The Witcher catch-all

Sounds right.

Right. And The Witcher is definitely worth the Steam price of $10. Playing just the prologue and chapter 1 already took me roughly 10 hours and there's 4 more chapters plus epilogue after that. HowLongToBeat.com says just doing the main story will take you ~35h and a completionist run 15-20 more, so definitely good value for the money.

Luggage wrote:

Right. And The Witcher is definitely worth the Steam price of $10. Playing just the prologue and chapter 1 already took me roughly 10 hours and there's 4 more chapters plus epilogue after that. HowLongToBeat.com says just doing the main story will take you ~35h and a completionist run 15-20 more, so definitely good value for the money.

What that doesn't tell you is that the next 30 hours all take place in the same city, and can be a bit of a struggle to get through. Totally worth it though.

Squee9 wrote:

Got ya, so...

1) I put The Adventure of Squee out on Steam at a price point of $100, which is a price Steam and I agreed on.
2) I make $50 for each sale. There is much rejoicing.
3) Steam offers to put my game on sale, I agree to it, and AoS goes on sale for $50.
4) I only make $25 a sale, but I move so many copies (digital copies no less, very little expense on my end here) that I end up making a bunch of money from the sale.
5) Coldstream waits until the sale is over so he can spend $100 on my game to ensure that Squee gets his full $50.

Right?

Wait, step 5 seems a bit iffy to me.

Luggage wrote:

Right. And The Witcher is definitely worth the Steam price of $10. Playing just the prologue and chapter 1 already took me roughly 10 hours and there's 4 more chapters plus epilogue after that. HowLongToBeat.com says just doing the main story will take you ~35h and a completionist run 15-20 more, so definitely good value for the money.

I am in Chapter 2 (towards the back half hopefully) and am at 32 hours. I did end up having to take a break at the 30 hr mark, but things seem very much back on their way now.

Yeah, agree about it being worth $10.

As mentioned before, I am less than a week back into the game after an 8 month vacation. When I quit the game last tine I felt I was about half-way in Chapter 2; this was at the 30 hour mark. I’ve put 4 more hours into this chapter now and I’m beginning to believe chapter 2 never actually ends. Please confirm this chapter ends at some point and there is a 3rd chapter. It’s still fun, but man I feel stuck in a part of the game.

Where I am:

Spoiler:

I just completed the autopsy. As a save break I decided to go back to Raymond to report that Kalkstein is the murderer. I had the conversation with Raymond and quickly realized I was too ready to quit the game to be paying full attention to the conversation I had walked into (I expected it to be simple). So I quit the game without saving so that next time I can walk through that dialogue with more attention to be sure I’m selecting what I really want to choose.

All of that is just to tell you where I am in the game: please tell me I’m in the back-half of Chapter 2. It’s silly to even care what break the game says I’m in, I just wonder if it will take another 4 hours to actually finish the chapter so that the story can move forward.

That's the end of chapter 2. You may need to talk to Triss to move on. I can't recall. The game moves much more quickly after the autopsy part. You also get to go to the pretty bustling part of the city which is nice.

For what it's worth, I think it's a good call to take a break if you're not ready to pay attention to everything. You could play through just skipping dialogue, but it's so much better if you pay attention as it's actually involved and important. Getting in the right frame of mind is important for most games.

The Witcher is the longest RPG I'vet played since I began keeping track of game length. (No doubts I spent a lot more time finishing every sidequest in Tales of Phantasia for the SNES (99 level optional dungeon anyone?))

I clocked 36 hours on one playthrough, and that was with me using a walkthrough to find all the side quests. The beginning chapters are definitely where most of that time comes from.

Chapter 2 is actually a really interesting design case. Usually solving a murder mystery in an RPG is just a matter of talking to everyone in a linear order until the "mystery" is solved. In the Witcher, things are a bit more complicated. You actually have to pay attention to everything people say, and piece together enough information to avoid accusing the wrong individuals. Doing things in a different order can lead to a completely different "prime suspect". The story eventually converges in the same general place but the path you take can be very different. The problem is that most gamers are ill prepared for such things and expect the standard series of rote quests. Personally, I completely missed reading the original quest item that outlined the suspects, and some of my journal wasn't filled in as a result. I managed to muddle through by talking to everyone, but much of the information I received didn't make a lot of sense because I missed the fundamentals of what I was actually setting out to do. By chance I ended up getting the "good" outcome, but couldn't actually close out the case until I read that dang piece of paper!

