Are you worried Witcher 3 was "Jump the shark" & future CDPR games will get worse?

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ooodrin;n9388741 said:
Yes, in a lot of ways, TW3 is my favorite in the series (books-oriented main storyline, presence of some characters I wanted to see since forever, open world and sidequests that didn't bore me to death after 15-20h, overall presentation, soundtrack...).
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I've seen no reason to worry about political correctness yet.

What if catering to book fans (who can be very vocal when it comes to any adaptation, be it a movie or game) and not wanting to offend them is also a kind of political correctness, compared for example to the first game? It might not be exactly the right term, but it is along similar lines. Not to mention the open world, was it really needed and useful, or just following industry trends at the expense of content quality? I still do not know how to view several things about TW3, only after the release of future games will it be possible if tell if they indicate some kind of trend or not.
 

Guest 3847602

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sv3672;n9432151 said:
What if catering to book fans (who can be very vocal when it comes to any adaptation, be it a movie or game) and not wanting to offend them is also a kind of political correctness, compared for example to the first game? It might not be exactly the right term, but it is along similar lines. Not to mention the open world, was it really needed and useful, or just following industry trends at the expense of content quality? I still do not know how to view several things about TW3, only after the release of future games will it be possible if tell if they indicate some kind of trend or not.

How about you accept the possibility that the developers and writers at CDPR could be huge "book fans" themselves (since they've only been repeating that for like 10 years).
Maybe they are not catering to book-readers (~5% of TW3 playerbase) because they are scared of them, but because books-oriented game is something they wanted to make. Because they... *le gasp*... like those books.
Weird, I know, but it gets even weirder: maaaybe, once they had enough time and money to do it properly - they decided to do it. Mindblowing stuff...
The same could apply to the open world.
Anyway, here is the article where they basically spelled it out - some important elements they introduced in TW3 were planned for earlier games, but technical/budgetary constraints forced CDPR to discard them during development.
 
PR statements from a company may or may not be true, of course they usually say what the fans want to hear. Nothing can be proven either way, as I already said, only time and future actions will tell. Update: I would not put too much stock into that Gamepressure (a.k.a. GRY-Online.pl) article, it seems to be a collection of bits from old interviews mixed with the editor's biased speculation. In other words, click bait. For example, it is true that the "returning memories" plot would have played a larger role in TW2 (because unused lines in the game data back that up), and that there would have been a fourth chapter which is where the player might have finally found Yennefer by the end, but the article insinuates with a picture from a modded game that she would have played a major role right from the prologue (in which case cutting the character would have made no sense).

Anyway, if the Witcher games become increasingly book oriented at the developer's own choice, I also see that as a negative, it shows a lack of imagination and originality, and that the games ultimately do not create anything of lasting value. As much as people like to bash companies like Bethesda, at least they were able to write their own lore, rather than only ever making adaptations.

By the way, not sure where the figure of 5% of the player base has been pulled from (ironically, a poll on the same site you linked shows more than 40%, although it is a Polish site which may bias the percentage), but even 1% is plenty enough to do damage to the image of a company if they are really pissed off. What do you think the percentage of total Skyrim players was that down-voted the game because of the paid mods, for example? Usually, less than 5% of players bother to review a game at all, in the case of The Witcher 3 on Steam, it is currently only 106640 reviews out of 3.7 million copies sold. Imagine if 1% of the players got outraged by something and all gave the game a negative review, it would immediately go down from "overwhelmingly positive" to only "mostly positive" at best, and become worse than Fallout 4's user review score. That is why vocal minorities are so damaging if they are listened to, their opinion always seems disproportionately louder than it really is.

Edit: in reply to the new post below, there was a lot less fanaticism at the time when the older games were made, they were less popular and mainstream, not to mention the books were not as well known either. Anyway, it looks like you are more concerned with thinly veiled personal attacks and ridiculing my posts than an actual discussion, so I will leave it at that and not bother to respond further.
 
