If you mean the numbers on the screen it's already been confirmed they're an optional part of the HUD. https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...markers-and-immersion.10980680/#post-11098790
- Status
There are suppose to be various body types available but apparently they're not implemented you. How many, and how varied, we don't know yet.
Yeah, yeah. Good. C&C and themes sound solid. Adult oriented reactivity. Very good.
Now... how about ”adult” gameplay and character systems too that don’t assume the player is 13 and has ADHD?
Now... how about ”adult” gameplay and character systems too that don’t assume the player is 13 and has ADHD?
Well they've said about 1000 times they don't want to discuss specific gameplay systems yet, because they might change. I think he said it a couple times in that video actually.
Hard specifics and locking stuff down isn’t necessary (nor really even asked for).
Some general talk about design ideals and intents they’re playing around with and (general) goals they’re striving for right now, and how the 2020 systems could or could not be applied (if/where that’s even intended) is really all that could be reasonably asked for anyway. Something to discuss and comment on beyond the ”Oh, the demo painted it just for a shooter with few hardgated insta-checks, lame/awesome” that’s been going on.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-cyberpunk-2077-has-a-cool-stat-heres-what-it-does
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...om-2018-edition.10979804/page-2#post-11096951
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-the-witcher-3-helped-with-cyberpunk-2077s-comb/1100-6459790/
Quoting myself about some stuff in the demo -
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-the-witcher-3-helped-with-cyberpunk-2077s-comb/1100-6459790/
Quoting myself about some stuff in the demo -
There are three dialogue options here, but V cuts to the chase and “jacks into” Sandra’s biomonitor. We connect to Sandra’s “biomon” through a plug from our wrist. The cool thing here is we’re actually seeing this all be done in perspective. The info that pops up has in game justifications, and we see the character actually performing the stuff we want to do such as plug into the biomonitor. It’s not just click X and it’s done. We see it happen in real time. The monitor tells us she’s still alive, but barely, with several life support systems failing. Fortunately for us, she has trauma team platinum.
“The Trauma Team is composed of paramedics expertly trained in combat, who will go to any length to deliver their clients from harm. Those wealthy enough to afford a Trauma Team medical plan receive a card and biochip implant. When the chip recognizes a medical problem in a client’s system, it immediately informs the Trauma Team who rush to the scene to stabilize and extract the patient — rain or shine, war zone or picnic.” (17) https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...ler-frame-by-frame-ep12-trauma-team.10977500/
Sandra’s GPS module is offline, and V asks T-Bug what is blocking the biomon signal. T-Bug thinks it’s a virus blocking the signal and guess that a “shard” will be in Sandra’s “neurosocket.” I love all the lingo in this scene. T-Bug continues by speculating that if they remove the shard, the signal should contact Trauma Team. We have the option here to ask “Is that safe?” But V is a woman of action, and pulls the shard.
Trauma Team International immediately gets the signal and tells us they will be on scene within 180 seconds. Either we can take her, or get Jackie to, we choose to handle it ourselves. We learn that Sandra’s premium plan will cover 90% of the anticipated costs of her extraction and treatment. When V tries to pick Sandra up, she starts “flat-lining.” V demands Jackie to give V an item that will allow V to administer an injection. She stabs Sandra in the chest (Pulp Fiction style) with the hypo to revive her.
and
“Hacking is an interactive and immersive experience where you will “jack in” and run the Net. Night City is an omnipresent network, offering countless cyberspace access terminals. Within them you will find layers of hidden systems, firewalls and security programs deployed to fry your brain. Missions will stack you against other hostile Netrunners who defend corporations both in cyberspace and the real world.” https://techraptor.net/content/cyberpunk-2077-everything-we-know-so-far
Connecting into the Maelstrom ganger, we can now access other squads through the personnel system. We choose to try and get access to the squad of the guy we just jacked into. We have the options to get access, reduce aim or disable cyberware. We choose to simply get access (NETWORK BREACHED flashes in red), but I have a feeling we could have lots of fun with those options. The narrator explains that we’re merely getting access so that we can perform what he calls “quick hacks.”
