A Predefined Protagonist & Character Creation Don't Work Together in Cyberpunk 2077

[SigilFey]

I get it, but this still would only matters if watcher were seen original Weaver's take on Ripley and would be familiar with Alba. If there's no reference point, issue doesn't exist.

But... Spinning this around it's possible to make in Cyberpunk universe example: It's like trying to play V if he had background with the Elvises poser gang, and voice not supporting anything, tone, accent and manner of speech that should be there if V belonged to Elvises.

Not at all -- the voice actors were clearly represented perfectly by the male and female visualizations of V that were shown in the trailers. I can easily go back to the huge outcry that followed the original looks of the characters being altered. I can reference again the many comments that criticized some of the armors and hairstyles from WItcher 3. We have no shortage of people that responded poorly to the "alternate Johnny look". The effect is still going to be there.

By contrast, I don't remember anyone being dissappointed or knocked off balance when our Skyrim characters didn't look like the Dragonborn shown in the trailers. I've never heard people complaining that their Mount and Blade character just doesn't line up with the look they've created. Can't remember one complaint from anyone that the FarCry 5 character they created just didn't really fit the part. The difference? None of these characters were voiced in any meaningful way. No attempt to express personality or motivations were given.

I think players who make quite wild decisions in character creation, something I remember from Mass Effect forums is the adventures of ugly Shepard and there still appears to be a gallery page for them. Those definitely fall into eccentric category but really, those creations has taken some effort. No one is forcing anyone to make their character like that.

Well, I'm specifically not addressing people that like wild and crazy. I'm not talking to the Fortnite crowd, or the people that go off and intentionally create Dark Souls characters like so:

If people like this type of thing and enjoy making characters like this, then by all means, they should have a blast.

I'm addressing players like the OP, who didn't appreciate coming up with a vision, then having the character that they were intending to play molded by the game into something they didn't intend. The game very much defines V. And if I'm someone that wants my character to feel cohesive, then having options available that let me actively derail that -- before I even begin playing -- can be quite frustrating.

(As a note, I was fully expecting the game to be exactly the way it was and intentionally crafted something that I felt blended in with what we had already seen and heard of V from the demos and such.)

Movie and show characters tend to be fairly static for quite a few reasons, stories where character ages significantly being exception. Game is entirely different thing, character can start with body 3 and end up with body 20.

In execution only. Creating a character that will resonate with a wide audience is exactly the same for a game. That's why any game featuring character customization will release trailers and demos that feature player characters that are likely to have mass appeal. Hence, this is the poster-child for Skyrim:

...and not this:


These were the Sheperds chosen to define the game to the mass market:

...and not these:

The predefined protagonist with a heavy script behind him really was a bad call for this game.

A strong story with a cast of strong side characters is one thing, but this being an open world game really doesn’t come well tohether with a specific ”V” with whom the player has little ability for expression and to actually roleplay his/her own character.

Arguably, but that's getting into a different concern. What we have is a narratively driven and crafted character with quite a bit of player interpretation available. I'd disagree that it doesn't come together. V is a classic Gilgamesh / Beowulf / Faust character, and the story largely follows the same, classical arc. Right down to the supernatural messenger and everything.

It's simply possible to create a character visualization that doesn't really fit that mold very well.

I think Didacgomez idea about voice toggle with voice preview in character creation might help, but there's bit of a problem with story parts where V's and Silverhand's voice is overlapping each others in certain parts of game. I don't recall if there's any indication in subtitles what all is happening in voice department during those segments.

This would be a really good solution, I think! Rather than just:
"How are ya?"
"No problem."
"Enemy sighted!"
etc.

...V could play out a short monologue! Something in-charater. Maybe even have a few options to choose from to show some different emotional states and reveal a little about the starting situation in the world. I like this suggestion a lot!

 

[lyin321]

I still don't get it. Especially the 'CC in a game with (semi) defined character is bad!' people. Why? Would cyberpunk 2077 be a better game if there was no way to alter the appearance of our character? The only game I can think of that it could be a problem was Aion (an MMO ) where it was unlocked, so people could go to extremes (creating very small or thin characters that messed up the hitbox giving them unfair advantages). But single-player game? Maybe Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines where you have nosferatu...but even that could be done easily with devs just placing some kind of filter/texture on our char. Or we were sabat I guess. The tzimtze could have fleshcrafted us to be beautiful No idea. Anyway in that game - sure, be careful with the CC (still don't see why it wouldn't work). In CP77? What shouldn't there be one?

