A couple of days ago, we shared with you some new images for The Witcher 3. Apparently, those shots were not as mind-blowing as previous screenshots and some people began suggesting that the game has been already downgraded. Therefore, CDPR felt the need to clarify things, and claimed that the final version won’t be downgraded visually in any possible way.
As CD Projekt RED’s community manager told Worldsfactory:
“Please keep in mind that the game is still in production phase. Certain things are still being worked on. The final version of the game will look better than what can be seen in the latest screenshots – no matter the platform. As you probably know, when publishing screenshots, some of them can be subjectively less appealing than others (depending on one’s opinion), that’s perfectly normal. The most important thing here is that the game will come out looking gorgeous when we are done working on it. There will be no downgrade.”
What really surprised us – in those recently released screenshots – was the absence of NVIDIA’s fur tech on the wolves. We don’t know whether CDPR deliberately disabled that feature or not – or whether that image was from a very old build – however it does make you wonder why the company had that feature disabled.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is currently planned for a February 2015 release!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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I think TW3 will be the best looking open world game to date, CDPR don’t need to downgrade it because it’s primary for PC and I trust them. TW2 destroys a lot of games still to this day so there is no reason to believe they will downgrade the game for PC.
Bad news then!!
In parallel – CDPR have said this from the very beginning. From my understanding all 3 versions are being developed separately/individually with PC as the base. It begins with PC and then drips down to the consoles. The fear is that their vision has been compromised because of the hardware limitations in both consoles.
As said above, if there was one Dev. left on this planet that I still trust when it comes to PC, it is CDPR.
Let us all hope there are no compromises made! I’m a huge Witcher fan and TW3 is my most anticipated game. (Besides the next Fallout)
I’d hate to see what is touted as being their masterpiece and Geralt’s conclusion to the trilogy held back because of the consoles ( No offense to console only players)
Keep your “reassuring” comments to yourself CDP. Cut the PR crap, and show us PC, PS4 and X1 screenshots. After Watch Dogs and Dark Souls 2 you can’t trust anyone.
CDPR don’t have a history of downgrading games on release. They showed TW2 in raw alpha and the finished version looked far better.
….
But it also had a UI that was designed around a gamepad. Quite badly too, I might add, they didn’t even pull it off right, so it was just crap in general, no matter if you used KBM or a pad.
Let’s also not forget the inclusion of quick time events in TW2. CDPR are an above average developer, especially when it comes to supporting their games after release, but let’s not pretend they are incapable of making huge errors in judgement.
Sure, but there is no proof of a visual downgrade or no history of doing so. Also, the screenshots they put out can easily be 8xMSAA because we know that’s part of ultra settings.
Sure, but there also is no proof to the contrary. You can play that game both ways. We’ll only know once the game is out or if the review copies come with a NDA.
You can’t claim to know something by somebody different doing something like this and then applying that to CDPR, it’s not an argument.
Nobody claimed to KNOW anything, buddy. People merely voiced concern about how things appear to develop. You can’t shoot that down with the proclamation that there is no proof. It’s is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
All we have to go off for now is evidence, the fact that there is no proof yet doesn’t change anything one way or the other.
It’s a stupid argument made by media again, like every explosion is somewhat claimed as a terrorist attack.
Go have a look at the official TW3 forums, it’s not an argument fabricated by the media in the least. This is all coming from the fans and for good reason.
You really don’t have a clue.
you have no argument to say “fans” think it’s a downgrade LOL.
You’re right. That’s not an argument at all. It’s a fact.
There’s multiple threads without hundreds of posts from long time fans, no quotes required, complaining about the visual downgrades and their fears that they will carry over into the final game because of version parity and console constrictions on graphics.
You can LOL all you want but there’s nothing funny about that.
You just answered your own question, it’s “fears” not facts.
What question? I didn’t ask a question.
Fears are not facts, they fear it’s a downgrade based off a few screenshots, doesn’t mean it’s a fact the game has been dowgraded.
A few screenshots? It take it you haven’t seen the videos from E3.
It’s a fact that what they’ve shown us lately has been of a lesser quality than what they’ve shown us before. Nobody knows if it will translate into the finished product but the current version they have been showing is either a downgrade from what they’ve had (and couldn’t get to run on consoles) or they had never reached where they were aiming for to begin with (which I doubt cause on PC it’s definitely possible). It’s one of the two though. You’d have to be blind not to see that.
Show me the downgrades.
Do your own research. There’s multiple threads with frame by frame analysis on the official forums.
