Feet says:

Getting 750kbs from fileshack at the mo with only a 10 minute wait. I shelved The Witcher as soon as I heard the EE was being developed and never got off chapter one myself, but I have heard that the game picks up alot once chapter two gets going.

EDIT: Ok to install you need to have a registered copy of the game, which means you’ll need your key. I’ve found the DVD box and the DVD, can I find the manual with the sticker on? Can I bollocks. -_-

September 19th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

danarchist says:

I loved the game but I got stuck in this whole spider cavein quest thing that i could never get past, then I started playing other games.

September 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am

Jonas says:

I beg to differ.

September 20th, 2008 at 12:42 am

Kadayi says:

After the legendary long rounds of all the entire RPS Crew hating the Witcher with a passion whilst the rest of the worlds RPGers loved it, I hope this isn’t going to be a very long exercise in self vindication (it’s a good 70 hour game). Also I agree the cards topics been done to death, no more fall back to that debacle.

Cheers for GH linkie though, fast speeds. Patch on the download, will reinstall all tomorrow. ;)

September 20th, 2008 at 12:46 am

Weylund says:

@Jonas: Obviously, opinions are boring, Ogawa is totally right. We should all just talk about what Ogawa wants to talk about. That’s where my obviously-not-differing interests lie.

Let’s start with ponies!

September 20th, 2008 at 12:51 am

Marcin says:

Here’s hoping this fixes my TAGES protection problem :/ Fackin’ DRM …

September 20th, 2008 at 12:56 am

Devin says:

There are a lot of things in The Witcher that stop grating quite so much when you just imagine that they’re Frank Miller’s fault.

September 20th, 2008 at 1:47 am

CrashT says:

My copy of the boxed Enhanced Edition turned up today, there’s a lot of extra stuff with the boxed copy. I held of on buying The Witcher until I’d heard more people’s opinions and then once I heard about the Enhanced Edition I just decided to wait for that.

So far I can say I’m rather enjoying myself.

Sex Cards… Yeah well at least this is a game willing to admit that sex exists, if it had been made in America it would play out like a film from the 50s. A lot of suggestive looks and vague hints.

I find the Sex Cards about as offensive as I find “Carry On…” films. Don’t try and take some political correct moral high ground, sex happens, there are much much more offensive ways of handling it than “Gotta bed them all” cards. Trust me, this is hardly Custer’s Revenge, it’s on the level of FHM if anything.

September 20th, 2008 at 2:11 am

Devin says:

CrashT:

If it were thoroughly shitty, sex cards wouldn’t bother me. Hell, if it were Leisure Suit Larry-esque and good, they wouldn’t bother me. The problem I had was that it was a decent game, not great but better than the average… It had a world with some horrible sexual politics, which, you know, is pretty realistic. It has a star who is a flawed hero: He does not countenance rape*, but he’s pretty willing to treat women very poorly in other ways, for instance by offering protection or money in exchange for sex. So far, okay. Those aren’t good things, but this isn’t a game about rainbows or ponies. If the game is about Geralt being heroic but also dastardly, that’s okay.

But it’s not, see, because the player’s collecting these cards commemorating the times he had Geralt seduce, coerce, or bribe someone. That puts the player on the side of the creepy power-imbalance sex. And they’re not funny cards, they’re not sarcastic Achievements, they’re fairly nice art assets, there’s some narrative imbedded there which I’d rather like if it wasn’t creepy.** It’s as though there were substantial rewards in items, experience, or additional quests offered for this sort of lechery.***

*Even the options to walk away from an assault-in-progress generally stress either a belief that “she can handle it” even though that’s patently false, which speaks to cowardice rather than acceptance of the act, or a belief that a Witcher is meant to fight monsters and never to shed human blood save in self defense, which is silly but at least kinda sorta makes sense.

**The one for the witch in chapter one is particularly nice, and I rather liked the elven resistance fighter in chapter 2 as well… Having her teaching Geralt elvish in bed was a funny mental image. It’s just too bad that the game presents that as the obvious and logical reward to be received when you rescue someone from an attempted rape.

