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    Ubisoft Entertainment (pronounced yoo-bee-soft) is a French videogame developer and publisher, with its headquarters in Montreuil-Sous-Bois, France.

    Rumor: The Division downgraded visually.

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    musubi

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    So, so lets be up front here file this one under the rumors and speculation sectionand take it with a grain of salt but rumors are floating around which are apparently backed by a leaked email that Ubisoft may be downgrading PC versions of games intentionally as to have parity with next gen console versions. Considering though that files for watchdogs were already found this very well could be the case. Still, no hard facts to back this up yet. I wouldn't doubt if it was true though.

    http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/170479-ubisoft-massive-sweden-leak-on-division-downgrade/

    http://www.dsogaming.com/news/rumor-the-division-has-already-been-downgraded-visually/

    http://whatifgaming.com/the-division-developer-insider-we-already-downgraded-a-few-things

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    Mister_V

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    Mister_V does not comment on rumours and speculation.

    Also I'm not 100% convinced this game exisist outside of trailers so this really doesn't bother me.

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    Animasta

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    oh noooo, whatever shall I do

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    Zella

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    #4  Edited By Zella

    Not a big deal if it is the PC version being downgraded, if it is that bad then people will mod it to make it look better. The Division looked to good to be true anyways, I never expected it to look like what was shown except maybe on a super high end PC.

    Also after the shit show that Ubisoft is dealing with due to the Watch Dogs downgrade stuff I don't see them downgrading it that significantly again. There will likely be a drop but not what it was like for Watch Dogs.

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    Corevi

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    It also just doesn't look like fun which is a bigger problem.

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    Humanity

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    Also the supposed files found in Watch Dogs don't noticably increase the games visuals. It's mostly dynamic lighting and depth of field effects - the game itself doesn't somehow look much better.

    I will say though that most Ubisoft PC ports have been lacking. Far Cry 3 had the least issues for me, which I ironically got for free. Everything else had some sort of performance problems.

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    crithon

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    #7  Edited By crithon

    hehe, what if that in game chatter is still in the game? Like Unreal Tournements' chatter, or L4D has random chatter quotes which work to have story beats. But like what if there's internet drama over the final chatter not as good as.... well that would be silly.

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    doctordonkey

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    Wouldn't be surprised if this was real, not even a little. I have gotten burned by Ubisoft's PC releases too many times in the past, and Watch_Dogs was the last straw for me. It didn't look anything like that initial reveal, and it ran like complete fucking dog shit. As much as I love some of the game they make, I no longer feel right buying their games, and thus supporting them, anymore.

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    Justin258

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    #9  Edited By Justin258

    @zella said:

    Not a big deal if it is the PC version being downgraded, if it is that bad then people will mod it to make it look better.

    That the community has to go in and enable the better graphics THAT ARE ALREADY DOWNLOADED WITH THE GODDAMN GAME is an absolutely ridiculous notion that has no grounding in logic or common sense. As far as satisfying the customer goes, it is a "big deal" because Ubisoft seems to be actively restraining a version of the game for... what? The money's spent, why not let the PC version look way better than the console versions? Why wouldn't you want to make the PC version more enticing, where you can sell it to people without having to also give console makers a cut? Even if it isn't a big deal, it's an undeniably baffling decision.

    Disclaimer: I fully understand that this is a rumor and we don't have any conclusive evidence that this is the case. Still, the files to make Watch Dogs look better than it did were downloaded with the game, they just needed to be enabled by modders, and I think that's enough evidence to justify the tiny rant above.

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    Gaff

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    Ugh.

    Naturally we will also be using online servers and have to produce a synchronization that higher graphics add to the latency so it had to be turned down.

    And a helpful hint to websites everywhere: when your website looks like it came from the late 90s it doesn't help your credibility and just makes it more apparent you're trying to get into E3 on a media badge.

    Also, not the first time I've heard of this for The Division (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=841769), also, not the first time I've heard this in games.

    Shocking.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    Not to say that the idea of The Division being downgraded is far-fetched (it certainly isn't), but the website that "broke" this story looks like a geocities page, appears to have a single writer, and has published like 4 articles in the past 3 months, 3 of which pertain to Ubisoft in a negative fashion.

