The Witcher

[FactionHeir]

A new contest just started, anyone (even those who are just forum users) are welcome to participate (and you can send in multiple submissions):
Link

How far would you go to get something you really want? What would you do to possess something so awesome that others will crumble at your feet and beg for your friendship?
Do you remember how irritating it was when you asked your friend at school to lend you a pen and he’d reply, “What’s in it for me?”! Let’s go back to that lovely immature time and play the same game:

Head over to the forum and tell us what you’re going to give us in return for The Witcher Ultimate Swag Pack!

• The Witcher Figurine
  The Witcher Medallion
  Book – “The Last Wish” by Andrzej Sapkowski
  The Witcher Dice Game

We'll choose the most creative one to win!

[FactionHeir]

Release date has now been confirmed as the 16th of September for North America and 19th of September for the rest of the world

[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.

[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.

[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]

I've got a depressing 30 Kbps connection speed, so downloading the whole thing at once would never be possible, but those split rapidshare links now; Tell me are the five links on top of the page the ones that contain the patch or what else?

[FactionHeir]

RS doesn't work for me behind a college network, but from reading the thread this is the update without language pack.

[AggonyDuck]

This page should give you a better idea of how vast the enchanced edition update really is:http://www.thewitcher.com/community/...pdate_faq.html

I'm personally looking forward to work on my Spanish and Russian by playing it.

[FactionHeir]

Currently the Witcher Community Week is running and quite a few extras a re being released, like 2 new fan modules

Oh, and if you need any help with the game, send me a message there

[Justiciar]

Incredibly fun. The voice acting was a bit iffy at times, but all in all I enjoyed it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The kingdom has been cleansed of "monsters", the princess saved, and the goodly knights brought into power with the noble king's assent. So.. does the boy get flung back in time a couple of decades, grow a beard, and dream of white stuff and monkey men after vanishing?

[FactionHeir]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There's been quite a bit of debate regarding what Alvin's relationship with Jacques is. Personally, I think they are similar but separate, but there is also evidence to suggest they are the same. Reason for my view is that even when you got Alvin around, people talk of the Grandmaster, so either writing is bad, or they exist at the same time. It could also be that after Alvin vanishes at Lakeside, he travels through time and takes over the boy who Jacques was and thus changing the future by changing the past.

[AggonyDuck]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There's been quite a bit of debate regarding what Alvin's relationship with Jacques is. Personally, I think they are similar but separate, but there is also evidence to suggest they are the same. Reason for my view is that even when you got Alvin around, people talk of the Grandmaster, so either writing is bad, or they exist at the same time. It could also be that after Alvin vanishes at Lakeside, he travels through time and takes over the boy who Jacques was and thus changing the future by changing the past.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What would point to them being the same is that apparently the dialogue of Jacques changes according to what you have said to Alvin in your discussions.

[rajpoot]

So, I'm playing the game, nearly at the end of the Gold Rush quest, I try to enter the sewers to stop the elf, and I get an error, 'Cannot load module, invalid IFO file'..........I leave the building, go out the sewer enterance in the city, and try there......same error. Clicking cancel/ok, both result in re-transfer to the load game menu.
Any ideas? What can I do?

[TinCow]

I am currently replaying the game now with the EE version (didn't finish it the first time for multiple reasons). With the load times vastly decreased, the inventory system greatly improved, and the dialog polished up, this game is greatly improved from its release version. I have not completed it yet, but The Witcher EE has potential to top my list of best recent (post IE and 'Modded Morrowind') RPGs.

[Husar]

So you think Internet Explorer is an adventure, eh?

No seriously, IE?

[TinCow]

Infinity Engine - the Infinity Engine games are Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Tormet, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate II, and Icewind Dale II.

[rajpoot]

So, I've finished the game thrice now, but still haven't been able to get all those awesome concept art cutscenes, where you hear Geralt speaking as you see this paiting like picture.....truth be told I liked those a lot......so does anyone know where I can watch all of them without having to go through the game again? I tried Youtube, but no good there.......

[CrossLOPER]

I may go perusing through the files folder to see if I can locate and convert the painted scenes. I'm glad others like the style, too.

[rajpoot]

Oh boy oh boy I love the style! I do!
I already have the artworks, all of them.....got them off gamespot, but not the dialogue :(