To anyone still in doubt: CDPR said they'll continue working on the game, so it can sell for years

[ToreadorVampire]

You would have to recruit around 500 000 people for testing every year just to match the testing power of 25 million gamers.

Yes, but only if all you consider is interactive testing by actually playing the game.

Developers are also able to write automated tests which can be run without needing human testers. Now I don't know to what degree the tooling exists for testing games. I write software for a living but web/business apps, I've never worked in the games industry.

For example, I can test web apps using a technology called "WebDriver". That literally drives a web browser around my app following a scripted set of commands, as if it were being used by a real person. It can then verify that after it's followed that script that it sees the expected result displayed on-screen.

Test automation for games would naturally be harder of course, because you're dealing with random events. You don't get exactly the same thing every time. You can set reasonable expectations though.

I could envisage a hypothetical game development testing framework that does something like: Place 6 AI game entities of opposing factions (2 of each from 3 factions) into a scene, in line of sight of one another. Run the game and wait for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes assert that no more than 2 of those entities are 'alive'. Another test could be run to verify that none of them have gone out of bounds, another to verify that none of their loot has gone out of bounds etc etc. These kinds of tests could be run automatically every night without taking up testers' time.

Of course I don't know if such tools actually exist, because it's a different industry to the one in which I work. I'd be very surprised if there's nothing like this though.

 

[Netrunner2go]

Witcher 4 and CP2077 2 development starts next year.....

whats that opinion based on? oO

 

[Bloodartist]

I wonder how well it is selling right now.

Currently its Steams 60th most popular game, with a daily concurrent user peak of about 15000, and average of about 9000.

Steam Charts

Top selling and top played games across Steam

store.steampowered.com

They aren't going to get more players just by adding bug fixes, that much is certain. Without taking bugs into account, the game has a great deal of issues that drop its quality down.

 

[MrGuyton]

whats that opinion based on? oO

The article the OP posted. Says they are looking to start development of two games next year, combined with the strategy statement which says they will concentrate on two IP Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077....... ergo I extrapolated

 

[simon_brooke]

Yes, but only if all you consider is interactive testing by actually playing the game.

Developers are also able to write automated tests which can be run without needing human testers. Now I don't know to what degree the tooling exists for testing games. I write software for a living but web/business apps, I've never worked in the games industry.

The problem with unit testing in software as complex as games is that the 'bugs' often don't occur at the unit level. Each individual component of the software may be acting as intended (and consequently all unit tests may pass), but there may be emergent consequences of the interaction between different units which was not expected. There is literally a combinatorial explosion of the ways in which the very many different moving parts of a big game can interact, so writing a comprehensive suite of integration tests is necessarily impossible.

Not that I'm saying that I know that Cyberpunk has a comprehensive suite of tests even at the software unit level, because I don't. But even if they did, it would catch only a few of the bugs and misfeatures we've seen.

Post automatically merged: Apr 13, 2021

I wonder how well it is selling right now.

Currently its Steams 60th most popular game, with a daily concurrent user peak of about 15000, and average of about 9000.

Steam Charts

Top selling and top played games across Steam

store.steampowered.com

That's partly because many more people will have bought Cyberpunk through CDPR's own in house retailer, GOG.com, than will have bought games from other studios through GOG.com. The absolute numbers in Steam's statistics on CDPR games are likely to be (negatively) biased. The relative fall in players from the peak shortly after launch to the low levels now is probably real, though, and will be worrying folk at CDPR.

 

[Bloodartist]

That's partly because many more people will have bought Cyberpunk through CDPR's own in house retailer, GOG.com, than will have bought games from other studios through GOG.com. The absolute numbers in Steam's statistics on CDPR games are likely to be (negatively) biased. The relative fall in players from the peak shortly after launch to the low levels now is probably real, though, and will be worrying folk at CDPR.

There is little reason to believe that similar behaviour wouldn't be mirrored on other distribution platforms. There is literally no reason.

During the time of the article that talked about the 78% concurrent user drop in january, back then CP2077 was still the 6th most played game on steam. It has continued to drop since then as is obvious from the link above.

Has Cyberpunk 2077 Met Sales and Review Expectations? - Den of Geek

Cyberpunk 2077's debut has been rough, but has the game ultimately been successful so far?

www.denofgeek.com

 

[Moxy3]

“We are convinced that we can bring the game to such a state that we can be proud of it and therefore successfully sell it for years to come,” Kicinski said."

