I remember seeing something about Bald Mountain being significantly dumbed down in comparison to the original concept though. The quest line may not have altered but the content within the quest line may well have. The biggest problem with Act 3 is a distinct lack of anything to do outside the main quest line. DLC aside, there are no Witcher contracts at your likely level by this stage, and very few side quests since you will have completed most in Act One (given that you're re-visiting the same places again).
It's a major problem with the game through the final two acts. Act One is full of interesting, well written, well acted quests then you get to Act two and three and the game becomes largely linear as a result of the lack of content. That's why I suggested it may have been rushed out the door. As I remember, the release date had already been delayed once. They were probably under pressure to meet the new deadline. I'm just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here
Something seriously wrong when you have a world this big and are revisiting a location to complete the story. Moreover, you've hit upon two of TW 3's greatest weaknesses. Bad writing and less complexity as the game develops whereas the game should become more involved the farther you get into it. Act 1 ought be short and exciting. Act 2 an extension of things set up in the first act along with the introduction of new things, and the third act the biggest and brightest because that's when everything comes to a head. The less and less progression indicates poor planning and priority setting. I don't know; just seems to me the way they should have gone about it was to write the main story, embellish it as much as possible, and get those quests done, then balloon out to what side quests could be included, etc. Whatever was absent could always be brought in through DLCs. If the deadline was too short for them to get done all they needed to for a fully fleshed out main storyline, the deadline and extraneous quests should have been the sacrificial lambs rather than the main story's quality and depth.
As wonderful as I think TW 2 is (shares the same hallowed ground I awarded previously and exclusively to the Baldur's Gate series) , 2 also had the same issue, but the differences between it and 3 are that 3 is worse in this aspect and lacks the strength in other areas to overcome the disappointment. At least this is proving true for me.
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My biggest gripe is that Ciri would ever abandon Geralt in his fight with Caranthir and Eredin just so she could go gallivanting with A'vallach into the White Frost.
I mean, it was even cheap that Ciri could stand to lose to Caranthir, she's so clearly the lady of time and space, beyond the grasp of Gaunter O'Dimm and yet she was robbed of her time to shine and simply ran off.
She didn't even try to save Crach from Eredin, when Crach was another fatherly figure.
I mean, it was even cheap that Ciri could stand to lose to Caranthir, she's so clearly the lady of time and space, beyond the grasp of Gaunter O'Dimm and yet she was robbed of her time to shine and simply ran off.
She didn't even try to save Crach from Eredin, when Crach was another fatherly figure.
I don't see anything wrong with re-visiting past places, after all, the resources involved in creating these maps was significant. Rather, the issue was a lack of content in the later game. The pacing of the quest progression is off with too much coming too soon in the game. The game needed and still needs more side quests and Witcher contracts appropriate to higher levels across the later acts of the game.
One can get those by buying the expansions.
Plenty of quality content designed for high levels. Unfortunately, with BaW included, probably also more and better than the main quest itself.One can get those by buying the expansions.
Yes but the resources - both time and monetary - involved in creating a third and even fourth map of equal quality to Velen and Skellige would have meant further delays in the game with no guarantees of recouping the investment. Remember, the game is budgeted for before any development work takes place. Creating quests is a lot less resource intensive than creating an entirely new map. Put it this way. How many people would moan about re-visiting the same areas if the final third of the game had actually been fun and interesting to play and not ended in a gaming's weirdest ending of all time? Of course it would be nice to have fresh areas to explore for each segment of the game, I don't deny that, I'm simply saying I can understand the commercial reasons behind not doing that.
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TW2 had the problem of lack of content in its 3rd act, not the problem of bad writing
The Witcher 3 may have both, lack of content in the later acts, and what is there is also not very well written.
And yet it is praised as "a new standard for video game storytelling!" by the gaming press because they only read one book their entire life and definitely didn't play the previous Witcher installments
Oh, let's waste some time here:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/29/the-witcher-3-review-pc/
Not only has the author -read- more than one book and played the series, he's -written- things! Like, for games! Like, for (the very good) Sunless Sea! So, yeah, he knows what he's talking about.
