The world feels small...?

[tahirahmed]

Surprise!

Not much more constructive commentary? I was wrong.

Well this is the first time I am hearing that TW3 world feels small to someone and comparing it to AC:Unity is another strange thing because to me AC:Unity was a disappointment when it comes to game size, you're always inside one city. You cannot go outside the walls, you have no ship no horse or any other means of transport then how it can be better than TW3 ? a couple of buildings do feel huge like Cathedrals but it's merely art direction difference. I am sure TW3 will have huge buildings as well, maybe even bigger than AC:Unity.

 

[Tokei-ihto]

I've gotta say, the prolonged waiting time for the Witcher 3's release results in some rather bizarre, eye-rolling topics.
If your mind is occupied to such a degree with - in the grand scheme of things - irrelevant aspects of a game, it's probably best to take a self-imposed leave of absence from everything Witcher-related to refocus priorities. Just a thought.

Not that I necessarily mind ridiculous discussions, but of late people seem to get bent out of shape because of the most insignificant details and design decissions.

 

[Riven-Twain]

I've gotta say, the prolonged waiting time for the Witcher 3's release results in some rather bizarre, eye-rolling topics.
If your mind is occupied to such a degree with - in the grand scheme of things - irrelevant aspects of a game, it's probably best to take a self-imposed leave of absence from everything Witcher-related to refocus priorities. Just a thought.

Not that I necessarily mind ridiculous discussions, but of late people seem to get bent out of shape because of the most insignificant details and design decissions.

Ay, perhaps a leave of absence for the good of our mental health is in order; however, some of the recent posts have been rather funny.

 

[val.mitev]

A really bad choice for a screenshot of the Wticher3.
Why didn't you pick something when he was entering/leaving the city, right when he was next to the city walls or next to some of the tall building that are next to it?

Your whole argument is weak. Immersion breaking, don't think so.
If you try to compare, please, at least try to put relevant material and not cherry picking shots so that you can try to prove your point, when in reality that's not the case.

 

[Riven-Twain]

I believe we've answered wavebend's question: his perspective on proportions does not appear to be generally shared. I don't think there's need to criticise further.

 

[EliHarel]

The mere fact we're even comparing a city of a (multi-region) open-world RPG, to a city of an action parkour climbing game that... is actually the entire map, is testimony to how great CDPR are.

There are the arguments of different camera positions, not seeing all of Novigrad, cherry-picked locations etc... how about them being completely different games? Paris is the entirety of AC:U. Novigrad is a tiny portion of TW3. A tiny portion. I'm utterly confused how this comparison is even coming up (and impressed that TW3 is holding its ground in this "debate"). We might as well ask if AC:U's outside areas and underground labyrinths and oceans and mountains don't feel a bit dull and small.

Wait...

 

[Giovanni1983]

For starters i think that the threads title should be renamed "I think the builings look small".

Then on a more serious note, i don't think this comparison makes any sense. Firstly because you're comparing a game which is already released and based on "actual" Paris, built in scale so you can climb stuff, with a fantasy medieval style city. Secondly how can you know when in the gameplay we just saw a straight path to the tavern for presentation purposes? The city is huge and you can clearly seem taller buildings in it.

Besides i don't need tall buildings to make me feel immersed in the world. The atmosphere is what does it and from the very little we've seen i think Novigrad looks exactly how it should.

Edit: And as others said, the camera angle. Clever mechanic.

 

[wichat]

 

[Ljesnjanin]

I am Geralt, famous monster slayer, best swordsman in the world, living legend...I killed Vilgefortz, Azar Javed, De Aldersberg, Michelet brothers etc etc etc...I am Butcher of Blaviken...I fucked half of the Lodge, and I will fuck the remaining half - be sure about it...

So, do I feel small? No.

 

[TheDeathRun]

it's probably best to take a self-imposed leave of absence from everything Witcher-related to refocus priorities.

Heh that is exactly what I have been doing, which has actually been a nice change of pace. I realized the more I thought about the game, the less I somehow looked forward to it...

:mellow:

But to the topic, I don't think there's much more to be said. Camera angle is obviously a huge factor when comparing those shots. And there are screens of TW3 to more or less prove the world isn't and doesn't feel small.

 

[OliverDK]

Focus on the great things my friend. Just imagine that:

- we can enter more than a hundred houses in Novigrad alone.
- there's a dynamic life cycle to the thousand of inhabitants living in Novigrad
- No copy/paste NPCs
- No copy/paste buildings
- the attention to details when I compare is vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- the variety of the houses are also vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- Novigrad was hand grafted compare to AC:U
- There's no loading when entering the sewers
- There's a huge world to explorer beside Novigrad and even at least one more huge city
- the framerate in Novigrad will be miles above AC:U

No while I agree there's minor things I would have liked differently in TW3 it is still hugely superior to AC:U

 

[mecha_fish]

I agree that the camera angle, while practical, does remove some of the perceived scale of the world -- it honestly doesn't bother me that much but I can agree that it's there. I'm glad to here that they're working on more camera angles and controls from Damien Monner's twitter posts. I will sit around admiring everything from my tiny witcher height and not actually complete the game i'll be admiring it so much.

I've never played AC U so I can't speak for that comparison.

 

[Neeedles]

You know how hard it is to heat a room with high ceiling? That's why people build their houses lower. Thats all there really is to it, end of topic.

 

[hamilcarBarca.196]

ac unity was a boring game...
with boring combat,boring characters,boring combats...
only graphics were good...

