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All of the writing in Witcher 3 is loving top notch. With the exception of maybe the over-arching plot of the main game which has amazing sub-plots that are strung together a bit messily. I really can't think of any other game that has writing anywhere near the same level of quality as Witcher.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:10
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It does the best moral choices I've ever seen too. So many of them don't have a "right" choice.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:12
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Would kill for this game.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:12
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vandalism posted:Would kill for this game. But what would Dijkstra (or whatever the gently caress his name is) be? A crooked cop? I know Dandelion would be a wannabee rapper/DJ.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:14
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RatHat posted:It does the best moral choices I've ever seen too. So many of them don't have a correct answer. Oh yeah. It's great at making many choices seem like black and white ("right" and "wrong") at the first glance but after you choose and go down the path it almost goes into the extreme of showing you how there are no absolutes and you were actually just choosing between two different ways of loving poo poo up. Almost like things usually are in real life.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:15
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Oh man. That reminds me, I hope that Cyberpunk 2077 take plenty of influences from Film Noir in it's writing. I'll cream my pants over that.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:17
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Jack Trades posted:Oh man. That reminds me, I hope that Cyberpunk 2077 take plenty of influences from Film Noir in it's writing. I'll cream my pants over that. You mean like Witcher 3 did?
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Jun 6, 2016 01:20
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8-Bit Scholar posted:I dunno, one of the writers went on record saying he thought Twilight was amazing and wanted to emulate that
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Jun 6, 2016 01:21
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Speaking of which, if for some weird reason your Geralt doesn't visit prostitutes, you should at least go to the brothel on the Toussaint docks and talk to the prostitute in the middle, she has a pretty great conversation.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:23
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SirSamVimes posted:You mean like Witcher 3 did? Yes, but in future and with robot arms.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:24
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One of the things about Bioware writers is some of them are really bad, but as is typical the internet took what should have been a pretty sound opinion about the quality of writing and writers, and of course started stalking and harassing people, so it's one of those things I hesitate to even bring up. making GBS threads on them is also easy, but it's hard to not consider them a lovely funhouse mirror when lined up against Witcher 3. I'll admit though, I liked Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 1. They're actually alright games. ME1 is mechanically busted, every dragon age since has been bad, ME3's ending is a slap in the face and all that, but ME2 and DA 1 are really great to me. DA1 may not hold up if I played it today though.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:25
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I played ME1 and DA1 and thought they were both poo poo so I haven't touched a bioware since. People do get really really weird about them though.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:28
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:I played ME1 and DA1 and thought they were both poo poo so I haven't touched a bioware since. People do get really really weird about them though. This was my experience as well. DA1 was at least a kind of endearing Song of Ice and Fire rip off, but the poo poo gameplay really sank it for me. I somehow hit a point where there was no point in even controlling my main character, everyone but the mage was going to get hosed to death by the random spawns anyway. It also felt inauthentic--the world didn't feel believable in any significant way. I'm not sure how much of the case this is for the Cd Projeckt Red but I think that most games studios would be better off setting their original IPs in locations that they're actually familiar with. Like, Fallout 3 takes place in Washington D.C. and the area because the development studio is located in Maryland, and you can tell immediately that the setting for that game has a lot more craft and character than any single location in Oblivion. I feel like, since the Witcher takes place in this kind of mash-up of Northeastern Europe, and the dev team is likely from a wide variety of European backgrounds, that they could basically take their experiences from their real life and put that authentic energy into the game world. I think we'd have far more varied and interesting settings for games, particularly fantasy games, if this was the generally accepted approach.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:36
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ME2 is probably my favourite rpg after this here masterpiece called the wild hunt
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Jun 6, 2016 01:36
