The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Wunderbar]

You should play Witcher 1 first.

 

[ColCol]

I played witcher 1.

 

[Wunderbar]

Witcher 2 introduces Vernon Broche, who have a decent role in one of W3's storylines.

 

[Quillon]

Witcher 2's story is good but it is very disappointing when you see it has so little impact on W3's story. Letho's another one who has decent role in W3 but there are some important characters who got killed off between the 2 games and those who just don't show up; so to make W3's story more digestible for those who had trouble keeping up with politics and court intrigues and whatnot of W2.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Paul_cz]

Finished all the Witcher books but the last “prequel” one and polished off Witcher 2 on Friday.... I found the game a bit wordly and definitely a departure of the Eastern Europe fantasy setting both of the first game and the first books I read (Last Wish and Sword of Destiny) but I really enjoyed a few of the NPCs and the combat I found it really made me feel like an unstoppable fighting machine

Started Witcher 3 over the weekend and oh man, while I enjoyed the combat more in Witcher 2 almost everything else here is top notch; I literally would start playing and look up and 5 hours would have gone bye
Almost everything about this game is top notch; even the most throw away of sidequests has depth and some thought put into it to make it feel unique and fulfilling.

For all the angsty edgy wannabes who dare to call this the Twitcher and dare to compare it to Bioware crap or even Skyrim... this game is just a pure joy to play and enjoy

Definetly reading the books gave me a lot more enjoyment of the games overall, getting inside jokes and background history for characters and relationships, but as a pure gaming experience this is definitely one of my favorite games of all time

Surprised you like combat in TW2 more. I didn't hate it there (or even dislike it), but I think TW3 combat is significantly more fun thanks to the addition of dodge and more skills and alternate signs. It gets a bit too easy too soon (even on death march) but cutting down bandits was fun even 400 hours in (two completionist playthroughs).

Should I play the Witcher 2 first? Or does it not really matter?

Definitely. Story-wise it is not supermega important, but it is a great game by itself, atmosphere and story are great.

 

[Falksi]

Witcher 2's story is good but it is very disappointing when you see it has so little impact on W3's story. Letho's another one who has decent role in W3 but there are some important characters who got killed off between the 2 games and those who just don't show up; so to make W3's story more digestible for those who had trouble keeping up with politics and court intrigues and whatnot of W2.

Good shout. W3 was such a disapointment after W2's events. There was so much to build upon from W2, yet it all took a backseat for a set of rather trivial person-fetch quests.

Dragon Age 2 was the same, dumping loads of potential plot threads for one that was far duller.

One of the reasons I think BG2 was so good/successful is because it took the original setup and built upon it so well. The previous game played a big part in laying the foundations of the characters & events of the sequel. Made it far more satisfying.

 

[Falksi]

Witcher 2's story is good but it is very disappointing when you see it has so little impact on W3's story. Letho's another one who has decent role in W3 but there are some important characters who got killed off between the 2 games and those who just don't show up; so to make W3's story more digestible for those who had trouble keeping up with politics and court intrigues and whatnot of W2.

Good shout. W3 was such a disapointment after W2's events. There was so much to build upon from W2, yet it all took a backseat for a set of rather trivial person-fetch quests.

Dragon Age 2 was the same, dumping loads of potential plot threads for one that was far duller.

One of the reasons I think BG2 was so good/successful is because it took the original setup and built upon it so well. The previous game played a big part in laying the foundations of the characters & events of the sequel. Made it far more satisfying.

When exactly did BG1 lay any foundations at all

The whole of BG2 was based on Irenicus's desire to exploit your power as a child of Bhaal. The entire foundation for the child of Bhaal plot is what BG1 is all about.

Plus key characters from BG1 play key roles in those events too such as Imoen.

 

[Falksi]

Witcher 2's story is good but it is very disappointing when you see it has so little impact on W3's story. Letho's another one who has decent role in W3 but there are some important characters who got killed off between the 2 games and those who just don't show up; so to make W3's story more digestible for those who had trouble keeping up with politics and court intrigues and whatnot of W2.

Good shout. W3 was such a disapointment after W2's events. There was so much to build upon from W2, yet it all took a backseat for a set of rather trivial person-fetch quests.

