ANOTHER GREAT INTERVIEW to Adam Badowski, about Cyberpunk/Witcher 3 and other stuff.
This is a transcript from an interview by Polish podcast Masa Kultury. The interview goes at length about the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, CDProject as a growing studio, the challenges and future of the RPG genre, Studios with a corporate or uncompromising artistic mindset, Mike Pondsmith as a character, and female/male character creation in CP2077.
The translation is the heroic effort of Kodaemon, an old witcher forumite, who translated it and transcripted it, which took him HOURS to do
The actual interview is longer, Im just copying the esentials and stuff related to Cyberpunk 2077. The link to the complete interview is
http://en.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/34740-podcast-with-adam-badowski-translation/page__p__959275#entry959275
You should go read it, and thank Kodaemon "personally"... This kinds of things are what make a good and friendly community strong.
For those who don't know, Adam Badowski was Art Director for The Witcher, Project Lead for The Witcher 2, and now is Managing Director, and as such is overseeing both future CDProjekts' titles.
Enjoy. )
MK: You mentioned having a big team - how many people are working on The Witcher 3? I guess we'll talk more about it later, but I suspect work at the studio is organised in such a way that you can take a breather and work on Cyberpunk for a bit when you're too tired of fantasy... but what size is the core team, how many people are working on TW3 right now?
AB: The Witcher 3 team itself is about 89 people, but there's also the engine team of course which is already over 20 people, then there's QA and so forth, and naturally some people work on both projects... But the core of the Witcher 3 team is about 89 people.
MK: And how does the Cyberpunk team compare to that? I'm wondering which of these games is currently the more important one - I understand that the hype for The Witcher 3 is greater than for Cyberpunk right now, but it's also a gigantic world...
AB: It depends on what you mean by important. The Witcher 3 is at a different stage of production than Cyberpunk - Cyber punk is about establishing a new brand... that kind of sounds bad, but it's about making sure the game is unique, that it carries new ideas that will really grip the audience, so we need to do a lot of experiments and prototypes. The Witcher 3 is a lot more advanced as a project, so in that sense it's more important, since it's coming out earlier. It's also the continuation of the saga, so that's the difference. Both projects are equally important really, they're the two hearts of the studio, we have two hearts. But their dynamics are different, working on them looks differently. One already has a lot of content ready, the other is more about new types of gameplay, new story threads, establishing the whole universe, the design bible...all fascinating stuff. I'm not saying production itself is not fascinating, but the dynamics are different.
MK: I understand. Tell me, since we're talking about technical aspects of production, how does your experience with consoles look like? I know you've had something of a rough ride there in the past, but recently you performed really great with The Witcher 2, so what does that mean for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk? Also, while you did perform great, it was only for one console - one of my friend's still sobbing quietly since he only has a PS3 and he forgot how to play on a PC, and he's still sad about the announced Witcher for Playstation, which never happened...
AB: You have to look before you leap. We wanted to make the game for all platforms, but, not to badmouth the PS3, or maybe badmouth our abilities, whatever... We were convinced the PS3 would be a big challenge for us in the case of The Witcher 2. Of course The Witcher 1 is a whole different story, that was a natively PC engine, so that was out of the question, that's one of the reasons we invested in our own technology, and it was a good choice. In the case of The Witcher 2, we learned a lot, because we had a full development phase for consoles, the studio changed a lot during that time regarding our internal procedures, we now have good knowledge from our cooperation with Microsoft and the publisher. So, now is the time to start on the next platform, Sony already announced us as one of the studios developing for their next console...
MK: The PS4 seems a bit like a PC, so it will probably be easier to work with, right?
AB: It's a bit of a war of ambitions. Our greatest ambition is to making games, making content. I mean, it's nice to be a studio with a strong technology, but you have to remember how important the tools are. You have to do everything at once, you need to develop the tools for your technology, you have to develop the engine for your technology, you have to improve the visuals and you have to create the content, which is the most impoortant, since ultimately it's the game that matters. We're not Ubisoft and we'll never be, we want to be a studio that will never be larger than 200 people. We've all been through a lot here, we don't want to be a bloated corporation, we want to avoid the corporate model at all cost, so we'll never be able to afford making an engine first, finalizing it and only then starting to work on the game. That's fine in theory, but in reality, while staying independent -because we want to keep our independence- you have to make a profit, you have to make stuff that's good. Our aim is to make 90+ rated games, whether it's Metacritic or any other system - I don't want to discuss Metacritic here. This means at some point you have to choose - do you want to develop for the PS3, or do you want to put your strengtgh into developing the next Witcher. There are always these choices.It would be great if we could always do everything at once and do it good, but as I said - big corporations can afford that, EA, Ubisoft, who sometimes have real slaughers behind the scenes, closing studios so they can finish other project instead, stuff like that. We're different, we want to be a small or medium sized, independent studio, independent creatively, independent financially, so we need to manage our studio wisely. We won't be able to achieve everything, so we have to focus on what's most important. For me, that's content, that's games.
