Oh but we do, V... We all do...
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Daaaaamn... I hadn't noticed that... I'm starting to lose trust in CDPR by the minute...
Oh but we do, V... We all do...
You know I've been seriously thinking on this, even sent a discord friend some bait and switch examples. Is it an RPG or action-adventure? It seems they deliberately lied to their audience, like this is on a whole other level. If they don't fix this, or have some overarching plot or plan already that would fix this, I think their reputation which has already tanked (rightfully so), it will only tank even worse. Like I said in some other thread, this is a Bethesda style fall from grace, but way worse. This looks really, really bad.
And to add to the "Soulkiller" killing V.
I believe that alt makes engram with real V. But I also do believe in soul.
What I think, if the soul is something not made of any kind of mater ( electircity, biochemical), then the soulkiller can not reach and kill actual soul what soulkiller does is resets your brain technicly. So all it does, it might just give you extreme electric shock for all we know, just speculating here.
So if the soul something not made of matter and you can not destroy, does it leave your body then during the proces? No I do not think so. How many times people die for about a minute before being brought back to life by medics. Quite a lot of time. And peopel are still feeling the same, nothing changed.
So V pretty much goes over the same process but with extra step, restarting the brain. And about self awareness?
I would say if V still has memories, feelings and is a conscious being of himself/herself and the world around V, I would say that it is actual V.
We do not actually know what those engrams actually are and how they work, so it is all speculations, biochip could be just a empty brain vessel just in smaller size, who knows.
I believe that alt makes engram with real V. But I also do believe in soul.
What I think, if the soul is something not made of any kind of mater ( electircity, biochemical), then the soulkiller can not reach and kill actual soul what soulkiller does is resets your brain technicly. So all it does, it might just give you extreme electric shock for all we know, just speculating here.
So if the soul something not made of matter and you can not destroy, does it leave your body then during the proces? No I do not think so. How many times people die for about a minute before being brought back to life by medics. Quite a lot of time. And peopel are still feeling the same, nothing changed.
So V pretty much goes over the same process but with extra step, restarting the brain. And about self awareness?
I would say if V still has memories, feelings and is a conscious being of himself/herself and the world around V, I would say that it is actual V.
We do not actually know what those engrams actually are and how they work, so it is all speculations, biochip could be just a empty brain vessel just in smaller size, who knows.
Speaking of which, I went ahead and checked GOG's store page for the game...
Waaaaait... I thought it "wasn't about saving the world, it was about saving yourself"...Store Page said:
I'm sad to say. Really sad, but I'm losing trust in CDPR the more I read about the game's expectations... I pre-purchased the game mid 2020, and even defended my purchase stating that CDPR never let us down, and that that would be a pre-purchase I'd be proud of. Even got it directly from GOG because I wanted to fully support CDPR...Store Page said:
thanks!
i was very late to that whole BW mess, but i think their whole reaction was like, sucks to be you?but yeah ive reached the end of the game and i googled all possible outcomes bc it wasnt looking good and im like......seriously?? this is it?? and v was approaching a space station when her suit started leaking and im like omg its mass effect 2.. what the f.. and the credits roll?? i rewind to let johnny take over and he leaves town buying a guitar for a kid, he seemed happy but v was locked in cyberspace like ughhhhh this suuuuucks
It looks to me like, they seriously weren't ready for the deadline earlier this year, so they resolved themselves to making an action-adventure, rather than the RPG with the full breadth they promised originally. They spliced together this game, then set to work on the elephant in the room - performance, bug fixes, etc.. Something they are still working on today. If this is the case, their plans are probably a complete mess as of now. Even if they have some sort of plot in mind that incorporates and gives further context on these endings, I think it may be in complete shambles.
We may be in for one heck of a ride when it comes to this game.
We may be in for one heck of a ride when it comes to this game.
Holy crap. I go to work and the thread blows the hell up. I have a lot to catch up on.
The more and more gets revealed it looks like a bait and switch. This game was simply not ready.
I actually remember them switching the branding, some Russian source in our social media ridiculed it. I don't think it would ever change the people's perception, though.
I think their decision stems from the fact that, even upon release, a lot of people criticized TW3 for not being a true RPG - as in, you don't have classes, you can't roleplay per se, only add flavors to your Geralt etc. if you remember, there was a time when they actually wanted to make Cyberpunk closer to the pnp rpg - they talked about classes, at the very least. then they moved to "oh no, V is just a merc with a skillset" and the branding sneakily moved from RPG to action-adventure.
to answer your question - I still think it's a role-playing game, just isn't in the same vein as Disco Elysium or Pillars of Eternity. as @BunnyBana aptly stated in their post here, the genre classification doesn't really matter in the end. Prey and Dishonored are classified as immersive sims, yet they have role-playing elements (good/bad Morgan, cruel/benevolent Emily) and branching narratives with choices that affect different endings. to me, Cyberpunk is closer to those game than to classical RPGs (minus the choices that affect the ending, lol).
If V2 doesn't know she's V2, and Panam doesn't know she's V2, and literally nobody besides Alt, who V will never meet again, knows she's V2, then I think no, it doesn't matter at all. As far as V2 knows, she's just V.
