Analysis: With Witcher 3 CDPR no longer treat the players like adults [SPOILERS]

[mico11]

It's invalid logic, they can't destroyed world, becouse games are connected with books, and in books world wasn't destroyed. r

Nowhere in the books is it mentioned that Ciri can stop the space apocalypse then come out and live like nothing happeened for a happy ending . Nor did the game ever hint at this, it made Eredin's struggle pointless. It was an asspul, a deus ex machina, completely stupid. Crach just died fighting for ciri and while he was doing it she got the briliant idea to end the apocalypse. Why didn't she do that before?

becouse they don't accept more personal story, focused most on Ciri.

People say this but I don't agree. There was way more side content in this game than both other games combined. And it had nothing to do with Ciri. They could do anything with that side content, but most of what they did was bland and forgettable. Even as you're searching for Ciri, you're doing favors for favors and following breadcrumbs. There were completely useless characters in the main quests like Cleaver and King of Beggars , Whoreson that added absolutely nothing to this game. If it was such a personal story why could you still get involved in regicides and decide the fate of the entire continent, and why was it so poorly done

TW1 was the game that had the identity quest about Geralt finding out who he is, chosing who to give Alvin too, taking care of Alvin. W1 felt more a personal story to me than this

Pastor in TW1 is evil like church in TW3, he want murder Abigail becouse she is a witch, there are no more reasons. Why Abigail should die? .

Abigail was a member of a death cult, she summoned the beast and had voodo dolls in her house, so what the villager says that she made him kill his brother might be true. Abigail was in no way innocent, it was a confusing situation and Geralt didn't have the complete information, Most of the people in the village were deeply flawed human beings, but not one dimensional. In the spirit of the books it was about choosing what you think was the lesser evil.

 

[saltyB]

People say this but I don't agree. There was way more side content in this game than both other games combined. And it had nothing to do with Ciri. They could do anything with that side content, but most of what they did was bland and forgettable. Even as you're searching for Ciri, you're doing favors for favors and following breadcrumbs. There were completely useless characters in the main quests like Cleaver and King of Beggars , Whoreson that added absolutely nothing to this game.

But why should all these Character be important anyway?

It is not necessary to make personal stories and so on for each character...even characters in Main Quests.

I mean you still have so many other Characters with stories and stuff...so many interesting and individual Side quests!

 

[mico11]

But why should all these Character be important anyway?

It is not necessary to make personal stories and so on for each character...even characters in Main Quests.

I mean you still have so many other Characters with stories and stuff...so many interesting and individual Side quests!

What I wanted to say is that "it's a personal quest" is not true and it's no defense at all the wild hunt is so poorly written, and the politicial situation is so simplified and dumbed down. It went from all these different northern kings and entities with different motivations, to only Radovid, and he went mad, evil.

It's not all a personal quest, if they had better side stories they could deliver on everything they forshadowed in the previous games, bring back recuring characters like Sigfried, Iorveth , still have a complex and actually morally amigious political situation and a proper ending.

So It's no defense, the game had tons of content that wasn't a personal quest and had nothing to do with ciri even in the main quests.

 

[sv3672]

Nowhere in the books is it mentioned that Ciri can stop the space apocalypse then come out and live like nothing happeened for a happy ending . Nor did the game ever hint at this, it made Eredin's struggle pointless. It was an asspul, a deus ex machina, completely stupid. Crach just died fighting for ciri and while he was doing it she got the briliant idea to end the apocalypse. Why didn't she do that before?

Perhaps she did not know or was not prepared yet before, and only Avallac'h knew enough about the White Frost and that Ciri could stop it, but he might not have told it to anyone for whatever reasons. That is only my guess, but it would more or less explain it.

 

[mico11]

Perhaps she did not know or was not prepared yet before, and only Avallac'h knew enough about the White Frost and that Ciri could stop it, but he might not have told it to anyone for whatever reasons. That is only my guess, but it would more or less explain it.

It still doesn't make it not an asspul and deus ex machina, she's not supposed to be able to do that according to the books.

And the entire thing makes very little sense, Avalach and Ciri could have made a big difference in that battle they fuckd out of, and of Ciri's friends who were risking thier life for her, and crach died

 

[KingHochmeister]

And the entire thing makes very little sense, Avalach and Ciri could have made a big difference in that battle they fuckd out of, and of Ciri's friends who were risking thier life for her, and crach died

It only makes sense when you know they originally planned to have Avallac'h betray Ciri and Geralt, then the reason why Ge'els decided to let Eredin die even if it dooms his entire people starts making sense, because Avallac'h will continue on Eredin's plan.

I agree, they should have stuck with the betrayal version, this version really makes the plot nonsensical in some parts.