 

[gurugeorge]

I still don't get it. Especially the 'CC in a game with (semi) defined character is bad!' people. Why? Would cyberpunk 2077 be a better game if there was no way to alter the appearance of our character? The only game I can think of that it could be a problem was Aion (an MMO ) where it was unlocked, so people could go to extremes (creating very small or thin characters that messed up the hitbox giving them unfair advantages). But single-player game? Maybe Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines where you have nosferatu...but even that could be done easily with devs just placing some kind of filter/texture on our char. Or we were sabat I guess. The tzimtze could have fleshcrafted us to be beautiful No idea. Anyway in that game - sure, be careful with the CC (still don't see why it wouldn't work). In CP77? What shouldn't there be one?

Because that was kind of the expectation CDPR's hype set up from the first video in 2018. People were expecting the character backgrounds/lifepaths to make a difference (to close off some possibilities and open up others), and appearance was also supposed to be a part of that.

Though I think more with style than just looks per. se. Note the importance of style in the tabletop lore. And there's actually a mod on Nexus now that "awakens" that potential in the game (which must have been there at one point for the possibility to be modded): if you dress with clothing that's stylistically appropriate to the various gangs - e.g. lots of cyberware for Maelstrom, bling for the Valentinos, kitsch for the Tyger Claws - they react to you in a slightly more favourable way conversationally). It's just another area (not all that important, sure, but another area of potential RPG richness) where the game disappointed a fair number of people.

Post automatically merged: Oct 6, 2021

Absolutely! It's 100% subjective.

Now, there's the world of creative expression and successfully navigating a creative venture. While any artistic expression is a subjective vision by the creator, and any reaction is a subjective response by an audience, what any big, creative, business venture aims for is mass appeal. When my target audience plays my game, reads my book, watches my movie, listens to my music, sees my art, etc. -- does the majority seem to respond positively to it?

I agree with a fair bit of what you're saying, but there seems to me to be a contradiction here. If there is a mean towards which producers and creatives are aiming then there's nothing subjective about it.

It's fashionable to say stuff like "your truth" and all that, but it's really nonsense. Even art is quite objective - some things ring the bell, some things don't. Artists are the most cruelly objective people around, they know when you're doing something shit and will tell you to your face.

The only difference with art is that it's much, much harder to articulate what makes a thing "work" than it is to (say) parse causal factors in the low-hanging fruit of ordinary scientific research. There, things can be crisply defined and worked through logically, here, not so - but that doesn't make it subjective. Even if you're looking at it from the point of view of collating a whole bunch of (ordinary language) "subjective" points of view to divine what's popular and sells and what isn't and doesn't, that's still not subjective in the philosophically important sense. It's objective, and even the very bell-curve of response is itself objective (some people don't like even great works, but that's to be expected when you're talking about a natural phenomenon with a statistical spread - but that still doesn't make it subjective in the relevant sense).

De gustibus non disputandum is simply a counsel of politeness, not a philosophical statement about the subjectivity of taste

Post automatically merged: Oct 6, 2021

I think actually the critics (whose side I'm on) are using the wrong term to describe what they're uncomfortable about. It's not so much that V is "predefined" (that would really refer more to a predefined background) it's that he's emotionally incontinent and talks too much - he's defined for you, as you go, by his overly emotional and/or verbose responses.

Again, it goes back to the point that if you have a fully voiced protagonist it's better that they be laconic/stoic (like Geralt or Shepherd) - they respond, but in a less verbose way that's more open to interpretation and the player's imagination "filling in" their character.

In the game, it's a fairly frequent experience to pick what you think its going to be some offhand response, only to get some emotional splurge from your V that you had no intention of expressing.

That's the sense in which V, so to speak paints the player into a corner as a character, and doesn't give the player's V (the V they have in their heads) room to breathe.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Because that was kind of the expectation CDPR's hype set up from the first video in 2018. People were expecting the character backgrounds/lifepaths to make a difference (to close off some possibilities and open up others), and appearance was also supposed to be a part of that.

No. Just no. There was never any hint (at least from the developers, I have no idea about the useless speculative videos and articles) that character's appearance would make a difference in dialogue. Physical appearance was never tied to a lifepath.

 

[lyin321]

I think actually the critics (whose side I'm on) are using the wrong term to describe what they're uncomfortable about. It's not so much that V is "predefined" (that would really refer more to a predefined background) it's that he's emotionally incontinent and talks too much - he's defined for you, as you go, by his overly emotional and/or verbose responses.

Again, it goes back to the point that if you have a fully voiced protagonist it's better that they be laconic/stoic (like Geralt or Shepherd) - they respond, but in a less verbose way that's more open to interpretation and the player's imagination "filling in" their character.

In the game, it's a fairly frequent experience to pick what you think its going to be some offhand response, only to get some emotional splurge from your V that you had no intention of expressing.

That's the sense in which V, so to speak paints the player into a corner as a character, and doesn't give the player's V (the V they have in their heads) room to breathe.

Maybe you are right on the voiced protag should be more stoic, so they allow greater RP, and to be certain devs have to be careful when they do that - the ME3 comes to mind where the devs decided my Shep should be so concerned about party member that I wasn't....to the point of being rude to my Li!
....anyway that is not specific to the voiced protag you know. Recently I have been playing Pathfinder : wrath of the righteous and there is a point where that also happens (and it have silent protag).

....anway my point was: as @LeKill3rFou pointed out

View attachment 11258071View attachment 11258074View attachment 11258077

...when you look at them do some look more like V than the others? Because to me, they don't

Edit: Ups messed up with the pics somewhere
....can't type apparently...I meant Li (as in love interest) and not L....nothing against L tho

 

[Draconifors]

Edit: Ups messed up with the pics somewhere

Nah, it's just how the forum displays images in quotes.

 

[Guest 3847602]

the ME3 comes to mind where the devs decided my Shep should be so concerned about party member that I wasn't....to the point of being rude to my L!

Still, the worst offender in ME3 is giving Shepard PTSD and nightmare sequences after witnessing death of that kid in Vancouver. Who the hell thought this was the good idea?!

 

[CS554]

Not at all -- the voice actors were clearly represented perfectly by the male and female visualizations of V that were shown in the trailers. I can easily go back to the huge outcry that followed the original looks of the characters being altered. I can reference again the many comments that criticized some of the armors and hairstyles from WItcher 3. We have no shortage of people that responded poorly to the "alternate Johnny look". The effect is still going to be there.

I haven't played but the first Witcher and I know about Skyrim but they aren't sort of games I'm interested about but I think it's pretty safe to assume, that they aren't world where body sculpting, meaning outrageous body modding and crazy fashion are a thing.

Alternate Johnny... I see someone had impossible project to blend appearance of something that perhaps was or wasn't David Bowie (original inspiration for Silverhand in tabletop) with Keanu Reeve's appearance. Somethings just don't mix and end result is definitely most hilarious thing I have seen in video game space for a long while. While remembering that still makes me laugh, I gotta say, it was very valiant effort on impossible task and whoever is behind that... thing, probably someone training at CDPR, should not be shamed of it.

By contrast, I don't remember anyone being dissappointed or knocked off balance when our Skyrim characters didn't look like the Dragonborn shown in the trailers. I've never heard people complaining that their Mount and Blade character just doesn't line up with the look they've created. Can't remember one complaint from anyone that the FarCry 5 character they created just didn't really fit the part. The difference? None of these characters were voiced in any meaningful way. No attempt to express personality or motivations were given.


Well, I'm specifically not addressing people that like wild and crazy. I'm not talking to the Fortnite crowd, or the people that go off and intentionally create Dark Souls characters like so:

If people like this type of thing and enjoy making characters like this, then by all means, they should have a blast.

I'm addressing players like the OP, who didn't appreciate coming up with a vision, then having the character that they were intending to play molded by the game into something they didn't intend. The game very much defines V. And if I'm someone that wants my character to feel cohesive, then having options available that let me actively derail that -- before I even begin playing -- can be quite frustrating.

(As a note, I was fully expecting the game to be exactly the way it was and intentionally crafted something that I felt blended in with what we had already seen and heard of V from the demos and such.)


In execution only. Creating a character that will resonate with a wide audience is exactly the same for a game. That's why any game featuring character customization will release trailers and demos that feature player characters that are likely to have mass appeal. Hence, this is the poster-child for Skyrim:
View attachment 11258152
...and not this:
View attachment 11258158

These were the Sheperds chosen to define the game to the mass market:
View attachment 11258161
...and not these:
View attachment 11258164View attachment 11258167

These are again, out of universe crutches and I don't see how they support OP's concern as they are out of CP 2077 universe, which one distinctive social aspect is, that looks don't mean anything unless going to Adam Smasher level. What Didacgomez and some others of us have been trying to explain is that it's universe where people alter their physical appearance like chancing clothes.

Arguably, but that's getting into a different concern. What we have is a narratively driven and crafted character with quite a bit of player interpretation available. I'd disagree that it doesn't come together. V is a classic Gilgamesh / Beowulf / Faust character, and the story largely follows the same, classical arc. Right down to the supernatural messenger and everything.

It's simply possible to create a character visualization that doesn't really fit that mold very well.

It's possible to write script and character using text editor, then later find that character doesn't fit as well as originally thought in scenario or setting author thought. That's hardly problem of text editor and its features.

Using V as member or former member of poser gang actually works as it eliminates something I tried to highlight in this discussion earlier with pharmacy and Deckard / Miller example. If you imagine circle and start putting characteristics of these two characters in those circles and then put them in CP 2077 universe and see what's meaningful in context of game, you end up with overlapping circles because as far as game goes in meaningful interaction, they are the same character with different appearance. You wrote about being a thespian, so you probably did that.

But with Elvish poser gang member we can study the case bit differently.

Disclaimer: I'm not by any means suggesting that CP 2077 features a lacking in this regard or that at this point this is nothing but a wild goose chase in any other meaning but visioning possible bottlenecks for future games.

But really, accent, manner of speech, a lot could be done with these, while dialogue stays to same and CP 2077 is pretty good base case for that, I haven't played but Mass Effect from the games mentioned. There is Outer Worlds, Fallout 3/ New Vegas and Wasteland 3 I can think of are similar in one way or another but I really can't remember Shepard ever saying anything interesting and that's not his/her role in universe, character is build around certain archetype very different from V.

Meanwhile I think of encounter between Brendan and V and V and Theo later on that side job. If players goal would be playing, not necessarily Elvish poser gang member but V from Southern States having that accent available for that character would be huge and missing that option while trying to play character with that sort of background really disrupts that illusion.

But like I wrote, there are limits to what can be achieved. It's not just about recording the voice, but voice also increased production and bureaucratic overhead and matters like how to localize that? then additional Q&A and support after launch.

This would be a really good solution, I think! Rather than just:
"How are ya?"
"No problem."
"Enemy sighted!"
etc.

...V could play out a short monologue! Something in-charater. Maybe even have a few options to choose from to show some different emotional states and reveal a little about the starting situation in the world. I like this suggestion a lot!

Monologue idea looks good especially if player could mix and match with features. Justifying costs of localizing all that, is there really big enough market for that to feature attract new players, entirely different matter.

What I have got from this topic overall is that enabling players to customize their character in story would help a lot. It's not what OP asked but that's what I see CDPR could actually do.

Still, the worst offender in ME3 is giving Shepard PTSD and nightmare sequences after witnessing death of that kid in Vancouver. Who the hell thought this was the good idea?!

Community. PTSD was something some players wanted to make Shepard feel more "real". Same with Cerberus, there was this cult of Cerberus on Mass Effect forums. There were other things, but EA could pin them all on community. Hardly anybody noticed as people were talking about endings and those with brains either left or went to MP.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Community. PTSD was something some players wanted to make Shepard feel more "real". Same with Cerberus, there was this cult of Cerberus on Mass Effect forums. There were other things, but EA could pin them all on community. Hardly anybody noticed as people were talking about endings and those with brains either left or went to MP.

Yeah, there was a cult of everything back then (Destroy, Control, Synthesis, Cerberus, Geth, Quarians, Tali's sweat, even civil war between Miranda's fans), but push for PTSD was the weirdest one. It's gonna affect every Shepard, not only paragons. Why would my hardass colonist, sole survivor be shaken up so much by some random death?
Same story as with Cyberpunk - it's like that for some the protagonist has to be either a complete blank slate or predefined. Nothing in the middle works.

 

[CS554]

Yeah, there was a cult of everything back then (Destroy, Control, Synthesis, Cerberus, Geth, Quarians, Tali's sweat, even civil war between Miranda's fans), but push for PTSD was the weirdest one. It's gonna affect every Shepard, not only paragons. Why would my hardass colonist, sole survivor be shaken up so much by some random death?

My favorite memory is still about people complaining how juvenile character Kai Leng was, like he was written for 12-years old and then actual 12-years old started popping up in topic basically telling elder folks to f... back off, as Kai Leng was too immature for them too.

Some of them were sort of famous, made some sort of comic or something. How time flies, think they are adults now. Hope they found better entertainment and maintained their self respect through years. But I remember them.

Same story as with Cyberpunk - it's like that for some the protagonist has to be either a complete blank slate or predefined. Nothing in the middle works.

