Witcher 3 - Q&A and Gameplay @ Twitch

joxer said:

And is not a bad thing really. Too many years we were slaves of stagnating software solutions caused by standards on obsolete hardware called - consoles. We can have better things on PC. And we deserve them.

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I certainly appreciate great visuals and I think it's been a lot of fun over the last 40years participating in the incremental graphic improvements year to year. As a kid, I wanted an Intellivison because it had 'better graphics' than Atari 2600. And so on and so forth. I remember the agony of earning enough money to replace my CGA card in my IBM PC 1088 to an EGA... only to learn after the fact that I'd need a better monitor to be able to 'see' the EGA graphics. Good times those.

But sometime in the early 2000s, about the time when 3D cards entered the scene and indie developers fell off the face of the Earth in favor of big publisher paradigms, the focus on game visuals became paramount in a way that gameplay suffered. I think a similar fascination in the movie industry with CGI has resulted in a lot of mediocre story telling - exhibit A, Star Wars 1, 2, & 3... but I digress.

The 2000s however produced a good number of really great CRPGs out of Europe but have largely been bad-mouthed by the American Gaming press due to controller, UI, and overall polish criticisms. While in many cases such criticisms were true, the incredible gameplay offerings of many of these games seemed entirely ignored. On the flip side, we are now in the 15th year of a First Person Shooter frenzy, full of flash and low on substance... but are hailed mightily nonetheless.

So when I see a game like W3 I think the visuals are plenty fine to create a suspension of disbelief. I'm far more interested in the gameplay now. I hope there is some really great gameplay because while Skyrim looked great, the gameplay was lacking - and I say that as essentially a fan of the TES series.

TheMadGamer said:

I'm not sure how you conclude that I think it's ok to lie - that eludes me entirely so I'll just drop it.

I guess if perhaps if you are a graphics artist and you are scrutinizing the visuals of W3 because that's your thing I can understand why you might be making these comparisons. I guess you're in good company though, as most of the gaming internet is currently obsessing over W3s visuals, frames per seconds, lighting, etc.

As a gamer though, I think the visuals are plenty fine. I'm far more interested in the actual gameplay at this point. But that's just me.

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No one said the graphics isn't fine though. Is that where we should draw the line you mean, with graphics? Why with graphics? What if they removed (or made worse) some other gameplay element (yes graphics is part of the gameplay) that they've hyped and said is going to be ever better? "Well the game is still pretty decent, and we really should know better than to complain, right? Remember Pac-man lol! This is clearly better!"

Sorry, but i don't get your reasoning…

vurt said:

No one said the graphics isn't fine though. Is that where we should draw the line you mean, with graphics? Why with graphics? What if they removed some other gameplay element (yes graphics is part of the gameplay) that they've hyped and said is going to be ever better? "Well the game is still pretty decent, and we really should know better than to complain, right? Remember Pac-man lol! This is clearly better!"

Sorry, but i don't get your reasoning…

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And I don't get yours. I don't care what they removed as long as I enjoy the overall experience. Besides, not so long some people here cried and gnashed their teeth about specs (specially GPU) being too high and that they will be unable to play TW3 on ultra or high. So could it possibly be that what you see now is the game which isn't run on Uber on couple of Titans?

vurt said:

No one said the graphics isn't fine though. Is that where we should draw the line you mean, with graphics? Why with graphics? What if they removed (or made worse) some other gameplay element (yes graphics is part of the gameplay) that they've hyped and said is going to be ever better? "Well the game is still pretty decent, and we really should know better than to complain, right? Remember Pac-man lol! This is clearly better!" Sorry, but i don't get your reasoning…

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That's ok if you don't understand me because frankly I don't understand yours either. And that's ok too.

I'm the kind of guy that when I go to look for a new TV I'll go to the store and I'll stand back and look at a row of TVs aligned side by side and within 5 or 10 seconds I'll decide which 2 or 3 have the best picture and go from there. Next to me is another guy shopping for a TV, but he is standing with his nose touching the screen and a magnifying glass in his hand while mumbling to himself about observing an artifact here and there… I'm just not that guy with TVs or with games.

