The Witcher III

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The Witcher III

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here is where you can leave your thoughts regarding The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine expansions for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
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The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here is where you can leave your thoughts regarding The Witcher III: Wild Hunt for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.
Tetzuha

Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Tetzuha »

I was never interested in the Witcher 3 when it was first announced. I tried my hand at the Witcher 2 and found the game to hard to enjoy. I didn't have the time I felt Witcher 2 demanded of the player to invest to get the most from the game.

I watched a number of Youtube videos regarding the development of the Witcher 3. I was sold on the game after an interview with CD Projekt RED who described how they aimed to make the game more welcoming to new players as well as pleasing the fans of the series. I wasn't disappointed.

I found that the Witcher 3 was everything I hoped it would be. The combat system was both challenging and empowering. The other game systems were easy to understand but built with complexity as the game progressed.

The game world was and still is one of my favourites. How CD Projekt RED managed to get so much detail and breathe so much life into the world is astonishing. Only matched by Rockstar; who as far as I know; will have a much bigger team and budget compared to CD Projekt RED. The world itself is one I have never experienced before, the Medieval fantasy setting with a dark story and history. You can't but feel for the people who live in this land and the suffering they have to live with. I found myself refusing bounty money for kill monsters for those I felt couldn't afford to give me it. The one moment that always sticks in my mind; is the cutscene near the beginning of the game where the crows are peeking at the newly hung corpse from the tree. This image I think gives the player a really good sense of what type of world they have just stepped into, one with layers and upon layer of issues, history and stories. You could write essays on issues and real life comparisons that CD Projekt RED have written into the game.

Overall The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sucks the player in on a massive adventure where it never fails to deliver from Start to Finish. It is One of my favourite games of this console Generation and I would say one of my all time favourite games. Now I just need to find the time to play the DLC.

Adam Turner
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Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by stvnorman »

I got The Witcher 3 for my birthday last May, but only started playing in October. I was so intimidated by what I'd heard - the length, the crafting, having to oil your sword... - that I just kept putting it off and off. Then I was in a big car accident in Germany (always wear a seatbelt in a taxi because I would not be here otherwise) and had some time on my hands, so I dived in. The seventy or so hours I spent completing the story and following the side quests that my level allowed seemed to fly by. Progression felt very natural, everything became second nature very quickly, though I never really did bother using oils on my sword, and Gwent didn't interest me.

Like Adam, I did quickly develop a real empathy for the inhabitants of the world, and surprised myself by refusing bounties and not nicking anything that wasn't under the nose of a soldier! That's a real credit to the developers - this was so much more than a video game.

As a game it's a marvel too though. So many different mechanics at play but never overwhelming, and always satisfyingly challenging. The world looks, sounds and feels incredible - you feel truly a part of it while you're playing.

All that said, I never did go back to those higher level side quests, and have no urge to play the DLC. When the story ended, my time there ended. It's a game I'll treasure having experienced, but I felt I'd done what I needed to at that point.
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Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by MauricioMM »

Have you ever felt when watching a good TV show over several years that the story and the characters became a part of your life? Not in a big way, after all there are other shows out there, but still you feel almost like you’ve grown with that show? You felt a lot of nostalgia when it ended, enough to stay away from the TV for a week or two in order to reminisce and cherish the memories that the show left in you? But still you’re glad that it ended where it did and on such a high note?

Well, in a way that’s The Witcher saga to me :)

That paragraph might’ve sounded a bit corny but I don’t have a better way to express the feelings I had when, through all of these years, I experienced the Witcher storyline from start to finish, even though I went through it at the wrong order (the first two games, then the books and finally the third game). Granted, the videogames are noncanonical, but even taking into account the artistic license used by the writers at CD Projekt Red I think the games’ storyline is worthy of the same consideration, analysis and even fondness that I have for the original literary saga created by author Andrzej Sapkowski.

But first thing first, the graphics. To this date they’re the best I’ve seen in a triple-A RPG because of two things. One, they obviously improved everything from The Witcher 2 and made it playable on a large open world. Even though some textures, lighting and NPCs don’t look as impressive as they could have (the downgrade controversy), for a huge open world setting they built a very atmospheric and detailed game without hurting too much the game’s performance. In fact, even with the downgrade I dare to say they went the extra mile and managed to create one of the biggest, most carefully constructed, most charming —in its gritty, melancholic way— and most immersive worlds ever seen in a role playing videogame to this date thanks largely to the art direction and environment design. Just look at those sunsets!

And two, for a non-linear game the animations are superb, especially considering they didn’t fully rely on prerecorded motion capture. I can’t believe the amount of work the animation department might’ve gone through in order to make the characters —especially the main ones— feel so alive and convey such a big range of emotions. Cutscenes never were more enjoyable to watch in any other RPGs like in this one.

A thing that surprised a lot me was how much the gameplay systems were improved, and in a huge way! Combat became more responsive, strategic and exciting, though a bit repetitive; monster variety was great; contracts became a more engaging —and, yeah, a little repetitive as well— experience; the inventory and journals got easier to navigate, on PC at least; alchemy became deeper and a little more necessary; signs became even more fun to use and more essential than before, even the least useful ones; stats and skills became more important to grow and supervise; exploration was a lot more engrossing and rewarding despite many empty spaces in the world, some useless loot and the awkward controls of Roach; and of course, the least expected of them all, Gwent as a replacement for dice poker was like having another cherry on top of the cake! :o ...a pay-to-win cherry but still a very entertaining distraction.

What was also very surprising was how much personality they infused to the game with its very unique and remarkably executed musical direction. The previous games already had great music but The Witcher 3 soundtrack has to be one of the richest, most folkloric (thanks in part to the band Percival) and most memorable compositions that exist in the industry. Kudos to the composers and musicians that made possible such an outstanding score.

