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When does a games developer earn your respect and admiration:


Bikerdude

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When they take the piss out of themselfs and their creation -

 

I was in stiches most of the time... with gems such as "Geralt:Run Roach, Roach:what the fuck do you think I'm doing" or "What's the deal when I whistle for you, you get stuck on the smallest of fences but can cross an ocean?"

 

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Currently running through Witcher 2 - haven´t played it yet, but then I am looking forward to this :)

 

I have seen this quest on youtube and I was laughing loudly (same way I was when I heard in a certain patch for a base game they deployed "bowine protecion force") - I have heard there are several (all?) quests in this datadisk (yes, this is datadisk) that are well written and downright funny - little red riding hood, girl with the matches from Hans Christian Andersen, quest with the bank, etc... :)

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The game is alright as a whole but the main narrative was slaughtered in comparisson to the books and previous games.

 

Spoilers:

 

10. The Politics of the Nilfgaard War needed to be better explained

I wrote an extensive essay on the politics of the Witcher 3 which did an analysis of what was the most likely series of events which led from Point A to Point B. Very little of that was spelled out, though, with large portions of the story just being glossed over. These range from curiosities like how King Henselt's forces ended up serving King Radovid to what is the deciding factor which leads to Nilfgaard's victory or defeat on the battlefield.
Given the way Game of Thrones lives and dies on describing the intricacies of politics, I don't think anyone would have been too upset to have an explanation for how Nilfgaard got to its current position, what the consensus is for the public to Nilfgaard's occupation, and what the war situation is.

9. Emperor Emhyr is a wasted character

Emhyr is one of the most important characters in the Witcher novels and he plays a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of things. Which is weird because there's a lot of interesting and crazy elements to his character which would have made for interesting storytelling. Geralt saved Emhyr from a curse, Geralt raised Emhyr's daughter, Emhyr wants to take over the world with Cirilla, Emhyr married Ciri's doppleganger, and he tried to kill Geralt as well as Yennefer many times in the past. You could argue these are things which wouldn't make sense to non-book fans but I see no reason why they couldn't have come up in side-quests.

Certainly, Fake Ciri and her relationship to the real one would have made a fascinating NPC.

8. King Radovid the Mad

I actually don't have that much of a problem with King Radovid's storyline. King Radovid hates mages, we know this from the "bad ending" of The Witcher 2. Phillipa Eilhart murdered Radovid's father and used him as a puppet while she ruled in his place. The Lodge assassinated Kings and committed numerous atrocities (which one might argue is character assassination for them). As for his pogroms against nonhumans, that's not even uncommon among Northerners after the events of the Second Nilfgaard War.

The thing is, being a genocidal murderous bigot doesn't necessarilly make you insane. Sad but true. It would have been interesting to portray Radovid as someone who holds repellant beliefs but is otherwise a perfectly sane individual. Making him Aerys the Second is a cheap storytelling device which diminishes the character and comes from nowhere, especially as he's supposed to be winning the war through charisma as well as brilliant stratagems.

There's no moral dilemma in assassinating Caliguhitler, even when you're Geralt.

7. Missing the Point with Ciri

I love in-game Ciri, truly. She's one of my top five fictional crushes alongside Daenerys Targaryen and Eowyn. The problem is the developers seem to have missed the central point of Ciri's character: specifically, that she's the Unchosen One. Ciri is a deconstruction of the fabled heroes of fantasy like Belgarion and Rand al'Thor by the fact she has a huge epic destiny but chooses to throw it away at every turn. She gets rid of her Source powers, she rejects her destiny as mother/grandmother of the next world ruler, and chooses to run away from the world. Ciri, like Arya Stark, wants freedom from being a standard fantasy heroine and manages to achieve it.

This is, of course, a hard storyline to do but it would have been nice to do more scenes with her which establish she has no interest in being the hero of the story. It also felt like they were whitewashing Ciri to an extent as she's got quite a bit of blood on her hands as well as PTSD trauma. I say that as a huge fan of the in-game character.

