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General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(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 08, 2015
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LynetteC: Yes, that was intentional - l prefer to think of it as a "pack" and if GOG had announced it as such there might not have been as much of a shit storm as we're experiencing now. :-)
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HypersomniacLive: I know it was, I was just messing with you; I find CDPR's/ GOG's choice quite ridiculous, sort of a desperate attempt to appeal and connect to both the dinosaurs and the newer generations.
Yeah, And I am stomping around, still roaring ...
Post edited April 08, 2015 by mkess
Posted April 08, 2015
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d2t: In the same way you could label GOG Downloader as being mandatory software to download GOG games, because there are people who don't want to use GOG website? What kind of failed, broken logic is this?
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Davane: In the same vain, you could label installers as being mandatory software to playing GOG games, as well as the every popular DOSBox for many older titles. These are all, technically, DRM.

If the installer doesn't work, the games can't be installed. That's DRM right there.

For many, the OS itself is the biggest part of DRM on most people's computers.

Ultimately, DRM is about control. As a process, it is about who controls the usage of the software.

The unbundling is an example of this - now Might and Magic I is a separate installer to Might and Magic II. I can no longer install Might and Magic I-IV in a single install. It might seem trivial, but I am already being controlled in how I am using the software - and that's DRM in principle.

There's all this talk of conspiracy theories regarding GOG Galaxy, but the simple fact is that it is DRM. It gives GOG.com greater control over how users install content, and that's the whole point of DRM. Whether you use GOG Galaxy, GOG Downloader, or individual installers, you are using DRM.

In fact, you only have to look at Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics to see that GOG.com does have DRM of sorts. Newer members cannot buy these games - they can't download them, or see them, or anything. GOG.com has removed them from their catelog. For those who already purchased them, these games can still be downloaded and installed - so the content itself still exists on GOG.com - it is just unavailable for some people. That is DRM.

As stated above, DRM is ultimately about control. GOG.com being DRM-Free is a myth - and since this is their only remaining core policy, it doesn't bode well for GOG.com being anything other than another online distribution store.
DRM is largely defined today as restrictions after sale. So your Fallout argument does not hold true since those who did not buy it do not count as a sale. Of course the term DRM is up for debate, but then that becomes largely how we individually see DRM.
Posted April 08, 2015
high rated
I'd like to address both sides of this issue, if I may.

Firstly...

Dear GOG/CDProjekt,
You have a history of looking out for your customers, of being in touch with your audience, of knowing what discerning gamers will and will not stand for... And then, every once in a while, you seem to have a collective brain fart, and do something excruciatingly stupid that any sane person could have told you beforehand would unleash a shitstorm of extreme magnitude. The fake site closing. The "Good news, we're going to charge all the Europeans more" thread. When a normal PR department has the occasional "off" day, the company sells a few less units than they would otherwise have. When your PR department has the occasional "off" day, people gather outside your offices with torches and pitchforks (flaming pitchforks). It really is quite impressive, in a way.

I suppose that a part of the problem is that you actually do know your audience well. This is a double edged sword, because it may lead you to believe that your audience knows you equally well, which is not in fact the case. You can see what we all write here on the forum every day, which gives you a great deal of insight into what makes us tick. However, we do not know nearly as much about what goes on at your end as you do about what goes on at ours. As such, you may feel you do not need to explain your motivations for doing certain things, or the mechanics of how decisions are executed, because you and we know each other so well that obviously we already know all this. Well, we don't, not all of us anyway.

If you didn't think that a pre-order announcement for a DLC season pass (you may argue semantics, but that's what it is) for a game that is itself still in pre-order, and is made by a company with a certain history when it comes to free DLCs and upgrades would be met with overwhelmingly negative feedback on this forum, then all I can say is that you didn't think at all.

You may have decided that since the hard core of GOGlodytes (which, incidentally, are also your strongest supporters, and followers of the principles you yourselves have preached since your inception) are nevertheless only a small, albeit very vocal, minority, they can be ignored from a business perspective. I hope this is not the case, even though it might make sense economically.

You have to understand two things you did wrong: The timing of the announcement, and the lack of explanation.

The timing? Announcing this before the release of TW3 was ludicrous. With all the discussion there has been here in recent years about pre-orders, DLC and season passes, it should have been blindingly obvious to you what the reaction would be. It's not that you have given anyone reason to think you would intentionally rip them off, it's just that every other developer/publisher has given everyone reason to think that anyone would rip them off. Just by releasing a game, your motives are automatically suspect. Not by your own doing, but because of the business you are in.

The lack of explanation? Well, you may think you explained everything sufficiently in the first four lines of the announement. You didn't.

Most people don't really know, and don't really think about, how games development actually works. To most gamers, a development studio is a magic box with a lot of people inside, all happily working on every aspect of a game from start to finish. Only when the game is released can they all relax and take a breather, and then all start working on the next game simultaneously. That's not how it works of course, and if people thought about it they'd realize that, but many of them don't. Not because they are stupid or ignorant, but simply because it is so far removed from their everyday life that they don't really give it a second thought. All they can see is the magic box, and what comes out of it. This is not meant to sound derogatory towards anyone, it's just how people work. You don't think about the finer details of the inner workings of every thing in the world you are not personally involved in, because, well, you don't actually have time for that. There are just too many things in the world you are not personally involved in.

