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The Witcher 3 from above

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.

Those are awesome observations. As more and more open world games come out I wonder if they'll start hiring experts like yourself?
 
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.

You know, I see they are hiring a urban planner for Cyberpunk 2077, I wonder if they hired an ecologist for the Witcher 3\
 

SomTervo

Member
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.

Damn. I'm playing on PS4. Got it on release - a few months before I built my gaming PC.

I'm still OK with Geralt's English voice, but it could be a million times better. I can imagine how much better the Polish version must be. Similar to how Heavy Rain is definitive in French.

You know, I see they are hiring a urban planner for Cyberpunk 2077, I wonder if they hired an ecologist for the Witcher 3\

And they say Cyberpunk 2077 is also the biggest game they have ever made T_T
 

Lunar15

Member
I need to do this with Kaer Morhen. It's a small map, but probably the most breathtaking in my opinion.

And they say Cyberpunk 2077 is also the biggest game they have ever made T_T

I still hope this means city depth. I'm fine with a smaller map than witcher as long as I can go into way more buildings. That'd make more sense for an open world city game.
 
There's a fascinating short story in one of the books where Geralt is asked by a king to act as an ambassador to the ancient forest kingdom of Brokilon. He spends days venturing to the ancient and peaceful Dryads in the heart of the woods, and passes on his message: "Allow humans to expand into the forest, and the king promises a small section of the forest will be left completely untouched, for Dryads to remain unharmed and unhindered by humans." Naturally the Dryads refuse, but this is such a common example of how we act in the real world. It's practically my job in a nutshell. I survey a large area of countryside/woodland proposed for housing development, find protected species like great crested newts, badgers, bats, barn owls, dormice, what have you, and the developers have to "mitigate" by leaving a pathetically small patch of that environment intact and protected from that day onwards for the wildlife to enjoy. Not even remotely a good deal for them, but they can't exactly complain about it in a court.

It was essential that these games focus so much on environmental design. The books are love letters to nature, and hate mail to humanity.

The real sad part is how they often complain about having to leave anything untouched at all.
 
The real sad part is how they often complain about having to leave anything untouched at all.

I like it when developers in my area (south east England) frequently mention that newts can't be threatened because they're always having to leave land for them. I have to choose between informing them that the south east is pretty much the only area great crested newts are likely to be found these days, or suggesting that humans seem to be doing alright as well so perhaps we should just bulldoze over some of them instead.
 

SomTervo

Member
I need to do this with Kaer Morhen. It's a small map, but probably the most breathtaking in my opinion.

I still hope this means city depth. I'm fine with a smaller map than witcher as long as I can go into way more buildings. That'd make more sense for an open world city game.

There was a thread about it – IIRC they said it is bigger in every way. Bigger gameplay, bigger world, bigger ambition re detail, bigger story, bigger choices.

Pretty mind-numbing prospect. TW3 was already unprecedented.

My two pence – I think the world will be bigger than TW3's, but as you say, not in width breadth. Perhaps it will be as wide/broad as Velen/Novigrad – but I think it is mainly going to be very tall rather than very wide. A towering metropolis. Probably something like the city from Transmetropolitan.
 

Dishy

Unconfirmed Member
Damn. I'm playing on PS4. Got it on release - a few months before I built my gaming PC.

I'm still OK with Geralt's English voice, but it could be a million times better. I can imagine how much better the Polish version must be. Similar to how Heavy Rain is definitive in French.



And they say Cyberpunk 2077 is also the biggest game they have ever made T_T


In the European PSN store you can download other languages (Polish as well I think) for Witcher 3, don't know about XBL or US PSN
 

benzy

Member
I didn't know about this. It certainly makes sense that they would have some world building tool.

World Machine is great. FFXV is using it too.

Depends the aspect ratio but otherwise pretty good as the engine is really, really fucking optimised at culling and scaling content, since it wont render AI and other details in full until the avatar is near. So I can enable free cam and fly and fly all the way to the other side of the map without a stutter or load.

