602 réponses à ce sujet

[Brockololly]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

palker wrote...

btw. Did you leave de Trancaville explode in her magical contraption? I totally did.

I actually didn't let her explode.  I was hoping to talk more and exact justice on myself, but unfortunately wasn't afforded that opportunity.  Whoops.  The one regret I had

Well, as I recall, some of the ending slides regarding the Sorceresses imply letting Shila live might not leave her in a great situation either.

[palker]

I killed the sorceress without remorse she had Demawend killed, I am pretty sure that Esterad Thyssen was also killed on her order or on the lodges orders does not matter she and Philippa Eilhart were constantly conspiring and scheming and they got what was coming to them. Of course i know more than Geralt would have known in that moment so i based my decision on that knowledge. If i should roleplay him properly i would have to let her go.

[Addai]

Demavend was a pig. All the kings were, except Foltest had a bit of heart in him. The chaos is lamentable especially if it means a Nilfgaardian takeover, but I don't feel any special loyalty to any of them.

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, as I recall, some of the ending slides regarding the Sorceresses imply letting Shila live might not leave her in a great situation either.

I think Letho comments on it actually.

[Maria Caliban]

What happened to her? All I remember in the journal is that after she teleports, no one hears from her again.

palker wrote...

I killed the sorceress without remorse she had Demawend killed...

And that's a bad thing?

...I am pretty sure that Esterad Thyssen was also killed on her order or on the lodges orders...

And?

In the Witcher's setting, political power is gained and maintained through bloodshed. Síle and Philipa aren't particularly more evil than those they're having assassinated. They just perfect assassins to armies.

If Síle's actions are so repugnant that they deserve death, then Geralt ought to head to the bottom of the tower after he's finished with her, and slaughter most of the rulers and sorceresses in attendance.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 26 décembre 2012 - 08:59 .

[Nerevar-as]

Maria Caliban wrote...

What happened to her? All I remember in the journal is that after she teleports, no one hears from her again.

palker wrote...

I killed the sorceress without remorse she had Demawend killed...

And that's a bad thing?

...I am pretty sure that Esterad Thyssen was also killed on her order or on the lodges orders...

And?

In the Witcher's setting, political power is gained and maintained through bloodshed. Síle and Philipa aren't particularly more evil than those they're having assassinated. They just perfect assassins to armies.

If Síle's actions are so repugnant that they deserve death, then Geralt ought to head to the bottom of the tower after he's finished with her, and slaughter most of the rulers and sorceresses in attendance.

Sterad definitely was a bad thing. Along with Foltest he was the most competent king in the books. Philipa also tried to kill the spymaster (he saw it coming and went into exile before they got to him), so she really got what was coming to her. Radovid went down in history as "the Cruel" for the payback he got for his father´s murder.

[KnightofPhoenix]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Well, as I recall, some of the ending slides regarding the Sorceresses imply letting Shila live might not leave her in a great situation either.

I think Letho comments on it actually.

What he says is that this is her likely fate. But we do not know what happened to her.


And I agree with Maria, Sile is one of my favorite characters.

[Jan Bartkowicz]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

actually enjoyed picking apart (since I do QA cinematics tech) the creative use of many of the commonly used animations in the conversations. The one that always came back to me was the "eyes down" look that felt really natural, and the cinematic designers used to very good effect.

It's so nice to read these kind words!

The thing is... we didn't have any cinematic designers for TW2 dialog scenes. I know BioWare uses Cinematic Designers and it definitely is the way to go, but we only had the writers . So after the three of us (writers) finished work on the script, we had to jump in and set up the dialog scenes.

Our dialog editor (cameras and gestures setup tool) was implemented very quickly ergo buggy as hell. We actually had a lot of rules we set for ourselves to establish how we can use the limited animations, and head movements. When we talked about the overall quality we told ourselves "We can't make ME2 quality within the limits that we have, but we must reach a point when noone will rate the game down because of the dialog scenes". I always considered that mission a success. But a kind word from a professional? I will pass them to my former teammates.

