The Witcher 3: Two Areas Are Over 52 Square Miles by Themselves?

[ReptilePZ]

@Aditya Hmm? Talking about leaks is a no-no, I'm afraid, but I don't see any leak info here. If you're referring to "a leak on reddit says, first the map is 20% bigger than skyrim, the second that it's more than 3 times skyrim," then I have no idea what "leak" is being talked about, but what I do know is that this is information that does not come from any leak. In fact, you can see the origin in this very thread.

Anyway, please make use of that Report Post button when you think a post is breaking the rules, instead of discussing it in-thread. Keeps the forum cleaner and we'll probably get notified faster.

 

[BroccoliSouP]

Because very like it won't be the tutorial. I'm pretty sure Vizima will be the starting area. We know from the SoD trailer that emhyr tells Geralt that Ciri has returned and he has to search for her. It sounds like Geralt hears it for the first time. We know from the 35min gameplay demo that novigrad will be "some hours into the game"and from the e3 gryphon demo that geralt is level 7. So when you are doing the quests to collect information about ciris location you are still at the beginning of the game. The throne room scene in Vizima has to happen before this. We also know that the game will start at a small hub. So it's very likely Vizima/parts of vizima (including the throne room scene with emhyr) will be this tutorial area.

Kaer Morhen is an ideal introduction for universe and training ground(worked pretty well in TW1). Totally new players can spend there first few hours and then someone arrives and wants you to visit Emhyr in Vizima and real story begins. And we veterans will at least get some nice look at the location. I think it willl be like that but we both might be right..or wrong.

 

[Phinnway]

I think Kaedwen will be one of the maps. I wonder if you can only fast travel there.
View attachment 6737

No it isn't The two maps are Skellige Islands and No Man's Land/Novigrad. They said in an interview (sorry, I don't remember where) that Kaer Morhen is in the game, but they heavily implied you travel to it during a scripted story sequence and can't return there whenever you want.

This makes me wonder if the tutorial will take place at Kaer Morhen like it did in The Witcher 1. This makes sense to me. After all, The Witcher 1 did a much better job introducing you to the concept of a Witcher and what they represented than the Witcher 2 did.

 

[Scryar]

Kaer Morhen is an ideal introduction for universe and training ground(worked pretty well in TW1). Totally new players can spend there first few hours and then someone arrives and wants you to visit Emhyr in Vizima and real story begins. And we veterans will at least get some nice look at the location. I think it willl be like that but we both might be right..or wrong.

Well, it really depends if Vizima will be a hub or if we will only ge the throne room cutscene. But I think i read somehwere that Vizima will be a small hub (not sure thought). If that's the case they won't give us two consecutive small hubs, before they release us in the big open world. And like you mentioned before, it seems like we are fighting a wild hunt general in Kaer Morhen. I really doubt that will happen in the tutorial. Maybe the wild hunt will attack kaer Morhen at some point, but at the beginning? Would be too much witcher 1 for my taste.

 

[TonyGreen]

Where is Gors Velen and Thanedd island? We can see that big part of redania will be able to explore.

View attachment 6740
full size under spoiler

Spoiler

http://cs623329.vk.me/v623329678/69f0/kfTy1T1L_mU.jpg

 

[BroccoliSouP]

Well, it really depends if Vizima will be a hub or if we will only ge the throne room cutscene. But I think i read somehwere that Vizima will be a small hub (not sure thought). If that's the case they won't give us two consecutive small hubs, before they release us in the big open world. And like you mentioned before, it seems like we are fighting a wild hunt general in Kaer Morhen. I really doubt that will happen in the tutorial. Maybe the wild hunt will attack kaer Morhen at some point, but at the beginning? Would be too much witcher 1 for my taste.

Yeah...that scene from trailer is only thing that makes me doubt it too but at the same time Vizima doesn´t make sense to me as starting location. Why would Geralt be there? It is occupied territory and I would barely spend few hours questing after Emhyr would tell me to find Ciri. I would be imidiately after her(if I was Geralt ibviously). I actually hope Vizima will be playable but somehow it is wierd to make it tutorial location.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

I want to visit the Isle of Skye

 

[Ray76.64]

I would be imidiately after her(if I was Geralt ibviously).

