Just a heads up - I've written a much more comprehensive (1100+ words) 'first impressions' at the Hexus forums. Link to post is:http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-gaming/121902-kalniel-s-first-impressions-witcher.html#post1247384(hope it's ok to link to another forum, apologies if not).
I have only played under the easy and medium difficulties and primarily in the “over the shoulder” camera scheme so want to hold a detailed post until I manage to get some more time with the game.On saying that one tiny element I did notice which I had never really noticed before in the game-play we had seen made me decide to post.The wolves head on the top left of the heads up display (HUD) interface is affected by light sources so it shimmers when turning in a room or outdoors with the light bouncing off and caressing its surfaces.Like I said it’s a tiny detail and because it’s a graphics based example I know it’s a shallow thing to point out but these are exactly the types of tiny elements when stitched together make the game so far (only in my opinion) an extraordinary high calibre when held against very many RPG’s I have played, particularly the more recent titles.Yes I admit I have a couple of minor issues with the “Over the shoulder” camera view in they way it affects control (have not played in isometric enough yet to make a decision about that mode) where moving in a tight environment can cause you to have to focus on where your feet are pointing but from the little I have seen this is the only part I have any doubts about, and it should be noted they are incredibly minor doubts when I look at the game on the whole.As I say, once I get the chance to play some of the higher difficulty and also in the isometric camera I will try to stop playing long enough to post a run down.^^ That took me over an hour to write because of constant interruptions so sorry if it reads a little disjointedly.
Fanboy response (you are allowed multiple choices):1. No it doesn't (the Emperor Has No Clothes syndrome)2. It's beta3. They'll fix it in a patch (rriiiiiiiiighhhhhtt...*looks at NWN2 cutscenes, still broken and terrible).4. Act like the original poster insulted your mother.
DarksharpIm guessing you dont like the cutscenes ?Hey why dont you go all over the net telling everyone !........I think there are some PC forums in China you forgot to copy an paste your ramblings too ,lolEnough already ... boo hoo you dont like the cut scenes ....just stick with your console dumbed down games ..ok teehee
That's right I didn't like a few of the cutscenes.Gotta love 12 year olds who just skim the first couple of posts and miss big parts of the threads.For the record, I play alot of PC games and have stated this already:On my PC nowNWN2 MOTBTitan Quest Immortal ThroneOblivion Shivering Isles (both heavily modded)Crysis demoTwo WorldsPlanescape TormentFallout 1&2System Shock 2 (with Rebirth)Thief 2Vampire BloodlinesSo you were saying? 
My very first impression (I didn't even start playing yet):Wonderful music! Makes me want my car back and drive over field tracks.I'm very happy that you managed to support non QWERT users. Most of the game developors forget this. It automatically recognizes my layout (NEO) and configures the game for WASD (for me VUIA). No, really, usually I have to change keyboard settings before playing a new game. NICE!Edit: Some more feedback and review:I'm now out of Kear Morhen. No crashes, no bugs. Those problems i've seen at GC are fixed. Some microscopic minor flaws: A bread sticks into a hand while eating, the door icon has a one-pixel black line on the right and top border, few juddering in intro and cutscenes. The interface is not so minor: It is not clear, it has to much color and picture elements. It would help to show the keyboard shortcuts in the tooltips of the interface. Its a bit sad you did not include "walk slowly". Now some specialties of the german version: There is an advertisment attached saying "Das Buch zum Spiel" ("book of the game") which is not adequate Geralts geman voice is ... terrible... (now smooth transition to the positve parts) But the overall translation is felicitous. Well, I can fill up your whole database with good details, I will tell the main parts. Animation kicks ass, I love the handmovement of Triss. The world is alive, rooms make sense, it's not a "fantasy" game - it's made with knowledge. Everyone who has been in a real medieval castle knows those little narrow random corners and stairs, however you rarely see them in games (just one example). Good research! The overshoulder camere works good so far and the wobbling adds a lot to the athmosphere. The best thing (for me) is absolutely the hair, yes, games that depict hair in a pretty way are seldom.
