Single Open World or Partitioned?

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kofeiiniturpa;n9998321 said:
The original idea was to increase the voluntary interactivity of the city (if there's story to be had, it comes from what you do and how that results), not to hamfist in text quests. Just to clarify.

Aye. And making it a one-time quest would be far too limiting, in my opinion.

That said, I'm also fine with the idea of a companion app or something of that sort. That would be very, very cool, and it'd be something I'd actually use (unlike every other companion app on the planet) - but, while another solution if presentation is a huge problem, I don't think it is a problem to begin with.

As kofeiiniturpa noted, movies (Even "interactive" theatre type movies, though I've never seen those before) are very, very different than games. With a movie, you are essentially watching one of those "Assassin's Creed: The Movie" type of YouTube clip mash-ups where the creator pushes all the cutscenes together.

Movies, for the most part, are not interactive. People sign on to watch a movie because it isn't interactive. There's a story that wants to be told, and they want to be told that story. A video game -- at least, an open world RPG with sandbox elements -- is quite different. The player does not have to interact with this mechanic at all if they don't want to, whereas in a movie, everybody must be subjected to whatever is being displayed on the screen - unless they get up and leave, of course.

I get your overall point, and I concede that it could be confusing for players at first (at least, if CDPR were bad designers and couldn't think of any way to make it work, which I doubt), but after the first time, you instantly catch on.

Wasn't there at least one mechanic in any major RPG that had you wondering "Wait...what?", but after encountering it/using it a few times, you got the hang of it? This is basically the same deal.

And ultimately, it's the concept that I like, not necessarily the implementation of using it for apartments. I see the value in doing it that way (gives people more to interact with on the street, and makes apartments feel less lifeless) but I'm not married to it.

Honestly, you could just have street terminals that any player can jack into. Perhaps the player has to have a certain augmentation to use them? That would be the perfect way to handle it. Add a (small) barrier to entry, so that only players who want to take part in it can take part in it. The mechanic can be pre-explained during the tutorial, or the first time players walk up to one. A dialogue box pops up on the screen and shows an image of the mini-game, along with a text explanation of what these terminals are and how you interact with them.

SigilFey Thoughts?
 
kofeiiniturpa;n9998321 said:
The original idea was to increase the voluntary interactivity of the city (if there's story to be had, it comes from what you do and how that results), not to hamfist in text quests. Just to clarify.

Sure! Please, don't feel like I'm trying to fight the idea down or anything -- I'm actually having fun with the whole conversation. Personally, I like challenges like this. Simply because I don't think it would really work, that sort of encourages me to find a way to make it work...if that makes sense. For nothing more than the sake of a lateral-thinking exercise. Just to ensure we're all on the same page still:

1.) The original concept was text-based adventures to flesh out the "random buildings" in the game. No set-piece, facade buildings. If they contributed nothing to the main or side quests, they would have a text-adventure associated. Every door has a story behind it.

2.) They're entirely optional.

3.) Having it in the game would be adding another facet to the overall gameplay. (And there is no way to refute this as a fact; that's sure.)


Snowflakez;n9998521 said:
And ultimately, it's the concept that I like, not necessarily the implementation of using it for apartments. I see the value in doing it that way (gives people more to interact with on the street, and makes apartments feel less lifeless) but I'm not married to it.

Alright...what about memories? By getting near a building, you can pick up on some sort of "neural net". What follows would be a text-based adventure as you tried to sort out the scramble of images and sensations that flash through your mind. The building itself remembers some event, and you get it as a blast of feedback or whatnot. So, the bridge to transition the player into engaging in a "text adventure" is that this is all more or less happening in your mind. Just like real thoughts don't include every last waking detail, the character's thoughts and images play out like a choose-your-own-adventure book. In the end, they arrive at a conclusion of the event that could even have multiple endings, since there's no way for the player not to imprint at least some part of their consciousness onto what the building "remembers".

