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Witcher 3 downgrade arguments in here and nowhere else

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OmegaDL50

Member
Why whould it not come on WiiU?

Unless the The Witcher 3 was downgraded to Skyrim 360 levels, that is the only forseeable way I could see the game come to that console.

Besides I don't think CDPR would make an entirely code on entirely different architecture (i.e going from the PC,PS4, XB1's x86 to PPC)

While it sounds cool for Wii U owners to have a decent Western style RPG, it's simply not going to happen. Besides there doesn't seem to be a large enough userbase to warrant such an effort to begin with.

As much as I love my Wii U library, I'm not beyond the point that I'd believe in entirely unrealistic scenarios from happening in regards to game releases for it.

EDIT: Oh, you are talking about Zelda Wii U, Yeah of course it coming to the Wii U. A delay to 2016 doesn't mean Nintendo is holding out until their next console.

I think realistically it means Nintendo just didn't want Xenoblade X and Zelda U to release a few months from each other. That just seems too close for two big releases like that. I can see why they would spread them out. Not every Nintendo delay implies they are holding out for their next console.
 
The amount of time spent arguing about this dev is downgrading this or not downgrading that is just plain STUPID!

OP, life must be constantly frustrating for you because you crazy.
 

Kaze2212

Member
Unless the The Witcher 3 was downgraded to Skyrim 360 levels, that is the only forseeable way I could see the game come to that console.

Besides I don't think CDPR would make an entirely code on entirely different architecture (i.e going from the PC,PS4, XB1's x86 to PPC)

While it sounds cool for Wii U owners to have a decent Western style RPG, it's simply not going to happen. Besides there doesn't seem to be a large enough userbase to warrant such an effort to begin with.

As much as I love my Wii U library, I'm not beyond the point that I'd believe in entirely unrealistic scenarios from happening in regards to game releases for it.

Uhm, I might be mistaken but I believe they were talking about Zelda U here.
 

UnrealEck

Member
who's forcing the devs to go for parity.

Time constraints and money for salaries I guess.
it's not very practical to have for example, your 3D artists create a whole range of higher quality assets (like the wall some pages back) and lower quality assets.

That's all I can think of now at least. I doubt anyone specifically is having developers do it on purpose for the sake of say, keeping all versions of fairly similar quality in the interest of sales.
 

Derp

Member
Here'a another example I was looking at, of foliage being hit hard. Pay attention to the grass and distant trees in these clips. Different times of day I realize, but the quality is drastically different.

Newer gameplay

1428677532-witcher-gif.gif



Older gameplay

yttr.gif



The top image still looks great, no denying that, but the grass and foliage on the bottom image is ridiculously full. There's hardly any blank patches of dirt and the detail on the trees down the hill, and quanity of them is certainly better. Again I'm not saying the top gif doesn't look great, but its for sure not the same level of detail as the bottom one.
You know what's funny... That bottom gif is from the Sword of Destiny trailer. Many pages back I said it had been significantly downgraded since that trailer and people thought I had no idea what I was talking about or asked me to "prove it". The proof is in front of your damn eyes, if you even have them.

So if people could stop referring to the Sword of Destiny trailer to show what the game looks like in it's current state, that would be great. It's clearly been fucking downgraded since the trailer as you can see by the post I've quoted. In fact that's when most of the downgrading happened. AFTER that trailer. I've said it before and i'll say it again, that trailer is just as bullshit (visually) as the 2013 one.
 

Shredderi

Member
The amount of time spent arguing about this dev is downgrading this or not downgrading that is just plain STUPID!

OP, life must be constantly frustrating for you because you crazy.

You're not discussing whether the game has been downgraded or not, which is the point of this thread. I'm pretty sure Evilore already said that metacommentary about the validity of this thread is not welcomed.

Edit: the sword of destiny gif above is ridiculous. I mean damn.
 

hodgy100

Member
Time constraints and money for salaries I guess.
it's not very practical to have for example, your 3D artists create a whole range of higher quality assets (like the wall some pages back) and lower quality assets.

That's all I can think of now at least. I doubt anyone specifically is having developers do it on purpose for the sake of say, keeping all versions of fairly similar quality in the interest of sales.

pretty much this.
you keep your base assets the game alongst all platforms and you just alter effects and details for each individual platform, high quality / more effects, higher res textures etc. you would not have multiple versions of assets that look different for different platforms.
 

