[Castledoque]

OK, this has probably been discussed elsewhere, but since I haven't been able to find the related posts in the forum, I might as well ask here. What happened to Iorveth's animations when he talks with Geralt in ACT 1? In previous versions of the game Iorveth gnashes his teeth when Geralt tells him of Letho's betrayal and before amnushing Letho, Iorveth sort of threatens Geralt to not dare betray him and while doing so gets really close to him face to face in order to intimidate him. When I saw these particular animations in The Witcher 2 I was really awed, because they brought the character to life and felt incredibly natural. It was just something that I didn't expect to see in a video game. However from what I've heard and seen in Youtube videos they both seem to have been removed in the Enhanced Edition. Does anyone know why? Has CDPROJECT explained this removal? Were they somehow not satisfied with these sequences? It hardly seems to be an improvement, quite the contrary actually. I am sure the scenes look fine for someone who hasn't seen the original animations, but for whoever has seen them, I can't see how this can look as anything else than a major step backwards in terms of character and game presentation.

[▫ Dona ▫]

You are 100% right. We briefly discussed it in Screenshots thread. I noticed these changes too and, frankly, it disappointed me a lot... probably more than it should have. Just like you, I found those scenes pretty awesome, even surprising, and it went with his flamboyant act. Now he's just... tranquillised and almost boring. I have no words.

Never forget :[

[siklara]

I'm with you as well, I really miss these animations and there was no official explanation about their removal.


(I just copied these here, so people know what we're talking about)

Lemme just quote myself from yesterday because I'm lazy to pharaphrase my opinion:
"Iorveth showed more emotion than most NPCs and now that they cut some of his best and most characteristic moments for no reason, he's become - and I hate to write this - more average and a lot less surprising. I still love him and all, it's just that he used to give me mini-heart attacks with his unexpected reactions the first time I played the game. Why CDPR, WHY"

[227]

They made a lot of little changes like that. The dialogue after killing the Kayran is slightly changed, too. (Super late edit: I'm not sure this is true. I think I may have just forgot how that dialogue goes, for whatever reason.)

Maybe they were trying to make Iorveth less appealing on purpose since a lot of people chose his path for a first playthrough? Crazy theory, but you never know. Anyway, in the absence of an official explanation I'm going to assume that all of CDPR went out to celebrate MM360's fairly recent birthday, got wasted, and changed a bunch of stuff in the game for the EE. Some people drunk dial ex girlfriends, some people change character animations.

Kind of strange that they changed this animation, yet Geralt's arm still clips inside of Aryan/Odrin when he's carrying them.

[Castledoque]

These particular changes hardly qualify as "little" changes. I distinctly remember I almost applauded when I first saw the second animation. It was little things like that that made the game feel like the next generation in computer graphics and animation. I don't know about the other little changes, but as far as these ones go the Enhanced Edition feels more like an Unenhanced Edition. The new Intro sequence and the Epilogue are really nice (especially the Epilogue, and thankfully the only thing I could use my old saves for was to see the epilogue), but they are not seamlessly integrated into the gameplay as little scenes like those were. I mean I have seen great CGI scenes like the intro-outro sequence in other games before, but I had never seen anything as detailed like those little in-game animations before. I just don't get the reasoning. How could anyone possibly think this to be an improvement in any way? I feel really really disappointed about this. I never cared much for the extremely action based combat either, but at least I can understand its "necessity", since that seems to be the trend for modern RPGs and most people seem to prefer it like that. But this?... Please don't tell me there are actually people who think the game better off with these particular changes...

Seriously if all the other changes are equally "inspired" i'm really beginning to flirt with the idea of trying just one playthrough with the new Enhanced Edition and then downgrading to the 2.0 version of the game for any future playthoughs.

[Random drowner]

Feel free to comment and explain your change Cdproject.

[Monimonster]

I know I noticed this too:( It bugs me they removed them. For me the animations before the EE will always be the "right" once. I dont like that they made him completely stoic. Removing them was not an improvement!

[GODzilla]

Mhm...maybe this is a console-problem (ported over to pc with the EE) after all. I remember the discussion in the Bioware Social Network forums about the missing feature / animation for weapon holster / unholster. Bioware claims it's a memory issue. But not system memory, but memory reserved for animations, which obviously has very small limits.

I admit I don't understand the technical limitations, but I guess I trust what they said. So maybe CDPR ran into the very same problem with the console version of TW2.

And we're now in the unlucky position to not only getting all of the good stuff of the EE, but also a few things of the bad stuff...


PS: It's rather funny though...with the original release version, not only did I not play with CinematicDOF enabled, I also chose Roches path instead of Iorveths.

And now people are telling me CDPR made changes to both of these...changes I cannot acknowledge, since I've never seen the originals. Sometimes ignorance can be bliss. *g*

[Seboist]

I noticed a lot of issues like this on my two EE runs. There's also the issue of Siegfried not saying "I know those cuts" as he approaches Roche and Geralt with his men to recover Anais.

[CreeperX]

Okay that's disappointing . I especially loved that scene where he just suddenly invaded Geralt's personal space by practically snarling right at his face. It made me jump like "Woah woah woah, easy!"
Little things like that can feel meaningless to some but they add so much to the characters.
Totally saved Dona's gif in case I'll not see that scene again in my game. (Still haven't played so far cause I just yesterday got the EE to work.)

[KnightofPhoenix]

I could almost swear that Iorveth gnashed his teeth in my playthrough. But the threatening part, yes it was removed and I did find it weird. It was awesome when he did it.

[riselka]

Thank you for the piccies and yes I miss the animation too

[▫ Dona ▫]

KnightofPhoenix said:

I could almost swear that Iorveth gnashed his teeth in my playthrough. But the threatening part, yes it was removed and I did find it weird. It was awesome when he did it. ›››

Sadly, he doesn't. He just hangs his head now and makes a sad face. Not NEARLY as powerful as the teeth gnash upon realisation that, you know, his best warrior is alive after all and that he sacrificed his entire unit for Iorveth :/ The head hang is more like "oh, how unfortunate".

On the tiny, tiny upside, he now gives Geralt a dumb smile after Letho fight, when Geralt says "I forgot what kind of warriors you are". Iorveth, you troll.

[ThorinO]

Castledoque said:

These particular changes hardly qualify as "little" changes. I distinctly remember I almost applauded when I first saw the second animation. It was little things like that that made the game feel like the next generation in computer graphics and animation. I don't know about the other little changes, but as far as these ones go the Enhanced Edition feels more like an Unenhanced Edition. The new Intro sequence and the Epilogue are really nice (especially the Epilogue, and thankfully the only thing I could use my old saves for was to see the epilogue), but they are not seamlessly integrated into the gameplay as little scenes like those were. I mean I have seen great CGI scenes like the intro-outro sequence in other games before, but I had never seen anything as detailed like those little in-game animations before. I just don't get the reasoning. How could anyone possibly think this to be an improvement in any way? I feel really really disappointed about this. I never cared much for the extremely action based combat either, but at least I can understand its "necessity", since that seems to be the trend for modern RPGs and most people seem to prefer it like that. But this?... Please don't tell me there are actually people who think the game better off with these particular changes...

Seriously if all the other changes are equally "inspired" i'm really beginning to flirt with the idea of trying just one playthrough with the new Enhanced Edition and then downgrading to the 2.0 version of the game for any future playthoughs. ›››

Yeah, why on earth did they do that? You hear us CDPR? What you you thinking?