Might allow for not only meaningful role-playing but also let the writers go a bit wild with the actual stories. (I'm also trying to come up with fuel to create quality content for a @#$%!ng lot of doors. [Y'all realize if this concept ever took off, the designers would immediately start looking for ways to remove as many entrances as possible from the buildings. {"Sorry...this block is rooftop access only! Bye!"}])
 
SigilFey;n9998061 said:
The way that Skyrim works, while the graphics stream in as individual cells load, the engine is keeping track of (literally) every, single, persistent NPC in the overworld map. Constantly. When I'm in any exterior cell. It's kind of funky to explain how it works. So, a named NPC in one of the villages will be checked and updated every few cycles...even if they're across the bloody world. By default, "cities" don't load until you go through the load door, nor do dungeons, houses, any "interior" cells. So you don't need to worry about those NPCs, but all of the "open" villages (Riverwood, Rorikstead, Falkreath, etc.) are all constantly updating all of their NPCs to see if it's time for them to go inside, chop wood, wander around the graveyard, etc. These calculations severely limit how much can be loaded into the overworld map at once.

I am not familiar with the technicalities of the Creation engine, but this sounds like a major waste of CPU time. Even some very old games (such as those running on the Dark Engine by LGS) have a system that disables unimportant NPCs and other entities when they are both far enough (which can be as low as a few tens of meters) and not in the player's line of sight. This can also happen in multiple stages (a partially disabled NPC may have no expensive features like vision, hearing, voice, physics or animations, but can still move around on the map, possibly at a much lower frame rate), and be configurable per entity so that important quest characters are still updated as expected, for example. But no one cares if a peasant does not chop wood when you cannot see or hear him. I would have thought a modern open world game like CP2077 would use every possible trick to optimize the world simulation, since a lot of it can be cut compared to the brute force approach without the players noticing.

At least it begins to make more sense now that many want the engine in TES games to be replaced. :) Although full simulation at all times can be useful for things like random events happening far away from the player, like civilians getting killed in a dragon attack. On the other hand, they can also be reduced to simple scripted events with a % chance, rather than an actual dragon fight taking place in real time, but that requires additional work.
 
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SigilFey;n9998761 said:
Sure! Please, don't feel like I'm trying to fight the idea down or anything -- I'm actually having fun with the whole conversation.

Oh, I wouldn't mind if you did (that'd be a conversation too; I probably wouldn't "get" the reasoning nor agree with it, but.....), it just seemed that we weren't quite on the same page there. I also have a toothache and it distracts me quite a bit.

SigilFey;n9998761 said:
Just to ensure we're all on the same page still:
...

Pretty much. There's a more longwinded (along the lines of) explanation that I've made earlier, if your interested (and since I don't have the patience to write it all again right now). That should make it even clearer what I'm after.

Rawls;n9991221 said:
The Zones would have to be compressed compared to the above...

Why not simply take the parts that are needed for the zone to work and have the 1:1 scale. A depicting representation of the "full" area.

Or did I miss something there...?
 
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kofeiiniturpa;n9998931 said:
Why not simply take the parts that are needed for the zone to work and have the 1:1 scale.

1:1 scale is not always good in a game, a real city is very large, and it can take minutes even to walk past a few blocks of buildings. That would be tedious in gameplay. Not to mention the difficulty of designing "real" skyscrapers at 1:1 with 100 floors. Although it would make sense in a game focused on a relatively small set of buildings that are fully realistic and detailed.
 
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sv3672;n9999131 said:
1:1 scale is not always good in a game, a real city is very large, and it can take minutes even to walk past a few blocks of buildings. That would be tedious in gameplay. Not to mention the difficulty of designing "real" skyscrapers at 1:1 with 100 floors. Although it would make sense in a game focused on a relatively small set of buildings that are fully realistic and detailed.

