Deadfire won't win RPG of the year (VGA's)

[SonicMage117]

If only Murp was here to see me now...

[Silvaren]

Again, you are not playing as a random nobody that you can shape however you want to, you are playing as Geralt, who has a set in stone character and morals. You are not supposed to have a lot of choice in conversations. You say it's bad, me and millions of fans say it's awesome because Geralt is awesome. Sucks to be a hater I guess. Nobody needs to have a **** ton of dialogue choices that end up in the same thing, not to mention that in most crpg, 90% of the dialogue is just asking god damn questions "hey tell me about this place".

 

Most of the dungeons you mentioned are 10% story 90% combat, where the story is mostly at the beginning and at the end. Every single dungeon follows the same principles and the only difference is that the corridors are not the same. In Witcher 3, every dungeon is unique. Thank god (or a game designer) for that. If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again, well go have fun with that.

 

Andrzej Sapkowski literally said that games are for stupid people. That is, until it turned out that the game made millions; then he was suddenly back with "GIMME MAH MONAYZ!". The fact that game Geralt is similar to novel Geralt is one of the biggest hooks of this game, but it has nothing to do with Sapkowski, who did absolutely nothing with the game itself (in fact, he stated that the game is no canon at all).

 

And then you mention Andromeda, the game that was so horrible that they didn't even bother making any story DLCs for it, because nobody would buy them anyway. Well except for you I guess. Andromeda basically killed Mass Effect. At this point this just looks like pointless rambling.

1. Did you play Age of Decadence? Did you play Torment Tides of Numenera? Did you play Deadfire at all? Or did you play old Fallout from 1997, Fallout 2, New Vegas? There are dialog choices that end up in unique way. Gives different outcomes, build reputation, express player's agency, character. I'm not talking about lore dumps. It's far better than behave good or behave bad + some optional questions as Geralt who is riding on the railroad conversations most of the time.

 

2. Maybe they are 10% story and 90% combat in some, but it is still better than 1% story with almost non-interactive conversations, 19% witcher sensen and 80% borring&repetetive combat with two different slash. Open world exploration in Witcher 3 is 100% combat. And Wild Hunt rarely rewards players for exploration because Geralt is probably already overleveled and itemisation sucks so much that only gear of certain witcher school is worth using. "Every single dungeon follows the same principles and the only difference is that the corridors are not the same" - you just described Witcher 3 but there are little to none unique locations in the open world. Cities are like empty forest with buildings instead of tress and non-interactive people. Compare Novigrad to Athkatla, Sigil, Sagus Cliffs, the Bloom, Maadoran, Neketaka or other cities in cRPG. There are more quests and interactions with poeple than in Novigrad where you can talk only with questgivers and traders and finish chekclist while railroading through simple and short sidequests. "If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again" - another feature of Witcher 3. Let just dive for contraband 100000 timne, blow up XX of monster's nest, slash few bandits in their copy-paste camp or search for treassure because those stinking socks must be better than your Cat School Gear! xD "well go have fun with that"!

 

3. Yeah, Sapkowski made only few consultation for the game but he wrote most of that cool characters you can met in the game. You know - Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, Avallach, Djikstra, Radowid (CDP Red twisted him into psycho), Triss (she's much different than in books). You should give huge credits to original author. CDP Red just copy-paste all those characters and break some of them by doing so. What I meant though was that Sapkowski wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri... And then writers from CDP Red wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri. You clearly can see some repetition here.

