Cyberpunk 2077

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Chris Brady said:
So nearly three years and they FINALLY finish the game. If they actually did that back in 2018 instead of having the Publishing side force Keanu Reeves into the game, this wouldn't have been a disaster as it is.
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You know that was an internet hoax right? The game wasn't even written before Keanu came aboard and when they did, he offered to do a lot more recording than they planned as a favor.

So they had him add commentary to missions but didn't actually change the story.

No the real issue is that they took the entirety of the Cyberpunk 2077 crew off the game to work on The Witcher: Blood and Wine for a couple of years. Which massively disrupted their schedule for release combined with the fact that it turned out the RED engine is TERRIBLE for what they wanted to do (and didn't work well with last gen consoles).
 
CT_Phipps said:
You know that was an internet hoax right? The game wasn't even written before Keanu came aboard and when they did, he offered to do a lot more recording than they planned as a favor.
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Actually no. They started in 2016, there was a Demo they released in 2018 which suspiciously had NO mention of Keanu Reeves or even Johnny Silvethand. That 2018 demo was shown around the world, and if you go back and look through it you'll still see to this very day mechanics that missing. Including a Police system. The rescue sequence in the beginning of the game got stripped down too.
CT_Phipps said:
So they had him add commentary to missions but didn't actually change the story.
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It did. Actually. They had to scrap the previous one to add the Silverhand plot line. It's why it feels like theirs two competing stories in the game.
CT_Phipps said:
No the real issue is that they took the entirety of the Cyberpunk 2077 crew off the game to work on The Witcher: Blood and Wine for a couple of years. Which massively disrupted their schedule for release combined with the fact that it turned out the RED engine is TERRIBLE for what they wanted to do (and didn't work well with last gen consoles).
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They had already been let go, as that last part of Witcher 3 had been done in 2015. In fact, a lot of the ones they imported to work on CP2077 and got shifted to Witcher 3 complained about how bad the work culture was there. Which prompted CDPR to release a bizarre statement about how Polish Devs were better because they could handle Crunch better. That should have been the red flag that had everyone running for the hills. Instead...

We know it was being worked on in 2016 because there was a little message they released in Blood and Wine about CP2077. They had a pretty good chunk of it, including the story finished when they had put out the fully playable 2018 demo. THEN some genius Executive wanted to throw in Keanu Reeves, demanded it and wouldn't budge which got the entire game, including the main story, back to the literal drawing board.

Which meant they had to rewrite the script, reprototype the game, which by the way didn't have a working police system at the time, rejigger all the mechanics, some of which were tied to the new storyline. Toss out half the promised features, which they've been trying to put in, but seeing as most of the people who had programed them had already left by then, which meant they couldn't in the time frame. All in all, the full game programming was done in about 6 months and then sent out the door.

And it was SO bad that the Shareholders SUED CDPR to the point that they lost the title of the no. 1 Polish dev, that went to the mediocre Techland and who've held onto it ever since. CP2077 did a lot of damage to CDPR's rep. And it was all because of an Executive who JUST HAD TO HAVE Keanu Reeves in the game.

There's reports of former employees going back to Witcher 2, where they stated it was a great place to work at, but had a really hard time getting anything done because the C-Suite was a bunch of buffoons who barely knew what they were doing at the best of times.

Anyone who was watching new that this was going to be a disaster. But we didn't know how bad, so now I have to watch my little brother justify his purchase every time he plays the game because he WANTS to like it. Unfortunately, when you can literally outrun the game by driving at top speed in certain cars...
 
The writing for CDPR was already on the wall when they accepted the infamous nVidia "help" for Witcher 3 graphic development. That was when people who were following this kind of things knew the company was taking a turn for the worse.
 
Chris Brady said:
Actually no. They started in 2016, there was a Demo they released in 2018 which suspiciously had NO mention of Keanu Reeves or even Johnny Silvethand. That 2018 demo was shown around the world, and if you go back and look through it you'll still see to this very day mechanics that missing. Including a Police system. The rescue sequence in the beginning of the game got stripped down too.

