Yeah this game pretty much renders every sandbox rpg except Morrowind and New Vegas totally obsolete, and even those two it's blatantly BETTER than. It's not perfect mechanically, but I barely think about the mechanics because I am SO immersed in this setting and these characters, and I'm someone who's experience with the franchise is just Last Wish, Blood of Elves, and a bit of Witcher 1, so I'm not exactly deep in the hole already. I cannot remember the last time I was so utterly conflicted by a game character as the Bloody Baron. I also can't recall a game with so much subtle body language. God this fucking game.
>>195242 I don't think so. I have a laptop with a GTX 960M, and I can only get above 30 FPS consistently with medium settings and 1366 x 768. Not bad, but the desktop GTX 960 runs the game like that with high settings and 1080p. Laptop hardware has some very obvious and logical limitations due being... well, being hardware for laptops. It will never get "there".
>>195287 Well to Clarify the 980m is said to reach almost parallel and it almost does falling about a quarter short on most tests. Titian mobiles starting to come out for the ultra high end have about double the cores of the 880. So yea maybe in a few years Desktops will go the way of the Dodo save for those that use them for gaming work and such.
Only reason I'm looking for such is something I could use for work and play since I won't have the time or money to build a new system where I'm going.
>>195252 Cool sounds like it did what LA Noir tried and went kinda goofy on.
>>195376 Its Witcher 3, one of the games were your need the latter to play the former. So how's the nookie in this one? Does the other Witcher you play get the chance for that as well?
>>195387 Ciri isn't a Witcher but she gets a shot. I only had sex with Yen and mostly don't care about such things. There's other chances but the game has largely outgrown W1's juvenile obsession with boobs. "It's a world people live in, those people have sex," is pretty much how they treat it.
>>195390 Cool, Witcher 1 was way too dating sim with that kinda thing. How is combat, I've heard it's kinda clunky? Better with keyboard and mouse or a controller. I found after Dark Souls using the controller was easier.
>>195392 I have the PS4 version. The combat is interesting, but on higher difficulties really demands you prepare for fights with alchemy and whatnot on top of being very particular with your signs, dodges, and parries. It's not tight like Souls combat, but it's fine and not what you are there for anyway.
>>195393 How is the crafting in that aspect, I felt Witcher 2 simplified things a bit too much on that end. Wasnt able to make loaded specials like in 1.
>>195398 I don't like crafting in games but it's mostly OK here. Once you make an oil,bomb, or whatever, that item is made forever and Geralt will refill it by converting alcohol during meditation. It's not the twinkery you could do in 1 but I personally consider that a positive.
So I have basically cleaned the game out aside of PoI in Skellige and maybe some minor sidequests I didn't stumble on.
Yeah that's a 10/10 game if ever I played one. I've been having pretty good luck lately, first I play the best adventure game ever (Ghost Trick) and then the best sandbox RPG (yo). It's certainly not without its flaws, but the strength of the storytelling and worldbuilding shines through so strongly that I can't honestly bring myself to care.
Except about crafting. Fuck do I hate crafting. Even with the steps>>195399 mentioned it's still a terrible fucking thing. Kill monsters, get gold or vendor trash to sell for gold, buy or find equipment and consumables. What is wrong with this system?
I guess in the case of this series they're just trying to stay true to the books in that sense, because a Witcher's use of alchemy is critical in those, but still. Fuck.
Great game though, and I even stumbled into all the ending stuff that I wanted! Nilfgaard wins, Ciri becomes empress, Geralt retires with Yen, Temeria gets to be an autonomous vassal state, the works. Only thing I would have changed about my choices through the game is not freeing the tree spirit so I can save the Baron and Anna. Otherwise it all worked out rather well. In fact several of the Geralt Explains The Consequences of Your Actions segments kind of seemed like there wasn't a downside to just being Good Geralt. You didn't kick Sarah out of her haunted house, good job! You killed Junior and Dudu took his slot, good job!
>>195620 They are totally worth playing. Witcher 1 is a bit of an acquired taste, since it's pretty janky by today's standards (it always kinda was but is even more so now), but there's plenty of people who still swear that it's by far the best game of the trilogy and it does have great atmosphere and an amazing soundtrack. Witcher 2 is one of my all-time favorite games. The combat is kinda basic and becomes a bit one-note as you unlock the more overpowered abilities and don't have to use much strategy anymore, but the story, characters and atmosphere are incredible. Just don't get discouraged by the first hour or so, because it can be balls hard. It gets better as you level up and unlock abilities.
Been playing the first one so I can play the second (to play the third) and I can confirm this.
The original game was basically a really extensive mod of what I think was a Neverwinter Nights game. The one thing that always gets me is how much better Geralt's voice actor got after the first game. I don't know if it was a lack of interest or better direction but he goes from robot to a closed off guy with a dry wit and occasional snark.
So how do the expansions work in this game? Are you supposed to do them after the end of the game or do they just add stuff you can do before that time?
>>200232 3 ways: you can load a previous save with them unlocked, start a game with them unlocked , or choose to create a special world state with just that dlc and a pre leveled character. Depending on where you are in the main story (or if it's over) some minor things will change.
Fwiw Hearts of Stone is basically just a high level questions and can be done whenever, but Blood and Wine really does feel like it was meant to be done last and feels like the swan song it's supposed to be.
Yeah, fuck that Gwent quest. Definitely not gonna 100% this DLC just like I didn't with the main quest thanks to Gwent. Also, the DLC is laying on all these O'Dimm references pretty thick, which honestly comes off a bit tacky. Which is a shame, because O'Dimm is great and so is B&W, so it wouldn't really need to feed off of his greatness and in turn kinda cheapen his impact.
>>200251 The main quest had two already with the most obvious being the origin of the wight an the other one was Regis mentioning another way of contacting Detlaff that involves summoning a being of immense power and should be avoided at all costs. Then I've already found two places of interest where the acquiring of one or more mirrors led to the death of the people who used to inhabit those places. Mind you that might be all of them. I wouldn't know, I'm only halfway through at most. But I just happened to come upon them almost one after the other, so it did start feeling kinda lame.
Here's something I really like when games enable and this one does a super great job of it. I was just farting around the Velen backwoods checking out question marks on my map, when I look over and I see this off in the distance. HOLY SHIT, THAT LOOKS COOL, I said. I WANT TO GO THERE.
This is as close as I was able to get - I think I could get higher up the mountain by circling around it, but the other side was guarded by a basilisk who was way too tough for me to fight yet, so I gave up. I'll come back later when I'm huger.
I really like it when games facilitate this. Put cool stuff off in the distance and let you just...walk there (or boat there, as I did in this case).
>>200259 but where is the fun in that. Free Roaming is made for mountain goat jumping up inaccessible areas.
Did that in Dragon Age Inquisition. Found a broken part of the map which looked to be a tower interior. They put a mountain in front of it to keep people from falling into it. Didn't work.
>>200260 >Free Roaming is made for mountain goat jumping up inaccessible areas. the problem being without mods Geralt has brittle bone disease and the slightest drop breaks his legs
I strongly recommend anyone going into 3 without having played the first 2 or read the books (or even if you have) watch Super Bunny Hop's Witcher videos. He just put up a really excellent one talking about the old polish literary influences in Hearts of Stone that I enjoyed a lot and his old series gives you a pretty good rundown of the themes and events preceding Wild Hunt.
