Constructive opinions based on the gameplay videos that are released in 2015 (NO DOWNGRADE TALK)

[Scholdarr.452]

About colours

Spoiler

WItcher 3

do you understand now?

Sure, W3 looks best of all. And the first W1 shot looks definitely worst.

But honestly, you compare different sceneries with different weather and daytime conditions and even completely different game engines. Makes little sense to me. And I don't really understand the comparison with Fables at the end. There is nothing wrong with Fable's color palette. It just have a completely different (and way less realistic) art style/direction. And Witcher 2 is actually just as bright as W3 in bright sunlight, it's just less "crisp" and the surroundings are always less open which transports a different atmosphere (more claustrophobic imo). If you want to blame something for that blame the open world design and not the color palette. Take for example Flotsam: the wood sprawled so much over the place that almost no sunlight find its way to the bottom. Combine that with level boundaries and a thick vegetation and you have that "darker" feeling. Nobody says that something like that can't be possible in W3. It's just not something we've seen in the latest video...

I say it again: I guess W3 will look pretty different and much darker in a storm or during heavy rain or even when the sun is not shining. We actually already saw footage of the No man's land and the whole game looked a lot darker and more "gritty" there. So I still think it's pretty much overreaction. I for once like a lifelike color palette with some variety. There are way to many brown-in-grey games out there...

 

[onionshavelayers]

Le Good:
- Love how sparks fly and the sound effects when sword hits the walls.
- Love particle effects.
- Love global illumination.
- Love the way the trees and cloth blow in the wind.
- The dialogue and the delivery has that witcher feel, nice.
- Textures are nice and high res.
-The music is well suited to the gameplay sections, esp when talking to that Nilfgaardian guy (you get this conspiratorial, political secrecy vibe).
- Character models of each npc looks unique and well detailed.
- I felt the running animation was typical of a man in armor.
- Love the fact that you can parry whenever you want, but have to time the riposte correctly.
- Beautifully rich colour palette.
- Map has a nice visual style and looks functional.
- The clouds, my god, look amazing!
- The 'fortress in the sky' in Kaer Trolde wonderfully adds to the fantasy aspect of the game.
- Very high LOD and objects visible in the distance, with a mystical fog in the background to hide things far off (which IMO adds the tension of curiosity for me to go explore).
- I couldn't see any repeated game assets (besides grass of course). You guys took hand crafting to another level.
-Geralt looks really nice and intimidating (although we all know he's a real teddy bear).

Le Bad:
- Horse footsteps in snow sound like trampling on hard surface.
- I DIDN'T SEE MEDALLION SHAKE NEAR MAGIC OR DANGER!!!
- Need some more effects of the water crashing against sea shore and river bank (would be appreciated).
- Darker ocean when you dive in it.
- Where are my CLOUD SHADOWS!! Couldn't see any

Le Conclusion:
Even though we complain a lot I'm sure we are all grateful as the way the game looks is more than I ever expected from CDPR, and more than I could ever have asked for

 

[TheWildFish]

Great thread and really impressed with the quick responses and actions from the devs here! Actually amazing that someone came into work early just to work on one pretty small detail of an already phenomenal looking world!! Thank you so much Red team
From the gameplay:
Faces look really detailed with great expression
Truly impressive vistas and graphics on the whole especially considering this isn't even Ultra setting or ubersampling
Combat looks great and I love the much improved animations compared to E3
Previews seem to all love the quests and they all sound unique and interesting especially for being so early in the game
World looks alive

I just have 2 very slight things:
The pop in looked pretty bad considering the PC supposedly had 2 980s and wasn't even ultra settings, though this can easily be improved before release so not worried there
Ground textures weren't too hot, I guess they just seemed to lack depth and a bit of detail sometimes, even compared to Witcher 2. This is particularly noticeable in the scene with Geralt and Vesemir when they first found the Griffin.
Ultimately though I'm blown away and will be watching that demo every day until a new one is released probably finding something else to marvel at in the process! Thank you so much dev team for pouring your heart and soul into this game

 

[erxv]

I DIDN'T SEE MEDALLION SHAKE NEAR MAGIC OR DANGER!!!

yeah, id really like the full 3d medallion from witcher 1 back

 

[Scholdarr.452]

The pop in looked pretty bad considering the PC supposedly had 2 980s and wasn't even ultra settings, though this can easily be improved before release so not worried there

The PC system had only one GTX 980. And actually the pop-in is even much more annoying on consoles with half the visibility distance of details there. PC version is far superior here. I guess and hope CDPR will improve on that.

 

[TheWildFish]

The PC system had only one GTX 980. And actually the pop-in is even much more annoying on consoles with half the visibility distance of details there. PC version is far superior here. I guess and hope CDPR will improve on that.

