Twitcher 3 is very far from the best written game ever

[Lacrymas]

I haven't said KotOR2 is the best written game, I said I don't work with favorites. Twitcher 3 shows you what GoT writers think moral ambiguity is. Not to mention that moral ambiguity is utterly cliche and vapid at this point (just write about something that isn't morality!). KotOR2 is also not about moral ambiguity at all, that's a side effect of the main idea.

 

[janior]

'k

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Lacrymas have you particular instances of kurwa 3's moral embiggitty that strike you as GoT grade bad, or worse?

 

[Baron Dupek]

Twitcher 3 is very far from the best written game ever

Man, don't remind me about that insult battle with blonde ponytail white trash.

 

[Raghar]

You're a zero trick pony afaic. Saying Kotor2 is the best written game and TW3 is very far below it is so off the mark I don't even.

I won't go into the weeds here, been there done that can't be fucked anymore but in short - Kotor2 is presenting you with what a good writer thinks is depth and moral ambiguity. TW3 shows you real depth and moral ambiguity.

As for story and quests - the main TW3 story is not very good but individual quests are among the best ever written. I'd say two or three of them are THE best. But that's exactly along the lines of the original Sapkowski's work. The short stories are one of the best fantasy short stories ever written but the novels are aimless and silly.

Are you from czech republic? They had very high quality of translation of Sapkowski novels. Perhaps you should compare W3 writing to what you read.

(For these who don't have bookworm relatives, who can loan a book on visit. In comparison to Sapkowski novels Witcher writing sucks balls. Though I still didn't finish W2, so I can't talk about W3. But story of W1 is lacking.)

Novels might be aimless, but that's because Sapkowski is drunkard. Remember, a common Polska person that can write. (And he never aspired to be as high level as Dostoevsky, he wanted to write readable books.) Compare it to Africa. How many books were written by Africa university educated native people? I don't count that cook that wrote the first Afrika novel, he wan't university educated.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Why do people keep bring up GoT as an example of moral ambiguity? It features a house where everybody is a goody-two shoes and a house where everybody is a manipulative cynic. Also it is a story about ice zombies coming to genocide a medieval world.

Also Witcher 3 successfully manages to not close a single one of its story arcs in a satisfactory manner in the base game. Excellent writing. Even Mass Effect 3 was better.

Yes the characterization was very good, unparalleled even....until Novigrad since it, Skellige and the last stretch have some terrible character writing.

 

[Carrion]

Are you from czech republic? They had very high quality of translation of Sapkowski novels. Perhaps you should compare W3 writing to what you read.

(For these who don't have bookworm relatives, who can loan a book on visit. In comparison to Sapkowski novels Witcher writing sucks balls. Though I still didn't finish W2, so I can't talk about W3. But story of W1 is lacking.)

TW1 and TW3 are worlds apart when it comes to writing. A lot of the stuff in the first game is more or less directly lifted from the books or slightly altered, and it probably also suffers from translation issues and the fact that a lot of it was initially left on the cutting room floor and only added to the game later on with the Enhanced Edition. All in all, it's much closer to your typical fan fiction, whereas TW3 is a much more professional and consistent effort all around. TW2 is somewhere in between, having the best main story in the series by far but being rather rough around the edges all around, writing included.

(Regardless, TW1's main story is better and more coherent than the one in TW3...)

I've only read the Finnish translations of the Witcher stories, which are supposedly very good (it's hard for me to tell when my knowledge of Polish starts and ends with "kurwa"), but a lot of the stuff in TW3 compares rather favorably to the novels, especially the later ones. Of course, it's hard to make a direct comparison between different mediums using different languages — TW3 certainly benefits from the excellent voice acting and facial animations among other things, whereas books can do things you can't translate into a game.

 

[HoboForEternity]

TW3 didnt do anything "best"

Imo it is about how well and competently put together the different elements are.

The writing isnt the best in vanilla, but still well paced and interesting despite the huge open world. even with that the writing and characters in hearts of stone is amazing. i would put HoS on par with MoTB even torment. The content are mostly unique and interesting. The world are huge, some empty, but most are well made with some astonishing setpieces. The gameplay was kinda weak, eh, but I enjoyed it somewhat.

It is amazing just how healthily well rounded it is. It did almost everything really good. It might be not the best, but very competent in alot of different aspects

 

[Paul_cz]

It is quite close actually. Not perfect, but it is probably the best written game since New Vegas, Bloodlines and Torment before it. Given its scope, I was impressed.

