Cyberpunk 2077

[Grichka Bogdanoff]

Well here you move the goalpost already lol. 

The game's issue don't just boil down to just graphical and technical issues, saying that is just disingenuous.

Let's also not say the game worked great when it released back then on PC, and let's not blame it all on the "crappy" hardware that still manage to run greatly 2022 games.

Not even getting on the part where you blame owners for expecting a game to work as advertised, that's just plain retarded.

 

The game was a massive failure on pretty much everything minus the sales and shook the entire industry.

[Mexicola9302]

2 minutes ago, Grichka Bogdanoff said:

Well here you move the goalpost already lol. 

The game's issue don't just boil down to just graphical and technical issues, saying that is just disingenuous.

Let's also not say the game worked great when it released back then on PC, and let's not blame it all on the "crappy" hardware that still manage to run greatly 2022 games.

Not even getting on the part where you blame owners for expecting a game to work as advertised, that's just plain retarded.

 

The game was a massive failure on pretty much everything minus the sales and shook the entire industry.

Imagine still using the word "retarded" in 2022, yeah this basicly says everything about you already...

[Grichka Bogdanoff]

>tries his hardest to start a platform war

>gets exposed for it

>replies with off-topic stuff

Nothing says "no argument" clearer than this tbh

[Mister Pink]

That's enough lads. If you want to take it PM, that's fine but we'll stop it here. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

As for CDPR dropping support for C77, I'm dissappointed. I would have hoped they continued to keep adding things. There was also a report about a the third-party QA testers misleading CDPR about their experience. 

 

Upper Echelon Gamers claims to have received confidential documents from an employee at Romania-based Quantic Labs, the external QA company behind Cyberpunk 2077, detailing what went wrong during the QA process, and how it possibly contributed to the game being so broken at launch.

Upper Echelon Gamers was sent what it claims is a “72 page QA testing file, Quantic Labs human resources paperwork, workflow charts” and more documentation supporting the legitimacy of the claim.

“I believe the source to be real. They have provided extensive evidence to support that fact and have made serious claims about the quality of QA activities at Quantic Lab,” it states.

Cyberpunk 2077’s external QA team allegedly misled CD Projekt over its experience | VGC (videogameschronicle.com)

[Commander S]

I mean, that's Upper Echelon Gamers, and they're known more for angry gamer outrage clickbait, not exactly proper journalism - so less 'take it with a pinch of salt', more 'equal in volume to Lot's wife'...

 

LKHD isn't really someone I'd turn to for news either (they've gotten better at not just going off hype or speculation, but it's still all too common among enthusiast-gamer-turned-armchair-pundit types), but he's at least got a better reputation for sources - and he's apparently had insiders at CDPR refute the stuff about Quantic from UEG:

 

 

 

 

And even UEG's information was 100% on the money, then that only explains some of the bugs, and nothing about the mismanagement of the project on CDPR's side. For instance, stuff like how the original skill tree had things you could unlock for ...abilities that never made it into the finished game. Or the police AI/wanted system, which was a last-minute bodge-job, according to whistleblowers who reached out to Jason Schreier (whole thread is worth a read, there):

 

 

 

 

Tbh, it feels like yet another attempt to deflect blame from project management on to a scapegoat, like when Marcin Iwiński tried throwing QA under the bus with the whole "our testing did not show a big part of the issues" bit back in January. Not a good look, frankly - and again, still not enough to cover everything that went wrong with Cyberpunk's development.

Edited June 28 by Commander S
Hit 'enter' before finishing posting - d'oh! :p

[Mister Pink]

On 6/28/2022 at 7:26 PM, Commander S said:

Tbh, it feels like yet another attempt to deflect blame from project management on to a scapegoat, like when Marcin Iwiński tried throwing QA under the bus with the whole "our testing did not show a big part of the issues" bit back in January. Not a good look, frankly - and again, still not enough to cover everything that went wrong with Cyberpunk's development.

