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COOKIEMONSTER posted:Yennifer is easily twice as good. She selflessly tries to help Ciri. Not to use her as a pawn. But to keep her safe. And she goes to extreme lengths, even putting herself in danger to do so. She calls in pretty much all her favors, uses huge quantities of her money and Skellige's. Is even willing to go through extreme pain and suffering, as seen at the temple on Skellige. Oh and when the riots start and Ciri runs off and they know Geralt is in the middle of it Yennifer goes into 'must save them mode' and Triss goes into 'hey uh so we should probably just leave' mode Let me just say, I strongly agree with this characterization of Yennefer. Ciri is the child that Yennefer always wanted but could never have and there was, in the end, nothing that Yennefer wouldn't do to keep Ciri safe. As for Triss, she was always too naive and too weak to stand up for the things she believed in. Also, I hope I'm not the only one who's really, really hoping that Fringilla shows up in Witcher 3. *W2 endgame spoilers follow* Finally, regarding the reconciliation of the events of W2 with W3, my guess is that all your choices will be be honored but then subsumed by a canonical choice. This is to say, if a character COULD die in W2, he will be dead in W3. So, if Henselt survives the events of W2, this fact will be noted in your journal but the journal will go on to say that sometime between the events of W2 and W3, Henselt dies anyways such that Henselt is always dead in W3. As for events, I expect they'll handle it similarly. For instance, even if you rescue Anais and leave her in John Natalis' care, I'm guessing that Radovid will simply make Temeria into a Redanian protectorate through other means and may even seek to retrieve Anais from Natalis' care in order to bolster the Redanian claim. Of course, this could get a little unwieldy and there's the rather vexing question of Letho showing up in the trailer, so I'm probably way off base here. If only there was someone in this very thread who could shed a little light on this matter..  e: COOKIEMONSTER posted:
Nice, I was just about to post that quote because it's one of my favorite lines from the entire series. "Oh, no, Triss. Never."
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Jun 12, 2014 05:58
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I need to reread the series again. There's loads of little details and motivations I've forgotten! Thanks for the reminders. I have to make do with fan translations for the later books though. Still, as imperfect as they are, at least they're there at all. Nine months to reread the books and replay the games
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Jun 12, 2014 06:24
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Roshnak posted:I don't think there were any path-specific consequences which would have a serious impact on the state of the world in the third game. You know, except for that whole bit where Iorveth starts out colluding with Letho and wanting to kill all the humans in generic fishing village.
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Jun 12, 2014 06:59
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Helith posted:Maybe Comte de Saint-Germain could comment Our marketing and community people are too good at their jobs for me to disrespect them by revealing stuff before we're ready. Sorry! 
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Jun 12, 2014 08:10
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Fuzz posted:You know, except for that whole bit where Iorveth starts out colluding with Letho and wanting to kill all the humans in generic fishing village. Iorveth was kind of a not nice person, but the game kind of portrays his team as the good guys more than the first game did. Siding with Iorveth has you joining a bunch of idealists fighting for their freedom from an invading army and whose ultimate goal is to set up a society where all races can live together in harmony. Siding with Roche has you helping the guy trying to crush those people. And when you meet up with the people on Iorveth's side your buddy the dwarf decides to stay there because he hates the side you're helping. Basically, I feel like the game never really makes you feel bad for choosing Iorveth's side, but it definitely does for choosing Roche's. Also, are we still using spoilers for this game that came out in 2011, or can I drop these things?
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Jun 12, 2014 08:14
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Roshnak posted:Also, are we still using spoilers for this game that came out in 2011, or can I drop these things? I think they're mostly for the benefit of people who saw the trailer and realized they should play TW2, but I don't know how many of those people there actually are.
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Jun 12, 2014 08:23
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Leb posted:Also, I hope I'm not the only one who's really, really hoping that Fringilla shows up in Witcher 3. She's one of my favorite characters. Hopefully she made it to Toussaint, and didn't end up like Assire. And I'm not just saying that because I really really want to visit Toussaint in W3. Roshnak posted:Also, are we still using spoilers for this game that came out in 2011, or can I drop these things? I figure game spoilers are fine at this point. I've just been using spoiler tags for book stuff, because I realize a lot of people haven't read the books. COOKIEMONSTER fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 08:53
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Roshnak posted:Iorveth was kind of a not nice person, but the game kind of portrays his team as the good guys more than the first game did. Siding with Iorveth has you joining a bunch of idealists fighting for their freedom from an invading army and whose ultimate goal is to set up a society where all races can live together in harmony. As far as I remember, Iorveth and his band of Scoia'tael are not the same as the "good guy" rebels of Vergen. Iorveth just pledged the aid of his own troops to their cause because he has the hots for the dragon leading them. My impression from it was that he still didn't give two shits for the idea of creating a nation where humans and non-humans could live peacefully together.
