Witcher franchise...

[Ravenshire]

Is it worth a damn, or is it just eye-candy with no substance? The Witcher III comes out in three weeks and looks completely bad-ass. Then again, that's what the marketing department is supposed to do.

Skyrim's been fun and I am planning on backtracking to Oblivion but I need something to really satisfy my RPG jones.

[abaris]

Is it worth a damn, or is it just eye-candy with no substance? The Witcher III comes out in three weeks and looks completely bad-ass. Then again, that's what the marketing department is supposed to do.

Skyrim's been fun and I am planning on backtracking to Oblivion but I need something to really satisfy my RPG jones.

The Witcher franchise is supposed to be one of the best out there. Not my cup of tea because of the premade protagonist, but according to many reviews I read, it's good and deep as far as story goes.

If you liked Skyrim and Oblivion I'm not so sure if it gets to you, since in my book they're rather shallow sandboxes.

[Ravenshire]

The Witcher franchise is supposed to be one of the best out there. Not my cup of tea because of the premade protagonist, but according to many reviews I read, it's good and deep as far as story goes.

If you liked Skyrim and Oblivion I'm not so sure if it gets to you, since in my book they're rather shallow sandboxes.

I enjoyed Skyrim, haven't played Oblivion (yet) but find the Elder Scrolls games lacking in story depth and their consequential gaming decisions is really poor. After replaying several times, I wind up with most, if not all, the late storyline elements available with little consequence. I really like the idea of consequential gaming decisions and that's a large part of what's drawing me to Witcher III, but it's been so lacking in most games claiming to implement it that I'm a little gun shy of dropping another $50-70 to play a good, but not great game that is, again, lacking the one detail that would truly take RPG gaming to the next level.

It seems to me that most of the gaming industry has bought into the eye-candy over content mentality. Give me a great game and the aesthetics won't matter as much. Give me the same old tired shit, re-branded, and even if the graphics are LOTR motion capture quality, I won't be playing your game for long.

[abaris]

It seems to me that most of the gaming industry has bought into the eye-candy over content mentality. Give me a great game and the aesthetics won't matter as much. Give me the same old tired shit, re-branded, and even if the graphics are LOTR motion capture quality, I won't be playing your game for long.

Yeah, sure. But why don't you give earlier Witcher titles a try? They must be dead cheap now, since they're on the market for quite some time.

[Ravenshire]

Yeah, sure. But why don't you give earlier Witcher titles a try? They must be dead cheap now, since they're on the market for quite some time.

Well... That's the thing, there's a great deal right now on all three through steam. But, it's in the $70+ price range. I'll have to check used or "budget bin" availability of one of the earlier games to see what's up.

[abaris]

Well... That's the thing, there's a great deal right now on all three through steam. But, it's in the $70+ price range. I'll have to check used or "budget bin" availability of one of the earlier games to see what's up.

The first part goes for 7.99 Euros on Steam and the second part is 19.99. That's not that much actually. Just try them first, since the games are notoriously hardware hungry. And I'm sure there's a sale for the third part at some time within the next few months. You only have to look or weekend sales and opt for following the particular game.

[bennyboy]

The Witcher franchise is supposed to be one of the best out there. Not my cup of tea because of the premade protagonist, but according to many reviews I read, it's good and deep as far as story goes.
If you liked Skyrim and Oblivion I'm not so sure if it gets to you, since in my book they're rather shallow sandboxes.

I enjoyed Skyrim, haven't played Oblivion (yet) but find the Elder Scrolls games lacking in story depth and their consequential gaming decisions is really poor. After replaying several times, I wind up with most, if not all, the late storyline elements available with little consequence. I really like the idea of consequential gaming decisions and that's a large part of what's drawing me to Witcher III, but it's been so lacking in most games claiming to implement it that I'm a little gun shy of dropping another $50-70 to play a good, but not great game that is, again, lacking the one detail that would truly take RPG gaming to the next level.
It seems to me that most of the gaming industry has bought into the eye-candy over content mentality. Give me a great game and the aesthetics won't matter as much. Give me the same old tired shit, re-branded, and even if the graphics are LOTR motion capture quality, I won't be playing your game for long.

