Two Expansions Announced for The Witcher 3

[pawan1993]

Two new expansions have been announced for The Witcher 3 titled Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine.

 

 

Hearts of Stone will take Geralt on an all-new, 10-hour-plus adventure into the wilds of No Man’s Land and the nooks and alleys of Oxenfurt, where he’ll try to complete a contract from the mysterious Man of Glass. Caught in a thick tangle of deceit, Geralt will need all his cunning and strength to solve the mystery and emerge unscathed.

 

Blood and Wine, a 20-hour-plus tale that will introduce the all-new in-game region of Toussaint, will take Geralt to a land untainted by war, where an atmosphere of carefree indulgence and knightly ritual masks an ancient, bloody secret.

 

Hearts of Stone will premiere in October, while Blood and Wine is slated for release in the first quarter of 2016.

Both expansions will be available on all three platforms: Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 4

 

Really not a fan of paid DLC's and season passes (in this case "expansion passes") at all whether it's from CDPR or Ubisoft. Announcing 16 free DLC's before launch was a brave move but this is just retracting on what they've said about charging for extra content. Don't get me wrong, I love CDPR and how they go about things but this is something that will lose quite a few fans. I might just cancel my pre-order because of this. The game will probably still end up being great anyway but it's not a great move by them both in terms of screwing their fans over and pre-order sales.

 

Update: Pricing is $24.99 USD for the expansion pass. It's available for pre-order on Steam here or DRM free at GoG here. Also available as a bundle with the game for $79.99 USD on Steam here.

 

Source: http://thewitcher.com/news/view/991

[mr195]

I understand why fans of this particular studio would be upset. But I personally have no problem paying for worthwhile dlc, especially if its going to add 30 hours of content. Plus, I'm sure CDPR will deliver additional content worth playing, they don't really make bad things in my opinion.

[Fulgrim]

When i saw this post i thought "oh shit, i forgot to pre-order this". Then when i went to put in a pre-order, i realized that i had already pre-ordered it weeks ago. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

 

Also, i hope they don't charge like £10 for DLC, maybe £3 at most.

 

[pawan1993]

I understand why fans of this particular studio would be upset. But I personally have no problem paying for worthwhile dlc, especially if its going to add 30 hours of content. Plus, I'm sure CDPR will deliver additional content worth playing, they don't really make bad things in my opinion.

 

 

When i saw this post i thought "oh shit, i forgot to pre-order this". Then when i went to put in a pre-order, i realized that i had already pre-ordered it weeks ago. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

I love what these guys do and put out. My issue with this is the fact they've gone back on what they've said about paid DLC. I want this game to do well because of who they are and what they do but contradicting themselves isn't helping.

[AlexGoesHigh]

how is this going to lose people interest? the only wrong thing about this is being announced before launch, other that that how is this screwing people its for release 5 months after launch, i think that a reasonable amount of time to release a expansion on a single player game, IMO this how paid content should be done, months after release though like i said not announce it before release, this is nothing like day 1 dlc, or shit like capcom in disc "dlc"

 

I love what these guys do and put out. My issue with this is the fact they've gone back on what they've said about paid DLC. I want this game to do well because of who they are and what they do but contradicting themselves isn't helping.

please provide a source that said they wouldn't do paid dlc, AFAIK they only said there will be free dlc available but not that they wouldn't do paid content

[Fulgrim]

I love what these guys do and put out. My issue with this is the fact they've gone back on what they've said about paid DLC. I want this game to do well because of who they are and what they do but contradicting themselves isn't helping.

Meh, i'm kinda forgiving for this company, due to their history with the previous Witcher games. CDProjekt is a small group, and they are able to make such high quality game content.

But i do agree that going back on what they said is not very good. 

[Victorious Secret]

Other companies announce DLC before the game even releases "BURN THE FUCKERS"

CDPR announces DLC before the game ships "OMG WE LOVE YOU GUYS PLEASE HAVE OUR BABIES"

 

Thats what some people sound like. 

[pawan1993]

how is this going to lose people interest? the only wrong thing about this is being announced before launch, other that that how is this screwing people its for release 5 months after launch, i think that a reasonable amount of time to release a expansion on a single player game, IMO this how paid content should be done, months after release though like i said not announce it before release, this is nothing like day 1 dlc, or shit like capcom in disc "dlc"

 

please provide a source that said they wouldn't do paid dlc, AFAIK they only said there will be free dlc available but not that they wouldn't do paid content

Hmmm. I stand corrected on their stance with expansions but they did say that DLC's should be free in this interview.