 

4. Andromeda wasn't bad game. Black PR was strong, peoples who repeated all bad words about the game without even playing it. Meta plot about Jardaans who created life in entire cluster and over a dozen different part of that worldbuilding story are more complex than the surface about colonisation in new galaxy. And imho better than the story about Geralt searching for Ciri and fighting against Wild Hunt. But story is subjective thing - it's based on individual taste, context of known stories encountered before. Andromeda is better than Witcher 3 at least in combat (every weapons have different feel - not only stats) - so there is another good thing about itemisation. Most weapons and armor and consumables are useful. Character progression is much better (you learn new abilities throughout entire game and those abilities add new mechanics, can change playstyle while in Witcher 3 at some point I had nothing to do with skill points - CDP Red even bring new skillpoints-sink mechanic in Blood and Wine DLC), exploration - though as in Witcher 3 you follow questmarkers, there are no "?" on the map. In Andromeda you go where you see something what stands out - and in most of places you will activate sidequest or find something to add to the worldbuilding and metaplot.

 

Overall I'm not saying that Witcher 3 is bad game. It's average, has great characters, some quests are good, atmosphere and music is awesome. But the gameplay is just bad, character progression and itemisation are badly designed. And in terms of computer RPG genre it's below expectation and standards set back in the 90's - I mean it's below expectation in terms of combat mechanics, conversation options, quest construction, exploration, rewarding player, roleplay, C&C.

 

And I'm not saying that Andromeda is great game. It's average like Witcher 3. Some things does better, some worse as in other AAA cRPG from last few years (Fallout 4 and Inquisition too). Gameplay wise I would say that Andromeda > Inquisition > Fallout 4 > Witcher 3. When someone makes open world cRPG where main story can take 20-30 hours and leaves 100 hours for watered down exploration - he should be sure that the gameplay is fun enough to keep player interested and engaged. CDP Red failed at that.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Silvaren

[Mikeymoonshine]

From what I understand there was supposed to be a Witcher game in development before CDPRs series but it was never released. Or it was but only as some kind of text message mobile phone thing. So after that disaster Sapkowski didn't have much faith in video games so he asked for his money up front even though he was offered a percentage of profits.

 

So on the one hand, even though it's pretty ignorant to judge the entire video game market on one failure you can kind of see why someone who doesn't know much about video games would do that.

 

On the other he was offered a better deal and declined it, it's also not like he hasn't profited at all from the success of the games. Lots of people especially in the west would never of heard of or baught his books if not for the games, me included.

[Manveru123]

1. Did you play Age of Decadence? Did you play Torment Tides of Numenera? Did you play Deadfire at all? Or did you play old Fallout from 1997, Fallout 2, New Vegas? There are dialog choices that end up in unique way. Gives different outcomes, build reputation, express player's agency, character. I'm not talking about lore dumps. It's far better than behave good or behave bad + some optional questions as Geralt who is riding on the railroad conversations most of the time.

2. Maybe they are 10% story and 90% combat in some, but it is still better than 1% story with almost non-interactive conversations, 19% witcher sensen and 80% borring&repetetive combat with two different slash. Open world exploration in Witcher 3 is 100% combat. And Wild Hunt rarely rewards players for exploration because Geralt is probably already overleveled and itemisation sucks so much that only gear of certain witcher school is worth using. "Every single dungeon follows the same principles and the only difference is that the corridors are not the same" - you just described Witcher 3 but there are little to none unique locations in the open world. Cities are like empty forest with buildings instead of tress and non-interactive people. Compare Novigrad to Athkatla, Sigil, Sagus Cliffs, the Bloom, Maadoran, Neketaka or other cities in cRPG. There are more quests and interactions with poeple than in Novigrad where you can talk only with questgivers and traders and finish chekclist while railroading through simple and short sidequests. "If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again" - another feature of Witcher 3. Let just dive for contraband 100000 timne, blow up XX of monster's nest, slash few bandits in their copy-paste camp or search for treassure because those stinking socks must be better than your Cat School Gear! xD "well go have fun with that"!

 

3. Yeah, Sapkowski made only few consultation for the game but he wrote most of that cool characters you can met in the game. You know - Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, Avallach, Djikstra, Radowid (CDP Red twisted him into psycho), Triss (she's much different than in books). You should give huge credits to original author. CDP Red just copy-paste all those characters and break some of them by doing so. What I meant though was that Sapkowski wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri... And then writers from CDP Red wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri. You clearly can see some repetition here.

