I am actually suprised by this considering the absurd monetization of Diablo Immortal. Last time they reported on it it was making five million a day if I remember it correctly, damn.
I wish games wouldn’t claim to be like Cities: Skylines when they clearly aren’t. C:S is a city builder, not a colony sim. This game looks much more like Banished or Frostpunk.
So, about Cyberpunk 2077: Can you by now buy your own apartments? And do the NPC’s have day-and-night-cycles as well as realistic AI that they give the impression of the most believable city to date?
So it’s a game with the biggest open city in any game bar none and so on. But that’s not enough, reason is what you are hoping is likely impossible not at the scale of night city. Even if AI was ok it would be not enough NPC models not enough buildings to explore and so on. But all these things don’t contribute anything to this kind of game.
Just a friendly reminder that Beehaw’s one rule is “Be(e) nice”. You have a lot of comments on this thread, and at least a few are responding to people in condescending and snarky ways instead of engaging in any real discussion. Right now, just as an example, you could have tried to explain how good AI can make a game better.
Let’s please not let this place become like Reddit, where often people can’t have civil discussions and try to dunk on each other with snarky one-liners.
No worries, it happens. I’ve also done it a few times, and even re-rewrote comments from scratch after I realized I was being too mean, haha.
I do agree with your point, though. People are a lot more forgiving of CDPR than they would be of other companies doing the same things. CDPR did build up a lot of good will with the Witcher series, GOG and their position on DRM, and other things, but at the end of the day they are still a company, and their main goal is making money.
The game will never be what people wanted (and what was - to some extent - promised). It’s too flawed and unfinished to be fixable through patches.
I still thoroughly enjoyed it (I’m just about to finish my first playthrough at 100+ hours), but the game has to be approached with the understanding that it’s fundamentally flawed. I have no problems with that, Fallout: New Vegas is one of my favourite games so I’m comfortable with the situation and I’m used to fixing problems myself through mods (yes, even on a first playthrough).
The best comparison I can think of is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (though perhaps that game is now too old to be a relevant example). You can’t play it expecting a finished, polished product, but it’s still worthwhile and the good parts are really good.
Well, the mods do some heavy lifting for sure (I mean, the game is literally unplayable without the unofficial patch), but they can only fix so much. The game was - much like Cyberpunk - shipped in an unfinished state that is to some extent beyond the scope of repair for mods. The final third of Bloodlines is not great. You can tell they ran out of time and had to cobble together an ending somehow with what they had. It devolves into a series of combat encounters in a game that is not exactly famous for its combat gameplay. Compare the last sections of the game to Santa Monica to see what I mean; imagine if they were afforded the time to give the whole game the same amount of thought and polish as they could Santa Monica.
Still, much like Cyberpunk, when it’s operating at full capacity it really hits the spot. Driving through the rain at night in first person through Night City gives me sort of similar vibes as walking the rainy streets of Santa Monica, listening to Rik Schaffer’s phenomenal soundtrack. Both games nail the atmosphere, at least at times.
They’re actually fairly similar, carried by their characters, stories, setting and atmosphere rather than gameplay.
I also have to mention the combination of Bloodlines cartoony art direction and the facial animation rigging of Source Engine. The characters are incredibly expressive for a 2004(!) game, it really holds up well.
Did not expect to be thinking about reinstalling that today, but here we are!
In the voice of Alistair Grout: Damn it all, now I’m doing it too!
Vampire the masquerade was way ahead of it’s time and underrated as a game.
Cyberpunk was absolutely way too ambitious. But they’ve made substantial efforts to fix the stuff that was broken or bugged. It has become a very good game.
Both games were too ambitious, really. They really are like kindred spirits. It’s still unbelievable that Bloodlines is playable at all considering it was developed on an alpha version of the Source Engine held together with chopsticks and chewing gum and without any official devtools. It still bums me out we’ll never get the true Bloodlines 2 that could have been. Bryan Mitsoda was the soul of Bloodlines and it won’t be the same without him.
Cyberpunk was absolutely way too ambitious. But they’ve made substantial efforts to fix the stuff that was broken or bugged. It has become a very good game.
I genuinely love the game despite everything, and I think the experience is a worthwhile one, but I still think Cyberpunk has to be recommended with an asterisk and not as an unqualified very good game.
