Can we please stop the 'it was promised' nonsense?

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I'm genuinely starting to believe even the marketing team had no clue how to market the game. Marketing Team: So guys what is this game, RPG, Action, Deus Ex light, GTA, Story, Adventure, linear, non linear, Open World, Sandbox how should we market it? Developers: We don't have a clue, sorry.

I don't think the developers deliberately lied about anything, they just didn't have a clue that features or mechanics or core elements like actual branching dialogue would be cut every 2 years when the lead comes in and scraps almost everything they have worked on these past years. Oh, Keanu is on board lets rewrite the whole mainstory and everything revolves around Johnny now.

It was a way too ambitious project for a team and especially managment with no clear plan or focus. Game development is hard and stuff gets cut and rewritten etc and with a less ambitious project this is difficult but manageable. This game was mismanaged from left to right but we made Witcher 3 we will manage! The famous "BioWare magic" the arrogance befell CDPR too now.
Very controversial opinion, about their marketing team having no clue how to market the game. Sales say something opposite :)
 
Very controversial opinion, about their marketing team having no clue how to market the game. Sales say something opposite :)
I don't think its controversial at all this thread is about the "promised" stuff not sales. The marketing for this game has been criticised by a lot of people those last months. There reputation is the lowest it has ever been and the Witcher 3 downgrade shitstorm is nothing against this. They traded reputation, game was pulled from the playstation store, lawsuits, for good short term sales.

Sure, they sold 13+ millions or something but longevity sales will suffer. Also those 13 millions are not exclusively because of the Cyberpunk marketing its their carefully cultivated image they worked for all these years and gaming medias darling Witcher 3 obviously played a big part in this. I'm not trying to mock Witcher 3 i love it especially its expansions but their image flipped completely as of now.
 
Where there's smoke...

I've never bought a product that I felt under delivered more in my life. Now, I haven't had the time to play a lot of games in the past six years or so and definitely didn't follow the cdpr marketing for this game. I watched the 2018 demo post completion of the game for example. Yet, I can count on one hand the features of the game I felt stood out as really well executed. Some really middle of the road. But mostly I discovered inconsistent, rushed, broken or flat out missing features.

There are tons of perks in this game which does absolutely nothing, either because they're not working or because they have no bearing what so ever on gameplay. Sometimes I feel like the person making the perks didn't know how the game would play. That's awful for a game that was supposedly a rpg all throughout development. Same goes for modification to your body and weapons. And the crafting system that feels duct taped to the game in a desperate bid to have it in the game.

And for the people saying "nuh, all the features are there. You just had your expectations to high".

Expectations don't grow from thin air. cdpr build a hype train and ran out of rails.

There's no point arguing what constitutes a missing feature since people, evidently, can strech their reasoning to count broken features as present in the game.

Finally, how conditioned have you become. This industry is such a mess. When I read what some people say it makes me want to just leave and watch the exploitation burn the scene from a distance. The customers must look after themselves-- they haven't and continues to shill for bad practice.

I won't touch a title from this studio again but I'll follow the development to see how they'll salvage this. Can't wait for people to cheer and celebrate cdpr once they add a barber like they're doing us all a favor from the kindness of their heart. Not knowing this is the new way of selling games early access.
 
Sometimes I feel like the person making the perks didn't know how the game would play.

There's probably some truth there. I get the impression that the game CDPR was making at some point in development became a moving target. For huge software projects, it's very important to have a clear vision from the very start, where you define everything up front: Features to be in the game, as well as how they should work, and priorities for which are the most important features. Also The feel and experience the game should convey, in minute detail. How each element should make the player feel. Plus artwork, etc. It should all be defined before the coding starts, and then it's easier because you know the order of operations and where to focus work.

Once those kinds of things are defined, they should be set in stone. You might change how they work if the gameplay isn't there, but you don't strip them out. You don't add big new features to the list, until all the stuff on your list is done and working the way you want it to. You should have a project document that defines all of that stuff, that you can hand to new employees (including managers!) that says "here's what we're doing, and how we plan to do it." So everybody is on the same page from the minute they walk in the door and stays on the same page. You don't let the new manager who just took over steer the ship in a different direction they like, you just point back to the design doc and say "no, we're not doing that."