“The Trauma Team is composed of paramedics expertly trained in combat, who will go to any length to deliver their clients from harm. Those wealthy enough to afford a Trauma Team medical plan receive a card and biochip implant. When the chip recognizes a medical problem in a client’s system, it immediately informs the Trauma Team who rush to the scene to stabilize and extract the patient — rain or shine, war zone or picnic.” (17) https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...ler-frame-by-frame-ep12-trauma-team.10977500/
Sandra’s GPS module is offline, and V asks T-Bug what is blocking the biomon signal. T-Bug thinks it’s a virus blocking the signal and guess that a “shard” will be in Sandra’s “neurosocket.” I love all the lingo in this scene. T-Bug continues by speculating that if they remove the shard, the signal should contact Trauma Team. We have the option here to ask “Is that safe?” But V is a woman of action, and pulls the shard.
Trauma Team International immediately gets the signal and tells us they will be on scene within 180 seconds. Either we can take her, or get Jackie to, we choose to handle it ourselves. We learn that Sandra’s premium plan will cover 90% of the anticipated costs of her extraction and treatment. When V tries to pick Sandra up, she starts “flat-lining.” V demands Jackie to give V an item that will allow V to administer an injection. She stabs Sandra in the chest (Pulp Fiction style) with the hypo to revive her.
and
“Hacking is an interactive and immersive experience where you will “jack in” and run the Net. Night City is an omnipresent network, offering countless cyberspace access terminals. Within them you will find layers of hidden systems, firewalls and security programs deployed to fry your brain. Missions will stack you against other hostile Netrunners who defend corporations both in cyberspace and the real world.” https://techraptor.net/content/cyberpunk-2077-everything-we-know-so-far
Connecting into the Maelstrom ganger, we can now access other squads through the personnel system. We choose to try and get access to the squad of the guy we just jacked into. We have the options to get access, reduce aim or disable cyberware. We choose to simply get access (NETWORK BREACHED flashes in red), but I have a feeling we could have lots of fun with those options. The narrator explains that we’re merely getting access so that we can perform what he calls “quick hacks.”
Philip Weber told eurogamer that cyber-psychosis “will be part of the world, part of the story.” However he continued, “but as for how it will affect the player, I can’t really say. In Cyberpunk 2020 it was a gameplay system and if you used too much cyberwear you could get cyberpsychosis which would essentially be Game Over for you. It can’t really work like that in our game because it would be too frustrating if it was just ‘Game Over’... I can’t say how we’re handling it yet but cyberpsychosis is definitely part of the game.” (29) https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-24-the-big-cyberpunk-2077-interview
“Players can single out particular limbs, whether chopping at arms with a katana of blasting out knees with a shotgun. This isn’t spray and pray – you approach an enemy tactically and switch up your weapons based on their defense or skillset.” https://www.vg247.com/2018/06/22/cy...mance-controversial-decision-go-first-person/
It's fairly straightforward to get an idea of what the gameplay systems will be like from all that info.
"Levels" are likely to be designed around being either a tank (strong solo), a ninja (fast solo), a hacker (netrunner), or a tinkerer (techie). So I think that's the easiest way to think about how the general gameplay ideals will be organized. There will be perks, skills, stats, gear, & cyberware that affect how well you do the things that fit each of those archetypes. There are skill checks (that appear in the demo to be hardgated), but any given encounter can be resolved in at least one way that does not require a skillcheck being passed. In combat, it will be FPP, where you shoot at / try to hit things that are trying to hurt you. You'll use various items, gear, abilities and tactics to try and defeat adverse NPCs. Enemies have weaknesses and strengths both in the damage they put out, and the damage they receive.
One question is persuasion related tactics. From what was seen in the demo, it's logical to conclude that persuasion type actions are incorporated into the interactive dialogue system as well as choices and consequences. Perhaps there will be some perks, skills or maybe the cool and/or intelligence stats that effect dialogue options as well. If there are stats and skills that effect talking your way out, maybe those actions would fall into the Techie archetype? It would seem to be the best fit IMO. Or maybe give one persuasion type to each role (Solo - intimidation; Techie - Persuasion; Netrunner - deception)? It's really the biggest question mark mechanically speaking for me.
