Hearts of Stone, base game and the focus of CDPR

[Sagitarii]

Hearts of Stone, base game and the focus of CDPR

While I'm writing this, I haven't finished HoS yet, but got to the very late part of it (finished that amazing quest, you know which).

EDIT: Now I did.

TL: DR

Spoiler

Question for the topic: Should CDPR focus more on smaller, shorter, more focused games - sacrificing gameplay time, huge open world and content, to make the game more polished and varied? Or maybe you have a different idea what they should do?

The Witcher 3 in my opinion is an absolutely fantastic game - clearly one of my favorite ever, or even the favorite. Sadly it suffered from many flaws in different aspects. I won't name them, we know them, but there were small and there were massive. And most of them could be avoided.
It even kept getting worse with CDPR trying to lazily fix some small aspects, which made it even worse. Things were grim.

But - seeing how much detail and care was put into every aspect of Hearts of Stone, how much balance was improved, the variety, new mechanics, interesting monsters, how everything was so tip top - made me think - if this can be so good and tight - why the base game was so lacking in some regards?
Obvious answer is having to little time, rushing things, management, long crunch time.
But in my opinion, the main problem for CDPR is trying to leap to far in too short amount of time, which only hurts their games.

Being over-ambitious, you could say.


Rant about the history of CDPR and their ambitions.

Spoiler

Honestly, it was like that from the beginning. Tiny company of unknowns, trying to make an ambitious RPG in the most regarded fantasy world in Eastern and Central Europe and bring it to the west.
Sounds crazy, but they did it. Not everything went perfectly, it almost killed them, but they managed to come out of the dead and announced Witcher 2, with stellar graphics, even more amazing story and so many story branches, only Hawking could count, everything pumped up.

Again - crazy, after the near bankruptcy. Again not everything went well - remember Act 3 - it was short and made you think there is still a lot more of the game to come. Enhanced Edition was made, but even it didn't remove all the problems that arose from being too ambitious. They were almost bankrupt again.

Then Witcher 3 comes and makes the biggest leap yet and also sounds like the most ambitious game ever, especially to a medium sized studio (other major companies have around 600 people), with relatively small budget.
First, we heard about the big world 20% bigger than Skyrim, then suddenly it grew to being 3 times as large, many more features announced.
And we were all joyous - more means better right? Like the experience teaches us - not always or even often not true.

Witcher 3 was already an ambitious game to begin with, but CDPR wanted to be even more ambitious and bitten more then they can chew - even them. It was too much and even the delay wasn't going to fix it - more cuts, more blank or empty spaces left, more character stories abandoned to squeeze some gameplay content to fill the stretched world with something. More things were left out, in order to make the game seem like complete product. You can never sew everything together in a vast game like this.
Surprisingly it all panned out pretty well - game was amazing, but those holes and missed opportunities pain me - and many fans very very much.
This time it wasn't the bankruptcy that was a aftermath - but more distrust of their fans, that could in the end be even worse.

I was very worried - but then HoS came along and I thought - they still have the magic like before - even more.
The question now is - should they do the same mistake again with Cyberpunk, or something new?
There was already article fueling my fears - paraphrasing "Cyberpunk will be much much bigger than Witcher 3".

Why do we need this? Yes, of course marketing, but there are other ways. Especially now when people start preferring a bit shorter games - people are busy and start to realize, especially after 200 hour games like DA:I, it's not about how many hours you can put into, but about the worthy content.
Same goes for world size - the race in sq. km can't run forever.

HoS made me realize this: Witcher 3 should have stayed as an original concept - when talking about scale - with tweaks of course. 70-80 hours of gameplay, maybe 100 like originally planned. Not 130-200, where we get 1/5th of filler and a lacking main story at the end and distributing dialogue lines between too many characters.
Sure, we would miss some great quests maybe, characters and super vast world - but as a whole it would be complete, with them having time to polish every aspect and quest to shine and avoid lazy shortcuts.

HoS was 15-20 hours long - yet was more dense, focused than 40 hours of base game. And was more varied. That's the key.

The question I want to ask here: Should CDPR focus more on smaller, shorter games - sacrificing gameplay time, huge open world and content, to make the game more polished focused and varied?

:sleepy:

Sorry for the grammar or mistakes, if present, kinda sleepy now.