That's what it feels like is missing here. The consistent vision seems to have been compromised and shuffled about until priorities got muddled and just a bunch of stuff got half-done and then cobbled together. Not everything of course, but enough that it just doesn't feel like a coherent whole.
 
Where there's smoke...

I've never bought a product that I felt under delivered more in my life. Now, I haven't had the time to play a lot of games in the past six years or so and definitely didn't follow the cdpr marketing for this game. I watched the 2018 demo post completion of the game for example. Yet, I can count on one hand the features of the game I felt stood out as really well executed. Some really middle of the road. But mostly I discovered inconsistent, rushed, broken or flat out missing features.

There are tons of perks in this game which does absolutely nothing, either because they're not working or because they have no bearing what so ever on gameplay. Sometimes I feel like the person making the perks didn't know how the game would play. That's awful for a game that was supposedly a rpg all throughout development. Same goes for modification to your body and weapons. And the crafting system that feels duct taped to the game in a desperate bid to have it in the game.

And for the people saying "nuh, all the features are there. You just had your expectations to high".

Expectations don't grow from thin air. cdpr build a hype train and ran out of rails.

There's no point arguing what constitutes a missing feature since people, evidently, can strech their reasoning to count broken features as present in the game.

Finally, how conditioned have you become. This industry is such a mess. When I read what some people say it makes me want to just leave and watch the exploitation burn the scene from a distance. The customers must look after themselves-- they haven't and continues to shill for bad practice.

I won't touch a title from this studio again but I'll follow the development to see how they'll salvage this. Can't wait for people to cheer and celebrate cdpr once they add a barber like they're doing us all a favor from the kindness of their heart. Not knowing this is the new way of selling games early access.

Fucking preach this
 

Guest 4519094

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jesus christ this thread is still open :(
scary how on point the OP was and still is
 
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The fact that there are people who will debate on what they're entitled to receive from any product just proves how marketing can override people's critical thinking skills.

Nobody ever watched a movie trailer, thought it looked interesting only to watch the movie and be disappointed, and then proclaimed the director promised it would be different. What? That's the whole point of marketing, it's to get you to buy the thing. Period.

No matter what was shown when and by whom, anything is liable to change when comes manufacturing a product. Even more so with technology. I feel bad for anyone who thought "Living breathing city" meant they could follow an npc for 30 mins and watch him drive to his house with his family. Technology hasn't even gotten to that point.

I'm not saying the game is perfect, but is it far from what I expected not really. BL3, for example, had arguably as many issues as 2077, albeit not so many graphical bugs. There we're a ton of skills that didn't work as intended, loads of guns that had incorrect dmg stats, poor end-game content balancing etc... Was I surprised by that? Of course not, it's a gearbox game, a lot of those same issues were present in BL2.

People really need to start taking a look at the industry before they start talking about "promises", this is the same industry that's pushing gamers to buy 4k TVs when no PC/Console hardware is truly ready for next gen 4K. But people are still buying into it.
 
There's probably some truth there. I get the impression that the game CDPR was making at some point in development became a moving target. For huge software projects, it's very important to have a clear vision from the very start, where you define everything up front: Features to be in the game, as well as how they should work, and priorities for which are the most important features.

100% agree. If the reports are to be believed they overhauled the scope, vision of the game in 2016 after creative differences with the original project lead who then left and then understaffed it to boot. I have been thinking about the "moving" target issue to the game feels like that. In some aspects it really well done, in others it feels like half baked ideas they rushed to get some level of completeness on it as they ran out of time to fully flesh it out.

But getting back to my main point, and while I agree with many of the criticisms it does not mean anything implied or shown was a "promise". A game and PR dept that over played its hand and failed at tempering the hype train? Mislead consumers? Failed at delivering on expectations? Arguably yes on all counts. However showing you a vertical slice or saying they expect something will be in is a far cry from a "promise" and that is my only point. The comments of "they promised..' just for whatever reason grinds my gears. There is a clear line both figuratively and literal grammar between "unmet expectations" or "under delivered" and "promised". No dev ever "promises" a feature, as they, and frankly gamers older then teens, should know nothing is in stone until it goes gold. Like it or not that is the reality of the industry. And again while they should not have been as misleading as they were, gamers need to be more savvy and not just mindlessly buy into the PR without critical thinking or taking all PR long before release as "subject to change" and that includes major items being changed or cut. .
 
