These screenshots convinced me!

I went ahead and bought the Steam digital premium edition which was US$45.00.

It includes the soundtrack, making of, a few strategy guides and some origami crap.

I actually hadn't heard of The Witcher until I saw The Witcher 2 trailer so I got The Witcher EE Platinum for 10 pounds on amazon but still haven't finished it and will probably buy the Premium Edition of the new one (I think it's like 40 or 50 pounds)

a few more screens released today

EDIT: corrected links

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293642/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293631/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293640/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293633/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293634/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293637/

http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/images/293647/

Those are all forbidden, can you link to the article?

Why are they forbidden? These are not scans.

they are official, sanctioned screenshots published on worthplaying.com (with their own logo)

Here is a link to the worthplaying blog post describing the screenshots
http://worthplaying.com/article/2011/2/22/news/79992/

No I mean the website probably forbids hotlinking, since I get an error when clicking them.

Thanks for the new link.

I think I pasted the correct links now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUazuUBZ4Y

New gameplay. Besides all the rolling, it actually looks really good. Makes me want to get the game.

Have the devs stated whether playing the first is essential to the storyline?

There are 16 possible endings and a few of them are only unlocked if you import a save game from completing the first game.

Also some of the NPCs return and your relationship will be affected by save game import.

The first game was great. At first I was unimpressed but after a couple of hours it grew on me.

I really want to play it, but even at the lowest settings and at 1280x720, it runs poorly. Now, my computer isn't that good, but it's able to run most games on some very nice settings.

Yeah it seems that the Witcher 1 was poorly optimized, especially towards the end of the game there's an area with some fire and the game became a slideshow on my old laptop.
(that's not really a spoiler, right?)

but it's still fun despite the quirks.

I think that's a fault with the game engine, because I noticed the same problem in NWN.

Have the Devs of this jumped on board with Blizzard in porting to Consoles?

They have mentioned that it is their intention to port W2 to consoles eventually, but they don't have any date in mind yet.

W1 will probably never get a console port.

does anyone know if there is going to be much loot/weapons/armor in this game ????????

I'm sure there is, but that's really not the point of this series.

So it would seem, from different previews that are done all over the web, that graphics options are limited somewhat similar to Crysis 2, and that the game only has a 16:9 aspect ratio, with borders in resolutions of a different kind - which is a weird choice, since 16:10 seems to be the most commonly used widescreen resolution on the PC.
That's quite shoddy for a dev that promised to offer the best PC RP experience, even in a technological way. I hope that's just a limitation of the preview builds.

They actually seem to be phasing out 16:10 computer monitors. 16:9 is the most common now, to correspond with the HDTV standards.

They do? Regardless, it's still shoddy to not include all aspect ratios. Be that forced 4:3 or huge borders with forced widescreen. PC, dammit! :tongue:

I am really curious about the real HW requirements.

In my experience, nearly every PC exclusive, central-eastern European game(without patches) has a bad habit of making my PC catch on fire, no matter how strong it is(hello ArmA2!).

That's what we love those studios for. ^_^
Anyway, previews on several magazines state that the game runs fine with a GeForce 8800 card and a 2.4 Dual Core on medium settings.
Two comparison scenes:
http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2215964/bigimage.jpg
http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2215966/bigimage.jpg

http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2215958/bigimage.jpg
http://images.idgentertainment.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2215959/bigimage.jpg

I expect the CPU requirements to be lowered in the final build, since it's mostly script optimisation they will have to do now.

Have you seen the gameplay footage of the village of Flotsam?

http://youtu.be/u4GaFnVIYds?hd=1

Looks pretty amazing IMO. Lots of interesting NPCs.

Same world full of life the had Witcher, a feel that so few games can capture. I can't wait.

I hope they include a construction set like they did with the first game. I am eally looking forward to this game.

I haven't looked at the link - like others, I am trying to mostly avoid a lot of spoiler-y ish things for this game, which I am anticipating eagerly. One of the reasons I think I loved The Witcher so much was because it was unspoilered for me, so it really engrossed me, as I looked forward to progressing through the world. Vizima, as a game-world city still is one of the best ones in a fantasy game, IMO. They just captured an atmosphere and grittiness that was just great.


I believe they plan too - they are very PC-focused and have worked really well with the user community, included user made mods in the Enhanced Edition. Speaks well of their making sure to include tools for their very active fanbase.