RPGWatch Feature: Inside The Witcher, Part 1
 

So, you've read every preview and watched the trailers. Now we have the definitive hands-on preview of The Witcher after 20 hours of play on our own system. In Part 1, we take a look at the setting, exploration, dialogue, quests and the localisation.
Minor spoilers apply, but we've limited them to the scenarios already revealed by CD Projekt at E3. Here's a snip:
Read it here.
More information.

Hope you enjoy this feature and thanks to Tom Ohle, CD Projekt and Atari for the access.

As far as I can see, the NDA doesn't preclude discussing my experiences so I'm happy to answer questions where I can and provided it doesn't cross into spoiler territory or outside the scope of my playtime. I won't address combat and character development, however, until Part 2 is up (probably Friday).

A tiny corretion (to otherwise very nice prev): The war was between Nilfgaard and Nordilng realms, while Elves supported Nilfgaard army (mostly as guerilla commandos). After Nilfgaard was beaten off, "monk-knights" are attempting to root out guerilla elves remnants.

I hope this game will cause more (hopefuly all 7) "Witcher" books to appear in English. Its really a better read than 90% of fantasy in American/UK bookstores…

You talk about loading times but are there any other technical questions you can give us? Like what kind of system you used and how was the frame rate?

Thanks for a great preview. And happy to report that I still look forward to the game. Even if there is limitations to the choices, I still like the way they treat them, sounds better than most games I played.

Some questions: what is the size (range) of the locations how much exploration do they afford? Does it remind you more of a location in Gothic (enclosed, but with significant exploration, or KOTOR (fairly small, walled in, linear paths)? How does one travel between locations?

Will definitely buy this one. Thanks for the preview.

Nice that you guys got to do a little beta previewing, nicely written, very informative.

Thanks for the great preview! And thank you for not breaking the article into many pages :)

Witcher is already on pre-order for me… Though now I think I might have to upgrade the shipping :)

Great preview, Dhruin!

Good news about the journal and geographic navigational aids--I don't like having everything spelled out, but hate having no journal or no idea of where to go next. Sounds like they've tried to give the game some customization, both here and elsewhere.

Looking forward to Part 2--and my own copy. :)

Question regarding the story
 

A very interesting preview, Dhruin - my hopes are quite high for this release and I'd also like to ask a simple (though perhaps long-winded) question about your experiences, if I may.

First, a little background about myself. I basically play games for their stories, which means that I mostly care little about fancy graphics, for example - the aspect that most recent RPGs seem to be focused on. I'm sad to say, that, in my opinion, there hasn't been a half-decent mainstream RPG released in the last 5 years or so, except for maybe V:TM Bloodlines. Oblivion? I admired Oblivion for the eyecandy but found the main quest trite and clichéd. NWN2? NWN2 was an utter failure from my point of view, mostly due to the horrible bugs and the general unfinished feel to it. Some of my favourite games are the likes of PS:T and the BG and Fallout series.

So with this in mind I ask you - is there any real depth to The Witcher? Having morally ambiguous choices might not be enough - should having interesting choices with distinct consequences not be a given in any real RPG? Merely having choices does not necessarily a great story make… Are the characters unique and memorable, does the player actually CARE what happens to Geralt and the people surrounding him? Most of the previews so far have been focused on the allegedly revolutionary combat system and the aforementioned choices - however, very little has been said about the actual plot of the game. I do not require spoilers, I merely ask for your personal assessment - how would you rate the story so far? Can it stand up to classics like the old Black Isle games or is The Witcher another hack and slash slugfest?

Thank you!

Thanks for the great preview Dhruin !

I was particularly pleased that you can configure out some of the handholding
btw…

Perhaps you should give it another spin. By now, most of the bugs are out, and it has acquired a lot of polish -- in the user interface and usability department at least as much as the graphics. MotB has some pretty damn good writing too, even if epic levels are a bit OTT.

A very informative preview, sounds like the game purposely pulls the player into involvement with dilemma. I can envisage good forum discussions on The Witcher especially regarding the diversity of consequences.

