The Witcher
 

Hey, have you seen this already? It's upcoming polish game based on very popular (at least in Poland) fantasy book series - The Witcher.
From what I can see in this trailer, I can only say that it will be totally awesome :)

http://beta.zbiornik.com/video/483zk1519/

http://v01.zbiornik.com/videos/13796...002783/tn2.jpg

Looks very good and very interesting.....not knowing anything of the back story.

I am intrigued, you say it's a popular series, but a quick look on Amazon turned up nothing for me (although it was a very quick look). Who is the author?

~Drego.

The official English site for the game.
http://www.thewitcher.com/

The trailer was exciting but I have yet to check out the actual gameplay and storyline.

The author is Andrzej Sapkowski. I'm not familiar with the storyline either, since I didn't read this series. I wrote that it's popular in Poland and I don't know if it was translated into other languages.

This game is still upcoming? PA did this comic about it three years ago.

The game looks amazing... it's based off of the NWN1 Aurora engine, so I'm expecting a KotOR quality RPG.

from what i know, only the first novel in the series has been translated into english.

i am very much looking forward to the game, although i am a bit hesitant with the "twich" fighting style involved.

This game flew completely under my radar until just this week. IGN has a bunch of stuff on it, but start off with the Features section and read the countdown parts 1-3 which explains backstory, overview, gameplay, etc. Reading those has actually gotten me very excited about the game, and the best part is that it has already gone gold and is set to release Tuesday I think.

http://pc.ign.com/objects/682/682220.html

Well, it looks like nobody else has played it yet, so I'll be the first to say that, so far at least, the game is AWESOME! It does, in fact, run on the Aurora engine, and is also DX10 native (though it is co-native with DX9, so you non-Vista folk need not worry). The cinematics are every bit on par with or better than Blizzard cinematics, which is quiet a feat as Blizz is WELL known for their cinematic quality.

The combat system is fresh and interesting, allowing for melee combos and magic and fighting styles that allow you to change tactics based on the fight you are in. The in-game graphics (under DX10) are amazing, with some of the best shadows and samples of the "God Rays" that I've seen to date. The storyline is deep and rich, with plenty of cut-scenes to keep your knowledge of the story in tact.

I've not played much of it yet, but I can truly say that so far it's very impressive!

Oh I'm glad to hear that. Atari touts it as having over 80 hours of play, with a massive storyline that leads up to one of three different endings depending on choices you make during the adventure. If you've already played it and like it, that's one more uptick for me to buy the thing on Tuesday :)

Well, I've played some more and am still not very far into it at all. I highly suggest taking your time to really learn the story and pay attention to the trivial things. It makes Elder Scrolls look about as small as Fable. I can EASILY see 80 hours of gameplay. Another guy here has been playing. We're about at the same part with the same time played and are on two completely different paths, even in the same town. It's insane!

I've read the reviews and impressions and the game sounds completely awesome. However, I think i'm going to pass or at least wait a while before buying it.

The main deal breaker for me is what I've heard about the load times. Supposedly they are horrendous. No matter how good a game is, when the load times are often and long I have a hard time forcing myself to sit there and play/wait.

I'm in the middle of downloading it right now (a legit copy from Atari.com). The load times in question were dismissed by some forumers in IGN and the official site as being 10 seconds or less - after playing the HL2 series this is not a problem for me really. And all the people raving about the story and gameplay have simply made it a must-have for me :)

10 seconds? That doesn't sound like anything at all. However, I've seen several people complain, with the reviewer from Kotaku stating the following:


Byrnison, I'd be delighted if you'd share your opinions of & experiences with the load times once you have your version up and running. Same goes for anyone else currently playing the game.

Will do Prophecy...still have another 2 hours of download time though :grumpy:

Xepherys, what has been your experience with load times?

this game looks promising, unfortunately its not coming out for another week here.

Why oh why do so many good games have to come out at the same time, this is part of a very long list of must buys in the next few weeks

The load times are really not that bad. Loading into an indoors area takes about 8s, loading into the outside world takes maybe 25s, but the world is pretty expansive. A greater amount of RAM would help this tremendously I would imagine. Frankly, If the load times were 1+ minutes, I'd still play... it's THAT good. I've been waiting a loooong time for a new solid RPG to play. This is it!

prophecy, really the load times are not that bad, but YMMV depending on your system build. *shrug*

Prophecy, I can echo Xeph here regarding the load times.

So far, I have yet to get a load screen that tops 15 seconds, and that is usually on the initial load when I first start the game.

It can be somewhat annoying when you are running in and out of huts, but seriously, I haven't had any time more than 15 seconds in doing so (note, the times are longer coming *out* of a hut into a larger area than going into one).

I have so far had no crashes which the initial reviewers said took place. The only thing I have seen is that the cut-scenes seem to be somewhat choppy, but I'm not entirely certain that this is not the intended effect that the writers wanted.

After playing for about 5 hours now, all I can say is that if you have *any* hankering for rpgs, get this game now. Seriously, it is really good and immersive.

Hanabal, you can pay your coin and download it from www.atari.com right now. I looked for it in the stores but no one had it, so just did the 4 hour download and am happy I did so.

Final thoughts: wow. Utterly wow. Glad I purchased it.

Xepherys & Byrnison, you two have convinced me. I'm a sucker for an RPG with a good story. I figure I'll pick this up sometime after I finish my third play through of NwN2: Mask of the Betrayer (seems I missed the "best ending" the previous times I played).


Lastly, after looking over the recommend requirements my current rig meets everything but the AMD X2 5600+, I'm currently running:

• Vista OS
• AMD X2 4600+
• 2 GB RAM
• ATI Radeon X1950 PRO

What about the rest of you?

Just ordered my copy from HMV UK. Unfortunately being in Canada means ours stores have the censored US version :grumpy:

Can't wait till it gets here

Running:

Core 2 Duo E6700
2GB RAM
Vista x64
2x nVidia 8600GTS 256MB

I have all the settings as high as they'll go except resolution, I had to step down to 1440x900 to get everything on high.

There's a censored version? The copy I have is definitely NOT censored. They cuss and get nekkid and all sorts of fun stuff.

You should have no problems running it. I have a very similar system only I'm running on XP and with everything set to high including AF and AA the game runs smooth. There are occasional hiccups during some of the cut scenes but not often and not bad enough to be considered a major performance issue.

• XPSP2
• Core2Duo E6600
• 2GB RAM
• Nvidia 7950GTX

All settings ramped to high. As I said earlier, there are some minor chop issues in the cut-scenes, but no deal breakers.

There is a whole big deal about applying a Vista service patch, otherwise the game will bomb out often, so make sure you are up to date on the Vista patches.

As for the censored version, everything I've been able to find points to the fact that the ESRB in the states objected to some boobs on the cards you get when you get cozy with certain characters in the game...the uncensored version shows them, the censored one airbrushes them out. With all the rape, gore, and unsavoriness (sp?) in the game, it boggles my head, but meh, it's still one heck of a fun adventure.