The Witcher 3 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[WhiteGuts]

Combat was great in ME2 and ME3. Not the level of GoW, but still fucking great. Big step forward in comparison to ME1, can't believe there are people who don't recognize this.

 

[Carrion]

I'd take TW2's rolling over ME's cover shooting any given day. It's of course very imbalanced and therefore somewhat repetitive, but there's a certain sense of lethality that Mass Effect's bullet sponge combat lacks, and to me that's very important in a combat system. At least hitting someone with a sword in TW2 is somewhat satisfying and you generally need to stay focused in order to not get backstabbed and killed, but in ME you mostly sit behind a box and use your weak guns to slowly chip away the health bar of enemies that rarely even try to flank you or do anything else interesting. It may be balanced but it is just mind-numbing save for maybe some rare encounters here and there. Never played ME2 or 3.

I agree with you, but arguably poorly designed shooting is always better than poorly designed melee, because it suffers less from issues of poor animation, is generally less vulnerable to poor AI, crappy stunlocking and blocking mechanics, and other issues that arise from having to close in and physically engage with another character.

You say that it's "always" better and then come up with very specific examples that don't apply to nearly every game, arguably not even to TW2. Shooting can be really fucking terrible if done wrong too.

The first one is basically a stupid QTE shit

A QTE usually refers to an on-screen prompt which appears more or less at random and isn't connected to any actual game mechanics. TW1 has that sword icon on lower difficulties, but it isn't random and you don't even need to use it as you can get the timing right by simply looking at Geralt. It's pretty much the opposite of a QTE.

 

[Rahdulan]

Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA
>There are few, very big hubs connected with each other


open world my ass

http://www.witchersite.pl/component...osc-i-budowa-swiata-oraz-efekty-wizualne.html

Hasn't this been known already? There are supposedly three main large zones and you can supposedly travel seamlessly between them. That's at least what I remember from months way back.

 

[adddeed]

Witcher 1 combat is NOT quick time event. It's a combo based, and rhytm based, and actually not as bad as people suggest. I actually enjoyed it, especially from the isometric view. It's not that much different than the click click combat in other action rpgs like Diablo and the like.

 

[Copper]

I won't deny it's a flawed, uneven experience, but it blows mediocre crap like NWN2 out of the water in pretty much every respect unless you have a massive thing for choosing race and class, so that might have something to do with it.

Mediocre would be a huge step up for NWN2.

Might as well compare it to Lionheart next so it can look good relative to something else.

Well, I like to start with the game's closest relative, tech-wise, then work out, and nver touched NWN1. Let's compare to Mass Effect 1 then, since they're contemporaries both going after sexing up RPGs with more direct action, choice and consequence, and actual sexing. Witcher still looks and plays pretty well in comparison, and is a far more interesting and ambitious project, in my opinion - I'd take Vizima over the Citadel any day. Never played Witcher or Mass Effect 2, so no opinion on how both franchises handled their subsequent evolution.

 

[Paul_cz]

Witcher 1 combat needs to be played on hard when the fucking flaming sword cursor arrow isn't used and it becomes a bit more involving.

 

[Ninjerk]

Witcher 1 combat is NOT quick time event. It's a combo based, and rhytm based, and actually not as bad as people suggest. I actually enjoyed it, especially from the isometric view. It's not that much different than the click click combat in other action rpgs like Diablo and the like.

What do you mean combo based? I remember just left-clicking in rhythm until I got Igni.

 

[adddeed]

You're gith, not really combo. Still, its not QTE. Some kind of weird combat mchanics, but for reason i liked it. The whole game feels reall fresh.

 

[J_C]

Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA
>There are few, very big hubs connected with each other
>It is not entirely clear how the transition between the hubs will look like, devs are still trying new things. Fast travel is an option but only to places you discoverd before
>All of the regions will not be available from the beginning, you will have to unlock them through story progression
>The size of Novigrad an its surroundings: 8.5 x 8.5 km = 72.5 km squared
>The size of Skellige archipelago: 8 x 8 km = 64 km squared
>There will be more regions than just those two
>Skyrim’s world was 41 km squared
>W3 will start in a small tutorial hub
>Novigrad and No Man’s Land is considered as a one hub
>Borders of each region will be mainly natural (great rivers, sea, or impassable mountains)
>You will be able to find many interesting things on the bottom of a lake, like fragments of witcher armors
>Geralt won’t be able to swim everywhere, for example lakes in Skellige are to cold even for him
>Geralt can fell off the boat if the weather conditions are to harsh (storm)
>the „recommended potions” section will show up only when Geralt is using his witcher senses to track a creature he already encountered before
>Other witchers can acompany Geralt but he has to persuade them first
>You can go back to previous hubs any time you want
>In very cold regions (like Skellige) the blizzard will obstruct your movement, you will have to find shelter in order to survive


Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA
>There are few, very big hubs connected with each other


open world my ass

http://www.witchersite.pl/component...osc-i-budowa-swiata-oraz-efekty-wizualne.html

And thank God for that. Let me repeat: THANK GOD FOR THAT! I pretty much hate huge open world games like Skyrim or GTA, because they tend to be boring. The only open world games I like are the ones which are smaller, more self contained. Gothic 1-2 was just the right size. Sleeping Dogs (which is >>>>>>>>>>>>GTA) was just the right size and density. New Vegas was stretching it, but the story pulled me through it.

