rei
5682
Most of those people left CDPR.
Grifman
5683
Maybe the Witcher 3 was the exception rather than the rule? Sometime people get lucky and catch lightening in a bottle, sometimes the lightening blows them up.
That would explain a lot.
Maybe but I do tend to think that AAA productions don’t happen by accident though. It’s years of planning and effort. I think rei’s point that if most of the people who created Witcher 3 left, then that brain drain would have impacted the original dream team. I also think it doesn’t help that CDPR had to meet or manage shareholder and management expectations around the release date.
rei
5685
Some well-publicized creative differences if I recall.
Some schadenfreude to be had among the departees I imagine.
I don’t hate it, but I guess that’s faint praise.
The most astonishing thing about that swimming perk to me is that at some point in the design process the designers must have anticipated a greater amount of underwater content than <0.1% of playtime to even consider adding it.
I don’t care one bit about an underwater portion of the game, but I certainly do think it speaks the absolutely massive amounts of feature cutting that must have occurred. Once you consider the other things like verticality and NPC routines that were cut entirely but clearly planned, you can’t help but feel for the missed opportunity.
I wonder if they could have delivered the game they wanted to make if they had another entire year. I doubt it.
Togra
5690
Well, it depended on several reasons, rather a Witcher / crunch burnout at the time. Could be creative differences as well but turnover rates are pretty high in AAA in general: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-13-departed-witcher-3-devs-there-is-no-bad-blood
Some got the chance to work at higher profile devs like Blizzard for their dream project (Diablo 4). CDPR also hired loads of new people but several key positions are still the same folks of The Witcher 3, especially the quest team if you look at those names.
I don’t really remember TW3 for its combat or gameplay systems, rather the storyline and quests. Those latter two didn’t always come out that brilliant either in Cyberpunk 2077 (poor UI-structure and some cutbacks clearly got in the way) but quest chains leading up to killer content like the “Dream On” drama prove they still got it imo, you just have to look for it and be willing to see it amid too much filler (which TW3 had as well). Those Silverhand flashbacks are just as stunning, especially for tabletop fans who realise it’s also Johnny altering his memories / giving himself a bigger role. That’s preem stuff, only not as long as The Red Baron in TW3. So there just needs to be more of it if you ask me, plenty of room for that.
I’d even say that if I was given the choice to decide on the direction the game should take now (aside from fixing the engine/skill bugs and UI discomfort) I would rather have extra quests / story bits instead of more realistic and actually working NPC / police / traffic AI. I never cared for that nor felt the need to “do a GTA” and massacre the general public or to cause a ruckus on the streets. That’s not the focus of CP2077 which is a lot more like Deux Ex / Vampire Bloodlines with a massively expanded but still rather static hub than a sci-fi GTA. The quests and gigs are the meat here, not fuzzing about with the world itself on your own extensively.
A story focus should eventually trickle down to a working police AI and more involvement with MaxTac / trauma team of course, especially with more related story quests. Still, I consider those world game systems low priority. It should regain basis functionality and something resembling an AI that doesn’t teleport out of thin air of course but going beyond that or going more down the GTA route (silly mini-games and challenges etc.) won’t be my cup of tea.
Really curious what’s still coming up after the leak.
That’s sensible, sure. I keep thinking though about “Chekov’s gun,” though. If you have an open-world type city, with freedom to go everywhere and do almost anything, players are going to expect to go everywhere and do almost anything, and are going to be unhappy if that doesn’t pan out. The crowds and cops stuff is central to that free-play experience. So, conceptually, the answer is to either fix that stuff, or make the game far more restrictive. As hard to do as the former may be, the latter is a non-starter at this point.
Man, GTA would have definitely gone with a Trauma team cash side mission where you have to swoop in and extract high value clients from bad situations.
Which in this game would have been really neat I think. The game presents you as this street mercenary and has this whole façade of doing missions, but there is really no sense of being an operator hustling for gigs. Hell, they throw the stuff at you whether you want it or not. I’d love it if the game focused more on the street business dynamics. It’s clear though that the design is much more narrative focused than open-world, emergent gameplay focused. Which is fine, but again, Chekov’s gun.
So, now I have my PS5 in house. I was really itching to finally play CP on it, but glancing at this thread now and then has killed that joy a bit.
I wonder if I’m better off waiting at a better upgrade / patch for PS5, or is it worth starting it now?
rei
5695
Still crashes a fair bit on PS5 according to my close friend who has it. Roughly every 2 hours now on top of the bugs. Let’s see what 1.2 promised by end of February yields.
schurem
5696
Oh fuck this thread and the horse it rode in on. Get in this game, you’re gonna love it! It reads like a sewer of hate and shit, but actually its people putting in hundreds of hours and chafing on rough edges in a new game.
Yeah, I have to recommend it for the sheer fun of it–if you are on a PC at least. Can’t comment on consoles. I think I got at least my money’s worth at full price. Despite all my carping, this game is addictively fun if you get your head in the right space.
And part of that space, with a decent PC, is just looking around at the city sometimes.
This thread felt quite positive to me overall. Not that I’m not still waiting, mind you, but the thread overall has given me a positive view of the current game than the internet memes at large.
Hey, respect Roach! Roach was a cool horse. And less bugged than CP 2077.
The rough edges in this one are a little rougher than average. Perhaps because of expectations.
Seriously though, I played the game for 10+ hours and I was having fun. I uninstalled because I was afraid of bugs spoiling my enjoyment of it, and some bugs did suggest that could be the case. I want to play this game at the best it can be, so I’m saving it for later. That’s pretty much it.
I’ll wait til the end of february and see what happens :)
rei
5701
Yeah I don’t hate CP2077 which is unusual with the object of my posts.
I’m personally a little salty only because of what it could have been.
As it stands, it’s still a pretty solid game out of the gate.
