Developer Spotlight - Marcin Blacha: Question-Collection Thread [Spoilers]

[Riven-Twain]

Developer Spotlight - Marcin Blacha: Question-Collection Thread [Spoilers]

Greetings, fellow witchers and witcheresses,

As some of you may know, not long ago, our friend @Kinley organised two extremely successful exclusive Developer Spotlights with Level Designer Miles Tost, and Senior Games Designer Damien Monnier. Today, I’m very pleased to announce the beginning of a new Developer Spotlight with Marcin Blacha ( @theta77 ), the Lead Writer for The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. The theme of this interview will be writing and storytelling in the Witcher Series. So, if you’re at all curious about Mr. Blancha’s specific contributions, the writing process in general, or any of the many stories in the games, please post your questions here.

However, before you post, in order to keep things organised, and maintain the theme, there are a few guidelines which I rather insist you follow:

• Please, do not send questions to Mr. Blacha via Private Message: post them here.
• Please, try to keep your questions as clear as possible, and limit posts to questions only. If someone posts what you were going to ask, please try not to repeat it. Likewise, please try to avoid comments like ‘Great question!’, or ‘I was going to ask that!’ If you approve of a post, simply give it a ‘Thank You’, or a REDpoint. If you'd like to expound on another person's question, however, you may do so.
• Please, no questions about features which aren’t explicitly connected to story: This means no questions about performance, patches, glitches, graphics, or any other technical issues.
• No questions about how to finish a specific quest.
• No questions about crossbows – that is the special privilege of @ReptilePZ .
• Sorry, but no questions about Gwent.
• No questions about details of Cyberpunk or future projects the REDs are currently developing. (Those are meant to be a surprise, and he likely won’t answer these anyway.)
• No suggestions or demands for adding new features, characters, locations, or changes to the writing as it stands (we’ve an entire sub-forum for those).
• And, please, no demands for further changes or additions to the romanceable characters. You may ask questions about specific characters, but aught beyond that will be moderated.
• Finally, any rude, insulting, disrespectful posts, or attempts to hijack the thread will be deleted.

While I cannot guarantee that every question will be answered – that’s entirely up to Mr. Blacha – we’ll try to get as many of them as we can.

And, as a final note, for those who've been on the Forums for a while, as you may recall, last year, there was an attempt at a Community Q&A with Marcin Blacha, coordinated by @Sagitarii , however, it unfortunately didn't materialise. I've sifted through that thread, and will be recycling a couple of the questions, related to story and writing, which were asked then. If you posted a question there, which you'd like to ask again, or perhaps modify, please let me know via PM.

Thank you, and carry on.
All the best,
~RivenII

 

[dmcaldw]

Well I will try and throw the first pitch.

When developing a character do you already have a mind set as to what the character is going to be like or do you have a couple of different ideas going at once ? Part two do you have any input when it gets to voicing if so has voicing a character changed your approach ?

 

[swordsandroses]

Many thanks to both Riven and Marcin for organizing this most excellent opportunity at learning more about creative processes behind our favourite game.

Question 1.
Working on a continuation from Mr Sapkowski's books, it must've been quite a challenge balancing existing lore and giving your creativity a chance to shine.
Can you tell us more about your thoughts and ways of making this work? How do you decide which gets adopted in the game and which gets left behind?

Question 2.
You've probably noticed feeeback concerning The wild hunt, Avallac'h and the White Frost. Would you say your vision of that part translated as intended into the game? Could it have been more had you more time to work on it?

Question 3.
Can you tell us a bit about your job? Do you have a method of getting in the zone to write? Where do you draw inspiration from?


Thank you for reading.
Cheers!

 

[Rawls]

1. I know both are extremely important, but when making choices about characters and the narrative, do you begin to approach the story by asking what characters serve the story, or by asking what story serves the characters? Why?

EDIT: 1a. Did the Genesis of the story come from wanting to dig into Geralt's relationships with Ciri and Yennefer? Or was telling a story about the Wild Hunt where you began? Or did the discussion begin in a totally different place and eventually evolve into the story we now know?

