Reviewing the full 35 minute Gamescom 2014 demo

+
Well, I don't want to ruin your enlightenment... but actually Geralt mispronounces Dijkstra. I know, whether you consider the Witcher's World to be Polish or English, it would probably not be pronounced correctly in the universe anyway, but the 'ij' diphthong only occurs in Dutch as far as I know - and is not pronounced 'ee' but ɛɪ̯ (sorry, can't think of the English equivalent at the moment).

...Anyway.

Ei as in Eight.

So Daykstra? (ish).
 
Well, I don't want to ruin your enlightenment... but actually Geralt mispronounces Dijkstra. I know, whether you consider the Witcher's World to be Polish or English, it would probably not be pronounced correctly in the universe anyway, but the 'ij' diphthong only occurs in Dutch as far as I know - and is not pronounced 'ee' but ɛɪ̯ (sorry, can't think of the English equivalent at the moment).

Actually, I didn't really pay attention to how Geralt pronounced it (probably should have?). The narrator says that "we are going to visit Dijkstra" and gives a little explanation of who he is. I figured that would probably be correct?
(EDIT: Somewhere very close to minute 3:08 )
 
Last edited:
The idea:
He is the leader of the local community. Protecting his people is his duty. When it comes to dealing with strangers or outer evils, he is the one who has to do it. Ealdorman is a simple man - Geralt doesn't respect him. But then the sacrifice must be done, because there are worse fates than cutting of the ear. And he does the sacrifice - maybe because he is afraid of those evelis, or maybe because he is responsible. Geralt wouldn't do it. And that makes Ealdorman interestning character.

I want to shower you with redpoints, Mr. Blacha - It's so refreshing to hear how the story and characters are written from the 'technical' standpoint.
I can only say: PLEASE MORE!
 
Ei as in Eight.

So Daykstra? (ish).

Actually, I didn't really pay attention to how Geralt pronounced it (probably should have?). The narrator says that "we are going to visit Dijkstra" and gives a little explanation of who he is. I figured that would probably be correct?
(EDIT: Somewhere very close to minute 3:08 )

In the English audiobooks it's pronounced Dike-stra. I think someone else on this forum said that as well.

Alright, if I'm going to be a smartass about this I won't half-ass it. Turns out, google translate has a pretty accurate prononciation of the name as it would be pronounced in modern Dutch.

Of course, there are plenty of present-day Americans with Dutch names who (naturally) use the English prononciation for their names (and who's to say they're wrong? Not even me). Dijkstra, being a native speaker of English (or Polish, if you prefer) would probably do the same. On top of that, I just realised that if we're going off medieval Dutch instead of the modern language, I think ij is pronounced 'ee'/'ie' (as by Geralt and the narrator in the video). The modern Dutch diphthong I think has no equivalent in English.

...anyway. That's about as nitpicky as I can get.
 
so i noticed in the cave, geralt goes into a kinda fist-fight stance for a split second after attempting to burn the roots blocking the path to the heart.
 
Being used to the likes of Doom, Wolfenstein and other games I am quite the ultra-violence connoisseur but seeing Geralt cutting the limbs off those bandits made me feel uneasy for some reason...it never happened in any other game. I suppose that the game being grey rather than black and white makes everyone more human, including bandits. Maybe they just wanted to survive in the harsh swamp life, maybe not.

I thought it was hilarious on monsters though.
 
Well I just saw it again in so called 1080p and yes it is a work in progress. One thing that was really messed up, was that black string/lace on Geralts left glove was floating in mid air off of his arm as he was walking in the dark forest on his way to kill the wolf. If they cannot fix that stuff, then they should just flush it. Some textures were really blurry bad too, but WIP means WIP ;)
I hope their new streaming system really speeds up load times enough to fix these little pop ups & blurry texture things.
CDPR Team has worked really hard on this game, and it really shows what a dev team can do when they put that little extra effort into it;)
 
I thought the facial animations were amazing. There were a few moments where Geralt's mouth moved a little too abruptly I thought, but besides that it was seriously impressive & looked very realistic.
Music was great - one of my favourite things about the Witcher 3 already is the fantastic soundtrack.
Johnny's voice was very annoying. I wish he could have stayed silent. But that's the point, I guess?
 
Being used to the likes of Doom, Wolfenstein and other games I am quite the ultra-violence connoisseur but seeing Geralt cutting the limbs off those bandits made me feel uneasy for some reason...it never happened in any other game.

While I've only seen it happen rarely and it's not nearly as gruesome and bloody, you are definitely able to cut off the limbs of humans in The Witcher 2 as well.
 
This one... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BErF_KpU5fw

Listen in particular to the way "I" is pronounced (Oy). It's one of the West Country accents, but it's a long time since I lived in England so someone else would need to narrow it down. But definitely rural rather than city, and not one of the London accents.

