So that Witcher 3, eh?

[Silverbeard]

Hell, I can sum up everything you really need to know in a couple of sentances: Geralt is hired to look for his surrogate daughter, who is Super Special and being hunted by damn near everyone who knows she exists. Meanwhile the Nilfguardians (aka 'The Black Ones', aka 'The Kinda Evil Empire') are waging war on the Northern Kingdoms (aka 'The Reds', think pre-unification Germanic states) and shit is getting messy.

One quick addition to your couple on sentences: The surrogate daughter is heir to the throne of Nilfgaard and thus has significant political value to those in the know about such things. And is also being chased by intergalactic slavers who can warp anywhere they wish and freeze the earth whenever they feel like it.

 

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

I hate it when people say that video games are worse in storytelling and writing than other mediums. There is so much that can be conveyed through visual actions rather than words or needing an explicit explnanation. Look at the legacy of Kain series: expertly written, wonderfully acted, and fun to play. Not to mention, a lot of japanese games have come around with great stories, like final fantasy 6 or tales of the abyss. Games are more than capable of telling a superb story that is well written.

 

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the legacy of Kain series marxie, if you ever have the time. I think you'd enjoy it.

 

[Azure23]

That doesn't explain all those regular mooks wanting to pick a fight with you though, knowing full well what you are. I'm beginning to notice that a lot of quest based fights with soldiers or bandits starts with them bolstering how there's only one of you and a larger amount of them. If Witchers are this infamous and thought of as monsters, don't these guys know I have skirmishes like this for breakfast? You'd think they wouldn't wanna fuck with me on general principal. I don't know, it is the Middle Ages -- maybe these people really are that stupid.

No huge criticism, just a funny observation.

You assume that all people are reasonable. But they're not. People are incredibly stupid even today. There are idiots that don't shy away from trying to fight a professional boxer or MMA fighter or a Navy Seal. You'd think those people would know that some of them could kill them with one hand. Nope. Don't know, don't care. Testosterone and confidence mixed with ungodly stupidity is everywhere. Most of us here are clever geeks and we're simply not fully aware of how stupid people really are. Even I often make assumptions based on the idea that people would react reasonably to a situation, yet they hardly ever do.

I guess the biggest problem I have with this is that Geralt has a relatively well know reputation, people tell stories about the White Wolf. And, in the novels at least, he regularly solves confrontations through intimidation and diplomacy as much as he does violence. Obviously I understand from a gameplay perspective why they've gotta have brigands and stuff picking fights with him, but I'd like to see maybe a system wherein he uses his Jedi (sorry, Witcher) mind tricks outside of pre determined conversation trees.

Although yeah, a lot of people hate Witchers, and for pretty decent in universe reasons. Geralt especially, considering that incident in Blavikin. Although actually that makes the mooks picking fights with you even weirder because he's infamous for a specific incident where he killed seven (pretty tough customers) at once.

 

[Zhukov]

Hell, I can sum up everything you really need to know in a couple of sentances: Geralt is hired to look for his surrogate daughter, who is Super Special and being hunted by damn near everyone who knows she exists. Meanwhile the Nilfguardians (aka 'The Black Ones', aka 'The Kinda Evil Empire') are waging war on the Northern Kingdoms (aka 'The Reds', think pre-unification Germanic states) and shit is getting messy.

One quick addition to your couple on sentences: The surrogate daughter is heir to the throne of Nilfgaard and thus has significant political value to those in the know about such things. And is also being chased by intergalactic slavers who can warp anywhere they wish and freeze the earth whenever they feel like it.

Like I said, Super Special and is being hunted by alomst everyone who knows she exists.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Video games are way way worse in terms of writing compared to other mediums.

Of course they are. Video games have to allow for player input. Whenever the developers seize control of the narrative from the player sufficiently to tell moments of proper story with characterization/pacing/thematic heft, they usually get blasted by the gaming community for having shit interactivity and "not really being a game".

You can't do a 1:1 comparison of games to film, or television, or novels. They're not a passive medium. Closest comparable would be those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

Video games haven't even gotten to the point where you care about characters or the stories make sense yet. There's barely any competent writers in the video game industry and it shows immensely. Yeah, video games are different but good writing is still good writing (dialogue, story, etc.) and video games very much lack good writing. Character dialogue isn't "different" in a game vs movie or TV show, either the dialogue is good or it's not.

