EVELYN PARKER, WASTED POTENTIAL! YOUR THOUGHTS?
agree, but it's the same about Jackie, Mystie etc. There are plenty of very interesting characters that would have deserved to be used in more depth in the first act of the game (in a relative way, I certainly don't mean dozens of missions to be clear, but surely 4-5 missions well written during the introduction related to Jackie and V frindiship/partnership, and one or two with characters like Mystie/Viktor, would have been really appreciated), to introduce better, to live and why not, enjoy a little more the "pre-relic" life of V AND to giving us the opportunity to "feel the loss" of some characters even more, and some "shock effect" seen in the middle of the campaign like in the last of us 2, where for 7-8 hours they make you live the main quest normally, giving you the impression that things unfold in a certain and predictable way and then....you are destabilized in a brutal way! (if you've played it, you know what I'm talking about...)
It would have made everything more interesting and given a decent number of hours to the main campaign which is ridiculously short. I don't think it will ever happen at all, even in another life, but I would like a "director's cut" with a more extensive and expanded main quest.
With CDP's games the story is always "everything" compared to the gameplay, but in this case too many characters seem to have been treated in a rushed and superficial way as usually NOT happens in CDP titles
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Here is my V looking at Judy and Evelyn as two birds who broke free from NC. Good luck!
She then turns back at the NC: Nais! Let's get back and clean up some more. They all leave one way or the other. I will dig up that trash Adam Smasher, wherever he is hiding. Search and destroy.
She then turns back at the NC: Nais! Let's get back and clean up some more. They all leave one way or the other. I will dig up that trash Adam Smasher, wherever he is hiding. Search and destroy.
You know what I'd like more? branching story paths, you decisions having real consequences in the game world. For exameple, when you start looking for Evelyn an internal timer could be triggered so that, the more side stuff you do before finding her, the smaller the chance of finding her alive.
As a consequence, if you do your job perfectly in saving her life, she could express some romantic interest in you OR Judy could decide to leave Night City with Evelyn, thereby removing herself as romantic prospect and so on and so forth.
That's what I would like more of, branching paths like in detroit become human. We get a small glimpse of that in "The pickup", but rarely after that, which is a shame.
As a consequence, if you do your job perfectly in saving her life, she could express some romantic interest in you OR Judy could decide to leave Night City with Evelyn, thereby removing herself as romantic prospect and so on and so forth.
That's what I would like more of, branching paths like in detroit become human. We get a small glimpse of that in "The pickup", but rarely after that, which is a shame.
Err... romantic interest from Evelyn, no thanks. But I am flattered. I.e. my V is.
Not a fan of timers, but I like the when different decisions made in the game result in different outcomes, given they make sense of course.
[like a broken record] My V's baseline is mourning Jackie to the point when he should be showing up as a talk pal besides Johnny. Something along those lines would be good. Or the opportunity to obtain his body so he can be properly buried.
Not a fan of timers, but I like the when different decisions made in the game result in different outcomes, given they make sense of course.
[like a broken record] My V's baseline is mourning Jackie to the point when he should be showing up as a talk pal besides Johnny. Something along those lines would be good. Or the opportunity to obtain his body so he can be properly buried.
I love all the characters from act 1. The idea the pretty much all of them (Dex, T-Bug, Jackie, Evelyn) all paid a heavy price for their involvement in the heist definitely hits hard. The fact that I wanted more of these characters adds to their interest. What happens to her is a big part of the story at least, so she isn't just forgotten. It just sucks to not be able to see more of her.
Technically what happens to Evelyn might make Judy to rely on V instead, leading to the romance.
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Thats an avatar, not her face. But its curious nonetheless. I assume its a symbol of her being a
puppet to Voodoo Boys
People use all kinds of avatars they find cool (kinda, let's look at the forum). So....
Some use their face photos, like me, but you can see how widespread that is.
Some use their face photos, like me, but you can see how widespread that is.
I dont think its wasted potential. I always looked at this like there is a great punch of fantastic characters in game and that why its sad when they go, die or whatever. Its only a sign of good writing and execution. One of a things which makes Evelyn great is that thats a mystery behind her which triggers imagination. For that I dont think Jackie is really good character - despite great visuals, voice actor etc. he is pretty straightforward and simple. We get to know him a bit more during ofrenda but thats a bit on a side. Anyway, I think its important to write characters like Evelyn even if they are not so much present in game if you really want to shock players with events like in Judy`s bathroom. I guess everyone was waiting for a moment she wakes up and pushes story forward and then what a big shocker it was.
