just going there and taking care of what you can in the swamp. It might help get some of those threads moving. There's *a lot* to do over there, including fulfilling a lot of the Vizima job posting board stuff (alghouls, wolves, drowned dead, etc.).
---Todd

Eric_c. I think you're right that Witcher isn't an ideal game for someone not used to more... epic (in scope/depth) RPGs. But I think if you can hang in there, especially until you get into Vizima (sounds like you're on the outskirts) and get your feet under you there, you'll start having some fun.

Anyway, I don't think there's a way to get a torch on the outskirts of Vizima. (Speaking of which, I'm still looking for a way to use a torch without having to wield it as a weapon. Am I missing something?)

This is probably more detail than you need, but you'll need to brew a Cat potion for the Crypt. (I don't think any of this requires a spoiler tag.) In your Journal you should have a recipe for it that tells you the ingredients you need. If you need money to buy them (I think most can come from the Witch), do some of the other quests first. They pay well enough that affording ingredients shouldn't be a problem for just one potion. Once you've got that, do the meditation thing and choose the Potion icon and then select Cat from the list. If you have the ingredients they'll all be laid out on the screen for you and you'll just need to click the Mix button. It's actually very simple once you get the hang of it. Brew more than one, if you can. It appears that they'll come in handy throughout the game (or least through Chapter 2).

Hope this helps!
---Todd

Thanks, that does help. One thing I found confusing is that, I guess, you can't hold individual ingredients in your invetntory? You can only hold items that have those ingredients in them, and in turn those items are used in the creation of potions. I kept looking for some way to extract the ingredients out of the item and into inventory slots or something, was getting really confused. =P

@eric_c
Why would that be confusing? If you want some vitamin C, you don't go around looking for and eating powder. You eat an apple, or an orange.

@ubakto
I completed all the quests in temple district that deal with Salamanders (not squirrels I guess). I've been attacked by the group at night, I've been to the warehouse, I've done the whores quest. I can't find any other quests to do to kill Salamanders. When I 'track' the drugs quest, it points me to non-human district, but when I get to the marker there is no Salamanders there for me to kill. Not sure if that's a bug or what. At some point I did get drugs to drop for me (from one of those quests) but I had to reload the game and next time around they didn't drop. Had I known I needed it, I would've reloaded the last encounter until I get some. After perusing the web a bit, I noticed there is an alchemical recipe to make the drugs. I suppose I could cheat and just make me some to advance my quest.

Overall, I did notice that you can mess up some of your quests if you don't do things in order. If you wonder off the beaten path, or don't do things in the order in which the game presents you with them, you may end up messing up some of the quests.

MoonDragon wrote:

Is there a spot anywhere that would allow me to find some squirels I can kill for drugs?

Are you talking about fisstech? If you are, it's sold by Coleman at the Hairy Bear Inn (Vizima Temple District - Slums). If you're not, the only other mention of drugs by non-humans I've seen so far was at the Lumberjack clearing in the Swamps. Talk to the head honcho and ask him about witcher work. If that's also not it you're further along than I am.

Overall I'm digging the game, but I find my interest waning from time to time. I think in part it's because I insist on doing most of the side quests, which means moving around a lot between only a few areas. And that can get boring after a while.

Oh, and eric_c, two pieces of advice. Don't make your own potions manually. When you bring up the potion making screen, on the left is a list of potions you can make. Those you have ingredients for will light up. Those you cannot make will be grayed out. Just click on the bright recipe and it will automatically fill the slots for you.

If you're doing it manually, you may want to make sure that the secondary component of your ingredients matches throughout (you'll notice that most ingredients have two components--first is what you need for recipe and the second is there for special bonuses). If you manage to meet the requirements of the recipe with primary components, and manage to get all the secondary components to be the same, the potion will end up having additional bonuses.

The second advice is to start the game from the beginning once you start feeling more comfortable with the mechanics. I think you'll enjoy everything a lot more once you get over wrestling with the game interface and start enjoying the game content.

