Prime crotch
Banned
Making their budget back does not equate to having the money to invest on a game with the larger scope as Witcher 3
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Witcher 3 downgrade arguments in here and nowhere else
- Thread starter Jigolo
- Start date
- Status
Well ACU basically ""prerendered"" the illumination system.
It's impossible to do that with the witcher.
They really don't compare.
hooijdonk17
Member
This, I think is the main point CDPR missed. The Witcher series (and CDPR) will likely follow the fate of the Crysis series (and Crytek).
hooijdonk17
Member
That's bullshit. ACU looks better. Whether it was technically feasible with Witcher 3's scope has nothing to do with which one looks more pleasing. You can concede that the other looks better because what it does is impossible within the game's constraints - but saying you CAN'T compare them? That's just dumb.
That sounds like a scope problem to me, and considering the scope of the downgrades, I think it's clear that they had plenty of problems with the scope of the project in the first place.
alexandros
Banned
While I do believe that CDPR is in the wrong here and they shouldn't have compromised their original vision for feature parity across platforms, I wouldn't go that far. Crytek didn't just compromise their games on the technical side, they destroyed most of the things that were cool about the gameplay of the original Crysis. CDPR on the other hand has created what pretty much everyone is calling one of the best RPGs ever made and a worthy sequel to Assassins of Kings.
So I would guess that their handling of the W3 downgrade situation is going to cost them some sales in the future and the loss of a lot of accumulated good will in the PC gaming community, but I don't really think they are in danger of becoming the next Crytek.
Broccoli tastes better than burger, though.
the wrongest post in this thread
jim-jam bongs
Member
Nah, I think people would have just pointed to the Microsoft marketing deals and comments about the Xbone being easier for them to work with, and claimed that it was just another case of bought parity. In the end they probably decided it was just better to avoid alienating ps4 owners in addition to pissing off PC players.
So, again, PC players are always the B tier in gaming.
Protip: every game who uses a more advanced lightning system (except fot the ones that relies on particoular artistic decision) will look better. Period.
AC:U (runs like horseshit on console) "uses" a feature that will probably be ditched this entire generation and W3 dind't even have pre-"downgrade" .
You can compare anything, I just see no point doing that when there is almost a generational difference.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Well, then if you think that then you're delusional. And I don't see why consoles are the scapegoat.
EDIT: Several things went on here, aside from the downgrade, most obviously the renderer was changed completely, to accommodate the more saturated and colourful look they decided they want to go with.
The downgrade is still obvious, but to me it speaks more about CDPR over promising and not being able to meet what they promised. They game is huge. To have that kind of fidelity consistently across a game as big as this would be difficult to achieve for any developer, and given the fact the game was delayed twice, I think it's quite clear they didn't find it easy creating their first open world game.
So, I say, this has a lot less to do with consoles, and more to do with time constraints and other artistic choices. The console schtik surrounding this game is starting to get boring. Yes, to the group PC enthusiasts who find it so necessary for us to be reminded that this is 'their' franchise, we know, now give it a rest.
I don't think you understand what the word delusional means.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Yes, I do understand completely. Elaborate, just like I did in my edited comment above.
Read his comment now, he's right.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Dictator93
Member
It is OK, some people havent been actually playing the game and instead have just whined about colour grading for the past 4 days.
No he isn't.
Just because I can not like the fact that CDPR decided to fuck off the people that brought them to this stage, doesn't mean I didn't expect it to happen. There's nothing delusional about expecting someone to do the things they said they were going to do in the first place, and I think it's a point to how brainwashed the gaming community is at large that the excuse of "oh well, that couldn't work on consoles despite us saying it could, so pc gamers you have to suffer to because we don't and never had the money to do the things we said we were going to do in the first place" actually works.
He is though.
Game development is more complex than you know, and decisions need to be made. There is no conspiracy here, no wool being pulled, no malicious intent or slight of hand. Problems arose and they dealt with them, they chose what they did for a variety of reasons none of them being to screw us PC players over.
