The Witcher catch-all

Good point. I think the reason most people get bogged down in Vizima is that there is the huge quest list and not much in the way of guidance to get each done.

But you don't need to, every quest comes up and gets solved really organically through simply playing the game. We are conditioned to backtrack run around to finish all possible quests (thanks Bioware) but The Witcher really doesn't require that.

I know what I'm replaying after my Dragon Age replay.

I just wanted to third the opinion of quests in The Witcher. In Bioware, and even worse Bethesda, games you get overwhelmed with parallel quests that send you to many different places in the game, which in turn give you even more quests. In The Witcher you are confined to an area of the game. Pick up all the quests you can and just keep running through the area. Eventually you'll meet everybody you need to meet. Open every door you need to open. And kill every baddie you need to kill. And you'll shag a couple of nice girls in the process.

Phew - back into chapter 3 finally. I'd forgotten how long chapter 2 was. Almost at the point where I left the game last time I tried to play through it, so I'm almost into unexplored territory at last.

Although I seem to have missed out on Shani's party.
Does that happen during Chapter 2, or at the start of Chapter 3? I forget.

3 I think

I believe chapters 2 and 3 both take place in Vizima and a lot of events can happen in either one.

MoonDragon wrote:

I just wanted to third the opinion of quests in The Witcher. In Bioware, and even worse Bethesda, games you get overwhelmed with parallel quests that send you to many different places in the game, which in turn give you even more quests. In The Witcher you are confined to an area of the game. Pick up all the quests you can and just keep running through the area. Eventually you'll meet everybody you need to meet. Open every door you need to open. And kill every baddie you need to kill. And you'll shag a couple of nice girls in the process. :)

I agree that this game is a lot more "focused" than most RPGs. I think this a big plus because it keeps the narrative going and cohesive, which is arguably the best part of the game.

The biggest problem I have with the quests is that they all boil down to "kill x of y" and "talk to this guy, then talk to this guy, then talk to this guy". It'd be nice if there were some actual puzzles or mysteries to solve, but they pretty much tell you exactly what to do at all times. The "walk and talk" quests are especially annoying when said parties are clear across town from each other. I guess in that case I'd rather just see a cutscene or something.

It kind of seems to me like The Witcher is an action adventure game that has been adapted to meet RPG genre expectations. Stats and items and whatnot have seemed largely irrelevant. I love the game, but in my opinion it's only a "good" game rather than a "great" game. The RPG elements actually kind of drag it down for me. If it didn't have such a great atmosphere and intriguing plot, I'm not sure I'd like it at all.

syndicatedragon wrote:

Stats and items and whatnot have seemed largely irrelevant.

What difficulty are you playing it on? I've heard alchemy and proper skill management is important on Hard.

syndicatedragon wrote:

The RPG elements actually kind of drag it down for me.

What are we talking about here?

I'd guess things like the armour or weapons, and yours or the enemy's stats. You change equipment so infrequently, it's such a minor feature of the game it might as well just be something you get along the way during the plot "thanks for helping with A, if you're heading to B you'll need this C which i found to handle the D monsters in the area". It's either that or grinding with the dice poker game to afford the upgrade as soon as you find it, which one do you think is more fun. I suppose there's a parallel to the Mass Effect 1-ME2 change taking out the inventory, it just becomes an automatic thing you need to do, to upgrade to the best kit as soon as it's available, it just consumes time and takes you out of the core of the game.

To a certain extent you need some items to buy as the quests need a tangible reward that fits in the world. Someone wanting the head of a D monster would likely pay in currency.

Has anyone used the Texturen mod yet? It's 1.4gb big, apparently enlarges and sharpens all textures.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-witche...

Citizen86 wrote:

Has anyone used the Texturen mod yet? It's 1.4gb big, apparently enlarges and sharpens all textures.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-witche...

