I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
It was apparently a big thing in Poland, and the devs loved playing it.
I am not super plugged into Tabletops; I had never heard of it.
Procedurally generated content is about the last thing I look for in an RPG. I want lovingly handcrafted, well-written content - which could conceivably be complemented by procedurally generated stuff, but ProcGen has felt generic to me most of the time when I've encountered it.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Given the IP laws involved, I think it makes more sense to use an existing property along with their terminology and world building rather than risk infringement lawsuits from other stakeholders in the genre.
The general "class" idea seems to be that V is a confirmed Solo, but can pull traits from and respect into class traits from classic Cyberpunk 2020 roles.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The general "class" idea seems to be that V is a confirmed Solo, but can pull traits from and respect into class traits from classic Cyberpunk 2020 roles.
There are three general Skill Trees. Solo (Combat), Techie (take a guess), Netrunner (hacking). Oddly enough actual Netrunning (full dive in to the net) is a part of the Techie tree because of how it is implemented in the game according to CDPR.
There are also numerous Perk Trees that are separate from the Skill Trees to fine tune how your character plays. There are Perk Trees for all the various weapon types and a number of Perk Trees for general skills (not to be confused with the Skill Trees) like hacking, engineering, athletics, assassination. The list, as far as I am aware, isn't 100% known yet.
edit- From what I understand the Hacking perk and the Netrunner skills are separate because "Hacking" is more along the lines of "lockpicking". Whereas Netrunner has hacking abilities that debuff people/robots, take control of things and cause general mayhem.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
So if full dive is in techie tree, what is in the netrunner one?
From what I've read, basically like an Enchanter from EQ. :razz: Debuffs, CC, probably buffs, taking control of robots/cameras/turrets, hacking enemy optics to make them think their friends are you, even disabling their weapons.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
So if full dive is in techie tree, what is in the netrunner one?
From what I've read, basically like an Enchanter from EQ. :razz: Debuffs, CC, probably buffs, taking control of robots/cameras/turrets, hacking enemy optics to make them think their friends are you, even disabling their weapons.
Yeah, they did show it briefly in the 50 minute demo last year when V was fighting the Maelstrom gang. She got access to the network that the entire gang was jacked into. In the demo she blocked the smartgun link so they couldn't fire their weapons, but I'd assume you could do similar things along a wider net or potentially turn all turrets/robots or even fellow gang members against each other. It would also be how you turn off security, potentially hack into their accounts whether data or money, and just generally sow a lot of chaos.
So if full dive is in techie tree, what is in the netrunner one?
From what I've read, basically like an Enchanter from EQ. :razz: Debuffs, CC, probably buffs, taking control of robots/cameras/turrets, hacking enemy optics to make them think their friends are you, even disabling their weapons.
Yeah, they did show it briefly in the 50 minute demo last year when V was fighting the Maelstrom gang. She got access to the network that the entire gang was jacked into. In the demo she blocked the smartgun link so they couldn't fire their weapons, but I'd assume you could do similar things along a wider net or potentially turn all turrets/robots or even fellow gang members against each other. It would also be how you turn off security, potentially hack into their accounts whether data or money, and just generally sow a lot of chaos.
So my second run through this game is definitely as FastJack.
I guess i will be go for techie/netrunner then.
Because being a netrunner without full dive seems just weird.
I hope they're generous with skillpoints or whatever you use in character building.
I hate having to play through half a game before i can start doing the really fun stuff.
Sure having to make do with limited resources and abilities can be fun, but if the game has nifty toys to play with, i want the option to play with them dammit.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I guess i will be go for techie/netrunner then.
Because being a netrunner without full dive seems just weird.
I hope they're generous with skillpoints or whatever you use in character building.
I hate having to play through half a game before i can start doing the really fun stuff.
Sure having to make do with limited resources and abilities can be fun, but if the game has nifty toys to play with, i want the option to play with them dammit.
It has been confirmed that you can respec your character.
Also, I'm not 100% on this, but from how the Devs have talked about the Skill trees it sounds like they're not "trees" (in the sense that you need X before you can get Y) and are just a collection of abilities you can pick and choose from and mix and match.
edit- Though there certainly could be stat requirements for certain abilities, who knows.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I guess i will be go for techie/netrunner then.
