The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

PaybackJack: May 21, 2003; You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

The Sharmat posted:

Because almost everything that makes it good that you rightly praise it for (like the very real question of whether the whole Chosen One prophecy is even a real thing or not) is essentially background. To stand up there with the likes of New Vegas, it needs just a bit more.

I think that's something that TW3 has going for it. While the story will feel fairly epic and I'm certain that you'll be meddling in the politics of the world you play in, unlike Morrowind, New Vegas or Skyrim you aren't really going to be a major player that people should recognize from town to town. While in those games the story you were telling, you were such a big part of it and you had such an impact on the world that it felt like after completing your main quest there should have been a bigger response in game than just people calling you something different or a new extra little acknowledgements in other stories. In a way that's pretty clearly related to telling a story about a character, rather than a player. Those games are designed to be played by people who are telling their unique story every time out and so it has to be a lot more broad to accommodate the decisions that different players will make with their different characters. Since in this, everyone is playing the story of Geralt, the open world doesn't need to be as broad. If I go hunt a Griffin as the first thing I do in my game, and you go hunt a Wraith in yours ultimately the main plot of the game will play out the same, and because that plot involves us playing the same character it can be much more detailed about that character.

So when it comes to having a better plot in an open world game, I'd believe it.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 00:03

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:14

fanged wang: Nov 1, 2014; by Ralp

those words cause me cautious optimism

# ? Feb 19, 2015 00:05

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

Morrowind had an excellent story. An amazing subversion of the chosen one trope that the industry has absolutely beaten to death. I'm not sure if there's been a better commentary on that theme yet.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 01:11

fanged wang: Nov 1, 2014; by Ralp

i dont know how much input you have or what projects you're working on but if yall could bust out with some morrowind style doomed world nonstandard game overs at some point that would be extremely cool

# ? Feb 19, 2015 08:09

Aphex-: Jan 29, 2006; Dinosaur Gum

The Sharmat posted:

Because almost everything that makes it good that you rightly praise it for (like the very real question of whether the whole Chosen One prophecy is even a real thing or not) is essentially background. To stand up there with the likes of New Vegas, it needs just a bit more.

Genuinely curious, what made the story of New Vegas so good? I don't remember being wowed by it.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 09:30

KRILLIN IN THE NAME: Mar 25, 2006; goku i won't do what u tell me

NaDy posted:

Genuinely curious, what made the story of New Vegas so good? I don't remember being wowed by it.

It wasn't, Morrowind was miles ahead of New Vegas in terms of the depth of the story and in-world lore (especially through the use of books). New Vegas was certainly an improvement from FO3, but it wasn't that fantastic - both NV and Morrowind excelled at showing bits and pieces of the world though but NV felt more like it was trying to force a story compared to Morrowind's unfolding as you go (but that's probably due to differences in play styles and nostalgia for me).

Edit: One of my favourite examples in Morrowind is Tarhiel, the guy who falls outside of Seyda Neen with the scrolls of Icarian flight. There's some very cool stuff in the background if you poke around. The anagram stuff is a but far-reaching but it's nice how the little pieces fit together.

Are there any videos that show Alchemy in action in W3? I liked the TW1's focus on preparation and only being able to brew potions at fireplaces but drink anytime versus TW2's brew anywhere out of combat, even if drinking a potion beforehand made more sense thematically than in the middle of a fight.

KRILLIN IN THE NAME fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Feb 19, 2015

# ? Feb 19, 2015 09:47

Lycus: Aug 5, 2008; Half the posters in this forum have been made up. This website is a goddamn ghost town.

I prefer being able to drink in combat because it encourages making specialized potions as opposed to just being on the same three potions all the time.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 09:59

VoLaTiLe: Oct 21, 2010; He's Behind you

Lycus posted:

I prefer being able to drink in combat because it encourages making specialized potions as opposed to just being on the same three potions all the time.

Yea that was one of my major issues with Witcher 2, not knowing what you would be up against made organising which potions/grenades you made difficult the first time around.

