The biggest fails of this story and what makes replays not very fun is:
1. The LONG intro, in my opinion the game does not really start until the map opens and you can chose what you want to do first.
This takes at least 2-3 hours for most people unless you speed run it. That is way too long intro.
Looking at other "open world" games all have an intro but nothing like CP. Mass effect games is 15-30 minutes before you get to explore.
Fallout games are 5-15 minutes before you can run around the maps. Skyrim is is about 20 minutes or so. 2-3 hours is just way too long.
2. Despite the urgency of that thing in your head it is a false one.
You can go around and do anything you want for as long as you want nothing will happen to you. You won't die even if you just stand there for years or keep sleeping in your bed forever you won't die.
3. No choices make anything in the city change in any major way.
Other examples Fallout 3 disarm the nuke, set off the nuke, leave it too long and it blows anyway. That town is now gone.
Mass Effect series has quite a few, like not doing turian bomb mission in time will make it blow up on krogan planet.
You can loose squad mate left and right if you don't do some things or have good enough charm.
What I expected first time playing CP was that, there was actually a timer of the thing in my head so maybe I only had so and so many days before I would die, but no it's just for show and not real.
The biggest fails of this story and what makes replays not very fun is:
1. The LONG intro, in my opinion the game does not really start until the map opens and you can chose what you want to do first.
This takes at least 2-3 hours for most people unless you speed run it. That is way too long intro.
Looking at other "open world" games all have an intro but nothing like CP. Mass effect games is 15-30 minutes before you get to explore.
Fallout games are 5-15 minutes before you can run around the maps. Skyrim is is about 20 minutes or so. 2-3 hours is just way too long.
2. Despite the urgency of that thing in your head it is a false one.
You can go around and do anything you want for as long as you want nothing will happen to you. You won't die even if you just stand there for years or keep sleeping in your bed forever you won't die.
3. No choices make anything in the city change in any major way.
Other examples Fallout 3 disarm the nuke, set off the nuke, leave it too long and it blows anyway. That town is now gone.
Mass Effect series has quite a few, like not doing turian bomb mission in time will make it blow up on krogan planet.
You can loose squad mate left and right if you don't do some things or have good enough charm.
What I expected first time playing CP was that, there was actually a timer of the thing in my head so maybe I only had so and so many days before I would die, but no it's just for show and not real.
1. The fake invisible walls and illogical lock down - to anyone with a brain and thinks - is incredibly stupid. You can spend two-three weeks - doing missions in watson yet magically the lockdown is still there. And it isnt a physical lockdown - just invisible walls that turn you around.
2. How anyone gives this story a positive is a joke. The game - in both narrative (numerous people tell you) and by scenes (all the times you start hacking and internal bleeding) that you have mere WEEKS to live yet somehow defends of the game say "turn off your brain.. spend months doing side missions - its so excellent!!!" If you spend a moment pondering that your brain is being rewritten every day and have weeks to live most people would go huh - if I want to live I need to get my bootie in gear. Also, V says numerous times they want to live, those defends who say "maybe our V wants to do other things with the time they have" forget that CDPR railroads us by stating numerous times from V's own mouth they want to live and desperate to find a cure. A revolutionary game with a story sooo goood you have to ignore it?!
3. I think that's why near the end they started referring to it as an action adventure game where we "play as V" as there is zero roleplay. Choosing which weapons to use and strategy for how to defeat opponents, or even how you look, does NOT a RPG make. Heck - in Warzone, CoD, Overwatch - can't you choose not only how you look , what weapons you use, and the strategies you utilize?
1. The fake invisible walls and illogical lock down - to anyone with a brain and thinks - is incredibly stupid. You can spend two-three weeks - doing missions in watson yet magically the lockdown is still there. And it isnt a physical lockdown - just invisible walls that turn you around.
2. How anyone gives this story a positive is a joke. The game - in both narrative (numerous people tell you) and by scenes (all the times you start hacking and internal bleeding) that you have mere WEEKS to live yet somehow defends of the game say "turn off your brain.. spend months doing side missions - its so excellent!!!" If you spend a moment pondering that your brain is being rewritten every day and have weeks to live most people would go huh - if I want to live I need to get my bootie in gear. Also, V says numerous times they want to live, those defends who say "maybe our V wants to do other things with the time they have" forget that CDPR railroads us by stating numerous times from V's own mouth they want to live and desperate to find a cure. A revolutionary game with a story sooo goood you have to ignore it?!
3. I think that's why near the end they started referring to it as an action adventure game where we "play as V" as there is zero roleplay. Choosing which weapons to use and strategy for how to defeat opponents, or even how you look, does NOT a RPG make. Heck - in Warzone, CoD, Overwatch - can't you choose not only how you look , what weapons you use, and the strategies you utilize?
