Vigilant Walrus
Member
How big is the area added in Heart of Stone? Stunning pictures btw
Still really bothers me that pretty much every open world map is just surrounded by water world. Its less egregious if its implicitly stated that you are on an island or a series of small archipelagos or something but there has to be a better way to rope the player in than just WATER!!
Still really bothers me that pretty much every open world map is just surrounded by water world. Its less egregious if its implicitly stated that you are on an island or a series of small archipelagos or something but there has to be a better way to rope the player in than just WATER!!
How big is the area added in Heart of Stone? Stunning pictures btw
Ahahah oh man you finally get White Orchid do all the quests and points of interest then you step into Velen and have your mind blown...
I'm jealous of anyone just starting this game.... be prepared for insane length.
I didn't play 1 or 2 but I did read the entire series of books that were written in the 90s before playing this. Really good. It helped me appreciate the game more in some ways, in other ways it irritated and disappointed me as I had now become a fan and therefore wasn't keen on every aspect of their adaptation. The games are literally fanfiction, they are continuations of the plot in the novels but without author involvement. The stories and writing, while great for a game, just aren't very good compared to the books. I think they got some of the characters wrong, but none more than Geralt. He's much cooler and more interesting in the books. In TW3 he's a real wet rag, I hate how flat the actor's delivery is.
Still, amazing game and really raises the bar for RPGs IMO. I played Dragon Age Inquisition righ before this and Fallout 4 right after. DA:I was an embarrassment and FO4 was a bit of a let down. Both failed badly at what TW3 does so well.
looks really neat - thanks for sharing the pics...
any way we can get a key for scale?
the first two images look way further back than the last two.
how long would it take to traverse these screens? - i havent played witcher
For me, one the most impressive features of the world was how they gave distinctive cultures and trends to the different regions.
People from Skellige are so different from the ones on Novigrad and Oxenfurt, and these are very different from Velen
How they speak, what they speak about, how they dress... etc
The reason that top-down pictures look like satellite photos is because CDProjekt RED used World Machine to procedurally generate the landscape.
Not that this is a bad thing. Witcher 3 comes to life because they placed flora, fauna and cities to fit within their environment.
The reason that top-down pictures look like satellite photos is because CDProjekt RED used World Machine to procedurally generate the landscape.
Not that this is a bad thing. Witcher 3 comes to life because they placed flora, fauna and cities to fit within their environment.
It even goes beyond that. I'm an ecologist (survey for protected wildife/environments) and I'm amazed at how much research they've put into understanding flora. Their woodlands and forests have it all - edge effect, canopy, understorey, field layer, the kind of attention to detail I WISH other open world developers would use (The Elder Scrolls in particular has always had awful forest/woodland design). Heck, they even have pollarded trees around settlements when I'll bet less than 0.1% of the players will really notice or understand them.
They've set such a high bar for environment design it's going to take a lot to be beaten.
Can you make an interactive Google Maps like version :3?
Doesn the 3rd map fits somewhere in the 1st?
That's it, i'm buying this.
Just wondering will i like it? First one was ok'ish. Second one i didnt like, too complex story.
That's fascinating, I would love you to write in detail on it if you have the time.It even goes beyond that. I'm an ecologist (survey for protected wildife/environments) and I'm amazed at how much research they've put into understanding flora. Their woodlands and forests have it all - edge effect, canopy, understorey, field layer, the kind of attention to detail I WISH other open world developers would use (The Elder Scrolls in particular has always had awful forest/woodland design). Heck, they even have pollarded trees around settlements when I'll bet less than 0.1% of the players will really notice or understand them.
They've set such a high bar for environment design it's going to take a lot to be beaten.
That's fascinating, I would love you to write in detail on it if you have the time.
Still really bothers me that pretty much every open world map is just surrounded by water world. Its less egregious if its implicitly stated that you are on an island or a series of small archipelagos or something but there has to be a better way to rope the player in than just WATER!!
I'm jealous of anyone just starting this game.... be prepared for insane length.
I didn't play 1 or 2 but I did read the entire series of books that were written in the 90s before playing this. Really good. It helped me appreciate the game more in some ways, in other ways it irritated and disappointed me as I had now become a fan and therefore wasn't keen on every aspect of their adaptation. The games are literally fanfiction, they are continuations of the plot in the novels but without author involvement. The stories and writing, while great for a game, just aren't very good compared to the books. I think they got some of the characters wrong, but none more than Geralt. He's much cooler and more interesting in the books. In TW3 he's a real wet rag, I hate how flat the actor's delivery is.
Still, amazing game and really raises the bar for RPGs IMO. I played Dragon Age Inquisition righ before this and Fallout 4 right after. DA:I was an embarrassment and FO4 was a bit of a let down. Both failed badly at what TW3 does so well.
Funny you say the bolded. All I've heard from fans of the books is that Geralt is one of the only adaptation characters in gaming/adaptation history to be done "perfectly".
For the record, I think Geralt's voice actor is rubbish. He sounds the same in almost every game he's in and delivery is always flat like that. There are moments when Geralt is great, but they are rare.
The first image is an area about 4-5 times the size of the last two. That's why it's further away. To fit it all on one screen.
We are also missing two other areas in the game, which are both large (one very large).
And the second image (of the island) is only about 2/3 of that area. 1/3 is off screen. There are four large islands around that island plus lots of smaller ones. None of those are here.
... It takes a long time to traverse the gameworld. Probably over 15 minutes on foot (doesn't sound like much but it is). And every inch of it is phenomenally well designed and believable.
How big is the area added in Heart of Stone? Stunning pictures btw
It even goes beyond that. I'm an ecologist (survey for protected wildife/environments) and I'm amazed at how much research they've put into understanding flora. Their woodlands and forests have it all - edge effect, canopy, understorey, field layer, the kind of attention to detail I WISH other open world developers would use (The Elder Scrolls in particular has always had awful forest/woodland design). Heck, they even have pollarded trees around settlements when I'll bet less than 0.1% of the players will really notice or understand them.
They've set such a high bar for environment design it's going to take a lot to be beaten.
I'll recommend this to both of you since you both pointed out the same thing but if you aren't playing The Witcher 3 in the original Polish then you are missing out. On the PC this is easily fixable with the Polish language pack. On the consoles, not so much.
With all due respect to the English voice actor (Doug Cockle), Jacek Rozenek IS Geralt for me and has been since the original game. Having played all three games now in Polish there's no way I could listen to someone else voice Geralt. Rozenek does a great job and his portrayal of Geralt is nuanced without being flat. You really should make the switch if it all possible.
It even goes beyond that. I'm an ecologist (survey for protected wildife/environments) and I'm amazed at how much research they've put into understanding flora. Their woodlands and forests have it all - edge effect, canopy, understorey, field layer, the kind of attention to detail I WISH other open world developers would use (The Elder Scrolls in particular has always had awful forest/woodland design). Heck, they even have pollarded trees around settlements when I'll bet less than 0.1% of the players will really notice or understand them.
They've set such a high bar for environment design it's going to take a lot to be beaten.
The edge effect on forests had the biggest environmental impact for me. If you've ever lived in or been to a rural area, you'll know that the edge of this forest (which you can go entirely through, btw) looks incredibly realistic in terms of how a forest cleared out for farmland would look: