I'm not a strategy guy myself, but I'm really thinking of buying it if Mike Pondsmith was a part of it.XD
I'm not a strategy guy myself, but I'm really thinking of buying it if Mike Pondsmith was a part of it.XD
I don't think he took part on the actual development part of thing (who knows though on that part). The only thing I know he did, and has been documented that he did, for the game was be to be the visual representation of a character, and the voice actor of that same character. A MechWarrior named Steel, which you got somewhere around the 5th of 6th mission.
You see him in this image. Second to last image at the bottom center. From the look of the icon he is in, he is piloting an Atlas mech.
I think the most interesting thing about him being part of this game though, is that there is a pretty big chance that he met Jordan Weisman there (they might have met befor this to of course). And the reason that is may be a bit noteworthy is the fact that Jordan Weisman was one of the main (if not THE main) creator of not only BattleTech/MechWarrior which Pondsmith was part of with MechCommander 2, but also Shadowrun... the other big Cyberpunk RPG from the 80's.
Edit: Actually... Pondsmith was also part of that Crimson Skies game that came out in 2003... and the guy who was behind that game, was Jordan Weisman I think... Weisman was the creator of the IP wich Crimson Skies came out of atleast.
These days Weisman has his own company again, Harebrain Schemes... which made all the new Shadowrun games... and is currently making a new BattleTech game which I am looking forward to a lot. Going to be more MechCommander like, except that it will be turnbased, more like the table top version of BattleTech.
From the look of things... Pondsmith accepted a job at Microsoft at 2000, which was about a year after Microsoft bought up all that stuff which was connected to FASA where they placed Weisman as the creative director of microsofts game development stuff (Weisman apperantly left that job in 2002).
So who knows what else these two has worked together on in one way or another. XD
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I wasn't aware of that.These days Weisman has his own company again, Harebrain Schemes... which made all the new Shadowrun games... and is currently making a new BattleTech game which I am looking forward to a lot. Going to be more MechCommander like, except that it will be turnbased, more like the table top version of BattleTech.
Kewl !
Lol agreed. I was just too lazy to copy all of the source links here, so I linked the place I took the info from in case anyone wanted to do some reading of their own.
Mike has already said that he has shot down numerous ideas that CDPR came up with for 2077, he is taking a very extreme hands on approach to 77 because him and his company have gone through countless devs that just wanted to slap Cyberpunk on a game and call it a day. And because he wants Cyberpunk the video game not a clone of fallout or deus ex or some other game with Cyberpunk slapped on it. Thus his license deal is different from what went down with the Witcher series were it seemed the author really didn't care, where as Mike does care and cares a lot.
Wait. He did? When? Where? If you got that from a one-off line to RPS that CDPR never confirmed from 3 years ago, that's way flimsy for assuming he has anything like creative control.
MUCH more likely it was along the lines of, "Mike, what do you think about energy shield?" "Ah, no, guys. Probably not yet. Too soon for that kind of tech. " "Clones?" "Aaaah...maybe. Just human clones though, no aliens."
They have suggestions, he advises. He also said it was pretty brief and everyone is on the same plane. Nothing about control. He's updated -weekly- according to that article. And that was before he got dug in on Mekton. Now, who knows. Could be daily, could be monthly updates.
There is zero chance that CDPR is going to risk millions and millions and have veto oversight in hands other than their own. It's why they are their own publisher.
Mike is advising on content, not dictating it. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to post it.
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That would be my assumption as well.
And unless someone has something concrete to show otherwise it's not likely to change.
Expecting more of an rpg/futuristic version of GTA, with some influence of Mass Effect, Deus Ex and sandbox open world design. I think Rockstar, instead of Bioware/Bethesda is their actual closest competitor, here.
World building, atmosphere, visuals, art, audio, environment design, quality of stories and characters..are what makes CDPR at the top of it's class. It's obvious however, that they need to work more on complexity and refinement of gameplay mechanics.
There must be something in Polish water that they are able to create these incredibly rich, detailed worlds while struggling with design of basic movement controls.
World building, atmosphere, visuals, art, audio, environment design, quality of stories and characters..are what makes CDPR at the top of it's class. It's obvious however, that they need to work more on complexity and refinement of gameplay mechanics.
There must be something in Polish water that they are able to create these incredibly rich, detailed worlds while struggling with design of basic movement controls.
