Because the name of this thread is 'First Impressions' and I have only played for about two hours, I guess that qualifies me to reply.I'm very impressed with the game so far. It's easy to see there is more depth to this game than other RPG's we've seen lately. Right now, I'm going to spend some serious time re-reading the manual, since I only read enough to get me started. Anytime I do that, it's a good sign I like the game.So thanks for The Witcher. I'm enjoying it very much.
Well...My first impressions on this beauty is...It's Amazing! If you want a good comparison, then try playing Gothic 3. Even with the community patches that game fails heavily in the combat department. It uses the same idea of the click-click combat but they actually added a great deal of depth to it. Where as in gothic all you have is the click-click until everything is dead. I love the different stances approach and the addition of the skill tree that directly affects combat is nice. This is also a fine example of a correctly implemented game engine with no memory links. haha I might be somewhat jaded when I think of Gothic 3 compared to this game but if you read the forum there, you'll know why.
no need to call him a moron. he would be a moron if he said after an hour of play that the game sucks.he doesnt say that. he only says that his first impressions are not too good and he even mentions that his first impressions might be wrong.it doesnt hurt to be nice does it!? if there's one thing worse than a moron, it's a fanboi who calls everyone a moron that critices his game a bit.in the castle i didnt like the combat very much either, but it grew on me. once you get used to it it's actually very entertaining.it's fast paced, geralt has cool moves and it can be quite tense at moments. i like it. it's something different.i had to get used too the camera too, but it doesnt bother me anymore. so give it some more time.MasPingon said:
That's okay. I don't mind being called a moron. If people were to call me a mormon on the other hand...Anyhow. Now for my second impressions. My first impressions of the game, if you'll recall, were somewhat negative. Now that I've played for another two hours I can honestly say that this game sucks.Not!I like this game. I like it a lot. As soon as I got out of that bland castle area things improved drastically. The atmosphere is great - I haven't ventured too far away from the starting village yet but already there have been one or two locales that were fairly stunning to look at. Specifically that area down by the river on the outskirts of town. I stood on the river bank down there and watched the sun go down. Pretty incredible. The river was flowing along, fish were jumping, birds were flying and landing (I've seen birds flying in video games before, but I've never seen any that have actually landed), the leaves were falling from the trees, people were walking by - the world seemed very alive to me (unlike another game that I won't presently mention - starts with an O and ends with an N). I've got everything maxed out here and even at 1600*1050 the performance is pretty decent on my slightly below mid-range PC (3GHZ P4, 1 GB RAM, 7960GT 512). I mean, it's playable, even when I'm involved in a battle sequence with lots of NPCs on the screen.As far as the story is concerned I haven't really gotten into it yet - but it seems to me that the story was what kept most people playing. So it should only get better from here on in.The moral of the story: If the developer is planning on ever doing a demo, my advice to them: Don't demo the starting castle, because it's not a very good representation of what's soon to come.(Am I still a moron? Do I get to stay now?)
@WabeWalker it up to you if you want to stay 
Dont late MasPingon fool you his a softy at heart hard part is finding his hart
Dont late MasPingon fool you his a softy at heart hard part is finding his hart Well I've been playing for about the same amount of time and have to disagree with the OP in that I LOVED the Castle...dreary? Please...did you even go to all the different rooms? Sure it's an old place and in dis-repair but hell this isn't better homes and castle is it? lolThe lighting and textures were great imoEither you have a very low end video card or your "taste" is completely different than mine...cause the castle area was great. I'm really confused how anyone could call it bland or dreary???But I am glad you seem to like the game more now
I am like many Witcher players in that I was not really sure what to expect from the game when I got it. I fell deeply in love with it throughout the Prologue and Act 1, but now that I'm in Vizima I'm finding that I don;t want to play anymore. Or rather, I'd like to, but I can;t be bothered!It's weird I know, but the little niggling things about the game that bug me- the interface, the inventory - have steadily gotten more and more unmanageable. And now I learned it's very possible that an hour or, worse, severalI hours of my gameplay can be wiped out because of what, in my opinion, is bad game design.To wit; for the first time in Vizima, I was attacked by a ghoul. While fighitng him, a bunch of NPCs decided to come help. As was inevitable, I hit one of them. Well, he and his friends, the guards, and the Knights of the Order all decided I'd done it on purpose, and decided to kill me.Gone was the busy work of sorting through the maddening inventory, the dialogue and cut scenes for the quests I'd undertaken, the potions I'd made and so forth. All gone because some NPCs I didn't even want help from got involved and got the equivalent of an accidental paper cut from my sword. :'(I'm so angry...but I can't be bothered going through all this over and over and over again. It's a good game, but I have a house and a family and job, limited playing time...and I just can't stomach having to go thru the same scenes over and over again just because of bad AI or game design. *sigh* I really feel frustrated beyond belief here.Ah well. Maybe one day.
