Interiors and Drinking?

[DAlexanderNYC]

Interiors and Drinking?

Hi,

So I love this series, ever since The Witcher 2 and I'm having a blast finishing up the third. It's an enthralling story with plenty to do. However, there are a couple of things that makes me scratch my head: what's the point of having interiors and alcohol (beer and other mead) in the game?

Now don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the fact how the game not only has countless interiors but many of them are seamless. I love how you can just walk into any home, residence, dungeon, cave, etc. and be treated to an extremely detailed environment. It's fantastic but going inside people's residences seems pointless to me because there's really nothing to do! You can't sleep on anyone's bed and plus it would've been if you could at least see Geralt take things from people's homes. Whenever you take anything you just walk in front of it and select "take" with a button press. You don't actually see him grab anything which would've been pretty cool.

Also what's the point of "consuming" alcohol when you have to go inside your Inventory menu and select without even seeing Geralt perform the animation. Why couldn't CD Projekt Red allow you to actually walk inside a bar and see Geralt consume a pint of mead, specifically the animation of him actually grabbing the mug and draining it down. There's one part in the beginning of the game that is part of a quest where you actually see him do this. It would've been nice they carried this throughout the whole game. In Red Dead Redemption and GTA V you're able to walk in a tavern or club and literally watch the protagonist gulp some alcohol down his throat.

I know CD Projekt Red is all about fan service and it would've been cool if they had a little more interaction inside people houses and the ability to actually see Geralt performing a drinking animation especially with all the alcohol talk that goes on in the game. It just perplexes me. Hopefully they include this in an update or something.

 

[Geragio]

Well they didn't add a drinking animation for when you take a potion, so drinking a mug of mead wouldn't of even been on there radar

 

[DAlexanderNYC]

I love it when games immerse you and make you feel pulled in to the game world you're inhabiting for what ever length of time. I think it would've been completely appropriate for them to have a drinking animation because they DID include one in there. They just didn't feature it throughout the whole game. It appeared only once when you went from White Orchard to Velen and I believe it transpired at Innkeep Road or something. It was part of a quest where you could would actually walk up to the counter and see Geralt drink. I wish they kept this animation when ever we entered a Inn and wanted a drink. This was in games like Red Dead. This would've been a real nice touch.

 

[aozgolo]

Alcohol is used to replenish alchemical ingredients when you sleep, it's also used as a base for some alchemy formula or as a restorative item.

Interiors were added because they are actually necessary for several quests, there's times when you will need to enter a home to talk to a quest giver, look for clues for a detective style mission, fight a certain enemy, or just look for loot, and that's just the houses, you also have shops, taverns, huge mansions, castles, towers, and other such interiors and making them all seamless really adds to the world.

I think it's true of any open world game that the more you add the more immersed the player can become, even if it's not crucial to the plot it can really ground the world in your eyes. Todd Howard (Lead Game Designer of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout) said that he often thinks back to the old Ultima games where you could actually bake bread in the game and how while it didn't really add much from a gameplay or story perspective, it made the world feel more real.

I kinda wish they added more of these touches, and while drinking/eating animations would be cool as well as being able to interact with more objects, I feel this is something that modders could add (Skyrim for example has tons of new animation mods), we just need to wait for the REDKit to be released.

 

[Groupthinkster]

I think this is the same reason that you see so many faces and voices repeat. CDPr is relatively small and punching way above their weight. They're competing with Ubi and Rockstar with a smaller team, less budget and no major backing.

And they still delivered something that blows the big boys out of the water in terms of scope and depth. That means some skimping on incidental details here, a copy pasted face there and some lacklustre interiors over yonder.

With the money they're making now they can hire animators and artists to flesh those little things out further on the next one. If I was a studio manager at Ubi I'd shit my pants at that prospect, lol.

 

[dksaj]

A small detail, but it goes a long way into creating a more believable game world, versus "press E to consume". I feel the same way as OP about alchemy and potions, I was very disappointed when I saw how they did away with the old system used in TW2. It was so awesome to actually "prepare" before a fight. Just pressing a hotkey feels so insignificant in comparison, and even worse is having to constantly stop mid-fight to open the inventory menu to reapply oils and such.

 

[HumAnimaL9000]

highly unlikely they'll add a drinking animation or a looting one, from here on in they'll probably just bug squash .. focus on the expansions then move onto cyberpunk. It's kinda odd that they give npc's lots of varied animations yet skimp on geralts, maybe mods will add them in later on. They make such a beautiful game world then forget to add believability