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So, if understand you correctly, AAA studio was forced to develop their most ambitious and expensive game to date around most important book characters because they were frightened of negative reviews by few unhinged book fanatics?
:areukiddingme:
How come TW1 was not review-bombed by these bogeymen? Or TW2?

Perhaps it's time to honest with yourself and admit that folks from CDPR might not be on the same page as you regarding the source material.
 
Just finished The Lady of the Lake, and I can see the op's issue with Ciri, but that's also what happens when you adapt the real protagonist's story for another one (Geralt) and introduce the real hero in the third act. There's no time for developing her, sense she's basically a new character at this point, with a new arc. So she was quickly idealized to help newcomers like me, who only knew the short stories, or never read any. Probably a good thing I had to wait so long to play W3, and I read The Lady of the Lake after. Might have expected too much.

As for fake outrage from twitterverse, that's the consequence of doing business on social media - anybody can score social cred by nitpicking tweets of all things. Best thing is not respond, because apologies are never enough. Bethesda run a very tight ship in social media, you don't hear about them getting flamed for anything cultural, religious, or geopolitical, because their PR house probably study this shit on a daily basis.

I don't think CDPR jumped that shark. They seem primed with CP77, and punk is the anti political correctness. If any shark was jumped, it was the 3d open world shark. Still prefer small quests in detailed worldspaces to open world.
 
Just finished The Lady of the Lake, and I can see the op's issue with Ciri, but that's also what happens when you adapt the real protagonist's story for another one (Geralt) and introduce the real hero in the third act. There's no time for developing her, sense she's basically a new character at this point, with a new arc. So she was quickly idealized to help newcomers like me, who only knew the short stories, or never read any. Probably a good thing I had to wait so long to play W3, and I read The Lady of the Lake after. Might have expected too much.

As for fake outrage from twitterverse, that's the consequence of doing business on social media - anybody can score social cred by nitpicking tweets of all things. Best thing is not respond, because apologies are never enough. Bethesda run a very tight ship in social media, you don't hear about them getting flamed for anything cultural, religious, or geopolitical, because their PR house probably study this shit on a daily basis.

I don't think CDPR jumped that shark. They seem primed with CP77, and punk is the anti political correctness. If any shark was jumped, it was the 3d open world shark. Still prefer small quests in detailed worldspaces to open world.

The difference is that Bethesda have "sterile" games and CDPR don't.
Bethesda has never been accused of sexism and racism, but CDPR had.
 
Bethesda publish a lot of games. The point was slacktivists need controversy, and Bethesda's people haven't given them any bait.
 
The new Doom already caused controversy of this type. Then again, for people who want to be offended, it is not too hard to find a reason. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, sexism and racism accusations had negligible impact on CDPR games' reviews and sales, so it might not actually matter that much.
 
We weren't really talking about doom specifically, it just came up as a reference, but I'll keep that in mind.
 
I am not going to read the entire thread but CDPR has noticeably changed in many ways. TW3 was a fantastic game in its own right but many elements were weaker than its predecessors, some of which were (for many of us) more important than an "open world" and superb graphics. Had I discovered CDPR through TW3 I wouldn't know any better though.

I miss the days of the "old" CDPR but they are after all a company and I respect their desire to expand into the so called AAA game territory and become a leading video game company. But for me at least, TW3 didn't feel as different, exciting and exotic (compare with TW1's eastern European folklore). CP2077 looks very cool and I will certainly purchase and play it ASAP, but again I think they lost some of their "wow factor" (especially in the cRPG elements).

I stay away from all that fan controversy bullshit so I can't comment on that, but all Witcher novels and games have women in leading roles so that's not new, and CDPR has always tried to listen to their fans one way or another. I will go ahead and say that people who are easily triggered or offended by video game content should perhaps stay away from video games, and that getting all furious and outraged over games is an indication you should probably see a therapist or make some lifestyle changes.
 
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