Posted July 02, 2015
skeletonbow: An Enhanced Edition is plausible some day as much as it is for any particular game really I imagine. I suspect such a release for The Witcher 3 would basically be the most recent update of the game (when released) along with the inclusion of all expansion packs released at that point, the free DLC and any other extra goodies they may have produced at the time, plus perhaps some additional goodies/content.
One problem I have with the whole Enhanced Edition thing is that I remember it making a huge difference to me in both The Witcher 1 & 2, but I can't remember exactly how :o) I can't really remember the details. I think it's easy to find details about 'adding content' and 'music' and 'many interface enhancements', but I haven't looked further to find out more (not really worth finding out). I do remember TW1EE adding a lot more variations on character models, which helped, but other details escape me. My hope is that with TW3's success, along with the 16 DLCs, 2 addons and anything else that might crop up in between, there will indeed be a GOTY compilation, but that might also result in a final push to do a lot more. I've read some things about Patch 1.07 being a big one, so maybe patches alone will help a lot. I hope so.
skeletonbow: It never really dawned on me but you could be right there. Lately I've been fast travelling around No Man's Land and various sign post locations have bandits waiting for you on horseback when you arrive via fast travel. Sometimes one or two of them might issue a weak attack on you but for the most part they sit there on their horses not moving at all, or one or two bandits on horses will move along at a snail's pace slower than a human walking, and they will pay almost no attention to you unless you get right up in their faces. Even if they've went into battle mode at that point, they pretty much just sit there and do nothing. They don't rush at me at all, and if and when they do approach, I press my igni button causing their horse to freak out and knock them off, followed by a single left click that finishes them off on the ground. The next guy comes along and does the same thing, oblivious to the fact that I am immensely higher powered compared to them and will totally kick their asses. Sometimes they bark a comment or slur about me practicing witchcraft or something but I can cut several of their bodies in half with a single thrust and some guy with a bare chest and a billy club will still think he can beat me. But he might not actually attack me either, rather just stand there like he's protecting his ground.
Either way - they die. They all die. They all die fast, faster than their brain cells can compute that they've even been attacked, much like the first Apache helicopter strike in Operation Desert Storm.
The AI could be improved to have them actually doing something or giving the illusion they're doing something other than sitting on a horse staring at a tree silently waiting for me to come so they can protect the ground around their special tree.
Yeah. I've had very similar experiences with men on horseback. Either way - they die. They all die. They all die fast, faster than their brain cells can compute that they've even been attacked, much like the first Apache helicopter strike in Operation Desert Storm.
The AI could be improved to have them actually doing something or giving the illusion they're doing something other than sitting on a horse staring at a tree silently waiting for me to come so they can protect the ground around their special tree.
Weirdly, at much higher levels, the wolves that stay at level 5 will consistently run away. And keep running. They don't stop. It seems as though there are things going on with the AI, but my thinking is that it may not be working completely as intended.
How I would like it to work is another matter. Not sure. I'm not sure how a wolf would know what level I am :o) Or to put it in a less gamey way, I'm not sure how a wolf would know how powerful I am. For me, the solution would be to simply not respawn them. I do like the idea of wolves regaining their population, but it doesn't come across that way to me. It just seems like a respawn. After killing the eight or so wolves in an area, there wouldn't be eight wolves just a week later, so I would say that Geralt cleared the wolves in the area and for the length of the game, they wouldn't come back.
skeletonbow: Yep, the attention to detail is very high in many many areas of the game, in particular all of the background dialogue you hear when passing by random people who are conversing. You hear the same things repeated over time but the sheer volume of unique conversations is astounding, and some of them give hints as to the quests you are on too if you listen carefully enough. Some are just entertaining or amusing, or even just people bickering at each other like in real life. It's awesome.