Geralts geman voice is ... terrible... (now smooth transition to the positve parts) But the overall translation is felicitous. Well, I can fill up your whole database with good details, I will tell the main parts. Animation kicks ass, I love the handmovement of Triss. The world is alive, rooms make sense, it's not a "fantasy" game - it's made with knowledge. Everyone who has been in a real medieval castle knows those little narrow random corners and stairs, however you rarely see them in games (just one example). Good research! The overshoulder camere works good so far and the wobbling adds a lot to the athmosphere. The best thing (for me) is absolutely the hair, yes, games that depict hair in a pretty way are seldom.Dear Mr. Darksharp,I see your point, you are telling me that it could have been done better and you and your colleagues would have been able to achieve it. That's possible, but you haven't answered me how you would solve quality/quantity problem of the animations. Certainly you could polish the game a little bit more, but how many people, extra money and time you would need? :-\Yes, it is your opinion, but it seems to me that you are a little bit too sceptical about this game (a fable: The Fox and The Grapes). About the games you have mentioned - they weren't really big in dialogs (God of War, Prince of Persia) and they simply didn't look real (especially Final Fantasy) and a real look is (I suppose) simply the most important element of virtual reality. And I wasn't extremely angry when writing the recent post - I just tried to make a point adequate to the character personalising me on this forum. ;D
And I wasn't extremely angry when writing the recent post - I just tried to make a point adequate to the character personalising me on this forum. ;DPretty easy to do. I'm guessing based on my past years of doing this but:Let's take the example of the problematic ingame cutscene I pointed out:>>Made sure the animation idle pose was natural on Geralt's rig first and foremost. It's not currently. His arms are out too far from his lats. Actually, come to think of it I'd reduce his lat's a bit on the actual Geralt model. Maybe 15%. (This would take a couple hours tops.)>>Modified the rig on the guy in red with the torch to be more natural (no more bad back pose or weird hands away from body pose) (Same couple of hours)>>Relaxed the eyes on ALL the characters. They all have crazy eyes because they're open too much in normal state (dunno how many characters, but each should take 5 mins or so)>>Pushed the activation/hot box in so the soldiers/guards in the background would not be in attack pose, then not in attack pose. Or tell programming to turn off attack flags on the enemy AI's during ingame cutscenes. (5 mins)>>Pushed tech/tool guys to add in animation interpolation blending in (3-5 days from tools).>>Recentered the target camera position on the guys head (when it goes out of frame when he's talking). (5 mins)The lipsynching I'd let go as long as it's consistent across everything (that's a big job for a small team like CDP, I know I've done it).The only thing that would have cost some money was to have the tools/animation pipeline to support blends which is one of those subtle things that make a big difference.
Good point they DID NOT have dialogue choices. But they were polished all around in every facet. Simply put, all the games I am pointing out have much, much bigger budgets than the Witcher.Larger dev teams. Mature, robust engines. etc. The benchmark for ingame cutscenes with dialogue will be Mass Effect. Not sure if Assassin's Creed is going this route.
Final Fantasy is not supposed to look hyper real and frankly, neither does Witcher. It's a stylized art direction choice. Whether you like the art direction or not is purely a matter of preference.That being said, everything about Final Fantasy is highly polished. I don't even like the game per se, but I respect what that team has accomplished. It must have been a ton of work.Real to me is Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed (somewhat stylized), Splinter Cell, etc. Those games are pushing the photoreal horizon.
Hmmm... right. Excellent roleplaying then. I'm roleplaying that I believe you right now
I disagree entirely with that..ahem..reviewer. I think the cutscenes are great and the framerate is rock solid too. Nothing to worry about, some reviewers simply want to bash everything. The ONLY problems with this game are the long loading/saving times and the cumbersome inventory management.Darksharp said:
The review sounds (except for the cutscene glitches part) ) like the reviewer just doesn't like this type of games. He mentions that you can't do a pure mage or a pure fighter character, but from what I understand that's just not what witchers are. Same goes for the combat system, it was known that it'd require timed clicks but that's exactly what he criticizes... And so on... Also, it'd be good to know what his computer specs are... lots of the problems might be performance related.
Click on his Xfire signature, and you'll get the specs. I really don't think Ring (over at FSS) wanted to "simply bash everything" and I don't believe he "just doesn't like this type of games [sic]". I do think, however, you have to take it from the viewpoint of a huge fan of the author/books who was looking for an incredible genre-defining type of game. It's a matter of raising expectations extremely high and having them not matched. The best way to look at that review by Ring is to use it to flag things that might (might!) be of concern to you. Whether they are or not remains to be seen. I have the game pre-ordered and have a lot of interest in seeing how my experience relates to that review.
I really don't think Ring (over at FSS) wanted to "simply bash everything" and I don't believe he "just doesn't like this type of games [sic]". I do think, however, you have to take it from the viewpoint of a huge fan of the author/books who was looking for an incredible genre-defining type of game. It's a matter of raising expectations extremely high and having them not matched. The best way to look at that review by Ring is to use it to flag things that might (might!) be of concern to you. Whether they are or not remains to be seen. I have the game pre-ordered and have a lot of interest in seeing how my experience relates to that review.@darksharpThere are bugs in each game, but your worries in your first post seem to be quite insignificant (at least for me). Yes, they need to improve the animations and as you have said (written) that it could take you about 4, 5 hours to correct just one of them, it certainly, considering the huge amount of animations in TW, isn't easy job. So - maybe your "proffesional eye" sees that it lacks some tricks, but for me and others it looks fine. And I should apologize for my first comment, I tried make a joke (although I admit I was a little bit angry), but if you took it pesonally, I apologize. Cheers
That's what a lot of it sounded like to me.He's complaining about not being able to do "pure melee" or "pure mage" specialist, then he says something along the lines of it's a cRPG so I don't want to have to click repeatedly. Then there's a part about lots of quests being unavailable as a consequence of a decision he made. I mean, wasn't that exactly what The Witcher was advertised to do? You play as a witcher (limited class choice), combat requires timed clicks, consequences of your choices are serious.Don't get me wrong, I am not dismissing his opinion, everybody's entitled to one, but in this case it seems like The Witcher is, by design so to say, not his kind of game.Again, the cutscene glitches and long loading times are a valid complaint...Equisilus said: