The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Carfax83]

So the actual 100% gold retail build is being held back till release on the 19th and not a minute before - why? What are the devs hiding?

I doubt they're hiding anything. They're working on it till the very last minute, likely adjusting parameters and the such, and hopefully improving asset quality.

 

[RockinZ28]

Everything I've seen so far seems to indicate the graphics will be a major letdown. Still hoping that isn't the case, and that the game is at an absolute minimum on par with 2015 AAA graphics. Just adds to the immersion imo, and certainly something we'll want with a 100+ hr game.

Even if it turns out not to be the case and the graphics are indeed mediocre, still going to play the crap out of it. Provided all the other things like gameplay mechanics, performance and bugs aren't an issue.

Just finished my 2nd play through of Witcher 2 last night. Great experience, but man so many CTD's and bugs. Combat could be a real exercise in frustration at times. Not sure I can do that again for a game that could take 2-3 times as long to complete.

 

[zinfamous]

I don't think CDPR is the last remaining top tier dev. Bioware really surprised me with the PC version of Dragon Age Inquisition. It was an excellent port, and had exceptional graphics despite it's cross gen status.

Then you have Rocksteady, Crytek, Dice, Cloud Imperium and many others. If CDPR falls, then others will step up to the plate you can be assured..

I thought DAI looks amazing and plays rather well--but I wouldn't say that the PC port was exceptional: lack of great support for KB/M--game was completely designed for a gamepad. It was also built on last last gen systems--the major charge being that PS3 version seriously hindered so much of the content--Frostbite engine and the plans for an actual living War Table.

Now, I still think the game looks rather amazing and if the PS3 held it back visually on the PC, well, color me impressed.

If the consoles and especially PS3 held back content--like the fully-realized War Table, then I think that is very much worth grumbling over. At the same time, that would have been a very large aspect of the game. Making that available for one version and leaving it out of other platforms would have been a much larger PR mess, IMO.

 

[zinfamous]

Everything I've seen so far seems to indicate the graphics will be a major letdown. Still hoping that isn't the case, and that the game is at an absolute minimum on par with 2015 AAA graphics. Just adds to the immersion imo, and certainly something we'll want with a 100+ hr game.

Even if it turns out not to be the case and the graphics are indeed mediocre, still going to play the crap out of it. Provided all the other things like gameplay mechanics, performance and bugs aren't an issue.

Just finished my 2nd play through of Witcher 2 last night. Great experience, but man so many CTD's and bugs. Combat could be a real exercise in frustration at times. Not sure I can do that again for a game that could take 2-3 times as long to complete.

I just finished my first complete playthrough of TW2 (2nd attempt!) and had no bugs/problematic CTDs...

The only CTD that I would get would be clearing out saves through the load screen. I would sit there and delete dozens of those at a time--really annoying; I wish this thing would have a single quicksave file, single autosave file, and single direct save, like most games.

That would almost always crash my game, but no problems other than that.

 

[RussianSensation]

Don't know about you--but I must justify my $3k/year hardware budget!

....not really. I think, since ~1998, I have spent a total of $4-5k on computer junk.

Come on, you know that's not how it works. There are usually Low, Medium, High and Very High/Ultra settings in PC games. You didn't need to spend $3k/year on hardware to enjoy the original Far Cry 1, Metro 2033, Crysis 1, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider, etc. I think I would much prefer if those Very High/Ultra settings actually made the game look next gen even if it meant Titan X SLI would run it at 30 fps at 1080P. That wouldn't take anything away from the game looking great on Medium/High. PC offers this flexibility. In a lot of today's PC games, it's becoming very hard to notice the difference between Medium and Very High and almost impossible to notice it between High and Very High. I can understand though that for a game this vast, it was impossible to focus too much on the PC version of the game. I mean it's not like the game will be ugly but it won't be the next Crysis 3 of RPGs. CDPR focused on the gameplay and storyline and I feel they should be rewarded since so few games are released with a solid SP campaign nowadays. Games like Titanfall or Evolve are not even worth $1 to me since I'll never play them even if they had the world's best graphics for the next 10 years.

I mean Rockstar took almost 2 years to re-release GTA V and the graphics still don't look next gen imo. It's way too expensive and too hardware demanding to make an open world game that truly looks next gen with today's PS4/XB1 consoles, which means the developer has to make a separate PC version from the ground-up. Given how many PC gamers pirated TW2, I don't blame the developer. I am just a bit upset they showed one thing and the final game is different just months from release. In a lot of their promotional trailers they mixed old build with new build, which made it more difficult to notice the 'downgrade' caused by consoles. I don't think CDPR purposely downgraded the game. They probably realized early on that the original ambitions they had wouldn't be viable on XB1 and even PS4 and had to downscale their graphical effects.

