Sorry rhamorim, but this is such overblown nonsense. Cyberpunk needs shoring up framerate on lastgen, some extra polish for its streaming system and fixing of its not fully working perks. If they overhaul police and pedestrian AI, cool, but it’s not really needed to have a great experience with the game. But there is no huge stuff (like in NMS’s case, basebuilding or a freaking multiplayer) that they need to implement to “rescue” the game.
Personally, I just want to see it more polished and then get some nice storydriven expansions.
Not really, no. You can say that the game as is (with a few fixes and adjustments) is playable and enjoyable (as you’re proof of). No Man’s Sky at release was playable and enjoyable. I know, I played it and I enjoyed it.
But in both cases, there’s a huge difference between what the developers promised the game to be, and what it was on release. Hello Games’ effort after release (after initial fixes) was to turn the game into what they hyped it to be. And they did so after years of work. It remains to be seen if CDPR will do the same or not.
You enjoyed the game, we all know that. But CDPR promised a reactive world… and there’s none. They promised a breathing city in which citizens have goals and schedules, and there’s nothing of the sort. They promised a world in which body modification is paramount, and you can’t change your appearance after game creation. And so on and so forth. They overpromised and underdelivered. That is a fact.
stusser
5805
Without a doubt. It’s still a pretty fun game, even given its limited ambition, if you have a powerful gaming PC to play it.
It can be yours for a mere 36 eddies
I worry about projects in the hands of people with 10+ years of experience. :p
Shit. My excuse is being on the smartphone,in a birthday party.
I will grant you the body modifications, would be nice if augmentations could be more extensive and appearance was changeable after the intro.
But come on, pedestrians having goals and schedules…yes, I love that NPCs in Kingdom Come have this, but expecting it in a modern city-based RPG…seems like a tall order, and I don’t really see much of a reason for it. CDP’s games are not simulationist, it’s generally not their design approach. Not in Witcher trilogy, nor here. I would prefer if they didn’t waste time on this and focused on what they are good at - stories.
Tall order or not, it’s something they promised and advertised… and that they didn’t deliver. Now, if they want to save their reputation, they need to own that somehow - by either delivering what they promised, or at the very least going above and beyond to try to do so.
And don’t think I don’t want them to get over this. I do. CDPR owns GOG and I love GOG and I’d hate to see it go if CDPR goes down. I want them to survive and thrive. But I’m under the impression that the way they deal with Cyberpunk in the near and far future will have a significant impact on that, for good or for ill.
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with Cyberpunk and sunk over 90 hours into it. But it’s a long way off of what they implied the game would be.
Again…so overblown. Do you seriously think there is a chance of CDP “going down” when the game made back its budget three or four times already?
And sure, it would be nice if every NPC in Night City had detailed schedule and reactivity to player’s actions, but I seriously doubt not implementing this would have any impact on CDP’s future. They already took a reputation hit, they will do their best to rebuild it, but it does not hinge on some feature they “promised” (mentioned) in a vertical slice 3 years ago.
CraigM
5814
Long term? Perhaps. They are not a huge publisher, despite their sales numbers. Their success is based on their reputation, and make no mistake, their reputation took a hit.
And it wouldn’t nessecarially be felt on this game, it shows up in the next game. And the one after that. You can cash in that reputation and good will on a sub par project, and make a lot of money short term. But it can and will damage the long term brand. History is replete with studios and publishers who did this. Paradox took a hit with Stellaris, but worked hard to build back such that CKIII could be a success. But had they simply dropped Stellaris it had very real possibilities to greatly reduce their other brands. CK III could have been a failure, without regard to the inherent quality, if people had lost faith in PDX. However their long term updates and planning was able to mitigate this, so the long term reputation harm was fairly minimal and limited mostly to the one series.
So, yes, Cyberpunk absolutely has the potential to lay the seeds for CDPRs downfall, should they chose the wrong path. It made them money now, but also puts a risk at their potential future money.
Sure, but I am fairly certain CDP are not completely stupid, and will try to avoid having disastrous launches in the future. It is also quite likely that they will avoid overhyping their games to such insane levels. If their next game is a new Witcher game, well polished, with proper expectations set, few people will remember or care about this Cyberpunk mess.
Of course, it is possible I am wrong and they are completely stupid, in which case they deserve to go bankrupt.
CraigM
5816
While probably true, there is also a greater number of people who would be cautious and wary about getting their next game, while prior to Cyberpunk they would have been sight unseen.
To be clear we all have developers and artists we go sight unseen for. I am default interested in, and highly probable to buy, anything made by Supergiant Games. But if they released a real clunker, it could have the effect to put me in wait and see mode.
So, yes, a good next release? probably able to limit the damage. A bad next release? Could very well put them in a spiral. But working to fix up this release? That buys them a lot more flexibility and good will. Which just because it is intangible and doesn’t show in a balance sheet directly, doesn’t mean its not real.
I’ll put it this way: I literally don’t even care to hear about any DLC or expansions they have planned until I see significant improvement with this game. And I don’t just mean bug fixes and QoL stuff. If the game we got had been bug free on launch, I’d still say it was a subpar product that generated no excitement within me. I simply do not care to return to Night City unless there’s a substantial reason to do so.
Contrast that with The Witcher 3, where I wanted more right out of the gate.
I mean, if what’s in the game - the city, the quests, the story, characters, gunplay/stealth/hacking/driving/dialogue holds no interest to you, what would they have to add for you to be interested/excited?
Would pedestrians having schedules suddenly make the game fun to you? I don’t get it.
Agreed. And I am sure they are working on it. I just disagree that CDP’s entire future rests on whether they implement NPC schedules or whatever.
I’ll let them get this new patch out, let them fix the stuff it breaks, then I’m jumping in at last! I have to say just driving around in the intro has been amazing. I think I’ve had my money’s worth already.
Maybe? I dunno. I just know that what’s there was just blah for me. Stuff like gang territories meaning something, skills that do more than make hacking the “I win” button, crafting that’s interesting, businesses being more than menu screens you have to find, loot that didn’t feel like boring stat increases, player housing, car modifications, etc. What we got was the bare minimum of an “open world” game in 2020 in my opinion. I don’t even care about driving around to just sightsee due to the driving/minimap being so clunky.
Fair enough, seems like we have very different priorities about what we care about in RPGs, since most of the stuff you mentioned didn’t bother me. The minimap not zooming out was a PITA for sure though.
That was but one example of something they promised and that, in the final game, had an implementation that was way worse than games like GTA or Saint’s Row or even The Witcher 3. Or 2. Or 1. That particular issue is not the problem, just an example of the overall problem with the game - it was supposed to be this transformative next-gen experience and in many ways it’s worse than last gen games on parts that to many people do matter, even if they don’t matter to you.
