First impressions

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Link006 said:
I think the cutscene looks fine.The judgement I'm making about the game is going to be the aggregate of all the cutscenes; this isn't the best one, but I've seen a lot of in-game action that looks great. I can't unfairly judge this game because of this one cutscene when I've seen so many other ones that look great.
Agreed. I fail to see how a game can be condemed off of this one cutscene alone. Afterall, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." ;DSeriously though, I do understand how cutscene's such as this would hinder, rather then help gameworld immersion and let's hope that the first patch, to be available as of the official lauch day, will help to fix these types of issues.
 
I agree that the cutscene shown seems poorly executed. I obviously can't comment on the rest of the game, but I've seen enough cinematics and in-game action in my lifetime to understand that that is not an example of the state-of-the-art. Is it a big deal? Absolutely not. I don't think, though, that discounting it as something that can turn a player off is valuable either. A little criticism never hurt if it actually points out a flaw that can be corrected. If I saw that cutscene for the first time in-game, I'd be looking to figure out how to fix it (or whether it's a glitch) myself.
 
Bravo Equisilus, well said, although I doubt this can be fixed in a patch. A point I am trying to make is, if something like a cutscene is this unpolished (which it is, there's no disputing that), what about other areas of the game? I'm still concerned about combat (I dislike that "batter-up" stance with the sword circling around and how the character pops between stances) but that's something I will need to judge myself ingame for how it comes across in battles.Here's to hoping for the best. I want the Witcher to be great, I really do. I don't want another failure (see NWN2, Gothic 3, Two Worlds, etc.).
 
Maegnar said:
Maegnar said:
Keep playing and no bugs detected yet. I'm a bit disappointed with the clones, but still it's nice killing them ;D
I think new models for NPCs might be available in future, as part of new content patches(I've read there are going to be some). So maybe this little "problem" will be watered down a bit ;)
I'm looking forward to it. Now say: Yey we all love additional content:)
 
I must agree with Darksharp concerning the cutscene, it's very bad :mad:Actually, this video is peculiarly bad compared to all the others I've seen, as for example ''Conversation with dwarven blacksmith". Their animation is MUCH more smoother than Darksharp's link. Although in my opinion I believe that even these dialogue cutscenes still need some work ; their movement during the conversation doesn't seem natural: the lipsync with the movement could use some work. Probably as Dozerking says, the videos were still in Polish hence the lipsync issue. But the movement is still problematic. I always thought and still think this game looks totally awesome, the combat, the story, the decision making, the badasseness of the Witcher world (I know it's not a word ;) ), but still, I believe that the dialogue cutscenes are a VERY important element of the game since it's through these that Gerard will interact with the world (if not through violence :D ). That and the weird way Gerard runs are the only negative points I have to say about this game from what I've seen so far, and I greatly hope they will be arranged before the game gets out. The Witcher is THE most impressive RPG I've seen for a long time and I understand that no game can be perfect, but I surely hope this one can ;D.P.SIn my opinion, NWN 2 was a total letdown (no offence meant) and no these issues will not keep me from buying The Witcher, hell this is actually the first time I've subscribed to a freakin game before it gets out :D :D. Like I said, this game looks awesome!
 
Man, my PC is only good for playing on low config... That's a pain :(Maybe anyone can tell me, what can I lower in graphic tuning to increase performance, but still get a decent view? Or I just need to buy a new rig?My PC is:AMD Athlon x64 42002Gb DDR2 RAMGeForce 6600 256MbVista Ultimate x64
 
Arglaar said:
Arglaar said:
PLEASE could you allow the player to save the game somewhere else than the My Documents folder?at the very beginning of the game each savegame file is almost 9MB large and i am seriouslyrunning out of space. yes, i know, shouldnt have installed my XP on a poor 5 GB partition :)
No, you should've transfered My Documents to a bigger partition m8. I never store My Documents folder on a system partition. It's safer to keep them somewhere else.
RE: Michal BratIndeed, check this Microsoft support article with instructions on how to move it.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555308/en-us
ay, caramba! thank you.
 
