Witcher 3-Part 3 ( Expansion Edition)

Interviewer: How people responded to Hearts of Stone expansion?
Konrad: Very well, you know. There was a lot of praise, especially for the story. It was very Polish, due to being inspired by Stanisław Wyspiański’s “Wedding” and “Pan Tadeusz” among others, and people found it really awesome. Some of them were complaining that it was still set in the same, old location, but now we have a new, huge one. When I last talked with our lead level designer, he compared it to the size of Novigrad and half of Velen combined.

The new map is filled with content. We prepared 40 question marks for you to discover and we filled your journal with 90 different quests. I know we promised 20 hours of gameplay, but in my opinion 30 is a proper minimum, if not more. At least in my case it was more, but I’m not going to officially promise you 40 hours, because the players who play faster then me may complain later. But I think we have much, much more content then we initially promised. It basically a full new release.

I: What is the ratio between main quests and side quests?
K: You mean how many hours… yes, when I play through the main quests only, I complete the game in 20 something hours, let’s say 22 or 24. Bigger and smaller side quests make for additional 10 hours of gameplay and you can extend it even further by discovering all the question marks.

Speaking of question marks, we approach them in a completely different way. This time they are dynamic and affect the world around you. Each of them also have a story. There are notes, books and some other stuff that tells an interesting story in every spot, which makes for a deeper RPG experience. The world is not just littered with random marks and places where you just slay the beast, then pick up the new sword. There is a story behind everything, which you can discover. That I think makes all the question marks unique.

I: The first moments of Blood and Wine showcase how your cutscenes keep getting better and better. What made it possible?
K: It’s called skills progression. The team is still the same, though it came through some inevitable changes. Taking the relatively static dialogues of The Witcher 2 to the new level in The Witcher 3 was something we always knew we had to do. We wanted to make them more dynamic, have people walking around, doing stuff.
The Witcher 2 can be divided into two clear sections: dialogues and cutscenes. The dialogues section of The Witcher 3 was made much more complex. We have a team of something like 10 people who use a very advanced tool for dialogues creation and right now they reached such a level of expertise, that you can’t tell cutscene from the dialogue anymore.
This new tool technically make the dialogues faster and easier to make. When you create cutscene, you usually make motion capture with the actors, clean it all up and then into the engine it goes. Finally you move one block and you got yourself a cutscene. In case of dialogues, the tool has already everything set up, there is an automatic lip sync for every language and scaling system, which cuts all the short and long lines in the right places to make it look good.
People who set all those dialogues up… We didn’t had much time, but they got so determined to properly set up all the dialogues, even the ones in the side quests, that we ended up with a tons of cinematic quality material.

I: Right at the start we can see that Blood and Wine has much more action then Hearts of Stone. Was it by design?
K: Change of pacing was something we wanted. We still have a tons of story in the Blood and Wine, but we altered the ratio a bit. Our intention was to make the game more dynamic, have more things going on and the story needed that, so it was easy to add.
We wanted for Hearts of Stone to start slowly, but even then you still had to face a fair share of duels, so there was a lot of going on out there as well, but in BaW everything happens with greater intensity to spice things up.

We were happy with the story of the first expansion, though we noticed that we stretched the dialogues a bit too much at the cost of the action. So we changed the ratio to make everything more interesting.

I: I’ve got an impression that something changed about the monsters movement. Am I wrong or did you put some extra work into that?
K: The AI is now completely different. Previously we were just giving all monsters a set of skills and then they used it whenever they wanted. Now we made them more difficult, they have faster animations, more skills and fighting patterns.
When you finally learn those patterns, monster becomes pretty easy to beat. I can get through those monsters without losing any health, but when someone faces them for the first time, he has no idea what’s going on. The most important thing for us was to make you learn those creatures.
New monsters keep popping up. Some of them are completely different, but the lessons you learned make you feel like not only your character is improving, but you are also improving. We always wanted to have this type of thing in the game. We didn’t had enough time to properly implement it into The Witcher 3, so the expansions serve as an evolution of this concept. Now we can do more then ever before, so we are keep trying a new things, opening a new paths for the future games.

I: This whole system kind off reminds the one from the Souls series, right?
K: Yes, kinda. It’s all about enemies patterns. There is not that much of them in the Souls series and you learn them relatively quick. In BaW we have a little more of them. What we aim to do, is making you feel that you always progressing.
That’s the cool thing about the Souls game, and I played all of them, they make you feel your progress, not just your character progress.

I: Expansion was made for a certain level character. What entry level you recommend?
K: When you choose to start Blood and Wine separately, we set the character level on 34. You can play it with this level, but it’s going to be pretty hard for you. The proper entry level I think is more like 36 or 37. Depending on your level, the progression looks a bit different, but we made sure that the game is always challenging.

I: What about the maximum level?
K: Right now the maximum level you can get is 50 something, I don’t exactly remember, but since the monsters are far more advanced, the stats are not that important. Instead you must focus on adapting to whatever you face.

I: Due to the higher level, have you added some new skills?
K: We added a new mutations system, which is something like unique perks. First, because we wanted to focus more on the mutant perspective in the game, by letting you do things that you couldn’t before. Second, because after The Witcher 3 and Hearts of Stone you have a plenty of unspent skill points.
Now those skill points and mutagens serve as a currency for which you develop the mutations. Now you can finally spend them on something, instead of hoarding them, because you already have a full stats.

I: You already announced that this is Geralt’s final adventure. Is the vineyard a symbol of that? Is Geralt finally retiring?
K: Yes, kinda. Geralt have his own home now. He got his own estate and now you choose what you going to do about it, if you’re going to live there or not, is this going to be place that you will return to. It’s cool, because before that Geralt had no place he could call his own, except for Kaer Morhen, but even then he had to share it with other witchers.
Here he own a smaller estate that he can invest into, renovate it and make it look cool. He can unlock different things which provide him with timed bonuses and make him stronger. He can expose his armors that he once kept locked in chest. Now he hangs them on the hooks. If he dyes them, they will be dyed at the display. Every time you come back you see what you have and how it all looks. There are also a special stands for your swords. In many quests you can get cool placards and paintings, depending on the quests you do. You can hang them on a walls and admire.
During some quests you will meet a people who can visit you in your home. You can invite them, help them, they even may do something for you. It’s all connected to the story. It’s a place that you can call yours. You can do with it whatever you want.

I: Are you planning any smaller expansions after Blood and Wine?
K: No. This is it. There are other projects to do. Now we must focus on Cyberpunk 2077, part of the team is needed there. There are couple more projects that we won’t talk about and we need to help with them as well. For now we say goodbye to The Witcher. We’ll see what the future will bring. Everything is in the hands of the company’s management and their policy.
I’m really glad we can move on to something else, because I worked on The Witcher for 12 years already. It’s time for something fresh.

Firenze wrote: keep putting it off and you won't go back to it

Firenze wrote:DS3 IMO, keep putting it off and you won't go back to it