Interview Informative Witcher Q&A at RPGVault

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, The

There is a new and very informative <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com/>The Witcher</a> <a href=http://www.rpgvault.hu/?id=1915>interview</a> at <a href=http://www.rpgvault.hu>RPGVault.hu</a>. It comes with a diagram and hype.
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<blockquote>The Witcher is an extended RPG game, in which completing tasks and winning battles with monsters play an important role, so it's not hard to guess that many experience points are gained during combat. When the hero advances to the next level, he wins special points which can be used to increase the character's main features and to increase his skill with weapons. In using these points, the hero can learn selected combat styles, as I mentioned earlier, or become more skilful in using Signs. The system used to develop skills is like the popular "tree" model - as shown in the diagram.
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One of the most important elements of the gameplay, which we strongly emphasise, is the rich combat styles. <u>It is one of the most important elements of our game, and something which distinguishes it from competing games on the market, which only offer the use of two or three blows at the most.</u> We can defeat our opponents in many different and effective ways, and each one is specially prepared to be used against a specific type of opponent. On top of this, Geralt has a whole range of "finishers", or extra-special, impressive blows which finish off a fight. My favourite finishers are combinations where Geralt plunges both swords into his victim's body, then shoves it away with a vicious kick, also a blow with a hook, which rips the enemy’s head off, or holds it in position ready to be sliced off with the sword. In practice, the player rarely uses just one battle style. Depending on the situation and the opponents, clashes in "The Witcher" are a mix of stunning sword fights, casting of Signs, drinking of elixirs and fights with burning torches or fist fights. The player may make use of all of these possibilities, depending on his preference, but combat using swords and Signs, is, in the majority of cases, quite simply the most effective.</blockquote>What the hell is an "extended RPG"? Anyway, sometimes The Witcher sounds like a decent game, but then you read crap like "winning battles with monsters and combat styles are one of the very important elements" and competing with games in the "number of blows" department, and you start wondering about the design and development focus.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

[Micmu]

What? It will be an ultimate nonlinear RPG! You can choose to kill your foes using different blows!
It will even have FATALITY finish moves!
Yep, they are killing my interest in this one, too. Second worst RPG hype 2005/06 award.

 

[aboyd]

Witcher is my most anticipated game -- ahead of G3, NWN2, DA, and Oblivion. But I have to admit that what I've just read really kills my interest in the game. Ugh.

Why must they wreck the good thing they had going?

 

[Vault Dweller]

My interest was killed or at least put on hold when I read this
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... 25&start=0

 

[Jason]

They're going to "bring loads of sheer joy" with their "finishers". Why do they have to treat us like whores? I don't remember ordering the lobster.

But yeah, game developers and publishers need to learn that sometimes less is more when it comes to hype. As it stands, this game is on my "buy it when it hits the bargain bin" list.

 

[HanoverF]

There are whores in Witcher right? I should think "number of blows" would be in a whole different area of the game...

 

[Dhruin]

Bitch, bitch, fucking moan. Imagine that - the PR department hyped it.

 

[yipsl]

My interest was killed or at least put on hold when I read this
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... 25&start=0

Ack, I meant to read that thread and post here, but I ended up posting in the older thread from August. Anyways, it looks like they have two separate games under development:

An RPG and a fighting game based on medieval fencing. We'll see how it works. As far as commercial RPGs go, it's Oblivion, Gothic 3 and The Witcher for next year on the PC. I don't think I'm missing any upcoming titles am I?

So, we have to learn to live with such "innovations" if we want to play new games. Perhaps our feedback once we play can influence the direction of any sequels.

 

[Elwro]

As far as I know CDProjekt Red Studio is developing only one game now - The Witcher. (They've said on their forums that they wanted to finish their first game, see if it is succesful, and only then decide what to do next). I think that the fencing elements, whatever they will look like, will all be in The Witcher.

 

[Twinfalls]

My favourite finishers are combinations where Geralt plunges both swords into his victim's body, then shoves it away with a vicious kick, also a blow with a hook, which rips the enemy’s head off, or holds it in position ready to be sliced off with the sword.

It's a big, bright, wonderful world!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

After watching that video about how many ways there were to get through that gate, there's really not too much that can curb my enthusiasm for this game. Though, there's a lot I don't like about it such as the way the inventory is done, allowing the kind of options that were presented with the gate obstacle was pretty damned neat. Now, if the gate thing is only a very limited part of the game, I'll be sorely disappointed.

Really though, how many CRPGs today have had trailers such as the gate one? The vast majority of them are just showing off the flashy armor and the spell effects if there's any gameplay shown at all.

 

[Dhruin]

There's plenty of question marks such as having to play Geralt and whether the whole timed-click-to-chain-attacks combat works but they are genuinely trying to have multiple paths and solutions, so they get my vote for most interesting AAA game for next year, whether their PR department says it's better than Lennon and Jesus combined or not.

