Information CD Projekt's New Title Is A Cyberpunk 2020 RPG

[Menckenstein]

Somebody searching for Command and Conquer on google will probably end up on this thread, holy shit...

In that case...

hello intrepid googler: TANYA from C&C RA2 (KARI WUHRER) HAD SOME DECENT NUDE SCENES IN SOME MOVIES

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

*yawn*
Wake me up when mr. S.S. Captain will finally apply his special 1000 Euro penalty to every pirated game he sold.

 

[el Supremo]

 

[Stinger]

The way I define it, it's any way the player can directly affect the story or the gameworld in a significant way. So for example, dialogue choices in Alpha Protocol are C&C because you make choices within dialogue and that has short term and long term effects on the story.

The way you solve quests in the (good) Fallout games is C&C because often solving a quest diplomatically vs shooting everyone up can change the story and ending slides and it can also affect gameworld by opening up new quest paths or closing off other quests.

According to that definition Devil Survivor shits all over Fallout's C&C while Aoi Shiro fucks Planescape up its undead butt with a wooden practice sword and the Way of the Samurai games laughs merrily at how pathetic those Witcher gaijin shitgames are.

You may want to think of a better one before this place loses all credibility.

Nope, I haven't played those other games but I agree, Devil Survivor 1 has much better C&C than Fallout 1- at least, strictly in terms of the degree of branching to the storyline the game has.

Of course Fallout 1 has a much better character system and quest design that DS1 doesn't even come close to, not to mention a properly interactive world compared to DS's menu based hub system.

And of course FNV and Alpha Protocol have C&C that pisses all over both Devil Survivor games, DS2 can only dream of having a rep system as intricate as AP's and FNV backs up its insane C&C with some really well thought out approaches to its quest design as well.

And Torment has dialogue options that aren't simply "Yeah" or "I agree" or other 3 word sentences.

Point is, C&C isn't the only thing that makes an RPG great and Fallout is a better game and better RPG than Devil Survivor not because of its C&C but because it handles all other aspects of its gameplay really well.

Oh and pretty much any game with decent C&C laughs merrily at how pathetic those Witcher gaijin games are.

 

[Roguey]

Ah nice, three pages of "the games I like are better than the games you like Nyaaaaaaa" :baby:

 

[Menckenstein]

Ah nice, three pages of "the games I like are better than the games you like Nyaaaaaaa" :baby:

 

[OSK]

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[Sukeban Cho]

Nope, I haven't played those other games but I agree, Devil Survivor 1 has much better C&C than Fallout 1- at least, strictly in terms of the degree of branching to the storyline the game has.

I wasn't actually talking of branching storyline but of actual consequences that affect not only story but gameplay. In Devil Survivor based on your actions you can be witness to vastly different events that are mutually exclusive, obtain and lose playable characters, face completely different boss fights that require vastly different strategies to win, etc. In other words, there are consequences beyond the cosmetic that will change the way the game is played and experienced, the way the story plays, the way the gameworld evolves, and the way the story is resolved instead of just the fluff accompanying it.

Which, in itself, places it above Alpha Protocol, as the consequences, when they were present at all beyond the realm of cosmetic differences, never reached the same scope.

Other than that, you seem to have a problem focusing. Let me help you.

Your argument was:

1. C&C is A.
2. Those games are good example of C&C.

My argument is that you are contradicting yourself given those games are awful examples of A, and gave examples of games that do A much better according to your very own definition. I do not care whether or not those are good or bad games. I do not care about their character systems, I do not care about their quest design, I do not care about interactive worlds, and I do not care about shit.

I care only about how if C&C = A, where A is the definition you gave, those games you mentioned are awful as C&C centered games as they are C&C centered games that are ages ahead of them.

Let's go down memory lane...

"The way I define it, it's any way the player can directly affect the story or the gameworld in a significant way."

In the Way of the Samurai games, Devil Survivor, and even MOST DATING SIMS EVER you can affect the story or the gameworld in a greater degree than in Planescape, Fallout, FNV, or Alpha Protocol, and I am not only talking about "number of endings" but about "the journey there."

So my point is pretty simple: Either your definition is wrong or the games this place has been touting as examples of C&C done right totally suck as C&C games.

To reinforce this, I'll bring to your attention that this place criticizes choices that have no consequences beyond the cosmetic. Therefore, those consequences the player's actions have on the story and the gameworld must go beyond mere fluff and change either the story or the gameworld in ways that aren't just cosmetic (i.e: You face the same situation but fighting those soldiers instead of those other soldiers, for example).

Your own words back that perspective, actually: "Using FNV as an example; if you kill Caesar that will close off the Legion questline and some characters can respond or comment on it, but that second bit is just flavour dialogue so I wouldn't call it significant."

