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[Salaadin]

Yes, there's the 'soundtrack' and the 'inspired by' soundtrack, with around 12 songs performed by various artists; including Believe and Beltaine's Bring to the Boil(linked to above).

I know the version of the Witcher 1 EE on Steam came with the Inspired by soundtrack as well as the game soundtrack.

Even though I have TW2 reserved on GOG, Im still tempted by the boxed LE. Its so nice and I want to sleep with the Geralt bust

Now I have to restart my game quickly and choose Triss instead of Shani this time.

Shani > Triss. Dont do it!

 

[Lostconfused]

Didn't Bioware say at some point that DA2 needs to sell 10 million or more to be considered a success?

No because that would be insane.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I don't think this is on the OST, but it's pretty great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp6HjzIYfm4

 

[zoukka]

Yeah, Alan Wake being a console exclusive worked out really well for them. Look at all those sales.

Let's just say it went well enough. In hindsight a PC version would've been great, but for a dev that small the offer from Microsoft was one that you can't turn away from.

And I doubt Max Payne on consoles matched the PC sales.

I heard it from the CEO of Remedy himself.

Hah, we have reduced consolites to the status of nintenbots, they are using their same excuses and everything (graphics are not important!, sales are!). Another victory for the master race.

Moar like the mongoloid race if you imply that sales aren't important *shrug*



And I love the graphics of Witcher II. That texture work is unbelievable.

 

[Nirolak]

Just to make it look like that, probably the one you have is fine! (sorry)

If you want to get 60fps like that, probably a GTX 480 / 560 or AMD/ATI 5970 / 6950 would be pretty safe bets (for fear of guessing something not strong enough)!

Could be lower though, we'll have to wait and see, there's nothing official afaik.

Edit: Changed 570 to 560.

Thanks.

I guess I'll just wait for the benchmarks of this and Crysis 2 and then decide from there.

I was going to wait for Battlefield 3, but I can't imagine it being much more intense than those two given how well Bad Company 2 ran.

 

[Corky]

Wow those screens above look tiiiiiight

 

[kitzkozan]

Didn't Bioware say at some point that DA2 needs to sell 10 million or more to be considered a success?

Lawl no,but he was saying that nowadays the industry almost consider needing to sell 10 million sold for a success because of anomalies like Call of Duty,Gran theft auto or Halo.Kinda like how World of Warcraft is an anomaly in the mmorpg world which is unkillable at this point.

 

[Luigiv]

What the hell.

For comparison, RE4 on the GCN.

 

[Salaadin]

Thanks.

I guess I'll just wait for the benchmarks of this and Crysis 2 and then decide from there.

Im hoping we get more gameplay previews soon...or even a short demo just to gauge how its going to run. Its probably way to early for such a thing though. 3 more months...

 

[bengraven]

Hah, we have reduced consolites to the status of nintenbots, they are using their same excuses and everything (graphics are not important!, sales are!). Another victory for the master race.

Ha, I just saw this too.

"yeah, I only play games for graphics too"

The Witcher was far more than just a graphical game. No one played the original because of the graphics. The combat was hit or miss (I liked it personally...a combination between BG and Diablo), but the story was fucking brilliant. The choices you made were actually HARD. And it was long, atmospheric, had a genius soundtrack.

I paid 99c for Witcher because some moron on eBay thought he should sell his Extended Edition for $60, while selling the "crappy first one" for much much less, not realizing you could download all the EE stuff for the original game.

Since I got that great of a deal and didn't help the publisher, I'm preordering right fucking now.

 

[Ermac]

I don't think this is on the OST, but it's pretty great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp6HjzIYfm4

is this on the "Inspired By" OST? I love this.

 

[Stallion Free]

Let's just say it went well enough. In hindsight a PC version would've been great, but for a dev that small the offer from Microsoft was one that you can't turn away from.

No it didn't it sold like shit compared to what they were expecting. Have they even broken 1 million copies sold? Because even super European RPGs released exclusively on PC do that.

