Wichat said:
a car could be equally practical .... />/> If CDPR introduce Yennefer only to be practical to Geralt better they don't introduce her at all.....
I take it you're not too familiar with what constitutes good game design huh?
The reason we, as players, care about, say, the horse in Shadow of the Colossus or Garrus in Mass Effect or Clem in The Walking Dead is because they serve a practical purpose to the player. IE, they're useful to us in the sense that they help us through the game in one way or another.
In
SotC the horse is used for transportation across the vast landscape. If the horse would die, you'd be sad because that horse was useful to you and there's no replacement. Without the horse, you're going to have to traverse the country by foot, which would, obviously, take much longer than by horse.
In
Mass Effect, Garrus possess various different skills that benefit you, as a player, in combat. He dispatches enemies with abilities and talents, making it much easier for you to survive and get through the game. He's useful to you when it comes to combat aspects.
In
The Walking Dead, Clem is constantly helping you, Lee, to get through locked doors and even shooting a zombie, thereby saving a fellow survivor.
Having good, well developed and well written characters and solid characterization can be enough to establish a connection between the player and the specific character but attributing said character a specific role from where that character can be useful to you in a practical sense, amplifies the attachment you have to the character. Remember, this isn't a book, a movie, or a tv show. This is a game, and therefore other rules apply to how you create an important character.
Obviously it's a little more complex than that, you can't for example let an npc in a game be expendable or redundant, that way you can just swap another character with him and you won't miss him. This is advanced npc utility and characterization but you get the general idea, even if I'm really simplifying things now
Ken Levine talked about this recently and I recommend the video to anyone who's interested in game design, he mentions some of what makes good npc design, specifically how companions are supposed to mirror their importance in the story within gameplay.
What I'm saying isn't that Yennefer should just be like a shopkeeper or something, where the only thing she does is sell you goods. She doesn't talk with you or anything, all she does is offer useful services to you. That would be shit game design, especially considering the context of the Witcher universe. Yennefer is quite clearly important to Geralt. Designating such a trivial and small role to her, would diminish her as a character. You probably see where I'm going with this now.
Because Yennefer is an important character, to Geralt and to the plot, she should, according to npc characterization and utility, serve a useful and practical purpose to you in order to reflect her importance within the game mechanics. The more utility she provides within the game, the more she's resonating within the context of the story that she's important person in the plot. Though this wasn't my point with my original post. All I was saying there is that a good way to introduce new people who don't know who Yennefer is, like myself, is let her serve a purpose to the player regarding the gameplay or a feature. Maybe she could be the one to go to when you want to fast travel. She creates a portal, you both walk through it and voila. That way, whenever you need fast travel, you go to her. It's actually killing two birds with one stone, on one hand you're providing Yen with a useful role and on the other you ground the fast travel feature in reality, grounding it in a realistic way of how it works. Thus, you have created an instant connection because she's useful to the player.
NOW you can start to characterize her and give her a backstory, motives etc etc.
God
damn I'm good! Every chance I get to explain some what good game design is, I just have to take it
What can I say, this is my passion. I was born for this shit ^^
