The Witcher 3

[Rainman]

Upravo suprotno:

- the story isn't divided into acts like in witcher 1 or 2
This is a huge challenge for the developers, because they have to make sure that the mainstory stays interesting so the player continues with it and doesn't do "open world stuff" form the beginning (like in skyrim).

[Krilce]

Sarmatian kaže:

Zaista je neverovatno da se developeri sve vise i vise trude da imitiraju Skyrim, Ah, sta reci a ne zaplakati... Mozda...

Spoiler za mozda...:

Je*** ih Skyrim sve djuturativno.

Iz cega li si ti zakljucio da imitiraju Skyrim? Jedina slicnost koju sam ja do sada procitao je da ce TW3 biti open world igra, i to mnogo vise na fazon Gothic-a (regije se otkljucavaju u skladu sa pricom, novi questovi se pojavljuju u vec posecenim regijama, itd.), nego na TES, gde bih rekao da nema apsolutno nikakvih slicnosti. To sto pomenu Skyrim u interview-u u nekom kontekstu apsolutno ne znaci da im je Skyrim uzor. Pre bih rekao da ga spominju u smislu da nece praviti iste greske i slicno, nego u smislu preuzimanja raznih mehanika, price, i cega vec ne.

[pentraksil]

Sarmatian kaže:

Zaista je neverovatno da se developeri sve vise i vise trude da imitiraju Skyrim, Ah, sta reci a ne zaplakati... Mozda...

Spoiler za mozda...:

Je*** ih Skyrim sve djuturativno.

Mislim da to vise novinari forsiraju nego Poljaci. I mene zivcira, Skyrim je zaista odlicna igra ali preteruju sa uporedjivanjem. Zaista ne bih voleo da Witcher bude kao Skyrim. Ne zelim playground vec ozbiljnu, nesto linearniju i smislenu pricu sa sporednim kvestovima koji imaju smisla sa citavom pricom o vescima. Ne bih voleo buckuris i nabacano sve i svasta u jedan svet. Imamo Skyrim za to, ne trebaju nam dva.

[Exia]

Oni su uzeli Skyrim "samo" kao tip po kome bi radili open world ali kao sto je neko vec citirao jednu izjavu producenata da zele da izbegnu tu boljku koju imaju TES igre (izes main quest ajmo da lurkujemo po svetu) zele da zadrze taj jak story osecaj (sinonim za The Witcher-a) napraviti jaku story driven igru u masivnom open world setting-u...zato i spominu skyrim...videcemo kako ce sve to da ispadne na kraju ali ja licno imam poverenja u CDP

[zokocx]

da to, i primer je naveo da su NPC karakteri u Skyrimu 'weak' tj. da te neko pita sad koji NPC je ostavio na tebe neki utisak, verovatno bi se jedva setio nekog i taj bi bio onaj kome si najvise prilazio u igri.

Meni recimo Ulfric Stormcloak ostavio neki utisak, ali primarno zbog glasa glumca.

[Slavisa14]

Exia kaže:

Oni su uzeli Skyrim "samo" kao tip po kome bi radili open world ali kao sto je neko vec citirao jednu izjavu producenata da zele da izbegnu tu boljku koju imaju TES igre (izes main quest ajmo da lurkujemo po svetu) zele da zadrze taj jak story osecaj (sinonim za The Witcher-a) napraviti jaku story driven igru u masivnom open world setting-u...zato i spominu skyrim...videcemo kako ce sve to da ispadne na kraju ali ja licno imam poverenja u CDP

Napredovanje kroz zone ce biti odradjeno kao u Witcheru 2 i nece imati veze sa Skyrimom. Jedina razlika u odnosu na Witchera 2 ce biti ta sto ce igrac imati pristup prethodnim zonama.
Ako igrac bude pokusao da napreduje u sledecu zonu pre nego sto predje main quest ili barem vecinu questova iz prethodne zone,docekace ga OP protivnici koji ce ga smrskati jer je jedini nacin da se lvluje kroz questovanje. Borba vise ne donosi XP(ode grind kroz prozor).

[zokocx]

Ako bude dovoljno (mnogo side questova) cak i onih manjih, nece se primetiti taj nedostak levelovanja ubijanjem monstera, ali i sistem lova ce da donosi valjda neki XP.

[Feferedon]

Novi intervju sa developerima. Moracu da podelim u nekoliko posta zbog duzine teksta.

Spoiler za 1:

"On the world, quests, and gameplay"

TVGry: Hello, warm welcome to everyone from CD Projekt's office in Warsaw. Today we are here with three of the game developers: Bartłomiej Gaweł, who works as a concept artist, Jakub Szamałek, one of the story writers, and Paweł Sasko, a quest designer.

Let's begin. You all play your parts in the process of creating quests. I'm curious if there is any blueprint behind it all... I assume there is, but do you tend to depart from it? I believe any one of you is a person who could initiate the process by throwing a new idea.

Jakub Szamałek: Of course we have due procedures, but we don't want to constrain ourselves, and try to treat them rather liberally so that we can work to the best effect. Most of the times the basic concept for the story comes from the story team - at least where the main quests are concerned. But obviously we're not dilly-dallying, only sending our dispositions, but we work very closely with other teams, and when the idea gets accepted to a certain degree, all other teams have their way with it. Bartek will surely tell you how the concept arts work, and Paweł will tell about quests. But occasionally the signal comes from a different side, we get the information that it would be nice if there was a story about this or that, and we try to accomplish some set goals with it. Sometimes a sudden change happens along the way, someone decides to have something cut or added, and of course we have procedures to deal with it, but they are to help us, not to limit us.

Paweł Sasko: I could describe how the process of creating such quest looks like. When we get the idea from our story writers, we break it down to elements, and after it gets accepted, we have to deal with the production and get all the assets. Then it's Bartek's turn, among others, and the whole art team.

Bartłomiej Gaweł: At the beginning is always the story, then it's broken down to what will happen in the game, then we come, and we obviously have some pipelines according to which the whole process runs, it's all set and defined, but since it's so creative environment, and since we often clash with various problems during the production, we have to try different approaches to the problem. So it's a very productive and creative work.

TVG: We're around the subject of quest building, but to what extent are you creating content that is part of such quests, and how much of it to simply fill out the world and is not associated with any specific quest? Are there any guidelines, let's say: we have the feel of a specific location, and you can play with it and come up with your own idea?

BG: I usually go from general to specific. First we decide the feel of the locations, which are mostly large hubs, then, after we have the architecture, attire, landscape, vegetation, game, monsters, and all such other things, then we go to more detailed elements, like main or secondary characters, the specific monsters, even the specific buildings, and so on. So it's always from general to specific, and we have a degree of latitude in the matter. Of course everything's based on the story and in what happens therein, but we have a great degree of freedom, there's so many inspirations we have no limits.

TVG: Yes, that's what I wanted to ask about. How big of an inspiration are Sapkowski's works. There never were many detailed descriptions. You could go for a certain atmosphere of a town or other location - but as for other inspirations, do you take them from your own experiences?

BG: Exactly. Well, each of us perceives Sapkowski's books differently. When you read a book you imagine things differently. Obviously when someone starts designing a location, or even a monster, always basing it on Sapkowski's books, he also adds much from himself, from his imagination, things he experienced, saw, and so on. So even though there is the common background, it's always a very creative work. But Sapkowski's background is there, and we always try to search for a description, for what is written in the books, we often discuss the subject among ourselves, think what the author tried to convey, and only then we start designing.

TVG: Right, but the same is with monster designs. I believe it's one of the most characteristic things in the game. We have the example of the Leshy, we know it will be in TW3, and it's a creature that was mentioned in the books perhaps once, it's based on Slavic legends, but no one really knows how it should look like.

