If the guide that comes with the premium/collector’s set is any hint, lots of difference. It’ll probably be different really plot-wise.
For those who have difficulty starting out (like me), here’s a hint - forget about the side quests till you kill the first boss. Once you get the pattern of the first boss right, you can kill it without any fuss and you can get a whole chunk of XP and some decent loot.
When you get to level 7, the first two talents to unlock should be Positioning (less damage from the back) and Feetwork (dodge faster). The latter helps with the first boss fight.
Following the main plot also yields some kickass armor, sword and enhancements, which will make the side quests easier. You also get the crafting diagram for an epic armor if you kill the first boss.
Does that include the Prologue (King Foltest and prison part)?
Cuz if Flotsam is two and I am on to three that sucks. I have barely broken into the leveling trees. I know you cannot get everything but I’d need 10 levels to even get most of one (level 13 now and am just past leaving Floatsam).
I bought a hard copy at Gamestop and it hates my Sony Optiarc 7200-a DVD drive. It refuses to install - CRC error every time. Apparently a known bug - it seems some drives, even some pretty new ones, are having the same issue. All the suggested fixes, other than using a different computer ( which I don’t have) to transfer the files, have failed for me.
Ah, well. Guess I could use another drive for copying anyway. I’ll try picking up an external model and see if I have anymore luck.
That’s option #2 ;). I could just return the disc and try another, but the game is largely sold out around here, so I suspect I’d have to switch to Steam.
I’m seeing enough anecdotes of people having success using the same discs on different drives/machines than the ones that were tried initially, that I have to assume its some strange compatibility issue. It’s a weird one for sure.
To add insult to injury, the retail version runs slower (some says 30% to 40% slower) thanks to the DRM. The upcoming patch (supposed to be out earlier this morning, but nowhere in sight yet) will solve this problem, among other things.
The steam version doesn’t have any DRM like SecurRom. Some people consider needing to log into your steam account as DRM, and while technically it is, I tend not tohink of it that way. Few games have additional DRM on steam - when they do on the store page you’ll see “3rd party DRM: such and such” under the part with release date, languages, etc.
SecuROM is the physical manifestation of the fear of incompetent board-room executives with nothing invested in the quality of the product they release, just maximizing the profits from it. CD Projekt Red’s move to completely wipe the DRM from even their retail copies is a wise one.
It looks like their plan wasn’t to “protect” their product forever, which doesn’t work, just to avoid the Crysis 2 disaster, in which a working beta was leaked over a month before launch.
Just a head up that patch 1.2 is coming soon (tomorrow, according to the pre-conference at E3). The patch balances the game and tweak the combat locking mechanism, among other stuff.
They also just announce a xbox360 version, which will be released by the end of the year.
Picked up the game the other day on a whim. I never played the first one, but I was drawn in by the box art while browsing and decided to give it a try. I’m part way through Chapter 1 and i’m enjoying it so far - the setting is like a gritter, more Slavic version of Dragon Age, the combat is surprisingly addictive (if remarkably hard by modern standards), and the fist-fighting minigame is pretty fun. I’m starting to get a grasp on the crafting system - I laughed out loud when I was sent on a quest to acquire a rare ingredient to make the anti-venom for fighting the Kayran, and I realized I already had an ingredient with the same properties and could skip that whole segment of the quest.
My main pet peeve is the lack of a Quick Load function - in a game where you die as often as you do in this one, it’s simply unforgiveable to not have one, especially when you’ve gone through the trouble of coding a Quick Save. My secondary pet peeve has to do with the hot-tips that appear on screen. Being left-handed, I despise WASD and always set all the main functions to keys on the numpad. Whenever a hot-tip or quick-time event comes up that involves a button i’ve reassigned to the numpad, the hot-tip reads “NUM” and nothing else, making it nigh on impossible to know which button i’m supposed to press to not die. The fistfights are easy enough since the indicator always appears on the part of the screen corresponding to the direction you press, but I died about ten times during the QTE in the fight with the Kayran because I couldn’t figure out which key I was supposed to be pressing. I had to look up on a wiki that I was supposed to roll.
This is on Steam sale now for -33% (at least on this side of the pond). I’m still kind of on the fence though, since I never managed to finish the first one. Should I? Or shouldn’t I?
I would. If you like RPG’s, this is a very good one ( and unlike the first one there is slightly more potential variety to Geralt’s build ). Substantially better than Dragon Age IMHO and I like that game. If your rig can handle the higher graphic settings, it is also absolutely gorgeous.
The only thing really missing if you’re into that sort of thing is party dynamics and expansive class variety - it’s no Baldur’s Gate II in that respect. But despite a few clunky interface issues ( like picking up stuff ), by most measures I’d call this a truly first-class effort.
I was stumped on that (on my second playthrough, no less) too! It’s just that the QTE for the roll appears way lower on the screen than the normal mouse click QTEs, so you miss it if all your attention is to glue to where the usual mouse-click QTEs appear.
