I dunno, but I wouldn't really want them to turn TES into Witcher. So, its a moot point for me.

What do you mean? Witcher 3 is a good game but I do not want the TES games to turn into a Witcher game since I think that will be downgrade.

What defines 'The same level'? Size? Characters? Flashy moves?

TES and The Witcher are both fantastic series, and Skyrim and Wild Hunt are both great games. But they're very DIFFERENT games. Never mind the fact that Wild Hunt came out 4 years AFTER Skyrim.

Just because they're both RPGs doesn't mean that they are anything alike, or remotely comparable. The Witcher 3 is a story driven, character driven game. It's concept and execution are radically different than what TES is, and frankly, i think TES would lose a lot of what makes it great if it tried to emulate Wild Hunt.

I agree with this^

While they are similar games that are also totally different I think what he's saying is can Beth make a TES VI on the same Scope of Witcher 3 in terms of size, story, and over-all greatness. While I really hope so I don't really know. Beth games are weird in the fact that each game gets better and worse in different areas. Even the areas where it's getting better though aren't on par with a lot of other games such as Beths poor combat and animations. I hope Beth sees the huge success of TW3 not only in numbers for a game series a lot less popular than their own but also the critical success it's receive and hopes to emulate some of the things the game gets praise for. There's no reason Why TES VI main quest can't be as well written and compelling as TW3 was.

There's actually a great deal standing in the way. A nigh-insurmountable barrier. The power of the Wild Hunt's story comes from it's character relationships, all of which center around their relationship to Geralt. Take Geralt out of the equation, and huge swaths of the story, it's dynamics, and it's interactions fall off the face of a cliff.

The Witcher 3 is great mostly because you have little to no control over your characters past and personality. It allows for a more emotional character and story dynamic. But such a thing is virtually impossible without that sort of character solidity.

Yes Bethesda Game Studios can develop Their video games to be on the same level of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with the storyline quests having multiple branching paths to complete and choices and consequences depending on the choices you make.

No. They have the skill to make it like Raven's Cry and Two Worlds.

Geralt being a set character can make somethings easier story wise but once of the most acclaimed parts of the game the "Bloody Baron" quest series could easily be done without the pre set character. It may be harder yes but still totally do able.

Sort of yes, sort of no. Taken in isolation, the Bloody Barron arc is a decent enough story, definitely on par with the best Guild and Secondary questlines in all of TES, but it's part of a wider plot that is entirely dependant on Geralt's knowledge and motivation regarding Ciri. The drive, the character interaction, the moments of intuition etc are all part of that past relationship between Ciri and Geralt. Take that away, and a huge amount of even that Arc has no emotion to stand on.

COULD it be done without a concrete character? Probably. But would it be easy? Not remotely. And that's the most 'generic' and least Geralt-Dependant part of the story.

I would say a large part and emotion and intrigue of that quest line was the baron himself and his familial circumstances. As far as im concerned Geralt could of been looking for a character he knew nothing or little about and it still would of been 90% as good.

I disagree. Geralt's motivation in pressing the Baron for what he knows, his intimate knowledge of Ciri's behaviour, and the fact that he views Ciri as a daughter, is a very large part of why the Baron opens up to him. The interplay is that of two less-than-great-fathers. Without that, there's no opening for the Baron to be anything but the hard-ass that his soldiers know him as. It's the sympathy of Geralt's character that allows for the Baron's to develop.

And that's the issue. When you have actual characters, when you know the who and what and how of an interaction, you can far better reveal and design the interplay and the story around it. When one of the actors is an unknown, that sort of natural dynamic collapses. Even if you limit your interaction options, you need to design and plan for multiple outcomes, multiple personalities, etc. You can't craft a conversation with only half the actors.

The fact that Beth finally has real competition in the Fantasy open world RPG space gives me the biggest erection. Witcher 3 being pretty much universally considered to be better than Fallout 4 is the best thing that could have happened for fans of TES. Because it means that Beth is going to be forced to step up their game, if they want to stay on top.

