Let's agree to hugely disagree then.
Which comes at the cost of two lvl whatever rifles.
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But he said few weeks, and few weeks is something between 2-9 weeks, 1 hour playing is 8 hours in game world. There's content for lets say 100 hours. It's 800 hours in game world so 34 days so 5 weeks. Ofc you can sleep every 16 hours, but it will still be around 7-8 weeks in game world, if you will play this way.
People should take some math lessons, before arguing about narrative in this game.
Obviously it's game, you can sit with Jackie in front of Megablock 10 ,infinite time, but that's on you not roleplaying just fooling around.
If people want enforced urgency in open world games, then they're essentially arguing for 100 hours / 200 hours of gameplay to be entirely linear and for sidequests to make a big bong noise and say "quest failed" the moment you do anything slightly out of order.
Alternatively, they want no urgency at all and a game where you can do anything at any time *with no actual story point to the game except fantasy wish fulfilment of becoming a VIP / celebrity / god* (hello Bethesda).
If you want open world games with player choice, you have to suspend disbelief one way or the other or you will end up with a completely vacuous gameplay experience, at one end of the experience, or a perfectly plotted set of quests that run on rails at the other where you cannot progress the story at all without doing the insanely dull "pick 20 flowers because Mrs Smith wants to make a bouquet for her dead husband" fetch quest.
Gamers seem to be asking for developers to square circles. They complain that a plot has no tension and there is too much to do. They complain that the plot has so much tension they do not do what there is to do. They complain that a story is too long. They complain that a story is too short.
These are contradictory demands and no one is going to make a game that costs several hundred million dollars personalised to your individual tastes.
Also, there seem to be some players who, when you parse what they're saying, criticise Cyberpunk entirely because it doesn't have a happy ending. If every game has to have a happy ending, that's pretty limiting, most especially in the cyberpunk genre. It's not a romance novel.
Alternatively, they want no urgency at all and a game where you can do anything at any time *with no actual story point to the game except fantasy wish fulfilment of becoming a VIP / celebrity / god* (hello Bethesda).
If you want open world games with player choice, you have to suspend disbelief one way or the other or you will end up with a completely vacuous gameplay experience, at one end of the experience, or a perfectly plotted set of quests that run on rails at the other where you cannot progress the story at all without doing the insanely dull "pick 20 flowers because Mrs Smith wants to make a bouquet for her dead husband" fetch quest.
Gamers seem to be asking for developers to square circles. They complain that a plot has no tension and there is too much to do. They complain that the plot has so much tension they do not do what there is to do. They complain that a story is too long. They complain that a story is too short.
These are contradictory demands and no one is going to make a game that costs several hundred million dollars personalised to your individual tastes.
Also, there seem to be some players who, when you parse what they're saying, criticise Cyberpunk entirely because it doesn't have a happy ending. If every game has to have a happy ending, that's pretty limiting, most especially in the cyberpunk genre. It's not a romance novel.
I appreciate the snarky comment about people taking a math lesson before arguing about narrative in Cyberpunk 2077. Perhaps I could toss one back at you that says you should study up on reading comprehension before replying to my posts.
The point of my post and the reply is that urgency is fine as a storytelling mechanic. But there is a right way and a wrong way to implement it. The example that I gave was to show an extreme and illustrate that suspension of disbelief only goes so far before it becomes irrational. Which is to say there are good ways and bad ways to use just about every storytelling device - including 'urgency'.
There are a plethora of people who have played Cyberpunk 2077 and thought that the way the story was delivered didn't completely hit home. It's not just on this thread. It is on other forums, in reviews, etc.
Obviously if you go out of your way to break immersion then that is on you. The player who wants to collect every item in the game, do a completionist run or get every achievement obviously has a different goal than someone just casually playing the game. But that is a lot different than a guy telling you that you have a short period of time to live, cutscenes that essentially have your brain melting/scrambling and then being like...
"Well, I've got seventeen quest markers right by me... should I go do some/all of the content in the game, which would be extremely irrational in this situation... or should I go try to fix my brain melting? I'm going to do the side content, because I want to experience the stuff they built and it is cool... but it doesn't seem to make much sense that would be my motivation in this setting.
Maybe I can just come back and do it after the main quest, since I'll probably be healed! Oh... well, I can... but that also doesn't make much sense... because I left Night City in the end... or I'm in space... or I am just literally not V anymore... and Johnny is still in my head during the content... for some reason, even though that no longer makes sense."
That's not true, you can do something in between. It's all about good writing and planning.
