Interviews and Articles - 2015

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Hmm.. so Dark Difficulty is now "insanity"? Or is it like a certain other game where dying in the epilogue determines which ending you get?
It's like: you die,you have to start over. So like a insanity difficulty level (Dark mode). I don't even know where you got you're other idea from.
 
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It's like: you die,you have to start over. So like a insanity difficulty level (Dark mode). I don't even know where you got you're other idea from.

I know what permadeath is. I was confused since just a few days ago Dark Mode and Insanity were seperate things and they talked about not knowing what Insanity would be in W3 since permadeath may be too punishing in a 100+hr long game. This article makes it sound like its now folded into Dark Mode with permadeath. That second bit is something Ive seen in other games.
 
A somewhat different view on Witcher 3 which I think hasn´t been posted yet: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/01/hands-on-with-the-witcher-3-the-naked-truth.html

Btw I found the article unintentionally funny. ;)
8 paragraphs.

2 of which are about the building and how he found the decorations. What? Why do I care about this? I'm here to read about the game, not a diary. Spare me.
1 paragraph about them talking with Damien and him explaining how the three hours will unfold.

Almost half of it is without actual substance about the game.

Then 1 paragraph about The Witcher's "problematic" history with woman, and the opening scene. Even if I'll "give" for free that TW1 had problematic history, just for the sake of the discussion, you need to be uber sensitive to find something problematic about TW2 in this regard. He's bringing up the sex cards, something that'll be almost a decade old by the time TW3 comes out. I feel this is is like bashing CoD:AW for the No Russian mission. Holy moly, give it a break.

Then, finally, he begins to write a bit about gameplay and a quest. But even then it's annoying (to me) because it's riddled with ultra political correct undertone, such as there being no people of color, or writing patronizing things such as,

I simply nodded, but in my mind I was wondering if he realized that maybe people chose the sister because she was a better character? Or because they thought a woman should get some glory in this game for once? I shook the thoughts out of my head as he drifted away.
Come. On. 5$ say that most people didn't think about that, and just preferred the sister because she made a better first impression and seemed much more reasonable. And seriously, the society depicted is inspired by medieval history. It's not meant to be identical, but still similar in tone, so stop viewing it through modern social standards. Even then, TW has its share of very strong female characters with agency. Philippa, Sile, Yennefer, Ciri, Saskia. These are characters who aren't defined by Geralt's every move (it might be the other way around, arguably), and some of them pull the strings themselves. Bringing up TW's history in gender matters is alright (somehow...?) when writing about TW3 for the bad points, but not for the good ones?

And then at the end,
Some argue whether the word “fun” deserves a place in serious game criticism.
Really? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills over here. I don't... I...

What?

I don't mean to be overly hostile about this, and I don't flip out every time someone voices something negative about TW. But this, written like a blog, dedicating half of the article to things that aren't related to the game experience itself and information about it, and the extreme gender-sensitivity grated on my nerves. You need to walk on eggshells around people like this. You can twist anything today to find it offensive. Hell, if you had the "token black\chinese\latin guy", I can find that offensive too.
 
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I agree with @eliharel that didn't really tell me anything about the game. He seems more interested in buildings and their interior design then the actual game. And this political correctness is starting to really bug me, when I read a article or watch a video review of a video game I want to know what the game is like. Not if it's ok or awkward to show a naked woman or how they are treated in the setting, I can decide for myself If I find that ok or not.
 
A somewhat different view on Witcher 3 which I think hasn´t been posted yet: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/01/hands-on-with-the-witcher-3-the-naked-truth.html

Btw I found the article unintentionally funny. ;)

Ah, a fine example for the social justice warriors of San Francisco:
“That’s interesting. Most of the people today chose the sister too.”

The article itself is highly irritating and reeks of irrational liberalist agenda. As someone who is very pro gay/women/what-have-you rights, I cannot digest such trash.
 
@eliharel: At first I also thought WTF ! Then I had to laugh about its "criticism" though. :)
Showed the article also to a gay friend of mine, who also thought it´s full of nonsense. Though when he read it to me with a "gay" accent, the first part about interior design made actually some sense then. ;)
 
*Looks at credentials*

Damn, I could've called myself "a freelance journalist and game designer", set up a blog and not even posted an article before, to get access to a TW3 press event ! (personal axe grinding on said blog later - optional).

