What does NMA think about The Witcher 3?

M

Mko

First time out of the vault
I am curious and couldn't find an answer. So let me ask. What do the people on NMA think about The Witcher 3?

I know that this is the place for fans of Fallout classics, and that Fallout 3 is often bashed here and New Vegas is somewhere in the middle. I somewhat share those views, even though I just accepted that Bethesda is taking Fallout in a different direction. Since my opinion on Fallout games is similar to that common here, I would really like to know how TW3 fares in your eyes.

I personally think The Witcher 3 is absolutely fantastic (my first contact with the series).
 
I'm debating whether or not I want to play this one. By all accounts its a really well made game, but so was the second one and I honestly didn't enjoy it very much. Not because I didn't appreciate the challenge or the craftsmenship, but because Geralt was kind of an asshole and that just turned me off of playing the game. It wasn't a bad thing, it was just very much an incompatibility between my personality and the personality of the main character in a roleplaying game.
 
I am interested in buying/playing it, but I am kind of broke at the moment, it does have a ridiculous amount of content, with even seemingly minor quests having plot that connects to lore and even complex backstories.
 
I just finished playing Witcher 2, loved it, and really wish I had a machine capable of playing Witcher 3.

PossibleCabbage said:
Not because I didn't appreciate the challenge or the craftsmenship, but because Geralt was kind of an asshole and that just turned me off of playing the game. It wasn't a bad thing, it was just very much an incompatibility between my personality and the personality of the main character in a roleplaying game.
Click to expand...

I'm curious why you think Geralt's an asshole.

I thought the game did a great job of giving you choices, not only in how to solve problems but in choosing Geralt's motivations. My version of Geralt is a guy who only wanted to get his girlfriend (Triss) back and recover his memory. He's fairly cynical and apathetic about the political shitstorm surrounding him, but is loyal to his friends and will stand up for the common folk if push comes to shove. For me, this is in line with the established lore and definitely does not make him an asshole. It's also only one interpretation of the character; there are many others possible. There are any number of ways you can play him - as a rebel freedom fighter, as a Northern Kingdom patriot, as a stone cold, inhuman killing machine or as a neutral Witcher, dedicated to 'the Path'.

I suspect your assessment of Geralt's character might have less to do with Geralt and more to do with your reaction to the world of the Witcher, which is depicted as a pretty brutal, crapsack place. Life is cheap, violent, and short for most people. Public executions, torture, corruption, rape and general savagery are routine features of the world. Most of the supporting cast are definitely assholes. In such a world, it's probably pretty easy to be an asshole, especially if you have the muscle to back up your attitude (and a Witcher has that in spades). But in spite of that I don't think the game forces you to play as an asshole.
 
Last edited:
Walpknut is a bastard.

Witcher 3 is a step forward for open world games despite the shitty combat.
 
Because of the Internet, cultural osmosis. I know "You know nothing Jon Snow" is a Game of Thrones joke, but I have no idea the context in which it was said or why it turned into a meme. I have seen exactly 0 seconds of the show, and read 0 words from the books.
 
Walpknut said:
Because of the Internet, cultural osmosis. I know "You know nothing Jon Snow" is a Game of Thrones joke, but I have no idea the context in which it was said or why it turned into a meme. I have seen exactly 0 seconds of the show, and read 0 words from the books.
Click to expand...

I think the Witcher books and games are a million times better than the GoT books and TV show.

I should make a T shirt that says "Jon Snow is a whoreson". :P
 
One of the review I read says " boring story like Torment , flood of quests like Daggerfall, monster hunting feel like Monster hunter(Capcom's), farming of Diablo, FF like cutscenes, skyrim's quest markers and Bioware like map design."


eh....it doesn't sound interesting to me.:|
 
Walpknut said:
I know "You know nothing Jon Snow" is a Game of Thrones joke, but I have no idea the context in which it was said or why it turned into a meme.
Click to expand...
There IS no context. It's just a thing that a character said over and over. Some of the time it was appropriate, outright stating that the character had no ideas what he was getting into despite claiming he was prepared, other times being vague, like alluding to the fact that even if he's sleeping with her he cannot understand the heart of a woman, and other times just saying it out of spite. Just the abundance of times it was used was all the reason it became a meme. "Winter is coming" on the other hand...

As for the topic question... I'm quite torn on the matter right now. The only group I've been listening to at all that gave any reviews about the game I heard or read have been doing an amazing job of digging themselves a massive grave lately, so I dunno how seriously I can take any of their words anymore. They said things like TW3 having "amazing writing", but then went on to praise FO3's plot. Their words carried a lot of weight, because despite being sarcastic and joking with each other they took their roles as games journalists and reviewers with sincerity, but then they went on to make themselves out to be childish assholes taking glee in internet trolling. They made their criticisms about any game they touched on feel like they were measured and considered because of how often they would critique the games industry and stand up as consumer advocates, only to hypocritically gush over every ounce of hype at E3 despite everything they'd ever said about that being reprehensible.

So, yeah. I dunno if I'll pick up the game. I haven't really gone out of my way to hear anything about it, and this one group I enjoyed reading and listening to was the sole source of news on the title that I was getting. So for them to suddenly become a bunch of assholes means I have lost just about any notion of feeling the TW3 is a worthwhile game worth playing. Maybe if Yahtzee praises the utter fucking shit out of it, or Jeremy Jahns dedicates several videos to it because he insists it deserves every one of them, in which cases I might reconsider? But I dunno... Not really looking into it right now, as things are.
 
Thanks for the replies, it seems kind of inconclusive now, which does make sense. Someone likes it, someone might not.

I felt like I usually had a choice how I wanted to go about things, if I wanted to be an asshole or not, so I would not say Geralt is an asshole. He is a Witcher, though, that might make him somewhat less emotional.

Personally I liked the combat. It is necessary to crank up the difficulty, otherwise there is very little challenge in it. What I like most about the game, however, is the way it is crafted. It takes some playtime to realize this. I was watching a youtube let's play and I was sceptical but after some time I knew I had to buy the game. What can I say, it was a pretty good buy, I have enjoyed it thoroughly and most definitely will play at least one more time. Yes there is a ton of quests but it never felt like a flood. The quests have like a recommended level and it's not easy to punch much above your weight so even if you get a lot of quests only some of them are viable. There is a lot of variety in the quests, which is great. I never felt like there was a farming element. Only common monsters are farmable and it makes very little sense to farm them - common loot, little exp. The rare monsters are pretty hard to find so it never feels like farming, more like stumbling upon something of interest while exploring.

Anyway, I could only tell you that I think the game is amazing. If you want to formulate your own opinion, watching a let's play on youtube is probably the best way other than playing the game. At least that's what I do if I want to know what a game really is like.
 
It's really not a matter where your choices are "to be an asshole or not to be an asshole". If that's really what it usually comes down to, that's terrible. Be it a particular individual game, or most games on average, it doesn't matter. Moral choice isn't about being nice or being a jerk. It's about goals and consequences. How you treat the person you're talking to is completely separate from the issue...

Case in point: You stroll into Broken Hills, talk to the mine foreman, Zaius, and you have the options to be a real smartass to him about his kinda redundant question, "You the new guy?" It's not the morally negative speech choice, however, it's just an option to be a smartass. The moral choice is whether you help fix the broken air filter for the mine or if you help a bunch of crazies blow it up. In either case, you're gonna be nice to who you're talking to.
 
I liked The Witcher 1, even though it had a lot of flaws. I don't think The Witcher 2 even qualifies as a game; it's an interactive movie with a lot of awful QTEs and a few Choose-Your-Own-Adventure branches. Overall I thought it was quite bad, but it seemed more like a series of mistakes in judgement by CDP as opposed to a commitment to churning out crappy games. The passion was still there.

I'm defintely going to try The Witcher 3 once some sort of Enhanced Edition comes out on GOG.com. From what I've read they did away with a lot of the bad things I hated about The Witcher 2, and 3 finally has swimming and climbing. It has to be an improvement over 2.
 
sea said:
It's insane a team of their size and budget pulled off such a massive game with so few compromises.
Click to expand...
They're definitely Witcher enthusiasts. That's what has made the games worth playing, even if they aren't perfect. It's a refreshing thing to see.
 
Walpknut said:
"NMA" is not a collective conciousness, we are a forum and different people will have different opinions on everything....
Click to expand...

Oh, bugger off. This is the most annoying thing on any website whether it be /pol/ or reddit. He just wants YOU to answer so he can gauge the thoughts of the community.
 
A GAME THAT IS BASED AROUND AND MAINLY INVOLVES COMBAT SHOULD NOT HAVE SHITTY COMBAT.

THE END.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top