***The one plot point/quest I’ve found that is the result of (rather than the entrance to) a sex scene is also a result of one of the relatively rare cases where you’re sleeping with someone who actually seems to know and like you and who is your equal. That’s rather heartening, and makes me think that the cards were a misstep rather than a result of the developers being bad people. I wonder if whoever thought of the game mechanic was thinking of something cartoony and sarcastic, while the art director wasn’t on the same page and made them much nicer and more desirable bits to collect.

September 20th, 2008 at 4:41 am

Plinglebob says:

I bought this game when it was first released and I’m hoping my edition of the Expanded Edition will come in the mail today (damn my addiction for collectors editions) and I think this is a game every PC gamer should buy for 3 reasons.

Firstly, its a good game. Wasn’t a fan of some of the mechanics the first time through, but that never stopped it from being entertaining overall.

Secondly, it tries to be different. It doesn’t use the standard good/evil concepts that other rpgs use and instead lets the player decide how they want to handle things. This sort of mature storytelling needs to be seen more often if games are going to progress as an artform.

Lastly, the after sales service needs to be applauded and encouraged so other companies do the same. Its a group of programmers who saw the complaints of its customers and then set out to correct them and if thats not a positive thing, I dont know what is

September 20th, 2008 at 7:36 am

Irria says:

I honestly don’t understand all the hate on the cards. I thought it was kind of cool, actually and quite in the spirit of the original novel. You don’t complain, that FHM or Playboy have tits in them, do you?

September 20th, 2008 at 8:27 am

Turin Turambar says:

It has been established the poor taste of RPS staff. Most of them doesn’t like The Witcher but they liked Spore!

:P

September 20th, 2008 at 9:07 am

Pavel says:

The game is quietly mocking me? Guess what – it is a computer game. I don’t play it to get all the action. But I am a heterosexual male and don’t mind a look at nice lady, albeit just painted one.

I hope that doesnt make some kind of pervert in these circles.

September 20th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Subject 706 says:

I found the Witcher to be a great game, even without the EE patch.
Loads more value for money than Spore IMHO.

September 20th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

James Brophy says:

The sex card this is an interesting way to represent sex. I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, as it’s a good way to represent a shallow and horrible aspect of the character. It certainly beats the common view of sex in games we have, that it’s a hollow experience of stabbing buttons.

However unless you also have the option of the same kind of romantic cards for men and women then it is quite sexist… Actually. Having the romantic painting of a big sweaty ugly bastard who you had to suck off for information or to excape from prison, in the midde of your memory is Quite funny to me and definately an adult way to deal with it. You can do what you want, but you gotta live with the memories.

September 20th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Okami says:

They should have included at least a few cards of nice, sexy boys. I can’t believe that Witchers are all just straight: They’re an entirely male warrior society, their training begins as a little boy and they probably have allmost no contact with females until they’re old enough to leave their castle and go on their first missions.

Come on, we all know the stories about Sparta, Samurais and all those other warrior societies. They were all pretty keen on male bonding and stuff like that…

September 20th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

Pavel says:

Okami – I don’t know if you are serious or not (my irony detector sometimes fails me on teh interwebz), but just in case you are – Geralt is heterosexually oriented, it was established in the 7 books that have him as a main protagonist.I don’t think even amnesia can change that : > ).

September 20th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Mil says:

I find it interesting that so many people only see fit to comment on The Witcher to criticise the sex cards, which are a very minor and entirely optional aspect of the game. Geralt is a morally ambiguous character, which is part of the game’s appeal. He’s not meant to be a role model for your kids or something. He kills people. With swords.

That much seems obvious, and yet people find the cards and are filled with righteous indignation about “sexism” and what not. That suggests to me repressed prudery more than anything else. Actually, it would be interesting to see a breakdown of how much people are bothered by the sex card thing, versus which country they come from. I bet there would be a significant correlation.

September 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

pauleyc says:

Leaving the fairly ridiculous discussion regarding the sex cards aside, how is the EE performing in comparison to the standard version? Were the loading times improved?

(I finished downloading the basic patch and extra language file, it’s installing at the moment and – oh my – the patch might have been right with the remark “it might take up to 2 hours”.)

September 20th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

tim conkling says:

I think the objection to the sex cards is that they’re pandering and out of place, and therefore cheapen the game, if only a little. The argument against them is not, “sex in a game is bad/boobs are bad/wanting to see naked women is bad,” but rather that the men’s-magazine-style softporn images are incongruous with the *rest of the game* and seem to serve as little more than eye candy for the stereotypical fratboy gamer. They subtract from, rather than add to, the game.

September 20th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

Mil says:

@hero imprisoned:
If I understand you correctly, your whole issue with the treatment of sex in The Witcher is that you get a card afterwards, which makes you look for sex because you want the cards, instead of because you’re role-playing a “womaniser”. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

If so, how do you feel about the fact that you get XP points for killing monsters (and XP points, unlike the sex cards, are actually needed to progress in the game)? Are monsters objectified by the XP mechanics, so that you kill them for those points, instead of because you’re role-playing a professional monster killer? Does the game suffer weaker characterisation as a result? How come nothing has been written about this, when you kill a few hundred monsters for every woman you can have sex with?

And just for my little survey: American, yes?

September 20th, 2008 at 9:36 pm

hero imprisoned says:

@Mil: No, you don’t quite get it. My issue is that by giving players rewards for objectifying women, the game removes the womanizing characteristic from Geralt and places it firmly on the player. There’s more than one difference between that and the monster killing example you’re providing. For one, XP is a reward to the character, not the player. As a character kills monsters, they get XP and loot that makes them better at killing monsters – contextually it makes sense and helps develop the character. A collectible card, akin to the bottle cap rewards in RE4, for example, is wholly for the player, not the character. See the difference?

I also have a problem with objectification of monsters as loot/xp machines in games, but only because the faceless monster that you kill in a swing isn’t nearly as awesome as the developed nemesis that you hunt over the course of the story. There is, however, a place for both in RPGs like this, clearly. Games that do not develop their enemies, though, do in fact suffer from weaker characterization as a result.

I suspect that the reason nobody’s written anything about this is because it doesn’t reflect a real-world problem. Monsters don’t exist, women do. Bias against monsters does not exist, sexism does. See the difference?

@Deuteronomy/Mil: With regards to the geographic origins and the hilarious bit about global liberal media: You don’t have to be an American to see or care about sexism. You also don’t have to be a liberal, a zombie, or brainwashed. These notions are usually only put forward as a thinly veiled ad hominem by people with very little solid ground of their own to stand on. It’s not hard to see where your bias is coming from, Deuteronomy, and Mil, your searching for people’s geographic origins has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion of content in the Witcher. You’re only serving to discredit anything useful you might have to offer to the discussion.

September 20th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

hero imprisoned says:

@MisterWierd – Interesting strawman you have there. How do you keep it up? Personally, I think the jingoist Tom Clancy games just as disgusting as the sexism in the Witcher’s mechanics, and I’ve seen it discussed in a lot of places whenever those games are brought up.

There’s a pretty big difference between the tone of content vs. the consequences of game mechanics, though. None of the Tom Clancy games immediately reward only the player with anything for acting in a manner that would qualify as “extreme” nationalism.

