The Witcher 3 Pre-Expansion Thread

[Gerrard]

His wife cheated on him.

Instead of just leaving her he kidnaps her, locks her up, beats and rapes her.

If you expect some sympathy for him you're fucking retarded (and you're probably a shit person in real life).

 

[made]

His wife cheated on him.

Instead of just leaving her he kidnaps her, locks her up, beats and rapes her.

If you expect some sympathy for him you're fucking retarded (and you're probably a shit person in real life).

Yeah right. He loved her, and she kept provoking him. If you've ever been with a woman who brings out the worst in you you'd understand. Baron is bro.

 

[Gerrard]

His wife cheated on him.

Instead of just leaving her he kidnaps her, locks her up, beats and rapes her.

If you expect some sympathy for him you're fucking retarded (and you're probably a shit person in real life).

Yeah right. He loved her, and she kept provoking him. If you've ever been with a woman who brings out the worst in you you'd understand. Baron is bro.

I just fucking said

Instead of just leaving her

Fuck you.

 

[made]

And I said, "He loved her". Obsessively. Makes people do all kinds of retarded shit.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Stuck in skellige, game is boring as fuck now. The actual design of the thing is utterly abysmal in many ways... Barely functional combat, dogshit itemization, non existent pacing, hilariously shit character creation options.

It's those shit batman games with none of the spit 'n polish.

Polacks need banning, they're bringing this site in to disrepute.

 

[Brayko]

Its not that bad really especially compared to other open world games.

 

[Carrion]

he kidnaps her, locks her up, beats and rapes her.

Why do you lie?

 

[Doktor Best]

His wife cheated on him.

Instead of just leaving her he kidnaps her, locks her up, beats and rapes her.

If you expect some sympathy for him you're fucking retarded (and you're probably a shit person in real life).

Yeah right. He loved her, and she kept provoking him. If you've ever been with a woman who brings out the worst in you you'd understand. Baron is bro.

Oh the good old "yeah she made me do it" argument, the usual bullshit justification of subhumans who hit women.

The interesting thing about the baron is that he is human scum, but also has some likeable sides. Why do people always start to justify those guys whenever they appear on media? Just like in Sopranos when Toni killed his best friends, cheated on his wife on a daily basis and much more, people watching the show also started to justify his action by pointing out the wrongdoings of his victims.

They started to yet again paint the world in their pretty and simple black and white, which is exactly the view on things those stories are aiming to destroy.


Edit: Also the Baron did not

Spoiler

rape his wife or beat her to miscariage(she aborted the child with black magic). He "only" beat her and locked her away,

which is quite enough if you ask me.

 

[Gerrard]

I don't think she had sex with him willingly again after what he did.

 

[Carrion]

I don't know, if I was a woman or an SJW I think I might be pretty pissed about how people only see Anna as a victim, like she had absolutely no power in the relationship whatsoever and how everything she did was irrelevant in the big picture. Anna is definitely no saint either, knowing full well that she's hurting the baron, and while the psychological abuse she's guilty of doesn't justify the baron's physical abuse, it really seems like the two people deserved each other. Both used the weapons they had at each other's disposal to cause misery to the other, Anna arguably being more methodical about it, and both had their reasons for doing it.

The baron obviously has some enormous flaws, but I think that is one of the reasons why he's such a likeable character, as you can sense some genuine regret and shame from him, something that is extremely rare in computer games where such flawed characters are usually just plain evil, or good guys with a dark past. The baron doesn't really fit any stereotype or category, he's simply a guy with his own background, personality traits, strengths and weaknesses, to a point where you stop trying to think of him as good or bad and simply judge him as an individual. I can't really think of another game character that would feel as "real" as he does, and the quest line is the best piece of writing I've seen in a game for a very long time.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

she was his wife and cheated on him. she deserved the beating ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Starwars]

I don't know, if I was a woman or an SJW I think I might be pretty pissed about how people only see Anna as a victim, like she had absolutely no power in the relationship whatsoever and how everything she did was irrelevant in the big picture. Anna is definitely no saint either, knowing full well that she's hurting the baron, and while the psychological abuse she's guilty of doesn't justify the baron's physical abuse, it really seems like the two people deserved each other. Both used the weapons they had at each other's disposal to cause misery to the other, Anna arguably being more methodical about it, and both had their reasons for doing it.