Because being a netrunner without full dive seems just weird.
I hope they're generous with skillpoints or whatever you use in character building.
I hate having to play through half a game before i can start doing the really fun stuff.
Sure having to make do with limited resources and abilities can be fun, but if the game has nifty toys to play with, i want the option to play with them dammit.
It has been confirmed that you can respec your character.
Also, I'm not 100% on this, but from how the Devs have talked about the Skill trees it sounds like they're not "trees" (in the sense that you need X before you can get Y) and are just a collection of abilities you can pick and choose from and mix and match.
edit- Though there certainly could be stat requirements for certain abilities, who knows.
Quite a few of them looked to be updates to your cybernetics... so it could also be limited to how much money you have, the availability only being limited to how much Eddies you can pawn.
If it’s cyberware tied and you can re spec that’s gonna be grimly funny when your hands magically get skin back after speccing out of your contact connection smart gun.
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
For those of us less familiar with the source material, what was the issue(s) with CP3.0?
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
For those of us less familiar with the source material, what was the issue(s) with CP3.0?
CP 3.0 was set sometime in the 2030's after civilization collapsed after the fourth corporate war between Arasaka and Militech. By the end there's literally been a nuclear war, megacorps are around but have all basically been taken over by the mafia, cyber tech has been taken over by nanomachines, the datakrash left no network anywhere to use, and the world was mostly split in to 6 oddball factions that had their own unique technology and theme. It was sort of an odd post-cyberpunk version of Mortal Engines than anything else.
The setting is what threw most people off from the game, as while the setting was interesting, it wasn't Cyberpunk... at all. There were other issues with it as well, the Interlock system of combat was replaced with Fusion which was hit-or-miss, and the artwork of this particular book wasn't really... art. It was basically pictures of action figures that Pondsmith had a giant collection of and modified. Also, basically any well known character from 2020 was dead or presumed dead, so there weren't anything around at all from the previous game to really latch onto, whether setting or characters or locations or even the system itself. Even Night City was basically turned into some odd nanometropolis that hovered a mile up and covered most of New California.
It was just... odd, an odd choice for Pondsmith to make. It wasn't a bad system or anything, but calling it Cyberpunk really isn't correct. If it had been called anything else or been called a Cyberpunk spinoff game, people would've been a lot more open about it.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
For those of us less familiar with the source material, what was the issue(s) with CP3.0?
CP 3.0 was set sometime in the 2030's after civilization collapsed after the fourth corporate war between Arasaka and Militech. By the end there's literally been a nuclear war, megacorps are around but have all basically been taken over by the mafia, cyber tech has been taken over by nanomachines, the datakrash left no network anywhere to use, and the world was mostly split in to 6 oddball factions that had their own unique technology and theme. It was sort of an odd post-cyberpunk version of Mortal Engines than anything else.
The setting is what threw most people off from the game, as while the setting was interesting, it wasn't Cyberpunk... at all. There were other issues with it as well, the Interlock system of combat was replaced with Fusion which was hit-or-miss, and the artwork of this particular book wasn't really... art. It was basically pictures of action figures that Pondsmith had a giant collection of and modified. Also, basically any well known character from 2020 was dead or presumed dead, so there weren't anything around at all from the previous game to really latch onto, whether setting or characters or locations or even the system itself. Even Night City was basically turned into some odd nanometropolis that hovered a mile up and covered most of New California.
It was just... odd, an odd choice for Pondsmith to make. It wasn't a bad system or anything, but calling it Cyberpunk really isn't correct. If it had been called anything else or been called a Cyberpunk spinoff game, people would've been a lot more open about it.
We don't know much, but we do know this;
Mike Pondsmith later announced Cyberpunk Red, a new edition of the pen & paper RPG set sometime before 2077. As a result of the Red Edition and 2077, the timeline was significantly changed. Creator Mike Pondsmith has said the official timeline is up in the air in regards to the later editions. As such elements of the Firestorm books and the Cyberpunk v3.0 books have been retired.
edit- And we do know that the 4th Corporate War still happened.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I'm just a little baffled CDPR bothered to license Cyberpunk at all. Is it really that popular? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to just do their own cyberpunk thing?
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
For those of us less familiar with the source material, what was the issue(s) with CP3.0?
