When is the next patch coming

Well the article mentioned that a big part of W3's budget got into marketing.

But sure I don't know if this is true.
And I agree CDPR have done an awesome job especially when comparing to a big established company like EA

I see a lot of mention of certain games and how they drew the player in with story, dialogue and animations, gameplay etc.  One that I think needs mentioning is The Last of Us.  I feel that game set a pretty high bar comparable to the original ME trilogy.  Of course, as far as I can find, TLoU had a pretty high budget.

Definitely agree. However I think there are even smaller productions out of whose book you could take a leaf or two. I mean Pillars of Eternity showed people that "old school" RPGs with crappy graphics still draw a lot of people if you get the story right and actually engage in what your community wants. (Tbh I never understood the limit to 2 squadmates... I mean sure on the old systems it might have been to taxing otherwise but seriously? Nowadays? You can throw like 50 opponents my way but I still have to pick instead of going with a full team of 5 or 6?) Or take other games of a completely different genre. Take Dangaronpa or Zero Escape. They are both visual novels with absolutely crazy stories but the story telling itself is so well handled and so tight that they just suck you in no matter how utterly ridiculous their settings seems to be at first and both were massive hits. Or take Shenmue in it's day or the Persona series.

There are loads and loads of amazing games that show you how storytelling is done and how that can overshadow even the shitties of graphics and even the weirdest of plots enough to make you forget about them and just absolutely suck you in. I also don't get how a game with the topic of establishing settlements can be so utterly tonedeaf in not letting you actually build the settlements yourself, give you some form of management control over them and have several quests associated with it. I mean are they blind? DA:O, DA:I, PoE, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 4, Skyrim etc. all of them showed one thing: players want to have a home base and want to build that thing up. How on earth can you reduce the task of managing and setting up those vital outposts to pressing a button and waiting for a drop ship?`Let me choose the site, let me decide how the setup will look, let me decide what kind of base I want, maybe even upgrade them, let me decide where the living quarters will be. Give me something to do with those settlements besides: yeah cool, I built them and now the spot on the map is blue and not white anymore. I rule!!!! That just doesn't cut it in this day and age. Why can't I customize my ship in some way? At least let me paint it. Or allow me to upgrade it to a more sciency vessel or to a more military vessel and maybe change the story around that choice. I mean there are soooo many possibilites for little stuff that wouldn't have to change the whole narrative but would make this game more worthwhile.

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@hedop85 wrote:

Definitely agree. However I think there are even smaller productions out of whose book you could take a leaf or two. I mean Pillars of Eternity showed people that "old school" RPGs with crappy graphics still draw a lot of people if you get the story right and actually engage in what your community wants. (Tbh I never understood the limit to 2 squadmates... I mean sure on the old systems it might have been to taxing otherwise but seriously? Nowadays? You can throw like 50 opponents my way but I still have to pick instead of going with a full team of 5 or 6?) Or take other games of a completely different genre. Take Dangaronpa or Zero Escape. They are both visual novels with absolutely crazy stories but the story telling itself is so well handled and so tight that they just suck you in no matter how utterly ridiculous their settings seems to be at first and both were massive hits. Or take Shenmue in it's day or the Persona series.

There are loads and loads of amazing games that show you how storytelling is done and how that can overshadow even the shitties of graphics and even the weirdest of plots enough to make you forget about them and just absolutely suck you in. I also don't get how a game with the topic of establishing settlements can be so utterly tonedeaf in not letting you actually build the settlements yourself, give you some form of management control over them and have several quests associated with it. I mean are they blind? DA:O, DA:I, PoE, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout 4, Skyrim etc. all of them showed one thing: players want to have a home base and want to build that thing up. How on earth can you reduce the task of managing and setting up those vital outposts to pressing a button and waiting for a drop ship?`Let me choose the site, let me decide how the setup will look, let me decide what kind of base I want, maybe even upgrade them, let me decide where the living quarters will be. Give me something to do with those settlements besides: yeah cool, I built them and now the spot on the map is blue and not white anymore. I rule!!!! That just doesn't cut it in this day and age. Why can't I customize my ship in some way? At least let me paint it. Or allow me to upgrade it to a more sciency vessel or to a more military vessel and maybe change the story around that choice. I mean there are soooo many possibilites for little stuff that wouldn't have to change the whole narrative but would make this game more worthwhile.

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You could also take the original ME trilogy and put it in that camp as well.

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@JucieN7 wrote:

seems so...

I read an article about production costs.

MEA is listed with about 40 Mio $ whereas Witcher 3 is listed with 72 Mio $. Well that explains why some potential is not used or seem shallow.

But I am not an expert on game development or something related, just a fan who loves to get away from reality. Maybe I am a bit naive.

EDIT: typos

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To my knowledge there isn't a single credible source when it comes to how much ME:A cost to develop. The 40M USD is a number conjured from thin air and really should stop being circulated.

It is been happening more often than not, games disguising shallow mechanics with fancy graphics. I'll pick mechanics over fake make-up all the way.

I am about done with multiplayer too. I check their twitter and here pretty much everyday and there are still no updates. I am about to shelve the game for months. Stupid little APEX "events" that seem more like beta testing gamemodes over the weekend are not enough to hold my interest, especially when it still crashes, sound goes away, or disconnects. They came out with one patch in a month since release, that is unacceptable. 

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@PandaTar wrote:

It is been happening more often than not, games disguising shallow mechanics with fancy graphics. I'll pick mechanics over fake make-up all the way.

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That's been the name of the game ever since the transition from floppy disks to CDs.  They put a fraction of the time into story and mechanics and just try to make it pretty instead.

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@hedop85 wrote:

Well the production cost is determined by several factors. Firstly I'm not exactly sure that the Witcher 3 cost 72 Mio, I would need a source for that. That seems pretty excessive tbh especially if you consider that CDPR is basically a one trick pony in that their only game is the Witcher Franchise and they have never had sales as big as that so I wouldn't even know where they could get the capital from... nevertheless if that is true you also have to consider things like: how long did EA actually spend on that game? TW3 was in developement for ages and it showed. Secondly how much do they pay? That also effects the quality of the work.

There are other factors but I agree with panda... it's how you spend that money and tbh to me it's still surprising that a small time company like CDPR managed to spend their money on their first project of this scale so much better than EA with years and years of experience. It's a testament to their lack of professionalism and knowledge.

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Just the basic pre-DLC Witcher 3 costed about 81M$, and was in development for 3.5 years. CDPR was very open with the development process as You can read e.g. here: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

[advertise mode]

CDPR originated as CDP, which was a publisher for a huge number of games in Poland (like original Baldur's Gate for example, but also Mass Effect 1), and was actually quite famous for their fantastic localizations. They were also responsible for GOG, which while not the biggest digital game distributor (that would be Steam, right?) is growing in significance for many year, and started with a nice premise of no DMR, and with idea of bringing back many old titles adapted to modern machines. Eventually, while Witcher 1 was not as famous world-wide it was absolutely adored in Poland, and CDPR immediately gained huge number of fans with the game and with their very open and pro-gamers approach (e.g. when they released Enhanced Edition for W1 they offered it for free to all the people who had previously bought the original game - and please note that at that time those games were mainly offered on CDs rather than with digital copies). Witcher 2 was even greater hit since the engine CDPR developed was recognized globally as limit-breaking (or computer requirements breaking...), almost-state-of-the-art at that time. Both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 were moddable, and actually there are quite a few mini-adventures for Witcher 1 created by fans and other parties, some of them even incorporated in the current digital releases. With Witcher 3 CDPR proved that they are always eager to change and grow better with each successive game - W3 is a masterpiece comparable to some past breakthrough-cRPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Plansescape: Torment. Sure, W3 is not *perfect*, and there are some issues with it that many people are unhappy with, but there is no denying that both the game and Devs set some new standards for the genre, and that many AAA competitors are not even *hoping* to meet those standards with their current titles...

[/advertise mode]

So yes, CDPR is not as "fresh" and "poor" and "out of nowhere" as some would assume, but still it is surprising that so few other companies are *truly* interested in learning by the good example...   :-(

You know they're not going to say anything until the patch is finalised and possibly not until the console verifications are done as well. If they gave intended dates and content you'd have a load of folk screaming about "broken promises" if any of it got missed for some reason. They've already said the plan's for a 2 month patch/content period.