Cav's Place

Today marks 25 years since the Hubble Space Telescope, arguably our best eye in the sky, was launched. Whether it’ll still be operational for its 30th anniversary is unknown at the moment, especially since it can’t be serviced anymore after the United States gave up on the space shuttles without having any sort of replacement ready, but let us hope it’ll at least last until its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will become operational, though it’d of course be even better if they could work together, at least for a while.
The Hubble’s long years of service started particularly poorly, with years of delays, costs that exceeded the initial estimates several times over and a flawed mirror that initially made it next to useless, but thanks to the fact that it was built to be serviced, the flaw could finally be fixed a few years later and the Hubble could truly make history, as it continues to do even now. Which, I guess, proves that, at least sometimes, what starts poorly doesn’t necessarily have to end even worse. More importantly, however, it proves that things need to be built to last, which sadly very few are anymore, and also, if at all possible, to be repaired, which the major space telescopes currently planned to be launched in the foreseeable future unfortunately won’t be.
But that’s another issue. At the moment, I’m only writing this brief post to honor the Hubble and the people who imagined, designed, built, maintained and made proper use of it over all these years. It and they have not only found answers to important questions both old and new and, as it’s usually the case, replaced some of them with even more interesting and intriguing ones, but also inspired people and popularized space exploration and sciences, reminding people of the wonders of our universe and, perhaps, to some extent, of our place in it. Which, at a time when we as a species are too busy stumbling and looking at our feet to even lift our eyes to the sky anymore, is at least as important.

I started playing this game in June 2013 and then abandoned it later that same month, after doing pretty much what I could do without really advancing the story much in chapter two, the attempts to pick it back up over the following two months ending very quickly, after only some grinding. Eventually continued in October 2014, once again temporarily abandoned it later that same month, but this time I did manage to get myself to pick it back up the next and more or less kept playing until I finally finished it this February, with the included adventures also finished in March.
Based on that, you may be inclined to believe that it failed to grab my attention, at least in the early parts, but that’d be completely wrong. Closer to the truth would be to say that it rather drove me away despite all of its good parts and I had to make an effort of will to force myself to continue in face of the one issue that triggered unpleasant and undesirable reactions in me. And that issue is not one of the few rather clear problems the game has, as I found those quite easy to overlook when compared to its many positive aspects, but rather because the developers achieved one of their stated goals perhaps too well. As such, what bothered me to such an extent is something that others appreciated, perhaps even more than any other aspect of the game.

But let’s step back from that for the moment and get to what I actually liked, starting with the fact that The Witcher is so obviously a labor of love. It’s also a good game, of course, and that’s what the rest of this review will focus on, but if you read the books and know the story, characters and lore, you’ll see so many little, or at times not so little, moments and elements in a somewhat different, more complex and, more often than not, overall better way. This doesn’t mean you can’t play it without knowing the background from other sources, because great care has been taken to ensure that’s not the case, but simply that there’s significant added value if you do, and that these elements were implemented in a way that makes it clear the developers were fans of the books and did their best to do them justice.
This obviously also helps the atmosphere and the feeling that you’re part of a living, breathing, believable world, but prior knowledge is once again not exactly necessary, the game itself doing a good enough job even on its own, despite limitations due to the engine, possibly the available hardware, and definitely the team’s size and experience at the time. The nice dialogues and decent implementation of NPC schedules also aid in this, along with the books and journal entries which, while shorter and more utilitarian than what can be found in the most memorable games from this point of view, you will actually want to seek out for both information and benefits, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and you will end up caring about the consequences of your actions not merely in terms of which will do more to aid your progress but also of how they’ll affect certain characters and events for their own sake.
On that topic, I must also say that the story shows proper planning and tackles real and important issues in a relatively mature way, putting before the player moral choices that are far from black and white, at times the decision regarding which may be the slightly lesser evil being uncomfortably difficult. Some of the consequences of those choices could have been handled better, however, considering that they can at times be particularly significant and only become apparent much later, but later is also when I’ll get to that. For now, I’ll say The Witcher is a notable example of implementing this concept at a time when it was noticeably less popular and developed in games than it is now, several years later.

