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[Apoleptica]

There's a very good chance that whatever hardware they were using to run those earlier builds for promo was not only very high-end, but expensive as hell. And why not, when you want to show off what you've got so far?

But as time goes on, and when the vast majority of PC gamers (nevermind console) still aren't running those specs, why plan to put the game out like that when hardly anyone's going to be able to run it anywhere near that nicely?

That is why pc games have multiple graphical settings though. Just because it would require dual titans (likely not) to make the game look like initial footage doesn't mean they should have gimped it. The fact that current high end cards can run the game on ultra at 60+ fps is a sign to me they aren't pushing pc hardware hard enough. I would prefer the ultra settings in the pc version of the game to push modern cards to their limits. When new graphical cards release I want people saying "but can it run The Witcher 3?".

 

[RenegadeXV8]

So like Crysis

And remember how everyone bitched about Crysis being an unoptimized piece of shit game because their $200 video card couldn't run it on high settings?

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

 

[Brakus]

What happens when they don't know? How can they know?

If you ask most developers, they'll tell you that they don't know.

Well for some odd reason (and I'll use Dark Souls 2 as an example) the game was running nice, on a PS3, and looked beautiful, with all the lighting and effects, got everyone excited, then pretty much shipped it, looking nothing like it, and it's not like they had to port it down to a lesser console, only up to a PC....so why couldn't they have produced The Witcher 3 with those effects/graphics just for the PC? And then downgraded what they needed too for console? At the end of the day, that happens with PC gaming all the time...move the slider bar, or select a lower quality preset, it's just annoying, for them to come out and say, we haven't downgraded anything, it's clearly not true! Wish they'd be honest and say why.

 

[Valnen]

If it says work in progress, they can say whatever they want, you will find that they cannot know what it will look like in the end, they can only guess. You should then decide if it seems feasible or not. End of story.

They flat out said "Yes, that is what the game looks like.". So if it doesn't, it's a lie.

 

[Skyzard]

I think it's most likely they never actually downgraded the graphics for the game like Krejlooc says. They had it running like that. But on a an insane and extremely expensive rig in comparison to what 99% of people would have. So it could have been in-game, just not for the majority.

Since then they didn't want to mislead people further so perhaps they showed it on a more comparable high-end rig and a PS4 version too, which obviously won't be able to look as good, and yeah that's the downgrade, surprise, next gen didn't suddenly jump leaps and bounds.

 

[RPGCrazied]

Isn't this usually what devs do nowadays? When a game first gets announced its shown off from a high end gaming PC, then closer to release the downgraded looking footage is meant for the consoles? That is what I gather anyway. Can we expect the same thing from Arkham Knight?

 

[Resident4t.]

Actually, as a business, they owe everyone truth in advertising.

I don't think these types of arguments of dishonesty hold up when they have been showing the game in its current state for the past few months. Sure it's a downgrade, but we've known what the final game will look like for a while now.

 

[hermeslyre]

So like Crysis

And why do we even remember Crysis at all? Because it pushed the bounds of PC hardware at the time. Because the developers weren't attempting "visual parity between the consoles and PC".

 

[Fat4all]

Very good title change, let's keep it contained.

 

[Self_Destructive]

The problem is that the consoles would suffer with the really high resolution alpha effects from the foliage. The foliage textures appear thicker but more cartoon like than in the previous build. Obviously there's other aspects of the foliage that seem to have been downgraded from earlier trailers, however it's quite clear that this was the best course for them to take considering the consoles. It's a shame but it still looks gorgeous guys. I think it will be a real treat in 4K.

 

[Night Angel]

I think it's most likely they never actually downgraded the graphics like Krejlooc says. They had it running like that. But on a an insane and extremely expensive rig in comparison to what 99% of people would have. So it could have been in-game, just not for the majority.

Since then they didn't want to mislead people further so perhaps they showed it on a more comparable high-end rig and a PS4 version too.

Does that really sound reasonable at all? It seems like some people are stretching to avoid tossing CDPR in the same shitty bucket as other devs despite their recent shenanigans.

This game should look like the early trailers on ultra. PC games can run at a variety of graphical settings to account for both the 99% ave the 1%. If CDPR had actually designed the game to look like the original trailers, they would release it as such.

 

[tuxfool]

They flat out said "Yes, that is what the game looks like.". So if it doesn't, it's a lie.

Oh regarding Battlefront? Yeah, it is a bit silly, but if I recall this is from a twitter conversation. Twitter does not have enough bandwidth to have a proper discussion about these aspects.

