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General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 07, 2015
Two full-blown expansions for the epic RPG.




The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is almost here. That means the game is pretty much finished, and the devs are about to take a deep breath while CD-presses and hype machines slowly wind up to take things through the home stretch. It's not gold yet, but now that development is coming to an end, the CD PROJEKT RED team is ready to start their work on two new, ambitious monster-hunting expansions.

The expansions will be called <span class="bold">Hearts of Stone</span>, and <span class="bold">Blood and Wine</span>. Combined, they'll offer over 30 hours of new adventures for Geralt, and the latter introduces a whole new major area to roam. More items, gear, and characters (including a few familiar faces) will all be crafted with the same attention to detail as the game itself.
<span class="bold">Hearts of Stone</span> is a 10-hour adventure across the wilds of No Man's Land and the nooks of Oxenfurt. The secretive Man of Glass has a contract for you - you'll need all your smarts and cunning to untangle a thick web of deceit, investigate the mystery, and emerge in one piece.
<span class="bold"><span class="bold">Blood and Wine</span></span> is the big one, introducing an all-new, playable in-game region to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It will take you about 20 hours to discover all of Toussaint, a land of wine, untainted by war. And to uncover the dark, bloody secret behind an atmosphere of carefree indulgence.







There used to be a time when buying an add-on disk or expansion for your game really meant something. That's what CD PROJEKT RED are going for, it's about bringing that old feeling back. You can take it from our very own iWi, (that's Marcin Iwinski, co-founder of CD PROJEKT RED):

"We’ve said in the past that if we ever decide to release paid content, it will be vast in size and represent real value for the money. Both of our expansions offer more hours of gameplay than quite a few standalone games out there.”

Hearts of Stone is expected to premiere this October, while Blood and Wine is slated for release in the first quarter of 2016, so there's still plenty of time ahead. We're offering you the <span class="bold">Expansion Pass</span> now - it's a chance to pre-order the two expansions and even show your support for the devs. But we can't stress Marcin Iwinski's words enough:

“Don’t buy it if you have any doubts. Wait for reviews or play The Witcher and see if you like it first. As always, it’s your call."







The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is just over a month away, and you can pre-order the game right now - it's a particularly great deal if you own the previous Witcher games and take advantage of the additional fan discount (both The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings are 80% off right now!). You can also take a rather unique refresher course on the universe with The Witcher Adventure Game at a 40% discount, all until Thursday, 4:59 PM GMT.
Post edited April 07, 2015 by Chamb
Posted April 09, 2015
high rated
Hello Everyone,

First of all let me thank you for your feedback. Although a bit harsh at times, it is always very passionate, emotional and we really do appreciate it.

I wanted to add a few words to the original press release, which will hopefully shed some more light on the Expansions and the timing of the announcement.

Let me start with the Expansions themselves. The work on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is almost done and we are waiting for the final certifications. Thanks to it we were able to allocate part of the team onto the expansions. Yes, we have been thinking about it for some time, as with over 250 people on the Witcher team good planning is essential.

Rest assured, there is no hidden agenda or cutting out any content from the game. Both Expansions are being built at this very moment, from the ground up – hence the release dates long after the launch of Wild Hunt. We develop them in-house by the same team, which was working on Wild Hunt. This is the best guarantee we can give you that our goal is to deliver both the story and production values on par with the main game.

Now, on the timing of the announcement - in other words “why now” and not - let’s say – “a few months after the release of Wild Hunt”. The reason is very simple: we want to get the word out about the Expansions to as many gamers as possible out there. There is no better time for it than during the apex of the Marketing & PR campaign of the game. Doing it sometime after the release would mean that our reach would be much smaller.

Yes, we are a business, and yes, we would love to see both the game and the Expansions selling well. Having said that, we always put gamers first and are actually quite paranoid about the fact that whatever we offer is honest, of highest quality, and represents good value for your hard earn buck.

Yes, these are just my words. So let me repeat myself from the original release: if you still have any doubts -- don’t buy the Expansions. Wait for reviews or play The Witcher and see if you like it first. As always, it’s your call.

Cheers,

Marcin
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Destro
Posted April 07, 2015
It's funny reading comments filled with drama like "The Epitaph of GOG.com" :)

Anyway, since when it's such a goddamn sin to release Expansion packs?
I mean what they said originally about "releasing 16 small DLCs/patches" still stands. So they did a few meetings and they decided down the road to offer MORE stuff than originally planned.

Why the fook is this so bad? Did you guys cry so much when the "Age Of Empires : Conquerors" was released?
Any of the Baldur's Gate Expansions? Did Opposing Force/Blue Shift raised so much anger?

Or do you actually believe that a company should keep on creating content FOREVER (well 2 years down the line at least) and not get money for that?
Cause you know...Game development requires resources. And since they're creating more than one games (Witcher 3 AND Cyberpunk) , they need money.
Do i really have to explain all this?