I play games from the time they were only 8 and 16 bit, and I have enough games to compare with, and if I find that the story in the game and the side quests are very good, this is my opinion. If you don't like it then this is your opinion. This is far not the first game with lockdowns that can continue endlessly as long as you don't finish certain quests, this is far not the first game where the player has a sense of urgency but can do a lot of things in the meanwhile, this is not the first game without factions, I personally don't have problems with this.
I'm not blind or stupid, the game needs a lot of improvements, but this is not a fully finished product, apart from the patches with bug fixes and small improvements we haven't seen DLC and expansions yet.
1. The fake invisible walls and illogical lock down - to anyone with a brain and thinks - is incredibly stupid. You can spend two-three weeks - doing missions in watson yet magically the lockdown is still there. And it isnt a physical lockdown - just invisible walls that turn you around.
Just a question I ask myself when reading complaints about Watson being locked.
Not having any quests/GIGs available (in short, nothing to do) until you had finished the "Heist" and met Goro at Tom's Diner could been better ?
For me, no
And for the urgency in games...
I'm on ME-LE. And damn, the reapers will destroy all the organics in the galaxy soon... but whatever, I can waste my time to explore and doing everything I want.
Or to stay at CDPR, Geralt must find Ciri "very" urgently before the Wild Hunt, but he have the time to do a Gwent tournament or look for a frying pan
That's a pretty good way to describe my disappointment.
You do the prologue for your LP selection. This justifies why V moves into NC. You meet Jackie in different ways. This provides further justification. You then get the montage, V and Jackie doing missions/living the dream, then move to rescuing Sandra Dorsett. Two mercs on a job. So far we're all good. You're kind of along for the ride but get some flavor choices and it's a neat little intro. From here it all goes downhill.
That theme of going out in a blaze of glory is shoved in your gullet as soon as you hit the Afterlife. You can choose how to respond but the responses don't offer much for the player to drive them in any particular direction. Perform some high risk job and get blasted in the process so people remember you? Know what makes more sense? Doing it right the first time like a professional and succeeding. Yeah sure, people are going to remember those two mercs who bit off more than they could chew and ended up in a ditch. Nope. It's like the game tries to make V come off as some naive street thug.
The Pickup was a win. Specfically the Spider Bot part. Hey, you can like.... make a choice and get a consequence. Alas, it's also short lived because upon completion it gets dropped. Events change for characters involved but it's arguably irrelevant in the grand scheme.
Moving onto the conversation with Dex to offer incentive for the Heist in the first place. Dex hand-picked V and Jackie for a reason. A true professional would have told him to fuck off. There were too many red flags. It was clearly leaning toward a setup. A smart merc would have seen through his charade. If memory serves there was even dialogue in-game hinting at the notion certain fixers will offer the world to unknown mercs at times. If it works out, great. If not, oh well. More dead mercs nobody cares about.
Even the hiding of the true nature of the target. So, you want me to steal something from freaking Arasaka and insist on being hush hush about what it is? Okay, find someone else there ace. If we're headed for early retirement and potentially getting on the bad side of a ruthless megacorp all the details are going to be out in the open. Otherwise it's not happening.
So shit hits the fan and you get detected due to unforseen circumstances (no plan survives contact with the enemy... contingencies, contingencies, contingencies....). Neat, the job is blown and Jackie gets shot. Yes, let's put this chip we know nothing about in our head to save it. Let's reiterate, the job is blown. TBug gets lit up and Arasaka knows someone is stealing their cool toy. That thing just became radioactive. At that point you're not selling it and walking away with the money. The correct play is to leave it, get the hell out and go into hiding until it blows over.
Jackie kicks the bucket here. Oh hello there forced emotional sabotage for the sake of emotional sabotage. What does V do? Surrrree, let's take the chip we know nothing about out of Jackie and slot it in our head. Continue as planned. Meet up with Dex at some shitbox motel in nowhereland to regroup. Yes, the letters aren't on the wall there. Hey, here is an idea. Let's go visit Dex and put his ass in the dirt for handing us a clusterfuck. Sorry, we got stories to tell.
Surprise, Dex intends to cut out the loose ends. Shocker. Didn't see that one coming. Please go clean up in the bathroom while we prepare to knock ya out, take you to a random levitating garbage dump and put a bullet in your head. Yessir Dex, I'll walk right into that just for you.
Insert a convenient mechanism to thrust Johnny into the game. That old rockerboy everyone forgot about because he's been out of the picture for ages. Yep, people clearly remember those going out in a blaze of glory. Cool, now we have a convenient way to insert more heroes and villains of the CP universe into the picture. All of Johnny's old pals, his nemesis, etc. We gotta reestablish his relevance if he's going to be in the player head all game.
