Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

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7 hours ago, Michael* said:

 

I expect they'll have sensed the backlash coming ahead of time, hence the very selective media they were feeding people pre-launch. Another cautionary tale, I suppose, on the risks of believing the hype of a game based on little more than game publication “previews” that were probably written on the strength of two hours of gameplay.

 

The game was also in development for an excessively long time- perhaps development hell with all the delays?  COH is up to video 146 which is about 90 hours and he's still going.   Scanning this has reinforced my earlier impressions that the game had errors in management- misallocation of resources.  The map and quest volume is extremely highly developed but other aspects of the game are underdeveloped.  The map is overdeveloped and underutilized.  Ironically many of the quests are overinvested, with numerous set pieces used briefly ie. for 15 minutes.  That's how massive the map is.

 

The footage they used in the trailers and promos were mostly accurate.  However a lot of claims were half truths at best.  Basically their verbal communication was unreliable.

 

Given the high cost of developing the game and the expectations placed on it, releasing it on the most common consoles was a no-brainer.  Most people don't have next-gen or a good gaming PC.  It's like how action films try to get a PG-13 rating because otherwise ticket sales would suffer a lot.  Why they didn't prepare adequately for this result is another serious error.

[Michael*]

6 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

The game was also in development for an excessively long time- perhaps development hell with all the delays?  COH is up to video 146 which is about 90 hours and he's still going.   Scanning this has reinforced my earlier impressions that the game had errors in management- misallocation of resources.  The map and quest volume is extremely highly developed but other aspects of the game are underdeveloped.  The map is overdeveloped and underutilized.  Ironically many of the quests are overinvested, with numerous set pieces used briefly ie. for 15 minutes.  That's how massive the map is.

 

The footage they used in the trailers and promos were mostly accurate.  However a lot of claims were half truths at best.  Basically their verbal communication was unreliable.

 

Given the high cost of developing the game and the expectations placed on it, releasing it on the most common consoles was a no-brainer.  Most people don't have next-gen or a good gaming PC.  It's like how action films try to get a PG-13 rating because otherwise ticket sales would suffer a lot.  Why they didn't prepare adequately for this result is another serious error.

 

I think the moral of the story is, once again, that there's no point in pre-ordering games. Pre-orders were originally meant to ensure supply when physical stock was expected to be limited, now they're basically a commercial down-payment designed to secure or predict revenue on day one. Players have no idea what they're going to get and the poor souls who bought this on base consoles effectively ended up spending their money to become unpaid beta testers.

 

It would certainly appear too, that the game's problems extend beyond performance issues on base consoles. It's got a lot of engine jank, the city itself is close to non-interactive, and the balance between game progression and power-ups is rather inconsistent. It sounds like it's basically only saved by a fantastic main story.

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2 hours ago, Michael* said:

It would certainly appear too, that the game's problems extend beyond performance issues on base consoles. It's got a lot of engine jank, the city itself is close to non-interactive, and the balance between game progression and power-ups is rather inconsistent. It sounds like it's basically only saved by a fantastic main story.

 

The map is outstanding, the main story is great, and the quests range from good to acceptable.  It's like a good and mediocre game at the same time.

 

Now my main "hype" is whether or not CD can introduce super-patches and expansions that will insert all the missing features and fixes.  That would literally transform it into another game.   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(video_game)

 

The Anthem game was also innovative and had a lot of problems too.  EA/Bioware is currently trying to rebuild Anthem into a "revised version".  I heard that Final Fantasy XIV was remade 3 years later into a much better game and considered a success.

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Spoiler

 

 

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brilliant finds!

 

[Michael*]

11 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

Now my main "hype" is whether or not CD can introduce super-patches and expansions that will insert all the missing features and fixes.  That would literally transform it into another game.   

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(video_game)

 

The Anthem game was also innovative and had a lot of problems too.  EA/Bioware is currently trying to rebuild Anthem into a "revised version".  I heard that Final Fantasy XIV was remade 3 years later into a much better game and considered a success.

 

Anthem was probably doomed to fail anyway to a certain degree, I always got the impression that it was made as a cash grab to follow in Destiny's footsteps, but EA/Bioware didn't seem to notice that Destiny 2 had already seen a decline in popularity. That being said, I hope they're keeping their promise of doing a proper reboot, if just for the curiosity factor of seeing how many players would return to it.

 

I'm sure CDPR will iron out at least some of the performance issues and other surface-level problems too in the coming months. I know with Witcher 3, we saw significant improvements to things like Novigrad and the now-infamous Crookback Bog getting better as various patches were rolled out. To be frank though, I'm not too hopeful of ending up with an acceptable base console port of Cyberpunk. The distance between where it is now and where it would need to be implies a radical overhaul, which may be an impossible task.

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1 hour ago, Michael* said:

 

The distance between where it is now and where it would need to be implies a radical overhaul, which may be an impossible task.

 

Overall the quests and main story can be left mostly alone however the "immersion", AI, and missing features would have to be added later in major patches.  My best guess is that the DLCs will be add-ons to fill out Night City.

 

Come to think of it there isn't much to do in the poorer areas of the map and the outskirts.  And even if they added these features the game wouldn't be that much better than it is. It's just be more hours in an already superlong game.  Anybody who wants to destroy a police force and the national guard can just go play GTA.  

 

The problem with all of this is that CD already has their customer's money  and may end abandoning these plans and focusing on Witcher 4.

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lol

 

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I saw this a lot in COH's walkthrough- the taxicab A.I. avatar being mixed with other characters

 

 

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Scanned COH's video 173, which is circa 97 hours plus on very hard, high skill play.

 

on video 165 he estimates that he completed about 70-80% of the quests

 

So perhaps he will get 100% at around 130 hours  of play

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poor cosplayers

 

 

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[Michael*]

On 12/17/2020 at 3:19 AM, Cult Icon said:

The problem with all of this is that CD already has their customer's money  and may end abandoning these plans and focusing on Witcher 4.

 

Exactly, this thing has already sold millions of copies. Given that it's now been delisted from PlayStation Store, presumably as a partial consequence of CDPR basically telling people to go and ask Sony for a refund, my gut feeling is that we'll probably see the base console versions written off completely. Perhaps not immediately, but certainly at some point in the near future.

 

You'd like to think all the negative press would put other developers off releasing games in this kind of unfinished state, but if I know gamers, they'll probably do an about face when a trailer for Witcher 4 arrives.

[Michael*]

On 12/18/2020 at 3:02 AM, Cult Icon said:

poor cosplayers

 

 

I must confess, most cosplay these days is a little too slick for my liking. I much preferred when it was low-budget and a bit ramshackle.