It’s true that post-patches the game isn’t the broken, buggy mess it was at launch, but I think the game has deeper running problems than that, to be honest.
The narrative CDPR wanted to tell is not suited for the open world game that their audience wanted, and the marriage between the two aspects is not natural.
The theme-park style open world is at odds with the immersion they want to sell and often undercuts your experience.
The story itself also has serious pacing issues, and some important side content is locked behind story progression in a way that makes the whole experience awkward.
Yeah the writing in Cyberpunk 2077 is honestly phenomenal, and the setting is really good. I was honestly shocked by how good the writing and VA in this game actually are. Maybe it's because it's more relevant to me, but it's the first time since FNV I really felt the writing in a game was gripping and interesting to me on a serious level.
It's gameplay is honestly decent enough as well. Gunplay isn't bad, and with the large amount of mobility makes the gunplay even more fun. Hacking and stealth are a bit op but fun, my biggest problem is the melee combat feels a bit weightless.
I am for sure looking forward to Phantom Liberty and the perk rework. Maybe my view of cyberpunk is tailored by the fact I never bought into the hype so I was never let down by it. I just watched Edgerunners, loved it. Played the game and was further impressed.
…it’s the first time since FNV I really felt the writing in a game was gripping and interesting to me on a serious level.
Disco Elysium remains the undisputed pinnacle of videogame writing and voice acting for me, so if you haven’t played it yet and are interested in a seriously moving and fascinating novel masquerading as a game I highly recommend it.
Cyberpunk has been seriously good as well, though. There are plenty of compelling characters and stories, and the evolution of the relationship between V and Johnny and the development of both of those characters has been enthralling.
It’s gameplay is honestly decent enough as well…
I feel like the gameplay reminded me of Witcher 3, in a sense. It has some good ideas, and many elements and mechanics that could make it interesting and engaging are there, they just don’t quite fit together properly, aren’t balanced well and in the end combat ends up a little simple, flat and too easy. I have installed countless mods that affect combat, though, and now I’m at a point where it’s seriously enjoyable.
I actually have played Disco Elysium and agree that it's writing is consistently higher than Cyberpunk's but I remember doing the devil ending in Cyberpunk and hearing male V express his fear of death, and the desperation to escape it at all costs felt so real to me in a way I've never seen. I've dealt with terminally ill patients and idk I've never seen someone capture the denial and bargaining as well as I felt it myself playing the character.
My favourite moment of writing in Disco Elysium was probably speaking to the boat lady who spits out some very harsh truths and for sure represents best the idea of "absords all critiques into itself" idea.
I must play Planetscape Torment because it's the other big rpg that I've heard lots tell me is the pinnacle of writing in the genre.
That’s fair. Cyberpunk does have some standout moments and the immersive first person definitely makes some of them hit harder. I can imagine that ending being powerful (I haven’t seen it), and if you have that personal connection then especially so.
My favourite moment of writing in Disco Elysium was probably speaking to the boat lady who spits out some very harsh truths and for sure represents best the idea of “absords all critiques into itself” idea.
Disco Elysium is chock full of great lines and “Capital has the ability to absorb all critiques into itself…” is fantastic. For me, I just keep coming back to the ending. Specifically, the final dream.
It’s the absolute pinnacle of the game, in my opinion, at least if you’ve explored all the clues about Harry’s past. I’m trying to write in a way that won’t spoil too much for people who haven’t played, but if you’ve read the letter in the ledger, made that phonecall, bought the figurine, explored the stained glass window etc it all comes together in that dream scene.
It’s such a beautifully painful moment that just keeps building as you’re exposing the inner core of Harry, and culminates to a point on the perfect final line.
I totally forgot that I got the Spoilers phasmid myself on my first run, that was another stand out to me. It's such a beautiful and strange moment, in any other game it would feel out of place but for me the phasmid is arguably the greatest part of the game for me. I felt like hope and a miracle that something like that could exist in the crapsack world of Elysium and Revachol. With the fear of the Pale overwhelming everything and a constant state of drudgery and decline of a failed revolution it was nice to see that there are still things worth finding in the world. Harry speaking with it is a great thing as it lets him understand and overcome his self-hatred and shame.
That fragile balance between hope and nihilism is where the game really shines for me. The communist vision quest is another instance, where a glimmer of sincerity shines through from the writers amid the bleak cynicism and satire. I always loved Steban’s soft, understated admission of why he believes in communism: “You could say we believe it because it’s impossible. It’s our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain… like this.”
