The Witcher 3: What is a next-gen RPG? - by Eurogamer

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The whole next gen thing brings out the worst in gamers, endless discusion about platforms, mistakes and plenty of less than friendly discussion. On topic though, I do not think that we know what a next gen rpg truly is, the launch games so far (both systems) only seem to offer shinier looking textures.
 
This thread is not about thread on other forum , i got caught in offtopic also but can we get back to topic?

This year was dissapointing for me , my PC games that i waited long burned me out almost... Rome 2 and Company of Heroes 2 both from same publisher SEGA both from PC devs , both pre-ordered ... both unfinished , not optimised , with cutted and dumbed down content beyond repair...should i menetion also X-rebirth?

But i still have faith and hope in CDPR.I belive that they will deliver at least 80-90% of their promises and thats enough for me in market where other devs dont deliver even 40-50% of their promises.
 
Reod said:
This thread is not about thread on other forum , i got caught in offtopic also but can we get back to topic?

This year was dissapointing for me , my PC games that i waited long burned me out almost... Rome 2 and Company of Heroes 2 both from same publisher SEGA both from PC devs , both pre-ordered ... both unfinished , not optimised , with cutted and dumbed down content beyond repair...should i menetion also X-rebirth?

But i still have faith and hope in CDPR.I belive that they will deliver at least 80-90% of their promises and thats enough for me in market where other devs dont deliver even 40-50% of their promises.

Yeah it has not been a great year in that regard. I too have faith in CD Projekt, but so many games have ended up buggy and unfinished recently. I have no idea if it is because of higher expenses, laziness or something else, but it is not a welcome development.
 
Cormacolindor said:
Aaaand this is exactly what happened with Piranha Bytes. They started small, saw they had success and then compromised their vision in Gothic 3 (I think they wanted it to be an Oblivion killer). They went from smaller, more condensed worlds to TES-like open worlds and in the process compromised everything their games stood for. THAT is why I am worried.

I remember how people placed their trust in them 100% and then how disappointed they were. The nerdrage on WOG was something to behold. This is why I think people should not have expectations from any game and be realistic. You'll be happier this way.

I bought gothic3 day 1... ;_;
 
Reod said:
This thread is not about thread on other forum , i got caught in offtopic also but can we get back to topic?

This year was dissapointing for me , my PC games that i waited long burned me out almost... Rome 2 and Company of Heroes 2 both from same publisher SEGA both from PC devs , both pre-ordered ... both unfinished , not optimised , with cutted and dumbed down content beyond repair...should i menetion also X-rebirth?

But i still have faith and hope in CDPR.I belive that they will deliver at least 80-90% of their promises and thats enough for me in market where other devs dont deliver even 40-50% of their promises.

You wanna know something funny? Europa Universalis IV, a Paradox game, was far more stable at launch than most other big PC games I've played this year.

By the way, EU IV is a great game.
 

Aver

Forum veteran
HomemComH said:
You wanna know something funny? Europa Universalis IV, a Paradox game, was far more stable at launch than most other big PC games I've played this year.

Well, 'stable Paradox game' certainly sounds funny. ;)
 
Dude, what a great read. Does anyone else feels like this game is going to be the BEST game ever created? Can't wait for this sh*t any longer!
 
Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz loves Dark Souls and Demon's Souls and has finished both a number of times. He likes how "you are stronger because you as the player learn how to control your character and how to play to kill these monsters". You stop thinking about how to do something and feel the fight instead. "And this is a really great thing," he believes.

"We tried in The Witcher 2 to make this high difficulty level but it was a mistake," he admitted, "because we tried to mix two different games." The Witcher fans wanted a traditional RPG with a story, not a challenge based on their dexterity.

"Dark Souls influenced me very much because I love games like this, but I understand after The Witcher 2 that we should less experiment on stuff like this but more focus on the things which people love in our games," he said.

The learning curve in The Witcher 3 will be "proper", then - not like the much lamented learning curve in The Witcher 2. There will be difficulty levels in The Witcher 3, but unlike The Witcher 2, Normal won't feel like Hard. "It wasn't a good decision," Tomaszkiewicz added. "Right now we're changing it and I believe that everyone will go in this world very smooth and we will not get problems like it was in The Witcher 2."
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES and no...

The fact that the team loves FromSoft's fucking masterpiece brings so much joy to me. It's one of the tightest designed games I've played, well, ever! However, I'm not as happy at the fact that they might not be taking so many tips and ideas from Dark Souls. It doesn't have to be the combat. It could be with the presentation. The way the environments can tell a story of its own, location of equipment matter, or lore exposition in item descriptions. FromSoft know their shit. They're extremely talented and I think RED could benefit from learning something from them.

Though I'll be seriously disappointed if they don't take any hints regarding the combat. Witcher 2 had real nice kinaesthetics and sound design. It was just the combat design that was really shoddy. In fact, it took Dark Souls to open my eyes to how, unfortunately, broken it is. Some cues can be learned and implemented in TW3 in order to improve the overall quality. Like I said, Dark Souls is an incredible game, so well designed it's not even funny. But the greatest strength is its flawless combat. Well near flawless but I don't think any other game has ever come so close to melee fighting perfection as DS has. So hopefully RED will look at patterns, letting the player express himself through a complex ludic language and preferably also looking at how to create a flow in combat, to make sure combat doesn't just degenerate into a button masher.