 

[Skyzard]

Does that really sound reasonable at all? It seems like some people are stretching to avoid tossing CDPR in the same shitty bucket as other devs despite their recent shenanigans.

It was definitely misleading, just as bad as Ubisoft really. Not as bad as I suspect EA is being with SW:B though. [Although they were super careful with how they worded it].

 

[ArkkAngel007]

I don't believe it's possible either, but they should still be heavily criticized for claiming the game will look like that.

Wasn't it just the one DICE employee making tweets claiming as such?

The promo material itself makes it clear that isn't the game, but I feel like things will get overblown to suggest otherwise, or even more-so that the 'test footage' stuff from E3 2014 is a part of the downgrade. It's not the first time that's happened here.

Let's see actual gameplay in motion first and THEN start talking about actual downgrades as things develop from there, rather than just over words of some [iirc] notoriously bullshitter of an individual about an engine asset trailer.

 

[MiszMasz]

Why did Crysis look the way it did back in 2007 when it released? I could only run it on medium settings on my 7600gt. That was the situation most people were in.

Do we prefer a world where Crysis wasn't the graphical masterpiece it was back then, in order to better scale with realistic hardware choices?

That is why pc games have multiple graphical settings though. Just because it would require dual titans (likely not) to make the game look like initial footage doesn't mean they should have gimped it. The fact that current high end cards can run the game on ultra at 60+ fps is a sign to me they aren't pushing pc hardware hard enough. I would prefer the ultra settings in the pc version of the game to push modern cards to their limits. When new graphical cards release I want people saying "but can it run The Witcher 3?".

There's a reason the original Crysis is still the meme for PC specs.

Yes it looked good, but the majority couldn't run it at max settings and early on it got that reputation. By the time most people could max it out at a decent framerate, we'd all moved on to other stuff. For the most part i'd rather a game look good now and run well, while those with the extra grunt can push it a bit further, rather than most buyers enjoying the prospect of seeing all those fancy graphics in a year's time, once they've saved up for a new graphics card.

 

[Firehead]

They didn't "lie" to us. Showing examples of how they want/expect the game to look and then having to pull back from that target during development is a reality of game dev, not an intentional misrepresentation of the game. If they're trying to sell a lie, why show the "downgraded" game more than a year out from release? Demos and previews are intended to give you a glimpse of the game in its current state, and we don't know what happens behind the scenes much of the time in between those states. It's not CDPR's fault that people cling to footage from two years ago as though it were some kind of soulbinding promise of visual fidelity.

Christ, do people even know what "lying" means anymore? These threads make it painfully, embarrassingly obvious how little most gamers know about the development process.

Dunno... This:

They have been saying for a while now that the game has not been downgraded, should cdpr not be accountable for their own comments?

isn't even remotely what you'd call 'lying'?

There's a very good chance that whatever hardware they were using to run those earlier builds for promo was not only very high-end, but expensive as hell. And why not, when you want to show off what you've got so far?

But as time goes on, and when the vast majority of PC gamers (nevermind console) still aren't running those specs, why plan to put the game out like that when hardly anyone's going to be able to run it anywhere near that nicely?

Why put the game out with more options for people with incredibly high-end PCs to utilise? Like most PC games do?

 

[banefirelord]

threads like this.... are fuckin terrible. Lets not reveal our games til day of release guys. that way no one will complain.

You're being facetious, but if devs waited until far later in the dev cycle to reveal in game visuals, I think we'd all be much happier. That's what I like about Rockstar and Bethesda...sure they've had their obvious downgrades in the past (that initial Oblivion demo comes to mind) but as of late both companies have waited until just a comparative few months out from release to show full in-game stuff, which almost always ends up being what we get in the games. Mindblowing early demos might cause short term PR boosts, but in the long run they 9 times out of 10 are counterintuitive to winning over the enthusiast community.

 

[robb_w7]

 

[Älg]

People who expected the game to look like the trailer should know better. All gameplay videos (actual gameplay) have been identical.

That's the difference between this and something like DS2 or Watch Dogs; CDProjekt never showed any gameplay that wasn't more or less representative of what we'll get. Besides, the whole Watch Dogs downgrade thing was way overblown anyways.

 

[RandomSeed]

And why do we even remember Crysis at all? Because it pushed the bounds of PC hardware at the time. Because the developers weren't attempting "visual parity between the consoles and PC".

How did pushing the boundaries of visual fidelity work out for Crytek as a company?

 

[Mass_Pincup]

I don't think these types of arguments of dishonesty hold up when they have been showing the game in its current state for the past few months. Sure it's a downgrade, but we've known what the final game will look like for a while now.

