I'm sorry, so you also think that in case of e.g. Skyrim you didn't get the full product as a paying customer, since they afterwards asked money for Dawnguard and Dragonborn expansions? Or with GTA 4 and Tales from the Liberty City?
Or with any other game that had expansions afterwards?

You're getting the full product when you buy Witcher 3, and quite a massive one. These expansions are not made yet.

Personally, it's not a huge deal for me and I'll likely end up buying it, especially as I'm a huge Witcher fan, but to address your questions about why people have a problem with it, I'll copy a post I made in a thread relating to this very topic.

"The issue people have is more to do with the stance and attitude that CD Projekt RED have had when it comes to DLC. In the past, they've talked up how they're "not like other developers" and won't cave into the same methods used by them. This includes DLC, which they've kind of talked against in the past, and how all of their DLC will be free (as was all of the 'expanded content' in previous Witcher titles. A while back when they announced the 16 free DLC pieces, fans took that as a good thing, as it was a poke at others who charge... and now they're doing exactly the same thing, albeit with better content.

I think it's also just the general culmination of a lot of small letdowns from CD Projekt. The graphical issues... the Xbox One exclusive Collectors edition items, etc. and now this.
While individually, they're not a huge deal, all together it's becoming a bit of a disappointment, when fans expected more from the company, who for all intents and purposes was considered 'one of us'.

With that being said, I have no doubt that the expansion pack will still be good quality and of good value, but when put into perspective, it's understandable why some are upset about it."

Continuing on a bit....
I think people's problem with the expansion announcement is more just on how it came across, and less on the fact that we're getting new content. People are already putting down a lot of money for the core game, and depending on who they are, they may well be spending even more, to get collector's editions, both online and physical, etc.
There was an unstated idea that we would be getting the "complete package" as it were, and if any other content gets produced along the way, we'd get it for free.
The fact that they now announce this is possibly, at the very least, a little annoying. Not only do fans need to spend more to get the 'complete edition', but they're also told now, before the base game is even released, which undermines their current preorder/ purchase somewhat. They're effectively asking for more money, when the 'regular' product hasn't even been released yet. It's like putting down your money for a new product, only to be told before it's even released that there's now even more stuff for you to buy, and if you don't buy it, you're missing out!

And on top of all that, this is content no one ever asked for, or 'knew they wanted' until it was announced. People don't want the game to be delayed... people just want the game. I think fans would have been as happy, if not more happy just getting the game, with no DLC, no expansions, and no bells and whistles, especially when they have to pay even more for it.

Of course, it's stupid to think that the rest of the team would do nothing during the testing period, or work for free, but from a consumer's point of view, this announcement just adds more complications.

Also, here's a quote from 227 (also from the other thread):
"[the expansion] is anticipated to be 30 hours of gameplay. The main quest of Witcher 2 was estimated by them to last 40 hours by itself, and that was the day before the game released. Let's keep some perspective about who we're dealing with here and their history fudging numbers."

and later:
"That was the estimate for a single playthrough, not playing through both branching paths. The median on howlongtobeat is 24 and a half hours, only reaching 40 hours playing leisurely (as in walking instead of running, stopping to admire the trees, and otherwise making a concerted effort to make it last as long as possible).

So a little over half of the estimated length, which would put the expansions at ~16-17 hours given their math, but you have to consider that they'll also have to devote resources to fixing bugs. The Witcher 2 had patches 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, the 1.35 hotfix, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, and the third game is much more ambitious, so one could be forgiven for being suspicious that they'll be able to juggle all of this at once, especially given the fact that they had to delay the base game multiple times while not bugfixing at the same time. Plus some of us remember when they patched the game so that it had to be online to start, then broke it so that it had to be offline to start. That kind of stuff shakes the faith somewhat."

