More diverse relationship options.

[kanonite]

There will probably have some, but like in the pnp, it'll just play a shadow part, it's cyberpunk, not the sims lol.
You'll have plenty things to do, also a partner isn't that much of a good idea once you'll have some enemies, he/she'll spent his/her time being kidnapped/killed/fingers shipped in the mailbox,etc...

Yeah, unless your squeeze is a solo, romantic partners can very likely be liabilities. Theres also a chance their undercover for a third party and might stab you in the back further down the line and not have a sudden show of remorse after the fact.

Or they might break up with you simply out of boredom, give or take shooting/stabbing you as a goodbye sign.

Im reminded of this image

Note how everyone in it is alone.

 

[227]

Se7en's ending wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting if there wasn't a relationship in that movie. I'm 100% for relationships that end in boxed heads. It kind of reminds me of Heather in VTM:B—she may have been a throwaway character lacking any kind of actual development, but she was my throwaway character, and her getting killed made me want to put a bullet in someone's head. So long as the game avoids the kind of saccharine, Twilight-esque stuff that would make Sard go full fangirl, I don't see any reason why it'd be a bad thing.

Anyway there are been enought topic on this subject: we want penises in Cyberpunk 2077, penis and only penis, even penis-shapped guns if it needs to, every girls should have a penis in this game and why not bigger than guy's one, we want PENIS!

Did you play Witcher 2? "Mushrooms," they said. Yeah, right.

Spoiler

 

[Vincentdante]

wait what? its a single player non-party game? i thought it was an RPG like witcher, it'll be interesting to see how cdpr deal with this.

It is an RPG. Also the Witcher (yes your right also an RPG) was also a single player game with no party members.

 

[Suhiira]

wait what? its a single player non-party game? i thought it was an RPG like witcher, it'll be interesting to see how cdpr deal with this.

I probably wasn't clear.
For instance in the Bioware D&D games and Dragon Age you had a primary character and a bunch of NPCs that rounded out your party to 6 or 4 respectively. My understanding is CP2077 while there will undoubtedly be NPCs you can team with for various missions it won't be a "party centered" game like those were where your character is always a member of a set-size group.

And it's most definitely going to be an PRG.

 

[Sardukhar]

Goddamn, Maelcom. I give you 1/4 a SARDpoint. PENIS! PENIS EVERYWHERE.

Genius.

Mature relationships are...hard to write, @mkdewidar. And easy to botch. Bioware catches a -lot- of flack for their many attempts, many of them clumsy, but at least they try.

You could, and someone probably will or has, write a game just about developing a deep relationship with another human being(s). But. But. It's very very tricky. Especially dependent on the genre and audience and especially dependent on the themes you lay out in the game. And really, REALLY dependent on the depth and believability of NPCs.

Most writers, CDPR included, give you a haze of a serious relationship - you can see the shape, but the details are lacking. Geralt and Triss mean a lot to each other, that's obvious, but you aren't going to be fighting over the dishes or money or having kids in that game. A real, honest-to-god relationship doesn't take twenty lines of dialogue choice or fifty or a hundred - many more than a thousand are what it takes to begin to scope out what real-world significant emotional commitments take.

And that's a lot of work that much of your audience isn't there for. And that's a lot of work that one poorly-rendered NPC or one clumsy sex scene can undo. It's a lot of risk for not a lot of reward.

it also risks trespassing on serious, deep emotions. Not triumph or curiosity or fear or lust, but real, significant emotional attachment to a fictional creature. And that's a can of worms that developers are perhaps wise to shy away from. But, perhaps not.

Edit: You didn't have to remove your hope for a censorship switch. It is another discussion and perhaps you should specify sex-censorship or swearing or both, but it's a legitimate value. Not everyone wants to trip over a sex scene, for various reasons and not everyone wants to hear constant F-Bombs. Also, some of us have kids and sex is much more potent than cartoon-ish violence..but that's another discussion as well.

An interesting argument against sex in a video-game, explicit sex anyway, is that it almost automatically becomes porn. Now, while pornography has it's uses - and it pretty common in the Dark Future of Cyberpunk - it is -not- real sex or loving sex. If you've had those or might like to have those, it's completely possible seeing the pixel-bits of this NPC you've been getting to know would be quite jarring.

I can sympathize with that, absolutely. Why not make explicit language and/or sex an on-off switch in Options?

 

[227]

Mature relationships are...hard to write, mkdewidar. And easy to botch. Bioware catches a -lot- of flack for their many attempts, many of them clumsy, but at least they try.

