Okay so this started off as a small paragraph, but has since ballooned into something of a blog post. To be honest, I know that when I come across such posts I will largely gloss over them and move on, but if you have time and/or inclination to do, I would really appreciate it if you read what I have written and leave a comment as to what you think. If not then I'll get over it. I have written blogs before with zero responses so I'll be a big boy and not let it damage my ego too much.

Cheers

Rob

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So I woke up this Saturday morning full of beans. The football (soccer) season was starting up again and for once my weekend was completely free of obligations. Great I thought, I'll boot up my PS4, get a few matches of Rocket League in, get through a few races in Project Cars and then dedicate a solid six or so hours into the Witcher. I live in Ireland and so therefore can avoid the guilt of not doing more wholesome outdoor activities instead. Sounds perfect.

And Rocket League and Project Cars were just that. I got exactly what I wanted out of those two games... Fun.

BUT then I loaded up The Witcher...

Not but five minutes in I found my eyes gazing over at what my partner was reading on her computer (recipes for some kind of healthy smoothie)...

On screen Geralt was talking to some fat cockney about a bard named Dandelion... I had apparently wronged the Cockney somehow and he was a bit put out by it.

I tried to focus to try and get myself back in the game, but try as I might, my partner's screen kept drawing me back.

So what was the issue? Was it that my mood just was't suited to playing a fantasy style RPG on this Saturday afternoon? Was it that I just really fancied a smoothie made out of oats and kale? Or was is that I was just bored of the Witcher?

Well the truth is it was none of these.

It's true I was bored, but I don't think it was the Witcher itself that I was bored by.

The Witcher is a beautiful looking game and I've had a lot of fun riding around its world exploring its various nooks and crannies. But over the course of my play time I have become increasingly dis-attached from the central story of the game and therefore from Geralt.

I have thought long and hard about why this is the case, and I think I have managed to work out why.

It would be too easy to simply dismiss the story-telling as below par as I have certainly given games with similar or even more poorly written narratives a free-ride in the past. Sure, The Witcher isn't Dickens, but I think that bar a few exceptions we generally set lower bars for video games than we do for other narrative mediums.

What I think is really the issue with The Witcher is the disconnect between player, a third-person Geralt and a quest-based mission structure.

CD Project have clearly put a lot of thought into their side and sub quests and for the most part have done so to good effect. However, by offering the player these secondary quests (including Witcher contracts) I feel that they have inadvertently diluted the flow of the game's main through-line.

In a first-person game, such as say Fallout or Skyrim, this effect is largely mitigated by the perspective (and therefore by its immediacy). How you choose to tackle the game is on you. You created your character and you essentially inhabit that world as your own digital avatar. What you do is your decision. Don't want to chase that dragon? Don't want to hunt after your missing father? Don't worry about it. There's plenty of caves and vaults for you to explore instead.

But change that perspective to an authored figure and that camera to an over the shoulder one, and cracks in the structure begin to appear.

Geralt does not suffer fools gladly and pays short shrift to time-wasters. He has a girl to find after all. Sure, he may be willing to run errands for people, but this is always agreed to through gritted teeth and with the express purpose of receiving important information in return for performing this deed.

So then, why does he stop every 100 metres to help all and sundry with menial fetch quests and their provincial murder/werewolf mysteries? It's not like he needs the money. The main quest line offers plenty of moolah, and if financing is required in the short term then I'm sure there are some corpses he could pilfer a few florens from.

We know the reason. It's because we, as consumers, demand that this beautiful world be more than just an empty shell. We demand that we be paid recompense for spending the past 30 minutes trekking through dense swamp and vegetation to the furthest reaches of the map. We want there to be a reason for us to get there other than simply the achievement of doing so. We quest for those question marks.

But then, don't you have to find this girl before those ghost pirates do? Perhaps they're off busy helping some old hag in the fields also? Perhaps...

You see, for me, the nature of the authored narrative in this game, and also the nature of the third person perspective, becomes redundant once you've spent more than five minutes away from it. How could it not when you've spent 60+ hours diving for treasure and no more than 10 on the very thing you've been placed in this world to do?

But this doesn't have to be the case. For an example of how to maintain narrative interest in a third person game look at The Last of Us. Joel and Ellie's adventure keeps you engaged not because of the game's mechanics, but because it is mature and confident enough to stick to its core story. Would the game have been so effective if you were given the freedom to do side quests for the Fireflies? almost certainly not. The authors knew they had a good story to tell and they ran with it.

Now I know comparing The Last of us and The Witcher may seem unfair as they are on the surface completely different games, but when it comes down to it they both share an authored core and both want desperately to tell a story that is affecting and, for want of a better word, mature.

Why could The Witcher not enforce a playthrough of its main story with no diversions before then opening up the world for the secondary stuff? Give the main quest the structure it deserves. I know this would entail lots of artificial borders as to where you could and couldn't go in the world, but if the narrative imperative was strong enough then I'm sure such restrictions could be justified within its own fiction.

As it stands, I feel like I will struggle to re-involve myself back in The Witcher's world in any meaningful way because, quite simply, I have lost my way within its structure. This is extremely sad because clearly the game stands up on so many other levels. It just happens to have drowned itself in its own substance.

What do you guys think? Do you think examples like GTA show that you can overcome this issue of third person open world frolicking with a strong through narrative, or are these two aspects destined to forever battle it out for dominance of the player's attention? I'd be keen to hear what you have to say.

I thought the same thing regarding the story. There is so much to do, and the urgency of finding Ciri made the pacing feel all out of whack. I'm not sure how far you are, but there comes a point where it feels much more natural to go around and do the various side quests. The dialog and resolution of some side quests actually make a lot more sense if you do them after reaching that point. On my second playthrough my plan is to mainline the main quest as much as possible up until that point, and then start to do more of the side quests just to see if it makes the game feel any different. I'm guessing that it will improve the pacing quite a bit.

The perspective isn't something I thought about in regards to the pacing. It definitely has an effect on the gameplay though. I keep thinking about the Elder Scrolls games and how their gameplay mechanics are limited by the first person perspective. Games like The Witcher, Dragon's Dogma, and even The Elder Scrolls Online to some extent, have such a better combat system because they're third person games.

@bane:

Hmm by the sounds of it I haven't quite reached that far in. But to be honest I think the momentum has gone out of for me now. We'll see.

I take your point about the combat in third person games being (in general) better in third person, but I think from a purely narrative standpoint the game fares worse when structured with a mission based style like in The Witcher.

@kmfrob: It's a fair point, but I think being Geralt actually makes the side quest structure make more sense. In Skyrim you can define your character as you will, but you don't have any profession until you give it to yourself. You decide to be a mage or a mercenary or a hero or a villain, yeah? And all that freedom makes your character potentially feel unfocused and wandering, or even worst opportunistic, like you exist to fill boxes rather than for some clearer purpose.

Geralt has a goddamn job. He was made into a witcher, and that means he kills monsters and gets paid. Everything else you can choose to do, or Geralt is forced to do by circumstances, or chooses to do for others' sake--all of that has this air of "ugh, fine, I'll help" to it that is really refreshing. Geralt just wants to wander the land, hunt down monsters, be with Ciri, have a significant other, and relax. But stuff keeps interfering. I really like how he is a defined character who does often seem annoyed with menial tasks. And most of the quests in the game give some more interesting context and reasoning, so they make it more than just filler.

It's a different kind of playing for me, one where I'm embodying a more set role and able to make choices within its context rather than being free to be and do anything. It's different, and I like what the game did with it.

@kierkegaard: Sure, I see your point in terms of the role playing of the game, but I don't know if the writing reflects that aspect quite enough. The truth is that you could choose not to do any side quest and you would not struggle for money or anything. You do the side quests because your drawn to them. But my point is that in doing so, the imperative is taken away from the main task of finding Ciri.

I do agree that the side quests do provide some interesting context to the world and are generally pretty interesting, but I just would prefer to do them after the main story is over. I know I can do it that way if I chose to do so, but the question marks are just so alluring!

It's a totally weird issue for a game, right? No other medium has to worry about giving the experiencer too much to do or see. I guess it's impressive that no content in the game is counter to Geralt's character--he's never doing inane, pointless, or evil things--so there's that. But yeah, it puts the onus on us to decide whether Geralt would pursue this thing or not. Experience always seems like a metaphor for, well, experience, so Geralt does benefit from learning more about the world and doing more quests because he becomes better able to make big decisions and fight bad ass monsters. I mean, there's a logic to it of sorts. But I still totally get you. Just don't see it as a major design problem in this game in particular.