Thank you.

Modifié par Jan Bartkowicz, 27 décembre 2012 - 02:14 .

[Allan Schumacher]

The thing is... we didn't have any cinematic designers for TW2 dialog scenes. I know BioWare uses Cinematic Designers and it definitely is the way to go, but we only had the writers . So after the three of us (writers) finished work on the script, we had to jump in and set up the dialog scenes.

Well then! As far as I'm concerned you're also the Cinematic Designers too!

The use of the nuanced animations (especially the wandering eyes) was easily the best part of it. It's low key, so it can be used in a wide variety of places (by which you guys also did fantastic work with the timing), and wasn't used so much that it felt excessive. It's the type of thing that makes me go "Hey BioWare CinDesigners, I really liked this. We should do more of it"

Glad to see the feedback hit eyes that were flattered!

Cheers!

[slimgrin]

Jan Bartkowicz wrote...

The thing is... we didn't have any cinematic designers for TW2 dialog scenes. I know BioWare uses Cinematic Designers and it definitely is the way to go, but we only had the writers . So after the three of us (writers) finished work on the script, we had to jump in and set up the dialog scenes.

Wait a minute. You had only three writers? Or perhaps three lead writers? I'd have expected more given the scope of the game.

[Jan Bartkowicz]

There were four dialog and story designers (counting Sebastian, the lead writer). But one of them was more of a dialog producer than a writer. We also had a "lead writer - english" for translation.

Essentially 3 people (Sebastian, me, and Arek) covered writing everything in cutscenes, main quests and side quests, while one more writer (with some outsource help, I think) did all the journals, shops, and communities chit-chats.

So 2 out of these three writers (me and Arek) teamed up with our dialog producer Artur and formed the little cinematic design team (joined by an animator and programmer). 9 months before the content lock we didn't even have a working dialog tool . Boy was that a hard time.

Modifié par Jan Bartkowicz, 27 décembre 2012 - 11:48 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

"Art from adversity" might be an appropriate phrase to describe all this

[Costin_Razvan]

I think that really applies to some of our greatest works of art.

Jan: I am curios since there were only three of you could you tell us what characters each of you wrote? You did mention that the Sebastian wrote Letho but I am curios about Roche, Iorveth, Henselt, Dethmold, Radovid etc.

Also was the game original writen in english and then translated to other languages or was it polish?

Modifié par Costin_Razvan, 27 décembre 2012 - 04:05 .

[KnightofPhoenix]

I believe Jan mentioned that it was him who wrote Radovid (bro-fist).

[Costin_Razvan]

And the conversation with Kimbolt, epic stuff btw and if I recall Maravel?

Modifié par Costin_Razvan, 27 décembre 2012 - 04:09 .

[Addai]

Jan Bartkowicz wrote...
So 2 out of these three writers (me and Arek) teamed up with our dialog producer Artur and formed the little cinematic design team (joined by an animator and programmer). 9 months before the content lock we didn't even have a working dialog tool . Boy was that a hard time.

You guys are amazing.  Kudos.

[Nordicus]

Jan Bartkowicz wrote...

one more writer (with some outsource help, I think) did all the journals, shops, and communities chit-chats.

So he's probably responsible for the one quote that warmed me up to the people of Flotsam

"Something's troubling me."

"What's that?"

"What does a bloody witcher eat, anyway?"

"Eh, mushrooms?"

"Spuds?"

"Why spuds?"

"'Cause he's a human, like us. He sweats, he bleeds, prob'ly eats spuds, too."

[Gibb_Shepard]

Jan Bartkowicz wrote...

There were four dialog and story designers (counting Sebastian, the lead writer). But one of them was more of a dialog producer than a writer. We also had a "lead writer - english" for translation.

Essentially 3 people (Sebastian, me, and Arek) covered writing everything in cutscenes, main quests and side quests, while one more writer (with some outsource help, I think) did all the journals, shops, and communities chit-chats.

