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HoloDust on 02 August 2015
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Mummelmann said:
HoloDust said:

Yeah, it definitely not as mainstreamed as those games, perhaps that's why some people find it difficult to get into - IMO, it happens often when (what are usually more of a niche) genres get into mainstream and have as much hype as W3 had.

On the other side, as a fellow Gothic fan, I'm sure you can see how much it pales in certain design desicions compared to Gothics, land design vs quests for me being worst offender - honestly, even Skellige, that is way better designed than Velen, has its fair share of problems - I feel like they've really tried to make big world just for the sake of it and went too horizontal. But even compared to Witcher 2, specially Flotsam, a lot of places in W3 tend to be dull.

But, you're right, finding flaws in W3 and then pitting it against Skyrim as example of excellent open-world WRPG is quite silly, given how much latter was mutilated compared to Morrowind in order to catter to mainstream.


Gothic 3 is very varied without coming off as silly, having different civilizations across such a relatively small map could have been a disaster but the towns and characters emote enough of an atmosphere to make it work. The voice-acting is often off key though.

I think a large part of the reason I enjoy The Witcher 3 more than Gothic is that I really, really enjoy the mythology, world and overall setting, this is also why I choose to forgive the cardinal sin of too much exposition dialogue in the book(s); I simply like it.

Gothic 3 has its fair share of problems, but what I value the most in open-world RPGs is how good is exploration vs quest design and no hand holding. Witcher 3 lost me fairly early on in that regard, Velen is too horizontal and too overgrown and playing with POIs is such a poor way to experience it, but without them game often turns into waste of time.

True, initial Baron story is probably best questline in the whole game, but, for me, whole exploration part of the game is nowhere near as good as Gothic games. Honestly, Skellige is what brought me back to game, it almost felt at first like it was designed by some other people and I've enjoyed it quite a bit more (without POIs of course).

I do however understand why you like Witcher more, but, for me, the balance of all things and all the options you have is simply way better in Gothics. Not to mention that, if you like to, you can kill every last NPC in game and still finish the story, one of the things I really score high in these type of games. But, and I said in other threads, Witcher is not designed to have that sort of character freedom, I appreciate and understand that, but I also think that it would be better game if it was more linear like W2, plus they wouldn't loose so much from W2 (again, nothing in W3 compares to how alive Flotsam in W2 feels).

Mummelmann said:

Skyrim is a really good game but I've never gotten past the 50-55 hour mark, the world is just too similar, that's also one of my main gripes with Fallout 3; locations are extremely similar to one another and you find the same enemies, loot and items absolutely everywhere. This is an area where I find a game like Kingdoms of Amalur to be superior to most open-world RPG's (even though it's not truly a completely open world).

Honestly, I was never big TES fan, Daggerfall was decent, Morrowind I liked a lot, but they've started losing me somewhat again with Oblivion. Skyrim was for me nice looking apple with not such a great taste, tbh.

As for Fallout, for some reason I've enjoyed it more than Skyrim, even though I'm huge fan of original Fallouts, even though F3 is but a ghost of F1/2 in all regards and even though I can say a lot, and I mean a LOT of shit about F3. But yeah, locations in F3 are very similar and tend to be dull - so different than variety of F1/2.

In the end, I do find W3 quite satisfying experience and I would recommend it easily to every WRPG fan, specially if open-world solo character variety is their thing, given how rare actually those games are.