The baron obviously has some enormous flaws, but I think that is one of the reasons why he's such a likeable character, as you can sense some genuine regret and shame from him, something that is extremely rare in computer games where such flawed characters are usually just plain evil, or good guys with a dark past. The baron doesn't really fit any stereotype or category, he's simply a guy with his own background, personality traits, strengths and weaknesses, to a point where you stop trying to think of him as good or bad and simply judge him as an individual. I can't really think of another game character that would feel as "real" as he does, and the quest line is the best piece of writing I've seen in a game for a very long time.

Personally I'm not saying that the wife is not at fault at all. But (at least from where I am in the game), you get only the Baron's side of things as the wife is busy being insane in the swamp. I would've been delighted to do some moral preaching to her also, like Geralt can do to the Baron. But what I find disappointing is that, if you wanna play the quest (since there doesn't seem to be an alternative way, although I might be mistaken or having missed it of course), you basically just go along on the Baron's quest to "collect" his family back because, hey, old drunkard has now seen the light and so it's OK to go get these people back into a possibly quite abusive relationship.
Having the option to do that is good, but I just miss the option of warning the family or trying to get them the fuck away from him.

It's weird to me, that being the main option in the game, when in real life, most situations where abusive people go out to bring back the people they used to abuse (often acting very remorseful indeed) ends up in more tragedy.

I dunno. Again, I like the Baron character. But what it kinda feels to me is that CD Projekt pushes hard for the player feeling sympathy for the dude that it kinda twists the realism of the situation a bit. Yes, a lot of abusive people have tragic pasts and various outside things affecting them. A lot of abusive people are "bros" to their friends. That does not mean it's a good idea to reunite them with the people they used to abuse and beat. In fact, it's often a very bad thing to do. And again, while I like having that option still in the game, it being the sorta main way to play the quest feels kinda fucked up to me.
I have a friend who had to "escape" a relationship and then having the ex stalk her in various ways and trying to get her to go back (while doing the usual sob-stories, claiming everything will be different this time and trying to get other people to convince her to come back also). So that, and a lot of experiences from my previous line of work, is obviously at the forefront in my mind.

And I say again, I haven't played the game through so I don't know what consequences or alternate ways there are to these things. I know that you could find his daughter first (in Oxenfurt I think?) but I found the mother first and proceeded the quest from there.

It's like... if the game makes a point of it and "trick" the player to hunt the family down and then have it bite them in the ass, I'd be fine with it also. But it's just the idea that it feels like it's pushing for "poor ol' Baron, he's been a complete cunt but now he shows some remorse so *obviously* he must be given another chance so let's hunt down his wife and daughter for him". Because the fact that they ran away *from him* in the first place obviously doesn't matter.

Phew, fucking video-games man. Serious business.

 

[Azarkon]

Finished the game in its entirety. Didn't visit all PoIs, but did visit a large % of them and about as much as I'm willing to tolerate. Did all side-quests and contracts that I was able to find, including gwent games, races, treasure hunts, etc.

Final thoughts: the ending, in terms of narrative, is a fine close to the Witcher storyline, but it left a lot to be desired in terms of:

Spoiler

Choice & consequence: sorry, but this was shit in terms of C&C. The difference between whether a main character in the story survives/dies is based on a series of choices that you make towards the end of the game, yet in no way does the game hint that these choices are in any way important, except after you make them and said main character looks happy/sad, in which case you get to decide whether to be a little bitch and reload. The sort of choices you end up making here are also not befitting a climax given that you were just done deciding the fates of entire kingdoms. In a way, it is subversive, but I'm not able to get behind this sort of trope twisting because it feels as though the developers are shoving down their brand of parenting down your throat, and you'd best follow it else end up with a godawful ending despite all the work you put through the game.

Now, there was one positive section of C&C towards the end of the game, having to do with politics, which was actually of a much higher quality than the main story. I think everyone who's finished the game knows what I'm talking about. This side quest had a bigger emotional pay off than the entire last 3-4 hours of the game, and was suitably difficult when it came to moral decision making. Made me think CDProjket had two different writers working on the side quests vs. the main story.

And then there are the missed opportunities. Outside of what I just said above, the ending is a linear push towards the finish. There are literally no other choices. You spend the entire game making choices, only to not make a single one in the last arc of the game besides a few fluff ones that lead to the same result. The ending is unaffected by anything you do past the two choices I said above. Oh, sure, there is the conclusion of the romantic arc in case you had one, but that was decided ages ago in Act I.

