True. Although many of us have been going around in one incarnation or another for a while. Welcome, however you found us. :)

Sounds like mine, though that one was written for a more understanding audience plus I bashed Rand because, quite frankly, I despite her works and think it's a weak philosophy to base a game around, especially if you do it as shakily as BioShock did.

Only in theory.

Yeah, I know Dhurin goes way back when it comes to cRPG news.

Was that an unfortunate mistake or a dubious motive? Forget about it, there is another interesting issue that's been mentioned, people might read the thread, make a post and your opinion will be heard! Never before information could so easily be exchanged. Democracy at its finest. The internet is great, isn't it?

Hi Tom! You're the Atari guy, right? Let me thank you once more for your explanation of how playing the uncensored version of The Witcher is equivalent to playing the censored version and then downloading some porn. I really appreciated that! And now this! 'These guys' at CDP must surely have learned their lesson! I'm certain now they will take better care of the voice overs and dialogues next time!

While you are here, would you happen to know if the uncut script is to be found on the game disc? Poster Jaime Lannister claims that the file dialog00.bif contains the full English dialogues and waiting for the toolset to restore them. And there is this guy Atrokkus who works as an editor for a Russian gaming site and he claims that the Russian translation was done by the Russian publisher from the uncut CDP English. I mean aren't these guys at CDP lazy? They are responsible for the English voice overs but left the Russian ones to the publisher? Hmm wait… Another poster severian claims to be a dev and he says that CDP did make an English translation which had then to be cut down by 20% to meet agreements with Atari. That would make sense, make an English translation and leave everything else to the publisher, I'm surprised they even went to the trouble, the publisher usually does the entire localization or am I wrong? But then again how can you trust posters not posting under their real name? Sande Chen who was in the company retranslating CDP English into Atari English (that's another company, Writer's Cabal, not CDP, strange!), does post under her real name, but since she went into the trouble of editing/deleting her previous posts (I wonder why?), I see no reason for quotting her.

I'm sure that at least some people would be interested in reading an answer!

Severian is Michał Madej, Lead Designer.

I know forums where this counts as an insult. ;)

I really don't understand the heavy sarcasm aimed at Tom, Lethal Weapon. You seem to be looking for a conspiracy when the answer seems pretty clear to me, looking at the links you provided - unless I'm completely missing something.

PJ - Well written review. From what I've read of the game here it still disappoints me that they chose this kind of subject matter. This is why good reviews are really important, to help in buying decisions. (Am I right people?)

I think I can safely say, with some thanks to you, I have much clearer impression of what really goes on in it and that its a well done game that I refuse to play.

Your definatly right about good reviews (and reviewers) being important. Let's put it this way if I read a review from some REALLY big website like IGN or Gamespot that said that (insert any game name) sucks and then read from Rpgwatch that (insert any RPG game name) has faults but overall is fun to play. Guess who I'm going to listen to more when I decide to buy this game. The website that has a thousand commercials in it and from some unknown reviewer who would rather be reviewing Crysis or from a website that actually likes RPG games and will give me an honest look at what the game has to offer (warts and all).

On a side note, its a shame that you can't give The Witcher a try just because of some silly subject matter (you're talking about the picture cards right?). It really isn't that big a part of the game and you can skip it if you want. The US version is basically PG13. Yes, there is sex but so does just about every major movie made nowadays. The silly cards don't even show any nudity. I could of done without the cards but I like they included this subject matter. It makes it a bit more real imo. I mean you're a Witcher, you kill monsters for a living and could die any moment. Is your life only about going from town to town killing beasties for money or do you have your own wants? Anyways just a different point of view for you.

Nobody's holding a gun to your head, methinks. Out of curiosity, which subject matter are you objecting to? Dark fantasy in general or something more specific? The romance/sex angle perhaps?

I think appreciating something and liking something are rather different matters. If a critic who hates RPGs on a personal level should review the Witcher they should still appreciate the stuff in the game that makes it special and good. I mean a critics job isn't to rate games only according to a personal preference. In my opinion this is partly what differentiates a good critic from a bad one. So even if the critic doesn't like the Witcher if they're good they should recognize the finer points in it and appreciate them.
What you say is of course true when it comes to someone whos opinion isn't going to affect a lot of peoples' decision to buy the game.

