The Witcher

There are going to be trigger warnings in this post, just so you know. *

I disagree on a number of points:

• You're drawing a false dichotomy — I mean, the dichotomy between complicated sexual politics that could be presented in a work of fiction and simplistic moralising and polemics is true. But you're arguing that the only opposition to the*
  arguably not very
  complicated sexuality of The Witcher is a set of speeches and grand moralising. That's not true. It's possible to create an equally complicated discourse about rape culture that encourages the player/reader/whatever to think — The Witcher doesn't do that.
• What The Witcher does is use rape as a shock factor. A guard rapes a girl, and gets away with it! Be shocked! There's no sensitivity to the presentation, it's offhand and vile and effective. But The Witcher plays the card too often, and too readily — if it happens once an act, and without much commentary, then it's rape culture. And I could devote several thousand words as to how Vis's rape in the second game objectifies rape and a rape victims as tools of player agency.
• If misogyny and rape-culture — which you agree is used by The Witcher as part of its world building — is used only as world building, as minor asides without some centralisation to the plot, then that's trivialisation. It's the same as pitching a film in which some women are abused in the back of some frames, completely without comment. It's just set-dressing. Because there's no editorialising, there's no commentary, there's no subtext. And it's the lack of subtext, lack of substance to the occurrences that's damning. Have it in your story. Have it happen a lot, sure. But treat it ritualisticly, treat it sensitively and treat it with the understanding that victims of an assault, and women, and other marginalised groups are going to try to enjoy your story. A writer has a responsibility towards how they affect their audiences.

I'm sorry for the buggered up wording, but this argument upsets me on a fundamental level. So if you want clarification, just ask.

@Shadow Scythe

I'd agree. You make good points, though I think DA 2 has more complication in its premises, but suffered from a botched presentation. When the presentation was more successful, such as with the Qunari, I found it more compelling. But (DA)2 used far too many narrative crutches for it too be successful.

I wish I could give you a better answer, but I have to leave soon (and will be away for a couple of weeks)

I agree with you that it's part of the world building , but I don't agree that it's not central to the plot: the Crapsackiness of the world affects the plot beacuse it affects your choices. Anyway, you wrote your reasons well, and I can't say that you are wrong: I just felt something different than you, because I think that if the event(s) has substance or not can be rather subjective. Maybe the game did handle it poorly, but my love for the plot and how I care about several characters made me see it in a different light, I don't know.

But what is not correct is the complaint (I think it was not yours though) that your choices doesn't matter: they do, and the outcomes seem to be very different.

I will try to launch a thread for the second game with review and all once I get back from holidays, so hopefully I will be able to explain better there.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:37:35 AM by Anfauglith

Yeah that was my complaint and it was specifically directed at Witcher 2.

Witcher 1 has a few consequences for your choices. Since Geralt has amnesia you can shape your personality through dialogue and stuff. It's not great compared to RP Gs like Mot B, Fallout or Alpha Protocol but it's functional and is more than just flavour dialogue.

In Witcher 2 you have one big choice at the end of Act 1 which decides which hub you do in Act 2. Come Act 3 everything comes back together and your choices are once again largely meaningless. Your choices just result in maybe some meaningless extras dying but for the most part all it really leads to is just different characters showing up for the exact same purpose. Off the top of my head I remember saving that one guy in the prologue and he shows up to help you escape the dungeon. If you kill him...his mother shows up to help you escape the dungeon. That's hardly what I'd call a significant consequence.

Unlike Witcher 1 the amnesia simply results in Geralt reliving his memories in a non-interactive cutscene and it basically changes Geralt back into a very static and predefined character rather than the semi-interactive character he was in Witcher 1.

Hey, thanks for the conversation. Hope you have a good trip and stuff.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:37:41 AM by Nicknacks

I thought that usually the choices were handled well, and if you are immersed in the storyline then you care about the extras dying. I can't really conclude anything yet because I didn't finish Act III but choosing Roche or Iorveth brings a lot of differences (a different hub in Act II which is like 1/3 of the game is a lot).

I actually liked (so far) the choices in 2 better than in 1 because they were less Black vs Black. Iorveth is more likeable and less bloodthirsty than the Scoia'tael in the first game, he even desires a country without the racism and whatnot, and while this is quite idealistic and maybe naive, I found his characterization nice (how he struggles between the cycle of revenge he is trapped in with the humans and his ideal of not only freedom but peace that used to motivate him and that is resurfacing again) It's much more powerful than "the flower of Y'lwarth Aen bla bla bla bla...kill kill kill" attitude of Yaevinn in the first game. On the other hand, Vernon Roche is a nice guy, even if a bit ruthless, and his unit is not as racist and misguided as the Order was, and they avoid it even if their main objetive is to fight the Scoia'tael.

