The Witcher 1 Thread

[made]

Not everyone understands The Witcher. Its a spiritual thing. A body thing. A soul thing.

 

[Gozma]

My review five years too late:

"Say... Gothic 2 is pretty fun, but don't you think the combat is way too natural, thoughtful, and intuitive? There're way too many ways to fast travel so you sometimes can't backtrack the same route five times per quest. Also way too little of fighting the same enemies over and over."

 

[Varn]

The Witcher = Le Turd.

 

[Invictus]

Rise from your grave!
And now thanks to an Angry Joe video (of all things) my girlfriend decided to try a less "Sierra Adventure" game (her words not mine) after having finished up Planescape Torment and she wanted to try the "sex game one" she had seen on YouTube...
She find its suprisingly fun, loves the story, likes the timing combat, is obssesed with getting all the Sex cards (thinks its like Pokemon) and wants to call our next cat Triss...
This ruins my masterplan of introducing her to Bloodlines next but I can't say I am not happy she is enjoying the heck out of this, plus what difference a couple of years make on computer hardware; her laptop runs this way better than my PC at the time of release
Thanks Angry Joe!

 

[bozia2012]

Dude, am I supposed to pity you? /foreveralone

 

[Konjad]

I hope your girlfriend will now fall for every dude with light-coloured hair and gets banged to heavens while you get nothing and weep in a room alone.

 

[Invictus]

Gee Konjad thanks for the though...we are getting married in Novembre but I will pass along your good wishes

 

[Konjad]

Nice to hear you are getting married, have fun you both But if you need any beta tester of your girlfriend before the marriage night, let me know.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Location: Mexico

Too late for beta testing, she's probably been in Early Access since she was 13.

 

[Invictus]

Yeah Clocky but since she is only 26 there is still a lot of thread on them tires and what nice tires they are

 

[Infinitron]

A paean to Act 4, at Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/the-witchers-fourth-act-takes-rpgs-to-the-next-level-1623958861

The Witcher's Fourth Act Takes RPGs to the Next Level

If you've played a role-playing game in the last several years, be it Mass Effect or The Elder Scrolls, chances are that most of the game involved people asking you to go places, bop things on the head, and return with items for a reward. Unless you've played The Witcher.

As The Witcher 3 starts catching more eyes, friends who haven't played the series inevitably end up asking me "should I play the first two games in the series?" Many people will recommend playing The Witcher 2, a great game with solid controls and a unique twist that effectively gives the player two games in one. While I'd agree with that, I'd also add that everyone should play the first game, because it is one of the best role-playing games of all time, maybe even better than The Witcher 2. It's a true RPG, one that focuses on choice and consequence, rather than character-builds or parties, and to that end, it's one of the finest examples of the genre… but there's a caveat.

In just about every conversation I've had regarding The Witcher, someone always admits to quitting, usually during the game's extensive opening swamp section. It's hard to blame them. That's where I originally quit, too.

The Witcher is structured linearly, and it seems as though it was also built that way. As a result, the game gets progressively better, as if the team was coming to grips with the tools at their disposal and learning to make a better experience. The second act improves upon the first, the third improves upon the second, and on it goes. Despite some of the game's initial awkwardness, it's easy to form the impression that there's equal amounts of brilliance and inexperience behind the game. By the fourth act, The Witcher finally comes into its own, and that's where things get really exciting.

At the encouragement of my friends, I picked it back up, beat the game, and ended up having one of the best roleplaying experiences of my life, from Act IV onward.

Here's a setup: Geralt, the eponymous Witcher, returns from the dead only to find some of his memories missing. From the prologue through the third act, Geralt has been chasing down a shadowy secret organization which has threatened to topple the kingdom. On the way, he's had to deal with a race war that's threatening to burst into flame and the betrayal of the Witcher organization by Berengar, one of their own, while also protecting Alvin, a young boy with mysterious powers.

You arrive on the coast of a large lake. The space is a lot more open than the swamps, forest, and cities of the game's first half, with the village of Murky Waters itself is set amidst hills and fields. You're out in the country, but that's not all that's changed—instead of a Tolkienesque fantasy based around race politics, you're now dealing with an Arthurian village where everyone's very excited about an upcoming wedding.

One moment, you were solving murders and dealing with political intrigue, and the next, in Act IV, you're talking to a very plump man who is quite proud of a cow. You can talk to the cow, too. It says "moo."

People in Murky Waters are pleasant, their worries rather insignificant compared to the kingdom-threatening drama taking place elsewhere. It's a joyful change of pace that inspires Geralt to mutter something about wanting to hunt monsters before he gets roped into helping out at the wedding.

Fortunately for a bored Witcher, all's not well in Murky Waters. There are plenty of monsters to fight, like noon and nightwraiths, ghosts whose loves in life went unrequited. In fact, the wraiths are causing problems for the peaceful people of Murky Waters, and, as a witcher, you're perfectly equipped to handle the situation. There's also a ghost who loves gambling so much he demands you gamble with him for the life of Alvin. And the local Lovecraftian entities, the Vodyanoi, have taken to worshiping a god called Dagon, much to the chagrin of the villagers, who worship The Lady of the Lake.

It's a concern that overshadows the wedding. The Lady herself used to have an army of powerful knights, whom she loved greatly, but many died, and the rest went off on a quest for the grail. The only knight left is the Fisher King, an old man fisherman who prefers grunting to speaking. A druid worships her from afar, tending to the graves of her fallen knights; when pressed, he admits that he loves her.

It seems as though every quest in the act is interconnected in some way. Finding a bridge and talking to the repairmen, players will discover that small creatures called griggs are sabotaging their progress. This quest leads players to the village's local healer, who, it turns out, is also the one responsible for another quest regarding the ingredients for a love potion.

Every character in Act IV seems to have a relationship with every other character. Alina and Julian are getting married, but Alina's taking care of Alvin, who leads you to the hermit, who takes you back to the Lady of the Lake, and on and on it goes.

Meeting all these people results in a variety of cool quests. Are there monster hunting quests? Absolutely, you're a monster hunter. Are there item-gathering quests? Yes. Except one of those items is a cow, actually, and you're tasked with delivering it to a monster. You can't exactly fit a cow in your inventory, on account of it being a somewhat large bovine, which is just over half an imperial ton, or just about half a metric ton, depending on your preferred unit of measurement.

Congratulations, you're now a cowherd, delivering cows to monsters for dinner! It's a great way to flip the fetch-quest archetype on its head, sending you off to fetch an item you literally cannot carry, taking it away from innocent villages and delivering it to monsters instead.

Then there's the quest with the gambling ghost. Sure, you could hit the ghost with your magical monster-killing sword, but wouldn't it be a great deal more fun to beat him in a few rounds of dice poker? Another quest involves simply chatting with the Lady of the Lake, teasing her at first, learning that she is tired of being treated like a goddess all the time, and attempting to woo her. Unfortunately, it leads to a moment where Geralt says "your eyes are like stars," and the Lady rejects this praise, because the stars are cold and distant.

Geralt is perplexed by this. He's not the ladykiller he thought he was. Several lines of poetry, and she's rejected each one. So he finally gives in and compliments her ass. Which, apparently, is exactly what she wanted to hear.

No monster killing, no item gathering, just talking.

Another quest involves convincing a ghost that she is, in fact, a ghost. To do so, Geralt must participate in a poetic duet with his sidekick, the bard Dandelion. As Dandelion speaks to the ghost, you are required to finish his sentences. If you succeed, the ghost will understand that she is unable to get married, and is thus able to pass on to the afterlife.

One of the main quests is about monster killing, but the problem is, Geralt is unable to do direct harm to the monster in question, the ferocious and foul Dagon. So what can the player do? Start killing off Dagon's followers, whose love sustains him. Rob him of that love, and Dagon dies.

These quests present a drastic change of pace, not so much from the game, which has plenty of other great quests, but from RPGs on the whole. Killing creatures to obtain items is all well and good, but it's hardly the only kind of role-play experience out there. The Witcher recognizes that these games aren't so much about the skills you choose but the choices you make, from the missions you take to the people you befriend to, yes, the skills you choose. It's a game that recognizes that role-playing involves more than just character builds and murder efficiency.

Of course, The Witcher not the only RPG to have managed that. Obsidian's Fallout New Vegashad a wonderful variety of ways to deal with and complete quests, for instance. Deus Ex: Human Revolution's vaunted conversation battles made dealing with people more interesting than simply "click on all available dialog options." The Witcher's inventiveness is cool, but there's more to Act IV than that.

Act IV isn't just about its intricate web of quests, it's a thematically coherent, deep tour through two inextricably intertwined ideas: love and motive.

Games, at their very core, are unique because they're about doing stuff. Reading a book or watching a movie is a passive experience. In games, if a character says, "Hey, protagonist, would you like to do stuff," the protagonist is probably going to go do stuff. The player has to make decisions and take action. And why do we do things?

A lot of the time, it's because we love doing them.

I eat the food I eat because I love cooking it. I play certain genres because I love them. I hang out with certain people, because, well, I love my friends to pieces. So many actions people take are motivated by love, and The Witcher's Act IV is a really cool multifaceted examination of the topic.

Act IV places two species at odds because they love different gods. It gives us men who dedicate their entire lives to serving their goddess, because they love her. One ghost isn't so much evil as it is misguided, even in death, it loves gambling so much that it would try to gamble for human life. The monsters themselves embody failed loves—twisted creatures, no longer recognizable as human. We're even faced with a crime of passion. Berengar, the guy who betrayed the Witchers? He wanted to be a father and husband, and being a Witcher prevented him from doing so.

The Witcher's fourth act is something special. It takes the clever role-playing ideas throughout the first few acts of the game and makes them work in an environment and world completely different than what came before. The drastic tone shift brings some wonderful variety, but Act IV takes the next step and brings them together to form a cohesive statement. The Witcher reveals love to us, lays all its forms bare, and examines them.

I started out replaying the chapter for this article somewhat bored. Getting back into the swing of things, remembering how to craft potions and fight monsters...it was pretty rough. The Witcher is an ugly game, too, with wonky animations and poor textures, a far cry from The Witcher 2, a game so graphically capable it toppled Crysis: Warhead from the graphics throne.

The more I played, however, the more I found myself sucked in. Originally, I'd intended to ignore most of the side quests, but I soon found myself shopping by proxy for elves, brewing potions for bakers, giving gifts to people, making peace between races, and, yes, busting a few monster heads along the way.

The Witcher shows that there can be more to RPGs than just fighting people. When the third game comes out early next year, I'll be there, day one, all thanks to Act IV.

 

[Storyfag]

A paean to Act 4, at Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/the-witchers-fourth-act-takes-rpgs-to-the-next-level-1623958861

Thanks, now I can read it in a non-annoying format!

 

[DraQ]

I expected worse of cocktaku, TBH.

Although...

The Witcher is an ugly game

 

[Storyfag]

I expected worse of cocktaku, TBH.

Although...

The Witcher is an ugly game

Yeah. They wouldn't recognise good art direction even if it jumped them from the bushes and kicked them in the arse

 

[DraQ]

Yeah. They wouldn't recognise good art direction even if it jumped them from the bushes, stunned them with Aard and beheaded them with murderstroke

Fixed for factual accuracy.

 

[Perkel]

I expected worse of cocktaku, TBH.

Although...

The Witcher is an ugly game

Yeah. This encapsulates what is so great about TW1 act4 and i agree that TW1 graphic isn't that bad. It is old now but at least it has art direction that prevents it from being shitty looking game. And there is absolute shitton of fine details put into game. Like for example Kear Moren which is in old language "stronghold of old sea" and you can see that because walls are littered with shells.

Triss house also has ton of great art.

 

[bozia2012]

Played W1 around 2 months ago and yes - the art direction keeps the graphics fresh. And still fucking creepy (like noon/duskwraiths mentioned in the article).

 

[adddeed]

Witcher 1 is visually superior to its seqauel, no doubt.

 

[yellowcake]

The thing that I liked the most in Witcher 1 was that I actually lived in the brothel for significant part of the game and in fact it was the best place to stay like it should be according to books.

 

[made]

art direction

 

[Seaking4]

I've recently encountered a game breaking bug in Chapter 3. I've looked up solutions. None seem to work. Not exactly here for that though. Is it worth it for me to even try to fix this and continue playing this game? So far I've found the combat boring but not that bad. Probably because I went in with low expectations (igni --- click ---- click ---- click isn't exactly my definition of fun but I'm not finding it the worst thing I've ever played). The choices have mostly been random gut feelings because you're hardly presented with realistic solutions or enough evidence to make a decision. I couldn't care less about the story (the intro screen promised a story with no evil or good characters and nearly every character I've encountered could easily be described as evil/good). I've enjoyed some of the more low key things like the monster hunting quests though. Does chapter 4 get as good as the above article suggests or is it just more of the same? If no, does The Witcher 2 continue the story from the first one?

 

[bozia2012]

What gamebreaking bug?

Depends on your definition of "evil" and "good"

Chapter IV is different that the rest of the game - has the most slavic feel, the pace is slower. If you didn't enjoy the game so far, don't expect anything to change.

Witcher 2/3 is a whole another story. You might want a W1 save, because there are 1 or 2 interesting consequences carried on (f.e. if you helped Siegfried), but usually it's just crappy items. W2 continues the plotline with Wild Hunt and search for Yennerfer, but IIRC there wasn't much in W1 about that. The whole plot is new, W1 serves more like a sequence before the first credits roll in.

 

[Sensuki]

I have to admit I also was really captivated by TW1 Act 4. It was really well done, even if being a complete side-story from the main story.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I played W1 with Potato speech with English subtitles. I found it quite interesting - the narration and animation both seems to flow more naturally. Whole thing had a more authentic feel.

 

[MicoSelva]

I've recently encountered a game breaking bug in Chapter 3.

What exactly do you mean?

And yeah, Act IV was definitely the highlight of the original game. I am hoping for TW3 to feature similar mood and pacing. Do not fuck this up CDPR.

 

[bozia2012]

I played W1 with Potato speech with English subtitles. I found it quite interesting - the narration and animation both seems to flow more naturally. Whole thing had a more authentic feel.

You have to admit that potato speech sounds totally not potato-y.

 

[Seaking4]

I've recently encountered a game breaking bug in Chapter 3.

What exactly do you mean?

And yeah, Act IV was definitely the highlight of the original game. I am hoping for TW3 to feature similar mood and pacing. Do not fuck this up CDPR.

Every time I Aard the supports in the Kikimore cave, the cave still collapses on me no matter where I am. I've run to the far end of the tunnel where you are safe and Geralt even speaks the line about gutting the Queen but I die right after that.

Apparently this is a common thing too.