That's awesome. Wish there was a way to mod a freecam for consoles.
 

Lunar15

Member
There was a thread about it – IIRC they said it is bigger in every way. Bigger gameplay, bigger world, bigger ambition re detail, bigger story, bigger choices.

Pretty mind-numbing prospect. TW3 was already unprecedented.

My two pence – I think the world will be bigger than TW3's, but as you say, not in width breadth. Perhaps it will be as wide/broad as Velen/Novigrad – but I think it is mainly going to be very tall rather than very wide. A towering metropolis. Probably something like the city from Transmetropolitan.

Thaaaaaat's basically what I want.
 

btags

Member
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!!

Aren't continents in the real world just roped in by water?
 

jesu

Member
There was a thread about it – IIRC they said it is bigger in every way. Bigger gameplay, bigger world, bigger ambition re detail, bigger story, bigger choices.

Pretty mind-numbing prospect. TW3 was already unprecedented.

My two pence – I think the world will be bigger than TW3's, but as you say, not in width breadth. Perhaps it will be as wide/broad as Velen/Novigrad – but I think it is mainly going to be very tall rather than very wide. A towering metropolis. Probably something like the city from Transmetropolitan.

There was a thread but it was far from clear if the guy meant a bigger world.

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1120920
 

Ceadeus

Member
I just can not wait to tackle this game on PC. PS4 version is very good imo but it's going to be something else once I finish my build.
 

Coreda

Member
I can take some more shots later that are closer, higher resolution. Here's one half of Novigrad/Velen I tool earlier (or less than half, really).

1xku6e.png

Wonder how different it would look with the LoD pushed to its limit. From that height looks like the roads in Novigrad haven't loaded.

Loved exploring the north east of the map expanded in HoS.
 
It's amazing that the engine actually handles this use-case gracefully and actually looks like satellite/aerial photography rather than just a bunch of clipping broken lighting mess puke.
 

enigmatic_alex44

Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
Eh...

Cute but not nearly as impressive as what Xenoblade Chronicles X pulled off
NKq0BiQ.gif
 

lilltias

Member
This is very very cool and yeah, World Machine is great. I used it for most if the levels in World in Conflict. It is a widely used game dev tool.
 

iz.podpolja

Neo Member
Eh...

Cute but not nearly as impressive as what Xenoblade Chronicles X pulled off
NKq0BiQ.gif

I think you missed the point - it's about the terrain seen from way above looking like aerial/satellite photos, underlining the realistic composition of the world. And XCX is on the opposite side of the spectrum in this regard - by design.
 

Lunar15

Member
Eh...

Cute but not nearly as impressive as what Xenoblade Chronicles X pulled off
NKq0BiQ.gif

I'm enjoying XBX, but I still think XB had the more interesting and better designed world. XBX is scale for scale's sake, but you get a mech so even the scale doesn't really stay impressive. The world feels really small and largely uninteresting.

Anywho, this thread's more about witcher 3's ability to emulate a realistic map in design, which XBX doesn't even have the intention of doing. It's an alien planet. It excels in other areas.

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!!

Kaer Morhen map boxes you in with mountains you can't climb. The Velen Map actually isn't boxed in by water in the top right, but rather will notify you when you've gone too far.
 
I think you missed the point - it's about the terrain seen from way above looking like aerial/satellite photos, underlining the realistic composition of the world. And XCX is on the opposite side of the spectrum in this regard - by design.

You are giving too much credit here. That's one of those predictable posters that have but a handful of things to say, don't bother yourself with the content of the post, you probably read it already yesterday. The thread could literally be about the pets of the developers and it wouldn't matter.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I think you missed the point - it's about the terrain seen from way above looking like aerial/satellite photos, underlining the realistic composition of the world. And XCX is on the opposite side of the spectrum in this regard - by design.
Read his tag. I dare say it is safe to ignore whatever this guy posts.
 

TheKeyPit

Banned
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.

Oh man, I tried playing it in polish for about 10 minutes and it reminded me instantly of the somewhat weird synchronization from polish television. Bad memories.
 
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