The Witcher 3 was downgraded from what was shown in 2013 - Now with PS4 Comparison video

[sgloux3470]

This is a product that is for sale. Nobody is acting entitled.

 

Judge the product as it is being sold today, not how it was displayed several years ago.  Everything pre-release is subject to change, and people are acting like they were "promised" the game as it was circa 2013.  That's where the entitlement kicks in.

 

If you don't like how the witcher 3 looks, fine.  Don't buy it, tell CDPR that you won't buy it because you don't think it looks good enough.  If you're buying games based on whether or not they have volume based translucency or not and the lack of this feature in the release version of TW3 really upsets you, that's fine.  But it's still kind of stupid though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're not a charity, they're demanding £50 for this for pre-order at the moment. If I'm expected to pay nearly $80 USD for a game then damned right I'm entitled to it being good.

 

By all accounts the game is good.   Performance benchmarks remain to be seen though.

[Snickerzz]

 just because CDPR wanted more money

Sorry, I haven't followed the witcher 3 news at all or even heard of CDPR until recently. But how are they money hungry? They're giving 10% discount on the game a few weeks before release.

[EChondo]

Who gives a fuck.

Uh me, right here.

 

They said that it is totally possible to have the 2013 trailer graphics on current PC's, but they downgraded the PC graphics to accommodate for consoles.

 

I totally understand their reasoning for it, I don't like The Witcher enough to buy this game *for full price* so I'm going to wait until it's $5 like I did the rest.

 

But still, it's pretty shit of them to do this.

 

*Edit, added clarification about how I wouldn't buy this for the full retail price.

[othertomperson]

 

Judge the product as it is being sold today, not how it was displayed several years ago.  Everything pre-release is subject to change, and people are acting like they were "promised" the game as it was circa 2013.  That's where the entitlement kicks in.

 

If you don't like how the witcher 3 looks, fine.  Don't buy it, tell CDPR that you won't buy it because you don't think it looks good enough.  If you're buying games based on whether or not they have volume based translucency or not and the lack of this feature in the release version of TW3 really upsets you, that's fine.  But it's still kind of stupid though.

 

 

 

 

By all accounts the game is good.   Performance benchmarks remain to be seen though.

 

 

I edited my post to make it clearer exactly what I mean by "good". Nerfing performance for my product so that it isn't better than someone else's who made the wrong choice isn't good and isn't something that I'm going to support.

 

 

Sorry, I haven't followed the witcher 3 news at all or even heard of CDPR until recently. But how are they money hungry? They're giving 10% discount on the game a few weeks before release.

 

Yeah there is a 20% discount at the moment so that it's "only" £39.99, or $63

 

Inflating the original price just so you can slap a discount on it to make it in line with what it should have cost originally isn't winning them any loyalty from me either.

[The_Strict_Nein]

So I'm guessing fuck the other 99% of the game, let's focus on the graphics and immediately call this game 0/10.

 

As long as it doesn't chug like a beast on PC, I'm fine. And there's no indication of that happening at all, just a graphics downgrade. This is nowhere near Watch Dogs/Ubisoft level.

 

Plus, you can easily mod The Witcher 3.

 

Good logic as always OP, good logic.

[carolkarine]

 

I edited my post to make it clearer exactly what I mean by "good". Nerfing performance for my product so that it isn't better than someone else's who made the wrong choice isn't good and isn't something that I'm going to support.

 

 

 

Yeah there is a 20% discount at the moment so that it's "only" £39.99, or $63

 

Inflating the original price just so you can slap a discount on it to make it in line with what it should have cost originally isn't winning them any loyalty from me either.

 

 

so you're just outright admitting to being elitist.

[sgloux3470]

Uh me, right here.

 

They said that it is totally possible to have the 2013 trailer graphics on current PC's, but they downgraded the PC graphics to accommodate for consoles.

 

 

Every single game you have ever played has had visual effects and features cut pre-release due to performance concerns.  I guarantee it.

[boboman342]

The flaw in your logic is you're failing to see that we should have had BOTH gameplay and visuals. There doesn't NEED to be a sacrifice at all.

Don't get me wrong. I am disappointed, but I am SURE either CDPR or a community of modders will add these kinds of options or effects back into the game, eventually. Until then  *click*

[NateGSR117]

Nooooo, how could you.

But in all seriousness I'll be the judge of that when I play it next week.

[othertomperson]

so you're just outright admitting to being elitist.

 

And why not? Why should people who spent £3500 on a PC be limited to the exact same experience as people who spent £350 when one is capable of much better? There are many aspects of life in which I am unabashedly socialist. Healthcare, wages, food support -- things that people actually need to survive. I am not a socialist when it comes to leisure activities. There are affordable options, there are less affordable options. And if someone wants to invest in their hobby to an extreme extent why the fuck should they be artificially limited to the same experience as someone who doesn't.

[dimitriianghelov]

CDPR lost my respect when they announced the Seasons Pass a few months ago.

We'll never release paid for DLC....

