Polygon's open-letter to BioWare regarding their open-world-like games.

Yeah that is a better comparison. That Priscilla performance is just one cut scene, she doesn't perform different songs there every time you go or anything it's just one event in the game so it's not fair to say she is better than the Skyhold bard, she's a performer sure but her purpose in the game is not to just be in a tavern and sing songs. 

Tho personally I thought the dawn will come scene was a bit out of nowhere and the transition to Skyhold in general didn't work for me, it seemed to be style over substance but it was still a very well made set of cut scenes. 

Women were, at least in the Elizabethan theatre tradition, not allowed on stage until the mid-1600s. That was the whole friggin' plot of Shakespeare in Love.

I thought the big reason why the Witcher can't have non-whites is because "historical accuracy, man." What kind of pseudo-medieval bullshit is this?

What historical accuracy? The Witcher 3 isn't set on Earth.

Besides even in Earth's history women haven't always been barred from the stage. The ancient Romans had female actors, for instance. Women started to appear on stage again in Europe during the 1600s, a period the Witcher also draws some inspiration from.

You can be a fan of Bioware's games you know, without having a kneejerk negative reaction anytime the Witcher is mentioned.

That was my point.

CD Projekt Red brought the hubs to life through quests that were woven into the city's life. Bioware did not have similar content with Skyhold, Val Royeux, or the Nexus, and consequently all three locations were largely dull and lifeless in comparison.

You won't be able to get them to see from this point of view. The reason why that song and cutscene went above and beyond.

It was the story of a witch who used a wish to make a witcher fall in love with her. She then couldn't be sure if it was true love or just the spell at work.

As we know this story is more than just legend it is after all Geralts tale. When you first hear it as a fan it grips you emotionally as it does Geralt.

It was the same thing with the moment you catch up to Ciri. It was heart breaking and you felt what Geralt felt.

Things and people felt alive and this lacks alot in Bioware games. This is the point he is trying to get across. It would be in their interest to look at how and why these things work. Instead of quantity look at the quality and how to forge these bonds of player and character.

Sure I agree with that, this is basically just the fact that the Witcher 3 used it's main hubs for the plot and Inquition did not. The story was mostly told in story specific areas and I agree that was crap and made the world feel even more useless and empty. 

I just don't see the issue with side characters like Maryden, that character worked pretty well. She sang songs about the characters and the world, this made the tavern in Skyhold a lot more interesting. It's a shame the Witcher did not have a bard like this in one of the taverns, or more performances from Priscilla and Dandelion. 

I actually disagree with Skyhold, there is all kinds of flavor content there some of it tied into the main plot some of it not but Bioware decided to use Val Royaux for very little so there isn't much there. An example of The Witcher 3 doing the same thing would be Vizima, only a small section of the plot happens there so it's just a small area with not much in it. 

So sure over all the Witcher 3 used it's world A LOT better but I still think your specific examples are bad. 

I swear, reading some of the posts on the last two pages gave me an INT debuff.

Hopefully it's only tempo... temp... goes away.

All people were saying was Poland is like almost entirely white people, like idk possibly less than 1 percent of people in Poland are not white and the Witcher 3 is based mostly on polish mythology so yes "slavic mythology"...so it reflects their culture and their people, why shouldn't it? I don't think people were saying there can't be non white people in the game, There are some in the hearts of stone dlc but there are not very many "people of colour" in the lands that the game is set in based on the lore from the books. Sure there are a few and they could have been in the main game but they weren't and that is a problem because why? Europe is not America, a lot of the oppression that went on in Poland was not based on skin colour, this is Americans expecting other countries to change their media to reflect America and address American issues. 

Shut up bigot.


jk

Guys, let's not get this threat locked, mmkay?

Open World has its good points. It can also have downsides.
Linear has its good points. It also has downsides.

Bioware needs to find a balance between their semi-open-world butthair and excessively linear dungeons.

We know they can do this, because they have done it before (Jade Empire, parts of DA:I).

ME:A to me, kind of managed to pull the worst of both worlds--large open spaces with nothing interesting to do other than head-scratchinger fetch quests, combined with a few small linear dungeons (I really liked Liam's mission and the asari ark, but the turian ark was ridiculous).

Add in a butt-ton of auto-dialogue, and that Character Creator, and the unskippable cutscenes, plus the numerous game-breaking bugs, and well, this is why people are underwhelmed.

The witcher 3 has the benefit of having one set character, there is no gender choice there aren't as many dialogue choices either really so that is going to result in less restraints on the story. Then again the original Mass Effect trilogy is loved, they have their issues and a lot of that is to do with choices and lack of dialogue options but the games (other than ME3's ending) still turned out really good.

This doesn't excuse everything though. DA:I and ME:A have so many half baked ideas, the Witcher 3 has very few it has it's issues but it's obvious CDPR tried their best to make the best game they possibly could.

I do think there are just some things Bioware and CDPR do differently though and that this shouldn't change. I did end up liking Geralt eventually, quite a bit in fact but he is also the reason I didn't ever play a Witcher game until last year. He's not exactly portrayed as the amazing character he really is, you really have to get to know him to see that. I like to create my own character in an RPG, i'm only going to play as a set character if they are a really good character and Geralt is but it takes time with him to realise that. I am just lucky friends talked me into picking up the Witcher 3 and now I am starting to play the first two games.

Bioware games have always given far more roleplaying options though and the more of that they lose the less I like their games. So i don't want Bioware games to become exactly like the witcher but they can still learn a lot from CDPR.

Well I'm not a Witcher fan either. From what I've seen, it's just not my cup of tea (sorry, I just can't play as an old white guy). But I usually just *don't* mention it or compare anything to it, and people leave me alone