Though "average" quality is what I am speaking of.

Average is always going to be shit though. I don't really care how bad the average is, it's how much good content there is that I care about.

I hate it when people say that video games are worse in storytelling and writing than other mediums.

It's actually interesting to go there.

Video games can wipe the fucking floor with any other medium when they actually utilize their ultimate power - interactivity. Planescape: Torment stands as an eternal monument of great storytelling, not an inch lower than everything literature or cinema can boast. Star Control II used interaction to create more interesting, amazing and just ALIEN aliens than I've ever seen in books, except maybe Solaris, but that's just a masterpiece. STALKER games managed to give the concept of Zone stronger atmosphere and more coherent form than what both Strugatsky brothers AND Tarkovsky have achieved, and in my book those are geniuses of their craft beyond compare, their craft just could not do the job as good as the good old FPS could. Crusader Kings series can give one more understanding of medieval politics in two evenings than five textbooks can in two months. No movie, song or book will ever be able to tell us as much about fighter pilots as a flight simulator without any story can - it just gives us too much feel, too much ammo for empathy to deny it. And no horror story will tell you more of your own violent and bloodthirsty nature than a couple of Quake 3 deathmatches.

HOWEVAH, in the recent times lots of games suddenly decided that they want to be movies. Of course, a game that tries to be not a game but a CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE despite the nature of process, of hardware, of culture can only be a joke of a game and a joke of a movie at the same time. But for whatever reasons (which are certainly have nothing to do with efforts of thousands marketing campaigns) people suddenly need to praise such attempts, and so we see the bar going as low as Beyond: Two Souls, Uncharted, Murdered: Soul Suspect and The Last of Us (yeah, shots fired) to justify our desire to buy and praise bad movies on the grounds of that "they are actually rather good, FOR A GAME".

I definitely agree that games CAN wipe the floor with other mediums because of the interactivity. The writing quality just isn't there in gaming at all, it's not even close. Character dialogue is character dialogue whether it's a game or book or movie. Dialogue in games is shit. Same thing with stories, most games don't even have coherent stories let alone good ones.

There's nothing wrong with cutscenes in games, sometimes a cutscene is the best way to convey a scene. For example, it's an emotional scene where a character sheds a single tear, you can't do that without a cutscene; you could but then no one would see it. I also hate it when there's dialog between 2 characters in a game where it's not a cutscene and you literally can't do anything as a player but move around a room. I'd much rather have a cutscene with good framing vs my character moving around a room doing nothing. The great thing about games is that there's not one way to convey a story that you can't do whereas TV/film and books have very obvious limitations. Why would you put any limitations on a game?

I hate it when people say that video games are worse in storytelling and writing than other mediums. There is so much that can be conveyed through visual actions rather than words or needing an explicit explnanation. Look at the legacy of Kain series: expertly written, wonderfully acted, and fun to play. Not to mention, a lot of japanese games have come around with great stories, like final fantasy 6 or tales of the abyss. Games are more than capable of telling a superb story that is well written.

Just how many games are actually expertly written, wonderfully acted, and fun to play? It's not that games can't be, it's that they aren't because very few competent (let alone good) writers work in the medium. Plus, so many games are developed the WRONG way where the levels, mechanics, etc. are created first and the writer has to try to link it all together instead of the story being written first and dictating the levels. Japanese games aren't much better. I've been disappointed in their stories for awhile now. I played Xenosaga, Nier, a couple Final Fantasies, etc. and they aren't anything special and more often than not disappoint. Nier was pretty average (and rather cliche) when I heard that it had the best story for last-gen from lots of people. I will give you that Japanese games usually try harder, but they aren't necessarily better.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I haven't played it yet, but I am going through the Witcher novels and enjoying them greatly. Sapkowski can really write good dialogue and banter, and retroactively recognizing characters from the first two games has given me a new perspective on things, especially regarding the mages. In hindsight, I'm impressed at how CDPR fucking nailed the presentation of the games, right down to the epilogues and extended vignettes where you play as other characters.

I'm still not sure why the Witcher games have always caused so much outrage and division, though. You see arguments reaching New Vegas or Mass Effect 3 levels of contention whenever the Witcher is discussed.