And that's where all those games fail compared to the games I mentioned, and many more I could mention, as the games you mentioned have little consequences beyond the cosmetic. They are better written, and thus better at making those cosmetic choices look important, than, for example, Bioware's, but most consequences have no practical effect in the way the story runs, the way the gameworld works, or the way the game plays.

Even better: "Similarly if Fallout let you solve quests in different ways based on your build but didn't have a resulting consequence like story or gameworld effects then I wouldn't call it C&C."

You just made clear the only element important to the C&C-ness of a game is the number and scope of, and focus on, the changes the story and gameworld (and, maybe, gameplay itself) goes through as a result of the player's actions, and that all C&C-ing that doesn't result in such is not, according to your definition, true C&C-ing. If you were to actually list all of those who aren't just cosmetic in the games you mentioned you would notice the number is extremely low.

So low, in fact, they would have trouble beating even some dating sims that offer vastly different paths, events, scenes, subplots, consequences, battles, bonuses, endings, available parties, etc, based on the player's choices. All those are the same PRACTICAL effects you mentioned: The story runs differently, the gameworld works differently, or the game plays differently.

Which take us back to the begining.

Point is, C&C isn't the only thing that makes an RPG great and Fallout is a better game and better RPG than Devil Survivor not because of its C&C but because it handles all other aspects of its gameplay really well.

Where did I say those games were bad role playing games? And where did I say C&C is the only thing making a game a role playing game? Answer: Nowhere outside your own delusions, honey.

Oh and pretty much any game with decent C&C laughs merrily at how pathetic those Witcher gaijin games are.

Okay, I forgive you. We can be friends.

 

[Thoric]

The impression I got from the Witcher games is that they wanted to stretch their legs in C&C, but were constrained by the established character and setting. That led them to delivering some quite deep and well-nuanced choices in the little wiggle room they had, contrasting sharply with the standard good/bad fare and became their thing.

Now with that insight, and if they have the same loyalty towards the source material as with Sapkowski's work, I think this could turn out a pretty solid PnP-based RPG, VTMB-grade at least.

 

[Stinger]

words

My mistake, I didn't realise you were bringing AP and FNV into this argument. In which case, sorry but frankly I disagree on any such notion that Devil Survivor has better C&C than either of those games.

Fallout NV and Alpha Protocol aren't just cosmetic flavour dialogue moments but real choices.

In Devil Survivor 1 your main choices are a branching choice path at around Day 4 (the Kaidou/Keisuke/Marie choice, you know what I mean) and the gradual build up of NPC dialogue to the branching choice at the end.

There are some other choices regarding other NPCs dying off if you didn't respond appropriately but so what? In Fallout NV every NPC except children and Yes Man are killable. And unlike DS those NPC deaths have huge effects on the story. Let's be honest here, I played a play through where Keisuke died and another play through where he lived and it barely had any effect. All that happened is that sometimes he made an offhand comment that barely reflected anything. His most significant effect by living is that he contributes a fair bit to the Atsuro path but the NPCs in FNV have far greater effects than that. You said that killing Caesar isn't a big deal but he has the same effect as Keisuke in that his death closes off the Legion quest line, or, depending on the circumstances of his death, can significantly alter the Legion quest line when his number 2 takes charge. Not to mention it has peripheral effects on other quests like Hanlon's quest as well- and Caesar is one of the less important NPCs in this regard. Keisuke's survival has nothing of the sort, neither does Marie's.

In Alpha Protocol every major character except I think Steven Heck and SIE vs Albatross (i.e. you can't kill them both off in the same play through) are killable. They have far greater effects on the storyline than Keisuke's death through the way the reputation meters are structured and how that effects story. Like you said, not just the endings but the journey. I'd give examples but I still can't get a proper handle on the branching of Alpha Protocol- sadly not being that popular means the wiki is half baked and doesn't give a clear idea of the effects of all your actions.

Fallout New Vegas and Alpha Protocol (AP much less so...I think) have a shitload of intersecting quest lines and choices in one area have effects on quests in another area. They do this either directly (doing specific choices has an impact on another quest) or indirectly (making choices affects your reputation which has an effect on how the game world reacts to you and what quests can open up for you). By comparison Devil Survivor doesn't really have this. It has gradual build up towards the 5 paths based on who you talk to, but aside from the Kaidou/Keisuke/Marie choice where your knowledge of Kaidou can hugely change that choice there isn't any other element of intersecting quest lines and story lines. For the most part DS is flavour dialogue until the endgame. And even the endgame isn't that different. Like FNV and AP the endgame is pretty much the same gameplaywise (though Yuzu's is pretty different but she's basically a nonstandard game over) but with some slight variations like who you're fighting and the boss battles you face. Unlike FNV or AP in DS you just have one set ending for each path. By comparison FNV has FUCKLOAD of ending slides and even each of the 4 paths has like 3 different variations each based on your actions and then a further 4-8 odd variations on each different location/Faction you visited and your impact on them. AP also has a similar thing going in terms of the epilogues and the different effects of your actions.

