Tech and Talk > Gaming > PC gaming GAMES > The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt announced

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt announced

This is like Witcher lore + Skyrim open world. Gonna be awesome!

That does sound pretty awesome and BIG. Sounds like a world you can just get lost in.

reply to Krisnatharok
A lot more information here: »www.reddit.com/r/gamernews/comme···nounced/

reply to Krisnatharok

reply to Krisnatharok
Was just about to post it.

Here's a nice summary with a lot of the changes/game mechanics being discussed.

»gamingeverything.com/39177/witch···nformer/

I bolded some of the wowsies.

- The team felt it missed the huge freedom of open-world games like Skyrim
- Proper mounted combat still being tested
- Currently not a definite part of the game
- Horses will be in, though, since they’re important for navigation
- Ships float on the water in true physics interactions
- Team has doubled in size
- No chapters, acts, or any artificial break-points
- Geralt can seamlessly cross from one end of the world to the other thanks to REDengine 3
- No loading screens while traveling in the open world
- Can explore on foot, by horseback, and via boat
- Pursue your long-lost love, play the game of empires on behalf of the northern kingdoms that still claim independence, and thwart the nefarious Wild Hunt
- Fast travel: instantly revisit any discovered location
- Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz: “A huge goal is to keep the high quality o four quests, with all the cinematics and impressive events and moments.”
- Point of interest will always be in sight
- Players will be beckoned to explore dank caves, embattled villages, decaying ruins, etc.
- Over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests
- Quests: help villagers, engineer the succession of the Skellige kings, etc.
- Use monster hunting for adventure, incoming, and unique rewards
- There are mini-games based on the area of the world
- Ex: Skellige has knife-throwing
- Gain exclusive rewards from mini-games
- Don’t have to complete mini-games to proceed in the story
- Monsters, bandits, traders, animals, and more will attack anyone they deem hostile
- Enemies don’t scale to the player’s level
- Slaying monsters, fighting hostile humans in the different forms they come in, collecting items, leveling up are in the game
- World 40 times larger than the last game
- Three different aspects to narration
- Lowest level: free-form activities like monster hunting, crafting, individual standalone quests
- Second step: political situation and Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through the core plotline of the major areas (Skellige, Novigrad, No Man’s Land)
- Each land has its own storyline
- Can abandon the storyline, but will have repercussions later
- Not doing a plotline is a choice the player has
- Main narrative: search for Geralt’s loved ones and conflict with the Wild Hunt
- Multiple branches of narratives that feed into each other
- Don’t have to do anything outside the main storyline to beat the game
- Could have help in a main-line encounter from an ally you gained in the Skellige archipelago if you’ve completed certain quests in certain ways
- Major events in the main storyline are “gates” for the state of the world
- Ex: village threatened by bandits might be abandoned after certain events if the player doesn’t help
- Weather effects are dynamically generated and fully modeled as real volumetric clouds rather than being simply painted on the skybox
- In contrast to the last game, Geralt encounters communities and individuals with monster-related problems that need solving
- There aren’t contract-like assignments this time
- Press the left trigger to turn on Geralt’s witcher senses
- Can glean information from a crime scene upon discovering it
- Within range of a scene of interest, the mechanic conveys clues to the player through the witcher muttering to himself and/or visual depictions of past events that represent Geralt’s reasoning
- Time of day and other conditions determine where monsters appear and their abilities
- Can strike critical areas in combat based on how much you learn about monster anatomy and tactics
- The team is deciding between using a handful of in-combat special moves for particular attacks and a slow-motion quick-time event style
- Monsters you defeat leave otherwise unobtainable alchemical and crafting ingredients needed for making of unique items, potions, mutagens
- These allow Geralt to gain special powers and upgrades in the new mutation development tree
- These kills serve as the witcher’s primary method of income
- Moving more toward romance and away from shallow sexual encounters
- “We want to treat it maturely like we did in The Witcher 2. We are not bringing sex cards back.”
- Witcher 3 doesn’t have completely different environments based on singular choices due to the open world, but there are similarly impactful decisions
- You’ll be involved with mutually exclusive storylines and situations based on certain momentous choices
- Won’t be on the same level as Witcher 2, however
- Game mechanics based on previous games, but the team is revisiting many details
- Backward difficulty curve being addressed
- Reworking the flow of combat
- 96 animations for Geralt’s combat moves (last game had 20)
- Game has a “weighting” system for the camera to help keep the biggest threats in frame at all times
- Combat system: three big changes to solve the problem of being locked into long animations
- Every button press mapped to a single strike
- Each move takes a roughly equivalent time to perform
- Can always interrupt your current action to immediately dodge or block
- Can block/dodge when out of stamina, but you’ll be staggered
- Team wants to make the combat “more intimate”
- “You don’t run – in the Witcher 2 you were running constantly. You walk, but your attacks are very fast. Your opponents also walk but they have charges and things like that.”
- Geralt’s dodge roll replaced by a pivot move
- It retains its defensive utility without game-breaking mobility
- Attacks faster than in The Witcher 2
- Enemy AI completely rebuilt
- No scripted boss encounters
- One boss: ice giant
- Roughly a dozen types of interactive objects
- Ex: Can irritate a wasp with the telekinetic Aard sign to make a damaging distraction for his foes and disperse the swarm with the fiery Igni sign once the wasp swarm becomes a problem
- Magical signs are retooled
- Each of the five signs has a basic form such as Igni’s new flamethrower effect
- If the player advances down the magic tree as Geralt levels up, can unlock a second form of the sign
- For Igni, would unlock a 360-degree blast that immolates anything close
- Yrdren’s small trap can be changed into a bigger field that slows enemies
- Player retains the use of the basic form
- Other two trees are based on swordsmanship and alchemy
- Swordfighting: can unlock new strikes and boosts such as improved stamina and parrying
- Alchemy: mutation mechanic moved off to a separate development path, independent of the level-up process
- Alchemy specialization is based more on potions
- Improvements available for the horse and boat
- These aspects are still in development
- One idea: players could access their long-term storage stash from their horse as well as from inns
- Team knows about frustrating inventory management in Witcher 2
- Crafting still important for enhancing Geralt’s capabilities
- Can customize crafted items
- Some components are can be substituted for similar things
- Ex: monster scales instead of leather in a piece of armor
- This affects the properties of the final item
- Can find unique components as part of monster hunts or questlines
- Combine these with special recipes to make artifacts of immense power
- Each armor piece has a unique appearance
- Armor has improved presentation and new cloth simulation
- Can visit a barber to change Geralt’s hairstyle

reply to Krisnatharok
I was so excited for TW2 that I ended up being disapointed at first. The stupid tutorial in the beginning, the AWFUL inventory. Seriously... awful. Skyrim's UI was just as awful but the modding community saved it with SkyUI.

Why do devs think it's OK to make a shitty interface? IT'S THE CORE OF THE GAME! If you make navigating the game a difficult chore it will affect everything else.

And that stupid medallion that made things glow orange... awful too. A highlight key has been used in RPG since I've played them.

Stop changing the simple things that work.

I'm glad to see it is on the list.

I didn't mind the quirks second one, once it was friggin optimized (my 580 was crying the whole time)--it was such an improvement over the first.
--
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

reply to Krisnatharok
I'm really enthused about this. CD Projekt is really making itself into the company to watch out for.
--
Support Bacteria -- It's the Only Culture Some People Have

reply to Krisnatharok
Looks great. Can't wait.

People better start upgrading. Crysis 3, Star Citizen, this... graphics requirements are going to be picking up again with the release of next gen consoles.
--
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

reply to Krisnatharok
Holy shit, an open world Witcher sequel?

I can say, TW2 is pretty much on a set of rails. Not much exploring.

I didn't really mind. You could go anywhere in the Chapter. It told the story nicely and kept you moving forward, but it sucked if you wanted to go back and complete a quest you skipped.

Hopefully this sets a good balance between compelling you forward yet leaving you free to explore.

If you're not careful, it will turn out like Skyrim, which is the best game you'll never finish.
--
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

reply to Krisnatharok
I can only imagine what this 3rd installment will look like graphically.

The second one looks amazing, if you have the hardware to run it.

So yeah, I sense a GPU upgrade in the near future.

reply to Krisnatharok
For the unblocked:

»www.thewitcher.com/

reply to Krisnatharok

reply to Ghastlyone
Yeah going to upgrade probably as well Q3 or Q4. Switching from freakin' AMD to Intel.

reply to Krisnatharok
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

I AM SOOOOOOOO READY FOR THIS!!!!! I would like to know what they mean by "Coming to PCs and "high-end platforms" in 2014." high end platforms but eh.

Wonder how much more resource demanding it will be. TW2 wasnt very cpu heavy but even my 7950 cant max it at >25fps when uber sampling is on(only playing at 1650x1050). I may have to overvolt+overclock(well overclock more) it to get more fps out of it... Or buy a new gpu, or system depending on when I get my bachelors degree, if i wait until 2015 to buy tw3. Yep tw series is totally worth complete system upgrade to me.

this is the best news I've heard all day!

I figured as much... Lets just hope it doesn't suffer too much from consollitis . Granted TW2 didn't really have much if any, so lets hope cd project red keeps it up.