Well Skyrim has been out for 10 years, and the Special Edition right now has more players on Steam than CP77.
Skyrim has more players because Cyberpunk Its mediocre, a joke of a release. Thats why. It will soon be forgotten. At e3 maybe will have a glimpse of GTA 6 and Elder Scroll 6. Real next gen games.
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That's your opinion :shrug: You act like you won some argument, lol.
Its true boss. Your în denial. În few months the game will be really dead. And people will still play Skyrim.
 
Its true boss. Your în denial. În few months the game will be really dead. And people will still play Skyrim.
About what I'm in denial, guy changed his opinion in less than 10 minutes. It's all there, boss. :facepalm:
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I don't think its controversial at all this thread is about the "promised" stuff not sales. The marketing for this game has been criticised by a lot of people those last months. There reputation is the lowest it has ever been and the Witcher 3 downgrade shitstorm is nothing against this. They traded reputation, game was pulled from the playstation store, lawsuits, for good short term sales.

Sure, they sold 13+ millions or something but longevity sales will suffer. Also those 13 millions are not exclusively because of the Cyberpunk marketing its their carefully cultivated image they worked for all these years and gaming medias darling Witcher 3 obviously played a big part in this. I'm not trying to mock Witcher 3 i love it especially its expansions but their image flipped completely as of now.
It's controversial, because you said, they had no clue, what they were doing. I think opposite, based on how succesfull it was. So what company did with marketing wasn't intentional...? It's all some luck?How so? :shrug:
 
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There's probably some truth there. I get the impression that the game CDPR was making at some point in development became a moving target. For huge software projects, it's very important to have a clear vision from the very start, where you define everything up front: Features to be in the game, as well as how they should work, and priorities for which are the most important features. Also The feel and experience the game should convey, in minute detail. How each element should make the player feel. Plus artwork, etc. It should all be defined before the coding starts, and then it's easier because you know the order of operations and where to focus work.

Once those kinds of things are defined, they should be set in stone. You might change how they work if the gameplay isn't there, but you don't strip them out. You don't add big new features to the list, until all the stuff on your list is done and working the way you want it to. You should have a project document that defines all of that stuff, that you can hand to new employees (including managers!) that says "here's what we're doing, and how we plan to do it." So everybody is on the same page from the minute they walk in the door and stays on the same page. You don't let the new manager who just took over steer the ship in a different direction they like, you just point back to the design doc and say "no, we're not doing that."

That's what it feels like is missing here. The consistent vision seems to have been compromised and shuffled about until priorities got muddled and just a bunch of stuff got half-done and then cobbled together. Not everything of course, but enough that it just doesn't feel like a coherent whole.

I had a sense of this playing the game and didn't know how to express it. Since you share the sentiment I wonder, what du you think were some keywords guiding the development?

'Cause I can't tell for sure. Maybe expansive?
 
About what I'm in denial, guy changed his opinion in less than 10 minutes. It's all there, boss. :facepalm:
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It's controversial, because you said, they had no clue, what they were doing. I think opposite, based on how succesfull it was. So what company did with marketing wasn't intentional...? It's all some luck?How so? :shrug:
Sir the next gen game of the decade, the superb, finished, optimized, best game ever Cyberpunk 2077(73 days old) has the same number of players as a 10 year old game Skyrim or 5 year Witcher 3:
1614061213074.png

comp.png


It will be so dead in 3 months.
 
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See, this is just a pretty divisive tactic.
Instead of arguing about the core issue, that the game wasn't at all what we were led to believe/expect, you hang the legitimacy of the complaints on the term promises.

We were told to expect certain features, we were never told they wouldn't be in it, apart from some specific points like wall-running.
Thus, we were expecting a completely different game at release and that is without even taking into account the bugs, the broken or at least barely existent AI for citizens, cops and gangs and of course car drivers.
It also doesn't include a skill tree which is in parts just completely useless and has skills which aren't even implemented in the game.
It also doesn't include the (successful) attempt to hide the problems with then last-gen consoles until the actual release.

The game was released too early, they should never have given that initial release date and once they realized the problems and decided to delay it, they should have just stick to what they initially said and release the game when ready and not give a release date until it was certain.