As far as how or why things are similar or different compared to 2020, I don't think you can get into that stuff without discussing the specifics of the systems.
Yeah, it is and sounds fairly straightforward. That’s why I’m hoping they’d talk more about it.
Not sure if this is poorly phrased or accurate, but in this interview hand to hand combat and melee are mentioned seperately,,,so some kind of unarmed confirmed?
https://www.cgmagonline.com/2018/10/02/the-world-of-cyberpunk-2077/
Also - https://www.gamerpros.co/cyberpunk-2077-interview-marcin-przybylowicz/
Interview with composer.
CD Projekt Red has made a name for themselves by building massive fictional worlds. With The Witcher, and now Cyberpunk 2077, they have crafted an environment teaming with life and possibility. Utilizing the Cyberpunk roleplaying system, Cyberpunk 2077 promises a rich, open world experience that will let you, the player, build the character you want and interact with the city as you see fit. It is a staggering undertaking, but if the demo is anything to go by, they are making this promise a reality.
The skill and talent needed to build these games is staggering, relying on big teams all working together to allow the seamless open world feel alive. At Gamescom 2018 CGMagazine had the chance to sit down with Maciej Pietras, lead cinematic animator for Cyberpunk 2077. He started at CD Projekt Red working on The Witcher and both expansions, before moving over to the Cyberpunk Team. As he outlines the process of building this new experience, Pietras gives a good look at the complexity involved, the attention to detail, and the care put towards the players end experience that make Cyberpunk 2077 such an anticipated game hitting consoles and PC.
CGMagazine: CD Projekt is known for their cinematic experiences, how much of a challenge was it going into Cyberpunk 2077 with this level of pressure and expectation?
Maciej Pietras: I think it revolves around how you define the phrase “cinematic experience,” because what we do is tell a story in an open world that is also an RPG. At the end of the day, is still a heavily narrative driven game, and just because of that we just redefine how we approach “Cinematic-ness”. How we tackled story in The Witcher, of course, is we utilize the camera work; we worked with editing, character composition, with framing and editing very much as a cornerstone of the dialogue and cutscenes in The Witcher. For Cyberpunk what we are doing is using the open world and RPG experience, splashing them together and wrapping them in this interactive scene system overcoat.
So, because of that overcoat, what we think about storytelling and how to create this narrative experience always involves thinking about how the player will experience that from the first-person perspective. One of the ways we think about designing is around the experience of cinematic moments. For example, we are just talking right now, you’re sitting here and let’s say I am the player. So I, as a player, would Point at your bag and ask you why is it grey and you could react to that or not, because you might not be interested, or you may just nod and wonder why we are talking about your bag.
This is kind of how we approach this cinematic storytelling and transforming the experience with it; thinking that this is a living breathing world. The NPC’s set in that world are fully fleshed out characters [and] not just templates, because we approach design like that. It means that you somehow got here. You’re here, you’re doing your job, you’re working, and I approach you and we have a discussion. The outcome is mostly dependent on the player choice. I could pull out the gun and the conversation will go in a very different direction. This example outlines how we think about cinematics and narrative content. So obviously it’s a huge challenge when compared to TheWitcher. It’s an open world, one big city that you can explore. There are no loading screens, except for fast travel, and because of that, we have to keep the player as immersed and focus on what’s happening as possible.
CGMagazine: How as designers do you ensure players have a seamless experience with so many different types of narrative tools at play? How do you ensure they feel they are part of that world, part of the overall experience while still showing visual flares, and setpiece moments?
Maciej Pietras: Yeah that’s really a cumulative task of all the teams in the company because you don’t think about it. The reason you’ll notice certain elements is not just because someone decided to put that thing there. It’s a cumulative experience because the game designer will plan out how the level works, the level designer will place structures but they also check out how it will all work with the environment team that builds their environment around it. And then you have the open world team who are placing the whole environmental elements like characters, vendors, and prostitutes walking the city.
