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TW3 deserved all the awards except The Best RPG. It makes me feel that genre is dying.
Are you suggesting someone intentionally rigged the awards so that CDPR would win for the purpose of silencing some fans on the forums? Do you think CDPR has the power to do this just to manipulate the minds of their fans?
Well, tbh, such things have questionably happened before on awards nights -- but in this circumstance I don't suspect foul play from anyone involved. I'm actually surpised Wild Hunt got so many awards as well game of the year. This post may as well be a lament for the depth of the fall of the industry as a whole if there was any broader scope on who won what in all honesty.
Which games would you have seen win these awards? Do you actually feel silenced on the flaws of the Witcher 3 based on some third party's opinion? These awards certainly don't mean anything in regards to stuff like Best RPG of All Time or Best Developer since the 1600s -- it's only for what's been released this year.
Do you honestly think the Game Awards and Global Game Awards are going to stop people from making such criticising threads about aspects of the Witcher 3?
That's not how Game of the Year is decided so this isn't even a legitimate point. You should know logicially that fans are fans and there is no greater or lesser fan -- anyone who genuinely thinks such a thing is looking at the world through the eyes of an upset child. You do not know who CDPR is listening to and their dedication on the forums gives me an inclination to believe that they do indeed take longer posters more seriously than that of short keyboard bashes on YouTube.
The detail about Triss' romance doesn't reflect your experience of the game as a whole. To an extent, I could argue that the details of Triss' romance and CDPR's decision to make changes to that romance (among a few other things) is political horsehockey that reviewers are inclined to ignore for the nature of their review.
Who cares about the Awards even to this extent? The Awards are a pat on the back for hard effort and an acknowledgement of the quality of the game. They do have a sort of heirarchy in which some games get first, second, third... but overall it's to show which ones stood out to subjective giver of the awards throughout the year. Of course you have a right to criticise a game that has so many awards -- labels are no suit of armour.
As for CDPR considering our critique - well, they well and truly know of the flaws of their game before the awards were given out and I highly doubt that there's no way that they're going to stop visiting the forums to review feedback just because of this. Morally, should they? Of course they should. Are you afraid that they won't and are those concerns legitimate? Sure. If they genuinely think that some awards are a suit of armour from criticism, dump this developer now and go find a team that's worth your time.
Keep in mind they have actually organised for a group of developers to check the forums more often -- have you seen Burza around? -- to keep their eyes more closely on things here. I don't think that's going to dissipate until after BaW is out and they're probably going to continue having a few check in on the Cyberpunk threads after that. I really doubt that the Awards are going to stop that.
Damn, you're right... thanks for pointing out we need to remove all threads that criticise the game from now on, Kal :')
On a more serious note, all GOTY means is a bunch of people thought the game was really good (and that the game is going to sell even better), it doesn't magically make the game immune to criticism - we've made fun of GOTYs and the concept behind them before on this forum, I don't see why we would suddenly treat them any differently, just because TW3 has won =/
But yeah, no such thing as a perfect game, and it's not what GOTY implies anyway.
On a more serious note, all GOTY means is a bunch of people thought the game was really good (and that the game is going to sell even better), it doesn't magically make the game immune to criticism - we've made fun of GOTYs and the concept behind them before on this forum, I don't see why we would suddenly treat them any differently, just because TW3 has won =/
But yeah, no such thing as a perfect game, and it's not what GOTY implies anyway.
In short: No game is perfect, but CDPR took a pretty good stab at it.
Does it deserve all the praise it's getting? You bet it does.
Does it deserve all the praise it's getting? You bet it does.
Something of this scope and size will only be perfect when humanity become the same
Compare it with Last of Us, probably the most commonly regarded AAA "masterpiece" by critics and players over the last ten years...WH is as strong with cinematics, storytelling, characters, dialogue, environment design...while having at least ten times more complexity.
So, yes, I could write a small book filled with nothing but criticism, but I'm not talking from a perspective of someone who knows exact limitations of time and budget for this game.
I'm hoping that lessons learned here are carried over to Cyberpunk and they have better oversight of the whole development process.
Compare it with Last of Us, probably the most commonly regarded AAA "masterpiece" by critics and players over the last ten years...WH is as strong with cinematics, storytelling, characters, dialogue, environment design...while having at least ten times more complexity.
So, yes, I could write a small book filled with nothing but criticism, but I'm not talking from a perspective of someone who knows exact limitations of time and budget for this game.
I'm hoping that lessons learned here are carried over to Cyberpunk and they have better oversight of the whole development process.
They did not do those instead of just adding some banter for the same reason other things you listed were not changed - the banter was much cheaper to implement. For each of the three main NPCs, patch 1.10 added only about 2-3% more lines of dialogue. The main problems with Triss content in TW3 were caused by some changes and cuts late in the development of the game compared to how it was planned in 2013, but this is not something that can be "fixed" by adding a few lines of dialogue. In the Skellige stage of Act 3, she would have had more screen time (and was for example planned at some point to appear in The Sunstone quest, as well as some deleted content), but in the released version of the game it is only 10 lines, some of which are not actually used. But this is a part of a general problem with that section of the game being rushed and cut down. Also, the "Brothers in Arms" quests were planned to be part of the main quest in Act 2, and this includes Now or Never in particular. Additionally, the quest Carnal Sins would have been before Now or Never and included Triss in some role (cut in the final version of the game). However, all those quests ended up being side-quests only, with their recommended levels set in a way that suggests playing them in Act 1, and Now or Never (level 14) before even going to Skellige (level 16). For those who romance Triss, playing the quests in this order results in a broken narrative, a long section of the game having no content, and no consequences to their choice (as the Skellige quest line and Ugly Baby were not designed to be played after Now or Never).
What would really have been needed is more quest content, but the patch only ever promised to implement "tweaks".
Some of those may not actually be seen as problems by the developers themselves:
(3) I do not think Saskia was ever seriously planned to appear in the game, and while Iorveth was until 2014, it is not clear if he was cut for resource or story reasons (they did add Ves in his place instead). In the latter case, I doubt CDPR would want to add him back even if they made an enhanced edition of the game. It is not possible to include every old character from the previous games and books, and some just make more sense for the location and story of the game than others. But it does look like some cuts were made for lack of time or resources, for example, Sile (if alive from TW2 import) was planned to appear in Battle Preparations and at the final battle (like above, the second half of Act 3 seems to suffer the most from cuts), but ended up being reduced to a cameo role of dying in the prison.
(4) According to comments from the developers, there are no plans to implement a post ending world state with the main characters. It would require a lot of work to do it properly, and they do not want to add it only partly implemented as a kind of fan service. In any case, the game has to end at some point, there can only be finite content implemented for the characters (barring the addition of something like a Skyrim style radiant quest system), so it might just as well end when the credits roll. The post-ending play is really only a bonus feature, and was not intended to be part of the story. But maybe the epilogues could be extended somewhat - they were also cut down in the development, although it may have been for "artistic" reasons. The dialogues in the inn in the empress ending do seem to be rushed.
As for the others:
(2) Gameplay tweaks are being made all the time in the patches, and there will probably be more until the development of the game is discontinued at the end of 2016. Ultimately, it is quite hard to make the game perfectly balanced in a way that satisfies everyone. I personally still find TW3 an improvement in this aspect over its prequels (which is not to say they are bad), however, and is also better than popular competitors like Bethesda's games.
(1) The last act of the game could definitely be improved with some additional content, and I also find the second one already lacking somewhat, but it is quite possible the Wild Hunt was not intended to be portrayed as complex characters in the first place. That is why they all have only minimal amounts of dialogue. I doubt CDPR would have considered cutting them down that much if they were considered important - chances are those dumb one-liners are about all that was planned. But there would have been bigger and more spectacular battles, such as the Wild Hunt attacking Novigrad - we got the less ambitious On Thin Ice quest in the place of that. Also, the fundamental structure of the main quest line was not changed much since 2013 (see this post), other than the already mentioned removal of main quests from Act 2, and some cuts in Act 3.
