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[mechphree]

Showing a ten minute gameplay demonstration is not a "target tender"...

They showed a PC version, people assumed the ps4 etc. versions would look just as good, it very clearly doesn't, and now we are mad about it.

The real problem comes from Ubi trying to play it off like the current footage looks just as good as the initial reveal.

this. a target render could have been just a cut scene with a message saying everything is done "in engine". Not a gameplay showing where they go into detail about the world . and the game.

 

[Mlatador]

It's very ridiculous that there's even a downgrade. Why show something that you won't be able to achieve? It's stupid, and lacks respect for the fans.

Yes, absolutely. If you don't have anything to show - don't! If the graphics don't represent the final product - don't show them either.

 

[Can Crusher]

People who believe it will look like the reveal on PC, should maybe take a look at what happened with FC 3.

 

[mechphree]

I don't think we are sure if either is the PS4 version at this point. And the creative director himself said that the game would look like the E3 2013 demo which was supposedly running on a PS4 dev kit. I'm inclined to believe him. Though the last we saw of this game before this new trailer and b-roll is the Aisha Tyler trailer...

ubi has went on record.saying it will look better then the 2013 footage, heck I.even heard better then 2012

 

[tkscz]

Clearly this topic is about whether or not Ubisoft was dishonest about how the game looks and to what degree they were being honest. No one here is arguing the game is going to be any less fun. So I'm not sure who your comment is directed at.

A chunk of the post in the thread are over the graphics downgrade. Ubi's integrity shouldn't be in question as they barely have any. They've been doing the bullshot thing for 3 generations now.

 

[foxbeldin]

What they showed at gamescom was already unimpressive. I remember coming out of the booth with a meh face.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Division will look better than WD, that is sure.

- full focus on 3 nextgen platforms
- no need to maintain dozens of NPCs and moving cars everywhere around player
- majority of NPCs that player will encounter are enemies that does not have to be unique-looking as all NPCs in WD
- environment is claustrophobic, view distance is smaller because player is dumped in cramped streets
- game prevents player to move fast (no cars, trains, boats, choppers, planes) and giving engine time to more easily manage streaming of environment assets


IMO, Division on PS4 will have worse aliasing, worse shadows, worse texture filtering in distance and maybe some pop-up. All acceptable.

To add to your list, The Division is being developed by Massive not one of the Ubisoft City Name first-party studios. Massive doesn't have a history of bullshots and huge downgrades. That gives me hope it'll still look bonkers. Then again, the higher-ups at Ubi could be pulling the strings so it might not matter in the end.

 

[Nydius]

They showed a PC version, people assumed the ps4 etc. versions would look just as good, it very clearly doesn't, and now we are mad about it.

Additionally, the part that makes me mad is that we know the PC version isn't going to look anything like the 2012 reveal despite the fact that reveal was done on PC. Based on their latest statements (linked way earlier in this thread), after they got the specs and dev kits for PS4, that became the primary platform. Then they "went back" to the PC.

The 2012 reveal was never a real game, just a series of playable bullshots.

 

[omonimo]

Why would anyone think that the console versions would look just as good as a maxed out PC version? It was never going to happen.

This bullshit will never end... So Far cry 2 & 3, crysis, what was the exact reason of the downgrade? Pc underpowered? There are deeper reason behind technical choice in a game then the conspirancies of the specs of the console . But I'm really curious to know how 6gb of gddr5 with 176 gb of bandwith unified memory & shaders can't handle features seen in the older leaks. What exactly is missed in the specs?

 

[Jedi2016]

Anyone who thinks the PC version is going to look like 2012 is setting themselves up for some serious disappointment. It will be a port of the PS4 version. Nothing more, nothing less. Higher resolution and framerate, and that's about it.

 

[chadskin]

Are we sure it was actual PS4 footage?

At the PS4 reveal in February, very likely not, E3 was probably dev kits but the September 2013 footage likely was actual footage, yeah. The game was supposed to be released 8 weeks later before it got delayed in October, so it should've been in a state to show it off on actual PS4 hardware.

Either way, even at the PS4 Feb reveal when they knew the specs of the console but likely ran the game off a PC, Ubisoft has shown the game off as "the PS4 version of Watch_Dogs", not as "the PS4 version of Watch_Dogs that's currently running off a PC and will look noticeably worse when it launches".

don't forget the Aisha Tyler trailer which everyone was allowed to believe was last gen footage.

I don't see anything in that which looks particularly different to the March 2014 footage. If it's indeed NOT last gen footage (and we'll know that when we see the last gen versions) then I think Ubisoft deserve blame for allowing everyone to get an impression they knew was false.

If the next-gen version would look THAT bad, I think the press would've mentioned it. It's certainly not helping the case Ubisoft didn't clarify which platform the footage was from but side-stepped the question by blaming it on "internal issues".

 

[Deleted member 80556]

To add to your list, The Division is being developed by Massive not one of the Ubisoft City Name first-party studios. Massive doesn't have a history of bullshots and huge downgrades. That gives me hope it'll still look bonkers. Then again, the higher-ups at Ubi could be pulling the strings so it might not matter in the end.

Well, Massive is still Ubisoft-owned, so Ubi manages their PR, and therefore they can bullshot and bullvideo it to death.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Oh. RTS games...

So, nothing still. Alright.

So? I was talking about visuals. Both those games were in the top 5 best looking games when they were released. I pretty much bought Ground Control purely for the visuals when it released, though the game was a pretty good one.

 

[Betta Lines]

Anyone who thinks the PC version is going to look like 2012 is setting themselves up for some serious disappointment. It will be a port of the PS4 version. Nothing more, nothing less. Higher resolution and framerate, and that's about it.

Are you sure about that? Recent Ubisoft releases have seen special enhancements on the PC version, going beyond resolution and framerate. See Splinter Cell Blacklist and AC Black Flag.

 

[DrBo42]

So who is still getting this game?

I'm completely open to a purchase based on community impressions and reviews. I'm still mighty butthurt over how shitty the lighting is now but I could forgive it if the gameplay is stellar.

 

[iceatcs]

Are you sure about that? Recent Ubisoft releases have seen special enhancements on the PC version, going beyond resolution and framerate. See Splinter Cell Blacklist and AC Black Flag.

NVIDIA-exclusive you mean?

 

[Jedi2016]

Are you sure about that? Recent Ubisoft releases have seen special enhancements on the PC version, going beyond resolution and framerate. See Splinter Cell Blacklist and AC Black Flag.

And did AC4 magically end up looking like its CGI trailer? Of course not. It looks like the PS4 version. If you're expecting a 2014>2012 upgrade in graphics, you're going to end up a sad panda.

 

[ArkkAngel007]

Anyone who thinks the PC version is going to look like 2012 is setting themselves up for some serious disappointment. It will be a port of the PS4 version. Nothing more, nothing less. Higher resolution and framerate, and that's about it.

While the game will likely not have all of those assets present and bring what so many still seem to expect, PC is the lead platform, not the PS4.

 

[blastprocessor]

What did they show on Jimmy Fallon' show? Was it a PS4 controller connected to a dev kit?

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

 

[Nydius]

While the game will likely not have all of those assets present and bring what so many still seem to expect, PC is the lead platform, not the PS4.

Except, as was pointed out on page 3 of this very thread:

And the PC version scales based on the sort of computer you're running it on, though the team made the decision "not too scale down too much," Guay said.

"I mean you can always say we support a 10-year-old PC and then it's barely playable, but that's ugly," he said. "It's not really what people want to play. We didn't do that. We didn't go there. We said, ‘OK, we advertise that at the recommended setting it's going to be a good experience. It's going to look good, it's not going to look like a 10-year-old game.' So we're not going to support very old PCs. If you have very powerful PCs, then it'll scale up, and it scale up to even higher resolution, obviously, than you can have on PS4 or Xbox One. So you can have, in theory, a version that will look spectacular if you have that big screen, that high resolution capability. The game looks great on PC."

