Witcher 3 quest designer: DA Inquisition is a good game, but too many fetch quests

Denton

Denton

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There is a pretty interesting interview on german eurogamer, conducted with lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewic:
http://www.eurogamer.de/articles/2015-02-02-the-witcher-3-laesst-euch-vieles-tun-aber-eislaufen-nope

This is google translated since I do not speak german, but it should be fine.

This is what he things about Dragon Age Inquisition (they asked him, so it is not him shitting on other games for no reason):

What about Dragon Age: Inquisition? Dragon Age now also follows an open world.

"I liked it played out," says Tomaszkiewicz, "but I think ..." - he thinks, obviously striving to find the right words.

CD Projekt owes Bioware particularly as a development studio lot. At that time, 2004 Bioware showed at E3 Jade Empire. CDP was at that time still little more than a Polish sales, a bunch of loonies who have had trouble finding buyers for their lying still in the early stages The-Witcher demo. Bioware gave them place on the stand and thus the necessary momentum.

Now Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz sits and thinks about Dragon Age: Inquisition, the latest game in a studio, in the shadow of CD Projekt was great. "For my taste, it could do with less fetch quests," he says. "But it's still a good game. Ultimately, it increases the diversity, which can never be wrong with role-playing games."
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What he likes more is Fallout New Vegas, apparently:

"Well, my favorite open world game is Fallout: New Vegas," Tomaszkiewicz says about the way it combines quests and story with the open world. It is insanely good to hear from someone who is in charge of the missions in Witcher 3. New Vegas is one of the few almost absammelresistenten examples of modern RPGs, defines your role in his world through deeds and fractions. The drawers do not know where you could grab the residents of Nevada, and withdraws in favor of a neutral perspective the events detected. In short, the players decide who is good and bad, as far as this distinction is relevant.
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Also namedrops Gothic as example of well done open world with no level scaling.

The whole interview is interesting though. He talks about some of the cut content, for example they originally planned to have ice skating in the game (readers of saga, wink wink) but decided to drop it.
 
watch-out-we-got-a-badass-over-here.jpg


Looking forward to seeing what The Witcher 3 manages now.
 
I agree even though these quests are optional. Still, tooo much if same type of quests makes it boring. Good game indeed. Now watch The Witcher 3 giving it a lesson
 
This man has impeccable taste in my opinion.

Edit: We may have WRPGs take GOTY two years in a row if Witcher wins it. I think it has a shot.
 
I was prepared to enter this thread screaming "NO! DAI IS ALMOST A GOOD GAME!" but then he put Fallout: New Vegas above it so I'll let the error go.

DAI would definitely have been improved without all the bloat, he's not wrong about that.

Edit: Oh! And he's the Quest Designer! This bodes well for Witcher 3 - FNV did a great job with open-world quests, and hopefully W3 follows suit.
 
Great to hear. Fallout 3 & NV are some of my favourite examples of side quest design because they are all interesting, unique and have a story behind them. Much, much better than the 70% filler garbage from DA:I.
 
I think he is right. I like DA:I but there is too much bloat. Bioware would have been better served trimming some of the fat. Nothing truly controversial about what he stated since he did admit it is still a good game.

New Vegas is a good blueprint to go after.
 
As much as I enjoyed Dragon Age: Inquisition, I'd have to agree with him. Far too many fetch quests which is also repeated in other zones. Perhaps they'll release dlc with better side quests. But I'm glad they are looking to diversify the side quests.
 
Citing New Vegas? Shit, this guy has my heart right now.

TW3 to be filled with bugs confirmed. lol

Talking about fetch quests makes me feel slightly more comfortable that this game won't resort to open world bloat. Then again, NV had some weird back and forth quests too.
 
LurkerPrime said:
I was prepared to enter this thread screaming "NO! DAI IS ALMOST A GOOD GAME!" but then he put Fallout: New Vegas above it so I'll let the error go.

DAI would definitely have been improved without all the bloat, he's not wrong about that.

Edit: Oh! And he's the Quest Designer! This bodes well for Witcher 3 - FNV did a great job with open-world quests, and hopefully W3 follows suit.
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He is the lead quest designer, actually :)
 
Almost every quest can be distilled down to a fetch quest. It's the contextual/narrative wrapper around the quest that makes it feel more or less like what the term "fetch quest" has come to mean.

I do personally prefer to have a bit more context behind what I'm doing in an RPG like this, so if FNV is what they're trying to mimic in some ways, that makes me very happy.
 
Denton said:
He is the lead quest designer, actually :)
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Yeah... I meant to put the full title in but managed to forget mid-edit.

Fantastic news.

piratepwnsninja said:
Almost every quest can be distilled down to a fetch quest. It's the contextual/narrative wrapper around the quest that makes it feel more or less like what the term "fetch quest" has come to mean.

I do personally prefer to have a bit more context behind what I'm doing in an RPG like this, so if FNV is what they're trying to mimic in some ways, that makes me very happy.
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With how DAI does it, it's a very cheap and disrespectful way to pad out the content in the game. Some of it manages to be even worse than ME3/DA2's literal fetch quests (which actually had dialog to set up why you got it.)
 
