Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine - two massive expansions for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[dragonbird]

I'd actually go as far as to say that the expansions are reworks of cut content considering the timeframe but thats just an educated guess.

I'm not sure what you mean by "rework" in this case.

The timing doesn't really work out for it to mean "they developed this content already, cut it, and are now going to tidy it up and release it as expansions." The packs are scheduled for October and for Q1 2016, which is a fairly long period. If this really WAS just about maximising profit, then they'd get released much earlier. Even if you get pre-order revenue, you can't recognise it until the product ships.

If they did do any work already, I doubt if it went beyond the conceptualisation stages, when a lot of ideas get thrown around and many don't make it into the game. So not "cut" and "rework", just "never implemented".

And, while the discussion on corporate philosophies is interesting, I think those concerned should probably move it to another thread if it's going to be a general discussion. Once we get to talking about telcos, it's moving a little too off-topic.

 

[Godwin1]

I'm not sure what you mean by "rework" in this case.

The timing doesn't really work out for it to mean "they developed this content already, cut it, and are now going to tidy it up and release it as expansions." The packs are scheduled for October and for Q1 2016, which is a fairly long period. If this really WAS just about maximising profit, then they'd get released much earlier. Even if you get pre-order revenue, you can't recognise it until the product ships.

If they did do any work already, I doubt if it went beyond the conceptualisation stages, when a lot of ideas get thrown around and many don't make it into the game. So not "cut" and "rework", just "never implemented".

And, while the discussion on corporate philosophies is interesting, I think those concerned should probably move it to another thread if it's going to be a general discussion. Once we get to talking about telcos, it's moving a little too off-topic.

You're right, what I should have said is "never implemented". Makes much more sense. It's just a theory but it's quite possible considering the weird timing they relesed the pre-order expansions for their pre-ordered game.

Part of me wonders if they set a date to announce this season pass and due to delays to Witcher 3 it actually preceded it's release? One day I guess we'll find out!

 

[Cirivia]

You're right, what I should have said is "never implemented". Makes much more sense. It's just a theory but it's quite possible considering the weird timing they relesed the pre-order expansions for their pre-ordered game.

Part of me wonders if they set a date to announce this season pass and due to delays to Witcher 3 it actually preceded it's release? One day I guess we'll find out!

With the game being so large I think it seems very plausible that they've been working on debugging it. Open world games can have a ton of bugs as little as having collision issues with squirrels or whatever. Look at Red Dead Redemption, an excellent game but it was filled with bugs.

 

[dragonbird]

Part of me wonders if they set a date to announce this season pass and due to delays to Witcher 3 it actually preceded it's release? One day I guess we'll find out!

No, I doubt it. They could easily have changed the announcement date. I'm only guessing here, but the "To encourage people not to trade-in the game" suggestion makes the most sense to me personally on why they're announcing pre-launch. But it's just a guess, I could be completely wrong.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

TBH I do not understand all the fuss about the Expansion packs.
No matter if they are retail DvDs or if they are digital downloadable expansions.
No matter if you want to call them "DLC" - because technically they ARE "downloadable content" in the definition of the word, because they are extra content to the game and CAN be downloaded - or if you want to call them "Expansion" / "Expansion DLC" to differentiate them from the normal, usual "minor" content that most DLCs have (like 2 hours of story or new skins or new weapons (whereas those "expansions" will have 30+ hours of content)) they are still in the right to do this.

And then all those people complaining about how "CDPR lied to us" or how "rude" they are to want money for content they are announcing BEFORE the release of the game and "therefore it is day1/day0 DLC", no it is NOT and no they didn't lie and not they are not RUDE. They are simply making money for their HARD WORK.

They simply announced that later down the road (NOT on day1 or in the first week, but actually in Octrobre and (the second expansion) NEXT YEAR) they will be releasing 2 expansions which will cost a little bit something (less than most story DLCs of other games and far less than a 8-hour game for 60 bucks) because those expansions are BIG.

They said numerous times before they'd give DLC - in the definition of being small extra content like gear, one single quest-line or character skins - only for free. But they WOULD charge for big expansions down the road they said, if they chose to do them. Now they chose to do them. Apparently they are confident enough in the game to say "We are doing those expansions no matter what". Now the game is less than a month away, most artists and quest writers and other devs will have nothing to do because all they do now is polishing and bug fixing (game might even have gone gold by now). What makes more sense? Letting them just sit there and do nothing, or making DLC/Expansions, if you are planning on doing them anyway?

