No Branching Story Confirmed.But what does it mean?

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thothistox said:
I liked the way TW2 branched. It was a bold design decision that added a lot of replay value. I understand if they don't want to make TW3 branch that much, but I still want smaller scale branching, as was promised by CDPR in this thread. To me, RPGs are about decisions, and those decisions are only profound if they exclude other possibilities.

One thing I should stress though: having the option to do or not do a quest is not a form of branching. I should have that option most of the time, but it's not much of a decision on its own.

Well phrased,that's all i have been raving about in a nutshell.

Shavod said:
Oh great, another of these topics. They said that there will be no completely different chapters like in The Witcher 2 when they announced TW3, but only now some people awake and start whi... I mean complaining about that. It was already explained that it's not about taking features out, but using open world as a tool to improve story's nonlinearity. Thanks to that you can always go back to the places you already visited and see with your own eyes a long term consequences of your decisions. Separate chapters would be extremely restricting in this regard and that allows them to make story longer, as they don't have to cut it into bigger pieces.

I probably haven't successfully conveyed my worries so far.Those consequences you talk about and so far I had heard of were environmental meaning that something happens to your environment like a village burns.A branching narrative is when quests chains get locked/unlocked based on your decisions ,but seemingly Redorigen confirmed it although on a much smaller scale than the witcher 2
 
I wouldn't call it features. Maybe just an other design choice for TW3. And a better one imo.

But they can be combined and much more interestingly in an open world context,but it's a lot of work considering that you also need to fill the world with interesting side quests,otherwise the critics will burn you at the stake for creating not the witcher 3 but the fetcher : wild hunt for 8 endegra claws
 
In TW2, areas where fixed for any act. but now in TW3 you will be able to travel anywhere nearly at the beginning; so branching is meaningless. if there's going to be no invisible wall to stop your adventure then how else could the branching system be implemented ?!
this has nothing to do with the so called choices & consequences system. the player's action could still affect the world around him/her and you would be able to manipulate main/side story line.
 
In TW2, areas where fixed for any act. but now in TW3 you will be able to travel anywhere nearly at the beginning; so branching is meaningless. if there's going to be no invisible wall to stop your adventure then how else could the branching system be implemented ?!
this has nothing to do with the so called choices & consequences system. the player's action could still affect the world around him/her and you would be able to manipulate main/side story line.

Pretty much this. I think that in W3 we'll have W2 Act 3 branching, not W2 Act 2 branching.
 
Branching is overrated IMO.

Yes, it was a bold and a really genius design decision in TW2.
But doing this in 1 game is enough IMO.

There are a few things that I didn't like about TW2 story-branching, and those are advantages now in TW3:

1. The Witcher neutrality was not possible in TW2 Act 2 branching - in TW3 I am sure it is
2. The branching basically meant it excluded 1 complete Act of the game no matter how you decided (which meant you HAD to play the game 2 times. Good for replayability yes, but very demanding in concept) - now it's only specific quests that become available/unavailable based on your choices

I just like the way it is now. Villages burn, villagers might get hostile to you, environments and circumstances change slightly. It is a living breathing world without actively excluding you from one location or the other, at least not forever. And as long as the choices are still meaningfull and as long as they remain within the typical Witcher-like grey area I am 100% satisfied.
 
I just like the way it is now. Villages burn, villagers might get hostile to you, environments and circumstances change slightly. It is a living breathing world without actively excluding you from one location or the other, at least not forever. And as long as the choices are still meaningfull and as long as they remain within the typical Witcher-like grey area I am 100% satisfied.

Choices and consequences are two two different things. A branching storyline like in Witcher 2 is about consequences of your actions and not about choice. So your hope for meaningful choices in Witcher 3 is understandable but it's not what this thread or issue is about.

But you've tackled the consequences issue with your first sentence. You've said that if things/outcomes/world states change slightly based on your actions you're satisfied. Well, yes and no. Nice choices and little consequences is exactly the way TES games work (independent from the actual quality of the writing). The reason for that is not that Bethesda doesn't want to add meaningful consequences but that this is extremely difficult in an open world environment, especially if we talk about major story decisions (which are not limited to a specific place or to to some specific NPCs).