Oh, and about the crypt, I swallowed some potion (not Cat) that gave off an aura around me. That was enough to go into the crypt and do what I needed to do there.

As far as swordfighting... I hope I'm not insulting your intelligence here, but: when you hover the pointer over an enemy, it will change from a dot to a sword icon. Click on the enemy and Geralt will go into attack mode. He will start performing a sequance of attacks. During the sequence the cursor will be a crossed out sword. If you click during that time, you will interrupt the sequence and will get 'Too Soon' message. Once he's finished with the sequence the cursor will change into a flaming sword. If you click during the flaming sword cursor Geralt will continue his attack and will now execute the second attack sequence. And so on.

Lord_Xan wrote:

Are you talking about fisstech? If you are, it's sold by Coleman at the Hairy Bear Inn (Vizima Temple District - Slums).

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. The problem is that in my game Coleman is dead (consequences of a choice from Chapter 1).

You can find fisstech as random drops from most thugs that litter the streets at night, or buy it from Coleman. Of course, depending on your choices in the outskirts, he might be dead.

eric_c wrote:

I'll also say the dialogue seems really strange- not sure what it is, the conversations just feel really unnatural. I guess this is a translation issue?

Yeah, it is. Atari skimping on the money for voice-actors to be specific. (And not giving good direction to the voice actors as well, judging from performances. Somtimes they're perfectly fine, other times it seems they have no clue as to what notes they're supposed to be hitting.) The polish version is a lot more wordy, and there was a longer and more accurate translation at one point but it was cut down a fair bit, resulting in the current occasional gibberish.

eric_c wrote:

It also seems like the combat could be a little tighter as well. Something about the animation, maybe how it registers your mouse clicks, feels wishy washy and unspecific. It's hard to tell what effect your clicks, or lack thereof, are actually having on your characters actions. This is even worse in the fist fighting mini-game, where I was totally lost about what my clicking was making my character do.

High framerates are essential to enjoying the combat in Witcher. If you are getting under 25 fps, change the settings until you do. When I was running the game around 20-22 fps, I could stumble my way through combat but the game felt just like you describe: disconnected, wouldn't register clicks, etc. I tightened the game up to 40 fps (looks terrible) but the combat plays like a dream, very relaxing and yet engaging.

Otherwise, most of your reactions are normal. RPGs are deliberately obtuse, the whole point of the genre is discovery. The game's creators intentionally put things in the game without explaining them, RPGs encourage you to experiment and learn things for yourself. If you aren't jiving with it, look up a Witcher FAQ or guide on the internet and find out that way.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

You can find fisstech as random drops from most thugs that litter the streets at night, or buy it from Coleman. Of course, depending on your choices in the outskirts, he might be dead.

eric_c wrote:

I'll also say the dialogue seems really strange- not sure what it is, the conversations just feel really unnatural. I guess this is a translation issue?

Yeah, it is. Atari skimping on the money for voice-actors to be specific. (And not giving good direction to the voice actors as well, judging from performances. Somtimes they're perfectly fine, other times it seems they have no clue as to what notes they're supposed to be hitting.) The polish version is a lot more wordy, and there was a longer and more accurate translation at one point but it was cut down a fair bit, resulting in the current occasional gibberish.

Yeah, I particularly love when NPCs just ask "What?" at the end of a conversation, as if they were idiots. The mistakes in this game are actually enjoyable, they are of the So-Bad-It's-Good kind.

MoonDragon wrote:

As far as swordfighting... I hope I'm not insulting your intelligence here, but:

Haha, no, it's ok. The icon makes it very clear what's going on, but it's the actual character animation and general visual feedback that seems sloppy. I suppose it just feels like it could be more satisfying with a snappier feel. Ideally that icon shouldn't even be needed if the visual feedback of the animation was clearer.

MoonDragon wrote:

If you want some vitamin C, you don't go around looking for and eating powder. You eat an apple, or an orange.

