The Witcher catch-all

I just started the game. It's rough and polished at the same time. Such great production values thrown off by odd jarring moments. Still, good times so far.

The lack of a vertical sync checkbox gave me tons of screen tearing until I went into the nvidia driver options and forced vsync. Anyone else find they needed to do this?

BishopRS wrote:

I just started the game. It's rough and polished at the same time. Such great production values thrown off by odd jarring moments. Still, good times so far.

The lack of a vertical sync checkbox gave me tons of screen tearing until I went into the nvidia driver options and forced vsync. Anyone else find they needed to do this?

Absolutely. It kills the framerates on some cutscenes, but I'm willing to put up with that over the tearing.

I turn on V-sync on basically every game I can. I hate screen tearing.

Arise!

Ok, I've gotten as far as Chapter 2, and I'm rolling around the swamp, dishing out death, when the Witcher decides to become the Crasher. I'm getting freezes every five minutes or so. If I try to quit out, the process remains in the task manager and won't let me end it, even with a taskkill /f. Anyone else run into this? I've set the graphics down to medium, and turned off EAX. I'm running it on my m11x, so it might be a funky interaction with the video card.

Obvious question, do you have the game fully patched? No doubt you do, but I never had a single issue with the Enhanced Edition.

Is it crashing in a predictable way? Do you have an earlier save to see if something is messed up with that? Could you try a reinstall/patch or verify the files in steam.

Is your OS 64-bit? If so, disregard this:

One thing that really seems to bug the game out is its own auto-save feature. I had to disable that, and even then I'd crash every ~hour or so. If you disable auto-saves, make sure to set up a rotation of manual saves because when the game dies during saving it wipes the save file you were trying to write to.

Scratched wrote:

Is it crashing in a predictable way? Do you have an earlier save to see if something is messed up with that? Could you try a reinstall/patch or verify the files in steam.

It's through Steam, so I have the latest version that it can be upgraded to. The crashes are seemingly random, though they all are occurring in the same region of the game, so there might be an environmental cause within the game. I've verified the files without any change.

I'm going to try installing it on my wife's computer, and see if it's just a hardware compatibility issue with mine.

Started playing this week, just got to Chapter 3. So far I'm finding the game superior to Dragon Age in pretty much every way.

Clemenstation wrote:

Started playing this week, just got to Chapter 3. So far I'm finding the game superior to Dragon Age in pretty much every way.

I'm with you 90%...the story, characters, acting, setting and majority of the actual RPG elements are better in The Witcher...however, I found the combat a bit mundane and preferred Dragon Age's tactical combat. I think The Witcher 2 will really expand on this.

Try switching the language to Polish and turning on subtitles - I found it actually made it a really cool experience.

Clemenstation wrote:

Started playing this week, just got to Chapter 3. So far I'm finding the game superior to Dragon Age in pretty much every way.

Are you trying to start something?

They're quite different games, but I agree in that I find TW to be a better experience. It's not in the tangibles like the combat, whether it has a party or how you develop your character, but the intangibles, how the world feels a bit different from the generic fantasy setting you see so often, how your character isn't a totally blank slate for the player to project onto, and how factors like racism aren't just lip service to say "this is an ugly place with ugly people", it actually is.

I'm right with you, Clemenstration. Just finished Chapter 2. I found, though, that I was using saves and the Wiki far too much during that chapter and it kinda took away from my experience, so I've decided to forgo the Wiki from now on. Hopefully it'll make a replay more fun.

Dysplastic wrote:

Try switching the language to Polish and turning on subtitles - I found it actually made it a really cool experience.

Yeah, definitely. For me whole Witcher's universe always felt like a tale taking place somewhere deep in Slavic middle ages and some motifs (or one whole quest later in the game, guess which*) are actually taken from Polish folklore, so maybe playing with Polish voices will help to convey some of it. And it isn't too bad either.

*or I can always tell you if anyone cares

mwdowns wrote:

I'm right with you, Clemenstration. Just finished Chapter 2. I found, though, that I was using saves and the Wiki far too much during that chapter and it kinda took away from my experience, so I've decided to forgo the Wiki from now on. Hopefully it'll make a replay more fun.

Oh yeah, the Witcher is at it's best when you just relax and play the game. Make decisions based solely on the information the game gives you and try to make the best of bad situations.

I usually try to turn subtitles off in games.

With them enabled I find I usually try to read the text and skip ahead, rather than listen to the characters which is a bit of a better experience. This is becoming more and more true for me as game characters are becoming digital actors (see Mass Effect 2) rather than standing in place reciting lines and doing the odd canned animation (Geralt adjusting his glove). It's a slow movement from the old days of RPGs where text was the only way to make that much dialogue happen.

Growing up in a very loud household with three brothers and a mother who didn't find tv or videogames anything important that couldn't be interrupted by shouting at any minute I got in the habit of always turning on subtitles.

Now that those circumstances have changed I wonder if it's time to turn them off again.

UCRC wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:

Try switching the language to Polish and turning on subtitles - I found it actually made it a really cool experience.

Yeah, definitely. For me whole Witcher's universe always felt like a tale taking place somewhere deep in Slavic middle ages and some motifs (or one whole quest later in the game, guess which*) are actually taken from Polish folklore, so maybe playing with Polish voices will help to convey some of it. And it isn't too bad either.

*or I can always tell you if anyone cares ;)

The hunt?

On matter peripheral to the game.

Anyone know WTF the last wish in the book was? I cannot for the life of me come up with a satisfying answer. Responses in spoilers please.

Scratched wrote:

They're quite different games, but I agree in that I find TW to be a better experience. It's not in the tangibles like the combat, whether it has a party or how you develop your character, but the intangibles, how the world feels a bit different from the generic fantasy setting you see so often, how your character isn't a totally blank slate for the player to project onto, and how factors like racism aren't just lip service to say "this is an ugly place with ugly people", it actually is.

Yep, this is pretty much it. Very immersive world, lots of complex consequences for your actions. Doesn't feel like you're being funneled towards dichotomous outcomes either, which is something Bioware games tend to do. I've made some foolish decisions that killed off questlines but somehow I never feel like I made the 'wrong' choice, if that makes any sense. No min-max reloading makes for a better experience too (as mwdowns and nihilo suggested).

I don't hate the English voice acting either, but I might try the Polish just to see what it's like.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

The hunt?

Alina, Celina and that whole noonwraith quest.

UCRC wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

The hunt?

Alina, Celina and that whole noonwraith quest.

Ah right. That's a really sad quest, doesn't surprise me that it's based on folk lore.

I'm into Chapter 4, which I guess means I'm over the hump.

I think this would've been a great console game, and probably a better one than Dragon Age turned out to be. It's a lot easier to manage a single character from a third-person shooter perspective than a whole party. And there's a lot of potential to turn the timed-click mechanics of combat into something that feels a little more hands-on. Which is probably what they were thinking, till the console version got canned.

It probably could have been done on console. I'm not sure how much work the aurora engine would take, seeing as it runs KOTOR which was on the xbox, I'm not sure how well it could be squeezed into the PS3/360 memory though. I guess it comes down to what they wanted to work on.

They do seem to be more enthusiastic about making good content, than conquering technical problems that don't have gameplay implications. For example they're making a point of no loading screens once you're in the game, and better dialogue.

Clemenstation wrote:

It's a lot easier to manage a single character from a third-person shooter perspective than a whole party.

I have no idea what starts happening in chapter four, but from the first two chapters it seems like third-person describes the game quite well without the addition of "shooter" after it. They do make other kidns of games you know!

Sheesh, next time you'll say that Railroad Tycoon is a "Top Down Shooter" or a "Birds Eye View Shooter". You are allowed to call XCOM an isometric shooter though.

It would indeed have worked well as a console game...but that's Eastern Europe for you - PC first. And god bless'em for it.

Dysplastic wrote:

It would indeed have worked well as a console game...but that's Eastern Europe for you - PC first. And god bless'em for it.

I thought there was a plan for a console port, then some business problems with the port developer killed it. Seem to remember that going on.

EDIT: From Wikipedia:

A console version using an entirely new engine and combat system, titled The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, was to be released in Fall 2009 but was suspended due to payment problems with the console developers, Widescreen Games.

I think the parenthesis keep the link from working here, but it's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wit...(video_game)

Yes, basically they took on too many projects at once (Witcher 1 for consoles, Witcher 2 with it's new engine and one unrelated project) and also got hit by crisis.
There was also a lot of talk about developer they've outsourced part of console thingy to being really poor choice which resulted in a bit of back-and-forth between two companies but it might've been CDP Red just trying to divert attention from their financial troubles.

Yonder wrote:
Clemenstation wrote:

It's a lot easier to manage a single character from a third-person shooter perspective than a whole party.

I have no idea what starts happening in chapter four, but from the first two chapters it seems like third-person describes the game quite well without the addition of "shooter" after it. They do make other kidns of games you know!

Sheesh, next time you'll say that Railroad Tycoon is a "Top Down Shooter" or a "Birds Eye View Shooter". You are allowed to call XCOM an isometric shooter though.

Whoops, I actually meant to type 'third-person lusty wench card collecting simulator'.

Finally picked this up because of the steam sale. The game is fundamentally not what I'm into, but in the same stroke I'm drawn to playing it more.

I'm quite enjoying this so far. I just found out what really haunts the old mill.

You really cant go wrong with this game. I am going through it again myself.