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The Watch Dogs Watch

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...tch-dogs-on-pc-contains-hidden-graphics-files

Ubisoft has issued an explanation for why the PC version of Watch Dogs includes unused graphical options within its files.

The options, discovered by modders earlier this week, were quickly made available for PC users to apply themselves - most notably via a mod by user TheWorse.

Changes introduced by the patch affect the game's depth of field, dynamic lighting, shadows and more.

Many users felt the game's visuals were improved by the mod, although some also reported that performance suffered slightly as a result.

This is largely the gist of Ubisoft's response, posted last night on the Watch Dogs official site, which is laid out in full below.

"The dev team is completely dedicated to getting the most out of each platform, so the notion that we would actively downgrade quality is contrary to everything we've set out to achieve," Ubisoft wrote. "We test and optimise our games for each platform on which they're released, striving for the best possible quality.

"The PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons, including possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality.

"Modders are usually creative and passionate players, and while we appreciate their enthusiasm, the mod in question (which uses those old settings) subjectively enhances the game's visual fidelity in certain situations but also can have various negative impacts. Those could range from performance issues, to difficulty in reading the environment in order to appreciate the gameplay, to potentially making the game less enjoyable or even unstable.

"Thanks for playing Watch Dogs and stay safe on the mean streets of Chicago."
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
tl;dr

TotalBiscuit rambles a lot.
I really think that he mostly (!) talks to the point. I mean, he surely talks a lot and it can get annoying, especially considering his two digit IQ but I think he stays on topic.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2634792

;)
Is this supposed to be some sort of a rebuttal? I ain't gonna read a wall of text from that idiot, because I think he's an idiot. I just said I thought his videos don't contain that much rambling as opposed to informative stuff with regards to the game at hand.
 

Brinko

Arcane
Joined
May 7, 2012
Messages
884
tl;dr

TotalBiscuit rambles a lot.
I really think that he mostly (!) talks to the point. I mean, he surely talks a lot and it can get annoying, especially considering his two digit IQ but I think he stays on topic.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2634792

;)
Is this supposed to be some sort of a rebuttal? I ain't gonna read a wall of text from that idiot, because I think he's an idiot. I just said I thought his videos don't contain that much rambling as opposed to informative stuff with regards to the game at hand.
All you need from that wall of horseshit is the "I have an IQ of 155" and then go back to his Portal 2 videos and watch him desperately struggle to figure basic puzzles that a 3rd grader could solve.
 
Joined
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Messages
1,875,971
Location
Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
Ubisoft's reply is predictably a poor attempt at damage control.

"We optimized the game for each platform...also we disabled enhanced visual fidelity options on the PC because they were bad for visual fidelity"

If enabling all the bells and whistles can make the game chug, just leave them in as "ULTRA MEGA HIGH DELUXE" graphical options, turning it into a selling point. Lol brah, my PC can run Crysis Watch Dogs on maximum, it's that fucking good.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
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Messages
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New Vegas
If enabling all the bells and whistles can make the game chug, just leave them in as "ULTRA MEGA HIGH DELUXE" graphical options, turning it into a selling point. Lol brah, my PC can run Crysis Watch Dogs on maximum, it's that fucking good.

Then you get people who can't run the game on super high settings and scream to the rafters the game is an "unoptimized piece of shit," just like Crysis had.
 
Joined
May 6, 2009
Messages
1,875,971
Location
Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
The game's fanboys will just shut them down, saying their computer is either a toaster or (if provided with specs) infected with a million viruses.

tumblr_mbsbc6kKQv1rpovuco1_500.gif
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
Staff Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,756
Sorry, maybe you guys misunderstood what I said (it's not my first language). I'm not trying to defend the game, if you say that it's a badly optimized piece of shit, I believe it. I'm just trying to point out that even if it utilizes all your four cores at 100% (which is very unlikely), that shouldn't cause overheating the cpu and crashing. If you have a decent cooler, properly installed, on stock clock speeds, even hammering it with Prime95 for 24 hours should not cause any problems. And that is much much more taxing than running even the shittiest console ports, believe me. That's why I'm guessing that perhaps it crashed simply due to a bug, or there are maybe problems with your cooling setup.

That Cooler Master hsf you mentioned seems perfectly fine, especially if you don't overclock. I'm curious how your temps will turn out with it.
Okay, I installed today my new CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus - with two 12 cm fans - and followed Crispy's School of Applying Thermal Paste.

Anyway, with my old standard cooling, after playing Watch Dogs for something like half an hour it would freeze the whole system. This happened twice.
At idle the processors would register 40 degrees celsius. The highest observed temperature while playing WD was 87 degrees.

