The Witcher author Andrzej Sapkowski's disdain of games

[HoboForEternity]

For a while after I took an interest in the witcher games, I thought Witcher 3's dialogues and story exposition were so good because Sapkowski was actively involved in writing and character concepts. When I learned that it was in fact the opposite case, I was really impressed with CDPR. I haven't read anything of the books but from what I know, they seem to have outdone him and then some.

Not really. Books as flawed as they may be are superior story-wise in everything compared to games. Especially TW3 that has the weakest plot of them all.
Books will always >>>>>>> games because they have infinitely stronger processor to rely upon- your brain.

well considering all a book have is story, it isn't kinda an obvious statement. what i think games have edge over books is interactivity, and rarely games use that to convey story.

but other than that, within a videogame writing standard, witcher 3 is a pretty well written game and hearts of stone's writing is some of the best videogame story there. i would put it on par with classics such as planescape or motb.

 

[Frozen]

TW2 has better story and in some way even TW1

TW3 had better pace of the story then TW1 because they used BioWare formula for TW3 story structure.

They were going for safe bet with TW3 and covered it up with sentimentality of a more personal story but without it its bland.

There is interactivity even in books- stories with branching arcs, mostly no more then 2 or 3 options- same as video games that just copied it.

The thing that differs games from books is gameplay and its best in TW3 from all 3 but still not great, too repetitive, bad leveling design, stupid AI etc.

Hearts of stone is overrated. Its not that Witcher writing is great, its mostly that writing in games is juvenile because target audience are still kids and teens and they are morons.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

well he's personally from Łódź so it's hardly justified

Hey, I've been to Lodz in Arma II. Which house was his?

 

[Carrion]

The writing in both the books and the games starts to decline drastically after Ciri replaces Geralt as the protagonist.

TW3 had better pace of the story then TW1 because they used BioWare formula for TW3 story structure.

I wouldn't call the pacing of TW3's main story very good since the first act takes about 90% of the game. TW1's chapter-based structure, on the other hand, worked pretty much perfectly for me.

TW1 suffers from being so obviously fan fiction, with lots of parts lifted more or less directly from the books, and there are some elements that are a bit off in terms of tone, like the whole mutant army thing. TW2 has the best story of the series, but the storytelling is all over the place, and it's missing a lot of the Slavic stuff of the other two games. TW3 really shines in dialogue and character interaction, but the main story is poor, partly because they were trying to incorporate some of the worst elements from Sapkowski's books, and partly because they failed to improve on those elements in any meaningful way.

 

[Frozen]

Ciri if done properly is more interesting character then Geralt...at least were he is at the end of TW3. His story is over, only thing left for him is to die. He was never that interesting from the beginning, Beowulf meets Bogie.
With Ciri story could go places, more into science fantasy, you could do more gameplay wise. She doesn't have to be main character, you could go full RPG building story around "a new" custom character, or go with party mode etc.

The appeal of these games is in a relatively fresh spin on fantasy genre- it doesn't go from medieval more early renascence period as a point of reference and has more dark and mature grim world. It doesn't have to do a lot with Slavic folklore, maybe 10% mostly names of places, people, monsters. The rest is typical western Tolkienesque/Arthurian based slog.

I completely disagree about first Witcher game. It wasn't a fan fiction it was alternate version and sum of themes from Witcher books (at the time nobody knew could they go through 3 games it was a coin toss). As a standalone game it can be interpreted as disconnected from the story of the books, or as continuation with other 2. And the passing in TW1 is terrible, it wasn't accident they went with BioWare formula for TW3- 4 cupcakes done in orderly fashion is more videogamy suited then 5 act linear chain butchered with awful gameplay and beginner mistakes in between (act 5 hospital entrence im looking at you, swamp, act 2...). There are no "acts" in TW3- you have 4 chunks of main story arc that can be accessed early on in any order, then it goes into end game ( pale ME2 suicide mission) and then it drags some more...by that time you see that they made a mistake not finishing it at Battle of Kaer Morhen. Its ME1, DA:O, KoTOr all over again and it works.

 

[Gerrard]

TW1 suffers from being so obviously fan fiction, with lots of parts lifted more or less directly from the books, and there are some elements that are a bit off in terms of tone, like the whole mutant army thing.

