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The Witcher 3 - New screenshots

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I'll just add here that I think this is the first time we've seen this snow environment in TW3. This is the first time we've seen those particular vegetation assets as well as the snow itself. Basically everything we've seen up until now has been temperate, urban, or a swamp. Take that for what it's worth.

As for whether or not this is console we're seeing, we still need to take into consideration that this is literally CDProjekt's second console game. Sure TW2 looked better than it had any right to on the Xbox 360, but CDPR is still very inexperienced with consoles compared to western European or western hemisphere devs. I wouldn't be surprised if TW3's console optimization isn't the greatest thing in the world. But we do have their job on TW2 for 360 as reference.

And as for TW2's aging, one detail we need to remember is that game doesn't utilize any DirectX 11 at all. In many ways it's the ultimate DirectX 9 game. TW3 is CDPR's first DX11 game if I'm not mistaken.

Just sayin'.

He isn't saying anything wrong... but also anything surprising nor greatly worrying.

All the trailers are smoke and mirrors.
If you look at the trailer and videos released in spring and E3, it seems a super polished product, a finished game!! How is that possible, if they have delayed it until 2015? What are they doing in 10 months of development?
Of course, the answer is that trailers are done to make it appear as good as possible, even if the real game is still buggy, animations are still half done, optimization work is still barely started, etc.
But, that's every game, ever. Therefore, if that happens with every game, including games that finally result in a good game, and games that finally result in a bad game, it can't be said it's evidence that points to being finally a bad game.

Of course the PR doesn't mention the bad points, doh.

And of course their final interest isn't in the consumers, it's in the money, the profits. That's a business for you.

Oh noes in truth they are in super crunch mode finishing the game... lol. That's how every ambitious game is made, and even most of the non-ambitious ones. That's the (sad) truth about game development.

The trailers look super-polished, but all the straight gameplay we've seen so far has actually looked quite rough in terms of framerate and animations. Still great, but rough in terms of performance and smoothness.

The trailers we've seen so far have actually mostly been shots from real-time cut scenes. There is a little gameplay in the trailers, but it's mostly one-second cuts. It's highly possible, maybe even likely, that TW3's real-time cut scenes will look more polished than the gameplay, as is a common thing.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Good on you. A lot of places require you to put money down though. I live in a city center so a retail copy is a both cheaper and faster way of getting a game.

No waiting on deliveries, and there's always stores that do discounts on new releases, like Mediamarkt.
Cheaper maybe, but preordered games on Amazon are almost always there day one, if not earlier.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
How long until February?

BZEioALCcAEfKaX.jpg

4+ months. Enough time to make the game on par with Tw2 which was a great game in it's own right. (If the combat is better tw3 will be automatically better than tw2).

Don't uh... be overly shocked if it takes a bit longer than that.
 

Coreda

Member
You know there might be different swords in the game, with different hilts.

Sure, but in this case it's seems clear the hilt model seen in the second screenshot is the rounded pommel he's been seen with throughout the promotional screenshots and renders, except much lower fidelity than other in-game sword models seen so far.

CDPR also go back and forth on the hilt combinations for the main swords in the promo renders, as can be seen in the first two examples, and elsewhere.

witcher3geralthiltsco8md9m.jpg
 
Me neither.

I see people always posting, 'X.. post if you're okay', so I just want to know if the PC version of this game is okay because I have this game sitting in Steam library.

Oh! :D

Well, I fully expect the PC version of this game to be technically fantastic.
 
Of all the things it is the animation that needs addressing. It was stilted and felt out of place. I also felt that combat suffered due to it.

No matter how much they address it Witcher animation and combat will always be bland, it could never match Dragon's Dogma which is a shame.
 

Simzyy

Member
Anaxymenes's post has me a little worried. Graphical downgrades do not bother me much, I just care about the scope of the game.

A potential delay is not a huge deal. Going to be an interesting few months.
 

Denton

Member
I assume I am one of the people (or attention whoring juniors) these are directed at, so I apologize for offering an opinion and offending the gaf superiors. I will quell my urges to have a discussion, go back to lurking and try not to offend the hive mind.