Big Bad: the Wild Hunt were never great villains, but I was struck by how terrible Eredin is as a Big Bad. He was never developed in the game. He had one scene at Kaer Mohen in which his dickrider kills Vesemyr, but even then it was not him, but that other guy, who was such a generic "evil warrior dude" I don't even remember his name. Then in the final act of the game, he randomly kills off Crach before you fight him, the narrative equivalent of muahahahaing in your face. It's though CDProjekt decided that the best way to make you hate a guy is to have him kill off popular NPCs, except in this case only book readers would've teared up, as he never gets his hands on your harem, which was big missed opportunity in and of itself.

The Twist That Was Not a Twist: I'm fine with Avallach not being the Big Bad. I was hoping for it, because Eredin was fucking trash, but because you saw it coming a mile away, I'm actually glad they didn't complete the "twist." What I'm not okay with, however, is that after that epic scene climbing the tower through the White Frost, in which you're all pumped up to kick ass, they slap you in the face with "oh, did we tell you this was Ciri's story, not yours? The end." It's as though the developers are trolling you, and felt much the same way as getting blue balls after working yourself to a climax.

Thematic consistency: the entire game was about Geralt fighting monsters, and coming to understand that humans are capable of being every bit as monstrous as the monsters he fights, and that the world is grimdark not just because there are beasts lurking in the forests, but especially because there are beasts lurking within people's hearts. But then in the end, the story switches its tone entirely. Suddenly, it's about saving the world from the Blight Reapers White Frost, an environmental disaster that the game never develops beyond a few lore books here and there. It's not even the issue that Ciri takes over the story at the end. What's the issue is that the White Frost, along with Eredin, are terrible antagonists. I don't even fucking care about the White Frost. What did the White Frost ever do to me? It'd have been okay to do a White Frost ending provided you actually impressed upon the player how gruesome the White Frost is, but you spend all of 10 minutes in a White Frost devastated world in Through Time and Space and don't even linger to think about it.

The Fights: plainly put, the fights against Eredin and Caranthir are terrible, and full of combat cliches. For example, Eredin does these sword waves that remind you of fucking anime characters, Caranthir is your average mage who teleports around and throws shit at you, and both of them are damage sponges. For all the build up, the final fights were mediocre at best, and do not reach the heights of Witcher 2.

All in all, while I was engaged through the ending, this was by and large the weakest section of the game, design-wise.

 

[Azarkon]

Still, whatever the faults of Witcher 3's ending, it still beats ME 3 and DAI's endings.

10/10

 

[DeepOcean]

The Baron isn't a good man and did alot of shitty things but that was the point of his story arc. The point of the story isn't if the Baron was justified or not (you have the option to emphatize with him or not.) but his regret was consuming him. Sociopaths don't feel regret, he lived on a brutal world and didn't stop to think what the fuck he was doing, just gone with the current, there are a ton of people like that on the world. He is more of a coward than a sociopath and he knows he is a coward and that only makes him even more miserable. The whole story is he being forced to see the shit he did for once, without booze and excuses to protect him this time.

 

[Killzig]

Q: About the White Frost/Hunt. The Wild Hunt seems to be able to command the frost on some level. I am basing that on their freeze attacks on the village and at Kaer Morhen (b/c we have to neutralize Geralt for this cut scene). Isn't the whole reason they want Ciri because they need her to help them find a new world. All because the White Frost is going to destroy theirs? Is this consistent with the books? I feel like the Hunt was more spectral/spooky in Witcher 1, while in Witcher 3 they're just a Norwegian an Elven metal band.

Overall the game was pretty decent. I don't think they made a great use of the open world. Too many same-y quests / POIs and the horseback riding was OK not great (did anyone else have Roach rear up and come to a full stop for no apparent reason during races?). In these Witcher games I always enjoy the monster hunting / contracts more than the main quest threads so I would have enjoyed a few more of those that had multiple solutions.

