Why are The Witcher 2 fans so defensive?

[Krantos]

Anyone who argues in favor of the lack of tutorial should go watch the Tutorial 101 episode of Extra Credits. Seriously, it explains a lot.

In general, I find the Witcher to be overly cumbersome. I Like how they did the first game (haven't played the second yet), but it felt like it was done by a team that needed more experience. The entire thing was a bit of a pain. A good pain, though. Like that ache in your shoulders after you play ultimate frisbee for three hours.

 

[LordRoyal]

Let me be even blunter than I was: If you really think which football club you support matters AT ALL in the grand scheme of things, you haven't really ever lived. If you think that just because some guy on the web makes fun of a game you like or gives it a bad score is something to get legitimately upset over, then your world view is pitifully small.

There are people being shelled by tanks in Syria. In Libya, soldiers are, by order, raping dissidents and opponents of Gaddafi. There are hundreds of thousands of people dying ever year around the world because they can't get an easily produced vaccine. Gays have been BURIED UP TILL THEIR WAISTS AND STONED TO DEATH IN IRAN. Soldiers and Afghan civilians are being killed every day in Afghanistan.

If you choose to channel your rage and angst and emotions into a discussion on what score a reviewer gave to a video game.... what kind of a life are you living. Can it be called a life? Think about that for a second. Really.

Quoted for truth.

I have to agree with this but the fact of the matter is most of this is all political discussion that the forum has categories for. Sure people do make big things out of nothing but that's nowhere near a new concept.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The Silver Sword/Steel Sword thing was pointless. It wasn't like there was ever a question as to which would be effective in a given situation. Humans & Humanlikes - Steel, Monsters - Silver. It didn't add tactical depth, it was just annoying.

It was lore from the novels. In the novels monsters are damaged properly with silver and humans with steel.

Yea but how many have read the books? The context is gone from the game if you haven't read the books. It wasn't like that in the first game so why add it now? What works with books might not work with a game.

Actually it was exactly like that in the first game.

Then the game is poorly ported over to a video game. It's a fan game for fans of a book in a world of video game fans.

and why doesn't Legolas have a machine gun ! he could kill way more Orcs if he had a machine gun !

.................. Because it doesn't fit with the Lord of the Rings. You can have one sword and it would fit in the Witcher.

No, it wouldn't, because the Witcher is adapted from a series of books. It wouldn't fit into LotR to give Legolas javelins instead of a bow. This isn't because javelins don't fit into the world of Lord of the Rings, it's because Legolas didn't use them in the book.

 

[Luke Cartner]

The up coming mass effect 3 and dragon age II is why. Or to put it another way alot of games are being 'dumbed down', over simplified, made shallower or easier. DAO completely owned me at times, it was a deep rewarding experience. Dragon Age II on the over hand might as well played itself..

So to see games like Witcher 2 return to those values with a deep and challenging game play, a rich script, interesting characters and be a deep experience was both refreshing and encouraging.

Then for a reviewer who should actually know better (well not ZP, he criticizes for the stake of it now a days..) criticize the game for the deep challenging gameplay that actually made the witcher 2 a good game.
I follow escapist reviews because I believe the escapist is trying to encourage the game industry to turn out good games rather than just block busters.So coming across a review which penalized a game for being good and challenging, rather than the current side towards insipid games where you never die.
Well thats just depressing.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Let me be even blunter than I was: If you really think which football club you support matters AT ALL in the grand scheme of things, you haven't really ever lived. If you think that just because some guy on the web makes fun of a game you like or gives it a bad score is something to get legitimately upset over, then your world view is pitifully small.

There are people being shelled by tanks in Syria. In Libya, soldiers are, by order, raping dissidents and opponents of Gaddafi. There are hundreds of thousands of people dying ever year around the world because they can't get an easily produced vaccine. Gays have been BURIED UP TILL THEIR WAISTS AND STONED TO DEATH IN IRAN. Soldiers and Afghan civilians are being killed every day in Afghanistan.

If you choose to channel your rage and angst and emotions into a discussion on what score a reviewer gave to a video game.... what kind of a life are you living. Can it be called a life? Think about that for a second. Really.

Quoted for truth.

I have to agree with this but the fact of the matter is most of this is all political discussion that the forum has categories for. Sure people do make big things out of nothing but that's nowhere near a new concept.

If we can't bring serious issues into gaming discussion than that just encourages the whole "divorced from reality" tribal mindset that Korolev is talking about.

 

[dbdanny]

I liked it,yes it's hard but some games are hard,there's nothing wrong with that.
A couple of hours into the game when you get better armor,health upgrades and QUEN sign upgrades it becomes much easier anyway.

Yahtzee didn't like it because he didn't have fun,i did,neither one of us is more right than the other,end of story.

 

[SpecklePattern]

Reason is usually not in the fan base, but the fans which actually responds to the criticism one gives them. The fan who actually get angry to anyone, who says anything bad about that particular game, have adjusted their thoughts to something and they rather fight about this thought than change it or just ignore the other peoples comments. Usually people just start to argue about opinions, which is pointless to begin with if there is no proper discussion. And usually difference between discussion and defending is when people start to slander each other, which just escalates the situation to begin with. I.e. there is great difference between, just for example, the message of synobal (not trying to be unpolite here dude) above

Well the ZP review was inaccurate and whiny. Mostly though I defend it because I think it's a genuinely good game and doesn't suffer from most the afflictions that are coming to the RPG genre lately. Just take a look at DA2 to see what I mean.

and a message which would be polite and filled with the same information

Well the ZP was one sided again, I think. Perhaps the RPG is not the thing for ZP. I actually like this game and I really think it presents most of the better components of a modern RPG. Right now, I can not even name a game, which would have been as good as W2.

I am not saying that people should just mellow out on everything, but generally it's just how people present their thoughts. Not all gamers and fans do that (this instant rage/defend), but the ones who do, might stamp the label for someone. Like in this case for W2 and for the original poster.

 

[LordRoyal]

(well not ZP, he criticizes for the stake of it now a days..)

I always thought thats what he always did

 

[Kahunaburger]

To the OP:


People get so defensive because, on a certain level, people want to like the game too much, to the point of overlooking its obvious faults. The reason for this is, in a world of faceless AAA companies doing rushjobs, CDProjekt have, with limited resources pull off a game that is by and large able to compete with every major title out there. Couple that with the fact that they have genuine costumer support ( Would Ubisoft, EA or activision simply disable securom completely just because it messed with the stability of the game?), listen to the fanbase.

This is what, IMO, makes the game so endearing, or makes people so overeager to overlook the fact that it doesn't control all too well, or that it could have benefited from a bit more playtesting.

True dat. Same thing for a lot of games for me, honestly - I'm willing to forgive Minecraft its bugginess, Prince of Persia its combat, and Psychonauts its meat circus because I like the games as a whole so much. I'd personally rather have something that is really good with a few glaring problems than something that is bland and well-polished.

 

[predatorpulse7]

The Silver Sword/Steel Sword thing was pointless. It wasn't like there was ever a question as to which would be effective in a given situation. Humans & Humanlikes - Steel, Monsters - Silver. It didn't add tactical depth, it was just annoying.

See, this is why witcher fans(read pc elitists if you wanna go down that route) get annoyed, because of so much ignorance about the game you are bitching about.

When you play witcher,you get its lore, which clearly states that silver doesn't do s**t against humans(most wear armor)but because of magical properties, is very effective against monsters.

I haven't read a single witcher book and I know this from the first game.

Likewise with the freaking potions and the "why can't I use potions during combat waahhhhh!!!".

The witcher prepares BEFORE combat.

Of course the gamers then say "but how do I know when to prepare?". Gee, I don't know, maybe when you go outside the walls, into the forest or a freaking cave. And even the word "preparation" makes it sound like you are working on freaking spreadsheet or something. You just chug a couple of potions and coat your blade with oil. Those effects last anywhere from 3-10 minutes but you have a buttload of potions anyway and they aren't expensive to make since ingredients are lying everywhere.

To conclude, I think the fans of this game get defensive because they see so much ignorance about it and a lazy ass attitude. True, some defend it just cause it is on PC, but I am not one of those. I recognize terrific games no matter the platform they come on and right now the witcher has a AVERAGE score of 8.8 on metacritic from 832 fan reviews so most people that played it though very highly of it.

Funny how that works when you have a game with

-clunky combat
-bad tutorial(this I agree on actually)
-sucky inventory.
-weird lore(no potions in combat, two swords?!)

at least when you listen to some of the people on this forum.

 

[teebeeohh]

because the CDproject likes us. they give us free DLC, no DRM and such. of course your average "iwantmycodtoworkwheniputthediscinxbox" console user doesn't think that far and keeps buying 15? map packs. The next we know intellectuals will be shot for being anti-fun or something.

 

[Corekrash]

My first thought (And really only thought when a question like this comes around) Is that people who genuinely like something, when it is negatively criticized, will generally get defensive. I don't like Witcher 2 so I don't care, but if someone shared with me their opinion against something I did enjoy I too would be defensive of it (Though I like to think I do so with a sense of dignity and intelligence, not simply calling them crude names and accusing them of being too stupid / incapable of wrapping their thick heads around whatever they aren't agreeing with me about)

 

[zinho73]

I can kind of see why.....Witcher 2 requires thought and trail/error not to many games like that anymore...

And, apparently, not too many reviewrs aprove that either.

Seriously, the game is not that difficult or obscure. I understand the criticisms, but I think some critics are just overreacting about small things.

Zero Punctuation doesn't really count. The guy is funny and I love to watch his videos, but he sometimes goes out of his way to make jokes and looks "cool". A lot of games are simply not as bad as he makes them.

 

[Gametek]

Why do I mention this? Because the same people who cry about Dragon Age II being casual defend The Witcher 2, and I cannot even begin to understand that. When you compare the first game to the second, Assassin Of Kings has been "dumbed down", consolized, in almost every aspect. Its ridiculous. I am not saying the first is the better or whatever, but how anyone can moan about dumbed down games and obvious console ports while praising The Witcher 2.... I cannot comprehend it. Ironically, the same people probably failed at playing the first Witcher because it was to hard.

The story on Assassin as good as in the first instance of the game. The graphic is whole heartly made to enanch to a crazy point the aesthetic of the game. The quantity of weapon, armor, and game mechanism have being increased. They don't let you anymore drink in a fight. The only thing that they dumped down was the chaining our slash from the first witcher. And monster hit way harder then on the first game, believe me. Never needed to dodge/parry to complete the game. Hell, I don't even remember if I could dodge!

How this is dumping down, I fail to understand.

 

[Bran1470]

because that shit sucked

 

[Bardikus]

I found the witcher 2 the shittiest ,full of bugs,packed with bad combat mechanics and bad lip sync,all straped to an endless text of information and death-boring dialogs game.
But atmoshpere,actual morality choices(not the same bioware type of dialogs where every choice has a beneficial ending via the the good or the bad side that you have chosen,hell you can even,die in this game if you decide to take some paths in dialogs),and the best developed main character i have seen in a while will bring,in my opinion,at least 1 award to this game this year. I know my logic doesn't really make sense,but i guess it is just like those sort of things that you know they are bad,yet you like them cause you they have that inner spark that makes them unique and beautiful.

p.s: not a fanboy,i haven't even played the witcher 1,and i'll most probably never will,but the witcher 2 is like a mouth of fresh air in terms of innovation and originality in gaming these days,where pretty much everything else is a sequel or a copy pasta mechanics from another game.

 

[Ren3004]

Because they're insecure and feel the need to dismiss any criticism of their game as the reviewer's bias, or bribes, or people just not getting it.

Guys, it's a game. You're supposed to have fun with it. Different people like different things. Just because you like the game enough to see past its flaws, doesn't mean that other people are. Reviewers aren't supposed to review things for you specifically, they're supposed to say if the game appeals to the average audience. Similarly, developers aren't making games for YOU, they're making games for a broad audience. Making deep, complex, long games, with rich storylines, awesome graphics, top-notch music is great, but ultimately if only a handful of people buy the game, the company is losing money. And then they won't make any more games. So please, stop considering not making a game exactly how you'd want a personal insult.

So please, if you like a game, don't let someone else's opinion drive you crazy. Especially when that someone is a reviewer who is known for dissing every single game, isn't a big RPG fan in the first place, and just likes straight-forward, mindless, simple, bloody fun.

 

[TheHardcase]

Maybe I'm just an overly critical twat who can't have any fun, but I've never played a game that I couldn't come up with at least one criticism towards. This is what leads me to not really care when Yahtzee tears apart a game I've loved, because it's not like I'm sitting there playing it and thinking it's perfect. Frankly, I haven't played The Witcher 2, so I don't know much about it. My brother's been playing it while I was in the same room, and it really does sound like you have to learn a lot of shit for yourself. This didn't stop him from enjoying it, and I think if you're like that then congratulations on finding a game you love, we all hope to find that one day. That doesn't mean you get to claim it's perfect; it isn't. The fact that Yahtzee has ALWAYS exaggerated the negative elements of a specific game is just his thing. If you honestly don't like the way he critiques, then why the bloody hell are you watching him?

This reminds me of Isaac Hayes leaving South Park when they insulted Scientology. Sure, I bet all you Witcher 2 fans laughed at his attacks on those puny mortal console games, even though I can guarantee he's been misleading before, but now that he's attacked YOUR game? YOUR GAME?!?!?! Yahthzee, you blundering buffoon, you can't possibly do THE EXACT SAME THING YOU'VE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS to my precious game!