So go back and try again. You can't do much about the timing, since you already screwed that up, but you can still explain the hows and the whys and the whats of how these expansions came about. You can't please everyone, no matter what you do. Some people will disagree with any decisions you make. However, in this case I think you could have prevented a lot of knee-jerk reactions if you'd stopped to think about exactly who you were adressing, and exactly what it was you were saying to them. If you take the time to explain properly, you may still reverse quite a few of them I think.

(Post too long. End of Part 1)
Posted April 08, 2015
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Wishbone: (Post too long. End of Part 1)
Buffer. Feel free to post part 2.
Posted April 08, 2015
I have to admit my disappointment seeing the words "Pre-order Expansion Pass" on GOG. I don't really have much else to say that hasn't been covered many times in this thread already.

I can understand some of the rage here, but they're just providing an option that's pretty standard nowadays like it or not. Vote with your wallet.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Rincewind81: ...
But releasing a Season Pass before the Release date and month after the Preorder start ist like sticking a middle finger to the first guys who preordered the game. And they don't even have the balls to call it a Season Pass. Thank you CD Project...
Yes, I feel betrayed.

And btw. it is regardless how they call their DLC, it's similar to a season pass. The only thing I want is a complete game, nothing more, nothing less.

And guess what? I found another game worth buying for myself.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/282900/

One of the silliest games ever produced, and additionally a good JRPG.

Beware: grind included.

Beware: only for nerds.

Beware: Anime.

On sale!
Post edited April 08, 2015 by mkess
Posted April 08, 2015
high rated
(Part 2)

Secondly...

Dear Angry Mob,
I understand your reaction, I really do. This was not handled well by GOG/CDProjekt. However, there are a few things I would like to point out. Now, if you are just categorically against adding any form of content to an existing game, then that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion, and I shan't try to dissuade you from it, and you can skip the rest of this post. If you do think there might conceivably exist a scenario in which spending a lot of time and resources making an expansion to a game and then getting paid for all your hard work at the end is morally defensible, read on.

In recent years, we've seen a lot of small indie games released. Indie developers tend to tell the outside world a lot more about what they actually do and how they do it than huge AAA game studios do. I fear this may have led to a situation where a lot of people think they know the basics of how game development works, and as far as small indie games are concerned, they're right. The problem is that the processes involved in making a game with a team of 1-5 people do not scale up to teams of 50-100 people. It's not the same thing at all.

Games like The Witcher 3 are huge. They're also very very complicated, and making them involves a large variety of specialized skills. In a small indie game, everything might be made by a single person. The code, the graphics, the sound effects and the music. That person may not be the most skilled musician or graphics artist in the world, but it's a small game made by one guy, so we understand. Not so in a huge production. For a game the size and cost of TW3, we want, even demand the most skilled musicians and graphics artists in the world (or a close approximation thereof anyway). Those people, who are so very very good at what they do, are so very good because that is all they do. The higher the specialization, the higher the quality.

So here we have, as an example, a 3D modeller who was hired because he makes the most amazing trees. He is responsible for making all the trees in TW3, and while he may get the occasional other small task (a sword, a well, a burned-down shack, etc.), that is his job on the project. TW3 needs plenty of trees, so he has a lot to do. To begin with, he makes sketches of different varieties of trees. Then, as more details become available, and more of the design is finished, he starts refining these and turning them into models, making several different examples of each one. Maybe an area that was originally planned as a desert is changed into a swamp, so he stops working on all his cactuses and starts making gnarled willows instead. Eventually, he is done with all the trees. Effectively, his job on the project is now over.

But the game isn't finished yet. There is still a ton of testing, balancing and bug-fixing to be done. However, he is not involved in any of that. He designs trees, but there are no more trees to be designed for this game. What to do? Should the studio say "Thanks for all your hard work" and then fire him? Should they move him to a completely different team working on a different game, if one happens to be available?

He is not alone. There are level designers, composers, texture artists, and lots of other people whose involvement with the game is now over. For some, it has been over for quite a while. Others still have to make small changes and fixes from time to time, but not enough to occupy them full time. They know each other well, they have worked together on this project for a long time. Why not just have them keep making content and put it in the game? Well, because the game was designed as a whole, and squeezing extra bits of storyline into an existing narrative isn't likely to result in a streamlined product in the end. Besides, everything that is added has to be tested, balanced and debugged before it can be shipped. But if they keep adding new content while the testers and coders work on what they've already made, the game will never be finished. That way lies Duke Nukem Forever.