It's kinda impossible situation where they put themselves with PTSD Shepard. But it allows user to interpret it multiple ways. My own take is that child hiding in vent and in the woods is whoever replaced the actual science guys studio kicked out after the first game. Reapers are manifestation of the deadline and our Shepard is actually a producer who is trying to keep it all together and trying to find his story guy who is hiding. "It looked like he was right there and we were supposed to discuss about this grand finale. How could anyone disappear like that? Or did I just imagined him being here?" So I guess in the end it achieved at least something.

Seriously though, it's the middle that works it just doesn't work for everybody. Role playing, whatever that is for different people, is a niche. I think for most people game is like action adventure. Character customatization is evidently a big feature, but like I wrote before gaming has been chancing for a long time and photo mode shots in social media sites and here are evidence of that, but that doesn't mean majority of players go deep inside of their V's head. Now doing that I think is perfectly valid way to play the game and this could be very good topic if we could explore this in context of some future product where we could also think of what needs to happen to make certain things possible.

The nothing in between / black and white is the key. Most of people, audience they are on shades of grey, be that about character customization or roleplaying. There might be lot of feedback, 100,000 messages about certain thing, meanwhile millions play happily with their creations.

That's not to say that OP's issue isn't valid. If you think about example I made about V who has southern accent you I think anyone can easily figure out disruptive element too. But limiting features or removing them isn't right way to solve that when those features appear to be very popular. Sometimes we have to accept that technology and/or economical incentive isn't there to make something happen, like I has to accept that character customization during story is probably going to happen, barber shop/tattoo parlor etc. features at least, while I'm quite indifferent towards those sort of things. I liked to see other things mentioned in recent game play enhancement topic, but it is what it is.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Some of them were sort of famous, made some sort of comic or something. How time flies, think they are adults now. Hope they found better entertainment and maintained their self respect through years. But I remember them.

You mean the parody of ME: Deception? It was hilarious...

 

[gurugeorge]

No. Just no. There was never any hint (at least from the developers, I have no idea about the useless speculative videos and articles) that character's appearance would make a difference in dialogue. Physical appearance was never tied to a lifepath.

Well, at the very least, clothing was shown in the 2018 vid as affecting street cred. And as I say, the fact that modders have been able to unlock the ability for appearance to affect NPC's conversational attitudes by group, shows the possibility was built into the game at some level.

Of course "final product may differ" - no problem. But you can see how people would get the impression that CDPR intended the game to be a rich, complex RPG.

At one time.

Before, you know, the thing happened

 

[CS554]

You mean the parody of ME: Deception? It was hilarious...

Fuck me! I think that is the thing. Yeah maybe there was a tiny bit of quality control problem with Deception.

 

[Guest 3847602]

Well, at the very least, clothing was shown in the 2018 vid as affecting street cred. And as I say, the fact that modders have been able to unlock the ability for appearance to affect NPC's conversational attitudes by group, shows the possibility was built into the game at some level.

Of course "final product may differ" - no problem. But you can see how people would get the impression that CDPR intended the game to be a rich, complex RPG.

At one time.

Before, you know, the thing happened

You're talking about clothing and yeah, role of clothes was probably changed during development. But the question is about the character creator, physical appearance, facial features, etc... CDPR didn't mislead anyone into believing that this aspect will have any effect on story or conversations.

 

[gurugeorge]

You're talking about clothing and yeah, role of clothes was probably changed during development. But the question is about the character creator, physical appearance, facial features, etc... CDPR didn't mislead anyone into believing that this aspect will have any effect on story or conversations.

I don't think the OP really intended to restrict the term "appearance" to only the look of the flesh. If he did, that weakens his point a bit because it's pretty rare that physical looks (in the sense of beauty or ugliness, for example) have an impact on NPC response (Arcanum is one delightful counterexample that immediately comes to mind). Appearance in the sense of race (and gender a bit) has had a lot more relevance to NPC responses in RPGs though.

And "appearance" meaning how you dress is actually fairly common in RPGs too (dress like a beggar and people will respond differently than if you have an expensive robe - off the top of my head, that's certainly been in Bethesda games since Daggerfall).

At any rate, I certainly got the impression from that vid and other hype vids that your appearance (in the general sense) would make some difference. The fact that it didn't was (again) mildly disappointing, another mild disappointment piled on many other mild disappointments, leading to quite a bit of disappointment in the end

(Even though, I should say, I'm not an absolute hater of the game and have enjoyed many aspects of it too - it's just not the great RPG we were promised and expected.)

