The Witcher 2 - Preview @ PC Gamer

[JDR13]

You're right. Makes me a bit irritated when people say story driven = must recieve GOTY, open-world with focus on exploring etc = dumb and deserves a low score.

And you don't think someone else might feel the same way when the opposite is said?

 

[vurt]

And you don't think someone else might feel the same way when the opposite is said?

Someone bashing a story and character driven game in comparison to a open-world RPG? On RPGwatch? Pics or it didnt happen! I'm probably alone here with that kind of bashing hehe

 

[JDR13]

Someone bashing a story and character driven game in comparison to a open-world RPG? On RPGwatch? Pics or it didnt happen! I'm probably alone here with that kind of bashing hehe .

Depends on what thread you read, and since when is RPGWatch the only forum?

I wouldn't say Oblivion is one of the most hated, just one of the most controversial, due to some questionable design decisions.

Like Roi said, it's apples and oranges.

 

[Nerevarine]

Imo customization, combat, exploration and loot is very important in a "true" RPG

Uh-oh..The "true RPG" comment got dropped... well, that topic has already been covered in great length in other threads so I'll leave it alone in this thread

You're right. Makes me a bit irritated when people say story driven = must recieve GOTY, open-world with focus on exploring etc = dumb and deserves a low score.

WHOA...I think you misunderstood me quite a bit if you think that's what I am saying. For the record, I actually enjoyed Oblivion, and I absolutely love a good open-world RPG (I enjoy quite a wide variety of games for different reasons - I would never limit myself to enjoying just one type of RPG, for example, as open-world RPGs offer their own set of strengths, while more story-driven RPGs offer others). My comment was more "tongue-in-cheek" in that I never played The Witcher and thought, "Man, it's just not a "true RPG" if I can't go swimming ." Just a light-hearted, sarcastic comment. I do disagree with you on what constitutes a "true RPG" - or at least, the idea that The Witcher is not a "true RPG," but that's an entirely different debate. In no way am I saying that The Witcher is flawless or that story-driven RPGs are inherently superior to all others in the genre, but I just personally don't feel that some of the elements you mentioned felt "missing" from The Witcher or made it feel incomplete.

 

[vurt]

I should have switched out "true" to maybe "tradional" or how P&P RPG's used to be / feel (for me at least). It largely depends on what people prefer or remember as the important, and most of all, fun aspects of RPG'ing. For me a game like Witcher 1 doesnt feel very RPG'ish because of the things it lacks and what i personally want from a CRPG, it's probably the same with Bethesda's games for people that mostly care about story and characters in RPG's.

Witcher was a game that lacked many things, and the devs seems to have taken notice that many people felt that way since they're doing a lot of changes for Witcher2, which is great.

JDR13: no its not the only forum, just speaking of my experience with this particular forum..

 

[Nerevarine]

I should have switched out "true" to maybe "tradional" or how P&P RPG's used to be / feel (for me at least). It largely depends on what people prefer or remember as the important, and most of all, fun aspects of RPG'ing. For me a game like Witcher 1 doesnt feel very RPG'ish because of the things it lacks and what i personally want from a CRPG, it's probably the same with Bethesda's games for people that mostly care about story and characters in RPG's.

Indeed, and that's why I can't say that you're "wrong" for not enjoying The Witcher - RPG fans have different tastes in terms of what they enjoy from the genre. Some enjoy deep character building and a complex, well-thought stats/attributes ruleset, others prefer an open-world with lots of crafting, or perhaps a deep story with legitimate choices and consequences…there certainly is a diverse range of likes and dislikes depending on what one enjoys in an RPG. Personally, I enjoy all of these aspects, which is why I enjoy a wide range of very different RPGs. From the open-world exploration of Gothic 2 or Morrowind to the more focused story-telling with a wide range of choices and consequences in Arcanum and The Witcher, I enjoy different RPGs based on their own unique strengths. Although I do lean more towards choice and consequence and being able to truly "play a role" in how the game and story plays out, I still enjoy other RPGs that don't have these aspects.

 

[Couchpotato]

I should have switched out "true" to maybe "tradional" or how P&P RPG's used to be / feel (for me at least). It largely depends on what people prefer or remember as the important, and most of all, fun aspects of RPG'ing. For me a game like Witcher 1 doesnt feel very RPG'ish because of the things it lacks and what i personally want from a CRPG, it's probably the same with Bethesda's games for people that mostly care about story and characters in RPG's.

JDR13: no its not the only forum, just speaking of my experience with this particular forum..