I wouldn't think many game designers think fetch quests are just a brilliant way to spend time. But when you have limited time and resources, its probably hard to create tons and tons of well thought out and scripted missions to populate the world, so inevitably fetch quests become a prime 'go-to' way to squeeze in more content. Hell, even The Witcher 1 had its share of fetch quests.
 
Mindman said:
Good thing those quests are optional, right?
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Ultimately, I don't think "optional" works that well as an excuse.

First of all, he cites New Vegas, which also had lots of optional quests that were still high-quality and meaningful.

Second, it's not easy for the player to know beforehand if an optional quest is worth doing or not. If the player can only avoid bad optional quests by avoiding ALL optional quests (including the good stuff), that's a problem. Game designers should curate their content; they shouldn't just throw in everything possible and leave it to player to sort out what's good and what's not.

Finally, bad optional quests can bring down the quality of good core quests. A bad quest can make otherwise potentially interesting activities (say, fighting a particular type of enemy) less interesting through repetition. Fighting a cool demon in a core quest might be fine on its own, but if you've already fought many similar, less cool demons throughout hours of optional quests? It won't be nearly as fresh.
 
Completely agree with him on those points. DA:I was a little bit of a slog in quest design, and FNV is the pinnacle for me. Also, had some great absammelresistenten.
 
Half the PR for this game is just trashing other RPGs.

I remember when it was first announced, the only media that came out would be accompanied with "This is why we hate Skyrim" or something.

Get your game out then you can talk about what makes yours better.
 
I love Dragon Age, but it definitely had a lot of "go here, get this" sidequests. It was still better than ME3's "overhear a conversation on the citadel and scan a planet" sidequests though, so progress. If Witcher 3 can be a good long game without throwing in a bunch of fetch quests for padding then great.
 
The first part of that statement makes me concerned for Witcher 3.

Then again, at least CDPR never even claimed to deliver tactical combat.
 
Mindman said:
Good thing those quests are optional, right?
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And too bad there's nothing else of any substance (with the exception of the main storyline).

That's the issue really. It's not that there are fetch quests. It's that there are ONLY fetch quests.

Bioware's previous games kept that to a minimum, instead filling up the world with incredible side stories that shed light on your companions, the world, your enemies, etc.

This is NOT the case with DA:I (for the most part).
 
Auctopus said:
Half the PR for this game is just trashing other RPGs.

I remember when it was first announced, the only media that came out would be accompanied with "This is why we hate Skyrim" or something.

Get your game out then you can talk about what makes yours better.
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What? They stated Skyrim as an influence when they announced Witcher 3. And they haven't trashed anyone. Learn to read.
 
I love Inquisition, but The Witcher 3 is looking next-level good. I am expecting to come away thinking it is the better game.
 
LurkerPrime said:
Every region is fundamentally the same, so that would make no difference.
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Not really. Most of the quests in the hinterlands are along the lines of "find X pieces of loot for me " or "pick up this quest item by killing this specific mob in the open world".

But the other areas have meatier quests that sometimes involve clearing out optional dungeons, give you access to nw areas of the open world and generally have more narrative backdrop to them than "pick up this thing".
 
So long as they look to Gothic/New Vegas for influence rather than the Skyrims and Dragon Age: Inquisitions of the world everything will be alright.
 
New Vegas was the best WRPG of the generation. But I doubt Witcher 3 would be able produce the same type of diversity in the side quests. The thing is Witcher 3 is about the main plot. Too much side quests and other distractions will decrease the effectiveness of the main story. I know they said that they will relate every side mission to the main plot but I doubt that. It just doesn't seem feasible.
 
Auctopus said:
Half the PR for this game is just trashing other RPGs.

I remember when it was first announced, the only media that came out would be accompanied with "This is why we hate Skyrim" or something.

Get your game out then you can talk about what makes yours better.
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It's not trashing other rpgs. He was asked a question and he answered it in a rather tame fashion. Nearly every enthusiast outlet bas dinged da:I for its fetch quests. It's not a controversial opinion.

And they do have two games out already, they have been fairly well received.
 
Mindman said:
Good thing those quests are optional, right?
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Not if you want to advance. I need 30 power to advance right now. Have 8. Time to scour those zones for shards, rifts to close, camps to set up, points to capture and a whole host of " I need butter for my biscuits".
 
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I felt like DAI had plenty of content in terms of "side quests" that were interesting and not just boring fetch quests. The fact that it also had stuff I could do with little thought while I was wandering the world exploring is, IMO, a good thing, rather than a bad thing.

I'm not saying this isn't a legitimate view, because of course it is, but I'm honestly baffled by how many people seem to think DAI has only two things: story missions and fetch quests. I maintain that DAI's biggest screw-up was starting you in the Hinterlands, rather than in a much smaller, more-directed zone, and then open up the huge "do what you want"-type areas later.
 
Miles Quaritch said:
O hope New Vegas wasn't carelessly cited.

That's now created a very specific expectation for Witcher 3.
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My only takeaway is that he liked the grey morality of choices in NV. Your actions weren't necessarily "good or evil", just "this or that". We've already seen this reflected by the few quests they've shown, so it's not radically altering my opinion of anything.
 
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