 

[Garrison72]

We're already arguing for this on the CP forum. The studio leads need to see reactivity and polish, not game size, as a priority again. Story is often mentioned, but there are two other casualties- RPG mechanics and game design. I won't go into specifics other than to say game design overall feels like it didn't get a chance to evolve, so much of it is rudimentary. Quest design in particular took a big hit on the gameplay side of things. I hope for future projects they learn to reign things in earlier so they can focus on QA and iteration of ideas. All that said, the ratio of quality to quantity in TW3 is pretty fucking stellar, so this is a difficult criticism to make.

 

[AvengerGrim]

I must admit, I think HoS is stronger than Wild Hunt, the latter had some very great moments but also some downs, so I have mixed feelings about it (even though I adore the game to death) while HoS never stopped to impress me and kept me on my tiptoes all along, which I think is due to its length, it was more concentrated and, I guess, easier to do story-wise? So to your question, focused would, in my opinion, make more sense rather than surfing on the open-wold wave, I think. Purely based on those two, but i think CP is an entirely different beast, least I got that impression.

 

[dmcaldw]

I don't think The Wild Hunt suffers so much from lack of quality as much as gaps weren't closed in distances between objectives and regions until late then everything started feeling rushed . HOS distances were relatively short if not your fast travel was there if coming off previous play . HOS makes it clear that they can keep a story going in the open world setting . Give them CDPR their due let them run with it what they have put out to this point is better than most anything out there now .

You learn from your mistakes but don't give up on the idea. Wild Hunt took me 60 hrs first play through so the issue with Wild Hunt was more with making that connection that the story was more important than the whole . The stuff I missed by speed running it was massive . Second play through was 120 hrs . Wild Hunts issues weren't so much open world related as they were construction issues in the end of the game . Kear Morhen felt like the end what happened after was good until getting the sunstone . With out trying to diminish what was accomplished with this it game makes any criticism seem harsh . Give them the chance to do it I do believe they can do it if anyone can .

 

[Sagitarii]

All that said, the ratio of quality to quantity in TW3 is pretty fucking stellar, so this is a difficult criticism to make.

I agree, probably the only game that sucked my life more than any multiplayer game, yet had great quality - I had fun all the time. Yet the realization, which came some weeks after finishing the game, of many loose ends, plot holes and just lack of information on certain subjects (which were started at the begging and then never mentioned again) is heartbreaking at times. Especially for a fan of the world.

I don't think The Wild Hunt suffers so much from lack of quality as much as gaps weren't closed in distances between objectives and regions until late then everything started feeling rushed . HOS distances were relatively short if not your fast travel was there if coming off previous play [...] Give them the chance to do it I do believe they can do it if anyone can .

I never meant to say it lacks quality a lot - it doesn't - it just lacks it were it could be avoided. These are not just flaws, any game has. At least in my opinion.

About the other statement - I know they know what they are doing, just HoS is better than the base game, still open world, but more focused, better paced and has more care put into it. That's why I know CDPR definitely can do something absolutely perfect, just in W3 they tried to make it too perfect.

 

[Rawls]

The question I want to ask here: Should CDPR focus more on smaller, shorter games - sacrificing gameplay time, huge open world and content, to make the game more polished focused and varied?

I the love question ... so red points for you. I ultimately come down on the side that I would prefer the way the Witcher 3 rather than a smaller more focused story. I would agree that there are slight losses in terms of story and some real downsides in gameplay mechanics - especially regarding leveling (although honestly overall I like TW3 gameplay better than TW2). But the world of TW3 is such a huge plus (no pun intended). The game has a real sense of scale and location that few others do ... and the size of the world directly contributes to that. Would individual quests probably be better with a more focused game - undoubtedly. But I think that the game still achieves quite a bit as far as story and that most of the losses are annoying rather than game breaking. Its still one of the best ten stories I've played in the last couple gaming generations. It could have been better (The Last of Us comes to mind), but that style of game isn't what I want from an RPG. I want the huge settling that you can get engrossed and lost in - where you can game it like a table top - you go to the tavern or shelter every night and sleep - eat food 3 times a day, and etc. It increase the replay value immensely for weirdos like me. It's all about preferences and while I'm normally on the side of everything must serve the story, I think that the downsides experienced by the large openish world are ultimately outweighed by the positives.

 

[edowney5906]

I thought they nailed the openworld and have balanced a huge openworld with story better than anyone thus far. I absolutely loved getting lost in the world they created and can't wait to see what they can do with cyberpunk. So no, i don't think they need to downsize and stay more focused. I think they nailed it!

