Game News The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Revealed

[Jvegi]

Arcanum was bigger then Skyrim, if you ignored fast travel. I doubt CDP are above putting miles of empty fields, which are supposed to be traversed only by automatic horses, between cities, and saying it's bigger then Skyrim. I don't see how ( and why) you could do TW game in the TES fashion, without throwing all the storytelling mechanics out.

But maybe it's a good thing. TW2 felt like retarded Gothic, perhaps making the world less corridory would make it less retarded. Don't care about the graphics though. This whole photo-realism thing is a pointless endeavour.

 

[Dexter]

Full article Scan is available here: http://pressakey.com/news,3269,The-Witcher-3-Wild-Hunt-Gameinformer-Titelstory-Erste-Screens,.html

Full Screens (there were some missing before):

Spoiler

 

[Lancehead]

The screens do look nice; good variety of landscapes.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Not enough Bloom. A few shreds of my retinas are still intact.

 

[Rivmusique]

Geralt's armour kind of looks like a one piece. Gimpy.

 

[Keshik]

What smokey world Geralt is in, looks good though.

 

[mondblut]

Depends. Betrayal at Krondor managed exactly that.

Except that there was no story to speak of in chapter 1, and no more open world afterwards.

 

[Mrowak]

Depends. Betrayal at Krondor managed exactly that.

Except that there was no story to speak of in chapter 1, and no more open world afterwards.

You are so wrong. The story was there all the time, it just didn't nag you in the form of cutscenes. If you paid attention it was easy to observe cause and effect in various events around you which later tangled into a larger scheme.

Also, it appears we didn't play the same game. The player was given almost unlimited freedom in chapters 1, 2, 3 and 6. Chapters 4, 5 and 9 resembled a dungeon crawler in the sense that you were faced with dungeon-crawler like puzzles - hence shift in gameplay. Chapter 7 stressed the survival aspect in a confined area - in order to survive you had to explore. Similarly, chapter 8 had you exploring alien world - it was quite small but there was quite a lot content in it. So yeah, there were some concessions but nothing destructive. The element of open world and exploration remained.

Granted, it was not a sandbox game, because it changed from chapter to chapter (hence you couldn't just ignore your mission). I think that's infinitely better than empty world full of repetetive content.

 

[Mrowak]

And why it cannot be considered as such?

Compare BaK to Morrowind and tell me yourself. No direct NPC interaction (instead you get warped into conversations or a tactical combat minigame), no city exploration, etc.

As I said, BaK's "open world" is really more like a kind of overland dungeon crawl.

There were quite a few conversations with multiple outcomes, and there was *town* exploration. Additionally, contrary to Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls games the content was very focued and what there was *mattered* - it didn't waste my time. What more can I say? Maybe that you are comparing a game from 1993 to the one released in 2002?

 

[Broseph]

I was thinking of BaK and New Vegas in particular when I made my original comment. Good work, Mrowak.

 

[Infinitron]

There were quite a few conversations with multiple outcomes, and there was *town* exploration. Additionally, contrary to Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls games the content was very focued and what there was *mattered* - it didn't waste my time. What more can I say? Maybe that you are comparing a game from 1993 to the one released in 2002?

I guess there are two different models of "open world" here. The Ultima/Elder Scrolls "living world" model vs the Might & Magic/BaK "free roaming dungeon crawl" model.

 

[Mrowak]

There were quite a few conversations with multiple outcomes, and there was *town* exploration. Additionally, contrary to Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls games the content was very focued and what there was *mattered* - it didn't waste my time. What more can I say? Maybe that you are comparing a game from 1993 to the one released in 2002?

I guess there are two different models of "open world" here. The Ultima/Elder Scrolls "living world" model vs the Might & Magic/BaK "free roaming dungeon crawl" model.

The ironic part is the world of BaK is more "living world" than any of Elder Scroll games, which are full of places where *nothing* happens. Besides, we are talking about cause-effect considerations here. We must remember that if anything BaK could influence Daggerfal and Morrowind, but not the other way round. It's almost certain than IFF BaK was being created today it would have gone ES route, and abandon outmoded dungeon-crawler scheme (which was the only one known in its time), adding with a twist of its own (greater story integration, because why not?). I mean there's nothing stopping the devs of Elder Scrolls series to implement the solutions from BaK. It's not like the story integration stems from dungeon-crawler approach.

 

[Broseph]

There were quite a few conversations with multiple outcomes, and there was *town* exploration. Additionally, contrary to Morrowind and other Elder Scrolls games the content was very focued and what there was *mattered* - it didn't waste my time. What more can I say? Maybe that you are comparing a game from 1993 to the one released in 2002?

I guess there are two different models of "open world" here. The Ultima/Elder Scrolls "living world" model vs the Might & Magic/BaK "free roaming dungeon crawl" model.

