Heya,
one of the things I really, really, really loved about Witcher III was how intricate the side-quests were.
They all told a story, sometimes in multiple acts.
Decisions mattered, your execution of tasks mattered. Your morals were put to the test, living in a grey world where there is no perfectly white or black answer.
I think one of my favorite quests was the village that was slaughtered by your fellow Witcher after they back-stabbed him. Literally. Researching the village, tracking the culprit, and then ... deciding how to deal with him. With the full backstory of the school of the cat for context. Then decide how to deal with the surviving girl.
Awesome.
And now entering Night City ... where virtually every yellow question-mark ends in a bland "Go there, get some intel" with an occasional "try not to be seen while you do it".
Not a single story, not a single side-character, nothing.
I think a lot of that is tied up into that whole "get your quests from the fixer" thing. It may be realistic, but honestly, not much use from a story-telling perspective. All of those tasks appear to be pre-canned and isolated with very, very little going beyond the basic layout.
A couple of quests that come to mind that would have been excellent hookup options for storytelling:
1. Rescuing the reporter.
Early into Act 1 you get that quest to rescue a friend of your fixer who happens to have made a few enemies.
After you go and convince him to talk with Regina: Nothing. Would have been a perfect start of a mini questline with Regina going after whoever ordered the hit and her friend trying to convince her back from her new ways. Lots of backstory and character development potential. (haven't finished the main story, so maybe something will come up yet)
2. The Russian Fixer.
Hey actually, that's an event that gets a second quest! First we bug his car, then we raid his penthouse.
Would have been another great hookup into Regina's background. Also a great opportunity to delve deeper into Russians and their role.
Add to that that most of the intel snippets you get are contextless, pointless dialogues between criminals that don't draw any larger picture out there.
I mean, if I got at least some useful understanding into how the various gangs and organizations work, that would be a different story. Nada.
We have a few, rare quests that scratch the barest surface and that's it. The gangs are mostly faceless canon-fodder to pimp my street rep and that's it.
Oh, and they totally don't care if I murder hundreds of them. On the next street corner, we are still friendly neutrals.
Then what's up with our backgrounds?
Yeah, we get a different intro, depending on which we pick, but after that?
The occasional conversation choice that doesn't appear to make a difference at all!
How about adding some side-quest storylines of our past haunting us?
Lots of faction in the game - awesome - but no way to earn or lose reputation with any of them.
I have executed dozens of Militech commandos, why don't they care?
The main storyline is really awesome so far, but outside that ... it's lackluster at best.
Cheers
one of the things I really, really, really loved about Witcher III was how intricate the side-quests were.
They all told a story, sometimes in multiple acts.
Decisions mattered, your execution of tasks mattered. Your morals were put to the test, living in a grey world where there is no perfectly white or black answer.
I think one of my favorite quests was the village that was slaughtered by your fellow Witcher after they back-stabbed him. Literally. Researching the village, tracking the culprit, and then ... deciding how to deal with him. With the full backstory of the school of the cat for context. Then decide how to deal with the surviving girl.
Awesome.
And now entering Night City ... where virtually every yellow question-mark ends in a bland "Go there, get some intel" with an occasional "try not to be seen while you do it".
Not a single story, not a single side-character, nothing.
I think a lot of that is tied up into that whole "get your quests from the fixer" thing. It may be realistic, but honestly, not much use from a story-telling perspective. All of those tasks appear to be pre-canned and isolated with very, very little going beyond the basic layout.
A couple of quests that come to mind that would have been excellent hookup options for storytelling:
1. Rescuing the reporter.
Early into Act 1 you get that quest to rescue a friend of your fixer who happens to have made a few enemies.
After you go and convince him to talk with Regina: Nothing. Would have been a perfect start of a mini questline with Regina going after whoever ordered the hit and her friend trying to convince her back from her new ways. Lots of backstory and character development potential. (haven't finished the main story, so maybe something will come up yet)
2. The Russian Fixer.
Hey actually, that's an event that gets a second quest! First we bug his car, then we raid his penthouse.
Would have been another great hookup into Regina's background. Also a great opportunity to delve deeper into Russians and their role.
Add to that that most of the intel snippets you get are contextless, pointless dialogues between criminals that don't draw any larger picture out there.
I mean, if I got at least some useful understanding into how the various gangs and organizations work, that would be a different story. Nada.
We have a few, rare quests that scratch the barest surface and that's it. The gangs are mostly faceless canon-fodder to pimp my street rep and that's it.
Oh, and they totally don't care if I murder hundreds of them. On the next street corner, we are still friendly neutrals.
Then what's up with our backgrounds?
Yeah, we get a different intro, depending on which we pick, but after that?
The occasional conversation choice that doesn't appear to make a difference at all!
How about adding some side-quest storylines of our past haunting us?
Lots of faction in the game - awesome - but no way to earn or lose reputation with any of them.
I have executed dozens of Militech commandos, why don't they care?
The main storyline is really awesome so far, but outside that ... it's lackluster at best.
Cheers