Witcher Witcher Travel Logs

[Redglyph]

Then, it doesn't have ultrawide support. So Flawless Widescreen to the rescue. It now runs decently in ultrawide.

Out of curiosity, is your monitor able to mimic 16:9 like full HD by leaving borders on the left and right as a last resort?

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Out of curiosity, is your monitor able to mimic 16:9 like full HD by leaving borders on the left and right as a last resort?

Yeah, that's what it does by default. But Flawless Widescreen is working perfectly fine. At least in-game. Some of the UIs aren't scaled for that, but it's acceptable.
Some of the cinematics though, and I'm not sure this is anything due to the widescreen software I'm using, are bugged out.
It's the 2D cinematics they've added in the enhanced edition, I think. (the ones that summarize and make obvious the consequences of your choices). They glitch out with weird sliding/jumping effects. Especially when there's text to be rendered on the cinematic.
The other 2D cinematics, that I think were with the original version, work properly.

I've reached Flotsam and I can't believe I never stumbled on this. I think I played W2 at least 2-3 times now and it's only now that I've found that there's a path to finding Aryan La Valette.
I had seen this very scene in the promotional W2 media they were releasing before the game came out, and then when I actually played it I missed the secret dungeon door that leads you to Aryan.
So I always assumed they cut that whole optional branch of the story. But no, he's there and if you rescue him he torches the castle. Interesting how I could've missed this.

 

[Redglyph]

Some of the cinematics though, and I'm not sure this is anything due to the widescreen software I'm using, are bugged out.

They used to use a lower resolution for the cinematics and to change the screen resolution to play them. Perhaps that takes the software off guard. It's strange the new ones are a problem and not the old ones, though.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Felt bad about quitting W1 so I went back and resumed.
I managed to explore the whole of the swamp. It took impressively long, and I still have future quests that will take me across it, but I cover most of it, exploring and clearing pretty much everything.

I also got a two more of the signs, and looking at the Quen one I'm starting to doubt if I ever got it in my previous playthroughs. I'm not sure I was ever this thorough in my exploration.
But, either I'm not reading it right or is the Quen sign almost absolutely useless in W1? The main issue is it apparently gets disabled if you do any combat while under its effect. And I checked all skills until the skill tree, and none seem to disable this.
So then what's its purpose? Just to serve as a safety device while running away or while exploring? If you can't use it in combat at all? Really weird. In W3 this was thankfully changed. I can't remember how it was for W2. But it's seriously disappointing for W1.
Unless I'm missing something. But I have tried it in combat, and indeed it seemed to go away immediately.

Also, another thing I either missed or something else happened, but I never noticed how the people of the brickmaker's village suddenly turn into worshipers of the 'Old Ones' or the 'Lords' as they call them.
I think this only triggered after I cleared the pits, and found some abandoned child suddenly talking about the Lords. The Vodyanoy or however you spell it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Yeah, my W1 world state got corrupted and I can't progress with the main quest. I stumbled onto a bug with the state of the quests where one depends on another, and the other is broken.
I'm not sure where it started but at one point I was talking with Ramsmeat, telling him I found proof he's not a suspect for the Salamandra investigation.
Then I did the autopsy with Shani, and Geralt jumps to the conclusion that it's Kalkstein. I'm not sure why he would be the only alchemist capable of that, but ok. And because of that my dialogue options with Kalkstein are basically to accuse him with no proof, which kills any future dialogue options.
Then, talking with Raymond, even though I've posed him questions about my suspicions of him, those were disregarded.
My suspicions of Thalor or Vincent are also disregarded, for no solid reason.
And the only option I still had was to fall for his trickery of making Ramsmeat look guilty. Even though I had just had the discussion with Ramsmeat that he's not guilty, and that Azar Javen is guilty.
So, I said fuck it, I killed Ramsmeat. Now Raymond is expecting me to fool Kalkstein into coming to the swamp. Which I can't do since my dialogue options with Kalkstein are nil. So my playthrough it borked.

I'm really disappointed I was still able to get into a invalid quest state that borked my game state.
Though, at how convoluted this all is, I'm guess I'm not that surprised.
Anyway, my W1 is now officially over. And I don't think I'm gonna continue with either W2 or 3. It kind of killed my mood. We'll see tomorrow.

 

[Redglyph]

In case you're interested, Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone are -60%.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

In case you're interested, Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone are -60%.

