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35 Minutes of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Thread starter RadioactiveLobster
- Start date
Huh?
Skyrim's world is fantastic. It's probably one of the best worlds to explore ever made in a game. Every nook and cranny has something interesting to discover.
Jay Shadow
Member
2 of the 3 main areas are still connected. It's just the Skellig Islands that are way out of the way geographically. And I assume Kaer Morhen as a mini area if you can travel there at will. Although that might be the tutorial area they mention.
Well, the "lore nerds" will def be happy. There was a lot of concern that CDPR would undermine the books and shrink the map. I'm ok with it, especially when it sound like each "region" is massive.
I imagine the need to unlock certain regions will get a more negative reaction. People hated it in the early GTAs.
Read this.
Didn't they say, actually, that you could explore wherever you wanted from the start, even making an example of being able to go to areas far over your level, and get killed by powerful enemies?
This kinds of contradicts that.
I don't know, i'm not liking this news at all to be honest, but we'll see how it ends up working.
Dragon1893
Member
This is why I love Morrowind, despite how barren it can be at times. Even then, it still wasn't big enough..
Dragon1893
Member
TW2 spoilers:
Good thing I allowed Letho to live in the save I intend to import into TW3.
- Novigrad and surroundings is the size of about 8.5 by 8.5 kilometers = 72.25 square kilometers
- the Skellige archipelago is the size of about 8 by 8 kilometers = 64 square kilometers
- those two alone result in an area of 136 square kilometers which dwarves Skyrim's 41 square kilometers
- even when discounting the 2 kilometers wide 'ring' of visible, but not explorable panorama around each of those two regions you would still have respectable 78 square kilometers for two regions alone
I wonder how these will play out.
So those 2 regions make up 136 sq kilometers but only 78 of it will be explorable. I thought they said anything you can see you can go to.
It's still huge so in perfectly down with it but it sounds odd. I have faith in them doing it well though.
Jay Shadow
Member
Yeah, I've always hated that line because obviously at some point you're gonna run into something you can see and not go to, unless you're on an island.
To be fair, for as much as Skyrim suffers from this potato landscape syndrome, there's not much in the form of a solution there, just an exploration and ultimately a question to the audience on what do they think is the best solution. And as it happens with these things, different people prefer different things. I don't think there is one best method to it, just better or worse implementations.
The closest he comes to giving an answer is when he mentions RDR as the prime example of a landscape that feels big but is actually relatively small. One where things are happening around you but still gives you some room to be and provides many quiet, open landscape moments where you don't feel forced to intervene with NPCs nor are being engaged/attack every few steps. Main towns are close to each other (not suitable to be accessed by foot) but you still can't see them until you are close by.
As someone who loves RDR and thinks it is the GOTG I can think of a few things that felt wrong, even with all these positive qualities. RDR also benefits from not needing huge scale buildings like medieval-ish RPG certainly do. The whole southern limits of the landscape felt very unnatural, and the whole southeastern area was wasted, and only felt modeled after the few missions that happened there (the labyrinthine rocks, or that outpost on top of the hill that you storm with the resistance forces, etc.) In the end it did feel a bit small and could've benefited from a few more open and empty areas, for example through the middle section of the desert, and especially in the northwest region. Buffaloes felt very out of place in that small patch of land they would appear in. It felt as if they were all grazing on someone's backyard.
I think Skyrim does some things right in terms of its landscape. I love the way they manage to differentiate areas through vegetation and weather and natural landmarks while keeping the feeling it's the same region. It has obvious problems with scale (environmental scale and NPC numbers both), and the quest progression system is atrocious, but it's far from the worst thing out there. I feel there's still plenty to admire.
I like TW3's implementation by the way. Never had anything against big hubs representing different areas in a larger region.
SJRB
Gold Member
Skyrim sold well over 20 million copies, it's as good a reference point as any.