Here's to hoping. Still, I'm confident in their ability. When I first played Witcher 2, I thought THAT game had fantastic combat so they're doing something right. I'm hoping they're fusing the best of both world to create something unique and their own. And I'm sure they'll succeed in just that. Because they're RED and they probably kicked O&S asses with a shitty dagger, naked and without any poise. Like a bouse!!

Oh and also...

"The consequences in our games are not immediate," said Szamalek, "so when you do something you learn about what happened because of that later on, so that you cannot simply reload and try a different option. We definitely want players to take responsibility and feel responsible for what they do in the game."

I saw this first hand in a demo, when Geralt sided with a faction only to witness an unforeseen and significant twist later on. I'd have picked differently had I known. Will people wanting to pick a very deliberate line through the hazy-grey morals of The Witcher 3 feel this is unfair?

"You're correct that some players like to control everything," lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz (Konrad's brother) responded, "but because some things are unexpected you feel like this world isn't just a schematic. It's not a mechanical world where you only choose obvious things and you are always in control. People who live in it have their own motivations; factions go their own ways and things change. That is more realistic. It's just the approach we chose in our game."
They get it. They totally get it. This is one of the big reasons why I hate that they wanted to apologize for saying the truth regarding Skyrim. Skyrim is decent enough to warrant a purchase if you're into that kind of thing, but it's pretty garbage. And one of the reasons it's garbage is because it doesn't force you to take responsibility for your actions. Gameplay obligations are a must in this medium. For example, in Whiterun, you couldn't kill the Jarl. Bullshit. Absolutely horrid design. In Morrowind, you could kill anyone and everyone, if YOU WANTED TO. But if you chose to do that, then don't start crying about how you broke the game. YOU did that. Take responsibility. Don't be a genocidal maniac!

Limiting the player's autonomy is never the answer. And this shit doesn't just apply to RPGs. As a game designer, you need to foster player responsibility and try to incorporate that into the dynamic storytelling. I'm really glad RED realizes this. I can't fucking wait for Witcher 3 to completely fuck me up after I made, what I thought at the time, to be the best decision in a particular quest. Ooooh man. I'm gonna get lost in that game!
 
[font=Calibri, Arial, serif]"The consequences in our games are not immediate," said Szamalek, "so when you do something you learn about what happened because of that later on, so that you cannot simply reload and try a different option. We definitely want players to take responsibility and feel responsible for what they do in the game."[/font]

Bingo. This, combined with no right path should prevent players from spamming quick reload and actually look before leaping. Also material for infinite playthroughs, especially if the choices strike close to heart.

[font=Calibri, Arial, serif]The learning curve in The Witcher 3 will be "proper", then - not like the much lamented learning curve in The Witcher 2. There will be difficulty levels in The Witcher 3, but unlike The Witcher 2, Normal won't feel like Hard. "It wasn't a good decision," Tomaszkiewicz added. "Right now we're changing it and I believe that everyone will go in this world very smooth and we will not get problems like it was in The Witcher 2."[/font]



Why is this a thing? Witcher 2 wasn't hard, and I played it at release when the curve was hilariously broken. Best thing to do would be to make normal optimal for everyone, but make the harder difficulties even harder, so that micromanagement of inventory in-combat becomes a thing, along with continuously adapting to enemy AI.
 
I recall easy was going to be easy in TW2...then vanilla raped half of the reviewers and they whined liked little piglets. They may not have gotten enough time with the game, but CDPR practically baited everyone. I wish I'd kept the promotional links, they said it plain as day - easy was going to be easy. I'm glad it wasn't, found it refreshing. But that's me.

The other thing: CDPR is in PR mode right now, so I won't take what they say without a grain of salt. Russians get 'we love PC and you guys are hardcore!' Merica gets 'romance will be sensible and we love consoles!' Yeah...PR. I understand they have to do it.
 
Fuck Yeah they did it. Story telling like gta v with kick ass sex sceens in a belevible fantasy world. History in the making baby. I'M STOKED!!! TY
 
Lahiri said:
Dude, what a great read. Does anyone else feels like this game is going to be the BEST game ever created? Can't wait for this sh*t any longer!

That's rather naive way of thinking but anyway, what we heard so far is rather good, just don't get yourself blinded to the faults of the game when it finally came out

Lahiri said:
The fact that the team loves FromSoft's fucking masterpiece brings so much joy to me. It's one of the tightest designed games I've played, well, ever! However, I'm not as happy at the fact that they might not be taking so many tips and ideas from Dark Souls. It doesn't have to be the combat. It could be with the presentation. The way the environments can tell a story of its own, location of equipment matter, or lore exposition in item descriptions. FromSoft know their shit. They're extremely talented and I think RED could benefit from learning something from them.