I agree.

The German translation - I hear - even isn't as good as the English one - just as if they had translated Polish -> English -> German, and not Polish -> German, which would've been more straightforward, imho.

I think all translations other than English and possibly Czech were done from the English version.

Come on, Lethal Weapon take a deep breath. :)

ironanno, sure but I was trying (apparently doing a poor job) to show the different degrees of appreciation. Hardcore fans will appreciate things a causal gamer wouldn't or a newbie to RPGs wouldn't know any differently, if this was the first game they had played. Most here have been playing games for years, but with the 6 million playing wow for example, several million must be new gamers.
You can't expect an inexperienced or moderately experienced gamer to understand or even be aware of the finer points of the Gold Box series or Ultima and someone needs to talk to all these millions of new, up and coming gamers. Remember RPGs need new fans for sales and that means new cash for RPG developers. :)

I'm still having a bit of trouble seeing where you're coming from. I quess I was comparing game reviews to book reviews which differ quite a lot now I think of it. I mean everyone knows books and they have a steady readership but games are still quite a new thing and the critics have to take that into consideration and think who exactly they are writing a review for, whether it's a hardcore or casual gamer.

But hey, maybe reviews like Prime Junta's might have a positive effect on future hard-core gamers as well as future casual gamers. Some of the new, up and coming gamers might actually like to know whether the game actually has some depth. Even if the new gamers won't maybe appreciate the finer points it could be good to let them know they exist and at least mention them. Critics should also take hardcore gamers into consideration in my opinion.

Ok adressing some issues that haven't been adressed properly, and some points misunderstood or misjudged concerning the game itself. I have to say at the start i didn't play it and i probably won't for a long time (or even never).

1. Game vs. Book
Ok first of all: this game is based on a book. A very popular series of books in Poland to be precise. A. Sapkowski (the book's author) has been compared to Tolkien by some, after the books were released, but there is no comparison - the leagues are pararell, yet totally different.

1.A. The main character.
All the books revolved around Geralt - some of them were just sets of seperate stories, otheres were parts of a 5-book saga. Sapkowski created the world as you percieve it in the game - filled with gutter-talk, sex, conflict and no "good or evil" - just different shades of gray. But all that was told nearly through the eyes of the main character. The perspective was neutral, yet biased - very difficult to get the grip on what it really was.

So we get a set world and a set main character. We can't get rid of the character - it's perspective integral for the player's percieption of the world. But yet we have to make it an RPG experience with gaining skills and evolving the character. The answer: amnesia. Blunt. Stupid. Out of place. Works… Well we still could have gotten rid of the character and make it a typical RPG "be yourself in a different world". But that would just take half the experience out. The witchers were designed as feelingless, tough and bad-ass monster slayers. Plus they were all male. I won't go into the details of Geralt being a special, unique witcher, cause it's been long since i've read the books and i just wouldn't get the details and nuiances right.

1.B. The Language.
This was just plain "stay as true to the book as you can". The language used in the books is filled with F-bombs, sexual references and other tasty stuff. Especially the dwarves were very straightforward - which is no doubt resembled in the game as well. Also the book was filled with dark humour, with some punchlines being sooooo in-the-face. I remember laughing over one for 15 minutes straight (without being able to read) and then occasionally reminding myself of it for years.

1.C. The women
Gerald in the book had a very active sex-life. Yet the scenes were themselves were mostly cut-out. Those descriptions that were written were very graphic and appealing to the imagination without even touching erotic novel style or pornography. See the resemblance in the "trading-card" system? Also the witches were spending most of their skill on beauty spells and potions, which someone already pointed out in this topic. One of the main characters of the book, who is a witch is hinted as being ugly, humpbacked and (as i recall correctly) one-eyed before having enough skill to use strong beauty magic on herself.

1.D. Conclusion
The game was made by book-fans for book-fans. Thus the real, dark world, the innovative approaches to some typical human behaviour (the "naturally" beautiful witches), language and sex-affairs all were in the book before anyone even thought of making a game based on it. The "fans for fans" design approach lead to the between-the-lines quality that was reviewed here.