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I went through it again and got the "good ending" for Blood and Wine this time. Did the duchess ever mention this factoid before that specific ending? She claims to have sent people to find Syanna, but Syanna wasn't interested in being found. Because that information changes the story a lot! Also, this time I investigated the vampire option. I got the key before doubling back and taking the other path. Can I get in that area that the key unlocks? I think there's unique treasures in there. Most of the discussion lately is on the brand new content, but what did you guys think of Hearts of Stone? I thought the main campaign was great, but the side content in the expanded Novigrad area really felt weak. Aside from finding the herbalist's apprentice and the Oferi trademen, it all seemed like generic bandit camps and treasure caches. Really underwhelming in comparison to the story, or to Blood and Wine's take on the same content. 8-Bit Scholar posted:I'm not sure how much of the case this is for the Cd Projeckt Red but I think that most games studios would be better off setting their original IPs in locations that they're actually familiar with. I feel like, since the Witcher takes place in this kind of mash-up of Northeastern Europe, and the dev team is likely from a wide variety of European backgrounds, that they could basically take their experiences from their real life and put that authentic energy into the game world. I think we'd have far more varied and interesting settings for games, particularly fantasy games, if this was the generally accepted approach. I definitely noticed this, too. I've seen so many games take on similar settings, yet only this one feels like an authentic and functional world. The architecture, the clothing, and the peasant misery, it's all there! Forsythia fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 01:38
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Hearts of Stone's side stuff was weak, but I think the main campaign is probably the best questline in all of Witcher 3.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:41
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Mizuti posted:Also, this time I investigated the vampire option. I got the key before doubling back and taking the other path. Can I get in that area that the key unlocks? I think there's unique treasures in there. I don't even want to know what happens if you go into that cave without a good reason.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:43
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Are there any timed quests? Like actually timed, not that you fail them by progressing the story too far.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:49
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RatHat posted:Are there any timed quests? Like actually timed, not that you fail them by progressing the story too far. I can't speak for Blood and Wine expansion, but the only one I can think of is the very final bit of Hearts of Stone. There are extremely few.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:59
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RatHat posted:Are there any timed quests? Like actually timed, not that you fail them by progressing the story too far. If you mean "start the quest and get x minutes to complete it", there's at least one (that just got named). If you mean "pick up the quest and do it within X ingame days", then no none of those exist.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:00
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I'm having trouble getting the final Skellige gwent card in Toussaint. The quest marker takes me to the Pheasantry and is placed behind the bar, but there's no innkeeper there to play. I think it's got bugged, I've done the tournament because it auto triggered when I entered to get this last card. Was there a time earlier when I should have got this one from the innkeeper? No matter how much I meditate or reload the innkeeper doesn't show up behind the bar.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:01
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Jack Trades posted:All of the writing in Witcher 3 is loving top notch. With the exception of maybe the over-arching plot of the main game which has amazing sub-plots that are strung together a bit messily. Undertale, maybe? Not exactly on the same scale but certainly as effective. It's hard, I keep going back to games whose writing I'd thought was really good years past and finding myself disappointed with how clunky it all is. I'm going to inadvertently be biased towards stories written by native English speakers, although I'd actually say 999 is one of the best written games I've played. I'd actually say it is better written than its sequel. Persona 2: Eternal Punishment has my favorite NPC dialogue in pretty much any game, but not for reasons of quality per se--I just don't know any other games where you can go to the ramen shop after every single major dungeon or plot point and have an on-going discussion about psycological theory, the meaning of spirituality in a modern world, consumerist excess, or the symbolism of sushi with a bunch of random people. Older SMT games kind of put a surprising amount of effort into giving their random NPCs a lot of personality. You can actually see this in later titles to an extent: Persona 3 had NPCs who would actually have their own little sub plots that you'd only learn about if you talked to them consistently month after month, when the dialogue changed. But Persona 2 was a story about adults and I kind of dug that a lot of the characters actually talk about more grown-up things. Actually now that I think about it, there's not really a lot of Western-developed games I can think of whose writing especially stood out to me. poo poo like Warcraft was cool when I was a kid but now it sounds silly, same with Diablo. I never played many adventure games, so that's out too.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:03
