Those two phrases make me think that you’ve never developed complex software in your life. Did you?
Have hoof physx been confirmed? I remember it from 2014 E3.
#hoofgate is real.
Actually, it’s about ethics in animated hooves.
I’m not going to contact the Better Business Bureau about procedurally-generated vegetation, but there’s still a chance the engine performs poorly. I care more about distractions and unsmooth gameplay than tessellated cracks in the wall. I did notice some harsh LOD switching so we’ll see.
HRose
1607
That one phrase makes me think you’re readying the usual attack at authority argument.
The bottom line is that it’s silly to expect an user to anticipate a trailer isn’t a honest representation of the game when it’s the devs themselves who should have a better idea than the user about what is or what isn’t possible.
It’s not like they are forced to release fake trailers. And because it’s their choice, it’s a choice we can criticize.
It’s not an attack at authority fallacy at all. I’m just establishing your ignorance on the difficulties of software development, especially in a particularly complex piece of software that a modern game is.
You see, because of your ignorance, your argument is operating on false premises. You argue that the devs have some way to know how the final software will perform when they’re still early in its development - that’s false. There are lots of interactions and issues that can crop during development that are hard or even impossible to predict for a huge variety of reasons. It’s obvious that every dev will want their game (nowdays) to look as awesome as possible - if it doesn’t look as awesome as early videos and whatnot, it’s because they ran into technical reasons and had to adjust the output to match the realities of the final software and the hardware it will run in, not because of some kind of stupid conspiracy or disrespect to their consumers.
Also, devs are humans. They want to share what they’re creating while they’re creating it, and sometimes, they’ll share something to find it isn’t really possible in the end. You can call that naive or silly - I call it being human.
The problem here is not devs showing things they can’t possibly live up to - it’s customers with unreasonable expectations, usually tainted by ignorance of the many problems devs face in game development, especially on a game as ambitious as Witcher 3 is. This inability to accept compromise when it’s needed, and as it’s needed, is one of the great problems of our age, and one of the reasons behind the current “age of the outrage” we’re living in, and all the harm it has done and will do to society at large.
Now, perhaps I have the privilege to know what kinds of problems they probably ran into, since I’m a software developer and since I’ve faced similar problems in my professional life. I don’t expect you to have that knowledge, but I expect you to give them the benefit of the doubt before crying malice or shortsightedness. It’s not fair to their work and their status as fallible human beings who will often dream more than they can achieve.
JeffL
1609
I guess I’m really the outlier. If this game had the graphics of Skyrim on the 360 but had the open world gameplay that they are touting, I’d be fine with it. I played Skyrim on the 360 for months and months and months, exploring on foot and wandering the countryside, creating my own storylines, role playing, and only quit with a huge sigh. I’m playing it all over again on my two year old laptop now, with about 93 mods, and I am enjoying the better graphics with mods, but more so the added gameplay of the mods.
I hope the graphics on my PS4 are really good, but if the gameplay is truly open world and allows me to adventure and role play as I choose, and it’s as large a world to wander around in as they say (and I love to just wander around the world with no “gotta-do’s”) I’ll be very, very happy.
Not an outlier at all. I feel the same way.
Which fake trailers are you talking about?
HRose
1612
I call it being exploitative for money reasons. Let’s not be naive.
There are various levels to this debate. One is about whether there was a downgrade or not, and its extent. Another is whether or not worse graphic is a big deal. Another is whether or not it is a big deal for you. And another is about, once the downgrade is verified, the dev company deliberately using false advertising knowing it doesn’t represent the product.
The reason why this is deliberately false advertising and not “innocent” one, is that just last December devs DENIED any form of downgrade.
They didn’t admit it and justify why it happened, they simply DENIED it. Called it an internet rumor to ruin their image. That’s a very blatant proof of malicious intent. They were never honest about this. Of course to this day they still refuse to comment officially on this, now that more proofs are starting to surface.
Hear hear! I totally agree.
HRose
1614
This makes me smile. You brand customers with “unreasonable expectations” just because they believe a trailer. But those who MADE the trailer look like unreasonably good were instead totally honest.
So you think it’s the customer job to second guess devs actual skills in delivering something unreasonable, because the devs themselves are too much committed to “ambition” to actually make realistic predictions.
So, first:
- there’s no final footage of the final version of the game on PC on maximum settings, so there’s no proof of any real downgrades yet.
- they could have changed textures and particles around. Such changes will be appreciated by some and disliked by others. The latter would consider them a downgrade, the former would consider it an improvement.
- All calls of “downgrade” so far have in fact been rumors.
I guess we’ll know in a week or so. And even if there is an unquestionable downgrade (which I doubt), I think we should look at the reasons behind it, and behind any statements by CDPR and otherwise in a more global context, not with a laser-focused microscope.
It’s everyone’s job to not claim or expect to know more than they actually know. That’s all I’m saying.
By the way, those superb-better videos released a long time ago. Were they released saying that changes could occur since the game was still in production? I’m curious.
HRose
1617
There was footage at the recent event, on high end PC and max settings. It’s not a final build, but again it’s not very realistic to expect magic patches that dramatically change the game one month from release when it was in development for years. It’s not like you flip a switch and suddenly everything changes.
Sadly no one does good technical analysis, these days. So we don’t have a lot of actual details that aren’t vague rumors. But we do have an increasing amount of signs that point the game is nowhere the graphic quality flaunted these past years.
So, right now, a downgrade isn’t 100% confirmed, but it’s likely true. In a week everyone will be busy discussing the actual game, so technical discussions are going to be completely overshadowed (no one wants to argue an imaginary game when you have a real one, even if not as good, in your hands).
People are discussing about the downgrade right now just because there’s nothing else to discuss at this point. In a week actual gameplay, bugs, stability and performance will take the stage (and the 200 hours of content claim).
“And if you gaze long into the HRose, the HRose also gazes into you…”
HRose
1619
Just seen on GAF ;)
Time of the day and all that. But I’ll challenge you to produce that image in the actual game, no matter how hard your try :)
Different lighting. Slightly different point of view. Different weather. And if I recall correctly, if that’s one of the youtubers who went to the preview event, do you know if it was maxed? After all, it was running on a single 980 instead of a SLI setup, which is in theory necessary to run the game fully maxed (or not - remember how many current PCs struggle to run Witcher 2 fully maxed still?). And of course, when building trailers with fully maxed settings, one can correct for framerate, so they show the game the way it will look when the technology catches up. I see nothing wrong with that.
So far, all I see is speculation based on limited information. It will remain that way until the game is out in little over a week. But I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure: whether the game is downgraded or not, people will claim it has been downgraded, and conclaim others to burn CDPR on a stake because of that, despite of all the good things they’ve done for gamers and games the last few years.
Whether CDPR is in fault or not, I see greater fault in how gamers “consume” their games nowadays.
As for me, I don’t want super fantastic graphics, since I can’t afford a computer able to play at Ultra or whatever they call the maximum settings. I just want the game to look fine enough and play really well, and for it to be a game worthy of the Witcher universe and of the claims CDPR has made about it on everything but graphics. So there - if you want to count pixels, please do. My concerns are elsewhere.
Final note - it seems reviews are due to appear sometime during this week. Do you really think none of those will do a proper technical analysis, or at least a passing one? It’s a fantastic opportunity for eager reviewers to “acquire” views, even more so with the downgrade speculation, so I find it hard to believe that they will just ignore that. But I could be wrong.
Please don’t feed the HRose. There are so many possible threads here for him to threadshit in his inimitably insane way.
