Watch Dogs

If there's one thing I've learned it's not to judge a game's graphic fidelity by screenshots and videos. There's just too much compression in most cases.

And I don't know why you're holding a game, which was originally designed for only PS3/360 (PC too probably) to such high regard. It was only later on that they went for PS4 and Xbone as well.
 
And I don't know why you're holding a game, which was originally designed for only PS3/360 (PC too probably) to such high regard. It was only later on that they went for PS4 and Xbone as well.
Unless they were lying, at E3 2012 they said they were developing it using PC as the lead platform in anticipation of the added horsepower of the next gen consoles.

I'm with everyone here. I'm not by any means a graphics whore, but the new visuals are seriously disappointing.
 
iboqqHgyy5tOsD.gif


♫One of these things is not like the other♫

That has to be old console footage right?. :(

They can fuck right off if it isn't.
 
I've been waiting for this game since last year. It had a lot of hype around the end of the year, then with the delays it just kind of died out for me. Last week I was looking to see if they ever said when the hell it was going to be released. Guess now I know that. I just hope they haven't dumbed the graphics down that much on pc. Long as I can crank that shit up and get something close to the original videos they showed last year, I'll be happy.
 
If there's one thing I've learned it's not to judge a game's graphic fidelity by screenshots and videos. There's just too much compression in most cases.

And I don't know why you're holding a game, which was originally designed for only PS3/360 (PC too probably) to such high regard. It was only later on that they went for PS4 and Xbone as well.

Not to be a smartass, but the graphic fidelity wasn't affected in the 2012 shots and videos. Lol.

Anyhow, I'm guessing the PC version will be closer to the 2012 videos.
 
If there's one thing I've learned it's not to judge a game's graphic fidelity by screenshots and videos. There's just too much compression in most cases.

Compression is a totally different issue than what we are seeing here.
 
I mean we are seeing completely different assets than what we saw before in some case here. Look at that bridge jump comparison gif, for instance.
 
My biggest problem is with the new lighting and shadows. It seems like many props don't cast shadows at all, and the lighting, at least during the day, is very flat. Also, did anyone notice how there are hardly any people in this futuristic Chicago? There were more peds walking around in GTA3!
 
crypts_of_chaos.png


Some new screenshots of The Division have leaked!
Somethings kind of off it seems, not sure what but it still looks promising.
I trust ubisoft will deliver.
 
I'll never understand why people make such a fuss over pre-release footage. With all the screens and whatever being posted, you don't know what platform that's on, or how close to a final build it is.

If the game comes out, and the final version looks like shit on high end hardware, go grab your torch and pitchforks. Until it's out, it's not fair to bitch. If you're unsure of what the games quality will be, don't pre-order, and you've got nothing to lose.
 
One of the reasons that's true is because development on Watch Dogs actually started for the PC first.

There's your problem right there. No doubt the original E3 2012 footage was a concept demonstration of what their engine is capable of producing when leveraging decent hardware, but now the actual game has been neutered to accommodate the lowest denominator platforms. The sooner devs/publishers stop wasting their time milking the 360 and PS3 platforms the sooner we can enjoy some truly next gen games.
 
I'll never understand why people make such a fuss over pre-release footage. With all the screens and whatever being posted, you don't know what platform that's on, or how close to a final build it is.
As long as publishers distribute promotional media before release, people on a discussion forum are going to analyze it and give their opinion. As far as platform goes, if Ubisoft is deliberately promoting their future franchise using footage from the poorest looking versions of the game, then they deserve to go out of business. There's no reason to believe the recent trailers are from anything but the PS4 or PC versions.
 
As long as publishers distribute promotional media before release, people on a discussion forum are going to analyze it and give their opinion. As far as platform goes, if Ubisoft is deliberately promoting their future franchise using footage from the poorest looking versions of the game, then they deserve to go out of business. There's no reason to believe the recent trailers are from anything but the PS4 or PC versions.

Analyzing and giving opinions is fine. But people get angry over it... that's the part that confuses me. Especially considering this is a PC focused forum, and we've got no clue if any of the footage posted is console footage or maxed-out PC footage. I fully believe in giving them a fair shake before writing the game off, and given that it's going to be a high-profile release you are going to see lots of PC footage from Day 1... that's when it's time to start raging if it looks like dog shit... not now. In the mean time, if you're worried, don't pre-order (or cancel) and you've got nothing to lose, and therefor nothing to be angry about.
 
I fully believe in giving them a fair shake before writing the game off, and given that it's going to be a high-profile release you are going to see lots of PC footage from Day 1... that's when it's time to start raging if it looks like dog shit... not now. In the mean time, if you're worried, don't pre-order (or cancel) and you've got nothing to lose, and therefor nothing to be angry about.
Yeah, I agree with you there. I think people treat promotional materials as promises, which of course is silly with something that isn't a finished product. I'd say that a decent chunk of the blame though goes to the publishers and developers themselves, who demo things too early and hide a lot of uncertainty under the hood.
 
Analyzing and giving opinions is fine. But people get angry over it... that's the part that confuses me. Especially considering this is a PC focused forum, and we've got no clue if any of the footage posted is console footage or maxed-out PC footage.

I think the argument that many are making is that it doesn't make sense to showcase a new game with old console footage. How many games do that? Basically none. They show it on a maxed-out PC or the next-gen consoles. There is nothing to be gained by releasing footage from a graphically inferior copy.

That said, I agree, we will see what happens with this one. I certainly wouldn't pre-order it, though.
 
Kind of a bummer that they had to scale it down. He says the game will scale up nicely on PC, so there's that at least. It sounds like he's just talking about graphics and not the pedestrians and cars they had to cut out. The game looks like fun otherwise though. I'll just wait and see what the reviews say once it's released.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/6/5474064/watch-dogs-pc-ps3-ps4-xbox-360-xbox-one-release-date

"So it's the same storyline," he said. "It's done by the same team, so it's not a separate team in another continent that was (making one of the versions). So, same storyline, same gameplay, all the same mechanics, innovations. All the same missions, if you want, the same world.

"Obviously what's different, is that we're scaling the dynamism and the detail of the city and the gameplay. So it's stuff like the amount of civilians in the street, the amount of cars in the street, the detail in the animation, or how sophisticated some reactions are to some of your actions. So some of those things are scaled down. Obviously the graphics, but that one's obvious."

Guay said he's very happy with what the team has been able to do on the PS3 and Xbox 360, especially in the past six months.

"There were some of our features where it was a challenge to be sure that we had feature parity, especially some of the things that we're doing online," he said. "But at the end of the day we're able to hit that on all the core animations that we're doing in Watch Dogs."

In terms of PlayStation 4 versus Xbox One versions of the game, Guay says they're so similar that he sometimes has to check the controller or the UI to figure out which platform is running the game.

"It pretty much looks alike," he said. "You know, I get fooled. You can't really tell just from the image."

And the PC version scales based on the sort of computer you're running it on, though the team made the decision "not too scale down too much," Guay said.

"I mean you can always say we support a 10-year-old PC and then it's barely playable, but that's ugly," he said. "It's not really what people want to play. We didn't do that. We didn't go there. We said, ‘OK, we advertise that at the recommended setting it's going to be a good experience. It's going to look good, it's not going to look like a 10-year-old game.' So we're not going to support very old PCs. If you have very powerful PCs, then it'll scale up, and it scale up to even higher resolution, obviously, than you can have on PS4 or Xbox One. So you can have, in theory, a version that will look spectacular if you have that big screen, that high resolution capability. The game looks great on PC."

One of the reasons that's true is because development on Watch Dogs actually started for the PC first.

"When we started developing, the PS3 existed, the Xbox 360 existed, and we kind of suspected, maybe, there might be other platforms eventually," he said. "So, because we thought that would happen we chose the PC as our first target to have when we started developing Watch Dogs so that we have the flexibility to adapt to a different platform. So we were able to support 360 and PS3, but we could scale up with other platforms and to other video in the meantime, which we now know is the case. So PC has always been around for us. Sometimes it's a last-minute port of sorts. For us, it's been around since we started."

Development shifted to the next-gen consoles once the PS4 and Xbox One were announced, and then in the last eight months or so a dedicated team returned to the PC to hammer out the final details of that platform's version of the game, he said.

"So we end up having the best of both worlds basically," he said. "We're able to have good usability on PC and on console."
His companion article has relieved some of my concerns, especially when they explain why they delayed the title:

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/6/5477236/watch-dogs-hands-on-video-interview-release-date
 
This 14min gameplay footage (where they showed the player invasion stuff) from September didn't bother me when I saw it, unlike that latest trailer. Should just have re-released this one.

I'm just not sure what they did with that trailer. Not only does it make the graphics look poor in places, it's not like it's selling me on the gameplay or story either.
 
Last edited:
Looks awful wtf :(... the early videos looked way better and with the insane pc demands it should look alot better.. another garbage pos console port...
 
Twitch has a ubisoft live broadcast but the comments are a hot mess massive GAF troll swear they suck.
 
Twitch has a ubisoft live broadcast but the comments are a hot mess massive GAF troll swear they suck.

I'm not going to bother, but if they want to reassure people I suggest they recreate the 'walking in rain with wind blowing' scene from the reveal, and then a time lapse showing the lighting change over a whole day.

I want this to be good. The 6min video from the Sony presentation had me excited again. They need to flush that story trailer down the toilet.
 
the best aspect looks to be the player invasions of other people's games...otherwise it looks like 1 guy using his phone to hack everyone and everything...can they sustain that over an entire game?
 
...but if they want to reassure people I suggest they recreate the 'walking in rain with wind blowing' scene from the reveal, and then a time lapse showing the lighting change over a whole day...

What so they can re-fool the masses?
 
Well if it looks the same as the previous footage, then okay. If not then we know there is a problem.
 
I'll never understand why people make such a fuss over pre-release footage. With all the screens and whatever being posted, you don't know what platform that's on, or how close to a final build it is.

If the game comes out, and the final version looks like shit on high end hardware, go grab your torch and pitchforks. Until it's out, it's not fair to bitch. If you're unsure of what the games quality will be, don't pre-order, and you've got nothing to lose.

Because a lot of people pre-ordered based on what they saw? :rolleyes: Most sane people don't enjoy a bait and switch at their expense.
 
The desperation is delicious...

Ubisoft has responded to claims that the visual performance of upcoming open-world action game Watch Dogs has been scaled back since its initial unveiling at E3 2012. That's just not true, Ubisoft Benelux PR and events manager Tessa Vilyn said today across a series of tweets.

"It is impossible," Vilyn said... ..."Of course it is not downgraded at all. It's a true next-gen game for sure...for sure.."

The Watch Dogs visual downgrade claims came to light this week from a GIF found on NeoGAF. Compiled using video footage from the game released this week, it suggested the game's graphical fidelity had been scaled back since last we saw it.

"Believe me the game is not downgraded," Vilyn said. "That would just be a bit ridiculous. I saw the game it looks incredible. It looks what a next gen should look like."

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/watch-dogs-visuals-have-not-been-downgraded-ubisoft-says/1100-6418171/

Oh so now your cutting your losses eh?

Lastly, in regards to what Morin (WD Creative Director Jonathan Morin) hopes the end product will be due to the additional effort and development time, he says this, "Are we delivering the 'movie [style vision] of every single person on Earth who saw that [The Games Reveal Trailer]? Probably not, that's not possible. But are we delivering on this fantasy of being a hacker, controlling everything and approaching things in different ways – yes.”


http://www.gamenguide.com/articles/9750/20140307/watch-dogs-delay-game-delayed-tend-important-details-will-look-inferior-trailer.htm

Furthermore:

Still, showing that sort of footage comes with certain expectations, and it’s better to deliver consistently than to wow initially and disappoint later. Many games show footage on par with the final product, and some even improve things by release. In this case there shouldn’t be a “movie version” shown that was “not possible.” The way that’s phrased, the process sounds like it’s meant to be misleading from the beginning.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/07/an-attempt-to-understand-watch-dogs-graphics-downgrade/



I'm not buying this game.
 
Last edited:
I think the argument that many are making is that it doesn't make sense to showcase a new game with old console footage. How many games do that? Basically none. They show it on a maxed-out PC or the next-gen consoles. There is nothing to be gained by releasing footage from a graphically inferior copy.

That said, I agree, we will see what happens with this one. I certainly wouldn't pre-order it, though.

Exactly, the people grasping for these types of excuses are either gullible or naive. Since when do game companies promote their products using footage from inferior versions unless they are explicitly demonstrating a specific platform? I have never known them to do that, so as far as I am concerned these latest trailers are demonstrable of what you can expect when playing on the highest settings. Happy to be proven wrong, but that will entail Ubi putting out some footage on par with the original E3 2012 demonstration and confirming that visual fidelity will be available on the PC version.
 

It is becoming palpable, its starting to feel like the Xbone unveiling all over again....how he can stand there and regurgitate disingenuous PR when people have a pretty good idea of what a next-gen game should look like is fascinating. This version of Watch Dogs simply does not hold a candle to the likes of say The Division or Infamous Second Son (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiaTwOWAVoY).
 
This version of Watch Dogs simply does not hold a candle to the likes of say The Division or Infamous Second Son

Perhaps wait till The Division is out before we jump for joy about that one. Pretty similar situation there, except even more ambitious. Even though it's current gen only, we might see quite the drop there too.
 
Perhaps wait till The Division is out before we jump for joy about that one. Pretty similar situation there, except even more ambitious. Even though it's current gen only, we might see quite the drop there too.

Very true, wouldn't put it past Ubi to fuck that one up as well...but if anything Infamous Second Son and Killzone 4 have shown us what the new consoles are capable of early in their life cycle, so I wouldn't say our expectations are unrealistic.
 
"There's no scale down in quality, especially the next-gen versions," Morin said, discussing some of the negative reaction to recent trailers with us at Eurogamer Expo this afternoon. "It's pretty much the opposite. What we showed at E3 2012 in a lot of respects was less good. I think it's in the details. So no, there's no scale down."

---Jonathan Morin, Creative Director for Watch_Dogs


http://www.videogamer.com/ps4/watch_dogs/news/watch_dogs_graphics_have_not_been_scaled_down_since_reveal_creative_director_claims.html



johnathanmorin.jpg





watch_dogs_e3_2012_vs_march_2014_by_endless_1-d795oxr.gif




"It's pretty much the opposite. What we showed at E3 2012 in a lot of respects was less good. I think it's in the details. So no, there's no scale down."


...



...
 
Back
Top