And then you have cinematic designers who are creating the narrative experience that is strictly connected to that one person. And then you have the lighting guys who are working to make sure that if we want to showcase that specific character, we probably do some light showers or maybe a skylight that will highlight with light and show that you might be able to talk to this guy. We can also use light to show all those foods vendors, to actually make sure that the player looks at that point they may find the most Interesting.
CGMagazine: Cyberpunk 2077 has a very distinctive style, what was it like crafting that, and how did all the teams at the studio work to make that come to life?
Maciej Pietras: It’s a never-ending process. I think the best way to describe it is: what we do at CD Projekt is try to create this iterative process of feedback and iteration. So basically when we make something we look at it very closely from all the angles and we get feedback and iterate on that and then we’ll pick it up again and iterate, etc. This is because we are not using any procedural aspects to create the world while still developing our tools sets. I think every team has developed some kind of toolsets that not only speed up their work but also increase quality and the way it all binds together is literally though reviewing the game constantly. The game has to run over again, all the time. Regardless if it is done yet, or not, it doesn’t matter, it has to be played constantly, and you basically iterate based on that
CGMagazine: Is there ever concepts you or the team at the studio come up with that simply can not be done due to hardware limitations?
Maciej Pietras: Oh no, actually from the top we knew we were developing the game for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. And we started the process of optimization right at the start. So that’s probably what you see running the demo is a PC with like an i7 and 1080TI, so it’s not astronomical specs. Basically, because we are thinking from scratch about optimization, how streaming works, how to introduce global illumination for instance without overwhelming the PC or the GPU. Now we take those things into account right at the start and optimize for that.
CGMagazine: With that in mind, did you ever have a concept that you wanted to do that could not work due to the optimizations, or did the tech allow you to make all ideas a reality?
Maciej Pietras: Yeah absolutely. You know we’re working on the Red Engine which we are still upgrading. You know we are always finding new ways to use the new technical features that speed up the work and there are very low costs when it comes to the optimization part, and as I said, that we have a team of programmers who are dedicated to work on optimization. Simply because of that, I don’t think we ever reached that point and say something is too costly based on hardware requirements. That did not happen yet. What we showed in the demo was running in real runtime so there’s nothing there that we were trying to hide.
CGMagazine: Due to the fact you are giving the player the freedom to customize their character in any way they see fit, including gender, did that change any aspect of how the story would play out?
Maciej Pietras: Of course, this is an RPG, and because of the character creation process, you’re defining your body type at the beginning. Because of that, you take your game gender as a choice and you as a player represents that role throughout the game. Yes you can try and do anything, but it is not always up to you, it is also up to the NPC’s in the game world. As I said before we treat characters as characters, so that means they’re predefined people. They are predefined characters who have different sexual orientations and wants. So simply because of that you might as a male or female gender player in the game try to romance an NPC but that might not happen because of that character’s orientation and their preferences. This is a conscious design choice that we want to give the player as much freedom as they want to make sure that the game they play regardless of their body type choices to fit their approach the way they want to go as their version of V a mercenary, a cyberpunk mercenary.
To read the full interview with CD Projekt Red, pick up Issue #35 of CGMagazine
The skill and talent needed to build these games is staggering, relying on big teams all working together to allow the seamless open world feel alive. At Gamescom 2018 CGMagazine had the chance to sit down with Maciej Pietras, lead cinematic animator for Cyberpunk 2077. He started at CD Projekt Red working on The Witcher and both expansions, before moving over to the Cyberpunk Team. As he outlines the process of building this new experience, Pietras gives a good look at the complexity involved, the attention to detail, and the care put towards the players end experience that make Cyberpunk 2077 such an anticipated game hitting consoles and PC.
CGMagazine: CD Projekt is known for their cinematic experiences, how much of a challenge was it going into Cyberpunk 2077 with this level of pressure and expectation?
