Yep, besides the lecture room was filled with hordes of potato-eaters hungry not only for the potatoes but also for information about the Witcher, so I only managed to ask one of my own questions regarding the dialogue system; I also wanted to ask about that thing Elwro had mentioned but I wasn't really let to ad besides on the presentation it didn't look all that bad, certainly not the Mass Effect level. Of course some of your questions were addressed , but let's start from the beginning, shall we?
So, I should probably mention that officially it wasn't even the presentation of the Witcher 2 but rather a lecture on "Translating the means of expression of the books to the language of New Media" or other shit like that, organized by a student research club at some college, but of course the public was hungry for action and demanded that Gop (a senior producer) show us some real stuff as soon as possible which of course was precisely the thing he did.
As for the presentation, a quick summary for you:
- Gop treats RPGs as the electronic/interactive equivalent of reading a book.
- sadly, there's little support on the author (i.e Sapkowski) side and the team receive very little feedback regarding the Witcher Universe but they're doing quite well without it and that's an old news anyway.
- this is a PC exclusive as of now. Console versions are planned, but not in the works and their eventual fate will be decided based on a reception of a PC version.
- the combat system is distinctively RPG and "heavily based on rolling" which was emphasized on one the slides.
- in practice, for me and apparently most of the public it seemed very chaotic but Gop assures us that it feels very tactical when you're the guy playing the game.
- game is hugely customizable and tailored to suit various gamestyles and tastes. For example, storyfags can practically get rid of a "combat as a challenge" by setting the difficulty level to easy while for the combatfags fighting may prove to be very tactical and rewarding, exploration- and itemfags may give vent to their deviations by examining every location using the witchers' medallion, alchemyfags will have their fairly developed oils and potions system etc.
- combat certainly looks way too biased towards magic/signs., and, as I mentioned, very chaotic but it too is to be highly customizable so you can choose between variety of styles, including setting traps, throwing bombs, using magic, relying on oils and potions, different style of fencing (you can for example block the attacks of other swordsmen, lead them to loose their balance and counterattack) etc.
- Geralt looks the way he looks and his hair moves the way it moves and if somebody don't like it then Gop "is sorry" for that. Curious thing: one of the merchants in the dwarves' city shouts EMO!!111 at the top of his lungs after seeing Geralt passing by.
- you can see the way the dialogues look like in the released videos - for me the "Mass Effect Effect" of the dialogue system didn't turn even half as bad as I'd imagined; generally you CAN see the line Geralt is to deliver, of corse sometimes he adds something from himself, but the same happened in the first installment either. What breaks the, er, immersion are the pauses between the lines - CDP-R is aware of this issue but it's not that easy to address and they decided they'd rather focus their resources on some other areas.
-boobs in the Witcher 1 were childish, they've grown up now (the developers, that is).
-the character development is talent-based and has implications on the game world. For example, if you're an alchemy freak, your character will become, well, a freak, which may in effect turn off some of the NPCs.
- there were numerous claims on have the players' actions affect the game-world and the story-line, this time for real, but we were spared any firm examples as this would have been spoilers.
-pretty much every quest is non-linear and there are multiple ways to end them. Your choices deeply affect the world and the attitude of the other people towards your character blablabla...
- there is a new minigame - armwrestling (fairly unimpressive, if you asked me); also, mechanics of boxing are changed and it is now quite difficult to win.
- Geralt will not be the only playable character.
- the quest log is now kept in a form of a book, or a tale told by Jaskier (Dandelion) - we were promised it would be fun to read.
-Gop and the CDP-Red team didn't play DA2 due to the lack of time, but he is assured the the Witcher 2 is a "different class of an RPG" as compared to Dragon Age 2.
- Polish and English language versions of the game are being prepared simultaneously and overseen by some Polish-American guy to assure coherence and adequate quality of both.
- In a presentation, player assumed a role of Dandelion for a part of a quest. This matter returned later in a Q&A session and when one guy remarked that such occurrences were obviously short and limited, Gop answered in a style of "And how do YOU know that? You'd be suprised".
Kudos to Colegium Civitas for setting up this event and of course to Tomek Gop for showing up and answering our questions with uncommon patience.
I'll edit this post as soon as I realize I omitted something important.