The Witcher Writers Hate the Source

[SailusGebel]

I would say the witcher series got a better deal than what halo got. I heard the writers didn't even bother playing the game let alone read the lore for that series

I don't know about that. I didn't watch Witcher and Halo, but if I had to choose between not caring and actively hating, I would probably choose not caring. At least Halo nailed the armor(what I've seen from a trailer). Witcher has the wrong actor as Geralt; the face, the poster boy of the whole show is wrong.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I don't know about that. I didn't watch Witcher and Halo, but if I had to choose between not caring and actively hating, I would probably choose not caring. At least Halo nailed the armor(what I've seen from a trailer). Witcher has the wrong actor as Geralt; the face, the poster boy of the whole show is wrong.

if your only impression of the halo tv series is that they nailed the armor, have it stay that way. it gets worse. so much worse. geralt being cast as the wrong dude can't compare to what the fuck paramount did to master chief.

At least in cp2077 your decision actually have a direct impact on the story. And we're actually interesting

I'm guessing you're meant to say Detroit in this. "actually interesting" is not a word i'd give to any Quantic Dream game since Heavy Rain. "squandered potential", "wasted premise", "melodramatic" sounds more on par.

if i have to choose between a plot that's as on-rails as it is exciting and a plot where my choices dictate which of the 3 flavours of shit i'd get, i'd choose the former.

and for the record, New Vegas is overhyped. it's still a good game, but RPGtards laud it as some sort of 11/10 when it's an 8.5 at best. aside from excellent character writing, a good atmosphere, and being one of the few games where advertised choices actually mattered, the gameplay was dogshit, the Mojave was 60% filler, engine limitations basically neutered scripted moments and gimped the presentation, and it's got enough bugs to earn your local exterminator a year-long vacation. for every vault 11, there's at least a vault 19 and a 22.

Dude, it should have been so much better. The tv show shit on poland. They changed so much. No wonder cavell quit. Good luck with him being superman.

If you liked that drivel, and can only imagine how the full effect would have been. So much wasted potential.

I'm talking more in comparison to other adaptations out there. i guess I've been ruined by so many years of shit movies and TV shows that a milquetoast adaptation that does less more than it does wrong already has me spoiled.

 

[SailusGebel]

if your only impression of the halo tv series is that they nailed the armor, have it stay that way. it gets worse. so much worse. geralt being cast as the wrong dude can't compare to what the fuck paramount did to master chief.

I haven't played the game, so I can't judge. I didn't watch Witcher, but if I had to judge based on the trailer, there was nothing done right, zero. From what I've seen, one tv series at least have the poster boy done right, while the other tv series has nothing done right.

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

which of the 3 flavours of shit i'd get, i'd choose the former.

That's literally cyberpunk 2077 tho. The game has at least 4 endings 2 of which are shit. 1 is kinda meh. And one is kinda good. So I don't get how you can call detroit bad when cbp2077 does the same.

But even if that wasn't the case the game has so many other issues. The game has some of the worst shooting I've seen in any FPS. The rpg parts of the game suck ass they might as well not be there. The weapons are pretty forgettable. And the last boss Adam smasher is a joke. I would rather have the buggy mess of new Vegas (which I can fix by community patches) then play a game that is so broken at its core. No amount of good story can fix dog crap gameplay and mechanics.

 

[Anon2024]

and for the record, New Vegas is overhyped. it's still a good game, but RPGtards laud it as some sort of 11/10 when it's an 8.5 at best. aside from excellent character writing, a good atmosphere, and being one of the few games where advertised choices actually mattered, the gameplay was dogshit, the Mojave was 60% filler, engine limitations basically neutered scripted moments and gimped the presentation, and it's got enough bugs to earn your local exterminator a year-long vacation. for every vault 11, there's at least a vault 19 and a 22.

You and me cannot be friends.

 

[BenJepheneT]

That's literally cyberpunk 2077 tho. The game has at least 4 endings 2 of which are shit. 1 is kinda meh. And one is kinda good. So I don't get how you can call detroit bad when cbp2077 does the same.

