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Witcher 3 world map scale..

J

Jac_Solar

Member
CDR has been making some pretty extreme claims about Witcher 3's world, such as "2 of the areas are 52 square miles.", or that it takes 40 minutes to cross the world on horseback.

Here are some combined ingame maps of what I assume to be the main continent;

vjSBBpD.jpg


However, during the 35 minute gameplay video, the developer/player mentioned that it would take 15-20 minutes, if I recall correctly, to cross this distance on the map on a horse:

(Original image was a loading screen, or something, and has been overlayed on the maps.)

rijPtak.jpg


What's up with that?
 
V

ViZ7

Neo Member
There's another area not on these maps (Skellige Islands).
(Basically what's shown there is supposed to be approximately 2/3 of the game)
 
D

Daverid

Member
Skellige has a separate map and is about the same size.

How much of that is unexplorable water however, we don't know, but definitely the landmass of Skellige will still add a ton of extra area to equal what they've been promoting the game as having.
 
E

erawsd

Member
ViZ7 said:
There's another area not on these maps (Skellige Islands).
(Basically what's shown there is supposed to be approximately 2/3 of the game)
Click to expand...

Yep. We havent seen an in game version of that map but the leaked version of Skellige is 64sq km:

Witcher3fullmap.jpg
 
D

Daverid

Member
erawsd said:
Yep. We havent seen an in game version of that map but the leaked version of Skellige is 64sq km:
Click to expand...

Umm I know that isn't really giving away anything major, but I think it would be preferable if you just don't post/link ANYTHING from the leaked information.
 
E

erawsd

Member
Dissonance said:
That looks like two Pokémon/monsters having sex. Can't unsee
Click to expand...

b5ZHa8W.gif


Daverid said:
Umm I know that isn't really giving away anything major, but I think it would be preferable if you just don't post/link ANYTHING from the leaked information.
Click to expand...

I dont think its a big deal as long as they arent spoilers. Leaked content shows up here plenty. Plus that is freely available from a simple google search, its not like I dug it up from some weird place.
 
S

shinobi602

Member
Jac_Solar said:
CDR has been making some pretty extreme claims about Witcher 3's world, such as "2 of the areas are 52 square miles.", or that it takes 40 minutes to cross the world on horseback.

Here are some combined ingame maps of what I assume to be the main continent;


However, during the 35 minute gameplay video, the developer/player mentioned that it would take 15-20 minutes, if I recall correctly, to cross this distance on the map on a horse:


What's up with that?
Click to expand...
He was not going from one end of the map to the other end, he was in the middle of the map and was referring to traveling from that town to another waypoint marker.
 
J

Jac_Solar

Member
tghm1801 said:
They said it would take 35-40 mins to "cross the world"
That's not really crossing the world. This would be:
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was just an example; when someone says that it'll take so and so long to run "across" a map, I assume that they meant the time it took to get from one point to another in a straight line, or as the crow flies; if you include "twists and turns", especially to such a degree, then the number is pointless, since that would mean that the amount of time is completely subjective and variable, and tells you very little of the actual geographical distance, which was supposed to be the point of the "it takes 40 minutes to run across the world on a horse.".

And, I'm not trying to say that it *should* be huge, or that it'd be a bad game if it isn't: just that, if they promise 52 square miles, and deliver 25 square miles, for example, then that would be quite disappointing. And I'm not just talking about square miles of area; I also expect 52 square miles of content, or 25 square miles of content.

shinobi602 said:
He was not going from one end of the map to the other end, he was in the middle of the map and was referring to traveling from that town to another waypoint marker.
Click to expand...

Does the map extend further up?

In any case, Skyrim is probably the "biggest" full 3D game I've ever played, or, perhaps, that even exists, and it's "only" 14.8 square miles, and I doubt Witcher 3 will come anywhere close to the amount of content (I doubt they will make a lot of relatively generic dungeons and quests.).
 
E

erawsd

Member
Jac_Solar said:
Yeah, that was just an example; when someone says that it'll take so and so long to run "across" a map, I assume that they meant the time it took to get from one point to another in a straight line, or as the crow flies; if you include "twists and turns", especially to such a degree, then the number is pointless, since that would mean that the amount of time is completely subjective and variable, and tells you very little of the actual geographical distance, which was supposed to be the point of the "it takes 40 minutes to run across the world on a horse.".

And, I'm not trying to say that it *should* be huge, or that it'd be a bad game if it isn't: just that, if they promise 52 square miles, and deliver 25 square miles, for example, then that would be quite disappointing. And I'm not just talking about square miles of area; I also expect 52 square miles of content, or 25 square miles of content.



Does the map extend further up?

In any case, Skyrim is probably the "biggest" full 3D game I've ever played, or, perhaps, that even exists, and it's "only" 14.8 square miles, and I doubt Witcher 3 will come anywhere close to the amount of content (I doubt they will make a lot of relatively generic dungeons and quests.).
Click to expand...

