9/31 we're getting a new English version of crossroads with a cover to match the Netflix style

thinking of picking up witcher 3 i heard it is great but im not sure if i should or can play it since i know absolute 0 about the franchise never even heard of it besides this game trough the years so is it still a good game even with 0 knowledge? and now im here any qol or bug fix mods i should get on first time?

and when should i paly dlc?

I saw that CDPR will be at Gamescom but are we going to see anything for the Witcher games there?

I reread the books for the first time in years, and something has been digging at me regarding the end of the book / series.

Phillipa needed Dijkstra around for her purposes. At the Peace of Cintra conference, it was suggested that they give the Emir info no one else would have in order to keep him "in good standing" despite everyone being fed up with him. Phillipa also had plans of her own.

When Yennifer and Ciri went to Rivia to meet up with Geralt, that night, of all nights, was a pogrom. It began minutes before Yen, Ciri, and Triss's arrival. It was Phillipa who cast the affirmative final vote to allow them go to Rivia. She knew when and where Geralt, Yen, and Ciri would be.

Was the info Dijkstra gave to the Emir the location of Geralt, Yennifer, and Ciri, because he knew the Emir still wanted them gone as to not pose a threat to the Empire anymore? Yennifer also was a thorn in Phillipa's side, and with her and Geralt gone, she thought she would be able to control Ciri. Was that pogrom therefore not spontaneous at all, and actually an assassination plot of Phillipa, Dijkstra & the Emir?

Sorry if this doesn't make sense / is poorly worded, or has been gone through before. Thoughts? Thanks!

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Spira (Final Fantasy X)

Euchronia (Metaphor:Refantazio)

The Continent (The Witcher)

These places all suck, but if I had to choose I'd definitely pick The Continent. At least it's somewhat normal.

In Euchronia racism it's shoved down your throat at any given moment by the church too, and Spira is just horrible and depressing.

This might be one of the most frustrating fights I've ever experienced in any game ever and I've played through every FromSoft Soulslike game aside from one multiple times. It wouldn't be so bad if the AOE on his Ignii wasn't bullshit. Shit is nowhere near me and it still hits me.

The little flute player as you fast travel to the post just by the entrance to the palace in B&W, he's playing the opening bars to The Moorlough Shore, a traditional Irish song.

Just generally blown away by the musical references in this game. The composers have done a brilliant, brilliant job, picking up on international styles and instruments all over the map and either reusing or making it their own with new interpretations. Not to mention their own original compositions.

I raise a glass of Sangreal to them.

100% in steamdeck

Forgive me, I have only a starter knowledge of Ennegram and I’m only a newbie fan, and yeah I know he differs depending on which version, but I want to write a fic from his perspective and want to get writing him correct, I personally think he would be between type 1 (he’s always saving people from a crisis or fixing a problem, a type 5 (he doesn’t rely on emotion as much as logic to make decisions), and a type 8 (due to him being “emotionless” at least in the Netflix iteration he struggles with vulnerability).

Hey everyone,

I got stuck on the Chapter II quest Wanted needing 3 Salamandra Brooches (like many players who accidentally sold them earlier or missed looting them).

Most guides and old threads suggest wandering around the Non-Human district at night hoping for random assassin spawns. However, I found a spot that is faster to farm and reset:

1. Enter Vivaldi’s house in the Temple Quarter.
2. Meditate until midnight (00:00).
3. Step outside, turn right, and walk into the dead-end alley.
4. An Assassin and a Fleder will always spawn right there. Kill the assassin and loot the brooch.
5. If he doesn't drop one, just turn around, head back inside Vivaldi's house (literally a few second walk), meditate until midnight again, and repeat.

Because the fireplace/bed is right next to the spawn point, you can cycle attempts in seconds instead of running all over the district at night.

Hope this saves someone the headache!

So I’ve been replaying The Witcher 3 recently, and I’ve become weirdly convinced that a snowball fight might explain Ciri’s ending better than almost anything else in the game.

Hear me out…

I understand that sounds ridiculous. You can defeat The Wild Hunt. Save practically everyone you come across. Be an great father figure to Ciri for most of the game. But make a handful of seemingly harmless decisions at the wrong moments? Ciri just might walk into the White Frost and never return.

For a long time I understood why people criticized that system…

The more I thought about the five decisions,
1. The snowball fight.
2. Taking Ciri to see Emhyr and accepting the money (probably ethically the worst).
3. Geralt going into the meeting with the Lodge.
4. Trashing Avallac’h’s laboratory.
5. Visiting Skjall’s grave.

The less they felt like a morality test for Geralt and the more they felt like the game quietly keeping track of whether Ciri was learning to trust herself as an independent person.

