New Witcher 3 PC Patch Adds Visual Upgrades

[Shinkicker444]

Maybe Developers shouldn't make their games look so damn pretty in a demo if they can't pull it off in the final product and give people a false sense of hope.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Gamers rush to defend their own mistreatment at the hands of publishers/developers/press faster than the consumers in any other industry, and yet we're the ones most often libeled as "entitled" by our own enthusiast media and each other. Sorta makes you wonder: would those with influence and reach to do so ever call a truly empowered consumer group entitled? Or is this something they only feel safe doing when the target is a group of consumers who seem to routinely shame each other into taking it all lying down?

Misrepresenting your product isn't a good or defensible thing. If a car manufacturer promoted a certain top speed or gas mileage that varied from the final product, they would be crucified. If a tech manufacturer lied about their specs, they would be crucified. Why is it that only gamers seem content to participate in their own manipulation? As customers, we are SUPPOSED to be entitled. Advocating for any other position makes you a dead-ringer for a corporate shill.

 

[Metalrocks]

good thing i didnt get it on day 1. i just wait until everything is really fixed and (if) a directors cut or extended version will come out as it was with part 2. this version at least should be the final and fixed version and should have no issues what so ever with it.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Some gamers have become such spoiled little twats. In that demo the game was still in very early development, the footage we saw was on a smaller scale map than they had planned, it was before the game was expanded on and fleshed out and it was built to run on one very high end system simply to show off what they were working on. The finished product has to work at acceptable framerates across a wide range of systems. Of course an early demo, showing a very small part of the game built built for a high end PC is going to look better than the finished product across 3 systems.

Even if the visuals are a little downgraded from the early demos, the game still looks fucking fantastic on PC. CD Projekt have delivered a great game, and on top of that they're giving out 16 pieces of free DLC. Yet people are bullying them into feeling like they've done wrong by the community and have to give out more. Not fucking okay.

 

[Areloch]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

That sounds like a good compromise that will benefit customers in the end.

 

[Strazdas]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

As of patch 1.4 I can actually use full Hairworks on Ultra settings with a 780. One caveat is I had to tweak the config files for rendering as the default Anti-Aliasing setting for Hairworks was 8xMSAA which was pretty harsh on system resources. I manually reduced that to 2 (seems to be good now), though I think you can turn it to 0 if you don't mind slightly grainy looking hair.

I heard 0/2 causes bugs in hair. can you confirm/deny this?

So this game is damn near perfect in all other regards, and people are furious at it over graphics? I don't even...why? Because a trailer was shinier? Like trailers always are? I will never understand this train of thought.

IF a game is perfect in other regards, then graphics are the only thing left to complain about as its the only imperfect thing. hence, people complain about graphics. seems self-evident, no?

2) They dismissed accusations of parity between the platforms.

Actually, They have agreed to that a long time ago [http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

But since this wasnt just post processing and colour correction but instead was changes in texture, draw distance, effect particles and even the design of world fauna....

 

[TT Kairen]

Some gamers have become such spoiled little twats. In that demo the game was still in very early development, the footage we saw was on a smaller scale map than they had planned, it was before the game was expanded on and fleshed out and it was built to run on one very high end system simply to show off what they were working on. The finished product has to work at acceptable framerates across a wide range of systems. Of course an early demo, showing a very small part of the game built built for a high end PC is going to look better than the finished product across 3 systems.

Even if the visuals are a little downgraded from the early demos, the game still looks fucking fantastic on PC. CD Projekt have delivered a great game, and on top of that they're giving out 16 pieces of free DLC. Yet people are bullying them into feeling like they've done wrong by the community and have to give out more. Not fucking okay.

This. CD Projekt is the most consumer-friendly, passionate AAA dev out there, and yet because of continuous burns they've received from other publishers, gamers feel the the need to crucify CDPR over the most minor of transgressions. Are you so blinded by cynicism that you cannot forgive a completely insignificant change, even in the face of a game that is a 10/10 in pretty much every respect (including graphics, DESPITE a tiny downgrade).

Bloody hell, get over yourselves.

 

[Amaror]

So this game is damn near perfect in all other regards, and people are furious at it over graphics? I don't even...why? Because a trailer was shinier? Like trailers always are? I will never understand this train of thought.