I hope they learned from TW3. That's what I expect. TW3 had blatant, clear flaws.
CDPR's strength is in the storytelling, so they should focus on solid RPG experience, instead of making just sandboxes as the primary goal. I.e. games often suffer from too much focus on open world and neglect of the roleplaying aspects.
I think that the greater your success, the more tempting it becomes to stay in some comfort zone, and not change too much. Flaws included. TW3 was a great success.
I don't think we need to worry about that. Rockstar with GTA's, Bethesda with TES... are more likely to fall in that trap. As phenomenal as Witcher was, It's good it's over and they'll have a lot more creative freedom here( Geralt as a protagonist was far more suited for an action game than rpg, in my opinion).
But they need to sit down here and carefully think on how to implement features based on different games/genres into cohesive whole.
WIII definitely had issues when it comes to quest/enemy/equipment scaling in an open world, so they unnecessarily complicated things for themselves, instead of focusing on one approach( Gothic vs. classic MMO design).
I hope they introduce a pre-defined character (that you still can customize the looks of), but not an entirely blank character like in most RPGs, their strength is in the storytelling, when you have a blank character to play as the roleplaying options would be targeted on the player deciding who their player character is, which is a lot more boring than having a pre-defined character with defined characteristics that the player may choose to act against if the circumstances forced it.
Geralt was perfect for a European RPG style game, because some quests had him in circumstances that forced him to break his rules, you never get that with blank characters, and I hope CDPR does not go for the blank character route at all.
I agree...CDPR should remember the strongest aspects of the Witcher, and the defined history behind Geralt was a huge asset to his characterization. That's why I think it will be closer to GTA's than Bioware.
But on game play, this time we can see character go from nothing to power, in a more believable way.
But on game play, this time we can see character go from nothing to power, in a more believable way.
This is how I want the character too. Give them a past and a character, but then let the player makeup their design. (It's how saints row did it I thought that worked out really well.)
we can compare how much it has changed when we have seen some gameplay, and some time later, some new gameplay, like the E3 gameplay from the witcher 3 and then the final game, or the vgx trailer, etc, maybe in 2018 we see some new trailer, but until then only ideas , assuptions and hopes may change
This is exactly how I'd like it to be.
Predefined characters always come with a baggage of playing a predefined role where there's but little room to wiggle about and test the waters. The wider range of options that a blank slate has might lack the potential for some higher drama (or, it doesn't lack it, the implementation's just a bit more difficult) , but the gameplay experience is much more varied and interesting when you get to make the decidions for yourself instead of doing things strictly by the confines of what the writers wanted the protagonist to be about.
I see what you are talking about, like the first two Fallout games (which I still did not actually play but saw some parts of), sure, having a "blank" character would add more variety to "gameplay", but it would cripple the thing CDPR really excels at, making choices that feel very personal to the character the player plays as and having more choices than just the "I am so evil, muahahaha" choice or the "I am so good-two-shoes" or the "I am so neutral" or the "sarcastic" option.
Would rather have dialogue choices that would be in character for an already pre-defined character, than having a dialogue choice option about building your self-insert blank character's personality, and besides, knowing that there are a lot of classes in Cyberpunk, my guess is that each class would have its own pre-defined character, so you can get your "variety" with the potential of the storytelling to be more complex because of having a pre-defined character.
We will have to wait and see though.
I'm still hung up on my idea of using the LifePath stuff from CP2020 to allow you to pick certain key events in your characters life then have the game makes some reference to them. It'd be a LOT of work to implement but it'd be the best of both worlds. You can create the character you want but still have a certain amount of gameplay that's related to your backstory.
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No, I don't think those are really related (blank slate character and a personalized characterization). It's all about how the choices are written and presented and what kind of reactivity (systemic and narrative) they provide both immediately and in the longer run. And there's also a lot more to writing good dialog than "good", "evil" and "neutral" choices (which, btw, the predefined characters aren't immune for).
This is not to say predefined characters are an anathema or something. Lots of godd stuff can be and have been done with them, but this is a particular case where I would not support that choice and rather opt for higher degrees of player agency in this regard.
But you're right. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.
Likewise. And I've also suggested that a few times.
I'd also like the option to roll a completely random past from the lifepath options (as well as rolling the career and skills). If they are implemented well and so that they can actually make a difference, it'd be fun for subsequent runthroughs to go random and just see how it goes.