The Wasteland... areas beyond the city

[wisdom000]

The Wasteland... areas beyond the city

They have already hinted at thier being areas beyond the city to explore.... Nomads are one of the core classes of cyberpunk, but to really experience the true depth of the nomad class, there needs to be a wasteland, open desert area...

What would you like to see out there....

Obvious it needs to be pretty empty overall, but some bits spread out here and there would be awesome as well.

I would like to see a nomad market, or large encampment. Something maybe akin to Megaton in Fallout, A racetrack nearby for drivers to test their skills, and a fightclub (thunderdome) type arena.

Nomad convoys, smuggling goods in and out of the market, or to and from the city. You can get hired to ride along with them as an outrider, or even just to ride shotgun in one of their vehicles.

I would also like to see roving bands of marauders and raiders (Raffen Shiv), roaming the highways and wilderness, raiding nomad convoys or lone travelers. Maybe some instances similar to bandits in RDR.

An old airfield you that serves as a property, yeah I know they did it in San Andreas, but it was awesome there.... the perfect home base for a nomad character.

An old factory somewhere, a scavengers paradise.

Corporate trucking convoys, heavily armed,, with no regard for anything or anyone beyond getting their load of Chill Cola to the city.

Hi-Way cops, decked out like the MHP from Mad Max, driving state issued armored muscle or armored racing bikes.

Random lone civilian vehicles, rare but it happens, some idiot and his family thinking they can make it across the wastelands, almost gueranteed to be taken out by Raffen Shiv raiders.

 

[Garrison72]

You're not going to like this...but I don't want a wasteland. Mainly because we've gotten nothing but wasteland from the Fallout series, and I want this to be different.

Also, I find it to be boring. I want a vibrant, bustling city to explore, not a desert. I don't find the desert to be very compelling.

 

[wisdom000]

You're not going to like this...but I don't want a wasteland. Mainly because we've gotten nothing but wasteland from the Fallout series, and I want this to be different.

Also, I find it to be boring. I want a vibrant, bustling city to explore, not a desert. I don't find the desert to be very compelling.

You are going to get a vibrant, bustling, and enormous city... that much is a given... Night City is a huge sprawl. But there has to be something outzside it, and Night City definitely is not on an island. It doesn't matter if I like it, or if you like it... the truth is that Nomads are a big part of the game, and as I said, they have already stated that there will be areas outside the game... it would be a waste not to give nomads the flavor they deserve, especially since it can pretty much be guaranteed that Netrunners will have their own separate reality to play in...

Now I talk of it being desert, but the landscape should actually be pretty diverse. Wooded areas, mountains, grasslands, flat cracked earth desert, and hills. There is plenty of room for diversity...

Maybe even a small farm co-operative run by people the corporations are trying to force out...

 

[Garrison72]

You want real estate at the sacrifice of depth. We don't need vast areas that we can travel through for the sake of....traveling through them. I don't see the point.

 

[Sardukhar]

Ah, the issue of sacrifice. Always a guessing game since we don't know how CDPR allocates resources. I'm sure I'd find many things you want as a waste of resources in favour of whatever I prefer.

I'd like a wasteland, yeah. At least, I would this week.

The essence of beauty is contrast. This is true also of depth. Without contrast, it all seems the same layer. I need some kind of interactive contrast in order to believe the City is a city and not merely a city-shaped fishbowl. This is also why I'd like to see and swim in the ocean.

Take Sleeping Dogs. I barely go on the water or out to the islands but when I see them I know I can. This makes the rest of Hong Kong seem much, much more believable.

Vast, relatively empty areas are hardly resource-heavy and are a good place to put random encounters as well as a place to try to hit 180mph in your stolen Police Interceptor. Depending on complexity or moddability of the game, they are also a great place to die of thirst or blood loss.

But mostly I want them there so I can cruise out, wander around the contrasting social and cultural ecosystem for a bit, wonder how the hell Nomads don't go nuts and go back to the City.

Same reason I want to see office buildings and corporates. I don't want to live or work like that, but I need it to provide reference for my crazed lifestyle.

 

[dragonbird]

Ah, the issue of sacrifice. Always a guessing game since we don't know how CDPR allocates resources. I'm sure I'd find many things you want as a waste of resources in favour of whatever I prefer.

As far as "providing feedback" is concerned, it means that if someone wants it, fine, they can say so, but if someone thinks it's a bad use of resources, then that's also valid feedback. And, eventually, CDPR will make their own decisions. Which is as it should be.