But even if that wasn't the case the game has so many other issues. The game has some of the worst shooting I've seen in any FPS. The rpg parts of the game suck ass they might as well not be there. The weapons are pretty forgettable. And the last boss Adam smasher is a joke. I would rather have the buggy mess of new Vegas (which I can fix by community patches) then play a game that is so broken at its core. No amount of good story can fix dog crap gameplay and mechanics.

i could agree as much as i can disagree. 2077 does has shit gameplay and its RPG less on role playing and more on "how do you want to dispatch your enemies". i will disagree with the part that the weapons are forgettable. the Sovereign and the masamune is etched into my imaginary HUD. adam smasher is a joke but let's be real, lanius wasn't any better. and the fact that you could just skip his boss fight with a Speech check will never fail to amuse me in all the wrong ways.

plus, Cyberpunk's got mod support and it's pretty much patched of most of its glaring issues. core gameplay elements aside, it's really not that different from the New Vegas experience. dealing with the cops in Night City is just as frustrating as trying to climb over a broken window in the Mojave. i still love both games though. it's probably just me but if your story has me hooked and the setting clicks for me, i can pretty much tolerate any broken mechanics you throw at me.

there's still a limit to my tolerance though. I'm still trying to finish the original Deus Ex without walkthroughs. the tranq dart is the bain of my existence.

You and me cannot be friends.

i love new vegas but it has to be said that most players are gaslighted housewives that just wouldn't admit that their handsome, caring husband is also a four-time world champ wife beater.

 

[Anon2024]

i love new vegas but it has to be said that most players are gaslighted housewives that just wouldn't admit that their handsome, caring husband is also a four-time world champ wife beater.

You said New Vegas was overhyped. If you played it on console then it was definitely terrible (I heard about the PS3 taking over a minute to load just going into a building and coming out). There were so many mods, ability to play with console commands, branching story paths.... and yes the gun play wasn't great but it was an RPG.

The reason fans talk glowingly on it is because we have wanted an Obsidian Sequel for so long (Fallout 4 was a huge disappointment). Compared to Outer Worlds, New Vegas was just THAT MUCH BETTER.

 

[BenJepheneT]

You said New Vegas was overhyped. If you played it on console then it was definitely terrible (I heard about the PS3 taking over a minute to load just going into a building and coming out). There were so many mods, ability to play with console commands, branching story paths.... and yes the gun play wasn't great but it was an RPG.

The reason fans talk glowingly on it is because we have wanted an Obsidian Sequel for so long (Fallout 4 was a huge disappointment). Compared to Outer Worlds, New Vegas was just THAT MUCH BETTER.

I usually separate my modding experience with my vanilla experience. for my vanilla experience, new vegas impressed me as much as it disappointed me.

soundtrack, setting, characters, and old-timey gun porn aside, the overarching plot was barebones, and had no urgency for me to continue. it didn't push me like Fallout 1, nor was it fun to pursue like Fallout 2. the factions had the usual theme of post-apocalyptic politics but the figureheads behind them held no more substance than their often spammable quotes i.e they were shallow. it was more fun to discuss the ideas they stood behind than to discuss the very people they are. Really, Mr. House was the only standout, and that's more to do that he was a literal individual personality compared to the selfcest that is Ceaser and President Kimball, who only existed so I can satisfy my JFK reenactment outside of Gmod. Lanius was a bitch compared to Frank. when your SIDE QUESTS and DLCs outshine your main story, it's time to make some adjustments.

all i can really give New Vegas is its branching story paths, but everything surrounding it was so shoddily built (i mostly attribute this to engine limitations) that i can't help but see it as missed potential. considering that new vegas, with all its flaws, is still one of the best RPGs out there in the market, really makes me wonder what it could've been if Obsidian was given more than 18 months of dev time.

I don't consider Fallout 3/4 as a Fallout game. i see them more as fan games. a gallery of imagery that vaguely resembles fallout. you walk around the map and go "ooh, deathclaws! i remember them!" fallout 4 is only good for porting sexy elf mods and Modern Warfare gun animations. that's it.

I hate outer worlds with a passion. it's obsidian in name only. that's all the words i will give that abomination.

 

[AliceShiki]

The story of this game is so on the rails for an rpg it's unreal.