Ahh right, the usual up to me then like I usually do. Fine, less talk more shots, which seems there is a lack of here, just talk, talk, talk.
I don’t have them bookmarked or saved.
You know, I searched a bit, and I already don’t like what I found. There is an insider on Neogaf claiming that:
And his identity is confirmed by Neogaf moderators.
http://forums. cdprojektred. com/threads/31977-Concerns-about-the-game-s-quality
Downgrade Gen.
Oh ubi.
Okay, two of my comments are in pre-moderation now.
Not only a UI. The game was buggy as hell. Let’s face it. They released an early beta version on PC, tested it, made some cash, and then ported a finished product on consoles.
I would say it was like Early Access. Giving the Enhanced Edition for free to everyone is like giving a final version of a game for free. There is no charity in that, because Enhanced Edition of Witcher 2 for PC was suppose to be the final version of the game for consoles.
Hahahaha what? Do you realize that Witcher 1 put BioWare to f’ing shame with what they achieved using the Aurora engine alone and only further made it worse when they released footage of what they squeezed out of Aurora for Witcher 2’s alpha, let’s not forget Witcher 2 looked 100x better at release than E3 visually speaking.
Don’t know why so many people freaked out. TW3 is a PC game designed with PC in mind. The consoles will get a gimped version for sure.
Sadly I don’t think that’s the case here, Sadly Dev’s today sacrifice ideas in order to run the game on consoles, as much as CDR are meant to be too good to do such a thing, but with recent rumors on Neogaf it suggest that there seems to be problems with the console version which in tow may affect the PC version overall.
But sadly I feel CD Projekt are going to go down the same hill as Crytek, I know they’ve wanted to release on console but I feel that they’re making a mistake.
The game is too ambitious to run on PS4, let alone Xbone. But Microsoft is their partner and they surely are demanding that the other versions don’t outshine the Xbone version. Especially because they all release at the same time.
CDPR has already proven that they are willing to sell out their most loyal fans for Microsoft. I know people like to downplay those trinkets in the collector’s edition but for most people it wasn’t actually about the extra stuff but about the implications and the precedence that was set by that choice.
So true, I feel that certain games should stay on their respective platforms, we don’t get any of sony’s first party console exlusives and barely get anything from Microsoft but as soon as something shiny on PC appears they throw tons of money at it, same like how indie games were a great part of PC gaming but like I said “shiny” so now games Like No man’s sky and Olli Olli 2 are PS timed exclusives, it’s not butt hurt but the truth.
I hope this game succeeds but it’s already clear the game is making sacrifices.
I don’t mind games being ported long after they are created and released. Exclusivity doesn’t matter to me one bit, I’m not a platform loyalist (well I am for PC but not out of sentimentality or fanboyism but because of the raw power and the flexibility of an open platform). But the problems arise when games are designed to be multiplatform titles from inception.
honestly i want exlusivity to die and consoles just use a steambox.
Long story short if you can play any game you want with any controller you want and any fps you want this graphcis/exlusive/console war will die.
I think Watchdogs has proven that PC is considered to be more of a threat to console sales nowadays.
That game wasn’t gimped for no reason.
Well there was a reason, the engine wasnt finished. Once modders did unlock all the features they were buggy and glitched pieces of the game. They created that one scene in E3 to generate hype and were hoping to make it work for the entire city which after the delay, they still hadn’t.
“Assassin’s Creed Unity will run at 900p/30fps on both PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One, Ubisoft has confirmed, with the publisher opting to aim for
platform parity to avoid discussion over the differences in performance.
“We decided to lock them at the same specs to avoid all the debates and
stuff,” senior producer Vincent Pontbriand told VideoGamer.com while
explaining that it’s the consoles’ CPUs – not the GPU – that prevents
Ubisoft Montreal from improving the game’s performance.
“Technically we’re CPU-bound,” he said. “The GPUs are really powerful,
obviously the graphics look pretty good, but it’s the CPU [that] has to
process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen, all these systems
running in parallel.
“We were quickly bottlenecked by that and it was a bit frustrating,
because we thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over
everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It’s
not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be
running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we’re
still limited to 30 frames per second.””
I see, so Microsoft should pay for adding it to EVERY platform? They should pay for PC version? And the PS4 version? Are you insane? This wasn’t taken out of a package, this was added to one, due to one paying them to add it to their version. Or maybe you think me, the customer should pay extra it? Of course that would mean the PC and PS4 would be more expensive. There is nothing wrong with someone paying to ADDING something physical to a package. The problem is when someone pays to remove something from another package.
