Given that it went through at minimum two reboots (the ones Lintian mentioned) it appears to have been exactly that.
So much wasted dev hours and output on not having a coherent vision from the start and someone empowered to see it through.
They fell victim to it with Anthem as well (the flight - the selling point - only coalesced as a thing because an EA exec mentioned liking it in a vertical slice they saw), but apparently the bigwigs didn’t learn the lesson from that.
Its raining.
Nromally i wouldn’t mind, but i got to go out to the tooth fairy (AKA MaxFax appointment)
Imagine if it worked and was respected, user integrity protected and pigs flew in majestic formations in the evening skies.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOBFNKDWMAA2vg2?format=png&name=small
You know how sometimes you’ll see oddly specific signs up in places (especially toilets) warning people not to do a thing, and you just know its there because someone did the thing?
is one of those signs.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/law-4
— Laws are everything that’s borderline: all the stuff humans ought to do but won’t, and all the stuff that humans shouldn’t do but will.
— So laws are a kind of litany of human shames.
— If aliens come, they’re the first thing we should hide.
Don’t you love it how it’s never the execs who lose their job over stuff like this?
Booting out the devs for the franchise that made you money before taking a paycut.
I think upper positions in a company should come with a “has years of experience in relevant job sector as a worker”
And it can’t be in finances or smth like that. You gotta do actual gamedev for games. Walk the walk n stuff.
Consider also who wrote the law and why they did so.
I recently ended up re-playing Thronebreaker: The Witcher tales.
For those not in the know, originally intended as a single-player version of GWENT, it eventually ended up big enough, that CD Projekt Red made it it’s own game. Through building your own deck ( within reason) you solve battles and puzzles as you traverse the witcher world.
Story-wise you take on the role of Queen Meve of the joint kingdoms Lyria and Rivia who after returning from the infamous meeting at Hagge ( where they planned to murder Ciri and sought to provoke Nilfgaard) suddenly finds herself confronted with a Nilfgaardian invasion. ( A change from the books where, as mentioned, Lyria and Aedirn actually provoked Nilfgaard, though the latter was merely waiting for an excuse and already had troops at the border raring to go.)
And honestly, I just love the game for giving us a story in the universe that is not about Geralt ( though he makes a small cameo), and similarly allows us to visit locations that we’ve not seen in either the books or the games. I wish we’d see more of that, as much as I love our favourite witcher Geraldo.
I also love the fact that they managed to make a character who was pretty much a side-character in the books, and didn’t show up in the games at all, into a main character. Her voice actress also kills it.
Makes me wonder what the upcoming game is going to be about, given that they said Wild Hunt concluded Geralt’s story.
I love Meve, she knighted Geralt (it’s why he’s Geralt of Rivia) and it took very little time to go from that to ‘Meve curses your name every time she hears it’
Desertion will do that! ( Even if it was for a just cause).
And well, he already called himself Geralt of Rivia, she just accidentally made it official ( Given that she hadn’t heard of him yet as she asks him who he is.)
yo these antiobiotics are messing me up something fierce
this is a first for me. usually i win
Having Ciri as a protagonist could be fun. Or generally just a Witcher game from a woman’s perspective I feel. It could help potentially move away from some of the more…bad stuff that the Witcher absolutely suffers from(I still really like Wild Hunt and the DLCs. Not played the others).
Do elaborate on the bad stuff?
As for having Ciri for the protagonist, it’d indeed be fun , especially if they can get the same actress to voice her again, but I’m wondering if she’s not a little too powerful, seeing as she can literally move through time and to other worlds and dimensions.
As for having a woman as the protagonist for a change, I don’t mind aslong as the story is good, like it was with Meve in Thronebreaker.
Personally I wouldn’t mind a story about Vesemir’s early days as a Witcher, when they were at their height, when monsters were still far more prevalent in the world, and before Kaer Morhen got destroyed.
Mainly that the series and setting as a whole doesn’t really have great portrayals of women. It falls rather hard into the “women in fridges” stereotype, but fantasy. And the “To show how serious and gritty this is of a setting, we will just have lots of stories about women being mistreated and abused. Look how dark it is!”.
Having properly played through Wild Hunt and the DLCs a couple of times now, it is alot better at this but it still has what I would personally say is rather awkward writing & portrayal for alot of women npcs and characters. Some stand-outs immediatly I would say are probably Ves and that Skellige Woman who immediately wishes to bang Geralt losing her sword duel because of some promise she made to herself.
Even when stuff isn’t directly bad, it is often filled with rather boring stereotypes. And it would be nice to see that be less prevalent or written from another perspective. Even characters I really like such as Cerys and Yennefer have some issues I feel.
Vesemir could be a really fun game too. I would like to see that!
You should’ve seen Geralt during the first two games, especially one. Man was out of control there ( even if they just showed you a card and that was it) to the point it just became meme-worthy.
As for the series as a whole, I noticed women being mistreated, but, I was always under the impression that it was pretty equal in those terms. Or maybe I just looked at different things, like the WW2 paralells that Sapkowski put in.
Ves seemed a bit different from her Witcher 2 portrayal but granted, some years have passed. Skellige I honestly just chalked up to them just being a weird bunch overal when it comes to honor. I do agree I liked Cerys alot aswell, I often tended to pick her seeing as she seemed better for Skellige long-term. Hjalmar was just a continuation of the old culture of raiding, but that way of thinking was honestly just waiting until Nilfgaard decided “Alright I’ve had enough of these hobos raiding my damn shores all the time.”
There’s ofcourse also Svanrige but, who’s going to skip out on two major questlines in Skellige just so they can have him on the throne unless they’re speedrunning? Aswell as letting Cerys and Hjalmar die ( they die during raids on the Nilfgaardians).
Hjalmar is fun, and I like that he immediately jumps to help you, but he is also what I would consider “Chaotic stupid”.
As are many Skellige folk.
I do feel really bad for him. He is absolutely horrified by Birna’s actions and straight up rejects her. He also speaks up the second he has actual doubts. He seems like a good guy.
But it also further shows why Skellige desperately needs to change. Tradition is one thing, but alot of their traditions are A) Flat out stupid and makes no sense, including Svanrige’s fate. And B) They cling onto it to a degree that is even dumber than some of the traditions.
Man even delivers the final bit of evidence of what his mother was doing, wasn’t even complicit in her plot, still gets exiled if Hjalmar or Cerys becomes ruler.
Yup.
Yeah. Birna’s fate seems fitting for a savage and very traditional tribal nation. It’s cruel but also befitting of her own cruelty.
Svanrige getting punished for absolutely no reason is just direct proof that Skellige is dumb. If anything it should have shown that he was absolutely fit to be Jarl atleast if they had to strike him from rulership candidate.
I know its pedantic but this is actually just pretty accurate to Humans and tradition as a whole. Every Human society on Earth has several traditions that we now with our blessed 2024 hindsight go, “Huh that was incredibly bad/stupid” when looking at. It’s deeply Human to cling to a tradition/social institution/status-quo just because “that’s how it is”.
You’re not wrong.