CP 3.0 was set sometime in the 2030's after civilization collapsed after the fourth corporate war between Arasaka and Militech. By the end there's literally been a nuclear war, megacorps are around but have all basically been taken over by the mafia, cyber tech has been taken over by nanomachines, the datakrash left no network anywhere to use, and the world was mostly split in to 6 oddball factions that had their own unique technology and theme. It was sort of an odd post-cyberpunk version of Mortal Engines than anything else.
The setting is what threw most people off from the game, as while the setting was interesting, it wasn't Cyberpunk... at all. There were other issues with it as well, the Interlock system of combat was replaced with Fusion which was hit-or-miss, and the artwork of this particular book wasn't really... art. It was basically pictures of action figures that Pondsmith had a giant collection of and modified. Also, basically any well known character from 2020 was dead or presumed dead, so there weren't anything around at all from the previous game to really latch onto, whether setting or characters or locations or even the system itself. Even Night City was basically turned into some odd nanometropolis that hovered a mile up and covered most of New California.
It was just... odd, an odd choice for Pondsmith to make. It wasn't a bad system or anything, but calling it Cyberpunk really isn't correct. If it had been called anything else or been called a Cyberpunk spinoff game, people would've been a lot more open about it.
We don't know much, but we do know this;
Mike Pondsmith later announced Cyberpunk Red, a new edition of the pen & paper RPG set sometime before 2077. As a result of the Red Edition and 2077, the timeline was significantly changed. Creator Mike Pondsmith has said the official timeline is up in the air in regards to the later editions. As such elements of the Firestorm books and the Cyberpunk v3.0 books have been retired.
Yeah, I don't think much of 3.0 will be used in the setting at all anymore, otherwise it makes the entire setting just absurd and silly, retcon'ing the whole thing was probably the best plan. Sounds like Firestorm and the Fourth Corporate War happened, but it doesn't look like it resorted to all out nuclear war between megacorps (which is a fucking stupid idea anyway), and whatever warhead was at the top of Arasaka Tower also doesn't detonate... so probably no crater in the center of downtown.
Oh, I forgot one of the silliest parts of 3.0... some ecoterrorist or whatever created and unleashed a virus that... ate paper. No, not shitting you, so the virus basically ate any paper that was made from 1970 onwards. And that, along with Rasch Bartmoss unleashing so many viruses on the Network upon his death that it was irrevocably damaged and shut down... effectively made it so that no one knows history, or dates, and the US basically forgets everything other than current events. It's... as strange as it sounds.
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
He's just notorious for being kind of an elitist asshole. This is the guy that once commented that (roughly translated) he doesn't know anyone who played the Witcher games because he stays among intelligent people.
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
Which is probably the main reason he's annoyed at the Witcher games. Especially since they're more popular than his novels.
He got annoyed with the liberties CD was taking starting with Witcher II. Take that as you will.
I mean, video game writing has a historically poor batting average, so it probably would rankle a professional author to see that done to his IP. But, on the other hand, it’s highly unlikely he’s ever played the games and reading a synopsis of the plot just isn’t the best way to review a story.
Aren't the Witcher games set after all the novels?
I could see him getting pissed at the decisions made there. Especially since I literally just (Witcher 3/novel spoilers)
undid the djinn wish Geralt made to tie him and Yennifer together forever, which was apparently one of the early short stories.
...which, as done by Witcher 3, worked reasonably well. But I could imagine the author would be happier if he had literally any say into the (very popular) future of the characters he created.
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
Which was horseshit since he actively refused royalties in the first place.
While hacking people's eyes is neat, I hope that such tricks aren't a get out of jail free card. I would love it if enemies, especially elite ones, recognize such threats and respect them by taking appropriate countermeasures against them.
For example, let's say that you're up against a squad of elite corporate security forces and you demonstrate that your net-fu is stronger than theirs by hacking their eyes or their other gear to use it against them. I'd expect a well trained force to ultimately recognize that trick and respond by shutting down their fancy toys or swapping over to some kind of autistic mode with minimal communications capabilities. Forfeiting whatever advantages that they enjoyed from having networked equipment, but preventing you from using the same trick twice.
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
Which was horseshit since he actively refused royalties in the first place.
It's wayyy upthread, but I gave a detailed explanation of just how exactly this all happened, with a bit of inside baseball about it (tl;dr I used to work in fantasy book publishing and am currently trying to get back in there) but the TL;DR is that Andrzej Sapkowski is of a particular brand of Old Skool Fantasy Author who is mad about these kids daring to not only like his work but figure out how to monetize his Extremely Serious Sword & Sorcery Stuff (It's Very Serious Guys) better than him. Please believe me when I say he 100% brought this on himself. Like, if you feel bad for him at all, feel bad that he's a stubborn old goat.
Mike Pondsmith, meanwhile, knows the score and to my knowledge has a much better royalty deal. Which only further proves that this is one case where CDPR isn't being bad faith jerkbags and no really, Sapkowski shot himself in the foot and then kept doing it while yelling about how these damn kids have MADE him SHOOT HIMSELF in the FOOT with their MODERN THINGS and DISRESPECT for THE ART.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Outstar actually had a video about it in which she goes in to pretty good detail about the situation. She herself is Polish and works in the game industry, used to work for CDPR too.
The author hates the games, so take that how you will.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
Which was horseshit since he actively refused royalties in the first place.
It is worth noting that they did come to terms with the author, who is apparently satisfied with the situation now.
It's also a stark contract of what's happening with CP2077 and Mike Pondsmith, who is bending over backwards and helping all he can to make sure this succeeds. He clearly gets that CP2077 is a way to push his brand and his product to millions of folks who otherwise wouldn't ever see it. The CP2077 standard game even comes with a PDF of the CP2020 core rulebook, in case people want to check out the source material directly, or play the P&P RPG.
Imagine how much more goodwill and fans Sapkowski may have received if he was this helpful with the Witcher series. Imagine if Sapkowski was okay about adding a digital copy of The Last Wish along with the first Witcher game.
I have no fucking idea what you're trying to say with "autistic mode"
You've never seen ghost in the shell? It's a term in sci-fi settings where equipment disables networking capabilities in order to harden itself against cyber attack.
Autism is a condition where individuals have impeded communication skills. The hardware enters a mode where it has impeded communication skills. Hence, autistic mode.
It's also a stark contract of what's happening with CP2077 and Mike Pondsmith, who is bending over backwards and helping all he can to make sure this succeeds. He clearly gets that CP2077 is a way to push his brand and his product to millions of folks who otherwise wouldn't ever see it.
Pondsmith of course has the advantage of having seen the Witcher games make a hojillion dollars and receive critical acclaim, as opposed to basically unproven nobodies knocking on the door.
I have no fucking idea what you're trying to say with "autistic mode"
In Ghost in the Shell, another pretty major IP in the cyberpunk genre, the characters use the phrase "autistic mode" to refer to disconnecting an "upgraded" brain from technological networks to which it would normally be connected. Think of it as akin to putting one's phone in airplane mode, but with one's wifi-capable brain. I'm certain this is what General Armchair meant.
The term out of context… doesn't sound great. In a context where characters are using the term dispassionately and without judgment it fares a bit better, but… still not great. There are certainly better ways it could be put, and probably would be if Ghost in the Shell hadn't grandfathered the term into the cyberpunk lexicon. It certainly doesn't seem to reflect an understanding of the disorders of which autism is comprised.
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It was apparently a big thing in Poland, and the devs loved playing it.
I am not super plugged into Tabletops; I had never heard of it.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Every single one of my dorky friends had played that game, much like they had played VtM. It's obviously a product of the 90's which means you're catering to people in their 30's or 40's that grew up with it.
You see two groups of people that are excited about this game. You see the younger group that enjoyed Deus Ex games a LOT and see this as an equivalent product with possibly a better developer, and you see the older folks like me who actually grew up with the P&P RPGs that are absolutely bonkers that the video game is a thing at all.
And yeah, I'm still really curious to see if Pondsmith is still considering Cyberpunk 3.0 as canon. I mean, I don't see HOW that game could still be canon going forward, so I just have to assume that it was an idea that Pondsmith had, that he's now shelved as interesting... but not Cyberpunk.
Given the IP laws involved, I think it makes more sense to use an existing property along with their terminology and world building rather than risk infringement lawsuits from other stakeholders in the genre.