Legitimately trying to write a mature relationship and shoehorning in stereotypical, borderline-offensive representations of a group in order to pander to them are totally different things.

 

[Sardukhar]

Legitimately trying to write a mature relationship and shoehorning in stereotypical, borderline-offensive representations of a group in order to pander to them are totally different things.

Unless you were actually in the meeting where Bioware set up that agenda, that is your interpretation of their goal. And I think your interpretation is inaccurate.

That you have this perspective - and can no doubt defend it with reams of evidence - is a sign of their failure, absolutely. But I sincerely doubt they set out to achieve that end.

I'll also be quelling Bioware hate-fests if they start, not that I don't enjoy them, because, you know hate, yum yum, but because they obscure discussions.

 

[227]

But I sincerely doubt they set out to achieve that end.

I'm 90% sure someone could direct you to certain tweets from the company that would prove otherwise. Not me, though. I don't "get" Twitter.

I'll also be quelling Bioware hate-fests if they start, not that I don't enjoy them, because, you know hate, yum yum, but because they obscure discussions.

But! But! But!

Ugh. Fine, mom.

 

[Sardukhar]

I'm 90% sure someone could direct you to certain tweets from the company that would prove otherwise. Not me, though. I don't "get" Twitter.


But! But! But!

Ugh. Fine, mom.

Look. If you WANT TO , you can start a WHY I HATE BIOWARE thread. And make sure EVERYONE POSTING knows that a)I and Dragon will be using it as troll-bait to add to our watch-lists and b)it stands a better than 50% chance of being either closed or having me post-facto turning it into a Bioware love-letter.

But otherwise, go nuts. People need to vent, let 'em vent. God knows I've had a few Bioware issues myself...keep buying their games though.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

In my experience open world don't do well with character-driven stories.

it just seems to maintain interest in a character, there needs to be momentum that only a certain level of linearity can provide.

 

[dragonbird]

In my experience open world don't do well with character-driven stories.

it just seems to maintain interest in a character, there needs to be momentum that only a certain level of linearity can provide.

I can see where you're coming from with this, but I'm reserving judgement until we see what happens with TW3. It'll be the real test to see if they can pull it off.

Censorship switches. No, not really that much of a fan. I'm actually OK in principle with an option to cover up nudity as an option, sex should always be optional anyway, but language? No, not really. Replacing one word with another that everyone knows means exactly the same but is somehow more polite just doesn't work for me.

 

[Suhiira]

I felt pretty attached to my Fallout 1 (not so much with 2 and 3) character and that was fairly open world.
So I'd say it can be done. The thing is to not be so "open world" that the RPG story-line gets lost. So no, you can't decide to open a biosculpting studio or set up a real food smuggling network.

 

[Nars]

@Sardukhar

I really liked what you wrote there, I'm not sure I'm fully comfortable with this fact.

But seriously.

I don't really feel that writing romance is somewhat harder than writing other mature themes (death, murder, racism, slavery, bigotry you name it). There is just one big problem with writing IMHO. The thing that is mentioned by OP, lack of diversity. You should be able to start a game in steady relationship, npc should be able (depending on your actions) to cheat on you, you should be able to use romance as a meaning to get some vital information from someone, etc. Actually the devil... ekhm, Bioware had few nice ideas, especially in DA:O when Morrigan at the end simply leaves you (most of the time bearing your child). And Dead Space 3 had good start (at beginning your girlfriend from DS 2 left you and you are forced to cooperate with her current boyfriend).

Picturing sex is real problem though. As you mention, it's really hard not to make sex scene an instant porn. The biggest issue in my opinion is treating sex as most important factor and "winning condition" in ingame relationship. You do what you do, just to see this short sex scene and boom you completed your romance (mandatory achievement pop-up). Other thing is how hard is not to make sex just an eye candy addition to gameplay, if in nearly every "mature" cRPG you have mandatory brothels when you can see pack of random sex cutscenes. I really didn't like this element in Witcher 2 for example. Yes, in books Geralt had relations with "working ladies", but it was never described in detail (contrary to sex with ladies that meant something to White Wolf). I believe that in games similar approach would be appropriate. There are brothels, you can go there, your PC can have fun there, but there is no sex cutscene.

 

[Hoplite_22]

In my experience open world don't do well with character-driven stories.

it just seems to maintain interest in a character, there needs to be momentum that only a certain level of linearity can provide.

