Concerns about population density in Novigrad and Oxenfurt ( video linked )

[Lightice]

Would it be so difficult to have some sort of adjustment slider for population density, minimum being the console counterpart, and being able to go to a maximum set by the dev and dependant on our rig?

They may still be tweaking details like that. I hope so, at least.

 

[Arclavum]

The best thing to do now that we are so close to the release of the game, is shatter the image we have had for the game. That means, forget what you've seen, and forget what you wanted to see (the game is finished, all that there will be in the future are patches and the expansions), reduce everything to 0. After doing that and clearing your head of the expectations you had for something that simply couldn't be, wait for the release of the game and let it carry you through it's magic, it might not be what you have wanted it to be, but I'm pretty damn sure it's gonna be much better than most of what you've tasted.

We all had enormous expectations from that game, and hell they might even come out true, but at this point, these expectations have no real reason to exist. Enjoy it for what it is, not what it could have been or what you wanted it to be.

 

[noctiscaelumII]

This sucks man. I hope cdpr address this!

 

[wildspirit]

The best thing to do now that we are so close to the release of the game, is shatter the image we have had for the game. That means, forget what you've seen, and forget what you wanted to see (the game is finished, all that there will be in the future are patches and the expansions), reduce everything to 0. After doing that and clearing your head of the expectations you had for something that simply couldn't be, wait for the release of the game and let it carry you through it's magic, it might not be what you have wanted it to be, but I'm pretty damn sure it's gonna be much better than most of what you've tasted.

We all had enormous expectations from that game, and hell they might even come out true, but at this point, these expectations have no real reason to exist. Enjoy it for what it is, not what it could have been or what you wanted it to be.

This is kind of difficult to do since they're still advertising the game with screenshots and videos from the old builds... But I agree with you, we should try and forget (but don't forgive!) what we've seen so far and just try to enjoy the game for it's story and epicness!

 

[earthonline]

Maybe they can add a setting in the menu for population density that way you can increase and decrease it depending on system performance

 

[YourAverageNord]

I'm wondering how the retail PC game will compare to the debut (2013) trailer in terms of population density: http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1525/15257558/2504401-6535952199-ip9VU.gif

Novigrad looked really dense and tightly packed back in 2013, less so in the 35 minute demo, and it looks like the market is almost empty in 2015.

 

[Laphin]

I just watched the video, and took a quick glance at them walking through, and it's not THAT bad. It's in the evening too. I mean in real life you're not going to see PILES of people walking around a certain area unless there's a special event going on, or just everyone's out shopping etc. It could be just a quiet evening. There's so many factors, you can't really pin it on graphic power. I'm more than certain that there will be 'events' and times where you'll go through town and there's just going to be more folks than usual around depending on what's going on at the time.

I didn't find anything unusual about the video's populace.. it just looked like a quiet evening. I didn't find anything off, or empty about that. There were definitely more than '3' NPC's running around for sure, and people seem to be doing their own thing.

 

[noctiscaelumII]

Just look at these images and compare the NPC density.

2014

2015

2015 looks like almost a Ghost Town to me. Can someone give another recent shots where this is not the case? I'd like to be proven wrong as this really concerns me

 

[Double_Oh_Snap]

Just look at these images and compare the NPC density.

2014

2015

2015 looks like almost a Ghost Town to me. Can someone give another recent shots where this is not the case? I'd like to be proven wrong as this really concerns me

Could this be a pop in issue pre day 1 patch? As many stated pop in of npcs, quest npcs, monsters ect pre patch.

 

[paulthu]

Holy shit that is bad. How hasn't this been mentioned in the reviews? It's not some small reduction, there's barely any people in the streets...

 

[doctorwhobg]

People with tunnel vision are everywhere...

 

[Double_Oh_Snap]

Holy shit that is bad. How hasn't this been mentioned in the reviews? It's not some small reduction, there's barely any people in the streets...

Yeah that is why I thought it was a bug or something. Also patch notes list NPC spawn strategy improvements and AI improvements. Maybe it's the time of day as someone posted earlier.

I mean lets be real here guys this is Novigrad taken from the trailer released just last month. Which as you can see looks fantastic.

After going through the Novigrad part looking at everything closely I now say firmly it's time of day. There actually are quite a lot of people out and about. The sun is setting and most are probably in for the evening as they probably wake up quite early.

 

[Frontovika]

People have the weirdest priorities :comeatmebro:

 

[paulthu]

^Agreed. I find it weird that you'd rather talk about other people's priorities than the game.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

@lordshade55 They've said in the past Novigrad has over 7,000 NPCs in it, though I can't remember when exactly they said that. Either way, I assume it's won't be scarce.

Not 7,000, several thousands. They said it in the 35 minute video..

Regarding the OP, I'm thinking it must be a bug of some sort. If it isn't a bug and is a design decision, then that would be a huge blow to the game.

