By Jim Rossignol on September 13th, 2008 at 8:15 am.
Popular monster-thumping RPG The Witcher is being overhauled for 2008 with new lines of dialogue and new motion-captured gestures from the NPCs. CD Projekt are showing off these improvements in their latest trailer – and they do seem to be a fairly substantial improvement on the original ham. You can also switch languages in any version of the game, so playing with the Polish or German dialogue and English subtitles should be possible, if you fancy that foreign-language videogame experience.
13/09/2008 at 08:45 Homunculus says:
Worth mentioning is that it’s just popped up on Steam and Impulse for pre-order as well.
13/09/2008 at 08:46 Little Green Man says:
Sounds nice that they’re making it better, but why didn’t they do this earlier?
13/09/2008 at 08:58 Azradesh says:
Cool I’ll pick this one up now
13/09/2008 at 09:06 rob says:
I love these guys
13/09/2008 at 09:09 Larington says:
Two good reasons for why they might not have done this in the first place:
1) After you’ve spent so much time being very close to a project your working on, it becomes very hard to have a highly critical analysis of your own work.
2) Pressures of the job – Get this game out by christmas or you’ll not get your milestone payment and your studio will have to close down due to lack of funds.
13/09/2008 at 09:13 SwiftRanger says:
Didn’t buy the original because of a less powerful PC and the announcement of a better version down the line. Now I got the hardware so this is a certain buy, the demo ran like ass on my old rig and had the known language faults but it definitely asked for more.
13/09/2008 at 09:18 Zeus says:
I’ve heard good things about this game, from lovably grouchy people. In other words, I’m intrigued, and might have to get it.
I know the American version of the original was censored. Anyone know if this one will ship in a retail box I can import, or am I bound by some kind of nightmare digital-download-only-regional-lockout scenario? (Steam, etc.)
13/09/2008 at 09:31 Naurgul says:
Shameless plug follows: The Witcher Review
It’s from my RPG-themed Steam group’s blog, but feel free to delete if it’s inappropriate to post it here.
13/09/2008 at 09:33 BabelFish says:
@Zues
gogamer.com sells an imported version of the game. Search their site for “The Witcher”, the ones with (I) in the name are imported from the UK.
You’ll pay a bit more, but IMHO it’s worth it for the game as the developers intended.
13/09/2008 at 09:44 Okami says:
Nice to see that the new, improved dialogues can be just as charminlgy pointless as the old ones :)
13/09/2008 at 09:47 Azhrarn says:
If you have the original release, you can download all the enhanced stuff for free from their site I believe.
13/09/2008 at 10:01 Kadayi says:
It you like RPGs this is a must. Dubious picture cards aside.
13/09/2008 at 10:16 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Clearly not content with being just a Knight Templar, it seems George Stobbart has buggered off to join the Witchers now.
Might pick this up along the line if I’m hankering for a new RPG, but with Fable and Fallout coming up and KotOR 2 due for a replay (hopefully completing it this time) that’ll be a fair while yet.
13/09/2008 at 10:20 Simon says:
I never finished it in the first place. Downloadable for free you say?
/Reinstalls
13/09/2008 at 10:45 teo says:
Why would anyone buy the new version at full price when you can buy the old one and download the patch?
13/09/2008 at 10:48 Chris Fifty-Two says:
Seems like they are shutting most of us non-american people out again on Steam.
“Games from Atari are only available in North America. * The Witcher is also available in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, and Ukraine.”
Source: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=518670
13/09/2008 at 11:03 Esha says:
I really dig these guys, they’re also the good ladies and chaps responsible for the upcoming GOG(.com) site, too.
There are some developers where you can really tell they went thhe extra mile with their game, and there are some developers where you can see that they cared enough about their community to go back and put in that extra effort. I’ll keep citing it but Mask of the Betrayer is one of the former, and it looks like the Witcher is one of the latter.
It’s good to see that some non-indie developers (yes, developers, not publishers) are in it for the love of their project and the respect they have for their community as much as the obvious monetary angle. I could name so many modern dev teams today that I feel are way too into the diddling angle… but I won’t, I’ll try and be nice. Still, they’re there. I just hope that CD Projekt are remembered for being different than that.
