A decent physics engine always makes things more fun. EDIT: Komo, I don't think you have to worry about the lack of obscenities in the Russian trailers for the W3... after reading a funny review of the game posted by a Russian friend (the content which I understood only about a quarter), I can safely say that the game W3 is full of swearing.
Man, this game is insanely long. I've put probably 20-30 hours into the game at this point, and I still have yet to full explore the first major area out of three or four on the map. Haven't even done probably a third of the sidequests (which, might I mention, just about every single one being chock full of plot twists and good writing) here since some of them are much higher level, meaning I'll have to even come back to complete it all. And I haven't even really gone out of my way to do all of the little encounters and activities around the map. And there's still no end in sight to the main quest in this area. If the amount of (quality, too) stuff to do keeps up, this game will easily dwarf Skyrim in terms of scale, detail, and easy time consumption. This thing is absurd. Edit: It does look like Velen, the main area I've been in, is the largest of the game; one of the areas on the map appears to be nothing other than the interior of a castle, and another seems relatively small. And the last one doesn't let me zoom in on it, leading me to believe that it and Velen are both covered in the same section in the zoomed in map. Only the Archipelago to the west seems to rival Velen's size. Still, very large game either way.
I'm very happy to hear that. Looks like CD Projekt didn't exaggerate that part of the marketing and it is great to see that it all has some kind of interesting story. When the devs were bragging about how large W3 was going to be, I was becoming worried that it would be like Dragon Age: Inquisition. That game, although armed with high production values and some awesome moments, is absolutely filled with... well, filler. So much of it consists of boring fetch quests with either no dialogue or just two lines of dialogue with no plot twists or decision-making involved. This is exactly why I still haven't completed it, though I did put in (I think) over 70 hours into it before my exam period started. And as soon as I am finished with these bloody exams, I'm jumping into Witcher 3. I had a look at how W3 runs on my brother's computer (his rig is very similar to mine - 8 gigs of RAM, same OS, i5 CPU of almost identical power to mine and a slightly weaker AMD GPU) and it looks absolutely stunning. The dynamic nature of the environment is jaw-dropping, it's amazing how few other developers think of simulating wind properly and the difference it makes when looking at all the plants and trees swaying in tandem. Seriously, it just looks so realistic thanks to that. And the foliage, although seemingly not made using any revolutionary technology, is fantastic in its variety and density (once again adding to the immersion). My bro plays the game at tweaked high settings (with anti-aliasing and HairWorks turned off) and it works surprisingly smoothly. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like something between 30 and 60 frames per second (my best guess would be the slightly fluctuating 40s) with no frequent drops.
@Bamul Yeah, it seems like they deliberately tried to avoid the cliche fetch quests. Witcher contracts do seem to follow a lot of the same patterns, but the enemy variety and ways to combat them is enough to make them fun and unique still.
@goose picture That Techno Viking pet goose Rosco The Destroyer. Crazy Rosco run from Techno Viking when Techno Viking show Rosco giant goose knife. If found, please send goose to Techno Viking through priority mail by ship over at Techno Village.
:lol: In other news, CD Projekt released a video showcasing the 7 different, fully localised and dubbed versions they made for W3 (Polish, Russian, English, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese). I'm embedding that video below, but beware if you are not far into the game or have not played it yet, as I've read that it contains some spoilers. I'm probably gonna watch it either after I'm done with the game or once I'm really far into it. [YOUTUBE]lMvAAfPs0UE[/YOUTUBE]
CD Project sure put a shit-ton of work into this. I'm not sure if it like this in game, but from what I've seen in some of the videos, the cut scenes display whatever one previously had chosen Geralt to be wearing at the time. So, say, he's wearing a jester's costume, in the cut scene, it'll show him wearing the jester's costume. I always thought this little feature was quite cool and it was done very well in Mafia 2. During a cut scene, it would show Veto wearing the cloths he was chosen to wear as well display the current weapon he had equipped. A small feature, but very well appreciated.
