Witcher 3 - The DLC Plan @ Techraptor

Don Parsons notified me once again of new opinion article on his site Techraptor where he talks about why he doesn't like the new DLC plan for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

CD Projekt Red is clearly trying to get the hype going for this January’s release of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt as every week or two there’s been an announcement. And this week, as covered by our own Andrew Stretch, it was revealed that they will be having 16 Free DLC released.

First, I do want to say that I respect most of CD Projekt Red’s policies. Their no DRM set is a rare bit of sanity, their games are well designed and their DLC is more like older style patches with free bonus things they’ve done. As a fan of older games, I also love CD Projekt’s gog.com which has allowed me to play these games easier optimized for new pcs and to discover ones I had missed.

The plan for The Witcher’s 3 DLC goes as follows: there will be 16 of them. They will be released in groups of 2 – with 2 on Day 1 and 2 more each week. We don’t know the majority of these (Leaks will probably continue over the next few weeks sprinkling out) but the first four (day 1 and week 1) DLC were announced. They seem to be in a pack of one cosmetic and one gameplay thing based on the pattern we see so far.

These sound fine, but let’s discuss the issues here and why I believe it is nothing more than a marketing tactic.

More information.

It's not even coming out in January.

Yes it should be February not January it's a typo in the quoted article.

I didn't even realize it was that close to release to be honest. I need to start planning my replays of TW 1&2 real soon.

Hope the announce system reqs soon. I need to plan my new hardware.

That guy wrote an article to say

These sound fine, but let’s discuss the issues here and why I believe it is nothing more than a marketing tactic.

I thought everyone and their mother knows it was a marketing tactic!

Sadly most people aren't treating it like that.

What annoys me as I said thre is that the people who buy early on are the ones who get hurt by the fact they've more or less pulled content out of the game to hand out over 8 weeks to keep the game at the top of the news.

And uhh.. regarding the typo… oops will go fix that!.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Don Parsons notified me…

Maybe you should check your PMs more carefully/often ?!

Originally Posted by coboney

the people who buy early on are the ones who get hurt by the fact they've more or less pulled content out of the game to hand out over 8 weeks to keep the game at the top of the news.

Players have been demanding that the party gets extended: when they finish the game, they want more of it.
The video game industry of a curtain call.

I agree with the article and as much as I like CDP and their games, this was the final definitive push I needed to put to rest any desire to preorder the CE or buy the game on release day. Not gonna happen. I'm eagerly looking forward to the EE now and will preorder that one as soon as it becomes available but I'm not playing their piecemeal game.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
I agree with the article and as much as I like CDP and their games, this was the final definitive push I needed to put to rest any desire to preorder the CE or buy the game on release day. Not gonna happen. I'm eagerly looking forward to the EE now and will preorder that one as soon as it becomes available but I'm not playing their piecemeal game.

Is this because you can't be bothered to download the DLC or you think they might charge for DLC later?

Originally Posted by lostforever
Is this because you can't be bothered to download the DLC or you think they might charge for DLC later?

I'm not worried they might charge later and downloading would be only a minor nuisance (though they're pushing it with the amount and frequency).
Mostly I just want to play the best and most complete version of the game and not have to worry about what I might be missing out on or what next week's DLC might add.
That would kind of ruin the immersion for me. That's why I'll be waiting for the EE which will hopefully be "complete". Who knows… IIRC the original Witcher had a Director's Cut of the EE or something like that so unfortunately there seems to be no guarantee that the EE "is it" but let's hope for the best .

Moriendor, I was thinking along similar lines, but then I realized how I had to replay both The Witcher 1 and 2 half a year/a year later because of the Enhanced Editions, and since both had some major choices that locked out some content (and because both were a blast to begint with) it wasn't even a chore. So why not buy the game early, give it a playthrough, then - when the EE comes out, and it certainly will - you can play again and have all the Geralt beards and Yennefer hoodies at your disposal!

I can only assume he does that with *every* game then, since they're all incomplete at release if you use that logic.

Have fun waiting. I'd offer to wait with you, but I'm going to be busy playing TW3.

I can understand Moriendor to a certain degree. Not to know what kind of DLC will come in the weeks after the release will lower my fun playing the game from day one. I will do it nevertheless because I trust in CDPR for the DLCs to be minor cosmetic stuff that doesn't have actual significant impact on the game for me. I'm quite sure it won't be something like Leviathan or Citadel for ME3. Anyway it would be great if CDPR realeased information about the content of all DLCs until release.

@Soulbane: I'm not a replayer. Backlog is way too long and I can't really replay a long and strongly story-driven game like The Witcher 3. It's going to be one shot, the best possible experience (= at least Enhanced Edition) and just one playthrough sticking with whatever choices I may make along the way .

@Morrandir: They have already announced that the DLC packs (two per week) will also include quests so it's not only cosmetic stuff. Speculation is that they will release one quest/content DLC and one cosmetic (hairstyle etc.) per week. It will probably be just minor quests but it would still annoy me if I had progressed past a point in the story where doing that quest might turn out to be pointless or where I'm at the other end of the world (which is supposed to be HUGE).
Nah. I'll rather wait and have it all nicely prepared and fixed up and polished once I get into it with the EE.

Until then I still have tons of games to play so it's not like I'm missing out or anything. Might be playing PoE around the same time or maybe Larian will be done releasing patches for DOS by then or I'll be busy with the Star Citizen alpha or playing Elite Dangerous… or… or… or… so many games, so little time - as always .

Originally Posted by Moriendor
@Morrandir: They have already announced that the DLC packs (two per week) will also include quests so it's not only cosmetic stuff. Speculation is that they will release one quest/content DLC and one cosmetic (hairstyle etc.) per week. It will probably be just minor quests but it would still annoy me if I had progressed past a point in the story where doing that quest might turn out to be pointless or where I'm at the other end of the world (which is supposed to be HUGE).

So far for my trust.

Nah. I'll rather wait and have it all nicely prepared and fixed up and polished once I get into it with the EE.

Yeah, I then plan to wait until these 16 DLCs are released. Hope I really can wait as I don't have a notable backlog. SO I hope WL2, Lords of Xulima, DA:I, Raven's Cry, PoE (perhaps) and Blackguards 2 will keep me occupied long enough.

@Moriendor:
I totally get what you're saying, and I understand, because, most of the time I also think like that, for basically the same reasons you've given. That said, the Witcher games are unique in a way that I have replayed them several times both in the following years. I just love Sapkowski's world and the games are great imo, too. So I don't mind my huge backlog then.

With the Witcher 3, it can be problematic, since that game is gonna be much larger than the two previous titles put together, so I totally get why someone does not fancy a replay.

But I also think that the DLC quests cannot be progressed over given the open world nature of the game. I would think they are aware of this. But tell you what, since I know several of their devs, I'll ask.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I didn't even realize it was that close to release to be honest. I need to start planning my replays of TW 1&2 real soon.

Heh! I just replayed TW1,finished last Friday . And it was great.
About to play TW2 but, got distracted by Wasteland 2.

For me, DLC = delay loading content. I'll just wait until it's all available in one package, thank you.