BG: Indeed, and here is the place for our invention. We strive to make the monsters most interesting, to make them attract attention, to make them memorable, and, above all else, to make them unique. We are creating a unique world, and we want it to be remembered, so it takes a lot of work to find the final design of a character or anything else in the game, and I think we are successful on this front, that the things we have shown, as well as those that we will be showing, are original and attractive for players.

[Feferedon]

Spoiler za 2:

TVG: OK. The next thing I'd like to ask about is how the open-worldness goes with the choice and consequence that are part of various quests. Do the side quests intertwine, so that choices made in one are reflected in the other, or are somehow reflected in the world? Or do you try to limit it to a single quest, or a quest chain, in order to maintain control?

JS: Then perhaps I'll answer from my story writing perspective. We don't use a single solution throughout the whole game, time after time, but we try to show the consequences in various ways, to surprise the player, amaze him, an so on. Sometimes decision is limited to the sidequest and has any bearing only within the sidequest, and sometimes it will heavily impact the story or the whole world. But there is no easy way to distinguish between the two and to define the consequences right from the start of the quest. We want it to be like in real life, somewhat unpredictable, so that you have to think twice before you act, as you never fully know what will happen. And of course we show the consequences a bit differently than in the earlier games that were more contained, and where we could separate their specific parts. Here we have different tools, but we have many of them. I believe those who remember TW1 and TW2, who liked the system where choices had strong impact won't be disappointed, and I don't think the open world will prove an obstacle to present the consequences.

PS: Quest-wise the choices can open a unique path, something that normally the player wouldn't discover, and something we managed to introduce, something we're rather proud of, is that player can to a certain degree modify the main questline by doing sidequests. It all depends on the player. This is the open world mechanic we try to emphasize, as it really shows that player's actions are influencing what is happening, and that he will feel that while the events of the main quest are the most important, its specific fragments can result from sidequests, and there's really a whole bunch of instances where this happens, where something we did in a sidequest changes the main storyline. The consequences have various impact, sometimes they are really big things, sometimes they provide a whole different branch, but usually they are small things, for instance the way a character reacts. Here our writers have vast room to maneuver, and they use it intensively, add new dialogue elements, where a character mentions something we did, or knows of something that happened. Apart from that, because the world is open and the player has a specific task to accomplish, his knowledge differs on various stages on the game. All those elements we have to take under consideration, as the player can do most bizarre things, and we want to allow it - it's the main point of the whole thing, that I've done something and I see that it does have an effect.

TVG: How did you approach the problem of the order in which players proceed? Are you prepared for a number of different scenarios, or do you try to limit the player through the story, so that he can't do any and every quest in a random moment? Because how would the consequences play out otherwise?

PS: For that you need a cunning design, so to speak. It comes with time, usually with a number of iterations, unfortunately. On one hand we try to show the player, whenever we can, that his actions result in certain consequences, but it all has to be in reasonable boundaries. We can't totally exhaust our production or force our character designers to do something they are unable to do in allotted time. We have our budget and a finite number of people, so as designers - both story designers and quest designers - we have to plan cautiously: add things where they are necessary or subtract where players would most likely never see them, or would not appreciate them. It's doable, most of the time.

JS: I can also add that even though it is an open world, we also have the story that has its beginning and its end. The player has a very large degree of freedom in how he wants to lead the story, what he wants to start with, and how he wants to end it, but it's not like he can go to the end immediately and finish the game in 10 minutes. We try to find golden mean between player's freedom and maintaining narrative discipline. And also, because there often arise suspicions that since it will open world, players will have smaller number of choices, that there will be less non-linearity than in previous games, I wanted to emphasize that I believe there will be more of both. Player has much freedom in how he pieces the story together, so the non-linearity is greater than in the previous games, as it's not the question of which decisions were made by the player, but also when. So for us, the writers, as well as for players it's a lot of fun. It adds another layer to the story.

