Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.

[chand]

Actually managed to sort-of get into Gwent over the bank holiday, enough to progress through most of the quests and build up a decent deck at any rate. One reason I was doing so shite is that when it says "pick a card to redraw" I thought it was letting me pick two good cards out of my deck to give me a chance, when actually those cards were the ones in my hand and I was meant to pick two to swap. So I was accidentally getting rid of my two best cards before every game. Also had to persevere for a while before I got the importance of the spy and medic cards.

[Mobius]

One reason I was doing so shite is that when it says "pick a card to redraw" I thought it was letting me pick two good cards out of my deck to give me a chance, when actually those cards were the ones in my hand and I was meant to pick two to swap. So I was accidentally getting rid of my two best cards before every game.

Haha, I just realised this the other day too.[nb]About 30 hours into my 5th or 6th playthrough of the game.[/nb]

I just can't get into Gwent, it moves too slowly.

Working my way through Toussaint now, it's lovely. Nice to actually have challenging fights again, clearing out those bases is fun.

I wish there was a way to remove quests from your log, so annoying seeing the same Gwent and Horse quests for the entire game.

[brat-sampson]

Yeah, spy cards are absolutely vital. As you start with a finite supply of cards to last all three rounds, adding more to your hand is easily one of the most important things you can do. Spies and decoys[nb]so as to re-use opponent's spies back against them[/nb] are a huge advantage.

I'm really looking forward to the full Gwent game. Everything I've seen makes it look like they've really thought through how to transfer this from a game that wouldn't really work in a multiplayer setting (too based on getting a more powerful deck, practically unstoppable when you've got one, cards that are basically useless etc) into something really fantastic.

[mobias]

Game of the Year edition is now out with both the expansions. There's one epic game there now for anyone who hasn't played it all through. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy8jmm9kY4A

[Viero_Berlotti]

Somebody please convince me that dropping £30 on the GOTY edition of The Witcher 3 is a good idea.

I gave it a wide berth when it originally came out as I was in the middle of my Bloodborne addiction and was worried the combat in The Witcher 3 might feel lacklustre in comparison. I'm over Bloodborne now though so feel ready to give this a go and have read many great things.

I'm a tough customer I guess. I found Fallout 4 uninspiring and I bailed on Dragon Age 3 because it just felt like a game that was going through the motions. So I'm hoping to get from The Witcher 3 what I didn't get from those two games and maybe something more conventional in terms of stories and characters than the deliberately (but brilliantly) abstract world of Bloodborne had to offer.

[brat-sampson]

If you want plot/setting/lore etc, Witcher 3's your game. Also, whether you personally see it as a pro or not, there is nothing out there that will give you more content for £30 than W3 and both expansions. Combat might feel a bit lame compared to Bloodborne, but then so will all combat I guess. It's the antithesis to DA3.

[Viero_Berlotti]

It's the antithesis to DA3.

That's enough for me!

[chand]

Am up to something like 120 hours in this now, not long started the second expansion pack. I've made peace with the fact that I'll never be able to complete everything I want to (I failed several side quests anyway, one because I only got one chance to run after someone and missed it, another because a key character died before I tried to beat him at Gwent). I got weirdly obsessed with doing all the alchemy though, even though I only use a handful of the potions and none of the decoctions. Upgrading all the oils is a good move though.

Actually really enjoying Gwent now I got the hang of it, but it's mildly infuriating that I can't really collect all the cards because it won't tell me who I have to play. It tells me how many cards I've missed and what map they're on, but most of the merchants don't appear on the main map. I keep playing merchants and innkeeps hoping to win cards and then realising I've already played them, so my prize is some wire or a bit of linen.

My other gripe is just a few known glitches; an abandoned site I can never clear because one of the spectres I need to kill has wandered off and disappeared. But worse is the Ofieri treasure hunt mission where the diagram doesn't appear in the box it's supposed to, meaning I can't progress the mission. It's a known bug that they've not been able to fix.

Quite enjoyed Hearts Of Stone as a change of pace, felt like an interesting distraction after the main story, whereas Blood and Wine is already seeming a lot more substantial. Though I did just play the 'Paperchase' quest where you literally get fucked around by administrative busybodies in a bank for about half an hour, and that sort of waddled around the line between amusing and actually genuinely annoying.

[brat-sampson]

I enjoyed that a lot, despite the deliberate frustration. At least there was a game of Gwent in the middle of it. I don't know if it made it better or worse to discover that at least in part it's also all one loving reference to Asterix.