 

 

 

We’ve always believed in free DLCs. The thing is that we consider DLCs as a normal post sale service, which shouldn’t be priced. Back when retail games were dominant, we had expansion packs. These were really large chunks of content, which were worth their price. If today’s DLCs offered the same amount of content, they would be worth paying for, but in most cases players think they are overcharged for what they receive. That’s why we offer expansions to our game for free. This is also a way of saying “thank you” to the people who decided to buy our game instead of copying it from an unauthorised source.

[pawan1993]

Meh, i'm kinda forgiving for this company, due to their history with the previous Witcher games. CDProjekt is a small group, and they are able to make such high quality game content.

But i do agree that going back on what they said is not very good. 

Yeah, the previous games were awesome. The Witcher has one of the best storylines of any game. My opinion is that they shouldn't have done this, especially before the release. If other people have faith in that they'll deliver then great!

[carolkarine]

Two new expansions have been announced for The Witcher 3 titled Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine.

 

 

Really not a fan of paid DLC's and season passes (in this case "expansion passes") at all whether it's from CDPR or Ubisoft. Announcing 16 free DLC's before launch was a brave move but this is just retracting on what they've said about charging for extra content. Don't get me wrong, I love CDPR and how they go about things but this is something that will lose quite a few fans. I might just cancel my pre-order because of this. The game will probably still end up being great anyway but it's not a great move by them both in terms of screwing their fans over and pre-order sales.

 

Source: http://thewitcher.com/news/view/991

 

 

I understand why fans of this particular studio would be upset. But I personally have no problem paying for worthwhile dlc, especially if its going to add 30 hours of content. Plus, I'm sure CDPR will deliver additional content worth playing, they don't really make bad things in my opinion.

 

 

When i saw this post i thought "oh shit, i forgot to pre-order this". Then when i went to put in a pre-order, i realized that i had already pre-ordered it weeks ago. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

 

Also, i hope they don't charge like £10 for DLC, maybe £3 at most.

 

 

 

I love what these guys do and put out. My issue with this is the fact they've gone back on what they've said about paid DLC. I want this game to do well because of who they are and what they do but contradicting themselves isn't helping.

 

 

how is this going to lose people interest? the only wrong thing about this is being announced before launch, other that that how is this screwing people its for release 5 months after launch, i think that a reasonable amount of time to release a expansion on a single player game, IMO this how paid content should be done, months after release though like i said not announce it before release, this is nothing like day 1 dlc, or shit like capcom in disc "dlc"

 

please provide a source that said they wouldn't do paid dlc, AFAIK they only said there will be free dlc available but not that they wouldn't do paid content

 

You lot are being thick. They promised they wouldn't charge for feature creep and small, insubstantial additions. And they aren't, that's the "free" dlc. These, the expansions, are more story content. Which is perfectly acceptable to charge for.

 

Other companies announce DLC before the game even releases "BURN THE FUCKERS"

CDPR announces DLC before the game ships "OMG WE LOVE YOU GUYS PLEASE HAVE OUR BABIES"

 

Thats what some people sound like. 

 

I do, however, agree that they should have announced this stuff in late july or something, so that people who just finished beating the game will have something to look forward to. now was a poor decision.

[AlexGoesHigh]

Hmmm. I stand corrected on their stance with expansions but they did say that DLC's should be free in this interview.

fair enough

[Fulgrim]

-snip-

 

Technically it's still DLC. DLC = Downloadable Content. It's content that you can download. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Scionyde]

DLC isn't inherently evil: as long as it's fairly priced for the content it delivers, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. As for whether CDPR made a mistake in announcing it now... I don't think I'd go that far. It's not like these expansions are planned to arrive on launch, so I don't see this as a case of 'cutting features from the game to sell for extra cash'. We'll just have to wait and see whether these expansions are good value.

 

Other companies announce DLC before the game even releases "BURN THE FUCKERS"

CDPR announces DLC before the game ships "OMG WE LOVE YOU GUYS PLEASE HAVE OUR BABIES"

 

Thats what some people sound like. 

 

Well, maybe that'll pop up in a page or two, but nobody here has posted like that yet. In fact, I'd say most people who have posted so far aren't pleased with CDPR's announcement.

[pawan1993]

DLC isn't inherently evil: as long as it's fairly priced for the content it delivers, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. As for whether CDPR made a mistake in announcing it now... I don't think I'd go that far. It's not like these expansions are planned to arrive on launch, so I don't see this as a case of 'cutting features from the game to sell for extra cash'. We'll just have to wait and see whether these expansions are good value.

 

 

Well, maybe that'll pop up in a page or two, but nobody here has posted like that yet. In fact, I'd say most people who have posted so far aren't pleased with CDPR's announcement.

In this industry there is very little that actually delivers. I hope these guys do deliver on their promise of 30 odd hours of added gameplay at a good price. One of my favourite expansions ever has to be WC3: The Frozen Throne. That added at least 60-70 hours of added gameplay albeit for about $40 AUD.