I’ll be buying the Hard Copy of this though when it comes out, there’s simply too much nifty stuff with that to pass up. I do like giving Stardock my patronage, but this is one time where I simply cannot.
13/09/2008 at 11:17 CrashT says:
@Man Raised By Puffins: I wouldn’t bother trying to complete KoTOR 2, I mean Obsidian didn’t. *Grumble, Grumble, Bitch, Moan.*
13/09/2008 at 11:21 Koopa says:
@teo: The extra goodies. From wiki:
“Aside from the game enhancements, the box of The Witcher Enhanced Edition will contain a “making of”-DVD, a CD with 29 official in game soundtracks, another CD with “Inspired by” soundtracks and music, a book with the short story The Witcher, from the book The Last Wish, a map of Temeria printed on high quality paper, an overhauled game manual, and the official strategy guide. In addition, the D’jinni Adventure Editor in a complete new and enhanced version will also be on the DVD with the two new Adventures.”
So even if you already own it, it will be well worth it’s price.
As for the trailer, I was hoping for some info on the combat improvements too. I just recently got Witched, played for few hours, but then decided to wait for the update. The dialogue improvements do seem really good, hope the combat is better too. The combat in Witcher wasn’t great, but not so bad it would stop me from playing the game even if the changes aren’t that big.
13/09/2008 at 11:43 Pavel says:
I love these guys.
They give you completely overhauled version of the game, with two (or three) new adventures (each several hours long) completely for FREE.
Compare that to Bethesda, which leaves over 2000 bugs in their game (leaving fixing them on community) and charges you for a FUCKING HORSE ARMOR.
13/09/2008 at 11:48 Optimaximal says:
This is so what EA needs to do with Crysis – backport the new Warhead engine into it so that I can play the original at 40-50 FPS.
I passed the original buy on release because of the bugs – I was just about to buy it once the patches came but then they announced this new version, so I held off… 1 week!
13/09/2008 at 12:05 Schadenfreude says:
Wish it was a cloth map… :(
Last cloth map I got was for Ultima 9 I think. And that was the highlight of the game.
13/09/2008 at 12:25 Kismet says:
I was already planning to get it from retail because of the nice bonus items in the package, but I’ve been briefly tempted by its presence on iMPULSE.
Then I noticed that it’s North America only there. I have a 20% discount for a purchase on Stardock shop expiring by the end of the month and I don’t know how to spend it as apparently everything I don’t have and I’m interested in is region locked.
Hope Stardock will be able to change things during phase two.
Anyway, back on topic: I love CD Projekt.
13/09/2008 at 14:11 Kast says:
Hmm, I’m looking at the Steam page (from the UK) and there’s no option to Pre-order it. :\
13/09/2008 at 14:15 Thiefsie says:
I’m on this like white on rice. Pity that I can’t buy it from steam or impulse because I am australian and I am expected to pay double than anywhere else in the world
13/09/2008 at 14:17 Thiefsie says:
by the way use the SURVEY-2008 code at impulse for even more savings – why I’m even more pissed they won’t sell to me
13/09/2008 at 14:43 malkav11 says:
One thing – there has been some talk about possibly letting owners of the previous edition of the Witcher buy all the physical extras from the new box for some fee or other (maybe $20, but I’m pulling that out of my rear end). This possibly might also address the inability to get these items through DD. We’ll see what happens with that.
13/09/2008 at 14:55 Nero says:
Man I love this game. Didn’t have time to finish it first time though. Free updates are awesome. Although I have the original I feel like buying the EE just to support them.
13/09/2008 at 15:14 Plinglebob says:
@malkav11 I’ve been checking the original sight and it doesnt look like you can at the moment. However, everything except the story will be available as a free download as long as you register your original copy.
13/09/2008 at 16:30 Gurrah says:
That has to be the best patch of 2008. I haven’t played the game yet, but seriously, that many changes could not have been cheap, but they are actually giving it away for free to their customers. That’s the way to go, horse armours of the world!