2. Pressure on the developer.
Now a few people here stated that CD Projekt will be under heavy pressure to match the success of The Witcher. This is not really the case. The pressure was at it's peak on this game and if CDP will not make a sequel (which by the way i am sure they're thinking about), but a different game - the pressure will be dramatically smaller.

This is due to some facts that most of you non-Polish people don't know:
- The Witcher was the most successful fantasy book in Poland written by a Polish author.
- Before the game, The Witcher was filmed. It was a DISASTER.
- Due to the movie's disaster, A. Sapkowski didn't involve in any way in this project until late stages of development.
- This game was probably the most anticipated game EVER on the Polish market.
- This is a first real attempt by Polish game developers to score on the worldwide market.

Overall the pressure was wayyy over the top in Poland, and since CDP is the lead publisher here, making another disaster (like the movie was) would probably result in loss of reputation and clients. It was a real gamble, on which they have probably won more than expected. The game was of course expected to reach bestseller status in Poland even if it would be just average - but the impression the foreign reviewers have of the game sums up to about 80%, which makes the success even larger.

3. The locale
Imagine being a freshman game developer studio with budget in the realities of a small, marginal (copared to the US or GB) country. You yourself are making a translation of a game to English. You have to find a studio, actors (native english speakers), translators, a director and a huge ammount of stuff i can't even imagine. Yet you have NO reputation at all - all you have is a budget… Well i suppose you all would hire Sean Connery to do some main dwarf dialogue, right?

I admire CDP for not doing a crap translation. From Your comments I judge it as being just off "good". Not outstanding, nor great - just good. But seriously i would expect seeing a "around decent" translation.

Why do the other translations sound like they have been Polish -> English -> Target language? Well you don't suppose it would have been easy for Atari to find good translators Polish -> Target language, do you? May I remind you of the "freshmanness" of the studio and the country it's based in? I think Atari's policy was to do it with their usual translators, rather than looking for additional staff (hey! Polish isn't that popular of a language, you know…). Simple, standart, lower-cost and possibly cutting a bit off the player's experience.

4. Conclusion.
I am sure the studio will pull off at least two sequels, possibly tweaking some game mechanics a bit, but generally with not much innovations, compared this game. The question is: would you buy it? I think you would. The Witcher and it's sequels might have a significant enough impact on the game business in the future… IF it succeeds in getting bestseller on the holidays…

And please bear with my lack of vocabulary, misplaced words, incomprehensible thoughts and bad accent - I don't speak nor write english too frequently you know…

Would I buy sequels? Yes, faster than I could say "The Witcher Rules" :)

Your vocabulary was fine…actually it was a lot better than most of my posts ;)

Hi Gorath! You're the site owner, right?

Do you find what I just typed insulting?

Or was the 'Atari guy' bit that bothered you? After all, I was using his terminology, he referred to the devs as 'the CDP guys'. I didn't see you complain there.

From what I've been reading, Atari used the short English script for the German and Spanish translations. The Russian and probably the French ones were done from the long English script. This would make particular sense for the German version since it is multilingual and production costs become more important. And Atari does have its roots in France.

Are you saying that CDP and not Atari was responsible for the English localization? Do you have any proof of this? We know that at least one other company (Writer's Cabal) was involved.

Only in this case we can't judge the quality of the CDP transation since we are playing a cut-down version. That another, potentially excellent translation exists makes things look bad.

Give me a break! I keep reading fan translations in the net far superior to the published one. I can quote some for you if you like. And in the case of the English version, Atari didn't even have to search. All that Atari had to do was to make a localization based on the full English script already in existence.

Your post was well written and very interesting. You shared your honest opinions and gave us some inside info as well. Reading posts like this is the one and only reason I'm sometimes getting into the trouble to post myself. You made some spell errors but this is trivial.

Thanks for your input Furia; it's appreciated and your English is quite good.

No. Myrthos owns the site. But that´s not that relevant because every author maintains full rights on his articles.
No, but a simple check with Google would have told you that Tom worked for Bioware and now runs his own PR business.
CD Projekt doesn´t have the terrible reputation Atari has in certain circles, for example Gothic forums. I know people who are waiting for Atari to simply go out of business.
That aside, our own relationship to Atari is better than it ever was, I think. They´re treating us well.

Or phrased negatively: Atari decided to save money on the localisations.

Agreed. Resources for translation from language A to language B or easily available.