I rarely use texture packs in games as usually they're not worth the effort. In some cases they are such as oblivion which out of the box doesn't meet it's potential due to sharing resources with the memory limited xbox, but having looked at the moddb page it seems that texture packs like this one don't add detail in the areas it's needed. From my point of view I think the main problem is that it puts nice high detailed textures where they're not needed, on surfaces that should blend into the background. I'd say such textures should be fairly plain to keep any given scene from being too 'busy', pulling the player's attention away from important things they should be paying attention to.

I also don't really remember TW's textures being that bad, I'm sure there's always higher resolution possible with increasing video memory, but another factor is using a super high-resolution texture on a surface that isn't going to take up much space on-screen (1024^2 texture on a small object) is potentially wasted efforts and memory resources. In a way I think this is an area where developing a game for a console can tune a developer's sense of where detail is needed because you have to work with limited resources (RAM and disc).

I think a project with a better pay-off would be to add detail and objects to the world, instead of a flat brick texture make a wall from modelled bricks, fill a shelf in a kitchen with utensils and ingredients, but again I don't remember TW's environments being barren box rooms that you can't imagine people living in. I'd even go so far to say putting a high resolution texture on a big flat surface makes it more obvious that it is just a flat surface.

Hmm...anyone with chapter 3 fresh in their minds able to tell me where the heck that "worried nurse" has gotten herself to? I finished her quest (kill the thing in Grandma's cellar) but for the life of me I can't find her again to hand it in (initially she was hovering around outside the hospital, and the quest marker points directly IN the hospital but she's nowhere to be seen). Starting to think it might be bugged.

Steven, I haven't done that quest yet, but have you tried looking for her at a different time of day? Maybe she will come out

I week or so ago I installed The Witcher and most of mods out, including Texturen, with the intention to play through the game. Hemidal's thread came up a day later and chose Dead Space as the game of the month. I never even booted up TW to look at the pretties.

cyrax wrote:

I week or so ago I installed The Witcher and most of mods out, including Texturen, with the intention to play through the game. Hemidal's thread came up a day later and chose Dead Space as the game of the month. I never even booted up TW to look at the pretties.

Dooooo it! Tell me if it's worth downloading

The games looks good but it's been years since I've played so I can't comment how on much better it looks.

Citizen86 wrote:

Steven, I haven't done that quest yet, but have you tried looking for her at a different time of day? Maybe she will come out

Eventually found her while randomly running through the area doing something else. She must have a fairly narrow window for appearing (or maybe I was just unlucky before). For the record, it was 13.00-ish when I found her again.

You jerks made me want to start another playthrough. I've had bad luck in finishing the game. My first time through my laptop died on the last act. Borrowed a friends computer a year later and he took it back midway through Act II. Started for the third time on my shiny new laptop and I'm almost out of Act I. The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. I know there are different methods to keeping her safe (going along the lake, going back into the camp and rest at a fire, and/or going into a house and exiting will restore her health) but I refuse to do them.

Vector wrote:

The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. .

What? How come I don't remember an escort mission?

Grubber788 wrote:
Vector wrote:

The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. .

What? How come I don't remember an escort mission?

It was pretty early on.

I don't remember it being that bad. Took me two tries I think.

Yonder wrote:
Grubber788 wrote:
Vector wrote:

The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. .

What? How come I don't remember an escort mission?

It was pretty early on.

I don't remember it being that bad. Took me two tries I think.

I don't think I had to redo any other missions. I hate how she can die even if you beat the mission.

Vector wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Grubber788 wrote:
Vector wrote:

The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. .

What? How come I don't remember an escort mission?

It was pretty early on.

I don't remember it being that bad. Took me two tries I think.

I don't think I had to redo any other missions. I hate how she can die even if you beat the mission.

How can that happen?

Yonder wrote:
Vector wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Grubber788 wrote:
Vector wrote:

The only thing I dread is the escorting Vesna Hood. .

What? How come I don't remember an escort mission?

It was pretty early on.

I don't remember it being that bad. Took me two tries I think.

I don't think I had to redo any other missions. I hate how she can die even if you beat the mission.

How can that happen?

Mission completes but she walks back to her house ever so slowly. It's almost guaranteed that one or two barghests will spawn on the way to her place. If she dies she won't be meeting you at the mill.

What if after completing the mission you save, quit to main, and reload? Seems like she might respawn back at home rather than continuing her walk, since the mission is marked as complete.

Man whores, the lot of ya!

Brings a tear of joy to my eye. My brothers!

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

breander wrote:

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

One day we'll have a game where you can have deep, meaningful relationships that slowly fostered over time, and/or hot one night stands in abandoned buildings. Fox news at 11.

Yonder wrote:
breander wrote:

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

One day we'll have a game where you can have deep, meaningful relationships that slowly fostered over time, and/or hot one night stands in abandoned buildings. Fox news at 11.

Is it so much to ask to at least have the choice in games. In Bioware games they make big deals about good and evil. If I'm evil let me sleep around with women on the various planets slash towns. If I'm a good character then I have to foster the relationships with my team mates to get laid.

complexmath wrote:

What if after completing the mission you save, quit to main, and reload? Seems like she might respawn back at home rather than continuing her walk, since the mission is marked as complete.

You could be right. I never let her die and always tried to save her. Like I said, there are all sorts of tricks to making the mission easier but I like the challenge.

breander wrote:
Yonder wrote:
breander wrote:

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

One day we'll have a game where you can have deep, meaningful relationships that slowly fostered over time, and/or hot one night stands in abandoned buildings. Fox news at 11.

Is it so much to ask to at least have the choice in games. In Bioware games they make big deals about good and evil. If I'm evil let me sleep around with women on the various planets slash towns. If I'm a good character then I have to foster the relationships with my team mates to get laid.

Well in ME2 you can sleep with Jack without getting to know her. It has negative consequences but it's possible.

Vector wrote:
complexmath wrote:

What if after completing the mission you save, quit to main, and reload? Seems like she might respawn back at home rather than continuing her walk, since the mission is marked as complete.

You could be right. I never let her die and always tried to save her. Like I said, there are all sorts of tricks to making the mission easier but I like the challenge.

breander wrote:
Yonder wrote:
breander wrote:

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

One day we'll have a game where you can have deep, meaningful relationships that slowly fostered over time, and/or hot one night stands in abandoned buildings. Fox news at 11.

Is it so much to ask to at least have the choice in games. In Bioware games they make big deals about good and evil. If I'm evil let me sleep around with women on the various planets slash towns. If I'm a good character then I have to foster the relationships with my team mates to get laid.

Well in ME2 you can sleep with Jack without getting to know her. It has negative consequences but it's possible.

Really I had to go through a bunch of dialog trees and wait in between certain ones like the others to get here to sleep with me.

breander wrote:
Vector wrote:
complexmath wrote:

What if after completing the mission you save, quit to main, and reload? Seems like she might respawn back at home rather than continuing her walk, since the mission is marked as complete.

You could be right. I never let her die and always tried to save her. Like I said, there are all sorts of tricks to making the mission easier but I like the challenge.

breander wrote:
Yonder wrote:
breander wrote:

I like how you can get laid in this game without going through all the bull sh*t hoops that bioware games make you do.

One day we'll have a game where you can have deep, meaningful relationships that slowly fostered over time, and/or hot one night stands in abandoned buildings. Fox news at 11.

Is it so much to ask to at least have the choice in games. In Bioware games they make big deals about good and evil. If I'm evil let me sleep around with women on the various planets slash towns. If I'm a good character then I have to foster the relationships with my team mates to get laid.

Well in ME2 you can sleep with Jack without getting to know her. It has negative consequences but it's possible.

Really I had to go through a bunch of dialog trees and wait in between certain ones like the others to get here to sleep with me.

She has two sex options. She'll either say "Level with me Shepard, is this about sex? If it lets get to it!" or you can slowly become her friend and she'll come to your room.