It did. Actually. They had to scrap the previous one to add the Silverhand plot line. It's why it feels like theirs two competing stories in the game.

They had already been let go, as that last part of Witcher 3 had been done in 2015. In fact, a lot of the ones they imported to work on CP2077 and got shifted to Witcher 3 complained about how bad the work culture was there. Which prompted CDPR to release a bizarre statement about how Polish Devs were better because they could handle Crunch better. That should have been the red flag that had everyone running for the hills. Instead...

We know it was being worked on in 2016 because there was a little message they released in Blood and Wine about CP2077. They had a pretty good chunk of it, including the story finished when they had put out the fully playable 2018 demo. THEN some genius Executive wanted to throw in Keanu Reeves, demanded it and wouldn't budge which got the entire game, including the main story, back to the literal drawing board.

Which meant they had to rewrite the script, reprototype the game, which by the way didn't have a working police system at the time, rejigger all the mechanics, some of which were tied to the new storyline. Toss out half the promised features, which they've been trying to put in, but seeing as most of the people who had programed them had already left by then, which meant they couldn't in the time frame. All in all, the full game programming was done in about 6 months and then sent out the door.

And it was SO bad that the Shareholders SUED CDPR to the point that they lost the title of the no. 1 Polish dev, that went to the mediocre Techland and who've held onto it ever since. CP2077 did a lot of damage to CDPR's rep. And it was all because of an Executive who JUST HAD TO HAVE Keanu Reeves in the game.

There's reports of former employees going back to Witcher 2, where they stated it was a great place to work at, but had a really hard time getting anything done because the C-Suite was a bunch of buffoons who barely knew what they were doing at the best of times.

Anyone who was watching new that this was going to be a disaster. But we didn't know how bad, so now I have to watch my little brother justify his purchase every time he plays the game because he WANTS to like it. Unfortunately, when you can literally outrun the game by driving at top speed in certain cars...
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I'm pretty sure a lot of this isn't accurate but the fully playable demo put out in 2018 contains Dex explaining the Relic heist to you in his limousine.

You know...what introduces you to Johnny Silverhand.

The problem here is the equating of Johnny Silverhand with Keanu. Keanu wasn't cast yet but the game was ALWAYS about Johnny.

A character who is about as important to the Cyberpunk 2020 setting as Luke Skywalker to Star Wars.

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I’ve never played this game. How is it like, say, compared to GTA V (graphics, engine)?
 
Endless Flight said:
I’ve never played this game. How is it like, say, compared to GTA V (graphics, engine)?
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Its pretty similar overall. I'd say that driving is better in GTA (they have that nailed down) but its not horrible in CP. Movement is similar, firing similar, obviously CP has a more RPG style advancement system, where you can define how you want to play by pushing combat, stealth, cybernetics, etc.
 
I have played this game a lot. I have a character up to level 50 and 50 Street Cred.

I didn't find it difficult to respec my character in the beginning. The instructions to do so was rather straightforward.
 
Endless Flight said:
I’ve never played this game. How is it like, say, compared to GTA V (graphics, engine)?
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My wife and I absolutely loved GTA V; I have 426 hours logged.
  • CP 2077 graphics and engine is far superior in every way - this isn't a slight on GTA V, it's an older game.
    • Edit: GTA V has superior driving which isn't surprising as it is the GOAT car game.
  • Writing. CP2077 is a B but GTA V single player is a solid A+. I really liked the story in GTA V single player and consider it equal to a AAA television show.
  • Music. CP2077 has a great music selection but if you are over 40 you will probably prefer GTA's tracks.
  • Variety. I rarely replay singleplayer RPGs after beating them but have found it rewarding in CP 2077. Lots of games say "every playstyle is valid" but usually make the game so easy it doesn't really matter and it all feels the same (any Bethesda game). I played CP 2077 the first time as basically a gorilla with a LMG and this time I am playing as a ninja-hacker. The experiences are both different and rewarding in their own way (I do play on higher difficulty though).
 
