Witcher 3 - This Week's Free DLC Revealed

I got that steam expansion pass deal, so I have them already paid for. I'm just curious how many "major" expansions they are planning, it might be a bunch since the game seems to be selling well. The more big expansions released with new areas, quests, monsters and exploration, the better.

The first expansion will be a big quest line that starts in Oxenfurt and will include new characters that are familiar from the books and will be around 10 hours long.

The second that comes in 2016 will include the area Toussaint on the world map, which is quite a large area and will be more than 20 hours long.

Now, if it was another company i'd take that with a grain of salt but for CDPR i'm inclined to believe them. They did say that The witcher 3 can have up to 200 hours and they weren't kidding.

Also, there probably will be major improvements in graphics and other areas and more expansions during the next two years since they said that we won't be hearing news about Cyberpunk till 2017. The next 2 years are the years of the witcher 3.

Arkadia7 said:

I got that steam expansion pass deal, so I have them already paid for. I'm just curious how many "major" expansions they are planning, it might be a bunch since the game seems to be selling well.

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Regardless of how many they are planning on, the expansion pass only covers two expansions, namely Hearts of Stone (ETA October 2015 at 10 hours) and Blood & Wine (ETA Q1/2016 at 20 hours).
Everyone is getting the 16 free DLCs (two per week, four have already been released so six more weeks with two DLCs each from the time of this post).

Beyond that is anyone's guess. Could be more free content, more expansions, who knows.

However, if you check CD Projekt's website you can find this (I have marked the interesting bit in bold):

• Releasing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2014) and Cyberpunk 2077. Both are triple-A titles with extensive development budgets, top-of-the-line production values and excellent marketing potential.
• Releasing two additional midrange games (ca. 20 hours of gameplay) representing one of the studio's core franchises. Both games will feature high production values.
• Licensing REDengine to third-party developers
• Establishing support for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt using novel mechanisms

First, this is obviously an old schedule since TW3 slipped into 2015 so it should probably read plans for 2015 - 2016/2017.
The big question regarding the bold bit is: What is a "midrange game" by their definition? Are they talking about the expansion pass content or are there plans for another separate (standalone?) game/expansion? Or maybe the original plan was a single 20 hour expansion but then they decided to split it in two for that season pass and made it 30 (20 + 10) hours total?

It's definitely a little odd that they said that all of this year and next year belongs to The Witcher when talking about not showing off Cyberpunk 2077 before 2017.
As far as we know, they are "finished" in Q1/2016 after releasing Blood & Wine. So what else are they planning on for next year? Another expansion for holiday/xmas 2016? Or that "midrange game" from above? Maybe a sequel to that Witcher adventure game? Someone go find out, please .

JeremyAlexander said:

It is all flash and no substance.

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That is the new norm.
Was announced more than one year ago on this site,
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22893&highlight=Ryse+rome

There is no crime system. The world, and it's objects, are static and non interactive,

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Indeed. The time will come to measure the consequences of that approach.
Could be devastating. It is all in the pseudo, that is the Tzar katerina running her coach along the roads of Russia, wishing to see people happy and prosperous.
As success is met, other developpers might consider why bothering about trying to build a virtual gameworld when customers are so fond of these kind of player centric gameworld.
Some time ago, the goal was clear: trying to build up a virtual world in which the player would find a place, things would exist for themselves and the PC would be just another element in the settings.
In the TW3, everything exists because the player wishes it. Why do fishers fish? Because the players want them to fish, for the immersion. Fishers do fish to be part of an economical system.
Bethesda, and the TES series, that keep trying to build up a virtual world, might fall next. Why bother? Offering pseudo is enough, it is easier and cheaper.

[/quote] Another group of liars that don't deliver on what they promise and don't tell you until they have your money.[/QUOTE]
If that could be... No, they have delivered what they have told, a product axed on story telling, a product that goes in the acting, the player is given a part and must interpretate it, actor's thing.
The pseudo behaviours, the emptiness of the gameworld was seen before release.
If only they could have not delivered what they say, the situation would be different...

Brumbek said:

Now that was funny! Excellent response.

Anyway, this whole 16 free DLC thing is very smart marketing by CDPR. It keeps the game in the gaming media for weeks on end. That is the true purpose of it, make no mistake.

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Of course, it is a marketing ploy. CDR is a late comer to the party, they've learned the trade from the guys who were there before.
This is only one step, CDR projekt will step up their game by aligning their ways on the crowdfunded scene.

ChienAboyeur said:

Could be devastating. It is all in the pseudo, that is the Tzar katerina running her coach along the roads of Russia, wishing to see people happy and prosperous.

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Eh, wha? In the pseudo?

ChienAboyeur said:

Some time ago, the goal was clear: trying to build up a virtual world in which the player would find a place, things would exist for themselves and the PC would be just another element in the settings.
In the TW3, everything exists because the player wishes it. Why do fishers fish? Because the players want them to fish, for the immersion. Fishers do fish to be part of an economical system.