It has already been decided to make an expansion pack for the game. This isn't content that was planned from the beginning, but a new adventure for the players to enjoy, separate from the main storyline. Why wait for the game to be released before starting work on it? These people are available now, they are intimately familiar with the world and design of the game, and so are in an excellent position to make new content that will blend seamlessly with the existing. Since it is separate from the main game, it can be tested on its own once it is done, and won't delay the release of the main game. If they choose not to start working on it immediately, those people will have to either be let go, or to be assigned to other projects. There is no guarantee that they will then be available when work on the expansion is due to begin. Then the expansion will have to be made by people who did not actually work on the main game, and the quality will probably suffer for it.

...

Well, those were my thoughts on the matter. I see no problem with making expansions for a game such as TW3, and if you are going to do it, it only makes sense to start working on it before the main game is released, since the people involved in the last phases of making a game are not the same people involved in the first phases. I don't think it makes sense taking pre-orders for it, or even announcing it for that matter, before the main game is released, but simply doing it, yes, that makes sense to me. It's not content that was intentionally cut from the game, it's not going to be finished and on the retail disc on release, only needing an unlock code. It's new content that you buy if you so choose, and it won't be done until long after the main game is released. And it will add a significant number of hours of extra gameplay, it won't just be horse armor. It will be, you know, the expansion packs of old. I miss them, don't you?
Posted April 08, 2015
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mkess: The only thing I want is a complete game, nothing more, nothing less.
Get The Witcher 3 then. And if you find that the complete game doesn't sate you, get the expansion packs (or expansion pass) as well, for the extra salad of the steak dish.
Posted April 08, 2015
i thought you delayed the game because you're working on it, i thought you its so damn stuffed with content?

why the hell then a season pass? are that badly on the rocks?

ps: thats what happens if you decide to release on consoles too!!!
Posted April 08, 2015
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Rincewind81: ...
But releasing a Season Pass before the Release date and month after the Preorder start ist like sticking a middle finger to the first guys who preordered the game. And they don't even have the balls to call it a Season Pass. Thank you CD Project...
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mkess: Yes, I feel betrayed.

And btw. it is regardless how they call their DLC, it's similar to a season pass. The only thing I want is a complete game, nothing more, nothing less.
I don't really understand these kind of posts, the DLC will come out in 2016. Would you really rather wait for the game with DLC to come out in 2016? Well nobody forces you to buy it now, there is an easy solution, wait for 2016 and buy Witcher 3 Complete Edition then, if it's really so much of a problem to support such an amazing developers with a little bit more money right now.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by MichiGen
Posted April 08, 2015
Well, I don't really understand the negative reaction. They're releasing expansion packs, not cheap, hundreds of dlcs. You remember expansion packs from the old days? Well, it's a bit odd to make available the expansion packs with a pre-order when the main game is not out yet, but I think it's a very positve approach to promise expansion packs with hours of additional playing time.
Posted April 08, 2015
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apehater: i thought you delayed the game because you're working on it, i thought you its so damn stuffed with content?

why the hell then a season pass? are that badly on the rocks?

ps: thats what happens if you decide to release on consoles too!!!
Season pass is meant as a dlc bundle for further content that will be released in two parts later on and is not part of the game. First part will be released in October 2015 and second one in 2016. Its basically a preorder for upcoming dlc bundle. Bad announcement timing though that makes it look like a cash grab.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Matruchus
Posted April 08, 2015
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Wishbone: <snip>

Well, those were my thoughts on the matter. I see no problem with making expansions for a game such as TW3, and if you are going to do it, it only makes sense to start working on it before the main game is released, since the people involved in the last phases of making a game are not the same people involved in the first phases. I don't think it makes sense taking pre-orders for it, or even announcing it for that matter, before the main game is released, but simply doing it, yes, that makes sense to me. It's not content that was intentionally cut from the game, it's not going to be finished and on the retail disc on release, only needing an unlock code. It's new content that you buy if you so choose, and it won't be done until long after the main game is released. And it will add a significant number of hours of extra gameplay, it won't just be horse armor. It will be, you know, the expansion packs of old. I miss them, don't you?
Thank you for your thoughtful post. It sums everything up for me quite well. And I completely agree with you on the last paragraph :-)
Posted April 08, 2015
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apehater: i thought you delayed the game because you're working on it, i thought you its so damn stuffed with content?

why the hell then a season pass? are that badly on the rocks?

ps: thats what happens if you decide to release on consoles too!!!
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Matruchus: Season pass is meant as a dlc bundle for further content that will be released in two parts later on and is not part of the game. First part will be released in October 2015 and second one in 2016. Its basically a preorder for upcoming content. Bad announcement timing though that makes it look like a cash grab.
thats what you think. i am sure they are on the rocks, just look at all the information about witcher 3 during last 12 months avaible on the net
Posted April 08, 2015
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Accatone: You remember expansion packs from the old days? Well, it's a bit odd to make available the expansion packs with a pre-order when the main game is not out yet, but I think it's a very positve approach to promise expansion packs with hours of additional playing time.
Do you remember preordering or just announcements of Expansion Packs even before the base game? This has nothing to do with the "old days".
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Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)