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Darrin Kelley said:
They delivered everything a Cyberpunk fan could want. This game is finally what was originally advertised.
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I think that lack of tolerance for the need to pull back on features in software by gamers is the reason that companies are so stingy with information and promises. CDPR has always been pretty open with the fanbase... I'm sure that's going to change now.
 
chuckdee said:
I think that lack of tolerance for the need to pull back on features in software by gamers is the reason that companies are so stingy with information and promises. CDPR has always been pretty open with the fanbase... I'm sure that's going to change now.
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Sadly, probably true. I like the fact that CDPR and Bethesda weren't afraid to shoot for the stars, and have some crash and burns along the way.

But that might be because I never buy games at release :-)
 
bleys21 said:
Sadly, probably true. I like the fact that CDPR and Bethesda weren't afraid to shoot for the stars, and have some crash and burns along the way.

But that might be because I never buy games at release :-)
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But what they've found out is reporting to corporate entities and stockholders make that sort of near miss catastrophic. The game was playable... it had bugs but no more than a lot of other games at launch and they were on them. But the uproar makes it seem as if this was the worst game in the world, which it wasn't by far.
 
chuckdee said:
But what they've found out is reporting to corporate entities and stockholders make that sort of near miss catastrophic. The game was playable... it had bugs but no more than a lot of other games at launch and they were on them. But the uproar makes it seem as if this was the worst game in the world, which it wasn't by far.
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Yeah, being public does have serious disadvantages.

And I don't understand all the hubbub. Granted, I didn't play it immediately, I did get it pretty soon after launch, and the game worked fine. I think maybe it crashed once? And I didn't see any of the video weirdness that people were complaining about.

To me, the fact that they are still working on the game to make it even better, years later, is a stark contrast to other A-list companies (Ubisoft, I'm looking at you... :-/ )
 
bleys21 said:
Yeah, being public does have serious disadvantages.

And I don't understand all the hubbub. Granted, I didn't play it immediately, I did get it pretty soon after launch, and the game worked fine. I think maybe it crashed once? And I didn't see any of the video weirdness that people were complaining about.

To me, the fact that they are still working on the game to make it even better, years later, is a stark contrast to other A-list companies (Ubisoft, I'm looking at you... :-/ )
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I never had any problems either. I had one crash and one instance where my car did something weird but relatively minor.
 
Brock Savage said:
Replaying CP2077 I forgot how much the main storyline slaps if you're a fan of the OG CP2020 game.
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It doesn't make sense, though. Johnny lost Alt in 2013, he would be in his mid-20s as a successful Rocker by then. And his former lover Rogue and other friends were around the same age. 2077 is 64 years later. That means that Kerry Eurodyne and Rogue would be pushing 80 years of age or more. And the only people who have the life extension tech is apparently Arasaka (And likely other corporations).

And yet, both of Kerry and Rogue look like their in the 40s to 50s tops. (Which is also very odd for Kerry, would he body sculpt to look younger? He'd have the money.)

I am a fan of the CP2020 to this day, and this is why I hate the CP2077 story, it makes no sense. In fact, Johnny Silverhand should be an impotent ghost, as all his friends and enemies would have likely died of old age by the time V 'meets' him.

And that's MY personal reason as to why I don't like the story. And why it feels shoehorned. No one considered the timeline.
 
Chris Brady said:
It doesn't make sense, though. Johnny lost Alt in 2013, he would be in his mid-20s as a successful Rocker by then. And his former lover Rogue and other friends were around the same age. 2077 is 64 years later. That means that Kerry Eurodyne and Rogue would be pushing 80 years of age or more. And the only people who have the life extension tech is apparently Arasaka (And likely other corporations).
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I mean, Kerry and Rogue having it makes sense to me. Kerry is one of the super-rich and this is a place where you can have bio-sculpting and artificial organs that will extend your life decades.

Rogue is the Queenpin of Night City.

Just like you can have military grade chrome, you can have life extension tech on the black market.
 
The fact that RTG has stuck with original CP2020 timeline and didn’t at some point just push everything out another 50 years or so makes no sense to me. When I saw in the CP Red QuickStart set that they were still talking about the Central American War in the mid 1990s and so on I was like really?!?
 