Honestly - yeah, she has massively wasted potential. I don't really care about thematic consistency, you should be able to save her, at least in a round about way. I don't know whether or not her death was due to devs being unable to finish all of the story-lines on time or if it was a deliberate choice, like it allegedly was with Peralez quest chain, but it sucks either way. If it was the former, than I really, REALLY hope that on the next project they would take their sweet time for as long as necessary to finish everything in a proper way - and if it is the latter, than it is a bad design choice and they absolutely should change the course.
Ok, but why? I mean it was decision they made storywise. I dont understand why people are pointing fingers about who should live or die or how a quest should end. You may like it or not, but it was a story CDPR wanted to tell.
Because it is an RPG. A narrative driven RPG, at that - and as such, it should present player with choices in regards to its story and characters. Evelyn's unfortunate end would've hit twice as hard, if it was in result of player's actions and not just a thing that happens anyway, no matter what you do.
Detroit Become Human is the perfect example. The game has a base story, like a tree trunk and from that tree trunk the player can branch out based on the decisions they make. In Evelyns case, her dissapearance could be the "trunk" and the branches could be anything between what we have now, to finding her dead, to not finding her at all and anything in between.
The advantage to such a system is that it adds massive prelayability, admittedly at the cost of more development time. And Evelyns plot is not the only one that would benefit from a system like this - Panam and her clan is another one and perhaps the biggest one of all Johny Silverhand and the player's relationship and its impact on the endings, which as it stands is massively underused.
Whether or not what we got was because of content being cut, or the game being in development for a decade is anyone's guess.
The advantage to such a system is that it adds massive prelayability, admittedly at the cost of more development time. And Evelyns plot is not the only one that would benefit from a system like this - Panam and her clan is another one and perhaps the biggest one of all Johny Silverhand and the player's relationship and its impact on the endings, which as it stands is massively underused.
Whether or not what we got was because of content being cut, or the game being in development for a decade is anyone's guess.
Because CDPR write a story in which everyone who was involved in the heist dies and to provide to Judy a very good reason to try "something" about the Clouds... Seems good guess for me
yes, but now don't tell us that this is the case for every dead character, and, above all, for every story left "in the middle of nowhere", that this was the whole great plan since the beginning, exactly as CDP wanted etc. It's almost offensive to our intelligence. Even stones knows that the game development was rushed for timelines questions, this can actually and heavily (!) affect the construction of quests as well. Obviously it doesn't mean that certain characters would not be dead anyway, NC is a cruel bitch, and CP2077 isn't a fairy tail, but the point is not just the end of a character, but how they get there (latest season of games of thrones for example...). The fact that development was done in hurry for major cause it's clear, so creation of contents, storyline included cannot but have been affected some way
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Being RPG, it doesnt mean that everywhere we need multiple ending options. Going that route, we should have alternative ending to Heist and lots of other missions. Its just impossible to go like that if you dont want to spend another 10 years in development phase.
Lets remember that Evelyn`s death opens up Judy storyline with Clouds which eventually might lead to romancing her. So its not like they cut something because of time constrains - it was just a natural thin to take a story into different direction (plus focus a bit on PTSD, suicide aspect of a world). Evelyn is not really needed after Heist - you get to know all important information from BDs where she meets Voodoo boys and you go for a trip to Pacifica where you will learn even more. Seeing how traumatized she was after Clouds, I dont see her anywhere near catching up with V or something like that.
Lets remember that Evelyn`s death opens up Judy storyline with Clouds which eventually might lead to romancing her. So its not like they cut something because of time constrains - it was just a natural thin to take a story into different direction (plus focus a bit on PTSD, suicide aspect of a world). Evelyn is not really needed after Heist - you get to know all important information from BDs where she meets Voodoo boys and you go for a trip to Pacifica where you will learn even more. Seeing how traumatized she was after Clouds, I dont see her anywhere near catching up with V or something like that.
You can think/guess whatever you want, we will never know anyway
But in my opinion, in a story where everyone who are involved in a heist, die without any exception (V, your character, included), it's hard to believe that the death of a single character (as interesting as it could be) is "simply" due to a lack of time... rather than simply : they writed the story like that.
