The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
 

Was browsing various sites when I came across a video of The Witcher 2 Alpha.

Looks pretty sick to me, especially the combat.

Looks pretty good. I was wondering when we'll hear something about a sequel to The Witcher. I'm guessing that the main character voice actors haven't been brought in yet, since these voices sound like they're just there so we could hear something.

Oh, and :lol: at Geralt's ponytail.

WooHoo! I'll definitely keep an eye on this!

Oh ye gods....quicktime events. Why do devs persist with that god-awful crap?

Otherwise it seems promising. They've wisely ditched Bioware's clunky Aurora engine, which was a bizarre choice anyway (especially seeing as they completely gutted the Open GL renderer and wrote their own DirectX one from scratch). I'm not sure what new engine they are using, but I assume it must be 3rd party given the quick turn-around. It doesn't look to be Unreal 3, which is the 3rd party engine of choice. I wonder if it might be Bioware's Eclipse engine (what they built for Dragon Age). It has that same kind of semi-outdated look as DA, and the "whore" scene shows some pretty obvious clipping of the hair through the body mesh which is an Eclipse trait (Bioware completely copped out on body mesh collision detection, although that's not unique to them),.

Looks good.

@DP it's an Alpha, the clipping might well be fixed.

The official debut trailer is out - http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ex...-witcher/63501

They totally screwed up his face!

EDIT: Longer unedited version of the king-killer cutscene featured in the trailer here - http://www.gametrailers.com/user-mov...utscene/342270

Great visuals!

:p

I never played the original Witcher so I don't exactly know what the whole story is about with this series. But I do know that I'm going to play both the original and the sequel sometime soon. (Like, July 2010 I think.)

I really like his old face better, this one just looks way too pretty boy.

I think his English is a little off. He could not have meant "innovation." He must have meant "annoyance." Yea, that's it. Quicktime events are definitely not an innovation and I can't think of another likely word.

Otherwise, looks like it might be good. Still need to finish the first one, though.

The new trailer looks great, but Geralt's new ponytail is still hilarious. Can't wait for this game.

Agreed, I much preferred his old head better. Knowing the community and CDRed though, a mod will be up within the month of release so I'm not worried. The face, hair, etc I can get over but what really, really bugs me is his eyes are human and not cat-like anymore. That, more than anything, gave his face the proper character.

Still though, awesome news. I actually liked the first game more that DA:O and it easily lists in my top 5 RPGs. It felt quite refreshing to be placed into a non player made character for a change. I am, however, sad to hear they are changing the combat system since I actually really loved the combat in Witcher, which is why it was so hard for me to go back to the combat in DA:O.

That, and it sort of bothered me how similar the Wardens were to the Witchers in concept. Both took basically poison to become what they were, few survived, and the end result was the ability to fight the world's monsters with much better ease at great personal sacrifice. Both used to be highly regarded, but are now trying to repair their image in the eyes of the people and many are after their secrets, destruction, and reboot.

Captivating, mature, and non-linear story-line, eh? How gritty.

Some in-game footage from CD Projekt RED's conference:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The video quality is pretty piss-poor and it isn't helped by the constant flash photography. Still, it gives you an idea of where the game is at. It looks like they are going for more of an action-RPG style. Plus it seems they have caught Obsidian's disease and are going with timer-based dialogues, at least in part anyway.

Additionally, here are some comments from a dev on Geralt's funky new look - http://www.thewitcher.com/forum/inde...755#msg5397755

Seems that all DM's links but that for part 2 are dead. If you want to access the videos they are available here.

New developer diary on story:


Alt link - http://www.gametrailers.com/video/po...witcher/100992

IGN has a brief preview up from an E3 demo - http://pc.ign.com/articles/109/1098720p1.html

Sounds like the same demo that was show at CDPR's conference back in March, although the boss fight sounds new. Speaking of which, I don't like the sound of the button mashing Quicktime-esque stuff at all. Why do devs persist with that crap?

Can you see what I see?
The Wither 2 is the best E3 game at the moment! With huge advantage over The Old Republic MMO. Go witcher, go! :thmbup1:
Let's show Bioware what is better: great story-driven single player RPG or MMO based on great single player RPG. Your vote matter!
I only wish that crushing victory of The Witcher 2 will influence Bioware's (and Lucas Arts') bosses to make single player KotOR 3 :)

I like how they are drawing on local European cultural influences. No hamburgers and skateboards ;)

mtfbwya

Agreed. Still, can't wait to play the game, it looks awesome.

Hm. Hopefully the original game made CD Projekt enough money that they can afford better translators this time around...

Well, I never had any problems with translations since I played with original voices. But I heard that they rewrote English dialogues completely in Enhanced Edition. Now I heard they are making the second game in English from the start so there should be no problems like that.

I don't recall there being anything too bad, and if anything I actually preferred most of the original versions of those lines that were changed for the EE. The dialogue was fairly corny in places, but then what game dialogue isn't?

