Timex
3203
One thing I think I’ve confirmed is that after white orchard, places of power are no longer shown as undiscovered locations on the mini map. So i guess i need to not rely on that. Weird that they did in write orchard though.
I really like traveling by water in this game. The simple physics simulation during stormy weather makes taking a boat more, uh, immersive. Even swimming across a river is calming and smooth.
On the mini map? You know you have to go to notice boards to get the question marks to show up, right? If so then I must be misinterpreting. I haven’t noticed any changes.
Timex
3205
No, the question marks only generally require you to go to a notice board for contracts. Many show up all over for things like bandit camps, hidden treasure, etc. Without the notice board.
In white orchard, many of those initial question marks were for places of power.
But I’ve found in valen that the three places of power that I’ve located so far were not shown on the map prior to me finding them.
Just had an odd bug…walked up to a bandit camp, and there were 4 bandits standing there, they didn’t react to me. I got within about 15 feet of them and all of them went through a death animation and dropped dead. So odd.
Some of the non-contract notice board postings seem to cause additional unidentified points of interest to be added to the map if you take them from the board. I assume it reflects Geralt picking up clues about local goings-on (that are interesting) from the postings.
Yeah it’s like Assassin’s Creed without the climbing minigame. You click on the notice board, and that region’s question marks show up.
I’m pretty happy with how much I’ve cleared out of Velen without getting too high of a level (14). I skipped Oxenfurt and the extreme corners of the map for now. I’m even starting to enjoy Gwent, probably because I’m winning!
But after all this adventuring, I’m ready for more of the main quest. Time to check out the big city.
Timex
3209
Regardless, the places of power do not seem to show up on the map prior to finding them, notice board or no.
You can filter the items that appear on the map. Sure you don’t have Places of Powers disabled?
Public service announcement: been playing W3 just fine all week, even this morning. Ate lunch, launched the game, and got nothing but a black screen. Rebooted, same thing. Backed up and deleted the folder structure for the game in My Documents, no luck. Went into Steam, did a file integrity check, it found and replaced one file, game then launched fine.
Bateau
3212
Upgrading set items no longer destroys sockets.
Awesome, saw this just before I crafted the upgraded versions. I immediately slotted all the greater runes I had :P. Currently rocking over 160% sign intensity with the sword out at lvl 15. Looking at the availability of sets, mutagens and looking at the skill tree I’m starting to think that the intended progression is magic -> light style -> strong style focused on adrenaline generation and the talent that burns adrenaline to overcharge signs.
@John Reynolds - if you were changing ini files then that’s probably the file that was downloaded, but it shouldn’t have been causing black screens.
Patch 1.04 noticeably improved the graphics on high/ultra. The texture filtering is much better.
Reemul
3214
Why not reduce the game difficulty, I ramped it up to 3 and found i was dying too much so dropped it down one, i’d rather enjoy the game than die a lot. The storyline and quests line are so good on there own.
I decided not to min-max and I’m still challenged by groups of enemies 5 levels lower than me. I definitely need that skill that lets me use adrenaline to cast more signs so I can spam them. I suspect that will make combat more interesting without feeling overpowered.
Yeah I dropped down from Blood and Broken Bones last night to Story and Sword , I found that I was just spending too much money on food and repairs. Meaning I wasn’t good enough in combat, lol. Being able to heal via meditation is a huge change.
If you chose to save Lena in Wild Orchard in the herbalist’s hut with the Swallow potion, you can travel to the far southeast on the map of Velen where you’ll get a minor follow-up.
JMR
3218
Finished W2 last night and loved it. A thoroughly enjoyable experience but one that might be hard to go back to after having a brief taste of the open world goodness of W3. I haven’t dabbled much in any of the quests at the first down but rather just exploring and taking in the beautiful scenery. A ruined town, a battlefield strewn with dead bodies, the foliage swaying with the wind and Geralt’s freedom to pretty much do anything. I came across a well and for shits and giggles I sprint jumped at it fully expecting an invisible wall to push me repel me back but instead I fell into to the damn thing. Holy shit we’re finally off of the rails.
The one glaring disappointment I have is with how they modeled Geralt’s movement in how he turns and accelerates it’s such a huge departure from W2. I’m sure I’ll get used to it over time but so far it’s like a having a pebble in your hiking boot that detracts your attention from the beautiful scenery.
Can’t think of anything positive to say about this game that hasn’t already been said. I played the first two Witcher games and had fun, but they didn’t stand out all that much for me. This one, though, qualifies as one of if not the best fantasy role playing games I’ve played in years, if not for all time. Of course, I’m only in Act I still. :)
Three pretty minor nits (PC version):
[ul]
[li]Crossbow activation is crazy – TAB, select, middle-mouse – why can’t it just be assigned to #3 key as melee weapons are?[/li][li]“Walk mode” has to be set every time you load a save. This is especially annoying if you’re struggling with a particular encounter and have to reload a bunch of times.[/li][li]Dandelion’s narration is almost a monotone, and the story recaps during loading sequences become repetitive when you’ve seen them more than once, especially if you are reloading saves more than usual. It’d be nice to have a skip option. (It’d be funny if he narrated minor quests: “While passing through the village of White Orchard, Geralt encountered a coastal hovel and an elderly woman who lamented a stolen frying pan…”)[/li][/ul]
I fucked over some scoiatel dudes before i realised i did that. the consequences really want me to go back on it, but i’m playing semi-ironman; one save.
In the new patch:
-Textures are sharper than ever. Nice.
-the first merchant in White Orchard (the one with the dlc armor) has some Gwent cards.
-But they screwed the loot key. Before you could press E twice to loot, one for opening the loot window, second for taking the item. If there were two items, you pressed E thrice. Now it doesn’t work, you have to put the cursor over the item for the key to work. Space to take all is still working, but I liked to smash E!
It’s Dervan. D-E-R-V-A-N.
