Witcher 3 is the game that finally did me in and made me lose all hope for the medium
Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 had writting that was far above average for video-games, one of the better I've seen.
The writing in this game is nothing Ubisoft couldn't shit out in a year for a mediocre Assassins Creed Sequel.
The game falls appart after Velen and it gets worse consistently . You see it in every aspect of the writing, the mediocre generic dialogue, the contrived way events play out,lack of moral ambiguity, the dumbed down political struggles of the world, the unsubtle and cringy portrayal of religion , lack of hard choices, one of the worst main antagonists in any RPG series, awful and rushed deus ex machina ending
Only other thing except Velen that deserves mentioning is how Yennefer was written and a few side quests (cat and wolf playing, in the Heart of the wood) . Triss was Bioware tier.
The only thing that saved this game from complete mediocrity was the eighty million dollar budget.
I gave up when they came up with the idea of facing the Wild Hunt at Kaer Morhen
>yes, let's face this army of dimensional elves with a group of 10 people or less what could go wrong
Gavin Watson
Serves him right he trusted the pole
While that was a bit contrived they were all either very skilled or very poweful individuals, like sorceresses are OP in TW world.
But the game gets a lot worse from that point on , and the final battle is just Kaer Morhen lite.
Aiden Brown
I noticed something was off about this game when Leo's death and funeral in the first game with those god awful animations and lack of lipsync, was better done and hit harder than Vesemirs death and funeral.
Cooper Gray
>lose all hope for the medium >medium >writing
You judge video games entirely based by it's narrative?
Holy shit, stick to books, idiot.
Jack Phillips
It just felt like I was playing Mass Effect 2 again with the suicide mission and all
Robert Wilson
That's really not a fair comparison,in Mass Effect 2 anyone could die based on your choices and it had many different outcomes. Here it was just a linear sequence with one outcome
Samuel Cruz
>game 1 and 2 got most from the books >3 was made to be "popular"
Evan Cook
Different people value things differently? Besides Witcher 3 was wattered down to generic AAA level in many things besides the storytelling.
Also there's nothing bad about games that focus on narrative and storytelling, video games are the best medium for that
Jace Wilson
just fuck my shit up senpai
Parker Jones
kek
Thomas Garcia
...
David Turner
Everyday.
Cameron Rodriguez
It was my most anticipated game ever I bought a 1500$ PC just to play it smoothly It was ass I wanted to kill myself when it ended. Still haven't gotten around to the DLC, but I might one of these days
Brody Gray
>Witcher 1 had far above average writing for a video game
"Muh time traveling child!"
Kevin Watson
So instead of the skyrim/witcher pasta we are now getting spammed with this. Great.
Jeremiah Jones
Jesus christ the Witcher 1 circlejerk is in full effect now, isn't it? Leo's death was complete ass and held the same weight as a fucking pokemon fainting.
Lucas Lewis
They are superior to movies television and books as a storytelling medium
They can tell stories trough game mechanics, trough level designs, trough exploration, trough environment designs, trough random interactions with the world and characters
The thing is not many people take advantage of this
Noah Thompson
Go to reddit and say this. I DARE you.
Nathan Ortiz
>POPULAR THING IS SHIT, I AM RIGHT
Wyatt Bailey
They're called videoGAMES not videobooks for a reason.
Hudson Long
Open world was a mistake.
Andrew Lopez
The best stories needs to describe the smallest details that may be relevant. You can't do this in a video game without making a shit video game. They also are on average quite long. Too long for a game.
Connor White
Maybe the writers are at fault but I'm not sure
They had this huge open world, hundreds of characters yet it feels like they did nothing with them. New characters are underdeveloped, characters from the books and recuring characters are not used properly,mostly they say a few lines and do fuck all. The open world felt like an MMO, nothing you did changed anything in the world.
Imagine if Novigrad was set on fire like Vizima in the first Witcher.
Oliver Rivera
Here we go baby! Time to shit on a popular game that's genuinely good and pretend we've all always liked Witcher 1 in order to appear "patrician" and net them sweet, sweet Cred Forums creds. Stay contrarian Cred Forums
Chase Gonzalez
I'm trying to play The Witcher 1, but it has to be one of the worse game's I've ever played gameplay wise. How the hell did it get 2 sequels?
