Don’t Skip the Tutorial on Day 13 of #BlaugustReborn

Daily Ramble 15: Don’t Skip the Tutorial

Today I learned that it’s not a wise idea to pass up the tutorial in The Witcher since there are some really critical pieces of information that are imparted during the training. Stuff like the magic system and how to parry are kinda important. I also spent some time catching up on the #BlaugustReborn posts I didn’t read over the weekend. There’s so much good content out there that I hope people use this event as a starting point and keep going with all these great posts after the month is over.

The Witcher Tutorial

With my first attempt at starting to get into The Witcher 3 failing due to performance issues I headed to Google to figure out what to do. It turns out that this is the first game I’ve played on my current computer where I can’t just set the graphics to ‘Ultra’ and play. Nope…this game is extremely hungry when it comes to GPU and other resources and I’m not gonna be able to play at 4k. Dialing back the settings and turning off the Dynamic Hair, I can get things running and not have to deal with lag. There is still a random stuttering of the audio that happens every once in a while but I’m working on getting that figured out while I play.

But I didn’t count of the game having so much introduction before I even got to control anything. There is an initial cutscene and then another, and then another. And finally I get to make dialog choices and am introduced to the WASD keys for movement…pretty standard stuff. And then there’s more cutscenes. I mean, everything is rendered beautifully but I want to get into the game. So I skip the tutorial. I mean, what could they show me that I don’t already know about playing video games?

Turns out a bunch.

I go through another series of cutscenes and end up out on a hillside outside the castle. When I finally get control of my character, I’m attacked by half a dozen ghouls – not cool. I figure out dodge and attack and roll but I’m quickly overwhelmed and sent off to dreamland where I load from the last saved point.

Really? I’ve got 10 minutes of cutscenes to go to get back to the fight with the ghouls. Great.

So I go through things again…and again…and again.

I realize I need to go back and do the tutorial or lower the difficulty – I wanted to try the highest difficulty to see how I’d do – so far, without instruction I was managing to die really well.

Looks like I need to go through the tutorial and should probably pay more attention to all the cutscenes as well.

I’m still gonna try at the highest difficulty…for now.

StarShadow’s Tale of the Red Maid

I really love checking out blogs within Six Degrees of this one and with #BlaugustReborn going on there are so many places to go and cool things to read. One that I came across today was on StarShadow. Eldaeriel is taking part in the LOTRO challenge and in the 6th section of the challenge she posts about her project called The Tale of the Red Maid and it sounded like something I had to check out.

Wow – this is really cool! Tying a quest line in LOTRO together with screenshots arranged in comic format. Such a great idea!

I applaud the creativity and tenacity to put something like this together and perhaps I’ll borrow the idea someday considering how I enjoy both gaming and comics.

This is definitely a fun read.

Heading into The Witcher 3 On Day 11 of #BlaugustReborn