Maybe this will be a more constructive post:

WOOT! It looks amazing! Next year can't come soon enough!

Nope, it was not directed at you at all. I don't know why you would think that.

Good morning.

Anaxymenes has been vetted and cleared.

Thanks.

That is good to know. Shame he didn't do contact you beforehand, I could have avoided making an idiot out of myself.

Since I have a daily post ration of 0.07 I'm clearly an attention whore. I felt like I could share something I knew with my fellow gaffers since clearly some of you have objections to the state of the game. Guess I'll take your advice kind sir and will shut up. See you in February.

Now that you have been confirmed to be the real deal, please elaborate!
You threw some bad accusations, namely
PR is creating an overblown vision of a game that doesn't exist

so, what does that mean? Has the 30 minutes playthrough been smoke and mirrors? All the trailers? Will the game be bad ? You are anonymous and you want to warn us and do us a service, so why not elaborate in more detail, instead of just saying some nebulous vague warnings about game not existing and PR overblowing it ?
 

Lunar15

Member
Guess we'll have to see how it turns out. Some of these statements are vague though, espeically the PR blast stuff. The initial trailers were not indicative of the original game? Sad if true.
 
it looks like many gaffers are painting CDP as some magical dev studio with only the best of interests of the gamers in mind. Trust me they are not. The bullshitting with the Witcher 3 started from day 1. PR is creating an overblown vision of a game that doesn't exist while the team is in crazy crunch time for over a year now. There's some bad shit going on that if GAF knew GAF would not like.

Well in the end it's my words vs CDP PR. I mean why should You belive my if I have no solid evidence to show? But that's kind of my point, CDP build a very good realationship with gamers and now it's paying off as oppose to say EA. I do have inside knowledge, I did have contact with the game but again NDA and such plus I'm just a dude on the internet. my only point is that GAF should take everything CDP says with a grain of salt.

EDIT: Just to some up my messy line of thinking - don't preorder tha game (especially on consols) wait for the reviews, then decide or don't pay attention to a random dude on the internet and do what you want with your money.

Seriously what's wrong with this gen, most of the big games: Titanfall, Watch Dogs, Destiny have all been disappointments and you make it sound like Witcher 3 will be the biggest clusterfuck of them all, you're vetted too so must be correct. =(


I had 150 euro saved for the CE but if the reviews are delayed like Destiny I'm cancelling it.
 

Vire

Member
Given the news, do you think there is a problem with AAA games reaching their potential for the new generation of hardware?

Even the best studios in the world are struggling it seems. I mean if studios like Bungie and CDProjekt are struggling to put out a next gen game, who can we rely on?

Batman was delayed nearly a year, Drive Club a full year, The Order delayed, Destiny, Watch Dogs, Quantum Break pushed back to an unannounced date. Even games that come hell or high water have been delayed (AC Unity).

Seems like the transition to PS4 and Xbox One hasn't been kind to some of our favorite devs...
 
Wow, so much drama.
I said from the start that they probably were biting off more than they could chew but as a Witcher fan a slight downgrade in visuals wont do anything to affect my hype.
I just want to get back to being Geralt and hunt some monsters, finally meet Yennefer and Ciri, have my final showdown with the Wild Hunt and see this story through.
Not going to lose my sleep over wolf fur.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Given the news, do you think there is a problem with AAA games reaching their potential for the new generation of hardware?

Even the best studios in the world are struggling it seems. I mean if studios like Bungie and CDProjekt are struggling to put out a next gen game, who can we rely on?

Batman was delayed nearly a year, Drive Club a full year, The Order delayed, Destiny, Watch Dogs, Quantum Break pushed back to an unannounced date. Even games that come hell or high water have been delayed (AC Unity).

Seems like the transition to PS4 and Xbox One hasn't been kind to some of our favorite devs...
I'm not sure it's the hardware itself, just lots of huge promises that the games could never live up to and need more time to even be an approximation of what was promised. All of those games listed are devs jumping in with massive promises and no shipped games on target platforms or fully formed engines. There was no base to build on.
 

