Kinley goes to Gamescom
Hello everyone! So I'm back from my trip to Gamescom. While tiring, it was extremely fun! But you don't want to hear that, you're here for the interviews!
Well about that, before anyone goes "you promised us 45 minutes!", while the interviews might seem short, I did cut out a lot of unnecessary stuff (like my voice for example) and there was also prep time that you have to take into account, so yeah, most of the time went into that. What you've got here is the interviews in compressed form, straight to the point, no beating around the bush.
I did really want an interview with Peter Gelencser, but sadly he was busy with a presentation in my slots, but I might be able to set something up with him in the near future. Maybe, just maybe.
Anyhow, here are the interviews:
Transcript:
[video=youtube_share;eiVyGX-3sd8]http://youtu.be/eiVyGX-3sd8[/video]
Transcript:
A few more things that I managed to gather off camera:
-the physical map that comes with the CE is the in-game map and they're still working on the final artstyle for it;
-devs try really hard to spend more time on the forums, but they are very busy;
- @MilezZ is kinda short.
Hope you all enjoy it! And I'm really sorry I couldn't get more out of it, believe me, I tried. Also, apologies if your questions didn't get asked, there were too many of them, but there might be future opportunities to ask some more, as I've mentioned above.
On another note, here's a message from our very own @Rafal Jaki :
I wanted to talk with him some more, but sadly he had to leave.
And to close this post, I'd like to thank everyone at CDPR for the opportunity. Special thanks go out to @Marcin Momot for all the support he gave me before the event itself. @BANAN for guiding me through the event and just being a generally cool guy, @MilezZ for taking the time to talk to me about various stuff and for his awesome coiffure, Łukasz for his amazing mustard pants and Michal Platkow-Gilewski for giving me a tour around the business booth and talking to me about the various things there, hope I didn't forget anyone. I am deeply humbled and I still cannot believe I was able to do this. You made this guy the happiest geek on Earth.
I also got a lot of "swag" from the event, so I might do a giveaway sometime in the near future, but first I need to recharge my batteries. So if you'll excuse me I'll just go collapse on the nearest bed.
Hello everyone! So I'm back from my trip to Gamescom. While tiring, it was extremely fun! But you don't want to hear that, you're here for the interviews!
Well about that, before anyone goes "you promised us 45 minutes!", while the interviews might seem short, I did cut out a lot of unnecessary stuff (like my voice for example) and there was also prep time that you have to take into account, so yeah, most of the time went into that. What you've got here is the interviews in compressed form, straight to the point, no beating around the bush.
I did really want an interview with Peter Gelencser, but sadly he was busy with a presentation in my slots, but I might be able to set something up with him in the near future. Maybe, just maybe.
Anyhow, here are the interviews:
Transcript:
Will we see political changes happen to the map during gameplay?
Not really. It might change after you finish the game, for there are serious consequences for what you do. But in general in The Wild Hunt we decided to make this more about Geralt, a more intimate story, so we’re not getting that much into big politics and war. But about closing the history of Geralt.
In the demo I noticed that the map is basically the Pontar’s opening to the sea, with Novigrad to the north and the swamps to the south. But I didn’t notice Skellige, is that on a different map?
Yes, it’s a separate map, it’s a really big location so we decided to make a separate map for that so it’s more clear and visible.
Regarding size, is Novigrad and NML comparable to Skellige?
Yes, Skellige has also a lot of sea regions because you can sail now in the game, so you can sail between the islands. But it’s pretty similar to No Man’s Land I would say, so the whole region without the city I would say is about the size of Skellige.
And the city is separate? Is it its own thing?
It is on the same map, you can just enter it, and you don’t have to load anything or something like this. It is in the same world but it has its own regions, more rich, and more farmlands. No Man’s Land is very poor, there is hunger and disease, you know a war ravaged region. Near Novigrad you can see farms and this kind of things.
Can we expect some environmental puzzles? Maybe something similar to the Loc Muinne quest.
Yes, you can expect something similar, it’s always connected to side-quests or monster/treasure hunting, we try not to implement it too much in the main story line because it is a story-driven RPG, and we want to keep it an RPG and not that much of an adventure game. But there are elements like that and especially now when we can climb on everything, we can jump, swim, dive, you know we have more possibilities to make this kind of puzzles. So our level designers are really excited about it.
Speaking of climbing, I saw that the ledges that you can climb are always very easily distinguishable. Is that always the case or can we expect something more along the lines of Assassin’s Creed in say Novigrad?
