Witcher 3 - Interview @ Eurogamer

Couchpotato

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Eurogamer continues their interview from last month on their visit to Poland with CD Projekt Red. This segment deals with answers gathered from a few employees about what makes Witcher 3 a next-gen RPG.

Quests and hidden consequences

"The consequences in our games are not immediate," said Szamalek, "so when you do something you learn about what happened because of that later on, so that you cannot simply reload and try a different option. We definitely want players to take responsibility and feel responsible for what they do in the game."

I saw this first hand in a demo, when Geralt sided with a faction only to witness an unforeseen and significant twist later on. I'd have picked differently had I known. Will people wanting to pick a very deliberate line through the hazy-grey morals of The Witcher 3 feel this is unfair?

"You're correct that some players like to control everything," lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz (Konrad's brother) responded, "but because some things are unexpected you feel like this world isn't just a schematic. It's not a mechanical world where you only choose obvious things and you are always in control. People who live in it have their own motivations; factions go their own ways and things change. That is more realistic. It's just the approach we chose in our game."

No paid DLC, no multiplayer, maybe an Arena

"No. No no no," was Adam Badowski's emphatic answer to whether The Witcher 3 will have paid DLC. "Not for small DLC or something like that.

"Maybe there's an option to have a huge expansion pack or something because of the size and scope of the game. This is the only option [for paid DLC]. But small DLC and DLC packs: it's not big enough [to charge for]."

There will be some online features because of the online nature of the platforms the game will be released on, but not multiplayer. "None. At all. We had some rumours about it but that was just a misunderstanding," Badowski said.

How about an Arena mode like The Witcher 2 had? "Arena mode was a kind of an experiment, quite cool. We don't know yet," he shrugged, "and this is true. We have other plans.

"When we are saying 'we don't know' don't get me wrong: we know, it's just that the decision is not made because the market is changing, the situation is changing. The game is set in stone but all other surroundings are fully dynamic."

"It wasn't my intention to say that Skyrim was a poor game," he added, "because it's not. It's a great game; it's got different advantages than The Witcher. That's all."

The Skyrim comparison

All that stuff Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said about Skyrim, about how the quests and story were "generic" - that was a "misunderstanding", he told me.

He wanted to say that he loved Skyrim but it wasn't a game about story. "This is the game about the exploring of the world, about finding the items, upgrading my character." There is a story that's "quite entertaining" but short. "They don't even try to make these characters very memorable … It was some simple story."

He mentioned it to highlight how CD Projekt Red is doing something different - taking a different tack.

Consider Grand Theft Auto 5, he said. "It's good to compare these two games. GTA is not RPG, but if you took the storyline, which is movie-like in GTA, compare it with the world of Skyrim and the open-world game where you've got a lot of things to do - you've got character development, you can kill the monsters and so on - and add to this choices and consequences: this is what I want to achieve with The Witcher 3. That was my point.
So anyone want to ask me why I prefer this game over anything Bioware makes?
smiley-cool.gif


More information.
 
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Hmmm. I wonder… why do you prefer this game over anything BioWare makes? :biggrin:

Anyway, I'm thinking this guy has to choose his words more carefully, because his English isn't perfect, lacks finesse. Talking carelessly about the competition like that. :biggrin:

P.S. Booo! No small paid DLC on release day! :furious:
 
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I think really everyone in to RPGs wants the perfect Skyrim (or the perfect Witcher game to tackle it from a different angle). Skyrim was addictive as hell in character development and action gameplay, and it had a vast world with a lot of people and places to go that you went exploring and felt like you are going your own way. But that much awesomeness is intractable, so eventually you are pinched out of the holodeck by samey places and people who have almost no scope. The story isn't that great though because they put too many stories in the game to do any of them well. If only they put unlimited resources in it and came out with a game that was magically flawless…

Holodeck, sweet holodeck, where for art thou sweet holodeck?
 
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i always wanted a open world game like Skyrim with good story and memorable NPCs like the old Bioware games. I really really hope Witcher 3 is that game!
 
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We are at least decades from anything that comes reasonably close to holodeck. We lack the interfacing, we lack the computational power, we lack the artificial intelligence. And probably a shitload of other important stuff.
 
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If it's anything like Skyrim (snowy, dark environments), it will sell well. But CD Projekt Red has already earned a big name for themselves after The Witcher 2, so it's already guaranteed to sell well.

I haven't been following this as much as I probably should have. I thoroughly enjoyed The Witcher, but couldn't stand The Witcher 2. I sort of lost interest in the series after how disappointing I was with the second Witcher. I think it was a mix of a clunky combat system at release, and how much of a different focus it had as compared to the first.
 
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And, if somebody feels philosophical, there are Politics & Religion and Off-Topic sections.
 
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Couchpotato, it's ok, it doesn't bother me at all. I don't really even care about the Witcher 3 at all, in fact.

The only religion that isn't nonsense is through that link. I don't really feel like posting that in a religion forum at all. It would be like validating Jesus talk or God as someone else, and that stuff stinks of the common sense. Nope, I link to the sublime from right here.
 
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Couchpotato, it's ok, it doesn't bother me at all. I don't really even care about the Witcher 3 at all, in fact.

The only religion that isn't nonsense is through that link. I don't really feel like posting that in a religion forum at all. It would be like validating Jesus talk or God as someone else, and that stuff stinks of the common sense. Nope, I link to the sublime from right here.
Then why are you replying in a thread you don't care about? I'm afraid if you keep it up I will issue warnings, and might ban you if you don't stop. I'm getting tired of this in the comment sections lately.
 
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