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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - E3 Gameplays, Interviews, Articles: Compilation

Durante

Member
TpP.jpg
This is very similar to how recent Atelier games handle in-battle consumable items. They are fully replenished every time you head into town again.

I think this is a great design decision, since I was one of the people keeping 100s of consumables for the eventuality that never comes. It makes consumables a more integral part of the entire game, not something only for the final battle.
 

friday

Member
Well, Risen did that years ago. Of course, not at the same fidelity.

I do agree that all games should strive to achieve that.

I never thought about that. Man, Gothic 1/2 (and to some extent Risen) were so far ahead of everything else. Someone at Bethesda needs to play those games. Obviously CDPR have and are building on it.
 

Smokey

Member
Sounds like a beast of a game. PC and PS4 Collectors Edition already sold out? That was fast. I reserved mine at Amazon since they don't charge you until release.

I may try to get into Witcher 2 one more time. I've tried maybe 3 times now and it just gets boring to me.
 
It should be noted that the 100 hours refers to 100% completion. The main quest line is said to comprise about half that.

So if I am cynical and play on medium difficulty I expect it to take me 25-30-ish hours. That sounds about right. That's what Witcher 2 took to complete for me. With so much efforts going for building an open world, I think this an optimistic estimate.


I find it difficult to look at Witcher 2, a brilliant game by all accounts, and a game that almost brought down the entire studio. A game that literally took everything out of them.


When you then make Witcher 3, no matter how much more manpower or money you throw after it, it doesn't make sense thinking that they can make a game with just as compelling and deep story and do the skyrim thing at the same time. No game has done that so far at least. Witcher 2 was focused as hell because it was a linear game. I'm sure the open world will have significant trade offs one way or the other.
Which makes it weird. It makes it so I don't know what I expect. I felt the same when Mass Effect 3 was in development. They promised to make it bigger it bigger and better than Mass Effect 2 and adding multiplayer, but you don't get to expand without giving up something else. And I think I was right about ME3.
I just can't figure out If I think it's the narrative that will suffer, or if it will be very side quest heavy or have a lot of backtracking (to increase the main story playthrough).


I think Dragon Age 3 has an easier job. It's more clear what they have to do, and what they have to avoid. It's more difficult with the Witcher I think! I hope for the best. Witcher 2 is so so so amazing!
 
Playing through the second game again right now. It's as addicting as ever tbh. If they can keep the story tight like this with the move to open world then so help me god....
 

Denton

Member
I hope tha we can disable the UI when not in combat. I mean I dont want so much stuff on my screen and CD Project really tends to put a lot of stuff in the way. It breaks immersion.

Have they said anything about this?

I have a mod in Witcher 2 that hides UI when outside combat. I also really hope this will be in TW3 by default. Especially since I want to play on my 55" plasma and HUD is annoying nuisance for that.

Also, I updated OP with this Playstation access interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7G2flI8ZY

He describes how they cannot use performance capture for facial animation due to sheer number of dialogues, but they are using best possible solution.

Still, I can't wait to see all the Uncharted fanboys complaining about facial animation in TW3.
 
THIS FUCKING GAME
.........................................................................my lady boss isn't gonna like how many hours i invest the game.

great post OP, thanks for compiling so much info
 

Raptor

Member
To be honest I found TW2 boring as all hell 20 hours in, they keep talking about politics and betrayals and shit that I got bored real quick.

But since this is openworld and have a better combat system with pure gore goodness I think I will love this one.
 

Gumbie

Member
To be honest I found TW2 boring as all hell 20 hours in, they keep talking about politics and betrayals and shit that I got bored real quick.

But since this is openworld and have a better combat system with pure gore goodness I think I will love this one.

No offense man but if you hated the story in 2 I have a feeling it's only going to get deeper in 3.
 

Complistic

Member
The only mod I need day one is weightless craft materials. I ain't got time to manage all those herbs and shit

I know 99% of all the other games have taught you to always loot everything in sight, but in TW2 you really didn't need to. If you needed to craft something there was always more than enough crafting materials around in each act to just gather up and make whatever you needed.
 

valkyre

Member
I have a mod in Witcher 2 that hides UI when outside combat. I also really hope this will be in TW3 by default. Especially since I want to play on my 55" plasma and HUD is annoying nuisance for that.