The real issue here is that a meaningful consequence system works best when developers can somehow control the progression of the story and when the effort to make that possible is reasonable. Both isn't really applying to huge seamless open world areas in which "everything is connected". There is a reason why most story-driven RPGs so far were based on a hub approach (Infinity Engine games, Witcher games, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, and so on...) instead of a seamless open world approach. By choosing a huge seamless open world you enable "more" exploration but you trade it in for a huge chunk of meaningful (and "realistic") consequences. Let's take Skyrim as example again: the only change to the world when you become the ultimate hero of the world, solved the civil war and fighted the dragons is that some NPCs ackknowlege your actions by calling you "hero" or whatever. That's about it. That's not realistic nor really satisfying. Why is that so? Is Bethesda just a sloppy developer who doesn't care at all about consequences? No, not really. The problem is that the bigger your world is and the more your systems in this big open world are connected the more you have to change to create meaningful consequences. If you want to give the player a lot of freedom (e.g. the order in which he can solve quests and the order in which he can access regions of your world and talk to NPCs and stuff like that) the problem becomes even bigger. The realitiy is that the effort to create meaningful and realistic consequences is just extremely high and it's not reasonable to put a lot of effort into this. Even with a huge team you don't really have the time and the money to alter your world based on all the decisions the player made while playing the game. So yes, it will likely stay with minor changes of the world, the "slight changes" you've mentioned. Maybe it will be on TES-level, maybe it will be a bit better due to the competencies of CDPR in this field.

All that stuff is a bit sad because over all these years "we" (=most of the Witcher fans I've met on various forums) criticized Skyrim and TES for their lack of meaningful consequences and we always argumented with Witcher 2 and CDPR's great achievment in presenting meaningful consequences of player decisions. But no - suddenly - the same people just made a 180° turn, argueing that it's not a great deal after all and that it's no problem to trade in meaningful and realistic consequences (at least on a bigger level) for open world exploration. But in the end, that's nothing else than "changing the DNA of the Witcher franchise".

So yes, I don't doubt that we will have great choices in the game. But great consequences? I guess there will be some central consequences depending on your choices in the main storyline but compared to Witcher 2 they won't change the world in a similar "realistic" fashion. So there is imo definitely a loss of consequences as a trade-off for more exploration.
 
All that stuff is a bit sad because over all these years "we" (=most of the Witcher fans I've met on various forums) criticized Skyrim and TES for their lack of meaningful consequences and we always argumented with Witcher 2 and CDPR's great achievment in presenting meaningful consequences of player decisions. But no - suddenly - the same people just made a 180° turn, argueing that it's not a great deal after all and that it's no problem to trade in meaningful and realistic consequences (at least on a bigger level) for open world exploration. But in the end, that's nothing else than "changing the DNA of the Witcher franchise".

But who the heck is talking about lack of bigger cosequences, because I certainly did not heard anything about it. They just said that there will be no completely different paths through half of the game like with the Vernon and Iorweth choice, which also didn't happened in The Witcher 1, so you can't call it "changing the DNA of the Witcher franchise" as it just happened in a one game so far. They also said that open world is serving the story, not other way around, as they want to give you a possibility to go back to previous locations and see how your choices changed them. It was already confirmed we can still affect the political side of the story, which also means a huge different consequences for the world (as even choosing neutrality will matter). Their main target is combining open world with a deep, nonlinear story and you think they would suddenly drop it just like that. I mean we suppose to have 36 different endings and even over 200 if you count all the smaller consequences. Much more then The Witcher 2, yet you are claiming they simplify it for the sake of exploration. Nothing seems to hint at that aside of your own paranoia.

I understand that you just misinterpreting term "lack of story branches" as something more sinister then it really is, but they really just talk about lack of completely different acts you had in The Witcher 2, which makes sense, as there is no need to make this kind of restrictions in open world game. And it's not even a news, as they said that when they first announced the game. All the other choices and consequences we know from the previous games will appear in this game just as we remember them, just on a more direct scale. Trust me.
 
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What people can't seem to understand is that in order to have meaningful choices you need to have "locked" content ,so you shouldn't complain about "locked" content.That would be the equivalent of complaining in real life that having sex with a girl is "locked" because you killed her mother before that girl was born.

Also i think you're doing the witcher 2 a disservice by calling its final chapter rushed.It did not have that many side quests and it's main story was shorter but that does not make it rushed.

I never complained about locked content, only about "chapters or full locations", and only when the game falls short, like TW2 did.

So it seems you misunderstood me.

About TW2 well, we all have our opinions of course, but considering its well known that TW2 suffered from the problems of CDP's state when they were in dealings of porting TW1 to Xbox 360, and that they had to build a lot of the game in an engine thats not the one they ended up using, and that they admitted to have cut off an entire location with an awesome story arc (Valley of the Flowers), and finally, that once the Enhanced Edition comes out the one point where they add more quests and content is specifically in the last chapter, I would say there's pretty logical chance that TW2 had to be rushed. Im not accusing CDPR or anything I hope you understand, but I know they had a rough time and many sacrifices had to be made.

As an extra bit, I want to mention I particularly dont prefer a wide game, over a long one, or vice versa, what I care about, is that its balanced, and I dont think TW2 was balanced in this regard, and I heard many others mention it, to the point Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz admitted there were some complains or discontent with the last chapter, and that they'd try to make sure TW3 would have a good enough duration if it should. I dont like games to be short so they can be wide, but neither long so they can be thin, thats basically my point.
 
