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CD Projekt Red is under investigation

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Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#161

Post by ojnabieoot »

munk-a wrote: post #153
ojnabieoot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the real issue is less that it’s unfinished and more that the product at its best doesn’t seem to live up to its lofty expectations (disclaimer: have not played it and don’t intend to until it goes on sale, just watched others and read a good number of reviews). From what I understand it’s a fairly anodyne action-RPG, with routine quests, an underwhelming plot, and not too many interesting choices for character d…

> lofty expectations Well there's your problem right there - don't accept lofty expectations ever. In terms of games that have been decade defining I can draw two examples: Skyrim and Age of Empires 2 - the first game came out after a real avalanche of negative PR around Oblivion being unfun at a basic level (the leveling system in that game was so horrible) and having the first exploitative DLC (see horse armor)...…

OK - I didn't buy into the lofty expectations and I don't think you're understanding my point. My point was that even a platonic ideal of Cyberpunk wouldn't have lived up to expectations - I was surprised by how mediocre the reviews of the plot and quests were - which is a major part of why the blowback about the technical deficiencies has been particularly intense.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#162

Post by ojnabieoot »

jjoonathan wrote: post #139
throwanem wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left something out: > watched others and read a good number of reviews What's the point of reviews, if not to give people this kind of general sense of a game before they decide whether or not to buy it? Why else would AAA studios be so anxious to impose and enforce pre-release embargos, except to reduce the risk of the preorder hype and FOMO being in any way ameliorated by reality?

First-hand reviews play an important role in the ecosystem, yes. When someone hasn't even played the game and comes out swinging, though, it comes across as a bit silly, especially if you've played the game and disagree with them.

I am not coming out swinging - my comment was very much about the reaction to the game and I never tried to pretend otherwise. I said my impression is that it's a B+ game at it's best, which means that its horrible technical failures and unscrupulous marketing are particularly glaring.

It has not been regarded as a flawed masterpiece, but something more like 2001's Anachronox - a solid game with strong elements, but in many ways mediocre and hardly justifying a tortured development cycle and myriad bugs.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#163

Post by b0rsuk »

Living in Poland it was quite a surprise seeing a Polish company become a major success story in video games. Polish games failing time over time used to be a meme in Poland. That's why Witcher books' author wanted a flat fee instead of royalties. I suppose for people in the West CDPR was an indie darling, an unlikely hit plus relatively exotic setting. In Poland, it's a trailblazer and the definiton of AAA.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#164

Post by orliesaurus »

I played a little CP2077 and it's a terrible experience. Things like the Police AI, they just arrive out of nowhere - unlike in GTA series. Feels like CDP did not really think the game through and now, we're paying - us the consumers - for a product that is subpar to what we were told we'd be getting. I'm fed up.

Back in the day I would pay $50 and get a game like Tomb Raider 3 - I would play for hours and hours and no patch ever was needed because...ya know you can't patch something that's on a CD-rom as easily as when you're on Steam or some other launcher. Maybe there were some texture glitches but I never felt like I couldn't complete a game because of some missing feature, or major bug in the story/gameplay.

Well now - 23ish years later, games come out and they're full of bugs - when will it stop?

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#165

Post by fpgaminer »

lumost wrote: post #84
chundicus wrote: post #3

I hope this will encourage big studios to stop releasing broken games, but I doubt it will. The incentives are just so broken due to ease of patching, a need/desire for cash after a drawn out dev process, and a general disrespect for their customers. I think releasing a "broken" game in the form of "early access" from smaller studios can be good in terms of iterative and community development, but also that can be ab…

I wonder how much of this is broken QA throughout the industry. I burned ~60 hours in cyberpunk on a ps4 pro, the content of the game was fun - but the bugs were pretty dumb. Many of the worst bugs originated in story pathways that would only be triggered if various conditions had occurred (which undoubtedly changed during development). From a testing perspective It seems like it would require an impossible amount of…

> Many of the worst bugs originated in story pathways that would only be triggered if various conditions had occurred

I think the absolute worst bug I encountered was because of this, but I don't believe the story pathway that triggers it was uncommon. In fact, that condition apparently has a major effect on the story later.

Basically it was part of a main story quest where you have to wait a day for a character to call you before the quest can continue. But I never got a call. I saw a lot of threads on the issue, and it seems the bug happens if you did some optional dialogue right beforehand. But unlike other optional dialogue in the game, this optional dialogue was really hard to miss. I had to actively run past an NPC to avoid it.