Oh boy, V is dying. Rub some dirt in it V. We got a name to make for ourselves. Let's chase down some leads. Open door number one. Whoops, try another door. Door number two? Nope, try again. Door number three, let's meet up with Hanako of Arasaka. You know, the megacorp we just stole from. That's smart. Oh, but wait. You must be blessed with her presence first. Hop through some hoops with our boy Takemura to even gain an audience.
You finally get blessed with the presence of Lady Hanako. No worries, just help me solve this power struggle in our big ole megacorp. All will be forgiven. We'll fix your problem, trust us. Alternatively, blow your brains out. Alternatively, do side-quests so you can get some simple unlock for more better options. Oh and we couldn't bother to let you make any choices out of that. Nope, we're just going to lump everything together. Which team you gonna pick on the roof? Enjoy your ending.
The first issue is so much of this is forced on the player. I get it, it's a game. Even so, there had to be a better approach, possibly even a better narrative choice, where V would have more opportunities to drive things forward in a certain direction. A different end/romance conclusion/epilogue from one choice, a whole bunch of flavor and simple content unlocks didn't quite do it.
The second issue is the theme of getting screwed over. It's NC. If you were looking for a happy ending you haven't been paying attention. Again, I get it. V made bad choices. Thus, V gets screwed. Well, at worst they're totally screwed. At best they're stuck in perpetual death is fast approaching limbo. Unless you shoot yourself in the face or decide an indefinite stay in cyberland is the right path forward anyway. Where it went wrong is V was forced to make bad choices. It's all fine and good to get burned for touching the scorching hot stove burner. It's another matter when your character is shoehorned into touching it in the first place.
problem is, there is no story in your version of the game, too many times.
V should have ignored Dex= there is no story. Even in a fairly Open TT if the player's actively refuse the call to action, you can't do much. And if you create situations the player can't avoid, its effectively the same as just asking them to accept the call to action.
The other thing is you approach with perfect knowledge, yes you can't trust dex, and yes maybe he is using your naivete, but at the same time, you have accepted a job where your life is on the line every day, and failure can = death. The heist has huge risks, but its also a huge opportunity. It makes sense that Young hungry mercs who need to make a name for themselves, and are in it for the money take the risk, even if they doubt dex. V being a merc at all posits that they are not risk averse people. Notice all the origins has V as being this type of person.
nomad who leaves the safety of a clan to risk it all in the big city
streetkid who gets roped in to dangerous deals with people he doesn't trust to help a friend
corpo who the corporation decided are best suited to high risk counter intell ops and is chosen to work under one of the more high risk execs.
the game let's you choose some facets, but like most adventure RP you are stepping into the role of someone who would actually go into deadly situations, mostly because there is no story if you aren't that type of person.
As you said after the heist, but before dex, there could have been some other options. Pulling a gun on dex could have triggered the fatal incident. The other obvious options V might have is going to Evelyn, where she kills V, or going to neither where takemura catches up to you and kills you. But, I don't think they wanted to give up the takemura or judy/evelyn plotlines from the mainstream player's game
the other part where the narrative choices make less sense, is probably the second half of act two, where you start to have more reasons where arasaka is not your only option. A person pursuing the Johnny reccomended don't trust arasaka, Alt has a way paths, probably wouldn't have gone as far as the parade. They would have looked for other methods to find mikoshi, its just luck that hanako mentions this. Likewise, even if hanako wanted Soulkiller, its totally luck that pursuing Evelyn eventually leads to Alt. Further, its less likely that an arasaka leaning player would even think pursuing Evelyn at all would be fruitful. Like takemura, most would dismiss it as a dead end.
separating these options more, would make more sense, and would make where v ends up in each epilogue make more sense. But game structure wise, I think they decided they wanted the player to only have to make heavy mutually exclusive decisions at the end of the game, and wanted them to easily experience the other endings once completing the game without restarting. This game philosophy does muddle the narrative/rp a bit.
But at the end of the day, creative choices will be made, to me the game and story are still good even if some aspects, I might have done differently if I created the game. I expect that most non custom products will not be perfectly adapted to me.
Just a question I ask myself when reading complaints about Watson being locked.
Not having any quests/GIGs available (in short, nothing to do) until you had finished the "Heist" and met Goro at Tom's Diner could been better ?
For me, no
And for the urgency in games...
I'm on ME-LE. And damn, the reapers will destroy all the organics in the galaxy soon... but whatever, I can waste my time to explore and doing everything I want.
Or to stay at CDPR, Geralt must find Ciri "very" urgently before the Wild Hunt, but he have the time to do a Gwent tournament or look for a frying pan
I'll play...
Other games do it far better and far more intelligently.