There are three general Skill Trees. Solo (Combat), Techie (take a guess), Netrunner (hacking). Oddly enough actual Netrunning (full dive in to the net) is a part of the Techie tree because of how it is implemented in the game according to CDPR.
There are also numerous Perk Trees that are separate from the Skill Trees to fine tune how your character plays. There are Perk Trees for all the various weapon types and a number of Perk Trees for general skills (not to be confused with the Skill Trees) like hacking, engineering, athletics, assassination. The list, as far as I am aware, isn't 100% known yet.
edit- From what I understand the Hacking perk and the Netrunner skills are separate because "Hacking" is more along the lines of "lockpicking". Whereas Netrunner has hacking abilities that debuff people/robots, take control of things and cause general mayhem.
From what I've read, basically like an Enchanter from EQ. :razz: Debuffs, CC, probably buffs, taking control of robots/cameras/turrets, hacking enemy optics to make them think their friends are you, even disabling their weapons.
Yeah, they did show it briefly in the 50 minute demo last year when V was fighting the Maelstrom gang. She got access to the network that the entire gang was jacked into. In the demo she blocked the smartgun link so they couldn't fire their weapons, but I'd assume you could do similar things along a wider net or potentially turn all turrets/robots or even fellow gang members against each other. It would also be how you turn off security, potentially hack into their accounts whether data or money, and just generally sow a lot of chaos.
So my second run through this game is definitely as FastJack.
Because being a netrunner without full dive seems just weird.
I hope they're generous with skillpoints or whatever you use in character building.
I hate having to play through half a game before i can start doing the really fun stuff.
Sure having to make do with limited resources and abilities can be fun, but if the game has nifty toys to play with, i want the option to play with them dammit.
It has been confirmed that you can respec your character.
Also, I'm not 100% on this, but from how the Devs have talked about the Skill trees it sounds like they're not "trees" (in the sense that you need X before you can get Y) and are just a collection of abilities you can pick and choose from and mix and match.
edit- Though there certainly could be stat requirements for certain abilities, who knows.
Quite a few of them looked to be updates to your cybernetics... so it could also be limited to how much money you have, the availability only being limited to how much Eddies you can pawn.
For those of us less familiar with the source material, what was the issue(s) with CP3.0?
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CP 3.0 was set sometime in the 2030's after civilization collapsed after the fourth corporate war between Arasaka and Militech. By the end there's literally been a nuclear war, megacorps are around but have all basically been taken over by the mafia, cyber tech has been taken over by nanomachines, the datakrash left no network anywhere to use, and the world was mostly split in to 6 oddball factions that had their own unique technology and theme. It was sort of an odd post-cyberpunk version of Mortal Engines than anything else.
The setting is what threw most people off from the game, as while the setting was interesting, it wasn't Cyberpunk... at all. There were other issues with it as well, the Interlock system of combat was replaced with Fusion which was hit-or-miss, and the artwork of this particular book wasn't really... art. It was basically pictures of action figures that Pondsmith had a giant collection of and modified. Also, basically any well known character from 2020 was dead or presumed dead, so there weren't anything around at all from the previous game to really latch onto, whether setting or characters or locations or even the system itself. Even Night City was basically turned into some odd nanometropolis that hovered a mile up and covered most of New California.
It was just... odd, an odd choice for Pondsmith to make. It wasn't a bad system or anything, but calling it Cyberpunk really isn't correct. If it had been called anything else or been called a Cyberpunk spinoff game, people would've been a lot more open about it.
We don't know much, but we do know this;
edit- And we do know that the 4th Corporate War still happened.
Yeah, I don't think much of 3.0 will be used in the setting at all anymore, otherwise it makes the entire setting just absurd and silly, retcon'ing the whole thing was probably the best plan. Sounds like Firestorm and the Fourth Corporate War happened, but it doesn't look like it resorted to all out nuclear war between megacorps (which is a fucking stupid idea anyway), and whatever warhead was at the top of Arasaka Tower also doesn't detonate... so probably no crater in the center of downtown.
Oh, I forgot one of the silliest parts of 3.0... some ecoterrorist or whatever created and unleashed a virus that... ate paper. No, not shitting you, so the virus basically ate any paper that was made from 1970 onwards. And that, along with Rasch Bartmoss unleashing so many viruses on the Network upon his death that it was irrevocably damaged and shut down... effectively made it so that no one knows history, or dates, and the US basically forgets everything other than current events. It's... as strange as it sounds.
