The Witcher catch-all

Really, now is the perfect time to be playing The Witcher, with the sequel due out in May.

For those of you not running a 64-bit OS, the game can be a little crashy.... there are ways to mitigate this, one of which is to disable autosave. I'd also recommend killing the game every two hours.... long play sessions tend to see more crashes.

AndrewA wrote:

Really, now is the perfect time to be playing The Witcher, with the sequel due out in May.

For those of you not running a 64-bit OS, the game can be a little crashy.... there are ways to mitigate this, one of which is to disable autosave. I'd also recommend killing the game every two hours.... long play sessions tend to see more crashes.

With 64 bit, I had a bunch of problems getting the game to even run. Took some animal sacrifice and maybe a virgin or two.

Runs fine once I finally got it working.

There's a big tech support thread that seems helpful on their forums. Here's the tech subforum.

obirano wrote:

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

Ooooooooh yeah.

I ran into a gamekiller bug in Chapter 4, but was able to transfer my save to my wife's computer which didn't have the same incompatibilities. As soon as I come up for air from Warcraft, I'll finish things off.

once I'm in vizima can i go back to the chapter 1 area?

Markly wrote:

once I'm in vizima can i go back to the chapter 1 area?

No. And don't expect to leave Vizima for a while either

Finally made it over the 10-15 hour hump and am enjoying this game immensely. There are some amazingly good aspects of this game.

Loaded this up after installing Win7 64-bit, half heartedly expecting some decent performance gains. Well, I'm stuck at that last fight in Vizima against the pack of demon dogs. There is a HUGE bonfire raging around me and all those fire particle effects are killing the frame rates.

Doesn't help that the fight itself is fairly intense. Was dog-handled a few times in a row, enjoying the nice load times in between.

Logged out and will get back to this game... some time later.

It's a 32-bit game, so running it on a 64-bit OS should actually be very slightly slower. Probably barely enough to even measure, but slower nonetheless.

Most likely, your video card is just underpowered.

I have played a whopping 15 minutes of the game (seemingly half has been the intro movie), and left it running in the background for much more than that. Really looking forward to diving in a bunch over the next month.

I'm finally finished. It's been three years, now. Many a hard drive wipe, many a game restart later, I am finally done with The Witcher. And you wouldn't think a video game could live up to the expectations that have been building inside me for these past few years, but lo and behold, it has. Several flaws, indeed, but it will no doubt hold a special place in my heart for the remainder of my life.

The Witcher 2 cannot come soon enough. A mere week, now. I have not looked forward to a sequel - or even a game - this much since... well, never.

Hyetal wrote:

I'm finally finished. It's been three years, now. Many a hard drive wipe, many a game restart later, I am finally done with The Witcher. And you wouldn't think a video game could live up to the expectations that have been building inside me for these past few years, but lo and behold, it has. Several flaws, indeed, but it will no doubt hold a special place in my heart for the remainder of my life.

The Witcher 2 cannot come soon enough. A mere week, now. I have not looked forward to a sequel - or even a game - this much since... well, never.

Awesome!

I wonder if I, too, will, ever be like you. I kinda fear getting back into that quicksand at the moment, even though I've certainly enjoyed what I've played of the game.

One thing I'll say, and I'm just at the end of act 5 now, the further you get the faster it seems to pass. I'm not sure if the later acts are shorter, but there seems to be less stuff that feels like filler, lots more plot.

Scratched wrote:

One thing I'll say, and I'm just at the end of act 5 now, the further you get the faster it seems to pass. I'm not sure if the later acts are shorter, but there seems to be less stuff that feels like filler, lots more plot.

Act 2 is the longest. From Act 3 onwards the game has less quests. Everything moves by faster.

I think when I pop back into it I need to see what quests I have, plan how to move the story forward, and just drop some of the side quests I had planned on addressing. I think, when I do get back to it, I'm just going to need some sense of progression to keep moving in the world. I haven't put that much time in- but 29 hours, still in chapter 2, and not sure how much more before I get to chapter 3 is kind of a hurdle for me.

It's my fault it's taken that long with exploration and such, and I've enjoyed every bit of it. Again, just looking forward to chap 3. Maybe I'll dive back in this weekend.

Decided to re-buy The Witcher on GoG the other day and started it back up. I had only made it about 1/3 of the way through before (my last save looks like it's from 2008!), and I didn't remember anything, so I started over. This game is still beautiful, especially when you hit the outskirts of Vinizia. Wonderful production values.

I'm still plugging away. I think I've put time in three or four days in a row now, which is a record for me with this game.

I'd love to be able to pull a marathon this weekend, but I don't think it's in the cards.

Sat down at about 9:30pm last night to play a couple of quests, suddenly I looked up and it was 2am. I haven't done that in a long time. Such a wonderful game! I did forget though, how frequently you fight the camera. Particularly, not being able to adjust the camera while paused (at least in the over the shoulder mode) is a big nuisance.

On a related note... are there mods for the Witcher that come highly recommended?

Push the mouse to the edges of the screen to adjust the camera when you're paused.

Oh... hahaha. Thanks!

You're welcome.

I don't know about mods, but I wish I'd seen this before I completed the game: http://www.moddb.com/mods/full-comba...

Looks mighty interesting.

I got this gifted during the Xmas sale and am considering making this the filler game until ME3 comes out. Are there any must have mods (nothing that changes the core game and mechanics though)?

Luggage wrote:

I got this gifted during the Xmas sale and am considering making this the filler game until ME3 comes out. Are there any must have mods (nothing that changes the core game and mechanics though)?

I played it a year or two ago and didn't use any mods. It works okay playing it vanilla except for the combat can get very frustrating. For example, you can get into areas that pretty much kill you instantly because you aren't leveled up enough. I don't know if there are any mods that fix that. I would just suggest playing it on easy so you don't have to deal with the frustration and can focus on the story which can be quite fun. I had a go at the game maybe 3 times and on the third it finally clicked about 10-15 hours in. The main reason I gave up the first two tries was the combat got annoying. I mention that so you will hopefully give it a chance. As far as visual mods go, the game runs like garbage on pretty much any system, so I don't think adding the high res texture mods would really be worth it.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Luggage wrote:

I got this gifted during the Xmas sale and am considering making this the filler game until ME3 comes out. Are there any must have mods (nothing that changes the core game and mechanics though)?

I played it a year or two ago and didn't use any mods. It works okay playing it vanilla except for the combat can get very frustrating. For example, you can get into areas that pretty much kill you instantly because you aren't leveled up enough. I don't know if there are any mods that fix that. I would just suggest playing it on easy so you don't have to deal with the frustration and can focus on the story which can be quite fun. I had a go at the game maybe 3 times and on the third it finally clicked about 10-15 hours in. The main reason I gave up the first two tries was the combat got annoying. I mention that so you will hopefully give it a chance. As far as visual mods go, the game runs like garbage on pretty much any system, so I don't think adding the high res texture mods would really be worth it.

The one piece of advice that is important for both games is to use your witcher's brews and other enhancement items and spells. If you play the role of the witcher in terms of preparation it makes combat much easier.

silentsod wrote:

The one piece of advice that is important for both games is to use your witcher's brews and other enhancement items and spells. If you play the role of the witcher in terms of preparation it makes combat much easier.

That's definitely something that took me forever to figure out. You have to prep for every battle. It's way more of an issue than in The Witcher 2.

silentsod wrote:

The one piece of advice that is important for both games is to use your witcher's brews and other enhancement items and spells. If you play the role of the witcher in terms of preparation it makes combat much easier.

This. Potions make combat manageable - if you don't use them you are gimping yourself.

I just finished this without any mods... I love the way choice is handled in this game. It actually makes the Bioware version seem relatively inconsequential and binary. I actually thought the combat was fine, but maybe I'm the only one... I'll agree with the others who stressed to use potions and herbalism to its fullest. I don't know if the game would have been fun without it.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

I just finished this without any mods... I love the way choice is handled in this game. It actually makes the Bioware version seem relatively inconsequential and binary. I actually thought the combat was fine, but maybe I'm the only one... I'll agree with the others who stressed to use potions and herbalism to its fullest. I don't know if the game would have been fun without it.

The BioWare "friend meter" or "paragon/renegade" meter subverts the efficacy of those systems, IMO. Even if they are implemented that way behind the scenes it strips away and makes a meta game of something that should be in the background and a real role play decision instead.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

I just finished this without any mods... I love the way choice is handled in this game. It actually makes the Bioware version seem relatively inconsequential and binary. I actually thought the combat was fine, but maybe I'm the only one... I'll agree with the others who stressed to use potions and herbalism to its fullest. I don't know if the game would have been fun without it.

I thought the combat was fine too, ONCE you figure out the prep part (I.E. using potions and whatnot). It's not usually how games work, so it took me awhile to figure it out. I liked the rhythmic mouse button presses once you figure everything out. I suppose the issue is that it's not about skill whatsoever. It's about preparation. I didn't realize that for awhile because the game is fairly obtuse and complicated. I think TW2 improved on the combat. It's completely different, however, so it's almost hard to compare.

I LOVED the choice options in TW1 and 2. They are way more complicated morally than most Bioware games. Your choices are definitely much less binary.