The ironic part is the world of BaK is more "living world" than any of Elder Scroll games, which are full of places where *nothing* happens. Besides, we are talking about cause-effect considerations here. We must remember that if anything BaK could influence Daggerfal and Morrowind, but not the other way round. It's almost certain than IFF BaK was being created today it would have gone ES route, and abandon outmoded dungeon-crawler scheme (which was the only one known in its time), adding with a twist of its own (greater story integration, because why not?). I mean there's nothing stopping the devs of Elder Scrolls series to implement the solutions from BaK. It's not like the story integration stems from dungeon-crawler approach.

I think the tech of the time definitely influenced the use of the "open world dungeon crawl" approach. The first person perspective in BaK was pretty low res and not exactly beautiful to look at, unlike the later Elder Scrolls games. What makes exploration in BaK interesting isn't the eye candy but the tons of hidden chests and locations in the wilderness as well as tons of fun encounters and puzzles.

 

[Crispy]

This one is especially nice. I actually have a hard time believing that's a rendered scene and not elaborate concept art.

I really like the proportions of everything, too. No bodybuilder horses, no inhumanly-sized limbs on any of the characters. The buildings all look convincingly proportioned as well and also are pleasantly rustic and believable. Some nice lighting effects there, not too overdone.

Look to the right. That's an open doorway there. Wonder how they're pulling that off -- I seem to recall that Witcher 2 used like a quick-cell loading whenever you entered a building, but there still were closed doors. Hmm...

Edit: Yeah, look:

That looks like the same open doorway that Geralt walked into. There's no way they're loading all that into RAM at once, is there?

This game could crush weaker systems. Excellent.

 

[Semper]

There's no way they're loading all that into RAM at once, is there? This game could crush weaker systems. Excellent.

you know about the magicka called vis portals / occlusion culling, right?

 

[made]

Looks just like TW2. Likely the same engine. It ran pretty smoothly, but the levels were relatively small and there was the annoying fadeout when entering buildings. Let's hope nextgen consoles won't impose these limitations anymore.

 

[Crispy]

you know about the magicka called vis portals / occlusion culling, right?

I know little about game design, and I'll admit I had to look up what a vis portal is, but try occluding something when you're standing right in the doorway.

Come on.

 

[Kahlis]

It was my understanding that TW2 didn't even sell that much on consoles - or at least I can certainly say no console gamer I'm friends acquainted with was really going "oh yeah, I've been eagerly anticipating this game all along!" Should just make it PC exclusive, come on CDP, you know you want to...

 

[Broseph]

Well, didn't they say they were aiming for a completely open world with no loading screens?

 

[Semper]

but try occluding something when you're standing right in the doorway. Come on.

you don't have eyes in the back of your head. it doesn't work that easy but you should know what i mean. there's an interesting years old pdf floating around somewhere in the interwebs talking about open world and the streaming technology behind. it's nothing new and if you look at the screens you'll notice that the single polycount of objects ain't that high. what you see here will run smoothly on 3 year old technology

 

[Indranys]

I'd rather wait and buy DARGHUL instead of this graphic whoring game.

 

[Crispy]

you don't have eyes in the back of your head.

I understand. But I've still never seen any game that had featured such detailed interiors without requiring them to be loaded as their own cell. In Witcher2 once you opened the door to the tavern, you could see everything inside, but Geralt was on automatic pilot there for a second as he stepped inside (or out). That's how they performed the "cell load" (if I'm using that term correctly). Maybe they're doing the same thing here, but it's hard to tell from the screenshots.

The difference, though, is the presence of an open doorway. What if you walk up just close enough to it to look inside, but the transition hasn't happened yet? Maybe you only see part of the tavern with no NPC's moving around yet? It's going to be a little awkward to have them and more detail just "pop in" to view once you cross the threshhold.

Then again, knowing CDP, who do push the tech boundaries, maybe they can pull off a truly seamless outdoor/indoor world with transitions occurring efficiently in the background. It's certainly intriguing and I have to admit rather encouraging from the consoletards' standpoint if the new units will be able to handle that kind of demand.

 

[Crispy]

A little more observation, but I won't belabor the point too much:

It's definitely the same building, and the two scenes very likely follow each other in sequence.

The doorway is the same in both shots, the building interior matches its exterior in the first, the planks on the ground outside the door match each other. Geralt's outfit matches. He's got both swords in each as well. I'm convinced he dismounts from his horse in one scene and enters the tavern in the second.

It's curious that from outside we can see some sort of wooden furniture through the doorway, but with no NPC's visible inside. In the second (indoor one), there's a bard standing right there in the corner which should've been visible from the outside, unless he just happened to move over there as Geralt was entering. I doubt that.

I need a demo. This is going to drive me crazy.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Curiously there's no women clearly shown in the images. There's two in the backgrounds. Triss/Ciri fanservice-y models still under careful construction? Wonder which Twitcher babe will pose in PL Playboy this time?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Curiously there's no women clearly shown in the images. There's two in the backgrounds. Triss/Ciri fanservice-y models still under careful construction? Wonder which Twitcher babe will pose in PL Playboy this time?

Zoltan Chivay.