[Crowbcat] overpromise, sell, underdeliver Cyberpunk 2077

[OnionSnake]

"you only get a chair"
That said - she probably fucks this chair going by what she announced few months back

It's crazy that a $449 chair is enough to get people to mislead their audiences lol

 

[StreetsofBeige]

"you only get a chair"
That said - she probably fucks this chair going by what she announced few months back

Got to say, Jason S was right on one thing in his article. CDPR sure threw a lot of money and effort into marketing.

There's a yellow 2077 knick knack for everything.

 

[Woggleman]

Nobody is paying me a dime and I agree with many of the reviewers as long as you play the right version. Maybe they felt the same.

 

[b0uncyfr0]

So ill ask again - were these devs playing a build of the game we haven't seen yet - maybe this was the build shown to those early reviewers who got 4 hours and praised the living hell out of it?

Or did they know it was utter shit and just had no problem lying so enthusiastically for the last year..?

Have any of them actually come forward to acknowledge almost everything they said is not in the game.. ?

Senior level editor or whatnot and snr quest designer are no small titles, but jeez, the level of bullshit is just so freakin high...

 

[Woggleman]

A much as I defend the game I have a hard time believing they didn't notice any bugs on base consoles. Maybe they were playing off of devkits and it worked better. For the future they need a store bought console in the office and they should have one for every platform it will be available on.

 

[OnionSnake]

Got to say, Jason S was right on one thing in his article. CDPR sure threw a lot of money and effort into marketing.

There's a yellow 2077 knick knack for everything.

Whats crazy is that the Cyberpunk themed XB1X is really sick I am super into it. But the console they made that special edition for runs the game so badly... amazing

 

[GymWolf]

It's wild that people are still this defensive about the game. The game is fucked, get over it. Let's all wait a year or so for the finished game to release after another dozen or so patches. It's over, just accept it.

I think the guy in the video is doing the opposite...

 

[Sejan]

Even if the game did not had bugs, it's a bad rpg and a terrible open world game... Graphics are great, story is okish, writing is good, characters are also good for most part but it's no bethesda, bioware or witcher 3 when it comes to game as a whole. It's less than sum of it's parts sadly.
I finished it and I don't feel the time was wasted but it's like 6/10. Maybe 7 if there were no bugs, better performance and at least fixed police, npcs and basic stuff.

Btw, technical question - why do low LOD assets even load in many games up close?
You often see building, vehicles and characters go through super low, low, medium, high poly lod models when loading the game or like in 2077 - everywhere.
Isn't it a waste of resources, especially on a console which does not have quality settings, to cycle all the LOD models instead of focusing all the loading time of assets to just show high poly model?
What's the pint of loading all those low poly models ? Doesn't it take time from loading high poly model? I Know it's not addative and the model is replaced each time, so it's super weird.

Older consoles up to the PS4 and XB1 did not have the ability to stream in assets fast enough in real time. To compensate, they were forced to have different levels of LOD for some models in memory to switch in and out as necessary. It allowed for more seamless travel at the cost of using RAM. One of the big promises of the PS5 and XSX is that they will be more able to stream data in real time and rely less on keeping redundant data caches in RAM. This is part of the reasoning that faster storage speed will allow for more detailed open worlds. Hopefully as UE5 games show up and other engines take further advantage of these data transfer speeds we will see increasing benefits of this strength.

 

[harmny]

My point is: they will try. Count on it.

Never in this industry a company had this much rep of being "pro customer".

EA, Ubi, Activision never even came close to CDPR's reputation, so they never tried to regain some rep that was lost with Anthem or whatever

But CDPR wont give up just of this failure. Hello Games showed that comebacks are possible if they put their heart into it.