 

[Carrion]

Final thoughts: the ending, in terms of narrative, is a fine close to the Witcher storyline, but it left a lot to be desired in terms of:

I agree on most of that, except for the C&C leading up to the ending:

Spoiler

I think it was really clever how the choices about Ciri's future were integrated into the narrative and all these little moments, letting you shape her beliefs and image of herself piece by piece instead of getting to directly choose your ending. I suppose the choices might come off as kind of random because that's how dialogue choices usually work, mostly just fluff with possibly some minor imminent consequences, but I think the game provided sufficient build-up for them. I haven't bothered reading spoilers about how the ending you get is determined, but based on two playthroughs it seems fairly logical: you can be overprotective and prevent Ciri from making her own decisions, or you can encourage her to become independent; you can affect how she feels about certain people and factions in the world, all of whom have something planned for her; you can feed her ambition or sell her the idea of a normal life after all is over. These few aspects determine how she'll end up. If you want to guide her away from all danger, chances are that she won't survive her quest. If you treat her like a really close friend, usually taking her side but still being there to give her advice at every point, she might eventually become a witcher.

Pacing-wise it's indeed a bit of a problem how late in the game the choices appear, though, and it would've been good if the choices were spread out a bit more.

 

[Riso]

she was his wife and cheated on him. she deserved the beating ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's true, sometimes women need a beating.

 

[Doktor Best]

Everyone and his mother here hates on bioware for signaling their major decisions in a way too obvious way, and when some AAA producer has the guts to implent CNC on small decicions the player could never have anticipated to have such a major impact it also doesnt sit right with some.

 

[yellowcake]

she was his wife and cheated on him. she deserved the beating ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's true, sometimes women need a beating.

Jak chłop baby nie bije to jej wątroba gnije.

If one doesn't beat his womyn he makes her liver to rot. Old potato proverb.

 

[hivemind]

Just playing through Novigrad and I have to say that the city is living up to Vizima from the first one.

I guess that there is a lot of cutscenes and shit but then again for me the Witcher games were always more about storyfaggotry than their RPGs-ness.

 

[Azarkon]

I agree on most of that, except for the C&C leading up to the ending:

Spoiler

I think it was really clever how the choices about Ciri's future were integrated into the narrative and all these little moments, letting you shape her beliefs and image of herself piece by piece instead of getting to directly choose your ending. I suppose the choices might come off as kind of random because that's how dialogue choices usually work, mostly just fluff with possibly some minor imminent consequences, but I think the game provided sufficient build-up for them. I haven't bothered reading spoilers about how the ending you get is determined, but based on two playthroughs it seems fairly logical: you can be overprotective and prevent Ciri from making her own decisions, or you can encourage her to become independent; you can affect how she feels about certain people and factions in the world, all of whom have something planned for her; you can feed her ambition or sell her the idea of a normal life after all is over. These few aspects determine how she'll end up. If you want to guide her away from all danger, chances are that she won't survive her quest. If you treat her like a really close friend, usually taking her side but still being there to give her advice at every point, she might eventually become a witcher.

Pacing-wise it's indeed a bit of a problem how late in the game the choices appear, though, and it would've been good if the choices were spread out a bit more.

Spoiler

A lot of the choices came off as arbitrary because you didn't know how the plot would end up to begin with. Sure, you know Ciri was going to be central to it, but did you know your parenting choices would have an effect on whether she "dies"? No, you don't, and the game doesn't tell you, so when it offers you those parenting choices, you have no idea whether it's just fluff content vs. vital C&C.

And I'd argue that it isn't just a matter of being overly protective. For example, I distinctly remember the scene at Avallach's lab - and keep in mind Avallach is presented as a wise, heroic character in this game - where Ciri wants to SMASH, and you have the choice to either tell her to man up to her destiny, or "go ahead, do it." I'm sorry, but which parent would actually take the second choice and think it'd be a great way to raise their child? That whenever they want to throw a tantrum, you just let them?

In fact, a lot of the parent-child interactions between Geralt and Ciri feel retarded, even in retrospect. Think about the "correct" choices in 2/5 critical events: "hey I know, SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!" in Blood on the Battlefield and "go ahead, SMASH the lab cause you feel insecure!" in Child of the Elder Blood. In these two cases, Geralt is basically treating Ciri as a child, yet they're the "correct" choices.

The other three are less problematic because two of them are straight-forwardly "are you a douche?" choices: ie do you accept money in front of Ciri's face for retrieving her, and do you forbid Ciri to visit her friend's grave for no cause besides "I'm in a hurry." The third one, where you allow Ciri to face the Lodge alone, is capable of being portrayed as not being overly protective, which is fine.