Maciej Pietras: I think it revolves around how you define the phrase “cinematic experience,” because what we do is tell a story in an open world that is also an RPG. At the end of the day, is still a heavily narrative driven game, and just because of that we just redefine how we approach “Cinematic-ness”. How we tackled story in The Witcher, of course, is we utilize the camera work; we worked with editing, character composition, with framing and editing very much as a cornerstone of the dialogue and cutscenes in The Witcher. For Cyberpunk what we are doing is using the open world and RPG experience, splashing them together and wrapping them in this interactive scene system overcoat.
So, because of that overcoat, what we think about storytelling and how to create this narrative experience always involves thinking about how the player will experience that from the first-person perspective. One of the ways we think about designing is around the experience of cinematic moments. For example, we are just talking right now, you’re sitting here and let’s say I am the player. So I, as a player, would Point at your bag and ask you why is it grey and you could react to that or not, because you might not be interested, or you may just nod and wonder why we are talking about your bag.
This is kind of how we approach this cinematic storytelling and transforming the experience with it; thinking that this is a living breathing world. The NPC’s set in that world are fully fleshed out characters [and] not just templates, because we approach design like that. It means that you somehow got here. You’re here, you’re doing your job, you’re working, and I approach you and we have a discussion. The outcome is mostly dependent on the player choice. I could pull out the gun and the conversation will go in a very different direction. This example outlines how we think about cinematics and narrative content. So obviously it’s a huge challenge when compared to TheWitcher. It’s an open world, one big city that you can explore. There are no loading screens, except for fast travel, and because of that, we have to keep the player as immersed and focus on what’s happening as possible.
CGMagazine: How as designers do you ensure players have a seamless experience with so many different types of narrative tools at play? How do you ensure they feel they are part of that world, part of the overall experience while still showing visual flares, and setpiece moments?
Maciej Pietras: Yeah that’s really a cumulative task of all the teams in the company because you don’t think about it. The reason you’ll notice certain elements is not just because someone decided to put that thing there. It’s a cumulative experience because the game designer will plan out how the level works, the level designer will place structures but they also check out how it will all work with the environment team that builds their environment around it. And then you have the open world team who are placing the whole environmental elements like characters, vendors, and prostitutes walking the city.
And then you have cinematic designers who are creating the narrative experience that is strictly connected to that one person. And then you have the lighting guys who are working to make sure that if we want to showcase that specific character, we probably do some light showers or maybe a skylight that will highlight with light and show that you might be able to talk to this guy. We can also use light to show all those foods vendors, to actually make sure that the player looks at that point they may find the most Interesting.
CGMagazine: Cyberpunk 2077 has a very distinctive style, what was it like crafting that, and how did all the teams at the studio work to make that come to life?
Maciej Pietras: It’s a never-ending process. I think the best way to describe it is: what we do at CD Projekt is try to create this iterative process of feedback and iteration. So basically when we make something we look at it very closely from all the angles and we get feedback and iterate on that and then we’ll pick it up again and iterate, etc. This is because we are not using any procedural aspects to create the world while still developing our tools sets. I think every team has developed some kind of toolsets that not only speed up their work but also increase quality and the way it all binds together is literally though reviewing the game constantly. The game has to run over again, all the time. Regardless if it is done yet, or not, it doesn’t matter, it has to be played constantly, and you basically iterate based on that
CGMagazine: Is there ever concepts you or the team at the studio come up with that simply can not be done due to hardware limitations?
Maciej Pietras: Oh no, actually from the top we knew we were developing the game for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. And we started the process of optimization right at the start. So that’s probably what you see running the demo is a PC with like an i7 and 1080TI, so it’s not astronomical specs. Basically, because we are thinking from scratch about optimization, how streaming works, how to introduce global illumination for instance without overwhelming the PC or the GPU. Now we take those things into account right at the start and optimize for that.
CGMagazine: With that in mind, did you ever have a concept that you wanted to do that could not work due to the optimizations, or did the tech allow you to make all ideas a reality?