Hunter Adams
Using game mechanics is not story telling, though. It's not narrative.
Using game mechanics is about the player having to be conclusive and deductive of his environment and making choices. Like in a game.
Stories are not games. Story is a linear narrative telling, with a beginning, suspense and a climax.
Anthony Phillips
It was received very well and sold a few million copies.
Maybe it's not for you, just stop playing
Jayden Stewart
I'm in the same boat.
Josiah Jones
My thoughts exactly. Couldn't play through 1 to get to 2. Nothing about it was entertaining to me. 2 was fun, but 3 is another beast altogether.
Easton Roberts
Is the first Witcher popular? If it is I'll need to remove it from my steam library and make some threads calling it casual normie bullshit.
Alexander Barnes
For me it was Mankind Divided
Human Revolution had a goat soundtrack, nice visual style and interesting story with choices that actually mattered.
THEN MD comes along with its horrible visuals, stupid beepboop generic soundtrack, forgettable story and stupid characters and MUH STRUGGLEZ sjw bullshit and i dropped it 9 hours in the game was a TURD of the highest order.
Complete with microtransactions and stupid DLC on launch to boot not to meantion it was the most buggy unoptimized port ive ever played?
WHAT? YOUR 1080 CANT GET 30FPS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY HUB HAHAHHA WHAT A LOSER YOUR CPU ISNT GOOD ENOUGH
W-WHAT ITS NOT YOUR I7 4 CORE RUNNING AT 98% BECAUSE WE CANT OPTIMIZE FOR SHIT?
W-WHAT YOU MEAN TO TELL ME DX12 IS BROKEN AND THE GAME STILL CRASHES
WORKS FOR ME TURN DOWN MSAA
t. nixxes HIGH QUALITY TECHNICAL VIDEOGAME EXPERIENCE SINCE 1999
Jace Mitchell
>Is the first Witcher popular? you need to time your attacks to be able to do anything. You also need to switch stances.
So no
Wyatt Howard
I can't believe I was every hyped for this game.
I even have a big folder of witcher shit, I was in almost every pre-release thread
why was it so fucking awful bros...
Landon Gray
I want to play 3, but I don't want to be one of those faggots that skips playing the games out of order. I did the same thing with the ME series. I hated the first game's gameplay so much, but endured just to play the sequels and ended up loving the series a lot.Up until the end of 3
Wyatt Morris
but...but muh (You)s
Adrian Phillips
Then keep on playing.
The pattern is that you will like the game more and more once you get used to the combat
But I liked the game from beginning to end
Connor Lewis
it physically hurts how disappointing this game was
It keeps me up at night I can't make the pain go away
Cameron Bennett
I do plan on finishing it, there's no doubt about it. It just a pain to play through.
Connor Richardson
>Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 had writting that was far above average for video-games I like the Witcher series but what was so great about Witcher 2's writing? The main plot was full of just as much improbably and silly shit as 3's.
Kevin Reyes
>tfw pirated it >tfw getting to laugh at the cucks anal anguished about it
Colton Cruz
The amount of unnecessary plot in Witcher 1 is astounding. The only thing you'd be missing by skipping it is a couple of call backs to random specific occasions which happens... not that often in regards to Witcher 1. Just look up a summary of the main story, and then watch the final cutscene where Geralt has to defend Foltest from an assassin. Honestly even just watching the final custscene would catch you up with all the information you need for Witcher 2.
Still though, I'd say you'll generally feel better having played through it to get to the rest, as you said was the case with Mass Effect. However, my only experience with Witcher 1 was the one playthrough I did after completing Witcher 3. The only reason I completed it was because I wanted every single detail. I'm never EVER going to play through the first game again. I'm happy that I played it and got the details that I did, but it is absolutely not deserving of a second playthrough.
Geralt literally tries to secure two armies from the Nilfgaardians and the Skellige peeps but are unable to do so since the king is too much of a faggot to give you control over them and the Skelligoons are too embroiled in war to spare the men and time, so they work with what powerful individuals and home ground advantage they have.
Way to misrepresent shit, faggot.
Angel Morris
You could at least not copy and paste your previous shitpost.
I've seen this same damn thread word for word like 5 times now.
Ian Reyes
Well, no shit. It does follow a book, although they added a lot of branches.
There was no way around Vesamir.
