[Dadding]

The excitement is real. I just finished Witcher 2 for the 5th time in preparation for this. Though I just read an article that mentions that you won't be able to port over any of your equipment into the third game. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand it's nice because they would either have to make the gear on par with starting equipment or risk ruining the balance. But there are some items (like Elthon's trophy) that I really would have liked to have.

[Mentalist]

I'm just gonna quote my post from the appropriate RPS comments thread:

Quote

Witcher 1 is one of my all-time most-often replayed game.

I loved Witcher 2.

I have pre-ordered TW3 on GOG ages ago–because I want to support any dev willing to put out a DRM-free AAA game.

I’ve been updating my rig piecemeal to make sure I can run this.

That being said, there’s at least 4 reasons I probably won’t play the game at launch.

1) It’s on GOG, so I’m not sure i’ll be able to pre-load it and play the same day (had a 2-day delay in Pillars because of this)

2) realistically, it’s almost spring here in Canada, and after almost 5 months of winter (one of which I’ve spent recovering from a sports injury), I’m eager to get more physical activity out in the sun. It also means more of a social life.

3) my initial plan was to finish Pillars, and then do a quick run-through of Witcher 1 and 2, to make sure I have a story save with the decisions I wanted to start TW3. Due in part to 2), and in part to my ever-more demanding new job, sudden extra family commitments (my mother’s elderly parents moved to live with us in March), and partially due to my completionist nature meaning I’m STILL only half-way through Act 2 of Pillars after putting in over 60 gametime hours (not to mention spending 4 hours at a time trying to win a fight my party CLEARLY isn’t meant to win yet…), my timetable for games completion is lagging behind to say the least.

4) Really, this is the big one. I played the previous Witcher games in Russian. 1C gets TV-level actors to do voiceovers for their games. Vanilla games usually don’t come with Russian, so I’ll either have to haunt some warez sites for a “russificator”-i.e, copies of the Russian text and speech files ripped from the 1C distro of the game, or I may wait for the Enhanced Edition. If I do the former, I may run into issues once the inevitable patches roll out, so it may still take some time for me to get playing.

I’ve never really gotten into “open-world” games (S.T.A.L.K.E.R series being the only real exception). I tried Morrowind before and bounced off it early (though I think I just wasn’t in the right mindset at the time), and the completionist in me thus avoided Fallout 3 and everything that Bethesda did after. Likewise, I’ve only tried GTA3 back when my PC couldn’t really run it well, so that whole lineage passed me by (despite me adoring GTA2). I realize I will realistically never play everything i’ve missed out on, which is why I have been working on a shortlist of must plays.

In terms of the massive time commitment TW3 will likely require, I see it as a winter game, as I tend to be far less social then.

I don't think i'll be playing many other games this year, but i'll most likely be taking it real slow. And I'm STILL gonna replay the originals first. After I get through with Pillars.

Though I'll download it on launch day, and probably run through the intro to see how my PC handles it.

[Mentalist]

Dadding, on 06 May 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

The excitement is real. I just finished Witcher 2 for the 5th time in preparation for this. Though I just read an article that mentions that you won't be able to port over any of your equipment into the third game. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand it's nice because they would either have to make the gear on par with starting equipment or risk ruining the balance. But there are some items (like Elthon's trophy) that I really would have liked to have.

They ported equipment from 1 into 2. Raven's armour got nerfed hard. The DLC special forces jacket had better stats, and the game insisted I wear that. And there was some stupidity with the Arondite silver sword-though you lose one in the prologue, you still had it, meaning your quest to forge a new one was redundant... I'd rather avoid that happening again.

[Dadding]

Mentalist, on 06 May 2015 - 01:41 PM, said:

Dadding, on 06 May 2015 - 01:32 PM, said:

The excitement is real. I just finished Witcher 2 for the 5th time in preparation for this. Though I just read an article that mentions that you won't be able to port over any of your equipment into the third game. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand it's nice because they would either have to make the gear on par with starting equipment or risk ruining the balance. But there are some items (like Elthon's trophy) that I really would have liked to have.

They ported equipment from 1 into 2. Raven's armour got nerfed hard. The DLC special forces jacket had better stats, and the game insisted I wear that. And there was some stupidity with the Arondite silver sword-though you lose one in the prologue, you still had it, meaning your quest to forge a new one was redundant... I'd rather avoid that happening again.

I agree - the ported equipment from 1 to 2 was a complete mess. They took rare, supposedly "epic" pieces of equipment with a rich story (given to you by the lady of the lake etc.) and nerfed them down so they wouldn't be OP in the game. This ruined the immersion as you were found selling them to a random merchant in Flotsam after you found a better piece of equipment lying in a bush in a forest in the middle of the Pontar valley.

But I don't think that taking the feature out completely is the best option either. Some sort of cosmetic-only or used-as-a-skin kind of system would be very cool. Then you could have the looks and lore of the Raven armour but the stats of whatever the starting equipment is. And you could use some of the more recognizable items like the Operator's Staff or The Temerian Merit Medal or Elthon's Trophy as is.