Are you from czech republic? They had very high quality of translation of Sapkowski novels. Perhaps you should compare W3 writing to what you read.

(For these who don't have bookworm relatives, who can loan a book on visit. In comparison to Sapkowski novels Witcher writing sucks balls. Though I still didn't finish W2, so I can't talk about W3. But story of W1 is lacking.)

Novels might be aimless, but that's because Sapkowski is drunkard. Remember, a common Polska person that can write. (And he never aspired to be as high level as Dostoevsky, he wanted to write readable books.) Compare it to Africa. How many books were written by Africa university educated native people? I don't count that cook that wrote the first Afrika novel, he wan't university educated.

Witcher 1 is the most fanfictiony and is worst written of the franchise. Witcher 2 and especially Witcher 3 are at Sapkowski's level. Hearts of Stone alone might be even better than Sapkowski's own work.

 

[anus_pounder]

My comment about D:OS2's slow rate of updates has been postnapped to this shit topic.

 

[Excidium II]

informative

 

[Jazz_]

...

The problem is that the well written games have set a very high bar that the Twitcher 3 doesn't even come close to, it doesn't matter that there aren't a lot of well written games. That's why it's very far away. Not to mention that I don't work with favorites, so "best written game ever" is a vapid statement. KotOR2, MotB, maybe Bloodlines, maybe even Redemption (I'm loathe to mention PST, but yeah, that too), for example, are on a completely different level than Twitcher 3. Answering the why of it is a very hard and almost pointless endeavor, so don't ask. Let's give an example in mediums that people are going to understand - it's like comparing Game of Thrones to Hannibal (for example), GoT (representing TW3) is lazy and simply manipulative, only good if you don't know what good is, while Hannibal is on a completely different level and can't be compared to GoT. I know decline is very favored among some Codexers, so sucking Twitcher's cock is customary, but have some respect for yourselves :p

Hannibal as example of good writing? holy shit, what poor taste. That show was absolute trash, and seemingly shot by an epileptic with the idea that mtv videoclips from the 90s are the paragon of aesthetics.

 

[Lacrymas]

I never said it had "good writing", I said that it's on a different, better, level than GoT, don't put words in my mouth. I haven't expressed my opinion of it outside of that either way.

 

[Rev]

I never said it had "good writing", I said that it's on a different, better, level than GoT, don't put words in my mouth. I haven't expressed my opinion of it outside of that either way.

If you think its writing is not good, why did you use it as an example against GOT and his bad writing?

 

[Lacrymas]

...Because it has better writing than GoT and worked for my analogy? I still haven't expressed whether I think it's good or not, because it's besides the point, sooo.

 

[Rev]

You know, usually when someone wants to make a point against a title he uses something he thinks is good, as a counterexample.
For instance, I wouldn't say that Fallout 3 is shit as opposed to Mass Effect (and later clarify that I don't think it's good, only better), but I would use Fallout 1 or New Vegas, aka something that's actually good.

But maybe autists see it differently.

 

[Ninjerk]

You know, usually when someone wants to make a point against a title he uses something he thinks is good, as a counterexample.
For instance, I wouldn't say that Fallout 3 is shit as opposed to Mass Effect (and later clarify that I don't think it's good, only better), but I would use Fallout 1, New Vegas, aka something that's actually good.

But maybe autists see it differently.

It isn't necessary to bring personal preference into the argument.

 

[Morality Games]

Why do people keep bring up GoT as an example of moral ambiguity? It features a house where everybody is a goody-two shoes and a house where everybody is a manipulative cynic. Also it is a story about ice zombies coming to genocide a medieval world.

Not a huge Games of Thrones fan, but based on reading the first three novels and watching all seasons except parts of Season 2 and 3, that just isn't true. Starks are somewhat more blue collar than the other aristocratic families but still very much assert the aristocratic imperative that makes the Martin-verse a crapsack world. Robb doesn't stop his soldiers from raping and massacring and stealing from the Small Folk in the South during the Five King's War because they are viewed as an enemy resource to whom he has none of the responsibilities of vassalage. The basic difference is that the Starks "tolerate" their followers doing shitty things while the Lannisters encourage it in limited, strategic contexts.