Sesuadra

Unconfirmed Member
Graphic whores, you people are still going to buy the game aren't you.

FYI

Have people forgotten that thread whining is bannable? We don't need your metacommentary on whether this thread should exist. That the game isn't out yet is irrelevant. That gameplay is more important than graphics is irrelevant. People are discussing the information currently on-hand in a thread specifically designated for graphics comparison talk. Deal with it. No more metacommentary will be tolerated.

Woah o_O somehow the thread only had 46 pages when I wrote that answer..
 

OmegaDL50

Member
FYI



Woah o_O somehow the thread only had 46 pages when I wrote that answer..

46 pages? How many posts per page do you see?

I only have 25 pages.

I didn't realize EviLore made that comment. I'm surprised a mod didn't edit the OP to make the warning prevalent through the thread, so it won't be ignored.
 
46 pages? How many posts per page do you see?

I only have 25 pages.

I didn't realize EviLore made that comment. I'm surprised a mod didn't edit the OP to make the warning prevalent through the thread, so it won't be ignored.

There are some fools who fail to set the posts per page to max.
 

stabiliser

Neo Member
Yep, I can only assume the people who can't notice the difference don't pay attention to the finer details of visuals like some of us do.

It's also important to note that no-one in this thread is saying the game looks "bad" now. It still looks beautiful. It's just not as visually impressive, from a technical standpoint, as it was before. That's not an opinion - it's a fact. People can be perfectly entitled to say they don't mind the downgrade, and that it isn't much of a downgrade, but they can't pretend there isn't one.

Saying that something is a fact does not make it a fact, facts are made by proof and you have none.

Fact is that every person in this thread that seems to have some sort of expertise has pointed out that from a "technical standpoint" there is no downgrade, if anything there is a change in artestyle.

The conversation up until now has been (comical over dramatisation):

A: Bro, like dude, like look at this two pics that have nothing to do with each other, bro, like that second one look just "unlit" or like "unshaded". dwongrade rulez!!!

B: No it is not unlit or unshaded in any shape or form, do you even know what these terms mean?

A: Bro, like i made up my own definition of these words, dude it is unlit in my eyes, so bro fuck you and your technical bullshit. And dude, thats just a fact!
 

Maximo

Member
Have people forgotten that thread whining is bannable? We don't need your metacommentary on whether this thread should exist. That the game isn't out yet is irrelevant. That gameplay is more important than graphics is irrelevant. People are discussing the information currently on-hand in a thread specifically designated for graphics comparison talk. Deal with it. No more metacommentary will be tolerated.

EvilLore bringing that sweet Justice and Knowledge.
 

Derp

Member
E9nqMoo.jpg


This is PC gameplay from 4 months ago. Clearly in a some places the game doesn't... Look great. Obviously pretty bad compression since it was taken from a youtube video but that doesn't justify shit. Foliage is probably the biggest issue i have with what they did. It's just... It's just bad.
 

Sesuadra

Unconfirmed Member
46 pages? How many posts per page do you see?

I only have 25 pages.

I didn't realize EviLore made that comment. I'm surprised a mod didn't edit the OP to make the warning prevalent through the thread, so it won't be ignored.

now I have 25 too :p

I thought maybe it is a good idea to post it again.
 

Fuz

Banned
Not mostly for the visuals but several people are sitting on rigs with SLI GTX 970/980/Titan X cards so of course they are interested in visuals.

All in all I think the writing was on the wall and I while I would like the game to look at its best, what I dislike actually about this whole thing is CDPR communication which I find to be messy and no really truthful (granted statements didn't always come from the same person)

I'll just copy/paste some extracts of an interview of January 28th :

When it comes to The Witcher 3, you haven’t talked much about its technical side. Let me quote your statement for Game Industry of March 2013: ‘The PC allows for more at the moment, but new platforms are stepping up. In the future, it should be much easier to unify the requirements.’ Has that future arrived?

I think so. It is impossible to make a game for three different platforms that will utilize all of the various platforms’ unique features and specs. It’s a technical fact. Making an exclusive title allows to squeeze more out of the target device.