I'm sorry, but what CDPR should do, if they are in any way still the company they were when they released Witcher 2 and 3, is make a clear commitment whether they will reimplement missing features, and if so which, and if they will fix and improve non-Story NPC AI and other of the glaring faults.
Instead, we get plain lies (like they didn't know how bad the console versions were), claims that have no foundation in reality (like there are unscripted car chases in the game when there clearly aren't), unspecified promises of patches without any halfway decent timeline, just nothing really substantial, apart from a rough time frame for the first two patches, of which the first one already turned out not really being of any significance.
Yes, this would take time, so I wouldn't complain about an extended period of fixing and working on the game, but I want a clear commitment to what they will actually do.

I know they have their problems now, and I'm really sorry they were hacked, but this started way before that.
 

Guest 3847602

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It will be so dead in 3 months.
Ignoring the fact that "dead game" is the one you're no longer being able to run:
a) lot of people own GOG version
b) Cyberpunk will be receiving free dlc and paid expansions in the future so its numbers will inevitably go upwards again
c) who cares if Cyberpunk will still have 20000 players in 5-10 years
 
Sir the next gen game of the decade, the superb, finished, optimized, best game ever Cyberpunk 2077(73 days old) has the same number of players as a 10 year old game Skyrim:
View attachment 11182768
It will be so dead in 3 months.
It's your imaginitive argument, nobody said game of decade has to be played by any player even 1 month after realease, it's your personal criteria. I could ask how many people played and how many hours each of titles, and I could make "argument" that Cyberpunk is game of the decade :shrug:or because 1 million (steam) players played it at peak it destroyed Skyrim and any other single player game in history, so that's why it's greates game ever.
You see it - very easy to write nonsense. :shrug:
 
The fact that there are people who will debate on what they're entitled to receive from any product just proves how marketing can override people's critical thinking skills.

Nobody ever watched a movie trailer, thought it looked interesting only to watch the movie and be disappointed, and then proclaimed the director promised it would be different. What? That's the whole point of marketing, it's to get you to buy the thing. Period.

No matter what was shown when and by whom, anything is liable to change when comes manufacturing a product. Even more so with technology. I feel bad for anyone who thought "Living breathing city" meant they could follow an npc for 30 mins and watch him drive to his house with his family. Technology hasn't even gotten to that point.

I'm not saying the game is perfect, but is it far from what I expected not really. BL3, for example, had arguably as many issues as 2077, albeit not so many graphical bugs. There we're a ton of skills that didn't work as intended, loads of guns that had incorrect dmg stats, poor end-game content balancing etc... Was I surprised by that? Of course not, it's a gearbox game, a lot of those same issues were present in BL2.

People really need to start taking a look at the industry before they start talking about "promises", this is the same industry that's pushing gamers to buy 4k TVs when no PC/Console hardware is truly ready for next gen 4K. But people are still buying into it.


A game is not a film, a game trailer is not a film trailer. And if you go as far as using a film trailer as a comparison. It rarely happens that a trailer shows a scene that isn't in the actual film, they just pick the best part.
As for the living breathing city, they claimed basically exactly what you say isn't even possible, which in reality is at least possible to an extent, as games like Red Dead Redemption show.

And while there is a lot of truth in what you say about the industry, let's not forget that CDPR spend years to cultivate the impression that they were not at all like the rest of the industry. That they were better in the way they keep their promises, treat their customers and staff and that making good games was more important to them than just earning a lot of money with them.
None of which was true or at least not any longer and that definitely adds to the frustration and the feeling of betrayal so many of us feel.
 
A game is not a film, a game trailer is not a film trailer. And if you go as far as using a film trailer as a comparison. It rarely happens that a trailer shows a scene that isn't in the actual film, they just pick the best part.
As for the living breathing city, they claimed basically exactly what you say isn't even possible, which in reality is at least possible to an extent, as games like Red Dead Redemption show.

And while there is a lot of truth in what you say about the industry, let's not forget that CDPR spend years to cultivate the impression that they were not at all like the rest of the industry. That they were better in the way they keep their promises, treat their customers and staff and that making good games was more important to them than just earning a lot of money with them.
None of which was true or at least not any longer and that definitely adds to the frustration and the feeling of betrayal so many of us feel.
Movie trailer can mislead by showing a lot of action, when movie is not about action. It happened thousand of times with many variations. if they will show best parts of movie, and ignore worst how it's not misleading?
 
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