Personally, I don't really see the point of having large wasteland areas just to drive through, but if it's cheap to develop and will keep people like you and Wisdom happy, fine.

But I'd prefer them to concentrate on the city and make it the best of all possible game worlds. Leave the space opera, the road trips, the oceans for other games.

 

[Sardukhar]

Awwwww...You want to make Wisdom and I happy! That's so sweeeeeeeet. Or as my Bella-self would say, "cool.".

We-ell, the thing is, the city is just one part of Cyberpunk. The wastelands where HiWay travels, the Nomads live and so forth are another substantial part. Many a sourcebook and entries -in- sourcebooks have gone into it. The same is true for LEO and various other space ops: they are a big, BIG part of cyberpunk fiction, from Neuromancer to Hardwired, Bladerunner to the Matrix. No, the Matrix didn't have space, but the spaceships and hostile conditions outside the cities were very space/wasteland themed.

So although I look forward to a solid realization of Night City, cyberpunk is so much more than simple urban fun. It would be a disservice to the genre to pretend otherwise.
I hope we have some space/wasteland references at least in CP2077.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears... in... rain. Time... to die...*"

Thanks, Rutger.

 

[Aditya]

Well not a huge space but relatively a small amount of it will do. While I would prefer to mostly stay in a living happening world, once a while would be good for a 'change of atmosphere' as long as it's not for the sake of it.

 

[Lolssi83.811]

Wisdom filled the wasteland pretty nicely with encounters and stuff. Still I'd rather not have vast emptyness just for the sake of it. If the map would be Skyrim size it wouldn't be a problem though, still compact enough for game without needles driving/walking what ever. Also fast travel will propably be there at some form.

About the environment I don't really care what there is as long as there are interesting npcs and encounters. I also prefer more of the city even though I sometimes get overwhelmed in big hubs and can't decide which way to go without missing something

 

[braindancer12]

well done Wisdom i want everything you said in the game!

 

[thepurespecies]

View attachment 868


You mean like this right? lol

I do think the wastes has it's place. But If Red can do it. Remains to be seen. Night City, from the book I read a long time ago, from what I remember. It's massive. Like bigger than new York, plus and streets and zones above and below. It's a big undertaking. From what I gather about Witcher3, It can be possible. Since we have no idea what next gen is truly capable of. I know a 3k gaming pc could handle that. But I'm a console gamer
(don't hate me) so I'd like to get it on PS4.

If they can pull it off, awesome. If not, I'd be happy with Night City, with different classes. Like parts of the city are gothic scum, others nature kinda over took it maybe, with others looking like something outa star wars.

But to each is own.


I personally, will be more then happy with what I get, I'm sure we all will be

 

[wisdom000]

You want real estate at the sacrifice of depth. We don't need vast areas that we can travel through for the sake of....traveling through them. I don't see the point.

Not sure where you get the idea that real estate comes at the cost of depth... in fact, it often adds more depth... it makes the world feel like an actual place, as opposed to some closed off area. ask a lion which he would rather be confined to, a small cage with some rope swings artificial trees and a couple of plastic balls, or a large preserve...

The game map has to be huge, it has to be bigger than just the city, or the city itself seems blatantly artificial. Yes in the end its all a cage, but depth comes from how little we notice the cage, how much the cage confines us. Even empty space can provide depth to the game, if it serves a point. And the point of it in this game is to illustrate just how lost rural america is.... how outside the city there is nothing but hardship and suffering.... but also freedom, freedom that does not exit within the city. Freedom from the materialist fad of the week, freedom from corporate oppression. Freedom from the technology that invades every moment of life within the city.

In fact, I would go as far as to say the wasteland would provide more depth by way of contrast to life in the city than if every single building were somehow enterable (which no open world game worth playing has EVER been able to pull off, not even your Deus Ex bullshit 4 square block world).

Depth of the world itself comes from size, it comes from diversity. It comes from feeling like a place that could actually exist. And for that to happen, the cage has to be begin enough to to feel confining.

I will say it again, Night City is not an island. And while you care little about this next bit, the fact of the matter is the video game will have a direct effect on the pencil and paper game, and vice versa. Something many of us have a very real, very serious interest in. We don't want a snow globe view of Cyberpunk... we want the game represented as much as possible.

If you say RDR or GTA San Andreas lacked depth, then I scoff at you. Sleeping Dogs was the best story for a sandbox game I have ever seen, and the world in no way was shallow..... though it could have been much deeper had so many areas not been inaccessible.

