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General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(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 09, 2015
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OldOldGamer: Who is as at fault are the people that "can't wait" (whoooooouuu) to spend their money on something that doesn't exists.
But then... they start complaining.
About what?

You can sell something that doesn't exists but you can't sell something that doesn't exists that build over the still-to-happen game?

Advertising an expasion is not saying that the base game is bad, it just say the company is hungry for more money.

In the good old days the companies were so involved in the main game that expansion where planned only and only if sales was good enough and the game had captured a large following.
Nowdays expension are just factored in the initial production cost and selled for more cash.
I've held back on this largely because 1) I have no real interest in the Witcher series so don't care either way and 2) Can kind of see both sides of the argument.

But I think this is a really good point... why the hell are you willing to preorder a game, but not the expansion? Your preordering the game presumably because you have faith in and wish to support the developer, but suddenly because they are announcing additional content you can no longer trust them?
Why is the quality of the expansion likely to be any less than that of the game? Ok, it's not as much content, but it's not as expensive (and frankly, the whole price / amount of content thing is difficult to work out with games anyway). Just because it's an extra, you expect it to be of less quality?

I'm fairly opposed to pre-orders these days, and can't really see myself pre-ordering anything any more, but if you are someone who has no problem pre-ordering a game I don't really see how pre-ordering an expansion can be a problem...

The only fault I find is the end of this argument, in the old days companies were much smaller and there are new considerations for developers these days. I think it's fairly obvious why CDPR are making an expansion (and Marcin's response pretty much confirmed it), they have a hell of a lot of staff (many who have probably been taken on solely for the development of TW3) who are either going to need something to do, or get sacked.
Whether you agree with the pricing, the pre ordering, or anything else; surely we can all agree that releasing these expansions is better than a whole lot of (presumably talented) developers losing their jobs because the company has nothing for them to do?
Posted April 09, 2015
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JMich: Mostly because I enjoy abusing other people's analogies ;)
So, for a gaming equivalent, are you aware of GeDoSaTo? It's the Generic Down Sampling Tool, which allows to increase the graphical quality of many games, by having them render the scenes at a much higher resolution (4K? 16K?) then downscale it to your monitor's resolution, along with other resolution shenanigans. It does mean that it needs a beast of a GPU though.
So, while Final Fantasy XIII may not have been developed with 4K resolutions in mind, you can play it in 4K, and that is an enhancement the developers didn't anticipate, but the game can make use of.
Similar to this, the 1.13 mod for JA2, which does have SirTech's blessing, even though I doubt they anticipated all that the community made. And since 1.13 is still in development, does that mean JA2 is a game one shouldn't play yet?

Or, to make a personal jab, should I play Deus Ex with high textures or without high textures, assuming nothing else is changed from the game? Or should I play it both vanilla and modded, and then play it again, and again, and again?
I still don't quite see the correlation to the current discussion, though. If I get it correctly, you don't have to pay for GeDoSaTo. Still, I'll take a guess and understand that you mean to ask if I, according to my belief, I shouldn't play a game because there might be some kind of upgrade compatible with it in the future. And also, leave aside that I don't find graphics to be that important, as it's besides the point.

So to answer that... no, I don't think you should hold back on a game because an upgrade might be available for it in the future. There will always be something else you can do to it, even if it's just a better rig for faster loading times. I mean, you have to play it at some point, why did you get the game otherwise?

But, on the other hand, there's the current situation where the devs are telling you that an upgrade will come. And it's not some simple tweaking, it's a big badass official upgrade. I definately see the point in waiting to play until that kind of upgrade is out. It's a far cry from the likes of GeDoSaTo, me thinks.
Posted April 09, 2015
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OldOldGamer: Really can't understand heaters-counter heaters-fan and the like.
Perhaps I'm just older now.

Game companies are more and more aggressive in the marketing and are so skilled they are able to sell to us products that still doesn't exist.