 

[Cromwell]

And thank God for that. Let me repeat: THANK GOD FOR THAT! I pretty much hate huge open world games like Skyrim or GTA, because they tend to be boring. The only open world games I like are the ones which are smaller, more self contained. Gothic 1-2 was just the right size. Sleeping Dogs (which is >>>>>>>>>>>>GTA) was just the right size and density. New Vegas was stretching it, but the story pulled me through it.

What I never understood about this open world stuff is why they are called big. Mosly you can do nothing in it, its boring, there is nothing of interest to find in theese worlds and the only thing you can do is collect stupid stuf for steam achievments or similar. I would kill for a moody open world game which keeps my interest up and gives me something interesting to explore.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

thats not the point. why promote your game as bigger than skyrim and open world when it is nothing more than fucking hubs like in kingdom of amalur or DAI?

CDProjekt words :

-Limitless open world

 

[xardas]

Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA

>The size of Novigrad an its surroundings: 8.5 x 8.5 km = 72.5 km squared
>The size of Skellige archipelago: 8 x 8 km = 64 km squared
>There will be more regions than just those two

>Skyrim’s world was 41 km squared

How does that follow?

 

[J_C]

thats not the point. why promote your game as bigger than skyrim and open world when it is nothing more than fucking hubs like in kingdom of amalur or DAI?

CDProjekt words :

-Limitless open world

Sure, you are absolutely right i that regard. That is is pretty "amazing" marketing bullshit from CD Projekt. They are really competing with the big companies not just in production values, but in PR bullshit.

Although:

Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA

>The size of Novigrad an its surroundings: 8.5 x 8.5 km = 72.5 km squared
>The size of Skellige archipelago: 8 x 8 km = 64 km squared
>There will be more regions than just those two

>Skyrim’s world was 41 km squared

How does that follow?

Technically they are bigger than Skyrim (fuck that), it is just not as open.

 

[made]

So Gothic 2 isn't open world either because it's not one big map? Dumbass.

 

[Alfons]

If 2 of the "hubs" are individually larger than skyrims then it's fuckin larger than skyrim.
It's not as open?Why is that, because it has a loading screen between them?WTF are you talking about?

 

[Cromwell]

You may not be able to scale mountains with your horse. Some may find that kay for others its a clear restriction. Feel free to choose.

 

[xardas]

And some people will say that an area with non leved scaled monsters that are hard/ impossible to beat from the start is restricting/non open world.

 

[Roguey]

I don't understand why the witcher 2 gets so much flak for its combat,it might be as generic as it fuckin comes for an action rpg but it's alright.

It doesn't feel good at all. Cargo cult Demon's Souls with unnecessary cinematic flourishes that hurt gameplay.

As for how it compares to ME2 and ME3,it's exactly the same shit. TW2 has generic as fuck 3rd person hack and slash combat with a slight twist and ME2 and ME3 are generic third person shooters with a slight twist.

ME2 took a Sawyer-esque approach to third person cover shooters with role playing and mostly succeeded for people who enjoy third person cover shooters. Witcher 2 did not do the same for people who enjoy melee action games.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Don't understand how people continue to say the Witcher games have great writing. These games have shallow, edgy scripts as written by that eastern European exchange student who's desperately trying to fit in.

 

[Menckenstein]

 

[Rake]

He is a Witcher as well?

 

[Tytus]

He is a Witcher as well?

Considering how fat he is, he is a character in Dark Souls.

 

[tuluse]

Don't understand how people continue to say the Witcher games have great writing. These games have shallow, edgy scripts as written by that eastern European exchange student who's desperately trying to fit in.

...when judged by the standards of other rpgs.

But really the stories are p fun, they'd be average at worse genre fiction (and I hear the books are decent, but I haven't bothered to read any of them).

 

[Kem0sabe]

Don't understand how people continue to say the Witcher games have great writing. These games have shallow, edgy scripts as written by that eastern European exchange student who's desperately trying to fit in.

...when judged by the standards of other rpgs.

But really the stories are p fun, they'd be average at worse genre fiction (and I hear the books are decent, but I haven't bothered to read any of them).

The story elements themselves, and how the setup the situations Geralt finds himself in are not horribly unimaginative themselves, what gets me everytime i play the game is the dialogues. As an rpg, and having had so much content to source from, the dialogues between characters are very poorly written.

 

[norolim]

Open world in W3 is not „open” in the same way as in Skyrim or GTA
>There are few, very big hubs connected with each other

It is open world. There are two main hubs/maps:

1. Novigrad and surroundings (72.5 km²) + No Man's Land (which is at least as big as Novigrad) on one map, so this gives you a single hub, that is more than 3 times bigger than the one map in Skyrim;
2. Skellige islands (64 km²), which is so far form the mainland, that going from Novigrad to Skellige Islands would take one day [real time] at least (this btw is information form the same review you quoted, that you conveniently left out in order to be able to make your claims)

These two maps will constitute the playable area of the whole game. You will be able to go wherever you want with the exception of traveling between Skellige and the mainland (for obvious reasons). In addition there'll be an unknown number of much smaller hubs, that'll be used for tutorial and story related purposes, e.g. (examples not officially confirmed):

1. Kaer Morhen - tutorial
2. Vizima (possibly only Foltest's castle) - story related
3. ...

thats not the point. why promote your game as bigger than skyrim and open world when it is nothing more than fucking hubs like in kingdom of amalur or DAI?

As explained above, nothing like Alamur or DAI.