(He loves the money though)
I wonder why? It feels like it captures the feeling of the books pretty well.
He's just notorious for being kind of an elitist asshole. This is the guy that once commented that (roughly translated) he doesn't know anyone who played the Witcher games because he stays among intelligent people.
The author doesn't particularly care for (or get) video games. And I don't think he's rolling in the dough as he sued CDPR for royalties on the grounds that he didn't know how successful the game would be (he settled for a lump sum instead of royalties).
Which is probably the main reason he's annoyed at the Witcher games. Especially since they're more popular than his novels.
I mean, video game writing has a historically poor batting average, so it probably would rankle a professional author to see that done to his IP. But, on the other hand, it’s highly unlikely he’s ever played the games and reading a synopsis of the plot just isn’t the best way to review a story.
I could see him getting pissed at the decisions made there. Especially since I literally just (Witcher 3/novel spoilers)
...which, as done by Witcher 3, worked reasonably well. But I could imagine the author would be happier if he had literally any say into the (very popular) future of the characters he created.
Which was horseshit since he actively refused royalties in the first place.
For example, let's say that you're up against a squad of elite corporate security forces and you demonstrate that your net-fu is stronger than theirs by hacking their eyes or their other gear to use it against them. I'd expect a well trained force to ultimately recognize that trick and respond by shutting down their fancy toys or swapping over to some kind of autistic mode with minimal communications capabilities. Forfeiting whatever advantages that they enjoyed from having networked equipment, but preventing you from using the same trick twice.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
It's wayyy upthread, but I gave a detailed explanation of just how exactly this all happened, with a bit of inside baseball about it (tl;dr I used to work in fantasy book publishing and am currently trying to get back in there) but the TL;DR is that Andrzej Sapkowski is of a particular brand of Old Skool Fantasy Author who is mad about these kids daring to not only like his work but figure out how to monetize his Extremely Serious Sword & Sorcery Stuff (It's Very Serious Guys) better than him. Please believe me when I say he 100% brought this on himself. Like, if you feel bad for him at all, feel bad that he's a stubborn old goat.
Mike Pondsmith, meanwhile, knows the score and to my knowledge has a much better royalty deal. Which only further proves that this is one case where CDPR isn't being bad faith jerkbags and no really, Sapkowski shot himself in the foot and then kept doing it while yelling about how these damn kids have MADE him SHOOT HIMSELF in the FOOT with their MODERN THINGS and DISRESPECT for THE ART.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
autonomous?
It is worth noting that they did come to terms with the author, who is apparently satisfied with the situation now.
It's also a stark contract of what's happening with CP2077 and Mike Pondsmith, who is bending over backwards and helping all he can to make sure this succeeds. He clearly gets that CP2077 is a way to push his brand and his product to millions of folks who otherwise wouldn't ever see it. The CP2077 standard game even comes with a PDF of the CP2020 core rulebook, in case people want to check out the source material directly, or play the P&P RPG.
Imagine how much more goodwill and fans Sapkowski may have received if he was this helpful with the Witcher series. Imagine if Sapkowski was okay about adding a digital copy of The Last Wish along with the first Witcher game.
It's a reference to Ghost in the Shell, where that's the term used when people turn off their networking capabilities to avoid hacks.
Probably not a term to use here, though.
You've never seen ghost in the shell? It's a term in sci-fi settings where equipment disables networking capabilities in order to harden itself against cyber attack.
Autism is a condition where individuals have impeded communication skills. The hardware enters a mode where it has impeded communication skills. Hence, autistic mode.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Pondsmith of course has the advantage of having seen the Witcher games make a hojillion dollars and receive critical acclaim, as opposed to basically unproven nobodies knocking on the door.
The term out of context… doesn't sound great. In a context where characters are using the term dispassionately and without judgment it fares a bit better, but… still not great. There are certainly better ways it could be put, and probably would be if Ghost in the Shell hadn't grandfathered the term into the cyberpunk lexicon. It certainly doesn't seem to reflect an understanding of the disorders of which autism is comprised.