Btw, i recently started read again canon, but i don't remember 5th book, it was The lady of lake, i'm at 4th book. And i never read so far Season of Storms. But i don't remember except Sigdrifa, Crach, novel with Calante, Paveta story to encounter so many Skellige characters. Most skellige cards are from game it seems, am i right?
Birkewedd;n9883411 said:
Sorry, man, I didn't want to derail the post, it is true that you were asking about game canon, but I think that with that "book spoiler" on the title some of us were carried away a bit. As for your original question, I don't see how could it be non canon. That wouldn't make any sense!
@Noela
I know that the story in the books don't end with Nilfgaard victory but from what I heard, in the canon timeline, after the main events with Gerald's adventures Nilfgaard has succes in their politics of conquers around the continent (or at least in the nordic lands). From what I heard, in the original books Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire and The Tower of the Swallow there are fragments of this book called "Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi" written by Flourens Delannoy that is a man who lived 200 years after the conclusion of events in the Witcher series and that book tells stories about the past of the empire's northern regions! So if that's true then Nilfgaard conquer the North sooner or later in the canon.
If that's true then I really don't see any meaning in play Thronebreaker. Of course that many will play just because it's fun and features and stuff but that's all, the story will have no meaning. The story is a dead end for them and that's sucks. In the end is all futile, all their fights, conquers, small and big victories and glory will be all swallowed by their enemies and will be turned only in distant shards of the past. Play, put effort and get attached to the characters knowing that will end like that is just too sad.
If that's true then I really hope CD Projekt don't be so dependent on the books and instead create their (or player's) own canon.
I know that the story in the books don't end with Nilfgaard victory but from what I heard, in the canon timeline, after the main events with Gerald's adventures Nilfgaard has succes in their politics of conquers around the continent (or at least in the nordic lands). From what I heard, in the original books Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire and The Tower of the Swallow there are fragments of this book called "Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi" written by Flourens Delannoy that is a man who lived 200 years after the conclusion of events in the Witcher series and that book tells stories about the past of the empire's northern regions! So if that's true then Nilfgaard conquer the North sooner or later in the canon.
If that's true then I really don't see any meaning in play Thronebreaker. Of course that many will play just because it's fun and features and stuff but that's all, the story will have no meaning. The story is a dead end for them and that's sucks. In the end is all futile, all their fights, conquers, small and big victories and glory will be all swallowed by their enemies and will be turned only in distant shards of the past. Play, put effort and get attached to the characters knowing that will end like that is just too sad.
If that's true then I really hope CD Projekt don't be so dependent on the books and instead create their (or player's) own canon.
Hi, I really enjoy gwent but have never experienced any of the story so where do you recommend i start?
ulthran7;n9883211 said:
It really isn't. The games vastly increased the reach of the Witcher novels and made them a thing to a larger audience. There isn't even the beginnings of an argument that there'd be the high likelihood/confirmation of a netflix series without the Witcher games. It's only a talking point in the first place because Sapkowski is arrogant on the subject and refuses to give credit where its due (though he wishes CDPR all the best and is happy they've found success with the licence; he just refuses to give them any credit with the success of his books).
As for the canonicity; nothing CDPR has ever done is 'canon' canon, but Thronebreaker will be canon with CDPR's Witcher games.
It's not like the Metro series where the author directly works with the game developers and both feed off the other, to mutual benefit. In fact one of his books is essentially a novelisation of one of the games (expanding the story and suchlike).
Cpt_Myrinn_Eilorv;n10678881 said:
Oh man ... prepare for way more info than you wanted. If you want to experience the entire story of the books and games. I would reccomend doing it like this:
The Witcher (video game)
The Witcher 2: Assassination of Kings (video game)
The Last Wish (Short Story Collection)
The Sword of Destiny (Short Story Collection)
The Blood of Elves (Book)
The TIme of Contempt (Book)
The Baptism of Fire (Book)
The Swallows Tower (Book)
The Lady of the Lake (Book)
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
The reason for doing it this way is that a major plot device in The Witcher 1 & Witcher 2 is that Geralt has amnesia. Without getting into spoilers, he recovers his memory in the second game. However, learning all about his history after playing the first two games makes a lot of sense when combining the narratives of the books and the games.
HOWEVER, I personally don't really see the games as canon to the books themselves as their very existence is sort of contradicted by the ending of the books IMO.
