What The Witcher Taught CD Projekt About RPGs

[Marcin Momot]

What The Witcher Taught CD Projekt About RPGs

Tom Curtis from Gamasutra has interviewed key staff members from CDP RED about The Witcher, Cyberpunk and more. Click here to read the whole feature. But wait, that's not all! CD Projekt RED has also been named one of the 30 best developers according to the website's editors.

 

[gregski]

Nice morning read, thanks. I hope you stick to what you said about NOT SIMPLIFYING and not offending players' intelligence with the holding hand you want to give to noobs that can't figure out what's going on.

All right, joking about the noobs, but still, please, don't dumb down your games. Thank you.

 

[wichat]

And when we put it out for free, we saw a boost in the sales with the Enhanced Edition because it just created good will, and it refreshes the product. You can always do it from two angles, and sadly I see the industry trending toward over-exploiting the gamer, and I think this will come back to the publishers that are doing that, and eventually, people will stop buying their stuff. That's just not the way things work.

Just Thank you very much!

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has sold over 1.5 million copies since its initial PC release in May 2011 -- definitely not bad for a relatively obscure developer making a game based on cult series of short stories. What distinguishes CD Projekt RED from other developers, however, is the way it has devoted itself to its fans. When players found that the SecuROM DRM in The Witcher 2 caused the game to perform poorly, the developers pulled it out and made it DRM-free. When the developer built an Enhanced Edition with hours of new gameplay and content, it was offered free to existing buyers instead of sold as a DLC or an expansion pack. Listen up, devs: If you want your game to be given to President Obama when he visits your country, as The Witcher 2 was in Poland, this is what you have to do.

And deserved congratulations!

 

[chromie92]

Gamasutra is always great. You guys deserve the praise.

 

[AsTheDeath]

Great read! I always take any opportunity I can get to yell at anyone about how game developers shouldn't be afraid to experiment, that they shouldn't hold themselves too much to 'accessibility' or industry standards. I'm really happy to read that you're planning on continuing that. Can't wait to play Cyberpunk!

 

[username_3499456]

CDPR, don't evern change!

 

[goopit]

AB: For our next game, we have some new ideas that we want to keep secret.

Oh what could it be! I hope it's some choice and consequence related thing.

 

[Aditya]

thats cool thanks for the share! and yes you should be I say in the top 5 (though for me personally you are no. 1)

 

[Corylea.723]

That was really interesting.

I think The Witcher showed how much more depth you can get -- in the story and in interactions with the NPC's -- when the character is NOT very customizable, because playing Geralt was a much more satisfying experience than playing Some Generic Hero. I hope CDPR won't go too far in the direction of customizability.

CDPR is the #1 developer! They haven't sold as many copies or made as many fans as some of the other studios, but both the quality of their games and their treatment of gamers makes them the very best.

to CDPR.

 

[Garrison72]

I agree with Cory. Blank slate characters may offer more freedom but they sacrifice the rich characterization of a character like Geralt.

 

[meghterb]

You guys deserve it. The Witcher games that you made were awesome in every sense of the word.

I can't believe that I will find a Western RPG game that is better than Mass Effect.

 

[kitadol]

This should really ease up the worries of those who were concerned about the alleged dumbed down. It sounds great and exactly what CDPR needed: better pacing when introducing the characters and worlds

And that's what we want to capture. In the game, we want to create a story that is very profound, but the novice players should be introduced to it better than they were in The Witcher 2. Those players should be taken by the hand, but at the same time we would never want to offend the intelligence of someone who is more hardcore.

AB: If you're going to introduce a character to players, we definitely need to offer special quests just for that character, for example. This way, you take time to focus on the character specifically so players can understand them better.

MI: With our next game, we want the hardcore player to be able to get more context, and we need to introduce the game and characters to people more properly. In The Witcher 1, for example, we were throwing people in the middle of the story, and we assumed that players would know what is happening. But a lot of players told us that they didn't really understand this relationship or that relationship.

AB: Also, it's not important, for example, that every city on the game's map have its own story. If you're a hardcore player, however, you should be able to go in and find something interesting. This way, you can create those layers for the new and the hardcore players.

 

[Thothistox]

"AB: For sure it was a success, but probably half of our players didn't even realize that they can choose totally different paths.

MI: And that's actually something we could improve in terms of communicating with the player -- telling them that there is such an option in the story. There were so many people who only found out about the choice over the internet or by their friends, or they never found out at all. So in that case, you can say that all the work we put into that other area of the game went to waste for those players.

AB: But we don't want to tell people, "Okay, this is a special moment where you have to make a choice," or you'll lose something. In Act 1, we had a few of those moments, but maybe we could do it a bit differently.

MI: I think we didn't successfully communicate it. To make it a more appealing feature for players, we didn't make it visible enough.

AB: But I don't know how we can communicate that without spoiling things or destroying the immersion."


There are a few easy ways to do this without spoiling the immersion. One is to have an in-game opening trailer containing scenes from the game and all possible paths. Anyone who plays the game sees the trailer and if they finish the game they instantly realize that they haven't seen everything yet. The second way is with a well-implemented achievement system.

 

[Sirnaq]

There are a few easy ways to do this without spoiling the immersion. One is to have an in-game opening trailer containing scenes from the game and all possible paths. Anyone who plays the game sees the trailer and if they finish the game they instantly realize that they haven't seen everything yet. The second way is with a well-implemented achievement system.

You mean intros like that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eds1ivwq1oc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz3ufaZCoVw

 

[merigoldsass]

Excellent interview I am excited for Cyperpunk, Witcher 3, and any other Witcher 2 content that may be released. I wish more companies gave free dlc like CDPR.It disgusts me that companies like Capcom will charge you for someone like Jill Valentine in Marvel Versus Capcom 3, especially being that she is a long time/ famous Capcom character. Come to think of it a Witcher based fighting game would be amazing!! So many unique characters to choose from.

 

[methegreat]

CDPR is awesome, The Witcher 2... playing it again, and it's truly amazing. Some parts are sooooo special really.

But does Cyberpunk mean no modding tools for The Witcher 2 ? CDPR said that it was going to be done. It should have been released a long time back for maximum effectiveness.

But is there going to be is SDK modkit ?? It could have really created a bigger and better witcher community, you know, or atleast kept it going.

And more over, it would mean that people still keep playing the game much more...

Come on, CDPR, please release a modkit, so that those great modders from TW1 can bring us some amazing stuff. =)

 

[Corylea.723]

CDPR said that it was going to be done.

They said that they were thinking about it; they never promised it.

 

[KnightofPhoenix]

It wasn't mentioned in the interview (cause it's too specific), but one thing I would like CDPR to keep doing is writing awesome antagonists. Imo, it's the ultimate sign of respect to gamers' intelligence to have well-written antagonists and great interactions with them (Letho being the prime example).