 

[Guest 3847602]

I don't think the OP really intended to restrict the term "appearance" to only the look of the flesh. If he did, that weakens his point a bit because it's pretty rare that physical looks (in the sense of beauty or ugliness, for example) have an impact on NPC response (Arcanum is one delightful counterexample that immediately comes to mind). Appearance in the sense of race (and gender a bit) has had a lot more relevance to NPC responses in RPGs though.

And "appearance" meaning how you dress is actually fairly common in RPGs too (dress like a beggar and people will respond differently than if you have an expensive robe - off the top of my head, that's certainly been in Bethesda games since Daggerfall).

At any rate, I certainly got the impression from that vid and other hype vids that your appearance (in the general sense) would make some difference. The fact that it didn't was (again) mildly disappointing, another mild disappointment piled on many other mild disappointments, leading to quite a bit of disappointment in the end

(Even though, I should say, I'm not an absolute hater of the game and have enjoyed many aspects of it too - it's just not the great RPG we were promised and expected.)

I know that, but the topic is about character creator and how it doesn't work with predefined protagonist (which V isn't). And purpose of character creator is for us to define physical appearance and sometimes voice.

 

[SigilFey]

I still don't get it. Especially the 'CC in a game with (semi) defined character is bad!' people. Why? Would cyberpunk 2077 be a better game if there was no way to alter the appearance of our character? The only game I can think of that it could be a problem was Aion (an MMO ) where it was unlocked, so people could go to extremes (creating very small or thin characters that messed up the hitbox giving them unfair advantages). But single-player game? Maybe Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines where you have nosferatu...but even that could be done easily with devs just placing some kind of filter/texture on our char. Or we were sabat I guess. The tzimtze could have fleshcrafted us to be beautiful No idea. Anyway in that game - sure, be careful with the CC (still don't see why it wouldn't work). In CP77? What shouldn't there be one?

It's not going to affect every player, and it's not going to affect every game. (It doesn't bother me, personally, for example. I could foresee the issue and decided to just step around it when creating my character. Other players just won't care and will happily ignore any disconnect that might be created. Still others may not even feel any disconnect because that's not what they're focused on when playing any game. If someone mostly mashes the "skip" button through cutscenes or dialogues to just get to the next action bit, obviously they won't care if their character fits in or not.)

The point is, if my character has a defined voice, a defined personality, a defined action and energy, a defined relationship to other characters, and defined motivations, all of which are presented by the game -- as opposed to being defined by my imagination -- then it will be a problem when the game superimposes it's own interpretation of my character over what I've created. Hence, if I'm given total freedom to create a visualization of a character that the game then overrides with a given scene, there will be a disconnect. (Again, this doesn't happen if I don't care. It happens when a player does care and is actively trying to engage with the story.)

I agree with a fair bit of what you're saying, but there seems to me to be a contradiction here. If there is a mean towards which producers and creatives are aiming then there's nothing subjective about it.

It's fashionable to say stuff like "your truth" and all that, but it's really nonsense. Even art is quite objective - some things ring the bell, some things don't. Artists are the most cruelly objective people around, they know when you're doing something shit and will tell you to your face.

The only difference with art is that it's much, much harder to articulate what makes a thing "work" than it is to (say) parse causal factors in the low-hanging fruit of ordinary scientific research...

(Plus the rest -- just snipped for length.)

Heh heh heh...it's more entwined in psychology than that. Yes, the preferences of any individual are always subjective. Yes, the masses deciding what has mass appeal and what does not is subjective -- and it will change with time. Lastly, yes, a creator making a decision about how best to portray their work is subjective, as is the creator's decision about whether they're even going for mass appeal or simply trying to appeal to a niche audience.

But what is 100% objective is the following:
There will always be a consensus of mass appeal, and creative works that do not fit the standards at a given time will not achieve it. If this was untrue, then there would never be mass appeal for anything. There would only ever be niche markets.

Mass appeal is a completely objective reality. To achieve it, a creative piece needs to deliver the desired illusion and then manage to maintain it for house they're playing to. There are, throughout the creative industry (writing, film, stage, dance, music, and game design) specific conventions that have stayed extremely effective over hundreds or thousands of years. Ignoring these conventions is always a risk.

Thus, was Cyberpunk 2077 based on a blank-slate protagonist (like The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, Fallout 1-2, or cleverly blended ones like Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, or Fallout 3)? No, it was a narratively driven and crafted protagonist with a specific role determined by the story arc they were a part of (like "Geralt" from The Witcher, "Sheperd" from Mass Effect, or the "Sole Survivor" from Fallout 4.) In this second category of games, we're dealing with a developed character, not a blank-slate character.