 

[kielera7]

1.you are not mature if you think that there are no evil people in the real world.I think how they implemented the villains was dumb but i get what they were going for.Radovid could have made an interesting villain if they gave reason as to why he snapped.In the books Ereden is an elven supremicest and has genocided people before.They should have fleshed out his character more though and added depth.Not all choices are the better between
2 evils there are other choices like who is the better ruler for nations and such.
3.i agree about the polotics they needed more of it
4.you are not mature if one of your major complaints is not enough nudity

 

[Garrison72]

My firm belief, and what I hope, is that the initial draft of creative ideas can be misguided, silly, off point etc. And I want to believe the lines for Eredin, Reasons of State, Junior Whoreson, etc are all the result of a lack of iteration, ie; the team didn't collectively review those elements seriously and say that's not the level of writing and originality the series has maintained thus far. If that's not the case, then I weep for Cyberpunk.

 

[mico11]

My firm belief, and what I hope, is that the initial draft of creative ideas can be misguided, silly, off point etc. And I want to believe the lines for Eredin, Reasons of State, Junior Whoreson, etc are all the result of a lack of iteration, ie; the team didn't collectively review those elements seriously and say that's not the level of writing and originality the series has maintained thus far. If that's not the case, then I weep for Cyberpunk.

I have a theory as well, it's that the actually good writers at CDPR that wrote W2 and W1 left early in development leaving only Velen. That's why after you left Velen the game got progressively worse and worse and concluded in the most terrible way possible.

One of the better side quests in the game was in Skelige, the leshen quest. That really captured the essence of TW series. We know for a fact that quest was done early in development as it was presented all the way back to E3 2013. Whether the writers left the company, took a break , or CDPR delegated them to Cyberpunk I don't know either way this ruined the game for me.

 

[Martinvls]

I have a theory as well, it's that the actually good writers at CDPR that wrote W2 and W1 left early in development leaving only Velen. That's why after you left Velen the game got progressively worse and worse and concluded in the most terrible way possible.

One of the better side quests in the game was in Skelige, the leshen quest. That really captured the essence of TW series. We know for a fact that quest was done early in development as it was presented all the way back to E3 2013. Whether the writers left the company, took a break , or CDPR delegated them to Cyberpunk I don't know either way this ruined the game for me.

+100500

Game is almost perfect until you came to Novigrad, it is perfect not only from story side, but also form level design part - dungeon with Keira is classical good old dungeon with mini-puzzles, traps, hidden treasures, it is interesting to explore. Compare this to the dungeon with Philippa - it's not bad, but it has far less details then Keira's.
But that first 50 hours of quality has a cost in resources and time, so I think that at some point CDPR understood that they created too large game to complete it with perfect quality in 2015, so they take all that cool quests which was already done (Undvik, Isle of Mists, travel with Avalach etc) and hastily fill remaining empty world and plot parts without much detailing. Smuggler cashes is most obvious evidence of that. It will be better if they simply made world smaller and shorter (i.e. 100 hours with perfect quality will be more than enough), but I guess it was too late to change plot structure when CDPR saw that they are running out of time and money..
Maybe in future mods will correct all that but I don't know if there is such big modding community for such task..

 

[KingHochmeister]

Maybe in future mods will correct all that but I don't know if there is such big modding community for such task..

And you greatly overestimate the power of the modding tools that were released.

 

[sv3672]

My firm belief, and what I hope, is that the initial draft of creative ideas can be misguided, silly, off point etc. And I want to believe the lines for Eredin, Reasons of State, Junior Whoreson, etc are all the result of a lack of iteration, ie; the team didn't collectively review those elements seriously and say that's not the level of writing and originality the series has maintained thus far. If that's not the case, then I weep for Cyberpunk.

They do have a review process for the writing, in fact, the script apparently goes through multiple iterations according to the leaked documents. But perhaps for the quests that needed to be reworked in 2014, there was not enough time to do this. And in some places content had to be cut and there was no time to properly fix up what remained in the game, which might have left some holes in the story.

 

[saladin1701]

Incidently, in such a case, I would have a jolly laugh -- and I'm still laughing. Which merely demonstrates how different members of the same audience can react differently to the same story. Is it 'bad writing', or is it merely 'writing'? That depends on whom you ask, and what they expect from the work. I for one find it amazing that the writing team was able to deliver the story they have; since, from what little I understand of their process, they were able to somehow weave a reasonably well-ordered and cohesive narrative out of a tangled skein of chaotic and often confusingly diverse variables.

This, at least, is my view on the matter.

