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Amazed that such a big release doesn't have a discussion thread for it yet.

Does anyone have the game yet, and if so on what machine?

Know it's been getting some good reviews but interested to hear what people think about it, thinking of getting the game but not sure on what platform yet !

I have the game, but the computer I intended to play it on is missing it's power supply, so it will be awhile before I can get to it.

Buying it the day after tomorrow, just waiting on my paycheck to arrive.

Got it on PC. It's the game that made me build a new PC last month. My old one I built five years ago, and only upgraded the GPU three years ago. It had been doing just fine in the games I like, but it barely met the minimum requirements for The Witcher 3. So now I've got a pretty i5-4690K with a GTX 970 and things are smooth. I've got the settings split evenly between high and ultra, and everything is so pretty in the game. To me, the ingame graphics are almost as good as rendered cutscenes from games five years ago. Trees and their branches move in the wind. I'm only about 4-5 hours in and I've had only one crash so far and no other noticeable problems (better than any Bethesda game ever).

I haven't really been following this one.. is it like super open world like new-Skyrim? or a linear story with a few things to do on the side?

I've got a copy from buying a graphics card... have yet to install it. A buddy of mine is liking it so far. So far I've played the first Witcher a bit... but never did get far in it.

I've got 8 hours clocked on it so far, and it's pretty good overall. my main issues haven't changed much from the 'Played' thread, though, but a few have been added:

- Geralt's movement is still just awful. Even 8 hours in I've not gotten used to it. It hops between 'clunky' and 'jerky', and he never really goes where you want him to unless he's sprinting, where you, oddly, get more precision over his movement. The basic jogging he does can often result in you spinning around in wide circles just to line him to get through a doorway.

- I've noticed that readying weapons is fairly strange. Sometimes Geralt will ready them on his own, and sometimes he won't. Other times, he'll decide to sheathe his weapon of his own volition, often after killing an enemy. This can result in taking a good string of hits from other enemies that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten hit by, or finding yourself uppercutting thin air when trying to quickly change targets.

Sometimes when entering combat, you'll unsheathe the weapon, and he'll instantly re-sheathe and immediately unsheathe it again. Once again, this results in you taking hits, or finding yourself completely on the back-foot after wading into a melee only to find Geralt hasn't quite decided if he wants to use his weapon yet.

This also happens with the crossbow, as well as Geralt suddenly deciding that whatever he was shooting isn't worth shooting any more, and even with your finger firmly on the quick-use button, he'll randomly stop using it.

Very, very annoying.

-

This isn't so much an issue, more of a warning: this isn't like Skyrim, or Fallout, in that enemies will neither scale with you, nor will the main questline scale as if you were only tackling it. It will likely assume you completed everything there was to do in an area before advancing the plot, so I suggest you do so. Side-quests aren't exactly optional if you want an easier time with the game; I'd personally say that they're pretty much mandatory for the experience alone.

- Crashes. I've had 4 in total, all in the inventory and seemingly random. At this point, I recommend saving before going into the inventory. I've had to start doing it, now.

What's good is:

- In spite of Geralt's movement outside combat, inside, combat is fairly fluid and smooth, and packs of more than 2 or so enemies can prove a challenge, not necessarily because of the damage, but because you generally have to wait for openings to attack. Going in with rapid strikes can and will get you leapt on from every side before the swing even connects, and speaking of attacks connecting...

- Enemies. Will. Dodge. Other fantasy games and RPGs have enemies that raise shields enough, but in TW3, even your basic Wild Dogs and Drowners can and will dodge your attacks. It's frustrating, but it adds a level to the game. In packs, an enemy's dodge dodge will often leave you open to attacks from its friends, and trying to take on groups of enemies actually feels like you're taking on a somewhat organised group, rather than several lone NPCs who happened to just be standing near each other and spend the fight each doing their own thing.

Combat can be incredibly frustrating, but because it feels like you're fighting something reasonably intelligent and skilled in its own right, not because of any arbitrary difficulty or OP foes. For this reason, it's also incredibly rewarding.