Yeah, it's definitely West Country. It often reminds me of the Bristol accent. It has that twang, but isn't as thick.
 
I've watched the E3 footage a few more times, and the bit that bothers me the most is the mini-map showing too much information (some of that appears to be related to options that may be under player control ~ e.g. the ! and a few other highlights and details).

As these are probably (hopefully) user configurable this may not be too much hand holding.

A more concrete problem is seen with the 'hidden' passage, which is clearly shown on the minimap before any exploration is done.
IMO the cavern mapping should only show what can be seen ~ the underwater passage should only be visible when Geralt is under the surface of that arm of the pool, and the map-draw distance should be limited, rather than immediately filling in the map. What is visible behind the roots is ok though ~ we can see through it, so the visible area could be drawn. (Questions about the appropriateness of the lighting level not considered).

Is this going to be handled more appropriately in the final version of this type of exploration? As presented, this *isn't* a hidden passage.
 
Being used to the likes of Doom, Wolfenstein and other games I am quite the ultra-violence connoisseur but seeing Geralt cutting the limbs off those bandits made me feel uneasy for some reason...it never happened in any other game. I suppose that the game being grey rather than black and white makes everyone more human, including bandits. Maybe they just wanted to survive in the harsh swamp life, maybe not.
Not really, the actual reason for the constantly flying limbs and blood is because the dev was playing on special test mode and made most of them crit kill (like the one where you strike a stunned opponent)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-combat-was-deliberately-easy-cd-projekt-says
What we showed at the Microsoft conference was the easy way to play. We only had five minutes to show, so we had to play on easy and make the fights go really fast. You saw lots of dismemberment. It's not going to be so easy to cut somebody in half when the game comes out. We were showing off some features there.

As these are probably (hopefully) user configurable this may not be too much hand holding.

A more concrete problem is seen with the 'hidden' passage, which is clearly shown on the minimap before any exploration is done.
IMO the cavern mapping should only show what can be seen ~ the underwater passage should only be visible when Geralt is under the surface of that arm of the pool, and the map-draw distance should be limited, rather than immediately filling in the map. What is visible behind the roots is ok though ~ we can see through it, so the visible area could be drawn. (Questions about the appropriateness of the lighting level not considered).

Is this going to be handled more appropriately in the final version of this type of exploration? As presented, this *isn't* a hidden passage.
also, about the handholding

Witcher 3 retains this feeling, but CD Projekt is trying to make the game easier to get to grips with at the start than previous games in the series
we're going to spoon feed the gameplay mechanics you need to learn
I hope what they mean is that this is like a tutorial panel you can turn off
 
Last edited:
Not really, the actual reason for the constantly flying limbs and blood is because the dev was playing on special test mode and made most of them crit kill (like the one where you strike a stunned opponent)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-combat-was-deliberately-easy-cd-projekt-says



also, about the handholding



I hope what they mean is that this is like a tutorial panel you can turn off
Same here, I hope we can turn off all tutorial prompts after we are good and familiar with them.
Button icon prompts and the like etc.. I wan't a clean screen man, and not just for PC players ;)
 
Last edited:
22. Have thrusts disappeared from Geralt’s repertoire?

I just thought that perhaps they want to make Geralt's attacks all have an AoE effect, like group style, and slash works better with that concept than thrusts.

Still, it'd be nice if we can push one button for a single-targeted, massive-damaging thrust.
 
Everyone has his or her preference of course to what impresses them and what doesn't, and with a 35 min gameplay video, it can be easy to start to nitpick every little error that springs into our eyes, when we watch and rewatch this video. I think a lot of the corcerns people mentions in this thread will be adressed.

For me the demo was mindblowing. I was truly impressed with the level of detail that have gone into every part of the game. The world seems alive, immersive and believable and that is for me much more important that a few graphical errors and the like.

The only real issue I had when watching the demo and what really breaks the illusion and immersion for me is when Geralt enters the tavern in Norvigrad. It is just way too CLEAN - no mud or dirt of the floor when people just walks in from a dirt road?, no wear and tear of the furniture? No marks in the table and yet a guy sits and hammers a knife into it. It's really seems like the local cleaners and the local carpenters just been there. A place like that in medevil times need to be dirty and *used*. Not look like the operating room of a hospital.
 
What troubled me is how he talks in the void when leaving Dijkstra, it could have been shown as thoughts but he actually talks after having left the table, lol.
 
What troubled me is how he talks in the void when leaving Dijkstra, it could have been shown as thoughts but he actually talks after having left the table, lol.

As I see it Geralt is talking to himself when leaving ......I am thinking of "......thanks Dijkstra, that was coin well spent"
But I am not sure if that's what you mean.

A question about the demo. At around 11.30 the narrator says that Norvigrad is XX times further away than the big tree in the distant. Does he say 14 or 40? I hear it as 14 but for me that doesn't seem that far away and I would like to believe it is 40?
 
Top Bottom