However if they do this tracking thing correctly the out of combat potion thing could add to the immersion

# ? Feb 19, 2015 10:08

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

NV had a pretty good story, which has a lot less to do with the actual "go here do this" story and more to do with the excellent world building (just like Morrowind). All the major characters had plausible, understandable, and relatable motivations. The world made sense and was coherent, contra FO3 which made no sense as a place.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 11:02

GrossMurpel: Apr 8, 2011

fanged wang posted:

did you spend 40 of them lost in the swamp

Nope, I actually ran through the swamp directly towards my quest objectives while ignoring the drowners and bloedzuigers.
There's just a lot of sidequests.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 11:09

Corin Tucker's Stalker: May 27, 2001; One bullet. One gun. Six Chambers. These are my friends.

NaDy posted:

Genuinely curious, what made the story of New Vegas so good? I don't remember being wowed by it.

The dialog is mostly concise and full of good character work. The player's understanding of the factions and what's going is organic and mostly told through your observation of how the actions of larger groups have affected individuals. You're given a ton of options to decide how things play out, which isn't necessarily unique, but they all manage to make sense, and that's incredibly rare.

Most impressively, just about every location is a carefully considered part of a whole. The information you're given and the people who give it mean something, and serve a broader tone. The methods of the factions draw from real world parallels to convey a message, while some individuals within those factions understand and try to address their side's flaws.

It's one of the only games I've ever played where it felt like every minor aspect of the setting and larger story was considered and subtly reinforced, then questioned by at least one character with a motivation to do so. People still debate the intentions of the major powers, and which ending path would actually have the most positive impact on the world.

Not everyone will click with the main quest's relatively straightforward story beats. I liked it, though, and thought it was elevated by all the work that went into the supporting bits.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 11:35

alex314: Nov 22, 2007

F:NV also had amazing memorable cast, it's something that only a few games (including Witcher series) have. If only NV had an extra expansion that would flesh Legion out a bit more..
e: there's a 700+ pages thread about F:NV still going, which is usually a pretty good indicator a game is good considering it was launched ~4 years ago.

alex314 fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Feb 19, 2015

# ? Feb 19, 2015 12:11

The Sharmat: Sep 5, 2011; by Lowtax

fanged wang posted:

i dont know how much input you have or what projects you're working on but if yall could bust out with some morrowind style doomed world nonstandard game overs at some point that would be extremely cool

I loving love nonstandard game overs and I don't know why more games don't do them.

TW2 actually had a couple, technically, but they weren't anything on the scale of Chrono Trigger's "But the future refused to change..." bit.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:47

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

On NWN2 there was an idea for a game over that would come at the end of the tutorial if you refused to go on the rest of the adventure. The voiceover would then explain that you lived the rest of your life peacefully, as a farmer, while the tutorial sidekick went on to be the hero of the sword coast. It came along way too late in development to implement, which is a shame.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 15:24

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

I loved W2's thing in the prologue when getting interrogated by Roche. If you jump him Ves lodges a crossbow bolt in your spine and you have to start over.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 15:51

Ice Fist: Jun 20, 2012; ^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

Bort Bortles posted:

I loved W2's thing in the prologue when getting interrogated by Roche. If you jump him Ves lodges a crossbow bolt in your spine and you have to start over.

I didn't know this, but this is awesome.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 15:52

Dark_Swordmaster: Oct 31, 2011

Comte de Saint-Germain posted:

contra FO3 which made no sense as a place.

I'm not about to defend Fallout 3 but I don't remember anything about it. What was so wrong with it? The very little I can recall is that everyone and everything was compacted into The Mall which means no one had their own territory. Or something. I also remember the story being very, VERY poorly written but I don't remember any specifics except the ending where you literally die for no reason.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 16:00

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

Well, like, what does everyone in the wasteland eat? The game doesn't really make any attempt to answer this question, despite making it a core plot point. Megaton has some extremely messy visual storytelling, it's a crater with an unexploded bomb in it. How did an unexploded bomb make a crater? That has to be explained in text, and even then it barely makes sense.

etc etc

Oblivion had some of the same problems. Given that Skyrim's level design was so much better than Fo3 and Oblivion, I'm optimistic about the LD in Fo4, whenever it happens.

(The level design in NV was mostly quite a bit worse than the LD in FO3, but the overall world was far more coherent.)

# ? Feb 19, 2015 16:36

Dark_Swordmaster: Oct 31, 2011

I'd forgotten about that loving crater town. I remember thinking that very same thing the first time I walked in there. How'd they explain it, second bomb?

# ? Feb 19, 2015 17:23

The Sharmat: Sep 5, 2011; by Lowtax

Ice Fist posted:

I didn't know this, but this is awesome.

Also if you lose the fist fight to the hangman in Flotsam, Geralt actually is shown being hanged on the scaffold (While Roche and Triss confusingly stare on passively).

And if you taunt the hell out of Iorveth and refuse to give him any information for why you're there when you meet him near the end of Act 1, he eventually just says gently caress it and has his Scoia'tael shoot Geralt and Zoltan to death.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 18:08

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

The Sharmat posted:

Also if you lose the fist fight to the hangman in Flotsam, Geralt actually is shown being hanged on the scaffold (While Roche and Triss confusingly stare on passively).

And if you taunt the hell out of Iorveth and refuse to give him any information for why you're there when you meet him near the end of Act 1, he eventually just says gently caress it and has his Scoia'tael shoot Geralt and Zoltan to death.

Good god both of these things sound hilarious. I am going to have to consult youtube when I am done work today.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 18:13

Dr. Abysmal: Feb 17, 2010; We're all doomed

I remember there being a dialog option during the Lilies and Vipers act III quest where you could try to accuse one of the nobles of being involved in the capture of Foltest's bastards directly, instead of going to Natalis. Geralt opens his mouth but envisions himself getting murdered with a bunch of arrows for it and just goes "nah."

# ? Feb 19, 2015 18:24

Relentlessboredomm: Oct 15, 2006; It's Sic Semper Tyrannis. You said, "Ever faithful terrible lizard."

Bort Bortles posted:

Good god both of these things sound hilarious. I am going to have to consult youtube when I am done work today.

Yea me too. I love that those are actual possible results.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 18:25

OAquinas: Jan 27, 2008; Biden has sat immobile on the Iron Throne of America. He is the Master of Malarkey by the will of the gods, and master of a million votes by the might of his inexhaustible calamari.

Yeah, it really hurts some games where your character is a massive dick/pain in the rear end to some Person of Power but they don't summarily execute you because...no reason given.

"I've killed people for less, but...I'm really not feeling it today. So keep mouthing off, I guess."

Looking forward to mooning His Excellency Emperor Emhyr, the White Flame Charles Dancing on the Barrows of his Enemies and seeing how creatively he has Geralt killed. Probably would just lock him in a room with Yenn and Triss.

OAquinas fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Feb 19, 2015

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:04

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

Dark_Swordmaster posted:

I'd forgotten about that loving crater town. I remember thinking that very same thing the first time I walked in there. How'd they explain it, second bomb?

I seem to recall that a few people explain that, OK, so, there was a bomb, it made a big crater, people lived in it because... I guess a hole makes sense (holes are terrible places to live, which is why no one does, but whatever) but then they were all starving and this group of religious fanatics showed up with a bomb and offered them food in return for letting them put the bomb in the middle of town.

I'm sure I'm getting details wrong, but I remember the explanation making only a little bit of sense anyway.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:13

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Comte de Saint-Germain posted:

I seem to recall that a few people explain that, OK, so, there was a bomb, it made a big crater, people lived in it because... I guess a hole makes sense (holes are terrible places to live, which is why no one does, but whatever) but then they were all starving and this group of religious fanatics showed up with a bomb and offered them food in return for letting them put the bomb in the middle of town.

I'm sure I'm getting details wrong, but I remember the explanation making only a little bit of sense anyway.

I thought it was that the bomb dropped but didnt explode for whatever reason (but was still live) and the religious dudes set up around it. The crater isnt that large and the bomb seemed kinda large so maybe it is a small crater from a heavy object hitting the ground? Thats the best I can think of.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:18

Dark_Swordmaster: Oct 31, 2011

I did some Googling and found the best explanation:

It's a bad design made from the art team.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:36

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

Bort Bortles posted:

I thought it was that the bomb dropped but didnt explode for whatever reason (but was still live) and the religious dudes set up around it. The crater isnt that large and the bomb seemed kinda large so maybe it is a small crater from a heavy object hitting the ground? Thats the best I can think of.

According to the Fallout Wiki, you are correct:

quote:

The site of Megaton began as a gigantic crater left by a plane wreck that was carrying an atomic bomb. Shortly after the crash, several wasteland survivors (one of whom was Manya Vargas' grandfather) attempted to gain entry to Vault 101 and huddled down in the crater, since it provided shelter from the dust storms. Once things began to settle down, some people left and began to wander the wasteland. These people then returned later on to trade with the remaining settlers. As a result, Megaton became a full-on trading center by the time Manya's father was born.

However, as a result of the town's expanse, raids by gangs and super mutants became prominent. Manya Vargas' father became rich on the caravan routes, and convinced the other settlers to construct their homes in the crater using aircraft debris and plane scrap from a nearby airport. Everything had been scavenged from the airport by other wastelanders and all that remained were the planes, which were then used in the town's construction, and so the airport no longer remains.

Megaton's construction was aided significantly by the Children of Atom, who had just began to worship the undetonated atomic bomb in the town center. The settlers were forced to leave the bomb unmoved in exchange for their much needed help.

But it's still terrible storytelling because that still doesn't make any sense.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:39

Comte de Saint-Germain: Mar 26, 2001; Snouk but and snouk ben,
I find the smell of an earthly man,
Be he living, or be he dead,
His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.

Dark_Swordmaster posted:

It's a bad design made from the art team.

Yeah, the whole thing screams "Art made something and it was too expensive to fix by the time anyone noticed."

# ? Feb 19, 2015 19:44

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Comte de Saint-Germain posted:

According to the Fallout Wiki, you are correct:

I dont know how I remember that poo poo, I hated FO3 (because it wasnt FO1, FO2, or FO: Tactics).

Comte de Saint-Germain posted:

But it's still terrible storytelling because that still doesn't make any sense.

Yuuuuup.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 20:07

Archimago: Jun 18, 2014; I just want to nom on Merrill

fanged wang posted:

Jesus H. Christ, you have used literally (seriously) zero capital letters in any of your posts; I don't even know how the gently caress that's possible.

You have paragraphs, at least. Your Shift key is right below your Return key--use it for gently caress's sake.

Back on topic: Has anyone played TW1 with the new 'Enhanced Edition' of Rise of the White Wolf? How is it? It looks interesting, might do a playthrough with that + FCR here shortly.

But before that, I own New Vegas and have never played it and you guys have convinced me to install it.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 21:28

fanged wang: Nov 1, 2014; by Ralp

Archimago posted:

Jesus H. Christ, you have used literally (seriously) zero capital letters in any of your posts; I don't even know how the gently caress that's possible.

You have paragraphs, at least. Your Shift key is right below your Return key--use it for gently caress's sake.

Back on topic: Has anyone played TW1 with the new 'Enhanced Edition' of Rise of the White Wolf? How is it? It looks interesting, might do a playthrough with that + FCR here shortly.

But before that, I own New Vegas and have never played it and you guys have convinced me to install it.

kiss my rear end dork

# ? Feb 19, 2015 21:37

fanged wang: Nov 1, 2014; by Ralp

and play new vegas

# ? Feb 19, 2015 21:38

Jerry Mumphrey: Mar 11, 2004; by zen death robot
(and can't post for 4 years!)

fanged wang posted:

kiss my rear end dork

owned, imo

# ? Feb 19, 2015 21:55

Dongattack: Dec 20, 2006; by Cyrano4747

Archimago posted:

jesus h christ you have used literally (seriously) zero capital letters in any of your posts i dont even know how the gently caress thats possible. you have paragraphs atleast. your shift key is right below your return key use it for fucks sake. back on topic has anyone played tw1 with the new enhanced edition of rise of the white wang. how is it. it looks interesting might do a playthrough with that + fcr here shortly. nut before that i own new vegas and have never played it and you guys have convinced me to install it.

wtf

# ? Feb 19, 2015 21:57