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

[Infinitron]

No, the writing in Witcher 1 is just not good. Individual lines that are kind of cool? Yes. A few entire conversations that are cool, even? Yeah, I guess.

But it just doesn't come together. It's poorly paced. In the end, you barely have any idea what exactly happened. Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game full of conspiracies, political intrigues and stuff. But it's so poorly done that it just feels like a sequence of random events. I may have gotten more genuine Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue thrills from that single conversation you have with Triss and Zoltan at the bar upon arriving at Flotsam in Witcher 2 than in the entire third act of Witcher 1.

 

[Perkel]

If you think that TW2 writing > TW1 writing, I truly don't know what to say...

Overall yes. But TW2 has really hit nail in character presentation something TW1 lacked due to tech and being first game from potatoland.
Compared to TW1 in TW2 dialogues simply flow in books style.

Problem with TW2 was that it to much concentrated on political drama that never was part of books. Sure it was imporant part but it always functioned as backdrop instead of being on forefront of action. It tries to present different factions as something that matters to Geralt.

With TW3 at least they acno. it and went for personal story instead of again political drama.

 

[Metro]

Need a custom tag for Perkel: Undisputed Queen of Witcher Faggotry.

 

[Karwelas]

No, the writing in Witcher 1 is just not good. Individual lines that are kind of cool? Yes. A few entire conversations that are cool, even? Maybe.

But it just doesn't come together. It's poorly paced. In the end, you barely have any idea what exactly happened. Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game full of conspiracies, political intrigues and stuff. But it's so poorly done that it just feels like a sequence of random events. I may have gotten more genuine Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue thrills from that single conversation you have with Triss and Zoltan at the bar upon arriving at Flotsam in Witcher 2 than in the entire third act of Witcher 1.

Infi, could I get link to that 'Dex curator list? I'm retarded and I can't find it. And by the way, what game have best writing for you?

 

[Stainless Veteran]

The main problem of TW1 writing is that CDPR have written it with assumption that most players have read the books — which is most certainly true for both polish and russian RPG fans (Wiedźmin is very popular in Russia, btw, we were blessed to have very, very good translation of the series). Even when they came up with amnesia storyline, many secondary quests, characters motivations and other background stuff aren't explored and explained because there's no need to do it for anyone who have read the series.

TW2, on the other hand, had such elements too, but it was built on exiting foundation of TW1, so the world and many characters and factions were already familiar to the player.

IMO, writing is really good in both of the games, it's just TW1 is less friendly to newcomers.

 

[MasPingon]

No, the writing in Witcher 1 is just not good. Individual lines that are kind of cool? Yes. A few entire conversations that are cool, even? Maybe.

But it just doesn't come together. It's poorly paced. In the end, you barely have any idea what exactly happened. Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game full of conspiracies, political intrigues and stuff. But it's so poorly done that it just feels like a sequence of random events. I may have gotten more genuine Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue thrills from that single conversation you have with Triss and Zoltan at the bar upon arriving at Flotsam in Witcher 2 than in the entire third act of Witcher 1.

You are right, but the history of TW development was a ride through hell. I'm suprised they were even able to somehow connect those chapters so what we got was sometimes awkward in execution but logical story. Not long before the game was published there were only unrelated shreds of story and locations. Ever been wondering wtf 4th chapter is doing there?

 

[prodigydancer]

Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game

It was the cool part. Too bad it flew over your head.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

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

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

 

[Perkel]

No, the writing in Witcher 1 is just not good. Individual lines that are kind of cool? Yes. A few entire conversations that are cool, even? Maybe.

But it just doesn't come together. It's poorly paced. In the end, you barely have any idea what exactly happened. Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game full of conspiracies, political intrigues and stuff. But it's so poorly done that it just feels like a sequence of random events. I may have gotten more genuine Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue thrills from that single conversation you have with Triss and Zoltan at the bar upon arriving at Flotsam in Witcher 2 than in the entire third act of Witcher 1.

You see this is why reading books is crucial to understanding TW1 writing.

As a someone who is new to game you expect political stuff to be important. I mean this is reasonable logic. Game presents you with political plot in act3 thus you expect it to delve deep into it like Game of Thrones. You expect Game of Thrones style red weeding or something like that.

But if you read books you will not expect this. Instead you expect that Geralt will be tied in roundabout way to intrigue but he won't be its main actor or even 5th one or 7th one and it the end intrigue itself will probably resolve itself without any input from Geralt side of things. (which actually happens if you summarize plot)

As for randomness. That was the whole point of it. Main part of Act3 was banquet where you meet that merchant that have leads on salamandra. Through this banquet you also meet Ada and that Order of Flaming rose guy which points things in different direction but doesn't explicitly show you anything.

Also Thallar best spy in any game aside probably Dijkistra from TW3 which should be awsome if CDPR will give him as much care as rest of characters.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

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:

 

[himmy]

No, the writing in Witcher 1 is just not good. Individual lines that are kind of cool? Yes. A few entire conversations that are cool, even? Maybe.

But it just doesn't come together. It's poorly paced. In the end, you barely have any idea what exactly happened. Take the game's third act, for instance, when you gain access to the Trade Quarter. That's supposed to be a cool part of the game full of conspiracies, political intrigues and stuff. But it's so poorly done that it just feels like a sequence of random events. I may have gotten more genuine Game of Thrones-esque political intrigue thrills from that single conversation you have with Triss and Zoltan at the bar upon arriving at Flotsam in Witcher 2 than in the entire third act of Witcher 1.

I dunno, I just finished playing W1 two days ago for the first time (after a few false starts) and the writing was what ultimately made me want to finish the game. It genuinely managed to not ruin every piece of mystery or conspiracy it hints at by over-explaining it, as virtually every other game I have ever played does. Cool lines and convos aside, both Chapter II and III (the latter to a lower extent) had tangible over-arching plots that were constructed through a mesh of interlocking quests and exposed gradually, rather than killing rats in the basement all game, only to find out that Satan was behind them all along in the last 5 minutes of the game.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not just the politics stuff, though.

Take the second chapter of Witcher 1. Geralt is for some reason shocked, SHOCKED at having been ambushed by Salamandra agents in the sewers, despite the fact that they've been hounding him for the entire game prior to that and that the entire Temple Quarter swarms with Salamandra thugs at night (which in itself is incredibly silly). So he decides he needs to go to the trouble of hiring the services of a detective to uncover this mystery, and this somehow leads to a quest where he becomes convinced that somebody in town is evil or something, and sidequests entitled "Suspect: X" begin mysteriously appearing and disappearing from your journal for reasons that aren't entirely clear. OK, so none of this makes much sense, but at least there's some cool C&C at the end of it all, right? Except in the end you discover none of this is even the point of the chapter. Instead you're collecting stones to unlock some tower in the swamp, because...because...uh, something.

Like MasPingon said, you can tell they had lots of cool ideas and "set piece" concepts in mind when they made the game ("We want to have politics!", "We want to have a detective mystery!"), but they didn't really know quite how to put them together.

 

[Orma]

Witcher 1 definitely had superior writing. (and c&c, atmosphere, even gameplay (yes, at least i didn't roll and could actually drink potions))

Witcher 2's ''blood spilled on holy stone, now the whole land is cursed with undeath'' potato writing made me cringe and rage quit soon after.

 

[DDZ]

Witcher 1 was unplayable for me. Tried it at release and afew times later, never got out of the shitty intro castle.

Then a couple of months bacK I finally got to the first village and quit there because jesus christ uninteresting and tedious as fuck

 

[undecaf]

All it's clumsiness and relative simplicity aside, W1 managed to feel a bit more like playing an RPG rather than a some sort of narrative driven combat/rolling simulation of which there are all too many these days and all of which are basically carved from the same tree. Some do their job slightly better than others, but there's little difference in the end when looking at the bigger picture. It's the same kind of shit every time.

 

[ArchAngel]

Witcher 1 was unplayable for me. Tried it at release and afew times later, never got out of the shitty intro castle.

Then a couple of months bacK I finally got to the first village and quit there because jesus christ uninteresting and tedious as fuck

First village is not the most interesting part of the game. Although it lets you fuck a witch :D

 

[Perkel]

It's not just the politics stuff, though.