No, it’s definitely not Assassin’s Creed, we don’t want that, we want to keep it our style. You can climb pretty much everywhere, I mean you can jump, get everywhere where you see. That’s our approach, if you see something you should be able to get there. We mark some exploration with those signs that you saw, with Witcher Senses as well, things that are important for the quest. So we want you to know where to go, but there are others that are hidden, you know, hidden treasurer, parts of armor, alchemy ingredients, crafting elements.
Will the highlighting on climbable ledges in Witcher Senses mode be disableable?
Uhm, I don’t know, I don’t think so at the moment. But we might think about it, it might be a good idea. Do you think it’s a good idea?
It depends. For example on the forums a lot of people dislike it so they asked for an option to disable it.
Maybe we should do that, we’ll think about it.
Can certain UI features be turned off? Like the Recommended Potions section for example.
Yes, this is disableable, if you don’t want any recommendations you can just do it your way. It will probably depend on the difficulty level you chose.
Will the traditional difficulty levels make a return from the previous games?
There will be difficulty levels, but I still don’t know what kinds are going to be there. We’re still balancing the game, one thing I know for sure is that the monsters will not scale, so you can go far away, as far as you want and you will encounter stronger opponents there and you’ll have to deal with it or go back and level up.
Will all information about monsters come from books?
There are other sources of information and that’s by learning, investigating with Witcher Senses, examining bodies, talking to other people maybe other witchers.
How big of a role will the other witchers play in The Witcher 3?
They are quite important in the game.
Are cloaks still in the game?
We don’t know, we will probably make it optional. Some people loved it, some people hated it, so we still don’t know.
I can see how it can be a hinderance in combat.
Yeah, also horse riding and cloaks don’t work very well together, it’s still a subject that we have to tackle.
Will there be quests where we don’t have to kill a monster. Like the Graveir quest in Witcher 1 for example.
It was similar with the troll quests in Witcher 2, you could become a troll friend. There are quests like this, you don’t have to choose the violent way. There are some monsters that are aggressive by nature and you will have to fight them. But no, you don’t have to fight everything, it is up to you.
Since Witcher 3 is an open world, how do you plan on tackling the “piling up of quests” issue?
First of all the journal is very well prepared, so you will be able to choose those quests and sort them out the way you want them to be sorted. Also the main storyline very involving to the player, you know Geralt’s needs, you want to fulfill them. That’s pretty much how we want to tackle it.
Will the corpses of your enemies remain visible on the ground for longer periods of time if your hardware allows it?
The corpses will stay on the ground, they will disappear after some time, and they have to because of the hardware requirement. But in general the really cool thing about it is dismemberment if you perform cool attacks you can cut someone’s hand, head or leg off. So that’s really cool, you’ll see that flying away and lay on the ground.
Will Witcher 3 be coming to Linux?
It’s too early to say, we’re focusing on releasing it on PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4, same quality, same experience to all the players. We’ll see after that, Linux, Mac I guess it might be planned but I do not know yet.
Not really. It might change after you finish the game, for there are serious consequences for what you do. But in general in The Wild Hunt we decided to make this more about Geralt, a more intimate story, so we’re not getting that much into big politics and war. But about closing the history of Geralt.
In the demo I noticed that the map is basically the Pontar’s opening to the sea, with Novigrad to the north and the swamps to the south. But I didn’t notice Skellige, is that on a different map?
Yes, it’s a separate map, it’s a really big location so we decided to make a separate map for that so it’s more clear and visible.
Regarding size, is Novigrad and NML comparable to Skellige?
Yes, Skellige has also a lot of sea regions because you can sail now in the game, so you can sail between the islands. But it’s pretty similar to No Man’s Land I would say, so the whole region without the city I would say is about the size of Skellige.
And the city is separate? Is it its own thing?
It is on the same map, you can just enter it, and you don’t have to load anything or something like this. It is in the same world but it has its own regions, more rich, and more farmlands. No Man’s Land is very poor, there is hunger and disease, you know a war ravaged region. Near Novigrad you can see farms and this kind of things.
Can we expect some environmental puzzles? Maybe something similar to the Loc Muinne quest.
Yes, you can expect something similar, it’s always connected to side-quests or monster/treasure hunting, we try not to implement it too much in the main story line because it is a story-driven RPG, and we want to keep it an RPG and not that much of an adventure game. But there are elements like that and especially now when we can climb on everything, we can jump, swim, dive, you know we have more possibilities to make this kind of puzzles. So our level designers are really excited about it.
Speaking of climbing, I saw that the ledges that you can climb are always very easily distinguishable. Is that always the case or can we expect something more along the lines of Assassin’s Creed in say Novigrad?
