I saw a few post about Ciri becoming a Witcher. I have some theory's about that.

First of all: Ciri has lost her "flash" ability, and a lot of her magic powers...

Well - I my humble opinion that's easy to explain. Ciri has fought the White Frost and took it down. But that must have cost her a LOT of power. Do not forget that the White Frost was not some local nuisance, but a multi-universe spanning massive threat that was immensely powerful and could destroy all life in all that multi-universe. It is not that strange to assume that she has been completely burned out from that, and lost a lot of her powers. Maybe permanently, maybe temporally, but she does not has them now.

Sure she must still have the genetic make-up of the carrier of the elder blood, but that does not help very much if the powers she had are burned away (forever or for a sort or long time does not matter at this moment in time). That leaves her nearly powerless, BUT...

That elder blood can help her to survive that Trial of Grasses. And she will want to do that, because she wants to go on walking the path of a Witcher. Without her special abilities the only way to do that is getting the Witcher abilities. There is no way around that. And having a metabolism that is above normal there is a chance that this trial is survivable, even when she's older and a woman. Especially when the chemical make-up of that trial is adjusted to her body. We all know that Jennifer would never allow her to take that trial, but Ciri can be very, VERY stubborn. If she threatens Jennifer to take that trial anyway, if she likes it or not, then Jennifer will ultimately give in, and design a new trial that fits Ciri especially.

Of course that will take years and years, and a lot of time will pass. That explains why Ciri looks older. Probably that trial also changes her body, but so far in the trailer I have seen she still has the same body shape as she had before. That has not changed. It's the same Ciri we all love, only a 10 to 15 years older on the outside (maybe by aging, or maybe by taking the trial). Because she and especially in her new Witcher form can live for a very long time, there is no way to tell how many years have passed since we saw her for the last time in The Witcher 3.

Maybe her new adventure is a search for a way to get her old (or original so you wish) powers back. That will bring her to exotic and maybe hidden places. Maybe magic places, or places extremely difficult to find or get entrance to. Maybe places that are so old that they are at the base of the creation of the Elves. Maybe she has to get to the creation core of her original powers. Who knows. There is a lot of possibilities to tell a real good story here.

And yes - All I am speculating about is beyond the stories told in the original books. It is a step further, but the origins of the world, the people, and what happened in the past is still linked to those books. All can be build upon that foundation and tell a new story that is not written down (yet). I think it's exiting to step into that new future...

Anyway - That is my take on it. You don't have to agree of course, but I like to see everything in a positive light...

That's a lot of wrong :D Miller's early Batman comics, Dark Knight Returns and Year One are absolutely fantastic, still among the very best out there. BvS, while quite a bit more succesful at the box office than people give it credit for, was certainly not among the most popular Batman movies (although I like it a lot, especially the extended cut). And I'm pretty sure the only misunderstanding here is you misunderstanding the movie, but then most people seem to have misunderstood it. Quite the opposite from being a film about the all-knowing, always winning bat-god, the film is about Bruce being very, very wrong. That's like the whole point of the two Snyder films - Batman is wrong, he's in a very dark place because of years of dealing with the worst shit Gotham could throw at a man, allows himself to be manipulated by Luthor, and after realising his mistakes he becomes the one reaching out to others for help to build the League. His encounter with Superman is essentially what triggers his redemption arc.


Now, you want a indeed super popular and absolutely shit depiction of Batman, look no further than the recent The Batman. But that's a whole different matter, and I'm pretty sure I've talked about Batman enough for a Wither thread. After all, we wouldn't want to derail a discussion about how if you freeze frame at the exact right second, squint, and hit your head really hard Ciri will look 5% worse than she used to.

Probably the best GPU news in 4 years. And it was from intel of all people.

As with anything else - you want to know the actual canon, read the books and that's it. The tv shows are just adaptations that deviate from the source material in different ways, and the games function as sequels to the books but also make some changes (though much smaller than the tv shows) and are also not considered canon. Given how popular the games became I assume they work well enough for people who have not read the books, but you'll definitely get more out of them knowing the characters and the backstory.

Battlemage

I would almost consider buying one.... in full support for intel :)

I reckon i can even get some better results with framegen compared against my 3090Ti
( i'm thinking about limited power wattage settings )

Intel Arc B580 - Released on the 13th. Equal (or better) than the RTX 4060 all whilst offering more VRAM for 1440p gaming. It's also beating the RTX 4060 in ray-tracing which is good news for Unreal 5 games which are all launching with ray-tracing baked in.

The Witcher IV will likely look great but it is (probably) going to require modern hardware.

There has not been a good entry-level GPU option in years but intel has come out with one just in time it seems.

Reported.

Ah, dang it. I knew talking about Batman would get me permabanned one day.

For me it was the '[...] Equal (or better) than RTX 4060 all whilst offering more VRAM for 1440p gaming [...].' comment that really got my pants in a twist

As I stated in a Lord of the Rings lore thread...

... if the story is told well (with themes resonating with the source material), and...

... if prior mainstay characters aren't actively undermined...

... most people don't care much about "coloring within the lines" of prior lore.

If Witcher IV is good, sobeit -- most of the early criticism will be moot -- but...

... when most of the world became aware of The Witcher via The Witcher 3 (who most agree is a brilliantly told story and a great game), developers have to expect pushback to changing the main character... and this is even more of a factor since Geralt was center stage in a trilogy of games. It doesn't matter that it makes sense to change the main character at this point -- fans tend to resist change.

Remember where the term "fan" comes from:
[i]
FANATIC /fə-năt′ĭk/

A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause. A person affected by excessive enthusiasm, particularly on religious subjects; one who indulges wild and extravagant notions of religion. A person who is zealously enthusiastic for some cause, especially in religion. (American Heritage Dictionary 5th Ed) [/i]

I find it dismaying (again... for what feels like the millionth time) that some immediately paint dissatisfaction with change as "-ist" or "-phobe." While there is certainly a sub-set of gamers who sadly qualify, the vast majority don't care about identity markers as much as...

... "will the game be good?"

And from what they've seen the last few years many games that have purposely deviated from lore or the beloved "formula" of particular series have turned out to be rather... bad. The audience has been conditioned -- especially with the blatant rash of industry bait-and-switches -- to see any change as bad. So when they see Ciri taking main stage, I think you should be able to understand -- if not agree with -- the fears associated with that. Whether those fears will be realized? That's to be seen upon release.

But I would also caution from "attacking" fans for desperately wanting Geralt's return. CDPR's game series -- to this point -- was built upon Geralt. He is the gateway to which many learned about -- and experienced -- The Witcher (albeit in games, books, tv, comics, etc.). The fan connection to Geralt should be a testament to both Sapkowski and CDPR's work, not a trivial aspect to now be discarded because "that's old and we've moved on." we all saw what happened on Netflix with this kind of thinking...

Personally, I'm not very interested in a Witcher game minus Geralt. To me that feels like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS without Clint (which sadly we'll also be getting soon), just not my thing. Could The Witcher IV be great? Sure. I hear good things about Cyberpunk 2077 (now) but don't care to play that either.

I'm sure CDPR is calculating how they can effectively move on from Geralt after having fostered such a fan connection to him. Sapkowski went back in time. CDPR didn't. If they pull off a change in main character and make a great game, super! Maybe I'll eventually check it out, but... as of right now, I'm just not interested, and... it has nothing to do with Ciri's sex. Please stop suggesting such.

That new Ciri looks like Courtney Love after she's been on the "gear".

I really have doubts about this game. This is the only Witcher trailer that didn't succeed in making me excited and look forward to the game, so the first impression definitely isn't good.

Having Ciri as a witcher is an another thing I don't like ( loved her bits in TW3) because I feel this is regression of a character. Plus CDPR doesn't have a good track record since Cyberpunk 2077 (good game, but nothing that fascinated me). I don't think I'll buy this game in the future.

This was mentioned from one of my posts that just never got posted despite clicking post but I dont consider myself a Witcher expert at all. I played the games and enjoy them and look to get into the books and read the wiki as well. But I would consider myself a very casual witcher fan.

Given the original source material is the books, I would consider anyone an "expert" to be someone that has read the books, probably ideally in Polish and maybe read interviews by Sapkowski on his thoughts on the world and lore.

But most of the lore im referencing just comes from W3.
Female witchers is honestly IN SUPPORT of W4 since the common understanding is that female witchers dont exist as the trial of the grasses basically killed withcers and I had to look at the wiki to find that the Manticore school had some.

We know from W3 that Ciri is special and incredibly powerful, hence why the wild hunt are hunting her. The book lore tells us that she will end a cataclysmic event (global cooling) but book fans comment how this interpretation is actually more "mundane" and not something like Ciri using her magic powers to fight against some interdimensional entity. However, we clearly see Ciri gain warping/time manipulation (which is how she escapes from the wild hunt when alone) and play as her as we take down the crones and wild hunt members during the attack on KM.

Finally, regarding the state of witchers, we know from Vesemir's dialogue that witchers are no longer needed. He mentions in W3 how he dislikes the trial of the grasses since the process itself is cruel and only has a 30% survival rate which mean many boys die in the process. Add to that the fact that monsters are on the decline (stated in the books) and humans have advanced to the point where regiments can take down monsters (hell, we see knights "prove their worth" by facing monsters 1 v 1 in Toussaint and taking down the golyat as a group), there isnt much point investing in risky witchers anymore. Witchers are hated by society and we see some witchers breaking their vows for some coin (witcher to killed the village although kinda justified since the village stiffed him and the former cat witcher).

4 takes place at a later point in time so unless there is some crisis that reverted humanity's progress or there was another event to bring more monsters to the world, it doesnt make sense to keep making witchers. Ciri is also not powerful mage-warrior calling herself a "witcher" in reverence to her mentors but an actual witcher, being able to consume potions (which we know are deadly to regular people after we give swallow to the dying woman), uses a cat-eye potion to see in the dark, and doesnt use her teleporting strikes when grabbed by the monster. Its not like this was an easy fight where Ciri didnt need to go all out to win. So Ciri has gone through the dangerous trials to get power and is now living a life I dont think Geralt or Yennifer wanted for her.

It doesn’t seem to make much sense for Ciri to be the main character in The Witcher series. For one, she doesn't need to become a Witcher since she already possesses special powers. The whole point of becoming a Witcher was that individuals lacked the abilities to fight monsters in the first place. Additionally, Ciri has mostly been a supporting character up until now. I was hoping for a more personalized character creation system to enhance the immersion, but with this direction, I’m stepping off the hype train and moving on to something else.