Rawls;n10693281 said:
The games are all explicitly set after the books. They in fact sort-of retcon the ending of the books/
I know. But if experiencing the entire thing without any background info, the best place to start is Witcher 1, because if you already know all the stuff from the books, it can effect your choices. To best role play a Geralt with amnesia (which is a major plot device in TW1), it makes the most sense to start there so you don't have the background info.iamthedave;n10695301 said:
I know. I just said that in the post you quoted.iamthedave;n10695301 said:
iamthedave;n10682601 said:
It is a different situation compared to the Metro series, the Witcher books had an ending to Geralt's story long before the first game was released. And the Metro games are linear, while Witchers are RPGs with multiple story paths, which would make it problematic to treat them as "canon" in a book story, even if the author wanted to.
sv3672;n10698631 said:
Not really. The author just says 'gimme a plot rundown' and then says 'okay, that ones canon' and then goes with it. It's just the literary form of making a sequel to a game that has two endings. If someone was making a game of my IP I sure wouldn't be slowed down if I wanted to canonise the story's events, and I don't think anyone else would be either. It's just that usually, these cases are brought about when someone takes a property off in a direction the original creator wouldn't have wanted, so they've no interest in dealing with the non-canon events (if they wanted that they'd have written it in the first place). Sapkowski could easily play 'pin the tail on the ending' with The Witcher 3 and start writing more Witcher stories from that point on, instantly canonising any events from the games he chooses to refer back to.
iamthedave;n10698731 said:
So far, the Witcher games did not have any "canon endings", at least when it comes to the major story paths, they include a feature that lets you import the world state from the previous game. If that policy changed, it would take away from the value of their choices. Again, it is different in Metro, those are simple linear action games, even if they have two endings, the non-canon one is more of a failure (e.g. if Artyom dies in Last Light) than a valid story path. The way Sapkowski treats the games (CDPR can do whatever they want, but nothing is canon to the books) is perfectly fine and fair, if he selectively canonized parts of the games, that would do more harm than good. It is also understandable if he does not want his books to be viewed as game adaptations, since those are more often not just money grabs.
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sv3672;n10698871 said:
No, they don't, but Sapkowski could change that. If he wanted to canonise the Witcher 1, 2 and 3, he just needs to set a story after them and refer back to whichever events he likes. This would canonise the games + any events from those games he chooses to incorporate. That's literally how it works. People making content off an original IP have flexibility until that original IP creator decides to step in and decide if their content is going to bleed back into the main series.
In the same way, Glukhovsky could decanonise the games by simply using a game plot as the skeleton for a novel and directly contradicting events from it. He chooses not to because he'd rather use the multimedia approach to further the reach and market penetration of his works, and probably has backburner plans to do it long term as a sales strategy, so keeping cozy with the game creators and expanding on their expansions to the original world strengthens the relationship.
And of course, the Game of Thrones TV series is the most prominent modern example; everything they do until the end of the series is just fanfic because we already know Martin's books are going to do very different things. But until those books are written (if they ever are) they're functionally canon.
iamthedave;n10698921 said:
Sapkowski can do with his own books whatever he wants (although I am not sure if he could incorporate parts of the games against CDPR's will, since they do own the copyrights to the game content they wrote), but his policy regarding the games has been stated clearly already. My point was simply that the way he handles game content is right in my opinion, for more than one reason. Doing what you suggest would be greedy, more so since it would contradict his earlier statements. It is understandable though that other game developers and writers want to monetize their respective IPs as much as possible.
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sv3672;n10699001 said:
Well in his case it would be odd. He's finished with the Witcher series as far as I know.
With content that's born from an original IP, the original creator is free to use it in turn (since it wouldn't exist without them), but it depends on whether they give over the full rights or not. In Sapkowski's case he gave them the sole rights to make video games about The Witcher, but he'd most likely be free to refer to plot points and whatnot provided he did so in a book but not in a videogame. These issues get really complex after a while, mind. I think - for example - that were Tolkein alive he couldn't canonise the Middle Earth games without permission from Warner Bros, because THEY aren't actually based on the books, they're based on the movies of the books. He could, however, include written/dramatised versions of original scenes from the movies without difficulty.
Mr. Sapkowski has already incorporated some elements from the adaptations (portrayal of the Cat School from comics, two swords on back in the newest book instead of one). The problem is – how can he adapt game lore when it directly contradicts what he's already established? In the novels, the direct events after the 2nd war are series of diseases and witch hunts, Nilfgaard won't bother the North for the several decades (it has already bought the North economically). And in the games, well... I guess they had no better idea than to come up with another continent-spanning war.