The Witcher

[frogbeastegg]

I still haven't bought the game, and it seems most in this forum have, and anyway, I'm not a big RPG player and the only one I've played recently was Oblivion which one of my cousins gifted me with. I simply loved the game.
This one sound pretty interesting too, but before I go ahead and order it, I'd sure like to know how'd the people here rate it relative to Oblivion?

The Witcher is still on my shelf waiting for some attention (thought I may as well wait for the new content), but I can tell you that it and Oblivion are two very different animals.

Oblivion is all about freedom. Be what you like, do what you like, go where you like. There's great breadth, and rather little depth, at least when it comes to the quests and characters. Few of the people in Cryodil have much personality, few of the quests go beyond 'go here, kill these things, fetch that, return to me'.

The Witcher is about experiencing a story. It forces you to follow the plot path whether you like it or not. You can't scamper off to spend 6 hours brewing potions, or take up pearl diving on the coast. The people you meet along the way should have more to them than a bunch of canned lines you hear from every other NPC of that type, and the plot itself should be more detailed than Oblivion's scanty affair. There are optional side quests you can take or leave as you wish. You have some freedom in how you build up your character; you can choose skills which fit your playing preferences each time you level up. However you must play as Geralt, large parts of your dialogue will be pre-set, and his overall character class is pre-set.

I do like Oblivion. I'm on the last stages of the main quest now, having completed all of the guild lines first. The limitations of its plot and character building are keenly felt; I don't care about anyone or anything in this world, and I don't care about what I'm doing. I just want to find an elven helmet so I can complete my armour set, and get my skills mastered so my character is a god instead of a mere near-invincible uber hero. My preference has always been for a stronger plot than greater freedom.

Try it. Oblivion's type of RPG is rare. Most are of a similar pattern to The Witcher, so if you like it then there's stacks of great RPGs waiting for you.

[Sarathos]

So does this mean that people who already have the game (i.e. me) have to buy the game again or just download a whole bucket of updates?

[Zenicetus]

So does this mean that people who already have the game (i.e. me) have to buy the game again or just download a whole bucket of updates?

It sounds like the update will be a free download for current owners, unless I'm reading it wrong.

I don't know whether to be interested or not. I took a break from the game about 1/2 way in, but plan to finish at some point. I haven't heard whether or not it will upgrade existing savegames so you can finish with the new features. Does anyone know? Probably not, I'm guessing, but I haven't been over to the Witcher forum lately to check.

[TevashSzat]

The Witcher is still on my shelf waiting for some attention (thought I may as well wait for the new content), but I can tell you that it and Oblivion are two very different animals.

Oblivion is all about freedom. Be what you like, do what you like, go where you like. There's great breadth, and rather little depth, at least when it comes to the quests and characters. Few of the people in Cryodil have much personality, few of the quests go beyond 'go here, kill these things, fetch that, return to me'.

The Witcher is about experiencing a story. It forces you to follow the plot path whether you like it or not. You can't scamper off to spend 6 hours brewing potions, or take up pearl diving on the coast. The people you meet along the way should have more to them than a bunch of canned lines you hear from every other NPC of that type, and the plot itself should be more detailed than Oblivion's scanty affair. There are optional side quests you can take or leave as you wish. You have some freedom in how you build up your character; you can choose skills which fit your playing preferences each time you level up. However you must play as Geralt, large parts of your dialogue will be pre-set, and his overall character class is pre-set.

I do like Oblivion. I'm on the last stages of the main quest now, having completed all of the guild lines first. The limitations of its plot and character building are keenly felt; I don't care about anyone or anything in this world, and I don't care about what I'm doing. I just want to find an elven helmet so I can complete my armour set, and get my skills mastered so my character is a god instead of a mere near-invincible uber hero. My preference has always been for a stronger plot than greater freedom.

Try it. Oblivion's type of RPG is rare. Most are of a similar pattern to The Witcher, so if you like it then there's stacks of great RPGs waiting for you.