In the first game we had the Order of the Flaming Rose, whose most likeable member was Siegfried, but the difference was that Siegfried was just a small part of an Order and that by favoring said Order you were encouraging the racist murder of even more elves and dwarves. Yes, if you choose the Order Siegfried does start to see it, but at the moment of choosing every faction seems horrible, and the neutral path felt at first more like "screw it, I don't care" rather than "you are all bastards but Siegfried and he is deluded and follows more bastards". This is a minor complaint because I could still enjoy the game, the problem was that the choice made me stay away from the game for one day to think what I was going to do with it, while on the second it was easier to just follow my heart (obviously this is subjective).

Also, even if the scope of the game is bigger, I think it's more character driven than the first game was.

On the whole amnesia thing, well, Geralt is a premade character, but its not like the memories he starts to recover in 2 are changing his personality or whatever, he just remembers about Yennefer and the Wild Hunt (it doesn't have a terrible impact and you still have the choices in the present). The fact that Geralt is like this was actually something the game did well in my opinion: doing otherwise leads to a cardboard box protagonist who doesn't show feelings or any thoughts at all. Problem ensues if you dislike the character that Geralt is.

Also, I loved the cinematic storytelling (including the change of PO Vs some times, etc), I think it worked well even if it isn't a very RPG-ish thing to do, and I think it was creative.

Thanks ^^ glad to be able to keep a good conversation while disagreeing, hehe. Tvtropes is really good about that, most other forum denizens always take discussions as if they were fights.

Having said that, goodbye -insert overly dramatic and attention-seeking goodbye-post here-

edited 8th Feb '12 1:12:37 AM by Anfauglith

This entirely depends on what you mean by "consequences." Nothing changes, in the grand scheme of the world of the Witcher based on your choices in the first Witcher game. Your choices do affect various quests later in the game, and can create some personality quirks... But that's it. And really, it's only noticeable because the game makes a point of telling you this is occurring because you did something back then.

In the Witcher 2, every choice you make(yes there are fewer of them, and they tend to center on your choice between Iorveth and Roche) affects the overall world of the Witcher(specifically the status of the 4 kingdoms bordering the Pontar Valley), and the status of the sorceresses therein. Little things, like not killing that guy in the prologue, help determine whether or not Foltest's kingdom is a series of fiefdoms ripe for annexation, or just a "weaker" kingdom in comparison to the 3.

—

The first changelog for the Enhanced Edition is out. It sounds awesome, especially the nerf to Quen.

The second Dev Diary trailer also shown that there will be an extended outro to show the state of the Kingdoms depending on your choices and etc. It sounds like they are fixing a lot of the flaws that the game had...the only thing that could go wrong is the number of cutscenes (they are adding more) but we will have to wait to see them.

Oh and for the ones that don't know, they are adding several more hours of content to Act III.

edited 24th Mar '12 3:24:47 PM by Anfauglith

Aw, shit. I only managed to beat the Kingslayer the first time because of Quen. Now that boss fight is going to be impossible.

In Act I? I defeated him on Hard a few days ago. I found a nice strategy...instead of running around and trapping him in Yrden, I would use Aard, two strong attacks, rinse and repeat and then run away as Vigor regenerates. If you melee him he uses his Quen less often, doesn't use bombs, and the Aard causes him to stop parrying your attacks. You can also throw daggers at him, they do a lot of damage.

Oh and the second part of the changelog is out.

edited 25th Mar '12 5:06:25 PM by Anfauglith

Played the first game, and replayed the second. Some thoughts:

On sex.

While there's an abundance of cleavage (particularly in the first game), and the entire viewpoint is extremely masculine (particularly in the first game), I don't find anything wrong with the way rape is treated. It's not so much of a shock factor, at least not to me, given the patriarchal society of the series. All of the most relatable characters reject and despise rape — there's points in both games where you're given opportunities to prevent such occurrences, which would only exist if the game itself was trying to encourage such prevention (at least internally). In fact, I appreciate how the games didn't dance around it.

Personally, I think misogyny is more likely to come from whitewashing it, or displaying it as something right. The Witcher games do neither, and the conclusion is seldom arrived as explicitly. You find out because you piece the bits together, or because it's expressed in terms other than dialogue. Obviously, not all games should tackle the subject, but I felt as though The Witcher games did it no disrespect — and you often get to dish out comeuppance to rapists or attempted rapists personally. If that doesn't send an explicit message, I'm not sure what does.