Off-topic about NWN2
 

Thanks for the tip, Prime Junta! I've also read about the points you mentioned and will probably be giving MotB a try. I wasn't overly impressed by NWN1 either, but I enjoyed HotU immensely - perhaps MotB will turn out to be another expansion to redeem the original game for me. :)

In a followup to the earlier question of 'woges': what settings (full, med, low etc.) you ran the game on and took all those screenshots? They look somewhat worse than earlier shots and even gameplays…

Yeah, those screens look really like 5-years-old Aurora Engine's in da house. I played The Witcher, the same version even, during GC in August on 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTS, Core2Duo 6400, max detailed and it looked REALLY nice, framerate was nice too. Plus, you have to remember that 0.7 version is from around June I believe and the team was working hard to optimize the code since then…

Thanks for the comments.

p53: That background was from the background material Atari shipped with the preview. I'll check I didn't misunderstand but thanks for the correction. Screens were taken on high at (mostly) 1024x768, although AF and AA were mostly turned down and even off in some screens (more on performance in part 2).

I don't think it looks remotely like Aurora five years ago but different strokes for different folks.

@woges - more on performance in part 2, although my hardware is modest and it ran very well (although witness a couple of people saying it doesn't look it's best on my hardware).

@GhanBuriGhan, check out the screen of the local map for one location. It's nothing like Gothic in that sense - closer to KotOR but that's too harsh. I'd say the Trade Quarter of Vizima is about the size of Khorinis in Gothic 2 or the scaled 3D equivalent of a BG2 map (that's a very rough sense). They aren't huge locations but they are big enough to wander without feeling *too* restricted. I'd say straight-up exploration is relatively weaker than Gothic: loading, smaller maps, map notations give away important spots and no hidden stuff that I've noticed.

It's not as walled in as KotOR but you can't jump, so you can't get over small barriers like fences or through dense bush and if the terrain is uneven, you sometimes need to stay near the path. I understand you can (eventually) use the world map for travel (in some fashion, anyway) but so far the areas are connected: walk through the gate from the outskirts into the city, go through another gate to the harbour area, talk to the boatman to take a skiff to the swamp islands. Ultimately, it's something like BG2/NWN2 etc.

@Harri, I think the story is very strong - but it's rather early for me to be sure how it lasts. I really like the "realistic" basis and contemporary themes. The outskirts of Vizima ended in a scene with reasonable emotional punch (although you could see it coming) and inside Vizima has been very interesting with some nice twists. Characters are more prominent than most CRPGs - you generally end up (so far) talking to NPCs multiple times and going back to them, so you get to know them a bit and they do develop. In that sense, the NPCs are far more interesting than most CRPGS. It isn't Vampire: Bloodlines - it doesn't have that quality of text (or the dialogue skills) but I'd say (at this very early point) it's the most interesting story from a commerical CRPG since that. It doesn't have Chris Avellone's great writing but the actual plot and characters are much more interesting than NWN2 *so far*.

Nice read, Sir Dhruin. Thx for the heads-up

Great preview, Dhruin. Looking forward to part 2.

Good preview. Many rpg's have tried to get the player to be interactive in the story in which player choices affect the story but with very rare exceptions it leads to a binary (or close to binary) system in which choices are extremely limited and none of the choices are ones I would make.

For example, give weapons to the insurgents or to the authorities? That's a good setup but before I would make such a choice I would want a good amount of information on my choices; rpg's almost always give such little information that I don't feel comfortable (in a rpg sense) giving the weapons to either group but I'm forced to make a decision. Being forced into an unrealistic decision takes me away from the suspension of disbelief and make the player-choice aspect a negative instead of a positive.

I'm hoping The Witcher handles this reasonably well by giving me enough information to make a choice; enough doesn't mean all of the info, just a decent amount of info so I'm not making what seems like a random choice.

The Witcher looks like it'll be a good game regardless of how it handles that rpg issue I mention. I'm looking forward to it.

I was most interested to read it's not just 'action'. This game has long been only a maybe for me, depending on whether it's primarily 'action', or if it has real rpg depth!! I don't buy 'action' games as a general rule!!

Thanks Dhruin, I've been waiting all week for your preview!

I like everything I've heard so far… and THRILLED that a game finally has captured the Gothic feel with ambient NPC activity. I know we haven't seen part two of your review yet, but still I'm thinking this will finally be the game that is on par with Gothic in terms of sheer enjoyment for me.

