The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Infinitron]

Kneel before your potato overlords



https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-witcher-3-sold-better-in-q1-2017-than-same-per/1100-6450351/

The Witcher 3 Sold Better In Q1 2017 Than Same Period Last Year
Sales of the role-playing game rose year-over-year.

Polish game developer CD Projekt Red today announced financial results for the first quarter of 2017, showing an increase of 17 percent in total revenue to 99.3 million PLN.

Notably, CD Projekt Red's gaming division grew by 10 percent despite the fact that it didn't launch a new game. Additionally, the company's GOG division saw revenue jump by 63 percent.

The good times extended to profit as well, as the company made 45.3 million in net profit for the period, up by a healthy 40 percent compared to last year.

Helping the company is continued sales of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Notably, the game sold more copies in Q1 2017 than it did during the same period last year, CFO Piotr Nielubowicz said. Not only that but revenue from the game and its expansions rose year-over-year, despite price drops. Also boosting CD Projekt Red's bottom line during the period was Gwent, the free-to-play card game. According to the developer, it generated "tangible revenue." The game is now available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 through an open beta.

CD Projekt Red also noted today that it invested 16 million PLN in Q1 2017 for the production of new titles, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Gwent.

For Gwent specifically, CD Projekt Red laid out some of its future plans for the game, including more marketing efforts to boost the game's visibility. A Chinese version of the game is also in the works, alongside support for other languages. The game is free, but the studio is also adding paid single-player campaigns in the future.



For lots more on CD Projekt Red's latest earnings report, you can read the company's official earnings documents here.

 

[duchU]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

 

[Jick Magger]

My biggest gripe with Heart of the Stone expansion is how little its entire premise fits overall tone of Witcher narrative. The entire questchain can be pulled in its all entirety and fit in literally every other fantasy CRPG out there.

How does it not? Witcher series has always been about traditional folklore tales with a spin. In Hearts of Stone you're initially hired to kill a monster (Witcher work) but it turns out it wasn't quite like the contract said. Then you're hit with the folklore tale part of the deal.

That and the entire story clearly takes its inspiration from Pan Twardowski, which was a Polish interpretation of the typical Faustian bargain story. About the only thing that I found somewhat awkward was the inclusion of an explicitly demonic entity in the form of Gaunter O'Dimm (who's name is clear reference to Walter o'Dim, one of the many Alias' of Stephen King's Randall Flagg, who's also regularly depicted as an anti-christ figure), which is somewhat jarring when put next to the regular, pagan-inspired monsters that Geralt deals with.

 

[duchU]

My biggest gripe with Heart of the Stone expansion is how little its entire premise fits overall tone of Witcher narrative. The entire questchain can be pulled in its all entirety and fit in literally every other fantasy CRPG out there.

How does it not? Witcher series has always been about traditional folklore tales with a spin. In Hearts of Stone you're initially hired to kill a monster (Witcher work) but it turns out it wasn't quite like the contract said. Then you're hit with the folklore tale part of the deal.

That and the entire story clearly takes its inspiration from Pan Twardowski, which was a Polish interpretation of the typical Faustian bargain story. About the only thing that I found somewhat awkward was the inclusion of an explicitly demonic entity in the form of Gaunter O'Dimm (who's name is clear reference to Walter o'Dim, one of the many Alias' of Stephen King's Randall Flagg, who's also regularly depicted as an anti-christ figure), which is somewhat jarring when put next to the regular, pagan-inspired monsters that Geralt deals with.

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/3zkaxv/spoilers_all_the_references_to_polish_culture_in/
On the other hand BaW feels like a typical western RPG. I don't get people who say HoS doesn't feel like The Witcher universe when they are fine with BaW...

 

[Perkel]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Yeah i think they could easily make new expansion and sell it.
Though i think they simply focus on new IP because they don't want to ride only on one golden chicken.

Still GOG growth is like 500% yoy. I assume this has a lot to do with TW3 release where every physical copy had GOG key with it. My physical copy was completely busted (fucking CDP lol second time it happened to me with their products for last 2 times i bought something from them) so i used GOG key instead and waited few days to download ...

Their Galaxy also got nice update so no longer is inferior to steam. For mods imo is waaaaaay better as you can choose which patch you want even downgrade game as you want to version you like.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Well, the difference is that W3 dwarfs both of those games put together. Releasing something large enough to call an EE would probably be a lot of work.

Still, they ought to patch out some of the cutscene errors that came up in the last few patches at least.

 

[Sentinel]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Releasing a second expansion on year after the game has come out along with a "GOTY Edition" and a patch to the base game is hardly what I call "giving up on it".