And it's always good to know what you're talking about and have the cred to back it up, don't you think? Otherwise, it's just Internet Twaddle.
It's just one opinion. And the fact that you have written things doesn't make them good. I have no doubt that the ones who wrote TW3 are writters too, but TW3 is a bad written game anyway. He could have read all the books but the most important comparison is with TW2. I haven't read any comparison with TW2 apart from the combat system whichs is (suprise!) one of the few things that are better in TW3.
Anyway, I have read all the books (as many of those who are criticizing TW3) and I'M still thinking than this personal story it's clearly 4 or 5 levels below of TW2. Almost all the characters have been downgrade in order to make them more understandable to the new players as well as the 80% of the decisions from TW2. He could say whatever he want, but that doesn't change nothing. I wonder how much he get paid for this
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It's one expert, thoughtful, qualified opinion. Unlike ninety percent of the posts in this thread, in fact. Not that you guys are automatically wrong, but Cobbet's writing -is- professional, which is a giant jump over most anything here. Professional beats amateur for a reason and that reason is generally skill.
You can throw out any opinion that disagrees with your own by relegating it to "Well, that's just your opinion", but then you have a closed mind and will accept no dissension. In other words, it stops being a debate and becomes a static bitch-fest.
The point made was that a reviewer who loves the writing in W3 doesn't read and doesn't play the games. Cobbet reads a lot, writes professionally and has played the games. And he loved the writing. So, point obliterated by facts.
I've never said that he is not quailfied. He could be. But his opinion it's not objective, it's just that, his opinion. What he did it was an evaluation of the game just by itself, without comparing with the previous one and that's precisely the point of the people who consider the TW3 a bad written game. TW2 was better by far. And as I said before, you could be a writer, you could love games and play them but that doens't make you a good writer. I'll put some examples: JJ Abrams or Stephenie Mayer. If someone who is a cinema director writes a review saying how awesome was the last Star Wars film, he could say whatever he want, the film is shit anyway.
My point is that, he could be whatever he wants, his opinions are not better than the one which has been written in this post
By the same argument, they are also not less valid than the posts here. Which was the point being made, I think?
Of course it's valid. I don't share it but it's valid. What I understood was that , given the fact that he is writer. his opinion is better than mine. I don't think so because being writer doesn't gave you the power to decide which game is good or bad, it's just an opinion. That's all
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Part of the frustration with TW3 is that it showcases the best and worst of the series. In terms of pacing, dialog, atmosphere, world building and some aspects of the quest design, it is irrefutably the best. But then it hits lows that are simply baffling, most of all to series veterans. As far as the books go, it's time to utilize the world as a setting only, and let Sapkowski's characters be. You're simply not going to match the nuance when he's had 20 years fleshing them out.
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There are also other opinions from respected writers, for instance Eric Kain from Forbes wrote a something I can 100% agree with:
[...], but chief among them is how disappointing The Witcher 3 was compared to its predecessor, Assassins of Kings. Not that it’s a worse game, overall, but because CDPR succumbed to ambition before getting the basics right.
The second Witcher game was a powerful story of betrayal and intrigue that mixed just the right amount of exploration and open-ended quests with its somewhat more straightforward (but branching) story. I was gripped from beginning to end, and had to go back and play the alternate story branch after I’d completed the first http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...-year-as-dragon-age-inquisition/#9cff64c17814
The New York Times wrote a great review about Witcher 2, in which they described what made the game so special:
Innovative, unflinchingly mature and richly imagined, it is driven by fascinating, finely nuanced characters navigating a fantasy world of dark political intrigue and ambiguous morals.The world of The Witcher is gothic, soulful and intelligent, yet mercilessly brutal. Innocent people die, and still almost all the characters consider themselves perfectly justified in their actions. After all, one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, and which you consider noble depends on your personal circumstances. As the Witcher, an independent, mystical warrior set amid warring medieval kingdoms, you will have to decide what justice means to you.