Than tell us how any ncpd hustle, fixer gig or sidemission is good planned or written a way it fits the msq plot... really curious where are these „well written“ or „good planned“ connections hidden, i couldn’t find on 10 chars+ and 2k+ hrs played...
I think the idea is that the main plot is well written enough to allow for interruptions between main missions. You can play the main mission straight through, but it doesn't feel "forced" to go off and do some side-quests between them. The one fair argument against this is the, "You have only weeks to live," element. I think that would have worked better if Viktor had said something like: "Never seen anything like this before. You might have days. You might have years. All I can tell you is that I don't see any way to stop it."
But the structure of the story is a lot better than games like Skyrim, where it's all:
"We need to get word to Whiterun as soon as we can!"
"Find the dragonstone tablet. Time is running out!"
"There's a dragon attacking! Hurry! Follow me!"
"You need to head to High Hrothgar immediately. There's no denying the Greybeards!"
"We've found out where the next dragon will rise! We need to get there first!"
"Hurry!"
"Go quickly!!"
"Now!!!"
...etc.
The trouble with that sort of storytelling is that everything is always at maximum urgency. If everything is always high-pressure...then nothing is. It's flat. In order for intense moments to feel intense, they need to be rare.
Can you?
The narrative dissonance of Witcher 3 basically screams "WTF". A game brimming with side quests in which you are in a race against time to save Ciri, in which, indeed, Yennefer even tells Geralt during a romantic interlude that the world won't end if they sit doing absolutely nothing to enjoy each other's company. When the whole point is that Ciri's life is in danger and the pair of them are trying to find her.
Meanwhile, Skyrim: a dragon is about to eat the world and a super urgent civil war is happening. But, hey, worry about hist sap.
What is this magic game with the magic story that is both engaging and brimming with tension and so freely interactable open world that it's also a sandbox?
This has been a standard problem with open world games for as long as they have existed. Almost any recognisable narrative that even attempts to be engaging is incompatible with a game that lets you do all things at all times. And players have always up to now recognised that you MUST suspend disbelief if you want this stuff.
I simply don't understand why this has come as a sudden surprise in Cyberpunk. I've said in the past, as @SigilFey also says above, that they could have used slightly different wording. But fundamentally the narrative dissonance in Cyberpunk is no different from that in other open world games and I actually think is handled vastly better than most without sacrificing story.
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It isn't just one line by Viktor though. It is also that you brain is literally exploding inside of your head and your character is expressing intense pain during most of the main story missions.
There are other solutions to this...
- The heist could have been presented later in the story.
- They could have let you play out the first part of the story and made the game longer.
- They could have put more artificial 'blocking mechanisms' in the story that give you the opportunity to do side content. (An example is the 15,000 eddies or whatever it is you need to get for Rogue. They could have come up with more creative ways to do things like that.)
Cyberpunk has excellent characters, in my opinion. It has an excellent story, in my opinion. It does a mediocre job of presenting/telling that excellent story to the player.
Again - something that is lost on most people is you can like something, you can even think something is great and still criticize it.
At this point this conversation is going in circles though. So I'm going to duck out.
I agree and on top of this for me it's how one mission connects to the next (you do one mission with Takemura and you finish with "see you tomorrow" for the next; characters say they will call in a couple of days but he calls on the same gameday; dialogues imprint urgency, constantly.
Also I believe CDPR tried to create a game that excites players to make replays of the game (different lifepaths, skillsets, endings...) "your cyberpunk, your story". One way to improve dramatically replayability would be to open up the city before meeting Dex. On one run we could go very green into the heist, on another not so much.
In game rhythm as it is now it also doesn't work great for me that we have linear prologue, montage, meeting Dex. The open world should be liberated earlier.
And yes, many RPGs use this structure of miniworld for intro as in The Witcher 3 but that doesn't mean much to me. I like to critique a game for what it is. And I believe CDPR is the kind of creator that isn't afraid to break the mold and have this focus - what is this moment of the game about? How to best transmit it? In this case I think it is a disservice to not open up the town before Dex. Especially playing Nomad
coming from out of town with a hunger to know night city only to have a montage, learn your character already hit the curves of town but WE are locked out.
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Actually most side content in RDR2 is locked to game chapter. Some side content is available for like since chapter 3-6. So actually the side content available at that stage is mostly related to his condition. Plus if there is one thing I loved about RDR2 is how little it holds your hand in terms of open world. You have to explore to find the side content. The game doesn't "make sure" you find all content. The treasure maps for example or some mystical mysteries where fantastic. You have a drawn picture of a place and clues. Go find it.You can do it I believe, but it remains a good part of the main story (not sure, I would say a good "one third" of the main story) and you're not warned... It fall on you like a bomb after a quest.