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TG-Chrono posted:ME2 is probably my favourite rpg after this here masterpiece called the wild hunt I still think me1 is the better of the two games because of what it was trying to accomplish. It was the first major rpg in a long time not called star wars to bring back the space opera. It is endearing to me because it had this huge sense of possibilities all presented to the player like a season of star trek. The game play sucked but it tried hard and I appreciated that. Mass effect 2 on the other hand while I like it, takes more inspiration from firefly than star trek, and that had the side effect of creating a similar caste of obnoxious fans. I like firefly but not to the extent I developed a persecution complex because fox canceled it. The main plot writing also suffered while favoring characters. But while the character stuff is fun, it's still written like video game writing, and doubling down on the characters doing wacky poo poo means that me3 was going to end up even worse in the main story department. I guess I was disappointed in mass effect because the first game created a big universe that wasn't capitalized on the way I was hoping for. To bring this back to Witcher stuff, this is a big reason why Witcher 3 works so well on a world building front. There is still that good character banter and companion chats like the Mass Effect games have, but the Witcher contract quests are pretty much a masterclass on developing the world. Geralt is a defined character, which means that the game is able to spend more time using these side quests to flesh things out and play with new scenarios. Yeah, Mass Effect does the same thing, but often it tried to force a binary choice into the matter, where it might be at odds with what your character is supposed to be. Geralt also has binary choices, but both are often equally valid views and totally in line with Geralt's character. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 02:05
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Arcsquad12 posted:I still think me1 is the better of the two games because of what it was trying to accomplish. It was the first major rpg in a long time not called star wars to bring back the space opera. It is endearing to me because it had this huge sense of possibilities all presented to the player like a season of star trek. The game play sucked but it tried hard and I appreciated that. Honestly after Witcher 3 I hope any future Space opera games have planets with multiple biomes, having planets be "ice planets" and "water planets" makes it feel lazy.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:15
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I don't think it's just the writing, there are a lot of RPGs you could point to that have really good writing or at least parts or individual quests (off the top of my head, Planescape: Torment, Vampire: the Masquerade, Alpha Protocol). Where Witcher 3 gets awesome is in the execution and in the sheer loving size and consistency of quality. The graphics are great, special shoutout to animations, costumes, and landscapes. Music, voice-acting, ambient sounds and snark from guards are all fantastic. They help to sell the excellent writing for a full loving 100+ hours of gameplay. The combat is alright. The UI is much improved in most respects now, too. Edit: also I'd say the quest structure and design is some of the most varied and creative I think I've seen. There's clearly been a lot of care and effort put into hand-crafting quests. The game is also not afraid to make fun of itself, which keeps it from being overly grimdark. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 02:19
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Pellisworth posted:I don't think it's just the writing, there are a lot of the RPGs you could point to that have really good writing or at least parts or individual quests (off the top of my head, Planescape: Torment, Vampire: the Masquerade, Alpha Protocol). Where Witcher 3 gets awesome is in the execution and in the sheer loving size and consistency of quality. I really want to ask the goon who apparently works on the dev team whether or not the writers, voice actors and voice directors go through the script together to ensure prime delivery, because not only does the dialogue sound well-written and natural on the tongue, the emotional inflection is also really good. One of the worst things in the Elder Scrolls games was how characters would just go from being pleasant and polite to angry and confrontational to stupid and content and back and forth basically by the line. Conversations felt incoherent, whereas the Witchers' sound natural, believable. The only "bad" line in the game is when Geralt is giving his "i'm gonna kill you" speech to Whoreson Junior, and that's almost so bafflingly bad that I can only assume it's a translation error that they couldn't smooth out.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:23
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8-Bit Scholar posted:The only "bad" line in the game is when Geralt is giving his "i'm gonna kill you" speech to Whoreson Junior, and that's almost so bafflingly bad that I can only assume it's a translation error that they couldn't smooth out. I think the sequence where you confront Junior is the low point in the game. Do they really need to show the audience bathtubs full of dead prostitutes to justify Geralt beating the tar out of him?