But I wrote a fair amount and didn’t even mention the combat, which makes up a large part of the game and is quite enjoyable and fluid, at least once you figure out how it works and Geralt gains a few useful skills. Some kill moves, especially those usually performed on people, are too long and leave you exposed when fighting multiple opponents and it may at times be somewhat difficult to continue attacking the same single enemy when surrounded and using the over-the-shoulder camera, but for the most part, and regardless of the chosen style, the combat simply flows with a smoothness that’s very rarely seen in games, and it does so thanks to the character’s skills, without making it too difficult for the player.
In addition, the enemies are varied and actually different, requiring tactics you’ll want to learn before facing them, as Geralt’s skills won’t do much good if you, the player, won’t know which ones to use or how in any given situation. This adds another layer of realism and makes it feel that you actually need to prepare for a fair number of fights, including the first few with just about any type of enemy, as even opponents that would otherwise be easy can cause trouble if your approach is particularly careless or simply wrong, while those meant to be difficult tend to become impossible without the correct tactics, and at times also potions or various other items. Which, at least in my view, is exactly how it should be.

Despite all of that, however, I was saying I repeatedly had to force myself to continue, initially requiring a long time to be able to do so. The reason for that? Just those choices and consequences I was mentioning above and the fact that a fair number of times the only way to find the right solution, or even simply the order you need to do some quests or phases in for best results, is to make a lucky guess, possibly even before being made aware of any need to do so. That made me feel that whenever I did one thing I was likely to break three others and won’t even realize it before it’ll be too late.
Now I appreciate it when choices require careful thought and consequences are significant, long-term and at times even undesirable, but with the way I play, and in fact with the way I am, I need ways to do things right and to fix what I see as wrong, and obviously also need to be aware of the need to do so in time. When that’s not available or what is available is insufficient, it goes past frustration and turns into a feeling of powerlessness and an actual fear of advancing or deciding anything, which is something I’m all too familiar with on a daily basis and most definitely don’t want to experience while playing games as well. As I was saying, others have embraced this completely, but for me it’s a terrible aspect of the realism which I have otherwise appreciated in this game and was very close to making it unplayable from my point of view.
And in the above paragraph I wasn’t referring to the times when things don’t work as intended, mind you, because sadly the game still has quite a number of bugs. Many are only nuisances, if they’re triggered at all, but a few may be major and require the player to know how to avoid them ahead of time. In addition, there are also some purely technical problems, possibly due to a memory leak, since they’re more likely to occur the longer you play. These usually result in crashes, especially while saving, which in that case will destroy the old save game as well if you were overwriting, but a couple of times the game even caused my computer to freeze. The first time I eventually resorted to the reset button, though after that I found that there was a way, albeit a rather tricky one, to end the process even in that situation.

If you can get past that, the other issues are minor and relatively easy to overlook when compared to the game’s many positive aspects. Still, the terribly limited inventory, especially when it comes to weapons, remains a nuisance throughout and will be the cause of many boring trips after fights in places where items on the ground don’t vanish as soon as you leave the area if you have a need to sell everything you can, as I do. Also, the fact that you can only customize the functions of the two main mouse buttons severely restricts what you can do with the mouse unless you have one that supports multiple profiles and binding key presses to buttons. And, while this may seem like a very little thing, it can be an issue that there are a few cases where a dialogue path changes following certain events but the starting point remains the same, in which case if you had already tried it it’ll stay grayed out, not letting you know there’s anything new there.
Otherwise, the dice poker is poorly done, leaving little room for anything but blind luck, and at the same time causes the video card to heat up significantly more than when doing anything else in the game. Also, the voice acting, while decent, could be better and has jarring differences in some spots, likely for lines that were changed in the Enhanced Edition. And it can be annoying that one fist fighter doesn’t move from the center of the arena, forcing you to get around him every time you fight, or even that it rains so often and yet some NPCs always say it hasn’t rained hard in a while. And, if I may, I’d also like to mention that I was rather put off by the idea of the sex cards and annoyed by how two particular choices are connected and by the fact that a certain outstanding bit of pillow talk originally between Geralt and Yennefer was pulled straight out of Time of Contempt and implemented in the game, in a different location and situation and with someone else taking Yennefer’s place.

