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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 08, 2015
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deonast: Really what's the problem. I pre-ordered the game. Won't be getting the expansion until I've seen how good the game is and I have a graphics card to buy anyway. So I can wait, so can anyone else who is complaining.

If they are truthful then there is a lot of hours of content to come (wait for a special and reviews). No it shouldn't be part of the game unless we all want to wait another year for release.

Seems all fair to me. No pre-order bonuses. Just buy after release at a price you feel comfortable (wait for sale etc). Problem solved.

If this were a lot of tiny DLC for big bucks then that would be another story.
i agree, you made a good point, its all up to us if we want to buy something, and like people said in previous posts, pre ordering is like gambling you wins some you loose some.
Posted April 08, 2015
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ne_zavarj: Well the PR worked . It's now on the 3rd place on the " popular " list .
lol, no way in hell am I going to believe that list is accurate as far as CDPR games are concerned! TW3 has been almost continuously in the Top 3, which strikes me as VERY odd.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Zergoss: Well, going by the front page, their plan worked, the only thing selling better is the hero version of Pillars of Eternity
yup, i see witcher after titan souls.

pillars is abit to expensive for me plus theres only videos on youtube , these dont show me how the game plays and what to expect, so i will be getting it much later when a nice sales comes along, i am a patient man i have time to wait, in the mean time i can play and finish all my games i bought at fall/winter and insomnia sales.
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ne_zavarj: Well the PR worked . It's now on the 3rd place on the " popular " list .
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fronzelneekburm: lol, no way in hell am I going to believe that list is accurate as far as CDPR games are concerned! TW3 has been almost continuously in the Top 3, which strikes me as VERY odd.
maybe it is true and maybe not, but playing around with the numbers doesnt get them more buys so i think theres no gain to cheat with numbers, see it as a community that has 100 members but makes the number that shows the amount of registred users to show as 10.000, they would not benefit from cheating with the numbers.
So we can assume the numbers are correct.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by gamesfreak64
Posted April 08, 2015
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Zergoss: Well, going by the front page, their plan worked, the only thing selling better is the hero version of Pillars of Eternity
It's really not a success. Pillars of Eternity came out almost two weeks ago and had been on preorder, so its daily sales shouldn't be very high now. If the expansion pass can't sell better than that - it's really not a success.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by FrostyGrin
Posted April 08, 2015
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Zergoss: Well, going by the front page, their plan worked, the only thing selling better is the hero version of Pillars of Eternity
Actually that list does not show which games sell the most by number of sales but it shows which games sold most by money value. This was explained in several other threads. So games with bigger price will automatically be on top with lower amount of sales in comparison to lower priced games. For example Elminage Gothic has to sell 6x times more copies to be valued money wise the same as one sold Witcher 3 season pass. The list is not representative of sales numbers but it does help to build up a hype.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Zergoss: Well, going by the front page, their plan worked, the only thing selling better is the hero version of Pillars of Eternity
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Matruchus: Actually that list does not show which games sell the most by number of sales but it shows which games sold most by money value. This was explained in several other threads. So games with bigger price will automatically be on top with lower amount of sales in comparison to lower priced games. For example Elminage Gothic has to sell 6x times more copies to be valued money wise the same as one sold Witcher 3 season pass. The list is not representative of sales numbers but it does help to build up a hype.
I was not aware of this, I take back my statement
Posted April 08, 2015
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ne_zavarj: Well the PR worked . It's now on the 3rd place on the " popular " list .
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fronzelneekburm: lol, no way in hell am I going to believe that list is accurate as far as CDPR games are concerned! TW3 has been almost continuously in the Top 3, which strikes me as VERY odd.
Or it just means that the rest of the games are not sold in high numbers...
Posted April 08, 2015
such hurricane over nothing..

Idiots! they are expansions with 30 hours of gameplay, not some shitty DLC.

Back in 1990/2000 plenty of games had expansion CDs
Posted April 08, 2015
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gamesfreak64: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- ---------------------------------------------
It does buy you a full game. Expansion packs are not part of Witcher 3 game. BG2:SOA is full game isn't it. TOB as expansion is not part of SOA. is SOA incomplete because of TOB? HL2 is incomplete as a game because of Episodes?
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bg2soa is indeed a full blown game, i also have it on retail cd/dvd

As for adding the extras in the complete witcher game, that would logically increase the listprice, and thats a normal thing to increase the list price if it has extra missions.
But TOB was samething like next chapter in main storyline. I really doubt if two lat say "area adding DLC's" will have anything to do with main storyline. Of course it's great deal to visit Toussaint, especially beacuse of Dandelion's past. But it's still smells like DLC any other company is making.

What's more not about DLC's it's about CDPR behaving the way, they contested since they started developing games. And it's not the first tmie. After W1 they said they will make PC cRPGs and W2 was console action RPG. I fear they are turning into the dark side and I only hope they wouldn't drag GOG with them.
Posted April 08, 2015
low rated
So much wine in thread..Am I at 4chan ?Awesome news CDPR & GOG! Show'em all how to make right expansion packs.
Posted April 08, 2015
Unimpressed.
Posted April 08, 2015
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StorkV88: I don't get why everyone is so upset about this... some content costs a lot of money to make.
Over 30 hours of gameplay only for 25$... you do realize some entirely fully released games don' t have that length...
But I do understand why people are scared to be screwed in the future by accepting this cause many companies abused the DLC system....
That's likely why CDP used the term 'expansion pass', trying to invoke memories of actual expansions 10-15 years ago which were full-fledged products and well worth the money. Honestly, I think if they had called it the expansion pack pack or something else, we wouldn't be hearing so many complaints right now. Some people are so focused on the name, Its almost as if everything written after the title doesn't even matter.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Davane: Any you can find, really. It's all about "the more you know"...
I assume you mean "Day 1 expansion packs", so I'll see what I can find. There were though quite a few games also made with the ability to add extra content to them, like The Ancient Art Of War (1986) (image is PC-88 version since it's the only one that the (DATA DISK) option is visible), though no such Data Disks were sold. The game did include a scenario/campaign editor though, so one could say that it was in place for mods.


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Davane: But we are talking about an RPG here. As stated, Bethesda coined (and ruined) the phrase with their Horse Armour. This wasn't standard for this genre of gaming (at least in my experience).
Unlimited Adventures (1993) was basically a "Create your own game" that allowed scenarios to be used. Again, SSI didn't sell any of those, though my guess would be that it was mostly a logistics reason behind it. It could also be that it wasn't a really good seller, since we do have such cases for DOOM, both by id Software (The Ultimate DOOM (1995)) and from other companies (The Complete DOOM Accessory (1994), Modern Microware)

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Davane: it adds to the gaming experience, typically by including new mechanics and options. If it doesn't do this, then it can't truly be called an expansion pack.
What about Map Packs and Speech Packs?

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Davane: Gone are the days when "more of the same" is perceived as being of value. More hours of gameplay isn't as important as new gameplay, especially in a genre where games can be artificially inflated through grinding and exploration.
Read point 4. Then read the rest of it.

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Davane: These are not assertions, just implications based on the simple question of "Why do this now?" CDPR had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by their timing this before the actual release of TW3, since this does look like they are trying to ride the hype of the game, rather than it's actual quality.

Saving this for even a week after release would have made all the difference, simply because a lot of the questions would already have been answered by the game itself.
I'll play the Devil's Advocate here. Imagine if this announcement was made once you could no longer cancel your pre-order. All the people the are now rushing to cancel would feel cheated out of the base game's value, which they now can spend in other ways. So instead of the "You won't get my money" voices you'd have the "You got my money and didn't deliver" ones. If you are going to have one of those groups, which one is better to have?
Posted April 08, 2015
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Aningan: I think it's definitely better they announced this now. In this they made the right choice for their customers, and people are moaning about it? Please...

1. People who hate it can cancel their pre-order (or decide against pre-order if they didn't already). If they would announce this after the release then these people would be pissed!!! And rightly so. It would have been very dishonest.

2. People who like it will get more hyped. Yay! Give more monies to CDPR!!!
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Pheace: Let me repeat myself:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/witcher_expansion_0f2a2/post524
Too many posts to find anything :)

But just so it's clear, I'm only talking about the time of the announcement since I did see some complaints about it. Everything else regarding this announcement, I'm not a fan of.
Posted April 08, 2015
So, guys, let me get this clear ... We will support games like The Order (60eur for 4h gameplay + 2h cutscenes) but not RPGs like The Witcher 3, a 200+ game, because they announced two expansions (30h for 25eur) ?!

... and you wonder why you get games like EVOLVE.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by altshift_kill
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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)