CDPR didn’t even stop there: the story, even though it lost some of the political intrigue (and characters) from The Witcher 2, became a grander and more emotional journey —both in its main and secondary quests— than any of their previous games, not to mention the competition (sorry The Elder Scrolls, but the bar has currently been raised too high for you). And let’s not forget about the comedic factor. Even though it wasn’t the focus of the game’s script, the writers managed to convey a healthy amount of humor that was sometimes too obvious and cheeky but quite funny, and another times very subtle but ingenious. Just check quests like “No Place like Home”, “Cabaret” and “Shock Therapy”, they’re some of the most hilarious missions I’ve ever played :lol:

Last but definitely not least, it has some of the deepest and most interesting characters I’ve ever seen in videogames, from the main cast to the most random of NPCs. I immensely loved the moral complexities of the Strenger family, the menacing creepiness of the Ladies of the Wood, seeing important events through Ciri’s eyes, the tragic but often curious life of the inhabitants of Velen, the adventures with Keira Metz, the trials and tribulations of Triss and the mages trying to survive in the harsh but beautiful city of Novigrad, Dijkstra just being Dijkstra, the fun times with Geralt’s buddies Zoltan and the Crimson Avenger, I mean, Dandelion, the joys and tragedies of Priscilla’s quests, the hostility and paranoia of king Radovid, the intricate traditions and way of life of the skelligers and their ruling families (notably the an Craites), the camaraderie of Geralt’s fellow witchers, the convoluted but profound love between our protagonist and Yennefer, the emotional search for Ciri, the costly struggle against the (frankly uninteresting) Wild Hunt and many, many more quests and stories.

What can I say? I love this game. It’s not perfect of course but it’s what I would call the whole package: impressive story and quests, amazing and deep characters, huge and detailed world, fun and engaging gameplay, really great graphics and art direction, extraordinary music and a witty sense of humor. Now that I think about it, I’d say it’s currently my favorite videogame of all time :)

My wish right now is for CDPR to take their sweet time with Cyberpunk 2077, my most anticipated game in recent history (so long, Half-Life 3 :lol: ). Considering the rumors about their working conditions —it’s not the worst place on Earth but sadly, much like many game companies, they seem to push their staff too much— I hope they give their employees breathing room so they can continue to feel inspired and keep creating some of the greatest games of these last generations, just like they proved they can do with The Witcher 3 and its more-amazing-than-expected expansions 8-)


---

My three word review:
The whole package
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Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by TheEmailer »

I gave up on Witcher 2 after 8 hours, but this really drew me in. Massive open worlds aren't my thing usually, I don't have much gaming time, I like well crafted linear stories and dislike collecting things. But this really broke the mould, I felt motivated to do sidequests. So much of what can be found in these war torn lands has insightful writing that fleshes out the world, thinking of how conflict has effected everyday people.

And I much prefer the choice system a Bioware style one. Geralt isn't a blank slate with a wide range of behaviours and choices you can flit between. Geralt has a pre-defined character and the player is given restricted choices that make sense in that context. Hence his character is consistent, whereas my Sheppard in Mass Effect is inconsistent and a bit generic.

The best thing though is the feeling that Geralt action's don't always make a difference, which gives the impression of a world outside the player, not one revolving around them.

Oh and the combat is deep and rewarding, the art style in wonderful and unlike other open world games I had very few technical problems.
nickturner13

Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by nickturner13 »

The Witcher 3.

As previously noted, I absolutely adored Witcher 2, thought it was one of the best games I've played since classic RPGs as Final Fantasy 7, and the first Mass Effect. Those 2 games would easily slot into my personal top 10 games of all time.

It must be said that The Witcher 3 is a monumental undertaking. I am generally the kind of guy that finds a game boring after 20 hours or so. There are exceptions to this, such as Civilization and World Of Warcraft, but generally, If I haven't completed a game within 20 hours then I will probably drop it, possibly never to return.

Take 2013's Tomb Raider for example. A good, solid action game, but after 15 hours, despite getting close to the finish... it took me several weeks to force myself to go back and finish off those last couple of hours.

So we come back to The Witcher 3. I personally feel that this game is too long for it's own good. Every single side quest, every single person you talk to, branches out into multiple other quests, visiting locations, activating Bat-sense type functions to investigate crime-scenes, riding horses through miles of wind-swept countryside... It's a beautiful, stunning game, but I wonder if it's all a bit too much.

I have not even reached Skellige, after 70 hours of play, and have now dropped the game. Possibly I will return at some point but due to multiple changes in hardware and software, I will probably have to start again from scratch... can I really face another 70 hours grind just to get where i already am, and then a further potential 70 hours plus to get anywhere close to completing it?

No.

I love TW3, it is a fantastic achievement, a world that is possible to live within, with dozens of realistic, life-like characters and voice actors that put any other game to dust.

Storylines like the Bloody Baron (brummy, aye!) will stick with me for all time, especially as the ending to that story line, for me, was not the same as other people that I spoke to, and all the more memorable because of that)

But for me personally, it is too much. When I was younger, I loved the idea of an open-ended, never-ending game to play around and lose yourself within.

As I reach closer to the grand old age of 40, I prefer my games to have an interactive narrative structure that can be played through, with choices that impact the outcome, over the course of 20 hours.

Maybe I'm just getting old.
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Re: The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone / The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

Post by MauricioMM »

As you can tell from my previous comments about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I’m a huge fan of this series and I particularly love the third entry, it being a culmination of everything that was great about The Witcher 1 —like its folkloric atmosphere— and The Witcher 2 —like its gameplay systems— with and added open world element and improving everything by twofold. I was already pretty hyped for The Witcher 3 when it was still months away from release but I have to admit that I became somewhat skeptical when CD Projekt RED announced that they were developing a couple of expansions without even having launched the base game yet. I know that the planning stages of DLCs and expansions are usually started weeks or months before the game has gone gold, but it was suspicious that they would reveal them in such an early fashion.