I'm asking this in good faith... Do you think Cyberpunk management falsified the documents sent to UEG to make QL a scapegoat? Do you think UEG is lying that he received documents from a whistleblower? 

 

I find it highly suspect that someone would falsify a highly detailed 72 page QA document and even more suspect if CDPR did it to make QL a scapegoat. I mean, if evidence of this kind of sabotage was made public about CDPR nobody would want to work with them. It would breaking the law in some respect and I'm sure Quantic Lab would be able to suit the sh*t out of them for leaking highly classified documents and breaking their terms of agreement. 

 

There is plenty of evidence that QL lied about their capabilites, often with 1 third of the amount of staff they claimed to have. Quantic Lab were further outsourcing work  - so imagine outsourcing your QA to another company and in turn more of that work is outsourced again. There seems to be very little control one would have if the outsourced are outsourcing. Add some lying on top of that, as well as misleading. UEG says in this later video, it's not that QL are solely responsibile but that they unequiviacly contributed to to Cyberpunk's disasterous launch. Again, it's not absolving CDPR. As they said, they new about the bugs and released the game anyway. We know this. But it's also interesting to see contributing factors such as Quantic Lab lying about team numbers and misleading about their capabilities. Why deny that if it's an issue? They also did QA for The Witcher 3 and didn't that lauch in a bad state too (not blaming QL solely). 

 

If QL is doing some sneaky industy sh*t, why not expose them along with CDPR's mismanagement? Why does it have to be that QL is being made as some kind of scapegoat when the evidence is there of bad practices? And perhaps it's more industry-wide with QA companies.. would this account for many AAA games being buggy at launch? It seems so. UEG said he spoke to QA testers both inhouse and outsourced for Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft and Activision and Quantic Lab isn't unique in the QA outsourcing space. OK, they might have been on the extreme end but certainly not unique. So the state of QA testing for gaming is bad and it's widespread and it's kind no surprise given the state of some releases. 

 

 

Edited July 15 by Mister Pink

[Slappy212]

CDPR management pushed the game out before it was ready. That's on them, not the QA team and not the development team.

[Mister Pink]

On 7/16/2022 at 4:47 AM, Slappy212 said:

CDPR management pushed the game out before it was ready. That's on them, not the QA team and not the development team.

Ok but we're not playing a blame game here. I'm not making argument blaming one or the other, nor is UEG in his videos. He's simply saying QA contributed to a poor release. And if you watch the video I posted in my most recent post on the topic, it seems Quantic Lab isn't alone in the industry when it comes to malpractice. 

 

Obviously, the developer and publisher is responsible for their own releases but does that negate or absolve poor practices from QA companies? if QA is misleading a publisher or developer and that developer/publisher has strict deadlines to release on a date and they have investors to please and delaying a game a 2nd time isn't ian option (according to some suits), can you at least see how that can be an issue? Of course individual developers will know of bugs but it's not up to individual developers coding a game to raise concerns on QA. It's down to QA to do that job. 

 

Is it just me or can't anyone else not see that if the state of QA is poor it may account for really buggy games being released like Cyberpunk, Battlefield, Mass Effect Andromea etc? That's going way off topic in a Cyberpunk thread but I think UEG uncovered something interesting in the QA industry.  Ultimately, it's up to the publisher and developer to release but if QA is misleading about their employee numbers, and experience of employees is poor and a release date is imminent, then I'm betting some games get released regardless. If that's broken then it needs to be talked about and addressed. Simply ignoring QA malpractice doesn't cut it. 

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Still on my second playthrough of Cyberpunk. I've still not completed the story and have abot 200hrs in this game. I love it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17 by Mister Pink

[Jason]

I have really no interest in the QA story that was supposedly unearthed, and I've heard mixed things regarding whether it's true or not, cause I have no interest in it as it doesn't matter in anyway shape or form.