So like Watch Dogs then? It got shitted on even more then this, why should it be different this time?

 

[Windom Earle]

And remember how everyone bitched about Crysis being an unoptimized piece of shit game because their $200 video card couldn't run it on high settings?

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Bad example, Crysis is very unoptimized. To this day there is no system that can run it at 60 locked due to CPU bottlenecks.

 

[hermeslyre]

I don't think these types of arguments of dishonesty hold up when they have been showing the game in its current state for the past few months. Sure it's a downgrade, but we've known what the final game will look like for a while now.

It'd just be nice if the devs could be honest and communicate with us, making the assumption that they might not be. Releasing these videos, where we can't verify graphical settings or even platform, seem to be the only admission they make.

Whereas they've vehemently denied any talk of downgrade. Let us know what's going on, or don't, as some of the commenters here seem to think the developers don't owe us anything.

 

[hermeslyre]

How did pushing the boundaries of visual fidelity work out for Crytek as a company?

Are you implying that if they hadn't they'd be in a better position now?

I think Crytek owes a lot of the success they did achieve, on their decisions to develop the way they did.

 

[CyberPunked]

How did pushing the boundaries of visual fidelity work out for Crytek as a company?

You can't seriously be claiming Crytek's money issues are because they make games with good graphics?

 

[Striek]

Its been downgraded. It went from looking like "OMG wow, how the fuck are they doing this in an open world game" to "oh, this is a nice looking game". Its an enormous difference. It sucks. CDPR should explain it and BE HONEST.

I still bought a 980 to play this game though, so whatevs.

 

[Apoleptica]

There's a reason the original Crysis is still the meme for PC specs.

Yes it looked good, but the majority couldn't run it at max settings and early on it got that reputation. By the time most people could max it out at a decent framerate, we'd all moved on to other stuff. For the most part i'd rather a game look good now and run well, while those with the extra grunt can push it a bit further, rather than most buyers enjoying the prospect of seeing all those fancy graphics in a year's time, once they've saved up for a new graphics card.

So you're saying the right thing to do is to gimp the game for the majority so they don't feel bad that their cheap hardware can't run the game as well as someone who has a titan or two? What is even the point then in selling high end cards like the Titan if even PC games cater to low end hardware. Yeah lets make games that can be maxed out with mid tier cards.

 

[Condom]

Looks different artistically yes but nothing that mods can't fix!

 

[mercenar1e]

How did pushing the boundaries of visual fidelity work out for Crytek as a company?

it actually worked out well because that's the only thing they are known for lol its the financial mistakes of the company (F2P, possibly some mismanagement, Ryse exclusivity) and the learning curve of the engine that put them in the hole.

 

[Irresistable Thing]

What's up with these complacent "who cares, it's about the gameplay" comments? We're not talking about gameplay here, we're talking about a pretty clear visual downgrade.

 

[Jedi2016]

You can't seriously be claiming Crytek's money issues are because they make games with good graphics?

It is when that's their only concern. They forgot to actually make good games with those good graphics.

 

[Heigic]

Still going to melt my PC

 

[Forsaken82]

Doesn't this game support PhysX?

Isn't it possible that the footage you think is downgraded is simply not enabling the more advanced PhysX assets?

 

[Valnen]

Its been downgraded. It went from looking like "OMG wow, how the fuck are they doing this in an open world game" to "oh, this is a nice looking game". Its an enormous difference. It sucks. CDPR should explain it and BE HONEST.

I still bought a 980 to play this game though, so whatevs.

To be honest, we all know why it happened. And it's disappointing.I just wish they wouldn't have lied about it.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

nobody said it's new.

that doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out...actually,it should be called out everytime..much like with any other dishonest practice...we are customers goddamnit,we don't need to justify them,it's good to ASK something from them once in a while

Of course it should be called out, I'm not arguing against that. However, I also don't think this case is as cut and dried as just "omg huge downgrades". Again though, I'll wait until I'm able to play the game to decide.

since the better assets don't magically appear from nothing but you need to spend money and time on them,it doesn't seem the logical way to proceed at all to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_slice

 

[Sal Ami]

How did pushing the boundaries of visual fidelity work out for Crytek as a company?

But they stopped doing that after Crysis 1 when they went to focus on consoles.

 

[Condom]

Doesn't this game support PhysX?

Isn't it possible that the footage you think is downgraded is simply not enabling the more advanced PhysX assets?

Nah, PhysX is just pretty hair and sparks and stuff. Nothing this drastic.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

If it says work in progress, they can say whatever they want, you will find that they cannot know what it will look like in the end, they can only guess. You should then decide if it seems feasible or not. End of story.

