It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)
Pages:
1
10
20
30
40
50
60
65
66
67
68
69
74
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 09, 2015
avatar
Trilarion: Not only this. On an even brighter side, even the whole main game is FREE after launch. ;)

We should not let ourselves be fooled. The DLCs were announced a long time ago, are free for everyone (who bought the game which effectively means not free), are made at the same time as the main content, by the same people ... they should (and effectively are) be part of the main game directly which would even save a bit of work (packaging, unpackaging). For what they are worth they are just PR smoke and mirrors or Potemkin villages.
You know I wonder all the time how are they going to deliver those free dlc to gog users that just use the regular site without Galaxy, cause if they are going to trickle that dlc for up to eight weeks after releases as they said then there is going to be a ton of dlc patches coming up.
Posted April 09, 2015
avatar
Lobuno: ... You have limited time, you want the best (and complete) gaming experience in that (limited) time. ...
Actually I was thinking along the same lines but with a little bit different conclusions. With 200 hours projected playing time for the main game alone (with 10 hours a day and 5 days a week I could finish in a month if only I do not suffer a breakdown in the middle) I seriously think I cannot afford to buy TW3 because my time is too limited for it. It's very unfortunate I cannot buy me more hours.

Maybe CDP could make something like a TW3 Essentials/Compact version with less play time, less grinding, less fights, and only the highlights of the story of main game and expansions for people with not enough time. Just compress the game and throw out all the not so much fun elements for people with less time.

For a compressed 25% play time only highlights version I would surely pay 70% of the price - which should be a good deal for CDP.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Trilarion
Posted April 09, 2015
avatar
Trilarion: It's very unfortunate I cannot buy me more hours.
It's in progress. :-P
Posted April 09, 2015
avatar
Trilarion: Not only this. On an even brighter side, even the whole main game is FREE after launch. ;)

We should not let ourselves be fooled. The DLCs were announced a long time ago, are free for everyone (who bought the game which effectively means not free), are made at the same time as the main content, by the same people ... they should (and effectively are) be part of the main game directly which would even save a bit of work (packaging, unpackaging). For what they are worth they are just PR smoke and mirrors or Potemkin villages.
avatar
Matruchus: You know I wonder all the time how are they going to deliver those free dlc to gog users that just use the regular site without Galaxy, cause if they are going to trickle that dlc for up to eight weeks after releases as they said then there is going to be a ton of dlc patches coming up.
Witcher 3 like Witcher 2 will have an built in auto updater I believe, so I imagine you will get the free DLC that way rather than through the site until the standalone installer/ patch installer is replaced with an updated build.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by user deleted
Posted April 09, 2015
I see what you're doing there DLC does not = Expansion Packs. I was under the assumption for these types of stories: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/11/06/the-witcher-3-will-receive-16-dlc-packages-free-across-all-platforms - that all DLC would be free. I'm not overly upset but it should of been called on earlier that in addition to DLC there will be charged Expansions. I found it all a little confusing.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Lotus69: I see what you're doing there DLC does not = Expansion Packs. I was under the assumption for these types of stories: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/11/06/the-witcher-3-will-receive-16-dlc-packages-free-across-all-platforms - that all DLC would be free. I'm not overly upset but it should of been called on earlier that in addition to DLC there will be charged Expansions. I found it all a little confusing.
They have been saying it for a long time that if they did large significant content they would probably charge for it. So you can't say they haven't said it because they have. People took 16 free DLC's as all DLC (or expansions) as being free which is not the case. That's not their fault, they have been pretty open with what their plans were for a long time.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Maighstir: It's in progress. :-P
Already voted for it.

Also why is CDP not making an animated Witcher movie? With all the cool graphics skillz they have and the fight animations and the dialogue writers and the voices and the 3D models...

Heck, using their profound artist basis a two hour high quality movie should be possible. The cutscenes alone will probably be that long.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Lotus69: I'm not overly upset but it should of been called on earlier that in addition to DLC there will be charged Expansions. I found it all a little confusing.
Here. Interview from 2011.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Maighstir: It's in progress. :-P
avatar
Trilarion: Already voted for it.

Also why is CDP not making an animated Witcher movie? With all the cool graphics skillz they have and the fight animations and the dialogue writers and the voices and the 3D models...

Heck, using their profound artist basis a two hour high quality movie should be possible. The cutscenes alone will probably be that long.
An animated Witcher movie would be awesome, though I usually prefer hand animation to computer graphics.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Maighstir: An animated Witcher movie would be awesome, though I usually prefer hand animation to computer graphics.
For a start they could just make the books into movies using their system. Just the best rendering on the best graphics cards they have, the best animations, story and dialogue relatively fixed (you only need to choose which parts to leave out).

There are some great battles in the Witcher books.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/movies/animated_witcher_movies_drawing_from_the_creative_tools_developed_at_cdp_based_on_the_books_would_be_nice
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
Maighstir: It's in progress. :-P
avatar
Trilarion: Already voted for it.

Also why is CDP not making an animated Witcher movie? With all the cool graphics skillz they have and the fight animations and the dialogue writers and the voices and the 3D models...

Heck, using their profound artist basis a two hour high quality movie should be possible. The cutscenes alone will probably be that long.
That is a good idea. Also that would finally be a movie worth having here on GOG honestly.
Posted April 10, 2015
Another perspective that just occurred to me. Maybe selling an Expansion Pass and thus inciting direct comparisons to Season Passes is part of CDPR's sense of humour. I mean, they pretty much sit in the same offices as GOG, right? and we know GOG has a cheesy sense of humour. It has to have rubbed off.

Gamer 1: I'm really excited. I just bought the Season Pass for game Y from publisher Z. It's gonna be really cool.
Gamer 2: Well, I just bought the Expansion Pass from CDPR.
Gamer 1: A what? There's no such thing.
Gamer 2: There is now. Check this out. <opens TW3 Expansion Pass page>
Gamer 1: <Eyes bulge> I got seriously ripped off! Publisher Z sucks!
Gamer 2: <really, really smug> Yep!

Cheese is good but the problem with humour and especially with cheesy humour is that sometimes only the originator finds it funny. Like right now, I'm rolling around on the floor, laughing at the dialogue I mocked up. I doubt anyone else is.

An Expansion Pass is a direct, confrontational, toe-to-toe message to other publishers that will hopefully make them sit up, take notice and change their practices. Whereas if they had handled the expansions differently like many have suggested, myself included, it would have been more of an indirect message and, thus, the PR stunt impact would have been diminished. Maybe. Dunno. But I do support GOG and CDPR trying to change the industry. I really love their DRM freeness and hope other publishers will be DRM free too.
Post edited April 10, 2015 by twistedpony
Posted April 10, 2015
Pretty good statement from the Head Cheese up there in #880.

I have no issue with expansion packs. I remember how great Armageddon's Blade, Lord of Destruction, and Tribunal were - worth every penny.

Not sure why people are so bugged by it now.

I pre-ordered Witcher III. If I like it, I'll probably buy the expansions when they come out.
Posted April 10, 2015
avatar
artymienek: Only one thing, price was 17,5 euro and now it's 25 euro, why you have changed the price?
Hi,

That was a mistake on our side with the price and we have corrected it :) . Sorry about the confusion!
Posted April 10, 2015
Aside: What's with the wacky page numbers on this thread? I saw the last page as 67 earlier. Now it is 51. Does GOG vary the number of posts allocated to each page depending on how many posts there are or something?
Pages:
1
10
20
30
40
50
60
65
66
67
68
69
74
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)