Skyrim is no where near the biggest, its not even the biggest 3D TES games.

That said, I doubt they will fill every sq mi with content. They've talked about wanting to create more realistic landscapes. For instance, Solitude is the capital city of Skyrim, its suppose to be this massive place where most of the population live. However, what you see in game is like 9 buildings and 10s of NPCs standing around. It looks like this:

Solitude.png
Click to expand...



Novigrad is largest city in the W3 and it looks like this:

944x531.jpg


I doubt every one of those buildings has something meaningful inside but thats not the goal, the goal is to create something with appropriate size and scale to convince you that it is a real city where thousands of people could live.
 
I

inki

Member
erawsd said:
b5ZHa8W.gif




I dont think its a big deal as long as they arent spoilers. Leaked content shows up here plenty. Plus that is freely available from a simple google search, its not like I dug it up from some weird place.
Click to expand...


Where is that Gif from?
 
C

Canis lupus

Member
I'm not impressed by big maps, I don't fall for that anymore. Skyrim the poster child of "big map game" was shallow and bland, I'd rather have a smaller but more interesting world.
 
W

Wasp

Member
Canis lupus said:
I'm not impressed by big maps, I don't fall for that anymore. Skyrim the poster child of "big map game" was shallow and bland, I'd rather have a smaller but more interesting world.
Click to expand...
Agreed. During the last 20-30 hours of Skyrim I was almost bored to tears, which is a shame as I loved the first 50 or so hours. Whereas I enjoyed The Witcher II so much I played through the entire game again as soon as I finished it.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Eh, frankly it's not like the size and scale of the map would tell anything about the quality of the game anyway.
What matters in the end is the quality and pacing/distribution of the content on it.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
erawsd said:
Skyrim is no where near the biggest, its not even the biggest 3D TES games.

That said, I doubt they will fill every sq mi with content. They've talked about wanting to create more realistic landscapes. For instance, Solitude is the capital city of Skyrim, its suppose to be this massive place where most of the population live. However, what you see in game is like 9 buildings and 10s of NPCs standing around. It looks like this:





Novigrad is largest city in the W3 and it looks like this:

944x531.jpg


I doubt every one of those buildings has something meaningful inside but thats not the goal, the goal is to create something with appropriate size and scale to convince you that it is a real city where thousands of people could live.
Click to expand...

This is what I hope next-gen open-world games in general start doing. Games like Skyrim feel way too compressed.

If each individual area of Witcher 3 is around the size of Skyrim or slightly larger (as the leaks suggest), I imagine they will actually be more spaced out, with less "content" in the same around of space. The area that in Skyrim is supposed to represent an entire country will probably in Witcher 3 only represent one large city, a handful of surrounding settlements, and the wilderness in-between. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is doing the same thing. They said Episode 1's world map will be similar to Oblivion in raw size, but will actually only represent a single castle and the small town outside it plus some wilderness, rendering them at a more realistic and natural scale. Assassin's Creed Unity is kind of doing this too, with Paris at near-1.1 scale. Paris by itself in Unity will be larger than the entirety of any previous AC game.

Personally, I prefer the near-1:1 scale maps of Bohemia Interactive games like ArmA and DayZ, even if they're mostly empty and based on satellite data. I'd be really interested in seeing what an RPG would feel like on that kind of map. Some people don't like to spend too much time traveling, but I prefer the more believable and natural feel.
 
b0uncyfr0

b0uncyfr0

Member
Just watched the watch the EDX video and was it confirmed if that gameplay was console? Not trying to start a religious debate but that was very unflattering for W3 considering it doesn't even compare remotely to the multitude of other videos they've put out.

It struck me straight-away, i thought it didn't look much better than W2 at all.

Edit: That map though, i just spent an hour reading up on the history of all the countries in the Witcher wiki. Didn't even know half of those northern countries existed including the smaller ones. Reminds of Game of thrones. I get swept up in this sorta stuff easily.
 
artsi

artsi

Member
Arma 3 has pretty much spoiled me regarding map scale, from RPG's I wish more overall detail and a good story than scale for the sake of size since it alone can't impress me anyway.
 
P

Panzerkrei

Banned
Is there any actual PS4 gameplay out there? I'm currently at a crossroads as to just getting this for PS4 or upgrading my GPU from a 670 to a 970.

Would a i5 3570K/8GB RAM/970 max this at 1080p? Help me GAF I can't decide.
 
Honey Bunny

Honey Bunny

Member
Panzerkrei said:
Is there any actual PS4 gameplay out there? I'm currently at a crossroads as to just getting this for PS4 or upgrading my GPU from a 670 to a 970.

Would a i5 3570K/8GB RAM/970 max this at 1080p? Help me GAF I can't decide.
Click to expand...

You'll get much better performance on the pc with those specs, whether you can max it or not. Do overclock your cpu.
 