Also, I updated OP with this Playstation access interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7G2flI8ZY

He describes how they cannot use performance capture for facial animation due to sheer number of dialogues, but they are using best possible solution.

Still, I can't wait to see all the Uncharted fanboys complaining about facial animation in TW3.

To be fair, its not just the facial animation ( ithought facial animation was ok). Its mainly for me some pretty basic animations like running that need more work. The dash in combat also looks rough.

But I think that they have more than enough time to refine such things.

And I really really hope they include the option for the no HUD. (I also play on Plasma :) )
 
Just looked at the Gamespot videos, thank god someone put up gameplay without inane commentary.

Looks great, except the tearing. But that won't happen in the final (PC) version.
I still think people saying stuff like "where did this come from" weren't paying attention -- it doesn't look that much better than W2 at maximum settings. There are significant improvements, and of course it's open world now which is a huge difference in terms of available resources, but it's not suddenly beautiful out of nowhere.

For me, it's the lack of fog obstructing your view distance beyond 20 meters. And each scene seems to have more detail and clutter. The shaders and effects don't seem like huge leaps, but the overall package with the scale of the game... gah. I gotta have it.
 
I know 99% of all the other games have taught you to always loot everything in sight, but in TW2 you really didn't need to. If you needed to craft something there was always more than enough crafting materials around in each act to just gather up and make whatever you needed.

Yeah I know that was the way they intended you to play but I liked just snatching up everything on my way and then dealing with making the stuff on the spot
 
It's funny because I was watching the guy from CD Projekt Red on the Giant Bomb e3 day 1 wrap up (video here, the segment I will be referring to is right at the end at the 2h27m mark) and he asked the guys what game they thought was the best at the show, and how they gauge a game's popularity. Gerstmann explained no one really knows and that it's more of a gut feeling.

Later he was like "there should be an E3 for PC games" and implied that Witcher 3 is better than anything at the show but was being overshadowed by lesser console games that are "flashier" due to their menus.

When asked whether CD Projekt Red considers themselves PC developers first and foremost he said yes of course, and implied that consoles are only in the mix due to the pressures of the business.

It really came across like PC master race mentality imo. As good as Witcher 3 looks, the characters don't look as good as the Naughty Dog Uncharted tease (or even Last of Us remastered). And the idea that console games can't be as complex as PC games suggests the guy has not played enough console games (going back in time, games like Ogre Battle or Tactics Ogre were easily as complex as any PC game during that time) and Witcher doesn't seem necessarily that much more complex than something like the Souls games.

That said, I am very interested in the Witcher series now, and I would have bought Witcher 2 on PS3 had they ported it to the PS3 for us console peasants. I am still planning on picking up Witcher 3 (on PS4 or PC). I normally never buy PC games even though I have a capable rig, as I prefer couch gaming and controllers but this may be the first time I go with the PC version.

I wouldn't necessarily say Witcher 3 was my game of show, because there were a lot of "games of show" for me this year and it is one of them. But it is definitely on my radar. The series really grabbed my attention, and Spring 2015 is looking like it will be insane.
 

Raptor

Member
No offense man but if you hated the story in 2 I have a feeling it's only going to get deeper in 3.

I will probably not pay attention to the story since Im loving the combat, will stay on pure sidequests hunting monsters as much as I can that way I dotn get bored of pure story missions involving politics and stuff, also that was years ago maybe now Im in a different state of mind that I will appreciate it more for what it is.
 
I hope they improved the combat, my biggest gripe in the game. Combat boiled down to attack attack attack oh shit getting ganged up on roll the fuck away. Playing on the PC with a controller there was distinct amount of input lag, or animation delay from inputting the command to action. Either that was from not having enough animation frames to transition from running to attacking blocking. Also lag of pulling up the spell selection screen. I wonder if I tried playing with mouse and keyboard the spell screen comes up instantly.
 
Honestly, I find the extent to which they're emphasizing the length of game worrying. Quality is more important than quantity. I was willing to give them CDProjekt the benefit of the doubt until they showed what looked like a textbook example of a filler fetch quest at Microsoft's press conference. If the 100+ hours of gameplay are gonna be filled with quests like that... ugh.

