Even if we were doing the same thing over and over again essentially, the side quest stories were pretty well done in the Witcher 3. The most important thing is that they didn't feel like fetch quests, or quests where you simply killed an enemy. They were masked very well, despite being the same thing mostly.
Really hoping that Bioware takes some notes from the Witcher 3, especially in regards to non main story related content.
They don't need to look to Witcher 3, for five years ago Bioware already did side quests right with Mass Effect 2. Look to that game to see how to do non main story related content right.
They don't need to look to Witcher 3, for Bioware already did side quests right with Mass Effect 2. Look to that game to see how to do non main story related content right.
^This^
ME2-style side quests with more expansive environments would be great!
^This^
ME2-style side quests with more expansive environments would be great!
That'd be perfect. A nice balance between the two approaches. Expansive environments but also incredibly varied, highly n richly detailed, purposeful, focused, oozing atmosphere & world building/lore at the same time. Hardly any fetch quest, checklisty, mmo filler busy work etc. Man if ME:N can nail that...just imagine it'd be brilliant on the side content front. I hope ME:N isn't as wide as an ocean..but as deep as a puddle(as alot of open world games can often tend to be).
^This^
ME2-style side quests with more expansive environments would be great!
Well, they did say ME: Next will be over 4 times as big as ME3, right? That plus exploration being a big part means having expansive environments probably won't be an issue.
Altough I don't want the NME to outright copy The Witcher, there's some things that they could take from there that would make me very happy.
In there everything has a cutscene when talking to someone, even the tiny sidequest. I didn't like Inquisition's distant camera (and no cinematic shots). I do hope that in NME we'll have the cinematic cutscenes back (even in ME3 there were fewer of these, but Inquisition was the worst offender).
Also, some sidequests there made me forget I was playing a sidequest because of the "greatness" in there. Some meatir one's in NME would be grand.
If BioWare wants to know how to hide simple, repetitive quest design, they can just look to some of their past games. They've been doing it themselves for years.
Using Admiral Bone's example of ME2, that game took a simple get to the objective dungeon crawl with Legion's loyalty mission and by adding some conversations with Legion, placing it in a unique environment, and adding an interesting moral choice at the end you've created a solid mission.
A simple mission like the stopping a missile launch throws in a twist (a countdown) and has a choice at end.
Put some meat on the bones.
BioWare could also look at the Witcher series, Fallout: New Vegas, and Alpha Protocol for overall pointers on narrative design as well.
The best way to do side quests well is to integrate them properly with the main story and to make the majority of the gameplay (say, 80%) part of the main quest. Mass Effect's achieved this already with ME2 and ME3 with their focused stories. I'm a bit worried about ME4's massive exploration focus, as I don't want it to be an assassin's creed-esque 'lawnmowing' situation where every planet had slightly pointless skinner-box sidequests that you fell you HAVE to complete, rather than WANT to.
Lastly, I want this game to have an interesting, focused story, rather than a number of disconnected situations with 30mins of travelling/searching for the next story mission in between. Negativity aside, I'm 90% sure Bioware can pull this off.
I'm a bit worried about ME4's massive exploration focus, as I don't want it to be an assassin's creed-esque 'lawnmowing' situation where every planet had slightly pointless skinner-box sidequests that you fell you HAVE to complete, rather than WANT to.
If there are really 100-200 huge planets, you won't feel the need to explore all of them.
The best way to do side quests well is to integrate them properly with the main story and to make the majority of the gameplay (say, 80%) part of the main quest. Mass Effect's achieved this already with ME2 and ME3 with their focused stories. I'm a bit worried about ME4's massive exploration focus, as I don't want it to be an assassin's creed-esque 'lawnmowing' situation where every planet had slightly pointless skinner-box sidequests that you fell you HAVE to complete, rather than WANT to.
Lastly, I want this game to have an interesting, focused story, rather than a number of disconnected situations with 30mins of travelling/searching for the next story mission in between. Negativity aside, I'm 90% sure Bioware can pull this off.
I already posted this but...
15:20 mako
27:50 on foot
32:00 something you want to do
I do enjoy that every mission in the Witcher gets a cinematic cutscene, and like others have said, I do enjoy how the rather dull fetch quests are spiced up with appropriate fluff to not feel like one is completing a shopping list because 'reasons'. Though, these elements are not something completely unique to CDPR either, BioWare has used these same things in their previous games.
