Witcher 3 - CD Projekt tackles downgrade issue

Apparently there is some kind of controversy about the graphics in the commercial release of The Witcher 3 not matching a promo video from a couple of years ago. What do the people at CD Projekt have to say for themselves? They've talked with Eurogamer:

Eurogamer: Did the console versions restrict the PC version?

"If the consoles are not involved there is no Witcher 3 as it is," answers company founder Marcin Iwinski. "We can lay it out that simply. We just cannot afford it, because consoles allow us to go higher in terms of the possible or achievable sales; have a higher budget for the game, and invest it all into developing this huge, gigantic world.

"Developing only for the PC: yes, probably we could get more [in terms of graphics] as there would be nothing else […] But then we cannot afford such a game."

Studio head Adam Badowski confirms that the trailer shown at the VGX tradeshow was captured PC footage of the game as it existed at that time, but that the rendering system was changed after the creation of the trailer, partly to avoid the demands of dynamic lighting in a huge open world.

Also , Eurogamer reminds us that:

a big patch with 600 changes - including improvements to graphics and graphical settings - was sent to certification today (Wednesday 20th May), and will take between five and seven days to clear.

In addition, CD Projekt Red will patch the game to allow editing of .ini files on PC, to push graphical settings even higher. You will be able to tweak grass and vegetation density, post-processing effects such as sharpening, and draw distances.

"And we think about some other tricks but we need time," Adam Badowski says.

More information.

Guess that is on the same page as this thread:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showt…p?p=1061326877

Just that Ubisoft cut the old consoles. But now the new ones are already limiting PC Gamers.

Originally Posted by Hexprone
Apparently there is some kind of controversy about the graphics in the commercial release of The Witcher 3 not matching a promo video from a couple of years ago.

No, not just one video from years ago. They continued to release screens and videos from the older and superior renderer, even as late as in march this year. E.g: http://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/…272306796.jpeg

If you know what to look for (lightning on the character) you can see obvious differences. So they changed the renderering in 2013 (according to the developer) but kept releasing screens from that version until just 1-2 months ago (and that's where the talk of "downgrade" or if it was actually the PC version began).

Originally Posted by Kordanor
But now the new ones are already limiting PC Gamers.

The OP reads it: TW3 would not have been without the console scene.
Graphics quality holding back PC players? Those who sum up video games to their graphics.
Lobbying in action: the high end PC players wont be enough to fund a project like that one. Far from it.
So they start to lobby, using maffia tactics to get a transfer of wealth from console players and low end PC players to themselves, so they can get the product the high end PC scene could not fund.
Nothing new here.

Not being a programmer or a developer myself, I must confess that I don't fully understand these issues.

From my (ignorant) perspective, it seems that it should be possible to develop the graphics to the max from the start (with monster pc:s in mind) and then remove/adjust whatever it takes to make the game work on consoles and low-end pc:s. While still retaining all the "ultra settings" for the best hardware available.

The same way that games for pc have always been developed with graphical options that can be adjusted up/down and turned on/off. Obviously, it doesn't work quite that way though…

TW3 is designed from top to bottom for console platforms. Consoles platforms that are used to be played in different conditions than PC platforms.
It goes beyond a simple downgrade of graphics, rendering and stuff.

CD projekt could afford porting a console version to PC, they could not afford porting a PC version to consoles, consoles players are the main customers, those who pay the bill.

You can sell a console game to PC players. You cant sell a PC game to console players.

All of that interview may very well be true, but it doesn't change their statements during the massive hyped up campaign.

Recently, they clearly stated the final game would look BETTER than early PR material, with total confidence, and that's all there is to it.

If they didn't actually mean that - then they should now admit it and say "sorry, we went overboard with that one" - but they're not doing that.

Now, I can understand their reasons and it all makes sense, but they deceived the audience - and they did it deliberately. Maybe they didn't think it through, and maybe they didn't consider the consequences of "little" white lies - but there it is.

I'm not one to carry a grudge, though, and I think the game seems utterly fantastic and quite beautiful so far - but I do despise public cowardice and denial of the obvious.

Their image should take a hit for this.

I have to say the issue is actually noticeable. Overall, the graphics look great, but even on 2560x1440 I can still see the lack of details from time to time. It looks a bit.. "flat"? It's hard to describe, but I didn't have the issue in TW2 (which I replayed recently).

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
CD projekt could afford porting a console version to PC, they could not afford porting a PC version to consoles, consoles players are the main customers, those who pay the bill.

You can sell a console game to PC players. You cant sell a PC game to console players.

I don't quite understand that argument. Surely, there have been a number of games that were originally developed with pc in mind and then ported to consoles.

Why would porting in that direction be more expensive? And why would it be easier to sell a game that was developed primarily for consoles to pc-players, rather than the other way around?

Is it that a version that attempted to max out the graphical potential would be staggeringly more expensive rather than a version with simpler graphics?

Originally Posted by Feist
Not being a programmer or a developer myself, I must confess that I don't fully understand these issues.

From my (ignorant) perspective, it seems that it should be possible to develop the graphics to the max from the start (with monster pc:s in mind) and then remove/adjust whatever it takes to make the game work on consoles and low-end pc:s. While still retaining all the "ultra settings" for the best hardware available.