Even if she is aware that she's an Engram of her former self, as long as she treats Johnny's Engram as a full person, I see no reason why Engram V would feel any different about herself, and THAT'S what I want. I want V to find peace. I want all the choices I made for her to lead her down a path towards life, not death. It doesn't have to be a flawless, perfect life. Say she gets awful headaches every few days or something, idc. Simply being rewarded for everything she went through long enough to live out her life to its natural conclusion is enough for me. She's a merc, she'll probably catch a bullet in 6 months anyway, and I'm fine with that. I want her to live until then, because she did all the things she needed to do to survive, and to tell her "nope too bad, you die now" is not good enough.
I mean, CDPR made this into a survival story. It didn't start that way, and wasn't sold that way. They MADE it about survival. Well guess what? Survival stories where the hero doesn't survive have been rare since the dawn of the printing press (until recent RPGs, apparently) for good reason. Nobody wants them.
Back to your question, I guess my point here is that if V2 doesn't feel like has she lost anything by becoming an Engram of herself, then did she really lose anything? She has already replaced her eyes and her hand with Cyberware versions. My own V has replaced just about everything with Cyberware, all slots filled, but even if you want to keep your V somewhat "pure" you can't remove the Cyberware eyes. To say that an V2 is not V is like saying that V is blind once she has her Cyberware eyes. V2, since she is a complete copy of her psyche, is no less V than her organic brain version was.
If anything, she's V2 in the sense that she's a better, upgraded version of her former self. A nanite brain could self-repair if she gets shot in the head again. It would be immune to degenerative diseases like Altzeimers or Dimentia. In fact, one of the news broadcasts in the game on the TVs states that MLS is one of the few conditions that is not treatable with Cyberware. Yet, with a nanite brain and an additional nanite spinal chord, V would be immune to MLS, making her the only person on earth with such immunity.
So yes, I'm perfectly fine with V2 living, because V2 is just V with another, advanced piece of Cyberware, that just happens to also save her from death. V2 is absolutely still V. She's not V1, but she is V. I'm not okay with neither of them surviving, though.
Also, I haven't played the Panam ending, but my understanding is she only has 6 months to live that way, too. That's my whole issue, basically. We have choices to make, but they don't matter. If you're just nice to Johnny, you unlock the secret ending and that also gives V six months. No matter which angle you try to work it from, V dies.
Personally, I'd like what I suggested before. Find Johnny's arm and trick the Relic into not killing V in the first place. It's a clean answer to an otherwise very murky problem.
I understand the frustration a lot of people feel whether it be with the story or the gameplay. But if you consider the whole picture there's clearly a lot of moving pieces under the hood and CDPR grossly underestimated the time-effort ratio.
Witcher 3 wasn't born in a year. It had build up from a very rough but somewhat memorable first game, to a second slightly more engrossing experience (along with the console port that brought in a whole new contingency of players).
Mind you, I'm not going to bat for CDPR. There's clearly some serious foundational changes that need to happen internally at the company from top to bottom. Despite the rough edges the foundational core of Cyberpunk is here and relatively solid. We have glimpses of what I feel is a promising start. Going forward we can only hope that it can only get better, not worse. They've said as much in their release statements. Empty words? Maybe. Witcher 3 was in a rough state but the conversation surrounding that game now is about how great it is and not how rough the launch was.
I think I spent a significant amount of my time hating Fallout for what it had become, and it didn't make me feel any better. It just poisoned the watering well for myself, and others who enjoyed it despite the identity crisis. Looking back at it I can accept it for what it is. I'm sure in a year I will be doing the same with Cyberpunk (I'm still fond of the game as it is), provided CDPR is as dedicated as we all are to seeing this game through to the finish line and beyond.
Witcher 3 wasn't born in a year. It had build up from a very rough but somewhat memorable first game, to a second slightly more engrossing experience (along with the console port that brought in a whole new contingency of players).
Mind you, I'm not going to bat for CDPR. There's clearly some serious foundational changes that need to happen internally at the company from top to bottom. Despite the rough edges the foundational core of Cyberpunk is here and relatively solid. We have glimpses of what I feel is a promising start. Going forward we can only hope that it can only get better, not worse. They've said as much in their release statements. Empty words? Maybe. Witcher 3 was in a rough state but the conversation surrounding that game now is about how great it is and not how rough the launch was.
I think I spent a significant amount of my time hating Fallout for what it had become, and it didn't make me feel any better. It just poisoned the watering well for myself, and others who enjoyed it despite the identity crisis. Looking back at it I can accept it for what it is. I'm sure in a year I will be doing the same with Cyberpunk (I'm still fond of the game as it is), provided CDPR is as dedicated as we all are to seeing this game through to the finish line and beyond.
it's been 8 years and I don't remember it in every detail, but it basically started with completely ignoring the outcry and them proceeded to grudgingly promising to fix SOME problems (in the original version, for example, it was unclear what happened to Normandy - it just crash-landed somewhere and that's it, enjoy; also, something was changed about the colour parts themselves? like they were made a bit more diverse, not just a copy-paste with different colours).thanks!
but yeah ive reached the end of the game and i googled all possible outcomes bc it wasnt looking good and im like......seriously?? this is it?? and v was approaching a space station when her suit started leaking and im like omg its mass effect 2.. what the f.. and the credits roll?? i rewind to let johnny take over and he leaves town buying a guitar for a kid, he seemed happy but v was locked in cyberspace like ughhhhh this suuuuucks
as for Cyberpunk, I got to Arasaka ending, thought oh well, I guess I just chose the wrong one role-playing as a hardcore corpo, went to see what else is up, and ended up here. because nothing else is up. especially my spirits.
