Community questions for Marcin Blacha, Lead Writer in CD Projekt Red

[Sagitarii]

Community questions for Marcin Blacha, Lead Writer in CD Projekt Red

Hello folks,

I've decided to organize an short interview/AMA with Marcin Blacha, who as you are probably aware, is a lead writer for Witcher 3.
Everything is already set up, all we need is your questions for him.

After that, me and my friends from the "We hate stupid gamez" group, will pick the best ones, and Mr. Blacha will answer them all in one post.

Format and Rules:

1. While there is no limit on how many questions you can ask, try to pick your best ones and post no more than 2-3. This will help us pick the worthy ones.
2. Do not post very detailed questions unrelated to Mr. Blacha's job (Writer). Focus on writing, characters, story and so on. There is no point asking a Lead Writer intricate programming and tech questions.
3. Do not post questions that are very specific to the story of Witcher 3 (they won't be answered anyway - NDA, spoiling the game)
4. Do not complain, when your question wasn't picked, please
[more for edits]

Your friendly community Polack,
Sagitarii​

Update


Unfortunately, due to some problems with time and communication, the Q&A probably won't be released. If another opportunity comes up, I will try again.

Sorry to you all, I know you've put time and thought into these questions.

 

[SMiki55]

Will there be gnomes (including Percival Schuttenbach and his parrot Field Marshal Duda[Field Marshal Windbag in the official "Baptism of Fire" translation]) in the game?

 

[Sagitarii]

I should've seen this coming..

Also this is the thread for questions, you don't need to tag Mr. Marcin.

 

[StaGiors]

That was unexpected. Thanks for doing this Mr. Blacha. And thanks for organizing this Sagi.

I wanted to ask about the characters from the books.

I understand that TW3 will be story focused. Even more than the previous titles. So I would assume that characters will be much more developed than in TW2 for example.

So my question is, will characters like Ciri and Yennefer be portrayed faithfully to the books? What I mean is, will we get to see every aspect of their character that is shown in the books? Or will we get to see a somewhat "updated" version from CDPR? I would love to see the characters be portrayed fully in the game, as many people have not had the chance to read the books. But I would not say no to some new traits either.

I guess the real question is, how do you approach the issue of taking a character that already exists in the books, and place them into the game.


Now for my second question. Will we get to see similar questlines to some of the short stories from the books? Like for example in TW1, the Striga quest. I would really like to see something like that in TW3. Since the game will be around Novigrad, I'd love to experience a lighthearted story like the one with the Doppler.

 

[Sephira]

How did you feel while writing W3 story knowing that it would have been the last part of the trilogy?

 

[Kinley]

What were the challenges of implementing so many (some might call very important) new characters in the game continuity? And how did you overcome these challenges?

Good job Sagitarii. Hail Blacha!

 

[Garrison72]

How do you keep the grey morality from becoming an overused method? In TW2 I found that characters like Loredo, Dethmold and Saskia definitely leaned more to the extremes on a moral compass. They complemented nuanced characters like Iorveth and Triss quite nicely. Are there other tricks you use as a writer to keep the morality in the game fresh?

 

[adridu59]

Will there be gnomes (including Percival Schuttenbach and his parrot Field Marshal Duda[Field Marshal Windbag in the official "Baptism of Fire" translation]) in the game?

I think he went into the subject in the polish forum, have a look at his 2nd most recent polish post and Google Translate it.

Edit: I see you are Polish, so it’s one step less.

 

[ReptilePZ]

Questions 1, 2 and 3: (1) Can we steal in-game as Geralt? If we can: (2) how does getting caught affect the story (if at all), and (3) what happened to Geralt for him to turn to stealing?

Man, I'm good at this.

 

[blackgriffin]

Will we see the other witchers outside of Kaer Morhen as random encounters?
Will they leave the safety of Kaer Morhen and go out killing monsters in the area or are their activities limited inside Kaer Morhen?

 

[addar]

is there ( in witcher 3), knowing we got ciri, we will have something related to the other dimensions ? beside wild hunt ofc... traveling ?? charkters, items ? or even just Ciri talking about king arthur and camelot

 

[MkTama]

First of all thank you for this beautiful opportunity Story for me is the most important aspect of the game, so I have the deepest respect for Mr.Blacha's work. Here's my take, I have 5 and since I could really not pick the best 2-3 I'll leave the choice to you:

1) Is the game geared towards gamers feeling like Geralt has his own defined personality or are you trying to mantain his personality as "neutral" as possible so that only the gamers themselves will define it with their choices? If a balance of the two, how are you trying you achieve it?