So, in case an enhanced edition of The Witcher 3 was made (despite CDPR saying otherwise earlier), I guess it would be similar to that of the previous game, which added 2 new quests (one each for Iorveth's and Roche's path) in chapter 3 and a bunch of new/improved cutscenes, in addition to some polishing of technical aspects, bugs, and gameplay. I suspect it would not make significant changes to the narrative, make characters much different from how they are already portrayed, or add major new characters.
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Going into winter, TW3 was my favourite game of the year so far.
I was curious to see how Fallout 4 would fare.
The truth of it (and I make this assessment kindly) is that Fallout 4 is a really a polished and improved Fallout 3 rather
than the jump forward that TW3 was over TW2.
And the clincher was main quest and side content in TW3
(Bloody Baron, Possessed, etc, etc...)
I won't replay TW3 until the last dlc is out, then I'll replay the whole lot.
I think consensus GOTY for TW3 is well deserved, congrats to CDPR.
I was curious to see how Fallout 4 would fare.
The truth of it (and I make this assessment kindly) is that Fallout 4 is a really a polished and improved Fallout 3 rather
than the jump forward that TW3 was over TW2.
And the clincher was main quest and side content in TW3
(Bloody Baron, Possessed, etc, etc...)
I won't replay TW3 until the last dlc is out, then I'll replay the whole lot.
I think consensus GOTY for TW3 is well deserved, congrats to CDPR.
Wow. I had no idea that much was actually cut. In a way it's reassuring to know some of those issues were in good hands where the writers were concerned, but the development schedule and simply biting off more than they could chew is what got in the way. I presume that info is from the leaked files, which I never read.
The dissenting voices tend to be the most important ones. If everyone in a room is in agreement besides 1 person, that 1 person is the most valuable person there. Because what they have to say must have taken some effort to come up with and may contain a grain of truth and at the very least makes you question what you already established to be true. The old, how do you know what you know?
So of course they should and will listen. That's how they will learn and grow. So even if an opinion is unpopular, it's still valuable. Moreso even than the safe popular opinions.
So of course they should and will listen. That's how they will learn and grow. So even if an opinion is unpopular, it's still valuable. Moreso even than the safe popular opinions.
We agree. I've argued other places it doesn't make sense to be done as dialogue. The Wild Hunt is not going to sit down and explain it's motives to either Geralt or Ciri. And Geralt and Ciri are not going to chat with them. The Wild Hunt is an existential threat to the main characters. Seeing them should immediately trigger a fight or flight response. They aren't going to have tea time. The most logical way to give the Wild Hunt significant characterization is a flashback. The best place to do it is the dream given to Ge'el in "Through time and Space." Rather than the short cut scene of Eredin standing next to Auberon, it would be a linear flashback mission where we play as Ciri in Tir na Lia through the events of Chapter 5 in "The Lady of the Lake." That's the only way I know of to explain what the Wild Hunt is all about without having them talk to Ciri and Geralt in the present, which makes no sense in the story. The big potential problem there is I don't know if CDPR is allowed to create missions that play through events in the books, or if there agreement with Sapowski only allows them to portray events that are not already in the books.
Regarding all you points. I wasn't saying that CDPR was likely to change those things. I know those things are very unlikely to be changed. That was my point - that fixing those issues is way harder than fixing the Triss thing was. Thus the Triss thing was fixed, and those things wont be.
Well, there are certain things about W3 which I don't like and GOTY will not make me change my mind.. 
But, on the other hand, there are : Yenn, Strenger, Crones, Keira Metz, several amazing side quests...And most important of all, Lješnjanin's personal winner of GOTY award for 2015 : Hearts of Stone...
But, on the other hand, there are : Yenn, Strenger, Crones, Keira Metz, several amazing side quests...And most important of all, Lješnjanin's personal winner of GOTY award for 2015 : Hearts of Stone...
I hate to say it, Kallenlinski, but these forums hardly constitute a majority in any sense of the term. Over six million people purchased the Witcher 3 in the first two weeks, and who knows how many since then. Of those six million, roughly 300 frequent these forums at any given time, and usually it's the same group. That's 0.00005% of CDPR's fan base.