Now some say "but they already know the exact TIME those expansions will take!!! That HAS to be cut content from the game!!". No it doesn't. First of all, they said those expansions would have "at least" those number of hours, if not more. Second of all, I trust CDPR that they can evaluate how long a story and possible side quests they are planning to create would take, considering their experience with the Engine, the game itself (they already made 100 hours of content in that game) and RPGs in general.

And no, they are not money-grabbing or greedy or anything. It is their GOOD RIGHT to want money, LITTLE money considering it is 24 - 30 $ for 30 hours of gameplay (1 $ per hour and that is NOT counting in the replayability of the content). I mean come on. There are games out there having a play time of 8 - 14 hours costing 60$ and those games don't necessarily have better graphics, better mechanics, better story or better characters if the gameplay videos we have seen so far is to believe.

Think about that.

I'm pretty sure the DATE of the announcement of the expansions should have NOTHING to do with how they are perceived considering those expansions will come some time after the game is released. It just means they know they want to make those expansions no matter what and they are confident in their game.

Last but not least, they said themselves in the announcement "don't buy the expansions if you have any doubt. Try The Witcher 3 first, then think about buying it if you like TW3".

 

[Mekari]

Maybe there were alot of people berating this a few days ago right after the announcement, but I am seeing many more positive than negative responses now. I think it was a bunch of people just jumping to conclusions and so taking things out of context.

 

[Eldarth]

Personal experience and impressions cannot attest to the numbers we are speaking about here. They might give a feeling, but that's it. Projecting from the 10, 50, 100 people in your real life to tens of millions around the world is a leap. And even if CDPR makes billions of dollars - so what? You are still not explaining by this why those who bought the CE are entitled to all future expansion packs of TW3, worked after TW3 is complete, and long after the CE were announced - the content of which you knew. Saying "because they're rich" doesn't cut it.

You might say "it's to improve their reputation". To that I answer - alright, let's say for a moment that once they're filthy rich and wiping their asses with Franklins they should hand out gifts to their fans, because it's in their best interest.

Why should they hand out gifts to a small group of smaller market influence - that is, those who bought the CE - instead of a larger group with larger influence - that is, everyone else? Do you think that it's in the company's best, utilitarian interests to gift a small number of people with the expansion packs instead of a larger number of people with smaller things?

You have a lot to prove if you want this argument to strike home.


And I shouldn't have even mentioned that because your meaning was clear and it was just me being a nitpicking ass, so sorry.


It's ironic that later in your post you talk about fanboy bias, but now you decide this so casually.

Anyway, a lot of things are being confused here.
A) Even if they win all GOTY awards from all over the net, that still doesn't say anything about the sales.
B) Delivering the best game of the year (which is subjective) doesn't make you a monopoly.

CDPR aren't the only company in the industry. You're narrowing down the definition to a company who creates an entertainment product (not even a service or a trade of resource) in a very specific genre. Which it isn't even the only one in doing (BioWare, Bethesda). Unless, in addition to that definition you also want to argue that since it might be of a higher quality than other products in the same genre, then it's a monopoly. Or that since it's the only product of that kind releasing in 2015, then it's a monopoly. Both of which are bonkers.

That is completely distorting the definition of the word and emptying it of meaning - and I believe it's just to use some term that's very evocative.

C) Even if it is a monopoly - I still fail to see how how--

--is rude? Rude? Really? They are adding new content. On which they will be working (hard, it's safe to assume)?
Would you rather they... not work on new content?
Why?
How is this rude?
Or should they not have charged for their work? Would that have made it polite?

What the hell is going on here?


A) What is the final point of them not saying anything about the expansion packs months ago? Is this to suggest that it's a decision on the spur of the moment? That this is spontaneous? I'm also pretty sure that CDPR have very clear plans for 2016 and 2017 which they aren't yet informing us. Since when do they need to announce all their plans in advance? In fact, I've heard more complaints about them announcing this too early. Yours is the first post I've read that suggests they should have talked about this earlier.
B) This isn't DLC, unless you narrow that definition to the purely literal sense of the worse, which is content which you download. These are expansion packs. Equating a 30 hour product to DLCs as we know them today, which tend to be either accessories or just minor quests, is twisting what's going on here.
C) "They knew they could make more money out of it with paying DLCs". Well, first, it's not DLC. Second, yeah, they can make more money - which is absolutely fine. How is a business company coming up with an idea to make more money somehow negative? And third, this is not a spur of the moment decision. If you think a company - which you yourself predict to earn billions of dollars - acts on these moment-to-moment impulses, and that this wasn't planned long in advance, then I'm... I'm not sure how to communicate anymore.
D) "Monopoly" - I referred to this above.
E) They actually did tell you of their intentions. Long ago.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/archive/index.php/t-22007.html
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-3-Wild-Hunt?p=1591495&viewfull=1#post1591495
They also hinted at this move when they said that if they'll charge for additional content, they'll make sure it's worthwhile.