So, I started playing The Witcher 3 just after the Game of the Year Edition came out because I wanted to play the game at its fullest and, well, you already know my opinion about the base game but even so I wasn’t expecting the expansions to amaze me the way the base game did.

First, Hearts of Stone. Gameplay-wise, it offered barely enough to earn the expansion label: the lovely rural area of Gustfields, located north of Novigrad and Oxenfurt, was geographically extended by just a little (compared to the whole size of Velen), with the notable addition of Miller’s Lake and its charming surroundings; a few secondary quests were added; only three new types of common enemies were introduced —Wild Boars, Fallen Knights of the Flaming Rose and Arachnomorphs (these last ones with excellent AI by the way)—; equipment enchanting was introduced but, apart from two or three useful runewords and glyphwords, it didn’t exactly blow my socks off; and the new armors and swords were barely better than the top ones in the base game.

However, this was counterbalanced with some of, if not THE best boss battles in the whole game (particularly the optional duel against the intriguing Olgierd von Everec and the battle against The Caretaker), several great new tunes, the inclusion of lore and some characters from the middle-eastern-inspired land of Ofir, the very nice cameo of Shani (one of Geralt’s past love interests), a truly amazing storyline told through very thrilling quests —some of the best and most memorable in all the games— and new deeply interesting characters, including the smartest, most intimidating, most mysterious, best written and best performed villain in the whole saga, Gaunter O’Dimm. And let's not forget about Olgierd and Iris von Everec, the protagonists of one of the most heart-breaking love tragedies in the game, as soul-wrenching as the Strenger family storyline I would say.

Blood and Wine on the one hand couldn’t possibly compete with the intelligently told, carefully made and emotional story of Hearts of Stone and honestly it felt a little too fanservice-y at times, but on the other it offered more gameplay improvements, more enemies, some very cool and even outlandish boss battles, the best equipment in the whole game, many unique and interesting quests, more easter eggs and quite a lot more of comedy than Hearts of Stone.

Plus the music, holy f*ck, what an amazing soundtrack. They brought another great composer, Piotr Musiał, to collaborate with the other two talented composers that worked on the base game’s score, Marcin Przybyłowicz and Mikolai Stroinski, and you can tell that his inclusion helped bring even more richness and personality to this beautiful soundtrack. Just listen to that mandolin, that hurdy-gurdy and those vocals!

On top of all that, CDPR chose in this expansion to bring to life what’s in my opinion the most colorful, most peculiar, most gorgeous region from the books and the main selling point of the season pass for me: Toussaint. In the book series, this country was presented as a beautiful Renaissance-style mediterranean-like setting and it became a place for Geralt and his fellowship to temporally rest their feet, a place however not without its problems, temptations and mysteries. I’m glad that not only did the game keep that laidback, joyful and riveting atmosphere on this adaptation but also that they added a respectable amount of content needed to make this place feel deep and alive, thanks in part to some of the most intriguing, most memorable and even funniest quests in the saga (like certain otherworldly mission inspired by Shrek :lol: ). Plus, they brought back some characters from the books —one of them a hugely unexpected but happy surprise— and gave them important roles in Blood and Wine’s main quest. I just wish that the gameplay additions this expansion introduced (mutations, Corvo Bianco, armor dyes, etc.) were more meaningful and had more impact but they were pretty cool nonetheless.

Oh, and did you notice that certain villain from the previous expansion had a hand in the sad fate of a toussaintoi creature? That was an amazing cross-reference and an example of the type of small details The Witcher saga does best. I hope you didn’t miss the spoonful of clues present in that creature’s quest ;)

Well, I have nothing more to say other than what a way to turn an already superb game into something even more amazing! Cyberpunk 2077 is clearly in the right hands.


P.S.: This announcement back then was the closest thing I’ve had to a nerdgasm :lol: But seriously though, they f*cking nailed the look and feel of Toussaint! And that palace!

---

My three word review:
"That we do." :cry:
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Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by ashman86 »

Near the end of Act Two of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, you arrive upon the Isle of Mists where at last the search for Geralt's surrogate daughter, a plot arc that has dominated the game's main story up until this point, will come to its conclusion. After a run-in with seven dwarves--themselves caricatures of the seven from Disney's take on Snow White--you find Ciri's lifeless body at the back of a ramshackle house, and the witcher, overcome with grief, buries his head in his hands before scooping up and embracing the girl. A light enters Ciri, who wakes and reciprocates Geralt's hug.

And then a flashback, a scene borrowed from one of Andrzej Sapkowski's novels: Geralt comes upon a white-haired child in the woods, and the cherubic, younger Ciri springs into his outstretched arms.

Even if The Witcher 3 had failed at virtually every other aspect of its design, I'd wager it would still be worth celebrating for its characterization both of its fictional people and its fantasy world. There are precious few binaries to be found here. Characters are rarely if ever wholly good or evil. They're people, complex and motivated to different ends and by different things.

The Bloody Baron's arc is one example that frequently gets talked about, and I believe it's because that particular narrative so wonderfully illustrates the appeal of this morally ambiguous fantasy world. After learning that the Phillip Strenger physically abused his wife and that he may or may not have caused the miscarriage of their child in doing so, I was entirely ready to write him off as an irredeemable scumbag. I chastised him at every opportunity, even after he asked me to cut him some slack. He didn’t deserve it, I thought.

And then I learned there was more to him than his violent past. I don't know that I ever came to like the Baron, but I did learn to feel sympathy for him. I was touched at his interactions with the Botchling, particularly when he named her, and I felt my stomach twist when I discovered that his wife had caused her own miscarriage.

Even now I feel conflicted about the whole thing. Finding any common ground with so vile of a human being (both he and Ana, really) seems almost unthinkable, and yet The Witcher 3 forced me to face the reality that even men like Strenger are human and fallible.

