Preview Witcher 3 Twitch Livestream + Media Blitz

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

Tags: CD Projekt; Marcin Iwinski; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

A few days ago, CD Projekt announced that they would be broadcasting a special Witcher 3: Wild Hunt presentation on the GOG Twitch channel, including 15 minutes of "never-before-seen" gameplay highlights and a Q&A session with two of the game's developers. The date of the broadcast was today, right on the heels of PAX South, and it's about to begin:

This coming Monday, GOG.com and CD PROJEKT RED invite you to a special live streamed event at the GOG.com Twitch channel!

We'll be showcasing 15 minutes of completely fresh The Witcher: Wild Hunt gameplay highlights, while Damien Monnier - Senior Gameplay Designer, and Miles Tost - Level Designer, will be coming in live from the studio to provide developer commentary for the new footage. They'll be offering their insight, and an exclusive peek at the development process behind closed curtains at CD PROJEKT RED.

Once the gameplay commentary is finished, we will hold a live Q&A session on the air. Damien Monnier and Miles Tost will take the time to respond to live comments coming in via Twitch chat, as well as to select questions from the GOG.com community forums! It's a rare opportunity to ask about all the saucy details of The Witcher: Wild Hunt development.

If you have any questions for the folks at CD PROJEKT RED, you can submit them right here in this thread. You have until Sunday, Jan 25 at 7:00 PM GMT to submit your questions, when we'll be selecting the most interesting ones to throw at the devs during the live chat.

The live stream will begin on Monday Jan 26 7:00 PM GMT / 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST (you will find a countdown clock below) at Twitch.tv/GOGcom. Follow our channel for an e-mail alert when we go live. We'll see you there!

While you're waiting for the presentation to begin, you might want to check out one of the many Witcher 3 previews which appeared across the Internet today, in a well-coordinated media blitz: Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, Polygon, GameSpot, IGN, and probably a bunch more. I particularly recommend the Polygon preview for an honest admission from CD Projekt joint CEO Marcin Iwinski about the company's new priorities. Ahem.

Update: Well, it's over. The gameplay segment was pretty disappointing, since the two devs kept talking over it and pausing, even though it was already disjointed and heavily edited. The Q&A session had a few interesting tidbits, though.

Update 2: The gameplay segment of the stream, sans developer commentary, has been uploaded to the official Witcher YouTube channel.

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

It's on.

Helly · Jan 26, 2015

CD Projekt said:
"With every single game, we're adding a lot more polish and making it a lot more welcoming to the general gamer," he says. "I think this is just the way games should be done. I really admire, for example, BioWare or Bethesda for introducing its games to gamers."

hiver · Jan 26, 2015

Its not a live gameplay video because these guys are not playing. They are just going over the pre-recorded hype movie.

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

Updated OP. :smug:

Grotesque · Jan 26, 2015

"general cyberpunk for the general gamer"

Morkar Left · Jan 26, 2015

It's two guys sitting there and answering questions about Witcher 3. Really newsworthy?

undecaf · Jan 26, 2015

Grotesque said:
"general cyberpunk for the general gamer"

A hollow turd, in other words.

cvv · Jan 26, 2015

Just switched it on - who are these guys? The devs or some kind of PR bitches?

The one with the glasses said he hates QTEs and that's a good sign if he's a developer.

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

Morkar said:
It's two guys sitting there and answering questions about Witcher 3. Really newsworthy?

I said there was also gameplay segments.

cvv said:
Just switched it on - who are these guys? The devs or some kind of PR bitches?

The one with the glasses said he hates QTEs and that's a good sign if he's a developer.

Can't you read

two of the game's developers

Damien Monnier - Senior Gameplay Designer, and Miles Tost - Level Designer

cvv · Jan 26, 2015

Infinitron said:
Can't you read

No I can't.
Write it again pliz.

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

Stream's over, updated OP.

Infinitron · Jan 26, 2015

Gameplay segment of the stream sans annoying devs:

Zed · Jan 26, 2015

over-animated talk sequences make people look like they all have parkinson's.

gerdolt from the riviera is still the dumbest fucking dolt in gaming.

but it's pretty, I'll give you that. almost on par with 2011's elder scrolls skryim with today's mods.

hiver · Jan 26, 2015

Geralts coat clips through the horse. Horses tail crates a shadow separate from horses body.

Bloom. Although not too strong.

Exclamation marks over important quest related NPCs.

Rolling that doesnt affect stamina. More stamina then you will ever need.

Bloom.

Consilized Ui.

World split into separate zones. - which are fully open :lol:

kain30 · Jan 26, 2015

i don´t think i´m going to like TW3, it reminds me of skyrim :dead:

Grotesque · Jan 26, 2015

what I liked best best about the videos were the geese.

Consolized UI? Isn't The Withcher 3 inventory UI grid based now?

hiver · Jan 27, 2015

No idea. Havent seen any. The Ui that is visible is consolized as hell. Obviously.

Grotesque · Jan 27, 2015

Kem0sabe · Jan 27, 2015

At least it has a grid inventory, regardless, none of the witchers had good functional ui's, and the previous 2 were developed for PC.

The problem is not that CDP is developing a console centric UI, the problem is that they are fucking inept at designing a good UI... period.

Infinitron · Jan 27, 2015

Summary of Q&A at GameBanshee: http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/115...-january-2015-gameplay-video-q-a-summary.html

- Crafting requires a blueprint, ingredients and a craftsman NPC skilled enough to produce the object. Some of the most skilled craftsmen will need to be unlocked via quests.

- Geralt and Ciri share the same father-daughter bond as in the books. Finding his adopted daughter is one of Geralt's objectives during the game.

- Alchemy has been overhauled again. The basics are similar to those of the other two titles: Geralt needs a recipe and the correct ingredients to craft a potion. However, while in previous games a potion had only one use and ingredients were plentiful, potions in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will have more than one use - "three or four" according to CD Projekt RED's Damien Monnier - and ingredients will be much rarer and require considerable effort to find. CD Projekt RED balanced the ingredients' rarity by giving the players the ability to replenish a potion they previously crafted with alcohol while meditating.

- The extremely intensive "Ubersampling" option from The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is making a return, together with some other PC-only enhancements like NVIDIA HairWorks.

- Save imports will be handled in a manner similar to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II's. During the course of the game, Geralt will encounter a character that will recount his past exploits and will be able to correct him/her to set up the proper variables for the game.

- Currently the game is in the polish/bugfixing phase.

- During Ciri's playable segments the controls will feel familiar, but she has different abilities. It sounds like she might have a different dodge ability (perhaps teleportation magic?) but the developers didn't want to spoil exactly what it was.

- The game will feature quite a few minigames. The developers cited horse riding races, a card game named Gwent, and fistfighting. Much to my chagrin, they made no mention of dice poker.

hiver · Jan 27, 2015

I said consolized Ui not just inventory.

Siri has a "blink" ability, the exact same blink as Corvo in Dishonored, which was already shown in previous trailers so i have no idea what the fuck they are on about.

Kem0sabe said:
At least it has a grid inventory, regardless, none of the witchers had good functional ui's, and the previous 2 were developed for PC.

Harrumph. Not really. Only the first one was developed for PC. The second one was a ... abomination. Unholy wedlock of whatever they salvaged form the disastrous console version and whatever they managed to produce in the end.