This is true, I've just never seen that sort of implementation in a game before. I'm used to something like, "Potion A requires flower B and flower C," ala Morrowind or Oblivion (shows how many RPG's I've played) and not that extra level of item sub-properties. It's easier to understand in a real world context where we know that C is a vitamin, but not as obvious in a fantasy context where the both the item and its properties have seemingly meaningless names (that is until I learn more of the gameworld).

Anyway, looks like I'll just have to spend a bit more time with it.

souldaddy wrote:

Yeah, I particularly love when NPCs just ask "What?" at the end of a conversation, as if they were idiots. The mistakes in this game are actually enjoyable, they are of the So-Bad-It's-Good kind.

You know, I'm enjoying this game so much I almost don't notice that stuff anymore. At first I was like what the hell? But now I just think to myself, "oh those whacky translaters." It does make me wish I could play the untarnished translation, though.
---Todd

MoonDragon wrote:

Overall, I did notice that you can mess up some of your quests if you don't do things in order. If you wonder off the beaten path, or don't do things in the order in which the game presents you with them, you may end up messing up some of the quests.

yeah, I've got some incomplete quests in my log because of that. But I don't think the Fisstech thing is one of 'em. That one's pretty germane to moving the plot forward.

Is anyone at the point of getting the ten sepirah(sp?) stones yet? I'm down to just needing two (the tower sentry and the one you get by happenstance) and I don't seem to be making any progress on getting them. I've been to the tower, but didn't see anything there that qualified as a sentry and I have no clue what will cause that last one to fall into my lap.
---Todd

ubrakto wrote:

know, I'm enjoying this game so much I almost don't notice that stuff anymore. At first I was like what the hell? But now I just think to myself, "oh those whacky translaters." It does make me wish I could play the untarnished translation, though.

Hopefully someone dedicated enough will allow that to happen, at least in subtitle form, once they release the SDK in about a month.

ubrakto wrote:

Is anyone at the point of getting the ten sepirah(sp?) stones yet? I'm down to just needing two (the tower sentry and the one you get by happenstance) and I don't seem to be making any progress on getting them. I've been to the tower, but didn't see anything there that qualified as a sentry and I have no clue what will cause that last one to fall into my lap.
---Todd

[color=white]

spoiler wrote:

I believe the sentry is the golem you have to re-animate with lightning, if I'm not mistaken. He's at the golem graveyard close to the ruins of the tower. I haven't finished that part yet. I still need 2 more stones as well, but I found one in a coffin in a cave in the swamps, so if you haven't found that one, search the caves in the swamps. I'm still waiting for another one to show up but I'm not sure where it's going to come from.[/color]

Montalban wrote:

[color=white]I believe the sentry is the golem you have to re-animate with lightning, if I'm not mistaken. He's at the golem graveyard close to the ruins of the tower. I haven't finished that part yet. I still need 2 more stones as well, but I found one in a coffin in a cave in the swamps, so if you haven't found that one, search the caves in the swamps. I'm still waiting for another one to show up but I'm not sure where it's going to come from.[/color]

Thanks! Got the stone from the cave. That was easy pick'ns. But about the sentry one:

spoiler wrote:

[color=white]I know exactly the Golem you're talking about and I kept trying to click those pillars around him, but every time I went to click the third pillar the lightning would stop on the first two. When I click on the golem itself there's like a donation tray there, so I had figured there's something I have to give him, but no idea what. I should probably re-read my journal entries on the topic. Must be a hint there.[/color]

---Todd

What I like:

Action - When you get into a good fight, it really feels like you are the bad-ass star in your very own action movie. The fighting moves are slick! Geralt's finishing moves make me reload several times, just so I can redo a fight for the sheer fun of it.

Storyline: what I have seen so far makes me wish for an English version of the novels. Great stuff.

What I don't like:

Load times. I have a Core2 machine with 2GB RAM, so I am not experiencing the looooong load times others have mentioned. But still, the load and save times are longer than games like Oblivion.