 

4. Andromeda wasn't bad game. Black PR was strong, peoples who repeated all bad words about the game without even playing it. Meta plot about Jardaans who created life in entire cluster and over a dozen different part of that worldbuilding story are more complex than the surface about colonisation in new galaxy. And imho better than the story about Geralt searching for Ciri and fighting against Wild Hunt. But story is subjective thing - it's based on individual taste, context of known stories encountered before. Andromeda is better than Witcher 3 at least in combat (every weapons have different feel - not only stats) - so there is another good thing about itemisation. Most weapons and armor and consumables are useful. Character progression is much better (you learn new abilities throughout entire game and those abilities add new mechanics, can change playstyle while in Witcher 3 at some point I had nothing to do with skill points - CDP Red even bring new skillpoints-sink mechanic in Blood and Wine DLC), exploration - though as in Witcher 3 you follow questmarkers, there are no "?" on the map. In Andromeda you go where you see something what stands out - and in most of places you will activate sidequest or find something to add to the worldbuilding and metaplot.

 

Overall I'm not saying that Witcher 3 is bad game. It's average, has great characters, some quests are good, atmosphere and music is awesome. But the gameplay is just bad, character progression and itemisation are badly designed. And in terms of computer RPG genre it's below expectation and standards set back in the 90's - I mean it's below expectation in terms of combat mechanics, conversation options, quest construction, exploration, rewarding player, roleplay, C&C.

 

And I'm not saying that Andromeda is great game. It's average like Witcher 3. Some things does better, some worse as in other AAA cRPG from last few years (Fallout 4 and Inquisition too). Gameplay wise I would say that Andromeda > Inquisition > Fallout 4 > Witcher 3. When someone makes open world cRPG where main story can take 20-30 hours and leaves 100 hours for watered down exploration - he should be sure that the gameplay is fun enough to keep player interested and engaged. CDP Red failed at that.

 

Yes I played them all. And I stand by what I said. 90% of dialogue options is just asking about stuff, like "who are you" and "what is this place". I don't mind when a game skips that. I welcome that, actually. If my character behaves good in one situation and bad in another, he never has an established moral compass, which is not the case with pre-generated toons. And it's not uncommon to do one quest in a good way and another in a bad way for rewards (I killed Drizzt every single time, even when playing as Lawful Good, because I wanted his gear). So yeah, I feel like Geralt is a huge improvement. This is one of the reasons why Witcher 3 is ten times more immersive than any game you mentioned.

 

Yeah, let's talk mechanics in other games, where in each and every one of them you can build a superpowered demigod and beat every encounter in a few seconds. That is sooo much better mechanically right? Of course, you can choose not to play this way.. just as you can choose not to spam two slashes for the whole game.

I really don't get what is so special about Neketaka and other similar cities. They are just one big quest hub, that's their only purpose. I don't need to have a conversation with every NPC I come across. Not only that: I can't, because most of them have one, pre-generated line! So you end up - surprise! - talking only to merchants and quest givers anyway.

 

I give credit to Sapkowski for creating the universe. And that's where his contribution stops. I'm not going to worship someone who thinks of me as a lesser being just because I'm a gamer. I have some self-respect left. But to each his own.

 

I played Andromeda and finished it, because I didn't have anything better to do at the time. The game was a stinking piece of **** in every single aspect. Even if I ignore the worst animations I have ever seen in a game made by a big studio (there's tons of memes on the internet, highly recommend), the game had nothing going for it. It was bland. At this point I don't even remember any character's names, yet I could talk a lot about every companion from the original ME trilogy (those were actually good games). Combat? Please, all I had to do was snipe the **** out of everything. This got boring halfway through. It's cool to have a lot of options during character progression, too bad most of them are useless and you never pick them.

