Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Cyberpunk 2077 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,157
Letting you kill NPCs even if it prevents you from completing the story would not necessarily be all that easier for the developers than just going full Obsidian. CD Projekt make games that are heavily based on scripted cinematics. Every person that you kill, they would have to make sure he doesn't appear later on in some scripted sequence. Even if you allow a game to fail, making it fail gracefully requires work.

The most realistic option if you want to be able to kill NPCs is to allow it but immediately pop up a game over if you do it.

I can't even remember how many games allow you kill important NPCs without prompting a loading screen. This is some anal shit to complain about.
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
I'd rather everyone's killable with a warning messge if you kill plot-required NPCs than some goofy invincibility shit, tbh.


Are you crazy? With the attention span of today's average player, Steam and Metacritic will be flooded with butthurt "reviews"


Unti4532tled.png
If that simple message from morrowind could effectively relay to my 12 year old brain that I fucked shit hard at the moment and to reload, then it is reasonable to assume the same still applies to the current generation of teens to adults.
The problem is not that people nowadays are dumber, but rather that we expect them to be and as such hold them to too low a standard, which allows the quality in games to degrades to such a degree to accommodate such stupidity, which was never necessary in the first place.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
Morrowind's approach was alright, but it was pretty rigid in the sense that you could screw up the main questline by killing some seemingly insignificant NPC that was not in any way directly related to the main story and only played a minuscule part in it. You could still finish the game, which was great, but New Vegas was more flexible in this regard. Bethesda's later efforts are a prime example on how not to do it, with insufferable, invulnerable fuckfaces rubbing their immortality to your face everywhere you go.

In the end it largely comes down to writing: don't give the player a reason to kill an NPC that cannot be killed. It was always obvious anyway that CP2077 wouldn't take the New Vegas route.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,076
Location
Azores Islands
This is a non issue. This isn't fallout, this isn't a sandbox. This is a narrative driven action rpg, and just like the previous Witcher games, that garnered widespread acclaim here on the codex, people play it for the story, for the characters, for the cut scenes and world building.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,153
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I'm sure you will all agree that not being able to kill everyone was what made Witcher 3 a very bad RPG. And an unsuccessful one too.
 

Curratum

Guest
I can't understand why people expect a game to do everything - to have completely freeform party creation, to be as involved as possible, have great mechanics and combat, allow great freedom of choice, but also, at the same time have amazingly written characters, an amazing, greatly detailed world and all that. There is nothing wrong with playing and enjoying Witcher 3 for the things it does well and loving it and enjoying some number cruncher for what it does well on its own terms. The perfect game does not exist, it never did and it never will.
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
This is a non issue. This isn't fallout, this isn't a sandbox. This is a narrative driven action rpg, and just like the previous Witcher games, that garnered widespread acclaim here on the codex, people play it for the story, for the characters, for the cut scenes and world building.
I'm going to play it for the porn.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think it's understandable that people might have different expectations from a game where you play a more blank-slate character than Geralt.

It's interesting that CD Projekt are kind of stepping away from the blank-slateness by putting Johnny Silverhand in your character's head. You're not just some guy now, you're the vessel for an Iconic Lore Celebrity™. It's a writing approach they're more familiar with.
 
Last edited:

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
I think it's understandable that people might have different expectations for a game where you play a more blank-slate character than Geralt.

It's interesting that CD Projekt are kind of stepping away from the blank-slateness by putting Johnny Silverhand in your character's head. You're not just some guy now, you're the vessel for an Iconic Lore Celebrity(tm). It's a writing approach they're more familiar with.
Is he always watching though? During the trailer where you get done fucking the big russian dude. Was johnny watching him rail you through your eyes?
 

Herumor

Scholar
Joined
May 1, 2018
Messages
553
What dumbed down shit is this? Waste of the PnP licence

Did you seriously expect them to adapt the P&P game 100% faithfully?

kh6N6by.jpg


Obviously, it'd be fucking amazing if they pulled all of this, but I don't think any game adapted from a PnP game has had much depth to character creation as the game originally allowed. Far too many variables to account for.
 
Last edited:

undecaf

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 4, 2010
Messages
3,517
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
They’re kinda doing a similiar thing here to what Bethesda did with Fallout. Take the setting and a list of familiar names, then shuffle things a bit, and call it a day.

CDPR probably does that better, but from all that’s been shown and told, they could’ve as well just make a generic scifi dystopia of their own without ever involving 2020.
 

Wesp5

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,754
I think it's understandable that people might have different expectations for a game where you play a more blank-slate character than Geralt.

Still another option to avoid killing story-important NPCs would be to either keep them out of reach, like behind bulletproof glass, or have them protected so that if the player kills them, he will die in the following fight, so it's game over without seeming too forced.

It's interesting that CD Projekt are kind of stepping away from the blank-slateness by putting Johnny Silverhand in your character's head.

That is taken pretty much 1:1 out of William Gibson's book "Neuromancer", where Case uses the Dixie Flatline personality construct.
 