If I don't follow the proven conventions of delivering a developed character to my audience, I do so at my own peril, as there will be massive potential for my character not to register with any given audience. Many, perhaps the majority, will fail to connect to the character. (This is also a concern if I'm targetting a niche audience. I'll still need to ensure I'm delivering on the character that will appeal to the conventions of that niche.)

Now conversely, we don't want to follow established conventions too closely, either. That's a recipe for stale, tired characters that audience members will feel jaded and bored about when experiencing the piece. What's needed is the classic, magical blend of theatrics that results in blockbuster status: give the audience exactly what they're looking for in a way that feels fresh and surprising. This is the balance that any creative piece must strike to make it big. It's hard. Very hard.

But it's an objective concern, not a subjective one. The challenge will always be there, objectively, and there will always be a need to figure out which path is the one that leads to massive success. Most often, a creative piece will land somewhere on the target, but not in the bullseye.

What's happening in Cyberpunk is that CDPR followed a lot of the conventions in creating a solid, tragic protagonist with a recognizable character arc. Then, they let the audience visualize that character as a violent muppet if they wanted to -- with no forewarning that this character would be presented a very different way and follow a very different arc. Viola, dissonance and disconnect.

 

[gurugeorge]

I know that, but the topic is about character creator and how it doesn't work with predefined protagonist (which V isn't). And purpose of character creator is for us to define physical appearance and sometimes voice.

The OP isn't just talking about the character creator per se but about the clash between the player's V and the game-imposed V: "The player is given the illusion they made their own character, but they didn't."

And that's correct. The player has just made a slightly more bolshy or less bolshy version of a male or female V tailored around the V/Johnny story.

And that's fine for a V/Johnny "action-adventure," but it's not fine for something that was touted as an RPG.

 

[Guest 3847602]

And that's correct. The player has just made a slightly more bolshy or less bolshy version of a male or female V tailored around the V/Johnny story.

And that's fine for a V/Johnny "action-adventure," but it's not fine for something that was touted as an RPG.

You're saying that the game forces you to be bff with Johnny? Even though you can essentially tell him to piss off at every turn, even though his quetstchain is optional, even though the ending sequence in Mikoshi differs depending on how friendly the two of your were?
Your relationship with Johnny is not predetermined at all.

 

[SigilFey]

...

Alternate Johnny... I see someone had impossible project to blend appearance of something that perhaps was or wasn't David Bowie (original inspiration for Silverhand in tabletop) with Keanu Reeve's appearance. Somethings just don't mix and end result is definitely most hilarious thing I have seen in video game space for a long while. While remembering that still makes me laugh, I gotta say, it was very valiant effort on impossible task and whoever is behind that... thing, probably someone training at CDPR, should not be shamed of it.

You're identifying the issue exactly here. Just because I come up with an interpretation, it doesn't mean that it's a good interpretation. Johnny is a developed character and personality. The look he's given in the game works out beautifully. Everything just feels natural. It's something you don't pay a lot of attention to, and that's the point. The audience just naturally accepts the look and it blends into everything: the setting, the action, the character's voice, the movement, the story, etc.

Conversely, a lot of people responded poorly to the "alternate look". It stuck out. It didn't feel right for the character. Its doesn't blend in with what has been pretty clearly established for Johnny. It's a visualization that seems to clash with character traits that make Johnny...Johnny.

Same thing for V. Despite the room to stretch that the game does offer about what sort of person V will be, there's also too much about V that's established by the game for him/her to be a blank slate, open to any and all interpretations. Just like Geralt, V is given a persona, and action, and energy, a voice, etc., a framework for V's visualization would benefit players so they don't wind up creating a look that clashes and doesn't fit.

I haven't played but the first Witcher and I know about Skyrim but they aren't sort of games I'm interested about but I think it's pretty safe to assume, that they aren't world where body sculpting, meaning outrageous body modding and crazy fashion are a thing...

These are again, out of universe crutches and I don't see how they support OP's concern as they are out of CP 2077 universe, which one distinctive social aspect is, that looks don't mean anything unless going to Adam Smasher level. What Didacgomez and some others of us have been trying to explain is that it's universe where people alter their physical appearance like chancing clothes.

