The Witcher - First Release Candidate

News from The Witcher community site that they have the first release candidate:

First off, good news. Yesterday at 6:00 sharp we’ve finished the so called “master candidate” of the game. If, for whatever reason, you still require some help with the term, let us explain that “The Witcher” is in the absolute final phase of production and that we’ve now officially left the betas behind. The release date is just around the corner so we’re counting on your support in the final run up to the finish line!

More information.

Can't wait for this one.

That is great news - let's hope the final testing and polishing goes well.

Still undecided on this one, but leaning more towards getting it. Might wait for some early reviews rather than pre-ordering as I usually do!!

Looks interesting, kind of Gothic-like. Anyone know if there will be demo?

Originally Posted by txa1265
That is great news - let's hope the final testing and polishing goes well.

If they've gone RC1, they're past the polishing stage. Testing, certainly.

But yeah, this does sound good. I have a feeling that if Witcher will be a failure, it'll be an interesting failure… and it has a good chance of being a success.

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
If they've gone RC1, they're past the polishing stage. Testing, certainly.

I am just thinking that exhaustive testing will likely lead to finding some significant bugs that need squashing, and hopefully it will be a relatively painless process and not like … um … so many other games we all talk about here.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I am just thinking that exhaustive testing will likely lead to finding some significant bugs that need squashing, and hopefully it will be a relatively painless process and not like … um … so many other games we all talk about here.

True enough. Obviously we don't know much about the real quality level of the project, not having seen it, but still… the project *smells* good from where I'm at. There's a certain vibe you get from following the progress of a project, even from pretty far off like here, and even if the vibe is faint, with The Witcher it's a good one. If this is the case, it means that the overall architecture and quality level is fine, which means that any bugs that come up during the RC phase will be pretty easy to quash and won't have too serious knock-on effects.

But we'll see. I've been wrong before, but I'll be cautiously optimistic about this one anyway.

Afaik, open ended RPGs are the toughest to debug due to all the variables in Quest possiblities.
If they really have 60+ hour of game, due to many different Quests and not some mindless hack & slash with variables occuring 10 hours later, it could still be a lot of work ahead.
Hopefully since they have been in charge of their own development for the most part, this would have allowed them to do most of their own testing without having to send to a publisher for testing, approval and fix list or else they will be shipping buggy in with a 2007 release.

I'm pretty confident this will be a hit. Not a Bioshock or Oblivion HIT!!! but a solid minor hit.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I'm pretty confident this will be a hit. Not a Bioshock or Oblivion HIT!!! but a solid minor hit.

I just wonder how it will do in terms of 'mind share' … I am planning a blog about the 'tyranny of the majority' in terms of gaming, as exemplified by Bioshock, Metroid 3 Wii and soon Halo 3 …

Good topic. It definitely happens - games (and other stuff…Harry Potter etc etc) take on a life of their own, where hype builds on and creates more hype and suddenly it's the topic on everyones' minds.

I'd feel safer to have it be a minor hit--solid and profitable, but not a huge media event that gets out of hand, where all the onlookers, middlemen and money people move in, where expectations get raised to make more and more money and the developers and idea guys get caught in a vice and lose control. For every Bioware there's a dozen shops that couldn't handle success at that level.

I think, and I could be totally wrong in this, that hype is far more an American thing than a European issue. Therefore, I believe Euro games are protected somewhat from that destructive cycle you fear Magerette.

Originally Posted by Corwin
I think, and I could be totally wrong in this, that hype is far more an American thing than a European issue. Therefore, I believe Euro games are protected somewhat from that destructive cycle you fear Magerette.

Unfortunately they are also protected from selling as many copies …

Is it fair to lump BioShock in there?
KLevine was doing most all of the PR himself and didn't seem to mislead anyone, i.e. hype over substance or am I missing something?

I'm not trying to bash Levine - just observe that Bioshock's hype gathered so much mass it had it's own gravity.

You are correct Acleacius, the more open ended, the more complex the game structure is. By open ended I don't mean Oblivion - Oblivion is completely linear, every quest only has a single outcome - I mean games where most quests have several solutions, and where you actually have an impact on the game world. Debugging that kind of code is a mess, variables all over the place in various states, methods being triggered in different order all the time and so on and so forth. Just the sheer amount of test cases on such a game is overwhelming due to all the possible outcomes.

Personally I don't have the patience to work with that kind of code. The games can end up great, but the code is usually a mess, and testing is a nightmare (unless you really enjoy extensive testing).

Still, I have high hopes for The Witcher, and I will most likely buy it as soon as I see it in my local store.

Originally Posted by Acleacius
Is it fair to lump BioShock in there?
KLevine was doing most all of the PR himself and didn't seem to mislead anyone, i.e. hype over substance or am I missing something?

My statement had nothing to do with PR for the game but rather the massive all-consuming vortex created by and in the media.

I see what you guys mean though, there certianly was huge media devoted to BioShock.

I was thinking how refreshing it was, to have a game live up to the expetations set by the interviews in many areas, for the most part and how the public wasn't misled about the game quality (not counting 2k's screw ups with copy protection problems, it's not Irrational's fault).

I am with you Maylander, I am looking forward to it as well, especially the very cool look of the game world and premise of geniticly altered subject matter.
Ok, ok and the naughty postcards now that I have learned about those, too!


Hey, Corwin I will trade you two fitful mating vixens for one innocent farm girl or 3 bar room babes!