Witcher 2's bugs are patent, I hesitate to subscribe to Witcher 3

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Witcher 2's bugs are patent, I hesitate to subscribe to Witcher 3

The first Witcher game is one of few games in this genre that makes such an impact using a mouse and keyboard interface.
The Witcher story is amazing.

The actual quality of Witcher 2 suffers despite how it looks in the quick clips you get on the internet and trailers.
Bugs of Witcher 2:
1. When first entering Flotsom the conversation with Iorveth in the tree, one of the dialog trees has a timer on it. The first run through I did; the dialog menu items were not active, so in other words the highlighted menu item wouldn’t change with location of the mouse cursor, so I was unable to input the dialog I intend to, and then I had to reload. This bug is prevalent throughout the game in the inventory screens, and stores etc..
2. In the quest to find the rose of remembrance I asked Triss to join me, in my first run through at the end after conversing with the Scoia’tael, the game was designed that Triss was going to follow me out. First I walked down the path into the corner I thought was the exit Triss stood there when I finally found the exit and was leaving. According to the story Triss and Geralt are getting along finally saying we’re glad to have each other around so the bug was that she was staying there to hang out with the Scoia’tael. I reloaded, that time she followed me out, it auto-saved as I was walking down the path into the woods like I would expect.
3. The witcher’s equipped sword on his back disappears anytime descending any later, then reappears at the bottom of the later. Distracting, and very detracting from immersive quality.
4. If you press escape in the middle of dialog, then go to the load menu, you have no mouse cursor.
5. In the necromancy quest phase of the Assassin’s of Kings quest the hallucination is bugs galore: In one phase of the hallucination the player may knock out/kill a guard of two. One play through I knocked out the guard on the left, the guard on the right saw it happen, and calmly walked away. The guard’s geometry that I knocked out stayed standing yet was not interactive. I could walk through its geometry as the guard on the right stopped in the middle of its sentence, then walked away calmly. After that it is impossible for the player to follow what he/she is doing to progress through that hallucination. The phases seem to change all of a sudden unexpectedly.
6. Attempting to load has crashed the game multiple times.
7. There is a loud audio pop every time the main menu appears starting the game the first time.
8. The inhabitants repeat the same dialog phrase and conversation over and over again at all times of the day.
9. The combat is unresponsive, countless times I can’t figure out why Geralt isn’t acting on button presses, I lost many battles because of that. Does Geralt do that when he is carrying a lot of weight?

Errors of story:
I can remember storyline problems that make this game nearly impossible to play, or follow along with, including dialog that doesn’t make sense, or is incomplete. The dialog may be incomplete to the point where there is no chance for the player to understand the goal, or expectation of a quest per se.

Next Witcher 1 features that made it a great game are not available to Witcher 2. Including places discovered and visited marked on the map then the ability to mark places on the map to track. Meditating anywhere is weird; the feature that required you look for a lit fire or light one yourself, or to need to get along with a character of the game so that you could rest with them was very beneficial to the story and immersion. The Witcher 2 allowed the player to kneel down in the middle of a stream for 20 hours if you wanted to. The player never left the environment he/she was in to mix potions, look at your inventory, equip equipment, and develop the character, even view the map. Next the choice of play styles was nice: OTS, Isometric etc. Lastly there was a cool animation of Geralt adding any augmentation, or oil to the sword when you equipped an enhancement. Now there's a sound affect in an inventory menu that fills the entire screen real estate. Also the medallion actually animated/wiggled. In The Witcher 1 it's a simple dull looking 2D glow effect.

Triss didn’t like me in the first game, she was also like 40 now she likes me and she’s like 20. Who made that decision?

Geralt’s face animations don’t look like, or animate like a mysterious (badass) monster slaying face would. The way his eyes move and his smiles, and facial expressions. His personality in the game totally changed from badass thoughtful monster slayer to insensitive creep overall.

Balancing needs work, including items to collect at the beginning. Combat at the beginning compared to the end. Overall at the beginning combat feels unmanageable, then at the end it feels effortless because of the items balancing.

The entire game is doom and gloom, that said it's too short and the world environments are small.

As far as the story goes it really all feels like tons of disconnected stories. I have confidence in making these claims because The Witcher 1 was nothing like any of that.

p.s.
I'll let the discussion above remain. My discussion is general discussion, 2, Witcher 3 subject.
(deleted)in the general Witcher 2 section; in "tech support" section may be deleted
 
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Geralt’s face animations don’t look like, or animate like a mysterious (badass) monster slaying face would. The way his eyes move and his smiles, and facial expressions. His personality in the game totally changed from badass thoughtful monster slayer to insensitive creep overall.

