How does Judy affect the main story? That clearly says main quest.
I added in something, that I think makes your statement correct. Give the modders a chance. Look what they are doing in Fallout 4 even to this day, and you can see the miracles that modders can accomplish.
I see a lot of peeps putting their hopes on the modders to somehow "finish" this game.
Bethesda makes their open world games with modders in mind, releasing one of the most feature rich modding toolkits out there with their games. We haven't seen anything approaching that from CDPR yet. Saying "We support modders" doesn't make it so. When an actual toolkit is released, then we can assess what modders might be capable of.
Also, keep in mind that ten different modders will have ten different visions for what the game should be. Major overhauls are tough enough with one hand guiding the helm.
This is not the case for Cyberpunk. There is no main story structure -- only the central idea of "what to do about the chip"..."who do we choose to engage with and why"...and "what is the ultimate resolution of our choices." These are not elements of a defined arc; these are considerations that result in multiple, exclusive arcs that only cross paths at key junctions or nodes. This is nothing like trying to create a standard narrative arc.
3.) The game is a "choose your own adventure", in which you can actually alter how the story plays out. There is not central narrative trunk -- only a central theme and conflict. Choices made by the player will not only result in various outcomes, but also various pathways through the game itself. The narrative itself will shift to match the choice / consequence of the player's decisions. (Detroit: Become Human, Life is Strange, etc._) Though, I'll readily admit the distinction for this is blurred, since so many of these games often present the illusion of choice but present foregone, linear conclusions. The weaker canditates here though normally have only one or two conclusions...not six.
All of those major quest revolve around finding Evelyn, to get information about the relic, Judy doesn't alter the ending does she? She doesn't open up anymore options after meeting Hanako.Try playing the game this way:
Talk to Takemura.
Do not seek out Judy or Panam, complete other side content until Takemura calls again.
Repeat until you talk to the Proxy.
Now look at what you need to do to progress.
I am not a developer, programmist, or anything like that.
But think about it logically. With the Witcher 3, CDPR had lots of experience. The Witcher 1 and 2 are games with lots of flaws (especially 2, with its clunky inventory, broken minimap etc.) but they provided them experience for the Witcher 3. They knew (more or less) what to do and what not to do, because all the Witcher games share the same setting: a medieval fantasy with lots of combat, intense story, and lore.
This is not the case with Cyberpunk 2077. The game is their first title set in a futuristic setting with guns, cars, skyscrapers. They even changed the camera perspective.
They simply didn't have enough experience with that kind of game, and they failed.
I wholeheartedly agree with your post.I didn't read all 7 pages of replies, so forgive me if this has been said already.
I don't think this game has failed at all. The main story and major side-stories are engaging, the voice acting is out of this world (Judy's voice actor wins MVP here), the graphics are beautiful, and the music is well done!
(Mind you I play on PC with an expensive rig. Obviously this game completely failed to even run properly on PS4 / XBox.)
Does the game have things that could be improved? Oh my god yes. But is the game a failure? Hell no. I'm over 350 hours played and I still want to play more. Can't say that for a lot of my games, especially single-player ones.
Yes, its very good, but play the whole series from Witcher to Witcher 2 then Witcher 3. they are also remastering Witcher3 currently too. So it will be even more prettier.I wholeheartedly agree with your post.
Aside from that I keep seeing over and over again this game compared to that of The Witcher 3. I haven't played The Witcher 3 so I wouldn't know how good it is, is it really that good? Would it be worth a purchase on the PS5 or is it too outdated as I can purchase the complete edition of it on Amazon for $30 right now?
Aside from that I keep seeing over and over again this game compared to that of The Witcher 3. I haven't played The Witcher 3 so I wouldn't know how good it is, is it really that good? Would it be worth a purchase on the PS5 or is it too outdated as I can purchase the complete edition of it on Amazon for $30 right now?
Silly me not recognizing just how awful this game is...
This isn't really fair to The Witcher III. Disregarding 'failure' endings, it makes a massive difference to the world whether or not Redania or Nilfgard win the war, or alternatively whether the Temerian resistance are successful. It makes a massive difference whether or not Ciri becomes Empress of Nilfgard. Geopolitically there are several major endings, and, if you lived in that world, you would have very sharp feelings about the relative merits of them. That doesn't, of course, make a great difference to Geralt's, or Ciri's story arc, but even focussing in on that story, the difference for their relationship between Ciri as a Witcher on the path, sometimes a companion to Geralt, sometimes apart but always working within his tradition, and Ciri as Empress of an empire riven by internal politics and turmoil, is enormous.
The Witcher III has a branching main narrative. The real major narrative choices for the player are few, and limited, but they do have big moral consequences. In this regard I think (and I haven't yet played Cyberpunk enough to be sure of this) that the differences the player can make to the story are much more consequential to the world in The Witcher III than they are in Cyberpunk. My understanding is that in Cyberpunk, the player can change the outcome of the story for their friends, but not make significant change to the overall history of the world.
I think the issue is you are equating linear and trunk and I am not.
Otherwise we agree. (Also I haven't played a Witcher game, so the comparisons don't work for me - last single player game I played was Neverwinter 2 when it was released...)
For me the order of "talk to Rogue" or "talk to Judy" after "talk in Tom's Diner" isn't important to the narrative trunk of the story. This is because the order you do them in doesn't change things and both are mandatory and reveal the core of the narrative and give clues as to the endings being tragic (in the dramatic sense).