But then where does that leave us? Two "douche" choices, one "overly protective" choice, and two "be a child" choices? Not exactly impressive in terms of the moral it teaches.

 

[Azarkon]

Everyone and his mother here hates on bioware for signaling their major decisions in a way too obvious way, and when some AAA producer has the guts to implent CNC on small decicions the player could never have anticipated to have such a major impact it also doesnt sit right with some.

I'm pretty sure the issue with Bioware's C&C isn't that they're signaled, but rather they have no consequences beyond immediate consequences, such that it's though you never made them later on. I've never had a problem with consequences being signaled. In fact, in order for a choice to improve player agency, it actually has to be signaled. Else, the player effectively has no agency because they don't know what they're choosing unless they read spoiler guides. Random choices are as bad as no choices.

 

[Brayko]

Wow this has seemingly turned into an SJW thread about the baron and his family. Both cowardly pieces of shits (rapists and women beaters) and women who don't have the self respect to take action against said individuals are equally annoying. I just wanted to get the quest over with because I am no white knight unless its my own gf. Karma bites those in the ass eventually..

 

[Starwars]

Does everything concerning women in a videogame have to be about SJWs and GamerGaters? Fuck off with that shit. I hear twitter is a lovely forum for discussing such things.

On another note, one thing that annoys the hell out of me in the Witcher 3... There is a *lot* of repetition in the "bark strings" for the NPCs. It really needed a lot more variation for that. It also *didn't* need to repeat conversations between NPCs that are written in a way that they should only be said once. Hearing the same thing every time you pass *that* particular place is extremely tiring.
It also has the "TES chatter problem" where a million NPCs talk at once.

 

[Carrion]

Spoiler

A lot of the choices came off as arbitrary because you didn't know how the plot would end up to begin with. Sure, you know Ciri was going to be central to it, but did you know your parenting choices would have an effect on whether she "dies"? No, you don't, and the game doesn't tell you, so when it offers you those parenting choices, you have no idea whether it's just fluff content vs. vital C&C.

And I'd argue that it isn't just a matter of being overly protective. For example, I distinctly remember the scene at Avallach's lab - and keep in mind Avallach is presented as a wise, heroic character in this game - where Ciri wants to SMASH, and you have the choice to either tell her to man up to her destiny, or "go ahead, do it." I'm sorry, but which parent would actually take the second choice and think it'd be a great way to raise their child? That whenever they want to throw a tantrum, you just let them?

In fact, a lot of the parent-child interactions between Geralt and Ciri feel retarded, even in retrospect. Think about the "correct" choices in 2/5 critical events: "hey I know, SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!" in Blood on the Battlefield and "go ahead, SMASH the lab cause you feel insecure!" in Child of the Elder Blood. In these two cases, Geralt is basically treating Ciri as a child, yet they're the "correct" choices.

The other three are less problematic because two of them are straight-forwardly "are you a douche?" choices: ie do you accept money in front of Ciri's face for retrieving her, and do you forbid Ciri to visit her friend's grave for no cause besides "I'm in a hurry." The third one, where you allow Ciri to face the Lodge alone, is capable of being portrayed as not being overly protective, which is fine.

But then where does that leave us? Two "douche" choices, one "overly protective" choice, and two "be a child" choices? Not exactly impressive in terms of the moral it teaches.

Spoiler

Like I said, I haven't checked what the "right" choices were, I was basing it on my two playthroughs. Anyway:

With the snowball fight, your options are basically to cheer Ciri up after her failures, or tell her that it's alright that she can't do everything, possibly causing her to give up on her current traning. It seems fair that the former would be the better choice when it comes to preparing Ciri for her challenge. The other choices you mentioned could be seen as Geralt robbing Ciri of her own agency, making her decisions for her: overruling her choice to visit Skjall, stepping in as a parent to prevent her smashing the lab, or making her feel like a simple pawn by accepting Emhyr's gold. Eh, maybe it's a bit of a stretch with some of those choices, but there is still a certain logic behind them. Alternatively you could just scratch everything I just said and simply see it as a question of whether you've been nice to Ciri or not (maybe she just needs to be confident about herself to succeed?), which I suppose seems more likely but would also be pretty lame.

I honestly don't get the complaints about the game not telling you that Ciri can die. At all. How explicit should it have been, exactly? I just can't see it as a bad thing if it turns out that the choices you thought were just fluff actually carried real consequences.