W3: You are in Orchard for information - you don't leave until you follow the leads. Soon after that World opens up. So the tutorial area is locked, but for a believable amount of time and for a reason the protagonist has to remain there until leads exhausted.
No one , especially not me, said/say not having any missions at all until Diner - thats called a strawman.
Dragon Age O: You are locked in as following orders from origin area and after fight you have more open world. Very believable and has reasoning.
In fact not having watson locked at the start would be perfect time to do missions early and become a higher class runner before going against the big heist.
Urgency in games and you reference ME:3? LOL - fantastic. Please continue using the least respected of ME games as an example. With the ending near universally derided.
In ME:1, and ME2 you are hunting someone/investigating someone or a group. Information gathering with no ticking bomb except very very late in ME:1 and ME2.
BUT - the reasoning its not a huge huge rush - its investigating/finding. in theory in ME:3 is, lorewise the Reapers take centuries/millenia to do their purge. They dont have the numbers to attack all places at once and hence methodically cut areas off and cleanse. Then rinse and repeat. But the game, for artificial purposes, makes the invasion occur near simultaneous all over the galaxy. Not exactly great writing.
Witcher 3: You are not told Ciri is in imminent danger as in right away. In danger - sure. But it is vague - a dream to begin. And you are looking for/ and her her hunters too, are going after someone who can teleport - so much like ME1/ME2 you are following her trail and gathering information. Obstentially to let ms teleporter know you are trying to find her.
As you progress you learn more about the danger and its nature and stakes heighten but at no point is it gonna happen immediately. Just look at assault at Kaer Morhen - would take weeks at minimum for those people to reach Kaer Morhen.
All Geralt has in the beginning is a "dream" symbolizing danger. Then learn a little bit more and little bit more over time. But again for a teleporting person,
Geralt was stupidly told you have three weeks to find her and then player go off and do horseracing. (or ride to Tousaunt)
I play games from the time they were only 8 and 16 bit, and I have enough games to compare with, and if I find that the story in the game and the side quests are very good, this is my opinion. If you don't like it then this is your opinion. This is far not the first game with lockdowns that can continue endlessly as long as you don't finish certain quests, this is far not the first game where the player has a sense of urgency but can do a lot of things in the meanwhile, this is not the first game without factions, I personally don't have problems with this.
I'm not blind or stupid, the game needs a lot of improvements, but this is not a fully finished product, apart from the patches with bug fixes and small improvements we haven't seen DLC and expansions yet.
Other open world games do the initial lockdown far far far better and give the player reason. Besides magical barrier the police erect
DA:O
DA:I
DA2
W3
FO series
Baldurs gate/BG2
Elder Scrolls series
problem is, there is no story in your version of the game, too many times.
V should have ignored Dex= there is no story. Even in a fairly Open TT if the player's actively refuse the call to action, you can't do much. And if you create situations the player can't avoid, its effectively the same as just asking them to accept the call to action.
I'm not sure what to make of those comments. I wasn't saying the game should have been left as is and slapped in a "say no to Dex" option. I was saying the story the game insisted on telling and the way it was presented wasn't very good to me. The obvious implication is it should have been done radically differently.
The other thing is you approach with perfect knowledge, yes you can't trust dex, and yes maybe he is using your naivete, but at the same time, you have accepted a job where your life is on the line every day, and failure can = death. The heist has huge risks, but its also a huge opportunity. It makes sense that Young hungry mercs who need to make a name for themselves, and are in it for the money take the risk, even if they doubt dex. V being a merc at all posits that they are not risk averse people. Notice all the origins has V as being this type of person.
I can only assume you mean hindsight when you say perfect knowledge. That's just it. Hindsight wasn't involved at all. From the first sentence Dex spewed out of his mouth red flags were going off. They continued to pile on the more he talked. The conversation with Evelyn, while entertaining, created the same vibe. She then finally got to the "let's fuck over our fixer" part and the pile kept on growing. Especially once you realize that conversation and the later one with Dex right before the Heist about your cut are utterly irrelevant. The only person who seemed to have any sense around V was Judy. She basically said everyone is going to die. The moment she did so I was like, "Yep, that about sums it up... at least someone isn't a complete moron".
Forgive me but I don't consider it good writing when the story pushes the player toward doing dumb shit, forces them to keep chugging along and eating it with a smile on their face then turns around and punishes them for it.
In terms of your risk commentary. There is a difference between accepting calculated risks vs hopping out of the airplane without your parachute. It's okay we're landing in water and it'll break our fall boys. After a couple bounces we'll swim to shore.