With the new cooling the idle temperature is 30 (I set the RPM from 2250 to 1500 to reduce the noise - even with 1500 RPM it's an overkill efficiency-wise) degrees celsius. The highest observed temperature for WD was 47-48, and not a degree more. After a few hours of constant playing no freeze occurred.

I can only speculate that when the processor reached the safety threshold (on the standard cooling) and started slowing down, WD - in all its programming glory - didn't like that one bit and shat all over itself causing the freeze.


As an afterthought I have admit the Hyper 212 is the equivalent of a simple and cheap Totalitarian Doomsday Tank. True, it cannot rival those neat, over-engineered, costing-three-times-as-much Democratic Tanks, but to match them it's twice as large and has twice as much firepower and armor. This I like.
 

Owl

Cipher
Patron
Joined
May 21, 2014
Messages
205
Codex USB, 2014
Happy to hear that it worked out for you. These Sandy Bridge cpus are really good by the way. I have an i5-2400, and I don't even have a fan on it, just a big passive heatsink, and I've never seen it going above 55-60 C. But you have to have a properly ventilated case to be able to do this.

The newer gen (Ivy Bridge/Haswell) Intel cpus reportedly have a worse quality thermal compound below the heat spreader (the metal "lid"), which makes them heat up more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Br...performance_and_heat_issues_when_overclocking
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
Messages
3,181
So I got into playing this thing - and what the fuck? Why is everyone in this game a mentally challenged nutjob? "Privacy invasion" mini side missions are like a gaze into the GD abyss. Even the emo PC is a goddamn creep.
Oh but hey, it has chess puzzles. Let's take a break from retardation and indulge our brai-... Oh, they're meant for 6 year olds. Never mind.
But the best part is that everyone and their pet squirrel is like "WTF IS THIS GUY DOING, IS HE INSANE?!" when you run past them. :lol: Kwans gonna kwa. :patriot:

inb4 "cool story bro"
I had to vent about this dumb shit.
 

Zewp

Arcane
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
3,566
Codex 2013
Don't worry. Reading your posts was still better than playing the game.
 

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
23,731
That Ubisoft response is at least an attempt at being honest.

EA would just release a patch to remove it and turn it into a DLC. They'd then ban anyone that tried to use the graphical files after the fact if they didn't pay for the DLC.
 
Unwanted

DollarSign

Unwanted
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
102
Ubisoft gave up on their idea of having a modern-day Assassin's Creed installment, transforming this project into a separate franchise. Is the game any good? It's certainly better than Assassin's Creed in that its gameplay actually presents a bit of a challenge that requires a modicum of effort, whereas you could put AssCreed on an auto-run mode where you can relax on the couch to watch your character play the game for you and it wouldn't change a thing. But does WD deliver on Ubisoft's insistently overhyped promises to revolutionize gaming forever? No, it really doesn't. In no way whatsoever is WD original, innovative, or revolutionary enough to qualify as a must-buy purchase for even the most avid AAA console gamer - let alone someone with a more refined taste palette.

The story in this game involves tracking down a number of people in Chicago via hacking their phone/computer/vibrator/whatever because of their possible involvement in an ordeal that killed the main character's niece. Any plot kicked off by the death of a small child is running the risk of being manipulative and lazy, but the lack of any real introduction, prologue, or any scene that establishes the main character and his family BEFORE the accidental murder really makes this feel a nominal excuse plot on the level of Mario setting off to save Prince Bubblegum (I'm pretty sure that's her name).

Except, if this is a paper-thin excuse plot to hack things and kill people for ten hours, why are we constantly hammered with protracted manipulative scenes that do nothing but detract from both gameplay and the overall feel of the setting. Aiden Pearce is your generic gruff late-thirties White male going on a generic vengeance/redemption quest (hello Talion from Shadow of Mordor), his sister is a generic young mother who does nothing but worry and complain, his nephew is a generic autistic kid who almost never talks or does anything but sit with a sad face, and his niece gets killed before we even know of her existence. Who exactly are we supposed to care about in this family? Is Ubisoft so arrogant and dismissive towards its consumers (customers, clients, johns) that it injects woefully underdeveloped generic family drama into a game that in no way requires it, and thinks the audience will swallow it all up because it's cinematic and shit?