Ah, the issue of sacrifice. Always a guessing game since we don't know how CDPR allocates resources. I'm sure I'd find many things you want as a waste of resources in favour of whatever I prefer.

I'd like a wasteland, yeah. At least, I would this week.

The essence of beauty is contrast. This is true also of depth. Without contrast, it all seems the same layer. I need some kind of interactive contrast in order to believe the City is a city and not merely a city-shaped fishbowl. This is also why I'd like to see and swim in the ocean.

Take Sleeping Dogs. I barely go on the water or out to the islands but when I see them I know I can. This makes the rest of Hong Kong seem much, much more believable.

Vast, relatively empty areas are hardly resource-heavy and are a good place to put random encounters as well as a place to try to hit 180mph in your stolen Police Interceptor. Depending on complexity or moddability of the game, they are also a great place to die of thirst or blood loss.

But mostly I want them there so I can cruise out, wander around the contrasting social and cultural ecosystem for a bit, wonder how the hell Nomads don't go nuts and go back to the City.

Same reason I want to see office buildings and corporates. I don't want to live or work like that, but I need it to provide reference for my crazed lifestyle.

Pretty much everything he just said...

Well not a huge space but relatively a small amount of it will do. While I would prefer to mostly stay in a living happening world, once a while would be good for a 'change of atmosphere' as long as it's not for the sake of it.

Look at the size of Fallout or New Vegas, where there were a ridiculous number of enterable buildings and the map was still huge. Exploring those maps was a large part of the fun, and a large part of what sold the game, it's also why New Vegas was better than Fallout 3.... the maps were much more diverse.

There is this wierd new trned among gamers, I have noticed it for about the last 8 years... I don't know if its a lack of patience, some form of digitial ADd, or jsut plain laziness.... but this idea that game maps can somehow be too big boggles me.... they can be too bland, if there is no diversity, they can be too boring, if there is absolutely nothing worth seeing or doing out there, but they can't be too big.

And even if the wasteland IS just flat open desert that stretches as far as the eye can see for half the map, it beats the hell out it just being endless ocean, as at least its not just another bloody island.

 

[Garrison72]

I have a hard time believing they can flesh out the enormous Night City and then put equal care to areas outside the city, or on the water. If there were city outskirts, areas where we get to explore a bit of caverns or desert, or a few rural outposts, I think that'd give the appropriate context to show Night City is not an island, but still allow the team to focus on the city itself.

 

[Sardukhar]

Oh, they won't flesh out Night City, at least not to my satisfaction. It will have to be really partial. I mean, have you -seen- the NC sourcebook? Crazy deep.

I do hope it is to the depth of Deus Ex, only ten times larger. Or more. I'd be really happy with a Sleeping Dogs/GTA 4 style scale, with much more interactive AI and waaay more neighbourhood details and adventures and entereable buildings. Buildings where Stuff Happens.

So, anyway. Flesh out is a relative measure, but no, I don't think they have much chance of bringing me MY Night City. Waaaay too much to hope for.

I'd rather have a great Night City lookalike, full of adventure and depth, but trade say, 100 work-hours on a little bit more city for an exciting set of wasteland/HiWay, ( in case you can't tell, I had a PC who was a HiWay cop for years. Yes, I hunted people like Wisdom. Happily), adventures and maybe even a breif, BRIEF jaunt to the Crystal Palace via cut-scene. So you can look down on NC from waaaay above, a la Hadfield.

Would that not be cool? See Night City from above, at night, gleaming and glittering, the AVs flying around, landing lights flashing, the railway spinning about the buildings? Or to see it from some hills ten miles outside the city, the great highway feeders pumping their neon -and-LED lit cars and trucks into the city's heart?

Thinking, wondering if you'll live long enough to see this again, the rain in your face and the darkness behind you, Night City stretching across the horizon, before you hit the kicker on your bike and start your run towards the Combat Zone.

Sounds damn cool to me.

 

[d1am0ndback]

well done Wisdom i want everything you said in the game!

I second this notion.

I want to see the desert, I want to see humanity in these hostile conditions to see how they survive day to day. Eat what they eat, live how they live, kill what they kill, and rob what they rob.

I want to be able to separate myself from the city if I want to, as much as I love the city there is something "spiritual" when man returns to nature where he was born.

Along with Night City, I want to be able to ride in the desert with a bunch of dirty nomads like Mad Max.