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Jun 12, 2014 09:10
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Slashrat posted:As far as I remember, Iorveth and his band of Scoia'tael are not the same as the "good guy" rebels of Vergen. Iorveth just pledged the aid of his own troops to their cause because he has the hots for the dragon leading them. My impression from it was that he still didn't give two shits for the idea of creating a nation where humans and non-humans could live peacefully together. Oh, no, I got that they weren't the same people. But that doesn't change any of the results of siding with him when you get the choice. No one talks about choosing the rebels of Vergen's path, they talk about choosing Iorveth's path. Basically, the impression I got from the Scoia'tael in The Witcher is that they were comprised of a lot of mostly decent people who felt driven to do some pretty awful things. The impression I got from The Witcher 2 is that some of their members (mostly just Iorveth) were kind of jerks, but they were doing some ultimately good and righteous things. Roshnak fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 09:23
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I don't think it's just because he has the hots for Saskia. That's true, but I don't think it's everything. I think he's sincere when he acknowledges that, yes, he viscerally hates humans, but he intellectually knows that Saskia's vision is the right way to live, so he's willing to put aside his hate if it means fufilling her vision. What's amusing is that if you do the "Save Saskia" Act 3 path, she apparently doesn't really like Iorveth all that much on a personal level. She acknowledges him as an ally because she needed his martial strength, but she still thinks he's a bigot. Lycus fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 09:37
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Spite posted:And yeah, she's supposed to be very scarred. I remember there being a point about her not being able to wear low cut shirts because she's horribly scarred. Not quite. She is scarred mentally. She was horribly burned, but it got healed. It's the psychological part that remains, she remembers being horribly burned. She says (almost direct quote) "I was healed, but I'll never be able to wear dress with cleavage".
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Jun 12, 2014 10:13
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Is there a downside to choosing to release Saskia from her spell over rescuing Triss? Seems like Triss ends up fine either way (thanks Letho!)
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Jun 12, 2014 10:17
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Senjuro posted:Is there a downside to choosing to release Saskia from her spell over rescuing Triss? Seems like Triss ends up fine either way (thanks Letho!) Not saving Triss yourself results in the witch hunt and everything, which can be prevented if you save her yourself and have her speak up
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Jun 12, 2014 10:26
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Basically there are three groups you can possibly help, each corresponding to a person you can save in Act 3. You can only help one of these groups in a playthrough, and the other two will go to poo poo. Temeria = Save Anais Vergen = Save Saskia Council of Sorcerors = Save Triss Lycus fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 10:35
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I didn't have much trouble choosing to help Saskia in my playthrough. Of the three groups, Vergen/The Pontar Valley nation is the only one that really tries to justify its existence in the game. Temeria doesn't come across as any better than the other kingdoms, and the council of sorcerers are largely an unknown except for the scheming sorceresses who're to blame for most of the poo poo you've endured.
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Jun 12, 2014 10:41
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Roshnak posted:Oh, no, I got that they weren't the same people. But that doesn't change any of the results of siding with him when you get the choice. No one talks about choosing the rebels of Vergen's path, they talk about choosing Iorveth's path. This is something I hadn't thought of. When playing 2 I still had the not-so-rosy image of the Scoia'tael from 1 in mind. But I guess someone going straight to 2 would get a pretty different picture of them.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:33
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I just picked up books two and three, haven't started on them yet though. I wanted to ask what was up with Dandelion describing Geralt and Yens relationship as 'toxic' in one if the early inter-chapter narrations? It sounds like they both were happy together.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:58
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Davoren posted:I just picked up books two and three, haven't started on them yet though. I wanted to ask what was up with Dandelion describing Geralt and Yens relationship as 'toxic' in one if the early inter-chapter narrations? It sounds like they both were happy together. Dandelion is right, though he focuses on one side of it. It's a very complex relationship. Sometimes they're very happy, sometimes they hurt each-other. Neither of them is a very good communicator either - Yen because it's not in her nature, Geralt because he's emotionally immature.