September 20th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

Shawn says:

@Hero

Come on. So now developers cannot tell the story of a fictional “womanizing” Witcher? This game is based on very popular Polish Books(can’t remember the Author, google it), and is following the fiction correctly. “Womanizing” is something that is real, it is something that should be put into games if it follows the rules of a fictional world where it was common or part of a characters traits. Also, Women in this world were also very self sufficient and wanted Sex from Gerralt and men equally. Basically, there are whores of men and women, but somehow when a man is a whore he’s automatically labeled negatively and anti-woman? I view the card collection gimmick as more of an achievment to socialize with the women you encounter by conversation, and not just holding them down and forcfully having sex with them, which btw, was the standard hundreds of years ago in many societies. Being able to talk with a Women in the game as a fictional character that acted like that in the books the developers are following, is an added challenge, but not something that I feel reflect poorly on women. The women being potrayed in the game are also mostly whores, not “respectable women”. On the other side of that, you prgress through the game by MURDERING MEN, gaining XP and progression. How is that any better towards men? Aren’t men then looked at as objectives as well? One application is sex with Women, the other application is murdering Men. These are both of course the absolutes in the game, with many interactions with Women that you don’t seduce, and many men in the game that you don’t kill.

This also isn’t something where you as the character are forcing women to have sex, it’s an expression of the fictional character. I wonder, do you object to fictional books about a “womanizer”(aka: Man who want sex from a woman)? Or can no author ever make a character that’s depicting something similar? And if they do, then they can’t offer achievements(cards) for carrying out the role of the womanizer? Games seem to get placed on this pedestal of higher standards when it’s just another form of art through interactive expression. The makers of the Witcher aren’t supporting male dominance, it’s Gerralt’s character, and nothing more. If you can’t see that, then I don’t know what to tell ya, and the Cards you receive are nothing more then achievement points on Xbox Live, gimmicky yes, but drive the player into interacting with more then just murdering men. If anything, it adds a layer of dialog tree challenge that would otherwise be boring in some cases.

I also don’t think people’s perceptions of Women are hurt by this game at all, that’s just a ridiculous notion. Men are just as much objectives as Women are in the game, manipulating dialog with both, earning XP or Cards, and both have their defined roles within the game, sex and murder.

@Hitler’s Gay Dad

Try grabbing the 1.9gb patch from Fileplanet, you’ll have to wait in line, but I’ve heard it works for many people that are having problems. While you don’t need to cd-key, are you sure you don’t have something written on the back on the manual? I know that’s a dumb question, but I remember not having to put in a cd-key to install it, only to register it which was always optional, so I figured I didn’t have one. You should be able to register your game either way, which you’ll then have to sign into when applying patch, unless the login isn’t working for you. They definitely screwed up this patch launch for many people. I have the UK version, since they US version was censored, so I had some troubles installing the EE patch. Either way, you should be able to at least try the fileplanet package and see if it works for ya.

September 20th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

Mil says:

@hero imprisoned:
I have no interest in continuing this particular discussion with you, but I thought I’d say something about this:

Mil, your searching for people’s geographic origins has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion of content in the Witcher.

Of course it does. You interpret the content in the context of your culture, which is influenced by your geographic origins. If your culture has a very strong anti-sex element, as some do, your comments about sexual content are less relevant to me. So the question of whether there’s a correlation between people’s positions on this issue and which country they come from is valid, and of interest to me.

September 20th, 2008 at 11:12 pm

hero imprisoned says:

Mil – There are exceptions to every cultural and geographic generalization that you can make, as I’m sure you could figure out if you thought about it long enough. Consider the arguments, not the mentality that you want to assign their origins to. I said it before, I’ll say it again, it’s a thinly veiled ad hominem that does not hold up to any scrutiny.

Shawn – I’ll give you some time to catch up to my edits, as I think I actually already answered most of what you’re asking. I think you would’ve seen it though, so I’m not sure what the disconnect is. Just in case, re-read what you think you’re responding to in the context of your questions.

September 20th, 2008 at 11:38 pm

dhex says:

if the canadian version didn’t come with cd keys, how did it handle installation/activation?

that’s just plain weird.

the EE seems to have improved load times a bit; i haven’t delved in far enough to see what else is totally groovy. but big ups to cd projekt for doing this in the first place – it’s also a great way to extend the life of a property.

