I think a big point of this thread isn't necessarily on "handcrafting" a world, rather but about making area's "unique" and different from other parts of the world.
Skyrim lacked this to any great degree, just some minor landscape changes, snow, lack of snow, etc. They didn't make any area's really feel truly unique/different compared to others.
I enjoyed this in the Witcher 2 and I agree that having an artist taking a specific landscape and making it look good/unique, and beautiful can add a lot to the game, especially when one is recalling about it years later.
I also agree heavily about not plopping down too many things within the world. Sometimes I would like to just travel and taken in the beautiful scenery. I don't need to come across a "dungeon/ruin/interesting place" every 5 steps.
I think part of the fun of open world games is exploring, but that doesn't mean you HAVE to constnatly run across "interesting" things, rather you need some spaces that are just......there, to travel across. To give that sense of travel, going distance. I mean it's like the saying, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing." When you litter the world with things to find every 5 feet, it makes finding such things become trivial and less "exciting."
When I come across some old ruin or something, I want it to be EXCITIng, and part of this is making them RARE and also unique/different then any other ruins.
One game that did this well imo was Red Dead Redemption, it had a LOT of open world area's , and while yes it had wildlife and "random" encounters (Which could repeitive/old) it still had this sense of travel because it was a lot of wide open world with not a lot of ruins/buildings/ccrap in your way.
So basically to sum it up, I would love to see a variety of UNIQUE, handcrafted and artistically beautiful area's and some good open area's just to travel around.
Skyrim lacked this to any great degree, just some minor landscape changes, snow, lack of snow, etc. They didn't make any area's really feel truly unique/different compared to others.
I enjoyed this in the Witcher 2 and I agree that having an artist taking a specific landscape and making it look good/unique, and beautiful can add a lot to the game, especially when one is recalling about it years later.
I also agree heavily about not plopping down too many things within the world. Sometimes I would like to just travel and taken in the beautiful scenery. I don't need to come across a "dungeon/ruin/interesting place" every 5 steps.
I think part of the fun of open world games is exploring, but that doesn't mean you HAVE to constnatly run across "interesting" things, rather you need some spaces that are just......there, to travel across. To give that sense of travel, going distance. I mean it's like the saying, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing." When you litter the world with things to find every 5 feet, it makes finding such things become trivial and less "exciting."
When I come across some old ruin or something, I want it to be EXCITIng, and part of this is making them RARE and also unique/different then any other ruins.
One game that did this well imo was Red Dead Redemption, it had a LOT of open world area's , and while yes it had wildlife and "random" encounters (Which could repeitive/old) it still had this sense of travel because it was a lot of wide open world with not a lot of ruins/buildings/ccrap in your way.
So basically to sum it up, I would love to see a variety of UNIQUE, handcrafted and artistically beautiful area's and some good open area's just to travel around.
Hmmm, I found the combat in Skyrim to be an absolute joy and for many of the reasons you (and others) seem to be forwarding for inclusion in the next Witcher game. Would someone care to elaborate as to why Skyrim's combat system sucks so mightily?TucoBenedicto said:
I think that it is rather good with a bow for example but generally swordfighting sucks big time. You just slash and back off, move forward, slash and back off again. Then repeat until the health bar of the enemy is emptied. At least that's how most people I've seen played it. There's no dodging and no advanced combat system like e.g. Moúnt & Blade. In comparison to TW2 I allso think it lacks weight and feeling. In The Witcher you really feel like you are slicing someone and you have a number of tactical options at your hand.Fandango said:
A claim I think we can all reject on its face. I mean, whatever else Skyrim does wrong (and there’s plenty), I think it’s entirely fair to say that the game offers up a good variety of very different environments. Christ, one need only bash ‘Skyrim environments’ into Google images to understand as much. Right?Stiler said:
Aye, archery (particularly with a stealthy build*) in Skyrim is handled as well as in any game I've played in recent memory. That said, I can agree that, of the ludicrously large number of ways to approach combat in Skyrim, playing sword and board is easily the most disappointing.tirim4 said:
Anyway, I just wanted to make the point that the combat in Skyrim was nothing like as terrible for me as it appears to have been for others.
