Witcher 3 First Look PC Gamer

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Witcher 3 First Look PC Gamer

Usual thing: posting this in the 2077 forum because W3 acts as a preview for CP2077 potential and open-world openness, etc.

http://www.pcgamer.com/previews/the-witcher-3-first-look/

Some of my favourite bits:

"Studio head Adam Badowski is casually dropping fact-bombs in the background. He mentions that this island alone is the size of the whole of The Witcher 2, and I believe him. It feels vast and wild."

Size, check.

"This is one of many dynamic encounters that can interrupt your exploration. You can choose to engage – and chance starting a new quest line – or just walk away. "

Dynamic craziness and quests from it, check.

"They discuss the politics of the Skellige islands with an offhand familiarity that’s convincing and informative. Geralt may be terse, but he’s not a blank avatar.."

Character knowing more about the world than player and rendering it as dialogue anyway, check. also, Geralt's memory back, check?

"You have full control of your vessel. If you choose, you can abandon the main quest and say hello to some other cultures on neighbouring islands" and "“You can go everywhere you can see, even here,” Badowski adds with a gesture."

Wander around getting in trouble a la Skyrim, check.

"Over the course of the 80-hour adventure, your choices will build towards one of three different endings."

Huge long plotline that will get me divorced and/or fired, CHECK.

Less favourite:

"Combat looks similar to the combo-heavy third-person brawls of The Witcher 2, but the developers insist that they’ve focused strongly on improving the heft and responsiveness of fights."

Hmm. Combat in W2 felt very video-game like to me. Combos, blech. I guess we'll have to see. I miss Gothic 1 and 2.

"It’s a sensible moment to deploy Geralt’s ‘Witcher sense’. It’s a new passive ability – not dissimilar to Batman: Arkham City’s detective mode – designed to present Geralt’s monster hunting expertise as an environmental overlay."

Hmm. HMM. I knew about this, but I'd have to see it in play before relaxing over the always-use-Detective-Mode flaw these things seem to have.

""This is a prescribed boss fight, but these behaviours are dynamic AI decisions. If you run across a giant in the wild, he’ll start looking for ways to use the environment against you. Monster behaviour is even affected by the dynamic weather system. Certain creatures will swarm at night, and werewolves grow in strength beneath a full moon.""

Too good to be true. Obviously lies. BURN THEM.
 
Fantastic. I just got done reading the polish podcast interview and now on to this. This day just keeps getting better.
 
Eh, waiting for actual gameplay videos rather than just articles praising the shit out of it before judging on whether I like it or not.
 

227

Forum veteran
Time for a reality check—leading up to Witcher 2's release, they (and "journalists" who played it before release) claimed that the game had 16 different endings, that monsters couldn't be run from on higher difficulties, and that said monsters would have unique weaknesses that you had to exploit in order to have a chance against them.

None of that proved to be true. It took me awhile to get over the missed expectations, so I wouldn't recommend taking any of this stuff as fact; it's possible that it's all there this time, but they kind of have a reputation for hyping things up way beyond the reality.
 
Time for a reality check—leading up to Witcher 2's release, they (and "journalists" who played it before release) claimed that the game had 16 different endings, that monsters couldn't be run from on higher difficulties, and that said monsters would have unique weaknesses that you had to exploit in order to have a chance against them.

None of that proved to be true. It took me awhile to get over the missed expectations, so I wouldn't recommend taking any of this stuff as fact; it's possible that it's all there this time, but they kind of have a reputation for hyping things up way beyond the reality.

Party pooper...

Ok, you're right, and I've gently brought this up a time or two on the other site. There was also the size of maps that got downscaled, the promise of lopping heads off during combat and a few other things as well. I feel they have a tendency to make claims before stuff is cemented into the game, stuff they have every intention of implementing but eventually doesn't make the cut. This may catch up with them, but I've noticed a lot of devs in the industry do the same thing. They have a loooong way to go before they reach Peter Molyneux levels of boasting.
 

227

Forum veteran
I feel they have a tendency to make claims before stuff is cemented into the game, stuff they have every intention of implementing but eventually doesn't make the cut.
Yeah, there's an element of that, but there's also the more overt stuff that they have to know isn't true. Take this, for example: link

"The rep estimated Witcher 2 clocks in with 40 hours of gameplay in the main quest, and double or triple that if you take your time with its non-linear components."

That's an article that came out just four days before release.
 
Ok, that does give Peter a run for his money. They shouldn't make such exaggerated claims. Maybe I'll start a thread on it one of these days when I feel like being really unpopular. The thing that makes it hard is they did actually patch in quite a bit of content after release, so there's this element of goodwill that permeates any discussion about them.
 

227

Forum veteran
All that stuff that was added for free after release does make up for it. There's really no denying that.

I'm just advising the new people to take everything with a grain of salt so that they can enjoy the game for whatever it ends up actually being apart from the marketing hype. Missed expectations have a habit of eclipsing a game's virtues, so it seems best to try and keep everyone grounded.
 
Ahh..I did some crazy time with Witcher 2, not sure of the hours though. I felt shortchanged by the length of the last bit, but the ability to play the elf section made up for the time loss.

I can't think of any strong examples from previews where playing Witcher 2 I was disappointed or felt it did not meet up to promises. Maybe the endings thing, but that was pretty clear to me they were using any variation as a different "ending". Hmm. Should have snap-shotted my brain.

Honestly, I hope to get pretty excited. That's a lot of the fun, much like Christmas Eve.

You can stay sober and on focus and you'll have less fun in the next couple years. That's how I ran for Diablo 3 and Sleeping Dogs and you know what? I wasn't disappointed.

I also had much less fun before those games came out, compared to say, Guild Wars 2. I was disappointed in GW2, but I had several great years of increasing anticipation, the high of beta and a solid fun month of play.

Enjoy the anticipation - it will greatly outscale the actual gameplay.
 
I have zero interest in Witcher... but fuck me this gets my hopes up so high for Cyberpunk........
 
Ahh..I did some crazy time with Witcher 2, not sure of the hours though. I felt shortchanged by the length of the last bit, but the ability to play the elf section made up for the time loss.

Did you go back to it after they added the extra quest(s) in the final chapter, because of everyone complaining that it was too short?

Anyway, I try to stay relatively calm about the hype - no rage-ranting about things that are a little suspect, no drooling over the stuff that's already dripping in it.
 

227

Forum veteran
My opinion regarding hype is a lot like my opinion regarding orgies: so long as we're all consenting adults and no unwilling spectators get accidentally thrown into the mix, then it's all good in the hood. And on the hood. And on the hood's wife. Good times.

You can stay sober and on focus and you'll have less fun in the next couple years.
I was actually super drunk on both hype and tequila leading up to W2's release. The problem with both is having to wake up the day after and find your pants.
 
My opinion regarding hype is a lot like my opinion regarding orgies: so long as we're all consenting adults and no unwilling spectators get accidentally thrown into the mix, then it's all good in the hood. And on the hood. And on the hood's wife. Good times.


I was actually super drunk on both hype and tequila leading up to W2's release. The problem with both is having to wake up the day after and find your pants.


I..I love this whole post. It's nothing but 100% awesome. Without pants. On the hood. A-mazing.
 
There is something really disturbing about the thought of Sard and 227. Together. This isn't going to initiate Ragnarok is it?

(And no, not orgies)
 
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