 

I feel like those "expectations" you're talking about are yours and yours alone. You're just living in the nostalgic 90s and fail to see that "classic" games are no longer that popular. If someone made Baldur's Gate 3 and made it very well, it wouldn't sell half as good as Witcher, because most things you consider to be assets of these titles are boring AF to the modern gamers. And those are people whose opinions are important, because they are a paying majority. So, to answer a question: yes, Witcher 3 is the current standard for a good, successful RPG title, and every dev studio and their mothers would like to replicate its success. No amount of rambling will change that.

[house2fly]

I remember some interview with Josh Sawyer a few years back where he said something like "reviewers have been very kind to us on Pillars, obviously there's no way we'd survive a direct comparison with Witcher 3" and it was funny to play Witcher 3 after that and wonder what he was smoking because Pillars is way better

[Manveru123]

Nice bait.

[Zoraptor]

From what I understand there was supposed to be a Witcher game in development before CDPRs series but it was never released. Or it was but only as some kind of text message mobile phone thing. So after that disaster Sapkowski didn't have much faith in video games so he asked for his money up front even though he was offered a percentage of profits.

 

It wasn't a phone app thing, it was well before smartphones. There's a bit of information floating around the internets about it, eg here or with more detail, here.

 

IIRC there may have been more than one attempt at a Witcher game prior to CDPR, but that's the one that got vaguely off the ground. There were also a couple of cancelled CDPR Witcher projects like Rise of the White Wolf (W1 for xbox) and a Witcher 1 expansion from some guys who did NWN modules.

 

 

 

 

lol "butthurt". are peeps still using that cringey adolescent sex-negative homophobic term in 2018? i love it.

 

 

LOL good summary of the term.

 

 

Not really, butthurt comes from (depending on source) a child being spanked or haemorhoids (piles). Doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality.

[Cartoons Plural]

Yes side quests and main quests in modern AAA RPGs are shorter and tend not to include dungeon crawls. At least Witcher 3 has memorable side quests like tower full of mice, carnal sins, wild at heart and return to crookback bog. Quests that have choices, consequences a story, characters cut scenes ect. Some of the side quests even affect the main story.

 

Can you really say that's even equivalent to the best side quests in dragon age Inquisition or mass effect Andromeda?

 

I agree the game has a lot of interests and is not one of the best RPG experiences but we don't get the best RPG experiences anymore. Bioware and Bethesda should not get credit for their illusion of choices just so the Witcher 3 can be knocked down a peg.

 

long side quests and deep dives bit the dust because of online complaining, i feel like devs need to stop listening or at least figure out a way to separate the hour 1000 moaning from 90% of the userbase. people need a reckoning with the fact that about a third of any given game's audience actually finishes the dang thing. so that late game side dungeon thats 12 levels deep and filled with traps is ultimately only being complained about by ten people. its kinda funny how deadfire went back and added deep dungeon dives for the DLCs after people just wailed about how long od nua was (thats the point) or how long burial isle may have been (but then ukaizo is too short)

 

but lets step back and be aware that the consensus GOTY this year is RDR2 a game with no reactivity and absolutely nothing important to say that rockstar hasn't said in every edition of grand theft auto already. the barometer for audiences and game press for "great game" is "how much does this make me feel like i'm inside of a movie???" or like how much i hear about how realistic the graphics are why don't you go to a national park holy moley go see pando before she dies maybe? i want fantastic spectacle from games not a faithful re-imagining of someplace that looks almost like Yosimite but instead is on my tv & has a fictional name that is a **** joke or something

[house2fly]

The final dungeon in PoE1 was a decent length, complaints about "the endgame being too long" are from people who think Twin Elms and Burial Isle are part of the endgame. Imagine if Ukaizo had had bigger maps, some sense of exploration, and maybe a proper boss battle at the end

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

people just wailed about how long od nua was (thats the point) or how long burial isle may have been (but then ukaizo is too short)

 

honestly, it breaks my mind that people thought the burial isle-sun in shadow sequence was too long.

 

i feel like devs need to stop listening or at least figure out a way to separate the hour 1000 moaning from 90% of the userbase.

 

i presume this is why balancing teams are leaning more and more on telemetry. much easier than separating signal from noise.

 

there are also a couple of truisms regarding feedback:

 

'they who know least, shout loudest'

 

and

 

'peeps dont know what they *really* want. even if they did, they wouldnt tell you'.

 

Not really, butthurt comes from (depending on source) a child being spanked or haemorhoids (piles). Doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality.

 

c'mon mang, call a spade a spade. its a term that mocks a persons response by comparing it to:

 

*over-emotional* *squealing* (or 'bawwing') in response to being *spanked* or *sodomised*.

 

So those two actions are defined as painful and demeaning - yet any response to them is declared pathetic as enduring them marks the subject as feminine or a 'sissy'.

 

the term straight up leverages the stereotype of feminine gay men - or femininity in general - to belittle someone.

 

as for this (depending on source) remark. fam, i was around when that term first circulated. i can tell ye, it had fk all to do with piles.

 

im guessing there have been recent efforts by chan and meme folk to whitewash their culture. but language is a big unwieldy beast, and every word contains its past.

 

so ye, if peeps want to remain insensitive to the term's connotations and keep using it, they can crack on, but yr gonna get some stink-eye from it, and usual pattern of things is that level of stink-eye will increase as time goes on.

 

even if u dont give a fk about upsetting folk, is prob easier life to just drop it from lexicon.

[Manveru123]

This is probably the first time ever I see someone butthurt over the use of the word "butthurt". The internet is a strange place.

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

This is probably the first time ever I see someone butthurt over the use of the word "butthurt". The internet is a strange place.

ull be thrilled to know there are many more firsts ahead of u

[SonicMage117]

I remember some interview with Josh Sawyer a few years back where he said something like "reviewers have been very kind to us on Pillars, obviously there's no way we'd survive a direct comparison with Witcher 3" and it was funny to play Witcher 3 after that and wonder what he was smoking because Pillars is way better

Well, I think alot of people on a forum such as this tend to think: "If a game is overly popular that it can't be as good as my personal favorite game that didn't recieve so much attention from the critically acclaimed masses. Every AAA is COD!"

 

While Pillars is one of my personal favorites, I'd have to agree with Obsidian that Witcher 3 is the better game. There's alot more love, sweat and tears put into Witcher 3 and that easily shows. For years into the future, people will know the name of Geralt while nobody will know any of Pillars characters, hell, nobody really even knows who Minsc and Boo is. CDPR basically created a legacy, that's hard for any Crpg developer to compete with in itself.

[Frak]

While Pillars is one of my personal favorites, I'd have to agree with Obsidian that Witcher 3 is the better game.

 

Ain't no Dragon Age Origins, that's for sure. Best game ever made!

 

That is scientific fact. There is no real evidence for it but it's scientific fact.

[Manveru123]

 

I remember some interview with Josh Sawyer a few years back where he said something like "reviewers have been very kind to us on Pillars, obviously there's no way we'd survive a direct comparison with Witcher 3" and it was funny to play Witcher 3 after that and wonder what he was smoking because Pillars is way better

Well, I think alot of people on a forum such as this tend to think: "If a game is overly popular that it can't be as good as my personal favorite game that didn't recieve so much attention from the critically acclaimed masses. Every AAA is COD!"

 

While Pillars is one of my personal favorites, I'd have to agree with Obsidian that Witcher 3 is the better game. There's alot more love, sweat and tears put into Witcher 3 and that easily shows. For years into the future, people will know the name of Geralt while nobody will know any of Pillars characters, hell, nobody really even knows who Minsc and Boo is. CDPR basically created a legacy, that's hard for any Crpg developer to compete with in itself.

 

But The Watcher is such a memorable name!