Here's a gameplay trailer from the prison level they've been showing off at the various conferences the last couple of months:


Takes the form of Triss and Zoltan telling slightly conflicting versions of the tale (with what would appear to be Dandelion sitting passed out to one side).

I've just watched the trailer myself and it's just pure genius :D The dialogues are smart and funny, action is fast and these tons of humour... just wait till the end (after The Witcher 2 logo).

Can't wait either.

New dev diary concerning the engine (part 1 of it anyway):


Some very interesting tidbits throughout, especially the brief peeks at their toolset. There's also a very obvious undertone that all the things they can do in this engine were driven by what they couldn't do in the first Witcher using their rehashed version of the clunky old Aurora engine.

There's some more footage of the prison break demo over at GameTrailers: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 - unfortunately only low quality.

A lot of it has already been shown previously, but there's a couple of glimpses at the inventory, revamped potions, revamped fist-fights, revamped Witcher amulet, revamped sword enchanting, and some additional dialogue/cutscenes. As before, they show the same two alternative paths with the mother and son, although they mention there are actually 4 possible routes/outcomes for that particular quest. After exiting the jail/dungeon they pull back the camera for a nice look at the surrounding city (or at least it would be nice if the video were decent quality). After that is a brief bit of footage from a previously mentioned ghost battlefield with what would appear to be a heavily scripted boss battle of the horribly clichéd Achilles' Heel type.

Additionally, it would seem that CPR have taken the surprising move of offering a digital download version DRM-free via GOG.com. Apparently GOG is a "sister site", so is presumably owned by the same parent company or some-such, which was news to me. It's available for pre-order now. Apparently it's a one-off thing, as usually GOG sells old games, as their name implies.

There is not only digital version available for pre-order but also a very rich in content Collectors Edition and Premium Edition. And after buying the game you can download DLC exclusive for every seller. I'd get the one with Finisher Pack DLC myself, because I really liked the finishers in the first game. Unfortunately this DLC is not available in my region :( I hope it'll be released some time after premiere for everyone to get.

I heard that they decided to take the "Metallica-approach" to illegal downloaders :xp: And i think its the right thing to do, it leaves us honest game buyers in peace and the evil pirate-copy -downloading bastards will get what they deserve. I hope they track down one of my friends, he hasnt paid for any computer game since JKA...

I totally agree. Especially since they announced that the game will be DRM-free and because of that it'd be technically easy to make a copy and share it on the web. So I think that it would be first time "pirates" would have problems and honest buyers not.

It's hardly a new tactic. It has been used for years by the RIAA and MPAA. All it does is catch the retards - it won't have any marked impact on the level of piracy. I'm sure their energy could be better spent on incentives for people that actually buy the game, not penalties for those that don't. At least they are ditching the DRM though. All that does is punish legit users.

I don't think it's all the same as RIAA and MPAA (or MAFIAA for short ;) ). They only try to hit the "pirates". You say CDPR should encourage buyers - but they do. They include physical content that cannot be downloaded, not only DLC. So this is what differs CDPR from other developers - they remove DRM because it irritates legal buyers, they add physical stuff and free DLC to encourage people to buy the game and if all this fails to convince "pirates" to buy rather than download, than they punish "pirates" with fines. I have never seen any other company to work that way.

All they are going to do (and all they actually can do) is monitor torrents and log IPs and then send them a threatening letter from a lawyer - exactly what the RIAA/MPAA do. Or, more accurately, what they pay other people to do. Again, it's not going to stop piracy or put even the slightest dent in it. All it is going to do is catch people stupid enough to use torrents, and even then the legal validity of the tactic is still somewhat hazy. It relies on scare tactics to a large degree. The game will still be pirated, all the extra content will still be pirated. As I said before, it's a wasted effort and just an alternative form of waving a big stick at people to try and scare them into buying the game.

I like big sticks wawed at people! I never buy games with crazy DRMS (ACII...), and when sometyhing like this happens i usually buy them just to support them. And its not really scare tactics, its the same as removing security from a store and then using detectives to track down the thieves :xp: I dont see it as hazy, in my opinion copyright laws are pretty definite (if not tailored for this age of web piratism), and if you steal other people´s intellectual property you deserve fines. Im not supporting those legendary "1,5 million for 24 downloaded songs"-kind of punishments, but making them pay twice the price of the game would be nice.

Part 2 of the engine dev diary. Nothing earth shattering, but there are a few snippets about some of the middleware they are using and the unveiling of the system requirements (which are quite modest).

A new dev diary, this time focusing on characters (with the primary focus being on art direction):

Love how Polished the game looks.

*badum-tsh*

I am definitely looking forward for this game.

New dev diary on locations:



I had to laugh at the comment about them creating an architectural style for Dwarves that they think could become as universal as Tolkien's take on Elves. Possibly just a tad presumptuous. Certainly given what they showed in the trailer at least.