One of the reasons that's true is because development on Watch Dogs actually started for the PC first.

"When we started developing, the PS3 existed, the Xbox 360 existed, and we kind of suspected, maybe, there might be other platforms eventually," he said. "So, because we thought that would happen we chose the PC as our first target to have when we started developing Watch Dogs so that we have the flexibility to adapt to a different platform. So we were able to support 360 and PS3, but we could scale up with other platforms and to other video in the meantime, which we now know is the case. So PC has always been around for us. Sometimes it's a last-minute port of sorts. For us, it's been around since we started."

Development shifted to the next-gen consoles once the PS4 and Xbox One were announced, and then in the last eight months or so a dedicated team returned to the PC to hammer out the final details of that platform's version of the game, he said.

"So we end up having the best of both worlds basically," he said. "We're able to have good usability on PC and on console."

The bold and italicized points are the most important. It started on PC strictly for the reveal and then they switched to pure console development until the last 8 months of the development cycle, when they returned to focus on the PC.

This quote in the Polygon article should give all PC players pause because they admit they put the PC version on the backburner until the console versions were near done. Despite the fact they started out on PC, the PC version will end up being a glorified port.

 

[Bluekaveli]

Division will look better than WD, that is sure.

- full focus on 3 nextgen platforms
- no need to maintain dozens of NPCs and moving cars everywhere around player
- majority of NPCs that player will encounter are enemies that does not have to be unique-looking as all NPCs in WD
- environment is claustrophobic, view distance is smaller because player is dumped in cramped streets
- game prevents player to move fast (no cars, trains, boats, choppers, planes) and giving engine time to more easily manage streaming of environment assets


IMO, Division on PS4 will have worse aliasing, worse shadows, worse texture filtering in distance and maybe some pop-up. All acceptable.

So why will the PS4 version be the worst?

 

[Camp Lo]

While the game will likely not have all of those assets present and bring what so many still seem to expect, PC is the lead platform, not the PS4.

Pretty much.

 

[DieH@rd]

To add to your list, The Division is being developed by Massive not one of the Ubisoft City Name first-party studios. Massive doesn't have a history of bullshots and huge downgrades. That gives me hope it'll still look bonkers. Then again, the higher-ups at Ubi could be pulling the strings so it might not matter in the end.

530MB video of Division from Gamersyde showcases really surprising amount of aliasing, and the game visuals are not THAT crazy. They managed to hit excellent art-style, and they smartly crammed a lot of assets in small environment. It would be interesting to see how rest of the game will end up.

 

[plagiarize]

If the next-gen version would look THAT bad, I think the press would've mentioned it. It's certainly not helping the case Ubisoft didn't clarify which platform the footage was from but side-stepped the question by blaming it on "internal issues".

Do you honestly think it looks worse than the b-roll and story trailer footage going back and looking at it now? Compare NPC to NPC, lighting and atmosphere etc and I'd say they're about the same.

 

[TyrantII]

What's going on here is just NeoGAF hyperbole and arrogance.

I'll take that over cynicism and false marketing directed at your consumers.

Publishers need to realize you get the good with the bad. You show something that tickles the imagination of gamers and can't execute, tough beans when GAF blows up and makes it a story.

Welcome to the marketplace.

 

[Nzyme32]

I can see your point, however I am not in total agreement. Nvidia was a partner for AC IV and had several PC only effects, particularly Nvidia only effects (PhysX, TXAA, etc...) but all in all the difference between the PC version and the XBO/PS4 versions (resolution and framerate aside) is not all the big.

Ah fair enough, still haven't played it

 

[Yoda]

So who is still getting this game?

I was going to wait for reviews due to the fact that most GTA like games are lackluster as best. Only one I've liked that came out recently was Sleeping Dogs, rest of them felt like a watered down rip-off (Saints Row)

 

[Betta Lines]

NVIDIA-exclusive you mean?