Oh - the fencing bit is simply that they got some famous Polish swordsman to do video capture for the animations.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Guys at CDProjekt, although obviously enthusiastic about their game (and that's a good sign), are simply AWFUL at PR. They don't know whether to give in to current PR trends with the "shiney graffics & phat lewt" or go all the way with the "RPG redefined" thingy (no matter how misleading such a statement is) and focus on the stuff that really sets "Teh Witchar" apart from other actiony RPGs.

I'm looking forward to the game, though - maybe at last my awesome country will produce a solid cRPG.

 

[Jora]

Really though, how many CRPGs today have had trailers such as the gate one? The vast majority of them are just showing off the flashy armor and the spell effects if there's any gameplay shown at all.

Bloodlines had a video like that. It was the one about a golem in a theater.

 

[yipsl]

Guys at CDProjekt, although obviously enthusiastic about their game (and that's a good sign), are simply AWFUL at PR. They don't know whether to give in to current PR trends with the "shiney graffics & phat lewt" or go all the way with the "RPG redefined" thingy (no matter how misleading such a statement is) and focus on the stuff that really sets "Teh Witchar" apart from other actiony RPGs.

I'm looking forward to the game, though - maybe at last my awesome country will produce a solid cRPG.

Well, their PR department sounds about like Bethesda's and we can all keep this in mind: Poland once was a really influential and powerful European country before the Tartar invasions, and occasionally for brief periods since then. Bethesda is owned by traditional liberal Democratic party wonks who were infuential in American politics before Reagan and have tried vainly to win an election since then. Both Poland and the Democratic party can do better, but are lousy at the vision thing.

So, I expect bad PR from a new game studio in Poland who can only think of following the French Ubisoft vision, just as any company owned by Democratic politicians and lawyers can only think of making game design decisions based on simple polls.

As for Ubisoft, don't get me started on what they're doing to Might and Magic. I'm one sad old school RPG gamer and one sad moderate Democrat, I'll tell you that.

There's plenty of question marks such as having to play Geralt and whether the whole timed-click-to-chain-attacks combat works but they are genuinely trying to have multiple paths and solutions, so they get my vote for most interesting AAA game for next year, whether their PR department says it's better than Lennon and Jesus combined or not.

Oh - the fencing bit is simply that they got some famous Polish swordsman to do video capture for the animations.

I don't mind fencing because I took foil and epee years ago in college. I don't mind animations based on historical styles in Poland. I do mind button mashing. They can have the animations without going for the sort of almost twitch factor found in eveyr chozzerai mainstream game. It's like the invasion of the Tekken people, like RPGs devolved to RPG Lite devolves to action with RPG elements devolves to action with elements of anything that the suits think will sell.

 

[obediah]

Guys at CDProjekt, although obviously enthusiastic about their game (and that's a good sign), are simply AWFUL at PR. They don't know whether to give in to current PR trends with the "shiney graffics & phat lewt" or go all the way with the "RPG redefined" thingy (no matter how misleading such a statement is) and focus on the stuff that really sets "Teh Witchar" apart from other actiony RPGs.

I'm looking forward to the game, though - maybe at last my awesome country will produce a solid cRPG.

Well, their PR department sounds about like Bethesda's and we can all keep this in mind: Poland once was a really influential and powerful European country before the Tartar invasions, and occasionally for brief periods since then. Bethesda is owned by traditional liberal Democratic party wonks who were infuential in American politics before Reagan and have tried vainly to win an election since then. Both Poland and the Democratic party can do better, but are lousy at the vision thing.

So, I expect bad PR from a new game studio in Poland who can only think of following the French Ubisoft vision, just as any company owned by Democratic politicians and lawyers can only think of making game design decisions based on simple polls.

As for Ubisoft, don't get me started on what they're doing to Might and Magic. I'm one sad old school RPG gamer and one sad moderate Democrat, I'll tell you that.

There's plenty of question marks such as having to play Geralt and whether the whole timed-click-to-chain-attacks combat works but they are genuinely trying to have multiple paths and solutions, so they get my vote for most interesting AAA game for next year, whether their PR department says it's better than Lennon and Jesus combined or not.

Oh - the fencing bit is simply that they got some famous Polish swordsman to do video capture for the animations.

I don't mind fencing because I took foil and epee years ago in college. I don't mind animations based on historical styles in Poland. I do mind button mashing. They can have the animations without going for the sort of almost twitch factor found in eveyr chozzerai mainstream game. It's like the invasion of the Tekken people, like RPGs devolved to RPG Lite devolves to action with RPG elements devolves to action with elements of anything that the suits think will sell.

I'm pretty sure it all boils down to a secret jewish council.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

Well, their PR department sounds about like Bethesda's and we can all keep this in mind: Poland once was a really influential and powerful European country before the Tartar invasions, and occasionally for brief periods since then. Bethesda is owned by traditional liberal Democratic party wonks who were infuential in American politics before Reagan and have tried vainly to win an election since then. Both Poland and the Democratic party can do better, but are lousy at the vision thing.

