Collecting questions for an upcoming Dev Spotlight feat. Miles Tost

[frivolousam]

How much of the additional combat animations were unlocked through skills in 35mins gameplay video? Should we expect more/different animations or did that represent most of them?

I think kicking and deflecting bolts/arrows are to be gained through skill system and they were apparent in the video which makes me think most animations were unlocked.

 

[Doctalen]

1. Will we get a densely packed forest?

2. How do you decide that a dungeon/area/etc is good enough to be implemented into the final product?

 

[thephantomknight]

How will the wild hunt be handled? Can you run into them in unscripted, dynamic events when there razing a village? If you are underpowered do you just run from them until you level up? Will we see monsters fight each other? and will there be situations where you fight several different monsters at once?

 

[Roccogrb]

Can we get drunk at will?

In one of the trailers, the camera pan to show Novigrad from above and in some rooftops workers can be seen walking on the roofs, will such areas be acessible to the player or we will remain simply on the streets and buildings of Novigrad?

 

[lexaran]

I wish to know if we can still mess with the ecosystem.
For example if I start killing deers in certain area, the wolves in this area will move.

 

[TheDeathRun]

Let's not forget that Mr Tost is a level designer, everybody. Some of the questions have nothing to do with level design, so I suggest saving those for another member of the team and asking something he can/will answer or will be picked by Kinley

 

[moonknightgog]

-There will be blockades and soft gates, like some special areas blocked by particularly strong mob?

 

[Rpac.605]

Hello everyone!
I really don't want to know too much about the game, I rather go and learn new things as I play it, but there is something I really need it to be answered as fast as possible. (I don't know if a level designer will be able to provide this)

1. When can we expect some benchmarks of the game? (A lot of us are building new pcs to play the game and benchmarks would clear things up a lot)

2. Will we have to be carefull not to fall from a cliff and die or will geralt have some animation to indicate if you go any further you'll suicide? (That's more in the level design area I think :] )

 

[Exentryk]

How many dungeons/caves are in the game and how do you keep them different (design and structurewise) without making it (feel) copy & paste?

I know it won't be much (if at all), but how big is the environmental destruction?

See this:

As art producer Michal Stec tells us, there’s a marked difference in how the studio’s populating its open-world with content. Skyrim was built using a ‘modular’ toolset, so the dungeons you explored were actually combinations of dungeon parts that could be slotted together in different ways; game designer’s Lego. In The Witcher 3, the philosophy is much more bespoke. “Our artists are really quality oriented,” says Stec, “and they hate copy/paste approaches, which is good. We have a base set of buildings, and we use attachments to those buildings and apply different variations or texture sets to them. We don’t have total parts of caves, but walls and ceilings and floors to create all those caves, so we are free to make big chambers and small chambers.”

 

[TheMorbidAtheist]

Just how much level or area symmetry is there, if at all?

Dragon age and other RPGs have environments that, if divided in two equal halves down the middle, practically mirror each other. This seems kind of sloppy and uninspired.

In those instances, every area (and sometimes every other area) appears to have been generated by a script using same assets instead of being crafted by hand, if you will.

 

[damascus57]

I have a few questions, pick and choose what you wish

1. Novigrad as a prime example, what were your strategies for making the layout of the city feel 'huge' even though on paper the number of buildings and square area isn't particularly large? Do you reference hedge mazes or is there a concrete theory behind it?

2. I have a tendency to notice in some games a use of forced perspective on asset scales, like the topology of a mountain for example, to make an asset seem huge from a distance but takes about 2 minutes to travel to and you find it's really quite small and not that far away. I've also seen utilized a low focal length camera to make LOD assets appear smaller and more distant. What was the Witcher's philosophy regarding this?

3. One of my pet peeves in Skyrim was following a river upstream and finding that it just disappeared into a group of rocks into the side of the valley, and that would make me remember how implausible the topology in Skyrim actually was. I was wondering how close attention you guys paid to real geomophology when designing the world of the Witcher 3, and are there any specific locations in the real world that you guys modeled your terrain off? Did Skellige for example borrow any features from specific Archipelagos in Norway?

4. The players can't travel to the ends of the earth, but it was said early on that there would be no invisible walls either. What will prevent Geralt from travelling into Kaedwen? Will there be lots of cliff faces and impeachable mountains or will Emhyr's henchmen hunt you down if you try to leave the main quest areas?

5. What time of the year is it in the Witcher 3? I've always wondered that even though Skellige is farther south than most of the Northern Kingdoms, it still seems to be permanently covered in snow and frost whereas Novigrad and Temeria aren't. Is it mainly altitude that determines this or is there some other kind of weather phenomena influencing that?

Thanks, I hope my questions were interesting

 

[arkblazer]

We know we will have an large open world but how do they plan to close the world map? Will there be invisible walls akin to what we see in Elder scrolls or DA:I?
Or will there be a more creative, believable way? Like military encampments that wont let you go further?

About skellige, will it have any fairly large settlements or will all of them be small villages? also besides the main island will we see settlements on the other smaller islands?

