5363

I think that’s a pretty gigantic mis-apprehension of CDPR’s writing talent, actually. The Witcher books gave them great backgrounds materials, but frankly–and this may be sacrilege–they’ve far surpassed their references now, and often in TW3 I get the sense that they’ve felt hampered as much as helped by the source material. There was a great post-mortem with some of the writers where they talked about how stuff like The Bloody Baron quest line and writing came from a few personal experiences dealing with abuse that were from the writing team in general, for instance.

5364

Yeah, the writing for Witcher games is mostly original writing, even if based on characters/settings from the books. They also took some liberties with some characters and stories to better fit the games, and they did that masterfully, so I’m pretty sure their writing team can handle pretty much anything and do a good job.

5365

Later books of the series aren’t that great. I always said I liked the series more when it was stand alone tales than when it turned into another fantasy saga of multiple volumes. It falls a bit too much on fantasy tropes from other fantasy series. Like, the protagonist has to make a long, dangerous journey in his quest for saving someone so a good amount of some of the books it’s going from A to B, he gets a party of friends during the travel, that risk their lives even if they don’t have a personal stake in the quest, there is a prophecy of the ‘chosen one’ that surprise surprise, affects the protagonists, there is a evil megalomaniac wizard as the arch enemy, etc.

There are of course good parts in there, but I wish they would have developed inside another different overall plot. The setting, tone and characters are the best part of The Witcher, and funnily that’s the main part taken by the video games.

5366

Hopefully, whatever this is blows over. CDPR just made one of the greatest videogames I’ve ever had the pleasure to play. I’d hate to see them either diminished by an EA acquisition, or to waste their time w/ marginal EA properties.

No offense, but even the best Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles, while decent games, are not worth even a glance by CDPR, they’re so vastly inferior to the Witcher games. Their half baked ‘lore’ isn’t worth development time by a house that’s much better served following its own muse.

5367

Completely agree. CDProjekt’s writing on this series surpasses the source material. Maybe the source is diminished by translation, and I still like the books, but the writing in the series is at least consistently good.

In any event, to answer Alistair’s question, the games had zero input from the book’s author and did not incorporate any writing - this is a really talented crew of developers.

5368

I think the lore of the ME and DA games is actually pretty good, despite some missteps, so calling it half-baked is a little much given the fact that it’s one of the strengths of the franchises, but agree that CDPR would be wasted making games in those franchises. I really, really look forward to what they come up with in a non-fantasy setting.

Remember that CDPR had a relationship with BioWare prior to releasing the 1st Witcher and licensed the Neverwinter engine (and modified it beyond recognition), and really liked that game.

5369

Hmmmm. Maybe some EA studio wants to license the Red Engine or something? Could be.

5370

No chance. They are committed to Frostbite for everything.

5371

The lore of ME, particularly the first game, is one of it’s strengths. There is a lot of care and thought put into the way the universe evolved, and done so quite smartly too. Granted much of what made the universe of ME so good was diminished by later entries into the series, but that’s another story.

I’m curious why you think they’d be wasted on a ME game though? I think you’re right about seeing what they could do with a sci-fi universe, and the ME one is as good as any. If they did their thing on a standalone ME game I could see it being quite good. Unless you mean their talents would be wasted on it because they would be working with EA, not because of working on ME. In which case I’d probably agree.

5372

CDPR denies EA takeover rumors.

5373

OK, sorry about half baked. I wasn’t particularly taken by either world but I was overly dismissive. Still, I don’t think either universe deserves the time of CDPR. I’d prefer they either work with their own IP or cast their net into the wider realm of literature instead of limiting themselves to existing game franchises.

5374

That’s just repeating the Twitter secondhand non-denial from Marcin Momot about what Marcin Iwinski said.

“Just bumped into Marcin Iwiński - it was new to him. I guess the “informer” has better insight than the @CDPROJEKTRED founder. :)”

5375

If I were a financial advisor, I’d say these things to CDP:

  1. Your company has never been worth as much as it is right now. It may never be worth more.

  2. People said Thing #1 to Apple sometime around the release of the Ipod Classic, too. You guys know what the content for the expansions look like. You guys know how Cyberpunk 2077 is shaping up. If either of those things make you think “This is up to the standards of The Witcher 3”, then thing #1 may be completely invalidated by 2017.

5376

Now, this is a denial.

“We usually don’t comment on rumours but this one has become quite viral and we think it deserves to be put to bed,” said co-founder Marcin Iwinski on behalf of the Board. “We are not talking with anyone regarding selling CD Projekt Red or GOG.com. Period. And the payslip is a fake - it was not issued by our company.”

5377

Payslip verifications and the like are funny. There was that rumor about Insomniac working on a Banjo-Kazooie (or maybe Conker, I forget which) game that turned out to be fake, and when Kotaku (who didn’t bite, but instead did a story about how a fake gets spread around) posted the supposed email about payment, the first thing I noticed is that it didn’t use the right terminology.

5378

That is categorical. Good on them.

5379

What’s really funny about this fake/rumor is that even if the payslip had been real, and the contact really was an employee of CDPR, the conclusion he/she suggested - that EA was there to buy the company - could very easily have been wrong anyway. It’s not like Joe Schmoe (or Schmoinsky) would’ve been told why an EA rep was touring the place, and there are a dozen good reasons why that rep could be there that have nothing to do with an acquisition.

5380

It’s even possible, really, that the EA rep wasn’t there as an EA rep but just knows someone who works there and was getting a tour because he’s a fan and was in the area for another thing entirely. I mean, really the possibilities are nearly endless. I’m glad this was a fake though, now I just wish people used their time more wisely than trying to fool a bunch of gaming nerds. :P

5381

And I wish sites like DSOGaming wouldn’t waste their (and our) time reporting on false rumors by “informants” presenting questionable evidence. But since nowadays it’s “everything for page views”…

5382

I still can’t get this to work. I used to like Triss. Now she’s been blocking my progress in the game for so long, I hate her.

I’m thinking I should find a much older save and never start this mission. Leave Triss to her own devices in Novagrad and just move on to Skillige.