Simzyy

Member
Wow, so much drama.
I said from the start that they probably were biting off more than they could chew but as a Witcher fan a slight downgrade in visuals wont do anything to affect my hype.
I just want to get back to being Geralt and hunt some monsters, finally meet Yennefer and Ciri, have my final showdown with the Wild Hunt and see this story through.
Not going to lose my sleep over wolf fur.

Yeah I'm with you, but from the sounds of it the scale of the game is not as described.

I'm now expecting it to be a good Witcher game, but a bad open world game.
 
Given the news, do you think there is a problem with AAA games reaching their potential for the new generation of hardware?

Even the best studios in the world are struggling it seems. I mean if studios like Bungie and CDProjekt are struggling to put out a next gen game, who can we rely on?

Batman was delayed nearly a year, Drive Club a full year, The Order delayed, Destiny, Watch Dogs, Quantum Break pushed back to an unannounced date. Even games that come hell or high water have been delayed (AC Unity).

Seems like the transition to PS4 and Xbox One hasn't been kind to some of our favorite devs...

Games are getting bigger and bigger while also increasing the level of detail exponentially.
Eventually we'll have to hit a ceiling, budgets are getting absolutely ridiculous and people are working 18 hour days for months to ship a product, and in the end the best reaction it gets out of the consumer is a "meh, I'll wait for a price drop". This can't go on much longer, to what lenghts will a game have to go to stand out in the crowd 2 or 3 years from now?
 

Naminator

Banned
C'mon, Anaxymenes. Don't do radio silence. If anything not elaborating further is just aiding their bullshit PR and such.

Yeah this just bullshit in my opinion.

The statement he made were as vague as you can possibly make them out to be, just essentially "some bad stuff was happening" but what is that even mean? In relation to what? The game, if so which part of the game, graphics, open world, polish, DLC?

By the sound of it, and comparing them to EA, it personally made it sound like they have some shitty DLC and micro-transactions planned, or it could also mean that they might release a broken piece of shit like Battlefield 4.

I think some tiny clarifications are due.
 

rashbeep

Banned
Imo these are the some of the best screenshots I've seen of the game thus far. So I don't know what all the drama is about.
 

PFD

Member
Given the news, do you think there is a problem with AAA games reaching their potential for the new generation of hardware?

Even the best studios in the world are struggling it seems. I mean if studios like Bungie and CDProjekt are struggling to put out a next gen game, who can we rely on?

Batman was delayed nearly a year, Drive Club a full year, The Order delayed, Destiny, Watch Dogs, Quantum Break pushed back to an unannounced date. Even games that come hell or high water have been delayed (AC Unity).

Seems like the transition to PS4 and Xbox One hasn't been kind to some of our favorite devs...

Battlefield Hardline delayed too
 

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
Given the news, do you think there is a problem with AAA games reaching their potential for the new generation of hardware?

Even the best studios in the world are struggling it seems. I mean if studios like Bungie and CDProjekt are struggling to put out a next gen game, who can we rely on?

Batman was delayed nearly a year, Drive Club a full year, The Order delayed, Destiny, Watch Dogs, Quantum Break pushed back to an unannounced date. Even games that come hell or high water have been delayed (AC Unity).

Seems like the transition to PS4 and Xbox One hasn't been kind to some of our favorite devs...

I don't think it's the hardware, I think it's just the Molyneux Syndrome with too much crazy promises to sell the games and very short time to actually be able to accomplish anything. and when it's time to ship and release they realize that the game is really not what they promised and sold to media so they delay and change more stuff.

but what CD Projekt RED they were thinking announcing another big project(Cyberpunk) when they have development issues with Witcher 3. seems like they didn't learned from what happened after Witcher 1(when they lost many of the staff)
 

PFD

Member
but what CD Projekt RED they were thinking announcing another big project(Cyberpunk) when they have development issues with Witcher 3. seems like they didn't learned from what happened after Witcher 1(when they lost many of the staff)

They announced Cyberpunk because they were hiring. They wanted to attract talent, and they didn't promise any release date. For all we know, it could come out in 2018
 

Psoelberg

Member
Interesting thread.

