How on Earth is the choice system in ES games more meaningful than the witcher? As far as I remember choices in Skyrim change very little about the world you're in. While the main quest gives you a bit of leeway , the sidequests are as linear as they get. The only "meaningful" choice you can make is often whether to stab the questgiver after you complete his quest. But how is the freedom to slaughter a meaningful rpg option? eh.... Maybe I'm wrong but please give me some examples of those great morally-dubious choices in Skyrim?
Skyrim is a beautiful sandbox buut the writing is kinda simplistic. I don't even blame Skyrim for this, I think that RPG design where your character is a blank slate can never be successful. How can you care about a character if he/she has no history, no motivations , nothing that would give the protagonist substance. Roleplaying is based on playing a role , not controlling a shell of a man. I'm so glad that CDPR actually gets that instead of perpetuating the mistakes of Bethesda or Bioware.
CDPR decided to go for for an emotional tale with substance where your choices actually affect the world that surrounds you. This is what we call roleplaying.
The worst thing is that I actually love Skyrim and think it was a stepping stone towards the greatness of TW3 but it's a game that hasn't aged well (even with mods). It just bugs me so much when I see people claiming Skyrim is in any way superior to TW3. The new ES game may well be better , let's wait and see. If you don't like the choices presented in the Witcher, it means that you cannot "get into" the world. That's okay, it may be not be your kind of a world. But please, stop with the pointless ES nostalgia. It is not humanly possible to love ES for the story unless there's a mod that totally overhauls it.
P.S: I know, I know, you shouldn't feed trolls. Next thing you know they will be demanding a bucket of red paint
P.S.S: Not all ES writing is bland and generic. Morrowind had a really good story, but again, no big, world-altering choices
A final final note fro the OP
Chapter 2 SPOILERS ALERT
It seems I managed to hit just about every depressing negative disempowering quest in a row in my first playthrough to the Fake Pass quest after which I deleted the game.
I deleted because I was pissed off but decided to give is another chance since really there isn't anything else even remotely playable out there.
Reinstalling and directly updating to 1.04 and not mapping dodge and roll to the M4 and M5 fixed 99% of the gameplay issues for me. Could you imagine how pissed off you would be trying to beat enemies when Geralt doesn't dodge and roll in the intended direction 60% of the time. When fixed I find combat rather elegant and incredibly skill oriented. Plan right and master the controls and it flows beautifully ...... don't and even a Nekker can kill you.
I played my first Wild Hunt BOSS battle and it certainly had issues, but it was much better than most contrived console BOSS battles. Needs tweaking as your mage companion needs a shield spell and more frequent magic attacks to make it believable that the Wild Hunt warrior wouldn't eat her in one hit. Also ..... 3 times was just too much and made the whole thing tedious. Only put 2nd and 3rd waves in if they are significantly different than the first. You are not fooling anyone who would bother with the PC version and many who wouldn't.
1st WH wave = fun and interesting
2nd WH wave = OK but getting sloggy, perfectly OK if the BOSS does something totally different and we can save
3rd WH wave = OMG and can't believe the dev could make such a noob mistake .... this isn't adding anything to the game only subtracting OMG I died and I have to slog through that again? Am I being paid for this?
I can also see that it also seems ProjectCD custom designed White Orchard to piss me off:
1) Stupid warlords I have to serve
2) Dogs and wolves attacking constantly
3) Forced choices then other choices could have been much more satisfying
4) Repellent NPCs
Fortunately I just had some bad luck
For 1) I will just suck it up ProjectCD seems obsessed with Monarchy and war .... too bad
For 2) At least you can avoid and outrun dogs and wolves and the main quest didn't force me to kill them like the Griffon. Actually you can outrun all of the enemies and they are nicely un-scaled which make the world so much more interesting and they enemies that way outlevel you are marked. Very good implementation.
For 3) W3 needs more choices to make it a masterpiece ..... but chapter 2 is better with much more freedom. I am debating whether to visit the Baron and hope that I am not force to.
For 4) On my second playthrough I found a few more NPCs I liked in White Orchard
Really in the current software and hardware landscape ... really choice is the only thing ProjectCD needs to improve on .... satisfying choice.
Graphics = at the point of diminishing returns
Face and character models = already superb .... what more could you ask for
Combat = some polishing needed but really only truly destructible environments could improve and better AI. Hardware is not there yet.