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Jun 12, 2014 12:58
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:Dandelion is right, though he focuses on one side of it. It's a very complex relationship. Sometimes they're very happy, sometimes they hurt each-other. Neither of them is a very good communicator either - Yen because it's not in her nature, Geralt because he's emotionally immature. To add to this, their relationship seems, almost, to cause each other more grief than good. They enjoy fleeting moments of real passion and love, then snap back to the reality of who they both are, and almost try to one-up each other in hurting the other one. It's great to read, and I always feel for both characters, because you know in their hearts, they really just want a quiet life together, but neither can admit it or give up on their current profession/responsibilities.
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Jun 12, 2014 13:49
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Yennefer's pretty emotionally immature too. Throws lots of tantrums. On the earlier Triss talk: I'd actually argue that Triss is more "good-natured" than Yen. She's just really vulnerable to peer pressure. Yennefer's main redeeming characteristic is her affection for Ciri, but beyond that she's more typical of sorceresses than Triss. I mean, when we first meet her she's trying to enslave a djinn because POWER. Also there was that time she took Geralt to the same city where she was meeting her gently caress-buddy. That was ice cold.
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Jun 12, 2014 15:36
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Jun 12, 2014 17:07
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2014, the year of bearded white (electronic) old men.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:11
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Since it's the summer and I have a bit more extra time than usual. What Witcher Books are worth reading? I've already read "The Last Wish" which is the one most people recommend as the first so where should I go next?
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Jun 12, 2014 21:55
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cmykjester posted:Since it's the summer and I have a bit more extra time than usual. What Witcher Books are worth reading? I've already read "The Last Wish" which is the one most people recommend as the first so where should I go next? The other books, beginning with The Blood of Elves, follow a single narrative so theres not much of a choice: begin with TBoE.
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Jun 12, 2014 21:58
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Davoren posted:I just picked up books two and three, haven't started on them yet though. I wanted to ask what was up with Dandelion describing Geralt and Yens relationship as 'toxic' in one if the early inter-chapter narrations? It sounds like they both were happy together. As an addendum to some of the previous comments on this topic, the relationship between Geralt and Yennefer, at least in the short stories leading up to the saga, was fairly toxic, with both Yen and Geralt acknowledging that what they had together simply wasn't enough -- they needed something more. As it turns out, however, Ciri was that something more and by the end of the saga, I believe they would have been fully committed to and happy with one another if they hadn't, you know, both died.
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Jun 12, 2014 22:12
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cmykjester posted:Since it's the summer and I have a bit more extra time than usual. What Witcher Books are worth reading? I've already read "The Last Wish" which is the one most people recommend as the first so where should I go next? If there are any fan translations of The Sword of Destiny that are readable at all, I'd definitely recommend reading one. Can't really imagine going into the novels without reading the last two stories, in particular.
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Jun 12, 2014 22:55
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Definitely read The Sword of Destiny next. It has great stories and important info about the following books.Aumanor posted:If there are any fan translations of The Sword of Destiny that are readable at all, I'd definitely recommend reading one. Can't really imagine going into the novels without reading the last two stories, in particular. There is a fan translation that translated from French to English oddly enough. It reads surprisingly nicely. steinrokkan posted:The other books, beginning with The Blood of Elves, follow a single narrative so theres not much of a choice: begin with TBoE. TBoE must be a really weird and somewhat confusing read if you haven't read The Sword of Destiny. a7m2 fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 23:49
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Eruonen posted:TBoE must be a really weird and somewhat confusing read if you haven't read The Sword of Destiny. I read it that way, and it worked, the book provides you with just enough exposition dump to keep you engaged while maintaining a sense of mystery.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:01
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COOKIEMONSTER posted:Triss knows exactly what the score is. And she makes her choice. But then again, that's just the books. W2 Triss shows a much bigger reluctance to ruin peoples lives for the convenience of political plots. Yeah, you said it better than I did. She's certainly a powerful sorceress, but she's super insecure and has no backbone. I'd always interpreted it as that Triss IS being manipulated. Philippa knows she can bully Triss into doing whatever she wants. She uses Triss the entire time for her own ends. I recall Triss as not really having her own motivations in the books. I remember her basically just doing what other people want most of the time. I'm glad they made her more of her own character in W2. Hopefully that continues in W3.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:26
