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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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IAmSinistar: In another circumstance I'd probably do the same. But since they bundled so much stuff with the pre-order in this case, I figure I may as well just hold onto it. That's pretty much the only deciding factor for me, though.
What did they bundle again? I just now finished canceling my preorder, not sure abut what I "lost".
Posted April 08, 2015
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d2t: And what is your proof they cut anything from game to do expansions? Do you really live under impression that game designers and writers are creating new content for the game until the second it ships? This stuff has to be locked, translated, tested, certified and sent to manufacturing. Likely it already was. Whoever is not working on polishing and fixing bugs can
1. go unemployed
2. work on something new
I answer this with that:

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PhilipG: Well, I suppose it's a wait-and-see situation then. Will gamers feel, on completing W3, that a significant chunk is missing somehow - which will then be filled by a future expansion pack? Or, down the line, will gamers who bought the expansion pack say, "Why the heck couldn't they have put xyz feature/plotline into the main game?" I don't know. Like I said, I'm going to wait and see. And, as long as I'm waiting, I'll wait for the big sale of the whole caboodle.

I just don't like these season pass shenanigans. Can't CDPR work on a new game instead? :-/
I agree with both. In a way they planned the expansions, so they made a hole somewhere so they fit in. But that is true for all expansions. I don't care because I am very patient and buy GOTY editions mostly. In a world of people like me nobody would have pre-ordered TW3 and this news would go by largely unnoticed.

So people who are comfortable with announced and in progress expansions should just buy and play TW3 right away while the others should wait. And GOG should in order to avoid bad feelings and misunderstandings in the future communicate much more clearly the possibility of paid expansions, basically as soon as they decide to do them and even before, maybe around the time they start taking pre-orders for the base game. In any case they should be cautious with claiming the high morale ground in the future. It seems that it creates more disappointment and backlash than doing good for them at the moment.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Trilarion
Posted April 08, 2015
low rated
Oh, God! People, you can see the difference between expansion packs and DLC, do yout?
Posted April 08, 2015
high rated
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Trilarion: In the same article they also wrote:

"We won't cut anything out of the game or diminish the value of the game in order to commercially monetize something afterward."

With a bit of bad will one could see the current situation as exactly this, cutting anything out of the game (the current state of development of the expansions) to monetize it afterwards.

The problem is here that they took such a high morale stance that they can only fall.

They are not doing worse things than others, they do them even a tiny bit better, but they promise even more... which leads to disappointment. They must learn to promise a bit less in order to not leave big discrepancies between what they say and what they do, even if they still do good things in general.
Fully agreed. With this step they go back on promises made. I don't have anything against expansion packs that add to already released games. A way to supply fans with new material when the original game is played. And a way to keep developers employed after a big release. All fair and OK.
But to pre-sell an expansion before the game is even released, means that they could just as well have made the expansion part of the game. They are just cashing in on the name of the game, letting their fans pay extra for content of the not-even-yet released game. Which is what Steam etc. do too, but which GOG once claimed to stand against. They have gone back on almost all their principles.
Originally I was happy to support The Witcher by pre-ordering. But now, that they try to pre-sell the same game twice (75% of it as base game and the rest as expansions) my goodwill is used up. So my personal conclusion from that is: no pre-order. No buying at release. I will wait for a year or two and buy some 'game of the year' edition that actually is complete (probably at a discount). GOG's treatment of their customers is continually changing for the worse. So I adapt my buying behaviour too and will treat just as one more regular online distributor. They lost their special 'I want to support this site' bonus.