It took Geralt about a half year or even more to find Ciri in the books and he was like "Daaaamn, man, i can't sit here, i gotta go go go", so you can place a lot of quests there while he "hastily" goes after her.

Why would Geralt be there?

To visit Emhyr, what else?

Anyway, i believe Kaer Morhen and Vyzima won't be available to visit them whenever you want. Kaer Morhen is faaaaaar faaaar away somewhere in the north-east and Vyzima... Well, it is location in W1 and we got some big-ass Novigrad here, i doubt they will make two cities of that scale.

 

[SageFox.326]

the 20% isn't a fact or real statement from cd projekt. that comes from game spot and a declaration of Marek Ziemak, but he didn't say 20% bigger map, he was talking about main story quests and side quests. Marek Ziemak: “Skyrim, which I think we all love, is a rather short game in terms of the main storyline. If you just want to focus on that element and you’re not that interested in exploring the world, it’s not that big. But that’s the core of The Witcher 3: the main story. It’s 40, 50 hours, plus the open world.”

I think the 20% bigger map statement never existed.

 

[Mefris]

Everyday I'm having a harder time imagining how they're going to handle boundries without resorting to invisible walls.Will we get a fast travel screen like when you go too far on the sea?

To be honest I'm not a fan of PR talk that says "if you see it you can go there" because that obviously won't be true.Where is the line drawn?If I stand next to Vizima I could probably see the Mahakam mountains in the distance...does that mean I can climb them?When I climb them and I see Kaedwen does that mean I can go there?Etc etc.

 

[Mgec]

Everyday I'm having a harder time imagining how they're going to handle boundries without resorting to invisible walls.Will we get a fast travel screen like when you go too far on the sea?

To be honest I'm not a fan of PR talk that says "if you see it you can go there" because that obviously won't be true.Where is the line drawn?If I stand next to Vizima I could probably see the Mahakam mountains in the distance...does that mean I can climb them?When I climb them and I see Kaedwen does that mean I can go there?Etc etc.

Geralt will stop and say: "Nah, I'm too old for that".

 

[Mefris]

^...or something will kill him on the spot like in Scarface when you go swimming for too long.Not a fan of this method either but at least it's not an invisible wall.

 

[goopit]

you'll probably freeze to death,get knocked around by the waves or get eaten by monsters. It should be varied so as not to be predictable.

Spoiler

Geralt just walks out off-screen and mumbles about Ciri's high heels

 

[OliverDK]

To keep the statement you can see it you can explorer it I imagine that:
- mountains acts are a natural boundary that you cannot pass. You can climb it but it becomes too steep at the top to go any further.
- a ocean is a natural boundary because even if Geralt is a mutant there's still limits to how far even he can swim and he will become exhausted and drown if going to far out.
- Forests which if you go in far enough becomes impenetrable or are closed of by huge unclimbable rock formations.
- With small hub areas I imagine city walls, rivers, mountains, rock formations and so on. I don't see this as breaking the statement of you can see it you can explorer it as these hubs are not part of the open world areas.

I remember reading that rivers too might act as natural boundaries where the water will be too cold or to wild to enter, which kind of break the statement you can explorer everything as you clearly can't explorer then what is on the other side. However I am kind of fine with it as there of course must be boundaries in the world as it is not endless. As long as it is executed believable like mentioned the river is too 'wild' to cross and entering it will mean loose of control of Geralt.

 

[Ray76.64]

I don't see this as breaking the statement of you can see it you can explorer it as these hubs are not part of the open world areas.

That's the whole thing, mate. He said if you can see it - you can explore it. Obviously we can't go everywhere, but the statement is false, because we can see objects which are not part of open world, but we can not explore them.
See? We can see it, but we can't explore it, so the statement is false. If he'd say "If you can see it, you can explore it unless it's not open world part" then it would fit in any game even if it's CoD or Ryse, because you obviously can see all location places that you can visit and you can't visit things that you see, but they're not part of location....
Damn, what am i talking about? Let's just say that statement is false and it never meant to be taken seriously, it's just the way to say that map is big, not limitless and borderless.
P.S. Getting a bit sleepy here, so sorry for some awful grammar.

 

[OliverDK]

That's the whole thing, mate. He said if you can see it - you can explore it. Obviously we can't go everywhere, but the statement is false, because we can see objects which are not part of open world, but we can not explore them.
See? We can see it, but we can't explore it, so the statement is false. If he'd say "If you can see it, you can explore it unless it's not open world part" then it would fit in any game even if it's CoD or Ryse, because you obviously can see all location places that you can visit and you can't visit things that you see, but they're not part of location....
Damn, what am i talking about? Let's just say that statement is false and it never meant to be taken seriously, it's just the way to say that map is big, not limitless and borderless.
P.S. Getting a bit sleepy here, so sorry for some awful grammar.

In the statements literally sense you and others are right of course in it is false.

I still think however that the statement applies to the two main open world areas and not small hub areas if they exist. And I think in the two open world areas you can explorer anything you see of interest and that is how I understood it.

In other words I don't take it literately to mean you can explorer everything in the sense if you see a lonely rock on the top of a mountain then you can run up to the top of the mountain a 'explorer' that stone. I think CDPR mean everything noteworthy; A ruin, tower, city, village, cave, dungeon, island, lonely house on the distant, hill top with people, a marsh, a swamp and so on.

There of course have to be some kind of boundaries as the areas are not endless. I think that speaks for it self and in that respect I refer to my previous post that I think natural boundaries are the way they went for limiting the player going further. And that I have no problem with.

 

[SageFox.326]

c'mon people, "you can see it, you can explore it" is the same as skyrim "see that mountain, you can climb up there", is an statement that the open world game is free as skyrim is, but bigger in this case.

isn't that hard to understand it.....

 

[HarelMor]

c'mon people, "you can see it, you can explore it" is the same as skyrim "see that mountain, you can climb up there", is an statement that the open world game is free as skyrim is, but bigger in this case.

isn't that hard to understand it.....

Elder scrolls is notorious for it's invisible walls near the map boundaries, there are roads blocked by invisible walls north east of windhelm (near the shack).
those game are advertises as you can go everywhere, this everywhere means inside the map.

 

[Mefris]

c'mon people, "you can see it, you can explore it" is the same as skyrim "see that mountain, you can climb up there", is an statement that the open world game is free as skyrim is, but bigger in this case.

In what world does "you can see it, you can explore it" translate to "the open world game is free as skyrim is, but bigger" ?That makes literaly no sense.

same as skyrim "see that mountain, you can climb up there"

"Hey,are those the Jerral mountains??Cool,I'll climb up and see if I can notice anything from Cyrodill. *Half way through*...why am I moonwalking down the slope...?Ahh...an invisible wall."

isn't that hard to understand it.....

Spoiler

[...]There of course have to be some kind of boundaries[...]

No one is contesting that Oliver.I just want a crystal clear example of how those boundries are going to work because more often then not they end up being massive immersion breakers.The army is blocking the road?Cool.The mountains are too steep?Great.That's the sort of thing I would like to see in the game.

 

[OliverDK]

No one is contesting that Oliver.I just want a crystal clear example of how those boundries are going to work because more often then not they end up being massive immersion breakers.The army is blocking the road?Cool.The mountains are too steep?Great.That's the sort of thing I would like to see in the game.

For obvious reasons I can't answer you on how the boundaries will be in the game. But lets partition in CDPR sent me a current copy on the game and I shall let you all know by the end of the week

Anyway I hope it will be like I described in my earlier post with natural boundaries and what you are describing in yours. The army is blocking the road is cool. I too dislike the way it is done in other games with invisible walls. It breaks the immersion yes.