Yes that's my problem when I played oblivion it doesn't have a well crafted story. The nerhim mod almost got it right and I hope Bethesda learned a few things from obsidian. I believe I will enjoy witcher 2 more than skyrim as a well crafted campaign with a good story is what Bethesda cant do. Seriously would it hurt them to hire better writers.

 

[joxer]

you’re not here to be a Paladin

Is this a joke?
No paladin(s) is the #1 reason I'm gonna buy this game.

 

[DeepO]

You're right. Makes me a bit irritated when people say story driven = must recieve GOTY, open-world with focus on exploring etc = dumb and deserves a low score.

As someone who likes "story driven" and "open-world" just about the same, I´d say The Witcher is simply better than Oblivion in what it is.

In my opinion, Oblivion sucks as an open-world game because it doesn´t present interesting world and enough interesting places (unlike, say, Morrowind) and it sucks as an open-world RPG because the world is not open at all when it comes to enemies player can encounter and items player can find - these "features" are rigidly locked to player´s level thus the world largely isn´t open in this regard. As a result exploration in Oblivion, scientifically speaking, sucks.

On the other hand, in my opinion The Witcher succeeds as a story/character driven game - it has a solid story (or stories) told via well executed characters and its world has a lot of … character (characters, tone of dialogues, art design or music make The Witcher a distinct experience and this strong sense of "atmosphere" is what I suspect is one of the main reasons why people like the game).
It also succeeds as a story/character driven RPG because player is given good amount of opportunities to define his character and his place in the story and the choices do have story/character-related consequences.

Obviously a lot of this comes down to what one considers "interesting", "good amount" etc, but when I try to abstract from what type of RPGs these games are, my conclusion is resounding The Witcher > Oblivion.

Edit:

loot is very important

I like good itemization in my RPGs as anyone else, but guess what, I don´t think loot aspect was done badly in The Witcher - it just went in accordance with the theme. Limited inventory, item types (alchemical ingredients, booze, etc) or the fact you really had to work hard to afford a new armor all contributed to the game´s story/character driven nature and gave it distinct identity.


… whereas in Oblivion loot implementation was pretty much in direct contradiction with the exploration driven experience the game was trying to provide.

 

[vurt]

You're absolutely right that Oblivion is not the best open-world RPG and Witcher might be one of the better story driven RPG's. I compared them side by side because that's what the poster I initially responded to did, or at least he said it was better "in every way".

 

[crpgnut]

Everyone has their opinion:

Oblivion is too the best open world crpg

Playing TW1 without fast-travel was a massive pain in the ass. Take the swamps for example. Person on se corner of map wants you to talk to person on nw corner of map and then return. You have to run all the way there, killing mostly fodder monsters and then run all the way back, where half the fodder has respawned already. This happens over and over again, till you want to puke. In Chapter 4, you will have quests that force you to run 3 whole maps and back to solve. You spend almost 70% of all time in The Witcher 1, retracing your steps. You spend the whole game on a total of about 20 locations. Each location is huge, but you'll cover the same ground hundreds of times. Boring! You give The Witcher 1 a fast-travel option and I think the enjoyment would triple; at least for me.

I loved The Witcher for a single playthrough; it was fantastic. I've replayed Oblivion several times and I always get a different experience, thanks to mods. If I could only keep one of the two games, Oblivion wins by a landslide.

 

[JDR13]

I like how you focus only on a negative aspect of The Witcher, and conviently leave out anything regarding any negatives of Oblivion.

 

[wiretripped]

Good read, that preview. I'm very much looking forward to the game. Got my pre-order all set at GOG.

Everyone has their opinion:

Oblivion is too the best open world crpg

Oblivion is meh, for lack of better word. Sure, it has an open world, but it lacks spirit and atmosphere. I'll have Gothic 3 any day (with the CP, of course) over Oblivion, if you're talking open world cRPG.

But let's not derail this thread into an Oblivion one, shall we?

 

[DeepO]

I compared them side by side because that's what the poster I initially responded to did, or at least he said it was better "in every way".

I know.
I should´ve added that I agree with your comment I quoted in my previous post, I just used it as a spring board .

 

[crpgnut]

I like how you focus only on a negative aspect of The Witcher, and conviently leave out anything regarding any negatives of Oblivion.

Fair Enough: The biggest problem with Oblivion, is Oblivion. I love the rest of the game but the Oblivion realm itself was very dull. If you put those same sigil stones at the bottom of the Ayleid ruins and did away with the whole "orange" realm, I'd be fine with it. The gates idea was terribly implemented and the whole thing was just "meh". Fortunately for me, I finished that aspect of the game on my first playthrough, and just did the minimum needed on subsequent runs.