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    korwin

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    @zella said:

    Not a big deal if it is the PC version being downgraded, if it is that bad then people will mod it to make it look better.

    This is the wrong attitude. Mods should exists for love of the existing product, not to finish the developers fucking job for them. It's been one of the single ugliest trends in PC gaming for about a decade now. Mod's used to be Battlefield Hardline, now they're post release support.

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    TruthTellah

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    I wouldn't be surprised if the visuals have been "downgraded" at this point, because it's a game in active development. Now, if it's just to give some odd parity between consoles and PCs, that is a different story. But for the moment, I find that hard to believe. There may be reason to suspect it, but it's hard to definitively say that they changed the visuals for that reason alone.

    We'll see. At the moment, this seems rather questionable.

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    viking_funeral

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    Ubisoft declares war on PC gaming, wonders why PC sales are lackluster.

    You'd think they'd learn from the DRM fiascoes they've had over the years, but no. Even Japan is starting to learn that PC sales are a nice accompaniment to profits already received form consoles, and that's from a country that has a cultural bias against PC gaming (seeing as it's mostly the domain of eroge).

    As for the rumor: Meh. Could be true, could not be. Nothing surprises me when it comes to conspiracy theories these days.

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    Karkarov

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    @humanity said:

    Also the supposed files found in Watch Dogs don't noticably increase the games visuals. It's mostly dynamic lighting and depth of field effects - the game itself doesn't somehow look much better.

    I will say though that most Ubisoft PC ports have been lacking. Far Cry 3 had the least issues for me, which I ironically got for free. Everything else had some sort of performance problems.

    Thank god someone else noticed. I put that mod in myself and expected some huge difference.... nope. It is just some better bloom effects, depth of field, and the rain density is improved a bit. It still doesn't look like that that E3 whatever nonsense mostly because that was probably run with better textures, more detailed lighting, and was never a "game footage capture" to begin with but a on rails demo scene.

    People need to get their panties out of a wad over this crap.

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    Humanity

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    @karkarov said:

    @humanity said:

    Also the supposed files found in Watch Dogs don't noticably increase the games visuals. It's mostly dynamic lighting and depth of field effects - the game itself doesn't somehow look much better.

    I will say though that most Ubisoft PC ports have been lacking. Far Cry 3 had the least issues for me, which I ironically got for free. Everything else had some sort of performance problems.

    Thank god someone else noticed. I put that mod in myself and expected some huge difference.... nope. It is just some better bloom effects, depth of field, and the rain density is improved a bit. It still doesn't look like that that E3 whatever nonsense mostly because that was probably run with better textures, more detailed lighting, and was never a "game footage capture" to begin with but a on rails demo scene.

    People need to get their panties out of a wad over this crap.

    It's herd mentality at this point. Ubisoft is the new EA, and Watch Dogs is some sort of crime against mankind.

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    IIGrayFoxII

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    #17  Edited By IIGrayFoxII

    I do not understand this mentality of "downgrading" for console parity. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. There is no reason to do that, if I have a gaming PC and I see that X game looks the same on the PS4, am I going to buy it on PS4? Not for that reason. There is no way that leads to more sales on any platform. Anyone with a gaming PC knows the PC version (unless it is broken) will run faster and better than the console version (assuming you have a kick ass PC).

    Games are always optimized for the platform they are on. E3 demo's and released footage is almost always on a beefed up PC. Then for release they optimize it for various PC configurations and the consoles it is on.

    In the case of Watch Dogs (and Ubisoft already confirmed this), they were removed because it caused instability in the game. That's not to say it causes issues in every PC build, but maybe it was most and then they decided to remove it.

    So of course The Division will not look like it does in those controlled E3 demo's. How is a industry practice for years now under scrutiny?

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    monkeyking1969

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    THIS JUST IN:
    Within a year where we see other games come out with less than 'alpha vertical slice graphics' people distribute rumors that all games that look good MIGHT have less than Alpha vertical slice graphics!!!!

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    Dussck

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    If it is graphically downgraded like Watch Dogs from E3 demo's to the final game then I'm totally fine with it, because I can barely see the difference.

    I'm more concerned it will be downgraded feature wise; not so much destructible environments and the online component being a simple PvP shooter in a confined area for instance.

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