Yes.

And did AC4 magically end up looking like its CGI trailer? Of course not. It looks like the PS4 version. If you're expecting a 2014>2012 upgrade in graphics, you're going to end up a sad panda.

You're making two points, one that you can't expect it to look like the 2012 trailer, and one that Watch_Dogs PC will be only the PS4 version with a higher resolution and framerate. I was disputing the second point. Do you have any evidence that this is the case?

 

[Raydeen]

Same thing that happened to lots of games. Trade show reveal that was never going to be possible on retail hardware.

You thought they would have learned after Colonial Marines...

 

[fasTRapid]

Sorry for the incoming megapost. Read the last few pages and had some objections to add:

It's moving less but the shots are from totally different locations and could be result of less wind, tweaked physics to make it look more realistic and so on.

Of course stripping down the physics simulation to only add a little moving (noticeably less than before) to the lower body part is adding realism.

Spoiler

/s

It might look that good on PC, maybe. Certainly not console.

I'd disagree with this. nvidia are still partnered with the PC version of Watch Dogs, I doubt this would be their first partnered game to not be a graphical showcase.

Why would anyone think that the console versions would look just as good as a maxed out PC version? It was never going to happen.

I don't get this. At all. Show me one PC version that blows the PS4 version out of the water. For the most part the only differences can be spotted in details such as res, AA and slightly better textures. The assets are rougly 90% the same.

Both WD and Division were both revealed on beefy PC rigs, WD much before nextgen unveil.

They were both used and marketed as next-gen showcases. Moreso they wanted us to believe The Division gameplay reveal was running on a PS4, therefore the obvious showings of the DualShock 4 controller...

Also, these:

People are upset and rightly so! This shitty practise of "Target Renders", in other words, "fabricated visuals to trick your customers into believing your game looks a certain way that's not representative of the final product" is pretty outrageous. EVEN MORE SO if companies have the nerve to sell those target renders as actual gameplay. This is deception at its finest!

Target Renders should be banned from previews/from the E3 stage once and for all.

OR they need to be labeled as such: "This is not real gameplay footage", "These are not the final graphics", "This is not running on target hardware" etc. Publishers should stop demoing those fake "target renders" with real console controllers, only to make it look like they are playing the game on target hardware. This is some borderline deceptive bullshit!

Do they think gamers are stupid and will never find out or be ok with it? Ubisoft deserve all the flak they get and hopefully serve as an example for other publishers, which clearly are to blame as well.

#SayNoToTargetRenders
#StopFalseAdvertisement

Additionally, the part that makes me mad is that we know the PC version isn't going to look anything like the 2012 reveal despite the fact that reveal was done on PC. Based on their latest statements (linked way earlier in this thread), after they got the specs and dev kits for PS4, that became the primary platform. Then they "went back" to the PC.

The 2012 reveal was never a real game, just a series of playable bullshots.

Anyone who thinks the PC version is going to look like 2012 is setting themselves up for some serious disappointment. It will be a port of the PS4 version. Nothing more, nothing less. Higher resolution and framerate, and that's about it.

And did AC4 magically end up looking like its CGI trailer? Of course not. It looks like the PS4 version. If you're expecting a 2014>2012 upgrade in graphics, you're going to end up a sad panda.

Amen.

 

[Dubz]

My biggest issue is the mini map covering the main character when he ducks. WTF is up with that?

 

[Jedi2016]

You're making two points, one that you can't expect it to look like the 2012 trailer, and one that Watch_Dogs PC will be only the PS4 version with a higher resolution and framerate. I was disputing the second point. Do you have any evidence that this is the case?

