The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CDPR talked at GDC about the animations they created just for the expansion.

[quote]
CD Projekt animation director Sebastian Kalemba put some impressive numbers to those scenes: over three years of development, the animation team had to create 16,000 unique animation assets for The Witcher 3.Adding up every sidequest and cutscene, all the monsters and bosses and NPCs, that was to cover more than 200 hours of gameplay.

For the two DLC expansions, you’d think all that existing animation would’ve put them on easy street. But that’s not how CD Projekt Red works, apparently. Instead, the animation team had only a year of development time, but ended up doing even more work in the same timeframe. For the 50 hours of DLC Kalemba estimated, they created almost 7,000 new animations.[/quote]

And the live concert recording is now available on GOG incl. 20GB 4K version which I am of course downloading right now:

If anyone bought it on youtube, you can get the GOG version for free by contacting support.

Write up about the author.

Sapkowski, not wishing anyone wait more than a year for a new story (he still remembers how disappointed he was one year in Montreal when the bookshop had no new Zelazny for him), then turned out a new novel annually like clockwork. In 1999, the Witcher Saga was complete. If only George R R Martin wrote as quickly! “Do you know I know him personally?” Sapkowski replies. “We are friends. We know each other. We drink unbelievable quantities of beer.”

Anyone read the books, how do the English translated versions hold up?
Or do I need to learn Polish(?) to read them without any weird (cultural reference) translations?

Read Last Wish long ago and am no relistening to it on audio in order to finally go through the entire series now that the Witcher Saga is finally available fully in English as of this month. Love em.

My favourite book saga long before the first game came out, but I only read them in czech, which is according to Sapkowski best nonpolish version…no idea how the english translation is, but I read on reddit it is good enough.

The first two English translations are decent, but rough at times. You can tell that the US publisher assigned them to the B team of translator/editor.

Once the franchise started to show obvious potential for profitability, the quality of the translations went up proportionately.

I think if you play the games, the books are worth reading no matter how they compare to the original. There are so many moments in the game where, if you read the books, you recognize a reference to something that happened in the books. The game is good in that you don’t have to have read the books, but the game feels richer for having read them.

My plan is finish reading all the books, then play the whole trilogy. Never finished Witcher 1 and 2, and while I played 3, next run I’ll play it as a completionist. :)

Minor necro:

Do I need to play Witcher 2 to enjoy/get more out of Witcher 3? I thought Witcher 1 is a bit meh.

No, I tried repeatedly to play Witcher 2 and could never get into it - and Witcher 3 is one of my top few games of all time. ;)

I’ve played all three and I could never go back to the first two. W3 set the bar very high with its writing, game mechanics, and open world splendor. If you’re up for it I would suggest you tackle the books if you want to get up to speed on The Witcher lore but it’s certainly not a requirement to play Witcher 3. The writers did a really good job of filling in the backstory for non readers.

This is a good reminder that I do mean to go back and play Witcher 2.

I haven’t beaten Witcher 3 yet, but I really preferred Witcher 2 at this point, mainly for its tight and streamlined experience. I played through Witcher 2 fully 3 different times, it really doesn’t take that long.

It’s funny, but I’m taking the inverse argument that I do for the Mass Effect games here - in that case, I value the open world exploration experience of ME1 and Andromeda over the tightly focused more cinematic experience of ME 2 and 3. What can I say, I contain multitudes.

Reminds me, I’m still plugging away. 6 months in, and I just entered Skellige last night. 6 months and 50 hours after starting.

Partly because I’ve been doing a ton of sidequests. Partly by intent, partly by necesity. Getting <10 hours of gaming a month has meant that sessions are infrequent and scattered. An hour means I spend a good 15-20 minutes just reorienting myself. So I tend to do lots of sidequests, as I can knock a few back in a session, instead of partially doing one main story mission.

‘Hey, I’ve got 40 minutes. I’m going to track down this set of witcher gear, and do this one monster contract’

Which leads me to the situation where it may be literally a month between main story missions. And now I’ve got Djikstra asking me to help him kill the king. Umm, ok? Why would I/ would I not do that? Like I’m sure if my play had been more contained I would be more easily able to answer the question of what I want to do. But I can’t remember what they are!

So I come to you, good folks of Qt3, what are the arguments for aiding/ hindering the regicide? I’m leaning towards aiding, simply because I think the witch hunters of Novigrad are empowered by this king, and seriously screw those guys.

Here’s where playing Witcher 2 comes in handy - he’s an asshole, and he’s crazy. So in the “for” column, you could use it to work out any possible frustrations that might exist. Ahem.

The choice is framed as patriotism vs ecumenicalism vs professionalism.

Do you think Geralt is a northerner patriot, that the invasion and conquest of so many kingdoms by Nilfgaard is a crime? Is the mad king going to lead the last northern kingdom Redania to ruin?

Is Geralt a professional who shouldn’t get involved in politics as a matter of course?

Are the crimes against non-humans too great for Geralt to bear? Does justice demand that you hinder Redenia on their behalf even if it might mean that Nilfgaard wins?

You’ve got to decide which of these your Witcher is.

Personally I’m split between non-intervention and stopping crimes against non-humans. I feel like if the world fiction allowing Witchers to assassinate kings more or less makes them de facto power brokers. But the Cult are a bunch of assholes to put it lightly.

And the fact that pretty much everyone except Geralt recognizes that he’s basically a power broker. Dude can’t step into a new territory without getting a summons to court.

I have to say that these sorts of stories are the heart of the Witcher universe to me. The actual story about some angry Protoss warping in from Aiur and randomly attacking some miserable mud encrusted Ruthenian villagers is less interesting and dramatic to me.