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Noclip Tackles The Witcher - And we want your help! (Patreon)

Published:
2017-07-19 23:46:02
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hey folks!

So we announced this to Patrons earlier in the week, but the news is now public so here's a public post.

Noclip's next series is going to be a deep dive into CD Projekt's The Witcher franchise. The series will celebrate it's ten year anniversary in October, so we thought what better time to fly to Warsaw and spend eight days talking to the team about the evolution of this franchise. 

It's our biggest project to date, our longest filming window and we're determined to ensuring fans of the franchise get what they deserve; a thoughtful analysis of the history and design of this series.

In fact, if you're a fan of this game we want your help.

We've done retrospectives on a lot of games over the past ten months, but this one feels a little different. There is a lot of ground to cover. We could spend hours talking about the combat, or the music, or the various ways Geralt likes to tie up his hair. We have to pick our battles with this project, so we want to know what The Witcher community would like us to cover.

Our plan is to focus some element of the story on the history of CD Projekt itself. I want to find out how the quest team worked to write so many dynamic quests, and ask about how the vast world of Wild Hunt was crafted. I'm going to ask about monster design, why the first game never made it to consoles, and loads more. But it would be great to hear what die-hard fans of the series would like to know about too.

I'll be keeping an eye on Reddit threads, fan sites and the usual games coverage watering holes (I'm looking at you GAF) but I'd also invite you to comment on this post, tweet at me or even get involved with the Patreon community here on Noclip. We'll be posting pre-production updates along with our usual assortment of Q&As, Google Hangouts. patron exclusive behind-the-scenes features and early access to the videos. 

The Witcher is a special franchise, so we've made special time to tell this story properly. I hope you can join us on this quest. 

Thanks for your time,

Danny

Files

Comments

Brian Provan

Danny I'd be interested to hear the development team's thoughts on the reports that the author of the books doesn't like what they've done with the game? And were they aware of this during development and did it impact them at all

Simon Skittrell

I was going ask about any plans to talk to the author? He may not like them, but without them, especially 3, Netflix probably wouldn't have been interested at all in signing up the rights for a series.

Brian Provan

Yeah that's a really important point. I'm wondering if Danny is looking at The Witcher franchise, or The Witcher video games. This may be something he's still figuring out I guess!

Shawn Cassidy

Hey Danny! In addition to everything you mentioned, I'm interested in the development of two DLC packs for The Witcher 3; were they always planned to be such massive installments, did they believe the DLC would be competitive in the game awards (blood & wine in particular), was this thought of as a way to finish the franchise with a bang? Also what was the mindset going from on game to the next? Each have such large leaps between them in terms of the overall gameplay.

Shaan Khan

Hey Danny, this sounds like an amazing project. Kudos to yourself and the Noclip crew. The thing that immediately springs to mind is that I'd be interested in hearing the designers' perspective on how gender/sexuality has been presented throughout the games. The games initially had a kind of gross "trading card" system that commodotized Geralt's sexual persuits, despite the fact that the female characters were generally well-written and regarded. The games abandoned that as they went along, plus they introduced Ciri as a playable character eventually. I guess I'd be curious about how their perspective on female characters within their games have changed, and how they've viewed criticism towards some of their choices on the matter.

Fred Fryolator

Since I enjoy beating dead horses, I'd like to hear about their internal reaction to the Witcher 3 PC graphics "downgrade" drama and related tuning efforts. Did they have to rework assets when they decided that performance wasn't what they initially hoped for, or was it all handled in code?

Theron Miles

"I want to find out how the quest team worked to write so many dynamic quests" This is a super important topic, because so few developers have managed to match this standard. Its still the benchmark we use in games industry. Especially considering how the quests didn't feel like "filler".

Benjamin Liddle

I'd love to hear about some of the challenges that the team faced when working with the existing lore and history of the Witcher books. There are a lot of shout outs to the book series throughout the games, but it never felt imperative to read the books before playing. What was the process like for finding that balance?