All that stuff is a bit sad because over all these years "we" (=most of the Witcher fans I've met on various forums) criticized Skyrim and TES for their lack of meaningful consequences and we always argumented with Witcher 2 and CDPR's great achievment in presenting meaningful consequences of player decisions. But no - suddenly - the same people just made a 180° turn, argueing that it's not a great deal after all and that it's no problem to trade in meaningful and realistic consequences (at least on a bigger level) for open world exploration. But in the end, that's nothing else than "changing the DNA of the Witcher franchise".

So yes, I don't doubt that we will have great choices in the game. But great consequences? I guess there will be some central consequences depending on your choices in the main storyline but compared to Witcher 2 they won't change the world in a similar "realistic" fashion. So there is imo definitely a loss of consequences as a trade-off for more exploration.
That's demagogic. The Witcher "DNA" consists of two games. One had branching narratives. The other didn't. What's 180° here?

We don't know the measure of consequences, beyond there not being different paths that lock down whole regions (or assuming so). There could yet still be meaningful consequences. The only way to argue there certainly won't be is by defining only TW2's way as meaningful.
 
But who the heck is talking about lack of bigger cosequences, because I certainly did not heard anything about it.
I talk about it. And I also delivered arguments for that based on rational thinking and experiences with other games. Just read my post.

They just said that there will be no completely different paths through half of the game like with the Vernon and Iorweth choice, which also didn't happened in The Witcher 1, so you can't call it "changing the DNA of the Witcher franchise" as it just happened in a one game so far.
True, but Witcher 2 was meant as an evolution of Witcher 1. Witcher 3 instead seems like a more or less new direction.

They also said that open world is serving the story, not other way around, as they want to give you a possibility to go back to previous locations and see how your choices changed them.
I don't care about what they say. That's marketing and not worth a single dime without any actual proof. I believe it when I see it and not a second earlier. What you (and CDPR) say sounds nice in theory. The problem is that making that possible is a lot harder than it first seems. That's actually the strength of a hub-based approach. It's much easier to change small hubs based on previous actions than changing a whole seamless world. In the end, it's a matter of workload and effort.

It was already confirmed we can still affect the political side of the story, which also means a huge different consequences for the world (as even choosing neutrality will matter).
Just being able to affect the political side of the story doesn't mean that it's implemented in a realistic and meaningful way. You can also change the political landscape in Skyrim. You can decide which party wins the civil war. That sounds great on paper but in Skyrim the consequences are just poorly implemented. The only actual consequence of it is that you personally know what you've done, that it's written in your journal and that some NPCs give you a certain one-liner based on that. That's it. The open world itself almost doesn't change at all, at least not on any level which I wouldn't even hardly call realistic and meaningful. It's great that CDPR wants to improve on that. But the thing is: the problem is systemic and not just a failure of Bethesda. It's the DNA of a seamless open-world approach to make it incredibly difficult and costly to implement meaningful and realistic consequences.

Their main target is combining open world with a deep, nonlinear story and you think they would suddenly drop it just like that.
I don't think that. I think they drop their former approach to deliver meaningful and realistic consequences. You can still have a nice story with great choices. But in the end, CDPR are just game developers, no magicians. Their vision was never small (actually the opposite) and just because you want to do something doesn't mean it's possible or you actually achieve it to the extend you wanted at the beginning...

I mean we suppose to have 36 different endings and even over 200 if you count all the smaller consequences. Much more then The Witcher 2, yet you are claiming they simplify it for the sake of exploration. Nothing seems to hint at that aside of your own paranoia.
You compare apples to oranges. Skyrim has 1000 different endings in theory but not even one is implemented in a meaningful and realistic way. Don't get me wrong, I expect CDPR to make some fine endings which incorporate the results of your decisions and endings. But the problem is that this only applies to the end of the game (aka the end of the main questline) because that is one of the rare "stable" moment for the devs in which they have full control over the progression of the game and its current states. In the end making different endings based on a catalogue of statistics and story decisions isn't really hard. It's just work and requires a good writer. But the problem with consquences is that there is a huge chunk between start and ending of the game. You seem to be satisfied with having some different endings of the end of the game. But I care about the 100 hours of gametime or more in between as well. Consequences to me mean that the world changes according to my actions and not just at a predefined moment at the very end but "on the fly". The act structure (or a hub-based approach) gives you strong tools to alter the game based on the actions of the player BEFORE he gets to the end of the game but also in between. The changing paths in Witcher 2 was the best example for that. Based on your actions in the first act and the first hub you got to see a completely different hub and storyline than with different decisions. That was a realistic and meaningful consequence while you play. It altered the way you've played the game and not just changed the epilogue video you get to see at the end of the game. That's something very different if you ask me. That also has nothing to do with simplfying anything. It's not that I suspect CDPR that they don't want to have great consequences while people still play the game. It's just that the basic design they choose for the game means that it is very hard to impossible to achieve that. No game is a jack-of-all-trades I fear. If you want to change your gemeplay approach you are at risk to give up something for it. That's how game design and development works.