It happens way too often that someone has an opinion - a criticism of sort - and when he's answered with counter-arguments, he thinks that the critical spirit is dead (which is ironic, since what he is being answered with is criticism, just not at the direction he may have hoped). An opinion, just because it is an opinion, is not immune to criticism. Criticism is not immune to criticism. A criticism should be an argument. An argument needs to be chained properly. When it's not, when it's not coherent, when the terms are messed up, twisted or emptied of meaning, then there is nothing wrong with criticizing the criticism.

Saying that this is "fanboy bias" is an ad hominem. You are not responding to what the people answering you are saying, you are just talking about them and their bias - without explaining why. Now if there were a bunch of people answering you with shouts and curses and that's it, then maybe you would know there's nothing to bother with.

I've wasted a big chunk of my life on this post of mine, literally breaking it down to bullet points. My previous post to you was also fairly lengthy. That's blind fanboyism? Could be that I'm full of shit and an arrogant fucker, but at the very least I didn't reduce my posts to "shut up, CDPR rules, what do you know". We have different definitions of monopoly and DLC. Now we also have a different definition of fanboys.

Dude im just tired discussing with you, yes, i am a guy with OPINIONS on the internet just making a request that could be a win-win deal, my intentions and what i say are very clear, but still you keep taking my words out of context and using fallacies. Bye

 

[Innamoramento]

WOW, an old, good expansion packs like in a good old games such as NWN and NWN2, and I think that is great. I really hoped REDs will release something more than 16 DLCs and I am not dissapointed with them. Good work :hatsoff:
Looking forward to play it all.

 

[wonderboyxd]

Does the collectors edition include season pass? Somehow i think i read that it does somewhere.

 

[dragonbird]

Does the collectors edition include season pass? Somehow i think i read that it does somewhere.

No, there's no "season pass" included in the Collector's Edition.
The 16 DLC announced earlier are free for everyone. The two Enhancements announced this week are available for pre-order purchase and are not included in the CE.

 

[wichat]

Personal experience and impressions cannot attest to the numbers we are speaking about here. They might give a feeling, but that's it. Projecting from the 10, 50, 100 people in your real life to tens of millions around the world is a leap. And even if CDPR makes billions of dollars - so what? You are still not explaining by this why those who bought the CE are entitled to all future expansion packs of TW3, worked after TW3 is complete, and long after the CE were announced - the content of which you knew. Saying "because they're rich" doesn't cut it.

You might say "it's to improve their reputation". To that I answer - alright, let's say for a moment that once they're filthy rich and wiping their asses with Franklins they should hand out gifts to their fans, because it's in their best interest.

Why should they hand out gifts to a small group of smaller market influence - that is, those who bought the CE - instead of a larger group with larger influence - that is, everyone else? Do you think that it's in the company's best, utilitarian interests to gift a small number of people with the expansion packs instead of a larger number of people with smaller things?

You have a lot to prove if you want this argument to strike home.


And I shouldn't have even mentioned that because your meaning was clear and it was just me being a nitpicking ass, so sorry.


It's ironic that later in your post you talk about fanboy bias, but now you decide this so casually.

Anyway, a lot of things are being confused here.
A) Even if they win all GOTY awards from all over the net, that still doesn't say anything about the sales.
B) Delivering the best game of the year (which is subjective) doesn't make you a monopoly.

CDPR aren't the only company in the industry. You're narrowing down the definition to a company who creates an entertainment product (not even a service or a trade of resource) in a very specific genre. Which it isn't even the only one in doing (BioWare, Bethesda). Unless, in addition to that definition you also want to argue that since it might be of a higher quality than other products in the same genre, then it's a monopoly. Or that since it's the only product of that kind releasing in 2015, then it's a monopoly. Both of which are bonkers.

That is completely distorting the definition of the word and emptying it of meaning - and I believe it's just to use some term that's very evocative.

C) Even if it is a monopoly - I still fail to see how how--

--is rude? Rude? Really? They are adding new content. On which they will be working (hard, it's safe to assume)?
Would you rather they... not work on new content?
Why?
How is this rude?
Or should they not have charged for their work? Would that have made it polite?