Not only are there things worth finding in the world, but there are things worth fighting for, and it’s a gentle reminder that we ourselves must choose our beliefs. If we want to feel hope, we must choose to believe in it. Even when it’s impossible. We have to believe that there is a better future possible. To quote Steban again;
Awww… Come on… Bloodlines was built on something akin to a pre-release of the Source engine. Cut them a little slack on the bugs, it could only ever be a flawed gem.
Oh I’m well aware. They were constantly downstream as Valve was developing the Source Engine at the same time as Troika was using it to make Bloodlines, and there was no documentation or devtools available. It’s a minor miracle the game even runs at all.
It was still a troubled production beyond that, though, and Bloodlines was ultimately rushed to the finish and shoved out the door before it was ready. Like I said elsewhere in this thread, it becomes very noticeable in the final third of the game, where the quality doesn’t really match the high bar that the Santa Monica section establishes.
I still absolutely love the game, though. The atmosphere still hits home, even to this day. And Rik Schaffer’s soundtrack is iconic.
Yes, Gog, thankfully there’s a lot of hints on the internet recommending the full unofficial patch. And it’s great to see how there’s still updates coming in every few months.
I actually have some opinions on the Plus Patch. I want to phrase this really carefully as Wesp5 is a hero for his work and dedication through the years, but he started taking a lot of liberties the last maybe 5-7 years, and the Plus Patch now contains stuff that is more mod than patch/restoration.
It has gotten to the point where I wish there were 3 tiers of unofficial patch, not two. The vanilla patch is only bugfixes, and lots of the stuff added back in the Plus Patch was actually good but just missing due to poor code or not being completely finished but 90% there. I wish there was a patch with just the bugfixes and those most obvious content restorations.
In the Plus Patch as it exists today, though, you have a lot of stuff that was cut for a reason shoehorned in, like unused OST tracks Wesp5 has inserted according to personal taste, or areas (and a quest) that were barely started where he himself filled in the blanks. And even complete mod content that - while they could be argued to be improvements - are alterations to the game according to Wesp5’s vision.
You still need the basic patch to even run the game, of course, otherwise it’s literally unplayable. But these days I recommend the Plus Patch for a second playthrough. Playing as Malkavian is a good enough reason for a second playthrough, anyway.
They'll find new jobs. Companies have no loyalty to employees and employees have no loyalty to companies. Nobody is in it for love. They got paychecks, now they'll find someone else to give them paychecks. It's transactional.
Well that's the thing, I don't really consider it injustice. I consider it as something that sucks, but things that suck happen. It's just kind of part of life. You get past it. I guess that's my view.
Like a farmer experiencing a drought. That's not injustice, it just sucks.
It's exactly that. There's no one person, no group of people, that can control a market. It's a force, an abstract concept at this point. Any thoughts that it can be controlled is hubris or naivety.
What's your ideal situation? They create make work jobs? Give the development and production teams some brooms and fire the custodial staff instead? Their job is done. Time to find new ones.
You ever seen a camel? It's a horse that's been designed by a committee. Democratically run things don't accomplish shit because you can never get groups of people to agree on anything.
You ever seen a camel? It's a horse that's been designed by a committee. Democratically run things don't accomplish shit because you can never get groups of people to agree on anything.
Camels are pretty dang well designed creatures so I'd say the committee did pretty great there. And the alternative is being at the whims of a single person or a small group none of whom have any incentive to care about anything other than the enrichment of their own personal finances. It's a literal autocracy.
Governance structures where the workers own and have a say in the means of production are bound to have their own issues to be sure, but it beats out the current model.
They might be good at being camels, but they're terrible horses. And if you've ever tried to lead a group of more than a handful of people, you'd know they can never agree on shit. Someone has to make the call.
If there’s no money and no work to be done, the natural outcome are layoffs. What alternative is there? That the company continues to pay all the staff from the management’s pockets? That’s not exactly a great scenario for the workers either, since there’s no prospect for growth, and everyone will still be out of a job once the company inevitably fails. If you see management making bad decisions, start searching, don’t wait for the layoffs.
