Greets,Part of the prologue is missing in the demo, yep. I understand the alchemy part is missing from it too, which is quite a large portion. This is also why prologue to act 1 is a bit odd in the demo. It actually makes sense in the game.There are some in act 1, although I haven't played the demo through so I'm not sure if they've been cut or not.You'll know if you changed something big, because you get a cut-scene with a voice over and a piece of art explaining the repercussions of your actions.From memory, you should have seen three(four?) in act one. If you didn't see any, then its cut from the demo. Also some of what you do in act 1 is picked up later, and there are are repercussions going all the way through the game.
Thank you for the demo. Regardless to great reviews I waited to try the game for myself before buying. I played for few hours last night and today I am another proud owner of The Witcher game. I can not appreciate more the "mature" storyline and content and the unique take on fantasy based on the Witcher book series. Being so close to medieval history in fencing style, architecture and even clothing it just stands out making the other big RPGs just a child's play.
I have just finished English demo and I am impressed. One thing bothers me though. In the demo I did not experience long loading times, neither crashes. In fact the loading times when entering/leaving hut were in terms of seconds, probably more in more complex areas, but never much more. So I wonder is the demo somehow "optimized" (in Nvidia's sense) ;-) so I may encounter far worse performance in the retail game?Also I did not notice any copyprotection in demo, could it be the cause of smooth experience?And finally, there were supposed to be some adult scenes in the game, but in demo they seemed to be cut, is it true?
The demo omits various parts of the real prologue and chapter 1. The actual game has rather more to them, as you will have read, yes.I have a feeling, though I don't know, that the demo lacks the copy protection that slows down loading. I've heard that buying a digital download version gets you this advantage as well.
So I guess, I will need to wait for patch 1.2 and have it confirmed from others who own the full game. Because right now with the demo, I have loading times like 2-5 sec. meanwhile people here suggest it is more like 20-50 sec. I already got burned once when I bought a game because the demo run great, to find out later that it was the only time the game run great.If the times do not improve with new patch though (because of copy protection or whatever) I am afraid it will kill the deal.Eriash said:
Alrighty first post and most likely last post , I have been hearing how good this game was from various people so when the demo was released I thought I would give it a go, having loved NWN, Baulder Gate games I was really looking foward to this,But after playing the demo I feel rather numb.This game has great atmosphere and a decent story line, the graphics are quite nice and there does not seem to be as many bugs as I had expected, but what i did not expect was the weakest combat system I have ever played "whack a mole" sorry should have said " whack 4 moles in a match box".From the demo my impressions of the cut scenes that lead you by the nose into combat sections are to provide cover for bad AI, for instance we see in the cut scene our hero draw his sword switch back to game he is standing sword sheathed always giving the first hit to his opponents?or lets lock the player in a tea cup with 4 enemies?, or being unable to draw my sword before entering a dangerous section "just to give those bad guys a chance eh?" movement issues when changing from combat to non combat and also the player has a turning circle of an oil tanker when in combat, I am struggling to find anything positive about the combat system..in fact i cant!.Up until about midway through the demo I was set on buying it , have finished the demo now absolutely no chance which is a pitty because the game feels good, sounds good, looks good but is rather anti social when you get you hands on it.7/10 and not for me ..sorry
Fair review from how you see things which is fine 
The sword sheathing is a bit of a pain sometimes, but as long as the area is not a safe area (eg an inn) you can draw your sword any time you like by clicking on the sword icon and/or combat style icons.I play with the low isometric view and don't have a turning circle problem - I just click the ground in the direction I want Geralt to go and he turns on the spot to get there.I'm not sure how long you've tried it, but certainly I found it does get better when you get used to it. Try the low isometric view and keep going - you should be able to start doing some very satisfying manouvers and combos eventually.
The sword sheathing is a bit of a pain sometimes, but as long as the area is not a safe area (eg an inn) you can draw your sword any time you like by clicking on the sword icon and/or combat style icons.I play with the low isometric view and don't have a turning circle problem - I just click the ground in the direction I want Geralt to go and he turns on the spot to get there.I'm not sure how long you've tried it, but certainly I found it does get better when you get used to it. Try the low isometric view and keep going - you should be able to start doing some very satisfying manouvers and combos eventually.It is not that i think the combat is easy or hard , "fenced in" would be a better choice of words , for example the salamder HQ at the abandoned huts , you fight two enemies outside and dispatch them easy then your are forced to sheath your sword and enter the hut even though you know it will be dangerous, if you try to enter the hut quickly with your sword out, it then sheaths the sword as soon as you enter plus you have to reselect the sign, awkward and not fun spoiling the imersion in the game ..not to mention the ridiculously small space your meant to fight in inside the hut.The whole timing method of combat is repeditive and you spend more time watching a silly little cursor than enjoying watching the actuall combat your taking part in, the "end of level Boss" is a disappointment again lets lock the player in a very small area give him no time to prepare and add in Freindly AI that seem to excell at doing not a lot bar setting themselfs on fire or watching you fight as they stand motionless.I will try the low isometric view to see if it helps the movement when using the combat system, this combat system would probably have worked fine for one on one, but as the combat engine for RPG I am most definately not sold.
Just out of curiosity, when mentioning the fight in hut, are you referring to the demo? I cannot recall such fight, and I just wonder I have missed something...Anyway, I guess, the fighting system reminds me Ultima Underworld (anyone?)solic said:
and fact is, I probably do not care much about fighting system. I take fight more like natural conclusion of my abilities and weapon level rather than tactical enterprise. I agree, though, it is pretty simplistic, with right weapon and/or magic at hand.I also grabbed the demo version of the witcher - I exclusively use a laptop for anything but storing files these days, and even though it has an ok graphics chip I wouldn't buy a game without first checking whether it works on my machine. Of course I'm "sold" now, and downloading the game from the gentlemen at metaboli now. Just wanted to say that a) the game looks awesome, great job, and b) demos are important especially with the many hardware and software configurations these days and you should definitely publish demos for future games you will be doing (bit earlier than this one would be nice too ).
).I have demo, and I do not know what are you talking about. AFAIK you can only run when you hold sword (or probably any weapon) and only walk when you have no weapon (in hand). You can bring out or sheathe the weapon to change that, but only when in "dangerous" location (i.e. outside the buildings, after the dusk).foumarc said:
For those asking questions or comments, I will try to answer or fill in some information you may be lacking about the full game.First, as has been mentioned, the demo has a number of the fixes from the 1.2 patch(which has not been released yet). This is probably why the loading times are so much faster and why things don't crash(note that crash problems for me were minimal with release anyway). The copy protection should NOT significantly increase loading/saving times with the release version once the 1.2 patch is released.Now, the prolog and chapter 1 are NOT the full versions. You get a bit of a taste of the game, but you don't see EVERYTHING. From what people have mentioned, alchemy also is not really there, and is a big part of the game for many people. Now, about the combat system, which some people don't seem to understand. A witcher has two types of swords that he can use for witcher combat styles, steel(which you are dealing with in the demo), and silver. There are other types of weapons that can be used, but they play a very minor role, and for many are ignored.So, here is how the combat system works. Note that the cursor does NOT change on hard difficulty, but I will get into that in a bit. Combat in The Witcher focuses on what are called combat sequences. As you advance from sequence 1, to 2, to 3, and up, each sequence will do more damage than the lower sequences. They become even more powerful as your skills improve. So, you click to initiate an attack sequence. When the sequence is done, the cursor(if over an enemy) will turn into a flaming sword, indicating you should click again. If you miss the flaming sword time, you attack again, but with sequence 1.Now, in addition to combat sequences, you have three different attack "modes". One is a strong attack, with overhand and two handed attacks which work well against slower "strong" enemies as well as armored opponents. One is a fast attack for those with a high agility(they dodge and avoid your strong attacks). You also have a third, the group attack, which involves spinning around to hit all enemies in range. This is the best approach when you are dealing with three or more enemies at once.As you level up, you earn points to spend to improve your abilities. You can put points into things like strength(which also boosts your vitality/hit points), dexterity, stamina(which helps your endurance), intelligence, or you can put points into signs(magic) that you know. You can also put points into your combat abilities. As you boost your steel or silver combat abilities, you will see that you have some improvements that will boost the damage you do, as well as how many attacks you get as a part of a combat sequence. So, there are advancements in strong steel that will make strong attacks do more damage as well as some that increase how many attacks are in different sequences. The same applies to fast steel, or group steel. For the demo, putting points into silver sword styles would be a waste, though in the long-term you would be able to take advantage of these.For hard difficulty in the full game, you do not get the cursor changes to indicate when to click to advance the combat sequences. This means you need to really watch the combat going on so you know when to click again.That is it for stuff that looks to apply to the demo. In the full game, you will be doing a bit of alchemy. Alchemy is pretty simple, but at the same time, can require that you spend some effort getting components. There are three types of items you can make with Alchemy in the game. Potions, greases(temporary improvements to your swords), and finally, bombs. Each of these types of items requires a base component(alcohol for potions as an example), plus between 3 and 5 additional ingredients. When you get many items in the game, inspecting the item will show what the primary and secondary components of that item are. Swallow is a Vitriol, two rebis, and one Aether item, plus an alcohol base that is high enough in quality. Swallow is a heal-over-time potion, so you can drink these BEFORE going into a fight. Blizzard potions come in handy since they help you to avoid being hit for those big fights(but the effect plays like the whole world slows down, which can be really annoying since it may throw off your fight timings for swinging your sword, so some practice comes in handy with this one).The storyline flows a LOT better without pieces being cut out of the prolog and chapter 1, so don't let the demo get you down when it comes to that. Also, don't expect MAJOR stuff from decisions made in the prolog and chapter 1. They are there, but the real decisions you will face pick up in importance once you hit chapter 2.