I heard it from the CEO of Remedy himself.

I'm still waiting for the actual quote from an article.

 

[Meier]

Stunning is an understatement. Can't wait!

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Alright, so which video card do I need to buy for it to look like this?

Serious question.

Not to be the ATI prophet but for the cost, a 6950 2GB will likely run that game smoothly with high settings. Probably maxed.

 

[Salaadin]

The Witcher was far more than just a graphical game. No one played the original because of the graphics. The combat was hit or miss (I liked it personally...a combination between BG and Diablo), but the story was fucking brilliant. The choices you made were actually HARD. And it was long, atmospheric, had a genius soundtrack.

I paid 99c for Witcher because some moron on eBay thought he should sell his Extended Edition for $60, while selling the "crappy first one" for much much less, not realizing you could download all the EE stuff for the original game.

Since I got that great of a deal and didn't help the publisher, I'm preordering right fucking now.

LOL @ ebay. Great deal.

Im pretty much agree with everything youre saying. The combat wasnt spectacular but it worked and I never had issues with it.

The story was just fantastic though. The world and atmosphere was top notch and the characters all had distinct personalities and never felt boring. I also loved how side quests and their outcomes would eventually come into play and affect the main plot. Not telling the player what outcome his actions would lead to really made you think before continuing.

My only complaint is that I felt like you spent way too much time in swamplands. I hope TW2 varies it up a bit.

 

[cj_iwakura]

is this on the "Inspired By" OST? I love this.

Not that I recall. I assume there's a lot of this stuff in Poland.
(Is that Polish? Don't lynch me if I'm wrong.)

 

[Arcipello]

yep this game is really coming together nicely from a visual standpoint

 

[cj_iwakura]

I didn't like Geralt's redesign at first, but it's growing on me.

 

[makingmusic476]

Does the retail version of the game include Steamworks? The Collector's Edition is tempting me, but I really want Steam Cloud, etc.

 

[Salaadin]

Does the retail version of the game include Steamworks? The Collector's Edition is tempting me, but I really want Steam Cloud, etc.

Retail does not. The only way to get steamworks in TW2 is to get it from steam.

 

[Tom Penny]

Hopefully the console versions will look almost as good like Crysis 2.

 

[EviLore]

Does the retail version of the game include Steamworks? The Collector's Edition is tempting me, but I really want Steam Cloud, etc.

Only the Steam version is Steamworks.


I outlined all the differences between Witcher 2 versions here:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=24414012&postcount=1

 

[makingmusic476]

Hrm. Figured as much, given the versions available on other DD services.

Oh well.

 

[V_Ben]

Whoa. It is looking stupidly pretty :O

 

[koji]

OK OK guys you've got me, I just pre-ordered the CE.

Spoiler

It's sitting next to the DA2 signature edition in my pre-order list at my local retailers website :lol

Any word on the translation of the other books btw? I've read Last Wish and Blood of Elves and I'ld really love to read the follow ups but last time I checked they weren't available in English...

edit: looks like they did get translated to French and German, that's a start...

 

[Radogol]

I didn't like Geralt's redesign at first, but it's growing on me.

Maybe that's because they changed it

The post above yours has one of the first screenshots with redesigned Geralt. His tweaked look, as seen in the OP, is basically a more detailed version of Geralt from TW1.

 

[bengraven]

LOL @ ebay. Great deal.

Im pretty much agree with everything youre saying. The combat wasnt spectacular but it worked and I never had issues with it.

The story was just fantastic though. The world and atmosphere was top notch and the characters all had distinct personalities and never felt boring. I also loved how side quests and their outcomes would eventually come into play and affect the main plot. Not telling the player what outcome his actions would lead to really made you think before continuing.

My only complaint is that I felt like you spent way too much time in swamplands. I hope TW2 varies it up a bit.