What the hell is going on here?


A) What is the final point of them not saying anything about the expansion packs months ago? Is this to suggest that it's a decision on the spur of the moment? That this is spontaneous? I'm also pretty sure that CDPR have very clear plans for 2016 and 2017 which they aren't yet informing us. Since when do they need to announce all their plans in advance? In fact, I've heard more complaints about them announcing this too early. Yours is the first post I've read that suggests they should have talked about this earlier.
B) This isn't DLC, unless you narrow that definition to the purely literal sense of the worse, which is content which you download. These are expansion packs. Equating a 30 hour product to DLCs as we know them today, which tend to be either accessories or just minor quests, is twisting what's going on here.
C) "They knew they could make more money out of it with paying DLCs". Well, first, it's not DLC. Second, yeah, they can make more money - which is absolutely fine. How is a business company coming up with an idea to make more money somehow negative? And third, this is not a spur of the moment decision. If you think a company - which you yourself predict to earn billions of dollars - acts on these moment-to-moment impulses, and that this wasn't planned long in advance, then I'm... I'm not sure how to communicate anymore.
D) "Monopoly" - I referred to this above.
E) They actually did tell you of their intentions. Long ago.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/archive/index.php/t-22007.html
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/thre...-3-Wild-Hunt?p=1591495&viewfull=1#post1591495
They also hinted at this move when they said that if they'll charge for additional content, they'll make sure it's worthwhile.


It happens way too often that someone has an opinion - a criticism of sort - and when he's answered with counter-arguments, he thinks that the critical spirit is dead (which is ironic, since what he is being answered with is criticism, just not at the direction he may have hoped). An opinion, just because it is an opinion, is not immune to criticism. Criticism is not immune to criticism. A criticism should be an argument. An argument needs to be chained properly. When it's not, when it's not coherent, when the terms are messed up, twisted or emptied of meaning, then there is nothing wrong with criticizing the criticism.

Saying that this is "fanboy bias" is an ad hominem. You are not responding to what the people answering you are saying, you are just talking about them and their bias - without explaining why. Now if there were a bunch of people answering you with shouts and curses and that's it, then maybe you would know there's nothing to bother with.

I've wasted a big chunk of my life on this post of mine, literally breaking it down to bullet points. My previous post to you was also fairly lengthy. That's blind fanboyism? Could be that I'm full of shit and an arrogant fucker, but at the very least I didn't reduce my posts to "shut up, CDPR rules, what do you know". We have different definitions of monopoly and DLC. Now we also have a different definition of fanboys.

 

[Arkray_gog]

It offers me the expansions for $20.99.
Have you log in to GOG?

Woops, no, sorry. I was at job and gog site does not mention anything abt discounts like it does for w3.

Then i'll get it next saturday from home. Thank you very much

Sorry to bring back the topic but no, this time I was logged in at gog.com and the price is 24,99€ Am I doing something wrong? I got the discout for W3 main game and W1 and W2 are in my shelf. What did you do to get the pass for 20$?

Thanks

 

[Persei8]

What the hell is going on here. People wanting Steam codes with the collectors edition because they want physical packaging and they want Steam. Now we have people wanting the expansion pass with the collectors edition. The collectors edition is about physical items, statue, steelbook, art book, ect. Are people now so used to being fucked over with codes that now they want codes with the collectors editions. If I see an collector edition of a game that is filled with codes, I will say no. What am I collecting.

Here I am more worried that the expansions won't make it to retail. So I can buy more and collect more. And these people want a discount because the collectors edition was expensive. lol. You get what you paid for. That's why I pre-ordered the Xbox One collectors edition because it come with extra goodies that were not codes. I don't even have an Xbox One.

 

[SonsOfAtlas]

What the hell is going on here. People wanting Steam codes with the collectors edition because they want physical packaging and they want Steam. Now we have people wanting the expansion pass with the collectors edition. The collectors edition is about physical items, statue, steelbook, art book, ect. Are people now so used to being fucked over with codes that now they want codes with the collectors editions. If I see an collector edition of a game that is filled with codes, I will say no. What am I collecting.

Here I am more worried that the expansions won't make it to retail. So I can buy more and collect more. And these people want a discount because the collectors edition was expensive. lol. You get what you paid for. That's why I pre-ordered the Xbox One collectors edition because it come with extra goodies that were not codes. I don't even have an Xbox One.

