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 The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is the second and final expansion of CD Projekt RED's 2015 action RPG, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Geralt of Rivia has been summoned by the Duchess of Toussaint to investigate a series of brutal murders which appear to be the work of some monster. He quickly discovers, of course, that the situation is a whole lot weirder and more complicated than it seems. ABOUT THE LP Although I've played the entirety of the three main games and the first W3 expansion, Hearts of Stone, I'm approaching Blood and Wine more or less totally blind. I have a co-commentator, Fletcher, who has been playing W3 but hasn't touched the other games. He's more familiar with the books (I've only read the first one) and I'm more familiar with the games, so between us we know enough about the lore that we generally skim over the basics. Each video is about an hour long, give or take; a couple of them have spilled over by a few minutes, but only long enough to finish off a quest. They were recorded from the PC version in 1080p, but I recommend setting YouTube to 1440p or 4K (when available) if your computer and bandwidth can handle it; the video quality is quite a bit better. Please tag all significant spoilers for Witcher 3 or any of its expansions! Blood and Wine is a near-totally standalone story, so I'd like this thread to remain approachable for people who haven't yet played or beaten the rest of the game! VIDEOS Tags: (M) - Video primarily follows the main quest. It may switch off into a sidequest partway through, but I'll try not to pick the main storyline up in the middle of a video. (S) - Video covers side quests or monster contracts. (X) - Video covers treasure hunts or other activities with little to no story. This game contains loads of violence and some nudity, so you should just assume all of these videos are NSFW. 01. (M) The Land of Wine and Murder 02. (S) Wine Tours 03. (S) Return of the Witcher 04. (M) Giving Geralt a Hand 05. (M) The Honourable Ravix of Fourhorn 06. (S) Hatching a Scheme 07. (M) I Rarely Say No to a Snifter 08. (M) My Dinner with Marlene 09. (S) W-Treme W-Men 10. (X) Cat Scratch Fever 11. (M) Shoeshine Shakedown 12. (M) I'll Die If I Want To 13. (M) Plus One B1. (X) Lootin' 14. (S) Home Improvement 15. (S) Endangerous 16. (S) A Witcher Lying Senselessly on the Heath 17. (M) Choices & Consequences B2. (X) Our Story So Far SUMMONING ARC 18A. (M) Philanthropy 19A. (M) Negotiation (alt scenes) 20A. (M) Justice JAILBREAK ARC 18B. (M) Wolves 19B. (M) Reunion (alt scenes) 20X. (M) Punishment (Bad Ending) 20B. (M) Compassion 21. (S) Virtuoso 22. (S) Tunnel(s) of Love 23. (S) Of Course, of Course OTHER STUFF - Drunk Witchstory - Fletcher and a friend discuss some of the broader points of the Witcher 3 lore and mechanics that we skimmed over in the main videos. Some ... other topics come up. (important coda) Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Mar 4, 2017 |
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Nov 18, 2016 14:05
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Post reserved. For what? Don't worry about it. Here, have a glass of Butcher of Blaviken and set a spell.
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Nov 18, 2016 14:06
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 01. (M) The Land of Wine and Murder Welcome to Toussaint! Please watch out for falling windmills. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Nov 18, 2016 14:07
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This isn't really not-France, it's more not-Piedmont. Also, I really like the nod to El Cid when you enter Toussaint. Gives a good impression of what this area is like in comparison to the remainder of the Witcher 3 world.
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Nov 18, 2016 20:17
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I loved this game but I have sort of made peace with the fact that I won't get around to finishing it, let alone try any of the DLC, so I'm stoked that I can take a peak at the DLC here. Plus the PS4 version runs pretty choppily on my PS4.
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Nov 18, 2016 21:39
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Audio balance. The game is hella quiet compared to your voices.
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Nov 19, 2016 12:28
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Samovar posted:This isn't really not-France, it's more not-Piedmont.  Yeah, wow, OK. It's a bit hard to pinpoint exactly what they were going for - loads of the names are definitely French, the accents in the English dub are kinda all over the place, and I know next to nothing about European geography and architecture, but I think you nailed it. Xander77 posted:Audio balance. The game is hella quiet compared to your voices. I'll see what I can do starting with ep 4, but I can't crank it up too much more without drowning *us* out during the really loud parts, of which there are many. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 01:03
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 02. (S) Wine Tours There's certainly no shortage of dirty work to be found around these parts. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 06:49
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You know, the sword oils really help when fighting in this game. But does anything determine success in demanding extra pay?
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Nov 21, 2016 19:38
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I'm pretty sure hey we're called Gray Men. Edit: that's what I get for posting before finishing the episode! Thanks for doing this LP at any rate. ManSedan fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 22:00
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Yeah, you should probably expect that at times I'm just going to grab my phone and double-check myself during downtime. Feel free to correct me if I still gently caress something up, though!