As for the moaning about "announcing an expansion prior to releasing the game", that's so laughable.
Would it be better if they already started creating the Expansions but announced them 15 days after release?
:)
Posted April 07, 2015
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Davane: Those who are unsure are still unsure...
Actually, I was unsure and this "good news" made it so much easier for me, no brainer category, to decide to wait for the complete version! ;)

see my original post here:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/witcher_expansion_0f2a2/post44
Posted April 07, 2015
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TCMU2009: My God, the entitlement I see here sometimes never ceases to disgust me. Are you people actually shitting on a great, customer friendly company, with a proven, customer friendly track record, for DARING to ask for money to buy a significant expansion to their hard work? A request for money, I might add, that CDPR always said they would make as long as the content was big enough? Which is also completely optional and in no way will affect the game when it comes out next month? Or is half this thread just a week late to the April Fools party.
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mkess: Yes, because they said last november, that all future DLC will be for free, for all customers who preorder now. I never preordered before in my life. That was the main reason I preordered this game.

Going back on this promise, they made for preordered game is enough for me to rethink the preorder. I canceled it, and will buy the complete game much later for far less money.

As far as I can tell you, this is also the last game I ever preordered.
Like I asked before, please provide a link where they said all future DLC would be free? Furthermore, it could be argued that DLC and Expansion Packs are not the same.
Post edited April 07, 2015 by user deleted
Posted April 07, 2015
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darthspudius: I'm not following... it's not like they took content OUT of the game to sell.
Hold on - I've been through this. I've once heard people insist that "Heart of the Swarm" and "Legacy of the Void" NEED to be sold together with "Wings of Liberty", because otherwise it's "making people pay 3 times". Hell - it's making them pay 3 times as much for the same amount of content, right? 3 campaigns. Starcraft 1 had 3 campaigns and that game was sold as a single product... Meanwhile Wings of Liberty got released 5 years ago and Legacy is barely in closed beta. In other words - these people would rather Blizzard wait about 6 years, bundle all campaigns, and still charge the price of Wings for all of that.
I could see through that bullshit back then, I can see through that bullshit now. This is especially upsetting when you consider the fact that in our announcement here GOG explicitly tells people not to buy the fucking thing if they have doubts. "Duh", one might say, but how many companies tell their consumers "BTW - remember that you can NOT BUY our shit!".
The best part, however, are complete completionists. If the expansions never got made, they'd be happy with the base game alone as 100% of the content. The moment they realize that more stuff is in the works, that 100% shrinks to just a fraction of the total gamage they could have under the guise of "Witcher 3". Suddenly this is "less", even though it is the same goddamn game.
Now imagine them releasing the game, all these "I only buy full products" people going for it, spending their money... What would they do if, out of the blue, CDP announced "BTW - we'll be releasing an expansion pack in the nearby future ^^!"? Would they cry themselves to sleep?
What if they played through the entire fucking game, and only THEN found out that more content is on the way. Would they curl up in a corner and fell into a catatonic state?
I've played The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, should I feel bad about Dreamfall: Chapters? NO, I've waited for that for years! Let me guess - it's more of a "sequel" than "DLC", so that makes it peachy, right?
I get concerns over preorder culture, but come the fuck on... If people only think this through, they'll realize that the software development process works in a particular way, and that naturally leads to certain modes of development. I don't buy the idea that people are supposed to have the epiphany of "maybe we should make more content" only after base content is done. That's just promoting people who work without a plan. Then again - I guess some people REALLY don't like thinking about how sausage is made.
Oh, there are also the contrarians whose basic argument is "I thought you've decided to do everything to the contrary of how the industry normally works, WTF?". Can't comprehend the idea of only rejecting bad and unproductive practices...
Posted April 07, 2015
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skinandbones13: How long has this game been on pre-order? Surely it has set some new record?
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mobutu: 3 hours or something ...
Expansions aren't games.

Has any other game released expansion packs on preorder while the game itself is still on preorder? Who would buy expansion packs to a game they haven't even played yet? Madness if you ask me.
Posted April 07, 2015
Year ago I thought that this would never happen so I pre-ordered The Witcher 3.
Of course I am the fool for pre-ordering anything but I just wanted to say that I would have not bought the game if I knew about this season pass crap back then, it's just something I'm really against. That is all.
Posted April 07, 2015
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ThePunishedSnake: Yeah, search this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=905447

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2i7gmx/the_witcher_3_development_issues_in_major_crunch

There was even a discussion on Witcher's forum (not GOG one, the official one from CDPR).
Went through the thread, and I assume you mean Anaxymenes' posts. Now, other than the fact that there's no way to know what his position was, two things spring to mind.
1) The game that didn't exist was the game that CDPR PR first announced. It was, as the neogaf thread said, a Molyneaux like thing. Promise the stars, deliver a moon. Not sure if that is the case.
2) Which part of the game is not the promised one? Graphics? Story? Open world? Length?

And as to how that interacts with the announced expansions, it shouldn't. I still doubt that any programming work has been done on them, other than the very basics, since bug fixing would be the priority still.

