If you mean FO4 leaks here from the spanish guy then I want to inform you that he had his pipboy light on.

And at this point can you honestly say that Fallout 4 won't have that in the main city? No, because you haven't played and all anyone has seen are leaked videos from someone too ignorant and selfish to abide by the rules set forth by the publisher.

I did not like the Witcher 3..What does the Witcher have to do with Fallout or Bethesda?

But aren't they just wooden NPC's with no character, no real AI, no schedules, no extra dialogue and next to no reaction to the player?

I think what was going on with the spanish leaker had some weird screenshot situation going on where his PS4 wasnt capturing the full rendered image in it or something.

Other leaks ive seen have had some nice shadows to them, even on PS4, but his copy seems to be running on N64 mode.

Yes and like every other game if you stop to pick it all apart it is a flimsy illusion. I could do the same with any title but think on this. If I stop moving in Novigrad how many options do I have? Now stop by a city in Skyrim or the Capital wasteland. Your options and variables to manipulate the world go up by a considerable amount. This does have a cost in terms of hardware and the limitations that have been imposed by the market.

And.... as far as cities looking full. AC has highly populated cities. Real purdy-like. And as shallow as a Kardashian. I'd rather play F3, with its small settlements over any AC game, ever.

That's not very different from the NPCs that spout one line and walk off in Skyrim. How is a location with 20 NPCs a city?

And I haven't... what's your point?

They do have schedules. They react to rain, go to taverns, go to sleep. They also react when you push them around and have some scripted liners they tell you like my signature will attest. ^^ More importantly npcs do recognize you and praise you if you have done something significant in the world. And these are the insignificant npcs with no attachment to quests or to you. The ones with quests are, of course, impressive.

There's a lot of misinformation floating around about TW3 as much as the hyperbolic hate that FO4 is having.

Exactly.

That's what people don't seem to understand with Bethesda games when it comes to graphics. It is a balance act.

1) EVERY NPC in a Bethesda game is a unique individual. They have an inventory, skills, a schedule, an AI package, etc. They have relationships. You can screw with them, follow them, sabotage them, etc. You can kill them and sometimes cause change reactions where their family members start mourning, commit suicide, take over their job, etc. That means you can't just make a beautifully animated NPC that stands in one spot, in one city, and recycles a few repeated animations.

2) Bethesda makes the most moddable games in the industry. No other game company has as large a mod community, and that's because Bethesda keeps mod access open, both with their engine design, but with their design choices. They could make every NPC a beautiful unique model, with individually handcrafted facial animations made JUST for that character model - but then no players could make their own NPCs.

3) Bethesda games are full of interactive, physics-based objects and dynamic AI. In a Bethesda game, you can dump 1000 watermelons in a house, blow up a room and send all the objects scattering, lure chains of dozens of enemies or NPCs into new areas, etc. So Bethesda CAN'T make those assets have a bazillion polygons and 4K texture maps.

It was the pipboy light that ruined the whole pic and scene (he had it on during the day too). I later have seen the pipboy light in a leaked video and at that moment I realized what was wrong with this screenshots.

Here's what you should do, Mr. Redditor. First spend about five years learning computer programming and using CAD software. Then spend a few more years studying art and optics. Then get a large team of people together to make a ridiculously complex virtual world area that's about 28.8 gigabytes of binary code processed into images being displayed on an LED screen for nerds to enjoy. THEN, and only then can you be in a position to be critical of the effort that Bethesda has done. SPOILER ALERT - you won't be able to do anywhere near as good a job, bro.

It's still too early for me to form an opinion. Games are meant to be played - a couple leaks and a bit of gameplay footage isn't enough for me to make my mind up. What I've seen has very much impressed me. I don't believe in platonic ideals - all game design is not striving towards one "perfect game." All companies have strengths and weaknesses. That said I've always found the visuals in Bethesda games to be particularly impressive - it's not the technological power behind those tools that does this for me, it's what they accomplish with those tools.

One thing that's always overlooked in all these "graphics" discussion is art design. I think Bethesda has always had this in spades. Sure, Bioware and other companies tend to have better animation (can't comment on Witcher 3 - I've always meant to play it, and I have the first on Steam, but never quite got around to finishing the first game.) But their level designs are downright bland in comparison to Bethesda.

I've said this before and I imagine it'll still hold true for Fallout 4 - Bethesda will put more thought and effort into the thatching on a roof of a hovel than a lot of other companies will put into their entire level. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's seen Beth's blog posts about their art direction - they have a real knack for attention to detail. Even Fallout 3, there was a mantra along the lines of "every nut and bolt needs to serve a purpose."

Sure, I'm obviously biased. And I don't expect Bethesda to be topping the charts in "graphics." Maybe if you look closely at certain textures they won't look as pretty as some other contemporary games. But I've always been particularly impressed by their art direction. These are very pretty and atmospheric games - but that's something almost completely unrelated to sheer graphics power.