And that is because The Witcher 2 fully realizes the power of the concept of choice. It is a tenet of role-playing games that players must feel as if they were having an effect on the game world, and The Witcher 2 provides that feeling both more vividly and subtly than any other game. It immediately throws you into a story in which your decisions have far-reaching implications that are usually not obvious when you make them. Those results may be unintentionally catastrophic, but they never feel arbitrary. They make sense within the logic of the game world, and you may kick yourself for not foreseeing them. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/a...-projekt-red-in-poland-video-game-review.html
I love the Witcher 3. It's my 2nd or 3rd all time favourite game, but I'm deeply disappointed by the main story of the game.
If you look at other placed on the internet speaking about Witcher 3 , you will usually read about the combat being the biggest complaint.It's never the story which is usually described as good or even great. For me this shows the low expectations people have in video game narratives. This forum on the other hand mostly complaints about the story and characters. It's logical because most of the people on this forum have played the previous games and many have read the books, so they expected more than an above-average video games story. And I'm sorry to say it, but I don't even believe that the story is above-average. The game has some excellent stories within the mainstory like the Bloody Baron or Ladies of the Wood but the main story itself (the search for Ciri and the fight against the Hunt) couldn't be much more simplified. Any interesting topic regarding the Wild Hunt (enslaving of humans, their relation to the Aen Seidhe elves,the whole Aen Elle-Aen Seidhe- humans dynamics, Geralt's time as a Rider of the Hunt) were barely or not touched at all during the game. They even turned the game into a cliche "chosen hero saves the world(s) from the big bad evil" power fantasy story in the last 15 minutes. That was particulary disappointing considering the big strenght of the witcher franchise was always to not be this kind of story. To make matters worse, they even changed the lore to do this (White Frost changed from a nature catastrophe to a villain, who has to be stopped)
Additionaly the politics were simplified to a point in which the user Knight of Phoenix, who wrote this excellnt analysis of the Witcher 2 politics (http://knightofphoenix.tumblr.com/) said that he won't do the same for Witcher 3 because the politics are so simple and dumb that it's just not worth it.
I believe all narrative problems with the game come from the fact that they wanted to reach the mainstream. Something that they never managed with Witcher 2. Did it work? The sales and goty awards say yes.
Was it necessary to dumb down the game? I believe no. I think the console release and open world (though it should have been smaller) would have been enough to reach the mainstream. There was no need to simplify the story,make it less mature,"open" for newcomers and as standalone as possible.(+ other "mainstreamifications"like the ridiculous simple riddles) In opposite to some people I also don't believe the open world itself was responsible for the flaws.People mostly complain about the 3rd act, which is the most linear part of the game, while the main story in Velen is praised, which is the most open part. It was rather a problem of CDP using too many ressources on their open world. But tbh I'm not surprised thinking about the pre- Witcher 3 advertising and how many times times they mentioned how big the game world is.
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Couldn't agree more. With everything. And I hadn't read that review from Forbes. Thank you for that. If you read the 90% of the reviews from different media you will notice that they praise TW3 only as a standalone game, not as the end of a trilogy and tha's why all of them speak so well. I'm happy to see that at least one makes the comparison with TW2
There were no expectatives on those sites you mentioned because a significant part of the TW3's players are new. If it is the first time that you play the witcher saga and theygive you a decent story (not awesome, like TW2) which is better than the rest of the games that are in the market, there is no complains about that. And even this last point is not a "victory" of CDPR, now the quality of the videogame's stories is really low (not like 4-5 years ago with awesome STORIES like Dragon Age Origins or Mass Effect. or TW1-TW2)
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No such thing as "qualified opinion".
You can expand all you want about how "someone who wrote stuff opinion's is more correct than yours" but in the end, if one's unable explain why X or Y are true than his opinion is, well, somewhat completely worthless, at least here it is.
In this case, I haven't read a detailed explanation from Mr. Wrote-Stuff as to why TW3 is well-written. Well then.