The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Telefrog]

The freebies coming this week are a Nilfgaardian Armor set (that looks like the dress clothing with some extra bits and bobs) and an Elite Crossbow.

[instant0]

I think I noticed a “bitch” in the last Ciri segment. It’s probably something developers should quietly leave out of their games. It adds nothing to the experience and causes a lot of consternation. Then leave the rest of the game as-is.

Maybe make it PG-13 rating while we’re at it?

[Reemul]

One dislike is the armor, Geralt looks like a real dandy rather than a monster hunter in this light flowing gear. Sometimes I want to ask them to dance rather than disembowel

[Papageno]

Yes. It’s the N indicator in the minimap… which should be obvious, but I don’t know what else to say.

I guess I’m blind then. I’ll look harder next time.

Sort of OT on the subject of sexism in games: I haven’t played this one long enough to judge, but what does bug me is stuff like playing the Arkham City challenge maps as Catwoman, and having the goons implying sexual violence against her, e.g.: “We’re gonna have some FUN with you, Catwoman!” It’s kinda gross.

So no 1.05 patch today, then?

[TurinTur]

I love that Sad Albert is called Sad Albert, and they don’t say why, it’s just Sad Albert.

Witcher 3: Best drunken simulator

Lambert is prick, and there is a bit a poetry is how is a sour prick

Lambert

He hates being a Witcher, it’s one of the people who never forgave the fact he was taken from his family and turn into one. But ironically he complains and complains but he is stuck in being a Witcher, he doesn’t realize he could be another thing, if he wanted… just like the ex-witcher he wanted to kill in his personal vendetta, that one got what Lambert wants, and he doesn’t realize.

[Papageno]

“Hey hey hey, it’s Saaad Albert!”

(this will be lost on anyone younger than maybe 48 years old)

[Bateau]

I guess I’m blind then. I’ll look harder next time.

It’s not just you, the symbol is pretty hard to see even on a pc monitor, if you’re playing on a tv it’s probably even worse.

I’m now officially out of things to do in the game while I wait for them to patch Pyres of Novigrad. Wrapped up everything except a high level cave in Skellige and two contracts in Velen. I’m 15 levels above the recommended level for Pyres of Novigrad and I don’t even care. Not playing was simply not an option with this game.

[Rico_Jones]

Same here. Though Geralt was a bit of an ass about it. The conversation options were:

1. I’m gonna kill you because you were mean to someone I know.
2. Whatevs. I just want some information.

… and no …

3. I’m gonna kill you because you’re a psychopath who kills women for sport.

I mean, I killed him anyway. But I should be able to tell him the correct reason, dammit.

That stuck out at me too. I killed him because I was standing in a room full of dead prostitutes and I wasn’t very happy with the situation.

Then again if the girl he tried to kill had been my own daughter, maybe I would have reacted the same as Geralt.

Either way, that was pretty much my low point for the writing in game, which puts it above most other game’s high points.

So, no interrogation?

[TimJames]

I’m now officially out of things to do in the game while I wait for them to patch Pyres of Novigrad. Wrapped up everything except a high level cave in Skellige and two contracts in Velen. I’m 15 levels above the recommended level for Pyres of Novigrad and I don’t even care. Not playing was simply not an option with this game.

That stinks. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think there are any showstopper combat engagements or boss fights in that series of quests. Cool settings but the fights themselves weren’t very memorable even 4-5 levels above the recommended level.

[lordkosc]

Count Reuven’s Treasure

This mission apparently goes to shit at the end, tried three times now and no matter what everyone attacks me, lol.

Not sure what happened, but I am getting XP again, so onward I go!

[Cyrano]

I think the facial animation is about the best I have seen since L.A. Noire. Does anybody know if it was mo-capped or hand animated?

[Nithrakis]

Pretty sure it’s all hand animated.

[JMR]

What a fantastic game this is. I’m about 35 hours in and only level 9 but I’m having loads of fun taking my sweet time to explore and do side quests here and there. I want to savor this experience which, for me, has been akin to playing Ultima VII and Daggerfall for the first time. What an amazing world they have crafted here and I’m still only in Velen with much more exploring and questing to be done.

I was still pretty lost in how to play Gwent despite have my watched the tutorial. I was under the impression that you simply laid down all of f your cards and whoever had the highest number won the match. I guess that’s what I get for missing out on Magic the Gathering in the 90s but acts reading up and watching others play it on YouTube I think I have a handle on it. Up until now I’ve been winning matches with vendors in n the scattered poor villages but there’s this one in a fishing village that I can’t beat. He must have one hell of a deck and he had the temerity to flout his winnings before me despite having 2 prominent swords slung on my back.

I did Tower Full of Mice quest and [spoiler=that definitely ranks in the top ten worst ways one can die [/spoiler]

[Rico_Jones]

I think the facial animation is about the best I have seen since L.A. Noire. Does anybody know if it was mo-capped or hand animated?

From a Gamespot interview back in April:

How did you do the facial animations? It’s a game that has lots of dialogue-heavy cut-scenes, but you have lots of unique characters and facial animations.

We couldn’t use motion capture because the game is just too big. We have thousands of lines of dialogue, and we translated them into several languages. So that was just impossible. We could have done motion capture for the English facial lip syncing and then just added subtitles, but we didn’t want to do that. We created the lip animations from scratch for the characters. But the system was very flexible; it would take three to four days to create a completely new face that has the same motion capability as any other character.

There’s no difference between the main characters, secondary characters, and crowd characters. They all represent the same quality. It needed tweaks for the 3D software engine to make it work, but it worked well overall.

[lordkosc]

This weeks DLC was announced.

[Becoming]

After close to thirty hours I am still having trouble digesting just how awesome this game really is.

[Bateau]

That stinks. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think there are any showstopper combat engagements or boss fights in that series of quests. Cool settings but the fights themselves weren’t very memorable even 4-5 levels above the recommended level.

Yeah, I’ve had that problem since lvl 15 or so, once I went with a full sign build. Highlight was probably killing a lvl 33 boss in ~20 seconds when I was lvl 18…on Death March (sidenote: burning mechanic should be changed, it’s too strong versus high health targets in its current form and super weak vs low health targets). I’m hoping the FCR guy can whip up some magic in the future to keep the game more challenging in later stages. Maybe even rework mechanics and make oils mandatory, change mutagens to give more varied stat bonuses so that you’re forced to choose between a potion and mutagen slot, etc - basically, the game could use more things that were already present in Witcher 1 and Witcher 2.

I also briefly tested alchemy build on one of the high level contracts I have left - results were pretty surprising. Geralt became very tanky, I had about 9k vitality at lvl 25, constant huge health regen, slow motion, unlimited stamina, automatic proc of special effect from signs, poison from oils, great aoe from bombs - very fun, but going into inventory to buff up was extremely annoying because for some reason the game rearranges potions at will. The problem is highlighted further when you need 7-8 potions just to reach the treshold for Delayed Recovery talent to kick in. I really wish I could slot more than two items per type. Having a % counter for toxicity would also have been really useful. And another thing - while buffing up on the inventory screen toxicitiy isn’t updated on the fly which is annoying when you’re trying to figure out a combination of decoctions and potions to use.

So from my limited testing I’d say that UI is the biggest obstacle that alchemy builds currently face, but mechanically it’s a very interesting and fun build. I’m looking forward to try an adrenaline generation build with heavy armor next, only two levels to go (I knew I should’ve kept the armor at enhanced quality, sigh).

[ShivaX]

Well, I beat it.

82 hours. Simply amazing all around. Actually looking forward to playing it again and trying a different build/choices.

[Rico_Jones]

Well, I beat it.

82 hours. Simply amazing all around. Actually looking forward to playing it again and trying a different build/choices.

Does the game end when you finish the main quest, or can you still explore and complete any remaining side quests?

[triggercut]

Does the game end when you finish the main quest, or can you still explore and complete any remaining side quests?

You can still play.