Frankly I never really worry about combat in RPGs - I'm only playing the game for the story and characters anyway. I consider combat a means to the end. I even skip the sections on combat in magazine previews. ha

But I agree, the swamp was far too long. I eventually started just running away from all the enemies: they could never catch up and it saved me so much time. I was already pretty rich at that point, I didn't need any of their brains or penises or whatever.

My biggest complaint: after you play even a few hours you start seeing a serious issue with repeating NPCs. They said they improved this with the EE, but I still see the same fat Levaardins, ugly hunched over doctors with big heads, townswomen with blonde hair up in a bun and massive cleavage, the same dwarves, the same elf women. Just got old. The character models for the unique NPCs and there were a lot of those, were good, but the random ones and side quest givers got on my nerves.

 

[wayward archer]

Aside from the technical details (yeah the skulls look shitty) I think a far more striking difference in the games level design is that the bioware levels don't ever feel like a real place. You can make a bleak place without making it look like you spent 10 minutes in a terrain generator just trying to slap a box-zone together for the player to walk through and fight some monsters. The sky also looks strangely detached from the rest of the world, although that might be an engine limitation.

Every single one of those witcher screenshots (and the locations in the videos that have been released recently) look and feel like they could be real places.

Dragon Age really un-sold me on Bioware for a bit, there's just something so generically stale about the imagination and creativity that goes into those games that has really been happening for a long time (nearly everything post-baldur's gate 2 feels this way to me now). Meanwhile everything about this game from the setting to the graphics to the fiction that it is based on feels like a blast of clean fresh water in an otherwise stagnant pool.

Thank god for eastern europe devs these days... stepping up to the plate.

 

[cj_iwakura]

The only game I've seen that approaches this kind of atmosphere is Dark/Demon's Souls.

I bet they're huge fans of each other's work.

 

[Lasthope106]

Isn't polishing the graphics one of the last steps in game development? So this could end up looking even better than the screenshots.

I'm calling it right now: this game is going to be one of the defining titles of pc gaming.

 

[Vlodril]

The new engine looks spectacular. And the art direction is great also. So colorful i love it. Lets hope it runs fine as well. Cant wait for this game.

 

[Gully State]

I'm still torn on what edition I want to buy at this point. GoG will be DRM free. Steam will have steamworks. I would love to buy the physical copy for this but I've heard that DRM on that front is dependent on the publisher. And then there's the collector's edition.....

 

[Salaadin]

Frankly I never really worry about combat in RPGs - I'm only playing the game for the story and characters anyway. I consider combat a means to the end. I even skip the sections on combat in magazine previews. ha

But I agree, the swamp was far too long. I eventually started just running away from all the enemies: they could never catch up and it saved me so much time. I was already pretty rich at that point, I didn't need any of their brains or penises or whatever.

My biggest complaint: after you play even a few hours you start seeing a serious issue with repeating NPCs. They said they improved this with the EE, but I still see the same fat Levaardins, ugly hunched over doctors with big heads, townswomen with blonde hair up in a bun and massive cleavage, the same dwarves, the same elf women. Just got old. The character models for the unique NPCs and there were a lot of those, were good, but the random ones and side quest givers got on my nerves.

I powered up Aard and Igni so much to the point where other magic spells felt useless. I would dump points into them but they never felt as good or useful as Aard or Igni.
Id blast Aard into a crowd and theyd all fall backwards or stun and I was able to just run away and plant types were easy as pie with Igni toasting them. I hope they work on this in TW2 so that all magic has a use.

Edit:

The only game I've seen that approaches this kind of atmosphere is Dark/Demon's Souls.


EDIT2: Heres a link
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-witcher-2/1140847p1.html
I bet they're huge fans of each other's work.

Im pretty sure one of the guys on the team is a big Demons Souls fan and thats what partially inspired their "Insane" difficulty mode.

 

[Red]

Holy poo this is great.

Need to finish the Witcher before 2 arrives.