T. Foster said:
The fact that RTG has stuck with original CP2020 timeline and didn’t at some point just push everything out another 50 years or so makes no sense to me. When I saw in the CP Red QuickStart set that they were still talking about the Central American War in the mid 1990s and so on I was like really?!?
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I think the Central American Wars are still going on because Militech never left like Vietnam or Afghanistan.

I mean the time of the Red is only about twenty years afterward isn't it?

Mike Pondsmith doesn't want to push the timeline to 2077 because he's left that for CDPR to play with.
 
CT_Phipps said:
I mean, Kerry and Rogue having it makes sense to me. Kerry is one of the super-rich and this is a place where you can have bio-sculpting and artificial organs that will extend your life decades.

Rogue is the Queenpin of Night City.

Just like you can have military grade chrome, you can have life extension tech on the black market.
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Except that according to the game NO ONE knew about the life extension tech. That's why the entire corporate world was shocked that Saburo was STILL in control of Arasaka.

Look, you're free to like the story, I cannot reconcile the time line. The more I see the Silverhand story, the more I get the impression the original plan was likely to put the game in 2045.
 
Chris Brady said:
Except that according to the game NO ONE knew about the life extension tech. That's why the entire corporate world was shocked that Saburo was STILL in control of Arasaka.

Look, you're free to like the story, I cannot reconcile the time line. The more I see the Silverhand story, the more I get the impression the original plan was likely to put the game in 2045.
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I mean, no?

You actually hear the Relic advertised on the Radio and if you go to the cemetery, you can talk to a family that has a friend whose wife was uploaded into the Secure Your Soul program.

And I'm not even sure what your argument is since everyone knows Saburo is the Chairman of Arasaka since that's why Dex panics when you kill him.

Mike Pondsmith was also there as continuity editor the entire way through. He would know.
 
CT_Phipps said:
I mean, no?

You actually hear the Relic advertised on the Radio and if you go to the cemetery, you can talk to a family that has a friend whose wife was uploaded into the Secure Your Soul program.

And I'm not even sure what your argument is since everyone knows Saburo is the Chairman of Arasaka since that's why Dex panics when you kill him.

Mike Pondsmith was also there as continuity editor the entire way through. He would know.
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He also thought Cyberpunk 3.0 was a good idea...
 
The problem I have with Phantom Liberty is actually how content-thin it actually is. It only adds 10 more playable character levels beyond the main game.

Most of the budget for this DLC was spent on music. Not actual playable content. Which I find disappointing.

The 2.0 upgrade brings a lot more playability to the main game. But Phantom Liberty itself is rather thin. And I'm not entirely convinced it was actually worth half the cost of the original game.
 
Darrin Kelley said:
The problem I have with Phantom Liberty is actually how content-thin it actually is. It only adds 10 more playable character levels beyond the main game.

Most of the budget for this DLC was spent on music. Not actual playable content. Which I find disappointing.

The 2.0 upgrade brings a lot more playability to the main game. But Phantom Liberty itself is rather thin. And I'm not entirely convinced it was actually worth half the cost of the original game.
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Eh, the reason for the small size is apparently these things:

* They're taking all of their ideas for the second Expansion and making it the sequel, Project: Orion AKA Cyberpunk 2077 II.

* Everyone who knew how to use the RED Engine left the company.

* The Red ENGINE is actually kind of shit to do anything with.

* The time they would have spent working on this had to be spent making Update 2.0 and all of the bug fixes.
 
Rich H said:
Have to say, I'm loving my time in Night City. Held off playing it until now and kept away from all the discussions and I think that was all for the best. I've ended up playing a top game now - having a fantastic time. What a game.
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I liked my initial playthrough, and this time starting over I'm having just as much fun. It's different enough with the added content and updated systems that not taking away from my initial playthrough it feels like a different game.
 
Rich H said:
Have to say, I'm loving my time in Night City. Held off playing it until now and kept away from all the discussions and I think that was all for the best. I've ended up playing a top game now - having a fantastic time. What a game.
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That's where I feel you would get the best experience. From a clean save state. Playing the game all the way through as a first-time thing.Where you get to enjoy the whole crux of the game. as a whole.

