Interview How CD Projekt RED treats gamers as people

I agree that CDP treats it's customers well and this is something to be thankful for, free addons and major patches are really a great thing. They are one of my favourite current companies (though Gabe is still on the top ).

However this strikes me as contradiction to what they have done with Twitcher2:

Mature? Yes. Somewhat complex plot? Yes. Complex game? No.

If CD Projekt spent half the time and effort designing their games that they do hyping their games and company they might actually produce a decent ARPG.

WE R A PEOPLE

I guess he compares it to other popular modern "rpgs" like ME3 etc., where you just run forward and shoot things, TW2 does look somewhat more "complex" in the context.

In before Skyway's ''Witcher 2 is COD with swords.'' (yes, he said that).

He says that because of the Temerian soldiers going into cover and acting all TACTICOOLy in the assault on La Valette Castle.

Personally I think it's more like Mass Effect with swords.

It's potatoes with swords.

Waiting for photoshop

I'll always be thankful for GOG.com.

At least in the thread I read, he didn't mentioned assault on La Valette Castle, but said that on the game as a whole, and when someone mentioned that Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is more worthy of that title, and after that, well, everything continued in typical Skyway fashion.

You need to participate on CDS Chat to know of the true Skyway

You'd be surprised. Remember the LP of that one guy who couldn't get past a fight during the tutorial chapter and started screaming about how the game was unbalanced? I've also seen hundreds of complaints by people who are confused about how to use potions, or who don't know how to advance the plot without linear corridors and quest markers, or by people who can't read the journal, etc. Let's not forget the people who wish it was first person, or want to create their own character. If you grow up playing shallow, linear games then The Witcher 2 is indeed a good deal more complex even though by RPG standards it's quite tame.

You have to remember that a lot of players don't even bother reading tutorial messages, skip all dialogue and cutscenes, and just button-mash their way through games, and if a game won't accommodate them they assume it's broken. When you develop for a niche audience, you can get away with games that don't lead players by the nose at every single moment. When you are making a big-budget console game, it basically has to be as dumb as possible to make sure people don't get stuck, and unfortunately lower and lower standards for games means that newer gamers don't have the skill set to enjoy mainstream games that were released even 10 years ago.

Of course, for some reason Bethesda games are an exception, but I'm pretty sure that's only because they're kind of impossible to fail at. Even if you never touch a single quest and decide to tromp around hitting everything with your sword, at least you're still having fun of a sort. Not so in The Witcher 2, where the story is the fun, and if you don't care about the story, or are too dumb to access it, there's nothing left for you.

Ok Bros, it is time for me to make a shocking revelation. You see, Polish RPG scene has very little to do with cRPGs - in fact until not so long ago cRPGs were seen as reterded offshoots of the 'proper' P&P RPG systems. Why this is important?

Bacause when Polish devs talk about RPGs, their complexity and paving new paths they don't think of 'worthless and boring' games of yesteryears such as Ultima, Wizardry, Eye of Beholder, Dark Sun, Arcanum and stuff like that. They think more about all the fun adventures they had with Warhammer, Earthdawn, Vampire, AD&D... with a twist. RPG scene here has utmost contempt for rulesets, tables, digits, dice and all that nonsense - instead they focus on storytelling. Yep, in their eyes cRPGs should not about 'tactical combat' (there are wargames for that) nor about boring character progression (every shooter has that) - all RPGs are means of telling an interactive story. And this is exactly the mindset behind TWitcher 1 and 2 - to make the most appealing interactive story there is. I have to say that while in this they may follow Bioware, they do a much better job than them. And yes, as far as storytelling is concerned they are doing much more complex RPGs than anyone since Planescape.

Apart from that the devs are very lax on combat system. They do not really enjoy the old 'proper' RPGs where nothing happens - again the purpose of an RPG (even P&P RPG) is an adventure, not rolling dice. And so they take hints from the games they do relish: hack&slasher, fighting games and other stuff they play on their consoles - stuff they can have fun with - stuff their audience can appreciate as well.

Lads, there's no way CDPRed will make a proper 'Codex approved' RPG - they simply do not care and they are not suicidal enough to shoot for such a small niche market. At least in the one facet their picked (storytelling) they prove to be fairly competent so far.

Also, what sea said.

There's also the fact that potato "gamers" see Bladder's Gates and other ass erects as good rpgs, so no wonder they don't know shit.

So edgy that reading it cut me.

Yes, we do - especially BG2, though ME series is kinda meh in majority's opinion. It could be worse - we could enjoy Diablo 3.

Is that a direct quotation of somebody?

Apparently bg2 and d3 aren't that different. Difference being, blizzard at least tries to somehow fix d3 while bg2 is fucked forever.

Are you fucking blind?

Fix'd for ye.

Just ignore him. The whole "Baldur's Gate = popamole" thing is among the Codex's most annoying memes.

Yeah, but I am not saying that BG2 is the pinnacle of RPGs, but WTF BG2 has in common with Diablo?

Both are pretty shitty rpgs