This is what great fiction is supposed to do.

I found myself navigating the game's various moral dilemmas not by choosing what felt right or wrong but by doing what I believed Geralt, a man who was devoted to his friends above all else, might actually do (I also referenced this mindset in my Witcher 2 review). The mantra seemed to suit me well, and it thrilled me to see the story play out in such a way that Geralt's personal quest is never really about saving the world but about saving the parts of it he cares for. In the conclusion, its Ciri who's the true hero in the grander scheme of things, and her success relies almost entirely on Geralt's ability to step back and allow her to make her own choices.

It helps, of course, that The Witcher 3 doesn't fail at the other aspects of its design. It's gorgeous. Its soundtrack is one of the best I've heard. And its combat system, while perhaps one of the more polarizing aspects of the game, never grew old on me. I play the game exclusively on Death March, albeit without difficulty-enhancing mods, and even at high levels and with great gear, I never felt truly overpowered. I enjoyed that combat never stopped feeling deadly and dangerous.

And yet, in spite of all the praise I've heaped on the game, I wasn't immediately certain that it had soared above the greatness of its predecessors. I had gone into the game with some trepidation about its open-world design. As I recalled in my review of the Witcher 1, the series had already become one of my most favorites, and I had appreciated the tightness of the Witcher 2's more limited, albeit twisty, structure. I feared that, as an open world game, The Witcher 3 would be more systems-driven than the first two games and that its narrative would suffer as a result.

It took dozens of hours before I was convinced otherwise. While I was almost immediately drawn into the Witcher 3's story, I couldn't help but notice that the cutscenes felt a little rougher around the edges than they had in the Witcher 2--often due to the game's physics engines bugging out as wind interacted with things like the dagger on Ciri's hip (see the aforementioned cutscene)--and that the sheer size of the game world, with all its many quests to complete and treasures to discover, meant for a diminished sense of urgency in the main story.

But where it may lack urgency and structure, The Witcher 3 more than compensates in depth, and virtually every sidequest has a richness to it that reminds you time and again that this is an RPG of the highest order.

I'll finish my review where I began it because it was when I discovered Ciri that the whole game clicked into place for me. For all the many games I've played over the decades that have broken me emotionally, this was the first time one had actually made me weep.

Maybe I'm more susceptible to such things at thirty than I had been as a younger man. Maybe the fact that I have three very young daughters of my own meant that I was more empathetic to the relief and joy that Geralt must have felt in that moment. But tears rolled down my cheeks liberally then. Even as I looked up the scene again on YouTube to prepare for this, I couldn't fight them back.

I crawled into bed too late that night. "How was your game," my wife asked me, half-awake.

I told her what I’ll echo here: "It's a masterpiece."

Three Word Review:
Gwent?
Silent nod.
kintaris

Re: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by kintaris »

nickturner13 wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:40 pm The Witcher 3.

As previously noted, I absolutely adored Witcher 2, thought it was one of the best games I've played since classic RPGs as Final Fantasy 7, and the first Mass Effect. Those 2 games would easily slot into my personal top 10 games of all time.

It must be said that The Witcher 3 is a monumental undertaking. I am generally the kind of guy that finds a game boring after 20 hours or so. There are exceptions to this, such as Civilization and World Of Warcraft, but generally, If I haven't completed a game within 20 hours then I will probably drop it, possibly never to return.

Take 2013's Tomb Raider for example. A good, solid action game, but after 15 hours, despite getting close to the finish... it took me several weeks to force myself to go back and finish off those last couple of hours.

So we come back to The Witcher 3. I personally feel that this game is too long for it's own good. Every single side quest, every single person you talk to, branches out into multiple other quests, visiting locations, activating Bat-sense type functions to investigate crime-scenes, riding horses through miles of wind-swept countryside... It's a beautiful, stunning game, but I wonder if it's all a bit too much.

I have not even reached Skellige, after 70 hours of play, and have now dropped the game. Possibly I will return at some point but due to multiple changes in hardware and software, I will probably have to start again from scratch... can I really face another 70 hours grind just to get where i already am, and then a further potential 70 hours plus to get anywhere close to completing it?

No.

I love TW3, it is a fantastic achievement, a world that is possible to live within, with dozens of realistic, life-like characters and voice actors that put any other game to dust.

Storylines like the Bloody Baron (brummy, aye!) will stick with me for all time, especially as the ending to that story line, for me, was not the same as other people that I spoke to, and all the more memorable because of that)

But for me personally, it is too much. When I was younger, I loved the idea of an open-ended, never-ending game to play around and lose yourself within.

As I reach closer to the grand old age of 40, I prefer my games to have an interactive narrative structure that can be played through, with choices that impact the outcome, over the course of 20 hours.

Maybe I'm just getting old.
Thanks for posting this, it's made me feel so much better!

I'm tackling my playthrough right now, and I've reached almost exactly the same point. Many, many hours in and facing the prospect of going on to Skellige. I'm not sure I want to.

It's really hard to put my finger on why. For context, I've loved the Witcher series (including the novels) throughout. That said, the world has always been a little hard to get into; it's a hostile and unwelcoming one. This is of course a great strength of the storytelling. Few other fantasy franchises, certainly in games, have managed to capture humanity warts-and-all as we frequently see here. But that same strength is also my biggest difficulty with the third instalment. There's a huge amount of content in The Witcher 3 for sure, but similar amounts can be found elsewhere. The problem here is that it's just all so bloody dreary. Even the comic interludes tend to the blackest of dark humour. That's far too close to the real world right now. Maybe if I'd played this on release before some of the bleaker political events of the real world took place, I'd have more stamina to endure it.