2. What is your favorite quest or line of quests in the game?

3. Who is your favorite character and which character had your favorite story arc in the game?

4. How do you decide what makes it into the base game versus what is saved for expansions?

5. Would you be willing to take us through the process of writing the story as a whole? If yes, please do so ...

6. If you could change one thing about the story in hindsight, what would it be?

7. EDIT: Could you please discuss the relationship of the story to the world itself. How did you go about deciding the locations that would be included? How does game & world design limitations affect your ability to tell the story you want to tell?

 

[GHOSTMD]

hm.... just 3 questions

1. (most important for me and for others) Is there a chance you reconsider the release of a FULL RED KIT for Mod support?

2. any chance REDs might "adjust" the romance plots a bit further to be more troublesome (in the decision making)

3. any chance we gonna see more old friends in the future expansions / updates ?

hm... maybe just wishfull thinking since TW3 is fucking great game but...

How about a EE version?

 

[mecha_fish]

Hmmm. Writing for video games must present unique challenges -- what kind of challenges did you face while writing for Wild Hunt/Hearts of Stone? Which bits were the hardest and which bits do you think you learned the most from?

How did writing for either of the standalone expansions differ from writing for the entirety of Wild Hunt?

You wrote from the first Witcher game to the last -- how has work changed? What concerns did you find becoming more prevalent as the games got bigger?

How does coordinating a team of writers work? If that question isn't too broad, haha. Is it chaos? ;^)

How did you get into writing for video games and what other writing have you done?

I suppose there was a lot of content in regards to writing that needed to be cut from Wild Hunt (and probably the expansions too) due to the limitations of production. Would you be willing to gloss over the bits that we missed that were your favourite? Stuff that you were sad to see go?

How much coffee does the average writer consume and does this affect writing ability? I'm genuinely concerned for this question, pls respond.

Which is your favourite piece by Sapkowski? Why is that?

Have you ever met Sapkowski and ever talked to him about any of this amazing fan fiction? 8^)

I recall a post of yours from somewhere speaking of essays on Sapkowski's work (to my memory, they were arguments about the Holy Grail's relevance, Sapkowski's matriarchy and in depth interpretations of the Saga) -- would you mind point out who wrote those and where we could read them? Polish or otherwise ;^) . How did these essays reflect your view of the Saga?

Now that you've written for a giant game such as Wild Hunt -- what would you change, if you had to do it again? I don't mean specifics like "I'd make such and such do this or that", but rather "written more quests of this style, rather than this style" or something more general like that.

Are you sick of Witcher by now? 8^) Looking forward to Cyberpunk?

 

[M4xw0lf]

Why didn't the mages teleport out of Novigrad?
I loved the mood and suspense and the general feeling of looming threat in Triss' sidequests, but this one question bugs me all the time.

 

[volsung]

In the old days of video gaming (read 80's and 90's) studios were but a fraction of what we have today, and many times there weren't specialized roles such as (only) writer. Often, writers were also programmers who were also animators and so on. This restricted the scope of the game of course, but added a level of cohesion that sometimes I feel we don't have anymore. For example, a writer who understands game programming and game design will accept the fact that, in a good RPG, many people will not read a good portion of his beautiful and inspired prose, and there's a chance some of it will not be read by anyone at all. Complex games such as RPG's lead to a variety of states, meaning the underlying narrative and the dialogue supporting this narrative are structured like a tree or maybe a graph: different traversals yield different stories.

So questions:

1) What challenges are there in writing for complex video games such as RPG's that are not present in writing, for example, a novella or a strictly sequential (without choice), "cinematic" video game?
2) How do you feel knowing that a big portion of your hard work (i.e. writing) will be skipped or even ignored by many players?
3) Do you think it is important to have more video game writers and not only traditional writers? In other words, writers who understand and utilize the structure and interactive nature of video games (but aren't necessarily programmers)?