Most people i personally talked to about it are less angry about the graphics themselves and more angry about the way CDPR handled the issue. Instead of just saying: "Yes, we had to worsen the graphics a bit and here's why." CDPR denied that the graphics would be worse than the trailers over and over again. And since CDPR was the developer that was supposed to be the shining example of NOT lying to its customers and treating its customers well people got really pissed about the whole thing. I personally think that the Witcher 3 is one of the most amazing games i have ever played and i love every thing about it including the graphics. I am a bit pissed that CDPR lied though.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

As of patch 1.4 I can actually use full Hairworks on Ultra settings with a 780. One caveat is I had to tweak the config files for rendering as the default Anti-Aliasing setting for Hairworks was 8xMSAA which was pretty harsh on system resources. I manually reduced that to 2 (seems to be good now), though I think you can turn it to 0 if you don't mind slightly grainy looking hair.

I heard 0/2 causes bugs in hair. can you confirm/deny this?

Haven't noticed anything yet. I heard on Radeon cards that 1x or 2x tesselation causes pretty unsightly hair quality and it's better off.

2) They dismissed accusations of parity between the platforms.

Actually, They have agreed to that a long time ago [http://www.gamepressure.com/e.asp?ID=51]

I forgot to address that in my post, I actually had read that article. CDPr did eventually address it, but the claims of parity were floating around for longer (I recall seeing those claims in 2014, but I can't remember where I saw them... probably in forums). I'm not bitter or even upset about, I expect it really... CDPR isn't a huge studio with the resources to split development.

snip.

Very valid points.

Just wanted to correct you - Witcher 3 is not a AAA game. With a budget of 15 million dollars, it is almost indie-level.

Eh, just because the likes of EA or Ubi bloat their budgets something fierce does not make CDPr any less AAA. Also short of very few and rare exceptions (like a couple of Kickstarter games) 15 million is at least 15 million dollars over the standard Indie title.

Indies are made on budgets as low as nothing. The vast majority of indies will not break the million barrier. 200,000-400,000 would be considered a big budget indie.

I would argue that The Witcher 3 brings CDPr out of middle tier development into full fledged AAA development, but considering how far EA and Ubi push the boat out on budgets and cost I'm not surprised that people get the impression that it's not to their "standard" (which is a terrible standard).

 

[elvor0]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

 

[Areloch]

I think the lesson here is to never actually show gameplay until the game has gone gold, as any change, even if it's just changes to the post processing and color correction for the lighting can be deigned a downgrade.

But since this wasnt just post processing and colour correction but instead was changes in texture, draw distance, effect particles and even the design of world fauna....

Is it?

I haven't seen any kind of comprehensive breakdown of the changes, so all I've seen of it is a few videos(I don't own the game currently).

From the videos, it looks like it's largely the changes I mentioned. If there's some kind of comprehensive comparison I would love to see it.

 

[Strazdas]

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

This is only true with static hardware (consoles) and not true with ability to increase hardware power (as are PCs) where increase of graphical fidelity is much cheaper considering that very few new assets actually need creation since developers work with higher fidelity assets than end up in the final release in almost every studio. So one could even argue that you have to spend LESS money on optimizing and downgrading assets in such a case.

Bloated budgets that you see from Square Enix (that likes to call 6 million targets) is not graphics budget. when 3/4 of your budget is marketing this is the result you get. CDPR spent far less on marketing because of its awesome word-of-mouth marketing being in place. It was made on 15 million and still even after downgrade looks BETTER than those "must sell 6 million units" games. Square Enix is detached from reality and really shouldnt be considered an example of standard developer.

Also an interesting dichotomy arrises when you look at games that are used as benchmarks and touted as graphical giants - they are mostly the "midrange 10-50 million budget" games. not the 200 million budget ubisoft blunder. turns out in real world graphics arent that expensive after all.

 

[elvor0]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

Whilst you are somewhat correct, graphics DO NOT cost that much.

Witcher 3 looks incredible. And it was cheap as all hell.
Metro Last Light was and still is one of the best looking video games ever made. At a budget of around 10 million, it managed to equal and even beat Crysis 3 in many areas (technological).

STALKER looked incredible. Some of its effects are still world class. No one has matched its AI. Again, around 15 million dollar budget IRC.

Ahh that was a bit badly worded. I should've proabablly said /misplaced/ budget; bloating your graphics budget at the cost of other elements. However CDR and...whoever developed Metro, (I forget ><) have a lot smaller teams than the teams of Ubisoft/Activision/EA, increasing your graphics output equals much more payout, than it would for the relatively small team CPR have. For example 7 more hours for CPR is 70 more dollars for each of their 12 guys, which is only $840. 7 more hours for Activisions team of 70 men is $5000 dollars. You get a bit more bang for your buck per man on a small team than you do on a massive team.