Jackie, despite his big heart, was clearly a little slow. Evelyn was waaay out of her depth. Dex was completely full of shit and a glorified salesman. Probably intent on sticking a knife in V's back as soon as he got what he wanted. The only real winners of the group were Tbug (greed got the better of her), Judy (didn't do anything beyond the BD part... smart girl...) and the trusty pet class hold-over (Spider Bot). When you toss this all together it isn't a winning formula. It's a recipe for disaster. Especially for a high profile job. It's like the amateur liquor store robbers decided to up their game and move right to tackling Fort Knox. Fun fact, if you're hitting up liquor stores for buttons and peanuts you're not Fort Knox material. Nor will you ever be.
separating these options more, would make more sense, and would make where v ends up in each epilogue make more sense. But game structure wise, I think they decided they wanted the player to only have to make heavy mutually exclusive decisions at the end of the game, and wanted them to easily experience the other endings once completing the game without restarting. This game philosophy does muddle the narrative/rp a bit.
Nah. They wanted to save it all for the end, lump everything together and sprinkle in some simple content unlocks because it's easier. Easier was likely preferred because they suddenly realized they bit off more than they could chew.
Maybe that will end up being the "Canon" for the dlc?
@Anarchizt@Simpson3000 If you could choose between a heroic succes and failure then there would be a right or wrong ending. Even if you took a choice about installing the relic during the heist, at that point V was just preserving the merchandise. Dex causes the problem by shooting you. To me a tragic hero has to die anyway regardless of whether their demise is of their own making.
You're right it is depressing, but ultimately even in real life most people are just grease for the machine.
Still i wonder why not Dex and his bodyguard did the heist all alone. I mean they cakewalked V who fought together with a half dead Jackie from the Arasaka penthouse till the garage, fighting dozen of security and military and a mech even to then become overwhelmed by one **ucking punch and a single low caliber bullet.
I'm not sure what to make of those comments. I wasn't saying the game should have been left as is and slapped in a "say no to Dex" option. I was saying the story the game insisted on telling and the way it was presented wasn't very good to me. The obvious implication is it should have been done radically differently.
I can only assume you mean hindsight when you say perfect knowledge. That's just it. Hindsight wasn't involved at all. From the first sentence Dex spewed out of his mouth red flags were going off. They continued to pile on the more he talked. The conversation with Evelyn, while entertaining, created the same vibe. She then finally got to the "let's fuck over our fixer" part and the pile kept on growing. Especially once you realize that conversation and the later one with Dex right before the Heist about your cut are utterly irrelevant. The only person who seemed to have any sense around V was Judy. She basically said everyone is going to die. The moment she did so I was like, "Yep, that about sums it up... at least someone isn't a complete moron".
Forgive me but I don't consider it good writing when the story pushes the player toward doing dumb shit, forces them to keep chugging along and eating it with a smile on their face then turns around and punishes them for it.
In terms of your risk commentary. There is a difference between accepting calculated risks vs hopping out of the airplane without your parachute. It's okay we're landing in water and it'll break our fall boys. After a couple bounces we'll swim to shore.
Jackie, despite his big heart, was clearly a little slow. Evelyn was waaay out of her depth. Dex was completely full of shit and a glorified salesman. Probably intent on sticking a knife in V's back as soon as he got what he wanted. The only real winners of the group were Tbug (greed got the better of her), Judy (didn't do anything beyond the BD part... smart girl...) and the trusty pet class hold-over (Spider Bot). When you toss this all together it isn't a winning formula. It's a recipe for disaster. Especially for a high profile job. It's like the amateur liquor store robbers decided to up their game and move right to tackling Fort Knox. Fun fact, if you're hitting up liquor stores for buttons and peanuts you're not Fort Knox material. Nor will you ever be.
Nah. They wanted to save it all for the end, lump everything together and sprinkle in some simple content unlocks because it's easier. Easier was likely preferred because they suddenly realized they bit off more than they could chew.
Even in my first gameplay, my V had a lot of doubts after everything she learned about Dex and Evelyn but agreed to do the heist only because Jackie wanted to do the job. Actually, the heist was very well prepared and was supposed to succeed. Saburo's death was the X variable that changed everything. In my game, V ended up with the relic in her head because she supported Jackie in his dream to move to the major league. Both Jackie and Evelyn had their reasons to want more from life. Jackie was an ex-gang member, as a merc, he was tired of doing risky jobs that don't pay well and wanted to have a better future with Misty. Evelyn worked in a dollhouse and wanted to change her life (e-mails on Judy's PC). Desperate people can do desperate things. This is what I got from the story and I personally don't have any problems with this part. My concern is about the endings but this is another topic.
I'm not sure what to make of those comments. I wasn't saying the game should have been left as is and slapped in a "say no to Dex" option. I was saying the story the game insisted on telling and the way it was presented wasn't very good to me. The obvious implication is it should have been done radically differently.