GUI. Nope, not a fan of this game's GUI. The inventory system is especially cumbersome. Considering the large amounts of regeants you have to keep on hand, it would be nice if there was a sort function.

Quest tracking. Activating this shows a happy little spot on your map, telling you where to go. Problem is, the quest giver isn't always freaking there.

Player pathing. I'm a Witcher dammit. Biochemically engineered super dude. I should be able to jump over a fence!

Witcher Guide (spoilers). Note the navigation is on the left.

My initial foray was tempered by the main character being unexplicably reduced to a {ableist slur} for the sake of a tutorial I didn't want, and the developers' inability to just take the damn load points into account:

"Go into the fort and kill some dudes!"

I kill some dudes.
"Let's go back outside again for no reason."

Poorly translated conversation that could just of easily taken place inside occurs.
"Let's go back to where just were."

Throw me a bone here, guys.

Does the combat ever get more involved than clicking when the pointer lights up?

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Does the combat ever get more involved than clicking when the pointer lights up?

Umm... ummm... look, a bunny!

EDIT: That's not fair of me. You have different stances for fast, power, or group attacks, plus a series of spells to to augment the sword. You can choose different weapons and potions as well, but these mainly reflect pre-combat choices, ie, use what the monster is weak against.

souldaddy wrote:
Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Does the combat ever get more involved than clicking when the pointer lights up?

Umm... ummm... look, a bunny!

EDIT: That's not fair of me. You have different stances for fast, power, or group attacks, plus a series of spells to to augment the sword. You can choose different weapons and potions as well, but these mainly reflect pre-combat choices, ie, use what the monster is weak against.

Sword combat remains "Wait for the right moment to click again and again" but putting points into sword styles adds neat-o animations and changes when you need to click. I know that sounds lame and it may remain lame for some, but for me it is enough to keep things fresh.

What really adds to the combat on a brute force level are the spells, which again, don't change much over time but add variety if you choose to use them, and again like the sword levels, add new and interesting animations and finishing moves if you level them up. I don't find myself using them all that much as I put most of my points into sword styles, but it's nice to have them there when needed.

So what I'm hearing is that the story is great, but neutered by poor translation; and the combat will cause my blood to spontaneously coagulate in my arteries due to boredom.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

So what I'm hearing is that the story is great, but neutered by poor translation; and the combat will cause my blood to spontaneously coagulate in my arteries due to boredom.

Yes, and you should sell your copy (International Version I presume) to me at a steep discount.

Right?

Scaphism wrote:
Danjo Olivaw wrote:

So what I'm hearing is that the story is great, but neutered by poor translation; and the combat will cause my blood to spontaneously coagulate in my arteries due to boredom.

Yes, and you should sell your copy (International Version I presume) to me at a steep discount.

Right? ;)

I'm going to give it another go, but if it doesn't jive with me then I'll just send it to you since I didn't pay for it. We can all pass around the softcore rpg.

I broke down and checked out part of the walkthrough linked above (thanks, Souldaddy!) and...

spoiler wrote:

[color=white]it seems you have to jump through some hoops to activate the golem sentry and get his sepirah stone. This is the last stone I need now (got the other one last night), but from what I can tell, you have to get some kind of tarot card from Vaska (the old lady brickmaker), but ever since I got one of the stones from her she's disappeared. I can't find her in the brickmaker camp or in the clay pits. Anyone god an idea where she's supposed to be?[/color]

---Todd

Have you tried looking for Vaska inside her house? It should be marked on your map, and the door should be labeled as such. It's one of those obvious things that's pretty easy to miss since most games don't bother giving the npcs schedules and have them move about.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Have you tried looking for Vaska inside her house? It should be marked on your map, and the door should be labeled as such. It's one of those obvious things that's pretty easy to miss since most games don't bother giving the npcs schedules and have them move about.

ARGH! I never even realized there was a door on one of those little huts I could enter. Thanks!!!
---Todd

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