Yeah right.

you mean expansion pass? wtf is wrong with people do you really believe that devs should work for you for free?

[The_Strict_Nein]

CDPR lost my respect when they announced the Seasons Pass a few months ago.

We'll never release paid for DLC....

Yeah right.

 

Because it isn't DLC in what DLC traditionally means. What the season pass gives you access to is Expansions, which adds significant stand alone game play as well as items and skills that affect the main game. DLC is meant to be small little stuff, of which 16 items are being released completely for free.

 

10 and 20 hour expansions are as long as most modern games, if not longer, and way longer than any £10 Bethesda DLC.

[Frix]

At least we know its going to be easily torrentable. 

[jaggysnake57]

pc gamers are muppets at times, of course CDPR put money first, there a company.  if they didnt then they would go out of business.  naturally consoles come first there is more money to be made there, than on PC and really why would you put PC first? piracy is rife, steam takes its pound of flesh, a good chunk of pc gamers wait for steam sales or the like and then you have to deal entitled PC gamers who think every game should push there pc to the limit regardless of how much work needs to go into it. as an example just look at GTA5 and how long that took to get to PC

 

its simple, promos are like adverts, they are meant to sell the product not give you an honest review. stop pre-ordering and wait for a release you impatient fools, and if you dont like what they did dont buy it.

[Samfisher]

I dono, a random nobody from a random nobody site posting a quote poster he created himself with no sources.... This seems like WCCF Tech grade noise.

[othertomperson]

I'm really not getting the "entitled" argument here at all. At current pricing it only takes 7 games until you've essentially bought a new console in terms of cash you're handing over. If prices are going to keep exponentially increasing as they are, then you are being very anti-consumer by saying that we don't deserve something for our money.

 

Like people are saying that we should stop pre-ordering and not buy it if we don't like it... that's exactly what we're doing and you're calling that behaviour "entitled." Are you implying I have an obligation to buy this, because that's what it sounds like.

[zappian]

I'm really not getting the "entitled" argument here at all. At current pricing it only takes 7 games until you've essentially bought a new console in terms of cash you're handing over. If prices are going to keep exponentially increasing as they are, then you are being very anti-consumer by saying that we don't deserve something for our money.

 

The attitude is too get screwed in the ass everywhere.

Oh you are complaining you must be entitled , a SJW or a cry baby.

I saw the same attitude on this forum when nvidia pulled its anti consumer shenanigans . Everywhere that complained about the morality of it.

was an entitled prick or a cry baby .

Its this "accept the shit companies do " attitude that makes shitty games like watch dogs and unity sell millions over millions , people simply bend over and dont care.

Well this bend over damn attitude has brought us to an age of broken products , shitty DLC practises , micro transations in 60 dollar games ( unity lol ) and other abominations.

We as gamers and as pc gamers must take a stand against the bullshit that the game devs pull universally.

[Paranoid Kami]

I've changed my mind and will be getting the game a month or two after release to see if they announce an enhanced edition/hi-res textures or anything. I'll load up Witcher 2 and try out Iorveth's path in the meantime. This is ridiculous. Consoles need to die.

[EChondo]

Every single game you have ever played has had visual effects and features cut pre-release due to performance concerns.  I guarantee it.

Oh I don't doubt it, which is why I'm not flipping shit over this. A whole bunch of developers do this every single year, The Division will be the same as well.

 

However, I'm a bit disappointed more with CDPR because they have the reputation of "PC first", but they didn't uphold that this time around. This is why I laugh at people who don't pre-order but somehow The Witcher 3 is some exception to this rule. Now look what happened.

 

Like I said, I never planned on buying this for full price so I'm not mad in the slightest, but I still care. Also I really don't understand your outrage over the community's outrage. People expected a certain level of graphical fidelity and they won't be getting that, it's the same thing that happened with Watch_Dogs. Now people won't have trust in CDPR, which they shouldn't have had in the first place. This is a lesson that everyone needs to learn, don't pre-order, ever.

[LAwLz]

Even if the game has been downgraded (the game isn't out, and an unnamed source on the Internet is as trustworthy as "my uncle works at Nintendo") I still think CDPR are good guys. Simply not infecting the game with God awful DRM is more than enough for me to give them the thumbs up. The game has gotten great reviews so hopefully the game will be good despite these alleged downgrades.

Since some people have mentioned Watch_Dogs, this is quite a bit different.

1) Watch_Dogs was completely broken to the point where it was barely playable. Hopefully this won't be the case with The Witcher 3.

 

2) The E3 effects were still in the game, and perfectly functional. All you had to do was flip a flag from off to on and it would work, and then Ubisoft patched it out. Even according to this anonymous source the effects were simply not finished and would therefore not work in the game without extra work put in. There is quite a big difference between "make a game then reduce the quality so that it looks more similar on all the platforms" and "make a game for all platforms and then increase the detail on one of them, but not increase it as much as it theoretically could with more time and money thrown at it".

[JcGross]

I have a better idea. Why don't we just wait until the fucking game is out before passing judgement and listening to these "credible sources"?