[Feferedon]

Spoiler za 3:

TVG: I wonder about content that the player, because of his choices, would never see in the game. TW2 was kind of famous for that, the second act could be completely different depending on what we did. On one hand it was cool, on the other - non economical for the developers. It was a large chunk of content the player could never see. Do you try to shy from such approach here, do it on a smaller scale?

PS: We do it on a smaller scale. We try to rationally decide whether what we're designing is sensible. It passes between many people who mull it over, people who are often better in these matters than we are, or have some knowledge we don't - for instance how many days our character designers can spare to make additional characters we need. So we try to rationalize, but yes, we still do paths that are mutually exclusive. It was an element of our identity and we don't want to forgo it. Especially since players liked it, and the fact that I can play differently, that I can construct my character a bit differently and try to play a bit differently - it was attractive and caused people to attempt their second and third playthroughs, and there are people who finished the game dozens of times.

TVG: I think RPG players have a tendency to avoid doing the next main quest - and we know the main storyline will play very important role. They try to avoid the place and do as much sidequests as they possibly can out of the fear that something will be taken away from them. I wonder if you've come to meet the fears, to communicate to player that he will not lose content, or to let him know what he could lose and what he can do before advancing with the story.

PS: Yes, indeed we do something like this. In most cases when some choices or some path is taken away from the player when he advances with the story, it's an error on the designer's part. It shouldn't be like this. Obviously there are elements that you can't avoid, for instance some dramatic change in the world that occurs because of player's actions - it's unavoidable then, but we try not to do it this way. It's not an open world mechanic, it's not supposed to work this way in a sandbox environment. Besides it is a punishment of sorts. So it's not a clean solution design-wise.

JS: We try to make the player aware of what he's omitting, or that certain paths are open, so that his inaction would be a conscious decision. We believe the ability to decide in such situations is a nice touch that gives the player the feeling of control over the story and his character, as well as certain causativeness. So the game will sometimes offer something, present some path, but the player will decide that he's not liking the character and will not help him, or will piss off some other character so that he won't want to have anything to do with the witcher, and through such decisions the player will also impact the world. So not making a decision, or avoiding it, is a decision in and of itself. We don't want to force the player to do something he doesn't want, but at the same time make sure that he knows that withholding help also has its own consequences.


TVG: I wonder if, story-wise, and due to the open world structure, adding each new quest is a very careful process on your part. Does it happen that when you add something new, like 20th-odd quest, it turns out to break some other quest you've added months ago? Do you have to look back often and remove them completely or try to fit the pieces together?

PS: It is as you say. All the time. We chase each other incessantly and continuously break what we've done before. Making a game is an iterative process, and always when we're adding something new it impacts the whole structure and can cause some quest to become completely obsolete. Good communication within the team is a necessity, we all have to know what other quests exist in a given location. You may go around interrogating people, make sure you're not breaking anything.

JS: I'd say CD Projekt's philosophy is perfectionism. It can be awesomly demanding for the whole team, after all it's that we almost never, at any stage of production, decide: OK, that's good enough, let's forget about it. We're working on quests - on the whole game - until the very last moment, so we can be sure we've achieved the quality we'll be content with. So indeed the quests are modified, fixed, often a new voice appears, a new perspective of another team member, which causes us to stop and think, and results in changes. It's not like we create something, close it, and move on, forgetting about what we're leaving behind.

[Feferedon]

Spoiler za 4:

TVG: I'd like to ask directly about the story. Do you feel now, during the third game, that you're confident with The Witcher's lore and the world? Seeing that the world will be vast, and that the story will focus on the witcher Geralt and his personal matters, do you feel that you've mastered what Sapkowski created, that you bring his books into the game to the letter?

