An Open World With No Loading Screens

[Bioshocksurvivor]

An Open World With No Loading Screens

First off, I'd like to say this is my first post here. I checked, and didn't see another thread about this, apologies if there is.

Anyway, for the longest time I've been a big fan of Bethesda's games. Whether it be The Elder Scrolls, or Fallout, exploring their huge worlds was always exciting, and gave me a sense of wonder unlike any other games. There was just one problem; the constant loading. It gets really tiresome when nearly every door, city, hatch, or cave, leads to another loading screen. And to make matters even worse, the longer you played, the bigger your save file became, making the loading screens even longer.

Needless to say, what I keep hearing about the lack of loading screens in The Witcher 3's world (other than fast travel only locations, anyway) is a very big deal for me. My big question is has it been clarified if this is true for all versions of the game? I'm very much a console gamer, and always have been. I'd be really sad to see loading screens popping up everywhere in the PS4 version of the game.

 

[RedFire01]

There aren't more loading screens in the console versions. There are only loading screens when fast traveling or transitioning between open world regions.

 

[Bioshocksurvivor]

That's definitely good news. The idea of being able to freely explore a massive world like this, without seeing a loading screen for every door almost sounds too good to be true for me lol.

 

[MFrost]

Wild Hunt uses occlusion culling middleware Umbra 3 which is compatible with all major platforms.
In easy to chew terms, the software tells the game to render only the objects in player's field of view and cut off the rest, which significantly increases the performance and allows for things like huge world with excellent draw distance or loading-free enterable buildings.

 

[topeira]

As someone explained to me in theses forums:
There are 2 skyrim sized areas in tw3. Within each world there will be no loading screens.
Besides these 2 huge zones there will be about 2 or 3 more areas with a loading screen between them.

Skyrim had almost 200 indoor areas. I wonder if tw3 will also have nearly that many indoors. Most of what we've seen is outdoors. Most.

 

[Riven-Twain]

Skyrim had almost 200 indoor areas. I wonder if tw3 will also have nearly that many indoors. Most of what we've seen is outdoors. Most.

This answer, just for the one city of Novigrad, from the Miles Tost Spotlight: (http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/34251-Developer-Spotlight-Miles-Tost)

M i k e asked:
Are the most of the doors closed in Novigrad? Can we access a lot of the buildings in the city?
Some doors are permanently closed, many others open up to you as you make new friends in the city following different quests - many more are "generic" houses that add another layer of storytelling to the city. They don't really have any quests attached to them, but entering them offers an interesting view as to how the people in that very district of the city differ from others and how they live their lives.
In the poor district for example you'll find people making the most out of what little space they have, holding on tight to every single thing they own (most of which the people of rich district would consider junk). To come back to the accessibility of houses in Novigrad: I feel like you'd be surprised just how accessible the city is. MANY open buildings. Don't have an exact number, but it exceeds a hundred by far.

(My underlining) From this, I think it safe to assume that there'll be plenty of indoor areas (without any loading screens).

 

[Scholdarr.452]

Tbh Skyrim NEEDED seperate indoor areas because he geometries and sizes of outdoor areas never fit to those of indoor areas in TES games. That's a systemic design issue of the whole franchise...

For a seamless open world without loading screens making a world with proper geometries and sizes is absolutely necessary. I'm glad Witcher 3 will get it right.

 

[Bioshocksurvivor]

Tbh Skyrim NEEDED seperate indoor areas because he geometries and sizes of outdoor areas never fit to those of indoor areas in TES games. That's a systemic design issue of the whole franchise...

For a seamless open world without loading screens making a world with proper geometries and sizes is absolutely necessary. I'm glad Witcher 3 will get it right.

I actually didn't even think about that. Now that you mention it, the indoor locations do seem a lot bigger than they look from the outside. That's actually even more exciting, and kind of explains why some of Skyrim's cities felt kind of small despite having quite a bit in them.

 

[Krugaming]

So essentially their are large levels or zones in Witcher 3, your not simply walking from point A clear across to point B. That is what I took from the video, kind of a let down, but a minor one.

If you could simply run or ride to the edge of a zone then it prompt you for a travel loading screen to the next zone that would be fine with me. I am left with questions on that, it sounds like to me you are going to be restricted from leaving the starting zone until a certain level and or until you have progressed through the story.

I don't want to be the guy to spread the doom & gloom, but that youtuber does have 700k+ subscribers, and the video did get shared here, so its already done. Very large zones, are still zones, why not just a loading screen when you are running into the next zone? Why?

What, you gotta talk to a mage to teleport to another zone? He clearly states in the video "You cannot simply just run from the starting area to say novigrad, etc". Its very clear their are zones.

What are your thoughts, some people take things in differently, or maybe one of you have more solid information on this and can give me more detail on how these zones work? I seem to be the only one bothered by it at the moment.

 

[The_Blog]

Yeah I've heard a couple of youtubers say axes are an option. I'm not sure if that qualifies as "confirmation," but take it for what it's worth. Here's the first news article that popped up when I searched for "Witcher 3 axes" that mentions them:

http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-wild-hunt-revamped-site-amazing-screenshots/

Thanks

Yeah, you can use other weapons besides sword. CDPR showed it off in the Twitch combat video they did last week. They said they arent all that useful.

I watched that stream, but I was programming at the same time. So I probably tapped out while they did ^^

 

[rbhauen]

So essentially their are large levels or zones in Witcher 3, your not simply walking from point A clear across to point B. That is what I took from the video, kind of a let down, but a minor one.

If you could simply run or ride to the edge of a zone then it prompt you for a travel loading screen to the next zone that would be fine with me. I am left with questions on that, it sounds like to me you are going to be restricted from leaving the starting zone until a certain level and or until you have progressed through the story.

I don't want to be the guy to spread the doom & gloom, but that youtuber does have 700k+ subscribers, and the video did get shared here, so its already done. Very large zones, are still zones, why not just a loading screen when you are running into the next zone? Why?

What, you gotta talk to a mage to teleport to another zone? He clearly states in the video "You cannot simply just run from the starting area to say novigrad, etc". Its very clear their are zones.

What are your thoughts, some people take things in differently, or maybe one of you have more solid information on this and can give me more detail on how these zones work? I seem to be the only one bothered by it at the moment.

He also stated that each zone feels Skyrim size. There is a right way to do 'zones' and there is a wrong way. I believe Witcher 3 did it the right way.

 

[Rawls]

So essentially their are large levels or zones in Witcher 3, your not simply walking from point A clear across to point B. That is what I took from the video, kind of a let down, but a minor one.

If you could simply run or ride to the edge of a zone then it prompt you for a travel loading screen to the next zone that would be fine with me. I am left with questions on that, it sounds like to me you are going to be restricted from leaving the starting zone until a certain level and or until you have progressed through the story.

I don't want to be the guy to spread the doom & gloom, but that youtuber does have 700k+ subscribers, and the video did get shared here, so its already done. Very large zones, are still zones, why not just a loading screen when you are running into the next zone? Why?

What, you gotta talk to a mage to teleport to another zone? He clearly states in the video "You cannot simply just run from the starting area to say novigrad, etc". Its very clear their are zones.

What are your thoughts, some people take things in differently, or maybe one of you have more solid information on this and can give me more detail on how these zones work? I seem to be the only one bothered by it at the moment.

From the beginning CDPR has said multi-region open world. We have known for ages that its at least 4 zones (Novigrad/No Man's Land, Skellidge, Kaer Morhen and White Orchard prologue area). There have also been mentioned at least 4-5 other smaller areas (like Vizima Palace). Read the map thread. Tons of detail.

http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/29285-map/page53

EDIT: Also in regards to worries about the size. It's about having the proper scale to the world. You couldn't have a totally open world including both Kaer Morhen and Novigrad without reducing all the cities to skyrim like "cities" that are really small towns with walls. Novigrad is huge compared to the smaller towns. THE LARGER REGIONS IN THE WORLD ARE HUGE.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/04/...r-than-skyrim/