People are freaking out because TW2 already was a game with consoles in mind.
If TW3 was a PC game first, they wouldn’t have had to delay the game to make it work on consoles. They’ve also announced a couple of times that there will be version parity so they can’t just cut content from the console versions to make it run.
The end result is a downgraded game. Which is what always happens when you compare a conceptual multiplatform game to a conceptual PC exclusive, simply because PCs feature such vastly superior hardware.
Well happened with cod and crysis when they touched the cosnole area.
PC game designed with PC in mind? Lol. We have now consolized menus which is also similar inWitcher 2. Consoles make more money because, piracy is rampant on PC. That is truth.
PC users use joypads as well so they have to do something that fits both, just like Risen 2/3, Risen 1’s UI would never work on a joypad very well at all.
I actually spend a good time lookin into this and what i found? Piracy barelly make a dent. When pirated copies are at best hundrends of thousands games lose their sale goal by millions on consoles.
So sorry to dissapoint but pc piracy barelly makes a dent.
Yeah but publishers and developers love to blame their flops on pirates instead of admitting that maybe they made a bad game. That would be bad PR, gotta have a scapegoat.
Or they are just greedy and dumb like Crytek and think that every pirated copy translates to a lost sale, despite their game selling like hot cakes. Also completely ignoring the fact that there’s piracy on consoles as well and it’s more difficult to keep track off because console users actually still buy burned physical copies from bootleggers because their internet is too slow to download huge games themselves.
I don’t understand why they release these shoddy kind of screenshots. Don’t they understand that it only hurts them? Especially after we’ve seen better looking trailers and screenshots months ago.
How do they figure anybody would come to any conclusion but a downgrade when they release screenshots with already confirmed features being disabled?
It’s simple, don’t make too many assumptions about the screenshots. If they’re too good people say they’re bullshots, if they’re not so good people say they’re downgrades. Also, it might not look that good on your system because they could be using 8xMSAA or it could look better on your system depending.
8xMSAA doesn’t switch on or off the fur tech.
I also didn’t say the good screenshots from a while ago where bullshots. I don’t think any CDPR fans claimed that when they were released. I was actually satisfied with them and they hyped me up for a game as awesome as I had envisioned it.
Stop trying to be the Devil’s Advocate and the smartest guy in the room so hard with your dirty relativism.
I didn’t say you did, that’s why I said “people” because people did say it to such PR shots. What you getting up tight for about a few screenshots not showing fur?
Those “people” were far and few between and probably biodrones anyway for all I care. The number of actual CDPR fans that claimed those pretty screenshots from a few months ago were bullshots can probably be counted on one had if there even were any at all, which I doubt.
But where are the facts? There is none and I think John like a lot of media now days jump on anything that’s slightly stinks of a downgrade, even if there is no actual proof of it.
Fact is there’s no fur tech in that screenshot. Fact is some of the E3 gameplay footage had atrocious looking foilage. Fact is that fans are starting to get seriously worried about a possible downgrade. Fact is that the complains have gotten so loud that CDPR were forced to publically address them in a effort to quell discontent.
There are your facts. John is just reporting on how the community feels. He’s not jumping on anything.
It’s not fact, they just made assumptions about it based off games like Watch Dogs recently and nothing more.
I think you have a problem with comprehending the concept of what a fact actually is. A fact is just something that is indisputably true. It is a fact that fans are concerned. It does not matter at all what those concerns are based on. The act of being concerned is what is factual here.
Just because you can’t wrap your head around the concept of what constitutes a fact doesn’t make it not factual. It’s just means you’re a bit dumb.
People are concerned is not what I was referring to as a none fact. I was referring to the point that the fur tech not being on the screen shot doesn’t make it fact the game is downgraded. People saying they’re concerned in the forums doesn’t make that those screenshots any more of a downgrade.
It’s damn near impossible to prove a downgrade before a game is out. They could delay it another 5 years and continue improving it or just lie until release that the finished version will be much better. It’s absolutely disingenuous to demand factual proof of a downgrade because that’s virtually impossible to get before the game is in our hands.
All fans can do is read the signs and take a hint when it’s presented to them and there have already been plenty of hints, sadly.
Why are you so upset that people are raising the issue when there are obviously more than enough reasons to be concerned?
The screenshots should be getting better towards release, or at least maintain the quality, but instead what we are shown is looking progressively worse.
There’s no other direction this is pointing than downwards. I don’t want it to be either, but it’s more and more looking that way.
I’m not concerned, there is no reason to believe the fur has been removed from the game.