Of course not, no one does, as you knew damn well when you asked it. But I do have the evidence of previous Ubisoft games, including FarCry3 and AC4. Especially FC3... this same discussion happened then during that "downgrade-gate" discussion, people hoping against hope that the PC version would redeem, and that it would be just what they showed us the previous year. And it wasn't. It was exactly the same, just 1080p/60. All the same downgrades, especially in lighting (which is the big complaint about WD as well) were still there in the PC version.

And I don't think the PC version of AC4 looks any different from the PS4 version. Even looking at Digital Foundry's comparisons, the only thing I can see is slightly better AA on extremely small/distant details, that can really only been seen on zoom-in. That's the kind of thing I'm expecting from WD. And, as I understand it, AC4's v-sync implementation means that if you can't hit 60fps all the time, the game locks at 30fps anyway. My monitor tops out at 1080p, and my 3D drivers prevent me from downsampling, so what's the upgrade then? 1080p/30 > 1080p/30?

We'll see what DF has to say about it, and I think you'll find I'm right, and there won't be any appreciable differences at all between next-gen and PC versions of this game.

 

[UnrealEck]

I don't get this. At all. Show me one PC version that blows the PS4 version out of the water. For the most part the only differences can be spotted in details such as res, AA and slightly better textures. The assets are rougly 90% the same.

They're likely referring mostly about the 2012 reveal of Watch Dogs.
No one really knows whether or not the 2012 footage can be run on a PS4 or XboxOne at an acceptable frame rate. People essentially saying that Ubisoft have had to downgrade the graphics from the 2012 reveal of the PC version to what we're seeing in more recent footage are going on assumption.

 

[Camp Lo]

People are upset and rightly so! This shitty practise of "Target Renders", in other words, "fabricated visuals to trick your customers into believing your game looks a certain way that's not representative of the final product" is pretty outrageous. EVEN MORE SO if companies have the nerve to sell those target renders as actual gameplay. This is deception at its finest!

Target Renders should be banned from previews/from the E3 stage once and for all.

OR they need to be labeled as such: "This is not real gameplay footage", "These are not the final graphics", "This is not running on target hardware" etc. Publishers should stop demoing those fake "target renders" with real console controllers, only to make it look like they are playing the game on target hardware. This is some borderline deceptive bullshit!

Do they think gamers are stupid and will never find out or be ok with it? Ubisoft deserve all the flak they get and hopefully serve as an example for other publishers, which clearly are to blame as well.

#SayNoToTargetRenders
#StopFalseAdvertisement

I whole-fucking-heartedly agree with this.

 

[plagiarize]

Of course not, no one does, as you knew damn well when you asked it. But I do have the evidence of previous Ubisoft games, including FarCry3 and AC4. Especially FC3... this same discussion happened then during that "downgrade-gate" discussion, people hoping against hope that the PC version would redeem, and that it would be just what they showed us the previous year. And it wasn't. It was exactly the same, just 1080p/60. All the same downgrades, especially in lighting (which is the big complaint about WD as well) were still there in the PC version.

And I don't think the PC version of AC4 looks any different from the PS4 version. Even looking at Digital Foundry's comparisons, the only thing I can see is slightly better AA on extremely small/distant details, that can really only been seen on zoom-in. That's the kind of thing I'm expecting from WD. And, as I understand it, AC4's v-sync implementation means that if you can't hit 60fps all the time, the game locks at 30fps anyway. My monitor tops out at 1080p, and my 3D drivers prevent me from downsampling, so what's the upgrade then? 1080p/30 > 1080p/30?

We'll see what DF has to say about it, and I think you'll find I'm right, and there won't be any appreciable differences at all between next-gen and PC versions of this game.

The PC version of AC4 also has much nicer ambient occlusion, for what it's worth. It's subtle (as it should be) and one of the best AO techniques I've seen.

 

[fasTRapid]

They're talking about Watch Dogs, particularly the 2012 reveal, not other games.

Yes, but as of right now and Ubisoft's history of previous PC ports, I don't see absolutely no reason to believe that the 2012 reveal will ever happen. What reason is there to believe that suddenly a publisher who is notorious for badly optimized PC ports that only add the aforementioned details over the console releases now happens to change an entire trend?

