As I sat pondering Cyberpunk 2077

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"less effort" isnt something that comes to mind when i think of cyberpunk .
the amount of time and effort that went into character models, animations, voice acting etc is unprecedented.
all those little details make the characters feel alive
It's absolutely not unprecedented.

They simply used more sophisticated technology available than other studios, because technology has advanced.
 
It's absolutely not unprecedented.

They simply used more sophisticated technology available than other studios, because technology has advanced.
In fairness, I played AC Valhalla and CP2077 back to back. Very different games, but CP is on another level (in my opinion) in terms of how the characters look, move and sound. The detail is pretty crazy. Might just be me, but I never felt invested in any of the characters in Valhalla.
 
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In fairness, I played AC Valhalla and CP2077 back to back. Very different games, but CP is on another level (in my opinion) in terms of how the characters look, move and sound. The detail is pretty crazy. Might just be me, but I never felt invested in any of the characters in Valhalla.
All thanks to JALI, their facial animation technology. And as a cherry on top, you get amazing voice acting, which, to be honest, is one of the main reasons I got so attached to the characters in CP2077. Oh, and first-person, yes, good use of first-person is another reason for that.
 
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In fairness, I played AC Valhalla and CP2077 back to back. Very different games, but CP is on another level (in my opinion) in terms of how the characters look, move and sound. The detail is pretty crazy. Might just be me, but I never felt invested in any of the characters in Valhalla.
I am currently playing odyssey and I will absolutely agree that the character details of cp are higher - if you have a highest end PC.

On consoles, odyssey and Valhalla look better than cp. The animations are mixed. Combat looks far better in odyssey but I fully expected that, because melee combat is assassins creeds big plus.
However, the open world feels better in odyssey. The looks of old Greece feel authentic just like NC feels authentic. Both games offer customisation in the Form of skill trees. Cp has more and possibilities without a doubt but at the same time, the customisation is more shallow. More skills don't equal better customisation. Weapons and armor can be engraved as well and all weapon types feel different enough. Big plus for ac for the unlockable special moves. Cp offers the cyberdeck in return. Ac however has the ship and all those possibilities.

The German vo for kassandra (odyssey) is excellent as well. Valhallas characters seemed a bit stiff in videos - absolutely true. So far, the story was not disappointing and the arcs were OK.

The problem is that CP's core systems often simply don't work, are imbalanced, heavily scripted (try out to not do anything in the car chases) and often overblown.

Sure. Some things simply look better in a more modern game - surprise, surprise.
 
I am currently playing odyssey and I will absolutely agree that the character details of cp are higher - if you have a highest end PC.

On consoles, odyssey and Valhalla look better than cp. The animations are mixed. Combat looks far better in odyssey but I fully expected that, because melee combat is assassins creeds big plus.
However, the open world feels better in odyssey. The looks of old Greece feel authentic just like NC feels authentic. Both games offer customisation in the Form of skill trees. Cp has more and possibilities without a doubt but at the same time, the customisation is more shallow. More skills don't equal better customisation. Weapons and armor can be engraved as well and all weapon types feel different enough. Big plus for ac for the unlockable special moves. Cp offers the cyberdeck in return. Ac however has the ship and all those possibilities.

The German vo for kassandra (odyssey) is excellent as well. Valhallas characters seemed a bit stiff in videos - absolutely true. So far, the story was not disappointing and the arcs were OK.

The problem is that CP's core systems often simply don't work, are imbalanced, heavily scripted (try out to not do anything in the car chases) and often overblown.

Sure. Some things simply look better in a more modern game - surprise, surprise.
Yeah I think Valhalla has a good equipment system, and Odyssey has a better perk system for sure. Valhalla’s perk tree(?) made me want to perish.
I’m still on the OG Xbox one, and it really struggles with CP2077, so I think studios are really overextending by still catering to systems as old as mine. But yeah, I think the areas CP2077 really excels are their characters and the worldbuilding for me. The perks don’t stand out so much, might just be me but there are so many perks that don’t seem unique or interesting enough to strive for.
 