Either way, thank you for the links.
Posted April 07, 2015
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darthspudius: I'm not following... it's not like they took content OUT of the game to sell.
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Vestin: Hold on - I've been through this. I've once heard people insist that "Heart of the Swarm" and "Legacy of the Void" NEED to be sold together with "Wings of Liberty", because otherwise it's "making people pay 3 times". Hell - it's making them pay 3 times as much for the same amount of content, right? 3 campaigns. Starcraft 1 had 3 campaigns and that game was sold as a single product... Meanwhile Wings of Liberty got released 5 years ago and Legacy is barely in closed beta. In other words - these people would rather Blizzard wait about 6 years, bundle all campaigns, and still charge the price of Wings for all of that.
I could see through that bullshit back then, I can see through that bullshit now. This is especially upsetting when you consider the fact that in our announcement here GOG explicitly tells people not to buy the fucking thing if they have doubts. "Duh", one might say, but how many companies tell their consumers "BTW - remember that you can NOT BUY our shit!".
The best part, however, are complete completionists. If the expansions never got made, they'd be happy with the base game alone as 100% of the content. The moment they realize that more stuff is in the works, that 100% shrinks to just a fraction of the total gamage they could have under the guise of "Witcher 3". Suddenly this is "less", even though it is the same goddamn game.
Now imagine them releasing the game, all these "I only buy full products" people going for it, spending their money... What would they do if, out of the blue, CDP announced "BTW - we'll be releasing an expansion pack in the nearby future ^^!"? Would they cry themselves to sleep?
What if they played through the entire fucking game, and only THEN found out that more content is on the way. Would they curl up in a corner and fell into a catatonic state?
I've played The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, should I feel bad about Dreamfall: Chapters? NO, I've waited for that for years! Let me guess - it's more of a "sequel" than "DLC", so that makes it peachy, right?
I get concerns over preorder culture, but come the fuck on... If people only think this through, they'll realize that the software development process works in a particular way, and that naturally leads to certain modes of development. I don't buy the idea that people are supposed to have the epiphany of "maybe we should make more content" only after base content is done. That's just promoting people who work without a plan. Then again - I guess some people REALLY don't like thinking about how sausage is made.
Oh, there are also the contrarians whose basic argument is "I thought you've decided to do everything to the contrary of how the industry normally works, WTF?". Can't comprehend the idea of only rejecting bad and unproductive practices...
Wall of text... holy crap man...
Posted April 07, 2015
Welp, CDPR, you just lost my trust in you.
You took two years, TWO FUCKING YEARS to "pplish the game" and then you pull off this kind of Ubi$oft bullshit behavior?
The Witcher 3 has been my only pre-order since Battlefield 3, I trusted you and believed in actual credibility in Gaming Industry for once, that at least You people wouldn't fuck up so big time had the DECENCY to not pull off something like this.
Most people don't have money to fucking throw for videogames and need to earned it with hard work and sweat, unfortunately I'm not one of these but I do feel mad because of people like me that cannot afford 50€ for a videogame getting so scammed even from a company that has talked about trasperency for so many years.

You are just all the fucking same, I'm not cancelling the pre-order because I want to support Sapkowski and his incredible creations, but this is the last FUCKING time I trust you.

Good riddance.
Posted April 07, 2015
high rated
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Davane: Still, that said, kudos to CDPR for announcing this now, rather than waiting and announcing it at release. That would really have upset those who pre-ordered hoping for a complete game...
Except many if not most of complainers here argue, that this is bad that they dared to announce it this early, before the game is out.

Lets consider.
option A - CDPR is transparent and announces expansions as they start working on them => bad CDPR, how do you dare to announce them this early, it is surely a money grab to fool people into buying DLCs!!!!!
option B - CDPR hides their plans for expansions until few months after release => bad CDPR, I would never buy this game if I knew it is not a complete edition, it was surely some money grab to sell more standalone copies!!!!!
Post edited April 07, 2015 by d2t
Posted April 07, 2015
WTF !?! Seems like CD project has gone over to the Dark Side !!
Did a Sith Lord take over the company ?
Posted April 07, 2015
low rated
I played The Witcher for the first time a few months ago after having bought the first two games dirt cheap at a GOG sale.

It has to be one of my top contenders for worst game I have ever played.

The game constantly crashes. It's a "dark and gritty" tale written by a horny 8 year old. Seriously, a jar of mayonnaise has more personality than the main character.
Posted April 07, 2015
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darthspudius: Wall of text... holy crap man...
That's how I operate. There's a response to pretty much everything from this thread in there.
Posted April 07, 2015
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Epitaph666: Anyway, since when it's such a goddamn sin to release Expansion packs?
When people forget they are just another company doing business and not the "saviour of PC gaming,the upholders of nothing but flawless morals and ideals in this dark industry of video games™"
Posted April 07, 2015
I really like when there's new content coming out for a good game, and I have no qualms buying expansion packs, and have done it before. But.. buying into subscription-based stuff from a vendor who wish to drip-feed extra stuff in small quantities for micro-payments,etc and stuff I'm not able to control, archive and access locally, is a turn-off.

TBH, CDpred did nothing wrong, except that this announcement should have been postponed to sometime after the release of the main game.
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Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)