Still looking very much forward to the game though. There's always alot of problems during game development, so hopefully it's something which will be fixed.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Let's look at what The Witcher 3 is doing versus other RPG that are coming out, in the next few months. It seems to me that at worst, the witcher 3 will simply be on par with The Witcher 2, which is not really a bad thing.

In any case, you should never pre-order a game until closer to release or on the day of release when the reviews are out.

What Anaxymenes said could be true as of NOW, but the game isn't being released for a good 4+ months so a lot can change and he could be less right as time goes on.

point being NEVER PREORDER A GAME based on HYPE. Pre-order a game becasue (like me) want to see the end of it and nothing more.

I preorder because they are a good developer with a good track record, on PC anyway.

Glad I did on PC instead of PS4. But I bet the game will still play well on PS4 and Xbone.
 
I don't think it's the hardware, I think it's just the Molyneux Syndrome with too much crazy promises to sell the games and very short time to actually be able to accomplish anything. and when it's time to ship and release they realize that the game is really not what they promised and sold to media so they delay and change more stuff.

but what CD Projekt RED they were thinking announcing another big project(Cyberpunk) when they have development issues with Witcher 3. seems like they didn't learned from what happened after Witcher 1(when they lost many of the staff)

Same thing happened with Bioshock Infinite and there are tons of other examples so let's not pretend this is new, but like I said above, we keep raising the bar but eventually the bubble will burst.
Hardware evolves and of course the dev tools do as well, but the manpower that is required to put the level of detail we expect these days into a game with this kind of scope... eventually it wont fit into any budget within reason, at least for studios that don't have franchises that are guaranteed to sell past the 10 million mark.
I shudder to think what would happen to CDPR if TW3 were to fall far below their projected sales target so I hope this negativity doesn't spiral out of control.
 
Is there any volumetric snow? I mean, snow with volume depth... or is it always just a flat 2d texture? (Not a big deal BTW game looks amazing; I'm just curious)

Snow is by far my favorite type of weather (or freezing areas my favorite climate) in fantasy... whether it's Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Tactics Ogre, Ultima Online... I spend so much more time in snow areas, and always get more inspiration for 'role playing' or 'free roaming' when I'm a snow area. Grew up reading too many Drizzt Do'urden novels and staring at Larry Elmore paintings I guess haha.
 
Interesting thread.

Still looking very much forward to the game though. There's always alot of problems during game development, so hopefully it's something which will be fixed.

Yup. I'm not deterred. Lots of over-analyzing and reactions in here. I'll wait until I can verify for myself
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Yeah this just bullshit in my opinion.

The statement he made were as vague as you can possibly make them out to be, just essentially "some bad stuff was happening" but what is that even mean? In relation to what? The game, if so which part of the game, graphics, open world, polish, DLC?

By the sound of it, and comparing them to EA, it personally made it sound like they have some shitty DLC and micro-transactions planned, or it could also mean that they might release a broken piece of shit like Battlefield 4.

I think some tiny clarifications are due.

" PR is creating an overblown vision of a game that doesn't exist" seems pretty clear.
 
Guys, remember this?

They never lied. That is what Dark Souls did look like for most of development. But they had to downgrade the visuals due to console limitations, and they did the same for the PC version. All trailers which show the "pre-downgrade" visuals of DS2, is what the game looked like at that point in development.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Can I post something that may or maynot be true about this Insider that is being brought up in the official Witcher 3 forums?

They are talking about what's happening in this thread with the insider and some people who may or may not know him are saying things like:

Afaik this "Anaxymenes" guy is some indie dev (real initials B.P.) who's making up this shit based on stuff he heard from ex CDPR devs. I'd take just about everything this poster wrote with a huge heap of salt.
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/30509-Screenshot-amp-Artwork-collection-Part-II/page50
 
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