As a complete thing, the game is now solid. A great experience. Not to be discounted.
 
The 2.0 patch is a massive improvement. The Phantom Liberty DLC is solid and the plot is basically John Carpenter's Escape From New York.

People have been complaining that netrunning is no longer an IWIN button but I actually enjoy the changes a great deal. There is a lot more nuance to netrunning now; you have to exploit synergies and combos to really make it sing. I ending up swapping katanas for a monowire and pistols for smart SMGs because they synergize a lot better with hacking.

If you wanna be a hacking ninja here are the bones of my build:
INT 20 (hacking, smartguns, monowire) REF 15 (mobility, air-dash, SMGs) and COOL 15 (stealth).
 
After 3 years, they had better finish the game they promised. Glad they did.
 
Chris Brady said:
After 3 years, they had better finish the game they promised. Glad they did.
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It's amazing how people don't know that scope can change. No one bought the game thinking that the things that had been descoped were still in it. They were clear that these things were not in the game that shipped.
 
chuckdee said:
It's amazing how people don't know that scope can change. No one bought the game thinking that the things that had been descoped were still in it. They were clear that these things were not in the game that shipped.
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The 2018 Demo made promises. That were not kept. However, it appears that they did finally which is better late than never, yes? I'll mention it to my brother, as he was very upset when the game came out in the state that it did.
 
Chris Brady said:
The 2018 Demo made promises. That were not kept. However, it appears that they did finally which is better late than never, yes? I'll mention it to my brother, as he was very upset when the game came out in the state that it did.
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The 2018 Demo was an advance tech demo. It was in no way a promise- it gave a road map for what they were developing at the time. This is one of the very reasons that companies are shy about what they show. CDPR has been transparent up until now, but people making those same statements are why we can't have nice things. Back when I worked in the industry, I knew about a lot of cool stuff that we were trying to do, but the mantra was under promise, over deliver. Hype, but not too hype. And when some things come out in QA that we can't get into it- just cut it. They never knew it was there, and we can get it later in DLC and get them to pay for it.
 
Endless Flight said:
I’ve never played this game. How is it like, say, compared to GTA V (graphics, engine)?
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In case you needed any more incentive to play I just stumbled across some new content in the DLC - vehicle contract missions. A contact of yours wants you to steal cars for him. Scattered about the city are car missions which involve some variation of jacking a car and driving it to a chop shop, usually while evading or destroying cops or gangs. They are challenging, fun, and have good rewards.
 
chuckdee said:
The 2018 Demo was an advance tech demo. It was in no way a promise.
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No, it was not a 'tech demo'. It was sold as "This is what to expect in our game." and then didn't deliver. There's a reason the launch was panned, why it was so badly received that CDPR's Investors SUED the company for misleading them.

Here's an article.

Worse, they lost their vaunted title of the best Polish Dev studio which got handed over to Techland. TECHLAND! A barely competent game company! That's how bad they did three years ago.

Now, all that said, I am sincerely happy that they finally made good on that promise and my little brother says the changes to the game are worth playing now.
 
Chris Brady said:
No, it was not a 'tech demo'. It was sold as "This is what to expect in our game." and then didn't deliver. There's a reason the launch was panned, why it was so badly received that CDPR's Investors SUED the company for misleading them.

Here's an article.

Worse, they lost their vaunted title of the best Polish Dev studio which got handed over to Techland. TECHLAND! A barely competent game company! That's how bad they did three years ago.

Now, all that said, I am sincerely happy that they finally made good on that promise and my little brother says the changes to the game are worth playing now.
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It was still a demo. It was several years out at that point. People just took it as this is what's going to be there, but they told that these things were not in, so not sure how you could expect it when you've been told. But being behind the scenes, I guess I have a different expectation. And that article doesn't talk about what you say it talks about, so referring to it doesn't really shore up your point.

And Techland? Barely competent?

Yeah, we're never going to agree, so let's just call it here.
 
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