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CD Projekt's Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 + Phantom Liberty Expansion Thread

undecaf

Arcane
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Going with that list of nominations, I'd even vote for it. :lol:

I dunno. There’s nothing worth voting in any of the categories.

It would be fun if half the awards had to be forfeit because no-one won anything, and deservedly so.
 

Peachcurl

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(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Yeah.

Though I hope 'dex 2021 RPG/GotY will go to



The only game released this year I can think of that gave me a few hours of entertainment, at least.

:negative:

My hopes are high for the next Arma 3 DLC coming out in december. Not an RPG though, obviously.


Doesn't even load for me. :D (not your fault, regional block)
 

Gargaune

Magister
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Mar 12, 2020
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Okay, hang on while I don my
crazyrobot.gif
hat...

So, Night City is supposed to be based in the Morro Bay area, California. At first I thought I'd have to compare to the summer solstice as an extreme, but then I found a timeline stating that the events of Cyberpunk's Heist take place around the very beginning of May. So if I then take May 1st fuck it, I'll be generous, May 15th as a 2021 reference point, twilight should start around 5:30am prior to a 6am sunrise, and should end around 8:30pm after an 8pm sunset.

So why the FUCK does my 3am sky look like THIS:

DayCity.jpg


God damnit, CDPR! Were you blaring Fear Of The Dark in your offices all the way through development? Nevermind that the game should've been set smack-dab around the winter solstice for maximum fucking night in Night fucking City, Cyberpunk's daylight doesn't even track with its own chosen timeframe.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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Brofisted, but I should point out that we've been complaining about the focus on daytime (sunny daytime at that) since before the game was released last year, and following its release were quick to note that darkness in Cyberpunk 2077 lasts only about 6 hours despite this being a physical impossibility for Night City's location:

gmixkq.jpg



CDPR dismissed the aesthetics of the table-top RPG Cyberpunk 2013/2020 in favor of their own vision, which is why not only does night last only about six hours but it hardly ever rains:

cyberpunk-2020-68999_8cd12_1024x1024.jpg
NightCityCover300dpi_large_23757370-1e4d-4c26-8ed7-d46cda5d0e3f_1024x1024.jpg
 

tritosine2k

Erudite
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Dec 29, 2010
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They don't have the opportunity to convey twilight/dusk/night -the dynamic range ends up compressed/squashed to shit because HDR market penetration is nil (no true HDR displays out, beyond grading monitors). So arguably they kept that bullet stashed (add it to the mass transit , netwatch storyline etc stuff)
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
would anyone have cared in the least if normal gameplay didn't actually have daytime?
cinematic dawns/dusks for missions as appropriate would have been fine
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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Even on the Codex, there was a contingent of posters supporting CDPR's aesthetic alterations and dismissing the association of Cyberpunk aesthetics with night and/or rain.

Deus-Ex-2077.jpg
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Their aesthetics are very good IMO. But it certainly wouldn't hurt to have significant - and at the very least proportionate amount of night/rain.
 
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tritosine2k

Erudite
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Dec 29, 2010
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You can force rain, only it becomes apparent while it's disabled for most part; the baked part is not adding up with the shaded part, adding marks/aging to textures is a whole profession on its own. See what "richdirt" is about. As far content pipelines go it certainly beats RTX and "just works" to have a pipeline vision that incorporates such stuff from ground up, so ray tracing can have serious opportunity cost (too).
 

Bliblablubb

Arcane
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Copium Den
So why the FUCK does my 3am sky look like
I tried setting gamma really low to compensate, but all I achieved was constantly getting stuck on something indoors, since you do not have a flashlight and the scanner does not help. This game is the opppsite of Twitcher 3, where I had to turn gamma up to avoid permanent headaches.

I approve of you using the technomobil tho. Seriously, no wonder nobody takes the NCPD seriously, if their siren sounds like you are starting a techno party. :hahano:
 

Wesp5

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,755
I tried setting gamma really low to compensate, but all I achieved was constantly getting stuck on something indoors, since you do not have a flashlight and the scanner does not help.

Has nobody modded a good flashlight into the game yet? Or a night vision mod for your artificial eyes? How could they forget to include this in the base game in the first place!
 

Gargaune

Magister
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Mar 12, 2020
Messages
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Brofisted, but I should point out that we've been complaining about the focus on daytime (sunny daytime at that) since before the game was released last year, and following its release were quick to note that darkness in Cyberpunk 2077 lasts only about 6 hours despite this being a physical impossibility for Night City's location:
Yeah, I know it's an old complaint, it just frustrated me enough to want to exclude any geographic excuse. The more you play, the worse it gets. And yes, I know what the solution is...

Right now, the way it works is that night time proper, as in fully dark, starts towards 10pm and ends by 3am. So you've got roughly five hours, really. One in-game hour in Cyberpunk takes like 7 real-life minutes, which means that for every half hour of Night City you get to enjoy, you've gotta put up with two and a half hours of Hawaiian Shirt City.

