Decline Do you think CDPR is capable of making a good game again?

[ADL]

I think they have a much better shot at one after making the move to Unreal now that they're not being bottlenecked by developing a proprietary engine. This will be an unpopular position but I think a good portion if not the majority of 2077's issues were a result of technical issues creating a huge backlog. Even without danger hairs, you were never going to get 2077 as envisioned.

 

[RepHope]

Seeing people pretend Witcher 1 is now a masterpiece when it was the exact kind of popamole shit the Codex professes to hate is hilarious. Look there was never a “decline” with CDPR the way there was with BioWare, CDPR has always made action-RPGs. They didn’t turn their backs on the sacred isometric turn-based RPG format, they were never interested in doing that to begin with. Do I think they can create something on the level of W3 again? Possibly, what killed Cyberpunk was an unrealistic set of expectations, an inability to manage hype, and blatant lying which finally caught up with them. I also suspect Cyberpunk suffered from CDPR not knowing what exactly they wanted Cyberpunk to be. At one point it was supposed to be a third person game going off the leaks, but then they switched to first person. They wanted immersive sim elements but also GTA open world style too.

Clearly that game spent a lot of time in dev hell and I think they even had to completely reboot it a couple times. With Witcher at least they have a model: W3. That’s what their audience wants and that’s the game they have as a base for what a Witcher game “should be like”. We’ll see if they can replicate it.

 

[Lawson Ashurst]

I think they have a much better shot at one after making the move to Unreal now that they're not being bottlenecked by developing a proprietary engine. This will be an unpopular position but I think a good portion if not the majority of 2077's issues were a result of technical issues creating a huge backlog. Even without danger hairs, you were never going to get 2077 as envisioned.

The main problem with 2077 imo was that the world felt completely dead outside of very specific locations and missions. Cars would spawn in out of nowhere, Cops were nonexistent, etc etc.

The story and characters weren't bad per say, but they definitely lost a lot of steam by about the halfway point

And of course you have the phoned in Reddit circlejerk inclusion of Keanu Reeves, even though I do like the story of Johnny Silverhand, and how it meshes with the player's world.

If this game didn't have the context of The Witcher 3 being as well received as it was- this game probably would've been received a lot better, still though- it's just a massive missed opportunity and disappointment that should've been delayed a couple years.

 

[Lawson Ashurst]

Plus the fact CDPR blatantly lied about the status of the game on last gen, among other things doesn't help.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Will the sex cards ever make a comeback? No you say?

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Look there was never a “decline” with CDPR the way there was with BioWare, CDPR has always made action-RPGs.

This is not what people are talking about when they mention the decline in CDPR between the release of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. The real "decline" that took place was a spiritual decay that came with the trappings of success. The easiest way to track it is by comparing the character models between games.

Pale sickly skin, a gaunt face full of lines, to generic pink-skinned Prettyboy McSquarejaw. You may mistake these choices as mere aesthetics but it goes in hand with the people the were catering to. The results of design by committee game development. This goes further with the story between the three games. I've watched many TW3 Streamers play through the final act of TW1 and completely miss the implication of certain scenes relating to the villain because they weren't paying attention. It is so dire that they had to basically spell it out in plain english for them in TW3. Such is the decline.

 

[Bigfass]

Again? Cyberpunk was literally the best game they ever made. It was in a shit state when released, but the game itself was really good. Purely in terms of story & gameplay, it's better than their earlier stuff. And it's not like any of the Witcher games were in perfect shape upon launch either.

They're known for low pay and brutal crunch.

You don't have to believe everything literal gommunists like Mx Sterling tell you. Employment is a 2-way street and all that. In the end though, does it matter? Are you going to factor their ESG score into your enjoyment of the product?

This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job for some unknown reason...

Especially in Poland. Other than hiring a few troons, how "diverse" can you get in a 97% homogenous country?

 

[anvi]

Fishy, when companies act woke. I suspect they are broke and can't afford good veteran staff. So they hire a bunch of 20 year old dipshits and pretend they are doing it for diversity. Any game development company that has a culture director deserves to fail.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It was always garbage.
Only retards bought their games.

The fact is, there's enough of them to make CDRejects rich over and over again, why would they stop?

 

[Lim-Dûl]

This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job for some unknown reason...

Are they thrilled to be bigots who hire people based on their ethnicity and gender? What can you be diverse about in Poland? Are they going to hire more rich people since they're a minority?

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Inclusivity director looks like a partial downy. I honestly hate throwing downies under the bus, though.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Look there was never a “decline” with CDPR the way there was with BioWare, CDPR has always made action-RPGs.

This is not what people are talking about when they mention the decline in CDPR between the release of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2. The real "decline" that took place was a spiritual decay that came with the trappings of success. The easiest way to track it is by comparing the character models between games.