All that being said, the game looks amazing and I'm so pumped to play it. Though I doubt my computer will run it, I've bought it anyway.. I'll have to wait and see.

[Mentalist]

Yeah, running this is my main concern atm. I have the specs now (4 GHz CPU, 2 GB GPU), but i'm not sure my cooling setup's up to the task now. I got a new intake fan, but I probably still need to do some BIOS tweaking.

This is actually part of the reason I want to put the updated rig through TW1 and 2 first- to see how well it handles the load.

[Traveller]

I hope the weapons upgrade system has been improved upon. W2 seemed to involve finding just the right quantity of upgrade materials in time to take on the next level of creatures.

I spent a while getting all the stuff for the best armor/sword, only to use it once before the game ended. At least an open world might provide the opportunity to head into difficult areas early for the good loot, and reduce the linear feel of W2.

[Gothos]

Try getting all 3 special armors in Dark Mode. Let the farmin commence!

[Aptorian]

[Defiance]

Really looking forward to this. Playing through The Witcher 2 as fast as I can in the hopes of getting a completed save by Monday the 18th. I lost my Iorveth save when I reformatted my hard drive, which kind of sucks. But I'll be following Roche's path this time, so it'll be interesting to see how things change.

[Aptorian]

Anyone know if there's some way to construct a new save like in Dragon Age/Mass Effect?

[Dadding]

Apt, on 09 May 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

Anyone know if there's some way to construct a new save like in Dragon Age/Mass Effect?

I read a few articles that mentioned a person who you'll be able to talk to which will let you decide what choices you would have made in the previous game.

[Mentalist]

Defiance, on 09 May 2015 - 01:01 PM, said:

Really looking forward to this. Playing through The Witcher 2 as fast as I can in the hopes of getting a completed save by Monday the 18th. I lost my Iorveth save when I reformatted my hard drive, which kind of sucks. But I'll be following Roche's path this time, so it'll be interesting to see how things change.

much more politics, much less personal.

I played Roche's path first time around.

IMHO:

Act 2:
Roche-main quest is more coherent. optional quests are weaker

Iorveth- Main quests are a bit all over the place (but make more sense in the big picture), side quests are awesome.

Act 3: iirc, Roche's path is much "meatier", in terms of content. The EE adressed this somewhat, but it still feels better.

[Defiance]

I'm very interested to see how these choices play out in 3. I'm not expecting a whole lot since it's unreasonable to expect an open world game to drastically changed based on a choice you have only a 1/4 chance of making (such as whether a certain king lives or dies), but it'd be nice if there was a good meaty side quest for each major choice. At least in my mind, the most impactful choice would be whether or not the witch hunt takes place - will we see large-scale persecution of sorceresses in 3 by Radovid, or will things have cooled off by then?

I certainly want to spend some time with Roche and Iorveth again, particularly the latter. I'm still finishing up Act III on Roche's path, but I think I liked Iorveth more as a character (although they're both great).

This post has been edited by Defiance: 11 May 2015 - 01:17 PM

[Mentalist]

The diffs b/w TW1 and 2 were pretty cosmetic. Off the top of my head, if Thaler was alive, you get a bonus from him in Flotsam via a courier; if you side with Iorveth, he makes a few comments about the Sco'ia'tel leader from TW1, which differ based on who you sided with. If you were a heartless human being in finished the game siding with Knights, down Roche's path you could run into Zigfried, whom you made Grand Master.

Oone of the 2 biggest choices in TW1- T'riss or Shani-was completely side-stepped.

TW2's got a few things that may seriously affect how the game plays out. There's the Temeria succession issue, the Pontar valley ownership, and

Spoiler

Is Saskia still alive

I'm pretty sure the mages are still gonna be few and far between, but really the relevance of politics depends entirely on how far the Nilfgaard offensive has gotten. It may be that none of these are really relevant if the big 4 kingdoms have already been overrun by the time Wild Hunt starts.

[Mentalist]

Pre-loading now available on GOG. 22 gigs.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 13 May 2015 - 12:01 AM

[Aptorian]

The review embargo has been lifted a week before release. Here's a review compilation from neogaf:

http://www.neogaf.co...d.php?t=1044844

Looks like we have a strong contender for this years GOTY. I am happy that the worries about the delays were unfounded. I'm going to play the shit out of this game.

[Mentalist]

This makes me happy. Can't wait to go back to Witchering.

Just realized the game's not available till next Tuesday. This gives me a long weekend to power through the first 2 games, maybe.

[QuickTidal]

Ooooooo, I'll be playing this when I get back to Canada in two weeks! Can't wait!

[Aptorian]

This is pretty cool:

[Dadding]

This is one of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.c...?&v=lorGFH-28rM

EDIT: I still can't embed Apt - HELP!

This post has been edited by Dadding: 12 May 2015 - 05:03 PM