I can only assume you mean hindsight when you say perfect knowledge. That's just it. Hindsight wasn't involved at all. From the first sentence Dex spewed out of his mouth red flags were going off. They continued to pile on the more he talked. The conversation with Evelyn, while entertaining, created the same vibe. She then finally got to the "let's fuck over our fixer" part and the pile kept on growing. Especially once you realize that conversation and the later one with Dex right before the Heist about your cut are utterly irrelevant. The only person who seemed to have any sense around V was Judy. She basically said everyone is going to die. The moment she did so I was like, "Yep, that about sums it up... at least someone isn't a complete moron".
Forgive me but I don't consider it good writing when the story pushes the player toward doing dumb shit, forces them to keep chugging along and eating it with a smile on their face then turns around and punishes them for it.
In terms of your risk commentary. There is a difference between accepting calculated risks vs hopping out of the airplane without your parachute. It's okay we're landing in water and it'll break our fall boys. After a couple bounces we'll swim to shore.
Jackie, despite his big heart, was clearly a little slow. Evelyn was waaay out of her depth. Dex was completely full of shit and a glorified salesman. Probably intent on sticking a knife in V's back as soon as he got what he wanted. The only real winners of the group were Tbug (greed got the better of her), Judy (didn't do anything beyond the BD part... smart girl...) and the trusty pet class hold-over (Spider Bot). When you toss this all together it isn't a winning formula. It's a recipe for disaster. Especially for a high profile job. It's like the amateur liquor store robbers decided to up their game and move right to tackling Fort Knox. Fun fact, if you're hitting up liquor stores for buttons and peanuts you're not Fort Knox material. Nor will you ever be.
Nah. They wanted to save it all for the end, lump everything together and sprinkle in some simple content unlocks because it's easier. Easier was likely preferred because they suddenly realized they bit off more than they could chew.
With any work of fiction, the reader/player/watcher has to accept the premise,
the actual premise of the game begins in act 2. The premise is A person in a screwed up world trying to get ahead takes a high risk job, hoping to change their life, but it goes horribly wrong.
If you can't accept that someone would do something highly risky and it would go wrong, there is no story or no game. This is like Chris Redfield deciding it would be stupid to investigate zombie Town.
If you are the type of merc who would tell Jackie good luck, I'm not going to risk my life, I only take relatively safe jobs. There is no big adventure for you. You are 9-5er. Nothing crazy/interesting happens to that character.
Also, you are caught in a gaming paradigm, because you seem to think saving Sandra Dorsett, or the random jobs in Watson are safe. They are not. play the game on VH, 1 life only. I have, and to be honest the maelstrom mission is more likely to kill you than konpeki tower. V could die in a back alley to some tiger claws for 1000 cred gig, or risk it for millions, if not more.
The big problem (narratively)isn't the danger, its dealing with dex and Evelyn. However, narratively V can imply they don't trust either one, so if Arasaka didnt go wrong, jackie/v might have handled that situation differently. And even though you imply that job was doomed to fail, it really only failed because saburo happened to try to retrieve the relic from yorinobu the same day and time V attempted the heist. That was totally unpredictable bad luck.
To be fair, he was sent there with his police unit on orders. In his subsequent appearences, he is well aware of what he is doing, so not the best example.
I could agree for Johnny, we like or not, everyone view him differently.
But for the "forced" death, it's not if you don't have some clues from the start "NC's Legends ! Know where you'll find the most of 'em ?! The graveyard."
Or V to Jackie in Delamain Cab. "See you soon in the major league, choom..."
Or in AfterLife with Claire. How do I get a cocktail in my name ? To be flatlined, in full operation, that would be perfect."
There are quite a few like that
With any work of fiction, the reader/player/watcher has to accept the premise,
the actual premise of the game begins in act 2. The premise is A person in a screwed up world trying to get ahead takes a high risk job, hoping to change their life, but it goes horribly wrong.
If you can't accept that someone would do something highly risky and it would go wrong, there is no story or no game. This is like Chris Redfield deciding it would be stupid to investigate zombie Town.
If you are the type of merc who would tell Jackie good luck, I'm not going to risk my life, I only take relatively safe jobs. There is no big adventure for you. You are 9-5er. Nothing crazy/interesting happens to that character.
Also, you are caught in a gaming paradigm, because you seem to think saving Sandra Dorsett, or the random jobs in Watson are safe. They are not. play the game on VH, 1 life only. I have, and to be honest the maelstrom mission is more likely to kill you than konpeki tower. V could die in a back alley to some tiger claws for 1000 cred gig, or risk it for millions, if not more.
The big problem (narratively)isn't the danger, its dealing with dex and Evelyn. However, narratively V can imply they don't trust either one, so if Arasaka didnt go wrong, jackie/v might have handled that situation differently. And even though you imply that job was doomed to fail, it really only failed because saburo happened to try to retrieve the relic from yorinobu the same day and time V attempted the heist. That was totally unpredictable bad luck.