- This game is simply gorgeous. I only have object and model textures on ultra, and the rest on medium (with the various blurs and stuff off, because I hate blur in any game), and my God were the people who whined about graphics being downgraded for PC not just wrong, but completely wrong.

Minor weather-related

Well there goes $80. Decided to download it on my xbone, pretty good so far. Hoping it's got a ridiculous amount of hours worth of gameplay, need something to keep me busy since all my shows are between seasons now

Agree with above stuff so far. Looks awesome, but movement is is jerky and kinda annoying sometimes but you can still get used to it

I think that little girl in the opening scene was the same voice as Sera from DA:I

Awesome, thanks for the write-up Avatar 720. It's touch and go whether my PC will run this game, so think I will probably go for the PS4 version at this point.

What are your thoughts on the games story/development side of things?

I went ahead and got it for my ps4. Really enjoying it, Been pretty glued to it.

I'd say I've clocked around 12 hours so far. Barely scracthed the surface!

I've never played any of the other witcher games so it does take some getting used to.

For everyone just starting out, Make sure you hit every point in White Orchid before you start really questing a long. There are at least 5 points of power there, and you can get those extra ability points. Really makes a difference!

My best friend and I have started a let's play of it, we are both super fans of the series and I am really impressed with the third installment.
It gets the things a game like this needs to right
Combat- While it's an adjustment from the second game, combat feels really fluid and stylish, while you can no longer just spam spells like before the need for a combo of swords and spells feels very satisfying
Characters- Man they nailed it here, the motion capture makes even useless villagers come alive and main characters are move vivid than ever. Geralt himself feels like a grizzled veteran monster hunter should be and the dialogue does it great justice
The world- My favorite part of the game thus far, as it gets right the one thing I've always loved, hunting monsters feels like it should, Geralt seems like a man who knows what the beasties that go bump in the night are, and just how to hunt, kill and behead them. Hunting big beasties is my new favorite pastime in this game bar none.
Now the game isn't perfect, but it's certainly a satisfying solution to this wonderful series

Regarding the movement, I've only really had problems with the horse controls. At walking speed, Geralt seems to move just fine for me.

I feel that the sidequests are important early on to get those initial levels, but I suspect that it becomes less important as you progress. I've read that there is enough content to reach level 60-70, but some reviewers have completed the main quest in the 30s.

And, yes, the game is beautiful. Sometimes I really do just stop and look at the sunset or watch the trees moving in the wind.

So if I didn't really enjoy the gameplay and perspective of Skyrim,
I won't enjoy Witcher?

Hard to say, as the core gameplay is different from Skyrim. Combat is more fluid, with actual movement rather than just run and slash at the enemy.

I simply do not like the fps RPG genre.

 malfred wrote:
So if I didn't really enjoy the gameplay and perspective of Skyrim,
I won't enjoy Witcher?

The Witcher series is not an open-world RPG. In this game series, you take on the role of Geralt of Rivia, a mutant albino who is a professional monster-slayer. He's always male, always has white hair (let's leave the discussion of third-party mods out of this for now) and always has the same background.

This is a game-world based on a series of Polish novels that are grim, SOIAF-esque tales of Geralt, his friends and enemies, and his travels through his world. Rather dark on the front of socio-political commentary.

The storyline is sort of linear, though the choices that you make, as Geralt, in the course of the game can change how things progress. There's not a clear-cut "good" and "evil" to the choices, because you will almost never meet someone who is all-good or all-bad.... like, you might encounter a band of Elven terrorists who are about to set fire to a village of human peasants. Terrorists are evil, right? Well, not really, in this case, because the humans of that village recently hung an elf for having pointed ears and burned down the homes of their dwarf and elf neighbors in a spate of racist violence... a fairly common theme of the setting.

This is not a game that runs you through the tutorial and then drops you off outside and says "world's yours, have fun!".

That is actually a part of the reviews that has really attracted me to the concept of this game, in terms of their being lots of morally ambiguous decision making.