M

Munin

Member
RedSwirl said:
This is what I hope next-gen open-world games in general start doing. Games like Skyrim feel way too compressed.

If each individual area of Witcher 3 is around the size of Skyrim or slightly larger (as the leaks suggest), I imagine they will actually be more spaced out, with less "content" in the same around of space. The area that in Skyrim is supposed to represent an entire country will probably in Witcher 3 only represent one large city, a handful of surrounding settlements, and the wilderness in-between. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is doing the same thing. They said Episode 1's world map will be similar to Oblivion in raw size, but will actually only represent a single castle and the small town outside it plus some wilderness, rendering them at a more realistic and natural scale. Assassin's Creed Unity is kind of doing this too, with Paris at near-1.1 scale. Paris by itself in Unity will be larger than the entirety of any previous AC game.

Personally, I prefer the near-1:1 scale maps of Bohemia Interactive games like ArmA and DayZ, even if they're mostly empty and based on satellite data. I'd be really interested in seeing what an RPG would feel like on that kind of map. Some people don't like to spend too much time traveling, but I prefer the more believable and natural feel.
Click to expand...

I have always been an advocate of this more realistic approach to scale. Just Cause 2 also did it pretty well, yet still countless people whined about how two thirds of the map were just "empty". Well no shit that's how it is in real life too.
 
J

Jac_Solar

Member
erawsd said:
Skyrim is no where near the biggest, its not even the biggest 3D TES games.

That said, I doubt they will fill every sq mi with content. They've talked about wanting to create more realistic landscapes. For instance, Solitude is the capital city of Skyrim, its suppose to be this massive place where most of the population live. However, what you see in game is like 9 buildings and 10s of NPCs standing around. It looks like this:





Novigrad is largest city in the W3 and it looks like this:

944x531.jpg


I doubt every one of those buildings has something meaningful inside but thats not the goal, the goal is to create something with appropriate size and scale to convince you that it is a real city where thousands of people could live.
Click to expand...

Biggest, as in most content, stuff to do, etc. I don't think any other single player game comes close to Skyrim. "Fuel" supposedly has a 5000 square miles world, but due to the lack of variety in the environment, and stuff to do, it doesn't feel that big, at all. A large map needs a large amount of content, and, of course, a purpose (Placement of a city, or the only place where you can find some mobs, or some NPC's, or items.). Without those things, it's just an annoyance. Fuel, which has the biggest, non-randomly generated map of any single player game (I think only one or 2 MMO's have it beat; Guild Wars isn't 15,000 square miles, like the image that's floating around suggests, nor is Lord of the Rings Online 30,000 square miles -- Lotr:O, the original maps, are probably smaller than Azeroth in World of Warcraft. I think Arena and Daggerfall have "randomly" generated maps, more like a Minecraft world seed I suppose.), doesn't really feel bigger than, for example, Test Drive Unlimited.

A game world needs content and interesting stuff to make you appreciate the distance, why you went from one point to another, to make exploration fun. Basically, a game world should scale with the amount of content. I used to just want large worlds, but I've since realized that it doesn't work very well.
 
J

Jac_Solar

Member
Chev said:
That's always a bit deceptive though, since 3D TES games include the absurdly, gigantically immense Daggerfall.
Click to expand...

If you include all the games, then Daggerfall would probably be the biggest, but I think the majority of that game is randomly or "algorithmically" generated, like, my previous example, a Minecraft world seed.

As such, despite all the features, there being 15,000 towns or so, 62,000 square miles of content, playtime is rarely, if ever, mentioned about Daggerfall. The only reference I have is the howlongtobeat.com page for Daggerfall, which claims 40h for main story, 117h for main story + extras, 201h for completionists, but relatively very few people have been polled.

But square miles of land alone is quite pointless if the unique content (Including world design.) doesn't scale with it.
 
C

Chev

Member
Jac_Solar said:
If you include all the games, then Daggerfall would probably be the biggest, but I think the majority of that game is randomly or "algorithmically" generated, like, my previous example, a Minecraft world seed.
Click to expand...
Scratch that "probably". It's hard to overstate how much bigger than just about anything this is. You don't have mountains in Skyrim, you've got hills. Daggerfall can afford mountains.

Now, it turns out apart from the (actually pretty sizeable) main quest it's just padding, but that padding does provide fantastic scale 8even if that's mostly lost in games with short draw distance), if anything else. You can have mountains that are mountains and capital cities that are sprawling metropolises. That the padding isn't very interesting is not inherently a result of procedural generation, but of procedural generation at the time. Generated by something like Fuel's engine it'd already improve a lot, and there's a lot to learn from games that didn't just apply the generation to the terrain but also to gameplay and pacing, like tons of roguelikes or Dwarf Fortress, or even from curated procedural generation (where the algorithm is a tool to augment the designer's grasp instead of generating everything in autopilot).
 
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