A Big Empty World

[Francis_Mallman]

I simply don't understand the popularity of this game.

I tried again tonight to get into this game - but it's just an empty, plastic world with nothing of substance in it.

The world is absolutely gorgeous to look at, yet all you're doing is wandering through it. The NPCs and buildings and roadside attractions, though appealing to look at, serve no purpose whatsoever. All I ever see are signboards with the same quests attached to them - a group of thugs on the outskirts of town need to be dealt with, so please go and deal with them.

This evening I spent literally 25 minutes running across the land, yet not once did I encounter anything other than a group of drowners.

Honestly, Witcher fanboys have a TREMENDOUS amount of gaul saying that Bethesda can learn from CDPR.

It is just SO TOTALLY the other way around it isn't even funny.

[CybernatonEvolution]

It doesn't feel that empty. While indeed you feel disjointed from objects and the world to some extent, the game has good area/town variety and distincitve geography compared to some open world RPGs that overuse assets.

I'd say The Witcher 3 is an improvement in terms of open-world games, but it still has similar issues with being empty and reusing stuff. It is still leagues better than Skyrim and Fallout.

[TurnedToDust]

Messaggio originale di CybernatonEvolution:

It is still leagues better than Skyrim and Fallout.

I disagree with that statement.

You overdid it with leagues.

[Duncan]

Messaggio originale di CybernatonEvolution:

It doesn't feel that empty. While indeed you feel disjointed from objects and the world to some extent, the game has good area/town variety and distincitve geography compared to some open world RPGs that overuse assets.

I'd say The Witcher 3 is an improvement in terms of open-world games, but it still has similar issues with being empty and reusing stuff. It is still leagues better than Skyrim and Fallout.

When you compare stuff, at least do it right. You cant say that one open world is better than another because it looks better and has more assets.

[Moffin Bovin]

Messaggio originale di Schumy:

I've given up reading signboards because the quests are all alike - go there, kill that person. You can try talking to the people but all they do is say hi. You search for someone who isn't generic, but you rarely ever find them.

This game has a big, lush, open world, that is staggeringly beautiful at times, but there's nothing in it. The game I'm reminded of, in this respect, is Mafia 2.

There are not many signboard quests that say "go there, kill that person." I can hardly think of any tbh. Most require you to go and talk to somone, who will tell you about a missing person or some ♥♥♥♥ that you have to go ask about, and then you go somewhere to kill the thing.

Would you rather that CDPR spent time and money recording dialog for each and every peasent in the feild so you could stop and ask them about the weather and for their life story? You remind me of Total Biscuit complaining that in a scene in Bioshock Infinite, Elizebeth will stand and dance on the spot until you talk to her. He said "you can sit there for 6 hours watching her and she will just sit there and dance." WTF were the devs supposed to do? Waste timr and money programing 6 hours worth of irrelevant dialogue and animations for the one jackass who wants to sit around on his arse for six hours when in the game you are supposed to go up and talk to her immediatly?

edit: Most of your interactios that do involve peasents imply that just about everyone in the world is stupid, ignorant and greedy. You probably dont want to waste your time talking to them anyway.

[Caz]

Elder Scrolls and Fallout have a good sized world. Things are not too spread out, but they're not too close together. Traveling from one city/village to the next will involve more than just running. I have, for a long time, preferred to forgo the use of Fast Travel in ES/FO games because of the randomness of what can happen while traveling.

In TW3, traveling from one city/village to the next involves holding Shift until Roach decides to take a wrong turn, correct course, and hold Shift again. Nothing happens on the roads. Very little more happens running through the wilderness. It is because of this that I added the debug mod, so I could turn on Fast Travel anywhere. 5-10 minutes through the grass and trees to the quest location, nothing happening on the way, and then another 5-10 minutes back after the 2-3 minute "adventure"... that gets tedious and boring extremely quickly.

Even Just Cause 2 has more excitement while traveling around the map.

All games have flaws. TW3's flaw is that the world is empty, hollow, lifeless. Where are the bandits on the roads? Where are the monsters attacking cities? The bandits never leave their campfires. The monsters? Why are there contracts on them if they just sit in their caves all the time waiting for someone to kill them? Sure, the contract says they've attacked the village, but you can wait for hours real time and that will never happen. You won't even encounter this contracted monster out in the wild unless you stumble on its home. Doesn't sound like a very dangerous monster.

This doesn't make TW3 a bad game. But dismissing a flaw doesn't mean it's not a flaw.

[Deadbubble]

Schumy at it again, like he was since before the game was even released.

[jclosed]

The wold is only empty for those people that lack the imagination to imerge in it.

[Rafael Freeman]

To be fair, I did notice that some players sort of get stuck in White Orchard or less exciting parts of Velen. The Witcher 3 really rewards traveling, exploring and getting involved in quests.

A certain type of player tends to walk around looking for stuff to do and not realize that the game offers a lot more than the minor activities in a specific area.

I also noticed that some people don't read new notes or books and don't realize that these sometimes will lead to new quests.

I hate be 'that guy' but some people are playing the game wrong :-)

I do feel that from a commercial point of view it would have been smart to get the player involved right at the start of the game. I expect and enjoy a slow start, but that's in part because I know that awesomeness awaits.

And at first I was bit underwhelmed. White Orchard is a decent enough start, but soon it's time to move on.

[Duncan]

Messaggio originale di Caz:

Elder Scrolls and Fallout have a good sized world. Things are not too spread out, but they're not too close together. Traveling from one city/village to the next will involve more than just running. I have, for a long time, preferred to forgo the use of Fast Travel in ES/FO games because of the randomness of what can happen while traveling.

In TW3, traveling from one city/village to the next involves holding Shift until Roach decides to take a wrong turn, correct course, and hold Shift again. Nothing happens on the roads. Very little more happens running through the wilderness. It is because of this that I added the debug mod, so I could turn on Fast Travel anywhere. 5-10 minutes through the grass and trees to the quest location, nothing happening on the way, and then another 5-10 minutes back after the 2-3 minute "adventure"... that gets tedious and boring extremely quickly.

Even Just Cause 2 has more excitement while traveling around the map.

All games have flaws. TW3's flaw is that the world is empty, hollow, lifeless. Where are the bandits on the roads? Where are the monsters attacking cities? The bandits never leave their campfires. The monsters? Why are there contracts on them if they just sit in their caves all the time waiting for someone to kill them? Sure, the contract says they've attacked the village, but you can wait for hours real time and that will never happen. You won't even encounter this contracted monster out in the wild unless you stumble on its home. Doesn't sound like a very dangerous monster.

This doesn't make TW3 a bad game. But dismissing a flaw doesn't mean it's not a flaw.

Mostly true, but in fact you can stumble on many quests or "?" places when you travel in witcher 3. But the thing is - they are static and scripted to be there. There is just VERY little random stuff happening around.

[Moffin Bovin]

Messaggio originale di Caz:

The monsters? Why are there contracts on them if they just sit in their caves all the time waiting for someone to kill them? Sure, the contract says they've attacked the village, but you can wait for hours real time and that will never happen. You won't even encounter this contracted monster out in the wild unless you stumble on its home. Doesn't sound like a very dangerous monster.

This doesn't make TW3 a bad game. But dismissing a flaw doesn't mean it's not a flaw.

It is the same in every rpg. In Oblivion a town is under attack when an Oblivion gate appears, but nothing happens until you get there. In Dragon Age a Dark Spawn horde threatens the land, but they don't march until they are sure you have assembled an army first. In Mass effect the Reapers are on their way to destroy the galaxy, but they wait until Shepard is bored with hooning around in his land tank/buggy thing before they try.

Yeah, i wish RPGS took a leaf out of Dead Risings book, but you can't very well say that the Witcher 3 is bad because of somthing that is standard in rpgs.

[Duncan]

Messaggio originale di MofineBovine:

It is the same in every rpg. In oblivion a town is under attack when an oblivion gate appears, but nothing happens until you get there. In Dragon age a dark spawn horde threatens the land, but they don't march until they are sure you have assembled an army first. In Mass effect the Reapers are on their way to destroy the galaxy, but they wait until Shepard is bored with hooning around in his land tank/buggy thing before they try.