 

[duchU]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Releasing a second expansion on year after the game has come out along with a "GOTY Edition" and a patch to the base game is hardly what I call "giving up on it".

There are still a lot of bugs in the game or some things they could add without much effort. Yet they prefer to focus on standalone Gwent... yay.

 

[Sentinel]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Releasing a second expansion on year after the game has come out along with a "GOTY Edition" and a patch to the base game is hardly what I call "giving up on it".

Yet they prefer to focus on standalone Gwent... yay.

Spoiler

 

[duchU]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Releasing a second expansion on year after the game has come out along with a "GOTY Edition" and a patch to the base game is hardly what I call "giving up on it".

Yet they prefer to focus on standalone Gwent... yay.

Spoiler

I meant the team who still works on The Witcher related stuff... If you quote then quote the whole thing. Besides if they abandon TW3 like this there is a chance they will do the same with CP2077, leaving it with even more bugs behind.

 

[Sentinel]

Kinda ironic considering TW3 could still use a lot of love yet it seems they gave up on it. On the other hand both TW1 and TW2 got EE versions that are rather bug free.

Releasing a second expansion on year after the game has come out along with a "GOTY Edition" and a patch to the base game is hardly what I call "giving up on it".

Yet they prefer to focus on standalone Gwent... yay.

Spoiler

I meant the team who still works on The Witcher related stuff... If you quote then quote the whole thing. Besides if they abandon TW3 like this there is a chance they will do the same with CP2077, leaving it with even more bugs behind.

What "team who still works on Witcher related stuff"? There's a small team for the card game, and then there's the "main" team for the RPGs.

 

[duchU]

The team for fixing bugs might be small as well.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Jokes on them, Fantasy is better when the men are badass, and the women are beautiful, optionally badass as well.

It's just a shit drawing, I doubt there's any political statement behind it.

Those kinds of assumptions are how they get ya. Decline is all around us, constantly trying to sneak in.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

My biggest gripe with Heart of the Stone expansion is how little its entire premise fits overall tone of Witcher narrative. The entire questchain can be pulled in its all entirety and fit in literally every other fantasy CRPG out there.

How does it not? Witcher series has always been about traditional folklore tales with a spin. In Hearts of Stone you're initially hired to kill a monster (Witcher work) but it turns out it wasn't quite like the contract said. Then you're hit with the folklore tale part of the deal.

That and the entire story clearly takes its inspiration from Pan Twardowski, which was a Polish interpretation of the typical Faustian bargain story. About the only thing that I found somewhat awkward was the inclusion of an explicitly demonic entity in the form of Gaunter O'Dimm (who's name is clear reference to Walter o'Dim, one of the many Alias' of Stephen King's Randall Flagg, who's also regularly depicted as an anti-christ figure), which is somewhat jarring when put next to the regular, pagan-inspired monsters that Geralt deals with.

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/3zkaxv/spoilers_all_the_references_to_polish_culture_in/
On the other hand BaW feels like a typical western RPG. I don't get people who say HoS doesn't feel like The Witcher universe when they are fine with BaW...

Because there is more room for Geralt to do witchery things and have more character-centered callbacks, backstory, exposition, character-building in BaW.

As opposed to HoS where you have generic all-powerful ambiguous Satan character wandering the lands slapped onto the main story with no consequence or impact to the rest of the world. The entire quest chain is also filled with typical fantasy tropes like all-powerful ambiguous bound spirits that blurt out vague exposition, generic mini-boss fights, haunted mansion scenario with its entire backstory being summarized in 2 sentences.

Don't get me wrong, HoS has its moments, the characters are very well-written and well-acted but do try to put your emotions aside and look objectively at the whole expansion and tell me it couldn't very well be pulled in its entirety from W3 and put into TES or Dragon Age or NWN or whatever without any tweaks. (ok, maybe Shani would have to be rewritten but you get my idea).

I get that same, arguably, could be said about BaW, but it had much way more of original Witcher 3 world building and tonal consistency than HoS did. Although, not in everything, obviously

 

[Ivan]

inb4 gwent becomes new pokemon

 

[Atomkilla]

This is cool, I guess. Since it's a double LP it will probably have stuff from vanilla only (I can't recall the duration of OST, too lazy to check).
I don't know how to embed tweets, so a direct link.