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I got this game on steam when it was $4. I think it's overhyped. I beat it on normal, and here is some notable cheesing that I did. Endrega Contract You can get Triss to help you with one of the the endrega queens when she's walking back from the elven statue. You can get Zoltan to help you with the other queen when you're on you way to see Yorveth Letho You can axii him, which starts up instantly compared to all the other signs, to get him to drop his guard. Follow up with two heavy attacks. You have to be close to him when you start axii for this to work. Rinse and repeat. Draug If you yrden him, you can run around towards his back and just chunk 2/3 of his health with heavy attacks. Operator You can roll through and behind the pillars to drop out of combat and save the game. You can't do this if the gargoyles are up, but it's useful between waves. I beat the game barely using any consumables and only used quen in two fights in act 3. So if anyone needs anymore lame strats I could share them.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:28
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Sick strats bro, I think you kinda missed the point of the game though if you're worried about cheesing fights or whatever.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:41
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I've been going through the novels since the new trailer came out and have been shocked at how good they are. I normally avoid most fantasy because so much of it is terrible, and I ignored the people who said that the Witcher stories were good years ago when I played the games. They're very entertaining, and aren't just pulp stories, although they work just fine as pulp. I'll second that the fan translations are at least at the same level of quality as the official ones. I think what makes them work is that each story has a set of provocative moral and romantic dilemmas that each get (mostly) resolved by the end. Last Wish has a bunch of 'weird twists on Hans Christien Anderson fairy tales' but they're done in a way that isn't as annoying as the overdone concept would otherwise lead you to expect.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:49
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3 Stacked Midgets posted:I've been going through the novels since the new trailer came out and have been shocked at how good they are. I normally avoid most fantasy because so much of it is terrible, and I ignored the people who said that the Witcher stories were good years ago when I played the games. I'm glad someone else is sticking up for the fan translations. I read through all of them last summer, and they were the best books i'd ever read this side of "A Song of Ice and Fire." And they REALLY make the games so much more than they already are. Anyone whose read the books will know truly how much impact W3 is going to have on Geralt's story.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:13
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Lycus posted:Basically there are three groups you can possibly help, each corresponding to a person you can save in Act 3. You can only help one of these groups in a playthrough, and the other two will go to poo poo. Nice, this is a really good way of looking at this. The first time I played through I really didn't even catch that saving Triss would re-institute the Conclave or Council (forget which) but if you didn't save her, it would never be reconstituted. Playing through again and reading the wiki about what the decisions mean helped understand that more. My second playthrough I tried to set things up to have as strong a front against Nilfgaard as possible, so I saved Triss under the theory that a united group of mages could better figure out how to stem the tide. Will be interesting to see how CDPR tries to navigate the tightrope between having your Witcher 2 decisions actually alter events / be meaningful and having to write tons of different branches. Nilfgaard is going to come either way, and Geralt is only one guy who is neither a king nor a general, but if they institute too many "adjustments back to a canon" (which Leb so excellently described) it's going to feel cheap. A good (i.e., horrible) example of this was in Mass Effect (1), you had a decision to save a potentially dangerous cockroach queen who was the very last of her race, or kill her, and everyone was excited to see what effect that decision had in the third game. People envisioned if you saved her, she would use the time between games to build up an army or something and you'd have awesome cockroaches killing the bad guys in a climactic final scene. As it ended up, if you saved her then you ran into her on a mission and could help her out, but if you killed her then on that mission you encountered a BRAND NEW queen which was created by the main bad guys out of thin air, and the only change to the story is the replacement queen causes problems which you read about in your journal and the dialogue was a little different. And, either way, the effect of the decision was limited to some text in a journal entry - no climactic scene to really make you *feel* like your choice meant anything. Between the lack of connection the player received (either way), and that the whole "if you kill her they're gone forever" being essentially overridden, that trick didn't sit too well with fans, and it serves as a good warning on how to cheapen a player's experience when you supposedly offer them choices which are advertised as important or affecting the outcome. Not to mention the whole ME3 "pick your favorite color and pretend really hard" ending thing, but that's been pretty well covered and I'm sure CDPR watched that drama unfold with interest.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:21