Game of Thrones has a reputation as being morally ambiguous because most of the factions and/or individual characters aren't decisively good or bad and the nature of good and bad is sort of unsettled because all of the factions have distinct values structures that feel appropriate in their own context, but cause conflict when their priorities compete with each other.

That few characters that seem decisively good usually have crooked spots and the few characters that seem totally bad usually have at least one or two notable redeeming qualities.

As opposed to Sauron the Deceiver, who generally isn't represented as possessing redeeming qualities.

 

[LizardWizard]

I never said it had "good writing", I said that it's on a different, better, level than GoT, don't put words in my mouth. I haven't expressed my opinion of it outside of that either way.

GoT is written by fucking hacks though. GRRM on the other hand isn't an amazing writer but ASOIAF shits all over Witcher 3, to be sure.

 

[Neanderthal]

Why your lot name game after bird watchin?

 

[roll-a-die]

Hrrm, I'm not going to say Witcher 3 is the best written game, I'd still rank it up at maybe number 3 in it's genre. After VtM:B, and New Vegas.

But here's a small fact about the Witcher 3. It does more to provide contextual/shallow consequences, and ambiguous narrative than any game I've played. The Velen Story Line as a whole ranks at #1 in my list of quests that are good. The first 20 hours(That's basically as far as I've gotten. I tend to binge then leave, then binge again, basically completing each act of a game, or each zone/hub of an open world game as a short story, taking it on it's own merits.) are sublime and even some of the small hunt quests have examples of moments that sneak up on you, and make you realize that the Witchers work isn't a bright feature of the world. The gameplay reinforces the writing, with people outright spitting in your direction. It's not up too the developers to judge the Baron, it's up to the players experiences, and even then, they don't blunt it. They don't tend to twist things too make you sympathize, they create a real situation, and just display it. The Baron's redemption or gradual slide downwards, is met with the same amount of conflicted feelings by the Witcher, as the player is likely to feel. It doesn't do this via an influence meter, it doesn't chastise you for making cutting remarks to a man, that in certain respects deserves those remarks. It lets its writing stand on it's own in those dialogues and scenes.

Beyond that; Each character has motivations. Each quest giver has some sort of agenda. Whether it's the man who cuts off his ear to bribe a supernatural entity. Or it's a woman who would give her savings just to have the ghosts at her family home gone. Or the Baron, who even if he doesn't seem to realize it, just wants his family and wife well again.

I'm not saying Witcher 3's writing is the best in the industry, I'm saying the contextualization of the writing, the quest design, and the gameplay design sync up, to create some of the best writing in the industry.

 

[sser]

Just finished the base game. I'd say it's top shelf writing, personally, and with a satisfying ending. Not sure about the comparison to fucking Mass Effect. To me, there is only a single plotline in ME1/2 that is remotely interesting and it has to do with that bug-eyed scientist and the potential genocide of the Krogan species.


That said, I might have missed two major Witcher plotlines,

Spoiler

Helping Djikstra kill Radovid and helping Roche with Ves. What happens if you help those two? I'm also curious what happens at the end of the game if you don't say I love you to both Yen and Triss. I did and got the result I wanted.

Witcher 3 also had one quest that did make me legit kinda sad,

Spoiler

The one with Skaljmar, where the whole village thinks he's a coward even though he was a hero. And when Yen brings him to life he tells his story then pleads for them to clear his name. At the end, you find him buried in a fucking pit and they're still calling him Craven.

IMO, there are a lot of human complexities way more maturely explored in Witcher 3 than I've seen in most other games or other mediums for that matter.

 

[makiavelli747]

W3 to me is like any other modern cartoon about Spiderman or something like Transformers. I couldn't stomach that type of stuff even when I was 10 yers old kid. In my childhood I only watched Simpson's and old WB cartoons about rabbit and duck. Probably got hooked on James Cagney movies too early. That is why I guess I rarely play RPG's for story. By the way, if you want modern example of good story and acting -- LA Noire, not an RPG, of course.

 

[hivemind]

W3 to me is like any other modern cartoon about Spiderman or something like Transformers. I couldn't stomach that type of stuff even when I was 10 yers old kid

*tips autism*

 

[cvv]

Yeah, that's fucking retarded. That's why we can't have good things - most people can't tell good writing from the dog vomit on their stupid fedora.

Nobody says TW3 is Nobel prize for literature material but it's simply the best thing vidya industry has ever come up with, especially HoS.