Yep, interface nitpicking (in which i also participated in!) is just that: nitpicking. As you say it's not really a game where you buy and sell a lot, or taking a lot of loot at every step like Diablo.
Fallout 3/NV or Oblivion unmodded had even worse UI I'd say. So did Two Worlds 2. Or hell, Fallout 1/2.
It could be improved (and it already is by modders, like Bethesda games), but I wouldn't call it poor.
With x360pad it feels quite natural. Only the scrolling of incredients is quite stupid.
Well Paul, I've got some software I'd like to sell you :)
Seriously, the science/business of presenting information on a screen has stormed ahead in the last twenty years. Making zero effort and for no cash you have access to multiple information services, from Amazon to Google and beyond, while sitting at the same screen you're seeing The Witcher on. When a specialised UI does the bare minimum to represent information and options arising from that information, that has 'designed by a programmer' written all over it, and not a good programmer.
I'd prefer they left the new spoiler spoiler stuff as a backdrop and focused instead on the Wild Hunt or searching for Yennefer. It'd be nice to go back to a smaller scale. Plus they don't have to manage the frustrations of a multi-game story arc.Originally Posted by Naeblis
Then again, they do a lot of things better than Bioware so maybe they could do it right.
I can only judge from a few youtube videos and fellow gamer impressions, but it appears TW2 has firmly established a long standing game design rule as being nonsense: that a player should be able to see (close to) 100% of a game's content in his first playthrough.
I seem to recall Warren Spector once spelled that out, but I might be mistaken.
Anyway, I really have to raise my hat for the TW2 designers for knowingly violating this rule.
I don't usually replay games very often these days, but TW2 makes me SERIOUSLY consider the option, to see the alternate take on basically a complete chapter and some other bits.
As for the interlude remark I made earlier ... [SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD] I guess you can say the game was somewhat self-contained, definately moreso than ME2, but to me, the TRUE background seemed to be the hunt for Jennefer - even though it basically was only present in a few conversations and those comicbook sequences. Not really getting any substantial reveal there (such as discovering her) was a bit of a letdown.
Yeah, many subplots were resolved, kinda, but one of the few true weaknesses in TW2 was the disjointed story - at least it felt disjointed to me.
Read this post in the spoilers thread for my in-depth explanation for why I felt that way.
Jeez, sorry for the wall of text. I'll just shut the f ... err, plow up for now. ;)
Edit: Farfrael, you are absolutely correct, I got a bit overboard while writing the post and wasn't even aware of there being a spoiler thread. I exported the most offensive content to a post there. My apologies.
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rezaf
Last edited by rezaf; 06-06-2011 at 11:08 AM.
I would recommend playing it a second time, it is really worth it IMHO
What also helps a lot is that you can change the difficulty on the fly. It makes it really easy to avoid certain combats: don't like that boss fight? put it on easy and quickly go through it.
seriously dude .. spoiler thread!
Also, he does get his entire memory back ...
Footage from the 360 version...
Gameplay starts around 2.25.
The comments talk about it being a bit low-res compared to the PC version... can't say can tell the difference, on Youtube at least. I didn't enjoy that stealth section, but it's cool to see that there were ways of getting through I didn't experience due to other actions. I'll try those on my replay :)
Just killed the foozle at the end of chapter 1. Wasn't too too bad... I slowly made progress on about 50% of my attempts. When it entered phase 2, though, I had no idea what to do and had to look it up after three of four attempts at doing something. Phase 1 was too hard to just keep guessing during phase 2.
Still, it was probably 20 attempts overall.
Thank God for YouTube. You can find a video walkthrough almost immediately without waiting for a FAQ to be written or asking a forum.
Yeah. Exactly the same here. In stage one you could at least tell what was happening. Stage two was just some completely random required action where experimenting with required actions just got you killed & sent back to the start. Null points, CDP, null points.
I saw the demo in person and it looks like the PC version on medium settings. Seemed to me that maybe they had lowered detail on the clothing a bit in exchange for keeping the faces highly detailed, which seems like a decent tradeoff. PC version on Ultra is obviously the way to play if you have the means, but the 360 version certainly seems like a viable option for those without superpowered gaming rigs. The version shown was pre-alpha and was pretty solidly in the mid-20s framerate-wise. They're aiming for locked 30 for the final, sounds like.
I also asked them if they were planning to tweak the tutorial and they said they are, possibly for the PC as well. One thing's for sure, that's a dev team that cares about their product and how it's perceived and played. I hope the 360 version sells millions and makes them tons of money.
I see they still have nudity in there. Is that a problem for consoles or is it all the same ratings and requirements?