The cards were pretty immature, though, but some were funny.

I also noted a lack of boob plate or otherwise impractical gear for females. It says a lot that, as immature as The Witcher could be, it also didn't put female combatants in revealing attire, except for Triss Merigold in the first game. The reasoning for that one escapes me. Saskia gets some cleavage in the second game, even in battle gear, but other female combatants like some of the female elves wear entirely practical gear.

On mechanics.

While I felt as though the first game was a better overall experience, I liked the direction the second game took in terms of combat. It could certainly stand to see substantial improvements, but I think a more action-oriented combat experience is what they really want. You might notice that the combat in the second game more closely resembles the opening and ending sequences of the first game. The combat of the second game needs some fine-tuning and some alterations, but I'd rather see a fully real-time, living, breathing combat system for something like The Witcher, as focused as witchers are on swordsmanship.

The controls definitely need to be tightened, for instance, but apart from that, I think they can keep most of the same stuff. A few alterations I'd like to see, though:

• Dodging isn't a roll, but a lithe, controlled jump in the movement direction.
• Quick strafing, so we can keep our angle consistent while moving.
• If one attacks and dodges at the same time, they do a wide cut travelling in the same direction as the dodge. So an attack from a right-moving dodge would begin an attack on the left and move to the right.
• Bring back auto-parrying and remove it as a controlled action. With an improved dodge and tighter movement, this will throw emphasis on getting out of the way of attacks rather than blocking them. With a chance-based auto-parry, putting progression points into strengthening your parry gives you a wider margin of error in combat rather than being an entirely reliable tool — pretty much like a real sword fight.

Apart from that, I'd like to see the original journal come back, with its wealth of monster entries. I thought it was great to read about the whole range of monsters and stuff, with the facts and folklore placed side-by-side. Very characterful.

Ultimately, I thought the second game was weaker when it came to plot, but stronger when it came to characters. The first game also had a better levelling system which ensured at all your abilities would be at least maxed out to level 2 by the end of the game, and where only your most primary of primary abilities would be fully progressed.

I'm not too good at writing at this hour (6 am and quite tired) but I will try.

I agree with what you say, but I liked the plot of the second game better than the original, especially the choices. The choices in the sequel have more consequences and are way more difficult to make: Killing or sparing Henselt comes to mind. He's a rapist, racist and commits genocide yet the kindgom progresses under his rule and killing him would send it into chaos (and Niflgaard would probably conquer it easily). There is no right choice...

I also liked Letho more than Jacques/ Alvin as an antagonist. While Jacques' twist was nice, Letho had in my opinion better characterization, and I loved that you could choose to let him go in the end.

Plus 2 had more political intrigue, and those are the stories I prefer more.

edited 26th Mar '12 2:27:10 AM by Anfauglith

I think the second did have better characterisation, certainly. I did appreciate, though, how in the first game, choices didn't necessarily come back to you for a long time. There were certainly instances of this in the second game, but the first was more unpredictable in how it used this kind of thing, such as Berengar helping you out against the not-actual-final-boss if you were supportive and understanding towards him.

I agree, that's something that the first game's choices have above the second one.

Incidentally, Berengar appearing in that fight made it quite frustrating, because I tried to save him over and over again and Azar would always stunlock me and kill him in 2 or 3 hits.

—

I am interested to see how The Witcher 3 will deal with the large number of different endings that 2 provides. I guess the game will take place in Nilfgaard, so we could learn about the Northern Kingdoms via hearsay or cutscenes which wouldn't require that much work. Otherwise I can't see how they are going to deal with it.

edited 26th Mar '12 3:08:21 AM by Anfauglith

The Witcher 3 is certainly a tall order at this point. Not only do they have to improve the combat system — as least tightening it — but they have to provide for a number of different interpretations of Geralt's character and the possibility of recurring characters. There are a fair few great characters in The Witcher 2, but many of them can die and it would be a shame to waste their established character when they could be used to great effect in the next game.

In my last playthrough of The Witcher 2 (which, incidentally, started with a cleared save file from The Witcher), I killed Sile and Letho, who are potentially very powerful characters in The Witcher 3. Furthermore, I ultimately sided with the Order of the Flaming Rose in the first game — I wonder if that will have any impact, ultimately? I hope Siegfried has a bigger part to play in the third game, actually, as he was my favourite ally from the original. In a world of Grey-and-Black Morality, it was good to have a proper Knight In Shining Armour at my side from time to time.