Again, sorry, Devil Survivor doesn't even compare to that.

Now it's possible the other games you've mentioned are better about it but if they are similar to DS1 then, nope, the C&C there doesn't compare to FNV or AP.

FNV especially has a huge interactive world, with a well thought out reputation system and a tonne of intersecting quest lines that branch out and influence each other leading to a series of ending slides that have a lot of individual variations.

Devil Survivor has a menu hub system, so the world isn't particularly interactive, and one major choice in the mid game that has some interactivity with your NPC dialogue options but it ultimately is more focused on a gradual build up to 4 or 5 linear endings.

Could just be a difference of opinion, but as much as I love Devil Survivor, FNV and AP just do it much better.

Where did I say those games were bad role playing games? And where did I say C&C is the only thing making a game a role playing game? Answer: Nowhere outside your own delusions, honey.

It was a misunderstanding, when you said I had to change my definition of C&C or the codex would look stupid I was trying to say that the Codex isn't just all about C&C but about character systems and quest design and whatnot so Fallout 1 not being as great at C&C as a JRPG doesn't reflect badly on it as the number 1 game by the codex because of the other stuff it does.

Okay, I forgive you. We can be friends.

Sure, a mutual hatred of shit games is why I joined the codex in the first place.

 

[Sukeban Cho]

@ Stinger



TL;DR: Ur wrong, lol.



That aside,

You are still not defining what a change actually is.

It is going through different events? In Devil Survivor you can pick a limited amount of events from the available ones during each "turn," and many events only activate if you went through particular previous events. I.E: You are witness to vastly different events, not different versions of the same, depending on your actions and choices. Vastly different is the keyword.

Is it having great divergence down the line? Then, which events you witnessed and which choices you made during those events play a part in deciding which routes you have available later on. The routes present vastly different perspectives of the same story once they activate, and thus the story varies greatly independently of how much into the game the split happens. They also offer vastly different challenges and scenarios. Alpha Protocol, for example, has no real split, nor greatly divergent scenarios depending on who you ally with. You are basically running through the exact same thing with superficial changes.

And there are many little choices that can have pretty deep consequences not only in the story but also in the gameplay: The line of events and choices that result in recruiting Black Frost as a party member, the vastly different battles you participate based on your choices at certain times, your choices regarding a certain character completely having the potential to screw your playthrough later on, etc.

It seems to me you are still confusing how good or bad the writing is, or the story is, or the atmosphere is in accordance to your tastes with the depth and complexity of the allowed changes.

That aside, I wasn't comparing FNV to Devil Survivor in particular but to C&C games in general. The games you mentioned aren't really good at C&C, they are good at creating the ilusion of C&C by means of quality writing, atmosphere, and superficial reactivity. They rarely, if at all, react truly in depth to your choices, by which I mean the setting, the story, or the gameplay rarely, if at all, reach a point of true divergence.

The easiest example of this to give is Planescape: Nothing you do will change the way the story goes or the game plays. All the little choices and apparent divergences are in no way different to the events you choose to play or ignore in Devil Survivor's worldmap, it only happens the method of triggering them is more immersive and involved. And it only happens neither the triggered events nor what you picked during those will have any importance in the future.

There are no vastly divergent routes nor vastly different scenarios and challenges based on your choices. There are not negative consequences of the "LOL, you got fucked back when you made that stupid choice in the prologue." variety, either, nor real consequences outside a non-standard game over if you kill yourself. It's kind of in the same level as Chaos;Head's first release, being a totally linear story with optional scenes and extra fluff that in no way change anything important or crucial. That you play through those optional scenes by means of moving around, killing monters, and picking dialogue choices is in no way related to C&C. Once the scenario is finished nothing did change in the great plan other than, maybe, your access to a bit more of, in practice, inconsequential flavour text and background lore.

But then even the much touted FNV falls short compared to some truly awful shit.

One random example of how low we can go and still find better: There's a little, weird, and greatly disturbing dating game for girls by the name of Ijiwaru My Master. At a certain point you are presented with a couple of choices that decide to which one out of three masters you are sold into implied sexual slavery innocent and chaste servitude. While all share the same general setting and elements each outcome represents a completely self-contained storyline with its own cast of characters, its own sub-setting, its own plotlines, its own events, its own choices and consequences, its own set of endings and scenarios, and its own unique ways of getting consensually and semi-consensually done by hot demon guys who are into submissive indefense girls in maid outfits gameplay.