One terrible launch wont be enough to completely destroy their rep

what do you mean? Bioware was the golden standard for rpgs and people absolutely love them. that company made Baldur's gate. Kotor. Dragon age. Mass effect. Ubisoft was loved by gamers too when they released the prince of persia trilogy. or the first 2 ac games. splinter cell. rainbow six.
Eventually they lost that reputation but it doesn't matter. keep making great games and people will buy them even if they don't like you as a corporation.

you are saying one terrible launch won't be enough to completely destroy their rep and you have people above you saying they already completely destroyed their reputation in five minutes.

i agree with your point though. they will try. they are trying right now. but i wouldn't be surprised if they changed their philosphy if it doesn't work out.

 

[OnionSnake]

I think the guy in the video is doing the opposite...

think that user is talking about other users in this thread still defending CDPR for clearly lying to consumers and releasing an unfinished game.

 

[fermcr]

I'm enjoying Cyberpunk on PC... played for a few hours, not 1 crash so far.
Has a few bugs, but nothing game-braking.

 

[Danjin44]

In terms of sales? Sure

So most it budget went to marketing rather the actual game itself? They put Keanu Reeves in the game for marketing and build up hype and I guess in that sense it worked.

 

[Md Ray]

Holy shit! How can people defend this piece of shite?

 

[harmny]

So most it budget went to marketing rather the actual game itself? They put Keanu Reeves in the game for marketing and build up hype and I guess in that sense it worked.

i don't know the numbers. but for AAA games of this size with marketing campaigns this big like Skyrim or GTA V it's pretty normal for the marketing budget to be at least as big as the development budget. they probably spent more in marketing than making the game yes. the witcher 3's budget was 32 million and they spent 35 million on marketing. but as i said. not unusual.

 

[Danjin44]

i don't know the numbers. but for AAA games of this size with marketing campaigns this big like Skyrim or GTA V it's pretty normal for the marketing budget to be at least as big as the development budget. they probably spent more in marketing than making the game yes. the witcher 3's budget was 32 million and they spent 35 million on marketing. but as i said. not unusual.

But it was clear they were having development problem so maybe the should have use that resource to developing the game properly rather than blow most of them to marketing.

 

[OnionSnake]

So most it budget went to marketing rather the actual game itself? They put Keanu Reeves in the game for marketing and build up hype and I guess in that sense it worked.

Rumor is that Keanu actually pushed for the larger role in the game leading to pretty major story rewrites in 2018. Again just rumors

 

[rolandss]

This. The game is fine as it is and I'm having fun with it, but the denial of the fanbase is unbelievable. I've never seen something like that, honestly.

No mans sky, Sea of Thieves, XCom2 were broken shit when they released, but the devs managed to fix it and cyberpunk will be fixed as well. But the point is: Cyberpunk will never, ever be the game CDPR promised. They talked of their asses and should be made responsible for it.

This is the key point of this whole video to me. They could fix every bug in the game but it’d still be a completely different product to what they sold everyone leading up to release. I’ve played a bit on PS4 Pro leading up to Christmas and decided to put it down and get a refund. But aside from bugs I was just disappointed in the world. It looked good but felt more and more like an empty shell when you explored it. It was all window dressing, none of the interactivity we heard so much about. I still plan to play it, maybe pick it up again on PS5 when I manage to buy one, and hopefully by then it’s a different game.

 

[Azelover]

If the industry were smaller, this would have been a modern time E.T.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

So ill ask again - were these devs playing a build of the game we haven't seen yet - maybe this was the build shown to those early reviewers who got 4 hours and praised the living hell out of it?

Or did they know it was utter shit and just had no problem lying so enthusiastically for the last year..?

Have any of them actually come forward to acknowledge almost everything they said is not in the game.. ?

Senior level editor or whatnot and snr quest designer are no small titles, but jeez, the level of bullshit is just so freakin high...

I'll take a stab here.

IMO The game was too ambitious to start with for a developer like CDPR. Looks like Cyberpunk was trying to do everything every other game was doing. Dense open world, unique quests, wanted system, bribery, unique weapons + mods, open world freedom to go anywhere and interact with anything etc. etc.
That is too much for a game and you need a dev team in the thousands to be able to pull this off as well as heaps of time to do proper testing for bugs and all that. Even then there will be issues that slip through Q&A into the final product.

I believe that the devs had these lofty goals in mind and was working towards it but the one thing that crippled development was PS4/Xbox One platforms. This hardware is too old to support the above vision. There would have to be many sacrifices made to their original vision of the game to run on PS4/Xbox One. It would almost be a different game.

At the end of the day it is still a monumental fuckup on the part of management to release the game on old gen. They should have stuck to PC platform if the vision of the original idea would not be possible on old gen hardware. It already seems like they cut a lot of features from the original vision of the game so the question is why did they do that.
They were selling us all these features about open world interactivity then what we got in the end was so bare bones that it almost seems like they just ran out of time.

This is obviously all just my opinion on this matter.

 

[Danjin44]

I believe that the devs had these lofty goals in mind and was working towards it but the one thing that crippled development was PS4/Xbox One platforms.

But from the start CDPR was developing the game with PS4/X1 in mind and they made games for those systems before so they should have already be familiar the limitation of those systems....So I don't understand how a very experienced developers suddenly realize PS4/X1 is too weak for their games.

 

[Nothing Unusual]

So many gamer's held CDPR to such legendary regard but they are a business and in that world you only grow, shrink or sell and it's always more about tickling investors nuts than it is caring about gamers, that part is only pretend to make you feel better as a consumer. However just like Hello Games, it's pretty easy for them to go back to Gabe Newell status....just keep working on it. Don't just fix the bugs but literally add features to it and make the world as deep and compelling as any Rockstar game could.....they won't ya know. Sure they'll add a major DLC and some minor ones along with patches but it's very unlikely to be a fun version of RDR 2.

I haven't played CP and won't after watching the RDR 2/GTA 5 physics comparison videos on YT. CDPR neglected a lot of physics and to me, physics are what makes games the most fun.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

But from the start CDPR was developing the game with PS4/X1 in mind and they made games for those systems before so they should have already be familiar the limitation of those systems....So I don't understand how a very experienced developers suddenly realize PS4/X1 is too weak for their games.

They had PS4/Xbox in mind but likely ran into some limitations very early on. If development for those platforms went ahead within the appropriate timeframe then there wouldn't be as many issues we are facing today on old gen.
But if you look at it, old gen suffers issues that are very much hardware related so to me it points to the fact that PC was their main development platform and they would then scale the game down at a later stage to console but that never was an option with how ambitious the vision of this game is.

Maybe it's incompetence on their part to think they could have this game run on old gen hardware (with no issues) with their original vision of the game in mind.

All the stuff this game was meant to be according to the multiple demo's they released over the years seemed lofty and very ambitious which is why many got so hyped for it. So in this case it seems like CDPR bit off more than they could chew.

I honestly have no idea what the final version of Cyberpunk on the PS4/Xbox One will look like but I'm expecting major graphical downgrades for it to hit 30FPS. The userbase here is far too big to ignore but I would want them to drop development on old gen once they have a stable build and concentrate fully on PC and bring back all that cut content. You don't want to spread resources thin and keep the team focused on multiple platforms when you have a reputation to restore. You want to focus on one platform that is capable of running the game the way you envisioned and nail it. That is PC and will always be PC.

 

[vpance]

But from the start CDPR was developing the game with PS4/X1 in mind and they made games for those systems before so they should have already be familiar the limitation of those systems....So I don't understand how a very experienced developers suddenly realize PS4/X1 is too weak for their games.

That was clearly a lie. If we can take anything away from that JS article it’s that they’re an incredibly cavalier and disorganized studio. They have the we’ll figure it out when we get around to it kind of attitude.

They wanted to make a pretty world and they did. Level designers had full control over the development.

 

[Danjin44]

They had PS4/Xbox in mind but likely ran into some limitations very early on.