So they push the thing farther: selling you prodcuts that doesn't exists that build over products that doesn't exists.
This is brilliant!
You can play a buggy game just from the beginning!

Who is as at fault are the people that "can't wait" (whoooooouuu) to spend their money on something that doesn't exists.
But then... they start complaining.
About what?

You can sell something that doesn't exists but you can't sell something that doesn't exists that build over the still-to-happen game?

Advertising an expasion is not saying that the base game is bad, it just say the company is hungry for more money.

In the good old days the companies were so involved in the main game that expansion where planned only and only if sales was good enough and the game had captured a large following.
Nowdays expension are just factored in the initial production cost and selled for more cash.
" Nowdays expension are just factored in the initial production cost and selled for more cash."

That is NOT what CDPR are doing. They have just started eveloping the expansion and will be doing so until Q1 2016, quite a bit past The Witcher 3's launch.

"n the good old days the companies were so involved in the main game that expansion where planned only and only if sales was good enough and the game had captured a large following."

Games are much much, much, much, much more expensive now. You used to be able to put out a game that could sell into the millions in 10 - 20 man years. Now you need 100s of man years in order to get sales like that. Marcin Iwinski mentioned 250 people working on TW3. When a game is sent of to testing and certification all the artists, game designers, level designers, animators, sound guys etc have nothing more to do. The first people to get completely done with their work on a game might be finished with it up to several months before the game is released. Paying them to do nothing is way too expensive and so you either task them with DLC/expansion work, move them onto another project or lay them off. If CDPR doesn't have the use for the staff on other projects(say if Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't need more people at this point in its development)... then that leaves DLC/expansions or laying them off. I know which of the two solutions I prefer!
Posted April 09, 2015
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iWi: [..]
Ohh, thanks for the post : )
I still think that GOG should have told all this info immediately in the Witcher 3 preorder thread, to avoid all this uprising, but ok.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by phaolo
Posted April 09, 2015
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P1na: So to answer that... no, I don't think you should hold back on a game because an upgrade might be available for it in the future. There will always be something else you can do to it, even if it's just a better rig for faster loading times. I mean, you have to play it at some point, why did you get the game otherwise?
Thank you. So, you say that Story A is good enough to play, though since you are only going to go through it once, you'd rather play Story A+B in one go, which is understandable. However, if instead of Story A+B it is Story A and Story B (two standalone stories), does that still mean that you won't buy Story A now because you may want to play Story B later on?
Or, for the Shadowrun game example, is Dead Man's Switch a story that requires Dragonfall to be played, or are those two separate?

I am still under the impression that the two expansions for TW3 are standalone, and not weaved directly into the story. And I also need a mafia game to start, so I can argue there.
Posted April 09, 2015
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OldOldGamer: Games become dumber.
Players become dumber.
Companies become dumber.
Everything become dumber.

;)
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Avishay: Everyone wins :)
Yeah, except the haters.
They hate.
Posted April 09, 2015
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Davane: Expansion packs are normally used to update the engine and adjust the gameplay with new mechanics, without requiring a total overhaul of the entire game. Thus, the existing software could be used to give new life into the game itself.
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LinustheBold: 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.
Except when they do.

The real issue here is one of perception.

For example, you get a new area. Is that content or game system? Most likely, it is content - after all, you still explore it like any other area of the game.

Now take a new class. Is that content or game system? Most likely, that is game system, because the new class typically affects how the character progresses, and thus how the game plays.

Finally, take a new magical item with new special abilities. Is that content, or is that game system. The answer is that it is both. The new item in the game is a new content, but to get the new items to work is new games system.

But expansions also do more - for example, both of the NWN expansions added new mechanics. These are also RPGs.

Sure, the's a wide range of diversity between video games in the RPG genre, and one of the primary definitions tends to be how "story driven" the game is. Generally, you can get more content in story driven games, because there's often less room for new game systems. This is not the case when you have a flexible protagonist - there's much more room for that.

