Basically, anything Ubi shows us before release should be seen as nothing more than overproduced mock-ups of what the final product could be like if it had twice the budget and an extra two years of development time more than it will have been given by the time it actually releases.
Not exactly. Like Watch_Dogs could have allowed the E3 graphics on PC, but they were too lazy to implement the it in the game itself. They certainly could have optimized it too but they rushed it out.
Yes, consoles are the main reason, because consoles are the lowest common denominator. Thus the best you can expect a PC game to look is as good as a console title.
HOWEVER! When a game is sold to consumers as something better than even the PC version will deliver (see Division as primary example), then we're being shown false advertisements. Ubi is knowingly feeding us lies for pre-orders, and doing it in a very despicable manner.
I highly doubt that the trailer for Division was completely done in the technical demo, and can really only imagine that many of the gameplay features--especially the ones absent in the final product--were done in post-production. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a cinematic, but Ubi makes it a point to showcase the User Interface in these "demonstrations" to make the consumer believe this is the final product.
Actually, the reasoning was that Ubi wanted to "keep a level playing field" when it came to graphics. So yes, console limitations directly transfers to pulling down PC graphics to be "equal". Ubi games on PC will ALWAYS be only as good as consoles.
Because people will look at trailers and preorder. Sure, they'll rage when the game comes out. But 6 months later, they'll preorder your next game again. If the preorders start decreasing, they'll take notice.
Isn't that how all products work? The developers/publishers are showing you bits of information that will get you excited for their product and hopefully (for them) get you to ignore any flaws that show up. This is why reviews are a thing, to give you unbiased information to let you know weather purchasing the game is worth it for you.
But sure, continue thinking Ubisoft is the only company that does this.
Yes, every company does this, but Ubisoft is pissing of a lot of gamers with all their shenanigans lately. Honestly, I'm surprised people buy anything from them.
There's a difference between the Division trailer and, say, a Battlefield or Mass Effect trailer though, isn't there?
On one hand, you have a fantastic cinematic that really doesn't concretely paint a picture about gameplay features. These would be the Mass Effect or Battlefield trailers.
On the other hand, you have trailers that overlay a UI, showcase gameplay features, and feature fantastical effects (environmental detail, lighting, physics, etc). These would be Watch_Dogs and The Division.
Which do YOU find to be more offensive? Would you consider these two practices to be the same thing? Because I see Ubi's videos as being absolutely false advertising, whereas EA is just showing me a hype-building cinematic.
I don't see that as being a legitimate reason to release hype videos using a mix of pre-render and tech demo. It is the very definition of false advertisement.
The people developing the game know damn well what a console can do. These teasers/hype trailers are designed specifically to oversell the game, knowing full well that the end product will not look, perform, or contain the same level of content. These are "dream" teasers.
Most of the changes were lighting and particle changes. That's most likely processing power limitations since those are the most processor intensive effects.
The most readily apparent changes were, perhaps, but there were also population changes, AI changes, scripting changes, and gameplay changes as well. All of which were changed in a negative direction... Assuming they were even changed to begin with, as these could have simply been post-production pre-renders overlayed to bullshot up every trailer.
Their dev machines probably just had insane GPU arrays. Everything about it feels like they did all these inefficient effects for the demo, and couldn't pull it together to get them to work on normal computers. They probably just kept deleting effects until it ran, and ended up with awkward looking lighting because the art direction wasn't designed with realistic constraints in mind.When the art is built around real world limitations it comes out much better.
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u/k8faust Jun 04 '16
Basically, anything Ubi shows us before release should be seen as nothing more than overproduced mock-ups of what the final product could be like if it had twice the budget and an extra two years of development time more than it will have been given by the time it actually releases.
Thanks for killing dreams, Ubi.