The Wild Hunt and black/white decisions

[dimbismp]

The Wild Hunt and black/white decisions

So the game is advertised to be full of grey characters,decisions etc.So essentially,there is no right decision in most cases.
But how is this going to be implemented regarding the WH?I mean,the WH are the closer we can get to "totally bad guys" in the Witcher universe(at least from what i have heard of).
What would totally surpise me is if (late in the game) you can be convinced by them and hunt Ciri or something! lol
Anyway,unless something like this happens,i can't see how the game will have meaningful decisions etc,if the main antagonists are the most evil thing in the world.

 

[arkblazer]

considering the sword of destiny trailer it could be that way. just listen at the WH guy and what he says.

 

[Kinley]

Well the devs have said time and time again that the Wild Hunt is more than just your usual world invading baddy. So I guess we'll have to see how they turn out.

But what I don't quite understand is the fact that you said there can't be meaningful choices if the Wild Hunt somehow turns out to be "totally bad guys". What do you mean by that exactly?

 

[gregski]

There's a lot more behind those masks than one would think.

 

[dimbismp]

Well the devs have said time and time again that the Wild Hunt is more than just your usual world invading baddy. So I guess we'll have to see how they turn out.

But what I don't quite understand is the fact that you said there can't be meaningful choices if the Wild Hunt somehow turns out to be "totally bad guys". What do you mean by that exactly?

Well,maybe i didn't express myself correctly.What i mean is that the whole game would be "chasing the bad guys".And you wouldn't get to decide if you want to chase them,side with them,what to do when you find them etc

 

[Kinley]

Well,maybe i didn't express myself correctly.What i mean is that the whole game would be "chasing the bad guys".And you wouldn't get to decide if you want to chase them,side with them,what to do when you find them etc

We hardly know anything about the plot at the moment, well, except for the fact that Geralt is looking for Yen/Ciri and the Hunt is after them. But that is very barebones, I highly doubt the plot would be written on such a superficial level, especially when you're talking about CDPR writers (Hail Blacha).

 

[EliHarel]

Well,maybe i didn't express myself correctly.What i mean is that the whole game would be "chasing the bad guys".And you wouldn't get to decide if you want to chase them,side with them,what to do when you find them etc

At this point bismp we simply don't know enough to say. We know the game is about the Wild Hunt and will involve Ciri and Yennefer. From this we can speculate, but even the best speculations won't be close (I'm guessing) to what CDPR have cooked for allegedly over 50-hours of main storyline. Add to that another 50 hours of side quests, and you have a lot of room to play with in creating meaningful and difficult decisions. I'm adding sidequests to this pot because if TW2 is anything to go by, as well as CDPR's interviews, the side quests will still be intertwined with the main story and will amount to more than "my dad lost his sword in this cave, can you go fetch it for me please?" or "I need 8 mistletoe for my potion, chop-chop".

But you know what, even taking that very simple notion of "chasing the bad guys", let's look at TW1, or TW2. In both of them you're chasing a bad guy. In TW1 you're chasing a criminal group who stole the witcher mutation-secrets. In TW2 you're chasing assassins of kings. Now think about what a journey CDPR led us through in each of those games. Did they end up remotely similar to what you imagined? More than that, was the journey itself like anything you imagined?

There might be things related to the main storyline that we can't even think of, not off the bat. For instance - what does the Order of the Flaming Rose, or the Scoia'tael, have to do with chasing Salamandra? Supposedly nothing. What does joining Roche in Henselt's camp have to do with finding Letho? What does choosing between Stennis or Saskia have to do with hunting down the assassins?

It can be taken to so many different directions, with twists and turns that we can't foresee, and many difficult decisions that aren't directly related to the Wild Hunt, but will still affect it. So even in the off-chance that CDPR leave the Wild Hunt as this "absolute evil" force (which I hope they don't), the journey can still be filled with all of these difficult decisions.

 

[Phinnway]

To be honest I've never found the Witcher to be a "morally gray" world. Just a world filled with people and their choices. Just like in real life, people in the Witcher are complicated. But it's pretty clear to me when something someone does crosses a line. That won't necessarily be true for everyone who plays the game though because everyone brings their own life experiences to the story.

There are a few characters who are obviously "good" or "bad" guys. For example, the veteran Witcher Vessimir is pretty obviously a "good guy." He is a mentor to Geralt and his friend. The main villain in The Witcher 1 is pretty obviously a "bad guy." He is someone who started with good intentions but crossed a million moral lines to accomplish his goals.

Most characters are somewhere in the middle. Even Triss Meriglod, who was a love interest in TW1 and TW2, was questionable at times. But for the most part whether a character is "good" or "bad" will depend on your perspective and the experiences you bring to the table.

@bismp Have you ever played a Witcher game before? It's hard to judge the game if you haven't. You're looking in from the outside and asking "How is the villain morally gray!?!?!!?" In reality most of the "moral grayness" in The Witcher series comes from dealing with ordinary people, not the bad-guys. There are a lot of branching storylines in the sidequests.

 

[sharpappple]

So the game is advertised to be full of grey characters,decisions etc.So essentially,there is no right decision in most cases.
But how is this going to be implemented regarding the WH?I mean,the WH are the closer we can get to "totally bad guys" in the Witcher universe(at least from what i have heard of).
What would totally surpise me is if (late in the game) you can be convinced by them and hunt Ciri or something! lol
Anyway,unless something like this happens,i can't see how the game will have meaningful decisions etc,if the main antagonists are the most evil thing in the world.

for the Wild Hunt, it is uncertain but still likely that they have more motivations than just some presumably evil force out only to do evil things for the sake of it. who knows whether they are total evil, we know hardly anything about them, but they appear to be anything but a chaotic evil. the wild hunt do what they do for a reason, and although they are antagonists in the games plot as far as we know, we know next to nothing about the story to be able to make that kind of judgment about the main antagonists of a game series that has so far proved itself, in two separate games no less, to be capable of creating grey characters and decisions.

in the witcher games if you want to understand what the devs mean by their world having morally grey characters and decisions there is a good example of a couple of characters from the witcher 2, who play important parts through the hole game, depending on your decisions (I wont mention the details of the characters or of the situation in case of spoilers). a decision in the witcher 2 sees you having to chose between one of these two characters, and between taking two different courses of action that you might regard in one way or another to be more or less equally moral choices. though these two characters have different attitudes towards certain cultural and political issues because of their involvement, past , and current actions, as well as who they are in the world, causing them to take opposite sides, fighting for causes they both see as good causes. from what you hear from both characters they both seem to have legitimate reasons for doing what they do, they are both obscure, neither good nor bad. this is the kind of thing you can expect to deal with in the witcher 3, decisions and characters that are not certainly good or bad, but neither are they grey, the mortality is simply obscure, immeasurable, and to some extent ultimately pointless and impossible to gauge because of that. and you often as the player standing in the middle viewing the self righteousness of sides in a conflict.

this is the same kind of thing that was in the books, often Geralt was thrust into morally obscure situations, where he often was forced to take action, when he generally doesn't want to. the game puts you in these situations and so far CDPR have done an excellent job at it, capturing that aspect from the books, extraordinarily well.

it will be interesting to see how they plan to develop stories in the witcher 3, as it will likely be their final witcher game, and the one they are putting the most effort time and resources into. you can be sure there will be nothing to worry about in regards to story looking at the quality from the last two games, and in regards to the wild hunt you shouldn't be concerned.

the games story is the best part of the last two titles, and the least thing to be concerned with. you can be practically certain that it will have grey characters and decisions. the story, its decisions and characters could even shape up to be the best in a AAA title in living memory.

 

[OptoNick]

Aen Elle isn't a chaotic Evil with no motivation, but their purposes are in conflict with Geralt/Ciri/Yen's interests. Their methods are just as bad as methods of any soldier on enemy territory. Aen Saevherne fucked up miserably with Elder Blood, and now Wild Hunt has a chance to fix this mistake.