Turin Turambar
Member
So basically... there are 2 central hubs? "mainland" and the archipelago. It isn't that bad, then.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
This is the problem with game design: what they presented is fairly sound logic*, but that doesn't stop people from enjoying Skyrim.
But let me be quiet. Both Skyrim and this game bore the hell out of me for their dull aesthetics.
*Y'know, except for the fact that they trivialized someone calling a game boring, which is literally the absolute worst thing a video game could be.
Sentenza
Member
Anyone who was paying even remotely attention to what they said so far knew this for a while.
They already pointed at every possible circumstance that the world was going to be composed of three major distinct areas rather than an unique landscape.
While I love that post and its comedic value, I'd argue scale isn't even the major flaw in Skyrim's world design.
Turin Turambar
Member
Oh, I read that a time ago.
Skyrim focused geography (and in general, game design) is unrealistic, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Realism isn't exactly the priority of most games, actually (surprise surprise!).
Hell, the same flaws you can infer in that article can be applied to most of the golden classic RPGs of all time.
Skyrim is perfectly fine for someone who just want to explore a pair of dungeons, de some side quests of a guild, explore a new town where do some more quests and trade, steal everything isn't nailed down and craft some armor.
Yeah I'm not mad at them separating it into hubs, that actually might work out better for story and zoning reasons since enemies don't scale to your level.
It's still gonna be ridiculously big, I want to see how much playable area there is though. It just seemed weird there was so much area and around half is playable when they said anywhere you see you can go.
Still gonna be a day 1 cop though.
ScepticMatt
Member
Reminds me of Gothic maps
RustyNails
Member
So...should we get this game as soon as it hits the street or wait for the inevitable enhanced edition? I'm somewhat leaning towards the latter, because around the same period the new Batman Arkham game is releasing, along with Dragon Age Inquisition and maybe Bloodborne.
I love the EE versions of Witcher games.
I love the EE versions of Witcher games.
Well they usually come 1 year later, so if you're cool with waiting then why not.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Not sure if there will be an enhanced edition of The Witcher 3 this time around. Quite possible, but the business model has changed somewhat. With the first game they were really trying to get the series off the ground, and the Enhanced Edition went a long way towards polishing up a shitload of bugs and rougher parts of the presentation. I think a lot of people didn't jump onto the series at all until the Enhanced Edition release. With The Witcher 2 the Enhanced Edition was less of a total overhaul and more like an expansion; extra content scattered throughout with the bulk in the final chapter (as a response to criticism that it was too short). It also coincided with the series first venture onto consoles.
Wild Hunt on the other hand is release as one big game on all major platforms at once. They'll have their PC fans, and now PlayStation and Xbox gamers too. I think in this situation there would be less incentive to make a big overhauled "Enhanced Edition", and more just continue padding the game with DLC (which is inevitable) and finally re-releasing that as the "Enhanced Edition".
Whatever they do you'll be waiting ~12 months to get it. So if you're happy to wait, more power to you.
Sentenza
Member
On the other hand you have to wonder if they will ever do the same this time on consoles, given what are the costs involved.
RustyNails
Member
I forgot how long the wait is usually between vanilla and EE. Yeah it makes more sense that they drop the EE aspect and shift towards DLC in today's environment.
cjp
Junior Member
Been listening to some of the soundtrack excerpts on repeat. So good.
Think The Fields of Ard Skellig and Sword of Destiny are my favourite of the four.
Think The Fields of Ard Skellig and Sword of Destiny are my favourite of the four.
Robot Pants
Member
Holy god this game is gonna be amazing. Combat looks 100x better. Is this gonna eat my 560 Ti alive? Or can I at least run it on decent settings.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Never, ever post "news" from that site.
I'm not even going to say its name because someone might go to that site and accidentally give them advertising revenue.
I'm not even going to say its name because someone might go to that site and accidentally give them advertising revenue.
Haha my bad, idk which sites are credible or not in gaming journalism yet.
But the part about Xbox one at 720p and PS4 at 900p sounded somewhat realistic. I remember somebody posting something like that earlier.