I was recently playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and some of the 'karmic' decisions you make are hilarious in terms of how conceited they are; 'save the starving children', well done, plus karma. 'Blow the enemy troopers out of the airlock, despite you having already achieved your objective and for no appreciable benefit whatsoever, other than to be evil' well done, have negative karma

From what I have read about these kind of scenarios in the Witcher, it sounds as though the storytelling is much more mature and it's not obvious what is the 'right' thing to do. You have to make a judgement call.

Exactly. An ad-line for one of the previous entries in the series was "No good, no evil, just choices."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also not an FPS, it's OTS.

Really enjoying it on my Xbox One.

Are the requirements really that demanding?
Apparently I can't play it with an I3 and a R7 200 AMD graphics card.

You certanly can play it, I think. It have VERY supple graphic options and good optimisation on PC.

Played 8 hours more or else aimlesly going through forests and plains, like it atmosphere so far, realy good faces and voice actors wich make me actualy remeber characters (unlike Skyrim. lol)

I'm really impressed by the few sidequests I've done - all of them have been in the opening area so far.

I can certainly run it. I'll have to watch a gameplay video or
something.

Got the hang of things more now and got through Noobtown. I'm level 4, I spent most of last night visiting every ? on the map and cleared them all except 1 den where I ran out of bombs and some big sea creature that was too tough, i'll head back later.

Once you get the hang of combat it's not too tough, you just have to remember to block and dodge instead of buttonmash. When I got to the first new town there was a little fort off to the right that had a bunch of guards that were level 9 i think, but I was able to take em out just by swinging and dodging and backing up to eat some wolf livers when I had to heal. I think there was a bit of a glitch there since it seemed like the guards wouldn't come out through the doorway, they kept getting stuck.

is it me or do you not get any XP at all for killing stuff? Just for finishing quests and other events?

 Necros wrote:


is it me or do you not get any XP at all for killing stuff? Just for finishing quests and other events?

You get a very, very small amount for killing things. Not much at all. It's not a game that lets you level up just by slaughtering anything that moves. Well, I mean you could, but at a couple of XP per kill, it would take forever.

Completing quests and witcher contracts are how you'll get the best XP.

And your choices do matter. They really do.

 Psienesis wrote:
Exactly. An ad-line for one of the previous entries in the series was "No good, no evil, just choices."

Although, I do think this trailer really helps explain Geralt's viewpoint a bit.


"If I'm to choose between one evil and another, I'd rather not choose at all."

Just came across the first point in the game where I really just wanted to stop playing.

Trailer would've been better if he hanged or just killed the woman as well. Then his statement would've been correct

Also, the witch in Velen..

 Psienesis wrote:

 malfred wrote:
So if I didn't really enjoy the gameplay and perspective of Skyrim,
I won't enjoy Witcher?

The Witcher series is not an open-world RPG. In this game series, you take on the role of Geralt of Rivia, a mutant albino who is a professional monster-slayer. He's always male, always has white hair (let's leave the discussion of third-party mods out of this for now) and always has the same background.

This is a game-world based on a series of Polish novels that are grim, SOIAF-esque tales of Geralt, his friends and enemies, and his travels through his world. Rather dark on the front of socio-political commentary.

The storyline is sort of linear, though the choices that you make, as Geralt, in the course of the game can change how things progress. There's not a clear-cut "good" and "evil" to the choices, because you will almost never meet someone who is all-good or all-bad.... like, you might encounter a band of Elven terrorists who are about to set fire to a village of human peasants. Terrorists are evil, right? Well, not really, in this case, because the humans of that village recently hung an elf for having pointed ears and burned down the homes of their dwarf and elf neighbors in a spate of racist violence... a fairly common theme of the setting.

This is not a game that runs you through the tutorial and then drops you off outside and says "world's yours, have fun!".

Having a storyline does not automatically remove it from being open world. Several notable open world/sandbox games have set characters and stories.

In this case, it does, because the game's maps are linear, as are its chapter-beats, though how the story is told in each chapter is dependent on your choices.