There is no taboo against sex or nudity in console games (no more than usual, anyway), and the ESRB is a universal rating system. God of War had some of the first straight-up bare breasts I can recall in modern games, along with the sex minigame.
After the first chapter, The Witcher 2.2 reminds me of the typical Obsidian game: more rough edges than a rock wrapped in sandpaper but otherwise completely awesome. About a million times better than the first Witcher, and approximately 237,294 times better than Dragon Age 2. I really hope the remaining boss fights are less obnoxious than the one at the end of the first chapter, though.
If its any help, I didn't find any of the later boss fights nearly as frustrating.
I finished it up last week and and totally loved it. I want to play through again, but decided to wait and see if they announce any more DLC before trying out the second decision path.
Oddly enough, after I hit chapter 2 in TW2 I've let the game slide, not playing for days then playing a bit and then picking it back up, etc. It's not as if I think there's anything wrong with it but for some reason it's lost its hold and doesn't offer any addictive sort of quality that makes me care to get back in and continue asap. Still enjoying it but I'm taking my time, something that is unusual for a major game that I like.
The game threads have certainly quieted down after release. It's been a nice break from talking about it too.
Yeah, I've been taking a break after chapter 2 as well.
Mind you, this is my second play through.
After finally finishing Witcher 1, I'm finding 2 a letdown. It has many fine qualities but the QTEs (even on normal) and it's poor adaptation to mouse and keyboard are just too annoying. If the QTEs weren't necessary to advance the plot, I just wouldn't do them, but at least early on, a number of them are. Things like not being able to pick up a loot sack because I have no way to tell the game that no I really don't want to turn that torch off instead.
I will never understand the QTE bitching among older gamers. Well, okay, I understand it, I just don't see why people don't suck it up and get through one of the easiest and briefest imaginable game mechanics in existence and continue on with the game.
If I recall correctly, there are like five in all of Witcher 2 that you must do, and three of them are just tapping the left mouse button a bunch of times.
There are none that you must do if you turn on easy/simple QTEs (I do not count clicking to fill up a meter).
You're still in the prologue Imryll. I'd give it a while longer :)
As a curmudgeonly gamer, I'll say that tapping on the spacebar or playing whack-a-mole with on screen button prompts, instantly takes me out of the game. I'm pretty certain all the 'older' gamers do suck it up and get through the instances, and don't just stomp off in disgust.
The Witcher 2 was fairly inoffensive, since you could enable easy QTE's and just fill a meter with left mouse button clicks. I did skip all fist fight quests after realizing they were QTE's, but there's so much game in this title, I didn't miss it.
Batman: AA requiring rapid spacebar taps to open grates is the kind of QTE that ticks me off. Sure, the instances are brief, but I'm suddenly transformed from The Batman into a hamster clicking for a food pellet. Just annoying, not game breaking.
The only problem with easy QTEs is they don't make the cutscenes seamless. You can see the ugly hitch where the player was supposed to press a button to go to the next sequence. It's one of the many tiny glitches in The Witcher 2 that might have bothered me if the game hadn't cast a spell on me. I got lucky.
I didn't count clicking to fill up meters--although I found doing it the opposite of immersive. However, I guess I missed the alternatives to fistfighting the guard when escaping prison and the hangman in Flotsam.
As for sucking things up, it comes down to motivations and alternatives, doesn't it? If playing The Witcher 2 has me thinking wistfully of my Might and Magic 8 party, exactly why should I play TW2 rather than MM8? As for folks not understanding older gamers, if you live long enough, you'll likely get to experience slowing reflexes and poorer vision first hand. Anyway, it wasn't that if I used one hand for W and S and the other for A and D, I couldn't do the fightfights (I didn't turn off difficult QTEs until the run across the bridge to the solar), it's that QTEs detracted rather than added to my enjoyment of the game--and other aspects of the control system already had me disgruntled. I imagine I'll finish TW2 at some point, but I'm enjoying it considerably less than the first game.
Again, it sounds like you're very early in the game. Many people who found the opening sections full of frustration (and we are legion), ended up thinking it was great... that's my helpful input :)
Thanks for the reminder, Alistair. I haven't written off the game entirely, so we'll see. It's not that the game is fundamentally uninteresting or too difficult. It's more that they made it a hassle to do simple things.
Tomek Gop left CDP :(
Private reasons - most probably he was burnt out and needed change. I will miss him, he was a great presenter/interviewee/producer. Anyway, best of luck to him.
What? No!! Change nothing! Change nothing!
Unless he went to save Bioware from themselves. Then yay.
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