Am I missing something in The Witcher?

[sqeecoo]

Wut? Witcher has the best presentation of C&C in RPGs, in which consequences doesn't appear right after you made a choice, but after a loooong time and can bring a chain of seemingly unrelated special events.

Exactly. I don't know any RPG where you can so consistently and believably alter the story by your choices.

Sure, in FO and PST you can solve sidequests in different ways, but the consequences are limited to instantaneous ones and those that come to light at the ending, except a few select ones in PST. And while PST has a better ending (regarding C&C), the consequences are more spread out in the Witcher and thus more frequent and believable.

As I said, I think the Witcher tops any other game in spread and believability of C&C, and the consequences are quite meaningful and fairly numerous. It also features a great world and solid characters, and gray moral choices, and also "gray knowledge" (i.e. things you just don't have enough info on, and have to figure out for yourself, or decide what to believe). It also has quite solid combat, compared to PST, where combat is horrible.

I think PST is a much, much better game, but I think the above is enough for the Witcher to merit a lot of praise.

 

[elander_]

C&C in this style are cool and very pleasant. It's much better than just following a story, when you can play in a limited way with your environment and see the result and reactions to your actions. More than this and the game falls into a simulation crpg, where the story is completely dynamic. That's where Fallout stopped too.

 

[Fenril]

So its like KOTOR 1 or 2 except your character doesnt do the silent speaking protagonist thing?

I just noticed the "dialogue" aspect in your post about the Witcher really and wanted to elaborate on that.


I havent played the Witcher but I dont think 3-5 text responses like say in KOTOR or any number of RPG titles with "dialogue choices" are really nothing more than a smoke screen behind 1, 2 or at most 4 results, and these dont really lead to meanginful results character or gameworld wise anyways.

Most of the time its just an exercise in taste with little or no consequence, even the games that are considered to have very good dialog and C&C rely on this smokescreen like effect that makes players at some point believe their full text presented dialog choices are meaningful RPG wise, if you get right down and analyse though, its just that, a smokescreen.

Dare I say even the fallouts and baldurs gates and Arcanum suffer alot from this. Torment handled it well true, but it was because it handled the illusion of choice and character imput well, and at points the consequences were clear in the plot and in the gameworld, but that makes it a real exception.

So what is there to general accepted dialog trees besides:

1-Using wits and a sense of context to puzzle the right combinations of phrases that allow you to finally say something to produce a very specific result.
( this is actually interesting and a good example on how dialogue should be done, but it is used rarely and usually it has no clear/visible character and gameworld consequences.)

2-The "good" result ( VERY HELPFUL AND KIND, WILL NOT TAKE A REWARD.)
3-The "neutral" result (KINDA HELPFUL BUT INSISTS ON A REWARD.)
4-The "evil" result (ACTING LIKE A CHILDISHLY AGRESSIVE SADISTIC PRICK WITH LITTLE PATIENCE FOR PEOPLE IN GENERAL.)
5-The same invariable result to advance the plot ( usually combines with the 3 mentioned above).

Even in games recognized to have good dialogue it boils down to this, and there isnt much depth to hide it.

Its all how the overall game atmosphere and setting and everything else help to give the player that smokescreen illusion of playing a meaningful character.

But it all comes down to what OVERALL is defined as available "character choices" in the game structure itself, and most game structures that are heralded as very open ended are just structures that allow tasks to be completed in a different order.

Iif the game actually has ETHOS or ALIGNMENTS like shades of EVIL, NEUTRAL and GOOD ( to use the D&D stereotypes) in its overall design structure then it should be a nearly fully consistant path for each orientation from beginning to end.

Or at least a fully realized multiple ending for MOST quests AND if the results of actions in the game at least depict the results of the characters choices by other means beside text or a line of speech.

Some of the time the depiction of consequences of the players actions at most gets stuck in some kind of small sequence brief in the game ending like in the Fallouts or Arcanum, most of the time it doesnt " matter" shit.

So yeah whats with this dialog thing??
Planescape torment handled it very well true, but the smokescreen effect is present in there too.

So choices and consequences and variety and proper character ropeplaying is about if a game truly has fully realized branching paths at every turn various very distinct paths that are consistent from beginning to end if taken.

I cant say many gave me that feeling, and for the ones that did the feeling was passing or non consistant.

 

[Chefe]

C&C is reflected more in the plot than in immediate dialogue responses, and that's a good thing. I don't know about the demo, but in the game I haven't encountered many options to "make the person hate you forever". In fact, I can only think of one character who acted this way towards me, after I repeatedly accused him, several times, with unique conversations for each instance, and it was clear to me that he was getting more and more angry about it. And even then, it only lasted for one chapter.

If the demo is a bad representation, then I will jump on this game like Charlie Sheen on a vegas hooker. The environments, graphics, sound, voice, and music are amazing. The combat sucks, but I was able to get over it in Torment and dislike that game for an entirely different reason.

My main problem with the dialog is that you have no action in it. Again, this may be only a problem with the demo, but I have no other way of knowing. There's a hell of a lot of it, but I'm only given simple "Question?" type choices, then I pick one, and Geralt and the NPC hold a conversation entirely independent of me.

