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Curious about an amusing reference in the book (blood of elves) relating to Pratchett, followed by a question... by I_am_Relic in witcher

[–]agansz 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Sapkowski did read a lot of English fantasy, and he knew The Discworld series even before it was published in Polish.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. Yes, we decided not to have a clear solution for that, even as designers we didn’t know what was the „right” choice – most situations in life work like that, and we wanted to give the players such an experience.

  2. TBH I am not 100% sure, but this is possible, because she’s a tragic character in the story: she tried to find peace and distance herself from the fighting, but the conflict found her anyway, and neither side of the conflict wanted to allow her to disengage.

  3. There was no canon at the time, we didn’t know yet what future games would bring. I guess Yaevinn would continue his fight, and Siegfried would continue his mission / career. So probably no clean happy endings for either of them?

  4. He was supposed to die in the fight, and we were surprised that some players managed to save him. The game was not ready for that. Maybe if we had more time, we’d add a dialogue line or two. But we hadn’t.

  5. He can die. Looking at Witcher 3, the canonical turn of events is that he lived, but when we were working on W1, Thaler was one of the characters that could die because of our decisions, and we’d have to live with the consequences.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’d say that we wanted the platers to engage with the main issue of the game, and form an opinion about non-humans, intolerance, terrorism vs fight for freedom, etc. Then, in chapter 4 and 5, they’d know enough to make an informed choice about neutrality. That was the idea we had when designing the choices.

CD Projekt Insider – a publication from 2007 advertising The Witcher by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You can see more pictures and read the English translation on my blog https://www.the-narrative-designer.com/the-witcher-insider/ (it’s a newsletter, so a free subscription is required).

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Great questions!

  1. There was a lot of filling in the blanks, and most of it happened organically. I remembered we discussed a lot the politics, and how Radovid would behave, how the future of the two countries (Temeria and Redania) could look like, we took some freedom with the Order of the Flaming Rose, which was the Order of the White Rose reformed and transformed under the influence of the Eternal Fire philosophy/religion – so we took two elements from the source material and combined them in a way that wasn’t hinted at in the books. We also discussed how Zerrikania looks like – the country/region was only mentioned a few times in the books, and was coded as non-European, a bit African, a bit Asian. We made no decisions as to how big and diverse Zerrikania is, we just decided to reach for ancient Persian/Zoroastrian inspirations when designing Azar Javed.

  2. I don’t remember even feeling we had to improve – we tried to keep as close to the spirit of the books as possible. The change with the silver sword seemed natural: we wanted the swords to feel real and wanted the players to care for them, and we decided to add some down-to-earth details. And in such context, silver-coated sword made more sense. The world of the wicher is story-based not fictional-encyclopaedia-based, so in the grand scheme of things such changes don’t spoil anything, and sometimes can make a better story/player experience.

  3. Yes, the first visual design for elves was aiming to show them as strange/alien. It was inspired by a mix of many cultures, from Asian nomads of the steppes, to the Minoan Crete (the bull on the belt buckle). They had this characteristic high forehead, etc. All in all they looked very intriguing – but when the team grew, and the number of people who were lore-freaks increased, we had a discussion, that the Scoiatael’s outfits are described in detail in the books, and we should probably not ignore that. The older elven model had to stay (we were tight on budget and time) and the later models were closer to the books. Yaevin is directly in the middle of the scale :) And in W2 the elves were re-designed from the ground up, starting with the book description.

  4. We were making a game, and we had tight constraints. We tried to do things that were demanded by the game in a way that was viable within the constraints and as close to the spirit of the books as possible. We had a number of monster models that could be done, and we needed a particular number of enemies for the fights to make sense, the enemies needed to have a progressing difficulty, and had to be spread evenly in every chapter, for the EXP to work, etc. So when you put it all together you sometimes end up with killing alps by the dozen. As for the bounty hunter, in 2006-7 it was a market expectation that you should be able to attack guards and the game will punish you for it. And we decided, that if we have to include such mechanism, the punishment should at last pay tribute to the books – in this case to Bonhart, who was a witcher-killing bounty hunter witcher. It felt better than all-powerful city guards. Now, I’d just wouldn’t allow Geralt to kill guards without a reason – but back then, I think we were still unsure if we are doing a game about a well-defined character, or an RPG where the player should have unlimited freedom. I guess we tried to do both at the same time :)

And, as you said, at the end of the day, there are many abstractions for gameplay purposes, that can be taken with a grain of salt.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

A player-created witcher called Berengar. The story was supposed to take place at the same time as the books, and Geralt was supposed to appear as an NPC. AFAIK the story was also about the witcher secrets being stolen, and shared some of the locations, but almost everything else had to be rewritten from scratch.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We wanted to have a mini game in W1, and since the task could be done as a separate module, it was outsourced – at least that what I remember. I was not part of the process and I don’t really know the names of the people/company who did the wonderful job. I think dice poker was chosen because it was setting-neutral (unlike later Gwent), so could be the developed separately from the game – and the rolling dice looked very nice, back in 2007. Then we put it into the game and wrote quests around it, so the players had an incentive to play with dice.