 

For one, we have accounts from reliable journalists saying CDPR's very own devs knew of the issues with the game pre-release. Hell, they very specifically avoided showing any last-gen footage until extremely late, and we quickly discovered why when last-gen footage leaked out pre-release. CDPR knew about the state of the game technically, they knew about the issues. QA being bad, misleading, or whatever they were apparently doing doesn't change a thing. The technical issues in the launch version of CP2077 were entirely down to CDPR. They had a mantra of "release when it's ready" and they broke it. 

 

Second, many of the issues with CP2077 went beyond technical aspects. Many aspects of the game design were, well, poor. Very basic itemisation w/ stats tied to clothing, lack of weapon variety, dull skill tree. Then we have features they heavily implied or confirmed to be in the game that... weren't in the game.

 

Cyberpunk's disaster of a launch was a whole mixture of things, but if I had to boil it down to a very simple reason it would be that the CDPR head honcho's were drunk on their own kool aid and thought they could do no wrong.

[Commander S]

On 7/15/2022 at 5:43 PM, Mister Pink said:

I'm asking this in good faith... Do you think Cyberpunk management falsified the documents sent to UEG to make QL a scapegoat? Do you think UEG is lying that he received documents from a whistleblower?

 

 

Oh, no - not least because CDPR higher-ups would have to be morons to do that and think that it wouldn't get rumbled the moment anyone scrutinised it! And FWIW, I should have probably made it clearer that while both CDPR management and some elements of CDPR/Cyberpunk online fandom (and general YouTube armchair pundtry) have done things like blame QA, or accuse journalists of cherry-picking info about 2077's development, I don't think it's coordinated - merely just both parties with the same incentives.

 

But with the Quantic Labs thing, I've been mulling it over, and I think the reason why it hasn't blown up is because ...it's ultimately a nothingburger in terms of the larger Cyberpunk development story. Sure, one QA team not doing an adequate job catching bugs will mean that the game is potentially buggier than if that team had been up to snuff, but that's like saying that a track car using a sticker instead of an enamel badge constitutes significant weight reduction, just because yes, it is technically lighter as a result. CDPR used multiple QA teams for Cyberpunk: 3 outsourced (including QL), and their own internal testing as well. So even if Quantic were completely asleep at the wheel, that wouldn't have meant that CDPR would have been flying blind.

 

And on top of that, it still goes back to how many of the issues with the game aren't merely bugs - they're design problems, cut corners, areas where you can see a planned feature had to get dropped/streamlined, with the seams left visible. You mention Mass Effect: Andromeda, but ...again, that wasn't just a buggy game, and the problems went much higher than QA. Andromeda, Cyberpunk, Anthem, Mafia III, all had variations on the same story: no clear game plan as to what the game was supposed to be (and things changed multiple time during development), technical issues from trying to change/upgrade engine tech while also trying to make the game in that engine (something I've seen likened to "trying to land a plane while also constructing the landing gear" - !!), then time running out, and the devs having to bolt together whatever they had into a form close to what was being promised by the marketing. Bad management from the project leads, combined with unrealistic expectations from investors - in the grand scheme of it all, 'some of the QA testers let stuff slip through the net' is a drop in the ocean, and (again) doesn't excuse stuff like 'animations were borked because the publisher insisted a change of engine to one that wouldn't work as well as the one the devs used previously' (hello, ME:A... )

 

Overall, then, that's why I don't think the story's gained traction, or why it really changes the narrative about Cyberpunk's troubled development - at worst, I imagine the only real takeaway would be developers going "welp, better not hire Quantic Labs, then". I get the impression that UEG think they might landed on some juicy new insight into the Cyberpunk saga, but like I say, for what it adds to the bigger picture, it's really just a footnote at this point, IMO.

[D9fred95]

I don't get why everyone is acting like UEG said "Quantic Labs is the reason Cyberpunk is glitchy. He outright stated in his followup video that Quantic Labs contributed, not caused, the game to be glitchy.
 

 

[Mexicola9302]

The game is currently 50% cheaper on GOG.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/cyberpunk_2077

 

It can be found even cheaper on keysites.

 

https://www.g2a.com/cyberpunk-2077-gogcom-key-global-i10000156543001?aid=12651802

Edited July 19 by Mexicola9302

[Mister Pink]

On 7/17/2022 at 6:56 PM, Commander S said:

Overall, then, that's why I don't think the story's gained traction, or why it really changes the narrative about Cyberpunk's troubled development - at worst, I imagine the only real takeaway would be developers going "welp, better not hire Quantic Labs, then". I get the impression that UEG think they might landed on some juicy new insight into the Cyberpunk saga, but like I say, for what it adds to the bigger picture, it's really just a footnote at this point, IMO.

For me what's more interesting is the part where he claims he interviewed QA guys from Activision, EA, Bethesda and there seem to be poor practices on a from an upper management level within these QA companies. It's not just Quantic Lab. The second video alludes that it's industry-wide in QA industy. That's kind of frightening thing for me. Again, for me it's not really about finding out who's to blame in the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle. It's about uncoverring corrupt practices in Quality Assurance. 

 

I would certainly prefer a highly comepentent QA sub-contractor working under a mismanaged developer like CDPR than an incomepetent QA sub-contractor working under a mismanaged developer like CDPR. To me, the former is more ideal because at least the Quality Assurance team doing their job to a high standard may mitigate some of the developer's/clients mismanagement.

 

I'm kind of perplexed by the pushback by some here. Are we all not in agreement that poor QA practices is a bad thing? If there's poor practices going on in the industry that it should be fixed? I don't see that as a contenious issue at all. 

Edited July 19 by Mister Pink

[Jason]

4 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

The second video alludes that it's industry-wide in QA industy. That's kind of frightening thing for me.

 

Sh*tty higher ups isn't a QA problem, it's an industry problem.

 

There's no pushback to the idea that a QA studio might be doing some dodgy stuff, it's more so that singling it out is missing the forest for the trees.

 

The executives and suits are ultimately the reason behind failed AAA launches, and singling out QA studios does nothing but help deflect blame away from those individuals. Cyberpunk's mess is entirely down to the leadership at CDPR and we have accounts for that, Acti and EA heavily rely on iterative releases w/ no innovation and heavy mtx usage and yet still put out flops. EA's sports games are riddled with bugs that, due to the iterative nature of their games, have existed for years and have yet to be fixed. This isn't a QA issue, those bugs are wildly documented, it's simply the higher ups at the development studios don't think they're worth fixing.

 

Couple that with Activison Blizzard's treatment of a QA studio which was so poor that it's now led to a surge of unionisation in the US games industry and I'd almost say this smells like smoke written up by these sh*tty execs at EA/Acti/etc to try and deflect blame from them.

 

Basically, the idea that a QA studio is being ran by sh*tty people comes at no surprise given 1) the AAA industry is ran by sh*tty people and 2) QA staff are treated like disposable garbage by these same sh*tty execs, and regardless if these stories about these QA studios is true or not, it doesn't change the fact that 1) many of these studios know about the bugs and technical issues anyway and 2) singling out technical issues shies away from another massive issue with many AAA studios which is poor design choices.

 

Hell, we had EA w/ BF 2042 publicly acknowledge that they were quite happy releasing games they knew were riddled with technical issues in the past because gamers trusted them to fix it. What's changed is that gamers no longer trust any of them to fix it.

[AZAZEL]

My new Windows 11 jack-in screen.

 

[Mister Pink]

On 7/19/2022 at 9:30 PM, Jason said:

There's no pushback to the idea that a QA studio might be doing some dodgy stuff, it's more so that singling it out is missing the forest for the trees.

I thought I was pretty emphatic when I said I UEG and to an extent me, isn't singling out QA. As I said before poor QA contributed to a poor release.