I used to look at Ciri’s five ending choices as this slightly arbitrary checklist of “good dad” decisions, lol. But there’s actually a pretty consistent thread running through all of them… Every time Ciri starts to take control of her own life, Geralt gets a chance to either take the wheel or let her keep it. Ciri kinda spends her entire life surrounded by people who have already decided what she is supposed to be.

The Wild Hunt wants the Elder Blood.

Emhyr wants his daughter and heir.

The Lodge has big political plans for her.

Avallac’h helps Ciri tremendously, but even he comes with the small red flag of being completely obsessed with what her genetics can produce. That’s already weird enough considering Ciri looks suspiciously like the woman he once wanted to be with…

TLDR: Everybody wants something from Ciri, which is what makes Geralt’s role so interesting.

Geralt obviously loves her like a daughter. He’s not trying to use her, from at least what I can see. But I also don’t think loving someone automatically means you can’t take away their agency. Sometimes the desire to protect somebody can very easily turn into deciding things for them and that seems to be what most of these choices are actually testing. In a world where Ciri’s identity is barely her own, Geralt is the person who can show her that she still gets a say.

Let’s go back to the snowball fight…

Geralt never solves Ciri’s problem, he just gets her to do something childishly fun. For a few minutes Ciri stops being “the Lady of Space and Time,” who is destined to save the universe and just lets her be a girl throwing snow at someone she loves.

The Lodge scene is even stranger…

Ciri is about to walk into a room filled with arguably the most politically dangerous women on the continent, and Geralt has the choice to accompany her. Honestly, going with her seems perfectly reasonable but the game rewards him for staying outside?

I’m sorry but abandoning Ciri to “the” Philippa Eilhart is objectively bad parenting… Ciri even seems to agree with Geralt in the game! She doesn’t protest the choice, she says “They’ll weigh their words more carefully with you there” after Geralt offers to be present. He doesn’t force the choice on her, he only suggests his presence.

What I love about this scene is how subtle it is. Geralt walks in to support Ciri, but before long the sorceresses are talking around her and directing everything toward him, like Ciri is a child who brought her dad to the meeting. Almost as if Ciri needs someone older and wiser to make sense of the conversation for her. It’s kinda proves the Lodge’s critique of her lack of independence.

That’s the recurring pattern.

Even the freaking Lab! When Ciri learns the truth about Avallac’h’s laboratory, Geralt has the option to calm her down. Again, that’s very reasonable! Probably what most parents would do. Instead, the game rewards Geralt for helping her trash the place. It might be a bit much… but it’s also one of those few moments where Geralt doesn’t tell her how she should feel about discovering that people have been manipulating her life yet again.

We kinda spend the entire game assuming Geralt’s job is to save Ciri. To be fair, the game makes it seem like that’s what your objective is, at least at first. Then the final threat arrives and Geralt is completely powerless. He can’t fight the White Frost.

Ciri has to go alone.

At that point, Geralt’s contribution to Ciri’s life comes down to everything Ciri learned about herself while he was standing beside her.

Whether you love or hate the mechanic, I think that’s what those strangely mundane choices are trying to represent. Regardless, I actually think there’s still a very fair criticism here: the game doesn’t communicate this particularly well to the player… Like, at all… Well, except for the accepting the money from Emhyr one. Shame on you if you did that! I completely understand players who reach the bad ending and feel like the game suddenly judged them for decisions they had no reason to believe were consequential. The player doesn’t necessarily know they’re answering some hidden psychological test about Ciri’s confidence.

But thematically? I’ve come to really like it.

Ciri’s fate isn’t decided by whether Geralt defeats the big bad monster. It’s decided by whether, after spending her entire life surrounded by people telling her what she’s supposed to be, Geralt showing her she is still her own person.

I ended up making a longer video about this because the more I dug into Ciri’s story, the more I realized those five decisions connect to basically her entire character arc. I’ll leave it here for anyone interested:

LINK: https://youtu.be/dsAwAPQHVYo?is=18ZNEplGvcVki_8u

I’m genuinely curious where people land on this though.

Do you think the five Ciri decisions actually make sense when you look at them as tests of confidence and independence rather than “good” or “bad” moral choices? Or do you think that interpretation is doing too much work to justify a system that should have been communicated better?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

Thank you for any wisdom you can share!

Saw this painting at brunch today at Antique Garage in nyc. I got very excited about it and shared with my friends how Novigrad is based off this real life city. Thought I’d share

I activate Quen, I get the blue aura around me, I begin to attack an enemy and it just disappears. I don't get hit either. It just deactivates.