Since I’m reviewing this particular edition of the game, before moving on to the conclusions I should also mention the included additional adventures, obviously starting with the official ones, which are both quite short but can be seen as canon and would have almost certainly been paid DLC if the game would have been released by bigger studios. Of the two, Side Effects seems like the better one overall, likely due to the areas and characters included, though it’s nasty that the different paths and quests aren’t clear and you don’t know what you might have done. The Price of Neutrality seems to have less actual content and its duration is somewhat artificially extended by needing to cross the river only in certain spots.
Then there are two others made by Ifrit Creative Group, and they both show a fair amount of thinking outside the box. Wedding is definitely different, weird and hilarious, but I’d rather dwell more on Merry Witchmas, which truly is a great piece of work. It has a few small issues, but overall it features a fair amount of content and shows a lot of effort, care and creativity, including custom assets. It’s also interesting to notice all the included references, though they and the particular type of creativity and humor used do hurt it a bit in my view when it’s at such a high level otherwise, as I’d call it outstanding if it’d feel more natural and fit better in the game world. Others may appreciate it even more just for these reasons, however.
Of the remaining three, Damn Those Swamps! barely deserves mentioning, being very amateurish, extremely short and featuring extremely little content. Deceit tries to be more, though it seems to go through a checklist of elements to include in order to do so, but it has writing issues and is a buggy mess, requiring me to download an updated version to even be able to finish it. Wraiths of Quiet Hamlet, on the other hand, is very nicely done and feels quite natural. There are a couple of notable bugs, one with a fist fighter and the other being that everything goes in satchels and nothing in alchemy bags, but I liked what they did with NPC schedules, all the details like house gnomes or blue smoke, the way the sexual encounter was implemented, and of course the ending, when everything is put together and you’re presented with the results of your actions and choices.

To conclude, if you like RPGs, games with a good atmosphere and a fair degree of realism, smooth, flowing combat and some thinking, including about deeper issues, alongside your action, while at the same time being able to handle some technical issues and making decisions without knowing exactly what the outcome will be and being unable to do everything just right or at least fix everything that didn’t work out properly on the first try, you will most definitely enjoy The Witcher Enhanced Edition. Having read and enjoyed the books is obviously a bonus in most cases, but it’s not necessary, and I did also see a few people saying they were bothered by the fact that a story with a clear end was continued in such a manner.
If, however, you’re like me and get yourself worked up when none of the available choices seems quite acceptable or, far worse, when you can’t know exactly what the consequences will be and, unless you use a guide, at times won’t learn until it’ll be too late, you will definitely be torn about this game. On the one hand, it’s extraordinary in so many ways and, as I was saying above, it gets even better if you enjoy the books as well, but on the other it will cause you to feel frustrated, powerless and even quite afraid of advancing even if you can understand and, to some extent, appreciate why it does so, which is most definitely not what you want from a game. Still, the good outweighs the bad even so, but it requires an effort of will which may be too much at certain times and under certain circumstances, depending on your state of mind.

As for the additional adventures, it’s nice that they’re included and, in most cases, they’re quite enjoyable. If you want, you can look for others as well or, if you’re willing to spend the time and effort, even make your own using the included editor, though if you haven’t already it may be too late to start now. In addition, while I for one did not, you may even look for and apply mods which will alter and possibly enhance the experience of the actual game as well, some even being recognized by the developers as particularly useful. Just make sure that, whatever you do, you save often enough and preferably in different slots, and taking the recommended breaks while playing and actually quitting the game while doing so definitely helps in more ways than one…

