rhamorim it was escorting the Bloody Baron. Just a frustration loop and a bad checkpoint. Wasn’t that hard after I ate some lunch and stopped being so pissed.
It takes 2 years and 400 people to get the run animation right. :)
Timex
3344
How big is Projekt Red, anyway?
Because I agree with what you’re saying here… The sheer density of content is astounding in this game. And not just the amount, but the fact that it’s seemingly ALL GOOD. I have yet to complete a quest where it felt recycled or throwaway. Even the most minor things seem like a lot of care was taken in making them seem real.
Yes, I think Witcher 3 is authentic and believable. It is a very human and humane game, with an almost philosophical/sociological view on the nature of human existence and interaction.
For instance,
spoilers for a White Orchard quest
[spoiler]in one of the quests in White Orchard, you talk to a hunter and you find out he’s been expelled from the village. During the dialog, he says he was expelled because he was a freak. If you manage to pick the right dialog (by saying “I’m a freak too”), the hunter reveals the exact reason - he was in love with the lord’s son, people caught the two together, the lord wouldn’t accept it and expelled him. The lord’s son hanged himself after that, and the lord went away, and the hunter never returned because 1) it was too painful and 2) he felt like a freak.
Now, someone like Gies could read that and say “hey, they’re saying a gay man is a freak”! And they would completely miss the point, which is to show that the man was not a freak, he felt like one because of the place/age/culture he lived in, which is a HUGE difference. And throughout the whole text, there’s no preachiness or anything - just a believable dialog full of heart, tragedy, and empathy. It’s much more effective and human than any of the anvilicious approaches Bioware has done over the years. It’s brilliant, and lots of people will miss that because they don’t care, or because they have an axe to grind.[/spoiler]
In fact, Gies could have picked on many similar positive notes throughout the game (and there are tons of them). He could show how humane the game is, how further it goes into things like empathy and misery and the human condition, things so dearly important if you’re really passionate about social justice at all. But no, he had to point out where it fails (in his perception). It does feel a bit dishonest.
Bateau
3346
I’m really not impressed with Skellige Islands so far. I’ve only been to Faroe island and it sucked so much ass that I almost closed the game.
rant
shitty terrain with impassable mountains, flying mobs, fps killing foilage everywhere, bioware tier quest writing, seen-it-a-thousand-times spin on viking lore. Did they outsorce this? Please tell me that other islands are better.
Ah yeah, I played it yesterday. I got killed there, then reassessed - and judicious use of Yrden and parrying made it easy the second time around. In fact, I loved that - that thinking about combat and monster weaknesses turned a really hard encounter into a easily manageable one. It feels like there’s always an easy way, and sometimes it’s a matter of finding which that would be.
Timex
3348
I haven’t gotten there yet… Although I’m considering doing the quest that opens up the area, just to take a peek, and then go back to the mainland.
I don’t know about the quality of enemies, but I hear you on the “flavor” of the islands.
I feel the same way about all the dwarves having Scottish accents.
rhamorim I missed that quest! Nice writeup, thanks.
Shame about the islands. If there’s any place for throwaway content, that seems like a good candidate. We’ll see.
I figured the water was the main attraction there anyway.
Oh, hello everyone. I have more to say about this game.
We’ve seen racism against fantasy races a few times in RPGs now. It’s not that edgy anymore. But CDPR has used that background to indirectly demonstrate two unique social challenges. The amazing thing is they appear in a couple throwaway quests in Novigrad. Minor spoilers if you want to be surprised. The twist on expectations is kind of the fun part.
elven woman, bullying
The first involves an elven woman getting picked on by two assholes. If you tell them to scram they go away without a fight, but she complains that she’s the one that has to deal with the consequences later. Geralt merely swept the problem under the rug. It’s more of a story about bullying than racism. When Geralt says he was only trying to help, she mentions that he only did it to feel better about himself as if he were a white knight (!) pretending like he made a real change.
two elves, Nazism
The second one is when Geralt comes up to a gang beating up two elves. He runs them off and then advises the elves to get out of town. When they protest at the difficulty and expense, Geralt momentarily becomes an historian of 20th century Europe. He points out that when Novigrad’s resident nazis finish with their current scapegoat, they will turn toward minor races next. This is straight out of the build-up to WWII made famous by the “First they came…” poem. Except instead of a noble and unrealistic call to stand up for what’s right, Geralt gives them shrewd advice to get out while they still can.
Just some themes we don’t see very often in RPGs. And when they appear, they’re usually in the context of ham-fisted power fantasies.
Here’s the thing - most people can’t miss that hunter, because he’s the one that takes you to an important location related to the griffin. I imagine you don’t need to talk to him if you find the place on your own, but otherwise, you always talk to him. And most people won’t see that part I described because it’s behind some dialog options.
I was struck by that as well. You can watch the dialogue (spoiler!) here. I especially loved…
Spoiler!
…that Mislav the Hunter’s exile had led to his lover Florian hanging himself, which in turn prompted the lord to raid a village, which eventually led to another side quest (noonwraith).
After I noticed that, I started picking up on all kinds of little tie-ins between quests and side quests. Each insignificant in the long run by themselves, but add them up and they enrich the world in ways that I don’t think I’ve seen in another game.
Digital Foundry published their (hopefully) final word on the graphics downgrade issue.
I read articles like this, look at the images, and think “Yeah, I guess I see what they’re talking about.” Then I go back to playing the game, and the issue couldn’t matter less to me.
Timex
3355
If you are staring at the rocks that make up a wall on the corner of the city, you are witchering wrong.
My favorite subverting-the-fantasy-trope moment comes early on when Geralt is talking to a hunter and the hunter tells him that he was kicked out of his village for being a freak.
And Geralt is all,
To a carpenter everything looks like a nail
“Is is lycanthropy? I bet it’s lycanthropy. You know, they can treat that now. I can make you an unguent …”
But the hunter is like, "What? No.
it IS the Middle Ages after all
That exchange pretty much exemplifies how The Witcher differs from the default fantasy setting.
Yeah I completely missed that guy.
PSA: don’t explore the southwest of White Orchard until the main quest (in the northwest) takes you there via a quest.
PSA2: don’t freak out and restart, just watch the video like I will be doing!
You can’t miss it, it’s part of the main quest. It’s just an optional dialog option.
This is CD Projekt RED. You damn well can and will miss content. They’re not afraid of that. (And that’s okay!)
I found the nest on my own early on. When the main quest told me to go there, it just said go there. No Mislav. Never saw the guy.
Dejin
3360
That’s a great tip. Thanks Mike.
So I have this problem, but it needs to be spoiler tagged.
It’s about the ladies of the woods. Please advise me on it because i’m too damn afeared to make a choice, afeared to make the wrong one. Both sides of the coin seem potentially very horrible.
Swampladies
[spoiler]Do I kill the whispering tree thing, or set it free? It told me the crones are evil, that they murder the children. I didn’t really believe it, but I didnt want to kill it right away. Because what if it were right? So I told it see-ya and ran out to check on the orphanage in the bog. Not a soul to be found save a couple bunches of ravens. I’m inclined to set the thing free. But what about the evil it brings according to the villagers?
I really dug the writing on the johnny character in this quest. Goddamn that was delightful.[/spoiler]
Gonna go with kill on that one. I didn’t, and it wasn’t good for anyone.