I just wanted to point out that RPGs can be linear and that's absolutely not a problem.

Sure, you can make things open if you want to, but it's not really a requirement of the genre. Being open or linear is a design choice, not a genre requirement.

FFX is linear and is a great game. FF XV is open and is considered bad by most of the dedicated FF community.
FF VI is open and is a great game. FF XIII is linear and is considered bad by most of the dedicated FF community.

And well, most SRPGs are super linear too.

Also, most Souls games (Elden Ring being the outlier) are also very linear and the like...

RPGs can totally be linear if the devs want to. That's not a problem.

 

[Anon2024]

I don't consider Fallout 3/4 as a Fallout game. i see them more as fan games. a gallery of imagery that vaguely resembles fallout. you walk around the map and go "ooh, deathclaws! i remember them!" fallout 4 is only good for porting sexy elf mods and Modern Warfare gun animations. that's it.

I hate outer worlds with a passion. it's obsidian in name only. that's all the words i will give that abomination.

I agree with you on Outer Worlds. It was terrible. Fallout 3 was my first fallout game so I have different perspective on it. It's just when they went to Fallout 76 I just... I really hate the live service aspect. Anyway I am still hoping for a New Vegas 2 although I think it'll never happen.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I'm talking more in comparison to other adaptations out there. i guess I've been ruined by so many years of shit movies and TV shows that a milquetoast adaptation that does less more than it does wrong already has me spoiled.

Well... yeah. For the time period its fairly good. Its sad that we live in an era of, "IT DIDN'T SUCK" is what we aim for.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I agree with you on Outer Worlds. It was terrible. Fallout 3 was my first fallout game so I have different perspective on it. It's just when they went to Fallout 76 I just... I really hate the live service aspect. Anyway I am still hoping for a New Vegas 2 although I think it'll never happen.

It's never gonna happen. Obsidian is not the company it used to be, and the most you'll get is probably a fan remake of the first game on the fallout 4 engine.

And unironically, if you don't play Fallout 76 as an RPG but as some bastardised action game like Destiny, you can eke SOME fun out of it. I've tried it and had a marginally decent time.

Only try it if your friend has a copy, though. Never buy that shit.

 

[MajorKerina]

I saw a YouTuber recently who touched upon this but there is a predominant sign in Hollywood of people who get in charge of properties and they absolutely despise the properties, that that one in particular was people who hated Scooby Doo but were writing Scooby Doo. A lot of Star Wars people and especially the Halo show writers don’t look at source material or don’t like the source material. She hulk as well suffered from that problem and especially rings of power. It sucks that so many people in creative positions are not very creative or have this festering animosity towards things. They have what most of us on here would consider dream jobs and yet they’re so angry about it and I just don’t get that. :/

 

[TheEldritchGod]

I just don’t get that. :/

Simple. They go to college where they are fed socialist feminist bs and told you can be anything, IF THE WHITE MALE WASN'T KEEPING YOU DOWN.

Its nice to have someone to blame for you being a loser. So instead of them writing novels, they are stuck doing jobs working with videogames. Not real writing. They want to be real writers so they want to fix the original IP.

After all they spent 100k on a degree. You peasants have no idea what real writing is.

They are unhappy. They ate full of hate and self loathing and disappointment. They dont hate the originals.

They hate everything.

I wriye nothing but shlock, but because I'm happy, my work is above average. I write to entertain and invoke feelings.

They write to tell you, THE MESSAGE. They got conned into spending a 100k on a useless degree and now they need to prove they aren't useless. Because living in a cloud of self denial and telling yourself changing the icon on twitter actually matters is like a basement troll hooked on hentai and call of duty.

At least the troll only self harms.

 

[AliceShiki]

I saw a YouTuber recently who touched upon this but there is a predominant sign in Hollywood of people who get in charge of properties and they absolutely despise the properties, that that one in particular was people who hated Scooby Doo but were writing Scooby Doo. A lot of Star Wars people and especially the Halo show writers don’t look at source material or don’t like the source material. She hulk as well suffered from that problem and especially rings of power. It sucks that so many people in creative positions are not very creative or have this festering animosity towards things. They have what most of us on here would consider dream jobs and yet they’re so angry about it and I just don’t get that. :/

To put it simply, people can't always choose the job they work with.