But in this Crowbcat video showed us how a PS2 game has better interactivity, physics and destruction than Cyberpunk on PS4/X1 and PC. I don't think I'm convinced that the "limitation" of PS4/X1 was the issue here.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

So many gamer's held CDPR to such legendary regard but they are a business and in that world you only grow, shrink or sell and it's always more about tickling investors nuts than it is caring about gamers, that part is only pretend to make you feel better as a consumer. However just like Hello Games, it's pretty easy for them to go back to Gabe Newell status....just keep working on it. Don't just fix the bugs but literally add features to it and make the world as deep and compelling as any Rockstar game could.....they won't ya know. Sure they'll add a major DLC and some minor ones along with patches but it's very unlikely to be a fun version of RDR 2.

I haven't played CP and won't after watching the RDR 2/GTA 5 physics comparison videos on YT. CDPR neglected a lot of physics and to me, physics are what makes games the most fun.

These guys delayed the game countless times and still it ended up a dumpster fire.
The game is far too ambitious for this developer and on multiple platforms makes it an even harder task to accomplish.
Best of luck to them to get this running properly on old gen, while fixing game breaking bugs and getting the next gen update out on current gen.
In a perfect world it would be best to just drop PS4/Xbox One support and focus on PC and current gen exclusively.
I'd be very surprised if these guys are not crunching right this moment to get playable builds out for old gen.

 

[Strider Highwind]

im dying ahahahahha

 

[Hawking Radiation]

But in this Crowbcat video showed us how a PS2 game has better interactivity, physics and destruction than Cyberpunk on PS4/X1 and PC. I don't think I'm convinced that the "limitation" of PS4/X1 was the issue here.

No obviously not in this instance when you make that example of physics and destruction. That could be due to lack of developer experience for open world games.
PS4/Xbox One are incapable of streaming in assets at an acceptable rate. Pop-in and texture loading is horrendous on old gen. That makes the game unplayable and especially for a game like this where the city is so dense.
Mechanical drives and those fucking jaguars are probably the chief culprits here.

Of course this is my opinion. I might be wrong here so hopefully someone more technical can back me up or correct me. Whichever.

im dying ahahahahha

Yeah I was watching the Crowbcat video last night with my partner and showed her the wheelchair part and she burst out laughing.
This whole video was our source of entertainment after a hard days work.

 

[Nothing Unusual]

These guys delayed the game countless times and still it ended up a dumpster fire.
The game is far too ambitious for this developer and on multiple platforms makes it an even harder task to accomplish.
Best of luck to them to get this running properly on old gen, while fixing game breaking bugs and getting the next gen update out on current gen.
In a perfect world it would be best to just drop PS4/Xbox One support and focus on PC and current gen exclusively.
I'd be very surprised if these guys are not crunching right this moment to get playable builds out for old gen.

I don't know what CDPR's budget was for this game but I would've thought they would be on par with Rockstar but perhaps not. Rockstar may have had a much larger capital due to previous game sales where CDPR profits are likely in large from GOG.com license fees and Witcher 3....I don't think Withcer 1 and 2 were terribly popular AFAIK

Personally I'd be happy enough if CDPR fixes the physics and A.i. systems to be on par with RDR 2. Failing to do more than just squash bugs will likely hurt their consumer credibility going forward. Hello Games had a hell of a turnaround and now people praise them in large part due to added features, hopefully CDPR takes note.

 

[Self]

I still plan to play it, maybe pick it up again on PS5 when I manage to buy one, and hopefully by then it’s a different game

Play it. It's a okay game, really.
Stick to the main quests and just play it like a linear game. Story and characters are well written. Just forget the whole CDPR marketing bullshit and you'll have fun.

 

[THEAP99]

Just came across this video. Great stuff


It's worth a thread I believe

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Obviously there is disappointment in the game from people , that’s clear ! I’m enjoying it tho in all honestly. There are things I would definitely change about it and improve on however my playtimes with it fly by, a “I’ll just play one more mission before I stop for today” kind of feeling.

I would of loved a third person option and the chance to see your character interact and speak would of been nice, for us folk who prefer thar perspective.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Wow, even when they fix the bugs it still looks like it’s going to be kind of lame. The whole world looks so static and fake.

