#Dc Projekt Red

[thebuhonerodazorrow]

Cyberpunk 2077: Blackout #3 of 4

Dark Horse

DC Projekt Red

[yaboipathos]

𝐏𝐎𝐕: 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲

[brid-jagtap]

Blog#3

Transmedia and Intertextuality:

What is Transmedia?

Transmedia is a storytelling technique that uses different media platforms and formats to tell a story. It's a system where various media interact and converge, and content is transferred between them the whole story cannot be interpreted from a single media artefact. (Wikipedia)

There are many examples of transmedia throughout history, some of the modern examples in movies are Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, the DC franchise, Harry Potter books, films and TV series. All of these are stories that are spanning over different titles and different media platforms to tell an ongoing story. I believe, In the recent times, there are hardly any examples of a media artefact which is not transmedia, and it is complete on its own.

What is intertextuality?

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody, or by interconnections between similar or related works perceived by an audience or reader of the text. (Wikipedia)

Intertextuality can be of two types self-conscious (deliberate) what Kristeva calls ‘the banal sense of “the study of sources”’ (Kristeva Reader, p.111) but it depends on the reader’s knowledge of the subject. These can be parodies, easter eggs, homage, or inspirations.

The second is unconscious where it is beyond the control of the author, Readers can find connections between unrelated artefacts due to their cultural or common occurrence, for example, dragons, fairies or deities can be referenced in different media without intentionally referring to any text from the past.

In this blog, I would like to discuss “The Witcher” series in terms of Transmedia and intertextuality perspective as well.

The Witcher (Polish: Wiedźmin) is a series of nine fantasy novels and 15 short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. It was first started as a short story which Andrzej submitted in the story competition. Due to demand from the reader, he wrote 14 more short stories before starting the novel series in 1994.

The stories revolve around the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Witchers are monster hunters who are given superhuman abilities by years of training and mutations.

The novel series ran from 1994 to 1999 with a novel released yearly. The Witcher Norvel Series had a cult following in Poland in the late 90s and early 2000s.

At the start, Sapkowski had no plans or ideas for the background and history lores of the series it was only started as a short story, As Sapkowski mentioned “the necessity of some coherent background became imminent. And slowly, step by step, something resembling a universe started to emerge. But it's only in the background, so it plays a secondary role” he started creating the settings for the Witcher universe. After the success of the novel series, there was a demand for its game adaptations. 

There was an initial attempt made by a small company called Metropolis Software House, which was eventually cancelled. The Witcher’s IP was available for other game studios to grab. CD Projekt RED the newly established game development studio acquired rights to the Witcher series and its bag production in 2003. After five years of development, the first entry in the game series was released in 2007. There were a lot of obstacles CD Projekt had to face during the production. The most prominent one is that they did not want just tell what’s in the book as it is but also they did not want to shift from the source material. Hence, CD Projekt decided to showcase the events after the conclusion of the novel series, basically, making the Witcher game sequel to the Novel series.

Fig: The Witcher Game Series

CD Projekt Red went on to release more instalments in their game series each time improving upon the game mechanics, character and environment designs and adding to the story of the Geralt of Rivia. By their third and most anticipated instalment, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt Red have become quite a popular name. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt became one of the most selling video games of all time and revolutionary for the single-player RPG genre. After the success of the Witcher game series, Netflix acquired rights for the TV series and released its first season of “The Witcher” TV series in 2019. The TV series took a little different approach than the games. It is based on the books, but the Netflix series took some cinematic liberties and had some deviations from the original source material.

Now looking at history of The Witcher artefact as whole, I can clearly justify it is an example of transmedia. The novels, Games series, and the Live action adaption all of it tells the story of The Witcher Universe, a single book or a single game or just the tv series won’t tell the complete story of The Witcher.

Also, The Original Novels had influence of Elves, Dwarves and mages. Due to their connections to folk-lores and mythologies one could draw relation between stories from The Witcher to other media objects containing these similar fictional characters.