Robert Cook
2 will tell you everything you need. I just can't play 3, the voice acting and animations are so bad I can't get past it.
If it had been text, i would have had an easier time with it.
2 though was great but short, didn't love the combat but the story was well worth it.
3 is fucking amazing.
Jackson Gomez
Obviously you haven't spent enough time playing Ubisoft games these days.
I don't even contest the points, they are true. Whats should make you lose all hope for the medium is the fact that this is magnitudes above the competition.
I also find your last comment diminishing, all other AAA titles spend more, its not about the money, but where that money has gone.
Caleb Watson
All three games copied and hacked their stories together by replicating the stories of the books.
John Gray
I felt the same about 1. Started the game like 4 different times and stopped the second i got to chapter 1 because of the combat and just wasn't feeling it. BUT, I decided eventually to push through it as I wanted to play 3, but wanted to beat the others first. around halfway through Chapter 1 the game just sorta clicked and I actually started enjoying the game a lot (until chapter 2. worst chapter in the game).
I 100% recommend trying to push through Witcher 1, I'm so glad I did as it was actually a VERY enjoyable game.
Charles Edwards
>the game just sorta clicked when you find the detectives body in the cemetery will either make you fall in love with the game or drop it.
Ayden Torres
I actually never found the guys body, i never went in there because i didnt notice it until like chapter 3.
Caleb Morris
And thats the beauty of the first Witcher.
Christian Rodriguez
I think the most beautiful part of the game to me, was in Chapter 1, there was a quest to get ghoul blood. but: >ghouls are in pitch black cave >need potion of cat >don't know herbalism, need to go learn how to pick flowers >don't know what herb is what, need to go find someone or a book to tell me >finally make a cat potion >now need to find someone who can tell me how to get blood from a ghoul
I spent an hour doing that one very simple quest (mainly because I didn't want to look up easy ways to learn all that crap), and thats the point i realized this game is gonna be in my top 10
Cameron Hill
Quite the opposite, third game had most connections to books. 1 and 2 were more of dev's writing, story of 3 relied way more on books. Characters, main "problem", way more places from books, W3 was fullfillment of every polish book reader dream to walk around novigrad or experience roughness of skellige world and warmth of its people.
Meanwhile, HoS wasn't related to books at all (this time, devs ripped off one of polish fables instead), and yet it was beating entire 3's story to a pulp. It was also beating 1 and 2. Damn, HoS is glorious.
Alexander Martinez
>witcher 3 is still triggering retards 2 years later
alright it was funny at first but now its just pathetic, stop
Ian Gutierrez
so we were clearly not playing the same witcher 3. and you clearly dont know what a great game looks like.
p.s. ubisoft cant write, they hijack history. in syndicate they finally had to write a full story from scratch and they shit the bed.
Cameron Ortiz
>They are superior to movies television and books as a storytelling medium
>They are superior to movies television and books as a storytelling medium lmao They do one thing well, and that's emergent storytelling, Dwarf Fortress-style
Isaac Wilson
>They are superior to movies television and books as a storytelling medium
Blake Smith
>tfw no one on Cred Forums likes vidya
well, that's to be expected
Isaac Kelly
I like vidya for what it's good at Which is gameplay, not telling linear stories
Wyatt Jones
>medium has capability to truly immerse player in story, to make him part of it >all of that while being able to become literally a movie if needed, see mgs cutscenes >hurrr gaemplay uber alles, who cares about anything else
well, let me open my anime reaction images folder
Brandon Evans
you have to go back
Easton Long
Epic pasta friend.
Go back to plebbit
Alexander Kelly
It is very simple user. In the business world, every decision comes with a compromise, since resources are limited. If a dev decides to focus on the story, then he'll have less resources to spend on the aspects of the games that actually matter to me, which is gameplay first and foremost, then graphics, then sounddesign, then everything else. If I want to experience a story, I'll read a book, the medium which is best at conveying narratives. There's also the tiny little problem of devs being unable of properly integrating their stories into the gameplay. Partly due to fucking shitters like you actually recommending fucking cutscenes as a good way of conveying them
Julian Gonzalez
>only full-blown 3d aaa games are "games"
So, you can read book without whining, but you can't read, let's say, adventure game that's mostly in text mode (while also delivering atmospheric soundtrack and letting you do choices)?