No crutch at all -- this is the whole genre! These are the other productions and expressions of exactly this style of art (game design) that CP2077 will be competing against on the market. These are the titles that directly set the standards that studios are all trying to raise. (Not the least of which was TW3, as it is something that now casts its shadow over even CDPR, itself. A very hard act to follow. The same can be said about Skyrim vs. Fallout 4 at Bethesda.)

I also think that you may be mixing up the motif and aesthetics of world-building with the real-world considerations for cohesive delivery of a piece through a given medium. It's totally irrelevant if Cyberpunk is a world in which body augmentation and sculpting is a normal thing. Regardless of that element of world-building in the Cyberpunk universe, creating characters that resonate with a real-world audience is still a real-world consideration.

Also, the other games offer just as much if not more customization in their character creation engines. The key is that once a player creates a given look for a character, comes up with a backstory, decides on what their character should sound like, how they act...there's little to nothing that happens in the game to dispel that illusion. In Cyberpunk, if I manage to create a character that's too far away from the intended portrayal of V, I probably won't get through the tutorial opening before I start to feel that my visulaization just doesn't fit.

It's possible to write script and character using text editor, then later find that character doesn't fit as well as originally thought in scenario or setting author thought. That's hardly problem of text editor and its features.

This is a different concern. You're responding here to creating a character as a writer, not a player. I'm not saying that there should be no character creation menu -- I'm saying that the options provided -- the types of hairstyles and facial features, and scars, and chrome -- that are available during that section would benefit by being limited to combinations that better capture the essence of V.

Yes, this would limit player freedom in expression, but it would increase the wider resonance of the V the game tries to define in such detail.

Using V as member or former member of poser gang actually works as it eliminates something I tried to highlight in this discussion earlier with pharmacy and Deckard / Miller example. If you imagine circle and start putting characteristics of these two characters in those circles and then put them in CP 2077 universe and see what's meaningful in context of game, you end up with overlapping circles because as far as game goes in meaningful interaction, they are the same character with different appearance. You wrote about being a thespian, so you probably did that.

But with Elvish poser gang member we can study the case bit differently.

Disclaimer: I'm not by any means suggesting that CP 2077 features a lacking in this regard or that at this point this is nothing but a wild goose chase in any other meaning but visioning possible bottlenecks for future games.

But really, accent, manner of speech, a lot could be done with these, while dialogue stays to same and CP 2077 is pretty good base case for that, I haven't played but Mass Effect from the games mentioned. There is Outer Worlds, Fallout 3/ New Vegas and Wasteland 3 I can think of are similar in one way or another but I really can't remember Shepard ever saying anything interesting and that's not his/her role in universe, character is build around certain archetype very different from V.

Meanwhile I think of encounter between Brendan and V and V and Theo later on that side job. If players goal would be playing, not necessarily Elvish poser gang member but V from Southern States having that accent available for that character would be huge and missing that option while trying to play character with that sort of background really disrupts that illusion.

But like I wrote, there are limits to what can be achieved. It's not just about recording the voice, but voice also increased production and bureaucratic overhead and matters like how to localize that? then additional Q&A and support after launch.

Many games do decide on an extremely neutral approach to voicing their protagonists. Personally, I've never liked this approach, which is why I've always preferred silent protagonists. I'd argue that, with Mass Effect 1, we finally received a protagonist that was voiced with enough nuance and personality that it was very engaging. I was initially really disappointed when Dragon Age Origins had a silent protagonist, but I quickly came to accept and understand it.

CDPR really knocked it out of the park with TW2 and TW3, though. And I think that V follows in Geralt's footsteps: a nuanced performance that makes the player character feel completely immersed in the action of the story, rather than a silent observer or outsider that gets caught up in other characters' issues.

In the future, I fully expect we'll see more variety in this regard. Perhaps studios with enough resources to have 6 different actors voice the whole game as potential protagonists for players to choose from. Something like that would definitely throw the doors open a lot wider for creating more diverse characters that still feel like they fit.

Monologue idea looks good especially if player could mix and match with features. Justifying costs of localizing all that, is there really big enough market for that to feature attract new players, entirely different matter.

What I have got from this topic overall is that enabling players to customize their character in story would help a lot. It's not what OP asked but that's what I see CDPR could actually do.

Players have always loved creating their own characters. I normally spend hours and hours fiddling with things -- only to have my character look differently in the game than it looked in the creation screen -- at which point I'd back out and start over.

I'd say there's a large market for it. Anything that offers players ways of connecting more with a game is always a big hit. But, like anything else, balance in all things. It's possible to overdo it, as well. Very often, less is more.