Dragon Age 2 was the same, dumping loads of potential plot threads for one that was far duller.

One of the reasons I think BG2 was so good/successful is because it took the original setup and built upon it so well. The previous game played a big part in laying the foundations of the characters & events of the sequel. Made it far more satisfying.

When exactly did BG1 lay any foundations at all

The whole of BG2 was based on Irenicus's desire to exploit your power as a child of Bhaal. The entire foundation for the child of Bhaal plot is what BG1 is all about.

Plus key characters from BG1 play key roles in those events too such as Imoen.

Irenicus could have easily obtained his waifu through some other plot device of which the setting is overflowing
Also I'm not entirely sure about this 'playing key role' thing, the most you could say about Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira etc. was that they were present in BG1 and said stuff when selected

My point is - there is nothing absolutely necessary which came from BG1, the sequel is barely a sequel at all plot-wise, games like PoE have as much to do with BG1 as BG2 does

He could have, but he didn't.

I'd agree that it's not necessary, but it doesn't have to be. It still takes the original's plot and builds upon it significantly, right down to the level at which you start the game. Geralt seems to have had double amnesia because loads of the skills he learned in TW2 have been eredicated come TW3. BG2 starts you exactly where you left off from BG1, and so feels way more of a continuation.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

- there is nothing absolutely necessary which came from BG1

Character levels men.

 

[Invictus]

And yes, this game may be the closest feelwise I had to the original Gothic games in a loooong time; that feeling of having to pick and choose your battles with higher level enemies was soo refreshing it makes the actual progression feel so rewarding
Hehe I even ganked the system in the same way as the old gothics by picking a fight with a couple of bandits while the local patrol was there so they would kill the much higher level bandits and I got to pick some sweet loot from their corpses and the tresure they were guarding

Enjoying the game tremendously, I am even fantasizing about what I am going to do after work :D

Mostly the only things that annoy me is that the disparity between the main quest xp rewards and the side quests; it is by far the most uneven slope I have tried in an RPG. I am guessing it does thay to kind of force the player to advance the main plot and take the side quests as a respite or something to earn extra gear or xp for that level-ups, I am guessing they balanced things out by having the leveled items so people would abuse the system so I am fine with that

Don’t really care for the new alchemy system, it equates a chicken sandwich to swallow ffs
In the book lore the potions are long lasting and Witchers would need to use them for most monster encounters... the closest the games got to that feeling was on the first Witcher, now they feel like generic health or mana portions and that is a shame

Oh and about Baldur’s Gate it is definitely right; the game built on both the character relationships and the son of Baal plot angle to have a much deeper background for the game which made it feel like an actual continuation of the overall storyline rather than a separate set of adventures starting the same characters

 

[AwesomeButton]

Do you play it with Spanish voice? Is the voice acting good?

 

[Invictus]

Do you play it with Spanish voice? Is the voice acting good?

No way, english all the way... I dont like spanish accents, I find the expressions and accents hilarious

Oh and I really desliked the switch for Dandelion’s voice actor, he sounds very old for the character

 

[Jinn]

Oh and I really desliked the switch for Dandelion’s voice actor, he sounds very old for the character

That's because the narration voice for Dandelion is him far into the future recalling the events of The Witcher 3. You'll meet Dandelion later and see the difference.

 

[Agame]

Don’t really care for the new alchemy system, it equates a chicken sandwich to swallow ffs
In the book lore the potions are long lasting and Witchers would need to use them for most monster encounters... the closest the games got to that feeling was on the first Witcher, now they feel like generic health or mana portions and that is a shame

Yea one of the many declines from TW1. The biggest problem with TW3 is the open world design, absolutely terrible decision but I guess they felt they had to do it to compete with Bethesda. I have started quite a few playthroughs and I always give up halfway through the game because the whole thing becomes such a tedious generic slog, the size of the game just makes me feel exhausted and I stop caring.

I wonder at what point developers will stop chasing the "biggest game, 100s of hours of content!" and realize that quality is more important than just having more of everything. What is so frustrating is you have decent characters, storytelling, quests etc. that could have made a nice tight RPG instead its splattered all over a huge shitty blob of potato land and not-skyrim land.

