The Witcher 3 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[DalekFlay]

I'm replaying The Witcher 2 right now and honestly I think a big issue with the combat is that Geralt needs to feel "heavier." He has no real weight to him, which along with the lacking animation switches is what makes the whole thing feel unresponsive, and makes the rolling feel even more silly than it normally would.

 

[Raghar]

Also in the video interview on RPGamer they said about new aproach to alchemy - the potions are infinite after you made them and refill automatically when camping. The toxicity will limit potion usage. Also there will be many levels of each potion - after additional ingredients you can upgrade them.

I like that, taking the micromanagement out of potion-heavy build is nice idea. I just hope there will be more diverse and interesting potions effects than the usual faster vigour regeneration/more damage/better defence.

I said to DragoFireheart "you are from Poland, your opinions doesn't matter", and the above post is reason why I said that. (of course he's from KWA, sorry DragoFireheart, you are still significantly higher level poster than the above)

Autorefilable potions. What's next? Autorefilable gold?

 

[BGMD]

http://rpgfan.com/previews/The_Witcher_3_Wild_Hunt/

Some neat new details in this E3 impression (at least haven't read about them before), looks like they're aiming to make "mini-boss" monster fights unique.

Spoiler

The enemies have some neat tricks too. A swamp hag tossed muck into Geralt's face, and it actually appeared on the screen, partially blinding the player for a moment. What an amazing detail, and it's so simple!
...
When Geralt headed to some ruins, he discovered a Fiend eating a corpse on the ground. A Fiend is a hulking three-eyed antlered beast of terrifying composure — you can spot it in the E3 trailer. It immediately attacked and an intense battle unfolded. The Fiend unleashed its special attack: using its third eye to hypnotize Geralt, causing his vision to darken and blur. The effect was horrifying, exciting, and unique — probably the coolest single thing I saw at E3.
...
a lesher, a forest creature that can control animals and plants. Following the sound of crows cawing, Geralt located and destroyed the beast's three totems before taking on the monster itself. It appeared in a flock of crows: a woodsy being with a stag's skull for a head. He plunged his fingers into the ground to attack Geralt with powerful roots and summoned wolves and crows as well.
...
Geralt meditated for a bit before moving on with the main story and the weather turned dark. Weather, time of day, and even the moon cycle affect NPCs and monsters. Rain might discourage NPCs from going on a raid while a full moon might empower some creatures. Storms toss the seas and can even dash Geralt and his ship against cliffsides if he travels at the wrong time and place.
...
Combat looks much more fluid than The Witcher 2's, and there are 96 action sequences compared to the second game's 20. Finally, CD Projekt RED has promised no more QTEs.
...
They have one tool, for example, with a single purpose: to measure where rain would gather on terrain and allow a forest to grow.

 

[Gerrard]

Looks like we have the new soil erosion.

 

[WhiteGuts]

Well the guy sure is a fanboy, but that sounds interesting.

 

[Rivmusique]

The enemies have some neat tricks too. A swamp hag tossed muck into Geralt's face, and it actually appeared on the screen, partially blinding the player for a moment. What an amazing detail, and it's so simple!

...

Certainly this shit isn't new to that guy?

 

[Xeon]

Its probably similar to the Dirty Trick the rogue uses in the Dragon Age games but I don't think you can see the affect of it in screen, it just affects your stats. I don't think I saw any status affects that's inflected on the player character affecting the screen or something before.

It will probably get irritating if its common and not only bosses have it, like the drunk visual effects. used to pause the game until it wears off or use the potion that gets rid of it.

 

[Cyberarmy]

That was something Wildstar did good about similar effects, you really lose most of your vision when blinded, movement controls switch places when confused and your weapon drops nearby when disarmed.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-combat-was-deliberately-easy-cd-projekt-says

Witcher 3 E3 gameplay demo combat was deliberately easy, CD Projekt says
And yes, it was running on an Xbox One.

Some who caught The Witcher 3's gameplay demo during Microsoft's E3 press conference were a bit worried by what they saw.

During the five minute demo, set about 10 hours into the game, series star Geralt is off on a griffin hunt in the No Man's Land wilderness. He prepares for combat, in classic Witcher fashion, by equipping a set of buffing potions and a small crossbow.

It's not long before Geralt comes up against a number of bandits, and easily dispatches them with a combination of magic attacks and devastating sword strikes. Geralt eventually tracks the griffin down, and takes just a few attacks to kill his quarry.

If you think it all looks a tad easy, then you're right. But don't expect the final version of the game to offer such an easy ride, executive producer John Mamais told Eurogamer.

"The combat is complex," he said.

"What we showed at the Microsoft conference was the easy way to play. We only had five minutes to show, so we had to play on easy and make the fights go really fast. You saw lots of dismemberment. It's not going to be so easy to cut somebody in half when the game comes out. We were showing off some features there.

"I was reading some feedback after the conference and people were saying, 'oh, that looks so easy,' but it ain't gonna be that easy."

The Witcher series is famous for its complex combat. Players need to prepare properly for encounters, think tactically about their foes and, when in battle, skillfully evade, dodge and defend.

Witcher 3 retains this feeling, but CD Projekt is trying to make the game easier to get to grips with at the start than previous games in the series.

"What we are doing in Witcher 3 is we're really focused on making a really nice soft learning curve for combat and storytelling," Mamais said.

"A lot of people are worried about Witcher 3, saying they won't understand it if they haven't played Witcher 1 and 2. Our philosophy is, okay, gameplay has to be a nice gentle curve, combat and story has to be a gentle curve.

"So, we're going to reintroduce the characters in the beginning, and we're going to spoon feed the gameplay mechanics you need to learn. So you're not going to be thrown into the pit of fire like you were in Witcher 2. I think we made a mistake doing that."

As for PC, CD Projekt plans to add an ultra setting that, according to Mamais, you'll need a beefy machine to use.

"But I think it'll be worth it," he said. "Our ultra is pretty much the peak in games. At least we hope it is. The stuff we're doing is going to look really amazing."

Witcher 3 on PC ultra settings adds better tessellation, more physics, more post-processing and more realistic fur, Mamais said.

By comparison, the graphics of the console versions are equivalent to high settings on PC.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

more realistic fur.

 

[buzz]

Well, he IS the White Wolf afterall

 

[Infinitron]

more realistic fur.

Oh, that's old news: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ralt-grows-a-beard.80281/page-46#post-2852999

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Meanwhile, Mamais confirmed that the version of Witcher 3 shown during Microsoft's E3 press conference was indeed running on an Xbox One at 900p resolution and 30 frames per second.

It looked pretty good to our eyes, but Mamais insisted it will end up looking even better by the time development is finished for Witcher 3's February 2015 release date.

"We're still optimising for Xbox One and PS4 so it should look better than that in theory," he said. "But everything we're doing optimisation wise for PS4 and Xbox One, we're also optimising for PC. It's a cross-platform engine, so any optimisation we do for one platform goes into the other platform and just speeds it up, basically."

A 900p resolution is CD Projekt's "minimum", Mamais said. "We will hit 900p no problem. We'd like to get it up to 1080p on Xbox One. That's our goal. Whether we can do it or not I don't know. We've got to squeeze everything we can out of the hardware.

"Microsoft and Sony say 900p is the sweet spot, and there's not a lot of difference visually between 900p and 1080p, but it's a hot topic now. So that's what my goal is."

To this end, CD Projekt is working directly with Microsoft engineers to try to improve the game's performance on Xbox One.

This month Microsoft updated the Xbox Development Kit (XDK) so games that are not using skeletal tracking with Kinect can choose to use the portion of the Xbox One's graphics processing unit that was previously reserved. Now, games have access to 100 per cent of the Xbox One GPU for increased resolution and graphical effects.

Mamais said CD Projekt had yet to take the new XDK out for a spin, but it will, as Witcher 3 does not use Kinect motion.

Witcher 3 does support voice control via Kinect for magic signs so players need not access the radial menu. But as Eurogamer reported yesterday, voice control remains in use if players have a Kinect despite the Xbox One update.

"The voice command side doesn't tap into the GPU side at all, so we can still have Kinect," Mamais said.

"So if you buy Kinect you can use it for voice commands and system commands. It's modest integration for voice. But since it's not using the camera at all we can use any extra power we can take to speed up the GPU."

As expected, on PlayStation 4 Witcher 3 outputs at 1080p resolution.

"It's just a slightly more powerful machine," Mamais said. "That's pretty known. But I think in the longer run everything is going to be on both platforms running at 1080p. It's just taking developers longer to do it than they expected because the architecture is a little more challenging on the Xbox One.

"It's actually easier to develop for Xbox One for us because we're PC developers. So everything we do on PC is for DirectX 11. And Xbox is also based on DX. So for the rendering side it's a more natural progression for us to go to Xbox.

"But we anticipate being able to do 1080p on PS4 a little bit easier than on the Xbox."

Doesn't Microsoft imminently send an assassination squad after developers who even remotely hint that the PS4 may be more powerful than XboxONE? Holy fuck, that's one honest interview.

 

[RPGMaster]

How the hell could Microsoft put out a console that can't handle 1080p in 2013?! Failure on a titanic level.

 

[Akratus]

So all three current consoles are titanic-level failures then? Who could've known?

 

[SuicideBunny]

Who could've known?

every pc owner.

 

[Kem0sabe]

With every new generation of consoles the talk has shifted more to graphics than gameplay, and that shit has reached stupefying levels with the PS4 and Xbox one. Forums and gaming news sites filled with discussions about how one renders at 900 and the other at 1080, how one is locked at 30 and the other at 60 or some other crap.

 

[Rahdulan]

Doesn't Microsoft imminently send an assassination squad after developers who even remotely hint that the PS4 may be more powerful than XboxONE? Holy fuck, that's one honest interview.

Probably because CDPR couldn't care less about the dick measuring contest going on between Microsoft and Sony. If anything, them showing up at this and last year's E3 was purely to reveal and expand upon their game to public at the largest stage in the industry, and get some free cash for basically doing nothing special. Potato knows.

 

[DalekFlay]

How the hell could Microsoft put out a console that can't handle 1080p in 2013?! Failure on a titanic level.

Even the PS3 could "handle 1080p" it's all about what you trade off for that on screen. The Xbox is slightly less powerful, so you either drop resolution or remove some effects in the game. Microsoft seem to be telling developers that dropping to 900p is almost unnoticeable, so they would prefer they do that rather than remove some visuals.

In any case I know what you meant, these are relatively underpowered machines for 2014. That's how they sell them for $399 though.

 

[Drowed]

But could the PS3 do this?



Best Witcher game ever.

 

[mikaelis]

When is it from?

EDIT::

Ups, a mock-up...

 

[Tytus]

But could the PS3 do this?



Best Witcher game ever.

Hey, the Strzyga/Striga looks a lot better than in Witcher 1

 

[Gerrard]

I wouldn't believe a word Chmielarz says. If you read his Twitter you'll find out he's clearly insane.

Chmielarz kept copies of the letters he sent confirming this, which apparently show him - not CD Projekt - as the person responsible for coining the translation 'The Witcher'. Before that there was no English word for Wiedźmin. "I don't want to sound like 'heyyyy, I'm that guy'," Chmielarz says. "All I know is that at least he claimed that I was the one who proposed the title."

Didn't Sapkowski want the English translation to be "The Hexer"?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

 

[WhiteGuts]