See this is why i liked New Vegas better than fallout 3, FO3 has that exact problem, it was directionless and meandering rubbish story about some nebulous father figure you had met for ten seconds. the opening of New Vegas? I wanted to Johnny the error of his ways, Kill some one right the first time or you are going to regret it.

But was NV more liner? not in the least, you could still wonder off in to the badlands, find weird and wonderful stuff (specially with the weird west perk) but it had given you direction and purpose.

Shit time to go play that again.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

But was NV more liner? not in the least, you could still wonder off in to the badlands, find weird and wonderful stuff (specially with the weird west perk) but it had given you direction and purpose.

Also, if I remember correctly, the game reacted to it if you beelined straight to the Strip from Goodsprings and neglected the events of the southern U-turn you were initially urged to take by the narrative.

The narrative design (characters, quests, world, choice&consequence...) of the game was really top notch.

It just was a shame (to me) that the hands on gameplay wasn't (even if it improved form Fallout 3 quite a bit).

 

[Guest 3751882]

I agree with pretty much most of you; sure making a story with such depth is pretty hard, but not impossible, also everything is hard

CDPR can possibly do it though.

Biowares story methods are pretty much identical in many aspects such as the relationship "bars", the wheel and all that sort of stuff. Reminds me of Ubisoft who have the same gameplay throughout all their games.

Also 1000% agree with the fact that most relationships in games have that "win" state...their should be an endgame for the relationships XD

This is just a dream but I wish their was this game where basically you can do stuff like ignore people calling you for help and you get known as an asshole, you talk a lot and people say your talkative.

 

[Sardukhar]

Also, if I remember correctly, the game reacted to it if you beelined straight to the Strip from Goodsprings and neglected the events of the southern U-turn you were initially urged to take by the narrative.

The narrative design (characters, quests, world, choice&consequence...) of the game was really top notch.

It just was a shame (to me) that the hands on gameplay wasn't (even if it improved form Fallout 3 quite a bit).

Did exactly this,this playthrough. Other than having my face wrecked at level 4 by..everything..game had no problem with me going right to Mcarran and then to Vegas. Also snuffed Benny with his own gun, ( took a few reloads), got 500 xp and the "Talk About Owned" achievement.

If inter-personal relationship writing had come along at the same depth and speed as graphics, I tell you, we'd be in some RPG Golden Age. But it hasn't.

Perhaps Pillars of Eternity will do a better job, but I find the relationships between my character and any other NPC in any game, probably the shallowest part of my experience.

As Mk says, I'd like to be called an asshole by an NPC friend - and for it to hurt a bit. That would be great!

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

As Mk says, I'd like to be called an asshole by an NPC friend - and for it to hurt a bit. That would be great!

PoE is supposed to have that sort of reactivity, as far as I remember. There won't be any romances or that sort of relationships, and thank god for that, but the CNPC's are allegedly supposed to be quite indepth with their personalities, motives and philosophies, and will leave you if you do things they don't like (don't know if they straight up call you an asshole, but...).

And so will Wasteland 2 (and they probably will tell you you're an asshole to your face too); although the CNPC's there probably won't be quite as indepth as those of Obsidian writing.

 

[Sardukhar]

And so will Wasteland 2 (and they probably will tell you you're an asshole to your face too); although the CNPC's there probably won't be quite as indepth as those of Obsidian writing.

I played Wasteland 2 - I'm a backer yay me! - and although NPCs can be quite offended and certainly respond realistically to you, I don't feel a real sense of connection to my character or my party - maybe because my party is just these guys I made or maybe because it's harder now for me to connect with them when they are tiny, tiny faces waaaay down there. I dunno.

Writing is solid, though. Check it out.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I played Wasteland 2 - I'm a backer yay me! - and although NPCs can be quite offended and certainly respond realistically to you, I don't feel a real sense of connection to my character or my party - maybe because my party is just these guys I made or maybe because it's harder now for me to connect with them when they are tiny, tiny faces waaaay down there. I dunno.

Writing is solid, though. Check it out.

I'm a backer too, and I've played it (it's the closest thing to a reasonable Fallout sequel I am likely to ever get, so I'm all over it; I am a bit disappointed that it took so much from Fallouts design and isn't closer to the original Wasteland, but no complaints, it's a fun game nonetheless). The game is still work in progress, though, so some things will be fleshed out still. It's certainly not a literary masterpiece, but I found I felt somewhat bad for pissing a certain companion NPC off by digging up his wifes grave (I guess it was the sentimentality of the situation contrasting his intolerable behavior up to that point and the heartfelt smirk in the portrait)... :hrhr: