- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
“Our trademark is the freedom given to the player, but always with limits,” Kalemba tells Lega Nerd
Aye, they try to hype the idea of a main quest line as something that defines their design.
😅
Thinking back I’m not sure I want Witcher 4 to feel more like CP2077, tbh. Less, if anything.
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CDPR should stop hyping their games so much and just focus on making a good game. Announce and release in a 6 month window.
Maybe they need to hire Larian to consult.
Yeah, the money they are putting in hyping the game would be better spent on development. Don’t talk about it to people who aren’t involved in making it, just do it. I much prefer the steam early access method where it you think you have a good idea, you release it early on for a cheaper price. Then you see how it does and receive player feedback and iterate from there.
Too much hype can make a game seem worse by raising expectations too high.
I know they are probably bombarded with requests for comments and interviews, but CDPR have learnt nothing from CP2077.
they are going to over-sell this again, promising things that don’t materialize because they are dreaming of the thing now when it’s still 3-4 years away, then people are going to be disappointed when it releases and doesn’t have all the things they talk about.
Obviously consumers haven’t learnt anything either, we eat this up, but CDPR is going to get the fallout from it.
Obviously consumers haven’t learnt anything either, we eat this up, but CDPR is going to get the fallout from it.
I waited for almost 3 years of patches and a deep discount and I’m still somewhat disappointed, it’s just three shitty ubisoft sandboxs stacked in a next gen suit.
Interestingly, if they use UE5/6, a LOT of the growing pains of Cyberpunk 2077 are immediately solved.
They wanted long-distance, high-detail scenes, but that led to the game running like shit.
UE5+ is excellent for that. It allows for more detail than any other engine.
Essentially they can now actually focus on producing a GAME, rather than a next-gen engine + a game, as was the case with Cyberpunk 2077.
So I give them the benefit of the doubt here.
Witcher is also a world they’re highly experienced in, so they don’t really need so much worldbuilding work either.
I’m talking specifically of the over-promising and under-delivering on game design. not the technical issues which is a whole separate problem that may or may not be solved by UE5
Now if only CDPR would eliminate their crunch work environment, and release games when the DEVS say it’s ready.
If you can’t afford advertising the game prior to launch, just don’t. That’s where for example Bethesda saved a ton of money. Released “complete” games within 1-3 months of the first announcement. (Do mind I’ve lost all hope in Bethesda)
In other hand, over-promising in terms of what’s actually currently out is fine. The issue is when you …
- Don’t have the devtime. (Board releasing the game way before it’s ready, because marketing is so damn expensive, and the stockholders want it now not later)
- Don’t have the skill. (Which means re-training all your employees constantly)
- Don’t have the work morale. (Which leads to talent bleed, further exaggerating point 2.)
Lmfao what “freedom”
Seriously does anyone know what they’re talking about or is this just marketing bs?
I feel like the kind of “freedom” players want from an RPG is somewhat inconsistent with playing as a specific character, i.e. Geralt. For me, I want to be my own character and decide who they are and what they do. I never really got on with Geralt because I don’t want to be a moody medieval jedi, I’d much rather be a whimsical wizard or something.
Ah yeah, definitely.
As someone who personally enjoys a told story more than a lot of directionless freedom (because I get bored after a few dozen hours, so I want the game to get its thing told and then I’m ready for the next game, basically) I of course enjoyed Geralt’s directed character more, but the two are definitely incompatible at a very basic level.
And honestly, none is inherently better, though I wish studios understood more readily just how different the underlying approach is. If someone creates a defined story then give me those fully defined characters. Give me a cool story through which I learn of them. With a few surprises. Make it like a book! On the other hand, if something is freeform, then go hard the opposite way. Make it sandbox-y! Allow me to create narrative myself through what I do, don’t hold my hand and try to guide me back onto rails.
(That is, the main story was just about the part I enjoyed the least in CP2077 next to the bugs, and I really don’t think V’s character fits the gameplay and what we players do in it very well. V is an interesting character, but not for an open world do-whatever-you-want game, and the game they created doesn’t fit a character that is supposed to have a specific design very well.)
Then play elder scrolls? Witcher has never been anything close to what you’re describing
I’m not suggesting it should be at all. Not sure how you got that from my comment. I liked the Witcher 3, honestly, but it isn’t a game about freedom and it shouldn’t be imo. It tells character focused stories well, which is harder to do the more choice you give the player.
So you don’t want the R in RPG, and what you’ll get for that is the same generic game over and over again.
What? That isn’t what I said at all.
“You don’t want to be forced to play a specific role, and that removes the R in RPG” is what they are saying. However, I disagree with them. Real RPGs let you choose your role, ethical alignment, and quirks of behavior. Even older video games like Fallout 3 have that. Being forced to play a specific role is almost antithetical to the concept of RPGs.
Of course, maybe that’s not what they meant at all.
My confidence in this studio is severely shaken. Don’t see why we should listen to their marketing hype after the 2077 debacle.
I played CP2077 only recently after 2.01 patch and it’s kind of ok as an ubisoft sandbox. There’s something like 40 hours of well made content that’s on rails and a lot of really generic filler missions. I’m kind of disappointed and not because I expect voiced exposition and writing from such filler, but I did expect gameplay that was tuned to be challenging and it’s not. Seriously, Watch Dogs 2 (which is actually ubisoft) had better designed and balanced side missions. Here it’s just have these 5 dudes standing on a corner, you can kill them by hacking their shit without them ever seeing you or getting a chance to react. It’s a nice world that’s an average game garnished with a lot of Potemkin content.
Potemkin content - what a great term and so apt for CP2077
I feel like cyberpunk was a great game, even on release. The story and gameplay were great, it just had performance issues for some PCs and it shouldn’t have been released on consoles at the time.
That said, CDPR marketing team needs to learn to temper expectations
I got it at release as well and I could not disagree more. It was buggy, broken, and incomplete. I watched police NPCs spawn in from the sky, my game softlocked when a story essential npc fell through the world. These were commonly observed issues, among a litany of other ones. You gotta have some serious rose tinted glasses to think it was an acceptable product on release.
Imo Gameplay and story were like a 2.5/5, went back for PL and it might be a 3. Gameplay is serviceable at best. Story was lifted from an GITS:SAC episode which is about the most praise I have for the game aside from the art department. The 3D assets in 2077 are inarguably beautiful.
I know survivor bias or w/e but literally no one I know irl who played it 10+ had those issues unless they were on console.
I played it for over a hundred hours immediately after release and only saw a few minor bugs like audio/lip animations not matching for some scenes. I don’t know how all my friends/coworkers were so lucky when all you see on the internet is “worst game ever, doesn’t work at all on release” comments
Same! Pre-ordered and played hundreds of hours. It should’ve been released 6 months later but most of the bugs weren’t game-breaking. If an NPC had their arms stretched out to the side or whatever, I’d just have a laugh and move on. I’ve had to reload a save to get a side quest to trigger twice. I don’t think it’s even ever crashed on me though.
It’s just become blindly accepted that it is/was unplayable. I remember seeing so many articles months, even a year, after its release just confused about how so many people could be playing this unplayable game. Yet it’s always been consistently in Steam’s top 25 games for active players. It’s a weird disconnect.
What freedom? You can’t even choose how your character speaks when there are usually 2 options and they both sound the same.