Take the second chapter of Witcher 1. Geralt is for some reason shocked, SHOCKED at having been ambushed by Salamandra agents in the sewers, despite the fact that they've been hounding him for the entire game prior to that and that the entire Temple Quarter swarms with Salamandra thugs at night (which in itself is incredibly silly). So he decides he needs to the go the trouble of hiring the services of a detective to uncover this mystery, and this somehow leads to a quest where he becomes convinced that somebody in town is evil or something, and sidequests entitled "Suspect: X" begin mysteriously appearing and disappearing from your journal for various bizarre reasons. OK, so none of this makes much sense, but at least there's some cool C&C at the end of it all, righ?. Except in the end you discover none of this is even the point of the chapter. Instead you're collecting stones to unlock some tower in the swamp, because...because...uh, something.

Like MasPingon said, you can tell they had lots of cool ideas and "set piece" concepts in mind when they made the game ("We want to have politics!", "We want to have a detective mystery!"), but they didn't really know how to put them together into a well-paced narrative.

few good points (tower and night attacks) aside investigation was the best part of Act2. If you generally would fallow main line you would probably butcher that thug in whore district. Imo it is one of the best designed quest chains.

Not because they are particularly superbly designed at every stage but because it overall design shines. That quest chain gives you question for which you look for answer for and then it compares your answer with reality.

TW2 writing was near-lethally boring watered down nonsense which insta-evaporated from my mind as soon as I quit the game (and I quit it about halfway through, so maybe it gets better closer to the end - I'll never know). If you think that TW2 writing > TW1 writing, I truly don't know what to say...

Coming back to TW2 once again.

This is excelent also reason why those who read books didn't find it boring.

Especially third act is what makes biggest difference.

For example The Lodge of Sorceress and Filipa Eilhart. For new players both of those are really poorly done character and idea. For book readers they know exactly who Filipa is, what is her history, what does The Lodge of Sorceress and its goals are.

I mean for example what your reaction would be if you would knew that Filipa and Triss were sexing each other ?
What your reaction would be if you knew connection of Ciri, Yennefer and Triss with that Lodge ?

What was the whole point behind meeting in Loc Muine and what was reason behind Lodge there. Why they needed to officialy reinstall mages as part of goverments ?

If you read books you know that after Thanned whole northern kingdom mage society is completely dismantled and Lodge was created for prosperity of mages regardless of borders so that something like Thanned won't occur again on other hand Lodge actions are strict and merciless to those who oppose it. Mages were the reason why last time Nilfgard failed and why they had to do Thanned Coup thus destroying Northern Kingdoms huge military part.

Without that baggage from books certain parts of TW2 political drama won't ever be known to players who didn't read books.

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps one of the reasons Witcher 1's fourth act is fondly remembered by some is because its dream-like nature worked well with the kind of writing CD Projekt's writers were capable of producing at the time. Stories about mystery and politics require tight, logical plotting. A rural daydream fairy tale story can get by with less, putting more emphasis on overall atmosphere and "feels", which the game excelled at.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

While you're arguing about bullshit, some sad soul is preparing to pay me close to $300 for my copy of the CE. This world has gone mad.

 

[Perkel]

Perhaps one of the reasons Witcher 1's fourth act is fondly remembered by some is because its dream-like nature worked well with the kind of writing CD Projekt's writers were capable of producing at the time. Stories about mystery and politics require tight, logical plotting. A rural daydream fairy tale story can get by with less, putting more emphasis on overall atmosphere and "feels", which the game excelled at.

I think it resonated so well with people because it didn't require book lore to fully grasp what is going on. Still if you read books you would for example remember characters like Rayla or Toruviel.

Hell there is in TW1 quest where you need to get back Dendelion lute. That lute was actually given to him by Toruviel on someone important order. Though at that time she wasn't "friendly". (at the end of the world short story from last wish book). Again for new player you don't know who Toruviel was or why the hell that lute was important.

Though i think her being there was a bit hamfisted.

 

[MicoSelva]

'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.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

The EDGE is getting sharper the closer we are getting to the release.

 

[Gerrard]

Meanwhile my game that I ordered on Thursday is not even shipped yet, despite the huge "shipping in 24h" sign on the page.

 

[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.

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)

 

[Ulminati]

'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?