Exactly what happened to me. Still getting big oof moments for myself.
Something keeps chewing at me, and maybe the rest of you can sort it out.
Alt says that V's consciousness and mind would be preserved. Well, there's doctrine in various religions and other bits of esoterics that suggest that consciousness, or the ability to self-identity, self-awareness, is evidence of the soul.
The larger discussion you could have, or perhaps consider is, is consciousness the soul? There's evidence to suggest that the brain works in data like a computer would or does. Was V's self-awareness, consciousness, is it the same one, not a copy? She Alt said everything else would be burned out, but what does that mean? Was she just being obtuse and vague or was she saying what we've all thought she was referring to?
This does make me think of another movie. Had Johnny Depp in it. Transfers his mind into a computer and things go bad/weird/whatever.
I don't know if I'm drawing or coming to any kind of point, but it's something that's stuck with me. Because, and take it from one atheist/agnostic's point of view; to me, consciousness is evidence of a soul, or whatever equivalent to one might be. Is Engram V conscious? Self-aware? And if so, what does that mean.
I'm still not sold on the 'is he or isn't a copy'. I don't know, the more I think about it, the less conclusive answer I draw from the my own shower thoughts on it to what the game offers me for information.
Alt says that V's consciousness and mind would be preserved. Well, there's doctrine in various religions and other bits of esoterics that suggest that consciousness, or the ability to self-identity, self-awareness, is evidence of the soul.
The larger discussion you could have, or perhaps consider is, is consciousness the soul? There's evidence to suggest that the brain works in data like a computer would or does. Was V's self-awareness, consciousness, is it the same one, not a copy? She Alt said everything else would be burned out, but what does that mean? Was she just being obtuse and vague or was she saying what we've all thought she was referring to?
This does make me think of another movie. Had Johnny Depp in it. Transfers his mind into a computer and things go bad/weird/whatever.
I don't know if I'm drawing or coming to any kind of point, but it's something that's stuck with me. Because, and take it from one atheist/agnostic's point of view; to me, consciousness is evidence of a soul, or whatever equivalent to one might be. Is Engram V conscious? Self-aware? And if so, what does that mean.
I'm still not sold on the 'is he or isn't a copy'. I don't know, the more I think about it, the less conclusive answer I draw from the my own shower thoughts on it to what the game offers me for information.
What's the problem? It says right there on the steam store "action-adventure", apparently been like that for awhile. I think you guys were expecting the wrong thing!
Skpped the last few pages, awesome summary back on page 60-ish, and here's some more thoughts:
1) Again, since this wasn't mentioned in the summary: Cyberpunk does not mean nihilistic. This feels like they brought in Yoko Taro (Drakengard and Nier) as a guest writer - nothing matters, everyone dies. If I wanted that,, I'd have played a Yoko Taro game.
2) In the game's menu screen, on the block labeled "The Countdown", it finishes by saying "Evelyn Parker, Anders Helman, Arasaka - you'll have to track down every lead to make it through this alive."
That's not a character in the game lying to V. That's THE GAME lying to me, the player. The promise that if you track down all the leads, finish all three questlines, you'll somehow make it through alive. I don't expect the endings to come easy, but i do expect them to be possible.
3) The game actually punishes you for focusing on the main quest. Typically, in an open world game, once the main quest is done you can go back and finish all (or at least a lot of) the side content you skipped along the way. Here, you can't do that - you can only go back in time to do them before you hit the kill switch again. But at that point, you know what's waiting for you, so what's the point? As a player, you're much better off ignoring the main quest and working on the side stories in blissful ignorance.
1) Again, since this wasn't mentioned in the summary: Cyberpunk does not mean nihilistic. This feels like they brought in Yoko Taro (Drakengard and Nier) as a guest writer - nothing matters, everyone dies. If I wanted that,, I'd have played a Yoko Taro game.
2) In the game's menu screen, on the block labeled "The Countdown", it finishes by saying "Evelyn Parker, Anders Helman, Arasaka - you'll have to track down every lead to make it through this alive."
That's not a character in the game lying to V. That's THE GAME lying to me, the player. The promise that if you track down all the leads, finish all three questlines, you'll somehow make it through alive. I don't expect the endings to come easy, but i do expect them to be possible.
3) The game actually punishes you for focusing on the main quest. Typically, in an open world game, once the main quest is done you can go back and finish all (or at least a lot of) the side content you skipped along the way. Here, you can't do that - you can only go back in time to do them before you hit the kill switch again. But at that point, you know what's waiting for you, so what's the point? As a player, you're much better off ignoring the main quest and working on the side stories in blissful ignorance.