The Witcher is a computer role play game created by Polish developers CDprojekt.
You play the role of Geralt an already legendary monster-slayer, but this, my friend, is not a gift and is certainly not given lightly. The Witcher is an immense computer game. Within its realm, you will have to assume the burden of choice. And this burden of choice, as light as it may appear, is the very thing that will both permit you to wield influence over the fate of the world, as well as get you slain prematurely.
CD Projekt was established in 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński who run the company until now. They were the first to import entertainment software on CD-ROMs onto the Polish Market.
Since 1999 CD Projekt is the leading distributor of games and multimedia software in Poland supplying directly all major retail chains and independents. Currently (June 2005) the team of CD Projekt and its subsidiaries consists of over 60 professionals in the distribution/publishing business and over 20 in the development.
Geralt has the option to temporarily upgrade his weapons with the use of Oils and Whetstones or they can be up upgrade permanently with Meteorite fragments or rune stones.
When you have gained enough experience to level you will receive Talent points - Bronze, Silver and Gold talent points, these can then be spent on Skills.
You need to rest by a fire in order to spend talent points.
The easiet way to make potions is to buy or find recipes, you will also need to collect or buy ingredients and then rest in front of a fire. If you have the correct ingredients for recipes these will be highlighted on the left in the Alchemy Panel, Click on the potion name then mix.
You are also free to experiment and try your own potions aswell, these will be unknown potions until you try them out. **Beware some home made potions will cause you harm or have negative effects.**
OS:XP(with service pack 2) or Vista. Processor:Intel P4 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon +2800. Ram:1024Mb RAM for XP or 1536Mb RAM for Vista Video:128Mb Video RAM or greater with DirectX9 Shader/Pixel shader 2.0 support. (Nvidia GeForce 6600 or Ati 9800 or better) Free HD:8.5Gb available Hard Disk space Sound:Soundcard with speakers or headphones connected. DVD:DVD 8x drive.
Recomended Requirements:
OS:XP(with service pack 2) or Vista. Processor:Intel Core 2 duo or AMD equivalent. Ram:2048Mb RAM Video:256Mb Video RAM or greater with DirectX9 Shader/Pixel shader 2.0 support. (Nvidia GeForce 7900 or faster with 512Mb Video RAM) Free HD:8.5Gb available Hard Disk space Sound:Soundcard with speakers or headphones connected. DVD:DVD 8x drive.
The Game uses TAGES copy protection and has trouble running on some DVD drives and has a huge dislike for virtual drives and it's software.
Some of the DVD issues can be got around by double clicking the Autorun.exe found on the DVD disc, this does not work 100% but will start the game more often than not.
Everyone is able to participate in the open beta for Duel Mail. The only thing that you need is to be registered on the official forums. If you are not currently registered, head on over to thewitcher.com and sign up.
Please install the latest drivers for your graphic card, and for nVidia cards, uninstall 3D Vision.
If you are experiencing low efficiency, please make sure you have disabled UberSampling in the game's graphic configuration in the Launcher. If you have an nVidia graphics card, please update your driver to the 275.27 beta as of May 17th.
As for ATI users:
1)Install latest drivers ATI Hotfix.
2)DIsable anisotropic filter, antialiasing and adaptive antialiasing and Catalyst A.I.; this can be done in the CCC panel.
3)Try running the game in windowed mode.
4)For dual cards linked into crossfire, turn off one of the cards or use the Dirt 2 profile.
For NVIDIA users:
1)Disable Nvidia 3D options in NVCP.
AMD/ATI plans to release hotfix drivers dedicated to The Witcher 2. They will resolve problems with game's efficiency for crossfire users. This information will appear on: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/Catalyst-Hotfixes.aspx
Before combat drink potions like SWALLOW and GOLDEN ORIOLE or VIRGA. Immediately before combat cast QUEN sign which creates a shield around you. While fighting, if you're surrounded use ROLLING (double tap movement key) to move away; while you're dodging enemies can't hit you so you can roll-roll-roll and regenerate health. It's very important to stock up on bombs and traps as well. Bombs NEED NOT be aimed fully to be thrown at your oponents. It's enough to press the default key once while having a single target locked onto, release the key and Geralt will throw the bomb in enemy's general direction. Only use prolonged press (with targeting reticle on the ground) if enemies have not yet seen you.