 

On 7/17/2022 at 2:22 PM, Mister Pink said:

I'm not making argument blaming one or the other, nor is UEG in his videos. He's simply saying QA contributed to a poor release.

 

On 7/17/2022 at 2:22 PM, Mister Pink said:

Obviously, the developer and publisher is responsible for their own releases but does that negate or absolve poor practices from QA companies?

 

We've established already that ultimately it's the management. We can call agree, it's the management. But.....poor departments can still get through management if management are being decieved or mislead the whole way. Furthermore if management get wind that the game isn't in a ready state but the releasing it so there is a game out for a financial quarter and investors seem some return then postponing the release might not be the optimial decision if they can patch it later. In all this I'm not just thinking of Cyberpunk. I'm thinking about any game in the whole industy. 

 

Can any of you see how this might be an issue and might account for some games releasing unfinished? Of course it's the management. We know this. But, wouldn't better and fully functioning QA departments mitigate poor management at least to a degree better than Cyberpunk 2077? It's not like Quality Assurance isn't a big deal. I don't see why giving poor QA a pass is some how OK because management is poor. It's basically whataboutism because if QA was decent and didn't mislead management, it wouldn't be such a poor game to mismanage in the first place, lol. Imagine all QA departments functioned very well and didn't decieve or malpracticed or had more experienced QA testers
 What kind of game would Cyberpunk be even with all the mismanagement? Would it have been 10%, 20%, 30% less buggy? Would they have cancelled the previous gen versions?

 

On 7/19/2022 at 9:30 PM, Jason said:

Couple that with Activison Blizzard's treatment of a QA studio which was so poor that it's now led to a surge of unionisation in the US games industry and I'd almost say this smells like smoke written up by these sh*tty execs at EA/Acti/etc to try and deflect blame from them.

 

Basically, the idea that a QA studio is being ran by sh*tty people comes at no surprise given 1) the AAA industry is ran by sh*tty people and 2) QA staff are treated like disposable garbage by these same sh*tty execs, and regardless if these stories about these QA studios is true or not, it doesn't change the fact that 1) many of these studios know about the bugs and technical issues anyway and 2) singling out technical issues shies away from another massive issue with many AAA studios which is poor design choices.

 

Hell, we had EA w/ BF 2042 publicly acknowledge that they were quite happy releasing games they knew were riddled with technical issues in the past because gamers trusted them to fix it. What's changed is that gamers no longer trust any of them to fix it.

 

You're kind of hitting closer to the point EUG is trying to make on the industry and to extent my worries.. He's exposing Quantic Lab initially but he seems to be uncovering the QA industry as a whole as being pretty rotten. Not just the clients like Acti-Bliz but in how the QA studios are actualy treating their staff. That's why I was kind perplexed that people here seemed to strongly disagree with crunch but brining up poor QA practices and companies allegedly being deceptive was just being blamed again on management. That confused me. Maybe I wasn't clear.

 

Anyway, I'm done on this topic. I'm sure everyone is getting a bit tired of me beating this drum too. . Going off topic a bit too far from Cyberpunk as well. 

[Commander S]

Just to add my last two-pennorth to this (because yeah, it's a bit of a thread derail at this point), I think what Jason was getting at was that as well as management problems in studios in general, you've also got those same issues of asshole bosses, toxic workplace culture, crunch, etc. at outsourced QA studios as well. I.e., the sort of issues that have been coming up in the big names of gamedev (Ubisoft, CDPR, Riot, ActiBlizz, etc.) are pretty much industry-wide. And then you've got the longer-term issue of certain entities in the game industry treating QA like a low-skilled entry-level position you do as a stepping stone to a 'real' gamedev career - something that goes back decades (like how Dan Houser got fast-tracked into writing for games by doing QA for GTA 1).