 

[Zhukov]

As far as the O.P, well this person clearly has opposite tastes because nearly everything ive liked and disliked in games is the reverse. I have no idea why but probally loves all that J.RPG nonsense and Nintendo cartoony stuff.

For the record, I do not particularly enjoy Nintendo products and I find JRPGs to be uniformly awful.

 

[kingthrall]

@Marxie

Ive played all kinds of games and only dark souls with its embarrasing port I could not play. I actually find it funny because your one of those people who played a single game, devoted yourself to mashing the same uber combo and now can't actually adapt to any other game.

Ive played hundreds of games, my choice nothing to brag or anything but each time Ive adapted to its mechanics bar dark souls. Oh and Mark of the Betrayer sucked in general, probally the most out of place expansion for NWN2 on the verge of some final fantasy crud right there.

Seems to me your just incapable of playing games these days and the proof lies in your 12 year gap between modern games and the one's you listed when you replied to Phoenixmgs

@Zhukov, fair enough and at least thats one more similarity.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The Technology behind the C-Con is Soviet in origin. That is correct. But it was built by a *private group* and uses 21st century advancements.

Still - if you think that SBU must have Gauss gun schematics, they should also have the C-Con and all the other fucked up cutting edge. And they don't, because nobody without a very high clearance (i.e. - not from within the Labs themselves or Kremlin) even knew about their existence, and whatever KGB didn't evacuate in 1991-93 is now beyond reach of anyone but a few skilled stalkes.

How about this, you are both right? The Group [http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Group] responsible for all the weird research in the Zone are implied to have been unaffiliated by any particular nation, Russia is never directly or indirectly said to have been helping them. Ukraine, in fact, is outright said to have investigated what happened in the Exclusion Zone but made no actions to stop the Group. Ukraine is also said to have funneled funds into the Agropom Research Facility [http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Agroprom_Research_Institute] that was a front for the Group.

The entire development was made by the Labs in the times of the Union - see experimental facility near the Iron Forest. The only remaining problem that made a functional individual Gauss impossible was the power source. That's the single advancement in it's design from those times - it uses parts of Flash artifacts for that, and this is just some field jury-rigging using materials unavailable to military. Well, that and optics/ergonomics/other unimportant shit. The schematics of the rifle itself are Soviet and secret, the power-source is jury-rigged by a few educated stalkers in the Zone. Just where do Spetsnaz and SBU fit here?

This is speculation. The research on Objekt 62 [http://stalker.wikia.com/wiki/Gauss_gun] ended in 2004 due primarily to the lack of a power source, and we know that the USSR started the research but we don't know how far the research had gotten before the USSR collapsed and how much was done in secret by the Group afterwards.

As fun as it is to watch this pissing contest between you and Charcharo, Zhukov made a thread about the Witcher 3 and it should probably remain as such, instead of a discussion on the minutiae of STALKER lore.

 

[kingthrall]

I actually find it funny because your one of those people

SNIP TLTR

For the record I refuse to even talk about stalker because you are hijacking or otherwise elaborating too much on irrelivant material to the witcher 3, make your own topic if you care so much about it.

Keep quoting me on petty grammar errors for all I care, you clearly have no further subject material to talk about on the witcher 3. I can tell you now that most of the main storyline has quite a lot of references to the book, and a refreshing and suprising social relations between Geralt and his fellow witchers with all the same personality clashes as in the books.

Also your whole argument about having a "good story" is subjective not to mention tiresome because if you had read the books (clearly you did not) the main two are a bunch of short stories and that the Witcher is a traveler with traveling stories not some epic saga like baldurs gate where you are the chosen one. Essentially they are telling adventureing or to put it plainer mermorable work stories.]

snes killer instinct is the only fighting game, I play, some are actually quite fun if you have friends playing on the other side :O.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

There's something about Witcher mutations and/or training "stripping them of humanity and emotion" or whatnot, but that doesn't jive either since Geralt, inexpressive though he may be, pretty clearly feels emotions and shit.

While other people have addressed in general the "world hates them" part (and believe me, Sapkowski might not be too preachy, but he's way from subtle with social commentary), I wanted to focus specifically on the "emotions" bit.