To me that says more than just fix bugs. Even if all they did was fix bugs, as long as they make good on their promise to support moders with REAL moding tools THAT alone would " successfully sell it for years to come" just as it did and for the same reasons it did for Oblivion and Fallout4!

To me that sounds like they are just going to fix bugs so they can sell on consoles. You quote them saying "state that we can be proud of" but they are already proud of the pc state as he said in his apology video. its so cringe.
Im sorry but this game is didnt go beyond its lifetime and is dying already.

 

[ToreadorVampire]

They aren't going to get more players just by adding bug fixes

I disagree; I am a case-in-point.

After the launch-time coverage said "lots of bugs", I held-off purchasing it, despite wanting to buy & play it. As patch 1.2 came out, GoG ran a 20% discount promotion with a headline like "major patches now being released". This triggered me to buy it and begin playing.

Post automatically merged: Apr 13, 2021

The problem with unit testing in software as complex as games is that the 'bugs' often don't occur at the unit level

I didn't say "unit tests", I said "automated tests"

100% if the core code isn't unit tested then they'd be bonkers and deserve all the bad luck they get. However there's a style of design and testing called Behaviour Driven Design (BDD). This calls for "end to end" test automation. The writing of tests which test the whole software solution running as if it were being used by a real user.

In the web we use WebDriver to run those, these are not unit tests at all. I would hope that a similar kind of framework exists for testing games. If not, I know what I need to go start writing in order to make my fortune

 

[AikoHayashi]

To me that sounds like they are just going to fix bugs so they can sell on consoles. You quote them saying "state that we can be proud of" but they are already proud of the pc state as he said in his apology video. its so cringe.
Im sorry but this game is didnt go beyond its lifetime and is dying already.

People see what they want. CDPR announced already that they will not abandon the game after the bug fixes.

 

[OuterSpaceDoggo]

>Committed to fix the bring the game to a state they are proud of
> Previous video literally said " We are proud of the game on pc"
>Pick one.

Translation: we are desperately trying to bring back the game on PSstore so we can start milking it with many "different versions" of the game like Bethesda did with Skyrim.
Guess the plethora of gadgets and marketing was not enough milking after all.

 

[simon_brooke]

I disagree; I am a case-in-point.

After the launch-time coverage said "lots of bugs", I held-off purchasing it, despite wanting to buy & play it. As patch 1.2 came out, GoG ran a 20% discount promotion with a headline like "major patches now being released". This triggered me to buy it and begin playing.

Post automatically merged: Apr 13, 2021

I didn't say "unit tests", I said "automated tests"

100% if the core code isn't unit tested then they'd be bonkers and deserve all the bad luck they get. However there's a style of design and testing called Behaviour Driven Design (BDD). This calls for "end to end" test automation. The writing of tests which test the whole software solution running as if it were being used by a real user.

Yes, I know this. I have been building big complex systems for thirty-five years. The thing is, most systems - even large complex systems like international currency exchanges or nuclear power station control (yes, I've done both those), there are a limited, enumerable list of types of moving part. New currencies may emerge, but they're still currencies. Things like, for example, the United Kingdom changing from 240 pennies to the pound to 100 pennies to the pound happen exceptionally rarely. The flow of every transaction through the system works in the same way and obeys the same rules. Integration testing is possible.

Chess is a game that you can integration test. So is Go. There are a very small number of different types of pieces; there are a very small number of different moves each piece can make. Both these games have complex and deep gameplay, but they're testable.

Modern role playing games aren't like that. The driving subsystem alone in Cyberpunk has the same order of complexity as an international currency exchange. As more parts interact in more ways, the number of potential interactions between the parts expands, as I said, literally exponentially.

In the web we use WebDriver to run those, these are not unit tests at all. I would hope that a similar kind of framework exists for testing games. If not, I know what I need to go start writing in order to make my fortune

With respect, your website – I don't know whether it's Facebook or Twitter or Reddit or GMail – doesn't add up to 1% of the complexity of a game like Red Dead Redemption II or Dragon Age Inquisition or Cyberpunk.

 

[Techno_Core]

Why does CDPR saying saying something remove doubt? Isn't one of the reasons people are upset is because of all the thing CDPR said that ended up no being true?

 

[JoshShaw]

Why does CDPR saying saying something remove doubt? Isn't one of the reasons people are upset is because of all the thing CDPR said that ended up no being true?

It doesn't, but people keep insisting they communicate or the game is 'dead' and the release of a huge patch two weeks ago and confirmation of DLCs this year wasn't enough to assure them.