There is a link in that dualshockers article labeled "original slides." It leads to a pdf file that shows the information that was given out by Jasin Bushnaief of Umbra Software and Przemysaw Czatrowski of CDPR. The slide relevant to this discussion is on page 46 of the pdf file. It says:

Skellige
•Area size: 8km x 8km
•Amount of geometry: 45000-50000 chunks loaded
•Average amount of visible geometry:~1-5%
City of Novigrad
•Area size: 8.5km x 8.5km
•Amount of geometry: over 100k chunks loaded
•Average amount of visible geometry: ~2-5%

 

[ChrisStayler]

What are your thoughts, some people take things in differently, or maybe one of you have more solid information on this and can give me more detail on how these zones work? I seem to be the only one bothered by it at the moment.

I think it will be ok in the end because as he said some zones fell like Skyrim size and that huge. I just find it weird because i think it was Angry Joe, not sure. That said the only time you fast travel to another zone would be when you go to the Novigrad island.

 

[The_Blog]

I just find it weird because i think it was Angry Joe, not sure. That said the only time you fast travel to another zone would be when you go to the Novigrad island.

Gopher said that in the last Co-Optional Podcast with him, Dodger, Crendor and TB. And Dodger agreed with him. that made me wonder too. But I guess they simply never tried going to any other zones besides skellige.

 

[Lieste]

You Fast travel (and/or load) between Kaer Morhen, White Orchard, Novigrad & Velen, Skellige, (a few other regions that I won't name)...

You don't load every time you enter a house. You don't load every time you leave a house.

You do load if you use fast travel between cross-roads or die. That is it.

Novigrad & NML is 'Skyrim Sized', with a 300+ building city of Novigrad and multiple villages and farms of various sizes.
Skellige is also 'Skyrim Sized', but contains lots of water ~ although some of this is playable too.

The other regions are smaller - some single (large) buildings, others a handful of villages or a single valley plus a bit, and some others unknown.
We've seen mostly the White Orchard map ~ most of the YT footage covered this region (especially from those doing more in depth previews).

 

[azrael.1289]

I don't want to be the guy to spread the doom & gloom, but that youtuber does have 700k+ subscribers, and the video did get shared here, so its already done. Very large zones, are still zones, why not just a loading screen when you are running into the next zone? Why?

Because, Geography.

What, you gotta talk to a mage to teleport to another zone? He clearly states in the video "You cannot simply just run from the starting area to say novigrad, etc". Its very clear their are zones.

No, you take a ship to the Skellige from NML/Velen the first time you go there, then you either take the ship or you can fast travel. As to transition between other areas, I'm assuming walking to a certain edge of the map will trigger the transition.

 

[andykww]

So essentially their are large levels or zones in Witcher 3, your not simply walking from point A clear across to point B. That is what I took from the video, kind of a let down, but a minor one.

Based on what Gopher said, you can travel from one zone to the next by foot with no loading screen apart from the Skellige Islands. The entire map is accessible. The zones just helps break up the map.

 

[HughTheHand]

Based on what Gopher said, you can travel from one zone to the next by foot with no loading screen apart from the Skellige Islands. The entire map is accessible. The zones just helps break up the map.

If memory serves, the developers have said before that the only loading screens are for Skellige, fast travel, and the obvious initial load screen. Other than places like the starting area(White Orchard) and interior areas(Royal Palace) the entire world should be open.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

are there any "invisible walls" in this open world?

 

[azrael.1289]

If memory serves, the developers have said before that the only loading screens are for Skellige, fast travel, and the obvious initial load screen. Other than places like the starting area(White Orchard) and interior areas(Royal Palace) the entire world should be open.

That's not quite true. While there are no loading screens within a zone, when you transition from one zone to another, you'll get a loading screen. The zones made public so far are:
White Orchard
Novigrad/Velen/NML
Skellige Islands
Royal Palace in Vizima
Kaer Morhen
There are sure to be more such small areas that you are taken to as part of the main quest.

---------- Updated at 02:53 AM ----------

are there any "invisible walls" in this open world?

While there has to be something to put a boundary around the playable area, the developers have told it would be as seamless as possible. We do not yet know how exactly it has been handled.