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Nov 21, 2016 23:15
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 03. (S) Return of the Witcher] We conclude the wine inheritance squabble before moving on to much more important matters. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Nov 27, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 07:38
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I guess only on SA could the first major LP of Witcher 3... be about the expansion. Then again, I'm 90% sure that Wild Hunt is close to impossible to actually LP without it being heavily edited. I'm still playing B&W (I have this tendency to leave a game for large amounts of time, so even though I got it on launch day I've still not finished it), but it definitely makes for a great post-endgame wrap up.
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Nov 23, 2016 19:38
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GoneRampant posted:I guess only on SA could the first major LP of Witcher 3... be about the expansion. Then again, I'm 90% sure that Wild Hunt is close to impossible to actually LP without it being heavily edited. Even only undertaking one of the expansions is a hilarious amount of work, LPing the whole game would kill someone. Good stuff so far aside from the audio problems.
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Nov 23, 2016 19:52
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If you had to pick just one of the Witcher 3 + expansions to do, B&W is the one. Toussaint is so pretty it's nuts.
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Nov 23, 2016 23:00
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I'm interested how you will get through this, it would seem almost un-lets-playable to me, even though this DLC is the pinnacle of RPG gaming, only matched by the other Witcher 3 DLC.
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Nov 24, 2016 00:08
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Did yall do a vanilla run of the game?
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Nov 24, 2016 00:32
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Orv posted:Even only undertaking one of the expansions is a hilarious amount of work, LPing the whole game would kill someone. Thanks! I've been working on audio levels and I should have a test video to show after I get off work tonight. (Part 4 might still be a bit funky; I did what I could but I overwrote some files like an idiot.) Herr Tog posted:Did yall do a vanilla run of the game? Nope! I decided to jump straight to B&W because 1) neither of us have played it before, 2) it's a standalone story they might as well have sold separately, and 3) as said above already, it's massive on it's own. Part of why I included the main game and HoS in the spoiler policy was to avoid stepping on anyone's toes should they be brave enough to climb that mountain.
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Nov 24, 2016 01:45
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Herr Tog posted:Did yall do a vanilla run of the game? I'm working on it now off camera and without Flamedrake and it also isn't very vanilla because my game keeps breaking in new and exciting ways that come up in our commentary from time to time. So probably not what you're looking for, sorry. Protip: if you want to improve your defense, cause Geralt to merge with the earth itself so that your movements shift the continent - enemies can't hit you when you're the planet
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Nov 24, 2016 01:56
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(this post had a test video that nobody watched and I have since deleted)
Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Jan 18, 2017 |
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Nov 24, 2016 08:30
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Are there butchers in the witcher world? It seems like an insanely dangerous profession considering what will come crawling towards the smell of meat.
Poil fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Nov 24, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 14:22
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Yeah, sure there are. There's this weird, but necessary disconnect between gameplay and lore in this case, monsters are supposed to be getting increasingly rare, as people reclaim more and more land for settlements and fields, and in doing so destroy monster habitats. so for most people, monsters are not that much of a concern, really. That's why witchers are in such decline sand why most folks seem ignorant of even basic monster species. The Witcher games get around that by picking settings that are full of extreme suffering and bloodshed that feeds monsters / distant and untamed / cursed. In the main map of Witcher 3, the countryside is ravaged by war, and the surviving peasants are too poor and famished to actually have any significant heads of livestock left, so village butchers don't really have anything that would attract monsters. It's the dead bodies from battles and banditry and abandoned villages that keeps monsters around, the actual inhabited places are a slim pickings in comparison. But there are several side quests revolving around monsters infesting somebody's farm, or beasts hunting livestock.
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Nov 24, 2016 14:42
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Ah, that explains a lot thank you. But doesn't a lot of monsters quite happily eat people? Can the city guards or soldiers handle monsters (I assume they can if there are enough of them)? Or do people hire witchers to clear out an area and then move in and shovel all over it to make fields and such? The Witcher is really good at making the place seem populated from what I've seen so far though. The tiny villagers have almost as many buildings as normal rpg towns and while the countryside can only be described as overrun by monsters you can take two steps outside a city wall and not get mauled by fiften bears.