 

And that's the double-decker problem with UEG's videos: for starters, the original angle was "What Made Cyberpunk 2077 Fail - Quantic Lab?". If you're going to present a nuanced picture, where you admit that even in the worst-case scenario for Quantic, Cyberpunk's problems still go beyond that and CDPR had issues of their own, then ...maybe don't lead with a clickbait title positioning Quantic Lab as being singularly culpable. And after that, UEG backpedalled, clarified, and repositioned the argument by framing the findings about Quantic as more an issue with the state of QA in general (but still singling out Quantic), which ...well, on Quantic's side, all that does is what I said several posts back: people will stop contracting stuff out to Quantic, end of story. As for the bigger-picture stuff about QA, the issue is that UEG has basically stumbled on to something that's already well known - and it's not like traditional journalism isn't covering those issues, either! For example:

 

Polygon: "How QA workers are driving the video game industry’s union push"

 

It goes back to UEG being a clickbait-y armchair-pundit channel (dealing largely in reactionary outrage stuff, with videos such as "Chinas Death Grip on Gaming", and "The Woke Are Eating Eachother" - typos not mine, btw!), with apparently no journalistic background/training - so where someone with a background in journalism might have avoided starting out with a clickbait angle, that angle is UEG's meat and potatoes. And when better-informed people pushed back with context, forcing UEG to take a step back and reframe their previous findings, UEG started looking into the larger issues with QA - and then presented their newer findings as "exposing" the "rotten" underbelly of QA (despite, again, this stuff not being new to anyone who reports on the games industry!), because it's new to UEG. Which only goes to show how uninformed and inexperienced UEG are when it comes to investigative journalism - and that's assuming they were even trying, instead of just trying to reframe a previous bit of clickbait as something more serious and well-researched.

 

Fortunately, the issues with QA are being covered, by people doing a more thorough job - and those reports are doing a much better job of conveying the nature of the problems with QA, where (just like with the issues inside CDPR, ActiBlizz, etc.) it's yet more examples of tech companies being mismanaged by people at the top, at the expense of the folks working below them (rather than just painting QA as "incompetent", and inaccurately oversimplifying things to just 'bad QA teams mean bad games'). Because that's the worst part with UEG's framing of the whole thing, IMO: being more outraged by 'bad QA making games worse' (in a very "this is bad for paying consumers!" way) than by the way the industry treats QA testing, and testers.

[Matrelith]

A small screenshot dump to lighten the mood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking of picking up where I left off on my second playthrough again now that my backlog has gotten a bit smaller. 

[Cutter De Blanc]

Picked up a copy of "On the Corner" by Miles Davis for my car, and soon as Black Satin came on I was like "OH f*ck IM DRIVING IN NIGHT CITY"

 

 

I swear to god, because of how the radio was this song would ALWAYS be playing when I turned to Royal Blue

Edited July 23 by Cutter De Blanc

[AZAZEL]

I started a new playthrough recently, after doing a full format of my PC. Took some pics.

 

[Copcaller]

Well aside from playing the blame game of what contributed to cyberpunk's buggy release has anyone checked out the cyberpunk graphic novels that dark horse published ? I'm thinking about getting one or two on payday. 

Edited July 25 by Copcaller

[GiveMeLiberty78]

On 7/19/2022 at 4:53 PM, Mister Pink said:

For me what's more interesting is the part where he claims he interviewed QA guys from Activision, EA, Bethesda and there seem to be poor practices on a from an upper management level within these QA companies. It's not just Quantic Lab. The second video alludes that it's industry-wide in QA industy. That's kind of frightening thing for me. Again, for me it's not really about finding out who's to blame in the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle. It's about uncoverring corrupt practices in Quality Assurance. 

 

I would certainly prefer a highly comepentent QA sub-contractor working under a mismanaged developer like CDPR than an incomepetent QA sub-contractor working under a mismanaged developer like CDPR. To me, the former is more ideal because at least the Quality Assurance team doing their job to a high standard may mitigate some of the developer's/clients mismanagement.

 

I'm kind of perplexed by the pushback by some here. Are we all not in agreement that poor QA practices is a bad thing? If there's poor practices going on in the industry that it should be fixed? I don't see that as a contenious issue at all. 

I agree with everything you wrote @Mister Pink. I also agree with what you say @Jason that this is an "industry problem", but I argue that in fact this is a global problem - I mean that we live in a world run by largely-corrupt people and crazed bureaucrats who ironically mirror the dystopian Cyberpunk world we're all talking about. Art imitates life imitates art.

Without getting too cynical or negative here, look at even the more economically-developed countries of the world: Corrupt politics/politicians; corner-cutting, money-saving corporate mentality (healthcare, education, housing - have you looked at the rising cost of so-called affordable social housing and new-builds in the UK?); and being expected to pay more for less for most things nowadays. In some parts of society, you pay a lot for absolutely nothing - e.g., taxes and NI are rising, the cost of living is still rising, and we live in a world where you basically pay more and get less. As an example, I once went car shopping and no joke, I was told that the wing mirrors' casing were "optional extras", haha! At least unlike that kind of aggressive up-selling, CDPR's updates have been free so far.

Back to the gaming industry: People I speak with working in the industry say that like most industries nowadays, they are basically expected internally by management and externally by society/consumers to do more with fewer or the same resources that they had, say, 5-10 years ago. When wider society and genuinely-critical industries suffer in this way, I think that it's inevitable that the gaming industry will suffer too because of that globally greedy mentality. As you say above @Jason, "Never a fan when devs sorta tease these types of additions post-launch when honestly they should be pretty much standard in games where your cosmetic appearance is tied to loot."

On a more optimistic note, cool screenshots @AZAZEL and @Matrelith - you've inspired me to jack in again soon.

Edited July 28 by GiveMeLiberty78

[Mister Pink]

I still haven't completed the story. My first play I abandonned after about 50hrs.  Now, I'm about 70hrs in on my second run. Still haven't finished the story. It's one of my favourite games ever. I really hope CDPR will turn this into a series and not just abandon it. Does anyone else find doing the NCPD missions a lot of fun? I mean, they can be really short but I love some of the places and "backstory" to some of the crimes you show up to. 

 

Mild NCPD mission spoiler

Spoiler

One of the NCPD things I showed up to was actually quite harrowing and a bit disturbing. It was some Corpo woman dead at the scene. Opening her pad you could read this conversation about her owing money and she'll get it, she just needed access to her old office where she got fired from. The guys she owed money to were relentless and didn't give ther the few extra days to get the cash and ending up whacking her. 

I love those grimey moments from Night City. Makes you think how cruel people can be. 

 

So, the DLC is slated to release in 2023. Do I try spread out my current run and wait for the DLC to drop? Perhaps. I'm not sure. The Witcher 3 patch is due to drop Q4 2022, I could play that while waiting for Cyberpunk DLC. 

[Mexicola9302]

At some point you maybe should just finish the game, i mean why not? You can start over, skill your char differently and try to get an alternative ending, it makes more sense than stretching one playthrough for like ages.

 

I don't know on what platform you play, but you could install mods like "Respector" that basicly is New Game+. And combine that with "Level Scaling and Balance" so the enemies are scaled to your level, else it would be way too easy and boring af.

[Mister Pink]

3 hours ago, Mexicola9302 said:

At some point you maybe should just finish the game, i mean why not? You can start over, skill your char differently and try to get an alternative ending, it makes more sense than stretching one playthrough for like ages.

 

I don't know on what platform you play, but you could install mods like "Respector" that basicly is New Game+. And combine that with "Level Scaling and Balance" so the enemies are scaled to your level, else it would be way too easy and boring af.