 

[Kinley]

Honestly Hearts of Stone is better than the base game in more than one aspect. Boss fights are more varied and interesting, enemies are tougher, it just felt more punishing overall while still remaining satisfying. Story flows so much better and is, in my opinion, of greater quality than the base game, even the small letters you find in side activities like treasure hunts had a greater impact on me in HoS, not to mention the mansion quest, which has now become my favorite quest of all time.

Witcher 3 was too big for its own good, and it shows. Story was stretched thin to the point where act 3 almost falls on its face, half of Skellige was filled with smuggler caches in an attempt for it to not seem empty and the game became comically easy once you got the Witcher sets even on the hardest difficulty. And I think this all comes down to the team being worked too hard on a game that other studios would throw at least a team double the size of what CDPR had.

Now don't get me wrong, even with all of this criticism Witcher 3 still manages to be more interesting than any of the open world games big companies churn out on a yearly basis, which speaks volumes regarding the state of the industry more than anything else. But Hearts of Stone brought back this charm that the base game lost when compared to the previous games, it's all in those little details that get lost in a game that took me over 150 hours to complete.

Hearts of Stone proves, at least in my eyes, that CDPR shine best with smaller, self-contained stories. It just feels that the team had a blast creating this small expansion and the end product reflects that. That's why I like to call it "Witcher 1 with Witcher 3 graphics", since that indie slavic feel that was present in the first game came back with a vengeance and it took me totally by surprise.

So color me very excited for Blood and Wine, sure hope the devs can deliver since Hearts of Stone has set the bar pretty high.

 

[Sagitarii]

So I think Jose disagrees with some statements here:

http://www.pcgamer.com/cd-projekt-s...facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pcgfb

The thing is, we all love long and big games - more time played is always better. But only if the actual length and scale doesn't take some features and story elements down.

 

[Garrison72]

^Could be PR fluff, no telling at this point. It's possible Jose just got switched over to the other team and is impressed by the scope. I found it interesting following that comment on the various sites and there were many as skeptical as there were enthused, so we're not alone in this opinion.

 

[Kallelinski]

I agree, but we shouldn't forget that one of the goals of The Witcher 3 was to create a "Witcher Simulator", to have the feeling of being an actual witcher. Go to the next village and do typical witcher jobs and they succeeded in that, while on the same time they tried to give the player enough motivation to follow the main story and not just roam through the world. Did that work out? For some yes, for some no.

Of course this can't work all the time and maybe for long-term fans a more packed and intense game like it was before would have been better, a linear game is not bad, if done right, and 'open world' is not the solution to every problem (Hello Ubisoft).

But at the same time many think that CDPR "invented" the 'open world design' anew with their design of meaningful quests and not just "kill 10 ghouls" or "collect 20 bones of whatever" to get EXP and gold. For me it felt like I was doing witcher jobs and that was fun, but in the end the main stories/characters were keeping me in line.

Now that is done and they can focus on small stories, comparing HoS with one of the short stories from the book is probably the best comparison and it fits like a glove.

In the end HoS was indeed so great, because it reminded me of how Witcher 2 was done. Relative small open areas, yet it never felt like I was "captive" by it, a compact story and a more linear storyline, while giving you options to decide for yourself and change it a bit.

I finished HoS in merely 3 days and spent probably 15 hours for that and every hour was great, however I spent so far with the whole game 214 hours, I wouldn't have done that, if I didn't like it either.

Bigger is not better, longer is not better, more is not better. The content has to be good and executed in a good way, then it doesn't depend on how long or big it is.

Do you enjoy a 120min movie less than a tv-series with 10 episodes á 60min? Yes and no, depends how good it was and not on its length.

So color me very excited for Blood and Wine, sure hope the devs can deliver since Hearts of Stone has set the bar pretty high.

Me too.

 

[octavian123]

While I'm writing this, I haven't finished HoS yet, but got to the very late part of it (finished that amazing quest, you know which).

EDIT: Now I did.

TL: DR

Spoiler

Question for the topic: Should CDPR focus more on smaller, shorter, more focused games - sacrificing gameplay time, huge open world and content, to make the game more polished and varied? Or maybe you have a different idea what they should do?

The Witcher 3 in my opinion is an absolutely fantastic game - clearly one of my favorite ever, or even the favorite. Sadly it suffered from many flaws in different aspects. I won't name them, we know them, but there were small and there were massive. And most of them could be avoided.
It even kept getting worse with CDPR trying to lazily fix some small aspects, which made it even worse. Things were grim.