*and we all remember stealth in TW2 right?
Stop bitching, I could have traveled from Murky waters to it's lakeside for hours, with the same treelines, bushes, fences around me, just to see if the old fisherman has caught something, and to check on my wounded dryad
Point is that you are underestimating our beloved Polish team if you think they can make it boring, or repetitive.. I can't imagine that seriously. Played the original ( including EE ) for more than 220 hours, and the sequel for about a 100hrs, and I think I wasn't bored or frustrated with an issue of boring for one single second.
Thank you again CD Project
Point is that you are underestimating our beloved Polish team if you think they can make it boring, or repetitive.. I can't imagine that seriously. Played the original ( including EE ) for more than 220 hours, and the sequel for about a 100hrs, and I think I wasn't bored or frustrated with an issue of boring for one single second.
Thank you again CD Project
Kaghal said:Stop bitching, I could have traveled from Murky waters to it's lakeside for hours, with the same treelines, bushes, fences around me, just to see if the old fisherman has caught something, and to check on my wounded dryad
Point is that you are underestimating our beloved Polish team if you think they can make it boring, or repetitive.. I can't imagine that seriously. Played the original ( including EE ) for more than 220 hours, and the sequel for about a 100hrs, and I think I wasn't bored or frustrated with an issue of boring for one single second.
Thank you again CD Project
How do you know for a fact they won't go astray this time, especially since their decision to go with an open world 20 - twenty - times bigger than that of previous games? It's all fine and dandy if you trust them to make good on their promise, just don't scold others as though there were no reasons for apprehension. There are.
I believe they'll deliver.
I share this concerns as well, but i also think that since they have made their game engine ready(or almost ready), they have resources and time for third game. Also, they hit the bigger jackpot on the second game so it means more money, more resources.AgentBlue said:
Hope they will manage through, because they raised the bar so high...
I guess I'd need to know how you define "handcrafted" before I make a comment about that; but I'd say there's absolutely nothing brilliant about Skyrim.Fandango said:
Greenei said:
I don't know what to make of this post and the height map comment. How do you expect large uneven terrain to be created? Interlocking mesh by interlocking mesh?
As for TW3: I don't have the exact dimensions but, if you put all the maps in TW2 together in one big single map, one probably ends with a map as big as any TES game, and each map in TW2 very different from the others, highly detailed, and contains a large number of unique assets which make each map feel organic and not cookie cutter like the aforementioned Skyrim.
Within the context of this conversation, I took ‘handcrafted’ to mean environments that were not procedurally generated.SystemShock7 said:
This is pure speculation, but I would posit that Skyrim has a great many more environmental assets than TW2 (not that it matters a jot). Anyone have the numbers? In any case, I really find it difficult to take seriously the views of anyone who would claim that the environments in Skyrim are 'cookie cutter'. Dragon Age 2? No doubt. Skyrim? Not so much.SystemShock7 said:
A very big problem in Skyrim that affects the whole game and the combat in particular, is the engine itself. Despite the Creation or whatever name, it's still the same mess under the hood since Oblivion. The movement feels wooden, clunky and resembles gliding, the animations are not fluid, looking around with the mouse feels weird. It's hard for me to explain, but the whole game feels very unresponsive and wooden. No, it's not my PC's fault (or v-sync, etc). The melee combat in particular makes this most apparent.Fandango said:
No worries Wazhai, I think you explained your position perfectly well - I'll just have to say again that my experience with Skyrim has been, for the most part, an unproblematic joy.Wazhai said:
That of course raises an issue. Nothing in SKyrim is procedurally generated and yet it feels repetitive like Chinese take away. You know, same cubed chicken breast, same stir fryin' on the wok, but mashed around with a different sauce.Fandango said:
It all starts off brilliantly handcrafted - take Bleak Falls Barrow - and ends up terribly cloned, when you realize the highlights of that dungeon, the claw mechanism and Word wall both are a staple across dungeons.
I pray that CDProjekt does not go down that path. Though with a map 20 times bigger it's hard to figure out how they'll pull it off without some recycling. I also hardly understand the point made about the engine not being new. What say you, that hard-core programmers will also double as artists and modellers?
All in all, I think the screenshots show great promise though.