I only mention Saints Row 2 as the standard because the talk recently has been how they are working to make a character creator that is exceptional and able to meet a variety of people's needs, and then I see those screenshots and it just looks like Mass Effect 1 level of detail.
Character creation changes were basically what I expected from how they described "fixing" them. Rename the Gender screen to Body Type and then show all options on the voices screen instead of just the ones matching the "body type".
Then never mention you by gender pronoun through the game.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
One of the genre conventions of cyberpunk is that your life is worth a couple creds at best, and the megacorps do. Not. Care.
I mean, this wasn't true even in super early books like Snow Crash and also it should not be true in modern versions provided you're actually trying to be punk rather than just "cool profit margins!"
Like I don't know if I can be more clear but:
1) the 2020 RPG is literally almost 30 years old today. Which is why it has shit like the ability to put hot tech like fax machines in your cyberarm. Also it has a huge number of issues that blame bodily autonomy on the people needing it and not the corporations.
2) We should expect better from writters than "stuff which was genre savvy as a 16 year old game master for 2020 in the 1990's"
I'm curious now, what is that you think separates cyberpunk from other sci-fi genres? Like, what is cyberpunk to you?
Focus on near future, augmentation as a metaphor for bodily autonomy, corporate control and fighting it.
None of which actually requires accepting a default tone of lives being worth tiny baby money.
Like if your punk setting is all about establishing that Yes, the Status Quo really is that life is cheap and worthless then uh, it's not punk? It's just boot licking profit margins?
EDIT: Like, if the genre at its base is about how tech is both inevitable and harmful in corporate hands then uh, any status quo version of it which follows the corporate mandate that freelancers are cheap lives to expend is just saying that the corporate hands are correct to treat people like that.
Which isn't punk.
At all.
I mean, it's supposed to also reflect real life, and currently corporations are still trying to literally burn the world for an extra bit of profit.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
People fighting against corporate ideals of life being cheap is probably the single most core element to punk there is.
Watching the gameplay deep dive and I have to admit I really like this style of showcasing a games progress. Its obviously meant to be impressive but there is still a sense of "work in progress but check it out" that I like. Plus it's a great way to fill in lore and backstory for your world so people have an idea of things before they ever jump in.
People fighting against corporate ideals of life being cheap is probably the single most core element to punk there is.
Yeah that's my point: The 2077 trailers don't do that at all.
So far the trailer's show V rescuing a rich woman from a chop shop (because money) and killing dozens of people to secure a militech drone for a gang.
You aren't a punk, you're a terminator for people's profit margins.
Compare and contrast that to something like the Watch Dogs: Legion trailers. Which also start by establishing that the city has gone to shit and the institutions that be treat life as cheap.
Then spends the whole trailer kicking the shit out of those institutions.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
People fighting against corporate ideals of life being cheap is probably the single most core element to punk there is.
Yeah that's my point: The 2077 trailers don't do that at all.
So far the trailer's show V rescuing a rich woman from a chop shop (because money) and killing dozens of people to secure a militech drone for a gang.
You aren't a punk, you're a terminator for people's profit margins.
Compare and contrast that to something like the Watch Dogs: Legion trailers. Which also start by establishing that the city has gone to shit and the institutions that be treat life as cheap.
Then spends the whole trailer kicking the shit out of those institutions.
I mean, it's pretty clear that we're going to have choices over how we interact with the authorities in Cyberpunk 2077.
One of the genre conventions of cyberpunk is that your life is worth a couple creds at best, and the megacorps do. Not. Care.
But people do.
One of the genre stables is also that group is stronger than individual, and you need friends and allies to get by.
Sure everyone might have an agenda, but that does not mean that the world is 24/7 betrayal carousel.
Some of the best cyberpunk stories i've read were about people joining together, either in long term or short, and acchieving things, even if only survival, together.
Sure you can have great super bleak stories as well.
But not sure world needs more of that at this moment.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I had to say this before but I’ll say it again.
The Cyberpunk genre has never been about fighting The Man. Ever.
In fact if a story even has a possibility of effectively fighting The Man then it’s not very Cyberpunk at all.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
The character fighting back against the corps is not a given, which is just as important to the themes. The mega corps will use you as a pawn, chew you up, and spit you out if you let them. This isn’t like Watch Dogs where it’s a simple empowerment fantasy. Part of cyberpunk is displaying the forces that make people allow all this horrible shit to continue just so they can make it through the day themselves. If the player wants to overthrow the corps, it should come at an incredible cost, and if they don’t, they should end up having to do horrible things they will regret if they aren’t already a sociopath. That’s the core of cyberpunk.