While CD Projekt never strictly speaking 'lied' about never releasing paid DLC, it can most certainly be considered a little misleading. The company has time and time again talked against paid DLC, and while they were generally talking about trivial sort of content like 'costumes' and what not, the general conception was that they would not release paid DLC at all, be the content large or small.
It's similar to the Xbox One Collectors edition exclusive Gwent cards and map. CD Projekt never strictly speaking said that the 'additional goodies' would be the same across all versions, but they have said that 'all versions of the game would be the same' and that 'fans will not miss out on content, no matter what platform they choose'. SO it's still pretty understandable why fans might be upset by it.

As I stated earlier, I think the expansion announcement in itself is not really the problem, but the culmination of a lot of small let downs and disappointments. This just adds insult to injury.
Add to that GOG adding much more regional priced games, including the Witcher, despite the fact that CD Projekt and GOG are supposedly against it, can make people lose faith in the company and the service.
(just as an example, us in Australia have to pay substantially more for the expansion and game than most other places)

So, hopefully I covered most of your points...
I think while you may personally not have a problem with this, it's still pretty understandable why others would.
Good day, sir! ;)

Not in RPGs, no. In strategy games, where the ruleset generates different play with each session, sure, that's what an expansion does. Civilization V was an inadequate game, IMO, until the two expansions were released.

RPGs are scripted and story-driven, and are entirely different. Expansions, like BG1's Tales of the Sword Coast, add new content, not new game systems. They might refine a bit of inventory management or somesuch, but what they feature is content.

Indeed that is not the entire game. Styx never had any content sold separate from the game. Mount and blade with fire and sword has no dlc. Final fantasy games have none.

No I am not. I am being forced to pay over 35$ on top of the 70 something odd dollars for the base game and its now over 100$ now to get the complete witcher 3 game experience. I am more then happy to walk away from that.

I can get gta v when its out for 60 bucks and not be forced to pay extra money for any expansion so I am happy champ.

I will buy the enhanced edition with everything all in one for 5 bucks on here on sale in a couple years.

Just FYI it has been reported multiple times that Rockstar Games plans to release paid additional single player content similar in scope to "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony" for GTAV!!!

I think the reason why some users are upset is that there was the unsaid assumption that the game is complete. No need to spend any additional money at a later stage to get the complete game. Because that was the case for Witcher 1 and 2. The additional content was free, the "upgrade" to the enhanced edition was free. Now with Witcher 3 this has changed. There is paid additional content for the first time. Now you could argue whether it is reasonable to complain about paying additional money for additional content. In my opinion it is not, but many customers got used to the free content from the previous titles.

About the timing, well, there's always somebody who complains. If CDPR had announced the expansions after release of the base game, somebody would say "If I had known that earlier, I would have cancelled my preorder and waited for the GOTY or something. I want to play the complete game."

Gamers like to whine and complain ;-)

Oh, great, now even CDPR succumbed to the season pass garbage.

Welp, gaming industry is dead now.

I guess we will see when the game is out.
If the game is less than the the hours the dev promised or it seams that some content were cut out and they release it a week later after the base game, then you were correct.
If no content were cut out, then im correct, i and other in this thread that have pointed out that the game was locked in december so therefore there isnt any content to be excluded.
If there were , then why wait several months later to release it?
It doesnt make sense to release the cut out content several months later if thats the case.

Regarding the money issue
well its your money, i dont have any say to what you spend it on.
Do whatever you want.

I have mixed feelings about this. I was really surprised to receive the e-mail promotion on the expansion pass as I always had the impression the CDPR is against paid DLCs. No matter how they spin it those are like the content DLCs for Mass Effect 2 and 3, whatever they want to call them...DLCs can be cosmetic or actual contents.