 

[chadskin]

Do you honestly think it looks worse than the b-roll and story trailer footage going back and looking at it now? Compare NPC to NPC, lighting and atmosphere etc and I'd say they're about the same.

It looks worse than GTA V in that Aisha Tyler trailer, there's just no way they'd put something like that on next-gen. One of the more apparent differences for me is that her face looks lower poly and lower detail, compared to NPCs from the March PS4 trailer and b-roll footage. Animations are also worse and the building in the background at the beginning of the trailer is just... last-gen.

Oddly enough, though, the trailer is in 1080p.

 

[Pain]

So who is still getting this game?

Me most likely.

 

[UnrealEck]

Yes, but as of right now and Ubisoft's history of previous PC ports, I don't see absolutely no reason to believe that the 2012 reveal will ever happen. What reason is there to believe that suddenly a publisher who is notorious for badly optimized PC ports that only add the aforementioned details over the console releases now happens to change an entire trend?

I added a bit to my previous post. Anything which implies Ubisoft downgraded the PC graphics because of consoles is an assumption and I agree that assumption is built upon their previous release (namely Far Cry 3 as I can't think of any other games they've done this downgrade with).
Which games are have been notoriously badly optimised on PC from Ubisoft?

 

[iMax]

They're likely referring mostly about the 2012 reveal of Watch Dogs.
No one really knows whether or not the 2012 footage can be run on a PS4 or XboxOne at an acceptable frame rate. People essentially saying that Ubisoft have had to downgrade the graphics from the 2012 reveal of the PC version to what we're seeing in more recent footage are going on assumption.

I've seen the E3 2013 demo running beautifully (and in real time) behind closed doors – and it looked just as gorgeous as I expected. It was on a devkit, though.

 

[plagiarize]

It looks worse than GTA V in that Aisha Tyler trailer, there's just no way they'd put something like that on next-gen. One of the more apparent differences for me is that her face looks lower poly and lower detail, compared to NPCs from the March PS4 trailer and b-roll footage. Animations are also worse and the building in the background at the beginning of the trailer is just... last-gen.

Oddly enough, though, the trailer is in 1080p.

some buildings look last gen esque in the March 2014 trailer too. pedestrians look about the same as Aisha to me, in what I've been able to see of them, though they're almost impossible to spot in the story trailer, and the b-roll footage doesn't get nearly as close to any of them as they get to the Aisha model, so it is difficult to say with any certainty.

 

[xBladeM6x]

I'm assuming this -

- is 360/PS3. If it's PC then this is all I have to say.

 

[Setsuna]

Everytime i see someone in this thread post thewords atmospheric and graphics together i die a little inside

 

[Bluekaveli]

I'm assuming this -

- is 360/PS3. If it's PC then this is all I have to say.

It has to be man, it has to be.

 

[Betta Lines]

We'll see what DF has to say about it, and I think you'll find I'm right, and there won't be any appreciable differences at all between next-gen and PC versions of this game.

A bold claim, we shall see.

 

[deadpixel]

The default color for the the DS4 when plugged into a PC is Yellow.

 

[RulkezX]

The default color for the the DS4 when plugged into a PC is Yellow.

Iirc isnt it also yellow when your playing PS4 and the pad is charging ?

 

[iMax]

Iirc isnt it also yellow when your playing PS4 and the pad is charging ?

yup

 

[plumpblumpkin]

What truly pisses me off and completely boggles my mind is how Ubisoft can continue to say that it looks BETTER than the E3 2012 and 2013 walkthroughs/videos when CLEARLY from the latest trailer it DOES NOT. Any normal human being with a working set of eyes can see that.

How the actual fuck can you get away with saying shit like that? At least be honest about it.

I really hope they fucking blow my mind come release and I start playing on my PC..

 

[Betta Lines]

Do people really believe that Division sequence was being played in realtime on anything?