The forums always tend to attract the most vocal, and to be quite honest, most unreasonable segments of the gaming population. I agree with what Jose Teixeira said in a recent interview:
I'm not totally discounting what goes on these forums. It genuinely is helpful to suggest areas for improvement. Sometimes when you are working - whether that be on a game, a book, whatever - you get tunnel vision, and it helps to have an outside perspective. The problem with these boards is that, more often than not,the recommendations are not only unreasonable but addressed to the developers in a condescending and even threatening tone.
Anyways, to go back to your original question, "will this GOTY award silence all critics," the answer is obviously no, and I'm sure you meant it rhetorically. You can't please everyone, as the old adage says, and different gamers will come to the Witcher 3 with different priorities. Some were let down because of the combat - they wanted an experience closer to Bloodborne and didn't care about the story - others came to the games via the books and prioritized specific character interactions (e.g. the relationship between Yennefer, Ciri, and Geralt).
The more important question is, "Does CDPR need to silence all critics," and the answer to that is also no. They have clearly become a force to be reckoned with, one of the most respected game developers and RPG houses in the world, and the vocal carping of an extremely small minority on these forums is not going to change that.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game, I'm looking forward to Blood and Wine, and can't wait for Cyberpunk 2077.
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Critics are extremely important, when done well.
Critics are the only thing that makes you better, and The Witcher 3 is not free from critics, in quest design, combat system, graphics etc... But that's fair. A well done critic is a valuable feedback, and an award given by some questionable people is not gonna silence it.
I'm just happy because Todd got nothing this time, but that's it.
Critics are the only thing that makes you better, and The Witcher 3 is not free from critics, in quest design, combat system, graphics etc... But that's fair. A well done critic is a valuable feedback, and an award given by some questionable people is not gonna silence it.
I'm just happy because Todd got nothing this time, but that's it.
Well, I have some points to check out on my list:
1. Congratulations CDPR for wining so many awards this year, you deserve it and you know it.
2. Although I don't think Witcher 3 is a perfect game and it could be better one, I still got hyped when I heard Keighley say that it's GOTY on 5am just before I went to my job. And if someone want to have perfect game he/she should make it himself/herself.
3.I'm still waiting for Cyberpunk to see what this studio really can do when it comes to the storyline, quests and most of all characters, and I think it will be the real test for the team. I will add that my expectations (and I hope not only mine) aren't small CDPR and I can't wait for more info.
That's all I can say about it right now, if I remember something more I will add it later.
1. Congratulations CDPR for wining so many awards this year, you deserve it and you know it.
2. Although I don't think Witcher 3 is a perfect game and it could be better one, I still got hyped when I heard Keighley say that it's GOTY on 5am just before I went to my job. And if someone want to have perfect game he/she should make it himself/herself.
Not that the rest of the world will think it's perfect
3.I'm still waiting for Cyberpunk to see what this studio really can do when it comes to the storyline, quests and most of all characters, and I think it will be the real test for the team. I will add that my expectations (and I hope not only mine) aren't small CDPR and I can't wait for more info.
That's all I can say about it right now, if I remember something more I will add it later.
Of course it is, but it's also MUCH more important. But weird thing to me is that they addressed and confirmed their problem with the Triss content but they didn't say a single word about the Wild Hunt or the TW2 Choices.
I mean i had to find a conference hosted in some anonymous site to actually hear those things from them.
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You are not a moron. I think everyone should have the right to express his/her opinion without have been insult. In fact, you are completely right about what they did with the game.
We have to accept that most of the criticism here originates from the games series fans, while most TW3 players aren't them, naturaly because of the multi-platform release, so both the standarts of quality we've been spoiled of by TW1&2 and elements we deemed the series to be about aren't about to be reflected by the press.
Now to be honest my primary critic (amongst others) of the game is Geralt's broken hitbox, an issue which apparently only I and few others seems to suffer from, so I alone can't really be the judge of whether TW3 deserve GOTY because regardless of other issues for me it will be a big no-no.
Now to be honest my primary critic (amongst others) of the game is Geralt's broken hitbox, an issue which apparently only I and few others seems to suffer from, so I alone can't really be the judge of whether TW3 deserve GOTY because regardless of other issues for me it will be a big no-no.
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