The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Silent_Scone · 29 Jan 2017 at 11:56

Narj said:
To be fair to Skyrim, it's a much more interesting environment than FO4. I felt that like TW3 there was a lot more, "ooooh what's that over there, let's take a look!" going on.

I suppose there's also the fact that by its very nature, a nuclear wasteland is going to look pretty dull for the most part. I'm finding the story and the characters quite dull in all honesty apart from what looks like a throwback to FO3 about to happen. Maybe that'll make me more enthusiastic if it happens.

Agreed. Skyrim has much more to offer. I put twice the time into that game, and was even half tempted to grab the Enhanced Edition

mark43 · 30 Jan 2017 at 08:17

Yeah, agree with a lot of these FO4 comments, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd never played W3, but many aspects felt so poor in comparison. Characters, story, quests. Even the side quests are great in W3 yet Bethesda still need to pad them out with radiant quests.

Paul_cz · 30 Jan 2017 at 10:53

I would not need to play TW3 to recognize the low quality of Fallout 4 - all that is necessary for that is to have played Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas, all of which were vastly better games when it comes to things that matter in RPG - writing, quest design, characters, roleplaying.

That said, I did enjoy Fallout 4 for some 130 hours, simply for the exploration and atmosphere. But after I finished the story, I never felt the desire to play the game again, never even bothered with DLCs.
And Bethesda will need to step up their game significantly if they want to remain on top; this generation they got their ass handed to them.

Narj · 30 Jan 2017 at 11:10

mark43 said:
Yeah, agree with a lot of these FO4 comments, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd never played W3, but many aspects felt so poor in comparison. Characters, story, quests. Even the side quests are great in W3 yet Bethesda still need to pad them out with radiant quests.

Preston Garvey is possibly the most irritating game character in living memory. Those defence "quests" are shamefully lazy, embarrassing actually when you compare it to the quality of the side quests in TW3.

Hmmm I might replay TW2 and take the Roche path soon. I was toying with getting DA:I but think I'll be sorely disappointed.

francky · 30 Jan 2017 at 11:11

FO4 doesn't even remotely compare to TW3 IMO....TW3 is one of the best games/RPG's ive ever played and the Expansions blew me away...FO4 was a flat, poor story....with very poor character development and boring desolate world....and some of the textures and graphics looked awful...not in the same league.

Narj · 30 Jan 2017 at 11:17

francky said:
FO4 doesn't even remotely compare to TW3 IMO....TW3 is one of the best games/RPG's ive ever played and the Expansions blew me away...FO4 was a flat, poor story....with very poor character development and boring desolate world....and some of the textures and graphics looked awful...not in the same league.

I think it's time Bethesda retired their current game engine in all honesty. It's showing its age.

Paul_cz · 30 Jan 2017 at 11:25

Narj said:
I think it's time Bethesda retired their current game engine in all honesty. It's showing its age.

While I agree the engine is a terrible looking and terrible running pig that they keep lipsticking, I really like how modable it is, and I am worried if they switched to some new engine that modability would go away, which would be a shame.

francky · 30 Jan 2017 at 11:36

Narj said:
I think it's time Bethesda retired their current game engine in all honesty. It's showing its age.

Indeed....ill never forget meeting that mutant in the Glowing Sea...Brian Virgil? And his face/character model looked liked something from 2002 on the PS2.

Aside of that I CANNOT wait for Cyberpunk.....and even bigger Open World RPG from CD Projekt RED......drool!

Pighardia · 30 Jan 2017 at 12:43

Paul_cz said:
While I agree the engine is a terrible looking and terrible running pig that they keep lipsticking, I really like how modable it is, and I am worried if they switched to some new engine that modability would go away, which would be a shame.

I'm more worried the different playstyle aspects of the game will go away. Bethesda games don't get nearly enough credit for how complex they are!...Name another series that has a created character, mele combat(with lots of subcategories for that), ranged combat, magic combat, stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing, Alchemy, crafting, NPC schedules, speech options, a crime system(you know what I mean, not sure what to call it).

I'm worried that when they move to a new engine, most of that will disappear and be replaced with just a combat game with the RPG elements taken out

...Fallout 4 has already started the trend in a way.

Tek81 · 30 Jan 2017 at 13:14

Having completed TW3 and the expansions a couple of times now, I've come to the conclusion that the only problem with it, is that it ends. And when it does, everything else pales in comparison.

Paul_cz · 30 Jan 2017 at 15:39

Pighardia said:
I'm more worried the different playstyle aspects of the game will go away. Bethesda games don't get nearly enough credit for how complex they are!...Name another series that has a created character, mele combat(with lots of subcategories for that), ranged combat, magic combat, stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing, Alchemy, crafting, NPC schedules, speech options, a crime system(you know what I mean, not sure what to call it).

I'm worried that when they move to a new engine, most of that will disappear and be replaced with just a combat game with the RPG elements taken out...Fallout 4 has already started the trend in a way.

None of that stuff is dependent on the engine though. As you say, Fallout 4 already moved away from RPG into shooter territory despite using the same engine, simply because that is what Bethesda decided to do.
Right now Warhorse are finishing Kingdom Come, which will have most of that stuff too (melee, ranged, lockpicking, thieving, crime system, alchemy, daily cycles etc) and runs on Cryengine. Of course, Warhorse had to develop all these systems themselves inside and on top of the engine.

Pighardia · 30 Jan 2017 at 15:54

Paul_cz said:
None of that stuff is dependent on the engine though.

