There wasn’t any.
Only the text about witchers being monsters and the dream sequence. So, unless you had paid some attention to the setting and lore beforehand it was easy to get lost.
In fact, here’s how bad my disconnect was with those key plot elements my first time through the game: when the new intro cinematic was released 2 months ago, the CDPR folks discussed it as depicting a key event in the game that originally was only discussed by the characters in the original edition of TW2.
After I watched the cinematic, I had no idea who was getting offed or what key event it was…and I’d played well into chapter 2 in my first attempt at the game.
Yes, I see your point. I would have been much more at sea without that cinematic.
The game’s narrative has been smoothed out considerably in the EE, most notably due to that intro cinematic, but also with Dandelion’s chapter bridges. Much less abrupt overall, and the new content in Chapter 3 fleshes out a lot of the events leading up to the situation you’re faced with in that chapter.
music from the opening cinematic available for download:
http://thewitcher.com/public/files/download/Within_the_Temeria.mp3
Choir music:
http://thewitcher.com/public/files/download/Witcher2EEfinalboards.mp3
For once, something good out of kotaku, 3D characters render (Letho looks seriously badass):
http://kotaku.com/the-witcher-2/
Has anybody seen sales numbers for the xbox version? PC versions appears to be doing pretty well on steam so far.
Question: Are the pigs in the mud in Floatsam new?
BDGE
3007
Yea, I was kind of hoping that cinematic wasn’t the ‘new intro’ either. The movie only gives context in service of playing far enough into the game to actually recognize that it does show a key event and moment that begins the story. Hell, players won’t even recognize the ‘assassin’ from the movie until 4 hours deep, post prologue.
Essentially it is still beholden to the player to dig deep into the codex from the beginning, moreso than what the core game provides.
Yes.
Ha, I did not have any problems knowing who Demavend was or following the story…I guess reading those seven books twice helped.
Number 1 on UK chart, more is unknown afaik.
I disagree completely.
In that cinematic, it’s pretty clearly a king being assassinated, which is the title of the game. So there’s that.
And then the game opens up and you’re in a dungeon, and being interrogated, and it quickly becomes apparent that something went very, very wrong at the end of the events you’re describing. In the very first “flashback sequence” in Triss’s tent Foltest features prominently and whether you know how things go or not you’re likely thinking “oh man, this dude’s supposed to protect a King and now he’s in the dungeon. Uh oh…”
That’s five minutes into the game. Even someone as “fantasy-world dense” as my buddy Jimbo (who’s far smarter than me in non-elvish gamey stuff) picked up on that right away, playing the game for the first time in the EE.
That opening cinematic, and then calling back to it at the end of the prologue is a fantastic dramatic device. It totally works.
Er…what? He’s at the end of the prologue battle flashback, barely an hour into the game.
Essentially it is still beholden to the player to dig deep into the codex from the beginning, moreso than what the core game provides.
The three people I’ve talked to at work today who started it over the weekend disagree, and this is the first Witcher anything they’ve touched. As triggercut says, it’s pretty obvious what’s happening and it informs everything that happens in the prologue.
Anyone remember the moment when you are offered an elixir by some alchemists in Floatsam, who says want to examine you in Wyzima in a pair of years? What was the consequence of that, if you agree?
Yeah! so happy it’s doing well.
Also agree with triggercut’s analysis.
Lynxara
3014
You get a Critical Effects Mutagen. Otherwise it doesn’t affect anything else in the game. Some people think whether or not you agree might affect Witcher 3.
It’s a mutagen, that’s all.
Originally I think they were put into the game as part of the extended tutorial in Flotsam. Remember that early on after your arrival in Flotsam they basically steer you into the crafting system with the silver sword being built to replace the one you lost in the Prologue. The critical effects mutagen was supposed to be the part where you use the mutagen system in character development.
I think.
It was so poorly explained/hinted/documented that most players passed right over it, and now in the game’s proper tutorial they have a thing where they give you a mutagen and have you use it, which helps explain that mechanic a bit better. I guess they just decided to leave those fellows in the game even afterwards.
Oh, ok. It’s true, now i have that mutagen in my inventory.
I never thought about this until you guys brought it up, but do any mutagens have negative effects? Those two scientist guys seemed to stress that much more testing was needed and that they would watch Geralt carefully. Can you just use any mutagen without heed, or might there be side effects?
BDGE
3018
Yea, what do I know I guess.
I did play Witcher 1 through, so my comments are just projecting what newcomers may think. Good on them if they had no troubles getting their bearings with all the names, relationships, and context thrust at the player in the initial hours. I do recall a LOT of people posting last year about how confused they were by the prologue, if EE fixed that, awesome!
Well, it’s a bit better than before, but I suspect the shock of totally new players is still there. They don’t know how is Triss, who is Zoltan or Dandelion, which king is from which kindgom, etc.
In that sense, even if the story is totally apart from the Witcher 1, I still recommend to play it to have a better context of the setting, the politics, your friends, etc, it actually makes The Witcher 2 more enjoyable, I think.
Lynxara
3020
Side effects aren’t really a thing in gameplay terms. At worst, you might spend a slot on a mutagen and then find something you’d wished you’d used instead.