 

[n0n44m]

had it on my Steam wishlist for months ... damn after seeing these shots I think I'll pre-order it today together with Crysis 2

Spoiler

and pray I don't need a second GTX480 for either of them

 

[Fox318]

If I buy it on GOG how will they handle dlc? We know that it is easy to purchase dlc on steam but on gog?

 

[itxaka]

I play games for just the graphics too

Yeah we know. You have a Killzone avatar.

 

[Hixx]

This is going to run so badly on my 5770.

I need a job

 

[Minsc]

If I buy it on GOG how will they handle dlc? We know that it is easy to purchase dlc on steam but on gog?

I wouldn't be surprised if GOG just gives it away for free at some point. What confirmation has there been that the DLC will be available on Steam (or anywhere) outside of retail so far (or for sale at all for that matter)?

But to your question, the GOG version and retail version (with the various DLC) will be very similar, so if it could be put in to the retail version, it will work with the GOG version too I'd guess.

Edit: You might be talking about the rumored ironman cheating DLC items that may be sold on Steam? Hmm, not sure.

 

[zoukka]

No it didn't it sold like shit compared to what they were expecting. Have they even broken 1 million copies sold? Because even super European RPGs released exclusively on PC do that.

If it sold like shit compared to their goal, they wouldn't be in the biz anymore as a standalone studio. And they also cashed in from two DLC releases.

I'm still waiting for the actual quote from an article.

Of course they won't say anything like that to the public.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Crazy visuals - but also sad that more PC games can't look like this due to being bogged down by consoles.

I got The Witcher in the Steam sale, so I am going to try and play it before this comes out.

 

[Desi]

nice and I want to sleep with the Geralt bust



Shani > Triss. Dont do it!

I am awaiting for some Shani images. Wedding rings may mean nothing because Triss is looking mighty fine in TW2, shit irresistible.

And DA2 has always been butt-ugly, ever since the first screenshots came out. That won't stop it from being fun, or from selling 10x as many units as Witcher 2.

maybe but do not forget many console players went into DA:O blind. The marketing campaign worked to get people to play an RPG. Not sure if DA2 will come close to matching the sales.

 

[WanderingWind]

Shani > Triss. Dont do it!

Triss jumped into bed with you about 10 minutes into the game. You had to do all kinds of stupid shit - including pleasing the mother - to get in with Shani. That shit's too close to real life.

Triss > Shani

 

[cj_iwakura]

I went with Triss because she would understand what Geralt has to do. Shani's too down-to-earth for him.

 

[Enosh]

Yeah we know. You have a Killzone avatar.

no I don't

 

[WanderingWind]

no I don't

Oh, right. It's from that one spin-off of that series that totally ripped off World of Warcraft. BattleHammer or some crap. Much better than Killzone.

 

[derFeef]

Oh, right. It's from that one spin-off of that series that totally ripped off World of Warcraft. BattleHammer or some crap. Much better than Killzone.

I know you are being sarcastic, but my blood is boiling right now.

 

[JDS 1977]

Nice, I like how he actually has scabbards unlike most games where swords are just floating on your hip/back.

 

[WanderingWind]

I know you are being sarcastic, but my blood is boiling right now.

Poor enosh probably had a stroke.

 

[Salaadin]

I am awaiting for some Shani images. Wedding rings may mean nothing because Triss is looking mighty fine in TW2, shit irresistible.

I want confirmation that Shani is even in the game. If I have to play this start to finish with no Shani and Triss hating on me the entire time, Ill be upset.

Triss jumped into bed with you about 10 minutes into the game. You had to do all kinds of stupid shit - including pleasing the mother - to get in with Shani. That shit's too close to real life.

Triss > Shani

LOL! When you put it that way.....

I went with Triss because she seems understands what Geralt has to do. Shani's too down-to-earth for him.

She was a little shady. After a night of love making, shes speaking to someone in her mirror and she wont tell you what its all about and we never directly find out who it is (at least I never did). Id rather place my trust in the sweet nurse than the shady witch.


I just learned (thanks to this thread) that two of the books are translated. I gotta order them.