One thing that I would like to see taken from the Witcher 3 though, is the differing perspectives of the people and creatures inhabiting the setting. Not every fantasy creature in the Witcher is a mindless monster, in fact there are several instances where the non-human monster is less "monstrous" than the person that hires me to deal with the creature in question. That is what I really enjoy out of the Witcher, and something that BioWare has gotten away from in their subsequent titles, the world is greater than our human perspectives, it is inhabited by other beings that are intelligent and have their own motivations, but don't share our way of viewing the world.
I would really like to see ME:Next move away from the human centric view of things, and bring back intelligent, non-human aliens that are not mindless monsters, that can be reasoned and negotiated with, etc.
This thread is so gonna be closed because Bioware doesn't like the "CDPR vs Bioware" thing.
I think Bioware's writers just need a break. They all seem to have writer's block at this point except for Patrick Weekes, who's somehow getting better and better IMO.
Anyhoo, Bioware all but confirmed ME4 will be non-linear and player-agency-focused like Inquisition but let's hope they do take notes from Witcher 3 and sees that players want cinematic dialogues and not free-camera-with-oddly-placed-focal-point-and-zoomed-way-too-long-out and that we want Bioware side-quests, not WoW side-quests.
I do enjoy that every mission in the Witcher gets a cinematic cutscene, and like others have said, I do enjoy how the rather dull fetch quests are spiced up with appropriate fluff to not feel like one is completing a shopping list because 'reasons'. Though, these elements are not something completely unique to CDPR either, BioWare has used these same things in their previous games.
One thing that I would like to see taken from the Witcher 3 though, is the differing perspectives of the people and creatures inhabiting the setting. Not every fantasy creature in the Witcher is a mindless monster, in fact there are several instances where the non-human monster is less "monstrous" than the person that hires me to deal with the creature in question. That is what I really enjoy out of the Witcher, and something that BioWare has gotten away from in their subsequent titles, the world is greater than our human perspectives, it is inhabited by other beings that are intelligent and have their own motivations, but don't share our way of viewing the world.
I would really like to see ME:Next move away from the human centric view of things, and bring back intelligent, non-human aliens that are not mindless monsters, that can be reasoned and negotiated with, etc.
You're asking for too much because Bioware has always been very stark and blunt here. KOTOR 2 was a big deconstruction of the Star Wars IP that Bioware just closely followed with KOTOR 1. Writers who had an appreciation for complex character motivations have mostly left, and such were writers like Chris L'Etoile, though I think Patrick Weekes and John Dombrow are capable of being as perceptive too.
I think the art directors and general directors are a problem when it comes to not paying attention to the minutiae of the IP. I've heard stories about the art director who forced a writer to write in stuff that made no sense because it was cool to him and he was higher-paid, and for DA:I some art guy decided to SJW-ify the world by making equal amounts of all races and Mike Laidlaw gave a go-ahead to it.
The info leak about ME4 also revealed that it is indeed humanity-centric something about "finding ancient technology that advances humanity" or something. It's your usual Mac Walters kind of plot since he started his one-track mind about Cerberus.
A big problem I see within Bioware's work environment is that in two cases now, they've had a writer who wasn't really that good be promoted to being in charge of projects. Both Mac and Mike weren't great writers but now they can decide if something makes the cut or not, and their lack of understanding the finicky details of the worlds they contribute to means we end up with less believable settings.
You're asking for too much because Bioware has always been very stark and blunt here. KOTOR 2 was a big deconstruction of the Star Wars IP that Bioware just closely followed with KOTOR 1. Writers who had an appreciation for complex character motivations have mostly left, and such were writers like Chris L'Etoile, though I think Patrick Weekes and John Dombrow are capable of being as perceptive too.
I think the art directors and general directors are a problem when it comes to not paying attention to the minutiae of the IP. I've heard stories about the art director who forced a writer to write in stuff that made no sense because it was cool to him and he was higher-paid, and for DA:I some art guy decided to SJW-ify the world by making equal amounts of all races and Mike Laidlaw gave a go-ahead to it.
The info leak about ME4 also revealed that it is indeed humanity-centric something about "finding ancient technology that advances humanity" or something. It's your usual Mac Walters kind of plot since he started his one-track mind about Cerberus.
A big problem I see within Bioware's work environment is that in two cases now, they've had a writer who wasn't really that good be promoted to being in charge of projects. Both Mac and Mike weren't great writers but now they can decide if something makes the cut or not, and their lack of understanding the finicky details of the worlds they contribute to means we end up with less believable settings.
Yeah, that has always been one of the major gripes I have with BioWare. They can create wonderful worlds and characters that I want to immerse myself in, but they always end up focusing on the human side of things, leaving all the cool non-human elements to the wayside.