I'd also like to point out that what we're seeing in the trailers and gameplay CDPR is showing us is the beginning where V is wading through the mud and trying to make it big.
Point being you don't fight The Man until you're working for The Man. Silverhand clearly is how you make your big moral choices in the game, most likely whether you let a nicer Corp take over, or you let the whole thing burn. But that part of the game is NEVER going to be shown by CDPR, because that would be spoiling the shit out of the game.
So... relax, what you're seeing is the beginning. It's always about gangs first, and corporate wars second. That's the natural progression, because no Corp is going to let some grungy nobody work for them who hasn't made a rep for themselves in the streets.
I'm gonna play it like I play Deus Ex. Maximum Hackermans Adam Jensen, doesn't care about your politics or about your conspiracies - there's a computer there and it's locked and if it's locked it's for a reason and I wanna find out what it's guarding.
Most impenetrable bank in the world? More like my personal playground.
The character fighting back against the corps is not a given, which is just as important to the themes. The mega corps will use you as a pawn, chew you up, and spit you out if you let them. This isn’t like Watch Dogs where it’s a simple empowerment fantasy. Part of cyberpunk is displaying the forces that make people allow all this horrible shit to continue just so they can make it through the day themselves. If the player wants to overthrow the corps, it should come at an incredible cost, and if they don’t, they should end up having to do horrible things they will regret if they aren’t already a sociopath. That’s the core of cyberpunk.
‘This isn’t a simple power fantasy’
Are we uh, watching the same footage of destiny/borderlands shoot bang looter gameplay? Where you mow down dudes, have a chunky health bar and can rip gun turrets apart to use the weapon yourself?
You guys have some weird definitions for words you use.
The Cyberpunk genre has never been about fighting The Man. Ever.
In fact if a story even has a possibility of effectively fighting The Man then it’s not very Cyberpunk at all.
This is just a description of a bootlicking simulator for example.
If the man is both unbeatable in any form, resisting them isn’t required and working for them can be cool then you’re not a punk, you’re a facilitator of dystopian sci fi.
Albino Bunny on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
One of the genre conventions of cyberpunk is that your life is worth a couple creds at best, and the megacorps do. Not. Care.
But people do.
One of the genre stables is also that group is stronger than individual, and you need friends and allies to get by.
Sure everyone might have an agenda, but that does not mean that the world is 24/7 betrayal carousel.
Some of the best cyberpunk stories i've read were about people joining together, either in long term or short, and acchieving things, even if only survival, together.
Sure you can have great super bleak stories as well. But not sure world needs more of that at this moment.
When it comes to pop culture, nobody needs anything, really. Some people find comfort in bleak stories as a means of commiseration.
The character fighting back against the corps is not a given, which is just as important to the themes. The mega corps will use you as a pawn, chew you up, and spit you out if you let them. This isn’t like Watch Dogs where it’s a simple empowerment fantasy. Part of cyberpunk is displaying the forces that make people allow all this horrible shit to continue just so they can make it through the day themselves. If the player wants to overthrow the corps, it should come at an incredible cost, and if they don’t, they should end up having to do horrible things they will regret if they aren’t already a sociopath. That’s the core of cyberpunk.
‘This isn’t a simple power fantasy’
Are we uh, watching the same footage of destiny/borderlands shoot bang looter gameplay? Where you mow down dudes, have a chunky health bar and can rip gun turrets apart to use the weapon yourself?
You guys have some weird definitions for words you use.
The option is available. There's also the option to be stealthy, or to be HackerMan, or probably to be really good with words and have folks do the work for you.
I like how you're concentrating on one of a myriad of ways the game seems to let you play. So you don't like the Solo playstyle. Okay... so... don't use it?
The character fighting back against the corps is not a given, which is just as important to the themes. The mega corps will use you as a pawn, chew you up, and spit you out if you let them. This isn’t like Watch Dogs where it’s a simple empowerment fantasy. Part of cyberpunk is displaying the forces that make people allow all this horrible shit to continue just so they can make it through the day themselves. If the player wants to overthrow the corps, it should come at an incredible cost, and if they don’t, they should end up having to do horrible things they will regret if they aren’t already a sociopath. That’s the core of cyberpunk.
‘This isn’t a simple power fantasy’
Are we uh, watching the same footage of destiny/borderlands shoot bang looter gameplay? Where you mow down dudes, have a chunky health bar and can rip gun turrets apart to use the weapon yourself?