Same with Emhyr or even Vilgefortz. They had their purposes and they had reaching it by any means.

 

[frynse]

As long as their reasoning is well explained for why they desire to catch dat Ciri, I'm perfectly fine with it.
I just don't hope their motivations end up going to something stupid like wanting to conquer the world and Geralt has to stop them - that would be generic and stupid.

 

[LadKakashi]

guys who read the books xD for anyone who didn't SPOILERS ahead .....
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Spoiler

About Ithlinne's prophecy and the white frost
._____. was it not supposed that Ciri's son is the savior of the world and such ?! am sorry i really don't remember. and is the white frost going to hit the world of the witcher and the other world which the wild hunt elves come from or not !

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt: Tedd Deireádh, the Time of End. The world will die amidst frost and be reborn with the new sun. It will be reborn of Elder Blood, of Hen Ichaer, of the seed that has been sown. A seed which will not sprout but burst into flame.

Ess'tuath esse! Thus it shall be! Watch for the signs! What signs these shall be, I say unto you: first the earth will flow with the blood of Aen Seidhe, the Blood of Elves...

— page 1, Blood of Elves
and this might feel off topic but if the elves just wanted to save their world that "and that's how i understand it" then they are not pretty evil at all...

 

[dimbismp]

To be honest I've never found the Witcher to be a "morally gray" world. Just a world filled with people and their choices. Just like in real life, people in the Witcher are complicated. But it's pretty clear to me when something someone does crosses a line. That won't necessarily be true for everyone who plays the game though because everyone brings their own life experiences to the story.

There are a few characters who are obviously "good" or "bad" guys. For example, the veteran Witcher Vessimir is pretty obviously a "good guy." He is a mentor to Geralt and his friend. The main villain in The Witcher 1 is pretty obviously a "bad guy." He is someone who started with good intentions but crossed a million moral lines to accomplish his goals.

Most characters are somewhere in the middle. Even Triss Meriglod, who was a love interest in TW1 and TW2, was questionable at times. But for the most part whether a character is "good" or "bad" will depend on your perspective and the experiences you bring to the table.

@bismp btw, have you ever played a Witcher game before? If you haven't it's kinda hard to judge the game. You're a stranger on the outside looking in at the main villain and asking "How is he morally gray!?!?!!?" Most of the "moral grayness" in The Witcher comes in the form of dealing with ordinary people. There is a lot of choices and consequences in the sidequests.

I haven't played any witcher game,but still i think i can state my opinion.I don't judge it,on the contrary i belive it will be great

 

[val.mitev]

The Wild Hunt have their reasons and in their point of view, what they are doing is right and is what is necessary to make sure they survive.
They don't care about the humans, they consider them to be just some filthy animals, so what they do is just like gathering/butchering live stock.
Also they are very proud, as they dominate over other species, just as they once did over humans before leaving that realm.

Now, the perception of them when you are on the receiving end of the stick is quite different. Even if there might be a pretty sound reason behind it, it is still evil in your eyes and you'd pretty much like them dead and gone.
After all, they just come and kill indiscriminately.

What I'm really hoping is to see the Wild Hunt leaders from a different perspective, not just the slaughtering evil type, but more about their reasons, their motivations and their character.
The trailers so far have shown them in totally evil perspective (it's cool to rile up folks and show hints of the big bad guys), but as usual, things are not that simple in the witcher world and I hope we get to see both sides of the coin.

 

[Shakewixx]

i supose many people here red the books and know the real motivations of this misterious cabalgade of "specters", trying to avoid spoilers it woud be interesting to see their side of the story but their objectives collide not only with the ones of the franchice main characters but also with all sentient beeing that are not of elven origin. it is know they dispise humans and care only for their own survival but in this case and avoiding to develop more on the subject so i wont spoil you it seems hard to believe they have intentions that may let them not look as the ultimate evil bad guys.

my opinion

 

[TemerianGirl]

There's a lot more behind those masks than one would think.