Point of order....
Someone who is a merc/runner taking dangerous jobs falls very much within the realms of believability. I think the issue people have is the dont ask questions and blindly trust. Little chance to get more info.
But I completely absolutely agree with "With any work of fiction, the reader/player/watcher has to accept the premise... the actual premise of the game begins in act 2."
Except.. you actually ignore the ACTUAL premise of the game/narrative and story. The premise of the STORY, as told by dialogue, cutscenes, and V's own words is to survive the life threating death sentence where they have weeks to live. In the meantime you have to have a forced bromance with the voice in your head whose identity is being forced to take over your mind and body.
Yes, some jobs are risky. Agreed. No Issue - The issue over and over and over is people who say "its great/masterpiece" yet ignore the very PREMISE of the story. If you can turn your brain off and ignore the game's premise - good for you. If you see nothing wrong with doing 50+ fixer missions, 5-+ NCPD missions over months and all the other side missions which have zero leads and have no relation to you living - fine. I can't turn my brain off as told over and over and over V is sick, V wants to live, Your friends asking how you're doing. If my brain was being rewritten I'd either a) work hard at getting a cure NOW and minimizing my brain tissue and memory replacement. OR B) Saying F it, Ignoring it, and doing everything else with the time left
The game's narrative, premise, and storytelling from V's own mouth counters option B. The game's own story then counters and ignores the ticking time clock.
The game changed in development. In their early preview they had fully written, fully voice acted, fully animated scenes after the Heist where T-bug is alive - maybe jackie too but not sure. After the heist you have a hook up in your apartment - no signs of impending doom. They changed the game and story somewhere in development.
Ergo the massive dissonance with the premise and story of the game - and the open world gameplay with missions to last you months of in-game time.
You do realize that you don't have to complete every single sidequest or gig in the game, right?
If you feel like 100%-ing the game demolishes the integrity of the main quest, then to as many sidequests as you think it's appropriate. You're the one who gets to decide how, when or if you're gonna do it.
I've played TW3 more than 10 times and in all but 2 playthroughs I've ignored about 90% of side content. Not because it's bad (quite the opposite), but because it doesn't make any sense for Geralt to waste too much time on it.
No they don't. They could say "I don't like it". If we're going to play the it's a creative work and highly open to interpretation card then it goes both ways.
the actual premise of the game begins in act 2. The premise is A person in a screwed up world trying to get ahead takes a high risk job, hoping to change their life, but it goes horribly wrong.
That depends on what you mean by premise. At the start of the game I'd say the central themes are all about starting over, perfecting a craft to reach the top of the pecking order and legacy. As soon as that relic enters the picture, Johnny pops into existence and V is diagnosed with a 2 week expiration date the central theme shifts to survival. Conceptually all of those areas were fine and well done. How the game got there is what is being questioned.
If you can't accept that someone would do something highly risky and it would go wrong, there is no story or no game. This is like Chris Redfield deciding it would be stupid to investigate zombie Town.
If you are the type of merc who would tell Jackie good luck, I'm not going to risk my life, I only take relatively safe jobs. There is no big adventure for you. You are 9-5er. Nothing crazy/interesting happens to that character.
Also, you are caught in a gaming paradigm, because you seem to think saving Sandra Dorsett, or the random jobs in Watson are safe. They are not. play the game on VH, 1 life only. I have, and to be honest the maelstrom mission is more likely to kill you than konpeki tower. V could die in a back alley to some tiger claws for 1000 cred gig, or risk it for millions, if not more.
First of all, the "there is no story" commentary is pointless. Here is a thought. Tell a different story. It's the CP setting. There is no shortage of options. And yes, I am questioning the entire foundation of the game narrative.
Arasaka isn't some a collection of Tiger Claws, Scavs or a random job in Watson. They're an extremely powerful megacorporation. You don't mess with an extremely powerful megacorporation as V, Jackie, Dex, Evelyn and Tbug do and screw it up or get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. If you screw it up the best outcome to reasonably expect is looking over your shoulder for the rest of your days. The more likely outcome to expect is you die.
Yes, all those podunk jobs involve risk. Every breathing second in NC involves risk. The difference is they don't involve a fixer clearly out to screw you, a doll greatly overextending herself, a best bud with blinders on because "big leagues" and a job where the most likely outcome for failure is ending up in a ditch. It's a jungle. There are no laws in the jungle. Mercs don't get ahead by walking into a kill box while being completely oblivious to it. They get ahead by seeing all the angles.
The big problem (narratively)isn't the danger, its dealing with dex and Evelyn. However, narratively V can imply they don't trust either one, so if Arasaka didnt go wrong, jackie/v might have handled that situation differently. And even though you imply that job was doomed to fail, it really only failed because saburo happened to try to retrieve the relic from yorinobu the same day and time V attempted the heist. That was totally unpredictable bad luck.