JS: We're confident in the sense that it will be the last game about the witcher Geralt, and because of that we must close certain matters, put a full stop here and there, and it's satisfying for us, and I believe it will be satisfying to players as well. Some things started in the books or in TW1 or TW2 will not come to a close. As for translating the lore into the game language, we still take lavishly from the Witcher's world, and I think we indeed have worked out certain ways of how to present to players the more juicy bits, how to modify them a bit so that they fit for a different medium. But still Sapkowski's works remain very inspirational, and while we allow ourselves to fill the gaps left by him (from obvious reasons; an in-game description will never be as rich and detailed as presenting the place in the game), we don't change the lore, meaning we don't add things that are contrary to what's in the books. It's important for us to fill the places that can be filled, and not negate what has been written.

TVG: How do you feel about bringing characters from the books into the game, as opposed to creating new characters? Is one of those tasks more interesting than the other, or do both have their pros and cons?

JS: Both are nice, while different. People in the team, especially here in the story team or in the quest team, we all are Sapkowski's fans, we've read the books since, like, always, and we cherish them, and it's great fun to take from the books characters that haven't yet appeared and to put them into our game. Suddenly the character we've known from the books gets a distinct shape, a distinct voice, we can make the character face new challenges, we try to understand his personality and plan his future in the game. But coming up with completely new characters is also great fun, as it gives us greater freedom and a chance to show off our creativity. So both approaches are cool, and the player will be happy both when meeting characters he knows from the books, as well as those we create.

TVG: I gather that a new pool of characters from the books will be added to the game?

JS: Yes, indeed, but for now I cannot tell who those characters will be.

TVG: Going back to the gameplay: we already know about Points of Interest, that various places will try to visually convince players to visit them - which is supposed to be less mechanical, and more intuitive system. But I still wonder about obtaining quests. Do you intend to utilize player's own inquisitiveness and perception? For instance let him (and not simply Geralt) overhear some random people talking about something supposedly happening somewhere, and so on, and so forth, without necessarily adding it to the journal, but the player can still decide it's worth pursuing, after which he goes exploring the place.

PS: Generally all quests associated with PoIs, as you said, begin in a numer of ways. Player can obtain the quest in various ways - and indeed there are scenarios just as the one you've described. Player can overhear something, learn about some interesting place, and if he goes there, then perhaps something interesting might happen. We try to predict situations when player heard about the place, or when he's simply stumbled upon it while exploring, or when something entirely else happened. This also changes the quest itself to a certain degree. The knowledge of both Geralt and the player varies, depending on the way they found the place. We try to add such things, especially since it's a sandbox mechanic that emphasizes the desire for exploration, as there are curious things to be found. And we try to really provide those curious things.

JS: Again, I think the key is - as it was with the consequences - variety. We don't stick to one method, duplicating it indefinitely, but we try to present quests in various ways. There are obviously certain quests that are very visibly and unambiguously advertised: all the main storyline quests are plainly marked, so that player will know what to do. But we also want to reward players who like to explore, who like to listen to NPC dialogues, who look into every nook and cranny. The quests will vary, and there will be prizes for players who will make the effort of exploring the world.

TVG: With reference to the consequences, I wonder how is it with the exposition of those. In the first game we had something that has been abandoned in TW2, i.e. the narrative cutscenes that were showing us that what we did has had impact on the situation. Do you intend to go back to those, or do you plan to leave things in a more subtle and natural way?

JS: We present the consequences in various ways. Those most important will be presented not only in the gameplay layer, but outside of it as well. Apart from that, we present some consequences through dialogues that the player will hear when walking by, some within locations, some we'll present only after player completes the game. So again we have various methods we use to present the consequences in various ways.

PS: About your question, I think what you've asked about is whether we are bringing back the flashback mechanics - then yes, we are, definitely. We try to show the player what the consequences are; I mean it's somewhat associated with our identity, we want to emphasize it, and we believe it worked well.

[Feferedon]

Spoiler za 5:

TVG: One of the last questions: does the size of the world depend on the number of quests you'll make to fill it out, or is it the opposite: you create quests and it turns out that you have to extend the world to fit the quests in?

JS: I would say the dependency goes both ways. We knew from the very beginning we'll have a big world, so we knew we'll have to fill it out with quests and quest types not present in previous games - like the exploration tasks. If a location is small, you can't cram in it hundreds of places to explore - it would simply look strange and you won't be able to construct such quests well enough. But since we are aware that we have an open world, we can think about how we could use it to tell stories that we couldn't tell otherwise. An example would be the so called monster hunting, all those small quests about doing witchery things. Such quests were in the previous games, but there they were rather simple - we obtained a contract, sometimes had to do something extra in order to deal with the monster, but it all basically boiled down to getting to a specific place and fighting the monster. Now, since we have such a big world, we can play with the form and use the fact that Geralt can track monsters, and that some tracks can lead to nowhere, and that the player will have to make an effort to find and identify the monster before attacking it. So I would say it works both ways: the fact that we have an open world requires us to prepare a bit different quests, to do a bit different work, but it also enables us to make something different.

PS: I can add one more thing. Production-wise, we tried to plan everything at the very beginning. As Bartek said, it's a very creative environment, and while planning is generally not any artist's forte, we try to do it anyway. We try to distribute things in such a way that, say, the number of quests would be sufficient for a number of square kilometers of the location, but we often have the need to scale one location down, or to enlarge another, because it doesn't fit the quest and we have to change it, and then we also modify the plans.

TVG: I'm curious whether the new book, "Storm Season", changed your plans in any way, even in the minute aspects, and whether you were as surprised as the rest of us, or did you perchance have any prior insight into the book before its premiere?

JS: We didn't have any insight into the book, so we were in a similar position as the rest of readers. We've all read it, found some cool things. Obviously it came out late in our production cycle, so it won't have any big impact on the game, but here and there we do try to reference to the new details the book presents. Since we get to know the background of various characters or locations, it allows us to enrich the dialogues or some character's story. There won't be any drastic changes, though, and there are no big chunks of the story that depends on them.

PS: Besides, Mr. Sapkowski wrote the book in such a way that it doesn't clash with the game. The book takes place during the Saga, and the game is after that, so we use it in a manner as Jakub said - as an inspiration. Plus it's always a good thing when the creator of a world extends it, as we can simply use the new elements - and there are some interesting details we've liked, and they will probably appear in the game.

TVG: Great. So, then, thank you very much for the conversation.

[RexGrammer]

Mogao si i link da ostavis, umesto svega ovoga

[Feferedon]

Tekst sam prekopirao za zvanicnog foruma igre, u pitanju je prevod sa poljskog intervjua, tako da nisam mogao da postavim izvorni intrervju, a nisam siguran da je dozvoljeno propagiranje drugih foruma.
Inace najvise me je obradovalo sto zadnja knjiga nece da se potire sa loreom iz igre, cak ce iskoristi neke zanimljive elemente iz nje. Negde sam procitao da u novoj knjizi Geralt otkriva neki novi sign, ako njega implementuju to bi moglo dosta da produbi gejmplej, mada zaboravio sam sta znak radi.

[Feferedon]

[Feferedon]

[Paladin]

Ranije sam pročitao prve dve knjige i jedva da se nečega sjećam a ovih dana sam čitao treću, četvrtu i sad čitam petu knjigu - odlične su! Prve dve knjigu su koliko se sjećam zbirke priča a ovo od treće knjige je roman, s tim da se Ciri pominje u drugoj knjizi, na kraju je Geralt pronalazi u onoj porodici. Jedino mi je sad problem što nemam šestu ni sedmu knjigu

[Kusta]

Gde kod nas mogu da se nabave knjige? Mislim na Srbiju konkretno.

[Nicklord]

Kusta kaže:

Gde kod nas mogu da se nabave knjige? Mislim na Srbiju konkretno.

http://www.carobnaknjiga.com/
Možeš kod njih naručiti, ja nisam probao i ne znam kako radi. Ja sam kupovao na sajmu uglavnom.

[Dreamfall]

Ima Witcher knjiga u Vulkanu i Delfiju za one koje ne mrzi da se prosetaju