So 2 out of these three writers (me and Arek) teamed up with our dialog producer Artur and formed the little cinematic design team (joined by an animator and programmer). 9 months before the content lock we didn't even have a working dialog tool . Boy was that a hard time.

It's awesome what you accomplished with such a small team.

[Jan Bartkowicz]

Costin_Razvan:

It's not like writers had their exclusive characters to write, and I don't think there is even one character from the main cast that was written by just one writer. That being said writers were responsible for some plots, and because plots revolved around particular characters they had the opportunity to write the majority of them.

Top characters that are hard to assign to anyone:
Geralt, Iorverth, Vernon Roche, Sheala de Tancarville, Ves, Shilard

Other than that... from the top of my head:
Sebastian (lead story designer): Dethmold, Triss, Filippa, Letho, Saskia, Henselt
Arek: Cynthia, Lots of dwarf dialog, troll dialog and pretty much ALL the sidequest dialogs!
Me: Radovid, Foltest, Loredo, Aryan La Valette, Kimbolt, Zyvik

Nordicus:

Yes, all of these little gems are Marcins work.

Allan Schumacher:

Waiting for the next playthrough!

Modifié par Jan Bartkowicz, 28 décembre 2012 - 12:42 .

[Costin_Razvan]

Alright thanks for the answer. Interesting to know who wrote what section. Awesome job with your characters btw, I really loved how you wrote Loredo the most out of the lot ( I despise him but it's a case of love to hate ).

I guess a better question would have been who came up with said characters on a concept level.

Modifié par Costin_Razvan, 28 décembre 2012 - 11:10 .

[slimgrin]

Nice to hear the insider bits of info, Jan. Loved all the ambient dialog btw. It was a pleasure to simply walk around and listen to people talk.

Modifié par slimgrin, 28 décembre 2012 - 10:15 .

[Dave of Canada]

Hell, went to a friend's place and he was playing the introduction and I forgot how much I loved the armor aesthetics. From Geralt's assorted armors to the Temerian soldiers, it's all just gorgeous.

[SpunkyMonkey]

Have just "finished" (given up halfway through Act 2) the Witcher 2.

What a truly awful, cumbersome and lackluster game.

For starters I don't think I've ever known an intro to a game make such little sense and be such hard work - the fact that it allows you to play the prologue pieces in a random order really didn't help, but regardless I was just like "Why's everyone talking as if I know everything about everything already?" At no point did I have any chance to "play around" with combat so that I could get to grips with it, and it was a pure chore.

Slogged my way through to Act 1 to find a cumbersome combat system which was trying to be clever, but which gets best results when just button bashing; a "broken" quest tracking system; tons of boring dialogue which really didn't feel interactive; an awful item collection system (here's 10 items you've picked up from 1 chest - read them quick! Oh no, gone); the necessity for subtitles due to softly spoken voices and game-specific words; an odd mix of accents (brummie, scottish and yorkshire all being found amongst people who live in an isolated village); and a dull plot all relying on characters looking "cool" to carry it.

The way the game is arranged is dire too - throw a million quests at you at once with loads of boring dialogue to wade through.

Chuck in some awful mini games such as the dice one, butcher the alchemy system, and make obtaining a good sword a long winded affair and I cannot believe the high ratings the game received.

Yes there are some nice plot bits, and yes it has it's moments, but overall it's a dour, slow, sluggish, boring and unsatisfying experience.

Modifié par SpunkyMonkey, 02 janvier 2013 - 04:03 .

[Haplose]

Uch, well, ok, cool story, bro.
Whatever your smoking I want a piece of. Must be some mighty good stuff.

Modifié par Haplose, 02 janvier 2013 - 03:52 .

[SpunkyMonkey]

Haplose wrote...

Uch, well, ok, cool story, bro.
Whatever your smoking I want a piece of. Must be some mighty good stuff.

Your opinion on the game & it's pros/cons?