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Scale of map size in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Short fan video, shared by erawsd in another thread, that I thought people might miss and get a kick out of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFfTSs2309k

Briefly shows some traversal footage captured by Gamespot alongside the world map, with an indicator to show where Geralt's going and finally the scope of the map entire as a point of comparison.
 
Hopefully there's enough interesting content to support the massive size, we shall see soon enough.

First reaction though was that the open world should finally solve the series's terrible pathfinding issues. The first game had issues with it but the Witcher 2's main flaw was how many completely nonsensical barriers blocked off obvious routes causing you to take the annoying long way around everything. Navigation was just a chore.
 

Buzzbrad

Member
That wasn't impressive until the very end.

Yeah exactly when they zoomed out I was like:

mog1.gif
 

Verder

Member
Please have good quality though. Quantity is nice and all but if it's all lacking quality than just give me a smaller map.

I got faith in cd projekt though
 

Exentryk

Member
Don't forget you can also dive underwater, travel via boat, explore underground areas like Novigrad sewers, caves etc.

And I've been really enjoying the ambience, the wind effects, the wildlife, and the music in these videos. Feels really atmospheric!
 
Ergh another large game I will never get time to play, already have GTAV and Dragon Age Inquisition in my backlog!

Maybe I should stop playing DC and Diablo 3 for a bit....
 
This game desperately needs a first person horse riding view. Looks like a decent amount of gameplay time will be spent horseback riding and the last thing I want to stare at during that time is the horses ass.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
This kind of stuff really makes me wish my efforts to get into the series haven't been failures. One day I will play these games, even if it is ten years from now.
 

takriel

Member
CD Projekt Red I know you read this thread. You've done a great job with Witcher 3. And I will gladly buy it :) Keep being awesome!
 

Dark_castle

Junior Member
Luckily Xenoblade X won't be here at least for another good 4 to 5 months. Give me time to take down this beast and some of the games on my backlog.
 
I'm an 'on foot, running around Fellowshio of the Ring style' kinda player. Don't need no smelly horses yo.... it will take forever to get somewhere and I love it!
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Will it be like this, full of legends? Or just alot of empty spaces?

Here's the Skellige Isles map (one of two main open worlds) with an overlay of a map snapshot with a bunch of locations/points of interests uncovered.

mapfkxnk.jpg
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Empty space is important too. It helps define the atmosphere and believable spacing between points of interest, and allows moments of agency driven downtime between climaxes. Excessive content density can undermine believable scale and spacing and can run the risk of making such content shallow and repetitive.

Here's White Orchard, the prologue area, with points of interest.

witch1zlkoy.jpg
 

Skitso78

Member
This.

Having a huge world alone isn't interesting if you're just riding your horse across vast stretches of very pretty emptiness.

I don't know, I kinda prefer some isolation and feeling of loneliness in my open world games. For example, it felt overdone to always have multiple ships sailing around you, islands, ship wrecks and other POI's in Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I missed the loneliness and openness of vast seas and I hope Witcher 3 gets it right.
 

Sjefen

Member
I don't know, I kinda prefer some isolation and feeling of loneliness in my open world games. For example, it felt overdone to always have multiple ships sailing around you, islands, ship wrecks and other POI's in Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I missed the loneliness and openness of vast seas and I hope Witcher 3 gets it right.

I personally like Skyrim approach with alot to do and find, but can understand your point as well. I think Witcher 3 will find the middle ground for both of us..
 

Sjefen

Member
Here's the Skellige Isles map (one of two main open worlds) with an overlay of a map snapshot with a bunch of locations/points of interests uncovered.

mapfkxnk.jpg

Seems to me not so stuffed as Skyrim but using the extra space to their advantage, having more room around the legends/objectives/?
 

Kezen

Banned
I'm not impressed by raw scale because to a degree it comes at the expense of singularity and attention to detail.
 

Kiko

Member
It is indeed impressive. However, as others said, they somehow have to fill the map. I imagine it to be much like Skyrim. It is not for everybody, I can understand. Some people might feel lost in such a big world. Guess we have to wait for the embargo to see if they can really prove what they said about their "living world".
 

Venom Fox

Banned
Wow, I was just about to post that the map didn't look that big and I thought it was supposed to be 2x or more the size of skyrim.

I leave this thread impressed! Thanks Eatchildren!
 

Overside

Banned
Nice, I seriously doubt the '?' marks are the only points of actual interest, just the ones shown so far. It doesnt need to be huge, Id rather it be decent sized and well designed, then huge and feel procedural.

Love it when games use a decent fov. On I guess a related note...

I was honestly expecting less jarring lod streaming. Is this a vid of the console version or something?

No that its anything I cant get used to. Id much rather deal with that then narrowing the field of view to the rather pathetic standards of 90% of the last generation.


I don't know, I kinda prefer some isolation and feeling of loneliness in my open world games. For example, it felt overdone to always have multiple ships sailing around you, islands, ship wrecks and other POI's in Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I missed the loneliness and openness of vast seas and I hope Witcher 3 gets it right.

There absolutely needs to be a balance. It builds anxiety, tension, and anticipation. Its like the rests in music. You need them to actually form a recognizable melody, not everythng can be making noise all the time, it would just be a cacophonic mess.

I think I lot of games miss this when trying to add content. We end up getting a lot of games that are just design noise.
 

DOWN

Banned
Will it be like this, full of legends? Or just alot of empty spaces?

10044-1-1329468436.jpg

This.

Having a huge world alone isn't interesting if you're just riding your horse across vast stretches of very pretty emptiness.
Disgusting. Nothing ruins an open world faster than slapping POIs at every chance location a player might've had to feel like they were traversing alone in the wild. Skyrim and Red Dead had zero places that felt like actual isolation or countryside. You couldn't stand anywhere without a POI in view and you couldn't ride a full minute taking in the journey on the land without being at another cabin or camp or ruin.

I need some space, and Skyrim absolutely did not give it.

Can't stand people who ask for density when I haven't had a AAA that gives me believable scale yet. Thanks to lame push for density.
 

red720

Member
I hope it is structured more like an Elder Scrolls game where you can just sort of wander an do your own thing without the main story becoming too pressing untill you get a way into it.

I'm guessing based on the other games, and given the fact that you are playing as a fixed character this isn't the case though.
 

misho8723

Banned
I hope it is structured more like an Elder Scrolls game where you can just sort of wander an do your own thing without the main story becoming too pressing untill you get a way into it.

I'm guessing based on the other games, and given the fact that you are playing as a fixed character this isn't the case though.

Well, that's why the Witcher games are know for - the quality of stories, characters, dialogs, choices & consenquences, etc.. and I liked that

They have build the world around the quests, not quests around the world like other games - like for example Skyrim
 
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