I ended up losing about an hour of gameplay from that bug :/

I agree with you that it was likely because they changed something last minute and never checked it again; a QA failure for sure. And my theory is the COVID situation made QA testing a nightmare. Still ... that bug was brutal. Every "wait for X to call you" quest after made me anxious.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#166

Post by a_wild_dandan »

kickopotomus wrote: post #148
mywittyname wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I saw somebody on Reddit seriously suggesting that Steam should pull the game like Sony did, and it's like, what? I'm starting to think that some major players are capitalizing on the situation by bankrolling marketing and negative PR. CDPR stock has fallen dramatically and now they are facing punitive action from governments that on a level I've never heard of for a game studio. I'm not apologizing for them. They…

> But I'm seeing a bunch of articles about how the number of players one steam has fallen by X% I am part of this group. I think the real reason for the drop off is just that their is not really that much to do in the game. You can 100% the game in 60-80 hours. If you are just trying to finish the main quest lines you can probably do that in about half the time or less if you are really beelining through it. The comb…

I had the same experience. Open world games should have emergent gameplay or fun side content. 2077 doesn't really have either. You can't lead the law on a merry car chase, like GTA. You can't steal into people's homes to find goodies or start a battle with the town folk like Skyrim. You can't play a chill game of Gwent with a nearby NPC. You can't build a neat base like in Fallout 4. You can't go fishing or pelt hunting like in RDR2.

There's just...nothing to do that isn't on a yellow quest marker dot. Nothing to explore and no AI to create rich, memorable experiences with. Just a gorgeous, puddle-deep map. An aquarium swimming with schools of brain-dead, filler NPCs.

It makes me wonder why CDPR even made 2077 an open world at all. You don't need one for a smattering of (superb) siloed missions/levels and cut scenes. That's a lot of extra work so players can...drive around the mostly empty world, I guess?

Who knows, maybe CDPR had a lot of features in mind and will deliver them to us through updates & DLCs. But as it stands, 2077 is billed as an open world and delivers a dead/static map.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#167

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

krzyk wrote: post #31
enahs-sf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having played Cyberpunk on a PS4 and then a PS5, It is nowhere near what you'd expect from a AAA title in terms of quality. Had to stop playing it because it's not worth it to ruin the experience. I can only imagine what the folks at Rockstar are thinking about this launch and what they can take away from it.

And to have a counterpoint, I'm playing on PC and have a lot of fun. I've seen so far only one bug (Panams phone somehow freezed in mid air during her talking scene) I must say that I'm a bit glad that this time consoles were taken less seriously than a PC, in majority of cases is quite opposite (with a few exceptions like GTA V and CP2077).

Yeah, I'm finishing up round 2 of the game and loving it with a few annoying bugs, but nothing that killed my joy. I'm finding it an excellent experience that's sucked me in way harder than any game in a long long time. I really left heart with the Aldecados.

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#168

Post by setr »

egypturnash wrote: post #149
ekianjo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e writing is just really cringeworthy Which games writing is not cringeworthy please?

Supergiant’s Hades is a delight in this respect. I may be biased as I picked it up after some time mindlessly grinding through Persona 5, which has an English translation that is perfectly functional but never amazing.

Not bias; it's fairly solid writing. Hardly a landmark or anything, but the characters actually have character, the plotline has sufficient depth to actually pay attention to (though by no means amazing), and perhaps most importantly of all, it doesn't try to stop you from playing the fucking game because it has a narrative to tell -- a feat accomplished very rarely in non-sandbox games..

TBC, it physically stops you from playing, but it's told in small enough bursts with sufficiently fast text rendering/animations that it doesn't feel like a real interruption; where most games will happily sit you through unskippable cutscenes and long monologues because gameplay is largely the means to reach the next narrative checkpoint

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#169

Post by b0rsuk »

nightski wrote: post #33
chundicus wrote: post #3

I hope this will encourage big studios to stop releasing broken games, but I doubt it will. The incentives are just so broken due to ease of patching, a need/desire for cash after a drawn out dev process, and a general disrespect for their customers. I think releasing a "broken" game in the form of "early access" from smaller studios can be good in terms of iterative and community development, but also that can be ab…

The thing is CD Project Red has released it's games in a really rough state before. All of the Witcher games were brutal on release. But every time they have not only released thousands of bug fixes/improvements for free, but also delivered large dlc/content updates. The difference with CP2077 I believe is that it was just the highest profile launch they have ever had by a wide margin. They are too big now. I don't r…

Your memory might be failing you:

CYBERPUNK 2077: Lies, Excuses, & Sycophantic Fanboys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mKYZVtjgoY

CYBERPUNK 2077 - Early Reviews & CDPR TOTALLY Misrepresented the GAME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko33FH1IItI

CYBERPUNK 2077: INFLUENCERS & JOURNALISTS Are Also to BLAME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJk5TJx6Hq4

Re: CD Projekt Red is under investigation

#170

Post by pid_0 »

warpech wrote: post #2

It seems that everybody seems to hate this game, or rather unfinishedness of it. Meanwhile, I am playing it since 2 weeks on PS4 (not Pro) and totally enjoying every minute it.

The specific issue is CDPR promised X and delivered X - 20. Objectively speaking, cyberpunk is a mediocre linear FPS with some light RPG elements. Your life path basically doesn't matter. You basically have little control over the story. The AI is worse than a game from 2005. The game otherwise is incredibly buggy. You are welcome to enjoy it, but most people did not.
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