It wasn't framed as a comedic ending though. The tone was not tongue in cheek, it was presented as a serious end to a serious game, therefore I would consider it bad writing. Had the game had a tongue in cheek feel throughout that ending might well have been genius. As it stands, we where playing The Witcher 3, not Day of the Tentacle. I can laugh at that ending, indeed I do laugh at that ending, but in a purely derogatory manner, i.e. I'm laughing at it, not with it.

 

[str1111]

Nowhere in the books is it mentioned that Ciri can stop the space apocalypse then come out and live like nothing happeened for a happy ending . Nor did the game ever hint at this, it made Eredin's struggle pointless. It was an asspul, a deus ex machina, completely stupid. Crach just died fighting for ciri and while he was doing it she got the briliant idea to end the apocalypse. Why didn't she do that before?

And nowhere is said she can't. Nowhere is even mention Geralt didn't die. I don't know why she didn't stop it before, maybe becouse WH tracking her, and she must escape? Or she didn't know how to do this? We even don't know what exacly WF is, and how Ciri stop it...
If it is Deus Ex Machina, what about Ciris powers in books? And Unicorns helping her? I see the same thing, there.

People say this but I don't agree. There was way more side content in this game than both other games combined. And it had nothing to do with Ciri. They could do anything with that side content, but most of what they did was bland and forgettable. Even as you're searching for Ciri, you're doing favors for favors and following breadcrumbs. There were completely useless characters in the main quests like Cleaver and King of Beggars , Whoreson that added absolutely nothing to this game. If it was such a personal story why could you still get involved in regicides and decide the fate of the entire continent, and why was it so poorly done

First of all, devs said that when they announced the game, it will be more like Saga (how many politic content connectet with Geralt is in Saga? helping Meve, and killing all ppl who stand in his way on Thaned?),
if you disagree why you even buy game? All sidequests are more or less connected with Geralt, he hunting monsters, breaking curses, or helping in all problems where his sword is useful, how you want connect politics with him if we good known how he react on it? In Witcher 2 he must do that only becouse ppl think he kill Foltest, and why? Becouse he protect Foltest after first try to assassination... only this keeps him with Roche/Iorveth, and I do not think he looking killer for different reasons, but look at TW3 there are only two big players Emhyr and Radovid, how you want connect Geralt with them, to see their politic plans? Geralt isn't Nillfgardian, nor Redanian noble, officer even not soldier, he didn't fight for Emhyr/Radovid, becouse he is neutral, he do it before, and he see consequences...
For you all this characters are useless becouse there are no politic intrigue, for me they are not more useless than all dwarves, all Henselt soldiers, Loredo, etc. in TW2, where politic content is most in act 3, in act 1 we have only assassination Loredo in Roche path, and in Act 2 battle of Vergen in both (+ what we can do as Henselt/Stanis), rest quests are about killing monsters, etc. (Keyran, Troll, etc. in act 1, and breake the curse in act 2)...


"Even as you're searching for Ciri, you're doing favors for favors and following breadcrumbs."

And searching Letho, you doing favors for favors... but wait, W2 is adult, and this favors like killing Keyran or helping dwarves/soldiers are ok...

TW1 was the game that had the identity quest about Geralt finding out who he is, chosing who to give Alvin too, taking care of Alvin. W1 felt more a personal story to me than this

And for me isn't even close, Geralt want find stolen witchers secrets for most game in TW3 half game he looking Ciri, and do what he must to get informations about her, and after that he want protect her.

Abigail was a member of a death cult, she summoned the beast and had voodo dolls in her house, so what the villager says that she made him kill his brother might be true. Abigail was in no way innocent, it was a confusing situation and Geralt didn't have the complete information, Most of the people in the village were deeply flawed human beings, but not one dimensional. In the spirit of the books it was about choosing what you think was the lesser evil.

I accept your opinion, but my is different.

What I wanted to say is that "it's a personal quest" is not true and it's no defense at all the wild hunt is so poorly written, and the politicial situation is so simplified and dumbed down. It went from all these different northern kings and entities with different motivations, to only Radovid, and he went mad, evil.

It's not all a personal quest, if they had better side stories they could deliver on everything they forshadowed in the previous games, bring back recuring characters like Sigfried, Iorveth , still have a complex and actually morally amigious political situation and a proper ending.

So It's no defense, the game had tons of content that wasn't a personal quest and had nothing to do with ciri even in the main quests.

As I say, if it's not true, it's mean CDPRED are ppl who don't know how they must make their games, becouse they say it will be personal story, about Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer/Triss. All sidequest are also in TW2, and most of them aren't about politic, it's mean TW2 isn't about politic then? And do you think better will be if all characters, from previous games are for no reason in Novigrad/Velen or Skellige, it not be weird for you?

It still doesn't make it not an asspul and deus ex machina, she's not supposed to be able to do that according to the books.

As I said, in that case Geralt die in books... argument, when there are no more arguments...

 

[saltyB]

I have a theory as well, it's that the actually good writers at CDPR that wrote W2 and W1 left early in development leaving only Velen. That's why after you left Velen the game got progressively worse and worse and concluded in the most terrible way possible.

Okay now i definitely agree with you there!

I mean...the game it self didn't get worse, but the Story was indeed getting worse and worse. Novigrad took to much time in the Main Quest and after arriving in Skellige i felt like i have to rush the Main Story to finally find Ciri because Omg....this was already taking so much time and there were so many uninteresting main and side quests ...!

The Bloody Baron questline in Velen was just very well made and understandable. Geralt and him share the same "Fate" if you want, so that questline was really emotional and well connected.





But well...this is also again something that CDPR could have fixed. Together with the Post-world ending and stuff.

 

[Sam2305]

I have a theory as well, it's that the actually good writers at CDPR that wrote W2 and W1 left early in development leaving only Velen. That's why after you left Velen the game got progressively worse and worse and concluded in the most terrible way possible.

One of the better side quests in the game was in Skelige, the leshen quest. That really captured the essence of TW series. We know for a fact that quest was done early in development as it was presented all the way back to E3 2013. Whether the writers left the company, took a break , or CDPR delegated them to Cyberpunk I don't know either way this ruined the game for me.

Totally agree with you. In fact, if you look the credits, you will see that the lead writer of TW3 was the responsable for "additional dialogues!!!" in TW2. The rest of the original time disappeared, don't know why but my bet is that it had something to do with the tone of CDPRt was looking for the third game. The lead writer of TW2 was sacked in 2014 if I remember correctly. In fact, one of the things that CDPR tried to silent was this problem. Everytime someone spoke about it, they always respond that most of the writers of TW2 were still working on TW3 (the bad ones I suppose)

I have the same theory as you and I would like to know if HoS story was also designed in the very first states of development. As you said, once you leave Velen, the story begins to get worse and worse except for a few quest. I wonder where are those writers now (the TW2's team)

 

[mico11]

Totally agree with you. In fact, if you look the credits, you will see that the lead writer of TW3 was the responsable for "additional dialogues!!!" in TW2. The rest of the original time disappeared, don't know why but my bet is that it had something to do with the tone of CDPRt was looking for the third game. The lead writer of TW2 was sacked in 2014 if I remember correctly. In fact, one of the things that CDPR tried to silent was this problem. Everytime someone spoke about it, they always respond that most of the writers of TW2 were still working on TW3 (the bad ones I suppose)

I have the same theory as you and I would like to know if HoS story was also designed in the very first states of development. As you said, once you leave Velen, the story begins to get worse and worse except for a few quest. I wonder where are those writers now (the TW2's team)

from what I can see from the credits, and linkedln profiles of the team. They seem to have moved Sebastian Stępień (lead writer of TW2) to Cyberunk very early in development. Literally delegated b writting team to end the series.lmao , this is depressing

Which writer did they fire, do you remember?

 

[saltyB]

from what I can see from the credits, and linkedln profiles of the team. They seem to have moved Sebastian Stępień (lead writer of TW2) to Cyberunk very early in development.

Always that Cyberpunk....it already caused a lot of problems for The Witcher 3 in my Opinion....???

 

[Sam2305]

from what I can see from the credits, and linkedln profiles of the team. They seem to have moved Sebastian Stępień (lead writer of TW2) to Cyberunk very early in development. Literally delegated b writting team to end the series.lmao , this is depressing

Which writer did they fire, do you remember?

Precisely that guy. I read that he moved to another minor company. Maybe I was wrong and it was another guy

 

[dasft]

Sorry to repeat myself, but this article is a good example of possible big changes during production.

"There are currently more game developers working on Cyberpunk 2077 than on The Witcher 3 in its most intensive month," a representative replied, as reported by NeoGAF.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cyb.../1100-6443321/

But there is no mention of such big changes, considering that Cyberpunk 2077 probably was already in production (history) during the Witcher 3 development. Like the plot of Skyrim, was started almost in the middle of Fallout 3, going in terms of tech, art and sound, until 2011.

They need to have the plot done before any step further, because open worlds are even bigger now, the amount of space to cover, in terms of histories, is way more complicated if compared with rocks and trees.

My guess.

---------- Updated at 04:58 PM ----------

He still there.

Sebastian Stępień
Narrative and Setting Director at CD PROJEKT RED

Podsumowanie
Currently working on: Cyberpunk 2077

Shipped games:
2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2012: The Witcher 2 X360
2011: The Witcher 2
2008: The Witcher Enchanced Edition
2007: The Witcher