2) We know that the game is meant to possibly be storywise "fresh start" for newcomers who don't know of the Witcher universe, but will it be new start for us "old players" as well or will we feel some continuity (particularly regarding relationships with characters in old games)?

3) In this game very important characters enter the scene (Yennefer, Ciri, Emhyr, Wild Hunt). Is this making you stick more to the lore or have you specifically tried to give your own touch to che characters, possibly bringing new points of view, surprises and freshness even to those who already knows them from books and past games?

4) Triss and Yen in the same game are granting you the opportunity to enhance the "romance" thing, which was in previously titles only streamlined. How are you bringing it in and will this aspect be on the side or effectively complement the main story?

5) Why are you introducing Yennefer only in the last chapter of Geralt's story, was this intended from the start or did it just came along?

 

[KingHochmeister]

Hail the Blacha! Thank you for taking your time to answer some of our questions





1- Without spoiling anything, what type of antagonists will the Wild Hunt be in Witcher 3? Will they be more like in Witcher 1, harassing Geralt throughout the game, or will they be more of a "Boss Encounter" antagonists (I really hate that term) that Geralt faces after hunting them down throughout the game?


2- I know this will be a tough question to answer, but regarding Letho, how big of an affect will he have on the Story if he is in Witcher 3? Will he be replaced by another character that is equally good with a sword if he is dead, or will the Wolf School witchers be enough for the Wild Hunt threat?


3- Regarding the Nilfgaardian Invasion, how big of a difference will our choices in Witcher 2 make on the Status Quo of the war? Will the Status Quo still be the same but lead by different circumstances because the choices Geralt made in Witcher 2?

 

[FILTHYKOALA.667]

Will every Point of Interest have it's own story or will we see some tied to other side missions or the main story?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

1. I've red somewhere that you communicated with Andrzej Sapkowski about the previous Witcher games, though rather minimally. Did you get any feedback / comments from him about the story in the Witcher 3?

2. Will other characters besides Geralt sometimes be playable and making decisions which can affect the outcome of the story?

3. Will there be gnomes in Novigrad? How can there be Novigrad's stock exchange without gnomes?-)

4. Will Cynthia and Dearhenna's megascope play any role in TW3 events?

5. What about Brokilon?

 

[vivaxardas2015]

OK, I have a set of questions about their writing process.
How many staff writers do they have? Who was personally responsible (may be more than one person) for the general concept and story-line of The Witcher 2? Who were major contributors of settling all the details, from event to event, and from chapter to chapter? Was the Iorveth path story-line developed later, as an enhancement, or it was planned from the start and written by the same people? Who were major people writing dialogues, in-game codex and narrations? How many times did they have to re-write, and how far was the final product from the first draft?
The same about TW3, but, obviously, in general.

 

[Servia]

Now this is going to be really interesting in any way!
Thank you for such an amazing opportunity!

Can I make more than 1 question post if there will be a need of translatig and posting questions from our Community?

My personal questions are:
1. Will the things, locations and plots you had to cut out from TW2 be included in TW3?

2. Similar to a previous commenter, I am, and many people in my surroundings are too interested in how the two paths were being done in TW2. They differ too much even in style (Iorvet'sh path as an enhancements for fantasy lovers.. yes, feels like it.). That would've been really interesting to know actually. Many time have passed - maybe it's time to give some additional information?

3. Do you feel like you've managed to tell the whole story now? (after TW3 is done) Do you think that you've fullfilled the storyline along with the world's story and it's characters lifelines? Or maybe there are things you're yet to tell us? How many corrections've been done to the original storyline, if there were any?

Thank you.:hatsoff:

 

[HellKnightX88]

1. Seeing how you guys couldn't include Dol Blathanna in TW2 will it be featured in TW3?
2. Do we get to meet Enid an Gleanna?

 

[gregski]

Ok, so my questions, both interconnected with each other actually:

1. How do you - as a writer - find writing the games' story while having to comply in many areas with such well established lore as Mr. Sapkowski's? Was it more of a constraint or inspiration for your own creativity?

2. Will you be also engaged in writing the story for Cyberpunk 2077? If so, what differences do you see/expect in coming up with it compared to your work on The Witcher games(from your own writer's craft point of view).

 

[BRANCHINGSTORIESFTW]

I'm guessing that choices from the witcher 2 will matter in some way or another.What happens if no saves are imported from the witcher 2 ?Will it be presumed that Geralt followed a "canon" path or will we get to make the most important of choices in some kind of introductory cinematic?