Choice = this has lagged far behind other gaming aspects in all games making players into sheep.
And ProjectCD even managed to get the magically appearing enemies right. In one area a whole pile of drowners attacked when I touched a chest. It was obviously scripted but it worked because there were many obvious places the Drowners could have been hiding. Most devs just make them appear out of thin air. So far W3 has been a remarkably fair game with few cheap dev tricks. They got so much right in this game ..... make an enhanced edition with more choice and W3 may stand the test of time and be sold 20 years from now on Steam still for 20$. Making some 1/2 baked DLCs won't make the game better .... but fully baked DLC is another story.
Chapter 2 SPOILERS ALERT
It seems I managed to hit just about every depressing negative disempowering quest in a row in my first playthrough to the Fake Pass quest after which I deleted the game.
I deleted because I was pissed off but decided to give is another chance since really there isn't anything else even remotely playable out there.
Reinstalling and directly updating to 1.04 and not mapping dodge and roll to the M4 and M5 fixed 99% of the gameplay issues for me. Could you imagine how pissed off you would be trying to beat enemies when Geralt doesn't dodge and roll in the intended direction 60% of the time. When fixed I find combat rather elegant and incredibly skill oriented. Plan right and master the controls and it flows beautifully ...... don't and even a Nekker can kill you.
I played my first Wild Hunt BOSS battle and it certainly had issues, but it was much better than most contrived console BOSS battles. Needs tweaking as your mage companion needs a shield spell and more frequent magic attacks to make it believable that the Wild Hunt warrior wouldn't eat her in one hit. Also ..... 3 times was just too much and made the whole thing tedious. Only put 2nd and 3rd waves in if they are significantly different than the first. You are not fooling anyone who would bother with the PC version and many who wouldn't.
1st WH wave = fun and interesting
2nd WH wave = OK but getting sloggy, perfectly OK if the BOSS does something totally different and we can save
3rd WH wave = OMG and can't believe the dev could make such a noob mistake .... this isn't adding anything to the game only subtracting OMG I died and I have to slog through that again? Am I being paid for this?
I can also see that it also seems ProjectCD custom designed White Orchard to piss me off:
1) Stupid warlords I have to serve
2) Dogs and wolves attacking constantly
3) Forced choices then other choices could have been much more satisfying
4) Repellent NPCs
Fortunately I just had some bad luck
For 1) I will just suck it up ProjectCD seems obsessed with Monarchy and war .... too bad
For 2) At least you can avoid and outrun dogs and wolves and the main quest didn't force me to kill them like the Griffon. Actually you can outrun all of the enemies and they are nicely un-scaled which make the world so much more interesting and they enemies that way outlevel you are marked. Very good implementation.
For 3) W3 needs more choices to make it a masterpiece ..... but chapter 2 is better with much more freedom. I am debating whether to visit the Baron and hope that I am not force to.
For 4) On my second playthrough I found a few more NPCs I liked in White Orchard
Really in the current software and hardware landscape ... really choice is the only thing ProjectCD needs to improve on .... satisfying choice.
Graphics = at the point of diminishing returns
Face and character models = already superb .... what more could you ask for
Combat = some polishing needed but really only truly destructible environments could improve and better AI. Hardware is not there yet.
Choice = this has lagged far behind other gaming aspects in all games making players into sheep.
And ProjectCD even managed to get the magically appearing enemies right. In one area a whole pile of drowners attacked when I touched a chest. It was obviously scripted but it worked because there were many obvious places the Drowners could have been hiding. Most devs just make them appear out of thin air. So far W3 has been a remarkably fair game with few cheap dev tricks. They got so much right in this game ..... make an enhanced edition with more choice and W3 may stand the test of time and be sold 20 years from now on Steam still for 20$. Making some 1/2 baked DLCs won't make the game better .... but fully baked DLC is another story.
You can't have enldless choices.
Otherwise the game would be a "make-your-own-adventure" game a la Skyrim and would have less story and character depth, simple as that.
Or the game would have taken 3 more years and CDPR would have gone bankrupt before finishing it. What do you think they are? Machines?
Otherwise the game would be a "make-your-own-adventure" game a la Skyrim and would have less story and character depth, simple as that.
Or the game would have taken 3 more years and CDPR would have gone bankrupt before finishing it. What do you think they are? Machines?