In short - it seems (I'm sorry but to be honest,) downright silly to say Bethesda lacks for effort in the visuals.

It's absolutely one of the best attempts thus far, only outdone by a few games like WoW in terms of population (current cities, and that's before their massive plummet in subs). In many cases, I felt there were actually too many people in TW3 because they kept getting in my way on horseback. If you want to argue that it wasn't perfect, I wouldn't mind it, but saying it in no way gives that illusion is pure hyperbole.

As far as I'm concerned any person who is "butthurt over the graphics" has a shallow attitude towards gaming. Nothing they say is worth taking seriously.

Also, this. Beth not putting in the effort? They started working on this just after Skyrim came out and we know that Fallout has always been more about the gameplay than graphics. I honestly don't care for a lot of the more graphically advanced games that make everything look so life-like that it could've just as well been a movie. I want my games to look like games, and so far Fallout 4 does just that, with a cherry on top.

Am I the only one that doesn't pick up a game based off of graphics? Story time- Last summer I preordered my first game, Bloodborne. Being a huge fan of the souls series, I thought I was going to have a blast with it because of how stunning it looked on a console. Game comes out and within a weak I'm burned out. I still have not finished the game due to not being interested in it. It was very linear even for a souls game, mostly routing and weapon choices. I felt if the graphics were downgraded, the game would have been a lot more enjoyable.

Now, with Fallout. I will agree that it's not the best looking game that came out this year. What I do not agree with is the exaggeration that people have put on the game. What do you define as 2015 graphics? Looking at just 3 games is somewhat biast on your end. Several games have come out this year that don't measure to games such as the witcher and gtaV. As long as the game is appealing to look at, I'm fine. half-assing the game..? That's a little extreme. Considering the amount of time they've put into the project and the amount of concept art we've seen, I think you should give them a little more credit.

I don't need my eyes to bleed when I play a game. I look for story and great gameplay. Graphics are a bonus. Fallout 4 looks amazing to me. You want to see a game that looks beautiful? Check out Crysis.... looks gorgeous, but underneath the makeup... it's not very impressive at all.

It's not my idea of the Wasteland. Smaller settlements suits it much better, IMO.

Looks like a troll topic to be sure :/

But I will attempt to reason with you.

Both GTA and Witcher 3 are good looking games and are very enjoyable. But they are so much more shallow than any BGS game there really is no comparison. Sure they are open world, but they do not have a fraction of the content any BGS game does.

Look at the building interiors, they dont exist in GTA and in witcher 3 they are poor graphical quality and are mostly copy paste assets.

90% of the NPC's are just there in both games. There is no real interaction with them.

Its hard to take you seriously. I can take some max resolution screenshots of the witcher 3 indoors and argue CDPR did a shoddy job. But I wont, because I have better things to do with my time.

"Civil discussion" in official forums the week before release is just not possible.

Come back a year from now when only us bitter regulars are left


Actually it was for a FPS, many different routes, many different options, many different ways to achieve your goal. A "wide pipe run" as it were

And BGS is limited by their engine. They don't half-ass visuals, they half-ass stories and mechanics

I don't think Bethesda has ever claimed that making a graphically stunning game was their ultimate goal....

I think you have good intentions but in your attempt to "reason" you have become unreasonable and misleading about the TW3 which I've played THOROUGHLY.

Bro, you're comparing it to TW3 which is a completely different game. Bethesda games have never looked amazing and jaw dropping, idk why everyone is making a huge deal out of it this time around. When Skyrim came out it wasn't the best looking game of 2011, and when fallout 3 came out, it wasn't the best either. TW3 and GTA V do not have the same content as fallout does, they do not play the same, they do not look the same. Idk what you are trying to get at here man, none of the people complaining about the graphics are even fallout fans mind you. This game got a lot of publicity when it was announced, and now all these PC master race gamers are coming over and dogging on the graphics because it doesn't look like what they're used too. Nobody bashed on borderlands, because it was it's style, nobody should bash on fallout, because it is it's style. So yeah, stop complaining, if you don't like it, don't buy it, and stop acting like you are a fan of the series.

Me too, for me it's simple, the graphics are a "second class" indicator: if they are great, then I'm even more impressed, but if they are mediocre while the rest of the game is great, I can totally deal with mediocre. For me Fallout 4 looks "good", not great, not bad. Do I wish it looked like Witcher 3 without losing anything else? Of course. But I can totally immerse in the world with the current graphics and that's sufficient. I don't like it when people overreact in comparisons, not all the games need to look as good as the very best game of the same generaton. The best looking game is not the new standard like some like to believe, the standard is only the average of all the games. If Lexus adds something very cool to their luxury cars it doesn't mean that all the other car makers are suddenly "sub-standard".