[TW1][adv] Birth, & Virgins

[username_2075278]

[TW1][adv] Birth, & Virgins

If you've been around The Witcher for any length of time you'll have heard of 'Birth, & Virgins'; it's a mod we started working on for the original D'Jinni competition, more than two years ago. We won a number of the interim prizes in that competition. James Semple came on board and wrote us some really excellent original music and environmental sound, some of which has been included on the 1.5 release DVD. However, the development of the mod itself ran into difficulties, and it has taken a long time to finish.However, it is now released, and you can download it from here; it is compressed with 7Zip.''Birth, & Virgins'' presents Geralt with a series of moral dilemmas; the mod is strong on story (and particularly on music) and will appeal to role-playing gamers. It's shorter on magic and monsters.Many people have contributed to this release. The core team of Simon Brooke and Carrol Dufault have been with the project from start to finish, but we're grateful for the contributions of many other people. Credits include:* Story and main plot: Simon Brooke and Carrol Dufault* Set design: Carrol Dufault* Auxiliary plot lines: Cory Kerens* Dialogue: Simon Brooke, Carrol Dufault, Cory Kerens* Musical composition and sound design: James Semple * Minor characters: Petra Prinz* Testing and continuity: Simon Brooke, Carrol Dufault, Lovely_Psycho, Caroline Kintzel* Scripting and cutscenes: Simon Brooke* Flute: Lisa Smolen * Violin: Heather Fenoughty* Guitar: James Semple* With help from: ** Lovely_Psycho,** Hexenmeister Raven,** Vaernus, ** Ifayra,** Clark Verbrugge,** Caroline KintzelIf you find bugs, please report them here.

 

[e-ahmet.823]

Thank you. Will play this. I can't believe I haven't seen this before.

 

[username_2075439]

Many thanks for the great adventure!One question:

Spoiler

How do you kill Gutka? I take it that is necessary to lay Martyna's ghost to rest?

 

[e-ahmet.823]

Spoiler

I couldn't kill her. I might have messed up my game though. She wasn't anywhere to be found in daylight and when I went her place at night, she would throw me out. I think it's because I dealt with the main villain first. (can't remember his name)

 

[j2755]

Is there a walkthrough ?? If you play out of step, will that effect game play ?? I am stuck and wondering if I did something out of order...

Spoiler

I think I killed all the Echinops and need rootstock to move on ????

Will keep playing, or scrap this game and start over......

 

[ryderych]

I'm having the same problem as j2755. Any workarounds for this? A walkthrough detailing "proper" quest sequence?

 

[3DMaster]

How do you get Echinopse Rootstock? I killed Echinopse but all they have is spores, no rootstock.

 

[baku-1986]

I would like to play this adventure. It works, but unfortunately I can't load any save (just stuck at loading screen), so I would have to play whole adventure on one playthrough.

I've played every available adventure for Witcher (over 20) and I had no problem with them. I own Witcher Enhanced Edition with latest patch (Witcher.exe version is 1.5.0.1304). I've got Polish (my native language) and English version installed.

I also played english only adventures (Medical problems, Evil Decisions, Red Silk etc.) without problem.

Is there anything you can advice me to resolve this issue?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Thanks! I never saw this adventure mod before - will try it out.

 

[Corylea.723]

Thanks! I never saw this adventure mod before - will try it out.

There are 19 adventures available in English; you can find a list of all of them here.

 

[kastelll]

Regarding the list of available Witcher 1 adventures just mentioned, the link for Tribute seems to be broken. Does anyone know where we can find it?

 

[tommy5761]

Regarding the list of available Witcher 1 adventures just mentioned, the link for Tribute seems to be broken. Does anyone know where we can find it?

Try this one
https://www.dropbox.com/s/icp6gtfopmu1agk/the_tribute_492163e683d76.rar

 

[Corylea.723]

Regarding the list of available Witcher 1 adventures just mentioned, the link for Tribute seems to be broken. Does anyone know where we can find it?

I'm hosting a few of the "lost" adventures on my website, here: http://corylea.com/other_adventures.html

I've added a download link for "Tribute" to the list of adventures. I didn't want to remove the link to the thread, since that contains lots of descriptions and screenshots and so on, so for "Tribute," the download link and thread link are separate.

 

[kastelll]

Try this one
https://www.dropbox.com/s/icp6gtfopmu1agk/the_tribute_492163e683d76.rar

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

And many thanks also to Corylea, although I had already downloaded the adventure from *Tommy* 's link.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

There are 19 adventures available in English; you can find a list of all of them here.

Thanks Corylea, very useful list!

 

[bengeddes]

I have mixed feelings after playing this adventure. It had some great ideas, but it seems like it needed some more testing for bugs.

Pros:
-Interesting, mature story.

-Integrates with the lore and story of the Witcher - uses the Murky Waters map and actually admits that it's Murky Waters (and not some other village) and gives the history of some characters from TW1 (I think I even saw a little Alina!).

-Great music!

-Good use of the journal.

Cons:
-NPC schedules and behavior could be somewhat frustrating. For example, Gutka won't talk to you during the day and kicks you out of her house at night. Abigail won't talk to you while she's at work and kicks you out at night. It's an ok idea, but having a narrow window during which to talk to characters just made getting simple things done a chore.

-There were some bugs in the main plot, resulting in some unfinishable quests and nonsensical cutscene sequences:

Spoiler

When it's time to confront Barnabas at Martyna's grave, sometimes the dialogue doesn't trigger, and you can talk to Hela first. Then after dealing with Barnabas, this makes a cutscene play where Hela's brother and suitor show up, then a follow-up dialogue w/ Hela with a possible sex scene, then the first cutscene plays again. This sequence was all bugged out of order.