Deadpool,I think you;re confusing what I said with the original NWN2 realtime cutscenes which are terrible due to sloppy programming.MOTB is good, no doubt. Not great but good. Some great dialogue though. Still not fond of every battle looking like Geometry Wars with magic spells flying willy nilly or that I can find a +3 longsword in a barrel sitting around in town. Here is where I hope Witcher excels, a low magic, dark and dangerous world where people will kill you for a simple ring that casts a light spell. Also, did not like the NWN2 camera much even with the recent changes in the MOTB update. /shrugs.As far as NWN2 cutscenes....We've made many jokes on the official forums there about "talking crotch and talking butt shots" in NWN2 cutscenes (basically a tall character walks in front of the camera as the dwarf or gnome is talking, effectively blocking the view of the dwarf talking,...so it looks the tall persons crotch is saying the dialogue).It's quite funny and shows a lack of quality control on Obsidians part. It still happens occasionally in MOTB but not as much. I'm pretty down on realtime cutscenes for reasons like this and it looks like Witcher may have similar problems as evidenced by how the guards are in attack stance and then not attacking and then attacking again.@ArtoI agree the Dwarven cutscene is much better but as you said it's still problematic.There appears to be cut dialogue. The idle stance of the Dwarf and especially Geralt are very unnatural .
 
To even mention Two Worlds (and yes, I've played it) in relation to The Witcher is a brutal insult to the latter, seriously . :pI am 5 hours in, and I am finding it absolutely terrific. The best RPG (so far at least) I've played since Gothic 2 (but with more polish).Sure, it's not without a few niggles, but it's so much more professional than NWN 2 ever was, and a so much more interesting world than Oblivion, it's almost like in the good old days of Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 again. It's more of an action game than these two, of course, but the attention to detail is just staggering.edit:To add a few things: Yes, I am quite sure Mass Effect will look better in the cutscenes, and while I have and play consoles as well, and there is a certain magic to infinitely polished AAA-console titles, it's also important to look at what you get, not what you miss out on. The Witcher has an amazing journal with bestiary, character guide, locations guide, descriptionsof plants, a huge skill tree, is up to 80 hours long (as opposed to 15-20 what the devs ssaid about Mass Effect), etc. etc. I for one can live with a little less polish if the game succeeds in other areas - I know development time is not unlimited. And while I hugely enjoyed a polished game like RE4 on the Wii this year, for example, I'll prefer a slightly buggy, but for me in the end much more engrossing game like, say, Stalker any day.
 
kalniel said:
-Saves: Worst aspect of the game - you can't name saves, and they seem to be created in lots of different slots - there are multiple auto-saves, quick saves just seem to create new saves in empy slots.. the only desciption is the general area and the real time date - it doesn't even track in game time/date on the save information. End result is you end up with a lot of saves and you don't know which one is which. This needs to be addressed IMHO.
Can we make things tidy within the Saved Games and Load Games Menus and just DELETE saves there?I might make a lot of SAVES when I play, but I also DELETE a lot as I go along, too.
 
This would have been a better thread to post in, so I'll just repeat myself:I am 5 hours in, and I am finding it absolutely terrific. The best RPG (so far at least) I've played since Gothic 2 (but with more polish).Sure, it's not without a few niggles, but it's so much more professional than NWN 2 ever was, and a so much more interesting world than Oblivion, it's almost like in the good old days of Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 again. It's more of an action game than these two, of course, but the attention to detail is just staggering.It's the "next big Western RPG" I've been waiting for for years. I was always a tad sceptical if they really could pull this off, but so far I am extremely impressed.
 
Thanks for the quick review...My buddy who is playing a press build said there's alot of cloned models in the townspeople. True? Not a deal killer. Just wondering.
 
I always find it interesting when people choose to condemn a game for some miniscule reason such as this. Personally I don't care what the dialogue "cut scenes" look like, or how they operate. In my opinion something like this should be close to last on the devs' to do list. If a game has a good story and fun, well made gameplay then I can brush aside little extras like voice over quality and lip syncing. And it is my experience that bad voice overs or a lack of voices entirely does not detract from any immersion factor. Morrowind and STALKER had almost no spoken dialogue and I found both games to be incredibly immersive. Neither of those games have animations for when NPC's are in dialogue, but still I find them equal if not greater in the immersion factor when comparing them to games that do feature top notch animations and A-list voice actors. You say that NWN 2 has "terrible" dialogue cut scenes where the camera is often in the wrong place. This of course is true, but I've never had it ruin any gameplay experience for me. If you haven't already then you should play NWN 1 or better yet Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 and tell me if the lack of dialogue animations detracts from the gameplay experience in any way.PS - Contrary to poular belief, forsaking "fanbois" does not make you look smarter.
 
