Interviews and Articles Part 2

[gtxman]

Lambert is the sexiest

 

[hitman_8182]

"all regions won't be accessible right from start, they're rather 'unlocked' as one progresses in the story"
it's sound great due to the Witcher series have special character and make it different from the other open world games like Skyrim, so, we can discover the world of course, but following chapters is better,:yes

 

[Zabanzo]

I suppose that in the end it was just impossible to make it one world without loading screens for one reason or another.

I think its not because of technical limitations but because Skellige is just too far to the south from Novigrad and NML, traveling there in-game would take us hours.

 

[HellKnightX88]

So basically the hubs we know about so far are: Novigrad+NML, Skellige, Kaer Morhen (might be the prolog tutorial area) and probably Vizima.

Wonder if Oxenfurt will be it's own hub or part of the Novigrad+NML hub. Wonder what other hub regions we'll get.

Being able to convince witchers to fight on your side sounds quite neat. So the Letho decision will have a palpable consequence in the game it would seem. That's awesome!

Huge thanks for translating and posting this!

 

[Adamastor]

hiring witchers is a fresh welcome feature

 

[BroccoliSouP]

hiring witchers is a fresh welcome feature

Not that fresh. It was spoiled a little bit in Killing monsters trailer when you think about it. Why else would Vesemir go with Geralt to hunt that "deer" kind of thing.

 

[StaGiors]

I hope by "hiring" they do mean convincing. Verbally. I mean, paying Vesemir to come help Geralt save Ciri is kind of.. weird.

 

[BroccoliSouP]

My idea is that you can offer to other Witchers to help you with a monster hunt for part of a reward.

 

[MUPPETA]

Geralt; Vesemir let's go huntin' bears
Vesemir; Nah, I'm to old for that
Geralt; Lambert let's go huntin' bears
Lambert; Nah, I'm to tired for that
Geralt to Vesemir and Lambert; I'll pay you two a beer in brothel
Vesemir and Lambert; now you are talkin' man

 

[Lieste]

So basically the hubs we know about so far are: Novigrad+NML, Skellige, Kaer Morhen (might be the prolog tutorial area) and probably Vizima.

Wonder if Oxenfurt will be it's own hub or part of the Novigrad+NML hub. Wonder what other hub regions we'll get.

Being able to convince witchers to fight on your side sounds quite neat. So the Letho decision will have a palpable consequence in the game it would seem. That's awesome!

Huge thanks for translating and posting this!

While we may have to bypass guarded roads/gates, Oxenfurt is quite visible in the Pontar to the SW of Novigrad, so definitely part of Novigrad & NML.
There is also another bridge at the mouth of the Pontar, where the route from Novigrad to Johny's swamp is drawn at 6:05 of the 35minute gameplay... this seems to be White Bridge ~ which is the smaller town shown very early on in screenshots.

 

[guilhermecolichini]

Amazing news! The only bad thing is that we have some months ultil the release day
I wonder what types and sizes of creatures we might find exploring the sea or lakes

 

[Asmodean778]

A couple of interesting things from the latest September issue of German magazine Gamestar [translation courtesy of a Swiss mate of mine, with only a few edits by me, so all of that should be legit (or not) (or taken with a grain of salt in places)]:

Spoiler

- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's open world isn't an open world in the classic sense (Skyrim, GTA, and the likes) where you actually can walk from one end to the other in one go

- instead it's more of a pooling or combination of hubs i.e. separate regions

- according to Peter Gelencser the reason behind this approach is the vast distances between the locations (going from Novigrad to Skellige Islands would take one day at least) which simply would be impossible to fill with meaningful content

- how exactly one would travel from hub to hub isn't decided yet, but the devs are experimenting with different solutions

- one way to 'switch' between regions is fast travel (but only if they were visited before of course)

- all regions won't be accessible right from start, they're rather 'unlocked' as one progresses in the story

- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt starts with a smaller hub which serves as the tutorial

- Peter Gelencser assures that there won't be any key prompts to press, the tutorial hub is more of a little sandbox or playground to put Geralt's combat skills to the test, to get a feel for how decisions affect the outcome of quests and to explore the surroundings like one would do in the bigger regions later on

- Novigrad and surroundings is the size of about 8.5 by 8.5 kilometers = 72.25 square kilometers

- the Skellige archipelago is the size of about 8 by 8 kilometers = 64 square kilometers

- those two alone result in an area of 136 square kilometers which dwarves Skyrim's 41 square kilometers