You say this, but these issues are even more pronounced in 3, and not because of lifting things from the books, but by the sheer stupidity and nonsensicality of events that take place.

 

[GelGel]

Some of you are being too harsh to the guy.

He took the money immediately because wasn't patient enough to wait for the greater income- WHO DO THE BLOODY CARES? He is a writer, not a banker!
Why do you need to observe everything through money?

I am not a Polish, but I learned quite a lot about Slavic folklore through his work. For me, Sapkowski is a good autor, neither more nor less then that.

 

[Carrion]

There are no "acts" in TW3- you have 4 chunks of main story arc that can be accessed early on in any order, then it goes into end game ( pale ME2 suicide mission) and then it drags some more...by that time you see that they made a mistake not finishing it at Battle of Kaer Morhen. Its ME1, DA:O, KoTOr all over again and it works.

The story follows a clear three-act structure, each act including visits to Velen, Novigrad and Skellige (arguably Kaer Morhen too). The actual story only really gets going after you find Ciri.

I think it woud've worked much better if the structure was something like:
White Orchard -> Velen/Novigrad -> Kaer Morhen -> Skellige (endgame)

As it is, almost all of the exploration and side-questing takes place in what is essentially the first act of the story, and the ending drags on while feeling rushed at the same time.

You say this, but these issues are even more pronounced in 3, and not because of lifting things from the books, but by the sheer stupidity and nonsensicality of events that take place.

Oh, definitely. I just couldn't be arsed to write another long post about everything that is wrong with TW3's story. They really nailed some aspects of Sapkowski's work while completely dropping the ball elsewhere.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Delterius]

Ciri if done properly is more interesting character then Geralt

Maybe they are both bad characters.

 

[Frozen]

You could do more with her about the story because in books all subplots roll around her.
Geralt is there just because, he could be replaced with any henchman, she couldn't.
In books she is more mature at times and demented, fucked up crazy little bitch. In TW3 she's a little Disney princes because...mass appeal.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't really care much for the main plot. I really loved exploring and solving secondary quests/witcher contracts/treasure hunts. They are worth it for their writing and stories, and they are self-contained, so I can play for some time, leave the game and come back.

I spent over 550 hours on my first playthrough and I recently picked it up again. Also, the Toussaints region was a godsend when I was already quite overleveled and was playing it for the fantasy story. Playing with mouse and keyboard, I think it's useless to try to find some value in Witcher 3 as a twitch-combat game.

 

[Des]

Ciri was a letdown in Witcher 3. The main plot of the game was just serviceable.The game was saved by its side content, some of the characters, and HOS.

Sapkowski is a good author that didnt believe that the games would make any money. He is just angry with himself. Give him a bottle of vodka and he will shut up for a while.

 

[Mikeal]

Given the usual fate of sci fi and fantasy writers, I can't blame him. Not everyone gets to be Neil Gaiman.

If you really want and old butthurt fucker, go read Michael Moorcock's opinions on many things. He believes GRRM and Sapkowski ripped his shtick off, and to be honest, he's kinda right when it comes to GRRM. But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

Out of curiosity how Martin ripped Moorcock? I read 3 first tomes of GoT and it's hard to say that they're similar to Elric stuff. Also he's pretty hypocritic, his most popular character is also rip-off so why he is raging about Martin and Sapkowski?

 

[Excidium II]

Moorcock is a cuck loser. He probably bitches about it because wombyns.

 

[pippin]

Given the usual fate of sci fi and fantasy writers, I can't blame him. Not everyone gets to be Neil Gaiman.

If you really want and old butthurt fucker, go read Michael Moorcock's opinions on many things. He believes GRRM and Sapkowski ripped his shtick off, and to be honest, he's kinda right when it comes to GRRM. But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

Out of curiosity how Martin ripped Moorcock? I read 3 first tomes of GoT and it's hard to say that they're similar to Elric stuff. Also he's pretty hypocritic, his most popular character is also rip-off so why he is raging about Martin and Sapkowski?

He thinks the Targaryen family is filled with Elric ripoffs (which is clearer on the books). He's basically angry with authors copying the albino, antihero role for their own creations. I guess he's angry because he's not as famous as them, although he routinely rejects tv or film adaptations of his work, so...

