I have to say i understand the OP.
Have to disagree. Novigrad had tons of content, more densely packed than any other area. They could have packed it more but this game is long enough. Very surprising reaction; can you point to another RPG that had more content in a city than Novigrad (taking account of voiceacting, texture quality, and loading screens)?
Concerning quest content i might agree but on your last question, well, not a RPG but - take a look at Assassin's Creed Unity. That is what i call a living City.
Dunno if the OP is playing the same game as I'm playing, Novigrad is the best city I've ever witnessed in any game. I've never seen a more active city.
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Skyrim has a better living and breathing world than W3.
LOL
What OP imo means with that is that either it is not as big at Skyrim you can discover any place and it simply gives a feeling that everything is unique. (I know it's not always but dunno - it's the feeling that counts)
Skyrim does have a better living world though. You can enter every building and talk to pretty much NPC. Nearly every NPC has their own name and life unlike in W3 where most NPCs are just "merchant" or "peasant" and do nothing but wander around a bit. Oblivion had an even better living world with very detailed AI. Skyrim and Oblivion also have far more locations like dungeons and stuff. The wilderness is a lot more full of stuff.
That said though W3 is the better game than Skyrim overall. It's quests and main story are far better than Skyrim's.
I'd doubt if Skyrim has rly far more locations, yet most of the Skyrim locations are more valuable when it gets to loot, but that's another story. Yet i agree on the better quests.
Agreed! Just explore the place you could encounter some quest and especially the sewers. Also there are 2 whorehouse, 2 barber shop and so far i found 5 inn shop in that area. There is also some random encounter like fighting bandits.
Comparing this to Skyrim is beyond my comprehension, :huh: Novigard really felt like a real city. :victory:
If you gonna compared Novigard why not compare it to Oblivion. Skyrim city is quite smaller than Oblivion if i remember.
Or better Assassin Creed Series! Assassin Creed really give us a city feeling.
+1 Well i agree Novigard feels like a City. But beside qthe Quest driven NPCs not like a living one.
Sure, you can't have conversations with every single NPC in Novigrad, but what do you expect with so many NPCs? It's not like you're having a conversation with every passing person on the street in real life. Most people in real life would just ignore you if you'd try to approach them, so NPCs doing the same thing in TW3 really doesn't bother me at all.
One thing I would like to see is the option to ask NPCs for directions. I often get lost in Novigrad and I had trouble finding a swordsmith in Novigrad for the longest time, so it would have been awesome if you could ask directions to a specific place to NPCs. NPCs could then either tell you how to get there or maybe some of the friendlier NPCs would even walk you there. That would be awesome.
It's not that much of talking to everyone or enter any house but on differences. The rly best example i can give is with Assassin's Creed Unity. Just generally compare Novigrad with Oxford, or nearly any village with another one. It all feels the same (except quest driven places). Well there was one time a mob when you visited the city first but then .... many complain - still all do daily work. Where are the ppl going to church, doing .... no it would be a long list. What would already kind of make me happy is having npcs really doing and saying different stuff and taking into account different areas in the city.
So what do you have at AC Unity? Start of: Sounds! You can tell the city is alive by simpy hearing into it. You hear massive ppl taking on the streets, sounds of birds, horses, estimated and unestimated creaks, ....... it's like you close your eyes, you imagine yourself being there, you open your eyes you see it like imagined (except the part you can still tell it's a digital created world). Visually: well too much to explain you see mobs at places you'd expect, you see totally different streets, people, you can tell just by the look of the people or the things they say in which district you are, you see flowers, you see cafe-bars you see .... I am not much a talker so I can't really describe it - it's amazing.
Another example (yet, not of Unity): one of my family went to New York and showed me pictures of some places and (especially for churches as they are the most impressive and best chance of still beeing there but also few other buildings) everything they showed was exactly like I faced it in the game (except the people, and a framework as they were restoring). That for AC is known to build accurate details (visual as historical when it gets to story resp. the built in database), so I have no doubt when one day i'll travel there Paris would (to the parts where i expect it) look the same (especially after reading about academic historians and being amazed how they captured Paris). Don't get me wrong. The game itself is .... the story sucks, the gameplay didn't change and is boring as hell, the sidequests suck, well solving Mystery was one nice new part but still overall the game when it comes to "gaming" just sucks, still i don't regret getting it just cause of Paris how they made it alive.
Well sure TW3 is a fictional game but if I would image it for seconds to be real I doubt Novigrad would look the same.