 

[wazaa]

AC is an example of lack of vision. Check the last picture. You almost don't see the buildings at 30 meters from you. 30 meters!

You almost couldn't see the buildings at the other side of the river.

I had not the feeling of a big city, with that game. I had a feeling that they put London fog on Paris. I don't want TW3 to copy it for all the cities, too much fog.

 

[scratcherpen]

Well... If you call thats small...... I dont know. As i see now the world scale is big. No BIG.....And if RED`s` will add the new territories from the book lore(Dol Blathana, Makhakam, Kovir,Poviss, Zerrikania e.t.c.) in the game..... I will forget where my jaw is.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

Focus on the great things my friend. Just imagine that:

- we can enter more than a hundred houses in Novigrad alone.
- there's a dynamic life cycle to the thousand of inhabitants living in Novigrad
- No copy/paste NPCs
- No copy/paste buildings no way some houses will not by copy pasted
- the attention to details when I compare is vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- the variety of the houses are also vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- Novigrad was hand grafted compare to AC:U unity was hand crafted too, those 5000 people working on game have to do smething
- There's no loading when entering the sewers
- There's a huge world to explorer beside Novigrad and even at least one more huge city
- the framerate in Novigrad will be miles above AC:U how did you measured that? xD

No while I agree there's minor things I would have liked differently in TW3 it is still hugely superior to AC:U

you have good points but some are just silly


nice video here

OP it is all about camera i think
here is example

http://a.pomf.se/neujng.mp4

some scenery in background is different in 35 minutes gameplay but still

 

[Sigma_Primaris]

Novigrad is a city in an imaginary XIVe century and does not have the same architecture than the XVIII-XIXe century Paris : That's what I call immersion. Furthermore, Paris was one of the biggest cities of the world at this time (after London). Although Notre Dame is a medieval building, not every city has a 100m height Cathedral in his center.
Remember that Novigrad is inspired by medieval Amsterdam.
Anyway, Novigrad is way cooler than the Paris from Unity.

Edit : and in medieval cities, buildings are generally tinier and further apart when they're close to the walls.

 

[Lieste]

Mediaeval cities are small. The core of my city is only on the order of 300m x 300m (wall length just over 1200m), and contains large abbey, Hot springs, Guildhouse and market, and large "gardens" area. The narrow streets and lanes would have been double-lined with densely packed buildings, and the wider roads are not on their original facings, having been set back during Georgian rebuilding programs, which enlarged the built area by some 10x or so in a few decades ~ further expansion more recently is strongly curtailed by planning rules concerned World Heritage sites and greenbelt land ~ there is *some*, but it is much slower than for most towns.

 

[OliverDK]

you have good points but some are just silly
Focus on the great things my friend. Just imagine that:

- we can enter more than a hundred houses in Novigrad alone.
- there's a dynamic life cycle to the thousand of inhabitants living in Novigrad
- No copy/paste NPCs
- No copy/paste buildings no way some houses will not by copy pasted
- the attention to details when I compare is vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- the variety of the houses are also vastly superior in Novigrad and we have seen so little of it yet
- Novigrad was hand grafted compare to AC:U unity was hand crafted too, those 5000 people working on game have to do smething
- There's no loading when entering the sewers
- There's a huge world to explorer beside Novigrad and even at least one more huge city
- the framerate in Novigrad will be miles above AC:U how did you measured that? xD

No while I agree there's minor things I would have liked differently in TW3 it is still hugely superior to AC:U

Hand crafted in computer terms means each building was created from scratch and placed with care individually - probably based on concept design. The team of AC:U used a tool were you pull out boxes and then the tool replaces said boxes with houses from a database - in most case random. That's one of the reasons Ubisoft can mass produce huge cities in a short time span. It has it's merits but it also means you will have less variety in the environment in the city you create. I am at a slow connection right now but if you search YouTube you can see the tool at work for AC:U. It can create a city block in a matter of minutes.

In regards to details of what I have seen so far of TW3 compared to my experience with AC:U it is already way beyond the level of details in that game. AC:U might be a beautiful game at times but aside from the historic buildings the vast majority of the game is so similar that you soon forget the environment you transverse. Have I seen Novigrad in its entirety? No but I have watched and rewatched the 35 min gameplay trailer from last summer over and over and I can still find details I hadn't noticed before. The city is rich on details and you can really see that there have gone great care into each and every one of them. I can't say the same about AC:U that again is a beautiful game but also so poor on the variety of the details and so similar it just gets so boring that you forget about after a short while of playing. There are a few ups when you enter another city district but after a short while you forget it because it is so similar that you realize have you seen one street you have seen them all. Granted I can only speak for myself.

And yes maybe you will experience houses similar or alike in Novigrad but I feel confident that it will only be because it makes sense. Otherwise they would have chosen AC:U approached and not by the manual hand crafting approached which is very very very time consuming.

Framerate; well if you want to be absolutely nitpicky then I haven't measured it. That speaks for itself of course. I base it upon my experience of AC:U which had huge framerate issues upon releaseeven on top of the line hardware. And then I put it up against the Gamestar hands-on of TW3 where they state the game on ultra runs smoothly with a few dips here and there in Novigrad but that was being worked on. I highly doubt CDPR will pull a Ubisoft on us and release a game that suffers from AC:Us framerate issues. But I tell you what, if they d,o you are allowed to one time smack my ass and call me any animal name you like