 

[ReptilePZ]

1. Upon being asked by Geralt about breaking with tradition, what would Vesemir's comment on the crossbow be if they didn't "have a griffin to kill"?

2. If a witcher could chuck wood, how much wood would a witcher chuck and also, why the crossbow?

3. Any interesting story you care to share about developing the game? Do you own a crossbow?

 

[volsung]

1. Upon being asked by Geralt about breaking with tradition, what would Vesemir's comment on the crossbow be if they didn't "have a griffin to kill"?

2. If a witcher could chuck wood, how much wood would a witcher chuck and also, why the crossbow?

3. Any interesting story you care to share about developing the game? Do you own a crossbow?

Follow up question: when will someone release a comic making fun of witcher traditions, especially those regarding the use of swords? Fishing with swords, cutting bread with swords, hunting rabbits with swords, scratching their backs with swords...

 

[OptoNick]

There was a recent interview with Damien Monnier where he told that there's a certain phase of production when team gathering up and discuss placement of Easter Eggs. So, regarding that:

1. What was your personal favorite idea for a joke which didn't make it to the game?
2. Any fun stories about such discussions?

 

[whitewoof]

1. Did Andrzej Sapkowski have any input on the Wild Hunt narrative? If so, how much was his involvement and which parts of the story specifically was he involved in.

2. As a lead writer for a current AAA video game franchise with a claim to the best game story telling ever produced, were there any previous video game titles that inspired you to adopt the style and substance of your writing for the Witcher games?

3. It's well known that parts of the initial original story for Wild Hunt never made it to the final cut of the game. If Gaunter O'Dimm allowed you to reverse time, which of these 'cut' stories would you include in the main game? (please tell us a story)

4. I like Keira Metz, a lot. After the game ends (post-epilogue), if you decided to bring her to Kaer Morhen earlier, she can still be found there in the burial grounds with a conversation about her relationship with Lambert. Unfortunately, the only way to speak to her is to jump off a wall (doors are locked), and the only way to get out is die (it's on a very high hill). I can't tell if this is a bug, or under-developed content, and have yet to see anyone figure this out. Can you tell me what the original plan for Keira Metz was if you decided to bring her to Kaer Morhen?

 

[M4xw0lf]

Do you think universals exist as real and distinct entities, or only as mental constructs?

I'm dying to know.

Spoiler

One of the best lines of dialogue ever in a video game, it's f*cking killing me ;D

---------- Updated at 03:16 PM ----------

Also: Was Olgierd von Everec modelled after David Beckham?

 

[Aaden]

Now that you've had many different kinds of scope for the world the story is set in (mostly centered on one location (Wyzima, Witcher 1), geographically diverse but bounded (The Witcher 2), huge open world with the narrative tying locations together (The Witcher 3), smaller open world with more narrative focus (HoS)):


- Which one, of the projects you were writing for, did you feel most comfortable with? Which one made it easiest for you to integrate a story the way you intended?

- What are the most striking pros and cons for a writer when comparing these different kinds of game worlds?

- Which one, in your opinion, yielded the best results narrative-wise (even if it may have been a lot harder to achieve these results)? Which one led to the most engaging overall experience?

- Going into The Witcher 3 with your previous experience, were there any specific challenges? Things you totally underestimated or misjudged? Any lessons learnt, you did not expect beforehand?

 

[misho8723]

So I would ask this:

Why wasn't there more political side of things in the TW3 story ? Plot in TW2 was heavily political, TW3 on the other hand was seriously lacking in this area.. we all know that the story in TW3 is mainly a personal story about Geralt, Ciri and the people around them, but there is a war going on around them and Geralt has many connections to the political figures in that time.. so much interesting political stuff just left unused.. why?