Your description of the exploring and world design sounds exactly like Fable - would that be an accurate comparison? If so, that would be excellent imho.. Fable was a refreshing change from the go anywhere type games like Gothic and Morrowind. I'm the type of person that leaves no stone unturned if given the opportunity, so total free roam games turn out to be months long projects for me, sometimes never finishing at all (in the case of Morrowind).
I will be much happier if I have enough to do in a location that it feels 'complete,' and yet little enough that I can proceed with the story and feel like I'm progressing beyond the lackluster accomplishment of finding yet another wooden spoon in a chest somewhere.

Had this game on pre-order for a while. Can you tell I'm excited? :excited:

Thank you. I had hoped for somewhat larger areas and more exploration, but it's fair enough I guess.
No jumping - that's something I honestly hate, a real pet peeve. Here's my superhero monsterslayer running around in a detailed 3D world, but he has to walk AROUND a foot high chicken fence… But while I think its a lamentable design decision, it is obviously not important enough to damn a game for.

Please remember that The Witcher will be sold along with the toolset, so don't be surprised to see some 'fixes' to the game, for instance allowing walking over fences :). Climbing small heights is allowed by game engine after all…

As I'm Polish, I know the Nilfgaard-Nordling war and the role of Elves from Sapkowski's books (absolute classics now for every fantasy reader in Poland), but the "Order of Flaming Rose" is an invention of game developers. So we are all wondering in Poland how this and other new things in the game are going to work out and get along with the world we know from books. So far it seems really fine - honestly a chance for the best game inspired straight by books (without e.g. movie influence) I have seen so far.

There is also a nice movie at:http://www.thewitcher.com/community/en/videos/latest/ about the background of the Witcher's world.

Thanks again for this preview - it was quite discussed on the official Polish Witcher formum as it is the first prev form outside Poland writen after some time with full beta, by someone who knows what cRPGs are about ;) So at last no patriotic propaganda and some nice comments. Waiting for part 2!

Tiny locations and the resulting immersion-breaking load screens were my biggest fears when I heard The Witcher was using the Aurora engine. From the preview it doesn't sound like the outdoor areas are too small, but is there loading of sub zones within zones? For example, in a city quarter do the building interiors load as individual cells separate from the exterior parent zone or is transition between indoors and outdoors seamless?

Aaah, people these days, a few seconds of loading screens and they start to panic. Where are the days when after pushing Quick Save button in Fallout 2 I could go to make a coffee? :)

Honestly, I'd toss the whole Aurora thing out - I really don't think it has any relevance and it brings presumptions that aren't necessarily true. Anyway, the preview does mention that building interiors (etc) have loads. In other words - yes, they are separate cells.

The collector's edition of this game looks nicely put together as well:

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/7238/97047475ze5.jpg
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/2198/94713172qw9.jpg

Not sure if those are official.

The attention on the art/graphics side of the game looks decent for sure.

How did you like?
 

Can you tell us in general how good is this game?

I'll make some comments at the end of Part 2. In general, however, I'd say I am really enjoying it and can't wait to get back to playing it. I do have some reservations but not enough to pull me away.

SIGH….. will there even be another such a great game as Gothic 1 or Gothic 2… I guess it is just too hard to give us that much freedom!

Great preview though… the story aspect looks very interesting.. so might be a buy after all… I am a real sucker for a good story!

yes its called gothic 3;)
bugs and and a lackluster melee combat don't constitute a lack of freedom to me, but i'm not even alive so don't trust me.

thanks for all the info Dhruin, i have no doubt i'll get this game at somepoint, but hearing all this info from a trusted source builds up the excitement even more.

Looking forward to Part 2
 

being a long standing visitor of your site and reader of your fine articles, I think it's time to leave my footprints here;-) Thanks for your Inside The Witcher, Part 1. It makes me really loking forward to Part 2 and the game itself of course. I took the liberty to put a link to your site in the headlines of my blog.

Greetings from Europe,
Oldgamer
www.normalverkehr.com

Welcome to our little haven; hope to hear from you regularly now!!

What Ive read from previews the main (and only?) concern for the game seems to be combat. They tried to get rid of combat based on speedclicking but all they did was add delays and it doesnt seem to work that great.

Part2?
 

Is part 2 planned for today?

Well I guess we'll be getting a decent overview of combat shortly with part 2 of Dhruin's preview.

combat
 

Oh,believe me, combat is great. I've already played few hours and i have to tell you that this is definitely not mindless clicking. There are also tactical options, which you have to youse. This system isn't similar to anything in fact, and works really well.