I don't quite get this either. There seem to be a lot of people that somehow think it would be normal to receive the expansions because they ordered the collector's edition. I don't really understand that reasoning. It's like having two packages of cookies, one normal and one XL sized. You don't expect to receive an extra package of cookies just because you bought the XL sized package, right? Ok, that's a very bad comparison but still..

 

[Persei8]

When it comes to collectors edition and cookies. Say a company who makes cookies intents to release a collection of all the different cookies they make and they call it a collectors edition. The collection edition of all the different cookies is announced with all the names of all the cookies that will be in the collectors edition box. Just before the collectors edition of cookies are released, the company invents recipes for 2 new cookies. Should the recipes for those two new cookies come with the collectors edition of cookies. That's what they asking for, codes, right.

Should a new collectors edition be released next year with all the expansion content and DLC. With a new statue and steelbook. I'll buy the new collectors edition of cookies with 2 brand new cookies.

IDK if i got it right. lol.

I'm serious about a new collectors edition next year. This collector edition was too limited and expensive. A new collectors edition with a simple statue of Geralt and a new steelbook + a complete game with all the content. So we can know when CDPR has stopped working on Witcher 3 and gone full force on Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[Lieste]

No. Collectors edition is the game plus "Some collectible stuff". This is what you ordered, and what the edition consisted of when offered for sale. This is what you tendered an offer for.

Future products do not fall into this definition, even if they are add-ons to the original product.

 

[Giovanni1983]

I don't understand the complain. The collectors edition was announced quite a while ago with it's contents being shown. They went up for sale and sold out before the expansions were even announced. Why should they be included as codes in it now? It doesn't make sense

 

[GuyNwah]

The collector's edition cost, what, $150? That's not a price that elevates CE customers to some category that has a right to special treatment above or beyond the value of their bargain, which did not include any right to receive products not included in the CE at no additional cost.

In software, customers who spend five figures on licenses and four figures on maintenance contracts have a reasonable expectation of special treatment. Customers who spend three figures on a license and tchotchkes are buying a predefined product on a "take it or leave it" basis and are not in that category.

To further the analogy with other shrink-wrap software, it is not uncommon for the license to include the right to receive all updates and improvements made to that software for, say, a year. But if the license does not provide for that, nothing else entitles you to it, not the fact that you bought a premium edition, not the fact that you are a longstanding customer, nothing.

 

[jediknight16]

CDPR always said they want all players to get the same experience of the game, no matter which version of the game they buy. That's why their Collector Edition doesn't include any pretended "Exclusive DLC Content", "Exclusive Skin" or anything like that. The one who buy the basic version and the one who buy the CE version will both have the entirely same game to play, with nothing different. One will have just the game, the other will have physical stuff.
Now they announce future content, two expansions to buy. Will those change the main story of the game ? No. Will those change the experience of the player in game or give him advantage over other players ? No. So they are still following their statements and keeping the promises they made to customers.
Which mean you have no reason to complain. Almost all gaming studios sell skins, 25 minutes missions or new weapons at 25 dollars or more, and a lot of players buy those without hesitation.
Here they offer 16 free DLCs with skins, missions, etc while other would sell each at 5€, and they announce additionnal content in the form of true expansions which add a lot of hours of hours of playing, for just 25€ ! Do you guys know how many developpers did sell expansions at the same price as a full game ? Or just 10€ cheaper ? Sometimes it takes years for expansions to come, and they sell those to add 5 hours of gameplay or sometimes less.
Some season passes were sold for 30€, 25€, and didn't offer 20 hours of story.
What they're doing is totally fair and doesn't change anything, they're honest with customers and don't sell cosmetic stuff.

 

[dragonbird]

CDPR always said they want all players to get the same experience of the game, no matter which version of the game they buy. That's why their Collector Edition doesn't include any pretended "Exclusive DLC Content", "Exclusive Skin" or anything like that. The one who buy the basic version and the one who buy the CE version will both have the entirely same game to play, with nothing different.

This can't be overemphasised. We know that the various distribution partners and retailers wanted exclusive content, but CDPR insisted that there would be no exclusive GAME content. If CDPR were to turn round now and give the expansion pack free to those who bought the CE, it wouldn't be positive publicity.

It would upset those partners they turned down earlier (and make it harder to turn them down in the future). It would piss off everyone who bought the digital or standard version. And it would piss off a lot of their fans, including a fair number of those who had pre-ordered the CE, because they'd lied about "No Exclusive Content". We all saw what happened about the card game, this would be 10x worse.

---------- Updated at 10:51 AM ----------

And a reminder. Discussions about telcos and mobile plans are still off-topic for this thread. Post deleted.