So if you didn't complete absolutely everything before (which represent quite a bunch), either you skip everything and follow only the main quest, either you must "forget" that Arthur is dying. Which it's difficult because you have to eat to stay in shape, i.e maintain your health/stamina at top and at some point, you can barely eat, it even has the opposite effect (and you "see" in third person that Arthur doesn't look good at all)
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Rockstar always chosen a "different" way to unlock content (which we can like or not, whatever). For example the quests: the next quests (and the content that they "unlock") are unlocked only at the moment you finish the quests already available (It's very "directive" but it limits the "story" problems).
For example (RDR2), the first time I played, I choose to put aside all the "?" (grey uncknow), all the legendary beasts/fishs, to crafting better satchets, to "hunt" the gunslingers, find a book for Hosea, find dinosaur bones... until I had better stuffs, horse, weapons.
But indeed when Arthur cameback from the island and start to slowly die, I had to "unplug" my brain and put this "fact" aside, to "finish" all of that. Because for me, who the hell care about fishing legendary fishs or find dinosaur bones when we already have a foot in the gravestone...
But it don't bother me, in my opinion, it's almost always the case, in most games^^
I currently (re-re-re)play DOS2, and during the whole game my divinity push my but (to hurry up) to increase my source's power as fast as possible, to reach the well of ascension as fast as possible, to be the divine first before the other godwokens because the void is coming and will literally destroy Rivellion. But I have time to save two guys transformed in cow by a witch, to search about the father of the "tiny void-chicken" and so on...
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All true... I think so at least. I haven't played TW3 yet. Ghost of Tsushima is a bit of a standout in this regard though as nearly every activity bends toward strengthening your character and/or building relationships around the world that serve the purposes of the main plot.
Hype and consequence. The game came out in an exemplary poor state and is lacking or outright neglected on many fronts. It's like a long laundry list. All those things compounded to a point where, for a lot of people, issues that could usually be hand-waved away on their own become entirely irksome.
It's not even restricted to open world games:
Dragon Age Origins - Darkspawn are attacking the surface world and I'm the Grey Warden? Who cares? Those letters from Blackstone Irregulars aren't going to deliver themselves
Mass Effect - rogue Spectre is searching for the artifact that will bring back the Reapers? I guess he can wait while I land on 26 uncharted worlds and finish all the sidequests...
The Witcher 2 - Triss has been kidnapped? Pfff... She'll do fine... Collecting 80 harpy feathers for Elthon is so much more important.
I feel that TW3 does an excellent job of this.
The "finding Ciri" is important to Geralt and Yen. It's equally as important to Emyr. It's a serious matter, and a matter for concern. But, it is not urgent in any immediate sort of way. Here are the facts that Geralt and Yen would be well aware of:
1.) Ciri has been gone for over a decade. She's been taking care of herself all that time. She's obviously not stupid, and obviously not helpless.
2.) The scope of the area they need to search is quite literally continental. There's no "rushing around". There's no moving at a run across an entire kingdom and into the next one. Simple travel from place to place can take weeks or months. (Big as it is, don't forget that the game is still scaled waaaaaay down.)
3.) There's a war on. That's not going to make anything about this easy. Or fast. Or safe. Rushing and exhausting oneself in that situation is a recipe for death.
4.) She's the Lady of Space and Time. She can literally move between parallel existences. At will. They know full well if she doesn't want to be found, there's nothing they can do.
^ None of that is conducive to "Hurry up! Time is running out! We need to find Ciri now!" Time is running out in the existential sense. The world they know will not survive if they don't find her, but it may still be decades or centuries before it comes to pass. Hence, it makes perfect sense that this chase is one that needs to be handled in the long term, not the short term. And Geralt still needs to make a living. There will still be other things more urgent that need to be handled. (I think only the Gwent thing is a little out of place. Makes perfect sense for Geralt to play cards now and then to unwind. But...to take months off at a time, traveling the countryside to collect toys...is defnitely stretching it a bit.
)Thus, I think with TW3, we have an almost perfect setup for people to play as quickly or as slowly as they like, and it fits right in.
I largely agree. But the fact remains, the game does directly introduce the dying-and-have-only-weeks-left approach, then proceeds to allow V to street race, collect designer jackets, and pose for selfies for months on end while ignoring the main quest and taking contract work as a freelancer. I do get where people are coming from.