One would argue that makes The Witcher Series as whole, a type of intertextual artefact as well, regardless of it was conscious or unconscious.

References:

Andrzej Sapkowski. “The Witcher/ Wiedźmin”(1990-1999)

(Author Unknown) Intertextuality. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality.

(Author Unknown). Transmedia storytelling. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling.

CD Projekt Red. “The Witcher Video game” (2007-)

Kristeva, Julia and Toril Moi. “The Kristeva Reader.” (1986).

Schmidt, L. (2019). The Witcher. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5180504/.

[local-gotham-kid]

New leaked destiel confession for like the billionth time!!!!

[sabrerine911]

Geralt and Poison Ivy sketch finished

Decided to digitalize some pen sketches I did half a year ago in between commissions. (unfortunately the Geralt one had to be modified since I wanted him to have the armor I have on my Geralt instead of the default one.

[alexzombiez]

by BossLogic

[nerdandtie]

The Nerd & Tie Podcast: 162. The Best and Worst of 2020!

The year is coming to an end, and that means it's time for our annual Year in Review episode! We go through the very best and worst of movies, TV shows, video games, anime, and conventions like we do every year... only this year, some of these categories are a lot harder to figure out. Because, y'know, 2020. This episode was sponsored in memory of Paul "The Herald" Holmen.

[batstickblog]

Gothampunk 2077

Red Hood: Wake the fuck up little Caped Crusader, we have a Gotham to burn.

Red Hood: (Taking off his mask Reveal to Jason Todd)

(Chippin’ In by Refused started to play)

[rainegocar-blog]

[thecreaturecodex]

Oni, Yakotsune

“Aguara: True Form” © CD PROJEKT S.A., by Anna  Podedworna. Accessed at her ArtStation here

[Commissioned by @mr-w-rambles​, as a substitute/replacement for the nogitsune as a kitsune-themed oni, with a focus on the possession syndrome of “kitsune tsuki“. The nogitsune is one of my least favorite of Pathfinder’s oni, so I certainly don’t mind doubling up here. Possession is one of those mechanics in the game that is easy to counter and difficult to pull off, so making this a low-level monster will make the possession stick a little bit better, as it were. 

Incidentally, a little bit of “the snake eating its own tail” here with inspiration. The art is from Gwent, the card game for The Witcher franchise. The creature in that setting, the aguara, is lifted pretty much directly from AD&D’s foxwoman--they’re female only, appear as elves in their humanoid form, and kidnap and indoctrinate children instead of reproducing themselves. I’ve already done a version of that monster in my foxwere. ]

Oni, Yakotsune CR 5 CE Outsider (native) This humanoid has the head of a fox and talons on its hands and feet. Its face bears a sinister expression, and its eyes gleam red.

The yakotsune is an oni that develops from an envy of shapeshifting humanoids, particularly kitsune. Yakotsune prefer destructive envy, taking away what others have and leaving them with nothing.  They also enjoy initiating prejudice against true kitsune, painting them as monsters and outing their secret lives to public scrutiny. Yakotsune are gifted at possessing creatures and having them destroy their lives with their own hands—they drive their hosts to attack loved ones, smash treasures and ruin reputations. A yakotsune’s favorite game is to spread rumors that their host is the real monster, and leave them at the mercy of others while escaping the consequences.

A yakotsune often enters a city or town in the shape of a fox, spending time gathering intelligence before possessing its target and disrupting their lives. Their first act when possessed is usually to hide their own body someplace secure, and they can keep their possession going long enough so that the host only escapes for brief moments in their sleep. A yakotsune often enhances its host’s form with magic, giving them fox-like facial features and clawed hands or making them perform obviously magical acts in the midst of public crimes. When they part ways with a host, they leave behind mental scars, and those affected by yakotsune possession need lengthy recovery times to overcome the trauma.