The Umbacano quest and the latter DLC's I would play through each time. I really, really, really, hope that they'll let Obsidian play with an expansion or DLC for Skyrim. There is zero doubt that the writing of Obsidian slaughters the writing of most Bethesda quests.

Note that I'm very excited about TW2 and I've mentioned this several times. I also loved TW1, for my first playthrough. The running back and forth killed it for me on subsequent runs and I really believe if you could fast travel to places you've been, the game would be massively better. Large worlds need quicker traveling than by foot.

 

[SpoonFULL]

Are they releasing a modding kit like they did for the first game?

I remember in one of the interviews on the net with one of the programmers of the development tool that he said that the community will be pleased with their new tools, but was interrupted by the producer - since this is a PC title then I trust that CD-Projekt would release an SDK, if not with the game itself it would be later (Like all developers they would like you to first play their games and see their capability/performance and then translate this into a mod/level using your immagination and ofcourse programming skills).

 

[SpoonFULL]

Fair Enough: The biggest problem with Oblivion, is Oblivion. I love the rest of the game but the Oblivion realm itself was very dull. If you put those same sigil stones at the bottom of the Ayleid ruins and did away with the whole "orange" realm, I'd be fine with it. The gates idea was terribly implemented and the whole thing was just "meh". Fortunately for me, I finished that aspect of the game on my first playthrough, and just did the minimum needed on subsequent runs.

The Umbacano quest and the latter DLC's I would play through each time. I really, really, really, hope that they'll let Obsidian play with an expansion or DLC for Skyrim. There is zero doubt that the writing of Obsidian slaughters the writing of most Bethesda quests.

Note that I'm very excited about TW2 and I've mentioned this several times. I also loved TW1, for my first playthrough. The running back and forth killed it for me on subsequent runs and I really believe if you could fast travel to places you've been, the game would be massively better. Large worlds need quicker traveling than by foot.

I found Oblivion boring as well and did not complete it - the dungeons were the same and there was little to do - to me it was on the same level as Hexen or Heretic (if you remember them). The world on the other side of the oblivion gates was again all the same and more of a button mashing fest to complete.

I don't mind open world games and I enjoy e.g. mount and blade and gothic 3 and risen - they draw you in and very exciting - so is the witcher's story, decisions and even combat (I actually enjoyed the quests of slaying monsters).

I am sure Oblivion is great but I just did not want to perservere with it!

 

[crpgnut]

Yep, different strokes. I found mount and blade to be a combat simulator, not a game and all of the Gothics, just bored the hell out of me. I never felt in touch with the guy who was supposed to be my character. I didn't like him and I hated all of his little buddies. I couldn't relate to the game. I actually found Gothic 3 to be the closest to fun of the bunch.

Oblivion was wonderful for me. Just talking about it in these threads makes me want to play again. I loved alchemy and the process of gathering reagents. I loved helping the brothers reunite, learning about Skingrad's Count, defeating the thieves in Anvil, etc. I wish I could do a selective memory wipe, so that it could all be fresh again.

 

[guenthar]

The loot system and combat system are the things I didn't like about The Witcher but otherwise it was a great game. Oblivion is good especially with some of the side quests and is great with mods. Overall as a final experience Oblivion with mods is better then The Witcher (even with mods) but without mods The Witcher is better then Oblivion.

 

[Motoki]

I like the ES games but I have to say that story, dialog and characterization have always been a weak spot. It seems to me with a little more effort in those areas their games could be even better but I just don't think it's ever going to be in their design philosophy.

I spent many hours playing Oblivion but I honestly struggle to think of even one memorable character from it. Maybe the adoring fan simply because he's so annoying or the emperor simply because he has Patrick Stewart's voice. Other than that, I'm drawing blanks.

For having a world to run around in those games are great but I think Morrowind did a better job simply because it was just so otherworldly and unique. Oblivion was quite bland and generic and they did some retcons to the lore like making it less Roman-ish other than the capitol city, changed the landscape from temperate jungles to lush forests ala the English countryside and turned the pagan religion into essentially a clone of the Catholic church in the middle ages.

Shivering Isles was better in creating an interesting atomsphere to run around in. It was sort of Morrowind meets Wonderland.

The Oblivion gates were probably the worst part of the game and they made up the bulk of the main quest! If you've seen one you've seen them all. To have to keep going back to them time and time again was painful. I don't think I could ever bring myself to do the Oblivion main quest again because of them.

I think Skyrim will be a more interesting land to run around in and I think the main quest will be less repetitive and obnoxious but I definitely am not holding my breath for memorable and interesting characters or an exceptional story.

Witcher 2 will probably fill that void and that's fine. Apples and oranges. Perhaps eventually we can get a game that does both?