But - seeing how much detail and care was put into every aspect of Hearts of Stone, how much balance was improved, the variety, new mechanics, interesting monsters, how everything was so tip top - made me think - if this can be so good and tight - why the base game was so lacking in some regards?
Obvious answer is having to little time, rushing things, management, long crunch time.
But in my opinion, the main problem for CDPR is trying to leap to far in too short amount of time, which only hurts their games.

Being over-ambitious, you could say.


Rant about the history of CDPR and their ambitions.

Spoiler

Honestly, it was like that from the beginning. Tiny company of unknowns, trying to make an ambitious RPG in the most regarded fantasy world in Eastern and Central Europe and bring it to the west.
Sounds crazy, but they did it. Not everything went perfectly, it almost killed them, but they managed to come out of the dead and announced Witcher 2, with stellar graphics, even more amazing story and so many story branches, only Hawking could count, everything pumped up.

Again - crazy, after the near bankruptcy. Again not everything went well - remember Act 3 - it was short and made you think there is still a lot more of the game to come. Enhanced Edition was made, but even it didn't remove all the problems that arose from being too ambitious. They were almost bankrupt again.

Then Witcher 3 comes and makes the biggest leap yet and also sounds like the most ambitious game ever, especially to a medium sized studio (other major companies have around 600 people), with relatively small budget.
First, we heard about the big world 20% bigger than Skyrim, then suddenly it grew to being 3 times as large, many more features announced.
And we were all joyous - more means better right? Like the experience teaches us - not always or even often not true.

Witcher 3 was already an ambitious game to begin with, but CDPR wanted to be even more ambitious and bitten more then they can chew - even them. It was too much and even the delay wasn't going to fix it - more cuts, more blank or empty spaces left, more character stories abandoned to squeeze some gameplay content to fill the stretched world with something. More things were left out, in order to make the game seem like complete product. You can never sew everything together in a vast game like this.
Surprisingly it all panned out pretty well - game was amazing, but those holes and missed opportunities pain me - and many fans very very much.
This time it wasn't the bankruptcy that was a aftermath - but more distrust of their fans, that could in the end be even worse.

I was very worried - but then HoS came along and I thought - they still have the magic like before - even more.
The question now is - should they do the same mistake again with Cyberpunk, or something new?
There was already article fueling my fears - paraphrasing "Cyberpunk will be much much bigger than Witcher 3".

Why do we need this? Yes, of course marketing, but there are other ways. Especially now when people start preferring a bit shorter games - people are busy and start to realize, especially after 200 hour games like DA:I, it's not about how many hours you can put into, but about the worthy content.
Same goes for world size - the race in sq. km can't run forever.

HoS made me realize this: Witcher 3 should have stayed as an original concept - when talking about scale - with tweaks of course. 70-80 hours of gameplay, maybe 100 like originally planned. Not 130-200, where we get 1/5th of filler and a lacking main story at the end and distributing dialogue lines between too many characters.
Sure, we would miss some great quests maybe, characters and super vast world - but as a whole it would be complete, with them having time to polish every aspect and quest to shine and avoid lazy shortcuts.

HoS was 15-20 hours long - yet was more dense, focused than 40 hours of base game. And was more varied. That's the key.

The question I want to ask here: Should CDPR focus more on smaller, shorter games - sacrificing gameplay time, huge open world and content, to make the game more polished focused and varied?

:sleepy:

Sorry for the grammar or mistakes, if present, kinda sleepy now.

I know exactly what you're talking about and I completely agree and to answer your question. YES, they should make shorter games. I felt the same in Inquisition.

The Witcher is undeniably a fantastic looking game with a ton of attention to detail in every nook and cranny but...it all feels so wasteful. Did anyone ever ask for the world to be so big? I am all for open world game but I am tired of games with huge worlds with lots of "stuff" to do. Honestly, if the world had been HALF as big as it was I doubt anyone would have noticed. Maybe they could even have made what they had better since they would have had more time and resources to devote. I often hear how (vanilla) Witcher 3 has so much better quests than Dragon Age but I'm not entirely convinced. Sure it has cutscenes and more focus on story but if you really look at it, it's just a facade. At the end of the day most quests are either "go there and kill that guy/monster or talk to them" so I think it really has a lot of the problems DA had but TW does a much better job at masking them.

Thankfully, Hearts of Stone and Trespasser show that both companies work best when they make smaller but more FOCUSED products. My ideal Witcher 3 would have been a game made according to the Witcher 1 formula but around 30-40% bigger, with the gameplay and armor/weapon variety of TW3 and the dungeon level design of Inquisition.