Marketing budget could do with a hit too. Didn't Destinys marketing budget cost at least twice the amount the game cost to actally fucking produce or something?

 

[Las7]

So if I buy this game in, say, half a year, I might get a semi-close version to the as-advertised product. And here I thought it was only MMOs that improved games so drastically with patches.

I think you should quit gaming - it appears you have no clue how PC Gaming has worked for the last decade.

 

[Remus]

So if I buy this game in, say, half a year, I might get a semi-close version to the as-advertised product. And here I thought it was only MMOs that improved games so drastically with patches.

I think you should quit gaming - it appears you have no clue how PC Gaming has worked for the last decade.

Let me put this as delicately as possible......THIS IS NOT NEOGAF, nor is it Reddit, LoL or DotA. Replying to the first post in a thread, some 19 hours later, when that post has been discussed ad nauseum, and acting like a jerk, will get you nowhere here. While I'm sure you value your own opinion, it is in desperate need of a filter. If you do not use a filter, I guarantee one will be provided for you. This is not a threat, simply how things work here. A little politeness or actual discussion can carry you a long way. [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct[/link]

On a side note, am I not the only one to wait until a game gets a few patches before I purchase, especially if it's on PC? Somehow people are finding this offensive and I have no idea why.

 

[Areloch]

I find it worrying that such a big deal has been made over such a little issue. No wonder costs are inflating constantly, the consumers have only seemed to reinforce the belief that they want shiny stuff and don't care about the other stuff.

no, consumers have made clear that they want BOTH, the shiny stuff and other stuff. There is no reason why they shouldnt get both on a PC title. on consoels you can argue that consoles are too weak to do both, but thats not going to be true for PCs.

Actually there's also the fact that graphic costs increase exponentionally and lead to an inflated budget, which can be the difference between the franchise selling enough and not enough, turning it into a "risk" or no go for future installments of a series. CPR are okay because they're indie and can do whatever they want, but Developers working for Publishers don't want to hear that their game was a failure at 6 million units sold because of a bloated graphics budget, halting further installments of a game they loved. Nu-Tomb Raider 2 springs to mind, it only exists because Microsoft are now publishing it over Square-Enix.

Whilst you are somewhat correct, graphics DO NOT cost that much.

Witcher 3 looks incredible. And it was cheap as all hell.
Metro Last Light was and still is one of the best looking video games ever made. At a budget of around 10 million, it managed to equal and even beat Crysis 3 in many areas (technological).

STALKER looked incredible. Some of its effects are still world class. No one has matched its AI. Again, around 15 million dollar budget IRC.

Ahh that was a bit badly worded. I should've proabablly said /misplaced/ budget; bloating your graphics budget at the cost of other elements. However CDR and...whoever developed Metro, (I forget ><) have a lot smaller teams than the teams of Ubisoft/Activision/EA, increasing your graphics output equals much more payout, than it would for the relatively small team CPR have. For example 7 more hours for CPR is 70 more dollars for each of their 12 guys, which is only $840. 7 more hours for Activisions team of 70 men is $5000 dollars. You get a bit more bang for your buck per man on a small team than you do on a massive team.

Marketing budget could do with a hit too. Didn't Destinys marketing budget cost at least twice the amount the game cost to actally fucking produce or something?

Yeah, Western AAA absolutely suffers from rediculous marketing budgets. It makes me wonder how much CD Project has spent on marketing for Witcher.

Another thing that helps cut back on development costs in regards to graphics are newer and better tools. The larger the studio, the harder it is for them to drop everything and invest in an entirely new pipeline. Smaller teams are much more free to go 'our current stuff is stupid and this new tool drastically helps iteration time' and have everyone jump over. Getting your 10 artists trained on a new pipeline is a much easier notion than getting 1-200 artists.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

snip.

Make no mistake, I have been making fun of overpriced to hell and back Hollywood Voice acted Western AAA drivel for years.

But no matter how you look at it, 200-250 people working for 4 years (if not 5) and making a 200 hour game for 15 million is EXTREMELY CHEAP...

Indie games usually have smaller dev studios, are smaller games and are made by fewer people.

We agree that it's not indie. Well, it can't be indie anyway because the studio is owned by a publisher (CDP).

Cost of production is not really a factor for AAA. AAA is a term that denotes as certain level of expectations (high quality) usually from an established studio with a solid portfolio. It's thrown around as a catch all term for EA and Ubisoft published games, but much of the shite they publish is not AAA standard and the studios who once had AAA status have lost or are losing the confidence of their fans.

