What aspect of Witcher 3’s gameplay could be a cool inspiration to KCD?
i think there’s plenty to learn in terms of building an open world, open ended experience. like red dead redemption, the game has an excellent sense of pacing. the various “pre fab” points of interest encounter never overstay their welcome because you would have handcrafted content interspersed in between. a far cry from the bland sterile robot generated content of skyrim.
however due to the sizes of landmasses, they employ psychological lures like loot to get you off exploring the land. granted the environment is interesting to see and explore, it’s just the feeling of being manipulated is not so pleasant. there must be ways to improve how it is done. perhaps this won’t be a problem with smaller more concentrated land mass.
experiencing the branching quest lines, character developments, etc you can get an idea of the challenges facing the the war horse team. i keep feeling any time the quest would bug and break down but they never did. it’s very complex work.
i like the feeling of familiarity with many different characters which i hope war horse can take to next level with their persistent npc system. many of the characters are actually persistent in the game despite serving tertiary roles. they’ll not disappear however, and they may spawn or generate at a farther location for a specific event or quest. their dialog also corresponds to the player’s history of action. this add a sense of the place being self contained and functioning beyond the player’s field of view. a very good illusion.
as for specific gameplay thing. to be honest witcher 3 does not push the boundaries that much in that regard. the detective vision was annoying i thought. i felt investigation could have been more organic and natural, without relying on too many cues and artificial helpers. la noire was similar in this respect. maybe it’s the 3rd person view, because without detective vision, the tracking gameplay just breaks down. with 1st person, i think clues and such can be readable without any help, that would contribute greatly to immersion. and the non-tracking stuff, i also thought was guided too much by the map, but without it, you just can’t progress. could there be other ways than just follow the objective marker?
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Having very complex quests and interesting ones would be really great. I’d probably prefer fewer quests that are meaningful than a bunch that are fetch quests.
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I think everyone can get on-board with that 
I really like how CDPR have developed and refined their characters. The characterisation has been an incredible thing to see grow and mature over the course of the instalments. Even from Witcher 2 to Wild Hunt, I notice a real refinement in not only Geralt, but also the other key supporting characters, as well as the narrative itself. It’s like they were finally able to put forward a true and honest representation in-line with their vision, whilst still paying homage to the original source material. (Not only in terms of graphical fidelity but also with voice acting, spoken dialogue, story and plot development etc. etc.)
This for me represents how gaming trilogy’s should be, in terms of consistent and ongoing improvement with each consecutive release. Enhancing and building on a narrative structure, refinement of the vision and of characters, with the final instalment representing the culmination of the entirety of that process bundled into a game package that represents the apex. The peak of their vision realized. Philosophical I know, but that’s what I believe the feeling would be like among the CDPR team.
So in that, there’s much WarHorse could learn. We all certainly hope they can mirror the successes of their contemporaries, and deliver something equally as satisfying and commercially successful as the Witcher series has been.
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Witcher 3 is a huge step backwards in terms of storytelling, especially if you look at the main narrative. The last third of the game is mainly a huge disaster of bad concepts, bad writing and missed chances. Some side quests are truly great in Witcher 3. Problem is that they are often much better than the main quests…
The open world though is nicely made with a unique sense of believability and immersion. World design, art design and character design is top notch. But then of course the open world design and the mainstream direction that was obviously chosen to cater to the international and especially US market hurt the atmosphere and narrative of the game. Consequences and choices were also tuned down and simplified in many cases. Some of the major choice moments in the game are just incredibly stupid and poorly desinged. I really hope Warhorse won’t make something along these lines.
I think Witcher 2 had overall the better design idea. A game of the likes of Witcher 2 with the scope, the sense of detail and technial execution of Witcher 3 would probably be among the most perfect games ever. With Witcher 3 we “only” got a great open world game that partially sacrificed its former strengths for whatever reasons…
To date I’ve not played much of the actual story… so my comments are certainly more around the side quests and associated NPC’s. Most of these are done fantastically, and are engaging to the point where I’d assumed that if the side quests are THIS good, imagine how interesting the story should pan out to be?!
TBH it worries me a little if what you say is true (and I do believe you)… If CDPR can nail side quests, and have a strong narrative structure there… then why shouldn’t this translate across into strong main story arc throughout as well? It seems crazy to me, that one would be sacrificed for the other, or vice versa. And I have a lot of time for this studio…
That will certainly be a let down 
I’ll let you know once I smash out more of the story quests.
But at the end of the day, the Witcher is and always has been the sum of its parts. Not every aspect of any one game of the trilogy has been perfect, however it’s the characters, morally ambiguous decision making, tied with engaging side quests and monster hunts that generally prop this franchise up to the lofty heights it’s reached. So in that sense, it’s still a great game… there’s just not a great deal of substance seemingly this time around to the main story. (yet again, we’re looking for a woman )
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I think people should realize this isn’t Warhorse’s first rodeo a lot of them if not most are experienced developers.
Hahha. It’s always Americas fault isn’t it?
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Yes and no. Depends on perspective. In my experience there very often is a different “feel” between US and (central and eastern) European games. If you are a European guy like me you don’t necessarily want European games to sacrifice their unique “feel” to cater more a more international and US audience.
I also don’t want every Amercian game being “Europeanized” also that almost never happens anyway. 
Its actually rather common in all forms of the entertainment industry to appeal more to American consumers, but you know that’s because we are the biggest consumers.
Usually yes, but not always. And your share is falling…
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i would say it’s actually rising. whereas 5 years ago you had a lot of different types of games each about the same in popularity, whereas now the games that cater exclusively to the archetypical american consumer is at an all time high. they are the biggest money makers and also the most formulaic and easiest to make design wise.
the share is falling within the indie realm, but in aggregate, americans are getting bigger share of the market, especially as the medium has become so mainstream
Still not really sure what you mean. I have games made by both American and European devs and i don’t really see a huge difference between them although i will admit the European games tend to be a bit better in some cases.
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I’m enjoying Witcher3 very much and I think if KCD can match the quality of some of the writing I will be very pleased indeed. It has some very strong characters that leave their mark and help make the world feel like a real place, rather than a landscape with NPC’s you’re simply doing tasks for. It makes you care, which is no easy feat.