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I'm not worried at all about CDPR taking the three possible endings and running with them. They've already said this is the final game, so with that launching point they can easily just build the game around the three possible starting points and let you just finish it all out. If you don't have an old save, they do the questionnaire thing or something to let people see all the possible story options. I'm more worried about them properly adding weight and progression to the story when the whole drat thing is an open world... primarily the progression aspect, because open world games aren't known for making the world really evolve with the storyline, plus there's always the fear of stuff being doable out of order or whatever and the storyline being not nearly as cohesive and tight. Basically, if they can pull an RDR where you start from three different possible starting points and maybe they all eventually funnel down and then branch out to possible endings, I'll be happy. It's a steep bill, though.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:29
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The way I see it, the series was never advertised as one epic story spanning multiple games like Mass Effect was. Because of this, they don't really have to address too much of the second game. It's super easy, and not unreasonable, to say that the invasion of Nilfgaard changed everything. Everyone hated Sorcerors at the end of the second game? Well, they probably dropped that real quick when a foreign army invaded and they suddenly needed their help. As for the state of Temeria at the end of the game, I haven't read any of the books, but googling a map it looks like Temeria is between Nilfgaard and the huge city they keep talking about being near No-Man's Land. They could easily make Temeria largely occupied territory. The Pontar Valley looks like it's way too far east from Novigrad to be represented on a single game map in the Witcher 3. Basically, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to write a story in which most of the things that happened in The Witcher 2 only change a couple of journal entries and a few lines of dialogue here and there. I figure it's better to not expect very much carryover at all and be pleasantly surprised at what is influenced by savegames than to hope that The Witcher 3 will fulfill the promises of Mass Effect 3.
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Jun 13, 2014 07:41
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Cheston posted:I think they're mostly for the benefit of people who saw the trailer and realized they should play TW2, but I don't know how many of those people there actually are. I'm just working my way through Witcher 1, but more because I'm getting a proper gaming computer soon. I'm midway through chapter 2 and the swamp doesn't suck nearly as much as I thought it would. But I am playing on Easy.
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Jun 13, 2014 07:48
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What is the Slaughter/Massacre of Tenenmen (or something) they repeatedly refer to in Chapter 3? Has something to do with why they've erected a magic nullifying zone?
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Jun 13, 2014 07:53
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Rdubs posted:Will be interesting to see how CDPR tries to navigate the tightrope between having your Witcher 2 decisions actually alter events / be meaningful and having to write tons of different branches. Nilfgaard is going to come either way, and Geralt is only one guy who is neither a king nor a general, but if they institute too many "adjustments back to a canon" (which Leb so excellently described) it's going to feel cheap. A good (i.e., horrible) example of this was in Mass Effect (1), you had a decision to save a potentially dangerous cockroach queen who was the very last of her race, or kill her, and everyone was excited to see what effect that decision had in the third game. People envisioned if you saved her, she would use the time between games to build up an army or something and you'd have awesome cockroaches killing the bad guys in a climactic final scene. As it ended up, if you saved her then you ran into her on a mission and could help her out, but if you killed her then on that mission you encountered a BRAND NEW queen which was created by the main bad guys out of thin air, and the only change to the story is the replacement queen causes problems which you read about in your journal and the dialogue was a little different. And, either way, the effect of the decision was limited to some text in a journal entry - no climactic scene to really make you *feel* like your choice meant anything. Between the lack of connection the player received (either way), and that the whole "if you kill her they're gone forever" being essentially overridden, that trick didn't sit too well with fans, and it serves as a good warning on how to cheapen a player's experience when you supposedly offer them choices which are advertised as important or affecting the outcome. This is a bit of an unfair comparison since it's a choice in game 1 and how it carries over to game 3. How many TW1 choices really carried over into TW2 in any meaningful way? It's all pretty minor from what I've read, it seems like the only thing of note is whether a certain character is alive/dead (who I don't think you meet), and making one thing easier in Act 3 if you chose Iorveth's path.
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Jun 13, 2014 08:09
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It'd be pretty hilarious if the Alvin storyline comes back from left field in W3 and suddenly it matters if you left him with Triss vs Shani. Like somehow he shows up again and the events in W3 directly impact how he becomes the head of the Order in W1, so the entire series comes full circle within itself.
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Jun 13, 2014 08:20
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