Nor is there an excuse for how CDPR approached and developed its story.
Given how vast the ending of the Witcher 2 was and given an idea of the scope of the stuff that got cut, dragged around and rearranged in the leaked documents for the quests trees -- I have to disagree. Do you know how much they wanted to cover? No. Do you realise this is the first time they've done something this big at long last? I certainly hope you consider it now. I'd say they have a pretty good excuse: they're a gaming company. The writers are fantastic people who have proven themselves time and time again within the smaller aspects of games - side quests, anyone? Hearts of Stone, anyone? - and you can (sorry, maybe I should say
I can) sense that they really had something going with the main plotlines of the game.
I'd love to see your Calasade universe put together into a game and then you watch as your writing slowly gets torn and part, cut, and stitched back together for the world to see and scrutinise. No excuse! We tried to cover everyth--
No excuse.
If anything, I'm glad CDPR were the ones to tackle this. Regardless of the flaws in main plotlines, the flaws in characters (R.I.P. Triss' character development), the flaws in quest continuity... any other company would have
killed it dead in so many other ways. Their only fault is that they bit off more than they could chew this time -- we know they are exceptional authors and developers, judging from their smaller projects (HoS, tw1, tw2, side quests in tw3) -- and while the Witcher 3 isn't
genre defining it certainly speaks for itself as a gaming experience - even as an RPG experience in this day and age.
Say they made gamer decisions carry over and started directly from TW 2. You've set off with Triss and not Vesemer for crying out loud in search of Yen like TW 2 eluded. They find Yen after much struggle (she just doesn't show up for crying out loud - talk about anti-climatic). The struggles and trials of the search put a strain on the relationship between Geralt and Triss. Geralt, because he's gotten his memory back, starts to feel torn between Triss and Yen as he reconciles with Yen and re-establishes some sort of friendship with Yen as the trio searches for Ciri. Maybe Yen is less overbearing and a wee bit more considerate after having lost him for a spell. Small gamer choices lead to bigger decisions later. Discussions that reflect back on them being together start tugging at him. Maybe he realizes he still loves Yen or cannot leave Triss. That would be up to the individual player. Some might stay loyal to Triss and not even begin to go down that road. Others will charge ahead. The point is at least then the gamer would have had the control and not been thrown into TW 3 with a break-up over which they had no input at all.
Judging from what I've read here as your suggestions for a better opening to the Witcher 3 and from your review on the matter, it seems like you believe this game is Romance oriented from the get go. If you have read the books, I would assume that you know that isn't what the overall message of the Saga is about.
I think the presence of Vesemir as your
guide in the opening serves far better than that of having two romance options dramatising in your face so early on in the game. It makes less sense for Geralt to travel with Triss if he had broken up with her -- ala, let's not confuse new players by continuing straight on from the Witcher 2 and have Geralt automatically in a relationship with someone -- while looking for his lost love than if he travelled with a fellow witcher who becomes emotionally relevant later in the narrative in a
main plot kind of way, instead of a romance plot kind of relevance. I'd find that boring, to be honest.
As opposed to focusing and honing in on the romance plotlines as soon as you turn on the game. No. Triss should not be present in White Orchard. Yennefer not needing to be rescued was nice, but I do agree her showing up out of nowhere was surprising. When I played, I thought it very suspicious and interesting -- which didn't pay off later on. But now I know that in the original plans for Yennefer's plot there was going to be a deceit twist, perhaps that was intentional.
As for how
I personally would handle the romance plot -- instead of just rebutting your personal two cents -- I'd say make Triss more active in the Political Sphere of the game world, beyond just saving a few sorcerers in Novigrad. Have your interactions with her conflict with perhaps some opportunities in the main plotline. Shift her 'I love you' quest to after the Skellige act, with a few hints just before. In my opinion, Yennefer was fine. Bland as balls since her character was already developed at the end of the novels and there was nothing more to really add to her, but her attitude was fine - arguably softer than she was in the books. I'd talk more about her, but we're in the Triss thread so more or less - my view is write Triss as a more interesting character and build on what she was after the novels ended rather than attempt to make her an opposing, pleasing candidate to Yennefer... and I think we have a winner.
CDPR probably won't be making an EE -- what they're doing now is fixing the game with a selection of quality patches instead. I don't think holding making a business orientated decision against them personally is at all productive and I think I'll be curious to see how they approach Cyberpunk especially since they said they have an even larger scope and more ambitious goals to achieve within that franchise than they did for the Witcher 3. It's much more open than the lore of Sapkowski's novels so I actually think the writers may have a better time with it.