The Witcher 3 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[meanwhileInPoland]

'If you read the books' is not a good argument, Perkel. The game needs to stand on its own.

As much as I am a fan of the books, I will be the first to admit, that there were serious fuck-ups and pacing issues with plots of both TW1 and TW2. The story of TW2 wins by not featuring retarded mutant army.

How would episode 3 would stand on its own if there wasn't episode 1 or 2 ? Sure games don't require you to read books to finish them but they don't shy away from books lore, characters, design etc.

They are direct continuation of Books and they assume you know and read books.

What muttant army ? If you don't allow them to finish job in cellar then they don't have mutants in their ranks and you are attacked only by normal salamandra. C&C bitches.

But yeah overall i agree that some parts of TW1 were basically hamfisted (like alvin)

lol nice understatement. In TW1 they literally copied exact quotes from the books (e.g. Vilgefortz`s "pissing in the wind") how fucking lazy you have to be to do so? TW1 story takes place years after 5th book. Its not fucking 3 rd episode you retard. There is absolutely no reason to expect from players to read books if you put some effort in to writing in your game.

 

[Kraszu]

It's the second coming of Gothic... 3.

I hope so. Gothic 3 with polish and better quests sounds good to me.

Well, only if it doesn't have them:

I had no problems with with boars playing with CP, alternative balance, and alternative ai, I just strafe wait for them to attack, and there is an opportunity to attack them just after they had attacked, and you are close enough/there is no other near enough of you to attack you.

 

[dragonul09]

'If you read the books' is not a good argument, Perkel. The game needs to stand on its own.

As much as I am a fan of the books, I will be the first to admit, that there were serious fuck-ups and pacing issues with plots of both TW1 and TW2. The story of TW2 wins by not featuring retarded mutant army.

Sorta on-topic. I didn't play mych of the previous twitchers and a friend of mine played none. How hard do you think twitcher3 will be to get into plot-wise for someone who didn't play the previous games or read any of the books?

It would be stupid to start with The Witcher 3,way too many characters and pieces of information are presented in Witcher 2 and i think someone new will get confused about ''Who is who,when did i met her/him''.The first Witcher was more like a side-story, but still had some important characters that you will not meet in Witcher 2 but they will appear in The Witcher 3...
I think you need to play all the games to kinda understand who is who and what's going on with the world.

 

[Perkel]

'If you read the books' is not a good argument, Perkel. The game needs to stand on its own.

As much as I am a fan of the books, I will be the first to admit, that there were serious fuck-ups and pacing issues with plots of both TW1 and TW2. The story of TW2 wins by not featuring retarded mutant army.

Sorta on-topic. I didn't play mych of the previous twitchers and a friend of mine played none. How hard do you think twitcher3 will be to get into plot-wise for someone who didn't play the previous games or read any of the books?

Probably no problem. What they will get out of story characters and so on will depend entirely on CDPR presentation to new players (flashbacks i think ?)

TW3 seems to be the most tied to books from all TW games considering it will involve Ciri and yennefer.

lol nice understatement. In TW1 they literally copied exact quotes from the books (e.g. Vilgefortz`s "pissing in the wind") how fucking lazy you have to be to do so? TW1 story takes place years after 5th book. Its not fucking 3 rd episode you retard. There is absolutely no reason to expect from players to read books if you put some effort in to writing in your game.

Story takes place literally after ending of books and it is direct continuation of story. As of "pissing against the wind" that is actually common polish saying. Much more annoying was use of stars reflected in lake which was actually character trait of Vilgefortz blatantly copied. Though i don't remember where it happened (Tw1 ? TW2?).

Imo with TW1 they basically wrote self contained story as they didn't knew if there ever will be TW2 or TW3 leaving wild hunt plot in case of TW2/3 so they used all things they could and thus that lead to for example alvin and several other weird stuff (though Alvin final role in game is awesome)

 

[Ulminati]

Not sure who Jennifer is, but it's about time Geralt got himself an iPhone.

 

[Alienman]

'If you read the books' is not a good argument, Perkel. The game needs to stand on its own.

As much as I am a fan of the books, I will be the first to admit, that there were serious fuck-ups and pacing issues with plots of both TW1 and TW2. The story of TW2 wins by not featuring retarded mutant army.

Sorta on-topic. I didn't play mych of the previous twitchers and a friend of mine played none. How hard do you think twitcher3 will be to get into plot-wise for someone who didn't play the previous games or read any of the books?

Watch these two videos and you will be up to date!

 

[MicoSelva]

How would episode 3 would stand on its own if there wasn't episode 1 or 2 ? Sure games don't require you to read books to finish them but they don't shy away from books lore, characters, design etc.