If I finish it and complete all the NCPD objectives, I'll probably not want to just start the game again at least not for a few years. That's my worry. It's all still to fresh in my head. So, I might just stretch it out. I'm sure I'll get distracted again anyway. I can only seem to put 30-50hrs into a game and then I get bored and need to put it down for a few months. 

 

Playing on Hard (XSX) so I still find the game challenging but those mods look handy. 

 

I didn't really plan my character build and just kind of made it up as I went along, so maybe another game might be worth it. 

[Matrelith]

Yeah, you should finish the game. The endings are arguably one of the strongest parts of the game in my opinion. A few of them really go into unexpected directions. 

 

I installed the game again this week because the Cyberpunk itch is getting stronger. I think I'll play for a bit this weekend, pick up where I left off with my pistol/knife throwing V. That combo was hella fun in combat.

 

 

obligatory screenshot post

[Matrelith]

Put a few hours into Cyerpunk this week. Did a few gigs, a small part of the storyline, but ended up spending the majority of the time in photo mode.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AZAZEL]

1 hour ago, Matrelith said:

But ended up spending the majority of the time in photo mode.

 

Ah yes, the real endgame.

 

Nice shots!

[Ducard]

I finally have a capable enough GPU (upgraded to a RX6600 from a 1050ti) to play the game the way it was intended so I picked up Cyberpunk in the recent steam sale. Actually, this game was one of the main reasons I upgraded GPU.

I've played it for a few hours and I'm enjoying it a lot. I love Blade Runner and now that this game has been fixed for the most part so it was a no brainer to pick this up. The game is absolutely gorgeous. I've only done the first two quests, most of my time has gone into photo mode.

Some of the things that stand out for me:

 

Character models are phenomenal.

 

They captured the cyberpunk aesthetic incredibly well though I still would like to see them go more "darker" in the vein of Blade Runner in the game's next installment. (If there is ever one)

 

The world feels more alive than I expected. Perhaps, it's because I saw people saying its lifeless so I went in with low expectations. Sure it isn't on the level of RDR2/GTA, but I've sort of made peace with the fact that no developer is going to match Rockstar in that department. I thought it was better than some of the recent ubisoft games for sure.

Voice acting is incredible. I've never skipped a single line of dialogue so far. Also the fact you can move your camera around in dialogues is really neat and I wish Bethesda would take notes from this.

The sound design is fantastic. The ambience in the world feels vibrant and gunfights feel quite immersive.

I've come across only a couple of bugs so far but nothing major. So far it's been a good start and I'm excited to see where this game takes me. I don't want to sound elitist but I truly believe that this is a next gen game. If you aren't playing it on a PS5/Series S/X/high ish-end PC then you are not getting the full experience. Here's some pics of it running on 1080p ultra:
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17 by Ducard

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Ducard said:

The world feels more alive than I expected. Perhaps, it's because I saw people saying its lifeless so I went in with low expectations. Sure it isn't on the level of RDR2/GTA, but I've sort of made peace with the fact that no developer is going to match Rockstar in that department. I thought it was better than some of the recent ubisoft games for sure.

 

A better way to describe the issue with what people really mean is that the world isn't very interactive.

 

Using RDR2 as an example cause it's their most recent open world game, I can go into a bar, order drinks, food, etc, or go into a store and pick things up of the shelves and buy them. I can interact with the world by interacting with NPC's, I can rummage through places for supplies, there's a living ecosystem I can hunt in, skinning animals for supplies or selling them for cash.

 

But in Cyberpunk you really just can't do anything in the open world. There's a few select stores which all have the same generic vendor screen, you can't do anything in the bars and clubs, you can't interact with the NPC's in an any meaningful way, the game has loads of loot containers and computer terminals to interact but ultimately you end up just speedrunning that aspect of the game as it's not as well done compared to something like a Skyrim or Fallout.

 

I genuinely think as a story driven first person open world game it's absolutely fantastic, a real genuine 9/10 (on PC and new consoles ofc), but much of the rest of the game is dated.