The Point - The Witcher 3: A New Benchmark in Player Choice

Had to come back and watch some old The Point episodes... lately, most GS content is crap.

You are missed, Danny O.

Not sure if you intentionally quoted Geralt or not: "The lesser of two evils"

SPOILERS!

SPOILERS!

SPOILERS!

I'll never forget that moment when i realized that my actions led to Red Baron hang himself and Anna die... I only wanted to save the children. Even much further into game, when I come back to Crow's Perch and see soldiers mistreating people because baron is dead, and village burned to the ground - I know it's my fault and it bugs me somehow... Amazing game!

Player choice my ass. It's on rails. You just can't see the walls around you.

great episode, whats the name of the track that plays from 1:30 to 4:20

What a cool episode this was.

Another great show Danny & Andy. I always look forward to a new episode. The Point is always insightful and I always discover something that I would not have realized otherwise. Keep 'em coming!

The choices finally matter, and each one has its own consequence with a mix of good/bad outcomes. Nothing is black and white in The Witcher 3 and I love it that way. Sometimes you even get completely blindsided, where you think a choice you made is a good one but the consequence is severe. This is how choices in videogames should be addressed.

Just from the votes I can see how much everyone loves << LINK REMOVED >>

The Witcher 3 is simply amazing - best game in the series without a doubt. And it's only made by 200 people! Unbelievable!

I was disappointed with the second game, so I'm really glad that this game turned out so well. It's going to be hard for any other game this year to topple this masterpiece. I wouldn't be surprised if The Witcher 3 is going to be my personal GOTY (sorry Bloodborne) but let's see - time will tell.

Just haven't played a game THIS good in a long time.

Damn straight. I've finished the game and i can guarantee that every decision i ended up making felt right. This isn't a game that made me question my every move.

Thanks for another marvelous show Danny+Team! Though I do quite miss your marvelous sense of humour that you had in your first show that I can't seem to remember the title of. Thanks mate!

P.S

Oh yes, Mt. Stupid!

I really think my decision of disabling the "x will remember this" prompts in The Walking Dead greatly improved my experience of it. I wish that was a possibility in LA Noire. That way I wouldn't have felt so cheated when it turns out that you were wrong in all the investigations even if those stupid "end of level score screens" said you did everything right and caught the right person. If they hadn't had them and just gone on with the story I would have kept thinking "I hope we caught the right guy" but the score card instantly pulled you out of that immersion and reminded you that you were playing a video game.

I wonder why gamespots critics are all having such a huge crush on CDPR. Because Witcher 3 is good but it has its flaws

aarrrggg so many good vids on the witcher 3 and I've yet to play the first >.< i'll get around to it eventually...witcher 3 enhanced edition XD

Pillars of Eternity and Witcher 3 both did choices and decisions very well. Both amazing rpgs

I agree! The Witcher is incredible.

But anyone that neglected upgrading the Normandy is a dope. The game pretty much spelled that out from the beginning. All of my subsequent plays through that game had me purposely neglecting Normandy's crew to see what would happen.

Fantastic episode as always Danny!

Choices had a lot of impact and consequence on the narrative and the whole game back in The Witcher 2. I expected no less from The Witcher 3. I'm hearing a lot of encouraging things about this game and I'll get it as soon as I'm done with my ongoing project.

Did a simple Witcher contract quest that turned into something so much more. Found a known character from TW2 who may or may not have died in TW2 depending on decisions made in that game. Chose to help them out, and now, based on my decisions in this semingly un-important side missions, this character might com into play later on in the game, I have no idea.

If I did allow this character to die in TW2, then this probably would have just been a simple Witcher contract, kill some monsters, get a reward and be done with it, which makes me want to go back and play the game again when i'm done, and see what would happen instead. And i'm only 30 hours in, barely touched the main story, and already I have things i want to try differently on my second play through.

This is just amazing to me, how side missions can have choices that seem like they might be meaningless, but later on could have major consequences.

