If they turned Witcher into an mmorpg would you play it?

Jemcrystal · December 2019

You couldn't play as Gerald or Ciri obviously you would do the elf, dwarf, human adventurer thing. But they could have cutscenes throughout that you could choose to activate at your convenience where you either helped the Witcher characters or played as them for a bit. If they did a Witcher mmo I would sign up. What do you think?

BrotherMaynard · December 2019

No. Let it continue as a well-crafted rich single player experience. No groups of Gééralts and Whîte Wölves running around /yelling yo momma jokes while waiting for a local boss to respawn for the 100th time today. Or xxxCîrixxx dancing on a mailbox in front of the Oxenfurt university.

Some stories are meant to be told as a very controlled, tight narrative, just between the authors and you.

Asm0deus · December 2019

No.

Po_gg · December 2019

Yep, I would. It's an interesting world, with plenty of opportunities for a LotRO-esque narrative style, not playing the "chosen one ultimate hero" just an everyday person.

BrotherMaynard said:

Some stories are meant to be told as a very controlled, tight narrative, just between the authors and you.

I guess you're talking about the three games, since the novels are the exact opposite of controlled tight narrative, his style is more on the episodic narrative, jumping all around the timeline so not even chronologic.

[Deleted User] · December 2019

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vegetableoil · December 2019

if it's witcher world I might. I would just play as some poor sap farming and get hunted by monsters, that would be great.

Scot · December 2019

I think Lotro would be the perfect balance, but anywhere between story rich SWTOR and still good on story but not as rich ESO would be fine. Also good to see we have someone who has read more than just the first book like me...less TV, less games, more reading!

mgilbrtsn · December 2019

I really don't know. An IP in and of itself doesn't sell me a game. What are the mechanics, graphics, cost...... Once I know all of these things, then I could decide.

Bloodaxes · December 2019

Well I don't know much about the lore but aren't witchers very rare? How would that work?

Unless you mean play as "regular" races while there being the witchers solely in the main story and about, then I guess it could work.

LeFantome · December 2019

No.

Po_gg · December 2019

Bloodaxes said:

Well I don't know much about the lore but aren't witchers very rare? How would that work?

I meant exactly that by "just an everyday person". With sticking to the LotRO example, as you can't play a ranger nor a wizard (sure, technically you can ranger, in the 'Moors), witcher too should stay out from the playable options - if it's an MMORPG we're talking about, and not just a generic multiplayer action game.

Which could probably be the biggest danger to this hypothetical MMORPG, the majority of players only want the action and power, it could easily end up like SWG's jedi vs. NGE...

BrotherMaynard · December 2019

Po_gg said:

Yep, I would. It's an interesting world, with plenty of opportunities for a LotRO-esque narrative style, not playing the "chosen one ultimate hero" just an everyday person.

BrotherMaynard said:

Some stories are meant to be told as a very controlled, tight narrative, just between the authors and you.

I guess you're talking about the three games, since the novels are the exact opposite of controlled tight narrative, his style is more on the episodic narrative, jumping all around the timeline so not even chronologic.

Yes, I was talking about the CDPR trilogy, as that's the established game world based on Witcher.

I wouldn't say the novels are the opposite of controlled narrative. They follow Ciri and Geralt around in their own respective times and worlds, true, which makes in more challenging, but despite the changing timeline, the narrative is still tight. You could read the chapters in a chronological order instead of how they are put together in the novels and the story would fit and make perfect sense.

I'm not talking about the first two books, of course - but even those stories could be mixed in with the rest and re-arranged into a coherent chronological narrative.

BrotherMaynard · December 2019

Bloodaxes said:

Well I don't know much about the lore but aren't witchers very rare? How would that work?

Unless you mean play as "regular" races while there being the witchers solely in the main story and about, then I guess it could work.

Depends - the setting could be long before Geralt's time. They had their own fortress and were fairly numerous. Perhaps not millions-of-MMO-players numerous, but many more than in Geralt's time.

Po_gg · December 2019

BrotherMaynard said:

I wouldn't say the novels are the opposite of controlled narrative. They follow Ciri and Geralt around in their own respective times and worlds, true, which makes in more challenging, but despite the changing timeline, the narrative is still tight. You could read the chapters in a chronological order instead of how they are put together in the novels and the story would fit and make perfect sense.

I believe it's just the difference between our interpretation of tight, and controlled.

For me, tight and controlled narrative is something like Tolkien, with everything is worked out to the tiniest details, or like Zelazny with Amber which is basically one story stretched over to 10 books. (more precisely one story and a direct followup story, in 5+5 books).

For me Sapkowski's world building is closer to how Howard wrote Conan or Kull, flashing up episodes from their lives, in random order and with "holes" within the overall story even if you assemble everything in chronological order.

As a base of an MMORPG maybe the latter is better, since your writing team has more space to work. (Though LotRO did a really nice job with the book quest line...)

Singleplayer too, that's how CDPR could do the stories of the three games. Personally I prefer to stick to the novels, when it's about "canon".

Aragoni · December 2019

No.

syltmacka · December 2019

im so tired of fantasy tho. but i probably try it.

Sovrath · December 2019

BrotherMaynard said:

No. Let it continue as a well-crafted rich single player experience. No groups of Gééralts and Whîte Wölves running around /yelling yo momma jokes while waiting for a local boss to respawn for the 100th time today. Or xxxCîrixxx dancing on a mailbox in front of the Oxenfurt university.

Some stories are meant to be told as a very controlled, tight narrative, just between the authors and you.

One could argue all stories should be told that way.

This is just picking and choosing. Unless you mean all story based mmorpg's shouldn't exist?

Amathe · December 2019

I would absolutely play a mmorpg based on The Witcher. And I'm hoping to have that opportunity.

lotrlore · December 2019

I was literally working on a feature based on this very idea for next week. Awesome discussion - definitely will link back to this as well to continue it.

[Deleted User] · December 2019

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Quicksand · December 2019

Yep

Amathe · December 2019

One game dynamic might be the fact that The Witcher wants to go it alone, just him and his horse, with an occasional booty call. But the plot line keeps drawing him in to interactions with others. That tension could make for some interesting story lines.

He also wants a simple life. Kill monsters. Get paid. Live and let live. But life's complexities, moral relativism, and destiny keep intruding.

cameltosis · December 2019

As with all games, it would come down to the design and gameplay.

I didnt enjoy the games. I tried the first one but couldnt get past the terrible combat so gave up pretty quickly. Got 3, liked the open world but still disliked the combat, too shallow. The open world was pretty, but not much to do in it.

Also, story and multiplayer clash, and the witcher IP is all about story first, gameplay second. So, I don't think it would work well in a massively multiplayer environment.

If it met my criteria though, I'd play it:

Must have deep combat mechanics
Must be designed around horizontal progression
Must include some objective-based open world pvp (i.e. fighting over keeps)

I can't see a witcher MMO having those things though, it would be too different from the single player games to satisfy the fans.

MMOExposed · December 2019

Jemcrystal said:

You couldn't play as Gerald or Ciri obviously you would do the elf, dwarf, human adventurer thing. But they could have cutscenes throughout that you could choose to activate at your convenience where you either helped the Witcher characters or played as them for a bit. If they did a Witcher mmo I would sign up. What do you think?

We have that, it's called ESO. So no. I will pass on that.

Amathe · December 2019

Gameplay is important. But gameplay without a convincing, living world and a compelling story is just Pac Man (which is a fun game mechanically, but with no lore).

klash2def · December 2019

yup sign me right the hell up

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