Matt Leslie

Hey Danny I know I mentioned it on Discord, but I would be super fascinated to hear about the decisions that lead to how they handled specific book characters. To be even more specific, Ciri and Yennefer are major, major characters from the books (the argument can be made that Ciri is the real main character), yet they are not featured in the games until The Witcher 3. Just curious how they decided to go about not including these characters in the first few games. Did they want to just branch off from the book narrative into their own stories? Did the place where the books end put them in a difficult place. This would be super interesting to hear. Thanks!

Austin Taylor

The Witcher games are very distinct from one-another. Each game plays in avway that's incredibly different from its predecessors. Also, the 3rd game is the only one that really revolves around plot points that appeared in Sapkowski's novels. I think exploring the processes that led each game's distinct identity would be very interesting. I look forward to the finished project. You're doing good work here.

Marc Montana

My god, I'm so psyched for this. Absolutely love this series and the books.

Nigel Norman

Sounds great Danny! Can't wait. Can you find out which one of those gits made the quest in Wild Hunt that forced me to throw a baby in an oven? That shit had me sweating until I find out it was a trick and the baby was fine.

Lois Ollerenshaw

I'm so so excited for this project - I literally can't get enough of the Witcher franchise since I played Wild Hunt! I'd love to hear more about the three main female characters (Ciri, Yen, and Triss); their interactions and relationships are so unique within video game narratives. It'd be really cool to hear the process they went through to develop these characters.

Dom Greves

Well done for securing the necessary access again Danny. But this is one of those AAA stories which would have been told some day regardless of the crowd-sourced documentary model. Do CD Projekt really need our Patreon dollars for you to tell it on their behalf? If you were likely to reveal the sort of information that in-house video production teams or paid contractors fail to reach then I could see the justification, but that's not what we've been getting thus far I feel. I was hoping for something a little more off-beat and 'independent' I have to admit. The problem from your perspective is that this is another opportunity too good to pass on I suspect.

Thomas Quillfeldt

Wowser! Sound exciting. I've only played Witcher 3 and DLC, so I too am interested in how the hell they manage to write such a large quantity of such high quality missions — dialogue, quest structure, character design, branching story etc. How do they maintain the tone across everything? Also, I'd be curious to know how they reached the quantity — what made them decide to make W3 so gigantic. Why add more after a certain point? Why stop there? How the bloody hell they go about creating even more interesting stories and whole new regions for 'just' expansions'? I'm a massive game music fan so interested in that angle, but actually the most interesting thing is the story and character design.

Conor Westwood

This is awesome. Slight twist on your line of questioning: WHY create such a huge game with so much content and so many questlines? Don't get me wrong, I love every bit of it, but they could have gotten away with half of that easily. From a business point of view, how did they reason with that and why did they do it all over again with the massive DLC? I don't know many companies that would have even attempted what they did, never mind pulling it off.

milly gribben

So happy you are doing this Danny. The Witcher 3 is probably my favorite game of all time so this is exciting. I'm a big fan of the witcher books and I love all the references in the games. I'm curious to know what the process of adapting elements of the books was like. How did they decide what to include and what to leave behind? Was it intimidating working with characters that are already so well established? Also I have to ask about Yennefer because she's an amazing character, why did they choose to only introduce her in Wild Hunt and did that change the process of writing Geralt?

Jonas Lindelöf

Hey Danny I'm really looking forward to this doc I'm a big CD project fan as of many others of the noclip community, I would like to know how CD project did go from w1 to w2. I feel like something happend there because the quality of game is so much higher with w2. Then if they ever had some other ip in mind before Witcher or if they early on had Witcher series in my because of the books. Thx Danny for this amazing community and docs <3

Tobber Harley

First of all I would love to see a series about the Witcher games! And as a technical artist game developer myself, I would really like a more technical deep dive into the tools and engine work on creating this expanding world that has become so impressive, especially in the large open world of the 3rd game. Can't wait! ☺️