I take it he never goes to the cinema or watches TV in the presence of other people since a sex scene viewed in public made him feel so uncomfortable.

Och... don't bother with this link people.
 
Well, TBH I guess it's a small taste of things to come after TW3 releases. After all the articles following DA:I launch that praised it for inclusiveness, depiction of sex and so on, I expect same articles about TW3, but how it treats those issues poorly of course.

Witcher fanbase is well know for its passion and that guarantees a lot of clicks once such articles start to pop up in the future.
 
Well, TBH I guess it's a small taste of things to come after TW3 releases. After all the articles following DA:I launch that praised it for inclusiveness, depiction of sex and so on, I expect same articles about TW3, but how it treats those issues poorly of course.

Witcher fanbase is well know for its passion and that guarantees a lot of clicks once such articles start to pop up in the future.

how does DA:I depict sex? The usual Bioware style? Vague camera shots and blowing out a candle so the screen goes dark, that sort of stuff? Then they don't really depict anything, they just plant the idea of sex into the players mind. I know it's a bit off topic but then I know how DA:I does it and I know how it compares with TW3 when it will be released. (I couldn't be bothered to play DA:I beyond the first open area, a really waste of money for me.)
 
Lol, Boware depicting sex with DA:I, sure because I want to have a game that confronts me with characters which are primarily defined by their sexual orientation and nothing else, with stereotypes that are so exaggerated that all you can actually see about the character is their sexual orientation, at least in more than half the dialogue. I tell you one thing, whenever I play a Bioware game I have the feeling they are overcompensating for something because they pack so much "equality" in there that it seems WAY too much and you can't see the characters beyond that. That is what I feel when playing most Bioware games these days. You know, there is something like "doing it too much", and Bioware does that lately. In TW characters at least have a lot of substance beyond their sexual preferences.

(Sorry Bioware fans, that's just my opinion, no offense)
 
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I didn't want to create an off-topic discussion or to steer it towards DA:I vs TW3 etc etc.

It was more about general approach some outlets take and will be taking in their articles when TW3 is released.
 
Hm, concerning the article discussed:
I personally believe there is a type of people who strive while complaining about some sort of injustice - todays ridiculous standards on political/diplomatic correctness have made it easy for such people (who often actually really share the ideals "defended") to go over into caricature.
Sadly this often really undermines the defended ideals.
I am all for equal rights (note, not women but equal), but have come to the realization that since mankind is not equal (were all individuals after all), this only works to a certain extend, as everybody likes to be treated differently.

Now, for the actual point of criticism:
I get how, for a person with a not matching sexual orientation it would feel uncomfortable to "be forced" to watch a sex scene, in front of other strangers (this simple gedankenexperiment can be done by everybody). However the author fails to realize the underlying (not saying only) reason for the scene.

The depication of minorities (blacks etc) issue is totally invalid. the underlying problem (racism) is extremely dominant in the world, and is depicted extremely well imo.
same applies to the women in W2 - since we are playing from a perspective, we never get the full representation of all the personas, but it is evident there are strong and extremely willful women, well depicted without omitting anything inbetween ... dunno where the gripe lies here. Maybe in the PR-work, that'd be understandable.

All in all the only interesting sentence is:
... though there are a fair share of bugs to be stamped out before release too
 
I hate that I gave that article a click. This guy must be something if even Kotaku thought the scene was very well done. Sounds like he was too occupied with looking for things to be offended by, instead of trying to understand what was actually going on.
 
Well, if you look for an issue intently enough you will find one, that's jus how it is. He was expecting the devs to be evil, chauvinistic, hateful men so despite seeing a strong fictional woman (which he admits is awesome) he was still looking for a reason why a character like her would even appear in this "evil" game.

And then he found his answer. Looks like the evil developers were testing his manliness, and he failed! So the evil developers snickered hideously seeing as he went after the choice that no true man would go after. And worse still, he wasn't the only one!

Seriously though, maybe i'm just particularly weak to this kind of thing but if i was a developer working on the game (even if my job was unrelated to writing the story) i'd feel pretty down after reading this kind of drivel. So i hope no one in the studio takes it seriously.
 
My stance on this type of thing is the world doesn't revolve around a singular person so it really bugs me when people do things that effect everyone. If you don't like something move along.
The only time i think it is needed, is if what others do gets up in your grill to the point you can't avoid it. like smoking in public buildings used to do.

I'm surprised everything isn't rainbows and unicorns these days.
 
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