Huh? The Witcher 1 barely even had conversational animations in general, and the English Voice Acting was most certainly not good. So I don't see how anyone could perceive that he turned from a 'badass thoughtful monster slayer to insensitive creep'. The writing also felt completely consistent between the two games, so once again I cannot even begin to imagine how someone could think the writing gave off that feeling going from W1 > W2.

I'm sorry but alot of what else you mentioned is all very subjective and I cannot really agree on most of the points. The Witcher 2 certainly had its flaws, and it certainly didn't do some elements as well as The Witcher 1, but overall it was a fantastic game, and I daresay I even slightly preferred it to W1.
The Story & Characters I felt was only improved on The Witcher 1, and I'm sorry but statements like, "including dialog that doesn’t make sense, or is incomplete" is just utter nonsense to me because I never felt like that, ever (Even when The Witcher 2 was my very first experience in The Witcher world entirely!).

I'm not even sure how to tackle your list of bugs, because much of it seems like 1% chance contextual stuff that 99% of people probably never encountered (I'm certainly scratching my head at much of it), some of it seems to be more-so personal issues with an element of the game itself and not an actual bug (Like repetitive ambient dialogues - and need I mentioned that TW1 had this in abundance also) and one isn't even really a bug but merely a camera mishap. So I'm actually just going to leave it at that statement.


Obviously it seems like you are a much bigger fan of The Witcher 1 than The Witcher 2, and whilst The Witcher 3 "appears" to be getting back some of that atmosphere I think every fan holds dear about W1, mechanically and design-wise W3 is going to be much closer to 2 than 1.
So the joyous thing is you don't have to "subscribe" to The Witcher 3. Be skeptical, be worried and if I held your opinion(s) I would most certainly be holding off to get the game ... Wait for a big discount, or even better, borrow it off a friend to try it out. However I for one found much to love about The Witcher 2, and as I said I really cannot agree with much of what you said negatively about it, so I'm keen on 3 and am hoping for the best. The decision to "subscribe" to 3 ultimately rests in your hands, and as said, if I were you I personally wouldn't.
 
Errors of story:
1) I can remember storyline problems that make this game nearly impossible to play, or follow along with, including dialog that doesn’t make sense, or is incomplete. The dialog may be incomplete to the point where there is no chance for the player to understand the goal, or expectation of a quest per se.

2) Triss didn’t like me in the first game, she was also like 40 now she likes me and she’s like 20. Who made that decision?

3) Geralt’s face animations don’t look like, or animate like a mysterious (badass) monster slaying face would. The way his eyes move and his smiles, and facial expressions. His personality in the game totally changed from badass thoughtful monster slayer to insensitive creep overall.

4) Balancing needs work, including items to collect at the beginning. Combat at the beginning compared to the end. Overall at the beginning combat feels unmanageable, then at the end it feels effortless because of the items balancing.

5) The entire game is doom and gloom, that said it's too short and the world environments are small.

As far as the story goes it really all feels like tons of disconnected stories. I have confidence in making these claims because The Witcher 1 was nothing like any of that.
1) if you do remember them, please, let us know what it was. I can't remember any..

2) It's imposible to follow all endings. It's up to devs if they want to follow player's decisions or not. It's not easy to do that. Number of beginnings would grow up exponentially with number of possibilities - so there is decision if you will have more choices or if you want to follow different endings.
Graphic is different now, so maybe she just looked different, but I don't think she was looking like 40.
different hair style and graphic, but not 20 years between them (imo)

She is very young, so 25 is right for her.
3) I don't agree, he looks pretty badass. I don't like effeminate heroes and I don't like Rambo-style idiots. Geralt is good ballance.

4) I don't have any problem with battles. First time they were quite difficult for me, but that was just about practice. After that, I had no problem. If you develop your character and improve weapons, it's obvious that you will have advantage in fight. Don't you want still the same level of difficulty, no matter what armor are you wearing, no matter what weapons are you using and what abilities do you have, do you?

5) About 30 hours of gameplay is not enough for you? I think it's pretty good on game without open-world maps. It's good to mention those 30 hours are not filled with travelling.
If I compare it with another games from that year ... Crysis 2 - 12 hours; Deus ex - also 30 hours; Modern Warfare 3 - 9 hours, I don't think Witcher fall behind other games.


It seems like I think the game is perfect - and that is almost true. Especially if I consider other games. The only thing I don't like was inability to choose cooperation with my favourite side, but even if I don't like endings much, I have to say, I don't know better game.
 
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Thanks for taking your time to respond to these objections I have about Witcher 2.
I'd say the graphic speaks for itself, and one can also consider the voice-over of Triss' character comparing Witcher 1 to Witcher 2. Triss' voice in Witcher 1 was a definitely a more mature women.
 