13/09/2008 at 17:07 Jim Rossignol says:
Yeah, it’s an amazing patch. I am tempted…
13/09/2008 at 17:15 Ian says:
I was interested in the game but before I got around to buying I heard of the Enchanced Edition. I suspect I’ll get this at some point.
13/09/2008 at 17:48 Nitre says:
You know, the attitude of these guys towards their game is something i’d like a lot more developers to have. Perhaps they do have that feeling but can’t express it (due to constraints), but if people actually did listen to feedback they got and then changed the game for the better, or even realised after release that the initial game had some things lacking *coughsporecough*, then the gaming world would be a much better place.
13/09/2008 at 18:41 Mako says:
From their website, listing the contents of the enhanced edition:
“‘The Witcher’ game is better than ever before. No more bugs, no more problems, all the previous issues have been fixed, so that now you can play without the will to blow your head off.’”
Utter brilliance.
13/09/2008 at 18:41 James T says:
Thiefsie: Dunno whereabouts in ‘Straya you are (or what they’re charging online), but I believe Witcher is about 50 bucks at EB these days. I would’ve waited around for a hard copy of the EE, but it was a good deal (got the game for 25 in one of their big sales earlier in the year). I’ll just get the EE in download form and check out the docos/soundtrack on youtube, I reckon (Witcher’s got great music, and I’m curious about the making-of).
I’m liking the new animations, they were in need of a fix (especially that ‘dismissively rolling your hand’ one, heh).
13/09/2008 at 18:49 Schadenfreude says:
From developer comments on their forum (none of which I can actually find now :/ ) it seems that it’s not just the game patch you’ll be able to download if you own the original, but all the extras too; soundtrack, documentary, booklets etc. Which is pretty cool.
Still nothing made from cloth though :(
13/09/2008 at 19:08 Putter says:
Even though I don’t have time to play this until Christmas holidays at earliest, I’m getting this at release to support the cause, and because this is a really attractive package of a game I want, but haven’t gotten around to yet.
I’m very happy they did this. It looks incredible.
13/09/2008 at 19:48 Koopa says:
Even though I own Witcher already, I too am considering buying the EE just to support this. The world needs more game developers like CD Projekt.
13/09/2008 at 19:48 Dot says:
I wish more developers did stuff like this. Just to show support, I even rebought the game on Steam now that it’s there.
13/09/2008 at 20:42 Marcin says:
Still can’t play it. TAGES won’t let me :/
13/09/2008 at 20:53 Brian says:
I bought a used copy of the original and it didn’t come with a CD key. I can play the game perfectly well without it but I need this key to log on to the official website to get the updates. No luck contacting their tech support either. Guess I’ll pirate the update.
13/09/2008 at 21:22 Inglorion says:
I love you RPS. Seriously.
13/09/2008 at 21:42 Tei says:
This game is a good than a Baldurs Gate. Is not Morrowind, but is a very good RPG, with very god Quest, ambient, fun combat, alchemy, character progression. Thanks for this very good game! Hope you guys are sucessfull commercially..
13/09/2008 at 22:31 Paul S says:
I really don’t understand the love for this game. Is it simply because single player RPGs are few and far between these days? It’s just no fun. Making your protagonist an albino with a gruff voice, an attitude problem and a mysogynist streak does not equal good characterisation, and the combat is a step below Diablo. What’s the deal?
13/09/2008 at 22:33 Dominic White says:
I’m really glad they’re giving players the original voice-tracks + subtitles option. While the dubbing on this game is pretty good, Geralt is so much more emotive in the original Polish it’s ridiculous. He’s just way, way too deadpan in the english version.
14/09/2008 at 00:15 DSX says:
Fixing those agonizing load times makes it worth a replay, new content is just icing on the Witcher cake.
14/09/2008 at 00:26 Butler` says:
Sadly, I think you’re right Paul S. I wonder if the lack of single player RPGs is due to the burst in popularity of MMORPGs, scaring developers and publishers off in the process. There’s an article there… somewhere.
The Witcher is not that bad though, once you get passed that dreadful intro.