Ah I stand mistaken on that but still, would hope it''s much improved until launch. It is completely understandable that the console versions have much worse pop-in, that's one of the prices people have to pay for an inferior system plus of course LOD. The better they can make that kind of stuff before launch the better for everyone

 

[TheMorbidAtheist]

My criticism:

1) Texture pop-ins.....ARGHHHH! When are we ever going to get a game without those? One way to get around this is to travel at a slower rate, it seems.

2) I liked Geralt's posture and body type more in the second game. Most women actually prefer a healthy looking athletic body type over a Hugh Jackman Geralt we have now. Men think that women want a buff guy when most women think buff guys are too concerned about their looks.

Geralt is an agile swordsman, not a heavyweight UFC brawler.

3) No footprints in snow.

 

[Mataresa]

Only two things to add from my side:
The blood dripping from the Griffin didn't look very natural and the water splashing around Geralt being washed either.
The hood of the right guard (whose face was amazing) in the 15min video had a gap in his neck during the dialogue.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

Geralt is an agile swordsman, not a heavyweight UFC brawler.

Well, yes and no. Geralt actually doesn't really have the stature of an UFC brawler imo in that footage but maybe his muscles are a bit too defined. But overall he has the body of an athlete or warrior in that footage.

Here's an interesting comparison of body types of various athletes: http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://ninamatsumoto.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/athletes08.jpg&imgrefurl=http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=138030823&h=1344&w=1852&tbnid=kG_NCSqVI3xVjM:&zoom=1&docid=6Jc2Bw06E7DBGM&ei=UuTHVLiWLcr3ULvHg-AH&tbm=isch&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=1012&page=6&start=126&ndsp=21&ved=0CJABEK0DMC44ZA

 

[SkycladGuardian]

About colours

Spoiler

WItcher 3

do you understand now?

Maybe this chart will put your anxieties to rest?
View attachment 9799

 

[Bansai]

I like what I saw very much, just one thing annoyed me, lack of sheath/scabbard straps, they were just glued to Geralt, very silly, and here I thought we were past that, especially since Witcher 2 had them.

 

[witcher22]

Maybe this chart will put your anxieties to rest?
View attachment 9799

where did you find that chart?

 

[SkycladGuardian]

In this GameStar article. Scrolla bit down.. Fifth link in the second row, it's called "Stimmungstafel".
http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/artikel/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt,49062,3082308.html

 

[dlbpc]

Of course we keep going over assets and polishing them, it's among the reasons we pushed the game back - we see this as much as a bug as, say, a gameplay glitch. I can not really give you a clear answer as to the case with the bricks. They did look very out of place though so it is very likely that they were on someone's task list and had just been bumped up in priority, because it was shown that it was seemingly more apparent than assumed. Obviously we in the locations department take a special pride in our work and try to make our "babies" look as good as possible at all times.

On the other hand, the game is huge so it's always good for you guys to keep an eye out and point at things that we might've overseen. Chances are we miss something and would have to patch it afterwards. We're trying hard to avoid these scenarios though, even with things that might be very subtle. Generally not a fan of a "release now, fix later" mentality - as you might've noticed *cough* two delays *cough*.

Well this is good to hear.

Oh hi! Nice to see Gaffers making their voices heard

Especially since they can't on their own forum

Spoiler

Maybe this chart will put your anxieties to rest?
View attachment 9799

Well we've seen Skellige in the latest video, and it seems significantly brighter and cheerier to me. I thought the colors better conveyed the mood in earlier screenshots.

 

[1337Smithy]

One thing that doesn't really bother me much, but noticed, was the Nilfgaardian soldiers at the gate have their feet in the ground. Looks like they have hooves. Made me giggle a bit.

 

[Jeromen]

Well, you do know that the new video is shot at bright daylight with good weather? All the shots from Witcher 1 you show here are basically shot without much sunlight or even in the dark. That's not very fair. Witcher 3 will probably look way darker, less brightist or whitish once the sky gets dark and it begins to rain or the sun goes down. We actually can't say much about that without having seen a video of the game (in it's current state) from various locations and at various times of day and at various wheather states. And imo Witcher 1 wasn't perfect at all here because it was kind of dark and gritty on purpose all the time. I'd rather have a more realistic variety in atmosphere. The world actually is pretty bright and colourful in broad sunlight.

I believe the problem is not in the weather conditions, but rather in the fact that Witcher's visual style basically was consistent with the whole atmosphere of the game. The colours are duller and they enhance depth and clearness.
In The Witcher 3 lighting and colors are so bright, it would create discomfort. Of course, it's better than The Witcher 2, but nevertheless, it's too expressive.
With new lighting we are unlikely to see such rich colourful sunsets. The intimacy is gone.

 

[cfisher2833]

Here's my issues from what I've seen:


1. From chatting with one of the guys who was at the event, it seems that dialogue options are VERY minimal. We're talking like two or so replies to choose from, if at all. This is a pretty considerable concern imo.


2. That same guy also mentioned how none of the quests he played (think he said six in all) could be solved non-violently. I would enjoy being able to talk down enemies. It seems like this isn't a sentiment shared by CDProjeckt RED.


3. Exclamation points over quest givers heads; nothing ruins my enjoyment of exploring a town and talking to people quite like markers telling me who I need to actually talk to.


4. Quest markers. Granted this is to be expected of a modern RPG (or any modern game for that matter), but it's still annoying.


5. The whole zooming in and blurring the sides of the screen when you're going fast is really fucking annoying. Hopefully that can be disabled.




Oh, and the grass looks kinda shitty.

 

[thislsmadness]

Here's my issues from what I've seen:


1. From chatting with one of the guys who was at the event, it seems that dialogue options are VERY minimal. We're talking like two or so replies to choose from, if at all. This is a pretty considerable concern imo.

The Witcher has never been about huge Bioware-style dialogue trees. Conversations are very direct and to the point, Geralt doesn't sit around and listen to 20minutes of exposition from world's inhabitants.

2. That same guy also mentioned how none of the quests he played (think he said six in all) could be solved non-violently. I would enjoy being able to talk down enemies. It seems like this isn't a sentiment shared by CDProjeckt RED.

Based on impressions I've read, there were definitely two quests that had non violent resolutions.

3. Exclamation points over quest givers heads; nothing ruins my enjoyment of exploring a town and talking to people quite like markers telling me who I need to actually talk to.

They've said that UI elements will be customization to some degree. We'll have to see what that entails.

4. Quest markers. Granted this is to be expected of a modern RPG (or any modern game for that matter), but it's still annoying.

Maybe fits in with the above comment about UI customization.

5. The whole zooming in and blurring the sides of the screen when you're going fast is really fucking annoying. Hopefully that can be disabled.

Thats not from running, that from activating Witcher Sense.

 

[moonknightgog]

I have an idea. Maybe the pop in could be diminish with the use of Depth of Field.

 

[Agent_Bleu]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the uncompressed footage.
This game is a triumph.


Nonetheless, a few notes.

1. Cutscenes. Much as I liked them, why did you go with spending such a significant portion of the gameplay trailer on cutscenes, which inevitably put the game under a more favourable light?

2. Pop in. When some 50 trees materialize in front of you out of the blue, that's a bit too conspicuous. I watched the footage in slo mo and regret to report there has been zero improvement over the 35 min demo. In fact, in this regard, I'd say if anything the problem seems more wide spread, so much that vegetation is popping in a few meters in front of the player. I'm waving the white flag on this. No hopes of having this mitigated.

3. Snow. The opening area is snowy and yet snow seems to be the least well-handled of all natural elements. The texture is odd. It doesn't impact Geralt's speed or ease of movement and neither him nor the horse leave footprints behind. The sound isn't quite right either. What's more perplexing however is no trees whatsoever are covered in snow. You mean it's a snowed mountain top with trees on it but these are hydrophobic? Not a white leaf in there. With the kind of attention to detail you put in, this omission is intriguing. Snowless trees are in line with a general depreciation of the foliage quality when compared to previous trailers.

4. Terrain. There's some odd morphology which might fall under the infamous potato effect. Mountains which turn out to be no higher than hills, a technique that Skyrim defaulted to, with terrible consequences. Again, I have zero hopes of this being addressed at this point in time.


5. Animations. Sprinting looks as on the robotic side as it did back in August.


6 Ground. It does look noticeably flatter and cruder than before. Not only textures but also foiliage and geometry appear oversimplified in places.

7. Minor quibbles. I think I hear the siren screaming before Geralt actually thrusts her. Siren wings look a lot less detailed than their screenshot indicated back in June 2013. Doors have no weight and open like a pamphlet would. Too many on screen icons and some are redundant. Is it really indispensable for fauna to have tags hovering over them? Costal water looks off, texture is oily, weird. No massive foaming waves crashing by like in the first Red Engine 3 shot we got, . By comparison, that coast looks like an idyllic pond, but weather might impact that. Geralt out of the tub does not look wet; wet skin is dewed with droplets; his just looks plain oily. Arm pit hair. Geralt wouldn't shave there. You gave the mobster an ill-shaven neck. I'm sure you can impart some hair to Geralt's arm pit. Horse tail looks very past gen when compared to the 35 min demo. Hopefully, that's because Hairworks was disabled.