So I am in the second half of Chapter 2, witching around in the swamp (wheee, green boobies!) and I only have one question. Does Thaler ever go broke when playing dice poker? I must have won 2,000 orens from him yesterday (back to back games) and he still wanted to play.

I seem to recall playing poker becomes less lucrative if you keep winning against the same person. If you're save scumming to get cash, you might as well just save your time and edit the save, which is what I did on my second playthrough.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

That's the end of chapter 2. You may need to talk to Triss to move on. I can't recall. The game moves much more quickly after the autopsy part. You also get to go to the pretty bustling part of the city which is nice.

I've put three more hours in since you said I was at the end of chapter 2 (sounds accusatory, not meant to be- just saying the game is a time sink):

Spoiler:

I know Raymond is fake, I've got Ramsmeat to agree to faking his death, I also finally got access to the cemetery (which took me forever to figure out) and cleared that out. With the exception of a quest I broke by killing an NPC (I think that's what happened-- it was a long time ago) and finding a kid in the swamp I think I'll have every side quest. I know I need to collect some things (again been a while) to make something happen in the swamp involving the lightening rod I had made-- not sure where I need to hunt those down (I think there's like 10 of them and I have maybe half) but may have to go to a guide for some sort of direction, considering how long ago it was that I started some of this.

Some quests will progress while doing other ones fairly often, if you think you're at a dead end just move onto something else.

I need to replay this. I've forgotten so much of the story =(

Ugh, finishing this game is definitely on my to do list. I really loved it but somewhere in Chapter 2 this thing called life got in the way and I never finished it. I've gone back a couple times but I feel like I can't remember what the hell is going on now. I don't think I can face starting over though. I guess I could read a walkthrough up to the part that I'm at to remember but they tend to be very sparse on story. I definitely want to play Witcher 2 but feel obligated to finish the original first (plus it's a great game in its own right...).

Then of course there is this endless hole called Skyrim that I've found myself sucked into....

Scratched wrote:

I seem to recall playing poker becomes less lucrative if you keep winning against the same person. If you're save scumming to get cash, you might as well just save your time and edit the save, which is what I did on my second playthrough.

Well, Thaler always goes in with 110 Orens and then 0, 1 or 2 as a raise. I was only going to win back the money I had just spent on the rune and meteorite ore, but then I kept going to see how much money he actually has.

On the topic of the criminal case in chapter 2, either I missed something or it just was impossible to implement it well enough with the amount of variety that chapter 2 holds. I visited the detective pretty late, which is the incident that triggers the criminal case I believe. By that time, I had already dismissed 2 or 3 suspects in a case that I had no idea what it was about. Meaning I had finished some of the "Suspect: [name]" missions without ever actively pursuing them. I still don't know what the crime is (except maybe finding the snitch causing that ambush in the sewers right at the start of the chapter).

So I finished chapter 2 last night shortly before the bowl kick-off. I suppose the fight was scripted to end by not ending? Steam showed 30h, but it didn't track 2-3 hours along the way. Romanced all there was to romance and did all the side stuff. So I guess I am right there with demonbox. Didn't pick sides in the swamp conflict, hope that won't come back to haunt me.

All in all I am very impressed by those 30h. When I was making my way through the swamp to unlock the chapter finale, I thought back to the prologue, when I had just started the game. How clunky the controls felt. How I button mashed my way through the hordes, not understanding the combat mechanics. And how I wasn't impressed with the games graphics and animation during the prologue. 30h later and all that lies behind me. I am now living and breathing an RPG that is great because its storytelling and game mechanics are so different from what BioWare and Bethesda have been offering over the last decade.

39 hours into the game (9 hours since I took the game up again, near the end of Chapter 2) and I know I am finally at the end of the chapter. I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it'll be within a half-hour or so. I love this game. I'll be really happy when Chapter 3 finally becomes attainable for me.

demonbox wrote:

39 hours into the game (9 hours since I took the game up again, near the end of Chapter 2) and I know I am finally at the end of the chapter. I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it'll be within a half-hour or so. I love this game. I'll be really happy when Chapter 3 finally becomes attainable for me.

Awesome! You will get a refreshing change in chapter 3!

demonbox wrote:

39 hours into the game (9 hours since I took the game up again, near the end of Chapter 2) and I know I am finally at the end of the chapter. I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it'll be within a half-hour or so. I love this game. I'll be really happy when Chapter 3 finally becomes attainable for me.

Wow, what did you do in the 9h more? Grind? Gather? Play dice poker? What level do you end chapter 2 on?

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
demonbox wrote:

39 hours into the game (9 hours since I took the game up again, near the end of Chapter 2) and I know I am finally at the end of the chapter. I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it'll be within a half-hour or so. I love this game. I'll be really happy when Chapter 3 finally becomes attainable for me.

Awesome! You will get a refreshing change in chapter 3!

Irony overload :p

Luggage wrote:
demonbox wrote:

39 hours into the game (9 hours since I took the game up again, near the end of Chapter 2) and I know I am finally at the end of the chapter. I'm not there yet, but I'm guessing it'll be within a half-hour or so. I love this game. I'll be really happy when Chapter 3 finally becomes attainable for me.

Wow, what did you do in the 9h more? Grind? Gather? Play dice poker? What level do you end chapter 2 on?

Mostly, like most of the game, try to figure out what the heck to do next. I'll have to check character level when I get back in the game. I don't feel I was ever too lost, outside of knowing what I wanted to happen and not knowing who to talk to in order to make it happen. Trying to figure out how to get in the cemetery was a bear for me.

Spoiler:

I knew Thaler could clear the debt of the gravedigger but only after I cleared him-- and I wasn't sure how to do that. It was somewhat by accident that I found out about Shani's party-- I honestly didn't know she had another dialogue option to give me when I wondered back to her house.

I ended up looking at the Witcher wiki a few times for hints here and there. I would have had a hard time realizing I needed to talk to the druids to get a storm and then stick the rod in the gollum without having looked at that part. The intro part of the Witcher wiki actually offers excellent intro guidance as well. I'm not someone who typically checks such things, but I found it offered good advice.

You can get into the cemetery? O.O

You can. It can actually make the investigation much easier, though I had already figured out who the real villain was before that point. There's not a lot there, but there is some content.

I can finally confirm that Chapter 3 exists- YAY!

Luggage wrote:

What level do you end chapter 2 on?

I am level 18. I don't know if that is pretty high level or not, though I would hope that my hours+ of play would at least yield a high-level character.

Hmmm, maybe it's worth going back to an hour older save then and explore the cemetery. I talked to the gravedigger so often without any new dialogue option opening up, i just thought the cemetery would never open up or not before chapter 3.

I was finished the chapter with level 19 btw. Only did the crypt in the sewers a dozen times, no other focused experience grinding.

If you do go back to Chapter 2 there is some info from a guide I read (sort of a things you should know post) that I wanted to share-- I couldn't find the original post, but here is some good info:

Items to definitely pick up?

Apart from powerful and rare swords, usually received by solving quests, there are a few items you definitely will want to get:

Excellent Leather Jacket

In Chapter II, the Order merchant or the dwarven Trader in the Blacksmith's house, will sell the Excellent Leather Jacket for 5000 oren(s). Save your money and ensure your armour stats significantly improve.
Tip: Before you buy the armour upgrade, sell your old Studded Leather Jacket for 500 oren(s) to the Order armourer. In theory you could also sell this jacket to the blacksmith in Murky Waters.

Harvall
In the very north of the Swamp, be sure to visit the Wyvern Island, there you will find a Messenger's corpse with the very powerful steel sword, Harvall.

Yeah, picked both of those up. The 5,000 orens for the jacket stung a bit, but I was back to 2,500 with all available books purchased at the end of chapter 3.

One question, since you also just finished it. Did you also have that bug during one of the dalogue cutscenes of the swamp encounter with the two baddies, where the music wasn't faded out, so you could barely understand what they or Geralt were saying?

Also, general question to the crowd. How do the premium modules work? Do they use an existing save of the main game or do they work like "The Broken Link" or "Minerva's Den", i.e. starting with a pre-set Geralt without any connection to the main story?

No, I didn't get that bug at all-- that's too bad. There wasn't anything all that relevant in the dialogue, still that kinda sucks (all that time to build up to a scene you couldn't fully experience). I'm a bit over $3,000 orens right now. A few nights ago I decided I wanted to grind some $ through playing poker (or whatever it's called). After an hour of losing almost every hand I decided to hold off and see if maybe this will be enough $ to carry me through the game. I'm kind of in a place, though, where I want to buy every book on plants that I can-- so hopefully that won't be too much of a financial drain.