Machmax said:
This would have been a better thread to post in, so I'll just repeat myself:I am 5 hours in, and I am finding it absolutely terrific. The best RPG (so far at least) I've played since Gothic 2 (but with more polish).
I preferred Gothic over G2, myself.
[Sure, it's not without a few niggles, but it's so much more professional than NWN 2 ever was, and a so much more interesting world than Oblivion, it's almost like in the good old days of Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 again. It's more of an action game than these two, of course, but the attention to detail is just staggering.
Obsidian did a heck of a lot better w/ NWN2: Mask.But, wow -- comparing ANY RPG w/ the likes of PS:T and BG II is a hell of a compliment, to say the very least -- both are masterpieces.
It's the "next big Western RPG" I've been waiting for for years. I was always a tad sceptical if they really could pull this off, but so far I am extremely impressed.
Man, I can't wait to try The Witcher...
 
Deadpool24 said:
Deadpool24 said:
I don't want another failure (see NWN2, Gothic 3, Two Worlds, etc.).
I don't think NWN2 was a failure. I'm rocking through MotB right now and loving it.
I really like MoTB, so far -- so far, so good.How come it always takes Expansions to get the Technical aspects and Single Player campaigns of NWN games correct???Took SoU and ESPECIALLY Hordes to get NWN right.Took Mask to get NWN2 right.
 
MysterD said:
How come it always takes Expansions to get the Technical aspects and Single Player campaigns of NWN games correct???Took SoU and ESPECIALLY Hordes to get NWN right.Took Mask to get NWN2 right.
That is a most perplexing phenomenon. Another confusing event in video game history is: how did BioWare go from BG to NWN? That is a question that will probably never be answered, but lets not get off topic here.I still think "bad" dialogue cut scenes are a pointless reason to dislike the Witcher, or any game for that matter.
 
Im not writing here to deny that the cutscene is bad BUT im writing here to point out that its not THAT bad...Dudes relax a bit and realize couple of thigs:1. the lip sync afaik and what info i have at hand is made in polish, lip syncing every dialogue in 60-90 hour game is so ENERMOUS task that the time is way better used of balancing and fixing bugs. (it does not bother me much personally but i understand that it bothers some ppl)2. The dialogues are made with ingame graphic engine ofc and this is usually (and i believe in Witcher´s case also) the best option, it has however some drawbacks on it.3. It doesnt make the game unpolished and nor it affects game play, however it affects immersion among other MINOR details, but would you rather have no voice acting/bad voice acting etc?4. People need to start seeing the bigger picture, for all the "it doesnt matter how good the game actually is as long as it Looks uber L77T OMG!!!!!1!!!11!!" You need to stop bitching and whining when you see one graphical glitch/missing texture in frickin this long game, that seems to be extremely good also.5. every single game will have something that you can complain about, EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. if this is TW´s "scratch" or "not so godly good implemented thingie" im damn happy, becouse you didnt find anything else to complain.
 
Ah, I see. Yes I suppose there were some weird angles during some of those NWN2 cutscenes. I tend to read the text and click the mouse when I'm done reading though, as opposed to watching the scene and listening to the voice acting all the way through. I guess voice acting and scenes like that aren't really important to me.Though, I thought Bloodlines and KOTOR had some good scenes. But even then, I don't sit back and watch it. I read it.Regarding NWN2's camera, I never had a problem with it. I can't relate to the fussing. It seems the same to me as NWN1's, which was perfect. The only problem is the occassional zoom in if a building is in your path, but that isn't a big deal. The story for NWN2 is great. OC was pretty good, and MOTB is giving me Planescape Torment flash backs.And as for how did Bioware go from BG to NWN, I think I can answer that: they were building a multiplayer tool. That was the focus, not the OC. NWN1's story was like BG's multiplayer feature- fun, but not the big picture.
 
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