The Witcher - Races @ IGN

Ign gives us an in-depth look at some of the races in CD Projeckt's upcoming RPG The Witcher, including some nice screenshots and concept art. The usual races common to the fantasy genre are covered: humans, elves, dwarves and gnomes, but they also give a mention to some of the creatures unique to Sapkowski's tales:

Sapkowski's fantasy world is also inhabited by many other sentient or intelligent races - the red eyed vrana reptiles, the bobolaks, the goat-legged sylvans, and dragons, among others. Gossip also has it that the deeper lakes and seas have been made into the nests of the mysterious fish people, with whom no one has been able to make contact yet. One of the rarest of races - the dopplers, or known otherwise as vexlings, mimics, or doublers — are able to take the form and shape - as long as body weight is similar - of other creatures, along with their attire, equipment, character and behaviour. Just because of this, the more superstitious and wary individuals regard them as monsters and try to hire Witchers to slay this sentient race.

More information.

It certainly looks interesting imho.

Just hope it plays as good as it looks.

Are they planning on releasing the books in english before the release of the game?

The Last Wish is out in the U.K. but not U.S.--you can get it at amazon UK. I'm waiting, myself. I put a link to a Sapkowski short story in english in this thread for you, Acleasius.

The fact that anything written in English is so difficult to obtain makes me wonder about the CE that has popped up at various retailers now. Unfortunately, all the listings for the CE that I have seen so far do not include a contents listing and I don't recall a CE announcement either. Would be cool if they would ship the CE with one of the novels or at least one of the short stories to make up for the lack of availability of English writings.

CD Project has very good concept artists.
As for the races, pretty standart high fantasy. Thats Sapkowski though. What makes his world special is not creating something entirely new, but take established concepts and present them in a new and unexpected way.

Love how the noble elves basicly turn out to be ruthless guerrila terrorists. They are fight against their human conquerers seems somewhat of a righteous cause, yet the elves themselves weren't any different when they conquered the land from the Dwarfs. Very interesting.

The author of the article fails to describe any "special" aspects of the other races though, so gnomes and dwars sound pretty much like standart fantasy. I think the game will show that there's more to them though. Like the gnomes being discriminated and persecuted scapegoats in a human-dominated society.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
The fact that anything written in English is so difficult to obtain makes me wonder about the CE that has popped up at various retailers now. Unfortunately, all the listings for the CE that I have seen so far do not include a contents listing and I don't recall a CE announcement either. Would be cool if they would ship the CE with one of the novels or at least one of the short stories to make up for the lack of availability of English writings.

A brand new English novel was in CD Projekt´s GC goodie bag. So it would be possible to inclusde it in the CE.

Thanks for the linky, magerette!

Moriendor
Thats a pretty cool idea, Sapkowski is working very closesly with the project from the interviews we have seen.
Though depending on his original book deal, plus the translation cost, then it would be better the sooner the anouncement to get market saturation.
Since they are almost at release and most English language people don't know about the game or the books, they would be falling behind the longer they wait.

Gorath
Very promsing.

The first book (in English) is currently only available in the UK, though they're coming to the US next year.

There are currently only plans for a Collector's Edition of the game in Poland.

Thanks, Tom Ohlefor the info on the book.

I liked the short story, seeing how these conflicts are presented I hope that CD Projeckt can maintain the possible neutrality seeming available in conflicts, in the dialogs.

I am sort of worried, the most popular example is the one with the "weapons cache" which is been overrun with monsters, as an example.
It doesn't sound like we will have neutral options, either we let the Dwarves and Elves take the weapons or kill them, from what little info we have been given.

Secondly if the prospect of either choice causes a death of a NPC, a questline and a group of innocents, how is this the lesser of two evils.
Then, why say your setting it as a future effect to prevent Saving and Reloading, when the choices are equal?

It's not that my hesitation comes at the cost of interest in the game, mostly just curiosity since it has been a big deal in the lead up, heck, even if it's just PR and still a good or possibly great game, that's fine too.

I regards, I would have wanted the option of not jumping into action, as a neutral choice, if the short story was a quest, in game.

Originally Posted by Tom Ohle
The first book (in English) is currently only available in the UK, though they're coming to the US next year.

There are currently only plans for a Collector's Edition of the game in Poland.

nessosin had once translated a piece for us from a polish source stating that
the Sapkowski short story among other things would be in the Normal edition
(though I guess that would mean the polish normal edition). Any info if this
stands for the UK normal edition too ?

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/archi…hp/t-1987.html

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by JonNik
nessosin had once translated a piece for us from a polish source stating that
the Sapkowski short story among other things would be in the Normal edition
(though I guess that would mean the polish normal edition). Any info if this
stands for the UK normal edition too ?

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/archi…hp/t-1987.html

Thanks in advance.

Hmm, to be quite honest, I'm not sure if there are plans to include a short story with the game. We're trying to get some excerpts from the first book for release online, though… that's about all I can say.

Originally Posted by Tom Ohle
Hmm, to be quite honest, I'm not sure if there are plans to include a short story with the game. We're trying to get some excerpts from the first book for release online, though… that's about all I can say.

Tom do you work in CD Projekt?

Tom Ohle is from Evolve PR and is handling the PR on behalf of Atari. Before that makes him sound like any other "PR monkey", Tom worked for BioWare for many years and since leaving to form his own agency, tends to specialise in RPGs. I've found him very knowledgeable and he has been extremely helpful and supportive to us here.

Originally Posted by Tom Ohle
There are currently only plans for a Collector's Edition of the game in Poland.

Are you completely sure about that? What about the CEs that I mentioned before that have popped up at German/Austrian retailers like Amazon.de or Okaysoft (about half way down the page) or Gameware? Are those Polish/German hybrid versions then? And what about the contents? None of the shops has any details listed yet. Is a separate announcement coming as soon as the details have been finalized? When? And as a final question… am I getting on your nerves yet with all these stupid questions?

Originally Posted by Tom Ohle
We're trying to get some excerpts from the first book for release online, though… that's about all I can say.

That would be great ! (I doubt the english speaking world will see any more
of the books before late 2008 anyway), thanks.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Tom Ohle is from Evolve PR and is handling the PR on behalf of Atari. Before that makes him sound like any other "PR monkey", Tom worked for BioWare for many years and since leaving to form his own agency, tends to specialise in RPGs. I've found him very knowledgeable and he has been extremely helpful and supportive to us here.

Uuuu and I thought I finally found some CDP employee here at RPGWatch.
I've got few question for them and I am too lazy to go to their forums, to register and ask .

Why not try asking them? Tom might be able to help or we can send them over - we've talked to CDP many times.

dang, those humans are looking pretty… supple.

I wonder how they'll look in-game

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
dang, those humans are looking pretty… supple.

I wonder how they'll look in-game

Nekkid, probably.

Also, there are obviously female elves and humans shown, but both dwarves have beards. Is one of them supposed to be female?