Joined
Dec 5, 2010
Messages
1,611
If that simple message from morrowind could effectively relay to my 12 year old brain that I fucked shit hard at the moment and to reload, then it is reasonable to assume the same still applies to the current generation of teens to adults.
The problem is not that people nowadays are dumber, but rather that we expect them to be and as such hold them to too low a standard
...most players never found Caius Cosades. :lol:

Still another option to avoid killing story-important NPCs would be to either keep them out of reach, like behind bulletproof glass
The real solution is to give the reasonable player no expectation of being able to and no reason to want to kill story-important npcs to begin with. How you convey the plot armor to the unreasonable player is going to be a cosmetic bandaid either way.
 
Last edited:

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
I think it's understandable that people might have different expectations for a game where you play a more blank-slate character than Geralt.


It's interesting that CD Projekt are kind of stepping away from the blank-slateness by putting Johnny Silverhand in your character's head.

That is taken pretty much 1:1 out of William Gibson's book "Neuromancer", where Case uses the Dixie Flatline personality construct.

Nah, this is more like Cortana or Netricsa from Serious Sam, more probable inspirations for CDP.
 

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
They’re kinda doing a similiar thing here to what Bethesda did with Fallout. Take the setting and a list of familiar names, then shuffle things a bit, and call it a day.

CDPR probably does that better, but from all that’s been shown and told, they could’ve as well just make a generic scifi dystopia of their own without ever involving 2020.
That's probably what happens. CDPR will take the story, events, characters, style of CP 2020, "put a '2077' spin on it" and leave the mechanics out of the equation. Reason why this is more acceptable here and even accepted by Mike (not because of money since if that was the case we'd see a CP 2020 video game way earlier) is because CDPR has proven to be more competent at this job than Bethesda since they have a first hand experience with it.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,153
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I think it's understandable that people might have different expectations for a game where you play a more blank-slate character than Geralt.

It's interesting that CD Projekt are kind of stepping away from the blank-slateness by putting Johnny Silverhand in your character's head. You're not just some guy now, you're the vessel for an Iconic Lore Celebrity(tm). It's a writing approach they're more familiar with.
Is he always watching though? During the trailer where you get done fucking the big russian dude. Was johnny watching him rail you through your eyes?
The real question is - is he watching during the porn scenes? In Deus Ex there was Jacobson and then the AI (in the player's head), but at least JC wasn't expected to have half-robotic sex in every other questline.
 

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
How many important NPCs could you kill in Bloodlines? This feature is certainly not necessary to make a good RPG.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
This is a non issue. This isn't fallout, this isn't a sandbox. This is a narrative driven action rpg, and just like the previous Witcher games, that garnered widespread acclaim here on the codex, people play it for the story, for the characters, for the cut scenes and world building.

Yeah that's what I trying to say before but you said it better... it's a different kind of game, it was never going to be New Vegas in this way.

For a game like New Vegas I do think being able to kill everyone and still finish is the "gold standard." Morrowind would be number two I guess, but like Carrion said it was silly that you'd kill some random hobo and get the message, having no idea why. Some games are too character focused to do the New Vegas thing and I think having essential NPCs but only a very small number absolutely REQUIRED to finish the main quest (even in a crappy way) would maybe be the best compromise there. Bethesda's problem was they made half the NPCs in the game essential it felt like, for every little quest there was, which was insane. I think they got better with Skyrim and Fallout 4 though, to some degree.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
What dumbed down shit is this? Waste of the PnP licence

Did you seriously expect them to adapt the P&P game 100% faithfully?
kh6N6by.jpg
Obviously, it'd be fucking amazing if they pulled all of this, but I don't think any game adapted from a PnP game has had much depth to character creation as the game originally allowed. Far too many variables to account for.
Most of this was also useless shit or as i call it wasted years and tiresome history.

Roles:
Classes (Role) would have been great, but .... i don't see how they could have pulled it off. Also 99% would have played Solo, because Combat Sense is simply a killer skill. In all the settings that i have played nobody has ever played Media or Med Tech or Rockerboy class.

Then let us take a look at the Statistics:
STR, CON, REF, INT, TECH, CL are in. What lacks is ATT, LK, MA and EMP. STR and CON is in original BT or Body. EMP was important since this gave you the Humanity points to cyber up. But ATTR was nonsense or a dump stat since the only associated skill were: Personal Grooming and Wardrobe & Style. EMP and humanity points is also shit and should have been exchanged with a better system that makes more sense. As if losing a limb and using a prosthetics would make you loose your humanity and would make you go psycho.-- Hey look this guy is blind and has a deaf-aid! Look out for him, because he will try to kill you. --O no this woman has a prosthetic arm! She can certainly not Persuasion & Fast talk.

Skills:
This hurts for real, but 50% of them were also useless, like: Personal Grooming, Wardrobe & Style, Accounting, Antropology, Botany, Composition, Geology, History, Library Search, Mathematics (only useless in this game), Teaching, Zoology, Dance, Cryotank Operation, Photography & Film.
The system needed a clean up and why have Electronics and Electronic Security or Streetwise and Social and Anthropology or Hide/Evade and Shadow/Track as separated skills.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom