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Two areas in Witcher 3 are 3.5x larger than entire Skyrim

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Skyrim was too small so this news sounds good to me. It is what it sounds like.

If you make it 3.5 times bigger than Skyrim, it needs 3.5 times as much content, though. Its not like Skyrim was just cities next to cities.
 
I'm very intrigued by the open world aspect. It seems like there will be a stronger focus on being an actual Witcher, or monster Hunter, compared to TW2. TW1 felt a bit more like that with more specific quests. With the technology available since both games I welcome it. As long as they realize it has to be meaningful, and I believe they do, the game will not be hindered by the open world.

I loved the sequel but it strayed a bit from what really drew me in with the first game. I'm hopeful that the third game really is the culmination of everything awesome about the series.

And we all know it will look beautiful doing it.
 

Marcel

Member
Hype just got lowered by that. Witcher 2 had nice chunk of areas to tackle which worked well. Don't got time to ride on my horse for 30 minutes just to get to the next objective.

Well they have something for you busy professionals. It's this new thing called Fast Travel™, a novel invention that makes it so you don't have to ride your horse for 30 minutes.

Skyrim hurt all of us a little bit but the bad man isn't here. This is the Witcher 3. CD Projekt Red has always delivered.
 

Sheroking

Member
If there's nothing to do in said space, it's a negative.

Unless there is a way to quickly traverse it, without load screens, and it's visually varied and artistically satisfying.

That's probably a tall bar, though.

Which is absolutely the right way to do things. Fast travel isn't inherently evil, but the post-Morrowind style of, anytime, anywhere, for free just absolutely killed Oblivion and Skyrim for me.

You know it was optional, right?
 
I don't really believe this. Sounds like promotionese for "3.5 times larger skyboxes and background fluff that you can't actually explore". Calling bullshit.
 
There will probably be fast travel because it's in the lore. Sorceresses could teleport given the right equipment. That said, if it goes by lore those will most likely be very limited in usage. In fact, it would be sort of ideal if you could fast travel to a few major hubs and were forced to traverse manually from there.

Which is absolutely the right way to do things. Fast travel isn't inherently evil, but the post-Morrowind style of, anytime, anywhere, for free just absolutely killed Oblivion and Skyrim for me.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
Hopefully there are faster means of transport then horseback if it's really that big...like, oh, i dunno, a fighter jet or bugatti veyron?
 
I really take map size with a grain of salt because larger maps can sometimes feel smaller. For instance, GTAV supposedly had a map that was larger than San Andreas and RDR combined, but as somebody who played a lot of San Andreas, RDR, and V, both SA and RDR felt larger (to me) than GTAV. A lot of that was because of direct access routes around the map that areas of interest in GTAV were usually closer together, and the logical highway system allowed you to pass through quickly. In RDR, you couldn't take a direct line from point A to B because of the limits of travel (horses and you could only go up certain inclines, a river provided a serious barrier and forced you to find a long way around, there were basically 3 ways to cross from the southern parts of the map to the northern,w hich forced you to take very specific, out of the way and scenic routes). San Andreas had similar challenges: getting from one corner of the map to the other was a longer drive because of the layout of the roads and the general layout of the world... GTAV had convenient roads that could get you from one place to another.

For this reason -- and others -- the whole "Map size" thing doesn't mean much to me. You can have a smaller map that feels larger because of certain obstacles.

fJiqnVu.jpg


Skyrim felt huge to me because of how they used height and obstacles to block your path. You first arrive in Riverwood and you have to get to Whiterun a short while later. There is a sheer cliff drop off what would kill you, so the only way to get there is to walk along a path that is pretty long and meandering. These are two locations that are geographically very close together, but take a long time to walk or ride.

This is all just to say ... size doesn't really matter. You can have the largest map on any videogame ever, and if you can cross between areas quickly, then the map feels a lot smaller. Still, I trust CDPR to pack this world with detail.
 

dekline

Member
This game is making me so nervous. The more I read the more It seems almost too good to be true.

Don't let us down CDPR!
 
I don't really believe this. Sounds like promotionese for "3.5 times larger skyboxes and background fluff that you can't actually explore". Calling bullshit.

Uhh? Lots of games have bigger landscape than Skyrim! I don't know why it's hard to believe.

Skyrim is very dense, there is like 300 hours of content exploring all the caves, dungeons, side quests, etc, but it's not exactly huge in terrain scope.
 
Unless there is a way to quickly traverse it, without load screens, and it's visually varied and artistically satisfying.

That's probably a tall bar, though.



You know it was optional, right?

Its optional only in the sense that you don't have to use fast travel, yes. But the quest design, journal entries, and landscape variety of Morrowind makes manual traversing an enjoyable and rewarding experience. In Oblivion and Skyrim it was frustrating and dull.
 

Savitar

Member
I believe in the studio.

They're going for ambitious and trying to pull out all the stops, if it works then it will be great indeed. Some studios are not often up to the task but this is one I believe that can get the job done and do it right.
 

Daemul

Member
Everytime a game gets compared to Skyrim, usually it's map size, my hype for that game goes down. If devs think that the main reason why Skyrim was so popular was because of the size of it's map then I'm afraid I've got some bad news.
 

Marcel

Member
Uhh? Lots of games have bigger landscape than Skyrim! I don't know why it's hard to believe.

Skyrim is very dense, there is like 300 hours* of content exploring all the caves, dungeons, side quests, etc, but it's not exactly huge in terrain scope.