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Jun 6, 2016 02:33
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I love the Paperworks quest and its reference/direct quotation to the 12 trials of Asterix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk
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Jun 6, 2016 02:51
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Mizuti posted:I think the sequence where you confront Junior is the low point in the game. Do they really need to show the audience bathtubs full of dead prostitutes to justify Geralt beating the tar out of him? Considering the behaviors that folks will defend, gonna say yes.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:54
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Witcher 3 is one of the few games that I have played that actually sold me on the relationships presented in the story. The father-daughter connection that Geralt and Ciri have feels genuine in a way that I've not experienced in any other RPG (the Last of Us is the only game I can think of that is at all comparable). When he first finds Ciri, the epilogue (all of them) and a number of scenes with Yenn (the Last Wish) and Triss carry so much emotional resonance without coming off as hammy or deliberate. It's a combination of the camera direction, the facial animation, the voice direction and writing just makes these scenes so powerful.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:56
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There's a quest that starts in Novigrad, where you're enlisted to travel to skellige, meet the guy and help him find a pearl for his beloved. I had this fail on me after a while of leaving the guy in limbo.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:58
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Mizuti posted:I think the sequence where you confront Junior is the low point in the game. Do they really need to show the audience bathtubs full of dead prostitutes to justify Geralt beating the tar out of him? Oh, I thought that part was great. We'd not seen this bastard, and didn't know much about him besides his name. But everyone--even criminals--seem to think this guy's a prick, and once you find him, you know why--he's this absolutely reprehensible monster of a human being,. In a game that doesn't rely too much on gore to bring a point across, I thought they really brought home just how depraved this guy is. It's just Geralt saying some nonsense about another drop into a chalice of sorrow or whatever...it's a super bad-rear end speech until he drops that in out of nowhere. The voice actor clearly has trouble getting the line to sound natural too.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:05
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My problem is that Geralt says he's killing him because he tried to hurt Ciri. There's so many reasons to murder Whoreson beyond that.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:08
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hemophilia posted:There's a quest that starts in Novigrad, where you're enlisted to travel to skellige, meet the guy and help him find a pearl for his beloved. I had this fail on me after a while of leaving the guy in limbo. I think that quest only fails if he gets eaten by skellige monsters or you do the Isle of mists quest first. I was surprised but nope, turns out quest givers can die to the wilderness.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:09
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SirSamVimes posted:My problem is that Geralt says he's killing him because he tried to hurt Ciri. There's so many reasons to murder Whoreson beyond that. Eh, Geralt probably doesn't care that much about crime. I play Geralt as a pragmatist with a soft spot for women, so he'd probably kill him out of principle for that, but what else in this world does Geralt really give a poo poo about? Besides swords, I mean.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:10
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Didn't expect a Borat reference. It's the new Pam paraam
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Jun 6, 2016 03:12
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I've posted this a few times but the core of what makes TW3 work for me is that Geralt is a defined character with a history and a wonderful supporting cast of friends, family, partners, comrades, mentors, allies, rivals, and enemies. If video games would stop loving killing these people in the first 10 minutes to move the story forward we wouldn't have to wonder why its so hard to find good writing in games.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:12
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Woozy posted:I've posted this a few times but the core of what makes TW3 work for me is that Geralt is a defined character with a history and a wonderful supporting cast of friends, family, partners, comrades, mentors, allies, rivals, and enemies. If video games would stop loving killing these people in the first 10 minutes to move the story forward we wouldn't have to wonder why its so hard to find good writing in games. True, but it's strange to advocate that a big open-ended RPG title ought NOT to allow the player to make their own character. But in a situation like that, you can't have the rich tapestry of relationships that makes Geralt work. Well, maybe you can, but it'd be harder to make it meaningful or not contrived.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:26
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Alpha Protocol also played around with the defined character protagonist. You just got to choose from three different types of "rear end in a top hat" as his defining trait. Human Revolution also toyed around with this, though it is a bit more open ended because of the massive differences an rear end in a top hat Jensen has to a good guy Jensen.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:30
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I think another aspect is CDPR seems to really care about 1. Making games and 2. the Witcher universe. The constant revision and overhauls of their games is just amazing and endears me greatly to the company and series. The witcher 1 was really rough, but I saw the potential of the series and I fell in love with this loving bleak world full of racist humans and elves, where everybody is at each other's throat and scheming. it's great
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Jun 6, 2016 03:31
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