They are direct continuation of Books and they assume you know and read books.

Episode 3 of what? Star Wars? Not the same thing by any stretch. More correct parallel would be having to know classic Star Wars before watching the upcoming Ep. 7 - and I bet it will not be necessary (still, everyone knows classic Star Wars, so this is a non-issue).

Not only they could not have assumed players will know the books, but they should have assumed otherwise. Not doing so was a mistake. They got away with it in Poland (also maybe in Russia and/or other countries where the books are popular), but they were rightfully called out on it in places where the books were relatively unknown.

The Chapter IV of TW1 was a perfect example of how to do this *right*. It had some references to the books, but it stood perfectly fine on its own, while keeping the series' mood and themes.

The Witcher 2's biggest plot flaw was trying to explain all the political stuff to the player, by switching POVs etc., and at the same time trying to keep everything mysterious (until Letho's info dump at the end). Make up your mind. Either explain what is going on, or keep it vague.

Or maybe, just maybe, do not explain it unless the player starts digging on his/her own and then let him uncover what is going on in the big picture.

But seeing like that game was rushed and barely made it to release, it is still impressively coherent.

What muttant army ? If you don't allow them to finish job in cellar then they don't have mutants in their ranks and you are attacked only by normal salamandra. C&C bitches.

What C&C? Either I do a quest or a game is not retarded, or I do not do a quest and the game becomes retarded? How about we skip the retardation either way?

But yeah overall i agree that some parts of TW1 were basically hamfisted (like alvin)

I did not mind that part, but I did not like how your choices interacting with Alvin had no consequence (in before I missed those).

 

[Infinitron]

Salamandra will always have mutants in the endgame. They might appear earlier somewhere if you don't raid the basement.

 

[dragonul09]

What muttant army ? If you don't allow them to finish job in cellar then they don't have mutants in their ranks and you are attacked only by normal salamandra. C&C bitches.

What C&C? Either I do a quest or a game is not retarded, or I do not do a quest and the game becomes retarded? How about we skip the retardation either way?

 

[MicoSelva]

Sorta on-topic. I didn't play mych of the previous twitchers and a friend of mine played none. How hard do you think twitcher3 will be to get into plot-wise for someone who didn't play the previous games or read any of the books?

How should we know, not having played the game yet?

CDPR and reviewers claim it is the most accessible Witcher game lore-wise and supposedly there is a shit-ton of optional lore, in the form of books etc if you want to dig deeper into this aspect, but we all know neither of these sources can be truted.

EDIT: 9 hours left.

 

[Metro]

I dunno, I just finished playing W1 two days ago for the first time...

Finally hit a price point you could afford, eh? Cool they take food stamps for games now.

This entire thread should be moved to RPGWatch.

 

[Perkel]

How would episode 3 would stand on its own if there wasn't episode 1 or 2 ? Sure games don't require you to read books to finish them but they don't shy away from books lore, characters, design etc.

They are direct continuation of Books and they assume you know and read books.

Episode 3 of what? Star Wars? Not the same thing by any stretch. More correct parallel would be having to know classic Star Wars before watching the upcmoning Ep. 7 - and I bet it will not be necessary (still, everyone knows classic Star Wars, so this is a non-issue).

Not only they could not have assumed players will know the books, but they should have assumed otherwise. Not doing so was a mistake. They got away with it in Poland (also maybe in Russia and/or other countries where the books are popular), but they were rightfully called out on it in places where the books were relatively unknown.

The Chapter IV of TW1 was a perfect example of how to do this *right*. It had some references to the books, but it stood perfectly fine on its own, while keeping the series' mood and themes.

The Witcher 2's biggest plot flaw was trying to explain all the political stuff to the player, by switching POVs etc., and at the same time trying to keep everything mysterious (until Letho's info dump at the end). Make up your mind. Either explain what is going on, or keep it vague.

Or maybe, just maybe, do not explain it unless the player starts digging on his/her own and then let him uncover what is going on in the big picture.

But seeing like that game was rushed and barely made it to release, it is still impressively coherent.

What muttant army ? If you don't allow them to finish job in cellar then they don't have mutants in their ranks and you are attacked only by normal salamandra. C&C bitches.

What C&C? Either I do a quest or a game is not retarded, or I do not do a quest and the game becomes retarded? How about we skip the retardation either way?

But yeah overall i agree that some parts of TW1 were basically hamfisted (like alvin)

I did not mind that part, but I did not like how your choices interacting with Alvin had no consequence (in before I missed those).

