The Witcher - Q&A @ Sector Online

Kalia

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The Witcher is the subject of a Q&A session between CD Projekt PR Manager Lukasz Mach and the editors of Sector Online Entertainment.
In Leipzig you presented a unique feature - branching storyline. Can you elaborate how will this feature affect the actual gameplay, and what it gives to the player overall?
Well, we decided not to divide player’s choices between good and evil, and leave the moral aspect to the player. You saw the presentation, so you know the general idea and it’s examples. Player’s choice is not only important for further quest results, but also is an effect of player’s actual feelings about the things that happen. That’s very engaging, when every decision is subjective and brings a different solution with following consequences. Also, the most important choices have their effect much further in the gameplay, just to avoid loading the game to check the alternative way out. You’ll also notice a butterfly effect sometimes, when banal situations can cause quite important consequences in the story. We’re on the opinion that thanks to those features we got very close to the atmosphere of the book, which we hope players also will feel.
image19.gif
Any clue, how many hours will the player take to finish the main quest?

It will take approximately 40 hours to complete the main plotline.
It certainly appears promising.

More information.
 
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No kidding it looks and sounds too good to be true, thanks for the link. :)
 
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Yeah, I'm really hyped about this one. Combat sounds pretty interesting. Some were saying it was the best combat they had ever seen for an RPG?... hmnn.... We'll see. You're right, it sounds too good to be true!
 
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This game had my interest since the first thing I read about it.
Now let's hope it is as good as it promises to be.
Then there are 2 great games coming: Witcher and 2 worlds
 
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I have officially changed my wallpaper from Hellgate:London to Witcher after reading this snip from the interview on combat--they mention the pause function, then:

"You have to stay focused on your target, because the manual element comes in – when necessary you must click the enemy again to proceed a following attack. It is not difficult, but requires concentration. That’s the way you build a complete combat sequence leading to a deadly finisher... all those actions are also fully visualized, we have motion captured more than 200 animations performed by professional fighters for combat purposes."

I also get the impression that you can work spell effects into these combos, which would be pretty impressive as far as offering a lot of strategic options. It isn't turn based, but it does sound like they are attempting to allow the player to actually use skills--and brain cells--, not just left click.

Sounds like these people are serious. :)
 
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This one looks really good. I like it when foreign developers come into the game and do new and exciting stuff. I'm a little bit worried though that supposedly only 10% of the game is side quests. That means that the game will be linear to a gnat's ass.
 
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Well, it appears to be based on a book or a series of short stories, so hopefully it's following a plot that has all the goodies in it rather than treeing them out on the side.
 
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This one looks really good. I like it when foreign developers come into the game and do new and exciting stuff. I'm a little bit worried though that supposedly only 10% of the game is side quests. That means that the game will be linear to a gnat's ass.

I've spoken to CD Projekt a few times and they certainly promise a highly non-linear game. Of course, we don't know exactly how that promise will bear out but they've certainly backed up many of their other claims with examples (such as multiple solutions). This point is interesting...Lucasz says 10% but previously they've said playing all content will take 70-100 hours (compared to 40 hours for the main story). I wonder if they are just using a different definition of "side quest" - for example, if I recall I think a lot of what we would call a side-quest has some connection to the main story (in other words, you don't rescue some random woman's cat from a tree but do something for existing NPCs that reveals more about them/the location/the story), so perhaps they aren't counting that sort of thing in their 10%.
 
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The game is sounding better and better, as time goes by!!
 
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I'm a little bit worried though that supposedly only 10% of the game is side quests.
I had exactly the opposite reaction when I read that part. I find it much more rewarding to have the majority of the quests linked together to advance the story rather than a plethora of random unrelated quests as we've seen in many notable rpgs of late.

You might be right about CD Projekt's somewhat different interpretation of the term "side quest", Dhruin. However, another possible reason for the discrepancy between "time to complete the main story (40 hours)" and "time to play all content (70-100 hours)" could be the non-linear nature of the game. If, based on your decisions, certain paths through the game become unavailable, then the only way to experience the full 100 hours of content would be to replay the game and make different decisions on the second or third play through.
I really hope this is the case. Too often RPG designers take the approach of making virtually all content available to the player regardless of his/her actions, leading to that empty feeling of being in a static world where nothing you do has any consequences.
 
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Well, this is definitely the case (at least in some small part). They've already shown us examples of different time streams -- different results in some cases if you take a shorter or longer time doing some things, so you definitely won't be able to see everything in one play.

We have a loose agreement to do an interview at some stage, so I'll put this in the question pile.
 
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I'm so waiting this game. non-linear story with choises and consequences..intesting combat..a gameworld that is based on real novels.

This is the best part:

"Well, we decided not to divide player’s choices between good and evil, and leave the moral aspect to the player. You saw the presentation, so you know the general idea and it’s examples. Player’s choice is not only important for further quest results, but also is an effect of player’s actual feelings about the things that happen. That’s very engaging, when every decision is subjective and brings a different solution with following consequences. Also, the most important choices have their effect much further in the gameplay, just to avoid loading the game to check the alternative way out. You’ll also notice a butterfly effect sometimes, when banal situations can cause quite important consequences in the story. We’re on the opinion that thanks to those features we got very close to the atmosphere of the book, which we hope players also will feel."
 
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That's nice to hear, I look forward to the RPGWatch interview!
With Two Worlds and The Witcher both touting non-linear storylines as a major feature, it will be interesting to see which game does a better job in the final implementation. In any case, it looks to be a landmark year for Polish developers.
 
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Also, the most important choices have their effect much further in the gameplay...
...
...
You’ll also notice a butterfly effect sometimes, when banal situations can cause quite important consequences in the story.


I'm actually a little bit worried about that. I hope that they get the balance right. It would be sort of uncool if a seemingly unimportant decision that you made at 03:26:09 hours into the game bites you majorly in the ass at the 27:22:48 hour mark :) .
 
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Re: Moriendor's quote.

[I'm actually a little bit worried about that. I hope that they get the balance right. It would be sort of uncool if a seemingly unimportant decision that you made at 03:26:09 hours into the game bites you majorly in the ass at the 27:22:48 hour mark.]

It seems that is exactly what is suggested in other readings (the game concept overview for example) it also seems that some "evil" choices will have to be carefully selected - so as to make the choices path not too-apparent. I like this kind of stuff and i'm really looking forward to seeing it implemented. :)
 
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