The consoles' CPUs are very weak, so adding more NPCs with sophisticated A.I such as you would expect to find in an RPG (unlike AC Unity's mass cookie cutter approach) would be very stressful for them.

 

[Double_Oh_Snap]

Not 7,000, several thousands. They said it in the 35 minute video..

Regarding the OP, I'm thinking it must be a bug of some sort. If it isn't a bug and is a design decision, then that would be a huge blow to the game.

The consoles' CPUs are very weak, so adding more NPCs with sophisticated A.I such as you would expect to find in an RPG (unlike AC Unity's mass cookie cutter approach) would be very stressful for them.

I understand what you are trying to say and yes consoles are not PCs or anywhere near as strong as PCs as they are upgradeable. What is interesting about all this though. Is first it was Aard physics on water was removed for console parity, than it was the blood decals most said because console could not handle it. One is fixed (Aard) and the other is going to be fixed. As far as this goes if you look at my post above you can see I posted a gif from trailer released a month ago. I think it is time of day that is causing it to not have as many out, but there are still people out. This was not to attack you, it is just kinda funny observing how often people just go at console. Also there is this... https://twitter.com/Bacon_is_life/status/582262689042403329

 

[prince_of_nothing]

I understand what you are trying to say and yes consoles are not PCs or anywhere near as strong as PCs as they are upgradeable. What is interesting about all this though. Is first it was Aard physics on water was removed for console parity, than it was the blood decals most said because console could not handle it. One is fixed (Aard) and the other is going to be fixed. As far as this goes if you look at my post above you can see I posted a gif from trailer released a month ago. I think it is time of day that is causing it to not have as many out, but there are still people out. This was not to attack you, it is just kinda funny observing how often people just go at console. Also there is this... https://twitter.com/Bacon_is_life/status/582262689042403329

Well I did say that I thought it was a bug. It would be an oversight of horrific proportions if CDPR went to the trouble of creating two large and very detailed medieval cities, only to have them virtually bereft of a populace. And plus all of their marketing material has shown Novigrad to have a sizeable population. Too late to turn back now.

Regarding the consoles, what I said was true. It wasn't an attack on the consoles or anything. CDPR must have had hell getting the game to run on those systems, because the CPUs are so far behind modern desktop x86-64 processors (especially Intel's Core series) it's not even funny. I think both consoles were engineered to be able to offload as many parallelizable tasks as possible to the GPU using compute.

But only some types of A.I algorithms can be parallelized. Most are very serial in nature I'd wager, which makes running them on low clocked low IPC CPUs like what's in the PS4 and Xbox One a pain the ass for devs..

 

[Double_Oh_Snap]

Well I did say that I thought it was a bug. It would be an oversight of horrific proportions if CDPR went to the trouble of creating two large and very detailed medieval cities, only to have them virtually bereft of a populace. And plus all of their marketing material has shown Novigrad to have a sizeable population. Too late to turn back now.

Regarding the consoles, what I said was true. It wasn't an attack on the consoles or anything. CDPR must have had hell getting the game to run on those systems, because the CPUs are so far behind modern desktop x86-64 processors (especially Intel's Core series) it's not even funny. I think both consoles were engineered to be able to offload as many parallelizable tasks as possible to the GPU using compute.

But only some types of A.I algorithms can be parallelized. Most are very serial in nature I'd wager, which makes running them on low clocked low IPC CPUs like what's in the PS4 and Xbox One a pain the ass for devs..

I agree with you. Probably explains why Damien said it was the hardest technological challenge during development. I just said what I said because I'm sure you also saw people blaming consoles for everything even stuff they just didn't know for sure on in other threads. It was not meant for you but rather other people who just irrationally blamed consoles for this when "this" is still tbd.

 

[Laphin]

Well I did say that I thought it was a bug. It would be an oversight of horrific proportions if CDPR went to the trouble of creating two large and very detailed medieval cities, only to have them virtually bereft of a populace. And plus all of their marketing material has shown Novigrad to have a sizeable population. Too late to turn back now.

Regarding the consoles, what I said was true. It wasn't an attack on the consoles or anything. CDPR must have had hell getting the game to run on those systems, because the CPUs are so far behind modern desktop x86-64 processors (especially Intel's Core series) it's not even funny. I think both consoles were engineered to be able to offload as many parallelizable tasks as possible to the GPU using compute.

But only some types of A.I algorithms can be parallelized. Most are very serial in nature I'd wager, which makes running them on low clocked low IPC CPUs like what's in the PS4 and Xbox One a pain the ass for devs..

You guys gotta get over yourselves and use your head a little bit... If Assassin's Creed games on the PS3 and Xbox360 have no trouble sticking TONS of NPCs walking around in a city with no frame drops... it's quite obvious that the PS4 can do the same thing. This is probably just something that will be fixed/corrected in the Patch.

 

[huber1989]

Afaik the Gamestar review mentioned a noticeable reduction of NPC density in Novigrad. However, it was still deemed satisfactory for atmosphere, the city did not seem "empty".