I’m not saying The Witcher 3 won’t be awesome, nor even am I saying it won’t be gorgeous (it clearly is) but still, you can’t blame folks who are bummed about seeing footage for years on this game and having the final product not really look like it did when they first got that feeling of looking forward to a new game. I have never seen that gift I linked before, but if I had seen it and that’s the game I had in my mind’s eye for the last 18 months, it would indeed be just a bit of a slap in the face to see what that area will look like on a PS4 or something. For all I know that IS about what the game will look like on Ultra on a PC (or post-mods) but I can understand the disappointment.
I made my peace with downgrading after Dark Souls 2. It does look kind of fullbright though.
I think that most folks probably should understand that until they’re looking at actual, obvious gameplay footage that they should take stuff shown years previously with a huge grain of salt. And, that being said, 95% of the most shrill DOWNGRADE brigade is folks looking at shots that are simply different. There’s dynamic weather in the world. Showing me one sky box on a sunny day in Nilfgaard and comparing it to a rainy day and yelling “DOWNGRADE!!!” is goofy.
HRose
1585
The only shame is devs not being honest.
Back in December there was a trailer and rumors about a downgrade, and CDP replied officially there was no downgrade and that it was all due to youtube compression or something stupid like that. Now that the game is one week from release hard facts start to hit.
What’s unacceptable here is the trend of showing games material that is not even close to the lower quality of the final game. See Watch Dogs or Dark Souls 2.
At least with Oblivion the trailers were actively hiding the game’s defects, but the footage was mostly real. Now instead we just have carefully rendered things that never actually exist in the game.
If your screenshots and trailers have manually placed vegetation, and then the final game has them procedurally placed it’s strictly a matter of honesty.
False advertising is becoming the norm, especially since trailers and screenshots are ALL we have until release.
The game has way too many lighting variables, weather variables, graphic settings etc. for me to take any of those downgrade comparisons seriously. People are also sometimes comparing completely difference scenes at different times of day, which is ridiculous.
And the trailer everyone is freaking out about – isn’t that a 2+ year old cinematic promotional trailer? We’ve had plenty of actual game play footage since then that more accurately depicts how the game looks.
Edit: Not to mention some of the comparison shots are from horribly compressed Youtube videos @ 720p.
Actually, it’s about ethics in downgraded journalism.
(Yes, you are correct on all scores.)
I too think it’s in poor tastes. The game is NOT gonna look like the above GIF, maybe in a few years after release but probably still not quite as good as that.
HRose
1589
Problem is that among the things there’s also a geometry downgrade. And geometry isn’t changing because it’s midnight instead of afternoon. Graphic settings on the recent footage we know were maxed out and running on 980 class videocard.
And the trailer everyone is freaking out about – isn’t that a 2+ year old cinematic promotional trailer? We’ve had plenty of actual game play footage since then that more accurately depicts how the game looks.
Yep, including stuttering on top of the line hardware, pop-in, and distant clip range that “overwrites” terrain geometry.
But they also said that TOO wasn’t the final build.
The problem is the constantly shifting goalpost, next week we’ll know how close the game to what they’ve shown.
I honestly don’t care if it looks like what was shown a long time ago in what amounted to a graphics-focused prototype. I just want it to look good enough to not ruin the experience, and that threshold is pretty low for me, actually.
Also, early versions don’t have most of the gameplay elements and their complexity in, so you have more CPU time for graphics. In development, you have to make compromises as you go, and it’s really sad that many people don’t realize that.
HRose
1591
I’d say it’s the devs job to anticipate that the final game will be heavier, not the user.
The problem is still the dishonesty of showing something you know you won’t deliver.
Exclusive leak! Final version of the game running on PC, Ultra settings:
Pre-order canceled. CD Projekt Judas betrayed us.
Seems as good as it gets before we reach photorealism.
Between this and needing to download a day one .exe file, I’m done with them! Really quick, let’s hear someone say “Downgrade” again, though. It’s like listening to 5 year olds who’ve learned a new word.
Downgrade you say? (^____^)
CONFIRMED in my humble opinion. I mean if you really focus on Roach’s hoof detail, we are looking at barely any improvement over 2010’s Red Dead Redemption (the last great horse simulator). 5 years worth of higher textures and polygon count increases and barely any noticeable change in that time period. I mean sure it’s different developers but come on… LOOK AT THE HOOVES! Obvious corners have been cut. What in the hell did they do with all those extra months of time? :p
#Witcher3hoofgate
This is a day that will live in infamy. Never before has a company mislead its customers in this way.
But it’s OK, I won’t have time to play The Witcher 3 anyway. See, I just ordered this really cool Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring. It’s going to be mind-blowing.
Has CD Projekt revealed anything about how Witcher 3 will handle Geralt unsheathing weapons and swinging them around in town? What about grabbing items that belong to NPCs? Witcher 2 barely acknowledges either of these actions, which isn’t going to cut it in the open world of the sequel.
Has anything been said about how the story meshes with the open world? I’m specifically concerned about dissonance between the pacing of open world exploration and questing and urgency in the main story. This is a problem with pretty much every open world game I’ve ever played.
I blame TurinTur, I would have been happily oblivious if he hadn’t linked that dumb thread. :)
