OS Neutral Cyberpunk 2077 Discussion (Spoilers)

[Macalicious2011]

This game refuses to die. Rumour has it, another DLC is coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if true.
-CP2077 is well loved.
-CDPR staff probably want to do it justice by releasing some of their previously cancelled content.
-Nvidia showcase and all GPU reviews are free advertising.
-The successor is at least 3-5 years away.
-With GTA, Rockstar has showed that you can squeeze money out of a game for years post release.

Watch 1min from 4:00

 

[Pezimak]

People now believe this game will be officially announced for Mac at WWDC. It could be true, I mean they have totally missed their promised ‘early 2025’ launch on Mac. And it’s only 2 months till WWDC right?

 

[diamond.g]

People now believe this game will be officially announced for Mac at WWDC. It could be true, I mean they have totally missed their promised ‘early 2025’ launch on Mac. And it’s only 2 months till WWDC right?

If another dev is doing the macOS version, I wonder if the promise of Frame Gen is the holdup. I see no reason Path Tracing would need a new Metal API to work.

 

[txa1265]

People now believe this game will be officially announced for Mac at WWDC. It could be true, I mean they have totally missed their promised ‘early 2025’ launch on Mac. And it’s only 2 months till WWDC right?

Considering it is about to come out on a 'kiddie console' in a version at least as good as whatever comes out on the Mac (because you KNOW the priority will getting everything *just right* for the Switch 2 release) ... it just makes the state of Mac gaming even more embarrassing!

 

[galad]

It's not like the ports are being made by the same team. The macOS port was running on the M4 Studio when they introduced it, so probably it's almost done and just needs some QA.

 

[Pezimak]

It's not like the ports are being made by the same team. The macOS port was running on the M4 Studio when they introduced it, so probably it's almost done and just needs some QA.

Oh yes, they have deliberately shown the game off running on Mac, and testers have been allowed to report they have used it. So they have certainly been very public about the Mac version, just have not released it. I haver been playing Phantom Liberty on my Stream Deck whilst waiting.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I wonder if CDPR watching the new gta 6 trailer and screenshots, will make them regret committing to UE5.

The issue with UE5 is that it makes all games look the same. A bit like the unity engine that almost all popular ios and android games use. The visual looks plastic and the same.

Gta6 textures look insane detailed and realistic. UE5 is mainly optimised for Fortnite and has stutter and optimisation issues.

Maybe using the cp2077 engine for the next game is worth the hassle now that the game is stable.

 

[txa1265]

I wonder if CDPR watching the new gta 6 trailer and screenshots, will make them regret committing to UE5.

The issue with UE5 is that it makes all games look the same. A bit like the unity engine that almost all popular ios and android games use. The visual looks plastic and the same.

Personally as a RPG fan there is not even remotely a comparison about who makes better games: CDPR. Rockstar makes great games, to be sure ... but one having prettier graphics than the other wouldn't begin to touch my opinion.

It makes me think about 20 years ago when Unreal 2 was coming out and people thought it would destroy all of the 'same looking' Q3TA-based idTech games.

I hope that every game company works with the tools that work best for them, and not end up in a Duke Nukem Forever situation where they land in a death spiral of chasing 'the best engine'.

 

[diamond.g]

Personally as a RPG fan there is not even remotely a comparison about who makes better games: CDPR. Rockstar makes great games, to be sure ... but one having prettier graphics than the other wouldn't begin to touch my opinion.

It makes me think about 20 years ago when Unreal 2 was coming out and people thought it would destroy all of the 'same looking' Q3TA-based idTech games.

I hope that every game company works with the tools that work best for them, and not end up in a Duke Nukem Forever situation where they land in a death spiral of chasing 'the best engine'.

Honestly custom engines are more doable when you are looking at "fixed" systems (consoles and things that closely follow that model). With PC (and to some extent Mac) there are too many hardware permutations to really dial in performance and still take advantage of the hardware.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Personally as a RPG fan there is not even remotely a comparison about who makes better games: CDPR. Rockstar makes great games, to be sure ... but one having prettier graphics than the other wouldn't begin to touch my opinion.

Red dead redemption looks pretty damn good. When I bought it for my pc last year, I couldn’t believe that the textures, animations and physics are 7 years old. There are pretty games but some have minimal interaction or physical destruction. Rockstar usually aim for all thee: visuals, interaction and physical destruction - all in an open not single player title.

I don’t know whether that’s possible with UE5. Thoughts?

 

[Plutonius]

I don’t know whether that’s possible with UE5. Thoughts?

Using UE5 cost less time and money for a developer.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Using UE5 cost less time and money for a developer.

Yes. And it’s easier and cheaper to find developers who know how to engineer for UE5.

 

[diamond.g]

Red dead redemption looks pretty damn good. When I bought it for my pc last year, I couldn’t believe that the textures, animations and physics are 7 years old. There are pretty games but some have minimal interaction or physical destruction. Rockstar usually aim for all thee: visuals, interaction and physical destruction - all in an open not single player title.

I don’t know whether that’s possible with UE5. Thoughts?

It is possible to do all that in UE5. It just takes a lot of time optimizing it for different hardware.

 

[txa1265]

Red dead redemption looks pretty damn good. When I bought it for my pc last year, I couldn’t believe that the textures, animations and physics are 7 years old. There are pretty games but some have minimal interaction or physical destruction. Rockstar usually aim for all thee: visuals, interaction and physical destruction - all in an open not single player title.