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What you claim to be "story errors" are intentional, not errors. You are not Geralt the Demigod. You do no know everything, you should not expect to be told everything, you should not expect to be able to make a "correct" decision or force a "correct" outcome. You should expect to make decisions throughout the game based on inadequate knowledge and abilities, and without the ability to foresee the consequences.

There is no "correct". There is only the lesser evil, which is sometimes the greater evil posing as the lesser.
 
One more bug to add : After Geralt fought with the dragon in the prologue,he gets his silver sword back :) But I can't completely agree with you. Of course there are a lot bugs in Witcher 2,but they are not too much critical. They don't effect your gameplay very much.
 
I can remember storyline problems that make this game nearly impossible to play, or follow along with, including dialog that doesn’t make sense, or is incomplete. The dialog may be incomplete to the point where there is no chance for the player to understand the goal, or expectation of a quest per se.

Excuse me, but this is just bull shit.

Or, should I ask: what language version have you played?
 
Excuse me, but this is just bull shit.

Or, should I ask: what language version have you played?

While your phrasing could probably have been better, I think that the question you ask is reasonable.
@bmxjumperc - perhaps you could advise what language you played in, and also what your PC specs are? A lot of the problems you encountered don't seem to match the experiences of most players.
 
The Witcher 2 allowed the player to kneel down in the middle of a stream for 20 hours if you wanted to
Sorry, but I don't see this as a flaw. Witcher 2 is roleplaying game after all, so you make your own experience. If you chose to meditate in middle of brook water that's your choice. I prefer nice and cozy places ;)
 
Not everything I was mentioning was comparing Witcher 1, to 2. The first time I played through Witcher 2 I didn't notice his animations either. To reiterate I played through a few months ago, and looking closely the facial expressions of Geralt he made in not all, but much of his dialog were not believable. (yah it's a machine) I still expect fantastic animations even though yes there are millions of complexities that go into animating a face, or a whole character for that matter (well).
I won't touch all the points, sorry for that. This one just caught my attention more than others for some reason. Maybe because the rest were being addressed by forumites.

Are you talking about animations during conversations? If so, I find this a weird comment due to the year it was released, and genre. TW2's conversation animations weren't great, but they weren't terrible, either. Thinking about the other RPGs of those years - ME2, DA2, Skyrim, ME3, Fable 3 - I don't see anyone that did facial expressions well (if at all). Hell, even looking at recent RPGs, facial animations aren't great. It's just a limitation of the genre.

In this regard, what TW3 is doing (from what gameplay footage we've seen) is phenomenal. It feels as if each conversation is individually directed, both in expressions as well as movement. This is actually one of the things that if they will turn out to be true, then they will blow my mind more than most of TW3's achievements. We sometimes say that TW3 might be that RPG that scores A on all major RPG categories, together - animations during conversations are something that no RPG ever did well, as far as I know.
 
Sorry, but I don't see this as a flaw. Witcher 2 is roleplaying game after all, so you make your own experience. If you chose to meditate in middle of brook water that's your choice. I prefer nice and cozy places ;)
From reading stuff from others, it sounds like they left a lot of stuff/animations out of TW2 on XB360. My guess is.. the 360 could not handle the whole awesome game as a whole ;)
 
You can't argue that the sophistication of software in 2011 the year Witcher 2 was released was hindering Witcher 2 to be any better because my objection here is I'm comparing it to the original Witcher released 2007. I'm declaring the original Witcher game had a much deeper story to follow, and care about, the characters were easier to believe and relate to, as well as care about, most of all there were no game-play hindering blatant bugs.
Then backing that up with facts.

Overall the original Witcher is more impressive in terms of fun, story, and quality.

If my observations are carefully read it's simple to see the bugs and errors do actually exist.

Lastly the localization I played in is English.

These facts lead one to believe that Witcher 3 will continue to go in this direction not true to itself but only to appeal to a popular audience.
 
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There were plenty of gameplay breaking bugs in W1. You could get a stuck quest with Marlowe, there were issues for some with trying to use the sephirots before the "right time" breaking the quest... plus some others that I forget. Play balance issues, illogicalities in how the story flows, and rather too many "not quite right" adaptations and reuses of elements from the witcher's world that were unnecessary and didn't really help...

I liked it... liked the second more because it was more grounded in the Sapkowski world... and the third is shaping up to be the best of both of the previous... the tighter scope of the "personal quest", mixed with the being a pawn in other's grander schemes... and a more tightly focussed world.

W1 was all "good" for a standalone game... but it hasn't sat well (for me) as part of the story arc from books through W2 to W3... I'm glad that it looks to be back on track more...
 
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