You guys have some weird definitions for words you use.
The option is available. There's also the option to be stealthy, or to be HackerMan, or probably to be really good with words and have folks do the work for you.
I like how you're concentrating on one of a myriad of ways the game seems to let you play. So you don't like the Solo playstyle. Okay... so... don't use it?
No, I think it's rad.
Just also all of the play styles you described are (and have being shown in gameplay) to be power fantasies.
Like can we not pretend that "I am the lone bad ass fighting/sneaking/hacking a whole gang!" isn't an empowerment fantasy?
EDIT: Also for all the incredibly asinine "but we've only seen trailers" talk most other games don't manage to spark transphobia with their marketing material. So it definitely would help if it were possible to just view the magic dream version of the game you've got in mind over the adverts.
The character fighting back against the corps is not a given, which is just as important to the themes. The mega corps will use you as a pawn, chew you up, and spit you out if you let them. This isn’t like Watch Dogs where it’s a simple empowerment fantasy. Part of cyberpunk is displaying the forces that make people allow all this horrible shit to continue just so they can make it through the day themselves. If the player wants to overthrow the corps, it should come at an incredible cost, and if they don’t, they should end up having to do horrible things they will regret if they aren’t already a sociopath. That’s the core of cyberpunk.
‘This isn’t a simple power fantasy’
Are we uh, watching the same footage of destiny/borderlands shoot bang looter gameplay? Where you mow down dudes, have a chunky health bar and can rip gun turrets apart to use the weapon yourself?
You guys have some weird definitions for words you use.
The option is available. There's also the option to be stealthy, or to be HackerMan, or probably to be really good with words and have folks do the work for you.
I like how you're concentrating on one of a myriad of ways the game seems to let you play. So you don't like the Solo playstyle. Okay... so... don't use it?
No, I think it's rad.
Just also all of the play styles you described are (and have being shown in gameplay) to be power fantasies.
Like can we not pretend that "I am the lone bad ass fighting/sneaking/hacking a whole gang!" isn't an empowerment fantasy?
EDIT: Also for all the incredibly asinine "but we've only seen trailers" talk most other games don't manage to spark transphobia with their marketing material. So it definitely would help if it were possible to just view the magic dream version of the game you've got in mind over the adverts.
True, though that's not saying much for games. Most games are, by their very nature, power fantasies... just not always power fantasies that everyone is into. I think most people that are interested in this game are interested in the setting itself, and the experience being cathartic in a way they really enjoy is a bonus.
And I don't really think we need to discuss the transphobia bit anymore. It's fine if you don't think they've taken enough steps, but they've already taken quite a few, effectively removed the gender concept from the game almost completely, and gone beyond what most other developers would attempt. I'm not going to tell you how to think, but treating CDPR like it's in a vacuum or that the lengths they've gone to pacify an annoyed demographic aren't extraordinary in the gaming market I feel is very disingenuous.
Rpg shooter with a cyberpunk setting is gonna be how the general public perceives the game anyway so to capitalize on that to reach as wide an audience as possible just makes sense but hopefully it won’t only be that. And the deep dive discussion and footage and features make it look like you can make it more than that if you want to.
It’s actually pretty cool that they are attempting to make a game where straightforward rpg shooter/brawler is just one of the options you can take
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Plus I don't see an ad campaign featuring hacking minigames and dialogue trees as doing much for the hype machine, tbh.
Hacking minigame should be 50% dialogue trees, 40% dumpster diving, 9% going through papers trying to find password, and 1% just blindly typing stuff in.
Hacking minigame should be 50% dialogue trees, 40% dumpster diving, 9% going through papers trying to find password, and 1% just blindly typing stuff in.
Only to find out that the password was written on a sticky-note attached to the monitor anyway.
If the man is both unbeatable in any form, resisting them isn’t required and working for them can be cool then you’re not a punk, you’re a facilitator of dystopian sci fi.
I kind of actually want this. I want a game with just an utterly disheartening story arc. Rebellion leads to chaos and nothingness. Conformity leads to grinding soul crushing wageslavery.
I don't think Cyberpunk will work like this. But where is my "The Future will suck regardless" scifi?
Hacking minigame should be 50% dialogue trees, 40% dumpster diving, 9% going through papers trying to find password, and 1% just blindly typing stuff in.
Only to find out that the password was written on a sticky-note attached to the monitor anyway.
One thing Deus Ex games (both the original and the new ones) did right (among many other things), was hacking.