Take Dark Souls 2 as an example. MANY people moaned and groaned when certain lighting changes were made in the final product, I guess to accommodate memory limitations with consoles. Sure, I could see the fidelity differences from the earlier version of the game compared with the final version. But the visuals of the final version of Dark Souls was plenty good enough for me and I became obsessed with the gameplay while others continued to obsess about the lacking visuals.

At a certain point the visuals of game become just fine with me and I'm free to focus on what I really want to be focusing on, which is the gameplay. So I guess the short version of all this is what the priority is for each gamer that makes a game fun for them. Clearly, I'm in a minority that values gameplay over visuals as even a casual observation of gaming rhetoric on the net reveals tireless skewering of every visual gaming minutia there is.

DArtagnan said:

No, you're not just comparing two different screenshots from an unreleased game without knowing anything about graphical settings or lighting conditions. You're concluding something based on that, which is impossible to conclude. I've done things like the former, but never the latter.

I'm not sure being rational qualifies as "moronic" - but I guess to a certain kind of person, it might.



I'm not sure why you think I don't know something like that, but I guess it sort of makes sense that you'd conclude something from nothing - like you do when you look at screenshots.

It's not really about trust and respect from fans. It's about the established worldwide standard of corporate practice and marketing manipulation.

If you think they're beyond polishing up their marketing material, then I don't know what to say.

Since I'm not big on name-calling, like you seem to be, let's just say I don't feel like the moron in our conversation.

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I didnt call you names, i called the argument moronic, and i even gave an example as as to why. There's a difference.

CDP did not use to resort to such marketing tricks before, that's what i mean with you not knowing who CDP are at all.

But whatever, feel free to buy into their lies (which you admittedly won't) or feel free to say it like it is, that the graphics is now downgraded (which you also won't do, because then you would agree with me). We've had these discussions so many times before, it always ends with you agreeing with me, though for some reason you will continue to try to make it sound like i was wrong, often with not so great result

joxer said:

That needed fixin'.
And is not a bad thing really. Too many years we were slaves of stagnating software solutions caused by standards on obsolete hardware called - consoles. We can have better things on PC. And we deserve them.

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DESERVE?

It's a free market. You get what makes money.

TheMadGamer said:

At a certain point the visuals of game become just fine with me and I'm free to focus on what I really want to be focusing on, which is the gameplay.

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I don't see graphics separated from gameplay at all, obviously a game is a package of many different things that all works together and forms the whole experience.

Graphics and sound is immersion, immersion is a huge part of gameplay. To me it wouldnt matter if the devs made some other element of the game worse and continued to lie about it, it's bad no matter if it's graphics or some other element of the game. It's bad no matter how fanboy'ish you decide to look at it

I guess i just find it funny how someone would defend something like that just because the game might end up "acceptable" anyways. But i can see that you don't get it..

Ovenall said:

DESERVE?

It's a free market. You get what makes money.

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It is indeed a free market so I buy what deserves my money.

Yeah, but upthread joxer was complaining that consoles "hold back" the pc market, which is ludicrous.

I never complained about something that doesn't exist.
Consoles didn't hold the market back. The market is worth more millions every day. The market always pushes forward, nothing can stop it or hold it back.

What consoles were and still are choking is the software evolution.
And we who don't give a shit about consoles - we deserve better. It's too early to see the final product, but maybe TW3 will be exactly the thing we deserve.

zahratustra said:

You seems to suffer from memory lapses joxer. Watchdogs. Even after the graphics mod … need I say more?

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Not really. I knew Watch Dogs was not RPG and jumped onto hypetrain because of superb FarCry3.
While Wach Dogs were overhyped avoidware, I still say it has the best ingame graphics I've seen so far in a game (after mod unlock). Even that Order 1886 consoleQTEgarbage doesn't look as good IMO.

WD's real problem was while visuals were 2 steps forward, the game was 2 steps back. What else can we expect from Ubisoft? You saw the Rogue/Unity recent idiocy they pulled out next. Ignore the brilliant game but hype the bullshit one.
Don't forget their stupid motto everyone laughed at: "we're onto 30FPS because it's more cinematic experience".

When it comes to overhyped garbage however, Watch Dogs and Unity are nothing compared to Destiny. Now that thing is something that should warn people not to preorder games based on visuals vids and definetly not to buy season passes.

TW3, luckily for us, is not Ubi's game. Nor is gonna be another Destiny.
TW3 vids contain story tidbits and gameplay, not just visuals.

Ovenall said:

Yeah, but upthread joxer was complaining that consoles "hold back" the pc market, which is ludicrous.

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Joxer is joxer. Weirdness in included in the price :lol:

Different gamers different tastes. I view gameplay systems as separate from graphics. While amazing graphics can be great my sense of wonder is gone just about after I see it. I'm a programmer/developer by trade and that could partly be why I find the systems behind the graphics more interesting.

There is something to be said for symbolic representation of an object as it allows an individual to form a less instructed view of the subject in their own mind. Obviously this aspect has limits and at some point you might as well be reading a book instead.

There is room for both and I enjoy nice graphics, they just don't hook or hold me to a title.

vurt said:

I don't see graphics separated from gameplay at all,

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I CAN separate graphics from gameplay to a point… obviously a subjective point.

For example, many indie games from developers such as Basilisk Games and Spiderweb games (to name only just two) are NOT touched by many gamers because the visuals appear dated. But yet, the gameplay is compelling if your imagination is able and willing to fill in the rest.

I come from the era of "fill in the rest" so dated visuals don't bother me at all. So when talking about a game such as W3 where the visuals are amazing even if they aren't what were originally promised, I'm just fine with that and more interested in the gameplay.

I started with the C-64 and that's where my appreciation for great graphics and detail comes from. Even back then graphics was a huge thing for games, kind of funny looking back at it, but it was often discussed in reviews and amongst friends - which game has the best lookning graphics etc. Not very different from today.

I have nothing against aged graphics at all. I absolutely adore pixel art (old and modern).

But that's not what we are talking about, we are talking about a developer who still claims that 1) that the graphics arent downgraded even one bit (when they clearly are) 2) that the graphics would become much better than shown in the first screens (which looked absolutely unreal) when the new rendering was introduced.

YOU are saying i shouldn't complain because the graphics are still quite good? Ok. So why stop there? Would you defend the developer (like fanboys in shinging armor) if they decide to lie and downgrade other aspects of the game? If the game has 50% fetch quests (when the devs says there are 0) would that be ok? Just curious where you draw the line and why you suddenly(?) think it's ok for a developer to make false claims.

Also, i checked those new images if they possibly were coming from an unofficial source (where settings could have been tuned down to a minimum), but no, i googled them and they are proudly shown on CDP's official twitter account. Here's another new official screen:

https://scontent-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/h...26_10152944254729331_665335902434646748_o.jpg

Could almost have sworn that is Neverwinter Nights 2 or perhaps Witcher 1

"no downgrade", right.. and enough with the "it still looks fine", i played FO2 recently, it also looked fine. It's not the issue..

WOW!!! so much chatter about something no has installed on their PC' yet to judge for themselves.

vurt said:

I didnt call you names, i called the argument moronic, and i even gave an example as as to why. There's a difference.

CDP did not use to resort to such marketing tricks before, that's what i mean with you not knowing who CDP are at all.

But whatever, feel free to buy into their lies (which you admittedly won't) or feel free to say it like it is, that the graphics is now downgraded (which you also won't do, because then you would agree with me). We've had these discussions so many times before, it always ends with you agreeing with me, though for some reason you will continue to try to make it sound like i was wrong, often with not so great result

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You have quite the imagination

Maybe you could teach others around here that trick. When I disagree, and you run out of arguments, it's actually just me agreeing with you.

That would save me a world of whining, believe me!

I don't buy into marketing at all. That's why I don't get upset about marketing lies - as I consider it the norm.

CDPR have been deceitful before, and I can clearly recall several PR pieces claiming "no load screens apart from the first one" - and reality was that the game clearly loaded every time you entered and exited buildings, they just tried to hide it with timed animations. Ok, maybe there's no actual loading screen - but the game is loading and you're waiting for it. That's what I call manipulation.

But I don't see any evidence of a visual downgrade based on those two screenshots. Your claim is bullshit - and you don't seem to understand much about what it takes to establish anything with reasonable certainty.

CelticFrost said:

WOW!!! so much chatter about something no has installed on their PC' yet to judge for themselves.

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Vurt is psychic and he understands these things

It starts off with you saying the graphics in the images can't be compared because they're not from the exact same angle etc. Then you resort to that we shouldn't expect the game to look like in in the screenshots because they are "PR screens". Haha, it's extremely predictable where it would go from there, it would end with "the graphics are good enough for me".. No need for any psychic powers here at all

A few comparisons..





first renederer is far superior, really crappy alpha threshold in the new screens (both for trees and grass).. obviously more advanced lightning in the first screens that came out too, it's especially noticeable on characters i think, they look almost like separate pieces from the world in the new screens, while in the old they blend in naturally (due to better lightning).

and yes, i'm very much looking forward to the game, if anyone for some reason thought something else

Translation of polish review (preview?) from CD action magazine. Translation by Neon (another forum):

The bad:

- There are 3 main hairstyles you can choose from (more will come from the free DLC), but whenever you choose anything but the default, the hair will clip through your armor. Whether this is fixed in the day one patch is unknown.

- Sometimes during the cutscenes Geralt's hair spazzes out and goes wild even if there is no wind.

- The fighting system is mediocre

- The graphics were downgraded ( god damn review hate squad, am I rite? -N.), but not a ton. The most noticeable thing was that during previews Igni started a fire on grass and ground nearby, in the retail version the effect is gone.

- Some animations are extremely awkward and unintuitive (you can do a "dash" but you never go where you want to go, "the movement feels unnatural, or maybe even theatrical, it looks as if the game was designed to look flashy but there was no "oomph" behind it"). You need a couple of hours to get used to it.

- The crossbow is an extremely useless tool- a reviewer mentions that he tried to shoot a golem with it and he did a critical hit that dealt 1 (ONE) point of damage- while even the extremely weak light attack did over a hundred. He acknowledges that it sort of makes sense when fighting a stone creature, but the crossbow never deals enough damage to become useful.

- Horseback fighting is clunky and frustrating to use- more often than not Geralt attacks on the opposite side that you wanted.

- AI is clunky as well- they circle around Geralt but they never seem to move that often, so you can roll out of danger, drink a couple of potions and be back in full health with AI not really reacting to it properly

- A mini-boss fight was extremely easy- you could just roll around and hit him while following in a circle and the AI was clueless; Geralt even has a lot of invincibility frames when rolling so when the mini-boss hit his neck while rolling- he did no damage.

-Ragdoll is extremely bad- the monsters or people you kill "lose around 90% of their weight" when they die and they swirl around Geralt's feet or shoot out in the air

- Climbing and jumping is clunky- even a fall from a medium height causes you to lose half your health

- Swimming is OK, but it feels like swimming in jello and is sort of slow

The good:

- A lot of references to Polish culture and literature (Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz etc.), tons of Polish folklore

- Great voice acting

- Great humor and dialogues

- Fantastic side quests, best ever written in a game (no fetch quests like "kill 20 monsters" etc.)

- The graphics are really good (the reviewer compares it to DA:I) and runs really well on PC

- Fantastic design of monsters- each fight is different and each monster is different

- Even 3 enemies are a potential danger if you're not careful

Overall thoughts:

Quote:
Even though I saw some bugs, I think the game is better at release than TW1 or TW2. My analytical mind found a ton of technical glitches to mention, but the game is really fantastic overall. However, the third Witcher is not by any means a perfect game. It's too big and ambitious, so bugs were sort of a given. It's still a fantastic RPG though.

+ Tons of slavic references and a great story
+ No one does side quests better
+ Impossible to get bored
+ The size of the world
+ Great graphics
+ Ciri plays great

- You have to get used to the combat
- The crossbow is useless
- Some glitches here and there regarding the combat and exploration
- There are some bugs and glitches to fix, but there are not as many as naysayers were thinking

Sounds pretty good!

The gameplay video on twitch just finished, and the q&a will start. I liked the gameplay presentation, it was just combat mechanics, with no story elements. But for some reason the video compression on twitch was awful. It looked really bad. Too bad, since it probably looked great off-stream.

They basically ran through 3 of the possible pure builds (swordsman, alchemist and sign-user). I really liked alchemist build. Grenades and explosives looked great.