I too, would love to see the city from miles away.

I also want to see the pollution of Night City spread out to the wastelands maybe. Anyways, time to go eat some mushrooms and fight in the THUNDERDOME!!!

p.s. I love megaton, so much so that I chose not to nuke it and kill that tenpenny guy instead.

 

[wisdom000]

Oh, they won't flesh out Night City, at least not to my satisfaction. It will have to be really partial. I mean, have you -seen- the NC sourcebook? Crazy deep.

Exactly... they could spend the next ten years developing the city, with a database that takes up the entirety of your machines hard drive, and it still wouldn't be properly fleshed out... The amount of detail in the NC sourcebook is mindboggling, and thats not even taking into acount all the other books the city gets even more fleshed out in...

I do hope it is to the depth of Deus Ex, only ten times larger. Or more. I'd be really happy with a Sleeping Dogs/GTA 4 style scale, with much more interactive AI and waaay more neighbourhood details and adventures and entereable buildings. Buildings where Stuff Happens.

I can never figure out what the hell people are talking about when it comes to them claiming Deus Ex had depth... so I am just going to stop trying. It was pretty, but that was really about it for me...

But Sleeping Dogs, GTA, yes, down like a clown with that analogy....

So, anyway. Flesh out is a relative measure, but no, I don't think they have much chance of bringing me MY Night City. Waaaay too much to hope for.

Exactly this...

I'd rather have a great Night City lookalike, full of adventure and depth, but trade say, 100 work-hours on a little bit more city for an exciting set of wasteland/HiWay, ( in case you can't tell, I had a PC who was a HiWay cop for years. Yes, I hunted people like Wisdom. Happily), adventures and maybe even a breif, BRIEF jaunt to the Crystal Palace via cut-scene. So you can look down on NC from waaaay above, a la Hadfield.

As you said, it's the contrast it provides... the City is going to be absolutely huge, it literally has to be.... thats the entire point of the city.... Everyone but the nomads have all fled the rural areas to the cities in the hopes of food and employment... So you kinda need to show the wastelands... and they need to appear endless... people live and work there, but they are desperate people. In the city, even the lowest of the low have basic amenities and can get food... but they are all slaves to the system. Outside the city, they are free, but face starvation, have to stay on the move, and crap in a ditch...

Would that not be cool? See Night City from above, at night, gleaming and glittering, the AVs flying around, landing lights flashing, the railway spinning about the buildings? Or to see it from some hills ten miles outside the city, the great highway feeders pumping their neon -and-LED lit cars and trucks into the city's heart?

Thinking, wondering if you'll live long enough to see this again, the rain in your face and the darkness behind you, Night City stretching across the horizon, before you hit the kicker on your bike and start your run towards the Combat Zone.

Sounds damn cool to me.

le swoon

 

[tragan34]

I can never figure out what the hell people are talking about when it comes to them claiming Deus Ex had depth... so I am just going to stop trying. It was pretty, but that was really about it for me...

But Sleeping Dogs, GTA, yes, down like a clown with that analogy....

I don't know that either but from what i know to create depth in game mechanics one has to set some goals to reach with different tactics or after gaining some item or whatever (like passwords to open doors). Deus Ex has a sandbox side and a stealth one and they offer alternative approaches to the run and gun one to complete some goals which will affect the story development. Just my 2 cents.
Actually it would be interesting to see what challenges people would make out of this (like lying characters)

 

[Garrison72]

...wrong thread. woops.

 

[wisdom000]

I don't know that either but from what i know to create depth in game mechanics one has to set some goals to reach with different tactics or after gaining some item or whatever (like passwords to open doors). Deus Ex has a sandbox side and a stealth one and they offer alternative approaches to the run and gun one to complete some goals which will affect the story development. Just my 2 cents.
Actually it would be interesting to see what challenges people would make out of this (like lying characters)

Except none of that has anything to do with the setting....

 

[Garrison72]

I want to be able to skate down sun-baked dunes with a cyber skateboard. It won't really feel Cyberpunk to me unless I can dune skate while those sand creatures from StarWars chase me as I'm spinning around and shit on my skateboard. Then I want to be able to launch into space as a protective force field envelopes my punk dude, and when I finally breach the earth's atmosphere, I want my skateboard to transform into a submarine thingie that plunges into the oceans depths where I discover a lonely blonde mermaid, and we make beautiful love and she has dozens of little carp that swim up stream and...

What?