And i'm not talking about the hacking minigames.
The number of computers you could not get into through talking, going through peoples trash, following a chain of emails, or just by guessing passwords, was very, very small.
Hacking minigame should be 50% dialogue trees, 40% dumpster diving, 9% going through papers trying to find password, and 1% just blindly typing stuff in.
Only to find out that the password was written on a sticky-note attached to the monitor anyway.
One thing Deus Ex games (both the original and the new ones) did right (among many other things), was hacking.
And i'm not talking about the hacking minigames.
The number of computers you could not get into through talking, going through peoples trash, following a chain of emails, or just by guessing passwords, was very, very small.
Shadowrun had some good ones as well.
That taken over hotel in Dragonfall where the Admin password is Admin.
If the man is both unbeatable in any form, resisting them isn’t required and working for them can be cool then you’re not a punk, you’re a facilitator of dystopian sci fi.
I kind of actually want this. I want a game with just an utterly disheartening story arc. Rebellion leads to chaos and nothingness. Conformity leads to grinding soul crushing wageslavery.
I don't think Cyberpunk will work like this. But where is my "The Future will suck regardless" scifi?
I mean, if you want super dystopian sci-fi you can go with Eclipse phase. Which is literally a setting that needs no bad people because transhumanity is a raw deal and it gets rawer every time something that can render you all extra extinct shows up.
Heck a lot of the mundane horror style of genre is literally about this feeling of ennui and suffering as de-facto like Nightvale and so on.
If the man is both unbeatable in any form, resisting them isn’t required and working for them can be cool then you’re not a punk, you’re a facilitator of dystopian sci fi.
I kind of actually want this. I want a game with just an utterly disheartening story arc. Rebellion leads to chaos and nothingness. Conformity leads to grinding soul crushing wageslavery.
I don't think Cyberpunk will work like this. But where is my "The Future will suck regardless" scifi?
I mean, if you want super dystopian sci-fi you can go with Eclipse phase. Which is literally a setting that needs no bad people because transhumanity is a raw deal and it gets rawer every time something that can render you all extra extinct shows up.
Heck a lot of the mundane horror style of genre is literally about this feeling of ennui and suffering as de-facto like Nightvale and so on.
It's just not very Punk.
Ehh I think you could pull off punk in the idea of "We're doomed but going to fight anyway."
But like I said I don't think Cyberpunk is going that way. I just want that. I want a video game full of dystopian sci-fi.
Edit: Like just lock David Cage, Chris Avellone, Neil Druckman and Sam Lake in a room and tell them to not come out until they break me. And that the setting has to be sci-fi.
Yeah, it's specifically the fight and oppression that's the thing.
Because 2077 so far shows you doing jobs that support the various power structures and living in a *really* nice apartment. Like I know it's the ultimate nit picky snobby bullshit but a lot of their marketting material says that they know what a cyberpunk setting looks like but not what a cyberpunk game should be.
Posts
Then never mention you by gender pronoun through the game.
I mean, it's supposed to also reflect real life, and currently corporations are still trying to literally burn the world for an extra bit of profit.
Yeah that's my point: The 2077 trailers don't do that at all.
So far the trailer's show V rescuing a rich woman from a chop shop (because money) and killing dozens of people to secure a militech drone for a gang.
You aren't a punk, you're a terminator for people's profit margins.
Compare and contrast that to something like the Watch Dogs: Legion trailers. Which also start by establishing that the city has gone to shit and the institutions that be treat life as cheap.
Then spends the whole trailer kicking the shit out of those institutions.
I mean, it's pretty clear that we're going to have choices over how we interact with the authorities in Cyberpunk 2077.
One of the genre stables is also that group is stronger than individual, and you need friends and allies to get by.
Sure everyone might have an agenda, but that does not mean that the world is 24/7 betrayal carousel.
Some of the best cyberpunk stories i've read were about people joining together, either in long term or short, and acchieving things, even if only survival, together.
Sure you can have great super bleak stories as well.
But not sure world needs more of that at this moment.
The Cyberpunk genre has never been about fighting The Man. Ever.
In fact if a story even has a possibility of effectively fighting The Man then it’s not very Cyberpunk at all.
Point being you don't fight The Man until you're working for The Man. Silverhand clearly is how you make your big moral choices in the game, most likely whether you let a nicer Corp take over, or you let the whole thing burn. But that part of the game is NEVER going to be shown by CDPR, because that would be spoiling the shit out of the game.