For me, though, it's easy. I've known several people that were diagnosed with "terminal" conditions and given very short life expectancies...and they just decided to say, "@#$%!, it then," ignored the condition, and went on living for 10 more years. That's how I justified it in my own mind.
For me, it's also "double-edged", if the world is vaste and traveling take time, if the context (war) make the search difficult, why wasting even more time by doing other things which are not relatedI feel that TW3 does an excellent job of this.
The "finding Ciri" is important to Geralt and Yen. It's equally as important to Emyr. It's a serious matter, and a matter for concern. But, it is not urgent in any immediate sort of way. Here are the facts that Geralt and Yen would be well aware of:
1.) Ciri has been gone for over a decade. She's been taking care of herself all that time. She's obviously not stupid, and obviously not helpless.
2.) The scope of the area they need to search is quite literally continental. There's no "rushing around". There's no moving at a run across an entire kingdom and into the next one. Simple travel from place to place can take weeks or months. (Big as it is, don't forget that the game is still scaled waaaaaay down.)
3.) There's a war on. That's not going to make anything about this easy. Or fast. Or safe. Rushing and exhausting oneself in that situation is a recipe for death.
4.) She's the Lady of Space and Time. She can literally move between parallel existences. At will. They know full well if she doesn't want to be found, there's nothing they can do.
^ None of that is conducive to "Hurry up! Time is running out! We need to find Ciri now!" Time is running out in the existential sense. The world they know will not survive if they don't find her, but it may still be decades or centuries before it comes to pass. Hence, it makes perfect sense that this chase is one that needs to be handled in the long term, not the short term. And Geralt still needs to make a living. There will still be other things more urgent that need to be handled. (I think only the Gwent thing is a little out of place. Makes perfect sense for Geralt to play cards now and then to unwind. But...to take months off at a time, traveling the countryside to collect toys...is defnitely stretching it a bit.
Thus, I think with TW3, we have an almost perfect setup for people to play as quickly or as slowly as they like, and it fits right in.
And if I remember, that Ciri can't "really" use her power, Eredin can "snif" and reach her wherever she is, as soon as she use her power. For him, it's not as easy as Ciri, but he can travel through dimensions and time too... So Ciri can't really "escape" the wild hunt.
I *thought* Witcher 3 did an OK job but, this debate over Cyberpunk now stuck in my mind, I'm currently replaying it. And beyond what struck me when I played it before -- that Ciri's plight really *is* established as urgent from the outset -- it's actually worse than I thought.I feel that TW3 does an excellent job of this.
The "finding Ciri" is important to Geralt and Yen. It's equally as important to Emyr. It's a serious matter, and a matter for concern. But, it is not urgent in any immediate sort of way. Here are the facts that Geralt and Yen would be well aware of:
1.) Ciri has been gone for over a decade. She's been taking care of herself all that time. She's obviously not stupid, and obviously not helpless.
2.) The scope of the area they need to search is quite literally continental. There's no "rushing around". There's no moving at a run across an entire kingdom and into the next one. Simple travel from place to place can take weeks or months. (Big as it is, don't forget that the game is still scaled waaaaaay down.)
3.) There's a war on. That's not going to make anything about this easy. Or fast. Or safe. Rushing and exhausting oneself in that situation is a recipe for death.
4.) She's the Lady of Space and Time. She can literally move between parallel existences. At will. They know full well if she doesn't want to be found, there's nothing they can do.
^ None of that is conducive to "Hurry up! Time is running out! We need to find Ciri now!" Time is running out in the existential sense. The world they know will not survive if they don't find her, but it may still be decades or centuries before it comes to pass. Hence, it makes perfect sense that this chase is one that needs to be handled in the long term, not the short term. And Geralt still needs to make a living. There will still be other things more urgent that need to be handled. (I think only the Gwent thing is a little out of place. Makes perfect sense for Geralt to play cards now and then to unwind. But...to take months off at a time, traveling the countryside to collect toys...is defnitely stretching it a bit.
Thus, I think with TW3, we have an almost perfect setup for people to play as quickly or as slowly as they like, and it fits right in.
I largely agree. But the fact remains, the game does directly introduce the dying-and-have-only-weeks-left approach, then proceeds to allow V to street race, collect designer jackets, and pose for selfies for months on end while ignoring the main quest and taking contract work as a freelancer. I do get where people are coming from.
