we will see. I for one am not picking up the game again until the next gen upgrade patch. i might try another run then if it is solid but as it is i have no urge to do another playthrough
As an artist in my spare time I get the whole WIP disclaimer, but there is a correct way to use it and a not so correct way. For example anytime I or any other sculptor shows progress shots of what we're working on is usually bare bones with the disclaimer WIP; what you will not see are sculptors showing off some really awesome looking statue with immense amount of details while touting it's a WIP only to then release final shots of the finished statue with all those details toned way back.
Another example are the companies XMSTUDIOS and PRIME1, they'll show WIP shots of their upcoming prepaint statues that look phenomenal, but then the final shots of the final design look more awesome sometimes even completely redesigned with a better pose and more elaborate base,etc.
In short, you don't go backwards from a WIP.
So what's the answer? Don't show WIP? They certainly won't after what happened. Not before any future game is 95% done. They didn't even plan to show 48 min demo to the public, only to journalists. It was only after 3-4 months of constant "SHOW US WHAT YOU SHOWED TO THEM!!!" that they decided to release it.
With all the respect to your profession (i'm a nullity in arts so is real respect), but comparisons only work between similar subjects/disciplines and i can guarantee you that in software and hardware development changing and redifining during the project is mostly not to add features.
The concept remains the same in that you show what you can achieve or paint a roadmap of the direction( usually forward ) of where you are headed. To throw in a bunch of features for the sake of a demo that you only tested for the scripted video only to remove said features is bad.
Changing and redefining in software is a constant, but if it's too the point of gutting then the development was never on point to begin with. Regardless of what cdpr removed it's a safe assumption that poor design choices were made for this type of game.
To use my initial analogy to further illustrate the point. Sometimes when you design an awesome statue, after it's all sculpted and detailed you start the process of engineering it for 3D print( sometimes this is done before the statue is complete) and you test print and realize said statue pose will not work in reality( falls over, puts too much stress on keyed parts in base and statue ) so you have to redesign the pose. But you don't just throw together some mediocre pose that takes away from the initial concept, you simply design an equally cool pose, sometimes more so. You don't take steps backwards, you take them to the side or maybe even a little forward.
I hate comparisons so I do apologize for using them. But it seems a lot of people don't fully understand the phrase WIP. And I realize with game development when it comes down to the wire and they can't get something to work they have to scrap it due to deadlines.
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I really think that from now on this is exactly what will happen and therefore we will not see anything at all or almost until a few weeks/days before the release (and not only for CDPR)
That what Bethesda did for Fallout 4 and it worked out, marketing wise.I really think that from now on this is exactly what will happen and therefore we will not see anything at all or almost until a few weeks/days before the release (and not only for CDPR)
A computer game is not a physical object, let's be fair here.
Neither is a digital sculpture, until it's printed. Again, the concept is the same in regards to a WIP.
I can agree
For Cyberpunk, for example, at the start of development, a XB1 was a brand new console (even not even released) and at the release of the game, an outdated console...
So in my opinion, for video games, it's much more difficult to predict what might or might not be done during the develpment (or even add something that initially seemed totally impossible).
I can't comment about hype and that as I didn't follow that but I don't think creating a digital sculpture requires working with other people, entire departments. There's is one creator, for product like CP 2077 there are many visions from different people and those visions are bound to clash at some point.
Something comparable I can think of is car industry where it often takes 6 years from concept car to mass production (if concept makes it at all) and mass market version may not have that much in common with original concept car.
For CP 2077 their work making visual models, body language including micro expressions and writing together is something I haven't seen anywhere else. Gaming industry likes this story how every new product is so much more impressive, but what I have seen really is better graphical fidelity powered by more RAM and more powerful CPU's and especially GPU's. That's not the same thing at all what was done with CP 2077.
The difference is that a videogame (software in general, some types of hardware like integrated circuits or @CS554 car example) are complex systems understood as a systems composed of multiple systems interacting with each other, that might work isolated or in limited scales (like a demo) and stop working or working unexpectly when tested in large scale or with unpredicted inputs (as millions of operating systems updates testify) .
There is a whole field called "regression testing" which is extremely time consuming that just tries to find bugs that are introduced while modifying apparently indepent parts (i.e. you fix something, you break 3 new things unrelated). You might drop a feature that look cool in a limited test, but is too difficult to make it work later in the whole.
If you want the tale of a sad script that stopped working after 6 months (its an old game, but complexity has increased also with years and verification tools have not kept the pace):
"The first bug has to do with a script I wrote nine months ago. The script is simple, direct and flawless."
https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/02/21/developer-journal-arcanum-pt-3
They had even as a easter egg Q&A quotes in the game journal (they tested quite a lot it seems, still Arcanum was/is a bugfest):
"
{84}{Upon entering Stillwater, two naked men kick a blue rabbit to death.
-From the Arcanum QA bug list"
"
"
{17}{I just broke the combat module today.
-Jesse
When did you create it?
-Tim
Today.
-Jesse}"
For the fans of testing coherence in the script or the options, sometimes Q&A also picks this kind of stuff (other times not):
"
You are able to ask Willow (the virgin prostitute) to tie you up and make it hurt. This doesn't seem appropriate for Willow as Cassie and Alice will take care of this for you. In fact, Willow refers you to Bunny when you ask her to tie you up and make it hurt, which Bunny isn't into either.
