TheMorbidAtheist said: I never said the popularity of the game didn't influence the book saga, what I said was that most players went into the Witcher series starting with the third game. Few bothered to do any research about what the universe was all about - and it clearly shows with each YouTube video, with each "let's play" streaming, with each review, where the reviewer says "I've never played the first or second games" or "I couldn't get into the first and/or second games" - that is when I stop reading their article by the way... Click to expand...

I don't mean to derail this thread, honest, or detract in any way from the continual ethical objectification as if this debate were some kind of logical linear mapping from Algebra 1 of ethical/unethical deeds -> reason to hate Yennefer--most of which is taken completely out of the context of the overall quest and the objectives of said quest therein. Maybe I do want to derail it a tiny bit, but just a smidgen. Sorry Redemyr, I do know it is really important to continue this unending debate that boils down to a matter of taste, but in all honesty, I actually found that TheMorbidAtheist had a really interesting spin on this entire issue and that offers us a bit of a larger perspective (god forbid) for the targeted community.CDPR knew they would get the followers, or loyalists if you prefer, that was a given, but I think his observation that you have many many others with little to no connection with the previous games or the mythos itself (for that matter) brings up a very interesting conundrum. The way I see it is that if they knew they would probably be attracting a significant amount of first time players, then would it have really mattered if they had made the game as 'accessible' as they did? Would they have really needed to have taken snapshots of characters cherry picked and simplified out of a much larger, and richer, backstory? Or could they have framed the story more in line with those that actually know the universe? In other words, putting a bit more time into character development and a little less on open world fluff.He has mentioned that at least one new player (and there is no reason to believe there wouldn't be more) are labeling pretty pivotal characters 'elf', or probably saying 'chick with the red hair or black hair' or 'tiny dwarf dude that is Geralt's buddy'. You could just as easily have thrown in more in-game books to describe these relationships or other backstory elements and left it up to the player whether or not they cared to invest themselves in the lore. We also see this from players who favor a certain someone, "burn the books", they say. "You can't even compare", they say. To a certain degree they are correct, but the interesting thing is, if they were a bitto the books (given this particular tale within Geralt's story is taken from the books and is not like Witcher 2) then maybe we wouldn't actually be typing all of this on 5-6 different threads.Maybe if they showed a bit more of an evolution to certain relationships rather than taking an excerpt or snapshot from different moments in the lore, then this would all be one moot point. After all, Romeo loved Rosaline in Act 1, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet. Imagine if they only focused on Act 1, Scene 1 as the basis for a character within a game (which would be a terrible game, I admit) and you would see nothing else outside of that. I think you see where I am going with this (hopefully). You don't see progression, you don't see growth, you don't see adversity, and you don't see an evolution given everything that occurs. Maybe this is just a symptom of the fact that the real concern on the continent at this time, at least for Geralt and company, is Ciri rather than who he's going to romance or be with (which was a side quest), but I am in agreement that this decision (and many others), define Geralt as much as some of the larger, grandiose objectives we are given in his story.Instead we are left a snapshot of mix-matched interpretations of certain characters and find ourselves on threads like these. I guess what I'm trying to say is: they should have stayed true to their story, maintained some consistency, had a bit of faith that the 'outsiders' or first time players would love the game regardless. They weren't all that invested in the characters themselves (and how could they be?). Instead, by providing a deeper, more nuanced conclusion for our protagonist in his relationships (both with friends and loved ones) by trimming some of open world stuff would have not only ended this debate (or never made it happen), but probably also provide a bit of a richer finale, and who knows...maybe inspire people to pull those books out of the raging flames and maybe...give them a read?