*Hours of playtime on PS3 may vary
 

ElFly

Member
Scale in games doesn't mean a lot without the character speed.

As big as skyrim was you could Traverse it in like ten minutes, which meant your character ran at like 60 kph at all times.
 
There will probably be fast travel because it's in the lore. Sorceresses could teleport given the right equipment. That said, if it goes by lore those will most likely be very limited in usage. In fact, it would be sort of ideal if you could fast travel to a few major hubs and were forced to traverse manually from there.

You just described the first game.
 

orochi91

Member
Everytime a game gets compared to Skyrim, usually it's map size, my hype for that game goes down. If devs think that the main reason why Skyrim was so popular was because of the size of it's map then I'm afraid I've got some bad news.

What IS Skyrim's forte? The dungeons/mobs were repetitive and bland, the combat was
piss poor and the lore is pretty cliche. The only thing it has going for it is the soundtrack,
scenery and scope (kinda) lol
 
Uhh? Lots of games have bigger landscape than Skyrim! I don't know why it's hard to believe.

Skyrim is very dense, there is like 300 hours of content exploring all the caves, dungeons, side quests, etc, but it's not exactly huge in terrain scope.

If we're talking about a single game that's one thing. If we're talking a single area being 3.5x larger than Skyrim it just screams PR pandering to me. I mean, I like CDPR but not enough to drink this koolaid.
 
Well they have something for you busy professionals. It's this new thing called Fast Travel™, a novel invention that makes it so you don't have to ride your horse for 30 minutes.

Skyrim hurt all of us a little bit but the bad man isn't here. This is the Witcher 3. CD Projekt Red has always delivered.

No really? When did they invent fast travel? /s

But really, a lot of games don't let you fast travel to spots you haven't discovered yet, so you'll still be riding around for a good bit. Don't got time for that.
 

Celegus

Member
Not sure that's really a positive for me. I'm just not sure how you fill up that much space with interesting content. I'll take the meticulously crafted areas of Dark Souls any day over the big empties of Skyrim and maybe but hopefully not TW3.
 

wsippel

Banned
and looks like this...
... in densely populated and carefully crafted areas. Most of the space is randomly/ procedurally generated filler. Creating huge worlds was never really a problem, making all of it unique and interesting is a completely different issue.
 

UrbanRats

Member
This is actually fairly interesting since back in June CD Projekt RED described The Witcher 3 as 20% larger than Bethesda’s open world game. We currently don’t know if that was just a preliminary estimate, or the Witcher‘s world just got bigger since then.

We reached out to CD Projekt RED requesting information to shed light on the issue, and we’ll keep you updated if we receive any relevant answer. In the meanwhile one thing is for sure: the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is pretty damn big.

Please do! This is what i remember as well, they said it was barely bigger then Skyrim's, now it's supposed to be several times bigger? Color me surprised (and extremely happy!)
 

Jonm1010

Banned
There will probably be fast travel because it's in the lore. Sorceresses could teleport given the right equipment. That said, if it goes by lore those will most likely be very limited in usage. In fact, it would be sort of ideal if you could fast travel to a few major hubs and were forced to traverse manually from there.
That's the ideal for me.

I will never understand the complete anti-fast travel crowd. I think it's just continued backlash from elder scrolls tbh.

When done right fast travel saves tedious backtracking and time but doesn't eliminate the need for exploration or hurt gameplay and can be ignored by those that choose to do so without consequence.
 

erawsd

Member
If we're talking about a single game that's one thing. If we're talking a single area being 3.5x larger than Skyrim it just screams PR pandering to me. I mean, I like CDPR but not enough to drink this koolaid.

Well, to be fair, its not CRP that is bragging about a single area being 3.5x larger than Skyrim. The author of the article arrived at that conclusion based on GDC slides, he's trying to get CDP to comment on it.
 

Shinta

Banned
So ... if two areas are each 3.5x larger, then the game is over 7x larger than Skyrim? That sounds kind of obnoxious.
 

Nibel

Member
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The one thing I hated most about Skyrim's world were the amount of mountains in your way; hope CD doesn't put dozen of them in my way
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
well that two huge areas to search for The Witcher actual -but missing from the games because CDPR don't have big balls- protagonist.

I hope the world doesn't feel empty, or else it'll be a giant bummer roaming it.

Yeah, this is the important thing here.

I don't want Just Cause 2.5 when it's a huge empty boring map. having big empty areas just for having big map is pointless.
 

Jonm1010

Banned
I hope the world doesn't feel empty, or else it'll be a giant bummer roaming it.
Aren't they taking a more realistic approach to their world scale by not trying to cram an entire country/continent into the game like skyrim and oblivion?

Instead focusing on a few major cities and it's surrounding infrastructure? If so I think we will get the best of both worlds. Enormous scale but realistic and dense. Where I'm betting cities and towns will be larger and side areas will be more fleshed out.

Which is what I always wanted. It always bothered me that oblivion and skyrim were supposed to be these vast countries/continents but it felt like even though their game size was larger then most games the scale from a realistic standpoint was way off. Which to me actually made me feel like the worlds were rather small and lifeless.

I had the same issue with RDR, as much as I loved that game. Mexico takes like 3 minutes to cross from end to end and I can be in the mountains in 5 minutes.
 
Oof. That sounds pretty bad but we'll see if it's actually designed space. Actually, it's pretty bad no matter what, really.
 

eot

Banned
They already make good games, I don't get the inferiority complex. Stop comparing yourselves with Bethesda.
 
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