The Witcher 3 is a rich production full of unique characters and a few thousand people. Let’s not forget castles, two large cities and the enormity of the world that has to be filled up. We’ve done everything we could to make the game look spectacular. And this doesn’t depend on the platform… We could up the resolution in the PC version, as the hardware is stronger, but at the same time we wouldn’t be able to do something new, like, e.g., rewriting the rendering engine that would be able to render such an amount of triangles. If we had lightmaps of interiors, the game would have looked much smoother, but in this case we wouldn’t have managed to simultaneously provide dynamic lightning in an open world. The game would have chunked all of the memory, even on PCs.

Platform unification exists – we have a single build, which is distributed to each one of them. The game is the same; the draw distance is the same. Minor differences result from the fact that the GPU has different parameters on different consoles, which can result in, e.g., the changes in color temperatures.

How will the PC ultra version hold up against consoles?


It will be possible to spot differences in, for example, Nvidia HairWorks, but those are very demanding graphically, so a strong PC will be needed. What I’m about to say might not be diplomatic. In the future you will be able to turn on the option of ubersampling, which, upon the release of The Witcher 2, was killing the game, and will probably do the same with this title, so we don’t want to unlock it for now. It makes the game look better, but the requirements are insane.

Are all the textures and models the same?

Yes, there is only one version, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to make the game in time. We would have to take it all apart, and then build it and test it on three different platforms at the same time, which is impossible to do. Therefore, we have one common basis, and then transfer it to other platforms.

We manage it differently on platforms with less memory. Less complex models are loaded; it all depends on what is going on on the screen at the moment. To sum up, there are only a few differences between PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. They are not aimed at changing the configuration; instead their purpose is to solve certain problems.

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, we’ve seen them…

Aren’t 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. We’ve added a bunch of details and we’ve significantly improved the facial expressions and the lip sync. We have 7 different dubbing versions, so we’re not able to record the changes on actors’ face with the performance capture technology, like it was done in, say, Call of Duty. That wouldn’t fit on three blu-ray discs. Keeping that in mind, we’ve implemented a dynamic system based on vowels and consonants, similar to the one in the previous two installments, where it did rather poorly. With The 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 – author’s note); that’s another thing that wasn’t visible in the trailer.

This and the fixed LOD actually kinda piss me off.
Yay for parity! Didn't expect this crap from cdpr, really...

Gave me a chuckle
ScornfulNeedyGalah.gif

Lol, perfect.
 

Odah

Banned
I understand they would have needed alot more time to make a special build only for PC. Maybe they will work on this post-release?
 

Valravn

Member
Development of games start with all kinds of ideas, beautiful realistic graphics being of them. But this doesnt mean all these ideas are obtainable/feasible. Developers have to make choices, especially nowadays with titles developed for consoles and pc, because hey its a business! The Witcher 3 will get around 60 fps with highend pc specs. What do you guys want? A title that isnt playable without like SLi setups or something. The game still looks great. Yes, downgrading happens but not for all the "they are misleading us'-reasons people want to believe.
 
This and the fixed LOD actually kinda piss me off.
Yay for parity! Didn't expect this crap from cdpr, really...



Lol, perfect.
As a huge fan of the game and the devs. I can understand this when looking at it in a business point of view. Obviously if they focus purely on PC, this will probably be the single most impressive looking game ever. But that will equal lost sales on the console market, which is fucking huge.

It's sad that the game will never be in its ideal form were it made for PC only, but that is simply not sustainable in this day and age. Even if it is, as a business they will have to maximize their profits. And going PC only is not the way to do it. Going multiplat with dedicated version for each plat is not viable either.

I am in for the world and the story mostly, so the visual side of things might hurt, but not that considerable.

Still, what could have been.
 

hodgy100

Member
This and the fixed LOD actually kinda piss me off.
Yay for parity! Didn't expect this crap from cdpr, really...
this is game development 101 making different assets for each version is an insane amount of work. you are overreacting.

However I'd be very surprised if you can't alter the draw distances.
 

Lucifon

Junior Member
The debate now is currently almost pointless, when things will get interesting is when people have the game cranked up full settings on a beastly PC running the in-engine cutscenes side-by-side with the sections from trailers. And are reinacting the gameplay in the exact same areas.

Right now we're comparing apples and oranges.
 

Sn4ke_911

If I ever post something in Japanese which I don't understand, please BAN me.
And CDProjekt Red is a company that claimed to be different. The whole free DLC / No DRM stuff. They claim and honestly brag about how pro consumer they are, and in a ton of ways they are.