Except Witcher 3, as an open world RPG, doesn't hold a candle to Beth's open world RPGs. Witcher 3 vs Fallout 4 is Apples vs Oranges. Sure they have similarities, and they're both good, but their design principles and gameplay philosophies couldn't be more different. Point in fact is that one of the criticisms of Witcher 3 is that the open world aspect detracted from the overall game experience, and would've been better with a more closed-off or zoned world (as it is, the encounters throughout the world were leveled in such a way to push you along a specific path, and straying from that path would put you up against enemies you had no hope of beating, and quests were specifically leveled for you to do at pre-appointed times). Meanwhile, the open world aspect is one of the defining features of Beth's RPGs. Beth's style of exploration-driven first-person open world RPG sadly still has no real competition.

There are many comparison polls between TW3 and FO4, TW3 completely blow it away in every polls and received GOTY statue instead of Fallout.

Yes, they truly can but I don't think they will.

There are many comparison polls between only vaguely related concepts all the time. Hell, the entire basis of Democracy is built on it. That doesn't mean those comparisons are necessarily warranted.

Bethesda's games are very different, conceptually, to The Witcher 3. Comparing them is like comparing Gears of War and Deadspace, because they're both 3rd person shooters. Or The Witcher and Diablo, because they're both RPGs.

About as relevant as the Oscars.

Look at the playtimes on Game Lengths. Wild Hunt is sitting at an average of 133 hours. It came out in may, and it already HAS a major expansion out to boot. Fallout 4, which came out in November, 6 months later, is sitting at 109 hours, and has only just had it's first mini-DLC.

Time spent in a game is a better indicator of what is 'better'.

*Note, Game Lengths isn't a perfect measure, not by a long shot. But it's a better idea of the length of interest and general public enjoyment of a game than either sales, or awards.

Not gonna lie, I've probably spent more time in FO4 than I have in Witcher 3, but a huge chunk of my FO4 time is just settlement BS that isn't actually fun gameplay.

So.... what you're saying is that Witcher 3 is Morrowind? ..... And it won every game of the year award, and is the best game of it's generation by, quite frankly, a shameful degree. Huh....... that's crazy. Almost like people have been saying Morrowind is super good for 15 years.....


I've literally never heard anybody say that the open world detracts from Witcher 3. I'm thoroughly convinced that you pulled that statement out of literally nowhere. Witcher 3 created the best open world since Morrowind. No hyperbole. No overstatement. Witcher 3's world is better than Obliv's. Better than Sykrim's. Better than KotOR's. Better than Mass Effect's. Better than DAO's. Better than FO3's. Better than FNV's. Better than Diablo 3's. Better than GTA SA's. Better than GTA 4's. Better than GTA 5's. Better than Red Dead's. Better than DAI's. Nothing has touched the Witcher 3 world in forever. It's got interesting characters, it's got fun terrain, it's got nifty monsters, it's got dope loot, it's got an actual sense of place about it that nothing else has managed to emulate.... like ever. The story plays off of the setting, and vice-versa like no game I've ever played. Witcher 3 killed it with it's map. If you disagree, you honestly just have bad taste. Like, I've done reviews and know all about the "art is subjective and there are right answers" thing, but if you think Witcher 3's map is a weakness... like... you just are bad at consuming media.

Does it push you through a set path? Kinda. You can do any quest in the game at any level, if you're good enough. I've seen videos of people doing level 30 quests at like level 5. Obviously they're going to be more appropriate at different levels. But Morrowind did that, people love it. There hasn't been a "Why is Morrowind good?" post since the dawn of time, that doesn't somewhere include the satisfaction of being able to go back and kill an enemy that was once immeasurably stronger than you.


The only reason to say that Witcher to Elder Scrolls is apples to oranges is that Witcher has a set main character, which allows Witcher to have an easier time having a halfway decent story. Everything else, as far as I'm concerned, you can compare 1-to-1. Looking at it that way, Witcher beats every recent Beth game handily in every respect.

With 251 GOTY awards, Witcher 3 has become the most awarded game of all time. I don't think Bethesda can top that, if they continue the Fallout 4'ization.

How did you get that from what I said?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/09/09/metal-gear-solid-v-and-the-witcher-3-both-suffer-from-the-same-big-flaw/
"The problem I had with The Witcher 3 when it came out was a simple one: Open-world game design hurts, rather than helps, video games more often than not. Unlike the carefully crafted environments and areas of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, the world of The Wild Hunt is far too repetitive and tedious. Yes, there are some cool areas, but those areas are spread out across a map that was designed with quantity in mind first, and quality second. Interspersing this vast world are a whole bunch of often very repetitive side quests, entirely too many herbs and materials to farm, and lots of monsters and brigands and what-have-you. You unlock sign-posts to fast-travel you about this great big map, because asking people to actually traverse it without growing dreadfully bored would be crazy."

http://www.witcher3live.com/2015/05/witcher-3-bad-reviews.html
"Perhaps still more telling is that you rarely get distracted while roaming the land. There’s simply very little to distract you with – perhaps a pack of wolves, or a treasure marker, but not enough for you to weave your own anecdotes borne of spontaneous goings-on. Lush as it is in vegetation, Velen feels curiously barren of intrigue and activity when you’re not questing.

At a certain point, you’re just going to have to fall in line with what The Witcher 3 wants you to do. And at that point – not before it – you’ll start having tremendous fun. Stop trying to play it like Skyrim (the game CD Projekt RED took many a swipe at during the run up to release) and you’ll quickly see why, despite some sizeable flaws, it’s still capable of coaxing you into hundreds of hours of beast-slaying play."

I disagree. I enjoy the Witcher series for vastly different reasons than I enjoys the Elder Scrolls series. The lack of a set main character is just the tip of the iceberg, as from there it expands into the 'be who you want, play how you want' philosophy TES has, whereas The Witcher games try very hard to keep you in Geralt's shoes in the world of the Witcher. TES games are largely designed around dungeon crawling, about you forging your own adventure and making your own story, whereas the Witcher is designed around telling the story the developers made for you. And personally, for a video game, I prefer the way TES does it. If I want a story about a specific person that someone else made for me, I'll read a book or watch a movie.

Are there things TES could learn from the Witcher games? Sure. But at the same time, there's plenty TES should avoid from the Witcher games lest it lose the aspects that set it apart from other games, and just end up as a poor clone of them. A common complaint about Fallout 4 is that it tries too much to not be a Bethesda game, in attempting to have a set main character (like Mass Effect or The Witcher) while not really having a set main character (like their games generally are), leaving the player with the worst of both worlds... a character with predefined traits they don't want, while also not being filled out enough to make for an interesting character.

You can't compare Witcher 3 to Bethesda's style. You really can't... They are vastly different RPGs which focuses on different aspects of their own games. To me, Bethesda did a better job with Fallout 4 than Witcher 3 has gotten but that's because I prefer the type of RPGs that Bethesda makes over Witcher 3's types. At least in the long run. I would probably play and enjoy Witcher 3 if I could but I wouldn't put as much time into it as I would for Bethesda's games.

Same level of what? Passion, hype, production value? Sure. All the design choices and gameplay components should remain distinct flavors, I don't want all the games in a given genre to copy paste the most recent awards champion. For me personally Skyrim is at a higher level than Witcher 3 in design principles and freedom to roleplay, so yeah, as far as I am concerned Bethesda is capable of good quality rpg and usually delivers.

Comparing them isn't like comparing apples and oranges. Its like comparing an apple and a car, witcher being the car. A car has a number of advantages over an apple. You can't drive an apple. Can't go get groceries. Can't go to work. Can't go on trips.

But you can eat an apple, you can't eat a car, and I want to eat that apple.

I haven't played any of the witcher games and I have no great desire to. I don't want to be Geralt. I want to play TES, not something else. When I want something else I buy something else, I don't want to turn TES into something else.