No, it’s definitely not Assassin’s Creed, we don’t want that, we want to keep it our style. You can climb pretty much everywhere, I mean you can jump, get everywhere where you see. That’s our approach, if you see something you should be able to get there. We mark some exploration with those signs that you saw, with Witcher Senses as well, things that are important for the quest. So we want you to know where to go, but there are others that are hidden, you know, hidden treasurer, parts of armor, alchemy ingredients, crafting elements.
Will the highlighting on climbable ledges in Witcher Senses mode be disableable?
Uhm, I don’t know, I don’t think so at the moment. But we might think about it, it might be a good idea. Do you think it’s a good idea?
It depends. For example on the forums a lot of people dislike it so they asked for an option to disable it.
Maybe we should do that, we’ll think about it.
Can certain UI features be turned off? Like the Recommended Potions section for example.
Yes, this is disableable, if you don’t want any recommendations you can just do it your way. It will probably depend on the difficulty level you chose.
Will the traditional difficulty levels make a return from the previous games?
There will be difficulty levels, but I still don’t know what kinds are going to be there. We’re still balancing the game, one thing I know for sure is that the monsters will not scale, so you can go far away, as far as you want and you will encounter stronger opponents there and you’ll have to deal with it or go back and level up.
Will all information about monsters come from books?
There are other sources of information and that’s by learning, investigating with Witcher Senses, examining bodies, talking to other people maybe other witchers.
How big of a role will the other witchers play in The Witcher 3?
They are quite important in the game.
Are cloaks still in the game?
We don’t know, we will probably make it optional. Some people loved it, some people hated it, so we still don’t know.
I can see how it can be a hinderance in combat.
Yeah, also horse riding and cloaks don’t work very well together, it’s still a subject that we have to tackle.
Will there be quests where we don’t have to kill a monster. Like the Graveir quest in Witcher 1 for example.
It was similar with the troll quests in Witcher 2, you could become a troll friend. There are quests like this, you don’t have to choose the violent way. There are some monsters that are aggressive by nature and you will have to fight them. But no, you don’t have to fight everything, it is up to you.
Since Witcher 3 is an open world, how do you plan on tackling the “piling up of quests” issue?
First of all the journal is very well prepared, so you will be able to choose those quests and sort them out the way you want them to be sorted. Also the main storyline very involving to the player, you know Geralt’s needs, you want to fulfill them. That’s pretty much how we want to tackle it.
Will the corpses of your enemies remain visible on the ground for longer periods of time if your hardware allows it?
The corpses will stay on the ground, they will disappear after some time, and they have to because of the hardware requirement. But in general the really cool thing about it is dismemberment if you perform cool attacks you can cut someone’s hand, head or leg off. So that’s really cool, you’ll see that flying away and lay on the ground.
Will Witcher 3 be coming to Linux?
It’s too early to say, we’re focusing on releasing it on PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4, same quality, same experience to all the players. We’ll see after that, Linux, Mac I guess it might be planned but I do not know yet.
[video=youtube_share;eiVyGX-3sd8]http://youtu.be/eiVyGX-3sd8[/video]
Transcript:
Will the UI be disableable for immersion purposes?
I’m not sure, definitely for debugging purposes sometimes it’s turned off. But I’m not sure whether it’s in the game.
Is dismemberment based on areas we hit or is it random?
Yes, it is based on the areas you hit, but it also custom made for each character. So each human or each monster will have a different dismemberment “distribution” let’s say.
Is the camera distance settable by hand or do we only have presets?
No, it’s set properly. And if you enter, for example, a building it will zoom in so it has to be dynamic, also if you engage the last enemy from the pack the camera will adjust and be closer to you. So it’s dynamic but you cannot adjust it for yourself.
There were early interviews where they talked about a PC centric UI. Is that still planned?
I wouldn’t say so, now we’re doing the game for all platforms, so PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and we needed to adjust it accordingly so you can play it equally well on the pad and on the keyboard as well.
So we know gear customization and upgrades are in, we also saw it in a recent artwork. Are these upgrades linear or can we chose which elements we can upgrade?
You’re probably addressing the special witcher armors, actually the concept for that is not the final concept that will be visible in the game. But collecting the parts of the armor and the base set of it you set a ground for crafting the upgrades for them. Of course you can choose to upgrade only gloves or only boots, but best stats will be only if you craft everything together and the best looks are achieved then.
So are there going to be set bonuses?
Yes, there are sets. And there are a couple of upgrades for each part of the set.
How difficult was it to implement Ciri into the game?