[deviant88]

piracy... the result of game shipped with dlc installed

[Guest Kloaked]

Any thought of buying the game is gone, now. I was under the impression that they did free DLC no matter what it was.

I wasn't able to complete witcher 2 due to it being subjectively clunky to me, but now I'm not even going to get witcher 3.

You either stick to your word or I'm not going to buy shit from you.

Edit: Apparently they're saying they feel their paid DLC will be worth it unlike AAA expansions. We'll see.

[Trik'Stari]

Other companies announce DLC before the game even releases "BURN THE FUCKERS"

CDPR announces DLC before the game ships "OMG WE LOVE YOU GUYS PLEASE HAVE OUR BABIES"

 

Thats what some people sound like. 

I usually judge the DLC by what it  actually is. BS that's just fluff, and yeah, burn the fuckers. Actual extra content that wasn't sliced off of the game, then yes, have my babies.

 

Edit: I have yet to play any of the Witcher games all the way through, although I tried Witcher 2, didn't really like it, too buggy (terrible cutscene stuttering)

 

Got it on sale, meh.

[carolkarine]

Technically it's still DLC. DLC = Downloadable Content. It's content that you can download. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

okay. but the difference is in type of content. and it's entirely fair for them to ask consumers to pay for a substantial expansion with a significant amount of new gameplay and story, and it's not fair for them to ask for the consumer to pay for insubstantial extras. So far, CDPR has followed that just fine.

[elfensky]

I think you all misunderstand something...

 

As far as I know/As far as I'm aware, their statement about DLC was about exclusive pre-order DLC and on-disc DLC. As in working on DLC before the release, instead of fixing various bugs and the like. As far as I know, they stand true to this statement.

Look at the release dates of the announced stuff - early NEXT YEAR and the next one even later. Clearly it will be developed AFTER the release of the main game. And look at the content as well - it's not some shitty skins or quests, but whole new story lines and regions.
Look at the amount (lenght) of content - 10 hours is LONGER than some AAA titles nowadays (Order 1886 or Murdered Soul Suspect come to mind, both are <6Hrs games)

No, I stand by my point - not all DLC are created equal, and some, let's be honest, are very much worth it.

EDIT:
Also, again, we have forgotten, but there was once a difference between DLC and Expansion packs. One that CDPR clearly still remebers. A few posts above was a link to the interview, watch it.

Gist:
DLC = short, small content like skins, horses, hairstyles, whatever.
Expansion Packs = actual stuff that brings actual content to the game. New story lines, gameplay, places, ...

CDPR never said EP's will be free. Only DLC.




I will, however, admit I am a bit biased towards CDPR as I really love their games and am a bit of a fanboy.

[Fulgrim]

I usually judge the DLC by what it  actually is. BS that's just fluff, and yeah, burn the fuckers. Actual extra content that wasn't sliced off of the game, then yes, have my babies.

 

Edit: I have yet to play any of the Witcher games all the way through, although I tried Witcher 2, didn't really like it, too buggy (terrible cutscene stuttering)

 

Got it on sale, meh.

Cutscene stuttering on Witcher 2? I personally never had that issue, was this just when it came out, or the Enhanced Edition? (after it had been patched + free DLC)

[Sharkyx1]

This is what CDPR said about DLC

 

"DLC, it’s small content," said head of marketing and PR Michal Platkow-Gilewski back in September. "Like one-thousandth of the whole game. Why should you charge for that? If it’s small, give it for free.

seems they were specifically talking about horse armour and the like, not full fledged expansions

[Trik'Stari]

Cutscene stuttering on Witcher 2? I personally never had that issue, was this just when it came out, or the Enhanced Edition? (after it had been patched + free DLC)

Actually, it's the first game, enhanced edition.

 

This is what CDPR said about DLC

seems they were specifically talking about horse armour and the like, not full fledged expansions

 

That's a good point. There is a difference between DLC and expansion packs (at least, unless you are EA, screwing the hell out of SWTOR)

[zacRupnow]

I don't see any problemof these paid expansions, it's 30 hours of content, not some stupid Armour or hairpack. Little things used to be added on to games free and large content was DLC or Expansion. It was games like Cod and Sims that forced a change in the term DLC.

[zacRupnow]

This is what CDPR said about DLC

seems they were specifically talking about horse armour and the like, not full fledged expansions

I thought that was quite clear from the beginning.

[Victorious Secret]

Whats sad is that CDPR is offering a preorder season pass for a preorder game. 

 

And you all are lapping it up like the mindless dogs you are.

 

What happened to down with preorders and not supporting this pathetic money grab attempt by developers and publishers?