The Witcher 2 first impressions

Since there's no sub-forum for TW2 yet, I'll just post this here for now, and a mod can move it later.

A few quick things…

I'm playing at 1920x1200 (letterboxed obviously) on "High" settings, and it looks great. I tried the "Ultra" setting and it was a bit jerky when turning. I didn't notice much of a difference visually between High and Ultra though. The "Ubersampling" setting will kill your framerates, and it's not worth the small visual upgrade imo. This is on a Phenom II x4 965 (3.4gz Quad) and Geforce 470GTX OC.

I have one complaint so far, and it's a big one. You apparently can't remap keys to anything but the main part of your keyboard. No Arrow keys, and no Numberpad. Probably not a big deal to most people, but it annoys the shit out of me as I like to use the Numberpad for movement. Seriously CD Projeckt? That's inexcusable for a modern game.

Another inexcusable thing would be the lack of an individual voice volume setting - as the dialogue is drowned out by the sounds of combat.

Beyond that, though, I have to say my VERY initial impressions (half an hour) are very positive.

The game looks great and feels great.

Can't wait until I have the time to really play it.

Well, thanks for keeping us updated… but why don't you write something about the actual gameplay instead? I think that's much more interesting for most of us!

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Well, thanks for keeping us updated… but why don't you write something about the actual gameplay instead? I think that's much more interesting fro most of us!

Based on my brief time with it: the combat system is a zillion times better.

The postman just delivered my copy (UK, purchased from GAME)! I got the premium edition and got all sort of goodies with it. The map looks really nice. It has a medieval church map feel to it. Nice to have proper a manual as well. All in all felt like opening PC game box 3 or 4 years ago.

So all in all very good first impression! Off to work now

PS: I was lucky that I was at home when the postman arrived since the packaging won't have fitted the letter box

JDR, since you've done your part with the patching question on GOG, I'll try to find out if key remapping is possible as I also despise forcing everyone into WASD idiocy like we're incapable to determine what's best for us.

Thanks for the update man!

P.S. I just completed the game download from GOG and am installing it.

The patch doesn't do anything about the lack of remapping options. I used a keymapper program to configure the controls more to my liking.

I like the combat so far, but I *hate* how the camera automatically pulls back when you engage. I'd much rather have manual control over the camera zoom.

Dice Poker is still fun, although I don't care for the new look of the board. My first impression of Arm wrestling is that it's stupid and pointless.

I'm playing on Hard, and unlike TW1, it's actually a challenge. At least so far…


*Edit* Also, the in-game music is good, but waaaay too loud. I've turned it all the way down to 2/10, and it's still almost too loud.

A funny easter egg you discover early in the game..

My very early impressions (managed to play an hour this morning before leaving for work) are quite positive too. The game looks great (at High), but that's no surprise having already seen the graphics in previews. The combat system is much better than in TW1 (IMO of course) and even on Normal difficulty there is challenge in the fights - you most definitely can lose fights even in the prologue. As I've only played so little, I'll refrain from commenting more, but so far so good.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Another inexcusable thing would be the lack of an individual voice volume setting - as the dialogue is drowned out by the sounds of combat.

This is something I find irritating too. Especially as Geralt's voice actor speaks at such low volume (and at low, bass tone) it's often drowned out by the surrounding noise. At times I've had to read subtitles to get what he's saying.

EDIT: Oh, and for those of us without a widescreen monitor, there is a patch coming fixing the resolutions so that we'll get rid of the letterboxed view. However, until then we'll have to live with a somewhat clumsy view with incredibly small on-screen text (namely in tutorial popups and item pick up screens). CD Project have promised a fix, so hang in there.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Dice Poker is still fun, although I don't care for the new look of the board. My first impression of Arm wrestling is that it's stupid and pointless.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Too bad the view of the dice board is angled and not from above (as it was in TW1, IIRC). It makes reading the dice somewhat hard.

Also, be warned all, you can throw your dice OFF the board with too vigorous throws and then you're left to play with only the dice inside the board (which handicaps you quite badly).

So far this game has 2 major flaws.

The first is it hasn't arrived yet. Boxed version from amazon.

And second their is no code for extra time off work to play!!

Cdp has really dropped the ball here.

Originally Posted by Lurking Grue
even on Normal difficulty there is challenge in the fights - you most definitely can lose fights even in the prologue.

I'm actually regretting my decision to play on Hard. I made the mistake of assuming it was going to be like the first game, where Hard was more like Normal. At this point I'm considering starting over.

A few other thing I've noticed so far, and don't like. First, I wish you could turn off the action icons. It's pretty stupid that you get a "Press LMB to climb" icon *every* time you go to climb a ladder. As if you're suddenly going to forget what button you need to press.

Second, The AI of human enemies is very disappointing. They'll only follow you a short distance before turning their back on you and walking away. I thought I remember reading somewhere that human enemies would follow you anywhere, but that is definitely not the case.

I have problems activating my game. Says the serial code cannot be found in their database.
I got the Premium Edition aswell.

Got it fixed…was 0 and O misunderstanding. Though in my defense they wrote the wrong one :-)

Did you try turning off the tutorial panels in the options menu? Maybe that would stop it from telling you to "press LMB to climb".

Nope, unfortunately the tutorial panels are completely separate.

I'm running so just one thing to note… GOG version comes automatically with the first patch applied. Dunno about others.
Also I spotted that ppl mention Troll DLC, but since I don't get that thing in the "downloadable content" launcher option, I assume it's also automatically added in the GOG version.

Originally Posted by joxer
Also I spotted that ppl mention Troll DLC, but since I don't get that thing in the "downloadable content" launcher option, I assume it's also automatically added in the GOG version.

No, you have to download and install it. You should see it listed under DLC, unless maybe something is wrong with the server right now.

Seems like there are no settings to invert mouse in the game aswell as remove the smoothness of the mouse.

But someone posted on neogaf how to change that in the user.ini file in your documents/witcher 2/config folder

[MouseInput]
KeyboardCooldownSpeed=0.1
MouseDampX=7000
MouseDampY=7000
MouseSensitivityX=0.18
MouseSensitivityY=-0.18
MouseSmoothness=1
SensitivityX=0.5
SensitivityY=0.5
Smoothness=0
UseMouseDamp=false

Change the MouseSensitivityY setting to a negative value and presto, your mouse is inverted. Quick fix until CDPR adds it to the menu in a patch, if they do.

Taken from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost…87&postcount=4

Also changing the Smoothness=1 to Smoothness=0 should take away the mouse smoothness.

Originally Posted by JDR13
No, you have to download and install it. You should see it listed under DLC, unless maybe something is wrong with the server right now.

You're right, while I couldn't see it before (only english voiceovers and subtitles were listed), somehow it appeared over time?!
Good, I'm getting that one too.

On the key mappings, it looks like you may be able to change them in the file \The Witcher 2\bin\config\Input_QWERTY.ini

Like, say, swap the IK_UP and IK_W values, for instance.