Hjalmar Wijk

I think the relationship to Sapkowski is very interesting and I'd love to hear more about it. On the one hand he seems to respect the games for their merits, but he also seems to claims games can't be used to tell stories in the same way books can, and keeps pointing out how the games are just iterative adaptations benefiting from his books - which also has some truth to it certainly.Also there's the issue of him never getting royalties sinceh e didn't believe the games would sell. Some examples of what I mean: <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-06-ever-wondered-what-the-author-of-the-witcher-books-thinks-about-the-games" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-06-ever-wondered-what-the-author-of-the-witcher-books-thinks-about-the-games</a> <a href="https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/wn938w/a-no-bullshit-conversation-with-the-authors-behind-the-witcher-and-metro-2033" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/wn938w/a-no-bullshit-conversation-with-the-authors-behind-the-witcher-and-metro-2033</a> <a href="http://kotaku.com/the-witchers-author-doesnt-get-one-cent-from-the-games-1793611471" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://kotaku.com/the-witchers-author-doesnt-get-one-cent-from-the-games-1793611471</a> Basically I'd love to know how this influenced the games if at all, how the devs at CDPR feel about it etc. Also it's interesting that the book Season of Storms was decided to be another short story collection from way before the games take place - thus removing any risk of "conflict" between the two stories. Could this be influenced by him not wanting to clash with the games or just a coincidence?

Triumac

Absolutely thrilled for this one! I'd love a look into the writing of the series. I've only played 3 and DLC but the writing of both dialogue and lore constantly floors me with it's quality.

DanseMacabre

This would be interesting. For all the love the game gets it seems CDPR deliberately reused a lot of the plot points or quests from the books. Was their a decision regarding this. Personally, I found the books to be much more unique and enjoyable--the games felt a little watered down. I understand the games are non-canon, but are there reasons some of the personalities of the characters were changed (this can also be said of the lore)? Was this just for game-play purposes.

Ashley Deane

Would love to get a view on how the quest are written and developed i.e the story of the bloody Baron quest line for writers and developers.

Hjalmar Wijk

Yeah, great point. I think in regards to reusing plot points some will argue it's a call-back or homage to books intentionally done as a treat for book readers - for instance I loved seeing the striga scene opening witcher 1 and then kind of replaying that scenario in the storyline with Adda. Also it's interesting that hints to the books have been a lot less obvious since the second game, seems they moved away from that a bit to create their own narrative instead (something that wasn't as important in the first game I felt). Would love to know why they did this and how they look at it.

Ashley Deane

Would also love to get some insight into character/monster design and how that developed over the life time of the series for artists and writers

Thomas Mølby

I would love to know everything that went into making that vast beautiful and natural landscape! From research to planning and production both in terms of organising teams and overcoming technical challenges. What went into making every tree and mudbank so special.

Pavel Štangel

Alright, this project finally convinced me to become a patron. I have loved Danny's work for far too long and I am a bit too big Sapkowski + CD Project appreciator ( <a href="http://abload.de/img/2mquw3.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://abload.de/img/2mquw3.jpg</a> ) not to contribute. Really can't wait. I hope you will take your time and really delve into everything. I would like to know what happened with the cancelled Witcher 1 for consoles. Do they have any playable builds they could show? And maybe you could also get some information about the content that didn't make it into the games. What happened to the lost Wild Hunt infiltration quest line? And if you could get some scoop, first footage of Cyberpunk, that would be swell :D

Pavel Štangel

Would be nice if we could not infest this upcoming documentary with identity politics

Adrian Jakubiak

That's incredible! I remember the day when one of our colleagues shared your very first noclip doc about the Rocket League. I think every single one of us watched it and immediately we started dreaming how cool would it be have Danny visit us and record something about our studio. And now it's happening! I hope you'll have lots of fun with us. Cheers from CDPR audio team! ;-)

Piotr Kostecki

I think that the Doom doc you made (fantastic stuff) is a good way to go for CD Projekt and Witcher. Company started off with game importing and translating them to polish. From there to Witcher, that's a long road which will be interesting to hear about. Of course this will be a short fragment of the doc but I think it's crucial to gain perspective. Then there's Bagiński (big name in Poland), who created intro to the first game in the franchise. He will be involved in he Netflix series from what I know. Did they use him for consultations during Witcher 1 development? I wanted to highlight these items as potentially interesting to put in the doc. All in all I know you'll create something that will blow people's minds, best of luck! :)

Ben Williams

Yo Danny! I absolutely loved the segments you did about the Witcher whilst working on 'The Point', so I know you'll do it proud. My favourite thing about the series is the choices you have as a player when it comes to the story and how you can shape the way your quest unravels. Lifting the lid on how this process is created would be fantastic. Also, I loved how open and honest the folks at ID were (especially about the canned Doom 4). If you can uncover any unused ideas or apects of the gamplay that didn't make the cut that would be really interesting. Coincidentally, Im visiting a good friend who works at CD Projekt Red in the second week of August so I guess I'll miss you! I'm hoping to visit the studio myself and give the Geralt statue a big old hug! Keep up the awesome work mate!

Beau

Super excited for this. As much as I enjoy long form documentaries, I think you have a winning formula with putting out each part in piece meal. I think that gives people time to mull over each specific piece and get hyped for the next segment. I’m sure you already have some great questions regarding CD Project Red’s history and how they tackle the narratives for each game, so let me spitball a couple of questions that interest me aside from those areas. I was wondering how their have priorities changed with each game? Is there anything they felt that they nailed and were like, ok, let’s focus more on this aspect now? Since combat has changed with each game, I would like to know the history behind the changes for each installment. Also, knowing that The Witcher 3 was going to be ported to consoles, how did that impact the way combat was going to be handled now that there were definitely going to be a significant amount of people playing the game with a controller? This one is totally out there and may not be that interesting or bear much fruit at all, but what the heck: I was wondering what it has been like working with WB Games and if there has been animosity between the two, as Project Red does, shall we say, more consumer friendly practices in regards to DLC and the like? Furthermore, would they ever consider being bought? I’m sure there have been offers, especially after the success of The Witcher 3. What difficulties did the team face making a Role Playing Game centered around a character that has such an established background? What lessons did they learn porting The Witcher 2 to the XBOX 360? I wonder if the subject of voice acting can be tackled. Since these are all BIG games with every character dialog being voiced, how does that knowledge affect the writing? And knowing that the game will be translated into different languages, how does that affect the animation department? I heard there was cut content with Ciri being able to skate on a frozen lake. Are there other concepts of cut content that the team would be willing to share/discuss? I hope there might have been some good questions that you haven’t thought of yet and like or think they may lead to some good info. Regardless, I am stoked for this, bud. I wasn’t expecting noclip to go abroad so soon after making the FFXIV doc. All the best.

MollyMog

Danny! I've been meaning to become a patron for quite a while, but I finally just signed up for the $20 tier based on the Witcher series in coming. One of the main topics I want to see (might've been mentioned above) is how the CDPR team used the Witcher novels while developing their games (all 3 games). I just read The Last Wish and its VERY good, and I felt so connected to the world. I want to read all of them in the series. At least in The Last Wish, there were some stories that were almost exactly the same in the book and in the game (i.e. the short story about the striga is the opening scene to the Witcher 1), and others that just feel like "inspiration" like about fairytales and Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC. It seems like an interesting topic on how they chose what to use exactly, what to just use as inspiration, and what "all new" to add that wasn't in the novels. Thanks for doing this and doing interesting work!

Kenneth Fegley

I'm actually most interested in their tech improvements through the series. Any focus on that would be great

Kamos

I love witcher seires... Amazing story and country and love scenes... only thing I realy hate on Witcher is how they make a combat system...

/noclip

Fair point. The last thing I want to do is limit us to "smaller" stories though. We're striving to be the best in the world at this. And the fact is studios don't do a good job of interviewing their own people about their games. Our DOOM series is a good example of highlighting stories about AAA developers that would otherwise never be told. This stuff will always live alongside less visable stories like our Frog Fractions doc, Noclip Sessions and our upcoming community-focused stuff we shot last week.

Dom Greves

True that older titles deserve further excavation and enjoyed the Frog Fractions insights.