It's spiritual prequel is a little, weird, and greatly disturbing dating game for girls by the name of Under The Moon, in which there are not only many (many!) different interconnected routes based on the player's choices and actions through the game, each of these routes having their own choices and divergences again based on the player's input, but also an alternative version of every single every character's route, again with its alternative version of the choices and consequences and variations it offered, that can be swaped by the normal one depending, again, on what the player wants and how she reacts to shit, the game thus adapting itself to very different collections of abusive fetishes and violent fantasies. In other words, your choices result in vastly divergent storylines and situations, and the way you act through it all and the way it all piles up can have pretty horrifying consequences you are pretty much defenseless against other than by being careful when deciding shit.

Which means even FNV was beaten at its own game by what amounts to tasteless fetish porn for masochist girls who want borderline sociopaths to fall madly, violently, and utterly possessively in love with them. It wasn't even a fair duel, it was a slaughter.

My point being: The games you are mentioning as examples of great C&C are actually examples of a different thing instead. They don't really have deep C&C, as even at their best they are light on actual consequences, but are able to create the ilusion of a truly interactive narrative and a truly reactive world by means of great writing, mood setting, superficial reactivity, fluffy fluff, and shit like that.

1. Even games in which the C&C is more of an afterthought (Devil Survivor!) give them a run for their money.

2. Against full C&C games they don't have a chance in hell.

It can't be argued, for example, against the mere fact that of all those games you mentioned only Alpha Protocol would have a consequence matrix or web even slightly worthy of such a name, and even then it will never go beyond variations on a single route with no branches, no sub-routes, and no complex consequences.

It was a misunderstanding, when you said I had to change my definition of C&C or the codex would look stupid I was trying to say that the Codex isn't just all about C&C but about character systems and quest design and whatnot so Fallout 1 not being as great at C&C as a JRPG doesn't reflect badly on it as the number 1 game by the codex because of the other stuff it does.

Actually, it is Fallout 1 not being even remotely as great at C&C as some fetish porn piece. Otherwise is not humiliating enough. :3

Trolling aside, I'm perfectly fine with what you said there. What makes those games great (for those who find those games to their tastes) isn't the C&C. But having them constantly mentioned as the pinacle of C&C is, to be honest, kind of baffling for anyone who did play enough works of asian emotional and sexual pornography some very interesting and unique japanese games.

If anything it is depressing the interest in C&C heavy games the japanese have rarely manifest in anything other than even more brutal porn and even more sappy romance.

 

[meh]

Looking forward.

 

[Suchy]

I'm a sucker for anything cyberpunk, just one request to CDPR: please don't fuck it up with third person combat and sticky cover.

 

[Excidium]

just one request to CDPR: please don't fuck it up with third person combat and sticky cover.

 

[hiver]

As long as it has some cool QTEs.... its gonna be awesum!

Im so excited!

 

[LundB]

I am sure the futuristic technology will allow our player character to roll across the battlefield in previously unseen ways. Perhaps he will be able to somehow roll sideways while preserving the direction he is facing, or even turn into a ball and roll in any direction! Truly, that would add a whole new dimension in CDProjekt roll playing game combat.

 

[Cassidy]

I don't get the people who bash CDProjekt this much after having preordered and likely replayed all Mass Effects, almost fallen on Diablo III money-grabbing scheme or who keep playing shit grindan JRPGs. It's like the kettle and the pot itt.

Hopefully this will lead to a decent Deus Ex style game free from popamole instead of another shit Gear of Wars clone with cyberpunk.

So far CDProjekt have declined gameplay-wise between the two Witchers, but they are yet to show what they will do in a game with firearms instead of swords and I find them more likely to release a good game than Obsidian nowadays.

 

[RK47]

trenchcoat and sunglasses in collector's ed plz.

 

[mondblut]

Someone called mondblutians?

In... MOST DATING SIMS EVER you can affect the story or the gameworld in a greater degree than in Planescape, Fallout, FNV, or Alpha Protocol, and I am not only talking about "number of endings" but about "the journey there."

Yes.

So my point is pretty simple: Either your definition is wrong or the games this place has been touting as examples of C&C done right totally suck as C&C games.

How about, "the immanent importance of 'C&C' for the genre in question is grossly overstated"?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Truly, that would add a whole new dimension in CDProjekt roll playing game combat.

unsurpassed tactical evasion possibility

ghost hacker. ghost rider. cyberspeed daemon. mentally keyed individual roller microturbines flex him into the essence of escape.

 

[Sukeban Cho]

How about, "the immanent importance of 'C&C' for the genre in question is grossly overstated"?

I thought that was implied in the only role playing games that try to focus on C&C kind of not being very good at it.

One could maybe go so far as to argue the number of role playing games including the kind of C&C that were being discussed to be so small as to qualify of nothing more than the exception justifying the rule represented by the genre itself. I.E: Role playing games do not, by rule, include C&C. Those which do include it are outside the norm and thus aren't representative of the genre itself.