It's great when they do, but... They can't always do that.
Sometimes you get to direct your dream series. You get to do everything you always hoped on doing, you're now making your dream a reality.

At other times, you need to pay bills, so you just audition to any position available, and you then get hired as the director of the adaptation of a children's cartoon you never liked back when you were a kid, yet you somehow have to make people like it by capturing the same feeling that the series had back when it was a cartoon... Except you never liked it in the first place, so you don't even know how to make it likeable while having the same feeling, because it doesn't seem likeable to you.

This happens. It happens all the time. The people making the series will often times have to make something that they don't like, because they have bills to pay, and they aren't amazing enough to be able to choose whatever job they want.

To give a personal example on a different industry, I do novel translation work and like... Well, 2 months ago I was working on 5 series simultaneously.

• One was super fun and lovable.
• One was pretty fun.
• One was mediocre.
• One was pretty bad.
• One was garbage.

In order, here are how many chapters I had to release per month for each series.

• 2 per month.
• 4 per month.
• 8+ per month.
• 2+ per month.
• 8+ per month.

For my favorite series, I could only translate 6 chapters per month, while for the other more boring series (or downright terrible series), I had a minimum of 18 chapters to translate.

It was awful, but... Hey, I had to do it. Gotta pay bills somehow, yanno?

By now I finished the mediocre series and caught up to the garbage series, so my quota for the "bad" and "fun" series have increased, but my favorite one still gets only 2 chapters per month.

I just have to... Kinda deal with it, yanno? It happens. It's how life goes, I guess.

Same thing for those people in Hollywood. When they get what they love, they are happy. When they have to make do with something they hate, they deal with it and try their best, because their livelihood depends on that, so... Well, they gotta make do with what they have available~

 

[SailusGebel]

To put it simply, people can't always choose the job they work with.

It's great when they do, but... They can't always do that.
Sometimes you get to direct your dream series. You get to do everything you always hoped on doing, you're now making your dream a reality.

At other times, you need to pay bills, so you just audition to any position available, and you then get hired as the director of the adaptation of a children's cartoon you never liked back when you were a kid, yet you somehow have to make people like it by capturing the same feeling that the series had back when it was a cartoon... Except you never liked it in the first place, so you don't even know how to make it likeable while having the same feeling, because it doesn't seem likeable to you.

This happens. It happens all the time. The people making the series will often times have to make something that they don't like, because they have bills to pay, and they aren't amazing enough to be able to choose whatever job they want.

To give a personal example on a different industry, I do novel translation work and like... Well, 2 months ago I was working on 5 series simultaneously.

• One was super fun and lovable.
• One was pretty fun.
• One was mediocre.
• One was pretty bad.
• One was garbage.

In order, here are how many chapters I had to release per month for each series.

• 2 per month.
• 4 per month.
• 8+ per month.
• 2+ per month.
• 8+ per month.

For my favorite series, I could only translate 6 chapters per month, while for the other more boring series (or downright terrible series), I had a minimum of 18 chapters to translate.

It was awful, but... Hey, I had to do it. Gotta pay bills somehow, yanno?

By now I finished the mediocre series and caught up to the garbage series, so my quota for the "bad" and "fun" series have increased, but my favorite one still gets only 2 chapters per month.

I just have to... Kinda deal with it, yanno? It happens. It's how life goes, I guess.

Same thing for those people in Hollywood. When they get what they love, they are happy. When they have to make do with something they hate, they deal with it and try their best, because their livelihood depends on that, so... Well, they gotta make do with what they have available~

If you are a professional, you should try to make your job right regardless of your likes and dislikes. For example, Alice, you didn't post unedited machine translations as translations of garbage novels, right?

From what I've seen, these writers didn't even try. They used machine translation; they were not professional enough.

 

[Anon2024]

Kinda deal with it, yanno? It happens. It's how life goes, I guess. Same thing for those people in Hollywood. When they get what they love, they are happy. When they have to make do with something they hate, they deal with it and try their best, because their livelihood depends on that, so... Well, they gotta make do with what they have available~

Except there is one difference:
Adapting/writing is different from translating.