No granted, but my fear is that once they do move to a new engine they will see it is as a blank slate and start again so to speak, and we will lose even more of that stuff. I would love to think Obsidian might get another crack at a game before they retire the engine, but they seem to have gone back to the old Infinity engine for the time being.

Paul_cz · 30 Jan 2017 at 16:08

Pighardia said:
No granted, but my fear is that once they do move to a new engine they will see it is as a blank slate and start again so to speak, and we will lose even more of that stuff. I would love to think Obsidian might get another crack at a game before they retire the engine, but they seem to have gone back to the old Infinity engine for the time being.

Yeah that possibility exists. And defo about Obsidian, I am happy for them that they are solvent and can make games, but I would vastly prefer AAA 3D games in the New Vegas style over the 2D stuff. I really hope they will find a way to get some deal made with Paradox to make new Vampire Bloodlines game.

Pighardia · 30 Jan 2017 at 21:01

Just finished the main quest for this playthrough, I think I will do HOS straight away.

A few observations from this playthrough-

Hjalmar is easily the best character in the game!
The Epilogue is perfect. It is a masterclass in how to end a game like this(obviously dependant on how your game goes).
The last third of the game feels incredibly rushed, with most of the quests basically being busy work with little input from the player. This is highlighted in the Skellige quests in the run up to the final showdown, where most cutscenes end with an NPC saying somethin like 'shall we go straight there', then if you say yes the game just transports you there. There is a marked decrease in quality after The Battle of Kaer Morhen...Reason of State especially is a trainwreck!

If they had dlc planned to take place in and around Novigrad/Oxenfurt, they could have made a bit more effort to improve the post-main story world. Instead they reset the game to the beginning of act 3, which would be fine if there were no dlc, but there is and you are still running around in this world...For example- I killed Radovid, but nobody has mentioned it, and everyone is still shouting long live Radovid. An ending slide said the Emperor took Novigrad, they could have just replaced the Redanian guards with Nilfgard ones and it would have been enough. In my epilogue, Dandellion remembered Priscilla was alive and said she was recovering, but she is still in the bed in hospital unable to talk(they could have just moved her to the tavern place and it would be fine). Really is a shame how they didn't pay any attention to this kind of thing if they knew there would be DLC. It really kills immersion It would only take a small effort to rectify this.

Also, ending slides related to Geralt's future should probably be removed if you have B&W dlc imo, as that would be the real ending

I only noticed in this run- Ciri really isn't a very sympathetic character imo.
I left her as the heir to the Nilfgard throne(YKWIM), and as the slide came up I was just thinking damn, I'm sorry for anyone who lives under her rule. She really comes off as a brat

Really looking forward to getting in to HOS now. I have also left a fair few quests undone too.

On an unrelated note, why hasn't modding taken off for this? Does the toolkit not allow you to do much?

Pighardia · 30 Jan 2017 at 21:38

Ha! I just found the much searched for Vampire from the trailers for the first time in over 200 hours! Cool little quest.

heartburnron · 30 Jan 2017 at 22:25

GOG.com are selling The Witcher 1, 2, 3 plus the expansion pass for 3 as a bundle for £17.36!!

heartburnron · 30 Jan 2017 at 22:40

Just bought the expansion pass for myself and got the following message for GOG:

Hey, heartburnron

You have been upgraded to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition! You are receiving this because you own The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and all its expansions on GOG.com. Don't worry, those games are still in your library - the GOTY Edition has been added as a separate product.

If the GOTY edition has been added as a separate product will I be losing out on experience I've gained so far in the 'standard' game do you think? Does your experience and level carry over with you into the expansions? How do you launch the expansion passes? Are they in an extras' menu or something or actual locations in the main game? Would there be a way of transferring my save files from the standard game in to the GOTY edition and picking up from where I left off in the new version? I'm a bit confused...

Captain_Bosh · 30 Jan 2017 at 22:45

heartburnron said:
Just bought the expansion pass for myself and got the following message for GOG:

Hey, heartburnron

You have been upgraded to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year Edition! You are receiving this because you own The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and all its expansions on GOG.com. Don't worry, those games are still in your library - the GOTY Edition has been added as a separate product.

If the GOTY edition has been added as a separate product will I be losing out on experience I've gained so far in the 'standard' game do you think? Does your experience and level carry over with you into the expansions? How do you launch the expansion passes? Are they in an extras' menu or something or actual locations in the main game? Would there be a way of transferring my save files from the standard game in to the GOTY edition and picking up from where I left off in the new version? I'm a bit confused...

All your saves automatically should carry over for the new version, they did for me. To activate each DLC just going into the Witcher 3 settings in GOG and tick for each expansion.

heartburnron · 30 Jan 2017 at 22:51

Captain_Bosh said:
All your saves automatically should carry over for the new version, they did for me. To activate each DLC just going into the Witcher 3 settings in GOG and tick for each expansion.

Cool thanks. Did that mean after you had installed the GOTY edition you essentially had 2 Witcher 3 games installed on your drive? Would be it be safe to uninstall the standard game once I've go the new working ok to free up some space then?

Captain_Bosh · 30 Jan 2017 at 22:55

heartburnron said:
Cool thanks. Did that mean after you had installed the GOTY edition you essentially had 2 Witcher 3 games installed on your drive? Would be it be safe to uninstall the standard game once I've go the new working ok to free up some space then?

No they are the same game so it didn't reinstall it again or anything, it just updates your copy to include both the expansions.