But to then give us these early trailers, downgrade the game in some ways, and then flat out deny it, all the while delaying the game for months and saying the game will look as good or better at launch.

I have little doubt that Witcher 3 will be gorgeous. The disappointing part is a how a company that has staked their reputation on being pro consumer goes out and does this. Just be upfront. Say the engine / hardware couldn't quite handle what they wanted. People would have been far more ok with that.

Ding. Ding.
 

Steejee

Member
I feel like it's an ongoing trend with Witcher games to have wildly inconsistent graphics. I'm playing through Witcher 2 right now (finally! I preordered it but never got past the kayran until now...) and just like Witcher 1 you get a strange mix of gorgeous scenes mixed with spots where you wonder if they're still on the original NWN engine.

I expect the same thing to happen in Witcher 3 and presumed in all the trailers that what we were seeing was going to be very cherry picked. I'll be peeved if anything in the trailers is outright impossible to get in the release game (save for situations where it was clearly a change for art reasons), but sadly I won't be shocked. There's a very small list of publishers/developers that are really trustworthy for the preview materials (Indie studios typically, Nintendo is fairly alone among the bigs in being pretty honest in their materials, jaggies and all) and I have to wonder if the limelight has pressured CD Projeckt into prettying up their stuff for PS4/XB1 hype.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
Who seriously think this was near what we will have in gameplay ?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=163492501&postcount=2389

Well seeing as there are games on the PS3 that are similar in terms of cartoon shader usage and whatnot while comparable visual quality. It doesn't seem impossible for Zelda Wii U to still look like it does in the early footage.

Also that whole sequence seems like a cutscene. Generally cutscenes aren't really an indicative of in-game footage anyways.


This early in-game footage for NNK, like the first dungeon area and town basically.

Zelda seems more vibrant / brighter, but Ni no Kuni comes pretty damn close. Any generally any CC2 Naruto game as well.
 

Grief.exe

Member
Here'a another example I was looking at, of foliage being hit hard. Pay attention to the grass and distant trees in these clips. Different times of day I realize, but the quality is drastically different.

Newer gameplay

1428677532-witcher-gif.gif



Older gameplay

yttr.gif



The top image still looks great, no denying that, but the grass and foliage on the bottom image is ridiculously full. There's hardly any blank patches of dirt and the detail on the trees down the hill, and quanity of them is certainly better. Again I'm not saying the top gif doesn't look great, but its for sure not the same level of detail as the bottom one.

The foliage used to look so good. It seems that they created the assets, placed them literally everywhere, then at one point decided to change the assets entirely.

Hopefully CDPR has been showing us console footage since the Sword of Destiny trailer.
Having to change the assets to account for the relatively weak consoles is understandable. Placing assets throughout the world, then inexplicably changing them all is not.
 

martino

Member
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=163492501&postcount=2389

Well seeing as there are games on the PS3 that are similar in terms of cartoon shader usage and whatnot while comparable visual quality. It doesn't seem impossible for Zelda Wii U to still look like it does in the early footage.

Also that whole sequence seems like a cutscene. Generally cutscenes aren't really an indicative of in-game footage anyways.



This early in-game footage for NNK, like the first dungeon area and town basically.

Zelda seems more vibrant / brighter, but Ni no Kuni comes pretty damn close. Any generally any CC2 Naruto game as well.

isn't Zelda supposed to be open world or i missed a thing in your comparison ?
 

Mikey Jr.

Member
I have no problem with it coming to wiiu... AFTER the current gen releases. So once the current gen versions come out, we get a few patches and dlc, make a wiiu version. Be my guest. Shit, make a snes version for all I care at that point.

Edit: nvm. Seems like nobody was actually suggesting a wiiu version.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
The foliage used to look so good. It seems that they created the assets, placed them literally everywhere, then at one point decided to change the assets entirely.

Hopefully CDPR has been showing us console footage since the Sword of Destoliny trailer.
Having to change the assets to account for Tue relatively weak consoles is understandable. Placing assets throughout the world, then inexplicably changing them all is not.

The gif you are quoting that is stated to be "Older Gameplay" actually IS part of the Sword of Destiny trailer.
 