From a financial / resource allocation point of view, it makes sense why PC version is a slightly improved PS4/XB1 version with GW features and not much more. Essentially we get the better controls, performance, resolution but the underlying game is likely 90% identical to the console versions - basically a repeat of AC Unity.

If that were my hobby, I'd be rather pissed about the way things seem to be moving. I'd certainly vote with my wallet.

I am voting with my wallet - not upgrading my GPUs for my resolution until a truly next gen game comes out for the PC. Not much point in wasting $ for e-peen benchmarks. Hearing that a single 280X is going to run the game at Ultra at 1080P likely means HD7970Ghz OC in CF should hit 60 fps average with ease. :thumbsup: I don't think the developer deserves to be punished since the are going beyond by providing 16 free DLCs and the expansion DLC should pack nearly 30 hours of extra gameplay. Also, the game is already on sale at many places, with discounts as much as 27% on Green Man gaming from $60 MSRP. Companies like Blizzard, EA, Activision, Rockstar would never offer a 27% discount on a title like this.

Less than $45 USD for a game so vast that is a strong contender for GOTY is a bargain imo, even with no revolutionary graphics.

But the marketing campaign was a bit disingenuous because a lot of PC gamers probably bought 970/980 and their SLI equivalents as part of the NV's game bundle for TW3 and Batman AK specifically for these games. That's why I always advocate to neverupgrade a GPU for some game out in the future. I'll never forget the HL2 delay fiasco - lesson learned. A lot of gamers might have been satisfied with their 770/780/780Ti card but decided to upgrade. It looks like the upgrade will help them but mainly for GW features, not much else.

I am sure 980 SLI and Titan X users will still be satisfied since there is always the UberSampling (DSR) that will make sure their cards are crippled

 

[zinfamous]

^ hey man, I hear ya. This isn't my bag anyway, and I've long been in the ~2years after cycle with games, anyway, because I push the midrange/value segment, and push way too long (only last October did I replace my beloved 5850--already ~1 generation old when I got it--with this 280X ). Only 3 months ago did I replace my beloved Athlon IIx4 965 BE with this Xeon e3 1231.

I'm actually quite fine with a an intense game that runs between 30-40fps consistently, as long as there are no crashes, bugs, errors, weird ass shit. crashes bother me...not much else does. I also understand why people want to push more, and won't accept anything less than the minimum 60fps (I am like this with film image and sound quality...I just have differences in game standards. just how I am).

Also--I never suggested that a Dev should be punished. I only thought that this might lead to the GPU manufacturers being punished--if demand for high-end performance drops from the major devs, and for the enthusiasts, then I think this will have an effect on the hardware people, and in the end...progress will suffer a bit. So will pricing. ...eh, probably not, though. I was just speaking out loud.

OK, well, if Bitcoin really does tank, then we'll see what happens to NvIdia/AMD


and see...my slow upgrade cycle also puts me at a disadvantage when trying to compare the segment I am looking for--I was originally going to go ~770 (having not gone NVidia for many years--only because of the timing of my upgrades seems to coincide with AMD being "on top" at that moment)...but then I started seeing the 280 and 280X offering a better price for comparable performance...ignoring the "HD"--like the 7970, because I assumed that was not R9, so old core and stuck in my my 5850 family of 4 year-old architecture...but apparently that is not the case?

so confused

 

[zinfamous]

Oh, and I did pick up Titanfall for $5 because of that crazy sale on Origin recently, even though it is mostly everything I dislike in any game: FPS + PvP--especially PvP ONLY.

...was first game I played with fully upgraded new system, after downloading for 2 hours. ...played one map for 10 minutes....then uninstalled. I don't care how good it looks, it's just a shitty type of game to me.

I agree with you 100%--more games like this need to be made. I don't want them to look like shit--they should at least be comparable to the standard and if it all possible push the boundaries...but gameplay is king.

I've posted in probably every Witcher thread here over the years--I just can't get into these games. Don't like them, have tried after many many hours in teh first 2, but just don't like it. This one...finally, looks like a real RPG to me. Witcher 1 I enjoyed quite a bit, but I got bogged down in looting, inventory, fetching, etc etc. Stupid juvenile "sex cards" really turned me off. I feel like that game was made for horny 14 year-old boys.

