{"id":27166,"date":"2015-06-07T06:06:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T11:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=27166"},"modified":"2015-06-07T15:36:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T20:36:53","slug":"witcher-3-get-dandelion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=27166","title":{"rendered":"Witcher 3: Get Dandelion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Witcher 3 is really good. At this point, it&#8217;s my Game of the Year. Actually, it&#8217;s my &#8220;Game of the Last Several Years&#8221;. I&#8217;ve spent the last week having these little moments where I put the controller down and say, &#8220;Wow. This game is really amazing.&#8221; The reasons <strong>why<\/strong> I like it so much can wait for another post. What I want to talk about is the bit last week when I rage-quit, then came back a few days later, rage-quit again, and then loudly and publicly quit the game via Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>The full tale looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Witcher3 overestimated how much I give a shit about the character Dandelion by about 7 hours. And I&#39;m STILL looking for him. Might meh-quit.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shamusyoung\/status\/605609087838093313\">June 2, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Seven hours of &quot;HI BUDDY IT&#39;S ME, THE GUY FROM THE PREVIOUS GAME YOU DIDN&#39;T PLAY. LET&#39;S LABORIOUSLY REMINISCE AND THEN GO SEE THE NEXT GUY!&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shamusyoung\/status\/605609931195207680\">June 2, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The next one linked to this image:<\/p>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_sidequest.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='More like, find a guy to find a guy times ten, but who&#8217;s counting?' title='More like, find a guy to find a guy times ten, but who&#8217;s counting?'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lady, you have no idea. The game has been doing this for hours. HOURS! <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/12RJYUoyCi\">http:\/\/t.co\/12RJYUoyCi<\/a> STILL! LOOKING FOR! DANDELION!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shamusyoung\/status\/606658187521957888\">June 5, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ok, Final Guy Who Knows Where Dandelion Is. I&#39;ve quested for 7 hours. Tell me. &quot;He&#39;s in a dungeon.Now go rescue him.&quot; Eat a dick, Witcher 3.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shamusyoung\/status\/606658896720052224\">June 5, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;But to rescue Dandelion, you need to find ANOTHER guy. Here are 3 locations to look.&quot; Eat ALL THE DICKS, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Witcher?src=hash\">#Witcher<\/a> 3. Unbelievable. SO done.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shamusyoung\/status\/606660336209395713\">June 5, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s talk about why this was a complete disaster:<\/p>\n<h3>1. Dandelion sucks.<\/h3>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_dandelion.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='Dude, I agree that purple is an awesome color, but you seriously need to dial it back a bit. Trust me.' title='Dude, I agree that purple is an awesome color, but you seriously need to dial it back a bit. Trust me.'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s a bard, a liar, a scamp, a womanizer, and a goof. These are not his downfall. In fact, he&#8217;s actually a breath of fresh air next to all the filthy sourpuss grimdark characters that inhabit this world. Dandelion is there to show us that at least <em>someone<\/em> in this world knows how to have a good time. Comic relief characters can really help us build a connection with the world and get us to invest in it. Played right, this kind of character can be the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/character\/ch0002924\/\">Leo Getz<\/a> of the world. Play it wrong, and you get Jar-Jar Binks. <\/p>\n<p>The problem with Dandelion is that he&#8217;s a one-note joke, and the author is enamored of him. The first time I ran into someone saying, &#8220;That Dandelion! He&#8217;s such a scamp, amirite?&#8221; I was okay with it. The tenth time, my patience was completely out and I could tell the writer was just congratulating themselves for having an out-of-place character in their world. <\/p>\n<p>So I spent seven or eight hours questing to find a guy I didn&#8217;t want to find, because the plot told me I needed to. A little of this would have been fine, but after so many hours it was intolerable.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Chasing a Mirage<\/h3>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_geralt.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='I appreciate the self-awareness, videogame, but can we get this over with and get back to Witcher-ing?' title='I appreciate the self-awareness, videogame, but can we get this over with and get back to Witcher-ing?'