That said, the story and art still look top-notch. I was stoked to see Yennefer and Ciri in the Sword of Destiny trailer.
 

Denton

Member
To be honest I found TW2 boring as all hell 20 hours in, they keep talking about politics and betrayals and shit that I got bored real quick.

But since this is openworld and have a better combat system with pure gore goodness I think I will love this one.

The politics and relationships and dialogues are the part I enjoy the most about these games. Just love it. Just like I love dialogue heavy scenes in Game of Thrones and could easily do without the battle and sex scenes. Different tastes ?
But yeah, with open world exploration and great combat you should be able to enjoy large part of TW3.

It's funny because I was watching the guy from CD Projekt Red on the Giant Bomb e3 day 1 wrap up (video here, the segment I will be referring to is right at the end at the 2h27m mark) and he asked the guys what game they thought was the best at the show, and how they gauge a game's popularity. Gerstmann explained no one really knows and that it's more of a gut feeling.

Later he was like "there should be an E3 for PC games" and implied that Witcher 3 is better than anything at the show but was being overshadowed by lesser console games that are "flashier" due to their menus.

When asked whether CD Projekt Red considers themselves PC developers first and foremost he said yes of course, and implied that consoles are only in the mix due to the pressures of the business.

It really came across like PC master race mentality imo. As good as Witcher 3 looks, the characters don't look as good as the Naughty Dog Uncharted tease (or even Last of Us remastered). And the idea that console games can't be as complex as PC games suggests the guy has not played enough console games (going back in time, games like Ogre Battle or Tactics Ogre were easily as complex as any PC game during that time) and Witcher doesn't seem necessarily that much more complex than something like the Souls games.

First off, I doubt American John Mamais has any kind of "master race mentality". He said that CDP is PC focused company, which is true, for obvious reasons - Poland (and central+eastern europe in general) is heavily slanted towards PC, vast majority of people play on PC. CDP being composed in large part of hardcore PC gamers is completely natural.
And again the Uncharted comparisons. Please wake me when Uncharted will have open world with hundreds of choices in the various situations followed by consequences, when it will have 40 thousand lines of dialogue, etc..
You cannot compare linear corridor shooter with open world RPG.

And Witcher is obviously much more complex than Souls games when it comes to narrative. Even Witcher 2 had so many choices and consequences from those, whereas in Souls your choices are "kill this merchant or not".
This is nothing agains Souls games, I enjoyed DS1 and DS2 plenty, but they are more action games than narratively driven RPGs with choices.
 
This is very similar to how recent Atelier games handle in-battle consumable items. They are fully replenished every time you head into town again.

I think this is a great design decision, since I was one of the people keeping 100s of consumables for the eventuality that never comes. It makes consumables a more integral part of the entire game, not something only for the final battle.

I do the same, but a better solution is make the game hard enough that using consumables is a virtual necessity.
 
Honestly, I find the extent to which they're emphasizing the length of game worrying. Quality is more important than quantity. I was willing to give them CDProjekt the benefit of the doubt until they showed what looked like a textbook example of a filler fetch quest at Microsoft's press conference. If the 100+ hours of gameplay are gonna be filled with quests like that... ugh.

That said, the story and art still look top-notch. I was stoked to see Yennefer and Ciri in the Sword of Destiny trailer.

That was just a monster hunter quest. It's not like they're a stranger to this series, and they were always optional too
 

Raptor

Member
The politics and relationships and dialogues are the part I enjoy the most about these games. Just love it. Just like I love dialogue heavy scenes in Game of Thrones and could easily do without the battle and sex scenes. Different tastes ?

Yes I think it was primarily my state of mind and mood when I played it, is not that I hate it for what it was its just that I fond it boring because maybe I was not in mood for some heavy story politics and relationships and all that.

It was interesting for sure that much I can say.
 

Exuro

Member
Honestly, I find the extent to which they're emphasizing the length of game worrying. Quality is more important than quantity. I was willing to give them CDProjekt the benefit of the doubt until they showed what looked like a textbook example of a filler fetch quest at Microsoft's press conference. If the 100+ hours of gameplay are gonna be filled with quests like that... ugh.