 

[Oppoi]

Cyberpunk sure made me rethink everything I ever thought about commecrials, who ever in charge and I'm sure to be weary of where I get my information from from now on!

 

[Any Major Dude]

Riiight, gonna need y'all to go ahead and stop beating a dead horse... gulps... that'd be greeeat, yeeeah...

 

[Woggleman]

Just came across this video. Great stuff


It's worth a thread I believe

Look at the downvotes vs the upvotes. Some people really hate TLOU2 don't they?

 

[Roni]

GAF's 2020 GotY list just shows there's a vocal minority that likes to shit on the latest releases, whatever they are.

"B-b.. bbu-but discussions without criticism are boring" they say. Well, when most of what you post is criticism, one can't help but wonder whether you still enjoy the hobby or you just enjoy getting a rise out of people.

 

[ReBurn]

GAF's 2020 GotY list just shows there's a vocal minority that likes to shit on the latest releases, whatever they are.

"B-b.. bbu-but discussions without criticism are boring" they say. Well, when most of what you post is criticism, one can't help but wonder whether you still enjoy the hobby or you just enjoy getting a rise out of people.

Nobody likes everything and not everyone has the same favorite games. If you actually read the discussions you'll see that people have legitimate and valid concerns most of the time.

In the case of Cyberpunk it's abundantly clear with ample empirical evidence that the game that was released is not the game that was promised. It may very well be a good game it it's own right, but it is not the deep and engaging role playing experience many people were expecting. It's not unreasonable for people to shit on something when what they got wasn't what they paid for.

If CDPR hadn't released that long reveal video that made bold claims about branching storylines where actions affect outcomes, deep customization options, different experiences based on different classes where every play through is unique, etc. there probably wouldn't be as much frustration. But regardless of whether the game is good, CDPR misled gamers.

Other games like The Last of Us 2 also deserve their criticism. People who are invested in the story have a right to be upset about the way the narrative was written and how main characters are handled. It's still a good game with solid gameplay, but the story also matters.

Do you expect people to just accept a game's position on some list and not think critically about it? It's good that for the most part GAF isn't a hive mind. There are still too many console warriors but with video game discussion that's just something to be expected.

 

[THEAP99]

One month later and still nothing to show for it. I remember the days when people argued "b-but the day one patch!" WOW

 

[Sidney Prescott]

I personally had fun with Cyberpunk but the game has definitely made take a step back in terms of hype. I get far too hyped for some games and it's just not worth it. No matter how good the developer may have been in the past.

I think the only Developer I can say consistently never brings out a bad game is Rockstar. They really nail the open-world setting. The video really highlights how well Rockstar does in that area. The small details all add up to enhance the experience.

 

[Roni]

Nobody likes everything and not everyone has the same favorite games. If you actually read the discussions you'll see that people have legitimate and valid concerns most of the time.

In the case of Cyberpunk it's abundantly clear with ample empirical evidence that the game that was released is not the game that was promised. It may very well be a good game it it's own right, but it is not the deep and engaging role playing experience many people were expecting. It's not unreasonable for people to shit on something when what they got wasn't what they paid for.

If CDPR hadn't released that long reveal video that made bold claims about branching storylines where actions affect outcomes, deep customization options, different experiences based on different classes where every play through is unique, etc. there probably wouldn't be as much frustration. But regardless of whether the game is good, CDPR misled gamers.

Other games like The Last of Us 2 also deserve their criticism. People who are invested in the story have a right to be upset about the way the narrative was written and how main characters are handled. It's still a good game with solid gameplay, but the story also matters.

Do you expect people to just accept a game's position on some list and not think critically about it? It's good that for the most part GAF isn't a hive mind. There are still too many console warriors but with video game discussion that's just something to be expected.

By all means, keep building your opinion on other people's hot takes.

 

[Justin9mm]

But in this Crowbcat video showed us how a PS2 game has better interactivity, physics and destruction than Cyberpunk on PS4/X1 and PC. I don't think I'm convinced that the "limitation" of PS4/X1 was the issue here.

