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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
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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 08, 2015
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d2t: But yeah, you are right in one thing - these "greatest supporters" wouldn't complain indeed if there was no regional pricing. Because The Witcher 3 wouldn't be available for purchase DRM-free - tough cookie to complain about something that doesn't exist.
So what?

The result is the same for me now: I will not buy it.

Wether I do not buy it here , or do not buy it on steam, until it is "complete" makes no bloody difference. And at the point, it is for 5 bucks on sale, nobody is any longer interested in putting DRM in it. So they can sell it on GOG, after one or two years.

Problem solved.


P.S.

Additionally I will have a better PC in two years ahead. So these games will run much smoother. Another advantage.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by mkess
Posted April 08, 2015
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theGhostChili: Seems many are passing judgement quite quickly. There were expansions to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale etc. And they were good. Guess the reason for this rattling of the boneboxes is that the expansions were introduced before the actual game was released. Besides, has CDPR ever let anyone down? Don't think so. I doubt it will be a 20-hour Fedex feast. It wouldn't, right?
They will probably just forget about it in 5 years and be upset at another issue entirely.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Elmofongo
Posted April 08, 2015
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mrkgnao: Not sure what you mean about MaGog. Are you referring to the 48-hour delay due to GOG blocking my IP?
Didn't you post at some point that you parse the log and only post the relevant parts, after stripping some information down? Or is my memory really that bad?

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mrkgnao: What I gathered from the post I linked to, is that the separation is intentional due to separate update schemes.
From what I understand of how this works, is that the installers are compiled by the QA department, while Galaxy gets the files (and scripts) from a directory. Normally, said directory would have the exact same files the QA used, but someone has to update them. Thus there may be a slight discrepancy between the two sources.
Posted April 08, 2015
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F4LL0UT: I'm not gonna just say "hey, thanks, great job guys!" when CDPR + GOG make an announcement that is basically like pissing on our faces and telling us that it's raining.
Care to explain how does CDPR piss on your face (nice comparison btw) because they transparently announced that they work on game expansions rather than hide this fact until X copies of standalone are sold first? In what way would it be better if they hid this fact until say September?

(I assume you realise that the game is done for whatever number of months now and just being polished, meaning that writers and designers have time to work on new content - be it expansion or sequel)
Posted April 08, 2015
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georgealmighty: Shitty practices by AAA publishers destroyed both the (good IMO if implemented right) ideas of oxpansions and DLC. This thread is just CDPR getting hit by collateral damage.
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mrkgnao: This wouldn't have happened if GOG had not alienated its greatest supporters by earlier introducing regional pricing, regional banning, cutting off communications, and leaving our libraries for weeks in a half-broken state. These supporters would have been here to hold the fort; now they are instead leading the assault. There is just so many times you can be dishonest and supercilious to people.
GOG != CDPR, they are connected of course, but I'd like to keep it separately. As in, it was CDPR (as a publisher) decision to set regional prices.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Death_Masta187: I do think CDPR is out of line with this announcement (see page 1 of this thread) so I'm not 100% on CDPR's side here. I'm more just pointing out that intentions for free DLC are apples and brown cats different.
I am well aware of that so not comparing CDPR to Ubisoft directly ofcourse as the circumstances are definitely different but the purpose is actually the same i.e. image boost. Also just once again highlighting the fact that CDPR are not doing anything special with this preorder announcement of the Expansion Pack which is similar to what most other companies intend to do with their Season Pass announcements i.e. to get money beforehand with the promise of future content no matter how large or small it ends up being.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by stg83
Posted April 08, 2015
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georgealmighty: There is no "YAY! more stuff from that awesome game I played and adored!" anymore.
It might help if people had the chance to actually PLAY that game first and get to adore it.

Right now, it seems more like content is being sold based on the franchise and the name, rather than things like gameplay value.

The real problem is that this really just makes sense if the company isn't sure that the gameplay will actually sell their product.

It's simple logic really - we really have two questions being asked here:

1. Is the gameplay good?
2. When should we announce more content?

This gives us four possibilities:

a. Good Gameplay + Early Announcement = Sales
b. Good Gameplay + Late Announcement = Sales
c. Bad Gameplay + Early Announcement = Sales
d. Bad Gameplay + Late Announcement = No Sales

The fact is that we can't tell whether the gameplay is good or bad, so it's essentially 50/50 - thus the only way to avoid the No Sales option is an early announcement BEFORE word about the gameplay is can get out.