Above all, Judy, her best and closest friend since years, tried and failled to help her. I don't know how V can even succeed in making her change her mind... V, someone that she probably planned to betray and let behind her to leave Night City with Judy
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No-no, I'm not asking for multiple Heist endings or something like that. I'm a realist, I know how much time, money and effort something like this would take, it's pretty ridiculous.
Actually, I think there are hints in the game, that Heist might've initially had different outcomes, like transporter on the roof that requires some key, but this is a theory and I don't have concrete proof.
Imagine that: up until the point where you found Evelyn, everything is as it is in the game right now. Then, after a day or two, Judy calls and asks V to drop by. As you rightfully said, Evelyn has a bad PTSD and she needs professional help. But proper help would cost a lot of money, an amount that Judy simply doesn't have - let's say, 20 000 eddies. And now, you have a choice:
1) if you have enough money, you can give it to her straight away;
2) if you don't, she can give you a tip on where to get them - some gang's shipment, corpo stash, something dangerous, that Judy wouldn't be able to do on her own, but V would. Or she would give you some time to gather them on your own, like five days;
3) You just refuse to give money all together - either you don't have it, or don't want to give it.
And now, depending on what you choose, Evelyn's fate may differ. If you fail to gather enough cash in time or if you refused to give it all together, quest goes as it went in game - Evelyn dies, Judy's in tears and wants revenge, etc.
And if you did gave it to her, you get a nice cutscene in a clinic, where she is being taken care of by professionals. Maybe later down the line you get a message from Judy, where she says that progress is slow but steady, or something like that, and that you saved her life, etc.
And the funny part is, both of this outcomes can lead to Judy's Clouds business. It's just that in good outcome she would say something like "Thanks to you, we saved her - but this bastards can't keep getting away with treating people like this" - and then give you her main quest.
I don't think that this scenario would require insane amount of additional work - but it would definitely be engaging and cool.
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Of course it would require insane amount of work. First of all, you would need two different versions of "revenge" and not one like it is today where in alternative one Judy is not bringing up Evelyn`s death while talking to Maiko, Woodman etc. Another one, I`m not sure Tom and Roxy would be up for Clouds takeover just because one of their friends was traumatized there. It also alters ending - Judy was planning to leave NC with Evelyn - now with her alive does she brings up that idea of betrays her or something else? Whole Judys dynamic and arc is collapsing because we basically watch her getting more and more depressed to the point where she wants to pack and leave or - being a bit naive - change something for better which eventually leads to failing plan in Clouds. With Evelyn alive and getting better she woudnt be desperate enough to make those moves. Evelyn`s death is needed to make Judys crazy idea believable.
On a side, thank god for no quests like "collect 20k in 5 days to take Evelyn to hospital for PTSD treatment".
I`m not a quest designer but I can totally see how big puzzle it is and everyone of those puzzles is money and time. And there are more puzzles than we generally tend to see like the one I just described. Move one piece and you need to change a lot of others to fit - otherwise it will not look believable.
And yeah, I would love more variations in quests like in Pickup and I too miss some alternative outcomes, but I think its important to understand that its much easier to do it in some side missions where you dont meet characters again. Evelyn questline is just too that kind of variation.
On a side, thank god for no quests like "collect 20k in 5 days to take Evelyn to hospital for PTSD treatment".
I`m not a quest designer but I can totally see how big puzzle it is and everyone of those puzzles is money and time. And there are more puzzles than we generally tend to see like the one I just described. Move one piece and you need to change a lot of others to fit - otherwise it will not look believable.
And yeah, I would love more variations in quests like in Pickup and I too miss some alternative outcomes, but I think its important to understand that its much easier to do it in some side missions where you dont meet characters again. Evelyn questline is just too that kind of variation.
You don't really need two different versions of "revenge", just replace the voice lines with "what you did/what happened to Evelyn". And even if you add different voice lines, they wouldn't be extremely numerous.
Also, wasn't the point that the Clouds was an abusive place to work anyway and Evelyn's fate was just a last straw? Her being alive doesn't really change the present conditions. And besides, everything she went through is a reason enough to want revenge anyway, regardless of her death.
And like I said, it doesn't has to be "collect 20 000 in five days", she can give you a different type of task - the point is to present some form of option.
Also, wasn't the point that the Clouds was an abusive place to work anyway and Evelyn's fate was just a last straw? Her being alive doesn't really change the present conditions. And besides, everything she went through is a reason enough to want revenge anyway, regardless of her death.
And like I said, it doesn't has to be "collect 20 000 in five days", she can give you a different type of task - the point is to present some form of option.