-From the Arcanum QA bug list}
"
Depends, if you're sculpting for yourself then no you don't work with other people. If you're sculpting for a client/private collector you're working with/for them and doing the piece based on their designs and specifications, which can and do change through the course of the project.
If you're sculpting a piece for a company you're then working for multiple people, depending on company; art director, base sculptor, etc.
I'm not denying there's more work put into a game, but no matter how is laid out, examples of coding, scripting, etc, the premises of a WIP is still to show what you can achieve/the direction you're going in.
Adding a bunch of features for an isolated environment and then removing said features when actually trying to incorporate into the game falls more under an alpha or early tech demo. I get that features are dropped during a games development but in cyberpunks case it was rather extreme.
I don't think it was. What did they drop? Wallrunning? Whoop. They let you have jump, double jump and *&^@ hover legs. I can assure you most of those weren't in the PnP and I recall only seeing a boost jump once in a trailer. Netrunning? We never saw the minigame hacking, but we saw the quickhacks. The deep-run netrunning was changed - had it been left in, I guarantee you many people would complain it was too complicated or intensive or just not-fun. A la braindance.
What else? I've seen the reddit lists and I laugh. Most of that is stuff one dev said in an interview once, while talking about what the current state was or what they hoped for. Or what players decided was in the game, such as riding the metro. Hardly show-then-take-away.
I liked the line from one of the "TV" spots where they talked about a customized sportscar and players decided that meant that customization was in the game.
The disjunction between what many players thought that the game was going to be and what it was is far from just CDPR's fault. Players heard what they wanted to hear, read what they wanted to see and ignored any later corrections or clarifications.
Should CDPR have said a lot less, since they obviously didn't realise how -much- people thought was going to be there? Oh yes. Should they have shown so many things that you couldn't do in-game like ride the metro or dual wield or have a good car chase? No, in retrospect, obviously not.
Thing is, they did this for Witcher series and it worked out, because people hadn't put that series on some impossible pedestal. Outside the console snafu, most of CDPR's failure in commitment was simple - they mismanaged hype and expectations. I think they know that now.
Also, comparing sculpting a single piece of art or even a series of pieces to a many-year, hundreds-of-people involved, multi-million dollar mega project? Not the same scale at all. What you are offering and showing clients is in a really different atmosphere and with really different expectations on both sides. Not to mention, much clearer communication opportunities than with the millions CDPR was trying to talk to/with.
To an extent, CDPR's own ambition bit them in the ass. Each Witcher game was a massive step up in scope and production values. We expected a similar leap with cyberpunk no matter what their misguided PR team put out. Add to that it was a buggy mess at launch and most crucially, the things Witcher did well, cyberpunk doesn't. In some cases it doesn't even try. So calling it mismanaged expectations seems a bit disingenuous to me. I'm sure everyone at the team is aware of this and knows it's PR speak. They went through this very same scenario with the TW3 downgrade. CDPR later fessed up, admitted the mistake and explained why in a Eurogamer interview. They obviously can't keep doing this. What worries me now is the number of devs that have left, lead talent responsible for some of their very best content. And the meager post release patching. I'm not talking new features but meaningful improvements. We're going on a year later and in their last update video they were literally highlighting the improved cat AI. What the hell is going on? Surely they're focused on bigger stuff? I know it's a massive project but to take this long and still be patching rudimentary issues doesn't inspire confidence. As of now TW3 has 23, 000 players on Steam. Cyberpunk has less than half of that.
So to sum up your post it was simply bad direction. A WIP is a WIP whether hundreds of people are involved or not, you show the direction, what can be achieved, hundreds of people being involved doesn't change that core aspect period, whether sculpting, programming or building a rocket.
Letting journalist run wild with exaggeration of features has also been a long time tactic of developers/publishers to help hype and sell their games and then claim plausible deniability; as well as wordplay from the developers themselves which fuels speculation and hype that they never correct until well after a games release with a "this is what was said and if you thought that meant confirmation then that's on you even though we intentionally worded it in a grey area and never explicitly said it was not a feature."
Admittedly I didn't follow the hype for cp2077, didn't watch any of the dev streams, etc. It wasn't until the complaints that I started looking back. Even disregarding the topic at hand on what was cut and what wasn't lack of certain basic features in this type of game show that maybe it was too ambitious for cdpr as the development appears to have been all over the place even more lack of visual customization in a game centered on the cyberpunk universe shows also maybe they didn't have a clear understanding of the content. CDPR was put on a pedestal for a reason. There were always going to be people upset no matter how the game turned out.
My only hope is that, at least on the pc, the modders will make the game better with an actual toolkit.
You've compared sculpting to building a rocket now... I don't wish to denigrate sculpting but clearly I've underappreciated just how incredibly complex and unpredictable it must be.
Resorting to personal attacks or rudeness is never a good idea, because it's the opposite of being respectful. Such content, and quotes of it, will get removed, like just happened.
Trigger warning! I've made no comparison to sculpting and making a rocket or video game. Try reading all my replies again.