The Witcher 2

[mothra]

btw, gog.com updated their "preorder now, pay later, get stuff immediately" with a few art sketches that are fkn sweet. everybody can dl them, no money will change hands if you opt out.

[mothra]

Mothra, thanks.

~10min narrated gameplay demo, by Tomasz Gop.

This game is sounding terrific, I'm looking forward to it.

I just saw the gamespot presentation, somehow slipped under my radar. I'm devastated. My hopes are crushed. This is sub-par.

HUD: radial menues, location popups, CallofDuty pain splashes, slow-mo pause, big explosions and glowshields ?
Inventory: like copied over from another game, totally disconnected from Geralt and the gameworld in a .... business style. Did they hire some Winword designer for that ?

This went from "up there on the mountains" to ... "lower floor/basement", at least for that aspect of the design and implementation.
I hope you can turn that all off. For a "mature" RPG they sure seem to cater to the frag-fest kiddies. New Geralt, now with skillshots.

[van HellSing]

Now you notice? The direction of the changes was obvious from the beginning

[mothra]

the first time I saw the inventory was pre-alpha about one year ago. Thought to myself....ok, it's just a placeholder (as CDPR themselves said). I never saw any painsplashes or radial menues or slow-mo pauses. Yeah, I like to exaggerate, the story/locations/characters is still its biggest draw for me but that HUD/combat feedback/inventory/world interaction design gives me the creeps. And they reached BETA now, so it's feature complete, no more changes to anything if they have the same understanding of a beta as me. The last dev diaries also concentrated on all "non-combat" aspects and did not show much of that. The Quen effect in TW1 looked epic, this looks like a manashield from WOW

[Koki]

Still with sword on the back, hurhur how lame

[Malleus]

At least they are now in sheaths, not just magentized onto the character's back...

[Koki]

Actually... the point with having sword on your back is that you can't actually pull it out of the sheath, so having no sheaths at all makes more sense

[Yakoob]

OH NO. NOT BUTTONS THAT ARE ROUND IN SHAPE. NOT SLOWING DOWN GAME THAN STRAIGHT UP PAUSING IT, THAT IS WAY LESS REALISTIC. IMMERSION RUINED!

[mothra]

I actually liked the "unrealistic" way Geralt carried his swords in TW1, it reminded me of a "cross" how they were layed ontop of each other. I don't think everything has to be completely realistic in a game to be "believable". Still many people on the Witcher forum did not like that all and I think that's why the devs gave him now proper sheaths. I never read any Sapkowski book but I would guess he described Geralt maybe in that way. Having his sword on the back ? Maybe someone here knows ?

[Briareos H]

I liked them without sheath. I don't mind it that much anyway.

Also that new inventory takes a lot of useless space :(-

[EvaUnit02]

What's wrong with the tactical slo-mo? If anything, out-right Bioware-style pausing is more casual by comparison.

[reizak]

I never read any Sapkowski book but I would guess he described Geralt maybe in that way. Having his sword on the back ? Maybe someone here knows ?

I read the two that are in English the other weekend and he does carry them on his back. As I recall some character actually points out that it's stupid and no one does that.

Really enjoyed the books by the way, and would recommend them to anyone who likes the game. It's just too bad that Gollancz skipped the second book and went straight to the first proper novel, since they decided that people don't really care about short stories. Had to read the plot summaries on the Witcher Wiki, although I only did that afterwards and never really felt like I'd missed anything while I was reading.

[mothra]

thanks. well, there we have it. swords on the back.

[Pemptus]

I just feel obligated to add that the English translation of the novels is utter shit and the books shouldn't be judged based on that. Currently the only way to sample the witty writing is to learn Polish, and learn it well, unfortunately for you foreign types.

[van HellSing]

I second that.

[Koki]

Yeah well that's a good advice

[bukary]

New movies (dwarven town, new quest board, dice game) on Game Trailers.

[EvaUnit02]

I approve of Geralt's new face. He looks far more weathered.

[mothra]

i assume most have seen the annual april joke by CDPR, if not:
http://www.saviors-of-queens.com
Tomas is a rock star.

[dethtoll]

That's even dumber than the "we're shutting down" non-joke, as if such a thing were possible.

[mothra]

youtube clip of another flash clip....how weird is that.....anyways, some nice cutscene involving geralt, triss, not many clothes and a snooping guard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHWKAiEL1lU
I demand equal rights for both sexes and want geralt's pants removed.
I find it akward that only Triss is completely undressed.

[bukary]

Lots of new footage (in HD) from The Witcher 2.

Enjoy!

And press conference with some interesting info about combat system and contents of the game.

The shot from another (?) conference that took place today:

[mothra]

while I still dont like the quickslot/slowmo change system in TW2 the combat presentation as shown in the press conference (apart from the incredibly good news from gog.com about their new games and TW1 offer) is really impressive. my hypemeter is over 9000

[bukary]

FAQ about The Witcher 2 DRM and savegames from The Witcher.

Newest CDP Red Conference footage.

[van HellSing]

Note: The release version of the game will have an advanced graphical settings menu. It will also
support the 16:9 aspect ratio and be playable in 16:10 (non-native) as well as 4:3 (letterbox).

Looks like the game is a shitty console port without a console version actually announced