I *wish* games developers would change the timer. Just make sure that a character(s) doesn't repeat the line eight seconds later. I find that baffling. In a crowded area I love general chatter/murmuring of a crowd, where nothing can actually be heard. That's fine, great even. But to have a character say the same thing six time a minute is just wrong. Why do games do this. But yes, the conversations that go on around Geralt are wonderful. I even love some of the bickering which *isn't* played for laughs. Such things can do so much for a game. But I wish sound design would get a step up in general.
skeletonbow: I also agree that even the secondary quests and other optional quests are quite detailed and mostly well thought out. Many of them have a rather unique story to them be it short or long and the feeling of repetitiveness is almost nowhere to be found. There is some repetition but it's extremely minor compared to say - Skyrim. Don't get me wrong though, Skyrim was an amazing game, but it had a lot of repetitiveness to the Thieves Guild, Companions, various Jarl based questlines. The Mage's Guild questline also had some serious repetitiveness too it. "Fetch me some soul stones" followed by "Go fetch this item someone wants enchanted" and right back to "fetch me more soul stones" on an infinite repeat loop. Got bored of it a bit when I reached endlessly looped respawning quests that didn't seem to serve any useful purpose.
The 'bandit leader quests'! I assumed there was a bandit leader school in Skyrim churning them out. Graduation taking place every day :o) It interesting, but I've found the Quests to repeat rather a lot in many ways. But then, maybe it's not so much that (although I think it is to some extent), but maybe it's more trying to find a Quest to do. But then, the long version of all that is very long :o) The short version is: I hate the Interface. I really do. I hate it. And that's been a part of why I've stopped playing. I really hope to go back to it, but the interface is just too cumbersome for me.
I do find that the Quests are fundamentally hand-holding in general design, which I'm not a fan of. Maybe that's just me. Go to place - Follow Witcher senses trail - Kill Thing - Return. I think I'd really prefer fewer, but longer Quests.
skeletonbow: Yeah, Witcher 3 is a fantastic game and overall entertainment experience. It has its weakness like any game does, but the sheer volume of "they got that right" and overall quality makes the flaws pale in comparison. Still, when I experience some of these flaws from time to time I can't help but scream in my mind "WHYYYY?" as it seems like such a huge effort went into the whole game, but then small little things look like they either had very little effort or perhaps the clock ran out too soon and they had to fix the most broken things and ship it before they would have preferred to or something. It's far more complete and stable than most other huge games are that I've played mind you, but it does have its flaws. I do hope that they continue to patch and support the game for quite some time to come though to fix all game breaking and major flaws, and to fix as many other bugs/glitches in the game as possible, and enhance the UI and other aspects based on feedback etc. They appear to be doing so so far, so I'll have to trust them on that personally. Even as-is though, it still gets 10/10 in my book, this game is just too awesome for words regardless of any bugs/problems it might have here and there. :)
In contrast, the flaws have proved too much for me. But yes to your "WHYYYY?" :o) which I think sums up a whole bunch of stuff. I do think the 'clock ran out', as you said. The interface [yes, I'm going to bang on about that some more - so much for the short version :o) ] just seems laid on top of the game at the last minute, but crucially for me, didn't include much of what was later added to/learned from, The Witcher 2. On top of that though... < sigh > ... I loved the Interface for The Witcher 1. I really did. It had character. I may be in a minority on this, but I thought this was just fantastic: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T2iuwj6anMk/Tyz2pam2AlI/AAAAAAAAA6I/ihWMnDLZkNU/s1600/WitcherCharacterSheet.jpg
This is what the interface for TW3 looked like at one point:
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EXFocg4qQ_0#t=742
I think that gave hints of something better, compared to:
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6O8qgBuWDbk#t=3196
I too, really hope they keep patching it. It will probably never get to the isual levels of The Witcher 1 and maybe the vast majority don't want it to, but I hope they can get to a level where I can look at my Quests list and find a way to assess where the Quests are all at once (or sort them or tag them or add a note or... something), without having to double click each one to make it active, then go to the map, then zoom out (but not far enough to be able to see the whole map at once - I hate that) only to find it's on the other side of the map, so back to the Quest list, which has reset to the top, closing all the subsections, so I reopen the section I was looking at and double click the next Quest... Eugh, I'll stop :o)
As for my faith in CDPR... it's waned. I'll see.