A yakotsune prefers not to fight in its own body if it can help it, but they do have sharp teeth and claws. Their magical gifts grant them the ability to enhance their own physical capabilities as easily as they can enhance their hosts’, but they usually use these in order to facilitate escape instead. Most yakotsune are loners and do not get along well with others of their kind, but occasionally a more powerful oni mastermind can force a team of them to work together as spies and saboteurs. 

Yakotsune    CR 5 XP 1,600 CE Medium outsider (native, oni, shapechanger) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +10, scent Defense AC 16, touch 13, flat-footed 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural) hp 52 (7d10+14); regeneration 2 (acid or fire) Fort +4, Ref +8, Will +5 Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee 2 claws +9 (1d4+2), bite +9 (1d6+2) Psychic Spells CL 7th, concentration +10 (+14 casting defensively) 15 PE—blur (2 PE), bull’s strength (2 PE), cat’s grace (2 PE), detect thoughts (2 PE, DC 15), faerie fire (1 PE, DC 14), possession (3 PE, DC 16), spider climb (2 PE), touch of idiocy (2 PE) Special Attacks parting madness, pounce, rake (2 claws +9, 1d4+2) Statistics Str 15, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 17 Base Atk +7; CMB +9; CMD 22 Feats Combat Casting, Deceitful, Extend Spell, Hidden Presence Skills Acrobatics +13, Bluff +15, Disguise +15, Intimidate +13, Knowledge (arcana) +9, Knowledge (local) +12, Perception +10, Stealth +13 Languages Common, Elven, Senzar SQ change shape (fox, beast shape II), feral form Ecology Environment temperate forests or urban Organization solitary, pair or party (3-6) Treasure standard Special Abilities Feral Form (Su) When it is possessing a creature, a yakotsune may cause the creature to grow teeth and claws as a move action. The creature gains a bite attack and two claw attacks that deal damage as normal for a creature of its size. If the creature already has a bite or claw attack, it deals damage as if it were one size category larger. A yakotsune possessing a creature may retract these natural weapons as a move action. Parting Madness (Su) When a yakotsune leaves a host it is possessing, it may inflict on that creature a random minor madness if it so chooses. A creature may resist this effect with a successful DC 16 Will save. All subsequent saving throws made against the madness effect are at the normal DC. This is a mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.

[thebuhonerodazorrow]

Cyberpunk 2077: Blackout #1 of 4

Dark Horse

DC Projekt Red

[itsclydebitches]

Fun Tidbits about The Witcher 3

1994 - “[Marcin Iwinski] and Kicinski teamed up to start a company called DC Projekt, named after the industry-changing CD-ROMs that had just popped up in Warsaw.” CD Projekt Red is a developmental branch of CD Projekt (224) 

“Turned out [Andrzej] Sapkowski had no interest in video games, and he was happy to sell the rights to CD Projekt Red for a reasonable price” (225) 

“With The Witcher 2, Iwinski and his studio had built a sizable audience outside of Europe and even a cultural icon in Poland, to the point where in 2011, when US president Barack Obama visited the country, prime minister Donald Tusk gifted him a copy of The Witcher 2. (Obama later admitted that he had not played it.)” (226) 

“When he was told he’d be in charge of their next big game, an anxious Konrad Tomaszkiewicz started talking to CD Projekt Red’s other executives about how they’d make the game appealing to as many people as possible. One of their immediate solutions was simple: make it huge.” (227) 

“‘We were terrified of the scope,’ said Konrad Tomaszkiewicz” (228) 

“To solve this problem [of exploration freedom but no level scaling], CD Projekt Red went with a more linear structure. After the prologue, you’d go to Velen (low level), then Novigrad (midlevel), then Skellige (high level). You’d still have the freedom to move between regions, but progression would be a little more restricted.” (229)

“The bigger one, the RPGs and open-world games, usually set out for a range of forty to sixty [hours]. With The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red wanted a game that would take at least one hundred hours to finish” (229) 

“By some accounts, The Witcher 3′s world would be thirty times the size of The Witcher 2′s” (230) 

“As development proceeded, The Witcher 3′s designers again began to panic that they didn’t have enough content. They’d promised that the world in his game would take at least one hundred hours to play. It might have been a ridiculous number, but it was the one they’d promised, and they felt compelled to hit it” (235) 

“Perhaps to overcompensate for that persistent fear that they wouldn’t have enough content, they’d wound up making too much. Their goal had been a maximum gameplay time of one hundred hours, but between quests, points of interest, and areas to explore, The Witcher 3′s final count was closer to two hundred hours. It could stretch out even longer, if you played slowly.” (244) 

“They knew that the primary villain would be a group called the Wild Hunt, a phalanx of spectral horsemen based on the European folk myth of the same name.” (227) 

“Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz and other designers enacted a simple rule: don’t make boring quests. ‘I called them ‘Fedex quests’---the quests that are just fetch quests,’ said Tomaszkiewicz. ‘Someone says bring me the cup, or ten bear skins or whatever. You bring the stuff to them and that’s it. There’s no twist, no nothing... Every quest, no matter how small it should be, should have something memorable in it’” (230) 

“At one point in preproduction, worried that they weren’t hitting this quality bar, Tomaszkiewicz cut around 50 percent of the quests they’d sketched out” (231) 

“People often wondered how CD Projekt Red sharpened the writing in Witcher games so well, especially when there was so much of it. The answer was simple. ‘I don’t think there is a single quest in The Witcher 3 which was written once, accepted, and then recorded,’ Szamalek said. ‘Everything was rewritten dozens of times.’” (233) 

“...but in The Witcher, there are very few happy endings, which CD Projekt Red saw as a reflection of Polish culture” (231) 

“If they had to restrict The Witcher 3′s memory for last-gen consoles, they wouldn’t be able to achieve the level of photorealism that they thought they could hit with this game. CD Projekt Red wanted to build a world with a functioning ecosystem and day-night cycle with elaborate cities and grass that swayed in the wind.” (234) 

“As The Witcher 3′s staff grew larger, this insistence on realism led to some complications. At one point, Tost’s team noticed a serious problem in Velen: there was too much to eat. ‘Velen was always supposed to be this famine-ridden land,’ said Tost, ‘where people don’t really have a lot of food.’ For some reason, though, an environment artist had stocked up many of Velen’s homes, filling cabinets with sausages and vegetables. It bothered the level designers so much to leave as it was, so they spent hours digging through every village in Velen, taking food away from people like twisted reverse Robin Hoods” (238)

“Teixeira, a Portugal native who was primarily responsible for visual effects like weather and blood splatter (‘I had a very questionable browser history’)” (235) 

“CD Projekt Red were the underdogs, the outsiders, the guys from Poland who had made only two other games, yet fans thought The Witcher 3 was one of the most impressive things at [E3]” (240) 

“The engineers rebuilt the streaming system, spending months trying to make objects load seamlessly in the background, so the player would see no loading screens while riding his or her horse from area to area” (240) 

“‘We used to read the forums and check what people are asking for, and we’d actually add elements in the game based on people’s feedback,’ said the lead quest designer, Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz. “For example, there was this footage of Novigrad at some point. You could see the city in the distance. And there were some hard-core fans in the forums that were discussing the city. In the books it was said that the city was very solid, big walls. And in the trailer it didn’t. So we said, ‘Yeah, we probably should do that,’ and we did build it.’” (241) 

“‘You start realizing not just the sheer size of the game, but the sheer amount of possibilities on how you can do things,’ said Jose Teixeira. ‘The game crashes, not if you go into a house, but if you talk to this person and if you get on a horse and then you go into a house...[the testers] started coming up with these sort of ‘what the fuck’ situations.’” (242-3) 