Indeed, if I remember correctly the Mass Effect series had a big problem with this at first and it always bugged me - during gameplay and most conversations Shepard was wearing this and using that gun, whilst in any longer cutscene it would magically switch to the default ones.
Another video has been published, this one showcases various locations in W3: [YOUTUBE]L6VxXGPifbE[/YOUTUBE]
Man, they must have quite the rig to be able to pull off 60 FPS with the draw distance on everything that far. But it still does look quite beautiful. Even with grass density and the draw distance pretty low, there's always a crazy amount of foliage on screen at any given time. If only running the game in SLI didn't occasionally give me gigantic flickering shadows across large swaths of land. Also, some neat goodies. Interactive map of the main playable area. Do note that I just got to the islands, and it's a pretty damn massive area, almost comparable to this one. Also, there's this: [youtube]DVpbYKU9F8I[/youtube]
Damn it bro, all your experiences confirm the SLI horror stories. Nice! I can see how this can come in very useful. Is it official or made by some really dedicated fans? By the way, in case you've ever wondered what the entirety of the known Witcher universe looks like, here is the best available map. Andrzej Sapkowski never actually included a map of the world with any of his books, so the fans started making their own (there are a ton of Polish versions, but others made by Czech and Russian fans are also quite well known). The map for the first game was actually created by Polish fans in consultation with Sapkowski and finished by CD Projekt. However, even that had some mistakes. The one I linked to is called "Mapa Otreliusa" ("Ortelius' Map") and I think it's almost universally accepted as the most complete version with the least, if any, mistakes. Oh god. :lol: --- EDIT: Here is Rock Paper Shotgun's "Wot I Think" review of W3: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/29/the-witcher-3-review-pc/ As usual with most of their stuff, it's worth a read and provides a good overview of the game and how all of its aspects work (or how some don't work).
Takes the meaning of redhead to an entirely new level. I decided that I can't wait any longer and started playing the game yesterday. Hopefully I'll be able to balance revision and W3 or I can say goodbye to the better option I have on my university application. I'm playing with all the postprocessing effects maxed except for motion blur (which I turned off as I'm not a fan) and sharpening (which I have set to low as it looks too sharp on high), but neither of these seem to noticeably affect performance. Almost all other graphics settings are on ultra except for grass density & and vegetation view distance (both medium) as well as shadow quality (high). HairWorks off. I did a lengthy benchmark using the above configuration in the starting area of Biały Sad (White Orchard?), during which I did plenty of on-foot exploration, horse-riding, swimming, cave exploring, wandering in the forest, combat and walking about in the more populated areas of the map. The average I got is 56 frames per second. The frame rate is at about 60 fps in the wilderness but drops to 50 fps and lower in the village. It doesn't seem to ever go below 45 fps. Though I have to highlight that I am still playing on 1440x900. If I had a 1080p monitor, I'm sure I'd have to drop from tweaked ultra to tweaked high in order to get the same results. Overall, I'm quite happy with the way it runs and it seems fairly well optimised (at least for GTX 770) after all. I'm enjoying it very much already and the gameplay is quite satisfyingly challenging even on "Miecz i opowieść" (sword and tale?), which is the second easiest difficulty. Though I'm sure it will get easier with time just as W2 did. If it eventually turns into button-mashing, I guess I'll just raise the difficulty up a notch.
It's utterly fantastic, but as much as I'd love to discuss the game, I'd rather do so guilt-free. Hot damn dude. I know you're at 1440x900, but still, that's significantly better than I get. Correct. Sword and Story. And I did bump it up a bit, feels only a tiny bit easier than TW2's Normal mode, probably mainly because with level indicators, I can now actually tell when an enemy is going to wipe the floor with me. It does once you get the mechanics figured out, but enemies really do start getting a bump-up not only in level, but in mechanics and skill later. It doesn't. Just about every enemy in the game won't let you get off two or three hits before they block, dodge, or hit you with a counterattack that's guaranteed to stagger you, or at least interrupt you. The closest you'll get is enemies who just block your attacks, since you can wind down their stamina with a few blows and then hit them once it's too low to block, but hacking away drains weapon durability pretty quick and leaves you open to attacks from other enemies. Drowners and friends dodge like crazy. Humans largely just block early on, but I've gotten to the later section of the game where they'll start parrying and riposting you after just one repeated hit, so you really do need to figure out where you windows for damage are. Like many have said, it's no Dark Souls, but it's got some cool mechanics and it really encourages you to learn and use them. Only thing that I'll say is that I don't know if difficulty affects enemy AI patterns, though the developers have said that it's quite easy on the lower difficulties, and I can imagine slow players getting pretty frustrated with how much it punishes you for just swinging your sword everywhere.
Well, two days in and I'm managing to do my revising and play the game (although I can't say that I'm doing more of the former than the latter). :lol: Potarto, if the game is still not recognising your SLI set-up properly, then I guess it makes sense that I'd probably get better results than you even at 1080p as well. GTX 660 SLI is a good solution for gaming, but if you come across one of those titles that aren't yet optimised for multi-GPU rigs properly, you're better off with just one GTX 770 like me. If you're thinking of upgrading anytime soon, I'd recommend a single GPU like the GTX 970 - of the high-end video cards it's one of the more affordable ones and it's much more worth it than paying twice as much for something like GTX 980. You would also get slightly better fps in games that previously noticed your SLI config and much, much better performance in ones that didn't. Plus there's the benefit of better driver support... at least until the next Nvidia GPU series comes out. Also, thanks for the info on the combat system. I'm happy to read all of that. In terms of gameplay, this is by far the best of the Witcher games so far. Everything else seems to be on par or better than what we had in the previous two, but I'll reserve my judgement for when I'm closer to the end (and that will take a while, as I'm over 12 hours in and I'm only just going to Velen now). I'd gladly discuss W3 so feel free to leave your thoughts whenever something comes to mind, just remember to avoid plot content as I'm very early in the game and concentrating on much of the side quests first. I'm trying to be responsible and not even touching my PC before doing my fair bit of revising for each day and I'm managing to fight the temptation fairly well thus far, so if I'm on the forum then it means I've done my stuff for the day. By the way, do you have W3 on GOG? I'm using GOG Galaxy to track my game time with it. They haven't yet implemented a proper friend-adding system to it, so the only way to invite people to your friends list right now is to find one of their posts on the GOG forum or a review/wishlist of theirs and find the options there. If you want to add me, here is a post of mine. If anyone else here has an account on GOG then you can add me as well, just remember to let me know here what your username on there is as I don't want to add randoms.
It's actually 660 TI's, but hey, not terrible different. And it is recognizing SLI and giving a significant framerate boost now that I'm out into the game world, but SLI just has some weird quirks to it. Stutters are worse when your video cards are constantly having to pause to sync up frame rendering, there's always extra tiny bits of delay, vsync doesn't always eliminate tearing if it's averaging 60 FPS but the frame timings are perfectly synched, and occasionally you'll find some games with weird artifacts from SLI, or even a lack of support in rare cases. And yes, I helped two friends of mine plan and build their rigs recently, both with 970's. It's a pretty nice card, but since DX12 should theoretically fix most/all of my rig's problems, I'm definitely gonna wait. And it's not like there are any unplayable games or anything, I just have to pick less-than-optimal settings in some games now and then. I'm also waiting to see how AMD's new flagship card and its HBM tech shake up the market. Yep. One of my friends whose rig I helped build had a free code (all of which redeem through GoG) come with their 970, and he didn't want to bother with it since he hadn't heard of it and likes to keep his library together on Steam. And sure, I'll add you. Username should be L3377MA573R or something along those lines (blame 12-year-old me). Currently sitting at 52+ hours of playtime. Done most sidequests and explored quite a bit. And of course, no spoilers. Wouldn't dream of ruining this game for arguably the most excited person here for it. Except for this one, very mild spoiler. I love the dialogue in this game. Spoiler [youtube]ItprJTt1wIs[/youtube]