 

[Falksi]

God it can be SO dull. I'm just trying a second play through and, whilst there's been definite sections of enjoyability, the amount if dull busy work, errand running and empty world traversing is way beyond what was needed.
It's still ok, but this second play through does exactly what the first did - make me wish TW3 had been made with the same structure as TW2

 

[Sentinel]

Disable the exclamation marks on the world map in the menu. Only do quests, don't bother with collecting shit.
Main quest is still a drag if you're not into Witcher lore and characters. If so, just go for Hearts of Stone or Blood & Wine if you want a change of scenery.

 

[Falksi]

Disable the exclamation marks on the world map in the menu. Only do quests, don't bother with collecting shit.
Main quest is still a drag if you're not into Witcher lore and characters. If so, just go for Hearts of Stone or Blood & Wine if you want a change of scenery.

Good advice. There's no doubting there's some great qualities about TW3, but they really just have made a poorer version on TW2 with a drabber story, and far more padding. I think HOS & B&W will be getting skipped to very soon.

 

[Falksi]

I'd be interested to hear some more opinions onTW3. I simply can't believe how worshipped it is. It's good in patches, but the amount of dull-time between those patches is massive. I just don't get how the open world aspect benefits the game in any way?

All quests are found via marker or journal, all treasure aside from that is very disposable, and if you choose to go a different way to an objective than the obvious one your usually at way too low a level to be able to. Exploration is pointless, and tine moving to new areas just feels empty, pointless and repetitive.

I just don't get why they watered down such a potentially good game with so much filler and crap.

 

[Starwars]

I just don't get why they watered down such a potentially good game with so much filler and crap.

Because it made them a fuckton of money.

 

[Perkel]

I'd be interested to hear some more opinions onTW3. I simply can't believe how worshipped it is. It's good in patches, but the amount of dull-time between those patches is massive. I just don't get how the open world aspect benefits the game in any way?

All quests are found via marker or journal, all treasure aside from that is very disposable, and if you choose to go a different way to an objective than the obvious one your usually at way too low a level to be able to. Exploration is pointless, and tine moving to new areas just feels empty, pointless and repetitive.

I just don't get why they watered down such a potentially good game with so much filler and crap.

Because writing is way above what is on market and comparable to best RPGs out there.
Because world is believable. Villages are actual villages. Cities are actually cities and not 8 houses + castle.
Because of share amount of v.good side-quests you can do.
Because everything is not stone throw away from each other and going through that world without map is fun.

TW3 works really well when you just move from village to village solving people problems sometimes going from track to explore something that you find interesting.

It doesn't work well if you have ADHD and go from POI to POI trying to get 100% poi. It also doesn't work well if you use fast travel. Unlike Betsheda games that wants you to track half the Skyrim for mushroom TW3 quests are most of the time con-tainted in area quest giver is what is more fun is that those billboard quests could be taken just by visiting villages thus just by journeying through lands you will encounter quests and there are shitload of them and most of them are interesting to see.

And this is where imo big difference comes. In most of RPGs you play quests for rewards while in TW3 most quests by themselves are rewards. Like Bloody Baron second part of his quest which is entirely optional. There is no reason for you to go there. Baron doesn't propose you even reward i think.

 

[Falksi]

I've been playing that way and it's still dull as hell. The villages are all copy-paste, a few stores, an odd quest, nothing worth exploring for. The same with the cities, everything I see is just visual candy with 95% of quests all notice board based. Any time spent travelling or exploring feels like a waste of time, they may of well have had one giant noticeboard.
The world just feels so empty, repetitive and pointless, and all it does is delay me getting to the nitty gritty. God it's so dull at times.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I found a lot of the most interesting quests just out running around the world and cities. Notice boards generally have witcher contracts and a few other quests posted with some flavor text on there as well. The witcher contracts are also some of the most rewarding and interesting quests to be found in the game too.

 

[Falksi]

I found a lot of the most interesting quests just out running around the world and cities. Notice boards generally have witcher contracts and a few other quests posted with some flavor text on there as well. The witcher contracts are also some of the most rewarding and interesting quests to be found in the game too.

It's just so repetitive, predictable and formulaic though. Just got to Novigrad, checked out an inn, what does the inn keep offer? That's right, the sane as every other innkeep - food & gwent. What does the city offer? That's right, the same as every other area - visual npcs you can't interact with, idle chatter, and quests via....you've guessed it....ANOTHER noticeboard. Should I look down that ally? Will I find a sewer which will lead to someone's lair? Or should I break into that house? Will I find a rare gem or some dark secrets? Nope. Best get to the magic Noticeboard if I want anything with any actual substance.
There's good elements in here, but it's essentially TW2 pieced together in a far worse way, and with a far duller story.