[AnthonyF1227]

ZinuX said:

I think there was enough to do in a town in TW2 and TW1, adding more could make things tedious/overwhelming. I'd like to see more places to go to instead, if they expand upon stuff to do. ›››

Eh, they could have added more stuff and had it not be too much, especially in Flotsam where the game didn't have as much urgency at the time.

[GoodGuyA]

AnthonyF1227 said:

Eh, they could have added more stuff and had it not be too much, especially in Flotsam where the game didn't have as much urgency at the time. ›››

Ye see, that's something I like about The Witcher, and what was basically crumbled in the final act. Rather than being set along to your goal with the utmost urgency, or even knowing exactly where your going, the idea is rather to take the environment on a holistic and meaningful level. The fact that you're not trying to climb a mountain to reach the bad guy or walking through the town with murderous intent is refreshing. The world adapts around you because things are hidden directly from your eyes, and occasionally you have to face a roadblock that you cannot directly overcome at the current time. That, I think, is the power of the series in design. Even with things like the threat upon Vergen and the Kaedweni camp in Act 2, that served more as the overarching goal than a definitive problem to be solved immediately.

An open world could both help and hinder this. You certainly never want a game to seem completely undirected, since it limits the chance to actually take in the world and its breadth. Open worlds can rather help you understand things as it relates to your timeframe by giving you a concept of what is at stake. The Ultima games do this the best out of any RPGs in existence, primarily Ultima 4 (at least, in my opinion, as others would point to U7). They create an exciting world with a wide variety of goals in order to overcome the central threat, which is dangerous, but ultimately only becomes a threat once you confront it. This justifiably allows one to take their time in order to prepare facing that threat, and to change the world as they please. I think the Witcher's design is all ready conducive to a proper "open" way of world interaction with its wide open levels, but a properly designed open world could allow the story in general to breath more. Primarily, I think it could help with things not being so coincidental, like meeting the people you're meant to arm wrestle directly in the next chapter, rather doing it within the same continuous world.

I'm excited to see what will come of it, but I hope it's more directed than it is merely 'open'. I like the Elder Scrolls games, but those games are ones that reside on the moments of respite and taking in the world visually, since the story as a whole is ultimately banal. The Witcher is the opposite, where you're excited to reach the next story opportunity rather than exploring the environments, as nice looking as they may be. Here's to a proper design work, and CD Projekt's aspirations!

[thelostdunmer]

Open world could work if Geralt gets to hunt a ton load of UNIQUE monsters with also unique stories of their existence, he is a monsterslayer after all.

Open world for the witcher could also work if notable characters from both TW1 and TW2 are incorporated in such a way that TW3 feels like an amalgam of three games.

More of conspiracy stories and unique ways to solve them.

[witchermasterofRolling]

I voted no, I feel the story will suffer from open world. To much time will be spent exploring.
maybe open world for one chapter of the game might work? I don't see it working with the way the story line is going with the black ones invading to have open world there will need to be vary large scale battles going on. That will be vary hard to do in a open world environment.
I think just few larger area's. Id love to see horses added to the game. Slightly larger area's with horse travel might be nice, even if its just for part of them game.
maybe give us the road that joins one area to the next. Let us have control of the horses for most of it befor end of chapter speech by Dandiloin

[Wichat]

Really, how many ends have TW2? 8? 10? Isn't it work enough to make a third part taking into consideration those differents possible ends and consequences of them? Maybe an open world may only serve to accentuate the lack of consequences of our decisions taken in TW2 which, some of them we'll surely find in TW3 . CDPR bet very high with the freedom of action of the player in TW2. TW3 by itself is already a challenge to address all possible ends of TW2. Add an open world is adding a loss of quality, CDPR's distinctive quality to which we are accustomed by them.

[Guy N'wah]

To risk a mixed metaphor, I think calls for or against an open world tend to confuse the painting with the paint. The first two games have told a more or less definite and coherent story, which is Geralt's search for the memories, friends, and destiny that were taken away from him. But there are well-executed backdrops to this story in the hunt for Salamandra, the kingslayers, and their backers, and these backdrops command a lot of attention even in the presence of the principal story.

The next game will be a success, open world or not, if the story of Witcher Geralt and the backdrop of the Nilfgaardian invasion are well told, motivating us to involve ourselves in them (even to the extent of creating all-in forum arguments) and tell them to ourselves by playing them over and over.

Whether this is done at either extreme, with a fixed narrative running on rails, or with a process of discovery in an open world, or somewhere in between, is the paint and not the painting. The developers are clever enough to tell the story they want to tell, in whatever manner of world they believe the prospective players will accept.

Now having used too many bits to say it doesn't matter, I still like the idea of an open world for this game. What this does well is force the player to discover the story for himself, in a way that may even be unexpected. I don't think it causes problems with accounting for the multiple ending states of TW2; these are (and should be) mostly part of the background, and they should not change the central story in any decisive way.

[chaosapiant]

Anyone who has played New Vegas knows that an open world game with great story, characters, and choices/consequences IS possible, and if anyone can pull it off, it's CDPR. I'm all for it, if that's what they want to do.

[Umair2012]

It's the gift of the kiddies , bitching about fast travel and bow and all other shit .

[Umair2012]

RSIK4 said:

A major design challenge is to balance the freedom of an open world with the structure of a dramatic storyline. Since players may perform actions that the game designer did not expect,the game's writers must find creative ways to impose a storyline on the player without interfering with their freedom. As such, games with open worlds will sometimes break the game's story into a series of missions, or have a much simpler storyline altogether. Other games instead offer side-missions to the player that do not disrupt the main storyline.Most open world games make the character a blank slate that players can project their own thoughts onto, although several games such as Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole offer more character development and dialog. Writing in 2005, David Braben described the narrative structure of current videogames as "little different to the stories of those Harold Lloyd films of the 1920s", and considered genuinely open-ended stories to be the "Holy Grail we are looking for in fifth generation gaming". ›››

Not David , Chris Roberts said that .

[Umair2012]

I just want Prologue , 5 chapters and Epilogue like original witcher . They can make each of the chapter open world (not so much) but I don't want them to move away from their roots . On other hand open world like Farcry 3 will be good where instead of hunting animals Geralt can hunt rare monsters to craft items etc in secondary missions .