6404

I just finished the main quest of Blood and Wine. Like the rest of the game I liked the story a lot. One thing that I notice that is different in the DLCs than the main game is that I tend to focus more on the main quest and less on exploring. I’m not sure why that is exactly. There are a bunch of side quests I didn’t do. I’m not sure if I just have a different mindset going into the DLC, or if there is something about the maps that don’t have me wandering around so much. I tend to enjoy the wilderness more than cities - so I probably ignore some quests that originate in a city.

I had trouble with the final battle. I wish there was a checkpoint in multistage battles after each stage. After I get by one stage I don’t want to have to repeat it when I fail on a subsequent stage. I ended up dropping the difficulty down one notch (from the 2nd hardest) and finished the battle first try after that.

Not sure how soon I’ll start a new playthrough, but I rather do that then New Game+. I like building up from scratch. There had to have been a lot of quests I didn’t do. Since much of the appeal of the game is due to the writing I don’t know how much I’d like replaying content.

6405

In the book (and I guess also in the movie) High Fidelity (which is for grownups and not about gaming at all), there’s a very climactic scene in which two characters act very uncharacteristically and have sex in a car. It happens following a death in the family of one of the characters, and this particular person wants to have sex simply because they want to feel something else besides the abject grief and despair they’ve been going through.

That’s always stuck with me when experiencing Geralt of Rivia as a character in fiction or a character in games. He’s a person who has been cut off from his emotions to one degree. In attempting to make him a perfect killing machine, they attempted to remove his human emotions completely. They even thought they succeeded…but only to a slight extent. Geralt still has emotions, but there’s a disconnect between him and them. He sees them almost the way a mindfulness meditation guru does. He is aware that deep within him somewhere, an emotion is stirred, and he almost observes the existence of that emotion the way a museum curator looks at a difficult piece. There’s no judgment of the emotion and there’s a sense of being cut off from to one degree, while acknowledging it as well.

And that sense of being cut off but aware of emotion occasionally boils up and out for Geralt. With emotions, he’s like a dude who is starving and suddenly offered a chance to dive into a feast. He values those times when he can experience his emotions and humanity moreso than anyone might otherwise. Those moments are really his gold. So…he can go on a bender with friends and drink like crazy. He can be easily subject to a sexual appetite. These things happen to him, I think, because they are his chances to come closest to feeling like a human being again, a chance to feel something else besides being a Witcher. They’re also why Geralt–more than any other Witchers–tends to do things out of compassion for folks who are desperate and have nowhere to turn.

At any rate, two of the biggest Witcher fan nerds on Youtube happen to be young women who are bright and very much in tune with the gaming scene and gender and the way those two things sometimes crash into one another. Kristi, you shouldn’t feel like you’re intruding by any means.

6406

Yeah, in W3 you can choose to have Geralt be completely faithful to Yenn or Triss, or not. He can talk to the prostitutes in the Inns and listen to their stories. The women use him much more than they use him. It is clearly set in a time in which there are houses of ill repute, but he has no requirement to partake. He can be as promiscuous or faithful as you choose…

6407

You can be faithful in W1 and W2 as well. Which is why all the sexist nonsense is exactly that - a nonsense.

6408

You can be a perfectly faithful partner and still be a sexist swine of a man. Geralt does not need to be one. You can play him like one, sure, and sometimes the camera does linger, but on the whole, i think witcher 3 is a-fucking-mazing in the maturity with which sexuality and such is treated. Perhaps the dude who made the models is a bit of a pig. Almost all of the women look like vapid barbie dolls, but that impression quickly fades once you look at what they say and do.

6409

Anyone try playing with the mini map off?

I’ve been playing with the undiscovered points of interest (question marks) off on the map. Any other hud / UI changes that make the game more enjoyable / immersive? I just started a 2nd play through so now is the time for me to change things up.

6410

Triple dog dare you to play without swords. :p

6411

I did leave the mini map off. It does work but you will have to go back to the main map from time to time and you’ll get annoyed by that little lag before it comes up, every time…

6412

And a controller with 1 hand, right? :-)

6413

No mini map has to make collecting plants more difficult. Was it OK or did it get annoying?

6414

It was fine. Maybe if I’d been more into alchemy it would have been an issue, but you can actually see plants when you’re looking around… I seldom ran short of anything I needed.

6415

Personally I think the artists did a truly amazing job modeling Yen and Triss. Some of the cutscenes with them are fantastic in the details presented, the pores of the skin, Yen’s mole, the quality of the animation, the subtle emotional cues, etc.

6416

And Ciri, Shani, and Anarietta, and even “minor” roles like the herbalist in White Orchard. Some of the best facial animation I’ve ever seen for sure, and it’s mostly handcrafted instead of “motion-captured”. Impressive stuff.

6417

No minimap at all would be a bit annoying (having to open big map) but I use the mod that makes minimap and quest info appear only when using witcher sense. Good compromise for me.

6418

So question for those of you who have been following this games post-release development:

Are there any improvements to the base game or base areas in the two expansions? Stated another way If I buy only the base game and get the dlc later in the year, will my experience in the main quest line be diminished in any way? Furthermore, can the DLC quests/adventures be started at almost any time in the main game or are they only done after the main game is done?

Thanks

6419

Yeah, don’t worry about getting the expansions right off at all. If the main game doesn’t click for you, no need to be out the money for expansion content you’ll never play!

There have been many quality of life improvements to the game, especially in the patch that came out with the latest expansion…but you don’t need that latest expansion to enjoy those improvements. Many of them, especially UI improvements, are set up for the main game.

And the expansions are totally removed and separate from the main quest lines, so there’s no cross-game interference to worry about.

The DLC stuff is probably end game, after you finish the main quest stuff. It’s high level, 30-32 recommended for Hearts of Stone, 34+ for Blood and Wine.

6420

Brilliant, I love when companies separate patch improvements from the expansion content. Thanks for the response. Having already played the Witcher 1 & 2, I am quite sure I will enjoy this! It will be the first game I play when a new video card comes soonish.

6421

Oh wow yeah, if you’ve played the first two, you’re in for a treat! Tons of fan callbacks to those games with offhand story beats and characters that new players don’t need to know, but folks who played those previous games will be all “Oh wow!”

6422

Once you get it up and running pop back in with some impressions etc, let us know what you think.

6423

I’d even suggest holding off on the DLC if my experience with them is any indication. They add a ton of really tough spawns to areas of the game that do have a few points of interest without the DLC. I can only imagine swift and repeated death if you have the DLC and start the game going exploring those places, which you may well do.

But yeah as Triggercut said the game improvements are independent of the DLC and the DLC is post-main quest content so have no fear.