 

[Alan989]

Well, here's what we know about the Wild Hunt (my interpretation, so don't go yelling at me):

Spoilers Ahead

Spoiler

1. They are a race of Elves from a parallel world in which they are the dominant species
2. They have either enslaved or forced mankind in their world to the edge of extinction
3. They are extremely powerful magic users
4. They raid other worlds in search of humans to bring back and force them to work

I think that's it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Remember, I'm not as big a fan as some of you lot, so try and go easy on me, alright?

 

[Shakewixx]

Well, here's what we know about the Wild Hunt (my interpretation, so don't go yelling at me):

Spoilers Ahead

Spoiler

1. They are a race of Elves from a parallel world in which they are the dominant species
2. They have either enslaved or forced mankind in their world to the edge of extinction
3. They are extremely powerful magic users
4. They raid other worlds in search of humans to bring back and force them to work

I think that's it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Remember, I'm not as big a fan as some of you lot, so try and go easy on me, alright?

yup, having entered in masive spoiler territory that can be a general idea of what they are.



it is stated that they want ciri to get pregnant from one of them so the baby can restore the elder genes to them again wich will also taking into acount the prophesies of ithine (that says the child of the child of ciri will rule the world ) will also allow them the key to open the gate of the worlds and travel through the spheres at will. this will eaither mean that they in the worst case cenario will invade and destroy everithing on their path through the diferent spheres as they did before the gate of the worlds was closed to them.

 

[WhitestWolf]

If you played both TW1 and TW2 like me, you'd probably be pretty confused about them, given some thought

Spoiler

I mean, they're not actually these evil specters that just come to wreak havoc, nor are they these merciless invaders that do nothing but invade worlds for their own entertainment

They are there for a reason which we do not know yet

I assume that there will be a big reveal in Witcher 3 that will completely change the way we perceive them

And even if not, there will most likely still be some great decisions to make around the other characters and the plot itself

Maybe in a grey world, there is place for some black and white too, but they will likely be a lot more complicated than seems at first sight

 

[Aes Sídhe]

i can't see how the game will have meaningful decisions, if the main antagonists are the most evil thing in the world.

The vast majority of my Geralts toughest effectual decisions haven't been of the earth shattering consequence you'd expect accompany planetary invasions, rather grounded, upclose & personalised developments, often experienced through consequences to one of his friends, acquaintances, or innocent bystanders.. During the last two games, recovering the Witcher secrets, then avenging Foltest / clearing name / getting the heck out of Dodge / etc, were the prime motivations, not pogroms & insurgency or the fate of kingdoms.

Basically, Witcher games don't give you that feeling the whole world revolves around you, the Chosen One[SUP]TM[/SUP]. Major world events do of course happen and you often get drawn into or need to deal with them, but even here you're essentially still navigating Geralt by his self-interest, enlightened though it is. Its a character driven narrative not an event chaser. And thats a great way to tell a serious tale, certainly more realistic.

On the Wild Hunt its not just narrative decisions that are normally swimming in ambiguity in The Witcher games - a theme consistent with the source books too btw - there always seems to be a variety of perspectives to any person, monster, or happening. As a low-fantasy world theres no reason to suspect its inhabitants would be any more informed or consistent about the nature of The Hunt than our culture is about ufos. I also don't think a completely "evil", irrational or even oblivious juggernaut of an antagonist necessarily means a weak narrative either.

I'm going into the game on the Trail of Geralts lost love, I find the thought of that plenty of motivation already, and then we'll see what comes... but my Geralts will remain sceptical towards everything he's not convinced of by experience, especially fearful reports of ghostly invaders, Imperial propaganda, and the populaces general ignorance.

Finally, this isn't a fully-realised before publishing Lord of the Rings type franchise, can anyone really be so certain everything about the world is known? Is there no flexibility, no room for complications, twists & surprises ? Think about it, perhaps even Sapkowski doesn't yet know all The Wild Hunts motivations.

There's a lot more behind those masks than one would think.

Breac Glás in Irish means "Green Freckles", or denotes some kind of speckling appearance... perhaps Eredins hunting for spot cream?