Well said. Btw. the offical period of Poland's greatness is A.D. 1569 - 1648 (Khmelnytsky's uprising in the Ukraine, The Deluge, etc.), but in reality it started going downhill as early as 1587 (the reign of the crappiest king evar' IMHO).

The problem with CDProjekt's PR is that they're considerably new at marketing their own products, while Bethesda uses their old proven strategy of showing the shiney and Stewart (fun fact: Patrick Stewart lost all his hair by the age of 19) plus some very limited gameplay info. "The Witcher's" RPG Redefined thingy is a good catchphrase (from what I've gathered, it sells), but in the interviews CDPojekt guys want to say as much as they can and don't know what to focus on. It's a good sign, I think, because it shows that they're not goverend by a bunch of bloodthirsty bureaucrats in fancy suits. Yet. In short, I think they have a very specific vision, just don't know how to spell it out correctly.

But true, they could limit the clickety-click factor of combat they're so very optimistic about. There was a game that used a similar one, "Sacrifice" or somesuch?

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Sacrifice was a great game.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

OK, my bad, not "Sacrifice" (that's an RTS/action thingy) but "Summoner" http://www.summoner.com/

 

[Sisay]

After playing Sacred, Gothic 1/2, Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity (thanks Starforce!), Restricted Area, Metalheart, Kult: Heretic Kingdoms and Arx Fatalis I'm really sceptic about this whole "European CRPGs will save the genre and fill the void left by BIS/Troika/Sir-Tech/Origin" thing. Now maybe there's some really good recent European CRPG I just haven't played but let's face it, none of those games are that good as rpgs. When I hear European CRPG I'm expecting low production values, subpar writing (yeah it's always the translator's fault, right?) and lack of choices and roleplaying. Maybe The Withcer will do better, who knows. I'm just not expecting much. Admittedly I haven't seen this video or read much about the game, though.

The last time I heard the "we're complete newbies at the genre but it'll be the bestest thing evar, trust us!" speech was with Dark and Light (MMORPG) and that was a complete disaster. CDProject's PR with "RPG Redefined" and If you don't like our game you just don't get it(tm) really make me wonder exactly who the fuck these people think they are.

Is it just me or is Dhruin just a bit too defensive about this game? People at the Codex mocked ridiculous marketing hype, what a surprise there too.

Edit:

After watching the gate video and another one I have to admit the production values are way above of what I've come to expect from an European CRPG. Looks like they even hired decent voice actors. Multiple ways to get past the gate was very nice. What little I saw of the character system in the combat video didn't impress me, though. I didn't see any non-combat stuff there, no speech skill or anything. Have to agree with Saint on the inventory, it's straight from Diablo. At least it's nice to know there's a reputation system and you can initiate combat. This game reminds me of Bloodlines a lot, I'm just hoping they won't fall into the trap of making overly long un-avoidable combat areas like the sewers in Bloodlines. Guess it's a game to look forward but just about any crpg is considering how few of them there are in production.

 

[Dhruin]

Is it just me or is Dhruin just a bit too defensive about this game? People at the Codex mocked ridiculous marketing hype, what a surprise there too.

Yeah, it's just gotta be a defensive reaction when someone thinks the actual game might be more important than the PR department. Anyway, the point of your post was to say you don't know anything about the game but you've already got a bunch of assumptions, right?

 

[Sisay]

The point of my post was to say all this talk of how great European crpgs are is bullshit. You don't hear that here but I've heard that at RPGDot. Have you seen the Oblivion threads? I don't see you doing the same there, or in threads about any other game either. Why is this game a special case?

 

[bryce777]

Hey you fool, maybe it's because the hype for oblivion is overblown and insane and new hype or cut features come out every day to ridicule.

The combat chaining crap sounds pretty stupid and annoying. The gothic combat was barely tolerable, but this could be a genuine chore.

 

[Dhruin]

I actually have an editorial planned on this topic, so I'm about to contradict myself. I don't often talk about "European RPGs" because the grouping is fairly meaningless. Are all US RPGs good/bad? Just to follow through with your logic, however, I have a question: how many non-European RPGs released in the same timeframe as those above are better than most of that list?

Bethesda has gone out of their way to hold back information on many, many aspects of Oblivion while at the same time hyping the game hard. It's actually an intentional policy - you can see the sticky at the top of the forum from Pete saying they won't release a bunch of stuff because that's how they do things. I disagree - but it's their game. The only dialogue I've seen for Oblivion has been disappointing, while Steve and others point out how much we haven't seen -- but will they show me? Besides, Oblivion has a legion of fans anyway.

Cd Projekt are being pretty open about everything. And I think they have some good ideas (and some bad ones) but from what I have seen and been told* (caveat: final product will have to speak for itself) they are genuinely trying to provide multiple choices and solutions. Oblivion will happily march to multi-million unit sales no matter what - I just think The Witcher deserves some chance before being lumped in as a "Euro" game or "I hated that PR line so the game must suck, even though I haven't a clue about the gameplay itself".

 

[merry andrew]

How is it surprising that a game featuring a main character who was bred to kill monsters will have combat as one of its main features? I really want to know.