Ultimately, content-only expansions are fine if that's all there is room for in expanding the game. But in those games where there is room for more, the feeling that something is missing will pervade and make the expansion feel inadequate.

None of this gets around the fact that CDPR have taken a DLC Season Pass, and rebranded it as an Expansion Pass, so that they can maintain that they are champions of the games industry and better than other companies, when in fact they are doing the exact same thing. The fact that CDPR somehow thinks that we are stupid enough, naive enough, or simply trusting enough to go "well that's all right then, carry on."

I am not against DLC - I am against companies that try to rebrand their DLC as something more than what it is.
Posted April 09, 2015
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JMich: Thank you. So, you say that Story A is good enough to play, though since you are only going to go through it once, you'd rather play Story A+B in one go, which is understandable. However, if instead of Story A+B it is Story A and Story B (two standalone stories), does that still mean that you won't buy Story A now because you may want to play Story B later on?
Or, for the Shadowrun game example, is Dead Man's Switch a story that requires Dragonfall to be played, or are those two separate?

I am still under the impression that the two expansions for TW3 are standalone, and not weaved directly into the story. And I also need a mafia game to start, so I can argue there.
Actually, I don't mind when the expansion is totally separate, as it won't impact the part of the game (base) I already played. In the shadowrun example, I was totally fine with dragonfall coming out, as it was a separate story; but I was slightly annoyed at Dragonfall's director's cut because I didn't feel like replaying the whole game to experience it. Despite the director's cut being free, which was of course very nice and unexpected.

For these witcher expansions, I quote:
the latter introduces a whole new major area to roam
This to me means that one will add something like an island you can head to wherever you want (which means, I'll have more options when playing the base game with the expansions installed than without). But I guess it also would mean that I could head to that area after having beaten the base game, when I eventually buy the expansion. Meh.

And it also means that the other one will not have its own area, so it must be extra quests on the already existing areas. Which would imply I would have to go through the whole game world again to find these additional quests, rather than finding them as I go the first time.

All in all, I feel what we know about these expansions is enough to make it worth waiting for the expansions to play it.

And why would you need a mafia game to argue? Isn't that the game where you're killed before you open your mouth?
Posted April 09, 2015
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iWi: [..]
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phaolo: Ohh, thanks for the post : )
I still think that GOG should have told all this info immediately in the Witcher 3 preorder thread, to avoid all this uprising, but ok.
They couldn't very well have done that if the decision wasn't made back then, now could they?
Posted April 09, 2015
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phaolo: Ohh, thanks for the post : )
I still think that GOG should have told all this info immediately in the Witcher 3 preorder thread, to avoid all this uprising, but ok.
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Kristian: They couldn't very well have done that if the decision wasn't made back then, now could they?
I think they already had some ideas about them.
They could have said something like: "the preorder is for the base game + all DLCs. If we will develop other expansions, they will be big and so sold separately."
Posted April 09, 2015
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Davane: None of this gets around the fact that CDPR have taken a DLC Season Pass, and rebranded it as an Expansion Pass, so that they can maintain that they are champions of the games industry and better than other companies, when in fact they are doing the exact same thing. The fact that CDPR somehow thinks that we are stupid enough, naive enough, or simply trusting enough to go "well that's all right then, carry on."

I am not against DLC - I am against companies that try to rebrand their DLC as something more than what it is.
What are your definitions of "Expansion" and "DLC"? What features distinguish the terms from each other as far as you're concerned?
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Maighstir
Posted April 09, 2015
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JMich: Yes. Are you aware that hydrophobic glass is in production, and in the near future, your car won't need wipers, since water won't stick to the windscreen? Will you refrain from buying a car until you can buy a car with a hydrophobic windscreen, or will you buy a car now and then upgrade its windscreen (or buy a newer car)?
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P1na: I'll buy a car that is what the manufacturer intended, or as close as it got within its budget. Between a car designed with hydrophobic glass in mind that I can't afford, the same car without hydrophobic glass that I can afford, and a different card that I can also afford that never even considered hydrophobic glass to begin with and will never be able to equip it; I'll choose to use the different one for a while, get as much as I can from that experience, and move on to the fully equipped one later on when I can afford it. Otherwise, I would get to experience the non-hydrophobic glass experience, then upgrade to the car with the glass (grown tired to write hydrophobic, couldn't you have come up with a shorter example name?) and drive it all over again to experience the glass experience, but I will have lost the chance to try out that different car. And I want to get as many experiences as I can within my limited time.
So, basically, your new analogy wasn't that good of an analogy after all...