With that in mind, I would say the industry can be split in a few different groups based on the size of the development teams and budgets.

1)_You have high tier or what is commonly known as AAA, usually with high costs and large teams but that doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Examples would be Bethesda softworks, Ubisoft Montreal, Bioware, Dice, Valve, TurtleRock, Irrational... etc.

2)_Next you have middle tier (some of this can be AAA). These have moderate costs and medium to large teams, but again it doesn't have to be that way. Examples would be Egosoft (X series), 4A games (Metro), GSC Gameworld (Stalker), Fromsoft (Dark Souls), Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) and so on.

3)_The you have low tier, it's rare for these to be AAA but not impossible. A lot these are junk games, mobile apps or facebook apps, Shovelware titles on the Wii or "kids" games made with little effort or enthusiasm. These are made on tiny budgets and tiny development teams. Not all of these are garbage though. Games like Valiant Hearts or Grow Home (not GONE home) fall into low tier games.

4)_And lastly we have indie, which is full of gold and shite and golden shite depending on where you look. The only commonality is that they are made without a publisher backing them. These include games as good as the likes of Guns of Icarus and as shite as the many many Zombie Survival games that infest steam.

As far CDPr goes and their $15 million cost of production, you could argue it's middle tier AAA, but the studio is quite large and you need to account for the lower cost of living and consequently lower wages in Poland. A 250 manned studio in the states would be more expensive to run simply due to higher wage standards. I can guarantee you coders and designers in the states are paid more then they are in Poland... that's not a criticism mind you nor am I indicating some sort of mistreatment of the CDPr team. That's just how the 2 economies differ.

I would classify it as AAA with that in mind. It's a highly polished product from a highly respected team. Its budget would make it middle tier development by EA or Ubi standards but its team size is in the higher brackets. So somewhere in between middle and high tier development.

That's just me though.

 

[Las7]

Let me put this as delicately as possible......THIS IS NOT NEOGAF, nor is it Reddit, LoL or DotA. Replying to the first post in a thread, some 19 hours later, when that post has been discussed ad nauseum, and acting like a jerk, will get you nowhere here. While I'm sure you value your own opinion, it is in desperate need of a filter. If you do not use a filter, I guarantee one will be provided for you. This is not a threat, simply how things work here. A little politeness or actual discussion can carry you a long way. [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct[/link]

On a side note, am I not the only one to wait until a game gets a few patches before I purchase, especially if it's on PC? Somehow people are finding this offensive and I have no idea why.

You can choose to ignore posts.

Personally I'm shocked a person who is into GAMING thinks this is a new development that has only happened to MMOs before.
Every single launch of a major OPEN WORLD GAME in the last few yeasr has not been smooth, some have been down right disasters.
Entitled people who take it out on one of the few studios that patches games, gives free dlc, has no DRM and has always tried to grow the community - should be called out.
If you don't like the Witcher in the state it's launched - move on and don't comment on the game. There is plenty of people who aren't graphic wh*** and will play the Witcher because of how well it's crafted.

If you don't like the heat get the hell out of the kitchen

 

[EternallyBored]

snip.

A part of it is also better planning. Not wasting money on old consoles. Not hiring expensive hollywood actors. Not doing massive campaigns and instead letting your fans do the marketing. Not investing too much in expensive one-shot tech like Mo-Cap.

That helps a LOT too.

I dont consider AAA to mean anything bar money and hype. Too often have big games (some from the devs you listed) been absolute drivel to me. So I associate it only with budget and maybe marketing hype.

Considering they spent something like $25 million on the marketing for this game, $10 million more than the total development cost, they certainly have the advertising budget of a AAA title, so roughly $40 million total budget.

Even just the development cost is only a couple million lower than many other AAA games, God of War III seems to clock in around 18-20 million ($44 Million including marketing). Halo 4, at the time goggled at for its incredible development cost clocks in at $60 million including marketing, which is only 1/3rd higher than Witcher 3 with its comparative $40 million.

However, things like Ubisoft's ridiculous bloated development cycle puts Watch dogs at about $68 million, don't know if that includes marketing, but Ubisoft seems to have insane development budgets from what I can find.

Ubisoft and Rockstar's monumentally bloated development costs and advertising budgets have kind of warped what we consider to be AAA costs, while Witcher 3 is on the lower end compared to the likes of Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, and Call of Duty, it's probably right around the range of many Activision, Ubisoft, and EA titles outside the handful of monolithic yearly installments and Rockstar's mega marketed extravagant releases.