My opinion on the game, six month later ...

I would prefer more shorter titles released, with less budgets put into each, so everyone can find what they like each year on a shelf. One game in a year is not that much to ask, imo, and honestly, I don't see anything new in "create your own character and adventure!" in 2018. Really, I am crazy happy Andromeda made it out of the doors... I will be down to isometric projection next, I fear.

That would be shitfest royal meets bugfest divine. Next to no effort, time and money put into something usually results in disaster.

I could careless where the source material comes from. I just want fun and enjoyable games.

And what does the source material have to do with open world quality and side quest design/quality?

yep, English is still the best

CDPR didn't establish witchers as "nearly emotionless" characters. The author, Andrzej Sapkowski, did so 23 years ago. Geralt continuously proves throughout his adventures, both in the stories and the games, that the people of his world grossly over-simplify witchers. He's a very deep person, equipped with a full range of human emotions.

It's a matter of taste, certainly, but I think Geralt's NA English VA does an excellent job. He's perfect for the role. I've never understood the complaints about his performance. I assume it's frequently a matter of people looking for something to complain about in connection with a game they are tired of hearing praised. That's not a shot at anyone in this thread, in which I've just arrived. It's simply the feeling I get; especially on the BSN forums.


I've just returned to MEA after completing four very completionist PTs immediately following release. I am not liking all of the changes made via patches 1.07-1.10. I feel like they've messed up several things, needlessly. I hope I can get into the story, again. I've created another pair of twins that look great and will hopefully anchor me in the world. We'll see, I guess. I really liked MEA, initially; but time away from it gave me a chance to ponder many of its shortcomings. I'm curious to see how much I enjoy it now. I've played the OT so many times it's insane. I'll likely never do so with MEA, based upon its length alone. It's not only the length of the game, though. It simply doesn't hook me the way the OT did. I also don't expect we'll ever see the story finished, which is a major joy-kill.

The best part is, he isn't even supposed to be emotionless. He might be hardened by what he endured and by how he lived so he shows it less, but he can be grumpy, he can feel joy, love, he can be afraid, hell, he can even be awkward. I can't comment on how well that is portrayed within the game as I haven't played it yet, but claims that he is supposed to be emotionless are, pardon my martian, bullshite.

You played a much better game, naturally you would get used to much higher standards, that's why MEA doesn't measure up to it.

I've only progressed as far as Eos, but I have three gripes. That's not to say the patches didn't do some good, also. They certainly did. It's also worth noting that two months away from the game exacerbate my perception of the flaws. I might perceive them a bit more critically now than I did on May 27 (the date I finished my last PT).

I play the game in UHD+HDR10. The facial textures and overall lighting has seemingly degraded more than once since patch 1.05. I believe it was with 1.06 that I noticed the substantial drop in quality. Faces lost their lifelike textures and imperfections. The crisp, lifelike lighting was muddied with needless, unnatural flares and halos. The best way I can describe the latter is by referencing the OT. Shepard and NPCs often had cinematic conversations dominated by terrible lighting effects. Lights would shine from odd angles, or even through characters. It's not quite that bad in MEA, but 1.06 introduced unneeded halos and flares. The lighting was previously very clean and lifelike. I assume these changes were made to improve the look of the game with more common equipment (HD and no HDR). I can't fathom any other reason for muddying the waters in such a fashion.

Lip-syncing has been horrific in the early game. The actual animations of the lips seem to be pretty good. I can easily lip-read the words the characters are saying. I'm not sure if this was always the case, or if work was done. (Such things are oft not noteworthy unless they're badly done.) The voices, unfortunately, lag significantly behind the visuals. It is jarring and completely immersion-breaking. I do wonder if the game is performing some of its excessive autosaves during such cinematics. Autosave points cause other types of lag, in my experience, so I couldn't help but think of this.

This one will seem petty, but it's a symptom of a wider issue. I loaded a NG+ Ryder, and found my beautiful X5 Ghost is now a dull, lifeless gray. A trip to the armory revealed that the stock mod is responsible for ruining the Ghost's previously beautiful aesthetic. I have no idea who thought stocks should start recoloring entire weapons, but it's silly. In general, ME has featured some really cool weapon aesthetics over the years. In MEA, I find that these great looks are often marred by mod-based color swaps. Rarely do the color swaps even make sense. I am bummed to find my favorite item, a very well designed gun, rendered so drab by a strange update to mods.

There is one more undesirable issue I've encountered, but I'm very drowsy and drawing a blank.

I appreciate the CC changes implemented in 1.06. This is the first PT in which I was able to swap facial textures and hairstyles so freely, and it resulted in a pair of twins I really like. I used the "new" face to create a great non-white Scott, thanks to those texture options. I'm encountering NPCs with redesigned faces (I'm looking at you, Clancy. I knew you when you were a white dude with slightly mismatched hair and brows.) I don't have strong feelings in either direction, regarding these NPC updates. They are definitely surprising when first encountered. I haven't noticed too many other differences, yet. The game seemed a bit easier than I remembered (which is saying something), when I began a level-1 Insanity PT. I wondered if numbers had been tweaked, yet again.

I think colors should be completely within the players' control.

I loved the stark white Ghost. The design really set it apart. More importantly, it matches well with the white/blue Ai color scheme I always use. If I were using gray or black armor, I'd definitely be tempted to switch the color, were that an option.

At least it's not the eyesore my red N7 Piranha is. (Thanks, ammo capacity mod.) If they wanted to patch something in this regard, I'd have preferred that they just nix any non-structural visual effects of mods. They're silly variations for the sake of variation.

The audience, and Geralt's friends, know he isn't emotionless. However, the rest of humanity? It's a stereotype that witchers have no emotions. Oftentimes to stay out of trouble and remain neutral, Geralt will "play the part," so to speak. He's by far from being an emotionless protagonist, and he actually is one of the most human characters in the trilogy of games. It really depends on the situation, as Geralt will act a certain way given the circumstances. He tends to like using the prejudice of others to his advantage.

Ha that reminds me of the character model differences on KOTOR. Xbox vs pc tons of characters are changed.

This isn't just about the consumer. Shareholders and corporate management would also benefit from quality over quantity. Look at The Force Awakens, as an example. The movie made almost a billion dollars domestically in North America. The best big box office films are lucky if they make a billion dollars worldwide (including North America). It's just a proven fact that if you provide people with a really great product, they will buy it. However, if you consistently provide people with more of the same, then less and less are likely to buy it.

Unlike film, however, game development is a much longer process. The entire process, from pre-production to editing, can take at most a year. Whereas with video games, the entire process can be anywhere from two years, to more than a decade. Making video games is hard, and I'd rather AAA developers take their time to get them right, rather than rush them out the door and give us a half-baked experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Grand Theft Auto V are just a handful of game that were in development for at least four years. All of these games were not only critically-acclaimed, but financial successes. There definitely is merit to taking your time to make an ambitious game, rather than just churning out as many experiences every year as you can.