That said, the story and art still look top-notch. I was stoked to see Yennefer and Ciri in the Sword of Destiny trailer.
Geralt is a monster slayer. There's going to be a ton of filler kill this kill that which I'm all for since that's his profession. And the griffin looks great for such a type of quest. Each game has had them and this quest looked better than all the previous games monster slaying quests.
 
First off, I doubt American John Mamais has any kind of "master race mentality". He said that CDP is PC focused company, which is true, for obvious reasons - Poland (and central+eastern europe in general) is heavily slanted towards PC, vast majority of people play on PC. CDP being composed in large part of hardcore PC gamers is completely natural.

Did you miss the part where he basically says Witcher is being overshadowed because of the "flashier, sleeker menus" of the console games there?

And again the Uncharted comparisons. Please wake me when Uncharted will have open world with hundreds of choices in the various situations followed by consequences, when it will have 40 thousand lines of dialogue, etc..
You cannot compare linear corridor shooter with open world RPG.

Ok, I will grant you that but it seems like there's a bit more going on in Uncharted than corridor shooting... :/

And Witcher is obviously much more complex than Souls games when it comes to narrative. Even Witcher 2 had so many choices and consequences from those, whereas in Souls your choices are "kill this merchant or not".
This is nothing agains Souls games, I enjoyed DS1 and DS2 plenty, but they are more action games than narratively driven RPGs with choices.

Ok, then we can compare to something else like a Mass Effect or whatever. The point remains that PC games aren't really any more complex than console games these days unless we're talking about hardcore strategy / simulation games where you really need to be a few inches from the screen to see all the stats and options and click with a mouse.
 

Gumbie

Member
The politics and relationships and dialogues are the part I enjoy the most about these games. Just love it. Just like I love dialogue heavy scenes in Game of Thrones and could easily do without the battle and sex scenes. Different tastes ?
But yeah, with open world exploration and great combat you should be able to enjoy large part of TW3.



First off, I doubt American John Mamais has any kind of "master race mentality". He said that CDP is PC focused company, which is true, for obvious reasons - Poland (and central+eastern europe in general) is heavily slanted towards PC, vast majority of people play on PC. CDP being composed in large part of hardcore PC gamers is completely natural.
And again the Uncharted comparisons. Please wake me when Uncharted will have open world with hundreds of choices in the various situations followed by consequences, when it will have 40 thousand lines of dialogue, etc..
You cannot compare linear corridor shooter with open world RPG.

And Witcher is obviously much more complex than Souls games when it comes to narrative. Even Witcher 2 had so many choices and consequences from those, whereas in Souls your choices are "kill this merchant or not".
This is nothing agains Souls games, I enjoyed DS1 and DS2 plenty, but they are more action games than narratively driven RPGs with choices.

Nailed it. I think a lot of people forget how popular PC gaming is and has been in Europe for a long time. To be fair though John also said they have some super hardcore PC gamers at the studio along with some hardcore console players.

One thing I thought was interesting is how he said the developers thought the xbox one was easier to develop for because of the DX11 stuff and how the PS4 had a been a bigger learning curve.
 

HarryKS

Member
The actual gameplay(visuals) looks a bit rough doesn't it? The image quality and detail shown in the trailers released look a lot more polished than the demo they were showing on the stage.
 

Durante

Member
The actual gameplay(visuals) looks a bit rough doesn't it? The image quality and detail shown in the trailers released look a lot more polished than the demo they were showing on the stage.
Are you talking about the MS conference footage? Because that was apparently on XB1.
 

Denton

Member
Yes I think it was primarily my state of mind and mood when I played it, is not that I hate it for what it was its just that I fond it boring because maybe I was not in mood for some heavy story politics and relationships and all that.

It was interesting for sure that much I can say.

I mean I can relate, I hated Blade Runner when I first watched it. Seemed too slow and boring.
Couple years later I gave it second chance and was floored with it. Seen it 5 times since and absolutely love it. Some things just take time to appreciate, it is normal.

Did you miss the part where he basically says Witcher is being overshadowed because of the "flashier, sleeker menus" of the console games there?
Well, admittedly I forgot about that part, but..it does seem kinda true to me to be honest. The console games that were shown just do not seem all that impressive next to the Witcher 3, for me. None that I have seen offer this kind of freedom, both in exploration and narrative, coupled with quality.
I do intend to get PS4 next year for Bloodborne and TLOU though.