For me, though, it's easy. I've known several people that were diagnosed with "terminal" conditions and given very short life expectancies...and they just decided to say, "@#$%!, it then," ignored the condition, and went on living for 10 more years. That's how I justified it in my own mind.
Various side quests will fail if you take the urgency at face value, as if you're being punished for wanting to save Ciri, and there is dialogue all over the place that stresses Ciri needs urgently to be found. It's pretty bonkers, but having played open world games before I hadn't paid it so much heed the first time.
As I say, I agree with you on Vik's dialogue in Cyberpunk, which a relatively simple wording tweak could have solved. Eg "when it's urgent, you'll know." The elevator moment in a certain well-known restaurant later in the game would then have served as the "OK now you know it's urgent" trigger. Essentially, two lines of dialogue need to be changed, nothing more, and the problem is gone!
Yea i feel theres a pretty big disconnect there. Especially when your in a limited space (NC is big but not continent big) and with modern cars/planes/flying cars you could probably have done the quests very fast. No travel time and so on a day's wait every now and then(thats sometimes not even a day). Would have been much better too leave it more.... open.
Thats the thing, a terminal disease might kill you. Doctors might not be able too help you but sometimes remisions happed. Sometimes people live much longer then expected. Vs condition isent a disease tho, its machines changing you. Totaly diffrent thing imho (we dont have this IRL yet so). Its odd Victor cant give a decent estimate tbh. He shoudl be able too calculate its pretty accuratly just by watching the progression.
Mmm, a bit more than a couple of dialogue changes would be needed if I remember well. The whole sequence involves considerable melancholy and anger, along with Misty offering you medication to deal with the program's pace... kind of. Much of the sequence would need to be delayed or removed - I agree with what you're both getting at though. Regardless of any changes to pacing or dialogue we can conjure; I think having random encounters with Arasaka goons would have helped enforce that you're wanted and connected the open world with the main quest better...
Speaking of random encounters; I'm still perplexed there are no random encounters in this game. No random muggers, drive-bys, robberies, corrupt cops, snitches, etc. Odd.
Yea this! sadly the world feels so dead when it comes too stuff happening. theres some scripted events happening now (police chase someone and so on) most of the time its just buildings and mindless npc walking. It doesnt feel like anything real, its just more of a static background. Thers is crimescen investigations and so on but its generaly nothing happening. TT shows up at some spots doing nothing. Feels alot like movie magic for me if you have ever seen a "behind the scens" from a FX heavy movie. Backdrop and nothing happening because its not in yet
I never said anything like that, that's my exact point. Maybe you quoted the wrong person?
This, and cut all those moments when V is fainting and spitting blood until later in the game. Also, a couple of lines from NPCs during quests would have helped.
Who said you need that much tension and urgency? No one forced cdpr to write it that way. Anyway, rdr2 is exceptional at mixing main quest and side content.
Maybe? The point being? Anyway, guys at cdpr, as sigilfey pointed out in another message, could do it in TW3.
Not different if not for the fact it pushes on urgency way more than other games
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Perfection.e "finding Ciri" is important to Geralt and Yen. It's equally as important to Emyr. It's a serious matter, and a matter for concern. But, it is not urgent in any immediate sort of way. Here are the facts that Geralt and Yen would be well aware of:
1.) Ciri has been gone for over a decade. She's been taking care of herself all that time. She's obviously not stupid, and obviously not helpless.
2.) The scope of the area they need to search is quite literally continental. There's no "rushing around". There's no moving at a run across an entire kingdom and into the next one. Simple travel from place to place can take weeks or months. (Big as it is, don't forget that the game is still scaled waaaaaay down.)
3.) There's a war on. That's not going to make anything about this easy. Or fast. Or safe. Rushing and exhausting oneself in that situation is a recipe for death.
4.) She's the Lady of Space and Time. She can literally move between parallel existences. At will. They know full well if she doesn't want to be found, there's nothing they can do.
^ None of that is conducive to "Hurry up! Time is running out! We need to find Ciri now!" Time is running out in the existential sense. The world they know will not survive if they don't find her, but it may still be decades or centuries before it comes to pass. Hence, it makes perfect sense that this chase is one that needs to be handled in the long term, not the short term. And Geralt still needs to make a living. There will still be other things more urgent that need to be handled. (I think only the Gwent thing is a little out of place. Makes perfect sense for Geralt to play cards now and then to unwind. But...to take months off at a time, traveling the countryside to collect toys...is defnitely stretching it a bit.
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