Elder Scrolls died with Oblivion, IMO, when they made scaling mobs.
1)  Go to beginner area.  Carefully kill all mobs.
2)  Go back to beginner area.  Kill mobs matched to your level, sell their glass armour.
3)  Go back to beginner area again.  Kill mobs matched to your new level again, sell their even more expensive armour.
What fucking bullshit that is.  I didn't max out my character's level to have an ongoing challenge.  I maxed it out to become godlike, so I can go back and lay waste to those low-level mobs in an act of unforgiving revenge.

[Ravenshire]

The first part goes for 7.99 Euros on Steam and the second part is 19.99. That's not that much actually. Just try them first, since the games are notoriously hardware hungry. And I'm sure there's a sale for the third part at some time within the next few months. You only have to look or weekend sales and opt for following the particular game.

Just picked up "The Witcher: Enhanced Edition" on PC DVD-ROM for $10.

If it plays well, I'll look into the others as well. Hardware is not an issue. I've got a 3D CAD rig that blows most gaming PCs out of the water.

Elder Scrolls died with Oblivion, IMO, when they made scaling mobs.
1)  Go to beginner area.  Carefully kill all mobs.
2)  Go back to beginner area.  Kill mobs matched to your level, sell their glass armour.
3)  Go back to beginner area again.  Kill mobs matched to your new level again, sell their even more expensive armour.
What fucking bullshit that is.  I didn't max out my character's level to have an ongoing challenge.  I maxed it out to become godlike, so I can go back and lay waste to those low-level mobs in an act of unforgiving revenge.

The scaled opponents is basically a requirement of the open world gaming style. It allows the player to finish quests in the order he discovers them instead of scripting them one after another. In Morrowind, you could get your character killed very fast by going places where the non-scaling bad guys could basically explode you with a single hit.

At the end of the day, it's RPG. I want to take off running and see what's over that hill, not follow something so scripted that my only choices are which weapon to kill this guy with so I can go on to kill the next guy. Had enough of that with Baldur's Gate.

If you really want to do the godlike whoop-ass on the puny opponents, you can always use cheat codes and/or mods. Careful with the mods though. My current Skyrim installation is broken due to mods I added in a rather helter-skelter method. Now I'm trying to figure out what conflicts with which...



I see the reviews for Dragon Age: Origins are pretty good. Anyone think the Ultimate Edition is worth $20 or so? Or is it one of the highly scripted ones like the Baldur's Gate series?

[Darkstar]

I played through a decent portion of the second game and thought it was pretty good. The second one is kind of open world, but not quite in the same way as the Elder Scrolls. Each zone, separated by plot advancement, is self-contained. Large enough to do some actual exploring, but not so large that you get totally lost. There's a decent number of sidequests and equipment customization options too; again enough that you have options, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming.

I know nothing about Dragon Age.

[bennyboy]

Elder Scrolls died with Oblivion, IMO, when they made scaling mobs.
1)  Go to beginner area.  Carefully kill all mobs.
2)  Go back to beginner area.  Kill mobs matched to your level, sell their glass armour.
3)  Go back to beginner area again.  Kill mobs matched to your new level again, sell their even more expensive armour.
What fucking bullshit that is.  I didn't max out my character's level to have an ongoing challenge.  I maxed it out to become godlike, so I can go back and lay waste to those low-level mobs in an act of unforgiving revenge.

The scaled opponents is basically a requirement of the open world gaming style. It allows the player to finish quests in the order he discovers them instead of scripting them one after another. In Morrowind, you could get your character killed very fast by going places where the non-scaling bad guys could basically explode you with a single hit.

I have to disrespectfully disagree about RPGs.  You are saying that an open world game is just about running around discovering new territory.  I don't think so.  I think the mechanics of ANY RPG is that you have to level up your character to access more and more of the content, until you get to a face-meltingly-hard boss fight at the end. As for unfinished quests: if your quest is to go to a starter cave to collect three moon mushrooms for a potion to cure some kid's puppy's sniffles, I really don't see why if you decide to do it later, you should come back and find glass-armor-wearing badass warriors guarding them. For me, a world is a world, and whatever "lives" in that world should have nothing to do with my character's level. Otherwise, I just feel like I'm in some college kids' final design project, running around the world to check out the graphics.

an aside: I've been playing Pillars of Eternity.  So far, I'm pretty impressed.