The rest of the plot is vague, arbitrary and non-descript, things happen for a while and then they stop, with no rhyme or reason beyond giving an excuse to drive from A to B and then hack/stealth/shoot a bunch of enemies. Except, once again, a paper-thin excuse plot is dressed up in over-long, over-dramatic, and under-developed cinematic scenes populated exclusively by one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. There's not a single character in this game that can't be perfectly summarized by their job description - a goth chick, an old mobster boss, a Black gangbanger - nobody has any personality or function beyond their obvious role.

The ending left an obvious sequel hook and hinted at bigger things going on behind the scenes. Well, if there's more important things going on in this universe, why don't you base the entry installment around these things, instead of spoon-feeding us arbitrary crap and then gasping at the wonderful things we will surely witness if only we cough up more dough in 2-3 years when the inevitable sequel is released.

Watch Dogs gameplay has four different modes - driving in an open city area, stealthing your way through enemies, hacking electronic devices, and there's the third-person shooter part. Add to that a variety of side-activities, mini-games, virtual trips, a moderately-long story sequence, and you've got enough to entertain you for a week or so. The game plays like a GTA clone (with crappier car physics) wearing a Deus Ex-style get-up (hack anything by holding Q for half a second) that whipped up a traditionally shallow and over-pretentious AssCreed type of story that takes itself way too seriously for the third-grade cyber-schlock that it actually is. At least, unlike AssCreed, it actually has a stealth system, mostly based around clicking C to hide behind cover and navigating the cameras in hopes of doing something useful. The hacking stuff is silly but fun, sadly, mission design doesn't make full use of its capabilities. Some missions leave it up to the player to decide whether to reach the objective through hacking, stealthing or shooting, but others arbitrarily force you into shooter mode by omitting useful electronics and dumping a shitload of enemies in front of the entrance door. You can't close doors in this game, btw. You can't properly open them either, you just shove it open with your face, and then it will stay open forever. Who needs door interaction in a game that heavily features stealth?

The graphics are pretty good, Chicago looks polished and pristine and there's lots of attention to detail in the visual presentation area. Apparently, Ubisoft graphically downgraded the PC version to keep it from outshining the consoles, poorly hid the tracks, tried to deny the tampering, and then ignored hordes of angry PC players complaining about the difference between preview videos and the actual game. Since then, a bunch of modders undid the downgrade, allowing graphics-concerned players access to full visual glory. I personally couldn't be bothered.

Even aside from the downgrade and lying scandal, the PC port is beyond crap. Controls are needlessly spread all over the keyboard, as though made for an octopus, and performance is atrocious on even the most high-end machines, including those running Titans. I suffered from random frame drops and terrible stuttering that made the game unplayable, thankfully a forum post suggested tweaking with the game's VSYNC settings in Nvidia Control Panel that completely removed the problem.

The score is decent enough by itself, but it's used in a terribly repetitive way - many missions gave me a headache by repeating the same three notes over and over until I fulfilled the objective. I don't know why they needed it to be so repetitive, considering these three notes are always a small excerpt from a larger sound track - just play the whole thing, morans.

I messed around with some of the side content after finishing the story, ultimately I don't regret playing the game but I can't see myself returning to it at any future point, nor would I be upset by news of a suddenly cancelled sequel. Good for what it is, but overhyped and takes itself too seriously. In other words, typical Goobersoft.

:5/5::0/5: / :5/5::5/5:
 
Unwanted

DollarSign

Unwanted
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
102
The best part about the game were the couple of missions towards the middle-end, where the villain is a Codexer. No, seriously, it's a nameless, faceless internet-dweller who talks solely in 'ololo' and 'pwned' while making things difficult for Pearce. The only embellished element was him being a popular DJ - clearly, no real codexer could survive being outside the basement. He comes literally from nowhere, has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, and is killed without revealing anything about him beyond his Polish surname (Markovicz or smthn).

Apparently, he comes back in a DLC or something, hopefully they'll flesh him out more as a character.

Oh, and to everyone wondering "why should story and characters even matter in a game like this" - it's because they put them there and invested a lot of effort into directing "cinematic" cutscenes that draws an inordinate amount of attention towards this element. If you're putting astory and making us sit through a shitload of over-long and over-dramatic cutscenes, at least make them good. There was nothing preventing this game from being a sandbox filled with nothing but gameplay-centered activities.
 

Jaesun

Fabulous Ex-Moderator
Patron
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
37,241
Location
Seattle, WA USA
MCA
The best part about the game were the couple of missions towards the middle-end, where the villain is a Codexer. No, seriously, it's a nameless, faceless internet-dweller who talks solely in 'ololo' and 'pwned' while making things difficult for Pearce.

You must be new here....
 

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