- even when discounting the 2 kilometers wide 'ring' of visible, but not explorable panorama around each of those two regions you would still have respectable 78 square kilometers for two regions alone

- Novigrad & surroundings and the Skellige archipelago are obviously only two of 'several' regions to explore, and even if the other regions were considerably smaller the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would still be more extensive as the promised '20% bigger than Skyrim'

- Novigrad and No Man's Land are part of the same hub

- according to Peter Gelencser THAT huge tree (as seen during the Griffin hunt or while getting the bottle with Johnny's voice) is as high as a building with ten stories

- the boundaries of each region are most likely natural, like big bodies of water, unpassable rivers or mountain ranges

- there are 'interesting things' at the bottom of lakes, like parts of valuable Witcher armor sets Geralt is able to smith or craft by himself

- swimming is not possible everywhere, especially lakes on the Skellige archipelago are too cold even for Geralt

- Geralt can swim in the seas but shouldn't when there's a storm coming up, which could be lethal

- if there's particularly heavy sea Geralt can fall out of boats

- unlike in the Gothic series there are no creatures blocking off certain areas of the world

- the 'recommended potions' section in the UI is triggered when tracking (via Witcher Senses) a creature Geralt has encountered before

- noonwraiths appear only at noon (duh)

- there is no simulation of realistic Moon phases

- the lumps of mud the Water Hags are throwing trigger some kind of smudge effect on the screen when Geralt is hit by them

- the 'Igni-Flamethrower' skill variation can target multiple opponents at once (via upgrade)

- fellow Witchers become hireable over the course of the story (they have to be convinced to fight on Geralt's side)

- Peter Gelencser elaborates on a few possible scenarios to circumvent or overcome a roadblock (set up by Nilfgaard?):

a) Geralt might run across a farmer in a nearby village who while excavating in his basement discovered a cave system ridden with the undead that passes under the roadblock

b) Geralt might talk to the people waiting in front of the roadblock and, by giving them supplies, convince them to go up against the barricade and tear it down

c) Geralt might do the guards of the roadblock a favour for safe passage

- regions or hubs are 'unlocked' after one another by completing the tasks or quests in the preceding regions or hubs

- Geralt may return to previous regions at any time, it might be even mandatory to do so

- no comment on how much feature complete the game is (meaning that game mechanics and game elements are still being iterated on)

Very interesting tidbits there. Thanks for sharing it. They sound legit enough to me.

 

[thislsmadness]

I think its not because of technical limitations but because Skellige is just too far to the south from Novigrad and NML, traveling there in-game would take us hours.

Yeah. This might explain why they've always described it as "Multi-region Open World". I thought that was just some weird marketing term, but it seems like this is the reason.

 

[sidspyker]

Yes it's a fairly big distance in a world that is scaled properly, and it would look weird to boat to Skellige but not having the rest of the landmass to the left side.

 

[Geralt_of_bsas]

The hub news is probably my favorite part, because I was always worried that TW3 might fall victim of what pretty much most other open world games do: world limitations.

Open worlds tend to limit the games by somehow "requiring" all locations to be connected, with a loading screen or not, but that they are essentially all part of one big map, hence if a game is "open world", you could never have, theoretically, a game that happens in France, and also in Korea. This is why many games try to be less ambitious with their story lines or events, to make sure they can all happen in one big city, or in a big island, or "the land of..." and etc., and its all because loading screens or the traditional concept of levels got old and uncool apparently.

Im very happy with this approach, as I am with MGSV's.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

It probably also would have set a new, pretty much unbeatable record in hard drive space taken up by a single game if CDPR actually had recreated that whole part of the landmass 1:1, the vast, essentially 'empty' (devoid of any points of interest) spaces in between the separate regions included.

 

[mico11]

I don't think there are more big hubs than the two we know. Maybe there will be smaller ones for special story quests.

Also,do you guys think that Berengar is one of those Witchers? I really liked his character and redemption arc in TW1.

 

[arkblazer]

no he is suppossed to die, if he lives its just a bug.

yeah most likely kaerr morhen is one of the smaller hubs and maybe vizima

 

[sidspyker]

Also,do you guys think that Berengar is one of those Witchers? I really liked his character and redemption arc in TW1.

Berengar dies in the fight with Azar Javed. A bug sometimes prevents him from dying but canonically he dies.

 

[HellKnightX88]

Oh? I reloaded after that fight a couple of times just so I could have him alive Bummer. Was hoping to see him in or at least get a mention of what he's been up to in TW3.