I also know that i do talk about 1 city (yet, that is bigger than Novigrad) compared to the whole world of the witcher 3.
Novigrad is best realistic city in gaming ever.
Nope
True, the NPCs in Skyrim and Oblivion has names and schedules, like going to sleep and so on, and I agree that is great.. BUT it also limits the size of cities, take Imperial City in Oblivion, the arguable biggest town in Tamriel lt it has a underwhelming amount of NPC compared to Witcher 3. Sure W3 NPCs are just 'Townsman' but that means that there can be 20+ people in one towns square instead of 10 who maybe has a few unique lines. (Yes it's an older game, but the same holds true for Skyrim.)
You could call it quality vs quantity if you want, I think the W3 approach fits better into the world and sells the atmosphere of a huge city better with a lot more, but less talkative NPCs. Not everyone wants to talk to Geralt, why would you talk to some dude who walks up to you with two swords on his back, that seems dangerous! Plus he's a witcher, and people disdain them.
Agree on most parts. Well if that approach is rly the better one is to discuss. I totally agree on that talking thing. But that's not the only thing putting life into a city.
SpawnedLimit=XXX
in the user.settings file...
youre welcome
1. I did set this way up and still feel it's not rly "alive", now what? 2. So you take Quantity over Quality?
This is a joke thread, right? Name a better city that feels more alive in a videogame. I can't think of one.
Read my post and start guessing.
There are way more than 3 houses you can enter in Novigrad. You clearly haven't explored enough yet. There are at the very least 20 houses you can enter in Novigrad. That's already 5 more than any city in Skyrim. There's probably even more than 20 houses you can enter in Novigrad, but I either forgot or haven't found them yet.
No, wait, rly? 5 more houses? I'm amazed. Well - there are surely more than 20 houses you can enter, still of such a city it feels like taken the piss.
Besides, who randomly goes into other people's houses anyway? How does that add to realism or immersion? Do you just walk into everyone's house in real-life too?
You may not go into some stranger's house, but I'd guess you'd have way more shops, bars, government buildings, museums, cathedrals etc etc. you can freely enter.
As for the NPC cycles, with literally hundreds of NPCs in the city you're bound to have some that indeed don't do a whole lot, but none of them go through the same cycle every 15 seconds, that's just nonsense. All of them go to bed when nightfall comes, guards will patrol the street during nightfall. Some thieves and bandits snoop around during nightfall that aren't there during the day. And most NPCs actually do things you expect NPCs to do, such as carrying goods from one place to another, walk from their home to a shop and back, or visit the local pub.
That's all true. And comparing to Skyrim that would be ok. Still I say there could be more and I agree with OP to (what i think he wanted to) say: the city still feels not rly "alive".
Quality over quantity indeed. But sometimes quantity adds to the quality. This is most certainly the case in The Witcher 3. None of the cities in Skyrim actually felt like cities. The lore of Skyrim and the actual world of Skyrim didn't add up, which completely broke immersion for me. Solitude is supposed to be a giant trading metropolis according to the lore. In reality it's a very tiny place with only 20 houses give or take and a handful of NPCs. I was never convinced Solitude was the big city as described in the lore. Novigrad does feel like a big city, very much so. It's exactly as described in the lore. Same goes for Oxenfurt (though I expected Oxenfurt to be a bit bigger, but it's still leaps and bounds above any city in Skyrim).
I agree on that Skyrim's cities would have needed to be way bigger (i guess there is no talking about that, it rly sucks), still you compare quantity over quality on the houses this time. Tell me what's the point of having a whole city you can walk through if nearly any places look the same, you can count the actions NPCs are doing. Either it is big it tends to get boring. Just not the quest related places like theater or Dijkstra's bath.
And you're saying Skyrim doesn't have annoying characters that say the same shit every 15 seconds? Are you serious? The NPCs in Skyrim repeat their lines so insanely often than some of those lines have become memes!
So some individual figures tend to say the same thing and you compare that to the few sentences of a certain NPC type always says?
The Witcher 3 has more quantity AND better quality than Skyrim.
Quantity yes. Quality (not talking about the story) not. (especially if you think about release date)
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So what I want to say to sum it up: at no time I actually rly had the feeling of "beeing there", walking in a alive city. I just saw copied things there and there and wished there would be more to discover, more RPG behaviour of NPCs. Either it's a big city i can't say I am amazed at the city itself (just speaking of it - not few quest parts of the city or the game itself). So i kept my expectations to quest driven parts.