Witcher 2...gorgeous, solid story...but endless political bollocks with some hilarious design elements--these king dudes wear parapet belts? rofl...but That doesn't bother me. Game feels like Call of Duty with swords. I hated the rails. Hated...but I recently played through it again, and I like it quite a bit now. Probably never play it again--don't see a point to it. Story is ...OK? nothing to write home a about. Combat was pretty terrible, but I'm a fan of the character, and the fact that the game fixes your player character. I miss that. Too much choice is a bad thing, you know.

This new one looks perfect, to me. 2nd game I have ever pre-ordered--and that from a series that I never really liked (after 50 hours put into both).

 

[norseamd]

Tell me why would CDPR need to force a website to take down a PC vs PS4 comparison video if they are honorable and trustworthy as they claim they are?

 

[zinfamous]

Tell me why would CDPR need to force a website to take down a PC vs PS4 comparison video if they are honorable and trustworthy as they claim they are?

Everything in this world is not a conspiracy; and not everything really matters as much as we want to think.

Settle down, maybe?

 

[escrow4]

I actually missed the sex cards in 2 (and you couldn't get drunk), but I don't regret spending $79 over here retail for this. Last 2 years, name any other AAA single player game that easily cracked 60/70hrs+ - Inquisition, V if you really really stretch it, ?

Even this year, what else is coming out? The new Deus Ex and Just Cause probably won't be. Single player is dying and at least CD Projekt hasn't made the Witcher into AC: Unity with microtransactions. Yet anyway.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Looking through some of the YouTube videos and it looks a lot better than those screenshots are suggesting.

 

[RussianSensation]

...but then I started seeing the 280 and 280X offering a better price for comparable performance...ignoring the "HD"--like the 7970, because I assumed that was not R9, so old core and stuck in my my 5850 family of 4 year-old architecture...but apparently that is not the case?

so confused

Off-topic, but HD7950 Boost = R9 280, R9 280X = slightly overclocked HD7970 or a slightly downclocked HD7970Ghz (depending how you look at it). There is nothing wrong with what you are doing - buying games later on and keeping your GPU upgrades behind the curve since you don't need the latest and greatest GPU. The only thing I would change about your upgrade path is to get a Core i5 K series right off the bat, overclock it and not worry about CPU upgrades for 5+ years. For example, say get a Skylake i5 K and you are set for 5 years.

 

[zinfamous]

Off-topic, but HD7950 Boost = R9 280, R9 280X = slightly overclocked HD7970 or a slightly downclocked HD7970Ghz (depending how you look at it). There is nothing wrong with what you are doing - buying games later on and keeping your GPU upgrades behind the curve since you don't need the latest and greatest GPU. The only thing I would change about your upgrade path is to get a Core i5 K series right off the bat, overclock it and not worry about CPU upgrades for 5+ years. For example, say get a Skylake i5 K and you are set for 5 years.

shit man, I just bought this CPU, and I"m a buy a CPU every ~4 years type of person. I always got overclocking beasts...and yet I never, ever, never overclocked them. (product of being introduced to this stuff through people of people, and other people that learned through AT, many years ago...).

Anyhoo, my ~month of research led to me to understand that jumping on a ~$230 sale for the Xenon, you are essentially getting an i7 4750? for $100 cheaper, and as long as you have a discreet GPU, you are gold. Since I don't overclock, ever, and tend to leave my rig on for weeks without thinking, figured the Xenon made the most sense.

Now i5 is the compute power upgrade path--and is favorable over i7 for some reasons? Note: I did pass up an i5/mobo combo (was a pre-Haswell mobo--x79 or some such? and would have required a firmware flash), because I didn't want to deal with an old mobo. It was the 59something other i5.

Oh, you're saying Skylake--the new core. nvm....that's a generation that I planned to skip anyway.

 

[RussianSensation]

Hairworks - uses heavy tessellation for the effect.

