The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Molly]

Steam pre-load started.

[Tor!]

[Molly]

Good Lord, that looks amazing. That is Blizzard quality trailer art.

[Xant]

I think that's selling it short. I've never seen a Blizzard trailer that comes close to that quality.

[Gravoth_iii]

Good Lord, that looks amazing. That is Blizzard quality trailer art.

Not even close. Blizzard trailers are just out of this world.

[Golem]

Gotta hate them Alphas, ey?

[Molly]

Interview with a special effects guy at CDp. First few minutes it's about the downgrade-shitstorm. It sounds sensible what he says, still leaves room for critic tho.

[Nehvar]

I have a lot of respect for CDPR but I think he was bullshitting us about downgrading vs optimization.  They may see making a project easier to work with across three platforms to be optimization but for us PC-users it is a clear downgrade from what they showed previously.  On top of that, when they initially showed us the superior quality demos, they told us that the final product would actually be better than what they were showing.  So I'm not sure what to think.  I'll wait until I play W3 before I make any judgement.  I can say that I will not be supporting any further PC-games that also release on consoles.  Enough of these shenanigans.

[Molly]

Just watched a comparison video between PC and PS4 from a German gaming site...

PC still looks noticeable better than the console and it still is a very beautiful game.
They said that it uses multi-core cpus very efficiently and runs on ultra settings smooth on even "medium range cards with 2GB".
Seems it's very well optimized.

[Falka]

I can say that I will not be supporting any further PC-games that also release on consoles.  Enough of these shenanigans.

How many triple A games are released exclusively on PC? 

[Tibe]

Bunch. If we include the fact that consoles miss out on entire genres even. But yea, I dont really cave into the whole pc vs console thing. I dont get it. Play what you like ffs. Who cares. Besides I recall how Yazee(a quite cynical game reviewer) put it, that technically Xbox and PS are just PCs in camouflage now.

[Xant]

I think the whole downgrade discussion is a bit silly. It still looks awesome.

[Daunt_Flockula]

Optimization is good. Likewise I don't understand how people can compare optimization to downgrading. How is forcing people to constantly get huge upgrades any good for PC gaming?

If more people keep delivering hugely demanding games, I tell you, we will soon have to upgrade rigs every single year. And I mean very soon. There is still time and space to utilize till the current-gen graphics are worn out to the extent that they are unacceptable.

Some of you may disagree, I still think it equals good practice and respect for players when developers like CDPR seek optimization for a product that seems to be insanely demanding at first look.

[Patoson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's been like that since a long time ago. I remember getting my first ever good rig like 6 years ago and some of games back then were more demanding than others, and I guess that, if I hadn't had that good rig, I wouldn't have been able to play them all with good framerate.

[Leesin]

Yeah it's been the case for many years... that's why there are graphics options, so those with lower specs can still play the game smoothly. Badly optimized games can have issues on all kinds of setups regardless of how powerful they might be. The pattern hasn't changed for a long time, but you can build a decent rig for a reasonable price and it will last you a few years, just don't expect to be running everything on max.