6. Reasons of State is utterly broken

Reasons of State is probably the single-most important quest in the game after rescuing Ciri but it's regulated to a somewhat difficult-to-find sidequest which many players missed. Honestly, there's no reason Reasons of State and its plotline shouldn't be a main quest. The problem of is the quest is also really-really out there in motivations. Geralt accepts an assassination contract on a king with questionable justification, not that I don't think he'd do it but that he'd need a bit more conversation on the subject.

The ending, however, is the most bizarre element as everyone reacts in a way designed to create a moral dilemma without actually explaining it. Roche says he's going to make peace with Nilfgaard despite being an insanely patriotic loyalist, Sigi wants to kill him without explaining how this will help his cause, and Geralt is caught in the middle.

5. The absence of the Scoia'tael

The Scoia'tael aren't actually a big thing in the books, being little more than Nilfgaard's evil henchmen. The games, however, elevated the group of ethnic cleansing and elf-power terrorists into a multifaceted group which looked like they had valid criticisms of humanity. Certainly, they played a huge role in the first two games. While they're technically present in the Wild Hunt, they're really a minor group which is somewhat annoying since they have an important role as former allies of Nilfgaard who were betrayed by them. Of course, this ties back into the fact the War with Nilfgaard is really only set dressing for the game.

4. The absence of old friends

Saskia and Iorveth's absence from the game has been mentioned repeatedly, to the point they even made a comic book series about it. I, of course, speak of Iorveth and Saskia's absence from the game. They wouldn't have taken much effort to incorporate and would have been good to include given the events of the second game. It would have also added some panache to Nilfgaard's invasion to have them explain how Saskia's kingdom survived Henselt but was destroyed within weeks by Nilfgaard.

3. The whitewashing of Nilfgaard

Nilfgaard shouldn't be one-dimensionally evil but the game overlooks the fact they practice chattle slavery and are responsible for many of the problems with afflict the North. I think the game would have benefited from bringing up their duplicity and cruelty more often. The Temerian ending, for example, makes no sense whatsoever as it's framed as if Temeria won the war and regained its freedom versus surrendered. How in the world is that getting their country back?

2. A largely empty third act

While I think the execution of the three Crones was very enjoyable, I can't help but think there's no reason the story couldnt' have ended at the Battle of Kaer Morhen. It felt like the Battle of Skellige was an anticlimax and it would have been more enjoyable to just re-arrange things differently. Certainly, the death of Cerys' father doesn't have the same poignance as Vesemir's death. Was anyone clamoring for a huge ending with the White Frost either?

1. Eredin a.k.a Ganon Saurondorf

Finally, the biggest thing which bothered me about the Witcher 3 was the handling of Eredit. Eredin has sixteen lines in the entire game, all variations of "I'm evil." This is a sharp contrast to the direct moral and mental challenge he poses in the 1st game. Would it have been difficult to have Eredin visits Geralt's dreams and confront him over his choices as before? Certainly, Eredin is portrayed as one-dimensionally as Radovid, which is weird for a man just trying to save his race.

Credits to: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/members/3607544-Willowhugger

 

 

And that's what's wrong with Witcher 3.

And ultimately the side quests ended up being better than the main story. How typical of the sandbox genre.

 

Something went really wrong during development.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Open world. Ruins everything :(

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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It becomes a bad thing if you can't fill it with proper content.

 

Unfortunately, many modern game developers consider open world to be a feature, but it isn't. It's just a way to setup the world. And similar to a linear level design you have to have a good reason to use it. The design by itself doesn't make a good game, and if you think so as a developer, the game will definetely be not good.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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And in the ardent desire to avoid development hell of endles postponing of releases, content is cut resulting in a vastly inferior main story compared to what the secondary tasks offer. Seems that only games that are periodically updated can only acheive what was initially conceived in dreams, keeping disappointment to a minimum - Don't Starve in this outlook still kept a frank and open policy towards what the team's plans were in everything they did.

 

Witcher 3 was good, but it's not going to feel complete without an exhaustive update to fix the leaks. Expansions did not seem to disappoint either. Yet they only reinforced, it appears to be what a shift of quality separates the main narrative and the complementary one.

Some also argued an absence of properly dignified erotic scenes. Despite most being similar to Witcher 2's ones, imho it shouldn't turn into Game of Thrones either. More content for Triss and brothels I reckon no one would object to. :D

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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When the stop making me 4 feet tall lol

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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