Yeah I think Valhalla has a good equipment system, and Odyssey has a better perk system for sure. Valhalla’s perk tree(?) made me want to perish.
I’m still on the OG Xbox one, and it really struggles with CP2077, so I think studios are really overextending by still catering to systems as old as mine. But yeah, I think the areas CP2077 really excels are their characters and the worldbuilding for me. The perks don’t stand out so much, might just be me but there are so many perks that don’t seem unique or interesting enough to strive for.
Character building should be one of CP's strengths. CP's character building in terms of story development however is hit or miss.

The Witcher did this far better.

From a purely visual perspective, yes, the unique characters look fantastic. On the other hand - I have not yet seen an ugly character model in odyssey either. The equipment also looks excellent and you have a transmog system.
 
All thanks to JALI, their facial animation technology. And as a cherry on top, you get amazing voice acting, which, to be honest, is one of the main reasons I got so attached to the characters in CP2077. Oh, and first-person, yes, good use of first-person is another reason for that.

Sorry to said this but as a deaf person myself, JALI suck... I don't know what TW3 is using for his lip-sync and facial expression but I take real pleasure to read the lips when Geralt or other are talking...
 
Sorry to said this but as a deaf person myself, JALI suck... I don't know what TW3 is using for his lip-sync and facial expression but I take real pleasure to read the lips when Geralt or other are talking...
Wait. Is the lipsynch really off? I thought my soundsetup at home was the cause for it.
 
Me sentiments exactly. Especially the news reports. SO many of these sites are paid to push thier sponsors and bash anything that may take away from their merchandise.
My favourite one I've been directed to is some clickbait news site that claimed V would be able to install and use Mr Stud/Midnight Lady mods. It was linked (on this forum) as an example of a promise that CDPR hadn't fulfilled. Reading the article I followed a link in it to the original source of quotes from CDPR. This was an interview with a CDPR employee which never made such a promise and just said those things were in the world (which is what I got from the original article as well). Too many people are just taking whatever nonsense they read/see on the net as true and even imagining more and then blaming CDPR for not delivering those promises.

There are some very specific things that didn't make it into the game - all of which they said were not going to make it before launch. Nearly everything else I have seen has been delivered as indicated in 2019, especially if one applies some literacy and trims the marketing speak from what was shown. (I mean you don't believe McDonald's makes gourmet food just because that's what they call part of their menu.)
 
I was sitting here reflecting on the game. I totally get the frustration and even the anger over it not being what was marketed to us.

I try to keep in mind that CoVid created delays and other issues.

I try remember that part of why there are deadlines for games like this one are related to simple fact that the money pot is not bottomless. There has to be a point where you put what you have developed out on the market in the hopes of not losing everything. Sometimes, that's gonna come back to bite you in the ass.

I try to keep in mind that many people are confined to their homes, often involuntarily. That jobs are being lost. That businesses are going under. That having no option, other than to stay home with your kids while they may (or may not) be forced into online learning is stressful.

I try to keep in mind that the past few years have shown us the decline of the gaming industry. We, the buyers, want more depth, more immersion, more graphic beauty, more personal interactivity. The simple problem here is that the industry is struggling to find ways to give us what we demand... and in a timely and cost effective fashion.

I try to keep in mind that many of us, MANY OF US, are not programmers. We do not fully understand the limitations of code. We complain and bitch about how things are not perfect... but the simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of us cannot do better.

I try to keep in mind that expecting perfection is not reasonable. We often expect in others, but we would each be mortified and angered by having others expect it of us. The devs are just human. The marketing team should made us all aware much sooner that the game was not going to be what we were first introduced to. It leaves me wondering if the marketing team fully understood where the dev team was. Makes me wonder if the administration was being transparent with them.

I try to keep in mind that for the past few years the gaming industry has failed at almost every level. NMS is an anomaly... and frankly still falls much further from than mark than Cyberpunk does, imho. I wanted BG3 to be good, not great, and it will clearly never be what it should have been. But I take consolation from the fact that it was not put in the hands of EA and Bioware. The teams that "created" Anthem... again a colossal failure. I hoped Wolcen would be the next Diablo... no change there. I then hoped that Godfall might be able to step up and be the next big looter.... nope. I look at the Dragon Age games, Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 76... awful. The announcement by Blizzard that the next Diablo game would only
be available on mobile..??!!! And the list goes on and on and on.

It has been a grievously disappointing few years for gamers, so I definitely get all the angst and frustration.