Dex was going to screw over V no matter what. That's what my thought was following the car conversation. My fixer is going to stab me in the back. Again, this is why he picked up two unknowns from the street to spearhead the mission. The idea was to pop back into the picture because a big job landed in his lap, pick up two throwaways knowing full well it's likely to go south, most are going to die getting the relic out then have them bring it to him and clean up loose ends.
What Dex didn't account for was the extent of the fallout because of the way it went south. He didn't account for Takemura. It was abundantly clear Takemura wasn't to be fucked with .
I've played TW3 more than 10 times and in all but 2 playthroughs I've ignored about 90% of side content. Not because it's bad (quite the opposite), but because it doesn't make any sense for Geralt to waste too much time on it.
Well, apparently CDPR was content to revisit this issue with CP. It would appear it's a common issue with open world games. There isn't enough consideration placed into whether the narrative chosen fits with the open world elements.
This is a good video. I agree with this dude that the Gigs and whole Fixer system was a failure. Made these side jobs not memorable and with lack of any emotions in them. We rly needed to meet more interesting npc quest givers instead of reading fixer texts or listening to video calls. Witcher 3 did that way better even if it was very simple
For me this is a very interesting conversation.
I played one full playthrough with one single ending (didn't go back to check the others) because I wanted that to be the ending for that character and because with that playthrough I formed an opinion on what the game was proposing in terms of roleplaying: there is a story developed with secondary ones that you cannot change in its overall and you imagine your character in this world for the open world/character development/gameplay sections. Their suggestion for replay/lifepaths is that the player sets his character (meelee and techie Nomad that will not go/go along with Johnny, will help this or that character and do their side content... because of what we roleplay as. And when I tried replaying the game (I had several restarts already, also because on the ps4 pro as the save game grows longer and the city opens up, the bigger inventory/playtime that quality overall goes way down. I restart the game if I'm doing longer sessions but the longterm memory allways goes down for me - started playthrough at 1.2, reinstalled game after 1.2).
Sorry for the sidenote. So while when I did those restarts I play that game that was proposed by CDPR and see where Ayind_Palmer, ooodrin, LeKill3rFou and others come from in saying accept the premise, I agree that, specially here on the forum, we should criticize, analyze and say what was achieved as game proposition vs how they achieved that, what's it like to play the game and go through the story/how does it hold up, like Restlessdingo32, bcraig6010 are challenging.
For example I did things in my last playthough like to record as video on the ps4 the phone calls that advanced the story or character missions (from Takemura, Judy,...) and I would play them when I felt like doing them; but the game should avoid this on the mechanics it creates for telling the story. The creators dealt with pace at a very off way for me. It could be avoided if they managed it differently. For example we do the mission with takemura on the warehouse before the parade mission. And at the end of the warehouse he says goodbye see you (it seems in a few days) for the parade. It didn't take an in-game day (I didn't skip time) for him to call and say that the parade was about to start and he's waiting. This is constatntly happening. It's not only the relic urgency, everything is happening at once. This could be avoided for example if they allowed us to call them (same with fixers for the gigs) and have a sentence that starts the missions.
Also about the map opening up it's a pity we don't get to explore more of the city before the heist, specially for the replayability motivation for the roleplaying they suggest, the order in which we go through missions/areas. And here on the forum we can criticize how these mechanics were introduced/intertwined with the story moments. How they would manage to do that adapting the story I leave to CDPR but I agree, while I roleplay their game when I play it, when analyzing the story we shouldn't do it from a set in stone as it is now, the story was created at some point alongside gameplay to arrive here and when someone critiques the story implementation the details of it as it is now aren't what's important, they were being formed at that stage of development. And for me it has many areas that could improve specially when dealing with time. The lack of branching stories where trying to understand who is playing who and choosing who to side with, when first playing the game it suggests that's a part of its world but in the end, it's not. It would only add to it of course.
the very first time I played the game, December 2020, I remember being very surprised; the fact that despite what I told to DeShawn {I'll fucking kill you}, later this traitor of Dex is killed, but by Takemura San {while unwittingly avenging me}.
in the game, what annoys me, apart the corpses which do not disappear; it is this fact that I am more or less obliged, forced to act. that quite often.
moreover, there was an "deal" between the Japanese bodyguard and DeShawn; it has never been explained. instead of talking about his past, it would have been better if Takemura San explained to us what was the agreement with the one who put this fateful bullet in my head; the beginning of all my trouble {to say the least}.
The agreement was certainly (it seems obvious) : "I tell you where V is and you let me leave Night City (alive)".
But like with Meredith, with Corpos, we don't negotiate