The fact you use the word "suffer" and need to resort to terms like "brainwashed" suggests you're taking this far too personally. It might help if you try not to.
The best part is, no one cares. Game is selling gangbusters and getting amazing a reviews. It has 9.0 metacritic USER rating so clearly no one gives a fuck except the extremely vocal minority in this thread and some other places.
I feel really sorry for the people that are so emotionally vested now in a campaign against CDPR, but it's simply not catching on with the public, no matter how hard you try.
I feel really sorry for the people that are so emotionally vested now in a campaign against CDPR, but it's simply not catching on with the public, no matter how hard you try.
Game development being "complex" is not an excuse for bullshitting everyone who bought the game by showing fake trailers and using that fake footage as marketing tools as "in game footage" well up to, and after release. That's a weak tired, and as I pointed out in my previous post, reeks of a person brainwashed by reading too much PR.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
When did they say this, though? This is my point. You're blaming this entirely on consoles, when above, I explained what was more likely to have happened. As I say, this is less to do with consoles to me, and more to do with the fact that CDPR decided to make one of the biggest and most complex open world games ever made while at the same time, promising the sun and the moon graphically.
I'm still sure they could have made a console port off of the old builds as well, but they fact that they scrapped that renderer completely tells me that they had a change in artistic direction, and they also clearly over shot on just how possible it was to make a world so vast, with the fidelity promised in the 2013 trailers. What are you not understanding about my post?
They didn't bullshit anyone. They showed what they were hoping to do then found they couldn't achieve it.
At the time of showing it /was/ in game footage. Perhaps they should have added a disclaimer for the more sensitive types "game development is tricky and problems may arise that prevent is from achieving these visuals, we'll try our best!".
You really need to drop the brainwashed shtick, dude. It's making you sound incredibly bitter.
Because the majority of this world dont give a fuck about global warming it dosnt mean the problem dont exist and is not worth our time
That's a great analogy.
Only a matter of time now until Godwins law is validated in this thread.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
This thread becomes funnier and funnier as I read it. The developers delivered an amazing looking game so it's very hard to play the game the way I'm playing it on PC and agree with any of the banter being said as far as the criticisms go. It's a stunning looking game and it runs well. I have very little to ask of this game considering the graphical fidelity and, less important to this thread, the actual fun of the game.
Question, during the last year the show how the graphic were downgraded or they simply used the trailer of 2/3 years ago?
Because i understand that you cannot achieve what you show in the past but hide it is really bad for a developer
This is a stupid comment. This is a thread about witcher 3 graphic and downgrade. If you dont want to speak or read that, you can simply go in to OT thread
Maybe they should have been more transparent, sure. I see that more as inexperience with PR than anything unsavory.
Their explanation reads honest and reasonable.
i dont think is inexperience but quite the opposite. If you show something and after some time you show it again downgraded, people will complain and news come out. Better to hide it until the game is out, so even if people speak about the downgrade, people has already buy it.
Right, because it coudln't possible be true and the only answer is "brainwashed".
They didn't need to lie. This game would have sold buckets even if they'd shown the visuals we have now. It looks amazing still, it didn't achieve the sale sit did based on the visuals we saw in the old trailers alone.
Sure, some of you bought it for that reason, but he vast majority of people wouldn't have even been paying attention to those details.
I don't believe for a moment they hid it intentionally to fool us.
I'd say there's almost as many people in here thread shitting with the same opinion. There's more disgust towards folks who merely pointed out the flim-flam. What magnitudinal effect that has remains to be seen long term.
We can split hairs all day, but CDPR lied brazenly. We're back to denying that, are we?
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I take offense to your sharp-witted comment as I'm not of that cloth I won't go to that extent and call anybody else's comment any names. I'm sure you read my post which is why I put that but in there basically acknowledging that the game play takes a backseat in this thread but that doesn't mean that the narrative of this supposedly downgrade takes precedent over the bigger and more prominent positive of the game.