----
If you go try fighting that monster in kaer moren for whole game you will be fighting mutated salamandra goons
If you go to cellar you stop their plans so no mutated salamandra goons.
----
That is why TW games are great book to game conversion in first place. If they would do it like any other game basically complete separate plot from source material with different characters then it would be shit.
It is good because they did direct conversion and they didn't give a fuck about rest of people who didn't read books.

So in the end which is right answer and how we define it ?

Does game being heavily laid on source material is a problem ?
Why does "read a book first" is considered problem when whole game idea is based on that assumption.

TW1 was practically self contained story so it could work for players who didn't read book but TW2 and completely TW3 will be hugely dependent on actual books.

That huge infodump at the end of TW2 is probably black magic for people who didn't read books but at the same time is huge thing for people who read books.

I mean there are actual reviews and forum posts that says ending was complete shit and they didn't understand anything. Who was yennefer ? And why should i care ? What is Wild Hunt ? WTF is that ?

And yet i think ending was very good. Fitting witcher theme. Letho wasn't some bad guy and you didn't have reason to kill him. In the end kingdoms fucked each other. But that is ok since you are not part of those conficts.
By the end of journey Geralt finally gets everything he was missing and goes back to being book geralt which is probably biggest thing for TW book readers.

 

[Perkel]

CDPR and reviewers claim it is the most accessible Witcher game lore-wise and supposedly there is a shit-ton of optional lore, in the form of books etc if you want to dig deeper into this aspect, but we all know neither of these sources can be truted.

Real CDPR statement:

Spoiler

Spoiler

read the books idiots

 

[WhiteGuts]

I played TW1 before reading the books and I enjoyed it a lot despite not having any prior knowledge. The game led me to the books, so I guess it did a pretty good job.

 

[Jools]

I played TW1 before reading the books and I enjoyed it a lot despite not having any prior knowledge. The game led me to the books, so I guess it did a pretty good job.

Ditto. Word by word. Then Potatowski decided to fuck up his own universe and go full-retard Twilight style, but the first books are still enormously enjoyable and a big sticky dick in the face of the majority of the newly released fantasy literature out there.

 

[Perkel]

I wonder how Wild Hunt plot will finalize. Hope they won't go full retard with saving the world.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

EDIT: 9 hours left.

Decent countdown!
Alternatively: http://www.isitmay19thyet.com/

 

[Jools]

I dunno, I just finished playing W1 two days ago for the first time...

Finally hit a price point you could afford, eh? Cool they take food stamps for games now.

This entire thread should be moved to RPGWatch.

This reply: . Made my day. :D

(BTW himmy , nothing personal. It's just that Metro just nailed the perfect-edgy-reply, word by word.)

 

[Zeriel]

EDIT: 9 hours left.

Decent countdown!
Alternatively: http://www.isitmay19thyet.com/

It releases at 4pm PDT today so that's kind of a shit website.

The official GOG Galaxy page has a correct timer.

 

[Perkel]

I played TW1 before reading the books and I enjoyed it a lot despite not having any prior knowledge. The game led me to the books, so I guess it did a pretty good job.

Ditto. Word by word. Then Potatowski decided to fuck up his own universe and go full-retard Twilight style, but the first books are still enormously enjoyable and a big sticky dick in the face of the majority of the newly released fantasy literature out there.

Definitely first two collection of short stories are the best.
Novela on other hand has its ups and downs.

Either way one can't exist without one another imo. Those downs are as important to the overall saga and act as sort of a glue that ties together characters.

Blood of elves isn't particularly interesting for people who read two books before it but after better time of contempt saga then goes into overdrive with Tower of Swallows and imo is as good as first two books. Then slows down and finally goes into interesting but not as good Lady of the Lake.

Surprisingly recently released Season of Storms is awesome as it has more to do with short stories than novel (chronologically it is actually before start of novela)

 

[Jools]

EDIT: 9 hours left.

Decent countdown!
Alternatively: http://www.isitmay19thyet.com/

(and especially, "who is anticipating the game but hasn't flushed his own self-esteem down the toilet of dweebery so much as to need a fucking countdown?)

 

[WhiteGuts]

Yeah I'll definitely wait for the patch, at least.

 

[ArchAngel]

No, I will be waiting until I can buy a new graphics card/computer as the only good thing about this game is graphics and I cannot get that with my current one.

 

[hivemind]

So will we have a spoiler free thread once the game is released?

 

[Infinitron]

So will we have a spoiler free thread once the game is released?

Trying to keep Codex threads separated between spoiler-free and not spoiler-free isn't something I'm paid enough to enforce. Hopefully people will be courteous enough to use spoiler tags.