 

Fun fact, CDP (before they were "red") did a full VO localization for both Baldur's Gate titles. They hired best actors in the industry at the time. To this day, this is the best polish localization ever. This made BG explosively popular in Poland. So yeah, Geralt's home country will not forget its mentally challenged Ranger and his furry sidekick.

[SonicMage117]

But The Watcher is such a memorable name!

That much is true, unfortunately though, Darksiders already had "The Watcher" as their main supporting character. Even more unfortunate, Horizon Zero Dawn has a well known character named the Watcher.

 

It's perhaps, just one of those things where Pillars gets buried by other franchises.

Fun fact, CDP (before they were "red") did a full VO localization for both Baldur's Gate titles. They hired best actors in the industry at the time. To this day, this is the best polish localization ever. This made BG explosively popular in Poland. So yeah, Geralt's home country will not forget its mentally challenged Ranger and his furry sidekick.

I didn't know that, that's pretty awesome!

[Boeroer]

One of the reasons why the German movie/film market is quite attractive for international companies: besides the sheer number of potential customers we have a very strong "localisation industry" so to speak. Sometimes (or let's say often) they overshoot - but usually they are doing a great job with synchronization and such. Very fitting voices, good technique and so on. Turns a lot of potential customers into actual ones I believe.

Fun fact: there was a British series with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore called "The Persuaders!" that totally flopped in USA and was doing okish in Europe... but was very successful in Germany - because the studio that did the synchronization just thought "screw this script" and did its own "interpretation" of dialogue. They introduced so many jokes, word plays, tongue-in-cheek moments and so on that it sort of turned into a comedy series. My dad loved it but couldn't stand to watch more than one episode a week - just too silly. I guess these guys still tap each other on the shoulders for that coup. German synchronizers also did that with most of the Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies, but to a lesser extend (also quite popular in Germany).

So: I guess great idea by CPR to do a full polish VO of a dialogue heavy computer game.
I read about it some years ago but forgot.

Back then the costs in Poland may have been very low though so that this idea, while being great on its own (giving a lot of polish players who didn't speak English the opportunity to enjoy a nice game), could have led to a financial success as well.

I think a full German VO of such a complex game (dialogue-wise) with known actors/speakers and also a Polish one nowadays (wages in Poland have been constantly climbing a lot since those days, especially since the introduction of the Euro) would be so expensive that it wouldn't be lucrative.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Boeroer

[Lord Brunitius]

Well i consider wild hunt one of the best crpg of this generation. for the scope/size, the storytelling and the characters. The freedom of choice, to a certain degree, can't be the same of a much smaller game like poe1 or torment; and it isn't a point of strenght.

Take a minute to think of a 200 hours long torment, it would be pure madness for a developer.

 

 

I love equally games like deadfire and wild hunt.

 

But of course, everyone knowns that the very and only best game in the universe is ultima 7.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Lord Brunitius

[Boeroer]

But of course, everyone knowns that the very and only best game in the universe is ultima 7.

Please don't walk the Sonic route... 

[SonicMage117]

I am slowly building an army, since we will overtake the forums

[Manveru123]

He's not Sonic anymore tho. He's a SquirrelMage now!

[InsaneCommander]

I am slowly building an army, since we will overtake the forums

 

The Green Sonic Corps.

[bringingyouthefuture]

Is it safe to say that Witcher is the modern version of King's Quest and Pillars is the modern day version of Ultima?

 

I mean I think the adventure RPG has always been more popular so it is no wonder games like Witcher do so well.  I think it has little to do with it being a better game, and more to do with the genre being more popular and it being a shinning example on how to pull it off right - so trying to compare the two is like trying to argue why beer is better than wine. Anyway let's vote for POE2!!! Is the voting still happening??

[InsaneCommander]

You can also vote on the Steam Awards. Since I spent more time playing Deadfire than every other game this year and I really like it, it was my choice for game of the year.

[Verde]

Funny how so many topics turn into DOS hate, are people really that butthurt that it sold much better than Deadfire? :D

Butthurt I wasted $60 :/