Their aesthetics are very good IMO. But it certainly wouldn't hurt to have significant - and at the very least proportionate amount of night/rain.
Here's the problem, though - CDPR's artitic direction remains superlative, some of the best in the industry, it's just that Cyberpunk's vibe is... off. At least relative to what I (and others, obviously) expected in the genre. It's why I keep going on about night time, weather, the Walled City of Kowloon, street width, alleyways and overhangs etc. A cyberpunk metropolis should be an oppressive character in and of itself, visually ominous, but Night City's imagery rarely "looms" over you, it rarely gives you that impression of a gaping maw about to swallow you whole. It's got the consumerist thing down pat, but not the dread.

Incidentally, there are a couple of instances when the game does hit those notes. Here's one example with Johnny's flashback of when Alt gets kidnapped, you'll note this alley behind the bar, with its lighting and clutter, has a rather different mood than most of NC in 2077:



But for the most part - that dress looks great on you, babe, but it's out of season.

Has nobody modded a good flashlight into the game yet? Or a night vision mod for your artificial eyes? How could they forget to include this in the base game in the first place!
There's this Simple Flashlight mod that seems to do the job. I haven't tried it, used to be an inventory item replacer, but it looks like it's been updated to work on a scripted hotkey, might be worth checking out. And yes, it is dumb the devs didn't throw one in there. You've got working headlights on cars, you can even toggle between dipped and high beams, but no personal flashlight.
 

Wesp5

Arcane
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Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,755
There's this Simple Flashlight mod that seems to do the job. I haven't tried it, used to be an inventory item replacer, but it looks like it's been updated to work on a scripted hotkey, might be worth checking out.

I tried that, but at least the version I used was rather buggy. I was hoping somebody would just find a way to move the cool flashlight from the underwater sequence to the rest of the game!
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
Even on the Codex, there was a contingent of posters supporting CDPR's aesthetic alterations and dismissing the association of Cyberpunk aesthetics with night and/or rain.

Deus-Ex-2077.jpg

There's plenty "traditional" nighttime rainy neon-lit cyberpunk atmosphere in the game, you just have to play at night. There are also bouts of rain and overcast during the day.

As to the dusty, saturated daytime, I think that's actually very suitable for a city that's supposed to be in California, and it adds another aesthetic angle to the game, showing the decay and decadence in glaring highlight, while retaining a good deal of the "traditional" vibe for the rainy/dark/overcast weathers.

Also, while the dark/rainy/overcast look is canonical for a certain version of cyberpunk based on Bladerunner, Bladerunner itself isn't all that canonical in terms of cyberpunk. There's plenty of sunlit atmosphere in something like Neuromancer, for example, which is far more canonical of cyberpunk.

Of all the criticisms one could make about the game, this is one of the weakest. Art design is one of the game's strongest elements.
 
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Gargaune

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Of all the criticisms one could make about the game, this is one of the weakest. Art design is one of the game's strongest elements.
Weakest but not weak, and you're touching on two arguments here. First, that the game looks better at night than it does at day, and that the decision to limit night time proper to five hours is befuddling. Second, while the art direction is excellent and does capture that topical decay/decadence dichotomy, the visual composition in general rarely conveys the motif of the City as an intimidating, overbearing presence in and of itself, which other visual works in the genre have used to great effect.
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
Of all the criticisms one could make about the game, this is one of the weakest. Art design is one of the game's strongest elements.
Weakest but not weak, and you're touching on two arguments here. First, that the game looks better at night than it does at day, and that the decision to limit night time proper to five hours is befuddling. Second, while the art direction is excellent and does capture that topical decay/decadence dichotomy, the visual composition in general rarely conveys the motif of the City as an intimidating, overbearing presence in and of itself, which other visual works in the genre have used to great effect.

I think it's deliberate. The design incorporates what people want of the Bladerunner aesthetic (although I agree the nights are too short), but it goes beyond that to include what I think is mainly a nod to the color tones and megacity blocks of Judge Dredd , and that's very astute of them, since Judge Dredd is pretty much the grandaddy of a lot of the cyberpunk aesthetic and scenario.

As to whether it's intimidating and overbearing enough, it depends on where you are, and when. Again, at night it has more of that feeling.
 

Gargaune

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Mar 12, 2020
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I think it's deliberate. The design incorporates what people want of the Bladerunner aesthetic (although I agree the nights are too short), but it goes beyond that to include what I think is mainly a nod to the color tones and megacity blocks of Judge Dredd , and that's very astute of them, since Judge Dredd is pretty much the grandaddy of a lot of the cyberpunk aesthetic and scenario.

As to whether it's intimidating and overbearing enough, it depends on where you are, and when. Again, at night it has more of that feeling.
Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Absurdly short nights aside, I think CBP looks just fantastic and it's well worth gawking at, but I'd have preferred some things were different nonetheless.


In unrelated news, I was skimming one of the Photomode mods and came across this gem:
>>_KNOWN ISSUES:
========================

If the camera is very far from V his/her head will despawn.

I laughed, I really did.
 

tritosine2k

Erudite
Joined
Dec 29, 2010
Messages
1,465
this is an actual screenshot from a mission during the game
actual lighting in the mission I'm in, what the fuck...
if you think this is a joke, same image except brightness cranked up afterwards
...

nothing wrong with it being dark if I had a fucking FLASHLIGHT

Lighting is truly another lost art of game design.

Guess what happens when they give up a good standard for.... next to nothing & now car display industry is way ahead of gamerz productz meanwhile gamerz are busy chugging on the latest g-sank™ & co kool-aid .
 

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