In the end, I bought the game and it is not at all what I was hoping for. However, I have been alive long enough to understand the over-hype... and to even prepare for the game to fall short. I can still hold out hope that they will turn the corner and repair some of they failed at. It would be unreasonable to expect them to deliver on all points, I never expected them too.

I can enjoy what I have received. I do not feel cheated. I would encourage you all to hold out hope and be constructive in your appeals to the Team at CDPR to fix this game. I don't suggest you need to be pleasant or passive or accepting; be loud and angry and unapologetic. But be constructive.
I don't care what happened in 2020, it happened to ALL of us, CDPR doesn't get a pass for that. It's 100 percent inexcusable to have released the game in the state it was regardless of the platform. It's even more sinister to have released it KNOWING FULL WELL that it was F'd up the way it was. To then come out a few weeks later and say "we're sorry", oh man....

We owe them nothing, there should be NO praise. They didn't even get what they deserved. If there was a way for the shareholders to release all the CDPR managers that would be a start, but if the shareholders pushed those managers, then it's just screwed up all around.
 
Having grown up in Japan, a land that blends the ancient historic feudal past with the 'Blade Runner' future and then living in Thailand which dwells mainly on its past and stubbornly refuses to enter the future in so many ways, it's always struck me that gamers in particular are often 'ahead of time' or even 'outside of time' in our heads. We play sorcerers and giants, The Dragonborn and cyberpunks, star ship pilots and stealth warriors, effortlessly switching between these persona as easily as Kryten in Red Dwarf with his 'spare head number 2, sir' ...

Our minds can encompass the vicarious challenges of a medieval warrior, a WWII soldier, a special forces operative in the 23rd Century enhanced by cybernetic technology or a cool commanding Star Trek Captain. Our expectations are so high that each new sensory experience pushes our desire and 'need' levels to drug like proportions. Indeed AR/VR itself will be the narcotic of the future in which many will lose their grip on mundane 'meat' RL reality.

Consequently in the internet age, we have many of us lost our patience, or our ability to simply breathe in, wait, and let time heal or create stuff to match our expectations. They used to say ' if something ain't broke, don't fix it' and now the mantra is 'if something ain't perfect we demand that you fix it.. right F*kin NOW!!!!!!!'

Much as we all love 'value for money' and can dream the truly BIG dreams, we expect our gaming, movie and TV show producers to have an almost flawless grasp on our desires and sweat human capital blood for delivery, (and still face the political correctness backlash). There are times we need to maybe take a step or two back and simply say... 'This is The Way' . Maybe yes, in this case we were sold a 'beautiful nothing' lacking in the depth we are now conditioned to want 'or else'.

We sometimes maybe need to accept that, as others here have pointed out, we hanker after a fix from a virtual experience of a dystopian world with corrupt corpos, obsessive financial interests, social disappointment, profiteering, and trashy 'rip-off' cultures.. and then when we get a taste of this treatment in our own reality we rebel against it with abhorrence, demanding our 'rights' .. these days, it seems, $50 (or equivalent currency) doesn't buy you a whole lot of those....

' Commerce is our goal here'...
 
A lot of the commentary and responses I've seen over the past couple months are one of the big reasons I didn't follow much of the news or promo bullshit prior to the release. This is one of the most(if not the most)overhyped games of all time and it was never going to live up to people's expectations.

Having said that, it's the way they handled communication in the year leading up to release in addition to how they have responded to the backlash that bothers me the most. Everything surrounding how they have put out information is wicked shady. I could forgive things not being quite complete and buggy, but being made to feel like I'm not valued as a customer while feeling as if I'm being sold a bill of goods by a used car salesman is not good at all.

It's a shame too, because I actually really like the game we have so far. The developers have done a fantastic job with what's there, it's just not complete. If even half the stories I've read the past couple months are true, management at CDPR is a hot mess.

To CDPR if you care: You really need to start handling communication with your customers better, while it can still make a difference for the future of your company.
 
As a Playstation 4 owner of the preorder with the bonuses, I really hope I get ALL the DLC for free for not abandoning this company. I've played through Witcher 3 like 4 times (1st time on a disc when there were still hella bugs everywhere. and the last time with complete edition [even though i never technically finished blood and wine]}
 
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