P.S. Can they fully and unequivocally confirm that oxenfurt will be in the game? (Yes i know that ive asked before and many have users have answered yes but i wont be happy until i hear them directly from the devs )

 

[nukeheal]

- After maxing out our character (lv50, stats and weapons) Will there be anything out there that can still kill us? E.g area with side quests for high/maxed out characters only? Besides the story enemies/bosses*

- Any hints about dungeons? Will they be attached to a quest or some will be hidden with strong enemies and heavy loot.

- We can assume there will be side quests or story quests that involve swimming. Can you tell us more about underwater exploring.

- After reading few previews from recent events. I noticed few people had problems findin boats. Are they only located in main locations.

- Will Geralt still have ability to scan the near him area? (sqeeze on medallion in W2)

- Miles Tost is the best person to ask about Easter eggs.. can we assume there will be more famous dead bodies for us to find?

 

[Aes Sídhe]

1. Is water in No Mans Land implemented as a plane throughout, resulting in a single water layer ? Is this why Geralt must climb a ledge to enter the Tree Hearts cave, or are you guys simply "ledge-happy" ?
3. How are your editing tools ? Painful, Pleasurable, or Ponderous?
5. Is there a level where all the fan questions go, and must escape from if they are ever to be answered ?

 

[bombeybox]

1. Does Nvidia GameWorks graphic features (like: PhysX\HBAO+\Soft Shadows\TXAA) will be included in the final version of the game?

 

[Sken]

Is there a particular area or piece of level design that you are particularly proud of, and a big step up from the previous game or other RPG's in this genre.

Btw, big thanks for doing this.

 

[october-2]

which effects lost radeon users compare to geforce users?

 

[EliHarel]

- I'm curious about the underground areas, after realizing lately that they're meant to be vast. When working top-side you can have a lot of variety in terrain to work with, and lots of different colors. Murky green for swamps, bright green for forests, grey for burnt battle-fields, white for snowy regions, orange for fields, and more. You can have buildings and ruins, mountains and valleys. What did you do to make sure the underground levels are still varied, in size, design and mood? It seems to me you have much more limited tools when crafting these maps, and I hope they won't feel copy-pasty.

- The same goes for underwater, and that's probably even more difficult. Because underground regions still give you regular control of Geralt. Anything underwater takes away that control, gives you limited air, crossbow-battles instead of swords - and, again, the problem of that samey feel. So what do you do to pique our interest in underwater areas? (I have this hope that we'll find an underwater city, hinthint nudgewink)

- It's said in the books that many main human cities were built on elven ones, such as Novigrad. Did you keep this in mind when designing them? If so, what did you do to give that vague elven foundation? Or did you work under the concept that it's been such a long time ago that there's barely any elven touch left?

- Are there areas that require certain mountaineering skills, to be taken at level-up, in order to reach?

- About the map borders: I'm wondering about all the area between the edge of where you can go, and the farthest you can see, so if he can elaborate about that I'l be happy. It's said that if we see something interesting, we can go there. Now if the border is an ocean or a steep mountain that blocks the view of anything beyond it, there's no problem, because there's nothing to be seen. However, and this is under the assumption that at least one map-border will sprawl out in regular terrain, what did you do to make it still believable but not tease us with cool things that we can't reach? Is there even such an area beyond the border of "can see, can't go" that is designed with as much care as the rest of the world?

 

[GHOSTMD]

Hm.... my lovely wichat already asked 1 of my questions i wrote down a while ago and i just ll
repeat this question

1. How does the savegamesystem work? Will it be possible to overwrite previous savegames?
(once more TW2 just sucked with this)

2. Do we have the possibility for a TW1 like UI specially a shaking 3D witcher medallion?
(well at last with 1 of the DLC's?)

3. How ll TW3 scale on better CPU's with HT? Will it profit from HT in some way?

4. Will we meet some "old friends" like Aerondight? If we do, ll there be a similar quest
around it? Like in TW1?

 

[Agent_Bleu]

Hm.... my lovely wichat already asked 1 of my questions i wrote down a while ago and i just ll
repeat this question

1. How does the savegamesystem work? Will it be possible to overwrite previous savegames?
(once more TW2 just sucked with this)

2. Do we have the possibility for a TW1 like UI specially a shaking 3D witcher medallion?
(well at last with 1 of the DLC's?)

3. How ll TW3 scale on better CPU's with HT? Will it profit from HT in some way?

4. Will we meet some "old friends" like Aerondight?

Long time no see.
It's great to see you around, Ghost.

The questions themselves are pertinent but do you really think a level designer is the right dev to ask about hyper-threading, story spoilers and the save system? Is that the best possible use we can put Miles' time to?

- I'm curious about the underground areas, after realizing lately that they're meant to be vast. When working top-side you can have a lot of variety in terrain to work with, and lots of different colors. Murky green for swamps, bright green for forests, grey for burnt battle-fields, white for snowy regions, orange for fields, and more. You can have buildings and ruins, mountains and valleys. What did you do to make sure the underground levels are still varied, in size, design and mood? It seems to me you have much more limited tools when crafting these maps, and I hope they won't feel copy-pasty.
(...)

That's an important vein. The relationship between fauna and dungeons would also be an interesting avenue to explore. Because in the 35-minute demo we saw creatures that clearly struck me as out of place, namely those colourful Endregas which, though a perfect match for the vivacious Flotsam forest, do not befit a gloomy swampy area at all.