[chand]

Feel like I've finally embraced the ludicrousness of the modern idioms the characters use in conversation, at first it seemed really daft that these 13th(?) century characters would occasionally sound like contemporary New Yorkers but I guess with all the dragons and shit there's no point yearning for realism. Last time I played it Geralt told someone to "'fess up" and advised someone else that they were "shit outta luck".

[Viero_Berlotti]

Feel like I've finally embraced the ludicrousness of the modern idioms the characters use in conversation, at first it seemed really daft that these 13th(?) century characters would occasionally sound like contemporary New Yorkers but I guess with all the dragons and shit there's no point yearning for realism. Last time I played it Geralt told someone to "'fess up" and advised someone else that they were "shit outta luck".

That's sounds like it will be quite fun actually, preferable to the pompousness of the INQUISITORS! upper middle class intonations in Dragon Age: Inquisition

This game is has been delivered and is waiting for me at home so I should be able to make a start on it tonight, looking forward to it.

[brat-sampson]

The dialogue's all a lot more GoT than LotR.

[Jobey]

I need to try this one again. You lot bum it.

[4 arses]

GoT seems to have been a heavy influence but I have no idea what the books are like that this is based on. Just finished the main game and was wondering if the expansion packs are worth it? Its about £18 for the 2 but obviously that's only worth it if I'm not getting bored after an hour? Is the story from the main game progressed or are they completely stand alone stories?

[brat-sampson]

In fairness, the Witcher books predate GoT by a decent way and are just as gritty and rural and fantastical as the games, which are a great representation, even if the author doesn't give a fuck about them. I'd recommend The Last Wish as a primer, which is a collection of short Geralt stories and was the first book in the series.

The expansions are each standalone but expect an endgame-level character (so like 32-35 for Hearts of Stone and 35+ for B+W), HoS is about 10 hours or so of a mostly self-contained new story set in the existing Velen/Novigrad region while Blood and Wine is like 30+ more hours of Witchering in an entirely new area, one that's a lot more bright and sunny than anywhere else, unaffected by the war and is based on southern France. For the price they're incredible value and unless you're sick to death of the game the season pass is totally worth it.

[Thursday]

Yes I never really see the problem with the more modern colloquialisms, it doesn't need to make sense, it's not set in real medieval Europe. Although I did get annoyed at Skyrim at some actors trying vaguely nordic accents while the kids are all Americans.

[mobias]

GJust finished the main game and was wondering if the expansion packs are worth it? Its about £18 for the 2 but obviously that's only worth it if I'm not getting bored after an hour? Is the story from the main game progressed or are they completely stand alone stories?

Both the expansions are amazing. A lot of people think they're better than anything in the main game. Blood and Wine is superb. There's almost enough content there to think of it as a whole new Witcher game rather than a mere bit of DLC. I actually enjoyed the story of Hearts of Stone more than the story in Blood and Wine but Hearts of Stone doesn't really add anything to the game since its set in original map, albeit somewhere you possibly never visited or paid much attention to.

I really can't give CD Projekt RED enough praise for what they did with DLC for this game. Other developers should take note. 

In other news CD Projekt RED have announced there will be no 4K patch to optimise the Witcher 3 for the PS4 Pro. Not that that bothers me particularly at the moment but I will invest in a new 4K TV at some point soon and I guess if I do that then trading in my PS4 for a PS4 Pro seems like something I might do. I've always had a plan to replay Witcher 3 fully again at some point but I'm holding off until I can make the experience that bit different from my first play through. Playing it in 4K on a bigger TV would have been pretty cool. 

[TheFalconMalteser]

But that's my whole point innit, I didn't actually want to murder her because what idiot murders a fuck buddy? I think I chose a dialogue option saying "I can't let you do that", because the other dialogue option implied that she would be in real danger if she did the thing. So I chose the option I thought would save her from getting killed, only to suddenly have to fight her myself. Even then I couldn't tell if it was gonna be one of those scripted battles which ends with a cut scene where your opponent gives up or not. Five seconds later and she's dead. Wasn't really my plan.

This is the least implausible excuse for domestic abuse I've ever heard.