14/09/2008 at 00:47 kuddles says:
@Paul S: Sorry you didn’t enjoy it, Paul, but a lot of us loved the game. I thought the combat was a great compromise between tactics and visceral action (definitely more involved then Diablo), I actually found the characters interesting, and I believe it did far more in terms of making your choices matter to the gameworld then most RPGs with 3X the budget managed to do. Personally, it’s one of my top five favorite RPGs of this decade.
14/09/2008 at 00:55 Nimic says:
I pirated this game first time around, but I think I’m going to purchase the Enhanced version. I really like developers who listens to the community and actually makes improvements.
14/09/2008 at 01:04 Saflo says:
I pirated this game
I really like developers
Hmm.
14/09/2008 at 01:07 Leeks! says:
“I do know this one cut…”
Rad. It seems like the new dialogue understands how to do over-the-top properly this time around.
14/09/2008 at 01:11 Nimic says:
Nice quote mine there, Saflo. I did pirate the game first time round, and glad for it, since it was quite buggy. But now that the developers have shown that they listen to the community and improved on it, I’m going to buy it.
Frankly, I rarely download games anymore, mostly thanks to Steam (and somewhat the EA Downloader). I do download movies and series, though, if you needed any reason to sit on your high horse.
14/09/2008 at 01:24 onkellou says:
@Paul S:
Great story, full of believable political intrigue, wonderful world design, a combat model that is much more involving than the purely stat-based D&D combat, without making it an all-out action game, great art design, monsters, and decisions that aren’t from Bioware’s über-naive school of Mother Teresa/nasty little school-bully game design. I found The Witcher infinitely superior to pretty much anything Bioware have done in years in almost every respect.
Frankly, I have no idea how anyone could not like this game. They mysogynist problem is exaggerated, anyhow. At least the game has some strong female characters, and you don’t need to have sex. The card-collecting is silly, though, alright. The Witcher has made iself a bit of an easy target because of a lack of subtlety in that regard, but to single it out always seemed a bit strange to me.
14/09/2008 at 01:27 Cooper says:
I will now buy this game.
Devs note: Post-release support not only makes fans love you, but increases sales. Looking at you, Boiling Point, and , to an extent, VTM:BL who could have done with this sort of love…
14/09/2008 at 01:33 ScubaV says:
Yes, even with the bugs (though I never dealt with the ridiculous load times) the Witcher is easily in my top 10 RPGs, maybe even crack the top 5 with this patch.
14/09/2008 at 01:52 Nick says:
“VTM:BL who could have done with this sort of love…”
They would have supported it further if they hadn’t run out of money and collapsed. (in fact they would have released it in better shape if they weren’t running very low on cash)
14/09/2008 at 09:41 MeestaNob! says:
As much as I love Steam, I’m grabbing the collector edition when it comes out, there’s just too many nice nerd trinkets in the (sexy) box.
If we can add the Witcher CD key to Steam, I’ll be absurdly happy.
14/09/2008 at 10:50 Pavel says:
For me, TOP 5 RPGs are – Fallout, Deus Ex, Vampire Bloodlines, The Witcher.
huh, those are only 4. Okay, hopefully Fallout 3 will join them.
14/09/2008 at 17:33 Razerious says:
So I can’t buy this on Steam/Impulse like I planned? What’s the point of digital distribution if they just start adding artificial barriers?
15/09/2008 at 04:02 Pestilence says:
I played this game about halfway through the first time; about 1/3 of the way through Act 3 (midway through the next part of the town after the swamp). Anyone know if I can patch the game and continue playing or if I’ll have to restart?
15/09/2008 at 13:44 Adam says:
@Saflo:
Taking quotes out of context is very childish. Personally I think it’s great that he will buy the game this time around.
16/09/2008 at 22:37 Nimic says:
Well, guess I won’t be buying this after all. For some reason the developers have opted not to make this game available to Steam users in, well, almost anywhere but North America and certain parts of Eastern Europe.
18/09/2008 at 13:16 Daniel says:
Well, I really wanted to buy this game. But if they won’t sell to me, buying won’t be an option, will it?
Idiots. Next time some as… er, developer or publisher comes complaing about how many pirated copies they can see on the Internet, would some kind journalist ask them if they adjusted their numbers for the countries they don’t sell their games at?