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Nov 24, 2016 23:04
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Poil posted:But doesn't a lot of monsters quite happily eat people? Can the city guards or soldiers handle monsters (I assume they can if there are enough of them)? Or do people hire witchers to clear out an area and then move in and shovel all over it to make fields and such? In order: - it's probably a 50/50 mix and keep in mind random wildlife are just as dangerous (loving BOARS) - Depends on the monster, but that's going to be a plot point in this expansion (however, as we also say at one point: they probably could with some given that their levels scale with yours!) - This is actually a set of sidequests and stuff you can do in the game, there'll be former battlefields or ruined towns or the like you can clear out and as a result people will resettle there/begin farming it/etc. Some quests also reward you for looking in the bestiary and knowing about the environments/habits of a monster and taking appropriate measures: I just did one last night in the main game where by burning the corpses as I worked it kept carrion-eaters from spawning in. This turkey takes loving forever to cook, y'all claw game handjob fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Nov 24, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 23:27
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Poil posted:Ah, that explains a lot thank you. But doesn't a lot of monsters quite happily eat people? Can the city guards or soldiers handle monsters (I assume they can if there are enough of them)? Or do people hire witchers to clear out an area and then move in and shovel all over it to make fields and such? Well, keep in mind that the witcher lore is based on real world folk tales. Monsters, crones and other scary things lurk outside the civilized world, as a metaphor for the dangers of straying too far into the wilderness, or for being reckless outside the safety of one's village at daylight. Monsters live in the forest just outside the outlayingfields, outside well travelled roads, and anywhere where there isn't enough light and human presence to keep them away, such as cemetaries and sewers. They are more of an oppressive presence that can be managed with appropriate precautions than an existential threat. When they venture into inhabited areas, it's because their territory has been infringed upon and they are desperate, because the civilization has crumbled and the line between the world of people and of monsters has disappeared, or because they are intelligent monsters who can hide in cities and parasite on their people without being detected. Witchers are hired to deal with unusual spikes of monster activity, or with individual monsters that become dangerous to humans for some reason, but other than that monsters are just a force of nature, similar to wolves, bandits, or just getting lost at night and falling to death in a ravine. And as such they disappear as the spread of civilization into remote areas irreversibly changes the ecology and makes their niches disappear. The reason why witchers are necessary for this is that monsters are more dangerous than average beasts, on account of being not of this world, and that witchers can counter this with special training that would kill ordinary humans. However it is quite possible for ordinary people to kill monsters as well, it's just dangerous. In fact a major plot point of the first game is that a knightly order has been set up with a mission to eradicate monsters, and they consider witchers to be an obsolete institution. The reason why the game diverges from this lore in its mechanics is that it is a game, and it wouldn't be marketable without regular combat. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Nov 25, 2016 |
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Nov 25, 2016 00:32
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 04. (M) Giving Geralt a Hand I guess we should get around to solving those murders, huh?
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Nov 25, 2016 08:54
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That was a fantastic way to end the episode, I agree
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Nov 25, 2016 13:53
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It's strange really, the Witchers are very... 'original character, do not steal', but... they aren't really that annoying, either?
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Nov 25, 2016 20:00
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steinrokkan posted:Yeah, sure there are. There's this weird, but necessary disconnect between gameplay and lore in this case, monsters are supposed to be getting increasingly rare, as people reclaim more and more land for settlements and fields, and in doing so destroy monster habitats. so for most people, monsters are not that much of a concern, really. That's why witchers are in such decline sand why most folks seem ignorant of even basic monster species. Witchers were also on the decline when the human infrastructure becomes strong enough to support permanent armies or other forces, as they becomes the main resources used to deal with or control the typical monsters. But obviously during war time, that becomes low priority.
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Nov 25, 2016 23:00
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The competition seems really stupid, how is anyone supposed to grab all three without being a rude and cheating witcher? Just one of the items won't be enough to do anything.
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Nov 26, 2016 11:34
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All I can figure is they meant for the people who found the different items to come together in love and understanding, togetherness with your fellow man, something like that. Either that or they secretly refresh the clues when nobody's looking.
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Nov 26, 2016 22:58
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flamedrake posted:All I can figure is they meant for the people who found the different items to come together in love and understanding, togetherness with your fellow man, something like that. Either that or they secretly refresh the clues when nobody's looking. 
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Nov 26, 2016 23:07
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Samovar posted:It's strange really, the Witchers are very... 'original character, do not steal', but... they aren't really that annoying, either? Not even that original, if you believe that the author ripped off Michael Moorcook and plagarised Elric.
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Nov 27, 2016 02:24
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Fortunately you would have to be a real big sucker to believe that.
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Nov 27, 2016 02:30
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Short note regarding vanilla game - you will want to at least finish it, since B&W is the true epilogue to Geralt.
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Nov 28, 2016 01:57
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 05. (M) The Honourable Ravix of Fourhorn  Ravix first appeared in the short story A Question of Price, by the way. I think it's one of the better ones in the first collection, The Last Wish. I'm not sure which book(s?) Regis is from, though, since I've only read that one. Level 1 Thief fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Nov 28, 2016 |
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Nov 28, 2016 12:07
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If I remember the books right, Regis first appeared in Baptism of Fire. He is very much a bro and the games do a great job of portraying him.
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Nov 28, 2016 20:32
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Yeah, I remember Regis and his mandrake vodka. I really want to know if such a drink is actually possible to drink.
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Nov 28, 2016 22:49
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I cannot speak to the mandrake side of things, but we non-mutant humans can indeed consume vodka, yes.
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Nov 28, 2016 22:58
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I'm sure if you tried hard enough, you could concoct something that's technically vodka but will destroy you all the way down.
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Nov 28, 2016 23:24
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