Pale sickly skin, a gaunt face full of lines, to generic pink-skinned Prettyboy McSquarejaw. You may mistake these choices as mere aesthetics but it goes in hand with the people the were catering to. The results of design by committee game development. This goes further with the story between the three games. I've watched many TW3 Streamers play through the final act of TW1 and completely miss the implication of certain scenes relating to the villain because they weren't paying attention. It is so dire that they had to basically spell it out in plain english for them in TW3. Such is the decline.

Really. They explained why he went from recovering meth head to totes swole? I get the intention of mainstreaming Geralt to actually sell the damn games. Genuinely curious since I played through W1 twice and missed it.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Really. They explained why he went from recovering meth head to totes swole? I get the intention of mainstreaming Geralt to actually sell the damn games. Genuinely curious since I played through W1 twice and missed it.

No, I meant that they had to spell out who Jacques really was in a book in TW3 to help the inattentive put two and two together.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Ah, that dude; sorry, I is tarded.

 

[jungl]

This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job for some unknown reason...

Go woke go broke. Netflix is firing hundreds of its SJW staff. They finally realized they going to lose hard to their competitors and die if they continue to churn out woke shit. CDPR already experienced this and will never recover unless they cut all the useless people from their team. You simply cant make good stuff in competitive industry if you treat it like gov sector where you hire retards that are impossible to fire.

 

[Haplo]

again?

Yes, The Witcher (1) was good.

 

[Haplo]

I thought W3 was overrated beyond all belief, and Cyberpunk was nothing more than a bang average looter shooter. Never played the first two Witchers.

Well, both have very impressive world/city design and graphics. Cyberpunk also has cool guns.
But yeah, in general both were dissapointing.

 

[Tyrr]

This reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job for some unknown reason...

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

People think these questions are the pinnacle of discussion when it ends up sounding like baby's first post.

 

[turkishronin]

I think there are plenty of corporation making games with good graphics, but there is almost none recently have a good story/setting/characters. I wonder is it so hard to get a writer with decent skills nowadays? From my perspective a good graphic/programming code should be more difficult to achieve. However the reality says differently.

I think it's because writing is a incestuous club, you see the same failed journos and writers getting hired for positions constantly they shouldn't have. Get fired from one place, suddenly they are lead writers at another AAA studio.

Good writers are not writing for video games.
You've been warned about dangers of storyfaggotry but you didn't listen.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Good writers are not writing for video games.

They aren't writing for TV, film or printed media either, so what's your point?

Pale sickly skin, a gaunt face full of lines, to generic pink-skinned Prettyboy McSquarejaw.

Geralt was clearly handsome enough to attract the attention of almost every single female he came across, so the notion that he was some sort of misshapen freak, popular among a certain subset of the fandom, is based on a whole lot of fucking nothing.

Let's not confuse engine limitations and substandard model work with actual art direction.

 

[BigMaraIppo]

I like how you start off with a completely subjective statement then bother to ask for opinions in a poll.

Cyberpunk was by no means a "colossal train wreck". It started off as a quite good walking simulator with motorcycles and guns and hacking and shit, then got ruined by all the fretting CDPR did over the performance on shitty consoles, then spent the next two years SLOWLY patching it back up to where it's actually playable on PC again.

Its problem is lack of interesting content, not being a bad game.

This man gets it.

Story was fantastic at least to me. You HAVE to play that game as slow as possible otherwise youd lose your immersion real quick.

 

[jackofshadows]

I don't know why some Codexers of all people cannot make a distinction between CP2077 as a project/development process facts and rumours/marketing promises/technical state on release/etc etc etc etc and an actual end product. I think the end product is pretty damn great aside from some flaws (mainly itemisation and progression system in general). The visuals are fantastic and the writers have done their job very well too. So yeah why not to expect at least something good after this overly-ambitious and impressive game.

Also, Gwent 1.0 was pretty damn good so who knows, maybe we'll see some unexpected small game like that in the future.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Fishy, when companies act woke. I suspect they are broke and can't afford good veteran staff. So they hire a bunch of 20 year old dipshits and pretend they are doing it for diversity. Any game development company that has a culture director deserves to fail.

The CEO should direct the culture of a company. The existence of this post is a tacit admission that the CEO is spending his time on hookers and blow.

Geralt was clearly handsome enough to attract the attention of almost every single female he came across, so the notion that he was some sort of misshapen freak, popular among a certain subset of the fandom, is based on a whole lot of fucking nothing.

I won't weigh in on whether Geralt was handsome or not, because frankly I don't care, but this logic is wrong. Women are not men. Don't analyze women's preferences as if women look at men in the same way that men look at women, because a woman's sense of handsomeness is highly plastic and dependent on status signifiers. Geralt slays monsters in melee with a sword like a champion of antiquity -- Geralt is the fantasy equivalent of an NFL quarterback. He could look like a toad and women would still throw themselves at him.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Geralt is the fantasy equivalent of an NFL quarterback. He could look like a toad and women would still throw themselves at him.

A NFL quarterback has a villa and a Bugatti denoting his social status. Geralt has neither. In fact, he has no social status at all.

Most of his flings are one night stands and contrary to popular belief, women would still rather have causal sex with partners that don't look like a toad.