Isnt that like, a usual part in the game development cycle? I've seen news reports like this for over 15 years now. Developer starts with ideas for a new game, small team. Developer starts actual production of game, team grows. Developer realizes how much work there actually is to be done, team grows even further. Game is almost done and in a good state, team starts to shrink since there is no longer enough work for everyone. Part is laid off and part is reassigned to early development of DLC. Game is released, and smaller team is able to do patchwork. Developer starts with idea for new game, cycle repeats.
Perhaps the main reason we havent seen a lot of these news blurbs over the past few years is that A: CDPR is a good punchingbag. Common memory of the target audience hold the bad release of CP2077, so its easy to get back in the habit and haul in these clicks. And B: TripleA game development mas mostly conglomerated into a few big developers/publishers with several teams around the world. That means that when one project winds down, surplus personnel might be easily integrated into a different team that is just winding up. CDPR is one of the few tripleA developers not able to do this (yet).
No, this is not really typical for a large studio. I’ve been in the games industry for 10 years and losing your team every project is a studio killer. No one does this anymore aside from really small indie studios that can’t afford to keep the team together. This is not normal for a studio that knows what it’s doing.
Saying that GDPR doesn’t know what it’s doing is like saying MGM doesn’t know what it’s doing. They aren’t the best in the industry but they’ve still made some quality products. They know far more about what they are doing than an indie studio that hasn’t even released their first game.
GDPR fans always come up with the most ridiculous excuses for GDPR’s terrible quality. “Well at least they’re better than an indie that’s never released a game”, like seriously?
I’m not a GDPR fan at all. They put out one game I even got through and it was mediocre. I’m just not a fan of the general gaming public thinking they know more than a studio full of veterans.
Ah the classic “if you haven’t done X yourself you have no right to criticize X.” I trust you never criticize books, movies, paintings, games etc of you’re not in those fields?
And, funnily enough, I spent almost 15 years in the games industry as a developer, but I suppose I’m still not allowed to say anything bad about GDPR’s quality because, uh, reasons
I’m not saying that they can’t criticize. I’m saying it’s still a studio that I would say knows what it’s doing more so than a studio that is going to lay off a bunch of people just because the project they were working on ended. You’ve been in the industry for 15 years, how many times have you been laid off at the end of a project at a well-formed studio? In my experience, it rarely happens. If you have a good team you don’t break it up willingly.
That’s all I said. It doesn’t make business sense to do so and CDPR and any well-put-together studio knows this. Any business knows this. To say that “Well, it’s CDPR thus they are going to make stupid mistakes that a novice indie team would make” is silly and not seated in reality.
Not really the case, I was hired 1.5 year ago. There were a bunch of new hires in the meantime and after the layoffs the team looks really similar to what it looked like at the point at which I was hired.
If that’s the case, it’s not the norm. Most studios do not lay people off every release. They get them working on another project immediately. Typically a project starts up as the game is wrapping up for release then people switch gradually.
It was the “traditional” pipeline and to be honest only good for the “publisher” and some big enough studio, but really aren’t that good for those job hunting game devs(and part of the churn and burn culture, can’t and won’t trying to form union if your turn over is high.)
It is how you get broken games every new release cause the guys that sticks around as supervisor didn’t actually code the previous games or know the actual workflow/pipeline that makes the last game(their last touching code/software might be like 10+ years ago), the middle leads etc might have burned out during last crunch and go to next company after their vacation because fuck this crunch thing I have a family, then then newbies wearing shiny shipped game under their belt move to next company for a better position/pay. So no one or very few actually knows how last time things were done and may or may not have a voice during decision making. Every game, you build the team almost ground up and thus, make similar and more mistakes with ever increasing pressure from schedule and scale.
It’s not an healthy cycle, it is something that creative industry should break away from.
Just speculation here, but is this a sign that CDPR is tilting more towards mainstreaming GOG over prioritizing game development? Valve did exactly that with Steam and they very, very rarely release games they make any more.
Steam is a cash cow that literally just prints money for them. I’d imagine CDPR corpos to be salivating over that kind of low maintenance income that comes with owning a large digital distribution gaming platform.
Seems like they tried to grow the company waaaaaaaaay too fast (practically doubled their number of employees since TW3 was released).
Obviously this sucks, but it’s good that they’re not unceremoniously dropping people with zero notice (looking at you, Activision). Doubt we can expect an environment where gamedev layoffs suddenly disappear, but people actually getting advanced warning about this stuff would be a huge improvement on the industry’s norms.
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