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"?p=646\">Nested problems<\/a>. It&#8217;s a staple of the genre that you need to do C so you can accomplish B so you can reach A. That&#8217;s fine. It wouldn&#8217;t make for much of a game if you could fly off and kill Darth Malak as soon as the tutorial level was over. It&#8217;s the backbone of the classic hero&#8217;s journey: The protagonist must overcome a series of obstacles that ramp up in challenge and scale, until they&#8217;re ready to confront their adversary when everything is on the line.<\/p>\n<p>The problem in the Dandelion questline is that there&#8217;s no sense of progression. Someone tells you to look for Dandelion at the brothel, so you go to the brothel and he&#8217;s not there, but somebody tells you Bob might know where he is, so you find Bob and he tells you to check Applebee&#8217;s. You go to Applebee&#8217;s, but he&#8217;s not there. But someone tells you that Dandelion left with Frank. So you track down Frank and he says Dandelion was on his way to the port. And so on. <\/p>\n<p>Imagine that endless treadmill, for hours. It doesn&#8217;t feel like it&#8217;s building up to something, and whenever you&#8217;re on your way to somewhere you have no reason to believe this isn&#8217;t the last leg of your journey. So when it turns out this is another dead-end, you don&#8217;t feel like you&#8217;ve gained anything. You&#8217;ve just wasted your time. <\/p>\n<p>In Skyrim, as you quest you learn new things. Your knowledge of the dragon threat grows and you acquire secrets that will lead to your victory. Six hours into the Dandelion quest, you&#8217;re no closer to finding him than when you started. Yes, the main quest of Skyrim was generic fill-in-the-blanks RPG adventure garbage with nothing going for it but a couple of good voice actors. But imagine how much worse it would be if every single quest promised it was the one where you would ultimately beat the dragons, but at the end all you got was another idiot telling you (and not showing you) that &#8220;Dragons are a serious problem&#8221;, before sending you to another map marker to meet the next idiot.<\/p>\n<p>Actually I guess a lot of the story was exactly that. And it sucked. <\/p>\n<h3>3. The City Sucks<\/h3>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_poetry.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='Good: Busy crowds to make a city look lived-in. Bad: A protagonist who bounces around in crowds like a pinball.' title='Good: Busy crowds to make a city look lived-in. Bad: A protagonist who bounces around in crowds like a pinball.'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Geralt handles like a bowling ball. He&#8217;s got tons of inertia, and getting him through doorways is actually really annoying. I&#8217;ll gently nudge the stick to move him close to the door, but I get impatient, nudge too much, and he launches into full-on sprint mode where he blows past the door and slams face first into the wall. I nudge back the other way and he overshoots again. I correct for that, but now the camera has swung around and I&#8217;m looking at the wall.<\/p>\n<p>Worse, the streets are littered with guards, and if you slam into them it&#8217;s a crime, and they&#8217;ll attack. So you have to <em>carefully<\/em> pilot this bowling ball around these narrow, crowded, serpentine streets. <\/p>\n<p><strong>EDIT: Several people have said in the comments that you can run into the guards without repercussions. Early in the game I slammed into some Nilfguardians<span class='snote' title='1'>One of the factions. It&#8217;s complicated.<\/span> and they attacked me, so I just assumed this would be the case everywhere. But apparently town guards are a lot more lax? So if you&#8217;ve been tiptoeing around them like I have, then maybe you&#8217;ve been wasting your time. I don&#8217;t know. Good luck!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These controls aren&#8217;t bad in the wilderness, but in the city they&#8217;re completely infuriating.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the cause here might be framerate. I get just under 30fps in the wilderness, but that drops down to 15 or so in the city, and Geralt seems to be disproportionately more sluggish at low framerates<span class='snote' title='2'>Yes, I&#8217;m due for a graphics card update. But there&#8217;s a new model coming out soon, or one just came out, and it&#8217;s never a good time to buy because prices will be so much lower NEXT month. Plus, buying a graphics card is <a href=\"?p=1477\">a shitty task and I hate it<\/a>. But soon, I think.<\/span>. <\/p>\n<h3>4. It&#8217;s never that easy.<\/h3>\n<p>Having a simple task become convoluted is a staple of the genre, but it&#8217;s something to be done in moderation. Usually the quest goal is something like, &#8220;Talk to Bob&#8221;, but the actual quest is, &#8220;Fight a gang, then haggle with the doorkeeper, then go across town and learn the password, then come back and haggle with the doorkeeper again, then negotiate with Bruno to have him leave Bob alone, then find out Bob has been beaten into a coma, then get some herbs to bring him around, then escort Bob to safety, then fight another gang, then endure yet another five-minute conversation about what an incorrigible scoundrel Dandelion is, THEN learn that he has no idea where Dandelion is.