I strongly disagree with this. In my opinion taking parts from other games without implementing whole context of these parts is asking for trouble. Witcher2 combat was shoddy exactly because cdpr were copying fragments of combat from other games without understanding why those aspects worked there, especially rolling combat from dark souls and leap moves from arkham games. Dark souls "works" because it was designed in such a way to achieve certain goals, it wasn't just "hey, wouldn't it be cool to have moves from game x,y and z?". Witcher 3 is different type of game with different philosophy around it. Imagine dark souls without bonfires, estus flasks, no respawning enemies etc. Wouldn't it be cool? I don't think so. Game is good because every part of it works together, not because certain parts are good. And what works for dark souls not necessarily gonna work for tw3.
 
Sirnaq said:
Imagine dark souls without bonfires, estus flasks, no respawning enemies etc. Wouldn't it be cool? I don't think so.

Don't mean to bug, but you just described Demon's Souls, if you take out the respawning part. (They do respawn, but get stat, health and AI upgrades)

That said I basically agree. Besides, Dark Souls combat would not work in the witcher - the only thing that makes the former good is variety of weapons and movesets. Otherwise it gets boring really fast.
 
I'd like to squeeze out that NeoGAF is inhabited by like 90% Sonyggers & is seriously a cesspit for trying to have any discussion that relates to anything non-sony related. Like there is people in that thread seriously trying to suggest that CDPR has some exclusive deal with Microsoft with TW3, simply because they stated that the PS4 wasn't "Majorly powerful" & the majority of the forum all seem convinced that the PS4 is God's Gift to consoles.

To the topic at hand there's a few opinions here to input:

Witcher 2 before any patches WAS difficult on Normal Mode in the prologue, it was however a good difficulty. Like it wasn't absurdly challenging, I died maybe 3-4 times in that major fight in the Courtyard (When the troops are stuck outside the Gate & you sneak in underground) but this was mostly because the game barely gave you any information. The fight itself wasn't really tough, it was just that you were still trying to learn the game & it shoved a crazy amount of enemies (Especially the Heavy Knight) which was challenging when you barely understood yet what Signs did what. As I said though, it was a good difficulty, it forced you to "Git Gud" & trial & error, so you left the prologue with vast knowledge of game systems you might not have tried if it was easy & breezed you through a tutorial.
However that being said, for most people, it would have been even more challenging & it was a game design problem & was an incorrect difficulty curve unless they intended the ENTIRE game to be that challenging (Even after learning the mechanics). So having a more realistic difficulty curve in TW3 seems like a very reasonable thing. I highly doubt the game is going to be dumbed down, not only that but since there's no level scaling it means if you really want, you can go fight some extremely high level monsters way too early & get a massive challenge there.

Replaying TW2 again has made me realize just how often it is obvious CDPR wanted to just make him raise an eyebrow, or show confusion on his face but quite often they have to make him say something so the point is clear. This new "Mimic System" sounds really great (And you can see the facial depth just in that Debut Trailer) & should allow for Geralt to be much more natural & not have to speak in a situation where he really shouldn't.

More Consequence focused situations sounds awesome, as someone said similar to the situation with the Elves & Weapons at the start of TW1 (I was physically shocked later when I realised what I had done)... Should also make for great replayability.

Great that they once more just simply don't care about the Tumblr, Feminist idiots. Make the game how it's supposed to be, don't compromise your creation (Or I guess in this case the 'Universe' creation of another).

Other then that, I dunno... I swear I've actually lost hype by coming here thanks to folks like eskiMoe & Sirnaq, although I think you guys just had alot more problems with TW2 then most folk. However as someone who loved the shit out of both games & respected the changes in TW2 (Except the UI, it wasn't that terrible but sheeeeet it was a step back), I think I shouldn't have much trouble going into TW3, but heck, any less hype is actually probably a very good thing :)
 
Daverid said:
I'd like to squeeze out that NeoGAF is inhabited by like 90% Sonyggers & is seriously a cesspit for trying to have any discussion that relates to anything non-sony related. Like there is people in that thread seriously trying to suggest that CDPR has some exclusive deal with Microsoft with TW3, simply because they stated that the PS4 wasn't "Majorly powerful" & the majority of the forum all seem convinced that the PS4 is God's Gift to consoles.

That thread was actually a good move by shinobi, the guy loves the witcher 3 so he cherrypicked that consolewar fragment and used it as a form of advertisement. However, you are correct in the cesspit part - I just find it entertaining, like when Tom eats Jerry and Jerry walks out of his ear.
 
HomemComH said:
I don't think Witcher 2 is a bad game, mind you. But it was clearly built for controllers and those of us who prefer to play with mouse and keyboard had to suffer through that interface because of that. I expect the same to happen on Witcher 3.

Well, I personally never found Witcher 2 UI that jarring using M/KB. Yes, it could have been done better but I never felt like it really got in the way. Maybe it's just because I kept my inventory well organized most of the time. Anyway, CDPR said they were aware of the UI problem and are addressing it in The Witcher 3.
 
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