It just crashed while I was in vizima, its very annoying only lost 20 minetes of play time but I have had it for today...The interface has really pissed me off its like lets take kotor make it a action game and remove half the features to make it "FUN" or "DIFFERENT" or "NEW" blagh bugs/underdeveloped options are not features and never will be....Really I think the game needs more options in key binds and more polished on the control scheme, I am surprised the dialog is picking up by leaps and bounds even if its just filer dialog..it seems if the dialog gets to deep (plot/story points) it gets choppy from all the atari "we don't like big words" edits.The interface/gameplay really needs a minor overhaul because tis action based it needs to feel more action based and right now its in between a action based system and soemthign like KOTOR.Fellgaze said:
Yeah sorry dude wrong game for you go get Clive Barker's Jericho or Doom 3.Becuase The Witcher is pretty time consuming.But thats the reason y ppl like it.You have brought up a great valid point though...The fighting system where you can accidently kill a guard way to easily and the rest attack you the fighting system is not very forgiving in that way..it depends on what camera you chosen i reckon.And you do have to be a little more delicate with mouse clicking.So as not to hit the guards.I found i had to never use group attacks when there are allies because well it attacks everyone lol.But good point.As far as saving your game is concerned check you auto saves there should be at least 2 just sitting there.Or save game before you go into battles on MOST RPG'S NOT JUST this 1.MOST games you should save it before fights and stuff.Fellgaze said:
I learned the hard way about group attacks around people. Since I had a save from right before the fight, no bigee, but it taught me a valuable lesson. It wasn't a guard, either, it was the barmaid I whacked while trying to save her from the mob!
Yes, surely the city guards shouldn't attack anything that clearly endangers their city, or the residents of that city! Surely that would be foolish!Though I do agree that they can be excessively annoying when you try killing something and they gather around you. I've learned to either pay more attention when this happens or let the guards to the job, while dodging the enemy's attacks. The guards do a good deal of damage, you know, even to your enemies.
Well I agree that some of the auto-saves are in the wrong places, I have experienced what could have been two nasty ones and maybe your move to Vizima was one of them. Moving from chapter 1 to chapter 2 you find yourself down in the sewers which is as far as I got perhaps you got further without realising that your auto-save was back in chapter 1. I had the luck of entering a hut in chapter 1 after the fight with the beast so it saved there. I am not sure how far back the save could have been, but a new chapter is where the save should be.
i don't know if it was a case or the AI made them do this: I was fight with some guards vs some enemies and when i changed my style in the group style, the guards walk some metres away and i didn't hurt them. if it wasn't a case i think that this game has a very good AI...
I totally agree with the frustration... but I also agree that it's slightly foolish not to save constantly in an RPG like this.I find that the ridiculously long save and load times prevent me from saving as often as I would normally. For example: if you do something wrong in HL2, Dark Messiah or Oblivion the engines allows almost saving and loading almost instantly. The Witcher with its Aurora engine however, insists on loading the ENTIRE area all over again. Even when I save the game it takes about 10 seconds. That is far too long in my opinion.In case you're wondering my PC is not the problem:2xGeForce 88004GB RAMDual-Core AMD FX-62 2.81 GHz)Several times in the first chapter I found myself ready to give up, but then I tell myself that it's a very silly idea. I've sat through tons of games which were frustrating at times... but it would have been nice if this wasn't one of them.