Those who are “writing the screenplay” not being faithful to source material has become a thing. I’m suspecting Henry Cavill who seems to be a fan of the Witcher didn’t like the direction the writing was going in (because the writers hate the material) caused him to quit.

It’s one thing if the writers hate the series and keep to the source material (even if the producer does ridiculous casting) but it’s another when they change the source material to suit themselves.

With how crappy and awful (and I have rewatched old movies I hadn’t seen before to see if it’s nostalgia and discovered it isn’t) the vast majority of modern movies are now, I’m sorry but I don’t have much faith in these writers at all.

 

[AliceShiki]

If you are a professional, you should try to make your job right regardless of your likes and dislikes. For example, Alice, you didn't post unedited machine translations as translations of garbage novels, right?

From what I've seen, these writers didn't even try. They used machine translation; they were not professional enough.

That is correct. I was talking about why someone might hate what they're doing, not justifying doing said job poorly.

Case in point, Witcher Writers hate the source material, but AFAIK, they did a good job with the adaptation. They hated what they were doing, but they still put their all into it and did a good job with creating the series.

Same with me and my translations~

Except there is one difference:
Adapting/writing is different from translating.

Tbf, translation has a lot of adapting, localizing and the like involved in it too. But I get the point you're trying to make (especially because if you try too hard to adapt something when making a translation, you often times end up with garbage. See Glitter Force VS Smile Precure for a good example).

Those who are “writing the screenplay” not being faithful to source material has become a thing. I’m suspecting Henry Cavill who seems to be a fan of the Witcher didn’t like the direction the writing was going in (because the writers hate the material) caused him to quit.

It’s one thing if the writers hate the series and keep to the source material (even if the producer does ridiculous casting) but it’s another when they change the source material to suit themselves.

With how crappy and awful (and I have rewatched old movies I hadn’t seen before to see if it’s nostalgia and discovered it isn’t) the vast majority of modern movies are now, I’m sorry but I don’t have much faith in these writers at all.

I mean, I haven't watched the Witcher series, so I really can't say much about... What I know is that the series is liked, so I think the writers are doing a good job despite hating the source.

Compare that to stuff like Rings of Powers and like... Well, adaptations can be good, but they can also be terrible.

What I'm trying to say is that liking/disliking the source material does not mean the quality of your work will be good/bad... Granted, you'll probably be more likely to put your all into your job when you love it, but you should still try making a good product if you're working on something you dislike.


Honestly, the worst adaptations I have seen so far don't seem to have even come from people who hated the source material, but from people who were apathetic to it... Like how the Eragon movie was essentially nothing like the book, and felt like a poorly made LotR ripoff~

Or how the person who directed Dragon Ball Evolution wasn't even aware that Dragon Ball was a big thing, and thought it was just some random niche series nobody knew about, so they just did kinda whatever.


Basically... I think someone that hates the source is still someone that is passionate about their job and that still wants to make something that the fans of the series will love... Someone apathetic though... Well, that is someone who will just do the minimum necessary to get the job done, and those are the people who deliver garbage.

 

[SailusGebel]

That is correct. I was talking about why someone might hate what they're doing, not justifying doing said job poorly.

Case in point, Witcher Writers hate the source material, but AFAIK, they did a good job with the adaptation. They hated what they were doing, but they still put their all into it and did a good job with creating the series.

Same with me and my translations~

I believe that you do a good job, but I don't believe that Witcher writers did a good job. I haven't watched it precisely because the bits that I've seen violated the original in the most gruesome and despicable way.

 

[Anon2024]

I believe that you do a good job, but I don't believe that Witcher writers did a good job. I haven't watched it precisely because the bits that I've seen violated the original in the most gruesome and despicable way.

Haha, even the game itself violates the original novel.

I haven’t read the book itself so I wouldn’t know, so I can’t say whether the series was “faithful or not” but I will say I had more positive to it than negative but really preferred the game to the Netflix series.

I wish the networks could just let the writers come up with their own series rather than try to make money off fans, or distort a series so much that original fans get alienated.