Thanks, I've had them since forever. But I've soured a bit on witcher with my save games being corrupted.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Oh, forgot to mention. I now can't access the graveyard from Vizima either. The gravekeeper kept saying I need to either get Thaler or Vincent to get him to open the graveyard.
Thaler and Vincent both kept saying they won't until I clear them. I've now cleared them both, and the option for getting the graveyard pass has disappeared from them both. And the gravekeeper is also missing the same dialogue options. Really annoying.

And apparently accessing the graveyard allows you to find some evidence that clears most of the suspects. I remember getting into the graveyard ages ago in my first playthroughs, but I don't remember how. But apparently not the way I did it so far, since I'm now stuck.

And I just checked a walkthrough and this player practically posed different questions during the autopsy, than I did. I wonder if what questions you pose dictate which direction Geralt will be leaning towards finding suspects. I think I posed some Kalkstein related questions. But it would be really weird if they did that. I was sure the questions were just meant to give me context, and I, the player, would at the end of the autopsy be the one allowed to make the judgement. But no, in my case Geralt just came out and said it must be Kalkstein.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Phew, I managed to salvage my progress. I only had to reload back to before doing the autopsy.
Seems that indeed the questions you ask during the autopsy pushes Geralt towards one suspect or another. That still doesn't explain why Raymond wanted Ramsmeat when I had cleared him just before, but something in the quest chain must've broken. And this coupled with me asking one wrong question during the autopsy, which pushed the game towards Kalkstein, lead to the blocked state of the quests.

I reloaded and redid the autopsy (and this time also got the zerikanian book, to get the true solution to the autopsy quest) and it also got fixed. All suspects got cleared, and I even managed to get access to the graveyard at this late point.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm finally done with chapter 2 and started chapter 3, leaving the swamp and entering Vizima proper. Only took 26h of gameplay.

I have to say, overall I'm very impressed with the game. I forgot a lot of the particulars, from my first playthroughs.
It's very ambitious, even if it is extremely janky and often clumsy. Especially the writing (or translations). Absolutely abysmal a lot of the time.
But the scope and complexity of it all is very impressive, what they tried and manage to pull off at a certain degree, as a first game for new studio.

 

[JDR13]

I also got a two more of the signs, and looking at the Quen one I'm starting to doubt if I ever got it in my previous playthroughs. I'm not sure I was ever this thorough in my exploration.
But, either I'm not reading it right or is the Quen sign almost absolutely useless in W1? The main issue is it apparently gets disabled if you do any combat while under its effect. And I checked all skills until the skill tree, and none seem to disable this.
So then what's its purpose? Just to serve as a safety device while running away or while exploring? If you can't use it in combat at all? Really weird. In W3 this was thankfully changed. I can't remember how it was for W2. But it's seriously disappointing for W1.
Unless I'm missing something. But I have tried it in combat, and indeed it seemed to go away immediately.

In TW1, Quen is used to buy time to recover or drink a potion during battle while you're being attacked. It ends if you perform a hostile action, so yeah, it's not as useful as it is in the later games imo.

It's been a long time since I played TW1 to completion, but iirc, you can't reach a high enough level to max out all the signs, so I'd be careful about spreading your points too thin. Focus on 2-3 of them. I think Aard and Igni are the best in TW1.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

In TW1, Quen is used to buy time to recover or drink a potion during battle while you're being attacked. It ends if you perform a hostile action, so yeah, it's not as useful as it is in the later games imo.

It's been a long time since I played TW1 to completion, but iirc, you can't reach a high enough level to max out all the signs, so I'd be careful about spreading your points too thin. Focus on 2-3 of them. I think Aard and Igni are the best in TW1.

I don't think I've invested into signs anymore than 1-2 bronze points. And I've only barely used Aard and Igni. The others seem fairly useless or too particular.
And I think only Aard has ever done anything mildly usefull, when I was ganged-up on by a lot of dudes. And I say mildly because it never seems to affect more than one enemy.

I've invested mostly all points first into all the stat skills (str, dex, int and stamina). Since these give the most wellrounded bonuses that you benefit regardless of fighting style.
And then slowly and sort of evenly distributed among strong/fast/group styles for both silver and steel. And it's been pretty decent so far. The only tough encounters were the Beast, before switching styles. And a particular breed of the giant swamp plants. Not the echinops, the other ones. Those I've had to cheese to beat at the level I reached them.
I was even surprised how easy the initial fight against Javed and the Professor went, until they run away. I remembered having a lot more trouble with that fight, on my first playthroughs, and those were on normal difficulty.