There is definitely an issue with the amount of places on the map in Velen/Novigrad. The amount of question marks on that screen is exhausting to look at. At best there will be another distressing tale of violence and horror lurking underneath it; at worst, it'll just be a bunch of drowners or bandits sitting on a fairly useless treasure chest. I don't really want to ride all the way across the bog again for that. Its murky beauty has kind of worn off by this point. Bearing in mind as well that the pacing of the game suggests that I'm only about a third of the way through. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it's not a good sign that fans of the series could be finding themselves so fatigued so early on.

All of this said, I am going to push on through with the main storyline. I feel I owe it to Geralt and these characters to witness the finale. I just might need to take frequent sips of brighter games to keep up my stamina. Luckily I've just picked up Yoshi's Wooly World, that ought to do it.

I will return with my thoughts once I've finished the game.

UPDATE: Frankly, I'm getting frustrated and bored with the Game of the Year Edition's constant bugs, freezing, total crashes on the Xbox One. Compounded with the points above, this hasn't been a pleasant experience in the slightest.

Is there a merry dance number at the finish? That might make it feel worth powering through.
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by AndrewBrown »

Let me be clear: I really like Wild Hunt. For me, the sluggish player character movement, broken horseback travel, and grueling early difficulty curve holds it back from the pantheons, but it was still a worthwhile investment of my limited time. There’s a breathing world built here and all its interlocking narrative cogs are prodigious and brilliant.

But what I tend to think of first when I look back on my time with Wild Hunt is how it treats women.

Wild Hunt starts well. The introductory cutscene shows Yennefer escaping an army with her magic; powerful and independent, she is not a damsel in need of rescue. But then we are shown a lascivious pan up her naked body in Geralt’s bedroom; it’s a conflicted scene, her nakedness justified by the moment’s privacy and intimacy, but intruded upon by the invisible player. The camera is choreographed to the male gaze, contrasting Geralt’s comical pose to Yen’s provocative one. Much like the title character in Bayonetta, I am meant to believe part of Yen’s power comes from her confident sexuality, but when it’s presented as titillation that idea falls flat. It’s not power, it’s fanservice meant for a heterosexual man’s eyes, and Yen is not the only powerful sorceress Geralt meets who is treated this way.

I view the sidequest “A Towerful of Mice” as a microcosm of how women are treated by Wild Hunt's incidental moments. In it, Geralt learns of a lord’s daughter, Annabelle, who found herself trapped in a mage’s tower when it’s attacked by superstitious peasants. Taking a paralytic given to her by the mage, she was mistaken for dead and left alone. But before the potion could wear off, she was eaten alive by the mage’s lab rats. This traumatic death turned her into a Pesta, a cursed spirit that preys upon men. She remains trapped in the tower until Geralt arrives to save her. The lesson here is clear: Wronged by men, a woman’s fate is to become a monster who plagues men, until she is saved by one. To the men involved, a strange woman is dangerous and probably evil. There are numerous “plague maiden” sidequests which follow a similar structure. Annabelle is the most notable.

This casual violence and exalted victimization of women permeates what feels like a majority of Wild Hunt quests. Geralt tracks a serial killer to a brothel, where he lounges amongst his victim’s mangled bodies. The “happy ending” to the much-vaunted Bloody Baron questline is sending a mentally ill and emotionally traumatized woman--a woman incapable of consent, in other words--off with her physically abusive alcoholic husband. Priscilla’s assault by a vampire is brushed off because it improves her singing voice (or so Dandelion claims).

More narratively prominent women should be Wild Hunt's saving grace, but here I must take issue as well. In the Skellige Ascension crisis, the player can choose to support the hot-headed Hjalmar or the thoughtful Cerys. Though Cerys is better suited for leadership, in my eyes, Wild Hunt offers no discernible, or even contrasting, consequence for siding with Hjalmar. Geralt gets equal and identical support at Kaer Morhen no matter who he chooses; the incompetent fratboy is thusly presented as equivalent to the mature scholar (my how life imitates art [feel free not to read this parenthetical on the podcast]). In their differing epilogues, we learn how each character is memorialized as a leader: Hjalmar, who defeated an Ice Giant with his Witcher ally; and Cerys, who struggles to escape the shadow of her father and brother, but the people are pleased with her anyway. In Wild Hunt's narrative, Cerys is consistently minimized.

Rising to the top of narrative relevance: Ciri is a dimension-hopping physical god and the story’s real hero, but she is delegated to a supporting role, often reduced to a damsel who must be saved by less powerful men, among other indignities. In what I consider Wild Hunt’s nadir, Ciri finds herself naked in a shower while the women around her gossip about boys. I’m consistently amazed that a videogame which is regularly praised for its strong writing has a scene lifted straight from a teen sex comedy. In many other stories, the teleporting badass who can slaughter armies with a thought would be the hero. But in Wild Hunt she is instead a supporting character who barely appears at all until the last ten hours of the plot. In one way, this is an interesting take: What does the end of the world look like to the person who isn’t destined to stop it? On the other hand, it’s continued minimization of a competent woman: It’s Geralt who rescues Ciri, it’s Geralt who rallies the armies to fight, it’s Geralt who defeats Eredin. This leaves Ciri to fight a nebulous evil force almost entirely offscreen. Ciri has the potential to be one of gaming’s most prominent and powerful women, but Wild Hunt chooses to deny its audience of that.

Let me again emphasize that I enjoyed The Witcher III: Wild Hunt very much. I put forward these criticisms not to lambast or try to detract from others’ enjoyment. But a thing we like, or love, we need not have slavish devotion to. The medium as a whole struggles with its treatment of women, and if Wild Hunt feels particularly pronounced, I believe that’s due more to its prodigious scope than any malicious intention. Marvel at its scope and majesty, but let us also recognize its cracks in the hopes that, next time, it can be done better.
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Hunter30 »

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS DANGEROUS LEVELS OF HYPERBOLE

Every now and then, over a beer or two, some of my friends and I will talk about our favourite games of all-time. Personally I’m a sucker for a top ten list, although I know such rigid ranking systems aren’t necessarily the Cane and Rinse way.

In my case a disproportionate number of my all-time favourite games date back to when I was a child, particularly that sweet spot between the ages of about 9 and 14 when I was old enough to appreciate more nuanced elements of gameplay or story, but young enough that everything felt fresh, and my imagination was easily sparked.

I say this because until I played The Witcher 3, I didn’t think any game could have the same impact on me nowadays as in that halcyon era. And yet, even with the influence of the rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia, I am comfortable saying this is the best RPG, and quite possibly the best game, I have ever played. The scale of it is just incredible. In much the same way I marvel at something like the Sistine Chapel ceiling, I actually cannot conceive in my head how a team of human beings, even a team of hundreds, was able to create this world, and bring it together so seamlessly. At the very least, I’d expect the flipside to such an ambitious project to be a host of bugs and glitches, such as those which blighted my experiences with two of Bethesda’s recent offerings. Not so with The Witcher 3: across a playthrough reaching nearly 150 hours the number of bugs were few and far between, and more importantly they were all pretty minor.

The number and quality of the side quests is staggering. I can’t think of any other game where there are so many herbs and plants to collect, and yet so few quests which explicitly ask you to collect them. The attention to detail and craft that has gone into even the game’s most peripheral aspects, which many players won’t ever see, is mind-boggling. In most RPGs a typical sidequest might be the equivalent of me being sent to the local supermarket by my wife to fetch a bottle of wine, perhaps having to fend off a few moped-riding street rats in the process, and then returning with said wine. In The Witcher 3 the typical sidequest, if there is such a thing, is the equivalent of me getting to the supermarket to find out it’s in the middle of a turf war with the neighbouring convenience store, complicated by an illicit affair taking place between the two managers, one of whom is afflicted by a curse that turns them into a giant haddock every full moon. The wine is long forgotten.

There are perhaps other video game trilogies out there that are stronger when you look at the three games in totality, but I’m struggling to think of any examples where a developer has iterated upon and improved each entry in the series to such an extent. The Witcher 2 is a fine game in its own right, but in my opinion is blown out of the water by its successor.

I’m already running out of superlatives, and I expect you’ll get a lot of correspondence about this one, so just to show I haven’t imbibed one of Triss’s love potions I’ll move on to some of my grumbles. As you explored in your brilliant Tetris podcast, there is simply no such thing as a perfect video game, and even this is no exception.

I felt as though Skellige might not have been playtested as thoroughly as the other areas in the game, as that’s where I found the majority of bugs. All the whales I came across seem to have swum into a crack in the time-space continuum, and were either in suspended animation or moving in slow motion. That was such a shame as it spoiled what could have been a really spectacular environmental feature, and pulled me out of the immersion. I also had some gripes with certain general gameplay elements in Skellige. Going after the question marks on the map resulted in finding endless numbers of floating barrels in the sea for example, which became rather repetitive. I appreciate this was entirely my choice, but I felt there was much more variety to these undiscovered locations in the Velen and Novigrad areas. I also found the preponderance of flying enemies in Skellige a nuisance (those bloody sirens!), and combined with the paper-like resilience of the boats, there were a couple of times when I was left stranded in the sea with no choice but to swim the hundreds of metres to the nearest shore.

Finally, and not Skellige-specific, I had mixed feelings about the sections where you take control of Ciri. At first I just found these annoying, as I had built up a number of skills with Geralt, and compared to him her options were very limited. As the game goes on she gets a couple of extra moves, which made things more interesting, but I still felt a pang of disappointment when those moments arrived. I appreciate that CD Projekt Red were aiming to show rather than tell through these sequences, and I think that was the right decision, but I would have preferred it if I could have had more of a direct hand in dictating Ciri’s skill progression, in a similar way to playing as Catwoman in Arkham City.

I suspect this is a game I’ll be talking about in the pub for a long, long time to come.
odrzut

Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by odrzut »

AndrewBrown wrote: October 10th, 2017, 9:02 pm But what I tend to think of first when I look back on my time with Wild Hunt is how it treats women.
You're very selective in your perception of humiliation and victimization. Yes, Witcher has several "plague maidens", but it also has many mroe cursed and victimized men. Just to mention a few - frog prince, Golyat, Filbert, Werewolf in Velen, the guy cursed by the herbalist in Skellige, the naive millionair in Toussain stripped from his riches and killed by a pair of con-people, the dwarf that is explosion specialist in Hearts of Stone, the Witcher that was experimented on by his father, the Witcher that was tortured and then made into a deamon avatar. Detlaff and all the people killed by Syanna. All the guys fucked and then killed by the Crones during the yearly celebrations. The crew of Hjalmar. Skjal. Avallach. Kids of Jarls on the feast by Birna. I can go on forever.

There's like 5 victimized men for every victimized women in The Witcher 3, simply because it's mostly men that fight the wars in this world. If you don't trust my count - list your examples and I'll list my. It says a lot about your attitude, that you only notice victimization when women are the target :)

Oh, my favourite example - when you help Cerys and choose her way of dealing with Hym possesion - Geralt has to kill some innocent soldiers defending Udalryk's infant. Nobody mentions it later. They just died for no reason, and nobody cares :) But then she's a possible monarch, and they were just some guys.

When Skjal helped Ciri and got killed, and then ostracized by the village after death, then resurected by Yennefer, tortured, dismissed as "merely a rotting flesh". It's Ciri who can rehabilitate him.

The Towerful of Mice is another example - you say that a women was tortured by men, but in that same tower dozens of peope died, their ghosts still there. And there's one guy near the lake living in eternal guilt-trip on the brink of suicide. And the happy ending he gets is to be killed by his lover so that Keira gets her research papers (which BTW she got thanks to cynical abuse of sexual relationship with the protagonist :) ). I don't think that quest is quite as one-sided as you make it to be.

IMHO it's the real problem with searching for sexism in art novadays. It demands women to be strong characters, but still wants them to be safe from any "triggering" harm. That just makes boring characters with bland conflicts, and that's why we have the stereotypical "token strong female character". Perfect in every inch. Never fears anything. World, no matter how grim-dark, tip-toes around her not to make anybody uncomfortable. Meanwhile male characters get to be in real danger, face real threaths and have interesting disadvenatages (token female characters can only have one disadvantage - the patriarchy is holding them down).

Thankfuly CDPR haven't done that, and instead went for dozens of female characters, all with different strengths and issues, all fitting with the setting they are in.

In a violent setting it's sexist NOT to treat women as badly as everybody else. When Geralt walks around - people spit and call him names. When Ciri walks around - people cat-call her. Guess which one players had problems with :)

And regarding Ciri vs Geralt - she's obviously the saviour of the Witcher world. She says it, Dandelion says it (she doesn't need saving). And yes, the expectation would be to make her the protagonist. But there's thousands of games about saving the world, some of the saviours were (or could be) female. There's very few (if any) games where you play not as the hero, but just as a parent to the hero. I much prefer the angle CDPR have choosen.

And they still have subverted the "damsel in distress" trope quite a few times despite making Geralt not Ciri the main protagonist. Vesemir and Geralt search for Yennefer, but she finds them "not to waste time waiting". Geralt wants to save Triss from tortures, and if he does - she's angry at him for not letting her execute her plan. Geralt tries to save Ciri from Wild Hunt, but it's Ciri who saves Geralt and everybody else, and she can only do it if Geralt lets her do her thing instead of intervening in her life without her consent.

Oh, and Dandelion is a "damsel in distress" repeatedly, saved (in part) thanks to his former and current lovers.

The only thing I can agree about is - Yennefer and Triss were portrayed as sexual objects, and while it's mostly lore-friendly, and there's nothing bad about it in general - it was obviously fanservice, and could be done in much better way (also Geralt should be naked as well in sex scenes, I don't buy "penis is too much poligons", it's clearly to appease male players afraid to see male genitals).
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by MauricioMM »

I came here just to say that, regardless of anyone's positions about any of the game's subjects, I love reading these type of discussions!

Keep them coming, as long as they're respectful, as objective as possible and insightful, of course.
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by KSubzero1000 »

MauricioMM wrote: October 12th, 2017, 6:43 pm I came here just to say that, regardless of anyone's positions about any of the game's subjects, I love reading these type of discussions!

Keep them coming, as long as they're respectful, as objective as possible and insightful, of course.
I wholeheartedly agree, but I have to point out that this discussion is anything but new. I recommend these two tvtropes articles on the subject, especially their "Analysis" tabs:

Men Are the Expendable Gender
Men Are Generic, Women Are Special

To put it simply, most audience members will have a stronger emotional reaction seeing a close-up of an innocent woman being slapped than witnessing an innocent man being killed in the background, especially if said man is portrayed as engaging in a confrontation of some sort. And they'll be much more likely to forget about male victims than female ones if the plot isn't drawing any attention back to them later on. This perception certainly muddies the water a bit - and so, while I'm sure that AndrewBrown is posting in good faith about the genuine reaction he had while playing The Witcher 3, I'm actually agreeing with odrzut that the game is nowhere near as sexist as some people think it is once you actually look at the victimization statistics. It merely depicts a violent and primitive world with plenty of suffering and injustice to go around, with female characters being neither conveniently sheltered from it nor unfairly targeted by the writers on account of their gender. I think odrzut's example regarding Ciri's being cat-called is a good one: In a world where pogroms are taking place and murders and betrayals lurk behind every corner, it unfortunately makes perfect sense that an attractive young woman would have to deal with these kinds of attitudes. But that doesn't mean that the game or its authors are actually endorsing this behavior. It may be uncomfortable to witness, but misogynistic it is not (questionable fan-service notwithstanding).

In the end, it all ties back to universal gender dynamics based on unavoidable biological facts and deeply-ingrained cultural notions that have been around for millions and millions of years. I don't think these dynamics are particularly healthy for anyone, and I think that the media we consume (and the world we live in) would probably be better off if they were turned down a bit, but I also don't think that we'll get any closer to solving these issues by way of an amateur video game podcast... :)
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Whippledip »

I dunno, odzrut's observations make sense if no real world context is applied. But given the current cultural and social climate we're in you should be questioning some of the things that happen in it.

I could probably give a pass on the plague maidens and whatnot because they're based in historical folk lore (even if they were probably borne long ago from a place of "women are inferior! grah rah"), but the stuff with Whoreson Jr's complete slaughter of a community of women is completely gross. It obviously makes sense in the game, but violence against women happens constantly in real life and it seems like it's trivialising a very serious issue by turning it in to a reward of xp or whatever and giving you a solution of "kill mans or don't kill mans". There isn't any really good way to deal with that, and there are plenty of other ways to make him a reprehensible villian without relying on brutally murdering women.

Just because they happen to make some progressive steps with their characterisations doesn't mean you can't criticise the parts where they don't. Having Dandelion as the "damsel in distress" is a nice subversion of that trope, but the game is still full of the helpless women needing to be rescued that you can't point at it like it absolves all the other times.

Also I wouldn't really rely on tvtropes as thoughtful or insightful discussion on these kinds of things. It's a great categorical resource but that's about it. Methodically categorising tropes, and then referencing them within other references within other references within more references and categorising everything that happens within a piece of media removes anything interesting about it in favour of turning it's meaning or point into a simple dichotomy of black and white.

