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Friday 20 January, 2017
Today's session went A LOT more smoothly than yesterday's. The objective I was stuck on yesterday was to "Follow the Nilfgaardian soldiers' tracks using your Witcher Senses" in the "The Beast of White Orchard" quest. For some reason, I kept going to this same location and getting killed by wild dogs. So today when I started off, I decided to follow a different objective of the quest first which was to "Ask the herbalist about buckthorn". I followed a map and talked to an herbalist who told me about where I could find a specific herb, buckthorn, in order to lure a griffin that has been harassing the village of White Orchard and killing people. I then gathered the buckthorn and then decided to try again on the first objective I was stuck on and surprisingly I completed it pretty quickly.
Next, rather than luring the griffin right away, I decided to do some side quests to gain more experience and level up. The secondary quests I completed were very interesting and showed more depth about the game and the game's creators.
One of the quests I completed was "Twisted Firestarter". The context of this quest is that there is a dwarf/blacksmith in White Orchard named Willis who accepted money from the Nilfgaardian soldiers and helped craft their armor and weapons. As a result, Willis believes this made the villagers angry as they have shunned him and his forge was burned down. Willis asked me, Geralt the Witcher, to find out who set fire to his forge. When I discovered the arsonist, he was very drunk and angry and was shouting derogatory things about dwarves and how they are selfish, stingy beings. Again, we note how the creators of the game have incorporated a theme of class levels and discrimination into their game although they used fictional groups such as Witchers, dwarves, and the Nilgaardian soldiers as the people who are discriminated against. The arsonist tried to bribe my character with gold into not turning him in. I like how the game let me make the choice of whether I would take the money or whether I would turn him in. This allows players to make decisions of what they think they should do and the game is influenced by this choice. After I chose not to take the bribe, the game let me choose whether I wanted to fight the arsonist to bring him to Willis or to be calm, put a spell on him, and say "No, you're coming with me." When I chose the second option, I gained experience points, which was cool because it's like I was rewarded for making the less violent choice. This encourages me to perform in a moral way when playing the game in the future so I can be rewarded with more experience points. I was surprised at how the dwarf handled the case of the arsonist though. Rather than talking it through, Willis called over the Nilgaardian soldiers who took the arsonist away to be hanged on a tree! I was shocked and chose the dialogue option, "That seems harsh" to which Willis seemed completely justified and said that it was justice.... Makes you wonder.. like the quest description says, "Harsh justice - or maybe just harsh?".
Another secondary quest I completed was "Missing in Action". In this quest, I was asked to help a peasant from White Orchard, Dune, find his brother who enlisted to take up arms against Nilfgaard, but never returned from battle. We went to the battlefield and searched around until Bastien's (the missing brother) dog caught onto his scent and led us to a hut where we found Bastien fraternizing with a soldier. Geralt asked them what was going on and Dune was quick to assume that the soldier had taken Bastien hostage (again.. theme of discrimination and stereotypes appears here). Bastien replies that the soldier saved his life and that he needs a place to stay. Dune is hesitant about taking in a soldier but then I was given the option to choose between telling Dune either: 1) "You're right. His smell will put off the others and draw too much attention" or 2) "C'mon. He saved your brother". I, of course, chose the morally correct option 2, which convinced Dune to take him in. He paid me for helping him then I was on my way to kill a griffin!
That is where I currently am at in the game. I tried to kill the griffin twice but died both times so I'll probably continue to play when I'm free and level up with other side quests before trying again. I am liking the game a lot more now after my successes today. I also learned more about collecting items to making potions and go to craftsmen to have armor and weapons made, so I will be using that knowledge to my benefit in the future.
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