“Then the praise started coming in. On May 12, 2015, when The Witcher 3′s reviews started going live on the Internet, the hype reached a fever pitch...’It was such a weird feeling because looking back, you’d think people would be high-fiving each other like, ‘Wow, we made it,’ said Jose Teixeira. ‘But we started reading these reviews and we’re just looking at each other going, ‘Holy shit, what do we do with this information?’ Nobody worked that day, needless to say. Everybody was just on Google going ‘Witcher 3 reviews’ and refreshing.” (243-4) 

“So many [of the staff] had grown up pirating games at the computer markets, where they’d score bootleg copies of games like Stonekeep and fantasize about one making their own RPGs. ‘I think that in communism, many people’s creativity was limited,’ said Konrad Tomaszkiewicz. ‘But after we were democrats, when everyone could do what they wanted to do, they started to fulfill the dreams they got in their heads.’” (247)

- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier, Chapter Nine: “The Witcher 3,” Harper,  223-249, 2017

[graphicpolicy]

Toy Fair 2019: Dark Horse and DC Projekt Red Expand their The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt Figure Collection

Toy Fair 2019: Dark Horse and DC Projekt Red Expand their The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt Figure Collection #toyfair #thewitcher

Dark Horse and CD PROJEKT RED are releasing three all-new figures from The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt! Slated for a summer 2019 release, the new Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer figures will retail for $39.99.

The first new product is a sculpt of Geralt of Rivia in his Grandmaster Feline armor. Geralt is featured in this stealthy hooded armor holding his crossbow. The feline armor provides Geralt with…

[enigmaphenomenon]

Dear DC Projekt Red. Do not let Anita Sarkeesian anywhere near Cyberpunk 2077. Do not let her “help,” keep her far the fuck away from you. 

[faethea]

21 questions game

I got tagged by the very awesome @fantasmagoriam thank you!

I am gonna tag @akhuna, @themalkavians, @greywardang, @venjpetra

NICKNAMES: Don’t really have one atm, ages ago used to be DC which was my initials.

ZODIAC SIGN: Aquarius 

HEIGHT: 5′7

HOGWARTS HOUSE: According to the quiz I got Ravenclaw, though I like Hufflepuff a lot.

LAST THING I GOOGLED: Was “Deity of trickery” due to what happened in D&D last night.

FAVORITE MUSICIANS: Atm my favs would be Banks, Chvrches, Gorillaz, WAAX, Daft Punk, Northlane, Architects

SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD: This

FOLLOWING: A bit over a hundred

FOLLOWERS: Somehow a lot more than I thought

DO I GET ASKS: Not many but I sometimes I get really sweet anons, whoever you are you are the best <3

AMOUNT OF SLEEP: What is this sleep you speak of?

LUCKY NUMBER: When I played Football(Soccer) I use to believe the number 11 was my lucky number

WHAT AM I WEARING: Just some trackies and a black shirt

DREAM JOB: Oof a really big one would be to work at CD Projekt Red either in Cracow or Warsaw. Honestly though id be happy with just having a job in general, somewhere that can feed my ankle boot addiction lol c:

DREAM TRIPS: Two big ones would be to go to Japan and Poland but would also love to go visit all my friends around the world too!

INSTRUMENTS: I had a mediocre attempt at Drums for a few years, 

LANGUAGES: English, A bit of Polish(I have been trying my best to learn).

FAVORITE SONGS: One more time by Daft Punk, Drowning by Banks, Empire Ants by Gorillaz, All I Wanted by Daughter, Paper Lung by Underoath, Open Letter by Amity Affliction.

RANDOM FACT: The First Nat 20 I got in D&D was to do a shadow puppet show while my character was in jail.

AESTETHIC: Pretty random I’m in a constant tug of war between lots of black and floral lol

[sabrerine911]

Geralt and Poison Ivy sketch WIP

Decided to digitalize some pen sketches I did half a year ago in between commissions. (unfortunately the Geralt one had to be modified since I wanted him to have the armor I have on my Geralt instead of the default one.