I don't know if Letho will have a big role in 3. It seemd to me like he wanted to "retire". Doesn't he tell Geralt that he will never see him again?. And if Sile remains alive she goes into hiding. It seems to me like CD Projekt did it that way so those choices don't bring too many changes to 3's storyline.

I think the main problem is within the Northern Kingdoms. There are too many variables there Radovid, Henselt, 3 outcomes for Temeria, the Lodge loses power or keeps it, Saskia, etc.

Roche and Iorveth will definitedly appear since they can't die regardless of what path you choose

—

I love TW 2's combat system. My only problem with it is that I need to dodge too much and it looks quite silly.

edited 26th Mar '12 3:30:56 AM by Anfauglith

Not really. Witcher 2 didn't really take into consideration Witcher 1's choices and Geralt's characterisation that much. I didn't see it myself but I'd heard that even a Shani-romanced Geralt will end up banging Triss at the beginning. It might have been a bug but if not then that's a pretty crappy move towards people expecting some element of ownership over their character. In general I found the save imports to not have much of an effect beyond some minor bits of dialogue changing but then, I don't think save imports have ever amounted to anything more than that so...

To be honest though, Witcher 2 seemed to be more interested in being faithful to the characters of the novels and I found that Geralt just became a lot more predefined compared to W1 Geralt. It makes me wonder if perhaps CDPR should have stuck to their original idea of having a new Witcher/Witcherette as the player instead of resurrecting an established character like Geralt.

I don't know if CDPR will take any feedback into consideration, but if they continue with their current trend Geralt isn't going to be catered to the different choices made in W1 and 2 and will just be more or less reset to 'default' Geralt in Witcher 3 instead like he was at the start of Witcher 2.

I don't see how 2 is more predefined than 1... The first game was already quite limited about personalizing your character, and in both games the only way to characterize him is by making choices (I don't have a problem with this and I even find it great)-

As for the imports, the only issue for me was the one with Shani. The Witcher's storyline worked as standalone, but The Witcher 2 seems to be the first part of a bigger story, so it may change. I feel like the first game was an introduction to the world and the second game was setting up a duology now that we know/care more about it.

I reread your earlier posts about the RPG elements and I sort-of disagree. It doesn't have less RPG elements than the first one. I am playing in Hard now, and a better build is helping me quite a lot (it's averting the thousands of deaths I had when playing on normal). The RPG elements are just more hidden than in the first game, but they are there. The item stats matter a lot, as do builds, you can learn perks by doing certain things, and planning the fight beforehand with the potions is a huge bonus and adds a layer of strategy to the encounters. Another factor may be that I like action RP Gs because I just care about the story and the combat not being overly frustrating (and I mentioned earlier that I like TW 2's combat). Also remember that while I played some of the "classic" RP Gs (Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate II, etc.) I got introduced to RP Gs by KOTOR (I and II), and then played Oblivion for a long time so you could easily invoke No True Scotsman

Oh and they are nerfing Quen in the EE.

EDIT: fixed mountains of typos.

edited 26th Mar '12 4:15:28 AM by Anfauglith

Mainly the amnesia thing. In the first game, Geralt having amnesia was an opportunity for the player to define him through his dialogue. The journal would frequently update with random things about what he believed based on what the player said.

In the second game, the amnesia functions to give him a series of cutscenes with no player choice in how to react to them.

Both games had choices and it's debatable whether or not they actually followed through on them (I'd say 1 did this more so than 2) but Witcher 1 definitely gave more option for player customisation in personality compared to 2.

And I wouldn't get your hopes up with W Itcher 3 valuing the choices of Witcher 2. No game with save imports has actually done this and I'm not expecting this to change from a developer who has yet to demonstrate they can do substantial consequences to actions beyond one big choice in each game.

In terms of what I'd want from Witcher 3. I'd like there to be more choices than just Humans vs Nonhumans. I'm getting kinda bored of that conflict and I'd like them to move past it now. I think they should try for a variety of different factions with pros and cons (say, 4) rather than just 2.

I think they need to do more substantial side quests than collecting 20 bear asses or going to one place and killing everyone, with multiple options within quests.

And they need to make the character system more relevant to combat. As it stands, the character system isn't even necessary to play and dodging is a more important element of combat instead. The RPG elements need to be a core component of the combat, moreso than the action elements I'd say.

Are you playing it after the 'black edition' patch? It's possible that's why you're finding the RPG elements a little more meaningful. At launch the character system was just an easier mode for a game that was more reliant on twitch skill instead.

I'll replay the game when EE comes out and see if it's really that different. Back at launch though I found that character system to be far too streamlined compared to the original.

I got introduced to RP Gs by KOTOR (I and II), and then played Oblivion for a long time so you could easily invoke No True Scotsman

So first up, I don't really believe in No True Scotsman. I mean, I do have pretty strict rules on what I define as an RPG but I don't believe someone isn't a true RPG fan (whatever that means) because they like different aspects of the genre compared to me.

Second...Kotor was my first WRPG too. In retrospect, nostalgia's probably the main reason I'm not as critical of it compared to other RP Gs but I definitely enjoyed it a lot at the time.

edited 26th Mar '12 3:57:44 AM by ShadowScythe

It seems our opinions are quite different...for example I found the sidequests enjoyable and in-character, which is something that I find very rarely in games. Protagonists often stop trying to save the world in order to recover some missing family artifact for an old lady, but in The Witcher they took advantage of Geralt's monster-hunting job to avert this. Having to learn about a certain monster and then find a way to destroy their spawn points was a nice gimmick, and there are not too many of these quests so they don't get tiresome.

You do have choices about how you react, not too many, it's true, but the first game gave you only 3 or 4 choices like this so it's not a big difference. These games are not too keen on personalization and like I said you mainly do it by the choices you make in the main plot.

The Witcher 2 has many important choices (many many more than Mass Effect 3 for example). Some of them seem hollow but they do affect the ending. I can list them in the next post if you want spoilers.

The Witcher 2 subverted that a bit...at first it seems like the same human vs nonhuman choice as in the first game, but it's not quite like that. Roche isn't against nonhumans and Saskia and all the supposed pro-equality movement are tools of the Lodge of Sorceress

—

Kotor is one of the reasons I enjoyed 1 so much. It reminded me a lot of that game and then I realized that it was because both use the Infinity Engine. I have a big Nostalgia Filter about it.

Oh and sorry about possible grammatical errors, I didn't sleep tonight.

—

Yes, I started in one of the last 1.X patches and quickly moved to 2.0 . It may also be that I suck, because the first time I played the game (it was on normal) I died thousands of times. Seriously, remember the first fight of the game, in the prologue? When you have to use the ballista? I died 7 times there. The Kayran killed me 4 times before I realized I couldn't trap the middle tentacles in Yrden (and then add about 4 deaths more even when I knew what to do). I had to change difficulty to easy in the first fight against the Kingslayer because I just got curbstomped. The queen endregas took me 2 tries each. I really don't know what happened in that first playtrough, now I started playing again (in hard) and I'm doing way better (only died 2 times against Letho, none against the Kayran, and I didn't have any frustratingly high number of deaths against mooks)

edited 26th Mar '12 4:19:55 AM by Anfauglith

In order to understand well what is the issue with elves vs humans (and how the Wild Hunt is linked with it) I recommend reading this thread. Spoilers obviously. Understanding that also makes it easier to see what is the real connection between the story of the first game and the second. I can explain if anyone is interested and you don't want to go read the whole thread.

edited 28th Mar '12 1:45:43 AM by Anfauglith

I just downloaded the Enhanced Edition and copied the patch notes. It includes spoilers for the outro, the new quests, etc. I repeat, big spoilers.

Here they are

By the way Nicknacks, I will be glad to resume our talk about the supposed sexism but I will do so after I finish playing this. The EE adds a lot, including a quest with Cynthia so I will re-evaluate my opinion. After it I will post a review and hopefully resurrect the thread (or rather, create a new thread for the second game)

The second game doesn't have a thread of its own.

edited 17th Apr '12 8:52:40 AM by Anfauglith

Resurrecting threads is totally fine. I think the mods prefer that to creating new ones.

Unless it got deleted or locked somehow...?

Ok, now I am pissed. I bought this game in 2011, from Direct 2 Drive, in fact, it was the Enhanced Edition Director's Cut thingy. They got taken over by Gamefly and this is where the plot thickens. Seems I can't download the client from the site, even though the product keys for the original game and the enhanced gubbins are showing up on my account page for the title.

How the hell can I have bought a game, have valid cd keys for it, and yet the site will not let me access what I paid for? Nothing is showing on the net reference any problems with accessing the title, and lo and behold it is still available to purchase, if I want to spend double or more what I originally paid the company.

Have you tried contacting them directly?

edited 27th Feb '13 5:14:43 AM by Nicknacks

You can enter your key on GOG and get the game there: http://www.gog.com/witcher2/backup

(url says Witcher 2 but it works for Witcher 1 as well)

edited 1st Mar '13 3:12:17 PM by Kodaemon