So in the books, witchers are supposed to be stripped of emotions, with Geralt being unusual in that he retained his. But all you really get out of that is that he occasionally gets really emo about how he's an "unthinking golem" and how everyone hates him for that. One of the stories has him getting really passive-aggressive when he meets Yennefer after their breakup and constantly whines about how she must consider him an object to be used.

The problem is that when other witchers are shown, they seem to be as capable of feeling emotions as Geralt is. The books are really blurry about that. Well, one thing is that Geralt is the only witcher who seems to be interested in sex. But that's about it.

ANYWAY.

I wanted to ask people, how does the English dialogue in the game look in terms of real-world references? Because one reason the series is so popular in Poland is that, aside from obvious things like the Grimm fairy tales parodies, it's also chock full of references to Polish pop culture and politics. I always wondered how that translates to other languages.

 

[Zhukov]

ANYWAY.

I wanted to ask people, how does the English dialogue in the game look in terms of real-world references? Because one reason the series is so popular in Poland is that, aside from obvious things like the Grimm fairy tales parodies, it's also chock full of references to Polish pop culture and politics. I always wondered how that translates to other languages.

So far I've encountered one Lord of the Rings reference and one Pulp Fiction quote. Both in incidental/ambient NPC dialogue. That's it.

Of course it's possible that there were others that I either missed or did not recognize.

 

[Silverbeard]

The surrogate daughter is heir to the throne of Nilfgaard

That part is really unclear. Blood lineage doesn't matter much in the Nilfgaardian succession... until it suddenly DOES! I can only attribute that to bad writing.

I saw that as a bit of a fascinating turn, actually. All the previous games have been casting Emhyr as an omniscient badass who Dances on the Graves of his Foes... but now we discover that his realm has some of the same problems as any of the northern ones. He needs an out and so goes looking or his daughter. Would Geralt and Yen even know that Ciri had returned to our dimension if Emhyr didn't need her and had not ordered his spies to look for her? Would Ciri be left alone to fight the Wild Hunt if the third invasion of the North hadn't happened?
Any game that can make me consider hypotheticals like these is a well-written one, no question.

 

[Silverbeard]

Hell, I can sum up everything you really need to know in a couple of sentances: Geralt is hired to look for his surrogate daughter, who is Super Special and being hunted by damn near everyone who knows she exists. Meanwhile the Nilfguardians (aka 'The Black Ones', aka 'The Kinda Evil Empire') are waging war on the Northern Kingdoms (aka 'The Reds', think pre-unification Germanic states) and shit is getting messy.

One quick addition to your couple on sentences: The surrogate daughter is heir to the throne of Nilfgaard and thus has significant political value to those in the know about such things. And is also being chased by intergalactic slavers who can warp anywhere they wish and freeze the earth whenever they feel like it.

Like I said, Super Special and is being hunted by alomst everyone who knows she exists.

Intergalactic slavers add a new dimension to the chase, I feel. One that deserves special mention.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

ANYWAY.

I wanted to ask people, how does the English dialogue in the game look in terms of real-world references? Because one reason the series is so popular in Poland is that, aside from obvious things like the Grimm fairy tales parodies, it's also chock full of references to Polish pop culture and politics. I always wondered how that translates to other languages.

So far I've encountered one Lord of the Rings reference and one Pulp Fiction quote. Both in incidental/ambient NPC dialogue. That's it.

Of course it's possible that there were others that I either missed or did not recognize.

I've seen references to a lot of things, from the obvious fact that the Necronomicon is a book in the game, to quests named after other games, a specific reference to Snatch (the Guy Ritchie movie) in Novigrad when one of the boxers you have to fight for the boxing sidequest is Georgious Georg and a bunch of others. So yeah, for those that look there are definitely a bunch of references. Perhaps not Skyrim level, which I'd argue is a good thing.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

ANYWAY.

I wanted to ask people, how does the English dialogue in the game look in terms of real-world references? Because one reason the series is so popular in Poland is that, aside from obvious things like the Grimm fairy tales parodies, it's also chock full of references to Polish pop culture and politics. I always wondered how that translates to other languages.

So far I've encountered one Lord of the Rings reference and one Pulp Fiction quote. Both in incidental/ambient NPC dialogue. That's it.

Of course it's possible that there were others that I either missed or did not recognize.

Anymore people shouting Jeysus Chroist! whenever you draw a sword in a public area? I thought that was hilarious considering christianity doesn't exactly exist in the Witcher world.

 

[EternallyBored]

ANYWAY.

I wanted to ask people, how does the English dialogue in the game look in terms of real-world references? Because one reason the series is so popular in Poland is that, aside from obvious things like the Grimm fairy tales parodies, it's also chock full of references to Polish pop culture and politics. I always wondered how that translates to other languages.

So far I've encountered one Lord of the Rings reference and one Pulp Fiction quote. Both in incidental/ambient NPC dialogue. That's it.

Of course it's possible that there were others that I either missed or did not recognize.

I've seen references to a lot of things, from the obvious fact that the Necronomicon is a book in the game, to quests named after other games, a specific reference to Snatch (the Guy Ritchie movie) in Novigrad when one of the boxers you have to fight for the boxing sidequest is Georgious Georg and a bunch of others. So yeah, for those that look there are definitely a bunch of references. Perhaps not Skyrim level, which I'd argue is a good thing.

One of the other boxing quests contains a fight club reference when you fight an elf named durdin who is also a tailor, I remember thinking it was odd that they kept calling him the tailor until I put the two together and realized he was durdin the tailor, tailor durdin, Tyler durden.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

What matters to me in these "how good a medium is" discussions is really the average. That is what I have been arguing since post 1.

Lets agree to disagree. I dont see TV's best holding a candle to what Literature can offer right now. And I dont see both being all that great...

But it seems you have different view of things. That and you believe in "objectivity" in an art form.

It's impossible to know the average unless you're a critic that reviews just about every work in your medium. Whether it's games, movies, etc., I only try to experience the works that I feel have a good shot at being good. I'm not going to see a movie that I think looks bad or even average just to get a sense of what is indeed average for movies. It's impossible for pretty much anybody to know the quality of the average work in any medium. I know TV has gotten immensely better just due to the fact that pretty much every show before the 90s is basically unwatchable for me (even the so-called good ones).

I don't believe there's objectivity in art, I don't know where the fuck you got that from.

The writing quality just isn't there in gaming at all, it's not even close.

Planescape:Torment? Mask of the Betrayer? Arcanum? VtM: Bloodlines? 7th Guest? Ring any bells?

There's barely any competent writers in the video game industry and it shows immensely

>who is Chris Avellone?

I played Xenosaga, Nier, a couple Final Fantasies

Give me the name of the man who advertised you these as games with good writing so I can kill him and desecrate his cold dead body.

-All those games are rather old. I didn't say there's no well-written games ever. Each generation, I only ever feel a small handful of games actually do have good writing whereas there's lots of movies with great writing each year. A dev like Platinum actually has some of the better writing because they know what they can do, and what they can do is write terrifically cheesy B-movie dialogue and stories. Vanquish instead of being all serious like other futuristic shooters (and failing) was basically Red Dawn in space with Russian robots. Even a dev like Naughty Dog puts out horrible scripts like say Uncharted 3 where the story made no coherent sense and the characters were horribly inconsistent.

-So there's one good writer in the medium? Not surprised he's from Obsidian as they are one of the very few devs that have competent to good writing.

-Xenosaga might've started off good, I don't even remember. But, by the end, the story was just average at best, probably shitty (it's been awhile). The worst thing was the convolutedness of it all; every person, planet, etc. had at least 3 different names. I actually liked the 2nd game the most whereas that's the most hated one.

I saw so much praise on message boards about Nier's story that I had to give it a try. I even recall skimming through a thread where Nier fans said Naughty Dog ripped off Nier's story in The Last of Us.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/960449-nier/59454377

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I do not know if it is a reference to him looking and sounding a little like solid snake, but if you let Geralt taste somebody's dumpling (tee hee), he even says "mmm tasty!" Im going to assume it is for now.

There are many well placed sarcastic remarks...
Favourite sarcastic Geralt quote so far :"Oh joy. A riddle." (i know, it's really in the timing, context and execution, which cannot be portrayed by these words)
Quite a nice underlay of humour throughout the quests and characters too. It contrasts well with the grim, war torn environment and story. That is all.