This logical reasoning isn't hard to understand, but it does imply a certain lack of faith in the key selling factor of the product for most gamers - gameplay.

Most importantly, some customers won't take the time and effort to cancel a product and get a refund, particularly if the effort to do so outweighs the return the customer will get. Thus, more sales will occur through such misselling, based on customer laziness, at the expense of customer satisfaction.

This practice is a particularly insidious dark-side selling technique. It often coincides with T&Cs that prevent or hamper refunds. It's right up there with gym memberships and telecoms contracts, PPI and online gambling services.

As much as you can say "that's just the way the industry is" - and, unfortunately, we are saying exactly that more and more often - it still galls to see favoured businesses succumb to such techniques, especially when they are convinced that they can rebrand them and somehow that changes everything.

This is probably the biggest issue with both GOG.com and CDPR - not just that they are implementing such practices, but that they say that what they are doing is new, and somehow better, than what everyone else is doing, despite it being exactly the same.

This means that either they are aware that what they are doing is the same, and are thinking that they are able to fool the customer into believing that this is something different, or that they are deluded enough to actually think that they are somehow different, and even better, than others even though they are doing the same thing...
Posted April 08, 2015
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mkess: Yes, they did it ...again.

First regional pricing.

Next regional censorship.

And now waiting for the GotY version.

And in future we are waitting for GOG DRM....
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Davane: Technically, GOG Galaxy is "GOG DRM"...
Unless they make it mandatory (like the Steam client), Galaxy is not DRM. It's not required to play your games; it's not even required to download them. It may be required for some multi-player games but only as a means to connect to the game servers (including Steam ones I believe) which is not DRM but a necessity for online gaming!

l sincerely hope this always remains the case.
Posted April 08, 2015
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USERNAME:Matruchus#Q&_^Q&Q#GROUP:4#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:333#Q&_^Q&Q#Not if galaxy is going to be needed to play the games (regardless if its multiplayer or singleplayer). In that case its definitely drm.#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:333#Q&_^Q&Q#
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And thus as I feared gog accepted drm with gog Galaxy even if its only for MP. Thanks for that enlightning explanation.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Matruchus
Posted April 08, 2015
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LynetteC: So how does this work? The increase on the main game with the expansions is higher for Australia but the Expansion pack on it's own is more expensive in the UK.
No idea, Lynette. At the moment, it's cheaper to get the game + the expansion separately, than get the bundled release, as the latter does not come with any discount for owning the first two games.

Oh, and allow me a small, but apparently significant correction - it's Expansion Pass, not Expansion Pack. ;-P



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georgealmighty: [...]

The problem is, we're not in the Good Old Days anymore. The market has changed, and any addition, no matter when announced or released is considered a money grab. There is no "YAY! more stuff from that awesome game I played and adored!" anymore.

[...]
With the game not out for another 1.5 month, is there any way to get this sort of reaction with this announcement?
Posted April 08, 2015
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Matruchus: And thus as I feared gog accepted drm even if its only for MP. Thanks for that enlightning explanation.
Fun fact! Sacrifice requires a CD-Key to play multiplayer, and it was one of the games available when GOG first opened its doors (August 2008).
Posted April 08, 2015
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Matruchus: And thus as I feared gog accepted drm even if its only for MP. Thanks for that enlightning explanation.
Your entitled to your opinion, but I can never see anything requiring the internet as ever really being DRM free simply by the nature of the internet... and not including MP in today's world is simply not an option.
Posted April 08, 2015
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USERNAME:Matruchus#Q&_^Q&Q#GROUP:4#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:361#Q&_^Q&Q#And thus as I feared gog accepted drm even if its only for MP. Thanks for that enlightning explanation.#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:361#Q&_^Q&Q#
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I was talking about Galaxy not internet. Eitherway I see it as drm and am finished with this discussion.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Matruchus
Posted April 08, 2015
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LynetteC: Unless they make it mandatory (like the Steam client), Galaxy is not DRM. It's not required to play your games; it's not even required to download them. It may be required for some multi-player games but only as a means to connect to the game servers (including Steam ones I believe) which is not DRM but a necessity for online gaming!

l sincerely hope this always remains the case.
Time will tell.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Matruchus: And thus as I feared gog accepted drm even if its only for MP. Thanks for that enlightning explanation.
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JMich: Fun fact! Sacrifice requires a CD-Key to play multiplayer, and it was one of the games available when GOG first opened its doors (August 2008).
Cd-Key is not the problem. Galaxy is. I edited the above text since most people misinterpret what I ment.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)