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Well, duh. Of course, the entire freaking game exists because "players want it to". You can explain everything in every single game like that.

ChienAboyeur said:

Bethesda, and the TES series, that keep trying to build up a virtual world, might fall next.

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I'm sorry, does this imply that in the TES series somehow things do exist not just because the player wants them to exist? Because the TES series is pretty much the worst; everything revolves around the player.

LongMuckDong said:

You obviously haven't played the game fella:

1. There is indeed a rudimentary crime system (you steal in front of guards, they knock you out and rob you).

2. You can interact/physically knock over/smash walls in the environment uncovering secrets: far from static (and NPCs have full daily routines/timetables FFS).

3. The latest patch with sharpening enabled actually reversed most of the downgrade, and it looks amazing as long as your rig isn't a potato.

4. CDPR are giving out bunches of free DLC + various other goodies via the 'extra content' on GOG, patching the game every 2-3 days (unheard of) and being extremely open about the downgrade and their chance to rectify it… hardly EA type behaviour (well, EA have been fine lately, maybe you mean Ubisoft?).

The game is amazing, the stories feel real and if you actually enjoy fantasy RPGs… well, I'm not sure how you couldn't find something that tickles your fancy with TW3 Wild Hunt.

Edit: Did I just fall for a /s troll? haha….

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Well put…

I'm running a gog version…using just a Nvidia GTX465 (w/ 1 meg of ddr5), getting fantastic smooth video frame rates. The recommended video specs seemed to be jacked up to sell Nvidia hardware. (Additional info: Sabertooth FX990, AMD8350@4.5 with 16 gigs of ram.)

This game could be a great foundation to create a witcher world MMO.

Benny said:

This game could be a great foundation to create a witcher world MMO.

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Blasphemer!!!

The recommended video specs seemed to be jacked up to sell Nvidia hardware.

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Probably, I ran it on a GTX 470 without having to put every graphical settings to "low", and the FPS were still pretty decent.

wiretripped said:

Eh, wha? In the pseudo?




Well, duh. Of course, the entire freaking game exists because "players want it to". You can explain everything in every single game like that.



I'm sorry, does this imply that in the TES series somehow things do exist not just because the player wants them to exist? Because the TES series is pretty much the worst; everything revolves around the player.

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No. Bethesda still keeps aiming for a virtual world. In this kind of settings, a fisher does not fish because the player want to see a fisher fishing because fishing is what fishers do, the fisher fishs because that is a function recognized in the gameworld: collecting fish to provide food etc. In this kind of gameworld, the player is no longer the center of the gameworld, the player is invited to take a position in a gameworld.

ChienAboyeur said:

No. Bethesda still keeps aiming for a virtual world. In this kind of settings, a fisher does not fish because the player want to see a fisher fishing because fishing is what fishers do, the fisher fishs because that is a function recognized in the gameworld: collecting fish to provide food etc. In this kind of gameworld, the player is no longer the center of the gameworld, the player is invited to take a position in a gameworld.

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It's possible that's Bethesda's aim, but they do a pretty terrible job of accomplishing it. As an inhabited, internally-consistent world, TW3 feels much more convincing than anything Bethesda has delivered. It doesn't necessarily follow that the TW3 gameworld is more fun to simply explore, of course, but it's a lot more narratively convincing.

Can't they just make them patches? Or available in the options menu? Bah!

suibhne said:

It's possible that's Bethesda's aim, but they do a pretty terrible job of accomplishing it. As an inhabited, internally-consistent world, TW3 feels much more convincing than anything Bethesda has delivered. It doesn't necessarily follow that the TW3 gameworld is more fun to simply explore, of course, but it's a lot more narratively convincing.

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That is the point. Why bother to try and create a virtually inhabited, virtually internally consistent gameworld when so called RPGers convince themselves that a non inhabited, non consistent gameworld is inhabited and consistent?
Between two products that sell, better to take the easier to make.

Bethesda will have to face a change in depth: it is more about acting than roleplaying.
In a movie, who cares if the baker bakes? Not even the movie crew, they get their food from outside.
In acting games, the player assumes the part of a PC and NPCs are given walk on parts.
And when the so called RPGers find in that a consistent, inhabited gameworld, that's mission accomplished...


Probably some good essay or even a thesis to write on building up an illusion of a world in virtual settings, at least for people who are ballsy enough to think and write on such topics...A virtual illusion, not a meager achievement.

What I would like to see is a W2 save reader that F' ing tells you the choices you made in the game. This would make importing a save better... There are added references and content to your game that you don't get from the Nelfgaard interview way. And if you played W2 a few times it's not easy to choose the save you want to import.

The modding community has come out with some decent content before the W3 tools has been released.