I understand that you just misinterpreting term "lack of story branches" as something more sinister then it really is, but they really just talk about lack of completely different acts you had in The Witcher 2, which makes sense, as there is no need to make this kind of restrictions in open world game. And it's not even a news, as they said that when they first announced the game. All the other choices and consequences we know from the previous games will appear in this game just as we remember them, just on a more direct scale. Trust me.[/QUOTE]

That's demagogic. The Witcher "DNA" consists of two games. One had branching narratives. The other didn't. What's 180° here?
Fine, let's only compare it to Witcher 2 if you don't see Witcher 2 as a "natural" evolution of Witcher 1.

They imo want to change the DNA of Witcher 2 of at least are ready/forced to give up some of its parts for different things like a seamless open world and exploration.

We don't know the measure of consequences, beyond there not being different paths that lock down whole regions (or assuming so). There could yet still be meaningful consequences. The only way to argue there certainly won't be is by defining only TW2's way as meaningful.
No, I disagreee. The real problem here is scale, not the branching approach. Simply said: the bigger your game, region, world, the more difficult it gets to include meaningful and realistic consequences, espeicially if you give players a lot of freedom in their own progression. There is a reason why most story-driven games have a (kind of) linear progression or at least a very guided design. Exploration and sandbox gameplay and from a design perspective the antithesis to a story-driven approach. Sure, CDPR want to combine both elements. I just fear that this combination has its limits and that a real hub-based open world approach would have been a much better fit to what CDPR planned to do for Witcher 3 since the beginning (based on Witcher 2). That's all.
 
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I never complained about locked content, only about "chapters or full locations", and only when the game falls short, like TW2 did.

Didn't you say exactly and by word that you greatly disliked how half of the game was completely unplayable?Correct me if i'm wrong but that's the same as saying you disliked that some of the game's content got locked.

I am sorry if i'm being obnoxious,i could have avoided answering, but arguing is so much fun
 
I am sorry if i'm being obnoxious,i could have avoided answering, but arguing is so much fun

For you, maybe, but not necessarily for everyone else.
Geralt_of_bsas has already explained what he meant, "half the game" is clearly not the same as "some", so this particular line of discussion has no need to continue.
 
I believe it when I see it and not a second earlier.

Probably the best line in this thread, and I think that can even be said to yourself.

Personally I can see Shavod's side of the argument, and then I also see LordCrash's... Both make sense, and both are plausible.

However at this point, it's just a matter of waiting for the release, seeing how the choices/consequences have been implemented and then decide on whether or not Open World was a mistake in terms of telling a story and showing those choices/consequences (At least when it comes to "branching stories").
 
For you, maybe, but not necessarily for everyone else.
Geralt_of_bsas has already explained what he meant, "half the game" is clearly not the same as "some", so this particular line of discussion has no need to continue.

Oh you could swap some for half and still get the exact same meaning.I could edit it right now to prevent further misconceptions.But that wouldn't be honorable no i won't do it.

What i like about written discussions is you can go back and read again and again what has been said.Can't be done in oral disagreements.That being said written has it's disadvantages one of them being that i can't write as quickly as i flap my mouth while out of it comes a load of gibberish.
 
Didn't you say exactly and by word that you greatly disliked how half of the game was completely unplayable?Correct me if i'm wrong but that's the same as saying you disliked that some of the game's content got locked.

I am sorry if i'm being obnoxious,i could have avoided answering, but arguing is so much fun

I said that but its not the same thing, this has to do with how accurate we are regarding a specific part of the subject, difference is, you didnt use the words "some of the game's content got locked" or "some of the game's locked content" before, instead it sounded like a generalization of my opinion when you wrote "you shouldn't complain about "locked" content".

I enjoy locked content naturally, since its the only way to have any choices at all, not just meaningful ones, but I don't like precisely the use of it when it involves locking approximately one third of a short (to me) game from a playthrough. I simply think its an extreme measure, and the sacrifices were not worth the benefits, however this is not the thread to discuss the TW2 so...

We definitely understand each other, its just a matter of technicalities :p
 
So you don't mind having a feature ditched since there will be another completely different feature?That's like saying i don't mind doing away with the signs since geralt's armpits are now shaveable.

Its open world.Create your own forking road and make decisions that will alter your path.I am sure the game will have these options.

It just doesn't need to lock away a city or an area way from you.I don't see how anyone would want that back when the entire game is open ended.

Certainly, failing quests or choosing will have consequences but I don't see I would want a location to be locked away from me for the entire game.
 
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