It's inherently an amazing looking game because I've been playing it beyond maxed out with tweaks to the configuration file and less importantly to this thread, it's an amazing game as well. That doesn't diffuse everything else I say because somebody wants to nitpick a little bit of contacts that I put in despite this being a graphical thread. The game looks outstanding and I am finding a very hard argument to be made to support some of the hyperbole about this down grade in this very thread and even on this very page.
I'll just say this, then: if you seriously think that it was "inexperienced PR" that caused them to not show how the game had dramatically devolved over the last few years of development then you are either incredibly naive or have a very low opinion on the business capabilities of one of the larger game publishers in Europe.
No. Not every truth is the cynical one.
They didn't need to lie for this game to sell. All they did was make a mistake not keeping us updated with the latest developments.
Yes, they lied technically, but it wasn't to fool us into buying an inferior product.
They now know that teamsparency will aid them better. Their recent explanatoin acknowledges this. They have learned and gained experience.
Time will tell, I very much doubt they'll make the same mistake again.
Bad press, even if will not change how many copies of your game you will sell is something that you need to avoid like the plague.
Take for example Watch dogs and when they reveal the new trailer with a downgraded graphics, every games journalist had written an article of it
Of course, and they acknowledge they learnt a lesson.
Time will tell if that sticks or not.
hooijdonk17
Member
I hear the "We learned a lesson" story from EA after every game.
Yes. And CDPR aren't EA. Why are you faulting CDPR for EA's misdeeds?
orthodoxy1095
Banned
And CDPR aren't EA. that much is evident in every facet of their business practices, such as CDPR notably not taking an EA approach and nickle-and-diming me for crap and preorders.
I understand people are upset over the downgrade, but the people are making from CDPR being one of the "good guys" to "named next to one of the worst offenders in the industry," is just ridiculous.
hooijdonk17
Member
Just pointing out that learning a lesson is actually a common industry excuse. The learning never ends in gaming. Developers learn time and time again, and gullible gamers keep preordering. It's the nature of the beast.
Gullible gamers? Speak for yourself as clearly you are the one upset.
I don't feel gullible at all, I saw the reviews, saw the footage of the PS4 version, went out and bought it. I'm very impressed.
You're the one bitter about the game not looking like footage from 2013, even though more recent footage already had the game looking different.
Judging by the 9.0 USER metacritic most gamers are very very very happy with the game too and don't feel lied to.
I don't feel gullible at all, I saw the reviews, saw the footage of the PS4 version, went out and bought it. I'm very impressed.
You're the one bitter about the game not looking like footage from 2013, even though more recent footage already had the game looking different.
Judging by the 9.0 USER metacritic most gamers are very very very happy with the game too and don't feel lied to.
The point is that CDPR lied to all of us PC users, whose support made CDPR the company that is today
They supported the marketing of the game through fake footage since 2013, 2014 and 2015, and they managed to make 1.5 million people to preorder the game (multiplied by 60 they got 90 million dollars only from preorders)
All the gaming press gave extremely high reviews, reviews based on early unfinished review copies, and no one actually talked about the downgrade or the great technical issues the game has - reviews that made me preorder the game (Especially on PCs)
To come out now as a company and say (read the interview I posted), after they collected all the preorders money, that they chose parity because they did not have the money/resources to create the original vision of the game, with all the trailers since today to explicitly say that they are in-game real-time gameplay, is just crazy
And I have a great issue with CDPR taking the lies PR approach, because in my mind I believe that it is one of the most gamer friendly companies out there
And its not only the graphics downgrade that I have an issue with, but the crashes, the stuttering, the frame rate/frame pacing, the controls, the camera etc
And I play the game in a PC that costs 2000+ euro
In an interview that happened on 28/01/2015, on game pressure, Adam Badowski (Managing Director of CD Projekt RED) said that they made the characters better and blames the graphics downgrade to lightning in the VGAs trailer when compared with the gameplay trailer of 2013
We are talking 4 months before the official game release, so they had perfect knowledge on how the final product would looked like, and they still lied to their future customers
http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51
And I copy the part of the interview I am referring about:
Have you followed the comments under The Witcher 3 VGA trailer? Many people were complaining about the drop in graphics quality in comparison to the first video materials.
