Shandification

+
Shandification

Hello fellow Witcherfanatics,

as the previous two installments in the witcher franchise, The Witcher 3 will be focused on Story.
Because it'll be set in an open and much larger world, building the world as cohesive and believable as possible is a much bigger concern.

The concept of shandification, fantastically described here by the maginficent MrBtongue, is extremely important for me to be immersed in an open world game.
While I'm not really worried about CDPR failing in this regard, I'd still like to point out how important this is for me.

Cheers

P.S.:Check out the other stuff MrBtongue has made, it's great.
 
Well, I worried about it, but the open world adventure games are incorporating great stories into their worlds for some time already. It will be a tad harder to do in an RPG (with a true dialogue system), but just the open world itself is not an obstacle to a great narrative. With enough time and effort spent on a story it is quite possible to have a story as great as in TW2, with as many (or even more) choices and consequences, in a true open world.
 
I really hope that all CDPR staff members would carefully study each and every MrBTongue's video :)
Granted, from their past work we see that they already know most of the good points made in those videos, but still it wouldn't hurt :)
Apart from the already mentioned Shandification video, I especially like the Choice&Consequence video and the Slow Down The Violence one .
 
I think CDPRED will do tremendous job with this aspect :)/> I think this have been their intend from the begin with.

Nice video
 
Have you seen the video I linked?
I have absolutely no doubt CDPR are able to craft fantastic stories, not even in an open world environment.

My concern is that they may fail to make the setting covincing, because it is their first attempt of an open world.
It's unlikely to happen, but with the ambition behind this project the focus might be on other things, like sheer size and content.
 
DroolingDreamer said:
The concept of shandification, fantastically described here by the maginficent MrBtongue, is extremely important for me to be immersed in an open world game.

I enjoyed that. Thanks. :)/>/>/>/>/>

This has always been one of the things that I absolutely loved about the Witcher 2. The world is extremely "fleshed out." Everything is well thought out, and makes sense. No doubt, I think Sapkowski deserves a lot of credit for that, as well as CDPR.

From everything I've heard about the Witcher 3 thus far, and seeing the quality that CDPR strives for, and how they seem to be making all the right decisions in how the game should work, I think the Witcher 3 will set a new standard in terms of "shandification."
 
DroolingDreamer said:
Have you seen the video I linked?
I have absolutely no doubt CDPR are able to craft fantastic stories, not even in an open world environment.

My concern is that they may fail to make the setting covincing, because it is their first attempt of an open world.
It's unlikely to happen, but with the ambition behind this project the focus might be on other things, like sheer size and content.

They made TW1 and TW2 pretty damn convincing for me. Sure, there is no guarantee with TW3, and I am curious how it will turn out, but I hope that CDPR will be able to pull it off. Nothing else we can do, really, that late into the development.

What I know is that they have very good writers with rather sophisticated minds (who are able to create rather complex multi-layered stories), and these guys are probably much better in story-telling than all of us combined. With their experience in story-telling CDPR has a very good chance to make TW3 a masterpiece. I am sure their writers analyzed a lot of relevant materials like smudboy's analysis videos, for example, and know where common mistakes are made. They were good in avoiding any glaring inconsistencies and immersion-breakers thus far, and I believe they are only getting better, not worse.
 
Thank you for sharing. That was very insightful commentary by the creator of the video. Partly because he was so comprehensive and partly because his point was so simple and spot-on. Fortunately, all indications are that CDPR is indeed "shantifying" TW3 to a huge degree.
 
Well this shandification thing, or setting, is with what game devs start or should start. Even Skyrim was pretty good in this respect, while it has a very mediocre story. I did not even consider a possibility of TW3 being bad in this respect, it is sort of a given for me. But an incorporation of a complex story that heavily impacts the world, and keeping track of the changes of attitudes and motivations of characters based on the events is way more difficult. Also one of the most challenging things not to mess up in a narrative is a time-line and timing of the events. With the open world, when there are no strict temporal limits, it will be even more challenging.
 
DroolingDreamer said:
Have you seen the video I linked?

.. yep, and those were about 9 minutes of my life I'll never get back, since I didn't watch the whole thing...

Oh, and BTW, what do they eat in Megatron, MrBtongue? I don't know... check the freaking menu on the 2 food and drink establishments in town... moron.
 
How could I not hear about this guy before? Are there more simillar chanels on Youtube? Errant Signal (highly recomended) is the only one I am aware of...
 
Woah, if you disagree with him, that's totallly fine and if you think, that I have wasted your time, I'm sorry. But that is no reason to insult anyone.
 
MrBtongue has great videos, hope you guys watch rest of them. I would love to see his video about witcher 3.
 

Beestonian

Guest
My God, this video is perfect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJJaGSV75y0

"Resist the temptation to make every player choice an epic world changing one with far reaching consequences. If you instead keep things on a personal level, they'll mean just as much if not more to the player while being easier to manage from a story Standpoint."

*Cough Shani or Triss Cough Iorveth or Roche*
 
Well, I highly recommend this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/smudboy/videos?flow=grid&view=1

He is extremely attentive to the details, and his analyses are spot-on. He is not talking about settings, but about logical and structural problems with the stories.

He is one of the few who is doing it on a high level. He is very thorough and analytical, academic style. I do not know who he is in real life, but he can easily teach college classes.
 
Yeah, there are a bunch of guys on youtube, that provide very interesting commentary on games.

Allosaurus Rex does some absolutetly phenomenal videos about concepts in particular titles and in the medium as a whole.
Also, take a look at gatheryourparty.com, these people know what they're talking about.
 
That's a very interesting video, thanks for sharing. Will look at the rest of MrBtongue's videos now.I will have to watch it again, look for the book mentioned, and think about it for some time (I think slowly), but I think a thing I've been trying to write in my spare time lately might be a bit shandified without me knowing that such a thing was a thing... :\
 
Yep. Bobby the Tongue, my absolute favorite youtube gaming person (including Joe and TB). His videos are a must see for every gamer
 
I didn't like this vid. He spends 15 minutes saying that a convincing game should have causally non-linear narratives and some basic plausibility, but it takes a lot more than that to make a good game.

I always ask the question: what motivates the characters? What do they want? What is their view of the playing character? How do they view one another? I can answer the "what do they eat" question in Skyrim pretty easily, but their world is so implausible because they have only occasionally show any motivation, and only rarely a view of the playing character. This is why they seem so bland and lifeless.
 
Top Bottom