It definitely wasn't the limitation.. The game was just too ambitious for a developer that was not entirely capable.

This game could of been off the charts good if the same game was made with the technical talent level of say R* or Naughty Dog. To think what they could of pulled off with the same idea.

 

[Woggleman]

Rockstar had made bad games. Their biggest selling game is bad. I am halfway kidding but they are not these unassailable gods and while I loved RDR2 it has just as many issues thought not in the same places.

 

[Danjin44]

It definitely wasn't the limitation.. The game was just too ambitious for a developer that was not entirely capable.

This game could of been off the charts good if the same game was made with the technical talent level of say R* or Naughty Dog. To think what they could of pulled off with the same idea.

To me it feels like CDPR was lacking focus with this game, were the try to make heavy story RPG or more interactive open world similar to GTA? In my opinion RDR2 has the same type of unfocused issue, because RDR2's mission designs goes against the open world nature of the game.

 

[OnionSnake]

It definitely wasn't the limitation.. The game was just too ambitious for a developer that was not entirely capable.

This game could of been off the charts good if the same game was made with the technical talent level of say R* or Naughty Dog. To think what they could of pulled off with the same idea.

I think bigger more capable studios are definitely watching this ready to strike the market.

 

[harmny]

To me it feels like CDPR was lacking focus with this game, were the try to make heavy story RPG or more interactive open world similar to GTA? In my opinion RDR2 has the same type of unfocused issue, because RDR2's mission designs goes against the open world nature of the game.

the focus is clear. the game is a narrative driven rpg. that's why everyone is complainig the game sucks compared to gta in the open world aspect. because the focus was on the story the characters and the quests.

 

[OnionSnake]

the focus is clear. the game is a narrative driven rpg. that's why everyone is complainig the game sucks compared to gta in the open world aspect. because the focus was on the story the characters and the quests.

Is the implication here that GTA doesn't have a storyline/characters/side stories...?

 

[Woggleman]

Is the implication here that GTA doesn't have a storyline/characters/side stories...?

GTA V has a shockingly bad story that for some reason they get a pass on. The only thing it does better than CP2077 is AI, customization and it did run better on the older consoles. People complain about Night City feeling lifeless but GTA V has all these bars and clubs where you can get drunk with the other protagonists and you can't enter a single one of them. CP might need better food stands and restaurants but at least it has them unlike GTA V which doesn't have a single food stand except for the convenience store and it doesn't even have the fast food places that were a part of San Andreas and GTA IV. It barely has any interiors at all yet somehow gets a pass.

 

[harmny]

Is the implication here that GTA doesn't have a storyline/characters/side stories...?

the implication is that cdpr focused on great quests and side quests. basically the narrative aspect of the game. you immerse yourself in the world by doing the missions instead of killing and robbing people on the street.

gta mission design on the other hand:
you turned right - mission failed
you turned left - mission failed
you blinked twice - mission failed
you jumped too high - mission failed

yeah you know what i mean. i am not saying gta is a bad game. they just focus on different things.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Wow, even when they fix the bugs it still looks like it’s going to be kind of lame. The whole world looks so static and fake.

That happens when you try to do what GTA, Saints Row, Watch Dogs and other open world games are doing.
Watch Dogs has 10 times more believable NPC behavior than this game and one of my biggest gripes with Cyberpunk is the horrible NPC interactions.
I love the combat and look of the world but man, you're dragged out of that immersion by the stupid NPC Ai.

 

[harmny]

That happens when you try to do what GTA, Saints Row, Watch Dogs and other open world games are doing.
Watch Dogs has 10 times more believable NPC behavior than this game and one of my biggest gripes with Cyberpunk is the horrible NPC interactions.
I love the combat and look of the world but man, you're dragged out of that immersion by the stupid NPC Ai.

watch dogs also has shit story and quests and characters. see how it works? you either focus on one thing or the other it seems.