Friday I finally got around to running on the track the first time, also noticing that it’s not actually on the National Arena, but next to it. Had probably seen a picture or two which should have made that clear before, but it simply made no sense to me, so I just assumed the images were wrong or had been taken while the stadium was still under construction for some reason, and then I did the exact same thing when I looked it up again just before leaving, but fortunately it’s close to the street and before the main entrance leading to the stadium, as I walk there, so I saw it and realized the pictures weren’t wrong before getting myself in an awkward situation. Still walked to that main entrance first, but didn’t actually use it to enter, instead turning back and using the one before it, eventually finding the way to enter the track itself in between two buildings on that side.
Either way, I went there thinking I’ll do a minimum of five laps, as that’d mean two kilometers and Google Maps says my previous run had 1.9 kilometers. The main target, however, was eight laps, which would be equal to the 3.2 kilometers of a lap around the lake, which was the initial goal when I started seriously thinking of running, before knowing of the track being public again, while ten laps, or four kilometers, was sort of an upper limit, something I may try to get to if I’ll still feel all right after eight.
Well, I ran ten laps with no issues, in a total time of 25:25. The target was still three minutes per lap, as 8 km/h is supposedly the optimum running speed for maximum benefits, but I couldn’t get myself to slow down that much. In fact, I finished the first lap in 2:20, after which I said that’s too fast and did the rest in about 2:35, with a few in about 2:30 and one, when I was asked to get off the first lane and hadn’t yet adjusted my speed to the slightly longer distance I had to cover on lane two, in 2:40. It was actually oddly easy, since I was quite winded towards the end of the 1.9 kilometers covered in the park, but it may be a question of level difference even around the lake, different pavement and probably also the fact that I had to run against a quite strong wind at least the last third of the way that time while on the track it was alternating quickly, one straight placing me against the wind and the other with my back towards it.
The only small issue was that a few who were racing just about crashed into me at the end of a lap, just before that other person came to ask me to clear the first lane. It actually took me several seconds to understand what that was about, by which time I was some distance away from him, but at that moment I also understood why no other joggers were using that lane and that a simple rule that was generally being followed was that each runner picked a lane according to the speed they intended to have, with the first for racing, second for overtaking and otherwise perhaps decided according to whether there are more racers or more joggers, third for a moderate pace, fourth for slow jogging and fifth, which only exists on the start/finish straight, for walking, cooling off after a run. Judging by the pace of the others and the low number of racers, I could hold lane two with no problems after that, as I was passing everyone but those few who were clearly aiming for speed.
Now I guess I’ll be going back this week, though I’m not yet sure exactly when. Today would have been a good day, but it’ll have to be either tomorrow or Friday. Since tomorrow I should also go buy a few things, if I’m to use the track it’ll have to be after that, so unless I’ll go quite early, to be back by 3 PM or so, I’ll have to wait until 8 PM, since I understood that the track’s used for training and therefore closed to the public between 10 AM and 12:30 PM and between 5 PM and 7:30 PM. Based on that, Friday may be a better idea, but the current forecast mentions stronger wind, so I’ll probably decide on the spot tomorrow, possibly also depending on whether I’ll be able to go pick up Blood of Tyrants then as well or not.

Otherwise, today marks seven years since I built this computer. As I was pointing out a year ago as well, out of the components still in use, only the motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, RAM, power supply and case are actually that old, with the video card turning six in two weeks, the DVD drive approaching four and the HDDs and case fans having turned only two in February. The TV tuner, of course, is about ten and a half and the most serious issue when it comes to my plans of ordering another computer in a few weeks, as I don’t know whether new motherboards still have an Aux or CD In port for its audio cable.
As for that, the plan is still to start asking around for details these days, though I’m still not sure whether I’ll send the first messages this week or wait until Monday, and hope to have that new computer in early May, or more specifically between May 4 and 7. The motherboard is still something of an issue, both for the reason I specified above, having to do with the TV tuner, and because I’m not sure whether it’s worth going for a better one or a cheap one that will just meet some basic requirements will be sufficient. And then, of course, there’s the matter of a legal OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, which seems to appear in stock for no more than a few days every so often, and of a decent case that’s not black, too dark or some weird color or shape and actually has the frontal USB ports in front and not on top, and the only one which was available earlier this year and I had considered all right, and even that grudgingly, is now no longer available anywhere either.
Based on that, I really should start asking as soon as possible, because it may be quite late already, if I’m to stick to that schedule. But I sure am scared of the prospect, especially since I may end up out of options on two or even all three issues I mentioned above… And it also feels quite weird and embarrassing to get everything from one place and ask for it to be put together as well instead of doing it myself, but I guess it has to be done this way this time, though I’m not sure even this will work the way I want it to. In fact, things would be simpler, not to mention cheaper, if it won’t, and it won’t be any problem for me, but it will be one for dad and I’d sure want to solve two issues at once, especially since I can’t think of any other way to solve his.

Strangely enough, though it otherwise correctly listed that it had one day left of the trial and continued to work, my G DATA Antivirus refused to update yesterday. Or, more exactly, it updated the last time Monday evening around 11:30 PM, an hour later reported that no updates were available, and after that it said my license was no longer valid, which I think it did three times before I noticed and set it to only update again after 23 more hours, which prompted it to try again five minutes later, with the same result. After that, since I didn’t change the settings again, it didn’t try to update again until I uninstalled it yesterday, shortly before midnight.
That seemed to go well enough, the actual uninstall process being over in seconds and not causing any issues. However, even after using the tool meant to clean up its traces in safe mode it still left some obvious ones, both in registry and on the HDD. The main ones were easy to remove manually, so I did that, leaving just the few registry entries that seemed to be services or drivers, which I don’t usually touch due to fearing that I may mess something up.
After that, Emsisoft Anti-Malware 9 installed truly flawlessly. No issues, fast, not requiring any information to start the trial, allowing me to decide how to scan the system the first time and hitting the ground running, without even requiring a reboot. Of course, I did reboot anyway, doing manual updates both before and after to be sure and then getting worried when, later during the night, it seemed unable to update for a while, probably because it was trying to upload something and I was getting concerned too soon and trying something else, but none of that seemed needed.
What was needed, and may still be, was looking for balanced settings, as initially I did what I usually do and selected some strict ones, which caused it to start blocking programs, the fact that I allowed it to look them up not seeming to make any difference. Fortunately, I apparently finished eating and came back to the computer just as it was blocking BOINC from starting another SETI@home work unit and could allow it fast enough to prevent errors, and after that I set some permissions and made a few changes to the settings that so far seem to work well enough. The only obvious issue left is that it seems to take a long time to check any site it’s not sure of when it’s first visited, but it learns quickly and in fact it only seemed to do it last night, so at this point I think it shouldn’t be a problem in the long term. The lack of a few options I’m used to may be, however.

Moving on, I must mention that today I finally finished copying all my old reviews from BookCrossing to Goodreads. There seemed to be 17 of them left after the batch I did over a year ago and, despite meaning to give up starting after the first five or so, I pushed myself to go through all of them today, doing my best to look for the actual editions I read and cleaning up the text a little before copying. And then I also sorted out a few issues regarding what I had listed as owned there, though I only figured out how to do that properly later and therefore did it by removing an edition and adding another, resulting in the review date being changed to today as well.
And yes, I also copied all of those 17 quick reviews here as well, preserving the original ratings and some personal notes that I removed from what I ended up posting on Goodreads. Also added today was the one for The Tale of the Body Thief, since it was on the same page and it made sense not to skip it after copying Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned and Memnoch the Devil, even though it had somehow been copied to Goodreads before. And I also decided to split His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War, which were in a single post so far.
Since I have 74 reviews on BookCrossing and, unless I’m missing something, had only copied ten of them here as well before today, there’s a lot more to do, and since I want to preserve parts I may have removed when copying there and also to check again and, if possible, do an even better job of identifying the exact editions read, it won’t exactly be quick and simple. Which, of course, also means I’m unlikely to want to continue anytime soon, but who knows. After all, it was very recently that I copied those read in May 2006, and the last statistics no longer appear to be in post 1000 anyway unless you check post numbers.

This time around, most of the action happens around Geralt rather than because of him, his contribution often being minor or even non-existent. However, this seems to offer the author even greater freedom, the result being a perhaps wider scope and worldbuilding, action, character development, adept social, political and environmental commentary, depictions of the horrors of war, and not only of war, and large amounts of comic relief all rolled into one, the biggest flaw perhaps being that the end result is too funny for its own good. Sure, this may make it easier to stomach for many, but I think a story that, in itself, is so dark and, frequently, deep could have done with taking itself more seriously.
Still, that and the fact that a few dialogs, particularly early on, don’t seem to flow quite right are the only things I can really say against this book and, even if I’d be inclined to try, maybe more because of a particular decision made in the last chapter than anything else, I can’t quite adequately justify not letting it be the first that I give a maximum rating to in a few years, and only the second in several, at least since it’s out of five. Perhaps not strictly for its own merits, but it builds upon the previous ones in the series, paves the road for the next, and I also read it after finally finishing The Witcher, so I could “see” and understand some things better.

Rating: 5/5