Isaiah Ortiz
Bullshit is gameplay mechanics not narrative. Maybe not in your average FPS or whatever, but you lack attention or you're plain dim if you think the only way of telling a story is rigid exposition. Action and reaction tells just as much of a story, or can rather.
Camden Williams
>don't know herbalism, need to go learn how to pick flowers
This is the most retarded concept in RPGs and video games >you grab the stem and pull >oh but I haven't spent skill points on that so I can't :(
Gavin Fisher
Yeah it doesn't really make sense but I get why devs do it and I personally too like it.
Xavier Johnson
Was okay, doesn't come close to 1 or 2 but still worth the money
Austin Cook
>arrive at Foggy Islands >well sure are foggy >who are those dwarfs >why did that dwarf dropped from cliff dead >why did another dwarf suffered narcolepsia >what the fuck is going on >oh you gonna wait me near the boat, cool >oh dead ciri >oh she is not dead, she was guiding wisp all along >okay >fucking dwarfs stole my boat >just leave the place
what the fuck was that all about
Jeremiah Nelson
It was a reference to Snow White and the seven dwarves, did you not get that?
Colton Richardson
i think it was some kind of implementation of snow white story, with healthy dose of black humor
Nolan Collins
Oh. I'm retarded, that's good to know.
Luke Bailey
The story turns bland after you start in on Novigrad. The Bloody Baron was a really well written character, and it feels like they blew half the writing budget on him alone.
But the game is at its best when you're just roaming from village to village taking on contracts like a Lord of the Rings pest control dude.
>Glittery scat and a ring of mushrooms... Yeah, looks like you got faeries. That's gonna cost extra, I gotta fumigate.
Kevin Martin
Except there is already a snow white and 7 gnomes in the lore, killing her crew is how he got the name "butcher of Blavakin"
Also
>important part of the game where you discover the person the entire game has been about finding >comic dwarves in a lazy snow white reference to gut the tone
Adam Anderson
It's supposed to be the knowledge of what parts of the plant do what. Like knowing that a plant has leaves that will kill you bit roots that are safe but only if you boil them in the sap or something.
Leo Gomez
They actually fucking planned to have the Wild Hunt attack Novigrad, the Ciri fight with Caranthir would have happened there.
Oliver Gonzalez
I once made a criticism thread about Witcher on leddit. I got downboated to hell, what has changed? I thought leddit hated actual good games?
Jaxson Brooks
This kills me. I loved the Witcher 3 but I couldn't help but feel that the open world aspect was a waste of time. It didn't even feel like there was a war on and the cities felt hollow after their quests were done.
What a shame.
Kevin Diaz
wtf I hate the witcher 3 now!!
Jack Jenkins
a weirdly large number of woman in the game has an absurd neckline, its true
Jason Torres
I forgot cleavage offends western countries islamic beliefs.
Andrew Ross
Yeah, it's almost like the game is set in the medieval times or something.
Sebastian Gomez
how they could get away with fake light shafts?
also downgrade, unrewarding exploration of empty open world, awful combat, awful foliage models, boring characters, most of quests are mediocre at best, ending was even worse than me3 ending, "free dlc" PR stunt (aka cut unfinished content which we wouldn't sell), badly managed choices which doesn't matter at all and doesn't affect not only characters but fucking dialogues (you can kill keira and nobody give a fuck? not even asks? lol gj pollacks), awful skill tree balance, all you shit you collect is useless vs thing you craft.
Jayden Nguyen
damn, added that pic to collection of CDP lies
Carson Cruz
You're trying way too hard.
Xavier Sanchez
>comic dwarves in a lazy snow white reference to gut the tone the European folk lore was the whole theme of the game, its hardly out of place
Parker Davis
Ok, as someone who's bought the Witcher trilogy, played around 20 hours of the first game and 10 of the third, I have no clue what most people here are on about.
The English writing and acting in 3 so far generally feels more natural and less, frankly, bizarre than that in the first game. Fuck are the 'sex scenes' both awkward and unsatisfying, and yes you have fucking amnesia. I don't understand these complaints about moral ambiguity either. You do have plenty of scenarios for moral decision, but if anything the consequences of them are simply clearer, while in 1 I often feel like I may as well flip a coin whenever these things come up since some shit I'm not in control of and aren't yet invested in is going to happen either way so why think about it so hard? Yes, soldiers occupying foreign territory are often assholes, so stupid and one dimensional that.