That sums up the game perfectly. It, ironically, is more free and expansive than most in the sense of its semi-open gaming experience, but is also restrictive in the manner that you are stuck with one person to play as with no customization at all

[Navaros]

Oblivion gives you lots of freedom to do nothing meaningful. Therefore that 'freedom' doesn't amount to anything IMO.

The 'characters' in Oblivion are talking heads. There is no sense of relationship with them to your character or emotional investment in them.

The same is true for Oblivion's 'story' and the quests in Oblivion, which feel meaningless compared to The Witcher's quests because there is no sense of accomplishment in beating a quest in Oblivion since it doesn't amount to rewarding you with any emotional payoff that you might care about.

The Witcher is one of the best games I've ever seen in terms of developing meaningful relationships with NPCs and fleshing them out deeply into as close to an illusion of real persons, being your real friends, as is possible to do in a video game. The only other games I've seen do something like this is Deus Ex or maybe KOTOR. Plus The Witcher gives you lots of different options to choose that have different effects on how the story develops. I would say The Witcher does give you a large degree of freedom, and it always remains emotionally meaningful (the total opposite of Oblivion's 'freedom' which IMO is emotionally meaningless).

I've actually made some of the dialogues in The Witcher not make sense because I made my character do things in an odd order that the programmers didn't account for in the programming code. It's not perfect by any stretch, but at least it does give you some choices about how to proceed and what order you want to do quests in.

I'd say Witcher is a million times better of a game than Oblivion. I've give Witcher 8.5/10 (not even the enhanced edition which would be higher, probably). I'd give Oblivion 3/10.

[Kekvit Irae]

I'm hoping the download comes with a torrent file. There's nothing worse than being 99% complete on a several gig download, only to have your computer crash.

[FactionHeir]

I'm hoping the download comes with a torrent file. There's nothing worse than being 99% complete on a several gig download, only to have your computer crash.

You mean the free update for game owners? I'm guessing it probably won't officially as its only meant for game owners and not for those who don't own it.
Eriash said that they'll have enough server power internally to handle all the demand, so that should hopefully be sufficient. I'll have another word with him though if you like

[Justiciar]

I bought this game months ago, but my old computer just couldn't run it. Now, however, I'm hardly able to pull myself away. This is a stonkingly good game, and one that I suspect will have a greater degree of replayability than most of the other RPGs on my shelf. Not quite as dark and gritty as I'd hoped, but it's a well realised world, and I'm loving the moral ambiguity and constantly scheming characters so far. I'm only at Chapter 2.. who the hell do I trust?!

[AggonyDuck]

I bought this game months ago, but my old computer just couldn't run it. Now, however, I'm hardly able to pull myself away. This is a stonkingly good game, and one that I suspect will have a greater degree of replayability than most of the other RPGs on my shelf. Not quite as dark and gritty as I'd hoped, but it's a well realised world, and I'm loving the moral ambiguity and constantly scheming characters so far. I'm only at Chapter 2.. who the hell do I trust?!

By the way, the Enchanced Edition download for owners of the normal game should be out soon.

[FactionHeir]

Its out now
http://www.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?topic=16804.0

Additional mirrors:
http://www.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?topic=16808.0

[rajpoot]

The 'characters' in Oblivion are talking heads. There is no sense of relationship with them to your character or emotional investment in them.

The same is true for Oblivion's 'story' and the quests in Oblivion, which feel meaningless compared to The Witcher's quests because there is no sense of accomplishment in beating a quest in Oblivion since it doesn't amount to rewarding you with any emotional payoff that you might care about.

I think you're being unfair, for one, Oblivion's freedom meant that the main storyline had to be loose, secondly the charecters in the main story are pretty well done considering the game and the atmosphere. There were more than few memorable moments in the game, one that I remember instantly is when the player has to close the Great Gate opened near Bruma, the scene looks and sounds great.
Voice acting for the generic charecters might not be awesome, but it's no better in the Witcher, the main charecters on the other hand have had their voices done by pretty well known people, I remeber reading that Sean Bean did it for one of the major charecters.
The dialouge is quite nice too......nothing compared to the Witcher (but again remember, that is a different kind of game, a game with a series of book behind it); A good example is the dialouge of Sheogorath in the Shivering Island xpack.