On one hand I am kind of happy to see that new contents will still be created after "The Witcher 3", which is supposed to deliver the ending of the main story..... On the other hand I kind of feel like cancelling the pre-order because I usually prefer to buy the "complete" game for the full experience, even if I have to pay a bit more.
In fact I waited until all of the Skyrim expansions came out and bought the whole package on the cheap and I am right now still playing it. In other cases, I finished Dragon Age Origins without most of the DLCs. Later on I bought the Ultimate Edition with all the DLCs for $7 and finished some of the high level DLCs after finishing the game. Those are not directly related to the main story so it was not a big deal and the difficulty levels are also appropriate as end-game contents. My favorite DLC expansion pack is Diablo III Reaper of Souls, it integrates very well with the original and the entire game feels very complete and the continuity is maintained.....I'm not so sure about the TW3 Expansions as CD Project Red is fairly new to such design. If the goal is to make Expansions similar to the Skyrim Expansions, I'd rather wait until 2016 to buy TW3 so that I can play the "complete game" from start to finish especially for a significant 30 hours of contents....unless the contents are end-game contents that are supposed to continue the story after beating the game...like the Diablo 3 expansions. I'm not really criticizing CD Project for wanting to provide more contents that can be purchased. But I'm a bit skeptical how the plan fits into the overall experience.
I always feel the Witcher series have stronger stories than Elder Scrolls and Skyrim. I'm not sure if it is really a good idea to transform the Witcher into a Skyrim-like experience... especially if a large amount of contents may only become available months after II finish the game . I'd rather see CDPR make The Witcher 4 instead with better technologies...

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II:_Lord_of_Destruction]Diablo II: Lord of Destruction[/url] You can't just say "that isn't done" when there's an extremely well known prominent example where it was done.

Does Lord of Destruction have pre-order when Diablo 2 itself is not yet released?

While I understand there is nothing wrong making a huge expension, it is a stupid PR move to invoke good memories of expension of old like LoD, but asking for money for Pre-order NOW when none of the games of old does pre-order like this.

The word "Pre-order" has an inherent negative preception like Early Access as a lot of people got burned by it. Pre-order of a Pre-order that take 1.5 years to realize, maybe more given CD Red history of delaying Witcher 3 just invoke very negative preception from a lot of people.

If they just announce they are doing expension after Witcher 3, or even Witcher 4. And do not ask money NOW, not until after witcher 3 is released. I suspect things will go more smoothly, when a lot of good will is generated by how great is Witcher 3.

Unless of course Witcher 3 fails to live up to its hype.

How I love people trying to cut off criticism.
I wouldn't care for all this if I hadn't put so much money into GoG before all those changes, mostly to support the principles they dropped later.

My buying curve here has had steep drops with every good news™ and has come to a stop with the full on regional pricing for the absolute majority of games here a week ago indeed although the alternatives are mostly still worse than GoG (because it was really awesome at some point), but comments like your's show me, hoping that things will go back are small indeed.
That said, this planned expansion thing with the Witcher 3 is really one of the minor points in all this and imho negligible

GOG is a 100% subsidiary of CDP, so they are only two separate companies on paper but CDP owns GOG completely.

I don't want to say that there is any high danger of it but with TW3 being a huge investment for CDP which could easily fail there is the real possibility that CDP gets liquidated. In this case GOG would have to be sold to someone else possibly embracing DRM or if no buyer is found, GOG would have to close. This is of course the worst case.

So, just in case we might want to hope that TW3 is actually not that bad. And I don't think it is.

How is any of that even remotely relevant to the discussion you replied to? We were talking about whether or not expansion packs can change game mechanics in the base game. I get that you're angry about the pre-order thing, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion you decided to jump into.

In the public discussion it's actually not that clear. DLCs are often meant as minor addition that do not change gameplay substantially. Expansions are bigger and in an interview which is linked several times here in the thread CDP actually explained what they mean by being against paid DLC (they only meant the small changes kind). They explicitly said that in case they make substantial additions they will be paid. So they were quite upfront about it.

It's not a matter of spin, it's a matter of the ambiquity and multiple uses of the word DLC. Everything is DLC, even the main game itself.

Therefore I propose to shoot the word DLC as the root of all evil (everything is DLC anyway) and speak henceforth only in terms of "base game", "patch", "expansion".