Yeah, i wish RPGS took a leaf out of Dead Risings book, but you can't very well say an teh witcher 3 is bad because of somthing that is standard in rpgs.

Well there is stalker for example - lots of random attacks or encounters. Mount and blade - even more random, sometimes you may fail a quest because someone else (AI) completed your objective. Skyrim - easy to find bandits patrolling roads or forests, many random encounters, towns can be attacked by dragons/vampires. Little stuff like this.

[Snow]

Messaggio originale di Duncan:

Messaggio originale di MofineBovine:

It is the same in every rpg. In oblivion a town is under attack when an oblivion gate appears, but nothing happens until you get there. In Dragon age a dark spawn horde threatens the land, but they don't march until they are sure you have assembled an army first. In Mass effect the Reapers are on their way to destroy the galaxy, but they wait until Shepard is bored with hooning around in his land tank/buggy thing before they try.

Yeah, i wish RPGS took a leaf out of Dead Risings book, but you can't very well say an teh witcher 3 is bad because of somthing that is standard in rpgs.

Well there is stalker for example - lots of random attacks or encounters. Mount and blade - even more random, sometimes you may fail a quest because someone else (AI) completed your objective. Skyrim - easy to find bandits patrolling roads or forests, many random encounters, towns can be attacked by dragons/vampires. Little stuff like this.

I liked the thing in Dawnguard dlc for skyrim for example, if you choosed to be with dawnguard, you would get randomly attacked by vampires and if you choosed vampires you would get hunted by dawnguard .. that was nice.

[supertrooper225]

Messaggio originale di Duncan:

Messaggio originale di MofineBovine:

It is the same in every rpg. In oblivion a town is under attack when an oblivion gate appears, but nothing happens until you get there. In Dragon age a dark spawn horde threatens the land, but they don't march until they are sure you have assembled an army first. In Mass effect the Reapers are on their way to destroy the galaxy, but they wait until Shepard is bored with hooning around in his land tank/buggy thing before they try.

Yeah, i wish RPGS took a leaf out of Dead Risings book, but you can't very well say an teh witcher 3 is bad because of somthing that is standard in rpgs.

Well there is stalker for example - lots of random attacks or encounters. Mount and blade - even more random, sometimes you may fail a quest because someone else (AI) completed your objective. Skyrim - easy to find bandits patrolling roads or forests, many random encounters, towns can be attacked by dragons/vampires. Little stuff like this.

All of those games have very generic storylines that avoid being too specific to allow random crap to occur. Stalker is the one with the best story out of all of them and even that games story is kinda floaty.

Random stuff is cool. I don't know if it would work well with this games code as itis obviously story based and reliant on triggers and scripts. But it is cool.

[Duncan]

Messaggio originale di supertrooper225:

Messaggio originale di Duncan:

Well there is stalker for example - lots of random attacks or encounters. Mount and blade - even more random, sometimes you may fail a quest because someone else (AI) completed your objective. Skyrim - easy to find bandits patrolling roads or forests, many random encounters, towns can be attacked by dragons/vampires. Little stuff like this.

All of those games have very generic storylines that avoid being too specific to allow random crap to occur. Stalker is the one with the best story out of all of them and even that games story is kinda floaty.

Can you please elaborate on how random stuff could ruin the story?

[supertrooper225]

Messaggio originale di Duncan:

Messaggio originale di supertrooper225:

All of those games have very generic storylines that avoid being too specific to allow random crap to occur. Stalker is the one with the best story out of all of them and even that games story is kinda floaty.

Can you please elaborate on how random stuff could ruin the story?

It isn't so much the story so much as the code base of the game being so reliant on triggers and scripts. I also don't equate a bunch of different enemies attacking each other randomly to make a game world more believable.

Stalker for instance...a character in that game might die before you ever talk to them in one game. In another game you may keep running into them multiple times across the game while exploring. All I am saying is that randomness and scripting seldomly go well together.