 

[Techno_Core]

Ok, I was replying though to the OP who seemed to be saying that CDPR's statement should remove doubt about the game's future.
Besides the patch they put out more likely reflects CDPR's legal responsibilities to fix the game because of action taken by their govt and an announcement of future DLC isn't a confirmation of anything.

 

[maniak6767]

Ok, I was replying though to the OP who seemed to be saying that CDPR's statement should remove doubt about the game's future.
Besides the patch they put out more likely reflects CDPR's legal responsibilities to fix the game because of action taken by their govt and an announcement of future DLC isn't a confirmation of anything.

So you think they onlu fixing bugs, because polish govt. told them...Nice theory...

 

[Maranares]

Why does CDPR saying saying something remove doubt? Isn't one of the reasons people are upset is because of all the thing CDPR said that ended up no being true?

I just like to think CDPR have learned from their mistakes, and they'll be true to their words from now on.

 

[Myajha]

There are two ways to look at this.

One, it's true and they have every intention of supporting it. The question here is, define support. Is it just a bunch of bug fixes with the planned DLC and that's it, or are they planning on more content after the planned DLC. In this case by the end of the cycle we'll see an improved game that answers a lot of the complaints of players beyond just bug fixes.

Two, their stock prices are in a downward spiral and tanking and they're trying to shore up the decline by saying whatever is required of them. Sure they're fix the bugs, but forget any substantial new content beyond what's already in development and maybe some cut content replaced in. In this case the game we got is pretty much the game we will have, beyond a lip-service DLC.

 

[zinganza]

From a customer's point of view who doesn't approach the whole affair as if CDPR are my favourite sports team, their past history is less relevant to me than their current behaviour. While i'm personally confident that the game will be improved, it doesn't change the fact that the company known as CDPR made the choice to release an unfinished product and take people's money for it and not even inform them of what they were going to find on December 10th when the game released. At this point, I'm far less concerned about the state of the game and more annoyed by the willingness of CDPR to sit silent while they let there loyal fans fight their battles and make some wafer thin excuses on their behalf. I have no time for the "hate train", but by the same token, I have no time for being gaslighted about the reality of the launch of this game.

they just hold them to the same low standard as EA etc.

if ^ this doesn't apply to your train of thought, which seems to be the case, then I don't get why you feel targeted somehow
what I said specifically addresses people who think, like EA, that cdpr will abandon the game. So...?
favourite sports team? gaslighting? cmon lol

 

[ToreadorVampire]

Yes, I know this. I have been building big complex systems for thirty-five years. ...

I don't disagree with any specific things you have said. I fully appreciate that video games have exponentially more complex state than any application your or I have ever written. I also don't think (and did not say) that automated testing is a complete replacement for human-driven testing. It's not. In fact, I frequently grapple with this misunderstanding in my day job too. Why does everyone interpret me as meaning all-or-nothing, one-or-the-other? Automated testing is a (very important) supplement to human-driven testing and regardless of how complex the state of your app/game is, there is a degree to which you can still do it. Sure, you just can't do it anywhere near as much for games as you can for a business-rule-driven web app.

In CP2077, AI enemies can fight one another. I even saw it in game, some goons of opposing factions having a shoot-out. If you were to leave those NPC entities fighting one another for five minutes then with no player interaction required, several NPC deaths should have occurred. You can now test & assert that all loot dropped from all entities has not fallen into an out-of-bounds position and has not clipped through other objects/scenery.

That's one very very simple scenario which could be automated. Sure, keep your human testers, but if you've got this test running, say, 500 times across a random sample of "fight-legitimate scenes" every night, then you're going to heavily augment the work that your testers do. If you've got a bug with loot being dropped into out of bounds positions then you're going to pick it up pretty quickly that way. I am sure that there are plenty of other instances of low-hanging fruit which could be tested like this automatically, without needing complex test scripts (or even an AI as I've seen is becoming an emerging field) to drive the game logic.

 

[vinovat]

[...] Every major game released on the market these days is riddled with bugs, this is a problem of the industry and the way these games are churned out. Only experienced game companies with long running franchises manage to get this under control, and even then, look at TES V, or Fallout, this is not new.

using bethesda as an example for games releasing buggy, is a bad example;
bethesda is known for their buggy games; it's kina like a meme now; "it's not a bug it's a feature"

and not every game releases buggy, this is untrue; most games who aren't mishandled during developement, is releasing relatively bugfree (note i said relatively, there are still some bugs, but usually nothing you remember)

cdpr's release of cyberpunk should not be excused, and this argument that other games are buggy too, so it's fine, is a bad excuse