Focusing on a character's parental issues, or their struggle with sexuality is not something that is unique; I can go talk to my neighbors or turn on the news and get that; but a sentient race of insectiod aliens, or a creature created out of the collective fears of the world, not so much.
The question I have is if you want more cinematic side quests would you be willing to give up all the additional voices for the protagonist if that was something required to have the cinematic conversations back? For people were begging to have more voices for the protagonist and this was something that I thought would happen is a reduction in dialogue to get it all to work properly.
The question I have is if you want more cinematic side quests would you be willing to give up all the additional voices for the protagonist if that was something required to have the cinematic conversations back? For people were begging to have more voices for the protagonist and this was something that I thought would happen is a reduction in dialogue to get it all to work properly.
Well, I don't see people having problems with only two possible voices in ME trilogy 
I'll just say that Mass Effect 2 is a great example of side quests. And Dragon Age Inquisition had some of the best secundary missions in a RPG.
Well, I don't see people having problems with only two possible voices in ME trilogy
There were threads about it, if I remember correctly the argument was that "it reduced the feeling of making Shepard truly theirs".
There were threads about it, if I remember correctly the argument was that "it reduced the feeling of making Shepard truly theirs".
Was it in comparison to the silent protagonist? Because I don't see this complaint going away even with different voice options. If none of the voices fits your vision of Shepard, the feeling of him being "yours" is going to be reduced.
I think there's probably a little more freedom for the devs in designing sidequests for the Witcher games than there has been for Mass Effect because Geralt isn't usually entrusted with as much responsibility as Shepard. The events that set the stories in motion - the Salamandra's attack on the Witchers, Foltest's assassination, Ciri's disappearance - aren't as world-shaking as Saren, the Collectors, or the Reapers, so it's easier to justify diverting from the main narrative for a little while. I haven't gotten that far in TW3 yet, but so far Geralt is still mostly in the dark about where Ciri has gone and why, and meanwhile other life-and-death conflicts are popping up in front of him pretty regularly. At the same time, it seems unlikely that he'll actually be able to stop the war between Nilfgaard and the northern kingdoms, so the best he can do is help ordinary civilians deal with the fallout.
I actually think ME3 had it about right in terms of sidequest acquisition, in that everything Shepard was asked to do tied back to the war somehow, and yet none of them were absolutely critical to the war effort either. The only real problem I had was with the ones where you just had to go scan a planet and then come back to the Citadel to tell somebody you'd found their lost thingamajiggy, which gets tedious after the first few.
I think there's probably a little more freedom for the devs in designing sidequests for the Witcher games than there has been for Mass Effect because Geralt isn't usually entrusted with as much responsibility as Shepard. The events that set the stories in motion - the Salamandra's attack on the Witchers, Foltest's assassination, Ciri's disappearance - aren't as world-shaking as Saren, the Collectors, or the Reapers, so it's easier to justify diverting from the main narrative for a little while. I haven't gotten that far in TW3 yet, but so far Geralt is still mostly in the dark about where Ciri has gone and why, and meanwhile other life-and-death conflicts are popping up in front of him pretty regularly. At the same time, it seems unlikely that he'll actually be able to stop the war between Nilfgaard and the northern kingdoms, so the best he can do is help ordinary civilians deal with the fallout.
I actually think ME3 had it about right in terms of sidequest acquisition, in that everything Shepard was asked to do tied back to the war somehow, and yet none of them were absolutely critical to the war effort either. The only real problem I had was with the ones where you just had to go scan a planet and then come back to the Citadel to tell somebody you'd found their lost thingamajiggy, which gets tedious after the first few.
I would agree about the balance with ME3, but I never really liked the feeling of eavesdropping on people to get missions and instead of tracking back to the Citadel I think an improvement would have been just using the communication room in the Normandy.
Was it in comparison to the silent protagonist? Because I don't see this complaint going away even with different voice options. If none of the voices fits your vision of Shepard, the feeling of him being "yours" is going to be reduced.
I really don't remember, I just remember people wanting to have multiple voices for their characters going back to Mass Effect 1 to increase roleplayability.
I actually think ME3 had it about right in terms of sidequest acquisition, in that everything Shepard was asked to do tied back to the war somehow, and yet none of them were absolutely critical to the war effort either. The only real problem I had was with the ones where you just had to go scan a planet and then come back to the Citadel to tell somebody you'd found their lost thingamajiggy, which gets tedious after the first few.
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