Game-play wise, and hell in most ways in general, the games are way more similar to each other than I thought. The physical area available to explore is much larger in 3, but this really doesn't make much difference to the process of doing quests, and Witcher senses are functionally equivalent to simply pressing 'Alt' in the first game. Combat, again is closer in practice than I expected, with the ability to spam dodges offering more skill and tension over the brain-dead attacks of 1, but not really offering a great deal much more.
Both games are more of less comparably ok, nice ways to pass the time but no better than that.
Daniel Rodriguez
it's not out of place in witcher, it's out of place in this very important moment of story
>geralt swims to the island to find his favorite magical girl >serious tone, dark colors >dangerous island full of spookiness >suddenly, goofy quest with amnesiac dwarf in order to open the door >and second dwarf does slapstick neck break
Hudson Nelson
>amnesiac derp
Kayden Myers
...
Brody Bailey
HoS - God tier Red Baron - Awesome Velen - Good Rest - Awful
Adam Myers
>Well, no shit. It does follow a book, although they added a lot of branches.
Can retards please stop saying this. They don't follow a book. The games are original stories that are sequels of the books. off yourself.
Ryder Rodriguez
Finally started played HoS yesterday. Damn I missed TW3. You just don't see any other devs who are literally in love with their creations these days. You stop playing got a while and you forget about all the minute attention to details they gave the game. Kinda buggy though.
Daniel Johnson
...
Charles Johnson
HoS and BaW are better than the base game.
Jayden Walker
Feels good to not be looking for Ciri or looking for Ciri or looking for Ciri for once. Also they added a fuckton of new content outside of just the new addons it seems. Wasn't expecting the new monsters.
Michael Sanders
Explain to me how Triss is better than any Bioware character?
She undergoes personality and voice actor shift trough all three games, and her quests were fucking shit
Parker Carter
I haven't played the expansions yet but I have 100 hours in the base game and I agree with this for the main game
Christopher Scott
Well, she behaves like a human being, unlike nu-Bioware characters.
Isaiah Edwards
Elder God tier: HoS
Top tier: Bloody Baron
Great tier: BnW
Good tier: Velen, Novigrad
Dumpster tier: Everything after Novigrad
Lincoln Lewis
nah skellige was good, novigrad was pretty crap though
Zachary Howard
Triss is a great character because of what a shit person she is. Characters that are defined by their flaws and inequities make for infinitely better characters than an invincible Mary-Sue that's written to be perfect and without missteps.
David Hill
>tfw hated Hearts of Stone
Olgierd was a boring cunt hiding his pathetic broken heart behind vicious boorishness, and I couldn't wait to see him die or get his soul reaped.
gaunter o'dimm did absolutely nothing wrong. the man is a master of mirrors - he only shows you your own reflection and gives you the opportunity to let your true nature doom yourself. the spoon scene was way out of character - had they left that out I'd almost say he was a good guy
also fuck shani. basic bitch.
Landon Carter
>better characters than an invincible Mary-Sue that's written to be perfect and without missteps. >literally none of the Bioware characters >literally Ciri in W3
>Triss is a great character because of what a shit person she is.
She's not. I don't think you played W3. Her portrayal is that a of a noble person, leader of the persecuted, self sacrifice for others , etc. You're bringing in shit from the books and the other games, which had vastly different portrayals. CDPR have become shit writers and they forgot about nuanced characters, which is why we get shit like Eredin, Ciri and Triss
Cameron Walker
>you're bringing up her actual character and I disapprove of this
She still tried to seduce Geralt again in the beginning of the game before running away to wherever to go into hiding, not to mention actually being the same character, you ignorant kelp.
Jose Scott
>I only played one game so that's all that matters You are this stupid.
Evan Williams
>Not playing games entirely for gameplay What a faggot. Keep supporting games with shit gameplay and shitting up the industry.
Dylan Bennett
>the books and the other games don't matter because I say so
uh ok
Carson Foster
>this thread you guys are a bunch of nitpicking women. the game is fine
Noah Sanchez
>devs ripped off one of polish fables instead Which is what the Sapkowski did with the books, which means that's pretty much the most authentic way to making Witcher stories.