Do you think this is just about the fur? This thing has been going on for months. The fur is just the latest object of concern, not at all the first.
I’ve downloaded that uncompressed version of their demo, it was stunning so please show me the other things in screenshots.
If you watched that and didn’t notice anything, you’ll be good. There’s no reason for you to worry since apparently your standards are low enough for you to be satisfied with a downgraded version.
You’re seriously taking the p*ss right? I have countless times posted my own screensshots here and DF shots from their videos who’s things no one has picked up on so don’t come that with me.
Furr and trssfx eat a lot of fps no wonder why cd project disabled it cause still need some optimisation hope in the final product we dont see a huge performance hits like we see in cod ghost and tomb raider
No joke. AMD card has huge frame drops even with TresFX on.
“The final version of the game will look better than what can be seen in the latest screenshots – no matter the platform. ” This didnt sound well for me, if it look good on consoles, doesnt mean it will look good on PC.
I think it’s more PR speak than per se what you are worrying about. Trust me, I am slightly “worried” myself that the game could of been or could still be compromised because of the other versions ETC. Honestly, it’s not all about the visuals, although they are a huge plus and can make a great game even better BUT gameplay – Gameplay can become ‘downgraded’ just as easily as the visuals and have a bigger impact overall.
*Fingers crossed* That the PC version is not held back in anyway and the same goes for console players with PS4-Xbox parity.
Push the game as far as it’s capable on each platform.That is all we want. Not saying it’s always that simple but some excuses given are utter B.S.
This AC:U parity situation doesn’t bode well for the industry. Let us hope it’s not a continued and adopted practice because at the end of the day it affects all gamers, one way or another.
IMHO – A large portion of this can be blamed on both console manufactures. Yes, the PS4 is the more powerful console of the two – They should have both been more powerful than they are. Given their price point, I’m not complaining for what they offer – Still, the gaming industry continues to be held back by the lowest common denominator and in the end, we all suffer because of it.
Calm down guys. 🙂
“Now, while it is understandable that this is a sensitive topic for gamers after what happened with Watch_Dogs and Dark Souls II, there is no evidence that The Witcher 3 will suffer from similar issues. I have seen a live gameplay demonstration less than two months ago and the game looked fantastic and ran smoothly, with Visual Effects Artist Jose Teixeira telling us afterwards that you won’t even need a beastly PC to play it at max settings. Moreover, the studio has demonstrated its technical prowess with the previous games; there’s no reason to believe that the final version will be in any way inferior to what we’ve already seen (in fact, according to them, it will receive further improvements).”
I completely agree.
Bla bla bla…I just want the game…finish it. Then Cyberpunk 2077. 😉
This is CD Projekt RED. They wont make a console port for the PC or downgrade it the gfx. Relax people, this is no Crytek or a console loving BS company.
Hopefully the same will be said about Cyberpunk 2077 with their target graphics quality.
Totally explains why the console can’t have too many NPCs on screen and why they would really struggle with MMOs. Infamous Second Son got around that by not showing many NPCs and just doing away with them like in cars, the game goes for heavy GPU particles instead.
also by not rendering very far or using walls and barriers to hide it.
I just don’t know but their tools are great, I’ve d used Redkit and I don’t see how they can’t achieve this. Seems to me a lot of scaremongering after games like Watch Dogs.
If he is telling the truth, graphics is the least of my worries now, not that I actually worried much about Witcher 3. After they announced Rise of the White Wolf as console exclusive, after they released a buggy mess called Witcher 2 with console UI on PC, it will be very hard to impress me with their failure.
It’s not a console UI, it’s a joypad UI designed for best of both.
Even of you can connect a gamepad, it’s obvious that most of the people on PC prefer KB+M. To design a interface “for best of both” you need to make two versions of that interface, like what we’ve seen in Human Revolution or Dragon Age Inquistion (recent footage shows that the console interface becomes available on PC when you connect a gamepad, but the PC version itself has a different interface).
TW2’s interface is drag and drop and fine for a KB+M it’s just that the combat flows better on a joypad for some reason. You have to direct the camera with the mouse to hit multiple targets, while joypad is similar to Batman style of fighting.
You know why it flows better on a joypad. Unlike the first game, W2 was designed for consoles in the first place and PC gamers were just a lab rats for them.
I know that but I found the UI good enough for KB+M, like I said, it’s a balance. TW2 did feel like it was primed for console and it turn out it was but turned out better than the joke that is Skyrim and it’s UI.
You’ve been reading too much hearsay on TW forums and still haven’t posted any images to back up the rampant claims and concerns of downgrading.