(insert gripe comparing gsc’s attitude here)

September 21st, 2008 at 2:00 am

Kieron Gillen says:

Now, I haven’t read the ballooning thread since we’ve gone out, but if someone’s arguing without actually accepting the difference between someone objecting to sex in a game (Which no-one in RPS has ever done, and never will. Except for John) and objecting to the sex cards as being a bit tacky and a questionable game mechanic (Which they are), I’m going to get jolly cross.

Assuming they are – In short: Vampire: Bloodlines does story about sexual dominance, submission and the player’s misogyny. Awesome. Witcher undermines every single statement to do with sex in the game with tacky immersion breaking mechanic. Shit.

Of course, this isn’t something which I’d have changed the game’s percentage score over. It’s something that’s not worth more than a sentence in a review – which is what I actually did in mine (It’s mainly interesting in that it’s a one-off mistake, completely outside every single design philosophy elsewhere in the game). But it’s there, and there’s really no vaguely justifiable argument in favour of it – which is why every single one of the defenders pretends the opposition is arguing something else.

(Actually, the only credible position are actually the ones who go with the simple “I like the cards”. Because that’s based on an honest response to the things as opposed to ill-judged attempts to justify ‘em. )

KG

September 21st, 2008 at 3:17 am

Kadayi says:

Objectification is a fact of life and to label everything misogynistic (hatred of women) that objectifies women is poor logic at work (sorry). Sure it would be great if we all lived in a world of light where people loved us solely for our mental brilliance or personalities alone, but that is not an honest reality. We do assess those we are attracted to as objects. To claim the objectification of women is inherently misogynistic is an utter nonsense; it is the natural state of human existence like it or not politically correct fans. Misogyny is more than simple objectification, it is the mental state in which the object is viewed. Porn and Erotica both cover the same subject matter, but people understand and acknowledge the differences between the two, one debases the subject, whilst the other elevates it.

When it comes to the Witcher it’s not enough to say the game objectifies women therefore it is misogynistic, one has to consider the manner in which it does it. Does the Witcher rape anyone, or generally debase them? No. Certainly there’s a tonne of sexual encounters to be had in the game if you choose, but none of the participants are unwilling.

Personally I think they could of toned it down a lot and maybe they could of just stuck to the love story aspect, but it might be a reflection of the bawdy nature of the books and the Witchers underlying cockmastery as a fictional character. Perhaps someone whose read them can comment?

As for the mechanic of the cards, tacky yes. Pornographic? not really imho.

September 21st, 2008 at 10:36 am

James T says:

Regarding GSC, I think the lack of fixing leaves the realm of the inconsiderate and enters ‘they can’t help it, they must have been born that way’ idiot savant territory. I completed a run of Clear Sky just before I returned to the Witcher, and now find myself torn between two brilliant games — Clear Sky is great, and I want to get back to it! But it needs fixing. Thankfully the one repeatable game-breaking bug I encountered was fixed with a (very difficult-to-find) user patch, but there’s still a propensity to crash occasionally, and much of the clan warfare and story-telling still needs fixing (three or four times I triggered events out of sequence, was sent on story mission segments I’d completed hours and hours ago — thankfully they could be re-completed easily enough, just ‘climb onto the roof of the Yantar factory’, etc — or was left with no idea whether the game was bugging, or whether it wanted me to go on mission segment it had told me nothing about — I had to look to the internet, which isn’t a great resource for a game which has only been out a week). How can a studio simultaeneously have the talent to put out games as brilliant as the STALKER series, and yet be incapable of making them work? (yeah, Clear Sky could still get substantial fixes, but their record on the original STALKER doesn’t inspire confidence…)

September 21st, 2008 at 11:24 am

Deuteronomy says:

dhex . . . ok so they released a buggy game . . . which history shows they are going to patch. The Witcher was definitely not bug free on release – and a far less dynamic game to boot.

By the way I’m about 12 hours into clear sky without a single crash or error on the Steam version. The only bug I’ve noticed is the invisible grenade one. Yes the game has bugs, but less than SOC did on release, and in my opinion the gameplay is brilliant.

