We gamers tend to be one of the worst enemies of developers, although not in a bad way in most cases. Our inventiveness, curiosity and eccentricities often translate into many headaches. We always find those cracks in the wall or legal loopholes to do things in video games that even their creators had not thought of.
The case of the cows in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a very interesting example. When something like this happens, the normal thing is to introduce an update that fixes the error and/or restores balance to the economy (unless you are Rockstar with GTA Online), but CD Projekt wanted to get revenge on the players.
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In Vida Extra
My best creation in video games is doomed to disappear and I can’t do anything to stop it, but other players can.
What did it consist of? In short, players systematically killed all the cows in White Orchard to obtain valuable materials such as leather without taking risks and then sell them to make a good handful of crowns. The poor animals would reappear when Geralt meditated and start over, like Doctor Strange with Dormammu. This destroyed the game’s economy from the very beginning.
What was CD Projekt’s solution? It introduced the Chorta relict-type minor beast found in Velen, the Skellige Isles, and Kaer Morhen. It would spawn frequently when players slaughtered a certain number of cows, and was problematic because it was so high-leveled that it was represented by a red skull. It was an effective deterrent for most players… but not all.
Chorts are smaller than demons, it’s true, but they’re still big enough to kill. […] Chorts fight with little finesse, running straight at their opponent and attempting to knock them down with the force of their charge.
After knocking down their foe, they bite, kick, and strike with their clawed paws. Due to their size and four-legged stance, the strength of the Aard Sign has little effect on them, and their body’s regenerative powers allow any wounds they receive to heal at a rapid rate.
Defeating the Chort yielded Chort Leather, which was worth more than regular leather. The deterrent became an incentive for skilled players, who now earned more money for their kills. While it wasn’t easy to kill at a low level, the rewards in Crowns and materials were still worth it for a few players. It took CD Projekt several patches to fix the issue: they lowered the spawn rate and required entering and leaving White Orchard to face it again.
Needless to say, many players did not give up, despite all the obstacles. The rewards were still worth it in terms of Crowns. CD Projekt eventually gave up. Cows and Chorts continued to die en masse until the matter became an anecdote… one that teaches us that gamers will always find a gap in the wall that separates us from the things we should not do in video games.
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The news
Killing cows in The Witcher 3 became a danger because of CD Projekt: they put in a monster that almost scared me to death
was originally published in
Extra Life
by Alberto Martin .