Been playing this game for a couple of days and yeah decisions do really feel legitimate and make the world not black and wait but mostly gray, helping the baron solve its problem into i tought was the lesser evil of all ended up being the rising of a even greater evil than the baron itself was, I have to say I always looked at side-quest as "well its filler" sometimes they were pretty good no doubt, sometimes just hollow (like in Da:I) but in the witcher 3 they felt like stories, big stories just waiting for someone to be told, i feel compelled to play them all, to hear all those stories and to keep going, from just going in my horse raiding into the plains and then spot a burning building and entered a quest without even wanted to save a elf who was being bullied to help some groups to change the entire shape of the northen realm and outcome of the war, those are the kind of decisions you pick into the side-quest of the witcher 3

I tried to kill one particular monster in Witcher 3. Its attack can cause you bleeding by chance. I died like 6 times. But by the 7th time, all its attack didn't cause bleeding and I finally killed it. Dose the game sense the player is dumb and lower the difficulty, or it's just pure luck??

Witcher 3 seems to be an outstanding game, an RPG classic that breaks the mold, however I must say that both in Walking Dedad and Mass Effect 2 I did feel like they were my choices, wether they had little or huge consequences, and in both games you do have a big number of choices to make.

I think that all the praise and pressure that CDPR have gotten from Witcher 3 is well deserved, but I still think that by the time of their release both WD and ME2 made a big impact too and should be regarded as amazing games too, 10/10 in my book at least.

For me best decision in a game was Suikoden 2 right before you fight Neclord. Your sister turns to you and says "You know if we travel south from this village we can just disappear from this whole mess." And if you listen to her the game ends literally at the half-way mark. It was one of those things where your like no way the games just going to let me leave, lo and behold that's exactly what it let you do.

What is the groovetastic track that starts up in the middle and plays to the end?

spoiler warning on a non story quest. this is the moment the witcher grabbed me. so im wandering about. and i found an old lady in need of help. she needs some monsters chased off her manor. i thought why the hell not? she offered me some reward after all.

so i go there and i found some traps. geralt starts talking to himself about how this was no monsters job and how the guy who set the traps knew what he was doin. so i used my witcher senses and disable the traps. and after that out of nowhere i find the guy who set the traps. letho one of the main antagonists of the second game who i spared in the ending of the witcher 2.

i was flored by this awsome apearence but that was not all. so i decide to help the guy out. we kill some bad dudes. and a get revenge on the guy who betrayed letho in the first place. then we go to some town to finish off the last of the guys looking for him.

here he tells me not to interfere no mater what i see. im like ok. so do nothing UNTIL the guy is cut down and dies. i go in and try to save him. shure enough i killed the rest of the thugs. job well done right? wrong! turns out he had a plan to fake his death so that the bastards who were after him would stop. but he needed witnesses whom i killed. I DID NOT see that comming, after that the quest is over. i fucked up. so we part ways for now.

then it hits me. that awsome story with one of the cooler caracters in the witcher 2 in my opinion. started of a seemingly mundane task. not only that but i was shocked by the plot twist at the end. i did not see that coming. incredible. the best quest of tw3 for me and this alone makes it goty for me. there is also a massive world awsome combat and other stuff but that story!

one of the best moments in my 20 year videogaming history

It took me till level 4 to realize you can meditate and it replenishes all your potions. No wonder I thought this game was so hard lmao.

The Witcher 3 has outstanding storytelling and choice and consequences. It also has some of the best combat I've played in an RPG. The graphics too are just stunning. It all adds up to the best overall RPG I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

That moment when u realise the frying pan quest was better than almost all of dai fetch quests

I really, REALLY enjoy Mass Effect 1 and 2, but the whole binary system of Paragon/Renegade has always rubbed me the wrong way, especially from the studio full of veterans which worked on the Baldur's Gate games, where decisions tended to bluntly happen, and make things change in unknowable ways much like in The Witcher 3.

I also love Bethesda games, but in Oblivion and Skyrim, my two favorites from them, near every quest can be seen simply as a self-contained Start to End string, where regardless of what you say or do, the vast majority have a set conclusion. So while the physics and AI systems allow emergent, cool stuff to happen, the storytelling is essentially all linear, and you're chasing 100% completion rather than guessing at the conclusion of any of the storylines.

Developers had better take notice. The Witcher 3 has standard-setting narrative choice, something that seems to finally skirt around the focus-tested asininity of telegraphed decisions with binary outcomes. Bethesda and BioWare, the standard-setters for RPGs, have something to learn from the other guys in Poland.

BEST REFERENCE EVER!!!: "Go get the gimp." -Pulp Fiction. On the Blood Baron's stage after searching his daughter's belongings. LMAO. These guys are awesome.

Just so much to do. Shit is awesome. Thanks CD Project RED for being ...you, which is fucking awesome.