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

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Exploration-based open-world games need to be huge.

There has to be big, mostly empty, sections for the actual important discoveries to feel earned and have meaning.

Skyrim wasn't empty ENOUGH.

The content wasnt good enough for how empty it was already. Exploration and large distances between areas only adds to the experience if the stories and experiences at the destinations is good since procedural event planning is still not very good in video games, so "on the road" encounters tend to be pretty shallow.
 

Biker19

Banned
That's gonna be a lot of exploring.

I just love open world games. Tons of NPC's, enemies on screen, highly populated & detailed, etc.
 

Valnen

Member
Exploration-based open-world games need to be huge.

There has to be big, mostly empty, sections for the actual important discoveries to feel earned and have meaning.

Skyrim wasn't empty ENOUGH.

If you're only making "discoveries" very occasionally the game becomes boring very very quickly.
 
A couple of things... one, Skellige is an archipelago, a line of barren and windswept islands off the coast of Cidaris. So, there's going to be a lot of water and lot of rock included in that 8x8km.

As for Novigrad, it is pretty much the premier city in the Witcherverse, so it makes sense that they'd give it special consideration. That said, c'mon, obviously they're not going to create an uninterrupted 8.5x8.5km city -- there's every reason to expect that there's going to be gating to funnel you between the various interesting parts of the city with large swathes of the city being inaccessible to Geralt.

Did not know that about Skellige, thanks.
 
I believe in Less is more. How much time is it gonna take me to do missions and explore? Thats my main problem with open world games now is the mundane shit like travel. But if there's any time to release a huge game its early n the gen when theres little else to play.
 

gemoran4

Member
I really don't like it when games brag about stuff like this. I would rather have a densely populated/detailed world that is smaller than a massive one that is empty.

I agree, even skyrim to me felt kind of empty and uninteractive for the most part. I can't imagine witcher 3's world is going to have much attention to detail at that scale.
 

Sakura

Member
So those cities are that big? That's amazing. I hate playing RPGs where you go to a supposedly huge city or capital of a nation or whatever, and it's like, 100 houses.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
That's actually quite scary. CDPR doesn't have experience with complelty open worlds like that, I worry they may try for something to large and fail.


Godspeed to them though.
 

daniels

Member
That is quite a large place for many possible fights with a shit combat system .... :/ ...hopefully they actually make the combat good this time..
 

Dire

Member
I don't think this is inherently good news in a vacuum.

A world that size is not going to be hand crafted. The vast majority is just going to be procedurally generated filler.

Daggerfall, which was the second entry in the Elder Scrolls series, was thousands of miles large and had literally infinite quests. Bethesda quickly realized bigger isn't necessarily better and massively scaled back later entries. The vastness necessitated blandness.

In any case it should be interesting to see how they manage.
 

HeelPower

Member
Stating the obvious but

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Sentenza

Member
I hate that. I know they need to sell as many copies as possible but the recap stuff is always terribly watered down with a lot of great stuff left out
Well, it's not really their fault.
People pretending to jump into a saga with the third chapter without missing anything are ridiculous.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Really? I mean, that's your call, but man, I'd have given up games a long time ago if that was the case. Story over gameplay? In video games? Holy shit, dude.

Well if course gameplay isn't irrelevant. I was just saying I don't like gameplay focused games. I can't get I to stuff like platformers that are pretty much all gameplay and no story beyond a light save the world/princess fluff.

Similarly, if I'm playing a game like skyrim I don't waste time exploring the world. I do the guild quests and other side story quests, the main story quests and any story DLC quests and use fast travel every chance I get. I like the questing, check loot and scale of the world still, the the gameplay matters--though I hate the combat and play on easy. But it's the stories that keep me going.

But yeah, gaming is something I've teetered on giving up for a few years now as I do enjoy movies, tv and books more the older, busier and more stressed out I get as they're easier to relax and veg out with than something interactive like games. I've been able to keep going by focusing more on narrative driven games, avoiding hard games etc.

I won't play a game with gameplay I hate of course. But I also mostly don't play gameplay focused games with littler or no story. With my limited time/interest in games then really have to have at least a good, if not great, story and gameplay I find fun.
 

Cyrano

Member
Given that Witcher 3 will be huge, what I really want to know is whether or not they will be releasing tools for other creators to use in modding the game. A game world that large will simply have real limits as to how much and how deep content can be with a time and money-limited team. A huge part of Skyrim's success was a result of being given tools to make it have a long-lasting community.
 
You can see the presentation (Solving Visibility and Streaming in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with Umbra 3“) video from GDC14 that the information in this thread is being referred from
originally right here with footage from the game and more details about the RedEngine.
 

pestul

Member
I actually like a few open and 'quiet' areas. As long as they look really nice and there is some interaction.. I don't want every area to be crawling with quests/creatures/a-holes.
 
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