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We Ben Reilly talking about puddles: Spider-Man controversy gets high numbers of upvotes on Reddit

How do you like your puddles?

  • The entire game should take place inside a huge puddle

  • As big as Insomniac's artists want them to be

  • As deep as my knowledge of game development

  • I prefer oceans tbh

  • Don't go chasing Waterfalls

Results are only viewable after voting.
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Nirolak

Nirolak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,660
I know that people here are huge fans of graphics controversies, so I thought we might as well cover this one.

TL;DR:
  • Reddit users feel there was a graphics downgrade between the E3 build and release build of Spider-Man
  • Insomniac insists this is not true
  • The main contention is over a changed puddle in the Kingpin level and the reflections in said puddle, however, there are also people who feel that Spider-Man's suit textures are a downgrade, or that there are major changes to the interior and exterior lighting, along with a bit of debate about the shadows too
  • The upvotes on the Reddit thread are growing at 100-200+ per minute, so this will be one of the biggest stories on Reddit gaming today at this rate. I had to update the number in the title several times while writing up this thread. Insomniac's response is not included there if you were curious.
  • Edit: Now at 30.0K.
IGN Article: http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/30/spider-man-fans-are-arguing-about-puddle-sizes
Reddit Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9binvp/spiderman_graphics_comparison/

IGN said:
Some gamers who were looking forward to Spider-Man'srelease next week are claiming Insomniac Games has downgraded Spider-Man's visuals, leading to smaller puddles and several other perceived problems.

A Reddit post from Thursday morning by Ghulam_Jewel compares Spider-Man E3 and release screenshots, and is nearing 7,000 upvotes and 1,000 comments. [Note: This is now 13.6K+ upvotes and 1.6K+ comments.] Redditors are arguing over whether or not the textures look worse in the release versions – but one thing everyone agrees on is that what once was a giant puddle is now a smaller puddle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Here's the image in question:

1mck85goq7j11.jpg


And here's Insomniac's response, which doesn't seem to have had much impact yet on lowering the amount of traffic going to this:

spider-man-puddle-siztzf9x.png


spider-man-no-downgra1ccec.png


Edit:

Apparently some of our posters feel everyone thinks Insomniac is full of serial liars or something, so here's an image showing the game still has lots of puddles:

 
Last edited:
Much

Much

The Gif That Keeps on Giffing
Member
Feb 24, 2018
6,067
Oh yay. More needless and uninformed outrage. :/
 
Kinthey

Kinthey

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
22,364
Where are the screens of the release version from? Their resolution is so bad I'm not sure it makes any sense to make assumptions about texture
 
Deleted member 11093

Deleted member 11093

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
9,095
puddles are srs bzns.

Seriously though, Insomniac and their reps should know better than to respond to these, they're making it worse.
 
Flandy

Flandy

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,445
I thought we got over this last week. Weird to see it blow up again.
 

Deleted member 5545

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
942
big mistake bothering to answer those tweets. there are people online who LIVE for getting riled up about this stuff. i wonder if any other industry has this much antagonism from its consumers towards its producers. do guys who are really into lawnmowers go on twitter and pick fights with the engineers?
 
CloseTalker

CloseTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,784
If people ever wonder why the video games industry is so secretive, here's your answer. Until the community at large can show they can act grown up, there is zero reason for devs to be more transparent.
 
NoKisum

NoKisum

Member
Nov 11, 2017
4,913
DMV Area, USA
If fans are getting upset over minuscule downgrades like this, then I think it's time for devs to not reveal their games until they're ready to release the next day.
 
Deathglobe

Deathglobe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,536
These guys over at reddit should realize If you have that much water puddles in your building it's a safety hazard. I mean Spider-Man could knock those guys out and they potentially drown and that's not his thing
 
Canucked

Canucked

Comics Council 2020 & Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,418
Canada
The puddle does look cool, but there are other puddles. It's not like they removed them all.
 
benny

benny

Member
Oct 26, 2017
381
This is something that has happened in plenty of games. Artist driven changes that don't lower the technical cost of the scene are "downgrades."

Whether or not this is the case in this situation I don't know, but we've seen this plenty of times where it was motivated by an artist's creative control over an area and not because they had to remove features to hit their frame rate.

Just because something is shiny doesn't make it more expensive.
 
Chrno

Chrno

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,602
this game looks gorgeous, but you don't need to be Sherlock to see that (at least on the suit) there's some significant shadowing differences.

spider-man-no-downgra1ccec.png
 
Vivian-Pogo

Vivian-Pogo

Member
Jan 9, 2018
2,037
I prefer the big puddle, but I honestly would have no idea this was something that was changed if it wasn't pointed out. Seems pretty unimportant..
 
Auctopus

Auctopus

Self-requested Ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,073
Do they have ANYTHING better to do?

Interesting that they don't mention that the draw distance in the screens has been upgraded. Just outrage to give some people's life meaning.
 
DieH@rd

DieH@rd

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,594
lol, what a waste of time.

To stop this, devs should start pasting "apha version" watermark across every inch of the screen.
 
a916

a916

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,843
Yeah... this seems incredibly stupid.

What do fans think they did, in an optimisation pass, they just removed the gloss/spec map off the main character? Lol...
 
Patitoloco

Patitoloco

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
23,714
jstevenson Please, survive this week, then go on a vacation far away from "fans".

I swear, I haven't seen such a pursuit for a game in my life. Not even Watch Dogs had this, and it showed the downgrade hard with GAMEPLAY. Yet here, the gameplay shows the game has been, at any case, improved in pretty much every front EXCEPT that image (which hast already been explained multiple times).
 
Megasoum

Megasoum

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,586
This is so funny (in a dumb way)... Especially the puddle stuff.

I think I personally prefer the suit from E3 than the release one but it's not a downgrade, it's just different...
 

Deleted member 2172

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,577
Before we know it devs are just gonna show a logo until it releases so the masses dont crucify them over the smallest fucking things.
 
ghibli99

ghibli99

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,877
I've been seeing YouTube thumbnails from the game recently and I kept thinking that the game looked flat lighting-wise compared to before. I just chalked that up to either YT compression or time of day. That comparison shot at the top is kind of crazy though. I'm not really worried, as I trust the game will still look, sound, and play great. R&C 2016 is the first Insomniac game I've ever finished, so I'm excited about this one.
 
Glio

Glio

Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,565
Spain
I am reminded when they removed a Skell from the hangar in Xenoblade X and there were people saying that it was downgrade.
 
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