The Witcher

[Wolfsong]

We got a preview copy of the The Witcher at work last week. As an old school RPG fan I naturally grabbed it before anyone else could and have been hogging it since.

What can I say. It has a few minor graphics glitches like popping lod steps and strange camera angles, but besides that it looks and runs really nice. I've played about 10 hours so far and the amount of information that you get all the time and the journal system and environment design and implementation, makes it the best RPG out there in a long time. If you are an RPG fan, pick this game up! Today! (I think it was released yesterday in Europe, US will have to wait until next week).

Be warned that there is a problem when running on Vista though and you need to have the latest genuine advantage hotfix from Microsoft installed for it to run for more then 10 minutes. With it I was able to play for about 1½ hour yesterday before it crashed. There is a memory problem in Vista when it comes to games, so it's Mircosofts problem to sort out. On XP it runs just fine and I haven't had any crashes as on that OS.

Vista Hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

Also, get the 120Mb 1.1 patch, which was released before the game.

And for those who haven't herd of this game... check it out: http://www.thewitcher.com/

[Aramis]

It's supposed to have a really deep storyline drawn from a book series. I saw it at GenCon and they gave me like a whole little mini-novel on the series. Graphically it looks pretty neat, and is coming for 360 as well I believe.

[Wolfsong]

Haven't seen anything about a 360 version. But I'd rather play it on PC anyways.

As for the story, it continues 5 years after the last book. The writer left it open for people to judge is he (Gerald, the main character) has died or survived. He told CD Projekt that he survived and they built a story based on that. So far it's great. Played about 5 hours more today. Currently stuck in a boss fight. Gonna try to win that again tomorrow.

[Aramis]

I could be mixing it up with another title.

[Wolfsong]

Picked up my own version of The Witcher yesterday (Limited Edition) and returned the preview promo disc to the office.

I've also finally gotten it's quite stable in Vista. Haven't had many memory problems since the patch and Vista update as well as setting it to XP SP2 mode. But the chapter 1 boss is no pick nick. hehe. Still haven't passed it, but haven't had too much time to play and did some backtracking to power up some so soon he will fall under my blade!

[SilentEdge]

Anyone own this game? I picked it up and couldn't be happier so far. 

I'll be writing a review in the coming days.

[Wolfsong]

http://www.theplatoon.com/forum/general-gaming/the-witcher/0/

Finished it. Great RPG.

Patch 1.2 was released a few days ago.

Has won so PC RPG  of the year at a few sties and also PC Original Soundtrack of the Year. Not bad.

Finally got it to run good under Vista as well. It needed a little forcing of the memory handling besides the Witcher patch and the hotfix for Vista.

Anyone trying it on Vista, here is what I found that helped me out.

If your game is regularly crashing with 32-bit Vista:

From the Windows command line: BCDEDIT  /set  IncreaseUserVa  2688
Then you must reboot your computer.
Then start Witcher and see if you crash anymore.


For those who want an explanation before blindly trying it:

The Witcher executable is a 32-bit app compiled with "large address awareness", what this means is that the maximum amount of address space it can make use of is:
On 64-bit Vista: 4GB
On 32-bit Vista: whatever IncreaseUserVa is set to (defaults to 2048MB)
(Note: address space doesn't necessarily equate to real memory used, so I'm not saying that The Witcher actually makes use of >2GB RAM)

Note: the valid values for IncreaseUserVa are 2048 to 3072, if 2688 doesn't work for you, you could try a higher number.  Might be needed especially if you have a video card with a lot of memory on it (>512MB).  If you have problems you can always boot in safe mode and change it back to a lower value, or the normal 2048.

Also note: I would recommend switching this parameter back to the default of 2048 once you're done with The Witcher.  There are good reasons that Microsoft has it set at 2048 for normal purposes.

[SilentEdge]

http://www.theplatoon.com/forum/general-gaming/the-witcher/0/

Durrrr. I'll move this guy.

Finished it. Great RPG.

Roger, I can't even find the time to finish my Christmas shopping I'm enjoying this one so much.

[Wolfsong]

Yeah... It took me around 50-60 hours I guess.

[Lostroth]

Yeah... It took me around 50-60 hours I guess.

now that's the kind of game i like. i hate sitting down and finishing a game in like 8-10 hours.

i will have to look for this game in the new year, been wanting to play a good RPG game.

edit: downloading the demo now, 1.97 gigs, ouch

[SilentEdge]

now that's the kind of game i like. i hate sitting down and finishing a game in like 8-10 hours.

i will have to look for this game in the new year, been wanting to play a good RPG game.

Just buy it and wish yourself a Merry Christmas. I'm at like hour 20 and I can tell I've barely scratched the surface. I downloaded a couple of mods that restore original content edited from the US version (the two b's: Boobs and Beheadings).

I can't freaking put this game down.

[Lostroth]

*cries* wish i could buy it now, but i'm just gonna wait till the new year since the GST goes down Jan 1, so i'll save a tiny bit of money.

boobs and beheadings eh? now that is my kinda game hehe.

[Zoog]

I'm playing it right now, still really in the beginning. Looks promising although the voice acting is a little static.

[SilentEdge]

I'm playing it right now, still really in the beginning. Looks promising although the voice acting is a little static.

That seems to be what people complain about the most. I don't hear it though. Maybe I'm just a bad judge of voice acting.

[Wolfsong]

Started to play it again now. This time I'll go Flaming Rose/anti Dwarfs and Elves side and see what happens.

The voice acting is a bit funny at times... or rather the entire dialog. But apparently the Polish version is much better and that is the main production language for this game.

[Wolfsong]

GameSpy: PC RPG of the Year
http://goty.gamespy.com/2007/pc/12.html

IGN: PC RPG of the Year
http://bestof.ign.com/2007/pc/9.html

And it's winning user polls for RPG of the Year all over the web.

[SilentEdge]

I'm not surprised. Quite a twist at the end if you're smart enough to figure it out. And don't worry, it's not what you expect so telling you there's a twist won't ruin anything, unless you read this:

[Wolfsong]

That plot twist has been debated on the official forum a lot if it is as you posted above or not. My first though was that it is like that, but there are stuff that suggests otherwise. No official word on it yet either.

Another thing is the identity of the mystery character in the ending movie (smells sequel long way).

[SilentEdge]

That plot twist has been debated on the official forum a lot if it is as you posted above or not. My first though was that it is like that, but there are stuff that suggests otherwise. No official word on it yet either.

It's a bit too obvious to miss (IMO). And I really can't imagine the writers dismissing the given evidence of something that obvious with a "just kidding".

Another thing is the identity of the mystery character in the ending movie (smells sequel long way).

Right.

Ending movie was certainly a nice way to tie beginning to end and lead into the sequel.

[Wolfsong]

That plot twist has been debated on the official forum a lot if it is as you posted above or not. My first though was that it is like that, but there are stuff that suggests otherwise. No official word on it yet either.

It's a bit too obvious to miss (IMO). And I really can't imagine the writers dismissing the given evidence of something that obvious with a "just kidding".

Well...  I don't disagree with you, but there are some basic questions that are not answered.

Another thing is the identity of the mystery character in the ending movie (smells sequel long way).

Right.

Ending movie was certainly a nice way to tie beginning to end and lead into the sequel.