Maciej Pietras: Yeah absolutely. You know we’re working on the Red Engine which we are still upgrading. You know we are always finding new ways to use the new technical features that speed up the work and there are very low costs when it comes to the optimization part, and as I said, that we have a team of programmers who are dedicated to work on optimization. Simply because of that, I don’t think we ever reached that point and say something is too costly based on hardware requirements. That did not happen yet. What we showed in the demo was running in real runtime so there’s nothing there that we were trying to hide.
CGMagazine: Due to the fact you are giving the player the freedom to customize their character in any way they see fit, including gender, did that change any aspect of how the story would play out?
Maciej Pietras: Of course, this is an RPG, and because of the character creation process, you’re defining your body type at the beginning. Because of that, you take your game gender as a choice and you as a player represents that role throughout the game. Yes you can try and do anything, but it is not always up to you, it is also up to the NPC’s in the game world. As I said before we treat characters as characters, so that means they’re predefined people. They are predefined characters who have different sexual orientations and wants. So simply because of that you might as a male or female gender player in the game try to romance an NPC but that might not happen because of that character’s orientation and their preferences. This is a conscious design choice that we want to give the player as much freedom as they want to make sure that the game they play regardless of their body type choices to fit their approach the way they want to go as their version of V a mercenary, a cyberpunk mercenary.
To read the full interview with CD Projekt Red, pick up Issue #35 of CGMagazine
Also - https://www.gamerpros.co/cyberpunk-2077-interview-marcin-przybylowicz/
Interview with composer.
Last edited:
Interesting partnership, pointing at some possible multiplayer features after single-player ones are done?
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ts-help-of-studio-which-built-dying-light-pvp
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ts-help-of-studio-which-built-dying-light-pvp
Yeah, that's what I took away from it. Not super excited about the idea, but whatever. If it's done well it could be fun. I'll officially be sold on the whole "but multiplayer doesn't affect the development of singleplayer!" if RDR2 turns out to be excellent. If it's missing content and doesn't get any DLC in lieu of dozens of multiplayer expansions and microtransactions, well...
Doesn’t it kinda inevitably do that because the gameplay has to work both ways? The SP campaign and side content it might well not.
It all depends on what the multiplayer experience is planned to be, but yes, you're right. How much it affects it is what really matters, though. If we're getting dumbed down stat systems because CDPR wants to appease the CoD crowd with deathmatch modes, I'll be a little sad. Understanding (they are a company and clearly want to make money), but disappointed.
If they go for more of a coop experience, perhaps with its own DLC campaign, there's no real reason you couldn't just focus on singleplayer stats and give them to both players. DOS2 did this pretty well. The game plays great (Arguably better, since your companions have stories you can help them with and relationships to develop) as a singleplayer, party-based experience because none of the systems were "designed for multiplayer." None that I can think of.
Yes. It’s their game and it’s in their rights do what ever they want with it. It’s just a tad disheartening to be this |—| close to losing interest because almost all news so far are towards the opposite direction of what what’s been anticipated all this time (and that’s quite a range, not a narrow path).
Since the gameplay dropped, I haven't paid much attention to news. Is there anything particularly concerning that they've discussed since then? I agree that the gameplay had a lot of disappointing elements, of course.
It’s all gameplay related.
The system for character progression (stats limit skills - level ups increase stats), smart guns (nothing character based about them), CS guy tuning combat, etc... and a few of my own gripes (like the AI NPC’s being given so much attention that it warrants boasting about it, yet no interactivity of any merit to them). And so on.
Nothing you haven’t heard of before.
Ah, fair enough. Yeah, those are pretty much all things I'm frustrated by as well. I'm waiting for at least one more gameplay video where they really dig into stats and how they will impact gameplay, but if that disappoints as well, I can see why you'd want to cut your losses. Let me know what game forums you migrate to, if any.
Although, I can't think of many modern CRPGs that have much NPC interactivity except the Elder Scrolls games and DOS2. That includes Infinity Engine games, since they are pretty much "talk to NPC, choose dialogue option, move on." It would be nice if players could outright attack enemies in 2077, or pickpocket them, or hack them, though. At least the "non-essential" ones.
- Status