I made an analogy for open world games a while back and I'd like to bring it up again. I essentially view huge, open world games like a huge cake, made with the finest ingredients and has great value for money. You see a huge cake and think "Wow, how could they have made such a huge cake and still use the best ingredients, and it's only 60$". You start eating the delicious cake and you notice that there is still half of it left. You tell yourself "I'd better finish it, I don't want to let this wonderful cake go to waste" so you force yourself to eat more of it. Pretty soon you have a quarter of it left and you start feeling sick and guilty that you can't finish the cake, knowing that it will go stale.

That is how I felt after finishing more than half of the stuff in TW3 (and for the record DA too). By the time I finished more than half of the game I felt sick from doing so many repetitious Points of Interest and closing so many Rifts but I also felt guilty for not finishing them 100% thinking I would [potentially miss a cool armor piece or cool story moment. Interestingly, I never felt this in a Bethesda game. I'm not sure why.

So my conclusion is that huge open world games are not healthy for the player. They make you feel fat, sick and guilty.

 

[Dassolan]

Even though CDPR make best open world game to date, after uninspired generic crap like DA3, Skyrim and Far Cry, me still think that Wild Hunt would have been better game if entirely focused on No Man's Land. Sieges, suffering and all human stories like Baron that piss on all other games side quests. Where heart is for me.

Say that though, playing Heart of Stone now and glad be back in Witcher world, it vibrant, alive and look nice unlike other fantasy crap. Me just trot with Roach and look around not run.

Just stay rebels, not go idiot Bioware plot and me keep buying and playing.

Oh and more Odrin.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Hmmm, interesting topic.

Would I personally prefer more focused experiences from the studio? Yes. Are they going to do it? No, at least not for their full games; that'd be regression, which leads to stagnation, and you don't want to do that. So, I think the focus of us fans should be what CDPR can do to make the open world and the storytelling within it better rather than trying to hold the studio back.

To my mind, The Witcher 3 was, like Saggy pointed out, a very ambitious and risky experiment. And while there are certainly aspects that could have been done better, we must not lose sight of the larger picture here - the experiment was a (somewhat messy) success, against all odds. TW3 is a massive step up for the RPG genre as a whole, there's a lot of great potential here. To me, TW3 is a very solid foundation for future CDPR games - sure, there's still so much that could be added on top or tweaked to flesh things out even more, make the experience richer, tighter and smoother, more complex, but that's something that they'll have to achieve as new products get released and more resources (both financial and technological) become available.

So, while HoS was a lot of fun, I wouldn't want CDPR to limit themselves just because it's a formula that still works. I expect more from them and I think they do, too.

 

[Geragio]

Most if not all who start HOS will have completed the main game plus side content. Allowing them to focus on the HOS quest, with the best gear all the top potions, oils no need to get frustrated in case you forgot to check a chest on the off chance there was a "treasure" item.
This is maybe one of the reasons why some think its a more focused story without distractions, WELL IT IS, but only because we've completed the distractions.
CDPR have proven yet again they have some extremely talented people and while HOS was a great little adventure in the fantastic expanse of the witcher world I certainly wouldn't want them to stop making large open worlds, because they've proven they can do it, and they'll just get better.

On a side note,I didn't like the mansion quest,

Spoiler

I don't like entering alternate/other worlds but that's just me..

 

[Dassolan]

Making more focused game instead open world not regression, just choice, like FPP, 3rdPP or isometric views. Open world not new, Krondor, Ultima, Elder Scrolls, Wizardry all did long go.

 

[octavian123]

Hmmm, interesting topic.

Would I personally prefer more focused experiences from the studio? Yes. Are they going to do it? No, at least not for their full games; that'd be regression, which leads to stagnation, and you don't want to do that. So, I think the focus of us fans should be what CDPR can do to make the open world and the storytelling within it better rather than trying to hold the studio back.

To my mind, The Witcher 3 was, like Saggy pointed out, a very ambitious and risky experiment. And while there are certainly aspects that could have been done better, we must not lose sight of the larger picture here - the experiment was a (somewhat messy) success, against all odds. TW3 is a massive step up for the RPG genre as a whole, there's a lot of great potential here. To me, TW3 is a very solid foundation for future CDPR games - sure, there's still so much that could be added on top or tweaked to flesh things out even more, make the experience richer, tighter and smoother, more complex, but that's something that they'll have to achieve as new products get released and more resources (both financial and technological) become available.

So, while HoS was a lot of fun, I wouldn't want CDPR to limit themselves just because it's a formula that still works. I expect more from them and I think they do, too.