Also I can't see any links to who writes those articles, so I'm assuming it's a wiki style where anyone can edit them, those examples you linked have some passages that feel very MRA-y
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by KSubzero1000 »

I have to admit that your post, and the overall cultural conversation (or lack thereof) it takes place in, is making me really sad. Gender identity and dynamics are some of the most important issues we're facing as a society, but it feels to me as if the well has already been poisoned so much that it only ever leads to reductive binary rhetoric at this point, no matter how fair and objective one tries to be. Yes, the current cultural and social climate we're in is very messed up in that regard, I just don't think we'll come any closer to solving the issue by turning everything into a Yes/No question.
Whippledip wrote: October 13th, 2017, 1:26 am I dunno, odzrut's observations make sense if no real world context is applied.
Would you mind explaining to me how his statement about how TW3 is actually having many more male victims of violence than female ones is being invalidated by applying real world context to it? The way I see it, the truth (or falsehood) of that statement is simply a matter of easily quantifiable statistics. It's just cold hard math, not a dubious political statement in dire need of context. What am I missing here?
Whippledip wrote: October 13th, 2017, 1:26 am there are plenty of other ways to make him a reprehensible villian without relying on brutally murdering women.
Sure, but most of these ways would consist of him brutally murdering men. The difference being, that we wouldn't think of it as "violence against men", we would only think of it as "normal" violence, and therefore much more acceptable. Which directly ties into my article...
Whippledip wrote: October 13th, 2017, 1:26 am violence against women happens constantly in real life and it seems like it's trivialising a very serious issue by turning it in to a reward of xp or whatever
Yes, violence specifically targeted against women is indeed a very real and very serious issue, but so are a lot of other forms of violence. Are you applying this line of thinking to them as well? Battlefield carnage has been a horrific staple of human existence since the very beginning, does it mean you're having the same aversion towards military shooters, who, unlike this example in TW3, ask you to actively participate in the action? If not, why not?

If the entire game was centered around this particular plot line, I would probably agree with you about it being exploitative and in bad taste. But considering the dark, medieval world the game is set in and everything that happens in it, I have to agree with odrzut that you're being very selective in what you do and don't consider to be acceptable.

In short, I'm not saying you're wrong (I actually think there is some truth to what you're saying), just that you go about it in a very biased way which isn't helping anything.
Whippledip wrote: October 13th, 2017, 1:26 am Just because they happen to make some progressive steps with their characterisations doesn't mean you can't criticise the parts where they don't.
This however I completely agree with.
Whippledip wrote: October 13th, 2017, 1:26 am Also I can't see any links to who writes those articles, so I'm assuming it's a wiki style where anyone can edit them, those examples you linked have some passages that feel very MRA-y
See, that's just a quick and dismissive label. I think the articles are doing a fine job exploring both sides of the issue, especially when they try to shine a light on the various ways these cultural notions are hurting both men and women. With that being said, I'd be happy to address any specific issues you might have with them, but how am I supposed to respond to a statement like that? I can't process your argument if you're not presenting one in the first place.

I really don't see anything in those articles which is meant to put women down. They merely approach the subject of gender portrayal in media from a slightly different angle than we're used to. Is that enough to dismiss them?


NB: I really don't want to derail the entire topic and make it all political. I'm sorry if I offended anyone and feel free to delete / ignore my posts if I've somehow stepped over the line...
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Whippledip »

Honestly I shouldn't have engaged in this conversation as I feel it's beyond the scope of the podcast. I think we're on the same page here, just coming from different ends of the book. I'm happy to leave it alone if you are. I'll probably edit my post to just include my thoughts about the game, I don't mind if you want to keep your responses to my original post intact though.

That aside you definitely weren't offensive or pushy or anything so don't worry about that.
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Alex79 »

Shouldn't have read thread. Spoilers abound.

:(

EDIT: Which was completely to be expected. My own stupid fault.

Will post some of my own thoughts on the game ASAP.
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Stanshall »

A phenomenal technical achievement with some enjoyable dialogue and unexpected narrative twists, The Witcher 3 was nevertheless most enjoyable as a walking simulator (no pejorative intended). While a number of patches improved the sluggish combat and movement, these elements were still very off-putting to someone weaned on the Souls series. Whether or not this is an unfair comparison, I bounced off the game several times due to the overly-animated lightweight sword twirling.

For months, I tried and failed to make headway beyond the first quests of Novigrad, until I read a post which recommended turning off the music, turning off the HUD, playing in Easy mode and just walking around, headphones on, soaking it up. Around that time, my wife was quite ill and so this exact suggestion became part of my own relaxing self-care once she'd fallen asleep beside me. I can still remember those evenings very vividly, the changing light, the shadows, the rich brown wooden panels everywhere, the flowers, the world-weary humour, the incessant chatter and cat-calling. I felt that the city was more alive than any other place in gaming; it even surpassed Skyrim, which I'd held as the gold standard for atmospheric RPG worlds. It became a comforting respite for me and I looked forward to the hour or so of peaceful escapism before I fell asleep.

I gradually became engaged in the quests and the narrative and I came to enjoy the dialogue and character interactions a great deal. The evening at the masquerade ball was a particular highlight, and I've never before felt such a sense of genuine romance in a game. It was Triss all the way, for me, and the game suffered greatly for her absence in the next act.

I eventually took another break not long after I'd reached Skellige. The main story was simply too much of a wild goose chase to hold my attention for so many hours. While the sidequests were admirably well written, I felt that this took away much of the impetus from the Ciri objective, which also lacked an emotive hook. I did finish the main quest but several months on, I can barely remember a thing about it. For that matter, I can barely remember the side quests. There is so much 'content' to the game, no matter the standard, that it became mulch and barely touched me.

Ultimately, The Witcher 3 left its mark with a very strong sense of place, with a thick atmosphere of natural beauty, with an earthy charm and a man-made despair. And I never need to play any of it again.
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