Yeah, personally, I'm fine with a condensed Cyberpunk game. I'd really only want this sort of thing to exist in a medieval RPG, like we had with Daggerfall.
 
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kofeiiniturpa;n9998931 said:
Why not simply take the parts that are needed for the zone to work and have the 1:1 scale. A depicting representation of the "full" area.
Or did I miss something there...?
Mostly because I like actually journeying to the destination. Getting there is sometimes a lot of fun. I think you could do a 1:1 scale of the CP 2020 corebook map probably (which is roughly 15-20 blocks squared IIRC) IF you make it so that only some of the buildings can be entered. I'd be totally cool with that as a zone.
 
sv3672;n9999131 said:
1:1 scale is not always good in a game, a real city is very large, and it can take minutes even to walk past a few blocks of buildings. That would be tedious in gameplay. Not to mention the difficulty of designing "real" skyscrapers at 1:1 with 100 floors. Although it would make sense in a game focused on a relatively small set of buildings that are fully realistic and detailed.

Oh, I definitely do not suggest rendering the whole city, neither 1:1 nor compressed and miniaturized (that’s what I’ve argued against for years).

What I was going for was about those smaller hubs that might contain (possibly) three to five or so cityblocks.
 
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animalfather;n10004391 said:
has Night City been confirmed? or are we getting another bratislava with cyber stuff ducktaped to it?


Not very readable, but these seem to be among the key points:
- Two sandbox environments
- Streets of Night City
Of course, if this is from 2013, then the plans could have changed since then.

If you meant it will be called "Night City", but will not be quite like the map in CP2020, that could happen, some simplification or miniaturization might be necessary. However, it would still be recognizable as Night City, or parts of the city, whatever is included in the game.
 
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sv3672;n10004561 said:

Not very readable, but these seem to be among the key points:
- Two sandbox environments
- Streets of Night City
Of course, if this is from 2013, then the plans could have changed since then.

If you meant it will be called "Night City", but will not be quite like the map in CP2020, that could happen, some simplification or miniaturization might be necessary. However, it would still be recognizable as Night City, or parts of the city, whatever is included in the game.

It's worth noting that this poster is now hanging up at the CDPR HQ, so it seems they still view these as core tenants.
 

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sv3672;n10004561 said:

Not very readable, but these seem to be among the key points:
- Two sandbox environments
- Streets of Night City
Of course, if this is from 2013, then the plans could have changed since then.

If you meant it will be called "Night City", but will not be quite like the map in CP2020, that could happen, some simplification or miniaturization might be necessary. However, it would still be recognizable as Night City, or parts of the city, whatever is included in the game.
  • RPG, NON-LINEAR GAMEPLAY
  • TACTICAL MODE
  • TWO SANDBOX ENVIRONMENTS
  • STREETS OF NIGHT CITY
  • INTERACTIVE NON-LINEAR SCENES
  • LOW-LEVEL, QUEST BASED STORY
  • HI-TECH AND CYBERWEAR
  • BRAINDANCE
All of this sounds awesome. If these are still current tenets of design. I highly doubt the theories of none customizable character roles and linear story and gameplay, if they weren't disproved already.

Hopefully the Tactical Mode is something more akin to a CRPG mode or something related to deeper RPG style gameplay options.

Hope the second environment is in the actual world like a wasteland in addition to Night City. I would prefer the virtual world to be realized more in a linear fashion rather then a massive open world. Giving it a more focused style of gameplay.

I also wonder if CDPR could use the virtual world in a much deeper way, like releasing small bits of linear game levels over the course of Cyberpunks life span to add replay value, extra content. As well as weird ideas that wouldn't make much sense in the "real world" of Cyberpunk but could very well be a virtual world.

Hi Tech and Cyberwear, bring on the gear.
 
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BeastModeIron;n10024291 said:
All of this sounds awesome. If these are still current tenets of design. I highly doubt the theories of none customizable character roles and linear story and gameplay, if they weren't disproved already.