So... relax, what you're seeing is the beginning. It's always about gangs first, and corporate wars second. That's the natural progression, because no Corp is going to let some grungy nobody work for them who hasn't made a rep for themselves in the streets.
Most impenetrable bank in the world? More like my personal playground.
That's always my first play through
‘This isn’t a simple power fantasy’
Are we uh, watching the same footage of destiny/borderlands shoot bang looter gameplay? Where you mow down dudes, have a chunky health bar and can rip gun turrets apart to use the weapon yourself?
You guys have some weird definitions for words you use.
This is just a description of a bootlicking simulator for example.
If the man is both unbeatable in any form, resisting them isn’t required and working for them can be cool then you’re not a punk, you’re a facilitator of dystopian sci fi.
When it comes to pop culture, nobody needs anything, really. Some people find comfort in bleak stories as a means of commiseration.
The option is available. There's also the option to be stealthy, or to be HackerMan, or probably to be really good with words and have folks do the work for you.
I like how you're concentrating on one of a myriad of ways the game seems to let you play. So you don't like the Solo playstyle. Okay... so... don't use it?
No, I think it's rad.
Just also all of the play styles you described are (and have being shown in gameplay) to be power fantasies.
Like can we not pretend that "I am the lone bad ass fighting/sneaking/hacking a whole gang!" isn't an empowerment fantasy?
EDIT: Also for all the incredibly asinine "but we've only seen trailers" talk most other games don't manage to spark transphobia with their marketing material. So it definitely would help if it were possible to just view the magic dream version of the game you've got in mind over the adverts.
True, though that's not saying much for games. Most games are, by their very nature, power fantasies... just not always power fantasies that everyone is into. I think most people that are interested in this game are interested in the setting itself, and the experience being cathartic in a way they really enjoy is a bonus.
And I don't really think we need to discuss the transphobia bit anymore. It's fine if you don't think they've taken enough steps, but they've already taken quite a few, effectively removed the gender concept from the game almost completely, and gone beyond what most other developers would attempt. I'm not going to tell you how to think, but treating CDPR like it's in a vacuum or that the lengths they've gone to pacify an annoyed demographic aren't extraordinary in the gaming market I feel is very disingenuous.
Whether it's intentional or not.
It’s actually pretty cool that they are attempting to make a game where straightforward rpg shooter/brawler is just one of the options you can take
Nintendo ID: Incindium
PSN: IncindiumX
Only to find out that the password was written on a sticky-note attached to the monitor anyway.
I kind of actually want this. I want a game with just an utterly disheartening story arc. Rebellion leads to chaos and nothingness. Conformity leads to grinding soul crushing wageslavery.
I don't think Cyberpunk will work like this. But where is my "The Future will suck regardless" scifi?
One thing Deus Ex games (both the original and the new ones) did right (among many other things), was hacking.
And i'm not talking about the hacking minigames.
The number of computers you could not get into through talking, going through peoples trash, following a chain of emails, or just by guessing passwords, was very, very small.
Shadowrun had some good ones as well.
That taken over hotel in Dragonfall where the Admin password is Admin.
I mean, if you want super dystopian sci-fi you can go with Eclipse phase. Which is literally a setting that needs no bad people because transhumanity is a raw deal and it gets rawer every time something that can render you all extra extinct shows up.
Heck a lot of the mundane horror style of genre is literally about this feeling of ennui and suffering as de-facto like Nightvale and so on.
It's just not very Punk.
Ehh I think you could pull off punk in the idea of "We're doomed but going to fight anyway."
But like I said I don't think Cyberpunk is going that way. I just want that. I want a video game full of dystopian sci-fi.
Edit: Like just lock David Cage, Chris Avellone, Neil Druckman and Sam Lake in a room and tell them to not come out until they break me. And that the setting has to be sci-fi.
Because 2077 so far shows you doing jobs that support the various power structures and living in a *really* nice apartment. Like I know it's the ultimate nit picky snobby bullshit but a lot of their marketting material says that they know what a cyberpunk setting looks like but not what a cyberpunk game should be.
I want a game that lets me forget how shitty things are.
Love to forget about the corporate dystopia by imagining a happier corporate dystopia because it's detached by 3+ decades of being out of touch.
I'd call that less "pretty cool" and more "basic expectation" for a game in this genre (by which I mean immersive sim, not cyberpunk).
Or on a sticky-note on the underside of the desk. Goddamnit Prey, the one place I wasn't looking.
How dare the devs not show the entire game in the trailers.