We concepted her for some time, as with any other major character that is in the game, we were iterating it for a while and then also while doing the model itself. The iteration came into every level of the modelling, so yeah it was hard but I guess the end result is pretty good.
She definitely came out very well, do you use the Witcher books a lot when creating characters?
Definitely yes. That is the first source that we reach for.
Will we encounter other witcher schools or ruins of other witcher schools?
Ruins? I don’t know, but definitely the armors that we mentioned already are related to the other witcher schools.
That’s cool. Since we saw Letho in the latest trailer, could we possibly hear more about the Viper school in the game?
In some items for example, yeah. But I wouldn’t expect like a second Kaer Morhen for a different school.
About the potion system - in a recent interview Konrad told us that the potions would auto-refill. Is this still the case?
Automatically filling? No, no. Those are definitely consumable items, and you brew them you drink them and they are very very important in terms of preparation before the fight.
(A bit more of a clarification here since I talked to another dev off camera. The potions/bomb system works like this: You get the recipe and it will cost a big amount of materials to craft, and you’ll get something like 3 charges of the swallow potion for example. When you run out, you will need materials to craft the potions again, but they will require only a fraction of the materials needed compared to when you first craft the bomb/potion.)
How is ingredient gathering for potions? Is it similar to how it was handled in previous games?
It’s very similar.
How are the flashbacks handled this time around? Is it more in TW1’s style or more in TW2’s?
I would rather treat Witcher 2 as a reference for that, but of course we iterated on the style a little bit. But yeah, we’re using cinematics, also flashbacks (the storyboards) to tell the story, because some of the elements of the story require special attention and require a special style in order to deliver the feeling that we want.
Will companions be present in any way? If so, how are you treating companions this time around?
They will play a different role in different parts of the game, sometimes they will be just a quest giver and sometimes something more. So various roles throughout the game.
So they won’t be treated like in a game, say, like Dragon Age.
You’re not gathering the team here, no.
So it’s going to be very situational.
Yeah, very similar to The Witcher 2, sometimes you had a companion.
Some people are afraid that the Wild Hunt will be this “big looming evil” cliché, how are you planning on implementing it in the story to avoid this?
Well, the Wild Hunt’s story is much more deeper than that, I mean the Wild Hunt are spectral beings that haunt the continent. And we already shown our vision of it in the trailers, how we impersonate it. But you have to take my word for it, but they’re much more into this and into what it happening with the Wild Hunt, why they appeared, why they are chasing Ciri. All of that composes a really deep story driven experience.
Will there be flashbacks from the books?
From the books? I don’t know. But there are going to be a lot of flashbacks to recap, for example, the previous parts of the game.
Will Alvin’s fate from TW1 come into play in any way? This might be a bit spoilery, I know.
Haha. I won’t tell you anything about it.
How do you plan on implementing Kaer Morhen?
Well, the world is big so Kaer Morhen fits as well. It plays a big role, both in the novels and in the gaming series so we had to have it.
How do you plan on implementing it in the world? How exactly will we get to it? Seeing how it’s so far away.
We of course have the fast travel system, so that’s actually the fastest way to get there. Since we are telling a story, sometimes if you end an act or some kind of an important event you will get a cinematic, for example of when you approach Kaer Morhen, and teleport from the area we have been in previously.
I’m not sure, definitely for debugging purposes sometimes it’s turned off. But I’m not sure whether it’s in the game.
Is dismemberment based on areas we hit or is it random?
Yes, it is based on the areas you hit, but it also custom made for each character. So each human or each monster will have a different dismemberment “distribution” let’s say.
Is the camera distance settable by hand or do we only have presets?
No, it’s set properly. And if you enter, for example, a building it will zoom in so it has to be dynamic, also if you engage the last enemy from the pack the camera will adjust and be closer to you. So it’s dynamic but you cannot adjust it for yourself.
There were early interviews where they talked about a PC centric UI. Is that still planned?
I wouldn’t say so, now we’re doing the game for all platforms, so PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and we needed to adjust it accordingly so you can play it equally well on the pad and on the keyboard as well.
So we know gear customization and upgrades are in, we also saw it in a recent artwork. Are these upgrades linear or can we chose which elements we can upgrade?
You’re probably addressing the special witcher armors, actually the concept for that is not the final concept that will be visible in the game. But collecting the parts of the armor and the base set of it you set a ground for crafting the upgrades for them. Of course you can choose to upgrade only gloves or only boots, but best stats will be only if you craft everything together and the best looks are achieved then.
So are there going to be set bonuses?
Yes, there are sets. And there are a couple of upgrades for each part of the set.
How difficult was it to implement Ciri into the game?