And frankly, if you're only playing this game because of the hype and graphics, I don't care about your opinion.

[Lawliet93]

CDPR lost my respect when they announced the Seasons Pass a few months ago.

We'll never release paid for DLC....

Yeah right.

Yeah, they announced two expansions with over 30 hours of gameplay... if that's not a DLC worth paying for, than i don't know what is... and they are not even made.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

I believe people here are getting confused between two different messages.

 

First, you cannot go shun business practices and then say "it is okay for <x> games". Doing this would land in selective reasoning for something which applies to all companies involved in development. A singular group cannot be praised as the "hero/herald of PC gaming" , as that is a manufactured term and does not exist in practice. They make games with THEIR interests in mind, not yours; this is business 101. If one developer or publisher has made particularly dim-witted decisions, the others are not automagically exempt from doing the same thing.

 

ON THE OTHER HAND...

 

If you cannot appreciate a game for what it is, a game, rather than some graphical eye candy, then you need to think over the reasons that you are into video gaming at all. Let me repeat here, this is video games we are talking about, not a specification competitor, not interactive pornography, and certainly not gloat material. Do not get me wrong; we can appreciate the progress of visual and engine technology up to today, but there is a practical limit where, to be cruelly blunt, you are no longer a gamer and fall into the line of either a fanboy or an elitist.

[Misanthrope]

Even if the game has been downgraded (the game isn't out, and an unnamed source on the Internet is as trustworthy as "my uncle works at Nintendo") I still think CDPR are good guys. Simply not infecting the game with God awful DRM is more than enough for me to give them the thumbs up. The game has gotten great reviews so hopefully the game will be good despite these alleged downgrades.

Since some people have mentioned Watch_Dogs, this is quite a bit different.

1) Watch_Dogs was completely broken to the point where it was barely playable. Hopefully this won't be the case with The Witcher 3.

 

2) The E3 effects were still in the game, and perfectly functional. All you had to do was flip a flag from off to on and it would work, and then Ubisoft patched it out. Even according to this anonymous source the effects were simply not finished and would therefore not work in the game without extra work put in. There is quite a big difference between "make a game then reduce the quality so that it looks more similar on all the platforms" and "make a game for all platforms and then increase the detail on one of them, but not increase it as much as it theoretically could with more time and money thrown at it".

 

But well on a serious note, the one thing that does bother me is that this game might not run well on AMD hardware at launch: I've been looking at the requirements and they recommend a 290 on the same league as the 770 on the Nvidia side. That screams completely unoptimized for AMD since the 290 is quite a bit ahead of the 770, but we'll see.

[sgloux3470]

It is perfectly reasonable to be annoyed when a final product does not live up to expectations that were based upon information released by the developer themselves. Every screenshot, video and other piece of information CD Projekt Red have ever released about The Witcher 3 was an advertisement. I'm sure some people will disagree with that, but the ultimate aim every time was to get people talking about it, drive hype and, ultimately, sales of the product, which is advertising.

 

People may have preordered the game based upon that advertising a long time ago, others will be purchasing the game around now, based upon that previous advertising unaware that there is new information about the downgraded quality. People aren't simply annoyed that the game won't be as good as it could be, but that it doesn't look like it will be as good as they were led to believe it would be.

 

Honestly it's a case of false advertising, it's just not treated as a serious criminal offence because it is so easy for developers to claim that instead of trying to mislead consumers they were simply showing consumers what the product looks like so far whichmaynotberepresentativeofthefinalproduct. Developers know that consumers are influenced by pre-release information so they purposefully inflate expectations with no intention of doing the work and spending the money required to meet those expectations. The best part of all, they, and "sensible" gamers get to blame the annoyed customers for being deceived!

 

And to those who don't think graphics are that important and believe that the graphics downgrades don't matter so long as the game is still good. You should care simply because it's an immoral practice. The developer is knowingly trying to screw over customers, even if you personally aren't affected. Some people do care about the graphical fidelity, and the downgrade will impact their experience of the game. Simply because it is not important to you personally does not mean that it shouldn't be important to anybody else.

 

 

I would understand your argument better if the visual downgrades were significant.  If Geralt ended up looking like pic related it'd be one thing.

 

 

 

We're talking about the devs changing a few rendering effects that primarily effect background scenery.  

 

Do we even have any actual side by side comparisons of the same area in the retail product?  No one has posted any, and I haven't been paying attention to pre-release coverage.

 

 

 

 

 Also I really don't understand your outrage over the community's outrage. People expected a certain level of graphical fidelity and they won't be getting that, it's the same thing that happened with Watch_Dogs. Now people won't have trust in CDPR, which they shouldn't have had in the first place. This is a lesson that everyone needs to learn, don't pre-order, ever.

 

It just seems blown out of proportion to me.  If you know anything about the stuff they cut out you'd know how minor it is.  They replaced most of it with stuff that will more or less look the same, just with less performance demand.  

 

I agree though, people shouldn't preorder games.