-----------------------------------------------------
MK: You know, I'm only asking (referring to last question in part 1, about Andrzej Sapkowski - Kodaemon) because I wonder what approach do you prefer as developers, since as far as I know, Mike Pondsmith is working more closely with you on Cyberpunk 2077, right?
AB: Yes, Mike Pondsmith is working more closely with us, but he's the guy who created the p&p system, that's over 40 sourcebooks - not all of them are from Talsorian, of course, but most of them are. That's Cyberpunk 2020, also Cyberpunk 3.0 which didn't realy stick... Anyway, Mike Pondsmith created the game mechanics, so not only the story, the other way around even he mostly did the mechanics for the game, and addons for that mechanic. Mike Pondsmith also worked at Microsoft, making games, so he knows what it's all about. This is why it was natural to enter a dialogue, since we're speaking the same language, the language of game developers, and we decided to use that. Of course, we have creative freedom just like with The Witcher, but Mike Pondsmith is sort of an advisor to us, who solved a lot of things in the game mechanics himself, since they're based on the mechanics of the pen & paper game. And that's great, because we have a largely unified, coherent RPG system thanks to that. There were some things that were questionable in terms of balance in the game, so we fixed that, and some things were not possible to carry over without breaking the player's experience, for example shooting has to be based on the player's skill somewhat, not just the character's, so we had to rework that, and of course Mike Pondsmith was indispensable. So, that's why the cooperation looks different here. Andrzej Sapkowski is the creator of the Witcher universe, a writer, so that's the level we could work with him on, but not on the gameplay and implementation level.
MK: You mentioned player skill in the context of Cyberpunk, that's interesting since it's different from The Witcher, where stats are quite important. Skill too, of course, but...
AB: It's the same in The Witcher and Cyberpunk, it's just that mechanics of shooting are different than mechanics of swordfighting. We chose a system for The Witcher where the game helps the player choose a good sequence, that is, it has to look good since Geralt is a master swordsman who does all these pirouettes and cat-like moves, so the game helps at that. Of course, it's all based on RPG stats, but when it comes to shooting, it's bad when you're aiming at the gead, and it's an obvious headshot from 1 meter away, but the game says "nope, the stats say something else". These are the problems that you have to find good solutions for, to eat the cookie and have the cookie, and that's what we've been working on with Mike Pondsmith.
MK: Since we're talking about Mike Pondsmith, I really, really wanted to ask you... Since you're working together, maybe you could get him to record some lines for the game, because, you know, that little introduction movie where he talks about Cyberpunk... Damn his voice is amazing
AB: Yeah, Barry White, right? Of course we're going to do that. (laughs)
MK: That's great! (laughs)
AB: Guy should be singing blues songs.
This is a transcript from an interview by Polish podcast Masa Kultury. The interview goes at length about the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, CDProject as a growing studio, the challenges and future of the RPG genre, Studios with a corporate or uncompromising artistic mindset, Mike Pondsmith as a character, and female/male character creation in CP2077.
The translation is the heroic effort of Kodaemon, an old witcher forumite, who translated it and transcripted it, which took him HOURS to do
The actual interview is longer, Im just copying the esentials and stuff related to Cyberpunk 2077. The link to the complete interview is
http://en.thewitcher.com/forum/index.php?/topic/34740-podcast-with-adam-badowski-translation/page__p__959275#entry959275
You should go read it, and thank Kodaemon "personally"... This kinds of things are what make a good and friendly community strong.
For those who don't know, Adam Badowski was Art Director for The Witcher, Project Lead for The Witcher 2, and now is Managing Director, and as such is overseeing both future CDProjekts' titles.
Enjoy. )
MK: You mentioned having a big team - how many people are working on The Witcher 3? I guess we'll talk more about it later, but I suspect work at the studio is organised in such a way that you can take a breather and work on Cyberpunk for a bit when you're too tired of fantasy... but what size is the core team, how many people are working on TW3 right now?
AB: The Witcher 3 team itself is about 89 people, but there's also the engine team of course which is already over 20 people, then there's QA and so forth, and naturally some people work on both projects... But the core of the Witcher 3 team is about 89 people.
MK: And how does the Cyberpunk team compare to that? I'm wondering which of these games is currently the more important one - I understand that the hype for The Witcher 3 is greater than for Cyberpunk right now, but it's also a gigantic world...
AB: It depends on what you mean by important. The Witcher 3 is at a different stage of production than Cyberpunk - Cyber punk is about establishing a new brand... that kind of sounds bad, but it's about making sure the game is unique, that it carries new ideas that will really grip the audience, so we need to do a lot of experiments and prototypes. The Witcher 3 is a lot more advanced as a project, so in that sense it's more important, since it's coming out earlier. It's also the continuation of the saga, so that's the difference. Both projects are equally important really, they're the two hearts of the studio, we have two hearts. But their dynamics are different, working on them looks differently. One already has a lot of content ready, the other is more about new types of gameplay, new story threads, establishing the whole universe, the design bible...all fascinating stuff. I'm not saying production itself is not fascinating, but the dynamics are different.