 

[Invictus]

I disagree, while the “big to be big” mentality of most new open world games is annoying (as well as the chokefull of chores in most Ubisoft games) I am actually enjoying the open ended style of this game; you can just roam around looking for alchemy ingredients and trouble or just go with the fast travel system to go from goal to goal
The size of the gameworld actually feels realistic in the sense that it is not as dense as most open world games so it just looks and feels organic... since New Vegas I have not enjoyed just wandering around just having fun and maybe running into a simple sidequest or a bandit hideout

 

[Carrion]

The world itself is really well-crafted, no doubt about that. It's gorgeous every step of the way and looks and feels like an actual place. There's a proper sense of scale as opposed to Bethesda's "let's cram an entire kingdom into a shoebox" approach, but you rarely have to spend more than a couple of minutes travelling to your destination (Skellige being an exception with its torturous boat trips). All in all, it's one of the most impressive open worlds I've seen in a game. It just sucks that they thought that wasn't enough and decided to fill it with awful, repetitive crap like all those treasure chests.

 

[Paul_cz]

The world itself is really well-crafted, no doubt about that. It's gorgeous every step of the way and looks and feels like an actual place. There's a proper sense of scale as opposed to Bethesda's "let's cram an entire kingdom into a shoebox" approach, but you rarely have to spend more than a couple of minutes travelling to your destination (Skellige being an exception with its torturous boat trips). All in all, it's one of the most impressive open worlds I've seen in a game. It just sucks that they thought that wasn't enough and decided to fill it with awful, repetitive crap like all those treasure chests.

They also filled it with couple hundred well written quests that are some of the best in the genre. Let's not ignore that.

 

[Multidirectional]

When I played it I limited myself to main and side quests with occasional contract and it was fine like that. I can't even begin to imagine what a huge pain in the ass this game must be for completionist tards though.

 

[Invictus]

When I played it I limited myself to main and side quests with occasional contract and it was fine like that. I can't even begin to imagine what a huge pain in the ass this game must be for completionist tards though.

I disagree, since most of the side quests have at least an interesting setup it is simply a joy to have a well written and voiced sequence for even a run of the mill sidequest so it never gets annoying to do them.

There are always the random encounters or the constant search for the places of power or sunken treasures so even if you dont feel like tacking a big 1 hour quest you actually feel like you are accomplishing something... but to be honest I am enjoying the game so much I just play man; I want to find that blue mutagen to upgrade my skills, check out that cave to see if I get a cool schematic, practice my horse sword fighting skills or try to see if I can kill that group of bandits without receiving a single hit just parrying
It is just enjoyable to play for the sake of fun

 

[Multidirectional]

When I played it I limited myself to main and side quests with occasional contract and it was fine like that. I can't even begin to imagine what a huge pain in the ass this game must be for completionist tards though.

I disagree, since most of the side quests have at least an interesting setup it is simply a joy to have a well written and voiced sequence for even a run of the mill sidequest so it never gets annoying to do them.

I don't get it, what are you disagreeing with here? Did I say anything negative about side quests? Not that I couldn't have, like most of them revolving around "use Batman vision to search for clues" bullshit, but eh, I made peace with that.

 

[Ivan]

That the contracts aren't as set-up as the sidequests.

 

[Invictus]

I am disagreeing with your statement that it must be a pain for completionists

It is not a pain, quite the contrary

 

[Multidirectional]

I am disagreeing with your statement that it must be a pain for completionists

It is not a pain

Maybe not for special ones like you. I can't imagine anyone sane thinking all the pointless boring treasures are actually good content that is worth their time.

 

[Invictus]

I am disagreeing with your statement that it must be a pain for completionists

It is not a pain

Maybe for special ones like you. I can't imagine anyone sane thinking all the pointless boring treasures are actually good content that is worth their time.

Dont know if enjoying the game and just playing makes me special bub, maybe you got a bit caught up on Steam achievements or something so you feel you need to do things as a chore to “complete”; to me it is just great fun to just play, get a couple of quests done and just enjoy myself