I enjoy reading the RPS guys articles and reviews no question, but I’m going to take their opinions with a couple grains of salt from here on out.

September 21st, 2008 at 3:04 pm

dhex says:

dhex . . . ok so they released a buggy game . . . which history shows they are going to patch. The Witcher was definitely not bug free on release – and a far less dynamic game to boot.

By the way I’m about 12 hours into clear sky without a single crash or error on the Steam version.

the lack of communication on gsc’s side has convinced me that i will never purchase one of their games on launch again. i understand they’re a small dev and all, but i give to charity already. there’s not even the bare minimum of “there’s a patch coming soon, stay buttoned down” out of their camp. now, it appears a .05 patch is coming, but that’s according to a translation of the russian forums. what that’s worth, i know not. (nor how long it will take to come to steam)

anyway:

my neat bug is that having bought it via steam, i can install and play it – once. once i exit the game, regardless of whether i just relaunch clear sky, steam or reboot the entire machine, i get a freeze upon trying to load, change graphical options or even start a new game.

the 30 minutes i played were very good, though!

perhaps this is revenge for my having been able to play the original game unpatched with no gamestopping bugs or errors. (subsequent patches did improve performance significantly, though)

since i bought the steam version, i may very well be buggered (is that the proper britishism?), have no tech support from valve and can’t even just sell it on ebay and call it a day. i figure i’ll come back in a few weeks and see if the situation has improved, but right now i’m presuming that clear skies are not in my future.

September 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Dominic White says:

So, am I the only one who played Geralt as something other than a shameless man-whore? Throughout the whole campaign, he ended up in bed with a couple of women, but no more than James Bond would have done so over a comparably long adventure.

You don’t *get* anything (no loot, no XP, no plot development – nothing!) from running around and seducing women in the game, so why do it, unless you’re as immature as the cards that it’ll hand out to you?

Anyway – the Enhanced Edition does fix a lot of the problems. It’s still best played with the original Polish voice track (which has a far more emotionally nuanced Geralt, rather than the monotone/deadpan treatment he got in English) with subtitles though.

My main problem with the game was that it had the same difficulty curve as a Bioware RPG. Brutally hard at the start (the first boss is largely a matter of luck and/or exploiting areas where it gets stuck on geometry), and insultingly easy at the end. If anything, shouldn’t it be the other way round?

Wish there was an easy way of just opening up the game data and monkeying around with the enemy variables a little. It wouldn’t take much to make the combat more enjoyable simply through altering enemy toughness and strength.

September 22nd, 2008 at 2:58 am

Esha says:

I just wanted to clarify my previous point, due to an aspect or two that hero brought up.

I actually had nothing to say about the way the cards were presented, because I know as well as anyone that they’re just a tacky way of handling game-art unlocks. I was actually playing devil’s advocate in regards to how people will kick up a stink if human mating rituals are taken as anything less than sacred, whereas mass homicide is good times.

The point I was trying to make was that in a game of that ilk, pretty much everything is tacky, but I think it’s meant to be. In talking about the cards, and Geralt’s experiences with women, I think it’s silly to overlook the rest of the game. The whole Witcher thing is an amusing example of alpha male mentality, as Geralt the Übermensch lords over the countryside.

What I was trying to get at with my point, albeit a tad satirically, was that it’s interesting how only the tacky sides of a game which are sexual are raised. That fascinates me, I can’t help that. And that’s what I was trying to get at there, more than anything else.

So I think I might’ve been misunderstood in that post, I was primarily highlighting that discrepancy more than sexual content. You see, I wasn’t saying that people had a problem with sexual content, taking it in context I was saying overall that I’m amused that in a tacky game, it’s only the tacky sexual aspects which are raised.

Reminds me of Duke Nukem, really. Everyone kicked up a fuss about the women, and the pig cops were barely even mentioned.

/shrug

It’s just interesting, from a sociological standpoint.

September 22nd, 2008 at 8:05 am

dhex says:

mass homicide is good times.

but mass homicide really is good times!

September 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm