Witcher 3 Gameplay from GDC and PAX

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I'm curious about the second meter below health on all the enemies now. Could it be vigor, shield, stamina?

The bandit in the GDC snippet uses it to block Geralt's attacks. If you notice as he's blocking he takes very little damage, and then once his bar is down to 0, Geralt actually starts whacking him properly. Presumably promoting some kind of Light/Strong attack switching.

As for non-human enemies, I don't know.
 
Even if this has been pointed out before, I feel like it certainly deserves a mention again.
While I think the inventory actually is a bit easier on the eye now, the change of tabs concerns me. When comparing it to the old one, it seems like they removed the armor tab for some reason as well as the potion tab which has been combined with "usable items". I don't understand why you would do this as it gimps an otherwise clear overview and you will for example now have to look through both your food and potion items in the same big ol' tab instead of having them split up conveniently.

Whyyy?

Your armor goes into the very first tab which is called "equipment". Potions dont go in the usable items tab, that is for oils, whet stones, food, ect. You "equip" your chosen potions, bombs, mutagens in the alchemy tab.
 
Can you honestly say that you see no visible difference between the foliage in that gif and the foliage in the recent gameplay video?

The whole black&blue/white&gold dress internet fiasco that has been going on recently made me realize that there are A LOT of people who are, unfortunately, subjects to sensory deception.

It's really hard to tell, because of time of day and weather differences. But in all likelihood, there is a difference. But this doesn't automatically infer any downgrade.

A downgrade to me is a massive change in quality, similar to what happened in Crysis 3 with the interactive foliage at the "Roots of all Evil" level In the Crysis 3 tech trailer. The foliage was WAY better looking at that particular scene compared to the final release.. In other words, there was a fundamental change in the quality of the assets.

This on the other hand, could easily be explained by a settings change.

---------- Updated at 10:05 AM ----------

I'm saying their renderer is of higher quality now, than it was then. Not vice versa. I love the new renderer. I'm not complining lol

Oh, carry on then :D The renderer is undoubtedly better, you're right.. It will be interesting to see what kind of improvements are in the final build for ultra quality..
 
Subjectivity is funny thing. Posting some subjective webm from some previous trailer.
http://a.pomf.se/nzrjew.webm
Not that i am salty, tw3 doesn't look bad (rather average), i am more worried about performance to be honest, it requires some pretty powerful machine and i dare to say that i find little justification in tw3 visuals for this kind of hardware. I could play games on my gtx 560 that looked more appealing to my eyes, but i guess it's also matter of my subjective opinion. Problem will begin when subjective opinion of large number of angry potential customers may affect sales of the product.
 
Oh, and more downgrade talk makes baby Jeebus cry and you look like a tool.

Is this really the kind of behavior one should expect from a community manager?
Could someone else from CDPR confirm that this isn't their official standpoint?
It seems all the bad rep Chris Priestly gets from his days as a Bioware community manager is well-deserved.
 
Those exclamation marks make me wonder, because people who played hands-on demo claimed there was none. It's possible they add it since then, but there may be another explanation. You see, the mark appear only when the man is calling Geralt, asking him for help. I wonder if this is not that gameplay mechanic which Damien once described. When Geralt will gain more reputation thanks to his selfless deeds (in the gameplay he has 30 level, so he had enough time to do so), more people will start asking him for help. So maybe in the beginning you have to talk to people in order to find a job, but when you reach quite a nice level of reputation in the area they will start calling you and asking for help instead. You know, if the mountain won't come to Muhammad then Muhammad must go to the mountain. If it's just a way to obtain some of the quests and only in this case they will be marked, I could live with it, but I won't, because...*

I need to clarify one misconception about the Witcher senses and the arrow combination. The yellow arrow is actually not leading you straight to the cave, you can reach it only by following the scent of wine. If you look closely, the arrow is pointing to some other area (possibly traders camp next to the caravan) that in the video they simply skipped through. The cave is marked on the minimap only after Geralt reached it, but before that arrow pointed out to this other place. I have my overall opinion about witcher senses, but I will post it another time.

*... it may be final Witcher game, so I decided to go hardcore. I will start playing on Hard or Dark difficulty level, disable as many unnecessary UI elements as possible, including enemy's health and minimap, and we'll see how far I go. Usually I don't like this type of gaming, but in this one case I'm going to make an exception, because there can be the only one first time with The Witcher 3 and I'm not gonna waste it.
 
Your armor goes into the very first tab which is called "equipment". Potions dont go in the usable items tab, that is for oils, whet stones, food, ect. You "equip" your chosen potions, bombs, mutagens in the alchemy tab.

Well, shit, I guess you're right.
I still think it wouldn't hurt to have some of these things displayed on the same page though.
 
The new gameplay of the witcher 3 was really good
It looks better and more polished than any gameplay i've ever seen from the game.

There isn't a single other open world game that looks this good.(well i know about skyrim with mods)
The amount of detail in the environments and the quality of the lighting is simply stunning.
Not only that, but it has amazing dynamic foliage and not just a few trees, but all the grass and shrubs as well which we've never seen before on this scale.
The game also uses a physically based rendering system that results in outstanding looking materials and light interaction.
The dynamic hair and cloth is also impressive.
Great job CDProjektRed!!!
 
@spiritshard Listen, how exactly did the fanbase get treated like garbage when they were allowed to discuss the downgrade for over 200 pages? Sure, there were some good posts and discussions there, but that was 5% of the total posts, read it again, and if you do not tear your hair out then I have nothing to say to you, especially when they started saying the same stuff from 10 pages before and openly insulting each other.
 
Another thing, there's seriously not even a drinking animation for the potion during the fight in the end? And the duration of a swallow potion is 60 seconds? Oh, and the thunderbolt is only 30 as well I guess.
 
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Anyone who wants to discuss the potential downgrade has no channel in which to do so. The "official" channel is locked, and talking about it elsewhere gets you in trouble. Furthermore, anyone who does offer to post this difference in opinion gets slammed for doing so; I've been referred to as being self-entitled and being a troll despite this being far from my intention, having left this discussion for a while and with the graphics not being the main focus of what I said earlier. Sorry I'm not a sheep and am willing to look at both sides of the discussion and debate it WITHOUT resulting to petty/suble insults or sarcasm.

@TheEvilChris See above as to why I refer to the closure of that thread as censorship. In short, staff have made every effort to halt the discussion on a downgrade and those wanting to discuss it have been alienated and treated like garbage.

But hey, no one gives a shit what I say so I'll butt out. :)
How have staff made every effort to halt the discussion? It's been taking a noticeable amount of space in this thread alone (and of course there was the actual thread that reached over 300 pages). When you write "every effort" I'm imagining mass deleted posts and banned users. This has not happened, and you're doing a disservice to your attempt to be taken seriously by exaggerating in this way.

Nor by writing at the end "no one gives a shit what I say so I'll butt out" with a smiley face that just seems there to provoke. It ends up awkward. How many posts here do you see receive direct responses? Most don't. You do. In fact, people seem to give more shit about what you say than most other posts in this thread. People may not agree, but that's another matter entirely. You say you're willing to engage in the discussion without petty or subtle insults or sarcasm? What are these sentences in your post if not that?
 
Downgrade talks are no use. Let's just help to make the game look better by making a constructive critic. Although I enjoyed the new video very much, I also found some small things that could be better. So here it goes:

1)terrain cliff details could be better


2)grass moves through wood


3) this grass looks terrible and moves through NPC (check it in motion)


4)cloth moves through a horse


5)The view is not so great - blury, misty, little details (volumetric fog could help but this is different story)


6)no shadow attached to Roach appears as he is flowting in the air (also check that in motion)
I know I'm nitpicking but if it will help, why not.
 
Anyone who wants to discuss the potential downgrade has no channel in which to do so. The "official" channel is locked, and talking about it elsewhere gets you in trouble. Furthermore, anyone who does offer to post this difference in opinion gets slammed for doing so; I've been referred to as being self-entitled and being a troll despite this being far from my intention, having left this discussion for a while and with the graphics not being the main focus of what I said earlier. Sorry I'm not a sheep and am willing to look at both sides of the discussion and debate it WITHOUT resulting to petty/suble insults or sarcasm.

The problem I have with this, is that I think you're using the word "downgrade" far too liberally. To me, a downgrade is a catastrophic reduction in the quality of assets. Insofar as I can see, the Witcher 3 has not been downgraded.

Whatever differences that exist between past trailers and recent gameplay could EASILY be explained by different settings, or even different time of day and or weather.

This is what a downgrade is to me. This is the Crysis 3 tech trailer that was released before the game for hype. Go to 2:15 for the foliage simulation.


Nowhere was this ever seen or used in the actual retail version. In the retail version, we got this. Go to the 10:05 mark:

[video=youtube;-kciCmB6w2U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kciCmB6w2U[/video]

As you can see, the tech trailer had lushly simulated vegetation that reacted to the helicopter's rotor wash. In the retail version however, we got a bunch of scraggly, thinned out weeds that looked like they were made of sprites.

Now THATS a downgrade.
 
Also, with respect, the original video is quite clearly labelled as a tech trailer. If it were labelled as gameplay, then you would be right.

I understand that, but when used as an example to back up my point, it's still valid. The fact is, the Witcher 3 has not experienced any kind of catastrophic reduction in the quality of it's assets...

Compared to say what happened with Watch Dogs, if you want an actual game comparison. Ubisoft were the ones that triggered the whole downgrade phenomenon in the first place with Watch Dogs..

But CDPR, going by their history have never been known to downgrade their games. If anything, it's the opposite.
 
Also, with respect, the original video is quite clearly labelled as a tech trailer.

captured in-game from Crysis 3. Same could be said about that nvidia presentation video from E3 2013, yet people have no problem to use it to prove downgrade.
 
On the matter of foliage - I think that's the main difference people (myself included) are spotting between the 2013 footage and everything after. Specifically those few seconds snippets of Geralt facing the wolves, the fiend and the flying creatures (ekhidans, I think?). In those tiny parts the foliage does seem better to me - it's more dense and has a nicer variety.

That being said, I still don't think "downgrade" is the only explanation. It's certainly the most appealing because that word is very rousing.

I think that part of it is a play on angles - you don't see in the 2013 footage a top-down camera that will let you easily spot how the foliage is separated by patches of nothing, like we often see in the 2014+ material. Looking at the Brazilian 35min footage, there's a moment when the player moves the camera close to the ground, and to me the grass then seems much better than, well, when he moves the camera to a higher point.





The village GIF is often brought up in this topic, but honestly, I'm not seeing a difference in the foliage there and the foliage here:

Part of that GIFs beauty was how alive it was, with so many things happening on screen. I don't see a reason to think that's no longer the case. Just a few seconds before that screenshot I just posted was taken, the leaves were blowing in the wind around Geralt just like in the village GIF, and there was a faint cloud of sand that brushed past Geralt.

Lastly, and I think this has never come up in this topic - I just rewatched the 2013 material, and I don't see the foliage react to Geralt at all. Now it's not completely interactive in all the material released (big bushes, for example, are static), but grass and bigger plants move according to Geralt's movements, something I haven't seen in the beloved debut and VGX trailers.

Now, hypothetically, if there has been a downgrade and the foliage won't look as great as the 2013 material, it's not taking away for nothing. When it comes down to it, if I could choose between static but detailed foliage to less detailed foliage but one that responds to your movements, I'd go with the second. But that's up to personal preference. People might prefer better looking grass, even if it doesn't move, and there's nothing wrong about that. Different strokes.

People who are adamant about there being a downgrade will consider my post as mental gymnastics or excuses. Oh well. Nothing much I can do there. As I said, I think there is a difference, I like the look of the foliage in 2013 more, but I don't think that necessarily means a downgrade. And for the record, I don't think that ultra settings will change this aspect.

See how frustrating it is?

Like I said though, I'll say no more. :)
Why don't we stop, then? Maybe I've done it too. If so, I regret it, and I apologize (I suspect my post to Scholdarr might have been a bit too feisty, as well as my PM). I don't like it when I let emotions get the better of me in gaming boards and make me write things I wouldn't of had, under a more clear mind. I still believe that discussions can be pleasant even when people are in deep disagreement.
 
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So why nobody talk about how each type of plant shows a different resistence in front the wind strength, for example?

Plants growing throught rocks? come to my country, I'll show you some interesting varieties.

Why I write so rude, because I'm not a regular user of English, so, please, don't be rude with me.

Peace and love. And cats.

---------- Updated at 02:02 PM ----------

The first picture I've found in less than10 seconds.




Rock vegetation in the Cave of the Altars (Duratón, Segovia). Alberto Díaz San Andrés.
 
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