That's true, but I've always thought "work in progress" was to cover for any jankiness or blemishes, not to imply that things that look great now may not look so great later.

 

[Brakus]

Oh fuck it, it's got Hairworks lol.

 

[MiszMasz]

Why put the game out with more options for people with incredibly high-end PCs to utilise? Like most PC games do?

There's a huge gap between the high-end most people are using (eg. a GTX 980) and what's actually available if you've the spare cash (like a Titan). Most games coming out have something around a 970/980 or just below as their 'Recommended' requirement, so that people know they can likely crank up the settings and still enjoy a reasonable framerate. The majority are actually using something like a GTX 980 or below, so why intend for the release build of the game to target much higher than that at max settings when you want it to appeal to as many as possible, so that you can sell as much as possible?

If the game doesn't run fairly well and look nice on the majority of gaming systems, people will piss and moan. If they say to everyone "Yeah, it looks like this so you're gonna need an top-end i7 and a Titan", people will piss and moan.

 

[-MB-]

This is the important point for me. Was it downgraded simply to reduce the differences between the console and PC versions? To make the console versions look better in comparison.

I mean in this interview right here from march the devs state their "aim is to achieve visual parity between console and PC versions." Fuck that.

The lure of possible sales of excess of 10 million is just too great for devs these days. And gotta keep that fanbase happy nowadays.

 

[Striek]

To be honest, we all know why it happened. And it's disappointing.I just wish they wouldn't have lied about it.

Well I don't know?

It wasn't for console parity. No ones machine can play the build they originally showed. Just like Battlefront when it releases. I highly doubt their development PCs can render playable framerates of the original vision. I question whether or not the carefully selected media was simply absurdly highly polished (to a point they knew it would not end up having those assets in the final version) and deliberately mispresentative of what they would be able to accomplish.

 

[mrlion]

Was this thread made today? I thought we already went over this subject ad nauseam

 

[Älg]

It is when that's their only concern. They forgot to actually make good games with those good graphics.

I am

Spoiler

almost

100% certain that none of Crytek's recent games have been bad because the had good graphics.

Doesn't this game support PhysX?

Isn't it possible that the footage you think is downgraded is simply not enabling the more advanced PhysX assets?

That is not a thing.

 

[MagnoSauce]

The lure of possible sales of excess of 10 million is just too great for devs these days. And gotta keep that fanbase happy nowadays.

I don't get this, how would decreasing PC graphics increase the sales of the game in total? The only reason that would ever happen is pressure from MS and Sony. Which is totally believable.

 

[JABEE]

Considering trailers years before a game comes out "advertising" is a joke.

If they use those images in their marketing campaign then yes take them to task. Otherwise, lt's a nonissue as they clearly noted previous displays were a work in progress.

If you consider how much game companies focus on preorders, then yes, they should be considered advertisements.

Watch_Dogs became a juggernaut after E3, because of preorders based on fake gameplay footage. It's worth mentioning.

Everything that can contribute to people ordering a game is an advertisement. GameStop doesn't mind taking your money before real gameplay footage is available. Game publishers make sure they get their pre-order goodies and collector's edition skus announced along with their big reveals for this very reason.

Getting people locked in is important. Most people don't cancel pre-orders. Preorders determine how much money companies sink into advertising campaigns at launch. How much overall inventory is purchased for a game and the prominence that the game has in store.

 

[MiszMasz]

So you're saying the right thing to do is to gimp the game for the majority so they don't feel bad that their cheap hardware can't run the game as well as someone who has a titan or two? What is even the point then in selling high end cards like the Titan if even PC games cater to low end hardware. Yeah lets make games that can be maxed out with mid tier cards.

They actually want to sell the game to people, just like everyone else does with their product. Show the game off all nice and shiny, sure, but they're not going to aim for the 10% with crazy computer builds and sit around wondering why it's not selling as much as they'd hoped and why the forums are overflowing with salt from people complaining the game runs like shit.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Bad example, Crysis is very unoptimized. To this day there is no system that can run it at 60 locked due to CPU bottlenecks.

I tried playing it a bit and I surely was able to max it just fine with a 780 and 3570k and still hit framerates as high as 100fps in some instances. Don't know about later levels though

 

[xamidoxhua]

By now who honestly trusts developer pre-release footage when the game is like a year or more out? Can't wait to see GAF explode over the Division and its inevitable downgrade.

 

[Kosh]

I guess you weirdos complain every time you eat out too. Huh?