[chand]

Both the expansions are amazing. A lot of people think they're better than anything in the main game. Blood and Wine is superb. There's almost enough content there to think of it as a whole new Witcher game rather than a mere bit of DLC. I actually enjoyed the story of Hearts of Stone more than the story in Blood and Wine but Hearts of Stone doesn't really add anything to the game since its set in original map, albeit somewhere you possibly never visited or paid much attention to.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. Hearts of Stone does seem to open up a new bit of the existing Velen map and was a lot of fun. The only disappointment really (apart from the bugged quest I can't complete) was that it bigs up the Runewright and suggests this whole new world of crafting but none of it actually seemed to worth the effort at all.

Blood and Wine is absolutely huge, people say 20 hours but I'm sure it's longer. A whole new and very pretty map which is a real contrast to some of the sleet-covered miserable bits of Skellige. Plays a lot like the main game, in that you have loads of new noticeboards, undiscovered locations, scavenger hunts, contracts, a Gwent tournament and a whole new Gwent deck to win, the fist-fight tournaments and so on. I've been playing it a while and still have shitloads to do.

[mobias]

In other somewhat related news DC Projekt RED have said their up and coming game Cyberpunk 2077 is going to dwarf Witcher 3 in terms of size and scope. I'm not sure my life is ready for a game of that size but I can't wait to see what its like

http://www.usimghub.club/2016/09/cd-projekt-red-cyberpunk-2077-is-far.html

Part of me is sad there won't be another Witcher game. It seems like the franchise really got into its stride with Witcher 3 but I guess by that point they thought they'd done everything they wanted to do with Geralt and the Witcher world.

A massive open world sci-fi game sounds amazing though.

[brat-sampson]

In terms of what I know about the books, it feels like Witcher 3 also covered all the real Big Guns of the saga, i.e. Ciri and the Wild Hunt, which in a way makes the first two games more impressive in a manner akin to making a couple of fledgling, say, LotR games without getting around to dealing with the whole Ring/Sauron business..

I'm more than happy to let them move on and see what comes next after 10(ish) years of experience.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Not that anyone's gonna be arsed about this, but I've put in a few hours into this over the weekend and so far it's everything I'd hoped it would be. The combat is better than I expected and I can see how it will improve and become more tactical as you build your character up and encounter more difficult enemies. I also didn't realise quite how much this game is influenced by RDR, and that's great. It's not just an imitation either it builds upon what RDR did successfully and adds genuine complexity. Probably one of the best looking PS4 games I've played so far as well.

[mobias]

Yeah I remember when I first started playing it I thought it was Red Dead Redemption with sword and sorcery. You can definitely tell Red Dead provided some of the inspiration I think.

I've got a friend who's in the very early stages of playing through the game of the year edition for the first time. I'm so envious. To play from the very start of the core game for the first time right through Hearts of Stone to the end of Blood and Wine will just be a fantastic gaming experience. I really can't think of anything like it.

[Mister Six]

I've got this queued up as my next game to tackle, though I'm not sure how to use the DLC. Should I download and install before I start the game or wait until I've finished it? Do i run the risk of entering it too early in the game and ending up with an unfulfilling/frustrating experience?

[Viero_Berlotti]

Install before, there's no danger of triggering the DLC missions by mistake and I believe there are items and Gwent cards included in the DLC that are handy to pick up in the main game before you play the DLC.

[Mister Six]

Fantastic, cheers!

[Viero_Berlotti]

Just a quick one to say Gwent is probably the best RPG mini-game I've played. Properly deep, in no way feels like a tacked on afterthought like these things sometimes can do.

[brat-sampson]

No worries, Gwent as a solo release is genuinely exciting to me considering all the changes they've made to make it actually competitive rather than a single-player semi-grind to a good then unbeatable deck.

Also personally I'm glad you're enjoying the game :)

[Chollis]

Bump!

Few years late to the party but what a fucking game. Picked this up recently after almost a year on the bench. I'd got bogged down in Novigrad and just couldn't be arsed with all the running between streets just talking to people, not enough fighting. Pushed through that though and it really opened up.

I'm on what must surely be the final stretch (in Skellige with the lads finding the Sunstone to summon Eredin) and I don't want it to end. I've been going around mopping up quests 20 levels below me because I know once the main story is done the world will feel empty and I'll have no incentive to do them. The contracts are generally pretty cut and dry but some of the secondary quests you run into are unique and interesting enough that it seems a shame to miss out on them. Read a few of the last pages and am heartened to see the DLCs are really good though. Do any of the characters from the base game make it into the DLCs?

[biggytitbo]

Funny to see this is coming out on the Switch, with drastically cut back graphics. Witcher 3 the PS2 edition.