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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt


Arcturus

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It's not so much the actual graphics themselves. It's about the developer promising to deliver a certain product and then not delivering on it.

 

Exactly. I promise to sell you a car with leather seats and four airbags, and it turns out that the seats are actually plastic and there are no airbags. The natural reaction is to be upset, and there will be those that cancel their purchase. (Not the best example, but it's what I came up with on short notice).

 

I don't want to retread the ground that has been covered over literally hundreds of forums pages, but in essence, CDPR made clear - unequivocal - commitments about the product that PC gamers would get (and could expect based on footage shown in 2014).

 

With that in mind, there is a genuine frustration (and anger, by some) that the 'final' product has not delivered on those promises and expectations. Assets have been stripped out entirely or replaced with low-poly versions, various particle effects are missing, etc.

 

At the end of the day, I've always been a gameplay and story over graphics person - and so the "calamity" that is the 'downgrade' is something I'll only experience in around 2 years - once I eventually get around to upgrading my GPU.

 

I'm just miffed because CDPR have lost my trust (and many others) because of the way this whole debacle has gone down. Given their history and my unflinching support for their games, I am disappointed because I honestly expected more from them.

Edited by Dunedain19
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Such a drama about a video game. Even if it looked better on previous videos, you got new videos and reviews so you can see how the final game looks like. And nobody forces anyone to buy it.

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It's only a model...

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And who has the right to feel let down, and feels like he's obliged to buy the game if he doesn't feel like the dev's delivered what was promised? Don't get the general attitude. If you're so p***ed off about it, don't buy it. As simple as that.

Not as simple for many.

Many people do a lot of emotional investment in something they look forward to. When that thing is a lot of time away, that piles up.

Then comes a disappointment, which is natural if you thought you get more than you actually get, and especially if you had a reason to believe you get more.

And with all the disappointment there is still the thing you were looking forward to, not as good as you hoped, but probably good enough that you take it - or maybe you are just so invested already, that you have to take it, no matter what (there is a psychological effect at work there).

 

With all the disappointment comes anger.

Which with the net today is easily vented.

 

I think the right to feel let down is earned when a company promises something, generates interest and publicity with it, and then doesn't deliver.

Especially when the company tries to "smuggle" in the change without saying anything, or isn't completely honest about it.

 

There is a big difference between (for examples): "That was always intended that way, and we never said different" and "Sorry, we tried, we didn't see a way to do it on time and budget, and decided to cut it, because doing everything like that would have been too much work. [Added Bonus for: Here is an optional patch that implements what we had completed so far]"

 

While I never was that invested in graphics, I can easily understand anger about things that were more or less promised, but didn't come to be.

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I don't know what everybody is bitchin' about. The game will be amazing, as were the previous titles, so who cares whether the graphics were downgraded or what not? It still looks stunning enough and every review says it's one of the top tier RPGs, so gtfo and enjoy yourself playing it, damn it! ;)

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The game is almost guaranteed to look better over time.

 

CD Projekt always improves their game. Take a look at The Witcher 1 and 2 before and after the upgrade to the Enhanced Edition (free update by the way).

 

In short: thus far they've been one of the most honest developers I saw. That and trailers are just for teasing anyway. I'm not talking already about how Mass Effect came out.

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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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the problem is than both the xbone and ps4 have companies behind them to make sure that their version of the game for there consoles are as good as they can get it, for the pc it would basically be micosoft but they want all players who play games on computers to switch to playing games on the xbox which isn't what a lot of pc players want to do, due to the xbox being not that good and it costs too much with all the extra's you have to pay for using the xbox, which used to be free before micosoft snuffed there nose into the game industry. So there's always the chance that the pc game would have been like they were going to say it was like but money talks and the console companies could just have the pc version dumbed down to match there console versions of the game.

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the funny thing is no one complained about downgrade when Bioshock : Infinite was released and it was a downgrade of all downgrades

 

They even took out the original voice actor for Booker who was Stephen Russell! I thought he did a great job from the footage shown of him but ah well the new voice actor for Infinite wasnt too bad.

 

As for the witcher downgrade I haven't been following any news of it however after playing the game I found it to be incredibly beautiful and the world is so damn detailed I love it, plus the story and gameplay pulls you in so much. I guess if they really did do a downgrade I sure cant notice crappy graphics or anything, it looks fantastic to me.

 

I think the problem is too many gamers nowdays are just drama queens and will bitch about the smallest thing.

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I think the problem is too many gamers nowdays are just drama queens and will bitch about the smallest thing.

I think the entitlement being off the charts is owing to the natural proximity between developer, whiner and consumer that the internet allows for. Nowadays, any demanding man-child can go crazy and have their ridiculously exaggerated rants heard by a bunch of people. They act like they're the vox populi in an oppressive society because they once again fell for embellished E3 marketing. I imagine they just feel dumb for being gulled for the nth time and throw a tantrum about how unfair it is rather than simply dampening their giddiness at E3. It's like people forget that nobody there is their friend and they're all up on-stage to sell you something. The irony there is that they then go out and call anyone buying it a sheep who perpetuates the dishonesty in the industry.

Exactly. I promise to sell you a car with leather seats and four airbags, and it turns out that the seats are actually plastic and there are no airbags.

Except the game is an amazing new standard for RPGs everywhere in terms of world design and writing. The combat's pretty simplistic and Geralt controls like a tank missing a track, but it's otherwise an impeccable and thoroughly 10/10 vidyo game. Probably best to save that spiel for Ubisoft and EA.

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Just bought it. You can write me off for this weekend! :D See ya on the othe side! ;-)

 

Edit: Dang, one and a half hours downloading 30 Gb. :smith: Sad STiFU is sad!

 

It would take me approx. 30 hours to download this. So shut up and play!

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I really enjoyed Witcher 1 but was quite disappointed by Witcher 2, despite the lovely graphics -- mainly due to its invisible walls hemming the player in to a tiny world compared with the freedom of #1, and its ridiculously hard non-optional fights, which ought to be optional in a play-once RPG. How does Witcher 3 play?

 

Edit: and the QTEs of course. Please let there be no QTEs.

Edited by SteveL
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No QTEs, absolutely gigantic free-roam map full of stuff to do. Difference between the countryside and the cities is like night and day: the tone of everything completely changes from you roaming the countryside dealing with village problems to dealing with more human problems in the cities. It's all huge, all free-roam. Pretty much my only complaints having played a lot of it is that it uses the witcher sense mechanic far too much, in that almost every job has you following glowing footprints through the countryside at some point, and also that the movement is clunky as hell. Otherwise, great fun, fiendishly difficult and mind-bogglingly large and detailed. Conversations are my favorite part, as in all Witcher games and recent Bioware RPGs. Writing's great, really easy to lose yourself, reads as well as the novels do. and dat slavic music...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qck-tdJFe6o

Edited by Airship Ballet
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Except the game is an amazing new standard for RPGs everywhere in terms of world design and writing. The combat's pretty simplistic and Geralt controls like a tank missing a track, but it's otherwise an impeccable and thoroughly 10/10 vidyo game.

 

And in my example, the car I sold went on to win the WRC...

 

Your point about it being a good game doesn't change the facts that: 1) promises were made; 2) assurances were repeatedly given that said promises were going to fulfilled; 3) despite glaring evidence that the seats are no longer leather and there are no airbags, I continue to deny said evidence (to switch back to my car example); 4) continue to tell people "to wait until they get their hands on" the car (so that I can get all that pre-order cash) before they make "false" accusations about my car, and 5) only after the car ships do I actually admit that the leather seats and airbags had to be stripped out, and that I'm sorry it had to be done.

 

Probably best to save that spiel for Ubisoft and EA.

 

And so another 'double-standard' is born!

 

We'll criticize Ubisoft and EA because they're the established "evil" companies that regularly screw-over PC gamers. We'll scream from the rooftops when Watch_Dogs was degraded - coincidentally because WD isn't the revolutionary game that Ubisoft claimed it was going to be. Yet, we'll give CDPR a pass because it has historically been the 'darling' of the PC community and the Witcher 3 is a "10/10 vidyo game" - I'm sorry, but that sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

 

To emphasize, the point is not whether or not the game in question is "good," "average," or "bad" - it is about consumers telling developers/publishers that they will no longer continue to tolerate "bull-shots," "vertical-slices" and other such marketing gimmicks that make claims about a product - in this case, the graphics - which then transpire to be false or simply not to the standard that was (again, keyword) promised. The primary form of telling developers/publishers that such practices are unacceptable is to boycott the product in question and warn others off it, so as not to further encourage the aforementioned practices.

 

What really pisses off the consumer in me is that CDPR continue to market the game with both video and image material from previous builds that simply no longer exist. It's one thing to admit that the game has been downgraded after it ships and to deny that contention up until that point - it's another thing entirely to continue to use material that is simply no longer indicative of the final product, in order to sell more copies.

 

CDPR could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had just been more upfront as development went on. Sure, it would caused an outcry in the PC community, but it's extent would have been far less than what it is presently.

 

The irony there is that they then go out and call anyone buying it a sheep who perpetuates the dishonesty in the industry.

 

I'm not calling anyone a sheep for purchasing the game - that's entirely their choice; however, I do think that the pre-order culture has contributed to this situation where developers/publishers are desperate to show off their games in the "best-albeit-if-unplayable" light in order to scoop up as many pre-orders as possible. Naturally, people who have been hoodwinked by the marketing magic will be upset that the final product is not what was promised months earlier.

 

In any event, I'm really glad to read that you're thoroughly enjoying the game!

Edited by Dunedain19
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Your point about it being a good game doesn't change the facts that: 1) promises were made; 2) assurances were repeatedly given that said promises were going to fulfilled

Well there's the bottom line. I hear this with pretty much every recent release that I make the mistake of browsing discussion on before the initial clamour has died down. They promised this, they promised that. I don't know what causes that passion in people, or maybe even what causes the lack of it in me. I simply don't care. I don't care what the developers promise, don't even follow it: I check out gameplay once they're out and decide whether or not it looks good enough to buy. I don't feel lied to, cheated, anything: I simply buy it based on what I see. As far as I'm concerned, CDPR can slap me across the face and call me nasty names after putting out TW3.

 

People promoting games have always over-hyped their products. Molyneux is infamous for it, but it's just always been the case. They're trying to sell you something, so they gild it as far as they safely can. I mean, just go and look at the magazine articles promoting Thief:TDP from over a decade ago. They make some ridiculous claims, talk mostly in half-truths and come out with some outright lies while promoting their stuff. Somebody selling you something is not your friend, no matter how friendly they are. They'll lie to you if it means they keep their job, that's simply how promotion works and has always worked, it's why I avoid it.

 

While it being a good game doesn't change the fact that they went back on whatever they promised people, high-res textures or whatever, it shouldn't be the focus. People have their heads in the wrong place if they're seriously going to sit there and say "yeah it's an excellent game, but they said it would be fantabulously pretty and it's only super pretty. I feel lied to and cheated, and couldn't live with myself if I bought into their lies." I mean damn, where does that come from? Why is what the devs said more important than your own first-hand experience with it? Ask yourself "is it good? Is it my kind of game?" Not "how does Adam Kicinski like his steak" and "is this exactly the game they said they would release a few months ago?" Look at the product you're about to buy and decide if it's worth the asking price, that's as complicated as it needs to be. What the devs said at E3 has no bearing on how the game looks and plays now. Buy it for what it is. Stop worrying about the paratext and read the bloody book.

Edited by Airship Ballet
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Finished the first act now, which was nice, but it didn't quite pull me of my chair as acts 1&2 of Witcher 1 did. I think it will be hard to ever pull that game off its throne for me.

 

While playing the first act, I was always like, "where's that open world gameplay everyone is talking about?" But then I got to the 2nd act. Damn, there's way too much to do! :D Gotta concentrate on the main story line.