We concepted her for some time, as with any other major character that is in the game, we were iterating it for a while and then also while doing the model itself. The iteration came into every level of the modelling, so yeah it was hard but I guess the end result is pretty good.
She definitely came out very well, do you use the Witcher books a lot when creating characters?
Definitely yes. That is the first source that we reach for.
Will we encounter other witcher schools or ruins of other witcher schools?
Ruins? I don’t know, but definitely the armors that we mentioned already are related to the other witcher schools.
That’s cool. Since we saw Letho in the latest trailer, could we possibly hear more about the Viper school in the game?
In some items for example, yeah. But I wouldn’t expect like a second Kaer Morhen for a different school.
About the potion system - in a recent interview Konrad told us that the potions would auto-refill. Is this still the case?
Automatically filling? No, no. Those are definitely consumable items, and you brew them you drink them and they are very very important in terms of preparation before the fight.
(A bit more of a clarification here since I talked to another dev off camera. The potions/bomb system works like this: You get the recipe and it will cost a big amount of materials to craft, and you’ll get something like 3 charges of the swallow potion for example. When you run out, you will need materials to craft the potions again, but they will require only a fraction of the materials needed compared to when you first craft the bomb/potion.)
How is ingredient gathering for potions? Is it similar to how it was handled in previous games?
It’s very similar.
How are the flashbacks handled this time around? Is it more in TW1’s style or more in TW2’s?
I would rather treat Witcher 2 as a reference for that, but of course we iterated on the style a little bit. But yeah, we’re using cinematics, also flashbacks (the storyboards) to tell the story, because some of the elements of the story require special attention and require a special style in order to deliver the feeling that we want.
Will companions be present in any way? If so, how are you treating companions this time around?
They will play a different role in different parts of the game, sometimes they will be just a quest giver and sometimes something more. So various roles throughout the game.
So they won’t be treated like in a game, say, like Dragon Age.
You’re not gathering the team here, no.
So it’s going to be very situational.
Yeah, very similar to The Witcher 2, sometimes you had a companion.
Some people are afraid that the Wild Hunt will be this “big looming evil” cliché, how are you planning on implementing it in the story to avoid this?
Well, the Wild Hunt’s story is much more deeper than that, I mean the Wild Hunt are spectral beings that haunt the continent. And we already shown our vision of it in the trailers, how we impersonate it. But you have to take my word for it, but they’re much more into this and into what it happening with the Wild Hunt, why they appeared, why they are chasing Ciri. All of that composes a really deep story driven experience.
Will there be flashbacks from the books?
From the books? I don’t know. But there are going to be a lot of flashbacks to recap, for example, the previous parts of the game.
Will Alvin’s fate from TW1 come into play in any way? This might be a bit spoilery, I know.
Haha. I won’t tell you anything about it.
How do you plan on implementing Kaer Morhen?
Well, the world is big so Kaer Morhen fits as well. It plays a big role, both in the novels and in the gaming series so we had to have it.
How do you plan on implementing it in the world? How exactly will we get to it? Seeing how it’s so far away.
We of course have the fast travel system, so that’s actually the fastest way to get there. Since we are telling a story, sometimes if you end an act or some kind of an important event you will get a cinematic, for example of when you approach Kaer Morhen, and teleport from the area we have been in previously.
A few more things that I managed to gather off camera:
-the physical map that comes with the CE is the in-game map and they're still working on the final artstyle for it;
-devs try really hard to spend more time on the forums, but they are very busy;
- @MilezZ is kinda short.
Hope you all enjoy it! And I'm really sorry I couldn't get more out of it, believe me, I tried. Also, apologies if your questions didn't get asked, there were too many of them, but there might be future opportunities to ask some more, as I've mentioned above.
On another note, here's a message from our very own @Rafal Jaki :
I wanted to talk with him some more, but sadly he had to leave.
And to close this post, I'd like to thank everyone at CDPR for the opportunity. Special thanks go out to @Marcin Momot for all the support he gave me before the event itself. @BANAN for guiding me through the event and just being a generally cool guy, @MilezZ for taking the time to talk to me about various stuff and for his awesome coiffure, Łukasz for his amazing mustard pants and Michal Platkow-Gilewski for giving me a tour around the business booth and talking to me about the various things there, hope I didn't forget anyone. I am deeply humbled and I still cannot believe I was able to do this. You made this guy the happiest geek on Earth.
I also got a lot of "swag" from the event, so I might do a giveaway sometime in the near future, but first I need to recharge my batteries. So if you'll excuse me I'll just go collapse on the nearest bed.
Your friendly community bear,
Kinley
Kinley
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