Looks rather nice.

http://gfycat.com/SevereSmoggyKomododragon

"Working hand-in-hand with developer CD Projekt RED, we’ve transformed the protagonist’s hair and beard, the mane of his trusty steed (and the manes of other horses), and the fur of over three dozen monsters into dynamic, highly detailed, fully formed hair and fur that reacts realistically to movement, external forces, dynamic lighting, and shadows. Using a technology called NVIDIA HairWorks, the addition of this DirectX 11 tessellated hair to the majority of Geralt's animal and supernatural assailants creates immersive scenes and encounters for the duration of the anticipated title."
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-your-system-ready

 

[escrow4]

An E3-1231V3 is a 4770 non K with no iGPU, some tweaked extensions and a max turbo of 3.8GHz vs 3.9GHz. For gaming no real difference. Its not a 4790 non K which has a base speed of 3.6GHz and can boost to 4.0GHz. The important point is it has 8 threads which games want more and more. Witcher 2 could take advantage of quads:

If 3 recommends a 3770 non K, hopefully it scales well. Not that it should need a lot of CPU grunt. Inquisition had all that AI and party companions, this not so much. I run my 5930K at 3.7GHz and I'll be surprised if 3 hammers it as much as V.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I'll be here to eat my words but it won't come to that. May 19 2015 will mark the launch of the best RPG ever.

Close enough? :biggrin:

 

[Fingolfin269]

Been trying to get through 2 but the controls are clunky (at best). Anyone hear if they've made improvements on that front in 3?

 

[zinfamous]

Been trying to get through 2 but the controls are clunky (at best). Anyone hear if they've made improvements on that front in 3?

yeah, the combat responsiveness has been improved quite a bit according to testers--you no longer have to complete through moves to dodge or block if you have to, like in 2. Bit problem with 2 was watching Geralt complete a multi-swing move, and maybe another move after that if you've heavy-fingered a button or key, while your target moves around pokes you in the back.

I think it's pretty much the same type of combat style, but much snappier and smoother overall, and you can interrupt a combo if you need to.

 

[futurefields]

Hairworks - uses heavy tessellation for the effect.

Looks rather nice.

http://gfycat.com/SevereSmoggyKomododragon

"Working hand-in-hand with developer CD Projekt RED, we’ve transformed the protagonist’s hair and beard, the mane of his trusty steed (and the manes of other horses), and the fur of over three dozen monsters into dynamic, highly detailed, fully formed hair and fur that reacts realistically to movement, external forces, dynamic lighting, and shadows. Using a technology called NVIDIA HairWorks, the addition of this DirectX 11 tessellated hair to the majority of Geralt's animal and supernatural assailants creates immersive scenes and encounters for the duration of the anticipated title."
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-your-system-ready

man that looks incredible

if my 970 can run those settings at a locked 30fps i'll be happy

 

[norseamd]

So how do TressFX and Hairworks compare with each other now?

 

[norseamd]

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles...nvidia_hairworks_unoptimizable_for_amd_gpus/1

 

[cmdrdredd]

Not responsible for people's spending habits, but responsible for portraying the game as a graphical milestone that would require very powerful hardware to run at maximum quality.



Being somewhat a more educated gamer, I had no doubt that the Witcher 3 would NOT achieve the graphics quality seen in the VGX trailer and the NVidia tech demo.. We're not at that stage yet for an open world game.



However, I did believe that we would get something akin to the 35 minute video, or slightly better.

Fair enough there. I am quite surprised anyone expected the same look they showed a couple years ago. As I said before I am quite pleased with what I have seen recently. No reason for me to complain at all. It looks better than many titles recently released. I do t see this as any developer downfall at all. They have never created a truly open world before.

 

[norseamd]

So forgetting about the early 2013 footage how does the current game compare with the trailers from late 2014?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ony2r0QFs

 

[Merad]

2 hours of Giant Bomb playing the Xbone version: http://youtu.be/VzhZl6NihKg

 

[ArenCordial]

Fair enough there. I am quite surprised anyone expected the same look they showed a couple years ago. As I said before I am quite pleased with what I have seen recently. No reason for me to complain at all. It looks better than many titles recently released. I do t see this as any developer downfall at all. They have never created a truly open world before.

And that's totally understandable. I'm not a graphics whore, I loved TW1 and I would have preordered 2 and 3 even if they still using the old Neverwinter engine. I'm an RPG player and story/characters/gameplay matter infinitely more.

That said what irks me is they have definitely been deceiving about TW3 PC. If it was a just going to be console port, fine but say it. Now the game is riding into release with overwhelming positive reviews and should be something to look forward to but is suddenly very clear how misleading they have been.

Case in point here's a post from Marcin this very year that the PC could achieve visuals equal to the Sword of Destiny trailer.

http://i.imgur.com/e9fYsYI.png

You don't go from that to all assets are the same in next to no time.