&#8221; And the next goal is &#8220;talk to Carl&#8221;, and you realize it&#8217;s going to be another 20 minutes of screwing around to wind up right back where you are now.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not just tiresome, that&#8217;s demoralizing. <\/p>\n<h3>5. No, the City REALLY Sucks<\/h3>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_city.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='In the upper right is the map, which is one of the &#8220;rotate so forward is up&#8221; not &#8220;North is up&#8221;. I HATE rotating maps. Doesn&#8217;t help that the &#8220;N&#8221; for north is actually kind of hard to see.' title='In the upper right is the map, which is one of the &#8220;rotate so forward is up&#8221; not &#8220;North is up&#8221;. I HATE rotating maps. Doesn&#8217;t help that the &#8220;N&#8221; for north is actually kind of hard to see.'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>The Dandelion quest has you bouncing from one end of the city to the other, constantly. You can&#8217;t ride your horse in the city<span class='snote' title='3'>Actually, you CAN, but you&#8217;ll just end up slamming into walls and guards and getting caught on bits everywhere.<\/span>, and riding your horse is one of the fun parts of the game. While it&#8217;s simple enough to follow map markers out in the wilderness, the map gets kind of confused about which doors you can go through, where passages are, and what the best path is from A to B. I&#8217;d often find myself circling a map point several times, trying to figure out which house I&#8217;m supposed to enter and which door will give me access<span class='snote' title='4'>Also, as a matter of taste I HATE rotating maps. NORTH IS UP, DAMN IT. I&#8217;m completely unable to get a sense of place and distance with that stupid spinning map.<\/span>. <\/p>\n<p>Also the wilderness has more variety. Over the course of a couple of hours in the wilderness you&#8217;ll visit forests, swamps, fields, towns, and caves. You&#8217;ll run into a variety of monsters and stumble onto ruins and treasures. In the city you&#8217;re basically just going to fight the same thugs in the same cobblestone alleys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Shamus, if you were so sick of the city, why didn&#8217;t you go do something else?&#8221; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since I really, really don&#8217;t care about Dandelion, I&#8217;d done basically all of the other quest lines first. There was nothing left to do in the main quest except look for Dandelion. Sure, I could go out to the wilderness and fight monsters, but I knew this stupid chore would still be waiting for me when I got back. <\/p>\n<p>And actually, I <em>did<\/em> go do something else. I stopped playing the game. Trying to mix good parts of a game in with the shitty parts doesn&#8217;t change the fact that there are shitty parts.<\/p>\n<h3>6. Hey look! It&#8217;s that guy from that thing!<\/h3>\n<p><table width='800' class=\"\" cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' border='0' align='center'><tr><td><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/witcher3_zoltan.jpg' class='insetimage' width='800' alt='Zoltan might be everyone&#8217;s favorite character, but to me he&#8217;s just another random asshole who didn&#8217;t know how to find Dandelion.' title='Zoltan might be everyone&#8217;s favorite character, but to me he&#8217;s just another random asshole who didn&#8217;t know how to find Dandelion.'\/><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>The city is basically one giant shout-out to people who played the previous games, or read the books, or whatever. It&#8217;s really tedious watching a couple of characters reminisce about events I don&#8217;t care about or understand, and it happened constantly while looking for Dandelion.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, put some fan service and shout-outs in your game. But make them optional sidequests. And not SEVEN HOURS long.<\/p>\n<p>The happy ending is that I did eventually get through it. I was actually really close when I raged out in that final tweet. The problem was that I had no reason to believe I was close, and so it felt like it was going on forever.<\/p>\n<p>The moment I solved the Dandelion problem it was like a switch was flipped and Witcher 3 went back to being the awesome game I&#8217;d been enjoying before.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s the story behind those Tweets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Witcher 3 is really good. At this point, it&#8217;s my Game of the Year. Actually, it&#8217;s my &#8220;Game of the Last Several Years&#8221;. I&#8217;ve spent the last week having these little moments where I put the controller down and say, &#8220;Wow. This game is really amazing.&#8221; The reasons why I like it so much can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}