I have no problem with it coming to wiiu... AFTER the current gen releases. So once the current gen versions come out, we get a few patches and dlc, make a wiiu version. Be my guest. Shit, make a snes version for all I care at that point.

No one is talking about this game coming to Wii U (nor will it). They were simply discussing whether the trailers for Zelda on Wii U will actually be reflective of the final product (and whether or not it's possible the game would end up on the next Nintendo system instead).
 

Mikey Jr.

Member
No one is talking about this game coming to Wii U (nor will it). They were simply discussing whether the trailers for Zelda on Wii U will actually be reflective of the final product (and whether or not it's possible the game would end up on the next Nintendo system instead).

Yeah, read it wrong. Edited my post.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
isn't Zelda supposed to be open world or i missed a thing in your comparison ?

Yes Xenoblade X is open world as well

Ni no Kuni has a huge world map, while it does have separate load for battles, it's still a reasonable comparison.

I still think that whole sequence with Link jumping off his horse and firing an arrow is a uncontrollable cutscene possibly a quick time event. It doesn't seem like actual controllable gameplay footage.

Then again I would love to be proven wrong, I mean I thought Xenoblade X got a downgrade prior to release and I was was completely wrong on that.

Edit: Besides, why is this relevant anyways. Isn't this topic about The Witcher 3 downgrade?
 

Derp

Member
The foliage used to look so good. It seems that they created the assets, placed them literally everywhere, then at one point decided to change the assets entirely.

Hopefully CDPR has been showing us console footage since the Sword of Destiny trailer.
Having to change the assets to account for the relatively weak consoles is understandable. Placing assets throughout the world, then inexplicably changing them all is not.
They haven't. There's PC gameplay on YouTube. The original foliage is completely gone. Also the image i posted above was from a PC gameplay video.

Edit: Here's your foliage now (obviously with compression)... <-- that's PC footage from 4 months ago. Also recent PC footage from CDPR's event also shows no difference, so it's confirmed every platform got hammered.
 

Jigolo

Member
The foliage used to look so good. It seems that they created the assets, placed them literally everywhere, then at one point decided to change the assets entirely.

Hopefully CDPR has been showing us console footage since the Sword of Destiny trailer.
Having to change the assets to account for the relatively weak consoles is understandable. Placing assets throughout the world, then inexplicably changing them all is not.
Acceptance is hard. Everything shown up until last week was PC stuff. Are you being ignorant or did you miss that big ass thread where multiple youtubers got to play the game with ultra settings?
 

Grief.exe

Member
They haven't. There's PC gameplay on YouTube. The original foliage is completely gone. Also the image i posted above was from a PC gameplay video.

Edit: Here's your foliage now (obviously with compression)... <-- that's PC footage from 4 months ago. Also recent PC footage from CDPR's event also shows no difference, so it's confirmed every platform got hammered.

Acceptance is hard. Everything shown up until last week was PC stuff. Are you being ignorant or did you miss that big ass thread where multiple youtubers got to play the game with ultra settings?

Willfully ignorance, I've seen the posts. Optimistic, tag quote, etc.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
One thing that I wonder.

Was the Sword of Destiny trailer supposedly gameplay footage. Or was it actually non-gameplay that was carefully tailored to look like gameplay.

The more and more I look it at, the more I feel there is plausible reason to think it was too good for the hardware we have.

I mean I would love for Witcher 2 intro to have been in-game footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_KtvVvolY

I mean even I am not that guillable. Which brings an interesting point. When you do think we'll get the first actual game that looks like the actual Witcher 2 intro CGI as in-game realtime stuff? Probably not until PS5 / XB2 / GeForce Volta 1180 GTX?....maybe?
 
One thing that I wonder.

Was the Sword of Destiny trailer supposedly gameplay footage. Or was it actually non-gameplay that was carefully tailored to look like gameplay.

The more and more I look it at, the more I feel there is plausible reason to think it was too good for the hardware we have.

I mean I would love for Witcher 2 intro to have been in-game footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_KtvVvolY

I mean even I am not that guillable. Which brings an interesting point. When you do think we'll get the first actual game that looks like the actual Witcher 2 intro CGI as in-game realtime stuff?

If you look at Square Enix's real-time demo of DX12 stuff from a week or two back, that's easily on (or past) that level. But it was running like, 4 Titans.

So I'm guessing it'll be a while.
 
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