It is not entirely clear what each point means exactly, though, while they sound promising, they can also stand for relatively simple things in the actual game:
  • RPG, NON-LINEAR GAMEPLAY - it depends on how much non-linear it is, Witcher 3 would also fit the description, although with elements like stealth I expect a wider range of approaches and play styles being supported by the game
  • TACTICAL MODE - this could be some sort of turn based combat system as an alternative to real time FPS, but even V.A.T.S. from the Fallout games would qualify (not that it would be the same in CP2077, just similar basic idea)
  • INTERACTIVE NON-LINEAR SCENES - multiple choice cinematic dialogues (obviously with improvements compared to the system in Witcher 3)
  • LOW-LEVEL, QUEST BASED STORY - not sure what a low level story means exactly, quest based story by itself could be similar to Witcher
  • BRAINDANCE - the ability to relive another person's recorded experiences sounds interesting, although in practice it might be used as a narrative/storytelling device in some of the quests
  • TWO SANDBOX ENVIRONMENTS, STREETS OF NIGHT CITY, HI-TECH AND CYBERWEAR - these are more or less as expected, other than exact number of world spaces/partitions
 

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sv3672;n10024871 said:
LOW-LEVEL, QUEST BASED STORY - not sure what a low level story means exactly, quest based story by itself could be similar to Witcher

Could be taken in different ways but as simple concepts, it gets the gears turning for what it could be.

Low level meaning it will be about your own personal story. Its not about saving the world but about saving yourself, as described by Mike Pondsmith.
 
sv3672;n10024871 said:
LOW-LEVEL, QUEST BASED STORY - not sure what a low level story means exactly, quest based story by itself could be similar to Witcher

I took the "low level, quest based" to mean the storyline is more based on what you do and how and less about scripted path through it, i.e. the opposite of Witcher 3 that has very high level storyline (and script based rather than quest based).
 
kofeiiniturpa;n10025101 said:
I took the "low level, quest based" to mean the storyline is more based on what you do and how and less about scripted path through it, i.e. the opposite of Witcher 3 that has very high level storyline (and script based rather than quest based).

Low-level, to me, means you are not out to save the world. You are undertaking quests on the lowest level possible, on the streets, interacting with average citizens. You are not saving worlds, you are not defeating the wild hunt, you aren't stopping the white frost, nor are you (probably) going to be influencing world politics.


Just my read on it.
 
A single open world would be nicer, but given the supposed scale of the game and how they did it in Witcher 3, I don't think it will be a problem if they separate.
 
Well, I see several zones for obvious separation:

Night City Downtown. Includes Corp Center, Harbour, Chinatown, etc

Night City Uptown/outer core. Colossal Studios, University, Suburbs like Pacifica.

Could link the above two by highway or security check.

Combat Zone. Walled.

Wasteland. Also walled off.

Internet.
 
Sardukhar;n10028081 said:
Well, I see several zones for obvious separation:

Night City Downtown. Includes Corp Center, Harbour, Chinatown, etc

Night City Uptown/outer core. Colossal Studios, University, Suburbs like Pacifica.

Could link the above two by highway or security check.

Combat Zone. Walled.

Wasteland. Also walled off.

Internet.

Wonder how they'll handle the internet in video game form? Be pretty interesting if it was actually a separate zone where you have a digital avatar that goes about doing things, but I have no experience with 2020's netrunning or anything so I wouldn't know. Whatever is there + 50 years into the future could be pretty neat.
 
Snowflakez;n10028701 said:
Wonder how they'll handle the internet in video game form? Be pretty interesting if it was actually a separate zone where you have a digital avatar that goes about doing things, but I have no experience with 2020's netrunning or anything so I wouldn't know. Whatever is there + 50 years into the future could be pretty neat.
Ever hear of a game called "Secret World"?
It has it's own in-game internet that's occasionally vital to obtaining information necessary to complete missions/quests.
 
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