 

I play on the beforelast difficulty, since I am quite experienced in playing the witcher titles. Using potions and oils is mandatory here. I also invest quite a bit in the magical shield (Quen), because you cannot regenerate health by meditating on this difficulty and health pickups are pretty rare. Anyway, is this just shifted perception or doesn't the food heal as much while you're in a fight?

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Well, I play him as an honorable man too, never one to say cool guy stuff and start fights! The alcohol pilfering is for the greater good and, considering I don't haggle up the pay and take up contracts from peasants for pennies, it's only fair! Besides, it's for their own good: alcoholism will solve nothing if I die to running out of Swallow.

Edited by Airship Ballet
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So, I am like 40 hours into the game now and didn't even enter the third of four worlds on the map. :-) This game is huge, but never boringly lengthy. The "sidequests" are scripted so amazingly well, that you can't really classify them as sidequests and their storyline outcome almost always depends on your actions. I love what they have done with this game, great work!! Even the card game they implemented is a great deal of fun. All in all, this is one of the greatest if not the greatest RPG of all time, to me.

 

There is really only one thing I can criticize about this game: The potion-system. I am fine with the alchemy system with its alcohol-fill-ups. That is actually a good thing as it takes the "work" out of alchemy. But the resulting potions are designed as infight-consumables and because of that, they have a very short duration of effect. There are two problems for me, with this approach:

1) It does not feel very witcher-like! In Witcher 1, you really had to prepare for a fight. You researched your enemy's weaknesses and then sat down to drink the appropriate potions and put the right oil on your sword. Then you were ready for the big fight. With that potion system, your toxicity level decreased very slowly. So, once you drank your potions, you were pretty much commited to your poison and it was actually impossible to drink further potions infight. This whole procedure makes it feel very realistic and you feel like careful planning and research is actually rewarded. With the new infight-consumables this is all gone, which is a real shame. But I guess the developers just wanted to open up Witcher 3 a little more to casual gamers and I don't blame them for that. After all, they gotta make a living, too. But there is one fundamental gameplay problem with these new potions, which leads me to my second point.

2) You only have two quickslots for potions and that is way too little!! These two slots are pretty much always occupied with health and endurance potions. So, considering the duration of effect of the other buff-potions is so low, you frequently have to pause the game and enter your inventory in order to rebuff. This is just bad game design! I really hope they fix this issue in an enhanced edition of W3 and either implement a proper quickslot bar or return to the old system of buff-potions. The latter is very unlikely to happen, though, I guess!

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I honestly don't think the simpler potion system is a bad thing, just different. I was dreading coming into the game knowing that I'd have to go through all that stuff again, and in a game world that was so much larger, meaning I'd have to do it so many more times. I don't think all the preparation would fit into this game, considering how many contracts and fights you get into. Speaking of, contracts were a let-down since they're generally just a case of using your witcher sense to follow some foot prints and then kill a regular enemy with a unique name and a boss' health bar. Since the preparation was done away with for the most part, it was just a case of swinging away and spamming Quen.

I just beat the game last night at level 29 on the hardest difficulty, having only upgraded Quen, Axii (for conversation options) and quick attacks. I basically had 3 groups full of red skills with red mutagens, as well as the highest-tier Cat School armor. I can't see any real benefits from levelling anything else, especially that crappy-looking alchemy tree. Skills were disappointing (other than the awesome sword ballet stuff you do with the one skill that activates when you hold your quick attack button), but they always have been in this series. I abandoned randomers' side quests once I hit Novigrad, meaning I did all the important secondary quests, but none of the "my daughter fell down a well please help I'll give you some gwent cards" stuff that you run into all the time. Velen and Skellige were pretty much completely unexplored other than the scavenger hunts for the feline armor, just because I felt no need to explore all the question marks since I was overflowing with valuables and XP already. I didn't need their crafting materials, their money, their XP, so I didn't really see the point. The story was too engaging by that point to take time off from it anyway.

The story tho. Hooh. Turns out I made like every single good choice you can that affects the ending, so I got a super idyllic one. I mean I won't spoil anything, but it shows you flashbacks towards the end, letting you know what all the pivotal choices were, and I made the right one in each of them. The majority involve being a good parent too. maybe i'm an awesome mother after all

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