Apart from the Witcher 3 paid DLCs.
rei
5004
i would pay for more bangable npcs.
Yes, I expect the Season Pass stuff to be substantial and worthy of my money. These little bits and bobs? Not so much. Some are okay like the quest and the Witcher gear. Some are just lame like the alt outfits. New finisher animations? Uh, whatever, I guess. But the long and short of it is that I wouldn’t pay for any of this stuff separately.
It’s akin to the majority of the DLC they released for Borderlands 2 or Saints Row IV. Skippable. Only a few of the DLC options added to the game in any real way.
Obviously nobody sane would pay for these separately, which is why they are free. It is a nice bonus.
Too bad some other companies offer stuff like this and expect money for it, which only non-sane people are paying.
I’m sure that there would have been a fair number of people who would have paid. I’m just pleased as punch with the developers that they are supporting the game with all this free stuff!
robc04
5008
Man I wish the Season Pass stuff was out so I could start a new game and get a lot of new content. Don’t want to start a new game and see 80% of the same content as my first playthrough.
Regarding the free DLC, I’m surprised how RPS posts about every one. Free advertising and cheap goodwill I guess.
Maybe they’re atoning for their Witcher 1 review.
JeffL
5011
Free DLC is very cool. They make no money on these, so they are purely work they are putting in to give their customers “more.” I love these guys. ;)
Finally finished the game after little more than 120 hours. Probably my favorite game of all-time, I find it hard to imagine how CD Projekt was able to create this. Feels like the bar has been raised for every other RPG developer out there.
It’s interesting to compare this with Dragon Age:Inquisition, which is another RPG released recently that I also spent about 100 hours playing. While DA:I is by no means a bad game (otherwise I wouldn’t have played it so much!) it feels so dated compared to The Witcher in my opinion. TW3 feels superior in every way, basically. Really amazing, can’t wait for the expansions!
olaf
5013
The free DLCs vary a good bit in terms of how I value them but one thing applies to them universally…I would have liked them to have been content included on release day.
Good grief. You just can’t please some people.
I think it’s a valid complaint. Here we are weeks after the launch, and the next-to-last DLC is alternate combat finishing moves? Why?
robc04
5016
I can’t tell if you’re being serious or sarcastic.
I seriously doubt they had all the DLCs ready before release and decided to artificially rip them out of the game for some PR. CDP isn’t (insert big publisher here).
I’m being serious. olaf may have a lot of complaints I don’t agree with, but I share his questions about this DLC strategy. I totally understand why it’s good for CDPR. It’s a PR win, (“Free DLC!”) it engages the customer and keeps them loyal, it encourages legitimate purchases and keeping players connected via the steady drip-feed of tiny improvements. Obviously, I prefer free over paid DLC. Who wouldn’t, right?
But at the same time, we’re at a little over a month after launch and now we’re getting additional finishing moves for Geralt’s combat. Why not make that the first or second DLC? Why the 15th? According to Steam, (yes I know the majority of players are on GOG or PS4 versions) 21% of people have finished the game, which is actually a pretty good percentage compared to most games. A lot of those people won’t even see these new moves until the expansions drop or they come back for a second playthrough.
It’s not a crime against humanity or whatever, but it kind of sucks for people that actually played the game already.
CraigM
5019
But flip that a bit: if this had been one of the first add ons, then the system would be criticized for being insignificant. Things like quests are more exciting, the finishing moves may be cool, but don’t carry the same punch. It’s a difficult problem to resolve, and one I don’t envy them for having to schedule.
robc04
5020
That’s true for some of the other DLC too, like extra quests. I finished the game and won’t see any extra quests until they expansions drop.
I agree that you’re not really going to make everyone happy with any solution. You can drip-feed it out or you can bundle it up and make everyone wait. I think either way, the early adopters that finished the game get kind of boned.
I know I’ve seen multiple posts from people (some on this board, some on others) that say they started playing at launch, but are waiting for all 16 bits of DLC to come out before going back to the game. I can understand that.
Well, I’ve been playing nearly every day since launch day, and I think this is nicely timed so that the combat animations will get more variety during the 2/3rds of the game still to go. (I’m guessing on that, I have no idea how much is still left, only that I’ve played around 67 hours).