As for the delayed consequences, I'm all for that. There need to be some immediate ones too, though. You know, some kind of indication that you have even a minimal effect on the game world.

Concerning basic C&C, one point that really stuck out in my mind was when I ran into a bandit group harassing a dwarf. I either had a choice to "fight them to the death!" or "run away!" Where's the "hey guys, can't we talk about this?" option? The way the game has been presented around here I would think those kinds of options would be found in spades.

The character-less NPCs really hit hard though right after the castle siege. A woman sacrificed her life for a boy (I think it was her nephew) and he just stood around. People in the village stood around as the dogs that killed her proceeded to kill the guards. I killed the dogs, and everyone just went back to their business and spoke about the incident as matter-of-factly. Maybe the demo just sucks, but I'm not seeing all the great stuff I've read about on here about immersion (TEH MAGIKUL WORD!) and RPG-ness.

If that's all you do in combat, maybe you should put more points in magic. After all, the warrior path is the most simple one in most games. Why would you go for it if you enjoy it less?

I go for it because I enjoy it more. I play a physical warrior in Titan Quest, for christ's sake. I just hate hate hate that DDR/God of War click-the-button-when-its-highlighted "tactic".

Why do the game's women bother you so much if the sexual aspect isn't of importance to you?

They don't, but again, I'm trying to figure out why this game is so lauded and console kiddies are made fun of when that kind of childish shit is so apparent.

Nobody's saying TW is better than PS:T or whatever

At least Geralt doesn't say "I feel stronger" all the fucking time.

You're complaining about the fact that they don't provide unique voice-acted lines for every single minor NPC? Okay then. All NPCs with actual speaking parts, ala not one-liners, have distinct voices.

No, I'm complaining that I keep hearing "dwarf cock!" when I'm standing in a tavern, and three people, in a row, at the same time, say the same exact line.

I hear the enhanced edition has an option for Polish voices instead of English ones (with English subtitles, of course). True?

When I fought multiple enemies, they attacked me all at once, as long as space permits. Of course, the group style does let you hit them all simultaneously too, so again I've no idea what you're talking about re: "DDR-ing one guy."

DDR - Dance Dance Revolution. You click the button when it's highlighted at set intervals. It makes you feel like a computer... or a trained monkey. The multiple enemy thing is what I've experienced multiple (lawl) times during the demo. They all just stand around waiting for me to finish off their friend, despite the fact that I have some incredibly vulnerable parts, and we're in an open field.

And "no I hate u I wont talk 2 u" is pure nonsense. 80% when this happens just switch the area back and the NPC will forgive what you said. Unless you messed up a critical conversation, then it can lead to permahate (not a bug).

Example: I was talking to this one guy who said something about some other guy. My two responses were "O rly?" and "Who's that?" I chose the former and he said some crap, we suddenly decided to get drunk together (???), and the conversation ended. I went back and chose the O RLY response again... same thing. I went back a third time and chose the Who Dat response. Immediately I'm booted out of the conversation and the guy is like "GTFO noob!"

 

[Gerrard]

I don't consider it immersive when I'm standing in a tavern and hearing "Dwarf cock!" shouted all over the place

You'd like it better if they shouted "Decline!"?

 

[J1M]

Choose yourself:

1)You are black. Your opinion therefore doesn't count.
2)Codex did 9/11.
3)There was no holocaust.

1 and 3?

 

[Heresiarch]

My main problem with the dialog is that you have no action in it. Again, this may be only a problem with the demo, but I have no other way of knowing. There's a hell of a lot of it, but I'm only given simple "Question?" type choices, then I pick one, and Geralt and the NPC hold a conversation entirely independent of me.

That's because Geralt is not some random silent protagonist, but he's a main character from a series of short stories, who has his own ideals and personality. In Witcher, you plays the role of, not for, him. Besides, I'd rather have meaningful sentences from Geralt than Biowarish 3 to 4 different responses to every fucking NPC sentence which all have exactly the same outcome.

The only complaint I have is the limitness of the Aurora Engine which leads to all kind of NPC silliness, but at least it's much better than Oblivion.

 

[Lesifoere]

To be sure, Geralt does have amnesia and throughout the game tries to rebuild his identity--even asking Triss and Dandelion at one point whether he's like his old self. But the Geralt of the game is still very much the Geralt of the books in attitude and conduct, though there's one bit where you can choose a fairly out-of-character option that says something along the line of "I enjoy slaughtering those human scum!" at which point Dandelion goes emo.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Concerning basic C&C, one point that really stuck out in my mind was when I ran into a bandit group harassing a dwarf. I either had a choice to "fight them to the death!" or "run away!" Where's the "hey guys, can't we talk about this?" option? The way the game has been presented around here I would think those kinds of options would be found in spades.

Way to twist stuff around. The choice was actually between "hey guys, back off" or "ok, move along", and the bandits were the ones who weren't interested in rat diplomacy, not Geralt.