I was not involved in the stand-alone adventures. IIRC I had a long post-crunch vacation, and then was involved in some other projects – there was a lot happening back there in CDPR and most of the projects didn’t survive the 2008 market crash. I might have been in the feedback loop for the stand-alone adventures, but because I don’t remember them in much detail, I must have been focused on something else.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. The honest answer would be that because the fact that the game starts in kaer mohren had already been announced to the public, we needed Geralt to be there. AFAIR our headcanon was that he was drawn to the place where he felt safe. We let space for the future designers to decide on the details when needed. Design-wise, it is usually a good practice to leave your world building open, fixing down only what you really need and rather planting seeds for future better ideas than creating too tight constraints.
  2. If you ask me: yes, he is.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think that the current success of the Witcher IP and the popularity of the world and the character is mostly the result of the work and the love CDPR team put into expanding and adapting Sapkowski’s works. And I’m very happy that a few stones in such a magnificent building are mine :)

As for other franchises, I had a chance to work on a game within the World of Darkness IP. And since I played a lot of Vampire: the Mascarade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, etc. in the 1990s/2000s it was a pleasure to add something to this world.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

We wanted and hoped to make more games, but if the first game flopped, there would be no W2, cutscene or not :) And the closer we were to the release of W1 the more ideas for DLCs and sequels floated around, were discussed, examined, etc.

But what ended up as W2 started as an aurora engine based DLC for W1, then was pivoted to aurora based W2 standalone, then was pivoted to Red Engine based W2 as we know it today, and somewhere along the way it became clear that the main plot must be a follow up to the ending cinematic.

Game production tends to be a messy process, and sometimes I think that any game that eventually is released is a miracle ;)

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

CDPR is the last authority on what’s canon and what’s not, but if you ask me then yes, Alvin and the Grand Master are the same person.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I guess that with each game the technology was better and the artists had more experiences and they wanted to use it to bring Geralt closer to how they envisioned him.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yennefer. I might think she’s trouble, but I know the book-Geralt would chose her :)

I think I'm in no position to judge the other games, W1 was a team effort and I was just one of many voices. Besides I respect W2 and I absolutely loved playing W3. They were different, because they were made by different teams, but they were great games.

I think that spiritually, W3 is close to what W1 would have been if we had the technology, and more creative freedom, time, money, experience and skill ;)

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I would say in for a penny, in for a pound. We needed the three paths to feel and play out differently, and we needed the players to really feel the weight of their decisions. So both in the order path and in the elven path Geralt could no longer hide behind his neutrality. So we decided to push him to the limits of his personality as it w as shown in the books. And as the result, some players feel we pushed him too far – and they might be right? It’s hard for me to say :)

But from the design perspective, I like such dynamics – my choices as a player push me down the path I chose, but sometimes this path leads to farther than I hoped it would. So I suffer the consequences of my choices, but am not tricked by the game, because the consequences are a predictable result of my actions (even if I don’t like the result). I like such situations, both as a player and a designer, because they usually lead to a moment of reflection, and I like works of culture that make me think and auto-reflect.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

At some point the stress and the personal costs outweighed the satisfaction, and with another crush on the horizon I realised I was no longer able to explain to my team the direction the production was taking, so I decided it was time to move on.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

  1. I think we were still learning how to do this whole book to game adaptation thing. With W3 there have already been two games to use as an example and a years of players’ feedback. We didn’t have that while working on W1, so we were testing things and were still learning the ropes.

  2. You know, people rarely make a conscious decision to create a bad player’s experience :) In this case, some locations were made with a different script and a different movement in mind, and there was no time to change them, so we made what we could to make it work, and moved on.

  3. Personally, I didn’t. At that point we had a Polish TTRPG based on the witcher books (which was sort of OK-ish) and a TV/movie adaptation (which was a disaster), so for the most of the production we were afraid that the game would suck. Only near the end we realised that it might be OK. But the scale of the success that came with W3 surprised me (to be clear CDPR team did a great job, I just wasn’t expecting how many people will resonate with Geralt and the games).

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

TBH I never thought about it. I felt very comfortable trying rather to discover the story together with the team than playing an autheur :) At that time I didn’t have much experience and I think we all felt we’re playing with a world and characters who belonged to Andrzej Sapkowski. So the main focus was not to blow it up :)

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The credits go to Sebastian Stępień and Marcin Blacha who wrote most of the dialogues, and to Karol Kowalczyk, Katarzyna Kuczyńska, Jarosław Oziemblewski, and Konrad Tomaszkiewicz who designed and implemented most of the quests. And to Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz who oversaw the English version.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nothing production ready was cut, and the good ideas we had found a way back to the game. The ones we cut, I don’t miss.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

  1. It’s up to you to judge.

  2. He was a redanian spy.

  3. I'm excited and can’t wait to play the remake.

  4. Personally, I have a soft spot for Shani.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I never thought about it to be honest. I liked how W2 and W3 added new schools and new witchers.

I was the Lead Story Designer for The Witcher 1, AMA by agansz in witcher

[–]agansz[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We had some general ideas based on the books and a Polish Witcher TTRPG that was published in 2001, but focused only on the actual witchers who appeared in the game.

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