And I don't know if this question is right for Marcin, but in previous Witcher games there was a section in the menus, where the player could read about the Witcher world - regions, cities, races, cults, etc. Why isn't this in TW3? You know that most of the players of this game are new to the Witcher world and this section would help them so much.. yes, they have books in the game that they can read, but in this section they would had everything important in one place.. I know that this was really helpfull for me, when I played the previous games.. and now, even more people play this series and it would really help them to understand the world in which this games took place.. in TW3 there are only sections about characters important in TW3 storyline and monsters, which is a shame

 

[Scryar]

Awesome!

1. Why did Eredin get so little screen time and dialogue? What was the "plan" behind Eredin's character?

2. What was the reason to cut the mission "In search for Caranthir" and pretty much refuse to give him any kind of characterization? (he doesn't even have a face)
Avallac'h mentions that Caranthir was his creation. Was it planed to explore this topic in the cut content?

3. Why did you change the nature of the White Frost?

4. Why did you you decide to turn the story into a "chosen hero saves the world'" power fantasy in the last 15 minutes?
This was especially disappointing as the strenght of the Witcher series was always to not be this kind of fantasy. Even with the Wild Hunt involved it would have been very possible to write a "human" and grounded story, if the focus would have been different. (see question 5)

5. Why was Geralt's time as a Rider of the Hunt almost completely and the Hunt abducting human children completely ignored in the game, despite both topics being relatively important in Witcher 2?
Wouldn't it have been interesting to explore the dynamics betwen the Aen Elle- humans- Aen Seidhe?

6. Why was Ciri sanitized in comparison to the books?(though I can imagine the answer)

7. According to the leaked documents the sabbath was supposed to be well.....how I would imagine a sabbath being hosted by the three most disgusting creatures in the Witcher world , inluding rituals, mass suicides and sex orgies.
Why was it changed into a boring garden party?

8. What purpose do Fringilla and Margarita have and why did you decide to include them and their missions? Don't you think they were a waste of ressources and damaged the pace of the third act?



.

 

[RageGT]

Johnny is for many people, myself included, one of the greatest characters in the whole Witcher universe or any other game/film. For a non-native English speaker like me, but with a passion for the language, it's such a pleasure to listen and interact with him.

- What's the background of his creation?
- Is the translation from the Polish original accurate or more a version into English, keeping each language particularities to their own?
- Where did you guys find Bernard Lewandowski? He's the voice actor right? So perfect. Going to search around for the Polish scene 'cause it must be as brilliant.

- Is anyone in CDPR fluent in Portuguese (Brazilian)? How was the approval of the translation process done? It has a few flaws in it which is why I hate things translated into Portuguese, despite loving the language as one of the most beautiful for literary works.

 

[SMiki55]

What happened to Emhyr's wife?

 

[OrangeApple]

With the great writing, strong story and character personalities and the game being so big what was the point in giving such an epic game a deus ex machina ending? What and why was this choice made (instead of possibly showing us what actually went on inside that tower and how our heroin stopped the white frost.) Since it was referred to several times in the game yet what it is, is a complete mystery.

 

[Sagitarii]

And, as a final note, for those who've been on the Forums for a while, as you may recall, last year, there was an attempt at a Community Q&A with Marcin Blacha, coordinated by @Sagitarii , however, it unfortunately didn't materialise. I've sifted through that thread, and will be recycling a couple of the questions, related to story and writing, which were asked then. If you posted a question there, which you'd like to ask again, or perhaps modify, please let me know via PM.

Hey, thanks for remembering about me and opening barely healed wounds after my failure ;_; You could've contacted me, I have a full spreadsheet of the good questions categorized and sorted.

So, because this is Witcher releated only, I won't ask my question about Neuroshima. In exchange I would like to ask Mr. Blacha this:

Why did you abandon me back then?

1. Aside from overseeing the whole story and script in Witcher 3 and HoS - what were your smaller, personally written contributions to the game and the expansion - (namely quests, characters or even small encounters) and which are you the most proud of?

2. Many elements in HoS were based on Pan Twardowski legend, which was amazing - which other legends and tales from Slavic/Polish folklore were you thinking about adapting or drawing from for The Witcher games?