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CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

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Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#201
post #124
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't game much you made be blind to the fact that the gameplay is a poor, and the AI is about 15 years behind the cutting edge (GTA SA was more advanced)

I personally haven't seen a single FPS beating the AI of FEAR back in the day. I honestly don't expect anything anymore. It's been so long. Cyberpunk 2077 is a bit worse than other FPS of our time. But all are worse than FEAR anyway. This comment doesn't include things like traffic AI. Only combat.

FEAR for FPS AI, and IMHO, Ultima VII for open-world NPC AI.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#202
Incumbent consoles hardware refresh cycle is so horribly long due to lack of competition, that it holds the whole industry back and damages progress.

I tried the game on Linux (Wine + vkd3d-proton). Thanks to CDPR for at least giving the game to Wine and Mesa developers in advance, even though they could make a native Linux release already due to all the Stadia work.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#203
post #194
post #7

This company has probably the shittiest gamified bonus system that I've ever heard of: "CDPR leaders would hand out tokens every month to staffers who went above and beyond, and those tokens were supposed to be transferrable into bonuses if the game met “certain criteria, like critical acclaim and a timely release,” according to the report." [1] Get paid in "crunch mode experience points" handed out by middle manager…

CDPR sounds like a relatively progressively run game company tbh. A lot of game dev companies deny you overtime during the run up to a major release and massively layoff staff after releases. Up here in British Columbia all technical workers[1] are overtime exempt because EA ran roughshod over our labour laws a number of years ago and people are too afraid to change them for fear of driving off businesses. 1. Vaguely…

Never understood why they tried so hard to be the destination for offshoring instead of fostering home grown studios.

That and pitching Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]. Is this something that Canadians approve?

[0] https://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#204
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of companies have a bonus which is a combination of 'corporate wide' bonus, 'performance' bonus and 'personal contribution'. This just seems to formalize some of the parts which are often just arbitrarily decided by some governance committee.

No reason to not give the bonuses when accomplishments are recognized then, instead of tying it to the team's success at a singular date (delivery). It forces everyone to work in overdrive. It's plainly not a personal contribution/performance bonus at all. If CDPR makes a bad hire that causes a delay (even outside of development, like marketing?), then everyone suffers for that from a lack of a bonus. This is particu…

Plenty of companies recognise contributions by handing out tokens that can't be cashed in immediately, that have a value that depends on the fortunes of the company, and that might fall in value precipitously. Just usually they name the tokens "stock options" or "pre-IPO shares"

I agree there are plenty of shitty practices in the games industry, of course.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overheat thing is absolutely the most annoying thing in the game for me. It's way to hard to tell where its coming from, and with everything else going on it's just too much. And there doesn't seem to be a cooldown so the moment the effect wears off you're hit again. Theres a part where you're upstairs and you can hear the ai trying to attack you from the floor below. The game is fun but only barely and I think t…

Took me a while to figure out the overheat thing. There's a character skill that highlights who's hacking you, which you should get. Then once you know who's hacking you, you either need to shoot them, or disable the camera (by hacking or shoot) they're using to hack you with (they can use cameras to scan, just like you can).

I have that skill and have yet to see it highlight anyone. I have a feeling its just another bug where the ai can see you through walls.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#206
post #67
post #9

I see CDPR being bashed a lot and I wanted to chip in: I bought the game on release day on GOG and am playing it on a Macbook Pro via Geforce Now. It's running very well for me. I've had 0 crashes. Very few glitches, and if, then they were cosmetic i.e. didn't cause any gameplay problems†. The visuals are absolutely amazing. Combat is very nice. The skill tree is interesting. Night city is beautifully immersive and t…

I mean, that's great for you, but people are bashing CDPR for a good reason: the last-gen console versions are unfinished buggy messes. In a few hours of playing I've had multiple crashes, constant bugs, drops to 15 FPS, just generally terrible performance. I've literally never played such a buggy game before. For a game that had 8 years of dev time the state of the game is pretty egregious

I've literally never played such a buggy game before

Pff. You kids. When I was your age, I once played a game so buggy that when my character walked back & forth to school he had to do in the snow & up hill both ways. Now get off my lawn.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#207
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't sound much different than getting paid in equity at a startup.

There's centuries worth of legislation about equity. You can still get screwed, but "I'm giving you the right to own shares in this company" means something in the eyes of the law. Getting paid in participation tokens doesn't.

Most areas of the world use at-will employment but I'm specifically familiar with the US and Canada. In either of those you can kill options dead due to expiration clauses[1] - actual equity issuance tends to be rarer due to the tax liabilities around it and, either way, dilution can destroy your value and it's completely legal. Additionally, if you crunch for work, you can be denied promised bonuses[2], be fired before they arrive[3], or just be suddenly downsized and end up needing to eat that bonus while you find another job.

Do not work overtime without compensation, no company is your baby and companies have no legal obligation to remember your service. Labour laws are terribly slanted against employees so be very conservative about your expectations from work and never sacrifice your health (mental or physical) due to some B.S. team oriented camaraderie.

I work hard at my shop, I really love all the things we've managed to accomplish and I appreciate all the folks I've built them with. But when it comes to money it is good to be incredibly self-interested because no one else will do it for you.

1. You can be put in a position where you're able to exercise your options but you'll be doing so blindly - trading personally held cash for stock and hoping the company doesn't end up tanking.

2. Bonuses are almost never legally promised in practice, so they remain at the grace of the employer.

3. At-will employment laws means that all future implied payments can be retracted if employment is terminated excepting those that are contractually owed.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#208
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CDPR sounds like a relatively progressively run game company tbh. A lot of game dev companies deny you overtime during the run up to a major release and massively layoff staff after releases. Up here in British Columbia all technical workers[1] are overtime exempt because EA ran roughshod over our labour laws a number of years ago and people are too afraid to change them for fear of driving off businesses. 1. Vaguely…

Never understood why they tried so hard to be the destination for offshoring instead of fostering home grown studios. That and pitching Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]. Is this something that Canadians approve? [0] https://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...

You'd be shocked at what Canadians put up with. Look closely at any industry here and corruption/abuse run rampant.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it runs well on PC and current gen consoles, then they should have delayed the release on previous gen consoles. I'm going to guess that they released on all platforms at once because of contractual obligations.

There technically isn't a release for current gen consoles. They're running the previous gen version of the game with backwards compatibility.

With the performance budget that it looks like they have remaining on Series X in quality mode, I'm curious to see how the "next gen" version will be much different.

Re: CD Projekt Conference Call with the Management Board [pdf] (Dec 14)

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never understood why they tried so hard to be the destination for offshoring instead of fostering home grown studios. That and pitching Vancouver as an ideal HQ2 location since tech workers are worth ~50K less than in America[0]. Is this something that Canadians approve? [0] https://www.vancouvereconomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02...

You'd be shocked at what Canadians put up with. Look closely at any industry here and corruption/abuse run rampant.

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