Yes, weve seen them
Arent you afraid that after its release the game will share the fate of Watch_Dogs, where the game was being compared to the first E3 gameplay?
If someone rewatches the trailer they will notice that the character models look better in the game; even Geralt is more polished for instance, he has better shaders. Weve added a bunch of details and weve significantly improved the facial expressions and the lip sync. We have 7 different dubbing versions, so were not able to record the changes on actors face with the performance capture technology, like it was done in, say, Call of Duty. That wouldnt fit on three blu-ray discs. Keeping that in mind, weve implemented a dynamic system based on vowels and consonants, similar to the one in the previous two installments, where it did rather poorly. WithThe Witcher 3, the difference is astounding we have set the bar really high for the entire industry as compared to other games that rely on this system (such as BioWare games authors note); thats another thing that wasnt visible in the trailer.
Meanwhile, the quality of the lightning in the trailer remains a matter of taste. Weve made a mistake choosing to render some shots in dark and greyish colors. To put it simply, that was the option picked by the engine. I think that there will be locations that will look jaw-dropping, and no one will claim that they differ from what was seen in the trailer. Unfortunately, there will also be fragments where the game will look worse. Its the same with GTA when the wind picks up and it gets grey, especially in the forest, the graphics seem certainly worse than in a neon-filled and lively city.
To finish it off here, I had enough as a gamer of companies that overpromise and under deliver
I expected this kind of behavior from all studios/publishers, except CDPR (and a few other studios that i trust), and I have to say that I am very sad that one studio that I supported through the years, and watched grow to the company that it is now, lied to my face, only to pocket the preorders money
I havent lost my faith in them and I believe that in time they will fix the Witcher 3 (maybe a future enhanced DX12 edition would be the best way to play the game), but my experience with the game so far was problematic
The gaming press, as a whole, - one more time - didnt warned me about the issues the game had and I paid 60 euro for a game that at the moment is unplayable for me
I will never preorder anything from any company in the future, no matter the hype, before I see actual gameplay from the final product
I bet all my money that the next AAA release, that we all expecting, Batman Arkham Knight will have the same downgrade issues, when comparing real time (or in engine) gameplay from trailers with actual gameplay
If I ever see on an announcement trailer E3 is in a month dont forget the words, In Engine Footage or Real Time Gameplay, I will just think piss off
jim2point0
Banned
Well, I used to want to be mad at this game for the graphics downgrade. I went in thinking it would be pretty ugly and that I'd just enjoy it for the gameplay.
Sure... grass could be better. Water could be better. LOD could be better. Lighting could definitely be better....
But while I'm playing.... the visuals just come together beautifully and I can't stop taking screenshots. Usually that's the mark of a good looking game for me. Of course it's subjective but yeah, I'm satisfied with it. So methinks I'll just bow out of this thread now, but you guys keep fighting the good fight.
See you all in the "Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition - It's still downgraded" thread
Sure... grass could be better. Water could be better. LOD could be better. Lighting could definitely be better....
But while I'm playing.... the visuals just come together beautifully and I can't stop taking screenshots. Usually that's the mark of a good looking game for me. Of course it's subjective but yeah, I'm satisfied with it. So methinks I'll just bow out of this thread now, but you guys keep fighting the good fight.
See you all in the "Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition - It's still downgraded" thread
Lan Dong Mik
And why would I want them?
^Amazing shots! PC right? Sadly it looks nowhere near that good on Ps4
Well, yeah.
I've been following this critical thinking since publishers showed us target renders for PS2 games back in the early 00's.
None of this is new and I have to wonder about those who are as pissed off as Raysod that perhaps it's a generational thing? The industry's been subjected to this for a couple of decades.
jim2point0
Banned
Well I didn't unsubscribe yet, so I still saw this message
Yes, PC. Downsampled with INI tweaks. *Pets TitanX*
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
good post
- Status