I'm not saying it should be linear like TW2, what I'm saying is that maybe it shouldn't be SO big. Would I like to see an open world Witcher again? Absolutely, but the size of TW3 more often than not feels like a waste of talent. If the game world had been twice as small no one would have noticed and all that talent could have been used elsewhere like in making better dungeons and points of interest.

Seriously, all dungeons are short, linear and very much alike and points of interest feel like a patchwork job to fill that huge world with...something. Have you read that recent article where they talked about why they delayed the game so much? It was because by November they realized their world was empty. Most of the side content was added around that time period. They are very lucky to be independent. Publishers would not have given them that extra time.

 

[ReptilePZ]

I'm not saying it should be linear like TW2, what I'm saying is that maybe it shouldn't be SO big. Would I like to see an open world Witcher again? Absolutely, but the size of TW3 more often than not feels like a waste of talent. If the game world had been twice as small no one would have noticed and all that talent could have been used elsewhere like in making better dungeons and points of interest.

Seriously, all dungeons are short, linear and very much alike and points of interest feel like a patchwork job to fill that huge world with...something. Have you read that recent article where they talked about why they delayed the game so much? It was because by November they realized their world was empty. Most of the side content was added around that time period. They are very lucky to be independent. Publishers would not have given them that extra time.

I think this just comes to a fundamental difference in what you and I think makes an open world good. Not gonna go into details, as that discussion is off-topic. The point is, you seem to agree that adjusting the open world is the way the studio should go, instead of going back to the hub-based design of the previous titles.

 

[octavian123]

I think this just comes to a fundamental difference in what you and I think makes an open world good. Not gonna go into details, as that discussion is off-topic. The point is, you seem to agree that adjusting the open world is the way the studio should go, instead of going back to the hub-based design of the previous titles.

Yes, I do think so, particularly because I have played Gothic 2 (many many times) and that is the standard to which I hold all open world RPGs. It is small but dense. The level design of the game is very very carefully thought out. There are no "points of interest" or "fade rifts" or other such "stuff" to fill out the enormous size of the world. Instead, even the littlest pouch of gold is carefully placed and that is possible BECAUSE the world is smaller which enables the developers to FOCUS on every little detail. I am not saying that the next CDPR game should be the size of G2 because I think that the principle of condensed worlds can be applied to larger worlds too...up to a point.

So I think that they can still make big worlds but maybe half as big as The Witcher 3 (or even smaller). In the Witcher 3 there were tons and tons of little villages and settlements and while it was fun exploring the first 4-5 I stopped caring about all the others after that due to how samey they were. To me they just became quest hubs after a while. I never really cared about the people that lived there and I never really wanted to learn more about them and while I realize that this is likely what Geralt thinks, I as a player want to be entertained. I think every little village needed to be like the one from Hearts of Stone (you know the one) but I don't think that's feasable when you have 40-50 villages in the whole game. 5-8 small settlements and two large cities would have been enough.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Yes, I do think so, particularly because I have played Gothic 2 (many many times) and that is the standard to which I hold all open world RPGs. It is small but dense. The level design of the game is very very carefully thought out. There are no "points of interest" or "fade rifts" or other such "stuff" to fill out the enormous size of the world. Instead, even the littlest pouch of gold is carefully placed and that is possible BECAUSE the world is smaller which enables the developers to FOCUS on every little detail. I am not saying that the next CDPR game should be the size of G2 because I think that the principle of condensed worlds can be applied to larger worlds too...up to a point.

So I think that they can still make big worlds but maybe half as big as The Witcher 3 (or even smaller). In the Witcher 3 there were tons and tons of little villages and settlements and while it was fun exploring the first 4-5 I stopped caring about all the others after that due to how samey they were. To me they just became quest hubs after a while. I never really cared about the people that lived there and I never really wanted to learn more about them and while I realize that this is likely what Geralt thinks, I as a player want to be entertained. I think every little village needed to be like the one from Hearts of Stone (you know the one) but I don't think that's feasable when you have 40-50 villages in the whole game. 5-8 small settlements and two large cities would have been enough.

Right, I agree with most of that, especially the part about settlements, but I do think it can and should exist in a larger map, so that places have some space to breathe, as it were and the world feels more organic, less artificial and "designed". I love Gothic 2, too, but I'm hoping for something even better - I think that's where our opinions differ. Anyway, like I said, off-topic, but it's good we cleared up where we stand. I think there was a topic on open worlds somewhere around the forum, feel free to continue this line of discussion there