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The Witcher 2Lenght or Endings(26 posts)(26 posts)
(26 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 22, 2011
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dnna: You pretty much have to play the game twice to understand the story completely, which should give you 50 hours or so. I'd say there are four very different endings (depending on whose path you take and who you decide to save in Act 3), the rest aren't really worth it unless you want to dabble into politics and see a different outcome every time.
Although i liked the replay value of this game, i do not agree with the fact that you must play the game twice to understand what the hell is going on. It adds replay value, but a game should NOT be made specifically to be replayed.

If they had've made Iorveth or Roche's chapter into a brand new chapter at the end of the game, we would've had a much longer and meatier game, and known all of the basic details. The story would've been much more interesting.

Those on the Roche path, like me, missed out on extremely interesting story elements, and were pretty much stuck with helping an asshole king. When i'm looking to make a canon Geralt, i want to know the whole story in one playthrough.

When i say whole story, i mean the absolute core story, not the little intriguing elements that most get out of a second playthrough of a game. When a game forces you down a path that basically strips you of half the story, it is not a good move.

Hopefully this isn't done again in the Witcher 3.
Posted July 22, 2011
Give me a short game where you've captured my attention 100% of the time rather than a long game where I'm bored 50% of the time.

I dare say all the people who complain about TW2 being too short don't work full time, let alone have a family (which I don't). I rarely get the chance to fully immerse myself into a game, and I was able to with TW2. If a game requires over 15 hours it's a waste in me spending my money on it (Skyrim sure looks nice but I've got no chance of enjoying it properly).
Posted July 22, 2011
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Supergibb: Although i liked the replay value of this game, i do not agree with the fact that you must play the game twice to understand what the hell is going on. It adds replay value, but a game should NOT be made specifically to be replayed.
And that's fine, some prefer to know it all on one play-through, others don't. I'm glad CDPR dared to experiment with storytelling. I personally regret not choosing Roche for the first time - by the time I went to the camp, I hated half of the characters and was so bored with everything. I think it's more interesting when you don't know everything and, once you do, you get to reflect back on your choices and question your judgement.

The Witcher universe is ultimately about ~shades of grey~ and the game forcing you to play twice is a good way of underlining that. I always say, the easiest way to know when someone played only once, with Roche, is hearing them boast about killing the evil dragon. Would they be so happy about it if they knew who she was? I doubt it.

So, it may be frustrating for those who don't have time to re-play or have little interest in restarting the game, but it's not such a bad thing either.
Posted July 22, 2011
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phroggie: Give me a short game where you've captured my attention 100% of the time rather than a long game where I'm bored 50% of the time.
Exactly. It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.

Yay for finally having a convenient pretense to say that. Also, I totally agree. One short game with excellent storytelling will provide more entertainment than all the bad games in the world combined. Sure, playing said awful games would take a long time, but you wouldn't be having fun.

They could have padded TW2 with all kinds of fetch quests and long stretches of land to traverse, but making something longer doesn't necessarily make it more enjoyable, especially when you lengthen the experience just for the sake of adding to the play time. Sometimes a short game with good pacing is infinitely better than a long game with portions that you dread so much that you can't bring yourself to replay it.
Posted July 22, 2011
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Kitad: the swamps
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Aaden: The only buzz-word we need.

All the time you spend running circles in the swamps in order to talk to someone or deliver something, feels like it equalizes the amount of actual play-time between TW1 and TW2.

(yeah, I'm aware that TW1 would still be longer, but honestly it sometimes stretches unnecessarily by giving you long ways to run repeatedly)
I actually like the swamp - I played trhough chapter 2...today. :D Unlike in the are of chapter one, where I literally ran circles, I was able to chain the quests and tasks nicely together. I visited the swamp only two times, the first time being mostly exploring, farming and doing the side-quests there. The second time I visited already initiated the ending of chapter 2.

So I cannot complain. For me it adds the necessary "exploration" part to The Witcher 1. It has a nice atmosphere and it's only a little bit too big. *g*

Well...I will probably change my mind when I have to do it once more...in chapter 3. XD I'm just saying: The Witcher 1 would've needed a little less exploration and The Witcher 2 a little more. Logic dictates that they will get it exactly right in The Witcher 3. :D
Posted July 22, 2011
I've been thinking about the notion of what is a good length for a game.

I've also got a PS3 and I definitely don't have as much time to spend on games I'd like to (and you could easily argue what I do spend is already to much!!!) ... so I really really love the games that clock in around 10-12 hours, the story is thick and solid without filler, if the game is that good there's a chance I can play it again. Perfectly surmised in PS3 games God of War III, Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum and on the PC Starcraft 2 and Witcher 2 (which really took me 20ish hours first time).

I still have games I absolutely love sitting on my shelf that I've never finished and don't get a chance to get back to ... Neverwinter Nights 2 (and all expansions), Civilization V, Titan Quest, Demon's Souls and Dragon Age: Origins (which to be honest I don't like that much, might have prefered it more on the PC rather than PS3, I much rather NWN2). It took me over 6 months to get through Witcher 1 and there was no way I was going to replay for the different path, I loved it but the final third of the game I was racing through just to get to the conclusion.

So it got me thinking, is the 10-15 hour point a kind of critical space where story telling and action can go no further without repetition and boredom? For me, I cannot think of a single game I have ever played 20+ hours that completely held my attention.

Yes I want the story of The Witcher 2 to go on, but rather than expand the size of the current chapters with larger areas to cover and more quests that don't impact the story arc, I want the next full bodied chapters... but even if that story did continue after Chapter 3 I don't think the game could have possibly avoided some levels of tedium. I need a break from the journey, and I need the whole landscape, and possibly game mechanics to change or be upgraded.

I do want more of this fantastic world - but I never want the quality and depth of it to drop. And I don't think any development studio could have done that by expanding the games length. I think most other games above this game time have been lesser for it.

What do you think?
Posted July 22, 2011
It doesn't only has to do with raw length, it also has to do with pacing. The best example is chapter 4 of Witcher 1. The game at this point took a break from what it was building up, we got a whole new scenario with a radically different tone, much more peaceful and calm. It also set up a whole new array of interesting quests.

It was great!

Perhaps if the game had continued on a scenario similar to chapter 2/3, then the game would have become tedious fast, but this design choice made it cool, I think.

So that's something to add to your analysis, its not just about how many hours the game has before it becomes tedious, its also what is in those hours (how much variety) and how its paced.


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phroggie: I've been thinking about the notion of what is a good length for a game.

I've also got a PS3 and I definitely don't have as much time to spend on games I'd like to (and you could easily argue what I do spend is already to much!!!) ... so I really really love the games that clock in around 10-12 hours, the story is thick and solid without filler, if the game is that good there's a chance I can play it again. Perfectly surmised in PS3 games God of War III, Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum and on the PC Starcraft 2 and Witcher 2 (which really took me 20ish hours first time).

I still have games I absolutely love sitting on my shelf that I've never finished and don't get a chance to get back to ... Neverwinter Nights 2 (and all expansions), Civilization V, Titan Quest, Demon's Souls and Dragon Age: Origins (which to be honest I don't like that much, might have prefered it more on the PC rather than PS3, I much rather NWN2). It took me over 6 months to get through Witcher 1 and there was no way I was going to replay for the different path, I loved it but the final third of the game I was racing through just to get to the conclusion.

So it got me thinking, is the 10-15 hour point a kind of critical space where story telling and action can go no further without repetition and boredom? For me, I cannot think of a single game I have ever played 20+ hours that completely held my attention.

Yes I want the story of The Witcher 2 to go on, but rather than expand the size of the current chapters with larger areas to cover and more quests that don't impact the story arc, I want the next full bodied chapters... but even if that story did continue after Chapter 3 I don't think the game could have possibly avoided some levels of tedium. I need a break from the journey, and I need the whole landscape, and possibly game mechanics to change or be upgraded.

I do want more of this fantastic world - but I never want the quality and depth of it to drop. And I don't think any development studio could have done that by expanding the games length. I think most other games above this game time have been lesser for it.

What do you think?
Posted July 22, 2011
Just like Kitad wrote, what I missed in TW2 was Act 4 of TW1. Act 4 was like a holiday in the middle of the game: just as Act 3 ended in an unexpected crisis, Act 4 breaks the tension without breaking the story. It's like the start of Act III in Henry IV, part 1, where the ladies sing in Welsh to Mortimer and Hotspur.

TW2 has only brief moments of such relief, and even if the game were longer for it, it would not be amiss.
Post edited July 22, 2011 by cjrgreen
Posted July 23, 2011
A game can only become tedious from reptition as well as going off on nonsense tangents. If side quests are relevent to character building and or the main quest than all is good, but they can in fact get tedious ( Oblivion anybody ). TW1 was good with good pacing, but then it it looked like a race to the finish which was unsatisfying in my opinion. TW1 did take a while to play if you wanted to run the side quests and explore what the game had to offer. Unfortunately the offering got a bit slim at the end and the race to the finish. TW2 was pretty much the same way as far as I could see. Guess they run out of stuff to do in the story to ease into the the end. Personally, I think 20 hours is a bit short as I like to spend more time than that in a game ( I'm Retired, so have the time ). I am like the original Poster. I have a lot of PS3 games on the shelf waiting to be finished.
Posted July 23, 2011
I agree that very long games can be boring, but I don't know why I dislike ending a shorter game. Before I ended TW2, Triss waited for me like 4 days (real time) to go to the council meeting, while I ran talking to every NPC, doing every sidequest, searching the internet for stuff I might have missed, but nothing. Chapter 3 ruined the game with the shortness... If at least t'was long as chapter 2 or 1, it might have been fine. I would really like a chapter 4 patch, although it is hardly possible they will bother with it.

For the sequel, if this is a trilogy, the game would need to be longer than the first part to finish off the complete story about how *spoiler* Geralt searches for the Wild Hunt. What also would be nice would be a The Witcher 2: xxxxxxx - that is the continuation of the same game, just another name, instead of Assassins of Kings, something else. They could use the same engine, just make new areas and quests and voice acting, and hey they can sell it as a new game, just like AC did with brotherhood and will do with revelations.
Posted July 23, 2011
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phroggie: I've been thinking about the notion of what is a good length for a game.
Exactly as long as is needed to tell a coherent story. That's all. I can spend endless hours on the Baldur's Gate games and it's the perfect length, or I can also enjoy Indigo Prophesy (or Fahrenheit, depending on where you live), which can be finished in 7-8 hours, and it'll still be the perfect length.

There's no magic "perfect length" to tell a story. It's like writing a novel--it ends when you've finished, and if you're worried about a page count the whole time you're only going to end up sabotaging yourself.
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The Witcher 2Lenght or Endings(26 posts)(26 posts)
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