Blocking requires VIGOR (the golden bar under your health bar). VIGOR is also used to cast signs. So if you've cast signs, you might be unable to block for a while. Use potions like LAPWING to overcome that deficiency and invest talents into Vigor Regeneration.
Instead of reading what they say note their position on-screen. Depending on your key configuration, an icon that will appear in mid-upper part of the screen denotes using a key that you use to move forward, an icon that appears to the right - a key used to move right, etc.. For WSAD users its simply enough to pay attention to the center of the screen and press matching W/S/A/D prompts depending on their position. If you have tweaked the keys to operate on e.g. direction arrows, your only hint is position as full text description of the button is not readable (and there's no arrow signs it seems).
First of all, you have to keep in mind that it's a tree, even if it's pointing down, right or left. So you have to begin investing at the very beginning paying attention to the branches. Higher tier skills can only be invested into if you have unlocked a path to them - leading via other, lower-based abilities. Alternatively, you might be in combat. Whilst in combat character skill investments may be disabled. Or, you have to invest talents into Training tree -- other trees will only unlock once you have spent at least SIX talents into the Training tree.
To drink potions you need to enter the so-called Meditation. To enter it, press and hold left CTRL button (by default), and in the radial menu click the mid-most icon. This will only work OUT OF COMBAT. Once in meditation enter either ALCHEMY (top) to brew potions, oils and bombs, or DRINK POTIONS (right) to drink the potions. Double-click or drag-n-drop the potions you need to the slots to the right, keeping poisoning bar (the one with skull) below full. If you exceed the limit, Geralt won't drink the potions. You can drink potions one by one or in a batch, however without specific investment into Alchemy tree you're limited to up to THREE potion effects running simultaneously. This means that you can either drink all three at once, or add them one by one or any combination thereof; you can't meditate to lose Toxicity while retaining potion effects though as the most potions last is 15 minutes! You also can't cheat the system by drinking one potion after another -- any potions previously drank that are still in effect will be blocking their slots until their effects have dissipated.
It's not. To use it, unlike other signs you have to press the button and keep it depressed until the thread linking you and the foe dissipates, indicating the foe has been charmed. Level of passive Axii ability (for the dialogue influence) is in no way connected to the offensive Sign use in combat.
Use DIRECTION (arrow) KEYS and not your mouse. Align the target so that Count Etcheverry's plumed helm is either in the middle of uppermost box (1 degree) or halfway between uppermost box and the next one (1.5 degrees). Don't use left button to fire, use spacebar instead.
That's normal. Unfortunately abilities like those seem to have only one level. So if you can, instead of using Axii sign in a dialogue, try some other persuasion method which will boost another skill that can be boosted.
You need to obtain a bomb called Grapeshot. It's the easiest bomb to make as it requires abundant ingredients. Recipe can be obtained from Cedric the Elf in Lobinden. There's also a passage that mentions what you need to use in your journal, provided you have read "Nekkers in the Mist" book (obtained from Einar Gausel in Flotsam).
Depending on the clues given by Thirteen, you either go: Map, Ham, Oar or Oar, Ham, Map. It doesn't matter where you hit any of the targets, and they're pretty easy to discern. Use your regular "use item" key to throw daggers.
Fight the Kayran by using YRDEN sign placed on ground beneath the tentacle that falls. Best way to do that is to look up at the tentacle and set the trap while the tentacle is heaving and heading towards the ground. Roll out at the last moment to avoid the greatest damage, trap will be visibly triggered and the tentacle will be pinned to the ground. Then just attack the YELLOWY BULB section of the tentacle a few times. During that time you can regenerate health or recast Quen sign or use an oil since the tentacle cannot free itself, and no further attacks will come while you have a tentacle trapped. You can even wait till full health regeneration without attacking. All in all you need to disable THREE tentacles before the QTE kicks in.
Only tentacles with YELLOWY BULBS on them can be trapped with YRDEN. Therefore the middle tentacle cannot be trapped, in fact trying to trap it will end badly.
Moving out of the tentacles reach will not help, as damage will be dealt anyway. ROLL or RUN parallel to the Kayran instead. If you get too far outside of the encounter zone, you will get trapped in green mucus. Simply right click rapidly to free yourself.
If you have trouble pinning the tentacles, there's a way to ease the burden. Talk to Cedric the elf about the kayran trap before going to Loredo's mansion for the first time (with Roche). There you'll be approached by a merchant who will hint at a Kayran trap piece kept in the inner yard of Loredo's estate. Use this piece (Iron frame) and procure the Kayran trap schematic from Cedric to create a trap. Said trap can be used during the Kayran encounter easily -- look for a yellow highlighted element on the ground to the left, then simply click on it to arm the trap. Trap will automatically catch the tentacle without need to use different tactics. This still leaves at least 2 other tentacles.
If you get instantly killed by poison spit, try finding out about OSTMURK potion from Triss when checking Kayran mucus. Use any FULGUR containing ingredient instead of OSTMURK will be enough, but the safest choice is actual Ostmurk located in the cave behind the waterfall. Beware of the greater Rotfiend in the cave. Consuming the potion will also grant you a passive increase in poison resistance (10%).
When picking up loot from dead Kayran check around the area. Chances are you'll find another loot bag containing the same items if your chance to double-loot is higher than zero. This way you'll be able to make Kayran armor and Kayran carapace reinforcements.
During the fight always pay attention to what Sile says. Usage of Yrden is essential no matter what tactic you choose.
Falling off the tentacle during the QTE is part of the QTE. Remember that you'll need to press the button for "evade" (Space by default).
It's simple - kill the Troll at the bridge after solving its quest. You'll both have the cake and eat it. If you can't attack him directly, talk to him and choose an option that you've changed your mind. This won't change anything in journal. In addition, you can still claim reward from Louis Merse in Flotsam (it's measly O50, but still).
There have been quite a few instances that involved entering the number zero (0); you should use the capital letter o (O). Also there have been cases where the number one (1), the lower-case letter el (l) and the capital letter eye (I) have been mixed up. Please try all possible permutations.
1)Please make sure that any antivirus software is disabled during the installation process.
2)It's possible that your DVD drive is not compatible with DVD9 standard. Please manually copy the files to your HDD and try to install the game from there, with antivirus software disabled.
3)If this doesn't work, please try and install the game on another machine - also trying to copy the files manually and disabling any antivirus software.
4)If the above does not help and the DVD disc is in fact damaged, please ask for a refund at the store where bought the game. If this is not satisfactory, please contact CDPR team at help2start@thewitcher.com 5)If you install the game by default using some localized version in the system that doesn't match that location (e.g. a Polish copy of the game on a non-Polish system), it can also help to reinstall the game in a folder that contains no diacritized or "odd" symbols, like "ź" for instance.
1)ATI users: Turn all settings to Application-Controlled in the Catalyst Control Center.
2)ATI users: Disable the second GPU from Crossfire configurations until ATI officially adds support for The Witcher 2 in Catalyst drivers.
3)Try running the game in windowed mode.
4)Run the game with horizontal resolution no higher than than 1920, and set the desktop to the same resolution as the game.
5)Ensure that the game was installed with administrator privileges - Windows UAC settings set to minimum or setup.exe from DVD opened with privileges.
UAC modification for VISTA/Win 7 Users:
Type in UAC, or go to the System and Security applet.
Click on the "Change User Account Control Settings" link.
(You can also type in this command from the Run menu: C:\Windows\System32\UserAccountControlSettings.exe)
To turn off UAC, move the slider to the Never Notify position, and then click OK. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
It's likely an issue with missing or out-of-date Visual C++ library component. You need to download and install the three packages in chronological order (2005-2008-2010):
The Witcher Vault