Here's a question now that I've reached the Trade Quarter of Vizima. Does anyone feel like they heard this song in Witcher 3? For some reason, at least the first minute, feels very familiar to something I heard in W3 most probably.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6trsFeixKtE

 

[Redglyph]

Here's a question now that I've reached the Trade Quarter of Vizima. Does anyone feel like they heard this song in Witcher 3? For some reason, at least the first minute, feels very familiar to something I heard in W3 most probably.

It's been a while, but I can't say it rings a bell. They are apparently from different composers.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

It's been a while, but I can't say it rings a bell. They are apparently from different composers.

Yeah, I'm probably wrong.
But from the moment I entered the trade quarter this started played and suddenly I was sure I heard this song before. I checked the couple of songs you hear in White Orchard, but it's quite a bit different.
I guess, even though it's a bit hard to believe, it might just be that I'm remembering it from the last time I played W1? Probably over 10 years since I last reached chapter 3 in W1.
But I do hear that sound and music, followed by smell, is usually the first ways nostalgia is triggered. So maybe that's it. But I could've sworn I heard it more recently.

 

[Redglyph]

Yeah, I'm probably wrong.
But from the moment I entered the trade quarter this started played and suddenly I was sure I heard this song before. I checked the couple of songs you hear in White Orchard, but it's quite a bit different.
I guess, even though it's a bit hard to believe, it might just be that I'm remembering it from the last time I played W1? Probably over 10 years since I last reached chapter 3 in W1.
But I do hear that sound and music, followed by smell, is usually the first ways nostalgia is triggered. So maybe that's it. But I could've sworn I heard it more recently.

You played TW3 more recently than me, so it could be a similar theme I forgot.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

You played TW3 more recently than me, so it could be a similar theme I forgot.

But I didn't get further than White Orchard, and I checked, none of those theme songs are even close. Anyway ...

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Now that I've mostly explored all of the Vizima Trade Quater, in chapter 3, I was surprised I could go back to the Temple Quarter, which I covered in the previous chapter.
I don't think I ever returned to it in my previous playthroughs. And I was pleasantly surprised to see 3-4 new quests in that area. I even cleared out a Salamandra base.
And now I'm in the swamp again, only find new quests in this area as well. And also new enemies, the kikimore workers and warriors.
I had no idea they repopulated previous areas with new content. I am pleasantly surprised.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Well, I've managed to reach Chapter 5 in my W1 playthrough. I completed pretty much everything I could, and man was there a lot of back and forth.
I even made peace between the villagers and the vodyanoi, and killed Dagon. I don't think I ever did this in any previous playthrough.
It really took a long time. I can only understate how much walking around there is. I completely forgot about all of that.
I'm almost 50h into this playthrough, and the length is starting to take its toll.

 

[JDR13]

It really took a long time. I can only understate how much walking around there is. I completely forgot about all of that.

That's the only thing I don't like about TW1. There is a lot of backtracking. I didn't really noticed it the first time I played, but I found it annoying when I replayed it years later.

I had same issue recently with Starfield.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

That's the only thing I don't like about TW1. There is a lot of backtracking. I didn't really noticed it the first time I played, but I found it annoying when I replayed it years later.

I had same issue recently with Starfield.

Yeah, there's boat loads. I was even more shocked at the amount of back and forth in chapter 4, on the island where you get teleported to.

Anyway, I finished the main campaign. I did pretty much every quest I had, except for one. The teeth gathering one you get later in Vizima. I never found all teeth or bothered too much with it. I think I found 3 in total. Looking at a guide, there seems to be a bit more of them
But aside from that one I managed to do everything. Even did the ones I never though I would do, the dice poker and the fist-fighting ones. The dice poker were a bit of a pain, to keep reloading, until I got better random numbers.
Even did the Dagon quest, which I'm 90% sure I never did in previous quests. Even got the ultimate armor. I'm certain I never went for that one. Got all monster hunting ones; that also took a bit of moving around.

There's so many little annoyances in the game, that you completely forget. Speaking about the trophy hunting ones, just the fact that you can't carry more than one trophy means you need to go back and forth to carry each one.
The other annoyances that are fresh in my mind:
- in combat, constant pathing issues would cause Geralt to not attack or move.
- also, in combat, due to playing over-the-shoulder, constant targeting of the wrong enemy when I wanted to focus on one.

There's loads more, but I'll leave it at that.
Suffice to say, there's plenty. But even so, I think overall the good outweights the bad.
The most succinct way to put it is that it's very ambitious, even if it weren't their first title. Very ambitious, very clumsy and janky all over the place. But has a very strong heart and vision.