The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Ringwraith #5 said:

Nahkuri said:

I'm hoping it's the first option Havoc described. Like in Skerm or Nehrim.

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Hm, I'm not so sure I'd like that. Hypothetical question time. Skyrim does have a seamless overworld, but every interior is behind a loading screen. What if the world of TW3 is divided between several areas, say half a dozen or so, with loading screens in between, but the areas themselves are truly open and seamless, including transitions from exteriors to interiors? Would you still prefer the Skyrim approach?

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I don't really mind the interior/exterior thing TES games have going on in buildings. But seamless transition in the outside world has given me plenty of "woah" moments.

-Nehrim. Being tasked to go to an area beyond a hidden gorge. Left a rather Oblivilol-esque forest valley, climbed a mountain, entered a crag, found a tunnel supported by some stone pillars nicked from antique Greece/Rome, stepped outside on a weird colourful fantasy autumnland with big mushrooms and tiny monsters. As there wasn't a loading screen of anykind. the transition caught me completely by surprise, and I spent a couple minutes of just taking it all in.

-Morrowind. Finished whatever I was doing in the northern Ashlands with the Ahemmusa(?) tribe. Decided to swim along the shore to the grazelands for the first time. A couple of dead Dreughs and about five million slaughterfish later I swim past the last of the Ashland lavaflow canyons, crawl ashore and holy dog****, open beatiful grasslands

-Skyrim. Travelled west from Whiterun, across the Tundra and towards Markarth. Went back Rorikstead and noticed nothing particularly special, just that I was on a slope of a hill. Reached some Forsword mess of tents and ruins(I think it's bleakwind bluff) and holy goddamn hell, did I just step into cartoon Norway? Canyons! Mini-Fjords! Ridiculously steep cliffs and mountainsides! I'm never leaving this area ever again.

I guess it's alright if there's a loading screen between two distinct regions, but it takes away part of the joy of exploring the big outside world. To be entirely honest, I don't think I'd give two damns if I was able to enter a tavern or a cave without a loading screen.

From a convenienence, POV, no loading between interiors and exteriors would be a better choice. It's always annoying in RPGs that you just need to talk to one NPC or visit a vendor and they are stuck inside their little hut and you have to endure loading screens twice every time you need to have access. At least some NWN2-modders got wise to this and just placed all of their shopkeepers outside, in bazaars or markets. Witcher 1 had infuriatingly long loading screens - thanks to Bioware's ****ty engine - though they did patch away some of the pain.

While it's entirely possible that it's marketing double-speak, loading the neighbouring "cells" as you explore is technically entirely possible.

Yeah, there's that. It never bothered me in TES games because the loading times are short and navigating is easy with WASD + mouse, but yeah. Interior/exterior transitioning actually kinda annoyed me in the first Witcher.

Dungeon Siege 2 did it best, the only loading screen being the teleportation one

SacredStoneHead said:

Skyrim sucks, stop tainting the Witcher thread with it 

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The Witcher 1 and 2 are great, don't get me wrong, but I'd take Skyrim over them any day. In regards to the Witcher 3, it has fantastic potential, i'm just curious to see how they do it.

It was a silly flaming 

_{But it had some truth behind it.}

But that's because Skyrim sucks. I'm not a huge TES fan, but Morrowind was a great game.

Overlord- said:

Morrowind was a great game.

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Still my most played elder scrolls game most likely.

Overrated, imo.

Your signature or?

silly

Nahkuri said:

*snip*

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Fair enough. I can see where you're coming from. Personally I'm not entirely sure which I'd prefer. Well, other than a world completely open with no loading screens anywhere, but I think everyone would like that.

Jhessail said:

From a convenienence, POV, no loading between interiors and exteriors would be a better choice. It's always annoying in RPGs that you just need to talk to one NPC or visit a vendor and they are stuck inside their little hut and you have to endure loading screens twice every time you need to have access. At least some NWN2-modders got wise to this and just placed all of their shopkeepers outside, in bazaars or markets. Witcher 1 had infuriatingly long loading screens - thanks to Bioware's ****ty engine - though they did patch away some of the pain.

While it's entirely possible that it's marketing double-speak, loading the neighbouring "cells" as you explore is technically entirely possible.

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Oh don't even get me started on Skyrim's Thieves Guild. There's a map marker for it but it doesn't actually take you in, it dumps you outside. You have to press a button to open a secret entrance that slides open pretty slowly, then do an area transition with a loading screen, then another area transition with a loading screen, and then you can talk to the damn quest givers. And on the way out the door that looks like the exit actually just leads (via an area transition with a loading screen, natch) further underground, the real exit is around a corner. So when I'm leaving with a fresh batch of quests, I go through the wrong door and I'm like: "FFFFFUUUU-! Every ****ing time!" 

Witcher EE practically removed loading screens. Took like 1-2 seconds most of time to leave or enter a building.

I'm probably the only person in the world that likes loading screens. It gives me a brief moment to meditate on everything I have done so far, I can take a look at my surroundings and see if I have better things to do, get a drink, crunch my back, and other stuff.

I don't mind them either. I don't mind them in Skyrim especially, as most times they're just a split second.

I agree(with Rams of all people), sometimes I need to go and get a drink and simply pausing isn't enough to drag me away from my PC.

Ringwraith #5 said:

There's a map marker for it but it doesn't actually take you in, it dumps you outside.

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Fallout 2 had a great option when loading a city/location, it always provided you the option to select which section you'd like to enter.

Was wondering about that after strolling around Camp McCarran in Fallout: New Vegas, what a pain in the ass.

Which leads me now to the point of how small cities and settlements are in most games nowadays, and how boring and uninteresting quests involving going from location A to B is.

I don't recall anything regarding fast travel in TW3, it wasn't an option in TW2. If the world is that big, I wonder how they are going to manage it.

I personally think that it would be interesting if they build the quests around the lack of fast travel options, maybe they finally scrape those "go to A, talk to X, get back to B, talk to Y" type of quests.

You mean where you shoot the ballista?

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The one chronologically situated after that, fought in the church courtyard.

Courtyard fight was annoying because when you died you had to go through the corridors, take out like 5 guards and pick a crapton of loot on the way there.

I didn't find that one annoying at all. Very easy, in fact. But then I am used to Dark Souls. To the point where I now play that when I'm pissed off and need something to calm down.
As for having to repeat a large section of the level, quicksave solves that rather handily.