There is however a vast amount of stuff connected to that trunk, if the game didn't force you to climb it (to a degree), it would be very easy to not even find that trunk and it is very easy to miss a lot of the things connected to the trunk as well. Calling on my experience in other game communities - I suspect there is a lot of skipping through things and getting to the Point of No Return and then cycling the endings and calling it done. That skipping, especially in apparently irrelevant side quests, makes it very easy to miss a lot of information about the main quest. (Hell it is easy to miss a lot without skipping, because of the sheer number of layers to things.)
You speak untrue. Witcher and CP has the same structure. With CP you can go, yes first with Hellman, alt , takemura and all variation of these 3. But the same with Wicher, you can go first to Novigrad or skellige then velen on the very end. And as the same as in witcher you need these 3 things to advance a plot. In CP you as well can't go on the very first minute to arasaka, take care of yorinobu or attack arasaka on lvl 3. If you try to take Adam smasher on first encouter end defeat him, game bugges out and you can't advance anymore.Speaking from the bottom up -- I think there's plenty of opportunity for the history of the world to be affected! Just like Johnny and Alt are technically AIs now...so is the player. So even if V's physical form is dead...is that the end? If V's physical form survives...how far does the Arasaka tech extend? Is it now even possible to reverse the immortality provided?
But for the sake of making a video game centered on a character with this type of storytelling structure, I'd say it would be virtually impossible to follow it up with the "same" character in an airtight way. So better to have V's story end, and leave the mystique of the character of V/Johnny carry forward into future games: "You're talkin' about the V from the legend? Choomba, gimme a break! You saying you believe that shit?" I'd say the game not only very successfully resolves the theme of 2077, but it avoids falling into the trap of needing to come up with 6 potentially different world-states that need to be accounted for at the beginning of a "Cyberpunk 2177" or whatever.
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As for The Witcher, it's not a criticism -- it's just a simple observation of the structure. In TW3, I will always do:
Prologue --> Act 1 --> Act 2 --> Act 3 --> Act 4 --> Act 5
That's the structure. It will always be there. I will never get to the endgame without following the narrative structure of the main questline in that order. I can't skip Acts. I can't rush right to the end and take on the Wild Hunt at level 3. I can't avoid meeting certain people before I meet others in the same order. I can't choose to join the Wild Hunt at the end. I can't just say, Ciri can take care of herself. Etc.
The only thing I can do is change how individual Acts resolve -- what they feel like. But I cannot simply avoid an Act or string them together in a different order. Side content may offer different options to explore the lore of the world and build character, but they do not alter the structure.
For purposes of narrative arc -- "telling an effective, moving story" -- this is absolute night-and-day difference from something like CP2077 or other such games. Everything -- the approach to characters, pacing, the amount of writing, how the main themes are explored, the way scenes need to be handled -- everything becomes many orders of magnitude more difficult to handle.
I know that it is your job to defend CP,but let's be real. This game is much more linear that TW3, there is no "Choose your adventure" as you beatifuly described it. It's do this, or not do. Sometimes there is some kind of choice that brings nothing to the main story. Maybe you can tell me, what changed after first meeting with alt? What changed when you chose Netwatch agent over voodoboys? What effect it had? And it is main story line mission. Nothing did. You get info from alt that her solution is to flatline V and make copy of her. And V asks "Wait so you have to kill me to save me? " and it is brushed over "yea small details , we have solution let's go with it". Masterpiece 10/10 ! What changed after judy arc? What is result of V actions? Under Maiko , dolls have it the same, after killing Maiko there is revenge from tigers claws and everything stays the same. The only choices that somehow matters are with Takemura and Panam. Panam questline is fun and propably one of the few saving graces of cyberpunk. But it would be so much better to just admit that it is linear game and from that point move on. Because the main story is immersive, is fun, combat need polish, many otherthings too but do not give this PR magic that happened before realease and effects we have now.Which leads right into:
And hopefully the above response is clarifying my focus. I think it's a very successful attempt at such a complex design while adding in the RPG and open-world elements as well as they have. Even if it's rough and/or disappointing in places, the fact that it's all there and it all works -- and it's still telling a pretty awesome story! -- doesn't feel like anything near "failure" to me.
There is a great balancing act that must be done, though. Any narrative arc, no matter how slight and contained will need to be linear to some degree. Like: we can't establish Jackie's character (or any other character) without a scripted sequence of events that delivers the evolution of that character. We can't create motivation without a scripted sequence of events that explains who, what, when, where, how, and why. And so forth. So, the massive challenge is being able to come up with enough branches to fully capture the illusion of choice / consequence. All while still making it feel as if "the story" is evolving naturally.
And that's where things get 100% subjective. If I went into the game expecting a certain length, with certain activities, and a certain tone and mood (pre-conceptions), then I may be disappointed if the game is not like that. But I would argue, love it or hate it, it is a very well-handled, non-linear exploration of the theme of "immortality". I feel it's a very successful RPG in terms of choice and consequence, though I can see how certain pathways may feel very abrupt. And I think the open-world elements are, while not revolutionary, very well done. Night City is feast of detail and diverse, believable environments. I find NC to be one of the most engrossing cities in a game I've ever seen. Right up there with GTA, Assassin's Creed, and TW3.
And as a whole, I will definitely play again numerous times. I really enjoyed my stealth / non-lethal playthrough. Can't wait to try that again once all the patches and DLCs are out. Next time, I'm going as a Street Kid and a general bruiser.
But the same with Wicher, you can go first to Novigrad or skellige then velen on the very end. And as the same as in witcher you need these 3 things to advance a plot. In CP you as well can't go on the very first minute to arasaka, take care of yorinobu or attack arasaka on lvl 3. If you try to take Adam smasher on first encouter end defeat him, game bugges out and you can't advance anymore.