The thing is, what I am reading here is that the focus is more on supporting CDPR.

Much like a sports team, really. But then said sports team suddenly decides that they want to try different, but similar sports (in the UK, that would be like a footballer taking up rugby). You don't know how good they are at the new sport, but you can't be sure that the support you are giving them is actually going to the sport you already support, and thus you have decided to withdraw your support until you can determine whether they deserve the support for this new sport as well as the sport you originally supported them for.

Is that a better analogy, P1na? Don't worry, I am sure that you can now use your pre-order money to buy even more cheap copies of Deus Ex to give away... :D
Posted April 09, 2015
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Davane: So, basically, your new analogy wasn't that good of an analogy after all...

The thing is, what I am reading here is that the focus is more on supporting CDPR.

Much like a sports team, really. But then said sports team suddenly decides that they want to try different, but similar sports (in the UK, that would be like a footballer taking up rugby). You don't know how good they are at the new sport, but you can't be sure that the support you are giving them is actually going to the sport you already support, and thus you have decided to withdraw your support until you can determine whether they deserve the support for this new sport as well as the sport you originally supported them for.

Is that a better analogy, P1na? Don't worry, I am sure that you can now use your pre-order money to buy even more cheap copies of Deus Ex to give away... :D
Not really. I'm bad with cars, but even worse with sports, you see... I've never supported a team, so it's kind of hard to relate to it. Unless it was someone playing against Spain, but that was just me wanting Spain to lose, I'd say it hardly counts.

I honestly don't know how to phrase it better. I have limited time to play, therefore when I play a game I want to play the fullest, most complete version I possibly can. And not only is that version of witcher 3 considerably more expensive after the announcement, I'm not even fully certain that buying the base game and the expansion pass will get me that most complete version (think of the Director's cut of DX:HR or Strike suit zero). So I no longer want to preorder.

Is this more clear?
Posted April 09, 2015
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P1na: For these witcher expansions, I quote:

the latter introduces a whole new major area to roam
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P1na:
Let me counter-quote:
An Exciting New Locale: Shadowrun: Dragonfall transports runners to the Free City of Berlin, a thrilling Shadowrun setting full of gorgeous new hi-res environments, a diverse new cast of characters, and a new soundtrack by the composer of the original Sega Genesis Shadowrun game, Sam Powell.
See? New area in the expansion. Obviously it's used in the main story.
Yes, SR:DF did mention from the very start that it was standalone, but new area(s) don't always mean they are added to existing story, nor that they are standalone.

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P1na: And why would you need a mafia game to argue? Isn't that the game where you're killed before you open your mouth?
Yes, but it does help me when I have something to argue about, even if it does lead to my lynch. Thankfully I've avoided that so far IRL ;)
Posted April 09, 2015
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JMich: ...
Just for the record, I think that the important distinction here would be that these expansions are not tied to profits of their base game. Often, when a game comes out, decision on whether or not an expansion will be released is entirely based on how well the base game is doing - since the expansions for The Witcher 3 are already in pre-purchase, it's implied that they're guaranteed to come out. So the incentive of purchasing the game to allow for potential sequel / expansion is gone, expansion will come out anyway, so if someone would prefer to play the game with all content released for it, that person now knows he needs to wait. "For complete game", so to say.
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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)