I was never able to get Echinops Rootstock. They never dropped, and eventually Echinops just stopped spawning.

I was never able to bring Gutka to justice. After I confronted Barnabas, Gutka just disappeared or was only home at night, where she kicked me out of the house automatically. I found her red shawl in Barnabas' lair, perhaps there was some other step toward proving her guilt that I missed?

 

[Estel]

This is really great adventure - to be honest, one of the best ever made for TW1, almost in pair with Corylea works (MP's duology). It have very interesting and believable plot (mature one, as others mentioned), nicely fleshed characters - non-typical ones, yet, natural, at the same time - and nicely executed dialogues. Location work is nice too, including scripting natural behavior for it's inhabitants. For all of the above - great work, and 6/6.

BUT there is a bit *but*. It's buggy as hell, to the point of major bugs affecting main plot, limiting number of choices available (i.e. some choices that you *could* made by design, are unfinishable), and overall, require a unholy ammount of patience and reloads to go around game breaking things. I had such patience, as I really liked plot, but it's a real shame, that adventure was never properly tested.

Now, when you look at the amount of work that must have been put to create this - in many places, great attention to details is visible - it is even more strange. Bugs are so HUGE, that you just can't hope to miss them, it looks like developers never actually tried to play-through it from start to the end. Considering how great the plot is, it is real sin that no one cared to fix roadblocks, as it seems (see comments above) that 90% of people haven't had chance to see major parts of the story, and developer's hard work just got wasted. To increase "facepalm aspect", the biggest problems seems to be rather trivial to fix from creator's side, especially, compared to effort put into creating this remarkable adventure (which reinforce my suspicions, that upon finishing, someone just thrown it into release without single testing playthrough, and wanted to forget about it, ignoring all bug reports. I know that Dji' can be frustrating to work with, but...).

It may sounds like it was PITA to play through - yet, in fact, I really enjoyed it. What I didn't enjoy - if i haven't made it clear already - is that such nice and deep story is so spoiled by bugs. Sure, it made me spent 2,5 more time playing this mod that it would take normally, but it's hardly the way of extending playtime we like to see.

Considering all of the above, 6/6 for story and characters, -1 for bugs and another -1 for how stupid the mistakes are (and no bugfix release in years) = 4/6 as my subjective score.
---

Now, in case someone new is going to play this, or come here to check about workaround for bugs (Spoiler alert):

1. I managed to bring Gutka to justice and finish Martyna's ghost quest. It's indeed broken to the point of seeming unfinishable - indeed, after Barnaba's death, Gutka disappears completely, and is present only on her hour at night, but then, she throws us out.

It took me more than a dozen of reloads and rests, but finally I've found a method to "catch" her in state where we can progress with execution. To work around bug, one need to sleep till dawn * -1 hour * (7 AM). Then, go to Gutka's house - she will be sleeping. Place Geralt in position, that block her path to door, and wait till 8 AM. Then, and only then, she will talk with you about Barnaba's death and her own role in Martyna's ordeal, allowing you to decide what to do with her. If you talk with her too early (7:30 - she wakes, then), conversation may start, but end abruptly. Also, don't let her leave house, as it's exactly what she will try to do at 8 AM - if succeed she will disappear again, till night.

Now, while it was really frustrating to achieve, it was also worth the effort (even through whole effort is result of really stupid bug, again). Not to spoil anything - as I'm probably first person that managed to complete this quest - I'll just tell, that she turned out to be worst monster in whole adventure, much worse than you can expect.

2. Echinops rootstocks are, indeed, unobtainable - for a very simple reasons. Developers forget to mark "Flaying" as acquired talent, so we can't flay *any* monster in game (!), thus getting only non-skinnable ingredients from them. As "Flaying" is story-based talent, you can't purchase it. didn't I told you already, that some main-story breaking bugs would be *extremely* easy to fix?...

Now, there is no workaround for this one, sadly (other than freakin' fixing adventure in editor, as this story really deserves it). The only way to finish main plot is to convince Hela to marry Joseph, thus keeping the child alive. Neither telling her that she is young, have time for decision about marriage and should go learn to Oxenfurt, with her brother's financial help, OR that she should keep willing to become priestess of eternal flame (blah...) is advised, as it makes game unfinishable. Both scenarios require you to get rootstraps for aborcyphicating potion, which you can't complete.

3. Last but not least, watch what you're doing at the very beginning - if, after initial conversation with Hela, she doesn't follow you, restart. Variant with her family asking you to bring her is bugged too, of course - she never starts to follow you, if you don't convince her at first talk.

4. Bonus - there *may* be a hidden quest, or, at least, easter egg. While escorting Hela home, near the start of adventure, I made a side-trip to Aard circle of power - amongst pack of wolves (that are your later quest-target), i saw neutral "white wolf" - literally, a white one with "white" in character's name. As I didn't wanted to trigger another bug (I haven't had quest for wolves, yet, and I haven't distributed talents yet - couldn't, as if you meditate for any non-zero amount of time, Hela @!$#@$@ disappears, bugging whole plot...Yea, you could saw this coming, already), I haven't approached it, finishing business with Hela.

Now, wolf seems to be bugged too (surprise, surprise...), as it *never* appeared again, during my quest for wolves, or afterwards. Tried in all possible hours, and walked my feet off, while searching for it.

/Estel

 

[bengeddes]

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of this adventure, although I might have taken more points off for the great big bugs that plague it. It's morbidly fascinating to read your account of how just how difficult it is to progress through these roadblocks.

So, yeah, thanks for giving it a write-up, it's a real shame that such excellent ideas got so crippled by technical execution.