The same way that games for pc have always been developed with graphical options that can be adjusted up/down and turned on/off. Obviously, it doesn't work quite that way though…

Development is not at all as fluid as you're suggesting.

You don't start out developing "max graphics" - you start out struggling to make things work on all three platforms, and then you try to find a sweet spot - where you're not wasting massive development time developing platform-exclusive assets to cater to the smallest audience.

Beyond that, they're saying they had to pick between two renderers, one of which was the one they used in PR material, which wasn't suited for huge open world streaming - so they picked the one that would actually work in the final game. That rings true to me, and that explains why they had to cut a lot of things back to make it run reasonably well.

They're now able to focus on PC, because they've got fully playable versions on all three platforms - and the wise thing to do is wait 3-6 months before playing it.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
and the wise thing to do is wait 3-6 months before playing it.

For some graphic tweaks?

To each his own, but I feel sorry for anyone who waits that long to experience this game.

Originally Posted by JDR13
For some graphic tweaks?

Balancing, bug-fixes, and a properly optimised PC experience.

It all depends on how much you care about such things, though.

Personally, I'm very keen on getting the full experience when the game is this good, but I don't know if I'm able to wait.

Still, I don't really have the time for it now, anyway.

To each his own, but I feel sorry for anyone who waits that long to experience this game.

The experience gets worse after 3-6 months?

Well I agree about the balancing part at least. Like you, I'm playing on the Blood and Broken Bones difficulty, and it seems a little too easy considering it's the second-hardest difficulty level.

Some of the abilities need to be nerfed.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
The experience gets worse after 3-6 months?

I'm sure you know what I meant.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Development is not at all as fluid as you're suggesting.

You don't start out developing "max graphics" - you start out struggling to make things work on all three platforms, and then you try to find a sweet spot - where you're not wasting massive development time developing platform-exclusive assets to cater to the smallest audience.

Beyond that, they're saying they had to pick between two renderers, one of which was the one they used in PR material, which wasn't suited for huge open world streaming - so they picked the one that would actually work in the final game. That rings true to me, and that explains why they had to cut a lot of things back to make it run reasonably well.

They're now able to focus on PC, because they've got fully playable versions on all three platforms - and the wise thing to do is wait 3-6 months before playing it.

Thanks, that clears things up quite a bit. I suppose I was imagining that they'd start with creating a "Prestige Version", that would work on the best machine they had available, and once that was finished they'd work on "downgrading" that version to work on lesser and different hardware.

Having many games in my backlog, I'll take your advice and wait a while (august-october maybe) before buying TW3.

http://youtu.be/S-agrhEKWOE

The main thing is the lighting model, the one they had in mind first simply, would in no way work on consoles… so they had to drop it, for a more flat lighting model, same thing happened to Unreal Engine 4… o well maybe next generation, we'll have real lighting!

""I cannot argue - if people see changes, we cannot argue," Adam Badowski says, "but there are complex technical reasons behind it."

"If they made their purchasing decision based on the 2013 materials, I'm deeply sorry for that, and we are discussing how we can make it up to them because that's not fair."

"we are not trying to hide anything." You can't hide what people can so easily compare and see, adds Badowski. "We don't feel good about it," Iwinski adds."

At least this puts an end to this "there is no downgrade" bullshit, and they seem to be taking seriously the idea of upgrading the PC version. But as vurt said, this doesn't explain why the gameplay preview videos right into this year were using a much superior lighting model.

Originally Posted by kobold
""I cannot argue - if people see changes, we cannot argue," Adam Badowski says, "but there are complex technical reasons behind it."

"If they made their purchasing decision based on the 2013 materials, I'm deeply sorry for that, and we are discussing how we can make it up to them because that's not fair."

"we are not trying to hide anything." You can't hide what people can so easily compare and see, adds Badowski. "We don't feel good about it," Iwinski adds."

At least this puts an end to this "there is no downgrade" bullshit, and they seem to be taking seriously the idea of upgrading the PC version. But as vurt said, this doesn't explain why the gameplay preview videos right into this year were using a much superior lighting model.

Probably because PR people and developers are not the same people.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
The OP reads it: TW3 would not have been without the console scene.
Graphics quality holding back PC players? Those who sum up video games to their graphics.
Lobbying in action: the high end PC players wont be enough to fund a project like that one. Far from it.
So they start to lobby, using maffia tactics to get a transfer of wealth from console players and low end PC players to themselves, so they can get the product the high end PC scene could not fund.
Nothing new here.

Ummm normally it's the console manufacturers that do the lobbying, you seen a timed exclusive on PC in the last years ?
You do need market power to do lobbying, in fact I assume the console manufacturers do also lobby to keep PC versions not outshining the console versions by too much.

Only NVidia and AMD would have an interest in making PC games look as superior as they can be and the funds to influence devs to do so.

Which in a way Nvidia did for the witcher, let's be fair here downgrade or not the game struggles to keep 60 Ffps on ultra with everything on including hairworks on a Titanx X 12gb

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

The game looks amazing to me so I am not really bothered with that. However, for all intent and purposes CDPR now in the same league as EA, Ubisoft etc. This is a company who can't be arsed to let PC gamers change their key-binds via the UI. We all know consoles are the big thing and all that but a simple thing as UI mod to? FFS!