Ok, I will grant you that but it seems like there's a bit more going on in Uncharted than corridor shooting... :/
Ok there is some jumping and climbing too ;-)
I don't want to rag on Uncharted too much, because I own all three and finished them, and I liked the first, loved the second, and kinda hated the third. Second is really special game, but ultimately it is still a linear shooter, 12 hours long.


Ok, then we can compare to something else like a Mass Effect or whatever. The point remains that PC games aren't really any more complex than console games these days unless we're talking about hardcore strategy / simulation games where you really need to be a few inches from the screen to see all the stats and options and click with a mouse.

Well yeah, some PC games are more complex than anything you would find on consoles, most are not. Witcher 3 is both PC and console game anyway.
I am glad new consoles are out and Witcher 3 did not have to be compromised by 8 year old hardware.
 

Helmholtz

Member
Honestly, I find the extent to which they're emphasizing the length of game worrying. Quality is more important than quantity. I was willing to give them CDProjekt the benefit of the doubt until they showed what looked like a textbook example of a filler fetch quest at Microsoft's press conference. If the 100+ hours of gameplay are gonna be filled with quests like that... ugh.
I'd imagine it'll be like Witcher 2 only a much bigger game. So the 50 hours of main quest will be solid, well done stuff. And the 50 hours of open world stuff they keep mentioning will be more typical monster hunting/fetch stuff, which will be completely optional. So I'm not too worried at all.
 
That was just a monster hunter quest. It's not like they're a stranger to this series, and they were always optional too

Geralt is a monster slayer. There's going to be a ton of filler kill this kill that which I'm all for since that's his profession. And the griffin looks great for such a type of quest. Each game has had them and this quest looked better than all the previous games monster slaying quests.

I'm gonna have to take a few steps back and preemptively eat some crow. When I was writing that, I'd totally forgotten that both TW1 and TW2 differentiated between monster hunts and more story-driven side quests. My main worry was that they'd lock interesting side stories behind tedious fetch quests, but considering that the first two games avoided doing that for the most part, I can't imagine that it'll be a big issue in TW3.

*phew* It's nice not to have to worry about that anymore. It was actually dragging down my hype.
 

HarryKS

Member
Are you talking about the MS conference footage? Because that was apparently on XB1.

I missed the Witcher presentation of Xbox One's conference. The demo I saw was either from an IGN or Gamespot stage walkthrough. It seemed to me that it was running on a PC but the image quality and screen tearing initially led me to believe it was running on an Xbox One. It seems it was running on a PC though.
 

Denton

Member
I hope there's something comparable to the sex cards in the original game. Not for the bare-chested women component but rather to satiate my desire for collectables. I can certainly understand why the cards didn't make a return for TW2, however I was disappointed that they weren't replaced with something similar.

Soooo

listen to this one:
http://www.gamertagradio.com/new/2014/06/e3-2014-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/

"collectible card minigame with a quest around it"
Plus horse racing and even boat racing, but with a small story around it. So it should not be generic stuff like in Ubisoft games.

And another preview, this one by videogamer:
http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt/preview-3690.html
 

Kaldea

Member
So much great information. Excellent thread. :)

I hope we don't have to wait TOO long for the next bits of info. E3 spoiled me.
 

Denton

Member
So much great information. Excellent thread. :)

I hope we don't have to wait TOO long for the next bits of info. E3 spoiled me.

I think gamescom in two months will be another large info blow-out. They might even release some 20+ minute presentation by then (maybe shortened version of what was shown to journalists).
Last year videogamer.com awarded Witcher 3 "Least likely to be absolute arse" and CDProjekt included it in the awards listed before the Killing Monsters trailer.

Ah yes, that was the late great Matt Lees, now no longer with Videogamer. His E3 award video is legendary.
 

Raptor

Member
Sorry for teh noob question but who was that White hair Woman that was running? The one that has returned?

Geralt's wife?
 

Raptor

Member
Ciri, his and Yennefers (my avatar, more or less his on again off again girlfriend) adoptive daughter

Oh damn, I have a hard time with the age of them, the girl running was on her 30s no?

The girl on your avy is on her 30s too? Geralt on his 50s?

lol, Im sure I will discover all of this on the game.
 
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