 

[Excidium II]

Given the usual fate of sci fi and fantasy writers, I can't blame him. Not everyone gets to be Neil Gaiman.

If you really want and old butthurt fucker, go read Michael Moorcock's opinions on many things. He believes GRRM and Sapkowski ripped his shtick off, and to be honest, he's kinda right when it comes to GRRM. But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

Out of curiosity how Martin ripped Moorcock? I read 3 first tomes of GoT and it's hard to say that they're similar to Elric stuff. Also he's pretty hypocritic, his most popular character is also rip-off so why he is raging about Martin and Sapkowski?

He thinks the Targaryen family is filled with Elric ripoffs (which is clearer on the books). He's basically angry with authors copying the albino, antihero role for their own creations. I guess he's angry because he's not as famous as them, although he routinely rejects tv or film adaptations of his work, so...

Everything is mysoginist or rips his gay fantasy novels off.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

You realize that this is a fake sub, right?

 

[pippin]

Given the usual fate of sci fi and fantasy writers, I can't blame him. Not everyone gets to be Neil Gaiman.

If you really want and old butthurt fucker, go read Michael Moorcock's opinions on many things. He believes GRRM and Sapkowski ripped his shtick off, and to be honest, he's kinda right when it comes to GRRM. But (coming from his own words) the thing that makes him rage like an idiot is that Sapkowksi had the gall to nickname his character "white wolf". He might be right but it's not like it's a super weird nickname for a fantasy character.

Out of curiosity how Martin ripped Moorcock? I read 3 first tomes of GoT and it's hard to say that they're similar to Elric stuff. Also he's pretty hypocritic, his most popular character is also rip-off so why he is raging about Martin and Sapkowski?

He thinks the Targaryen family is filled with Elric ripoffs (which is clearer on the books). He's basically angry with authors copying the albino, antihero role for their own creations. I guess he's angry because he's not as famous as them, although he routinely rejects tv or film adaptations of his work, so...

Everything is mysoginist or rips his gay fantasy novels off.

Eh, I still enjoyed his works, at least in comic book form. I don't know if they were direct adaptations, but I'd say they took more risks than Game of Thrones, but that's hardly a compliment, since GoT is a soap opera with swords and dragons.

 

[Mikeal]

Moorcock is a cuck loser. He probably bitches about it because wombyns.

Looks like being a cuck can disturb man perception of reality.

He thinks the Targaryen family is filled with Elric ripoffs (which is clearer on the books). He's basically angry with authors copying the albino, antihero role for their own creations. I guess he's angry because he's not as famous as them, although he routinely rejects tv or film adaptations of his work, so...

Ah alright thanks. I wonder what he is thinking about Japan given that half of heroes from animu/manga has white hairs. :D

 

[Excidium II]

All the gushing fanmail those fantasy writers received warped their view of reality.

 

[Dayyālu]

My appreciation of the series has gone up if it riled Moorcock that much.

The lesser of Moorcock's works (yes, even the bad ones) are ten times better than anything Martin or Sapkowski ever wrote. No, wait, Martin wrote some good shit ages ago (mostly short stories, I liked a lot Tuf Voyaging) but he's still inferior. Don't let the political opinions of Moorcock influence your opinion (should I consider Lovecraft as the racist he was or as a good author?) even if sometimes he went full derp (his LOTR review is hilarious).

Martin is stuck at writing boring soap operas for TV series, Sapkowski is so insanely mediocre I wonder why people even bother. I mean, he's at " dark retelling of Little Red Riding Hood" level of derp. Sometimes I ask myself if it was the translation: Sapkowski reads like an amateurish fanfiction writer (I personally place him closer to Leo Frankowski than "proper" authors like Moorcock or Martin).

But again, must be the translation.

 

[Excidium II]

should I consider Lovecraft as the racist he was or as a good author?

 

[pippin]

What I love about good old Sapkowski is that he made Ciri kill a bunch of thugs while ice skating. Not even George Lucas comes up with that shit.

 

[Somberlain]

Don't let the political opinions of Moorcock influence your opinion (should I consider Lovecraft as the racist he was or as a good author?)

What does your wife's son think?