MK: I understand. Tell me, since we're talking about technical aspects of production, how does your experience with consoles look like? I know you've had something of a rough ride there in the past, but recently you performed really great with The Witcher 2, so what does that mean for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk? Also, while you did perform great, it was only for one console - one of my friend's still sobbing quietly since he only has a PS3 and he forgot how to play on a PC, and he's still sad about the announced Witcher for Playstation, which never happened...
AB: You have to look before you leap. We wanted to make the game for all platforms, but, not to badmouth the PS3, or maybe badmouth our abilities, whatever... We were convinced the PS3 would be a big challenge for us in the case of The Witcher 2. Of course The Witcher 1 is a whole different story, that was a natively PC engine, so that was out of the question, that's one of the reasons we invested in our own technology, and it was a good choice. In the case of The Witcher 2, we learned a lot, because we had a full development phase for consoles, the studio changed a lot during that time regarding our internal procedures, we now have good knowledge from our cooperation with Microsoft and the publisher. So, now is the time to start on the next platform, Sony already announced us as one of the studios developing for their next console...
MK: The PS4 seems a bit like a PC, so it will probably be easier to work with, right?
AB: It's a bit of a war of ambitions. Our greatest ambition is to making games, making content. I mean, it's nice to be a studio with a strong technology, but you have to remember how important the tools are. You have to do everything at once, you need to develop the tools for your technology, you have to develop the engine for your technology, you have to improve the visuals and you have to create the content, which is the most impoortant, since ultimately it's the game that matters. We're not Ubisoft and we'll never be, we want to be a studio that will never be larger than 200 people. We've all been through a lot here, we don't want to be a bloated corporation, we want to avoid the corporate model at all cost, so we'll never be able to afford making an engine first, finalizing it and only then starting to work on the game. That's fine in theory, but in reality, while staying independent -because we want to keep our independence- you have to make a profit, you have to make stuff that's good. Our aim is to make 90+ rated games, whether it's Metacritic or any other system - I don't want to discuss Metacritic here. This means at some point you have to choose - do you want to develop for the PS3, or do you want to put your strengtgh into developing the next Witcher. There are always these choices.It would be great if we could always do everything at once and do it good, but as I said - big corporations can afford that, EA, Ubisoft, who sometimes have real slaughers behind the scenes, closing studios so they can finish other project instead, stuff like that. We're different, we want to be a small or medium sized, independent studio, independent creatively, independent financially, so we need to manage our studio wisely. We won't be able to achieve everything, so we have to focus on what's most important. For me, that's content, that's games.
-----------------------------------------------------
MK: You know, I'm only asking (referring to last question in part 1, about Andrzej Sapkowski - Kodaemon) because I wonder what approach do you prefer as developers, since as far as I know, Mike Pondsmith is working more closely with you on Cyberpunk 2077, right?
AB: Yes, Mike Pondsmith is working more closely with us, but he's the guy who created the p&p system, that's over 40 sourcebooks - not all of them are from Talsorian, of course, but most of them are. That's Cyberpunk 2020, also Cyberpunk 3.0 which didn't realy stick... Anyway, Mike Pondsmith created the game mechanics, so not only the story, the other way around even he mostly did the mechanics for the game, and addons for that mechanic. Mike Pondsmith also worked at Microsoft, making games, so he knows what it's all about. This is why it was natural to enter a dialogue, since we're speaking the same language, the language of game developers, and we decided to use that. Of course, we have creative freedom just like with The Witcher, but Mike Pondsmith is sort of an advisor to us, who solved a lot of things in the game mechanics himself, since they're based on the mechanics of the pen & paper game. And that's great, because we have a largely unified, coherent RPG system thanks to that. There were some things that were questionable in terms of balance in the game, so we fixed that, and some things were not possible to carry over without breaking the player's experience, for example shooting has to be based on the player's skill somewhat, not just the character's, so we had to rework that, and of course Mike Pondsmith was indispensable. So, that's why the cooperation looks different here. Andrzej Sapkowski is the creator of the Witcher universe, a writer, so that's the level we could work with him on, but not on the gameplay and implementation level.
MK: You mentioned player skill in the context of Cyberpunk, that's interesting since it's different from The Witcher, where stats are quite important. Skill too, of course, but...
AB: It's the same in The Witcher and Cyberpunk, it's just that mechanics of shooting are different than mechanics of swordfighting. We chose a system for The Witcher where the game helps the player choose a good sequence, that is, it has to look good since Geralt is a master swordsman who does all these pirouettes and cat-like moves, so the game helps at that. Of course, it's all based on RPG stats, but when it comes to shooting, it's bad when you're aiming at the gead, and it's an obvious headshot from 1 meter away, but the game says "nope, the stats say something else". These are the problems that you have to find good solutions for, to eat the cookie and have the cookie, and that's what we've been working on with Mike Pondsmith.
MK: Since we're talking about Mike Pondsmith, I really, really wanted to ask you... Since you're working together, maybe you could get him to record some lines for the game, because, you know, that little introduction movie where he talks about Cyberpunk... Damn his voice is amazing
AB: Yeah, Barry White, right? Of course we're going to do that. (laughs)
MK: That's great! (laughs)
AB: Guy should be singing blues songs.