Now the only thing that still sets GOG apart from others is the nice forum. :-) Luckily I can still use that without buying.
Posted April 08, 2015
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IAmSinistar: In another circumstance I'd probably do the same. But since they bundled so much stuff with the pre-order in this case, I figure I may as well just hold onto it. That's pretty much the only deciding factor for me, though.
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P1na: What did they bundle again? I just now finished canceling my preorder, not sure abut what I "lost".
He is talking about preorder bonuses like soundtrack, Neverwinter Nights and that stuff. At least Neverwinter Nights won't be available after preorder finishes as a bonus to the game.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Matruchus
Posted April 08, 2015
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Dawnreader: Oh, God! People, you can see the difference between expansion packs and DLC, do yout?
Well, technically there is no sharp line between the two. It's just a matter of size. But I would think that there is a difference in intent: an expansion pack is intended to expand a game that already has been released. Which TW3 hasn't. So no, this are not expansion packs. This are not even Day One DLCs. This is just distributing the content of a yet unreleased game over more than one release to be able to charge twice for it.
Post edited April 08, 2015 by Lifthrasil
Posted April 08, 2015
30 hours of gameplay is what I call an EXPANSION. DLC is like horse armor, cosmetical, etc.
So all those people who are yelling, ohh no we are being ripped off again."

If you don't want to buy you don't, If you like the base game, then buy only the base game.
If you are fan, then buy them all. Everyone gets what he/she wants. No need to point fingers or
say anything negative.
Posted April 08, 2015
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P1na: What did they bundle again? I just now finished canceling my preorder, not sure abut what I "lost".
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Matruchus: He is talking about preorder bonuses like soundtrack, Neverwinter Nights and that stuff. At least Neverwinter Nights won't be available after preorder finishes as a bonus to the game.
There was a comic in there too which I ended up having to use "different" means to actually get because Dark horse wanted me to use their shitty web drm viewer to redeem the code.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Trilarion: The problem is here that they took such a high morale stance that they can only fall.

They are not doing worse things than others, they do them even a tiny bit better, but they promise even more... which leads to disappointment. They must learn to promise a bit less in order to not leave big discrepancies between what they say and what they do, even if they still do good things in general.
Totally agree with this.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Matruchus: He is talking about preorder bonuses like soundtrack, Neverwinter Nights and that stuff. At least Neverwinter Nights won't be available after preorder finishes as a bonus to the game.
Ah, true, there was that. I don't think I used the NWN code, which I guess is good. As for the soundtrack... *shrugs* I'll live without it.
Posted April 08, 2015
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d2t: And what is your proof they cut anything from game to do expansions?
You can’t argue with Witcher-truthers. CDP cutting 30 hours of content to sell 6 months later isn't just far-fetched, it's insane.
Posted April 08, 2015
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Dawnreader: Oh, God! People, you can see the difference between expansion packs and DLC, do yout?
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Lifthrasil: Well, technically there is no sharp line between the two. It's just a matter of size. But I would think that there is a difference in intent: an expansion pack is intended to expand a game that already has been released. Which TW3 hasn't. So no, this are not expansion packs. This are not even Day One DLCs. This is just distributing the content of a yet unreleased game over more than one release to be able to charge twice for it.
This is right but even the release date is kind of irrelevant. They shifted the release from last year to this year. They could as well have released 50% of the full game (whatever this means) last year and continued working on it after release in which case one would then call the current work DLC/expansion but the whole situation would not change at all.

In summary: pre-ordering sucks and is like playing roulette. It almost never pays off?
Posted April 08, 2015
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Matruchus: He is talking about preorder bonuses like soundtrack, Neverwinter Nights and that stuff. At least Neverwinter Nights won't be available after preorder finishes as a bonus to the game.
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Reaper9988: There was a comic in there too which I ended up having to use "different" means to actually get because Dark horse wanted me to use their shitty web drm viewer to redeem the code.
Yeah I know that the bonus comic is under drm protection. That was pointed out before and its very bad for a drm-free site like gog.
Posted April 08, 2015
Does anyone know what was edited in the announcement by Chamb?
Posted April 08, 2015
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P1na: What did they bundle again? I just now finished canceling my preorder, not sure abut what I "lost".
The bonus content showing for me so far is:

artworks
avatars
comics (Reason of State - Part 1)
HD videos
paper toys
paper toy catalog
soundtrack - exclusive tracks (FLAC)
soundtrack - exclusive tracks (MP3)
wallpapers
free copy of NWN

Not sure what, if any, of that is truly exclusive to the pre-order (except of course the free NWN promo). I also got the cheaper pre-order price, which was a combination of the early deal and the loyalty bonus.

Given how often, and how drastically, the other Witcher games are discounted here, I think folks are probably fine waiting for TW3.
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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)