I don’t know whether that’s possible with UE5. Thoughts?

Generally speaking, internal engines work within a single developer because they can spend the money on the teams and tools to optimize everything about that engine. You are getting what YOU want out of it ... but it will never really scale externally unless it was built with that in mind.

Valve's Source engine comes to mind. We're 20 years on from Half-Life 2 which was supposed to change the world. But aside from Vampire: Bloodlines and the Titanfall games, there is little to show for non-Valve games. idTech, Unreal and Unity engines dominate - and as a result they've spawned tons of tools and 'study guides' and so on.

As for "Rockstar usually aim for all thee: visuals, interaction and physical destruction" - it is worth noting that EVERYTHING comes with compromises. The Valve Source is a great example - back in 2004 the focus was whatever was in your 'eye line' - so when you were looking right at someone their eyes and face looked amazing (for 2004/5) but textures outside of your periphery could have been from 1998.

 

[Huntn]

I mentioned at least one other game I've restarted (X4), but I found an interesting mod for CP77 and have also restarted it. This is the first time I've done the "Street Kid" Start. What a joke! It's not even worth it. The best start hands down is the Nomad Start, it's an actual smuggling quest that you actually complete that includes a car chase and it's used to get you from the desert into Night City.

If you want to know about the Street Kid Start:
You start out talking to Pepe (the Bartender) where Jackie's Mom hangs out on occasion. It involves you heisting a car, Jackie shows up, but it all falls apart and the cop that gets in the way just lets you go. I mean you don't even get out of the garage, you'rer caught, some small talk, and then you start your first gig with Jackie. The same first gig that you do with Jackie beyond the Nomad, or Corpo Starts .

 

[Mackilroy]

I finished Phantom Liberty yesterday. Well worth the price of admission, albeit bittersweet by the end. I started a new playthrough as a male Nomad, my previous run was a female Corpo.

 

[Huntn]

I finished Phantom Liberty yesterday. Well worth the price of admission, albeit bittersweet by the end. I started a new playthrough as a male Nomad, my previous run was a female Corpo.

Have fun! My second playthough was as a male V. What I don’t remember is Pan Am as my gal, wanting to visit me at my apartment, and I wonder if this was added in a later patch? What I really wanted was to go hang out at the Nomad camp with PanAm, but I seem to recall, She never paid much if any attention to me. 😐

I think I have affections for female V, there’s something about this voice actress’s performance. But I could never romance Pan Am as a girl. I’m not sure if this mod combo will work, they claim it does, and it’s as simple as changing one of the game files to add “panam romanceable”, but fingers crossed. Will report back…

Save Editor (Project CyberCAT-SimpleGUI)

An offshoot of SirBitesalot's CyberCAT, an in-development save editor.

www.nexusmods.com

Panam Romance for Female V

The title says it all. this is a mod that let players romance Panam as Female V. the mod is still in early development, expect some issues and maybe a lot of updates.

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Huntn]

Early game, I’m noticing my limits with the Katana, working on those skills. 🙂
Note for any new player: You can start The Pickup quest, but I recommend doing all gigs and police actions available before doing the part of The Pickup where you meet up with Jackie, then moving into The Heist which carries you out of Part 1. The goal is maximized Street Cred and skills.

Edited: Clarified because you should be wowed by Dexter DeShawn, Evelyn Parker, Meredith Stout and Judy Alverez before the last minute. 😊

 

[txa1265]

Early game, I’m noticing my limits with the Katana, working on those skills. 🙂
Note for any new player: I recommend doing all gigs and police actions available before doing The Pickup, then moving into The Heist which carries you out of Part 1. The goal is maximized Street Cred and skills.

Katanas are my preferred path and I'm back to them on my current playthrough. Totally agree that exploring the available district is a great idea as early as possible.

Spoiler

You can get one of the best ones during the escape portion of The Heist by going to the rooftop and grabbing it from the AV (likely requires combat)

 

[Huntn]

Katanas are my preferred path and I'm back to them on my current playthrough. Totally agree that exploring the available district is a great idea as early as possible.

Spoiler

You can get one of the best ones during the escape portion of The Heist by going to the rooftop and grabbing it from the AV (likely requires combat)

And giving tips for new players, with weapon skills you have to use them to get more proficient with them. Also be sure to visit Ripper Docss, and Net Runners to start looking for upgrades. As you breakdown broken guns, you can use the resulting parts at the RDs to upgrade items you currently have equipped in your Cybergear. Another reason to go clean up town, because you get a lot of stuff that you dissasemble, into parts.

This is software and hardware augmenting human bodies. I've always wondered how big the operating system is, and where if goes exactly... 🤔
I really don't want to think about it too much as I imagine an augmented human body facing breakdowns of these items, but that's not really talked about, addressed, or anything to worry about in this story, but real life? Holy crap you replace your eyes with bio-engineered networked eyes, with I imagine to include mechanical elements in your eyeballs.

On a regular basis now, law enforcement is horning in on my action, even though I'm in a police action, basically a legal vigilante, but twice now, cops show up, warn me to give up and if I don't they start shooting at me. Thing is, I don't know how to give up... there might be away. But as a rule if officer starts shooting at me, I kill them, and then blue stars show up on the map, and more decent on you. Usually I vacate the area, but not always.

 

[Huntn]

Early game, I’m noticing my limits with the Katana, working on those skills. 🙂
Note for any new player: You can start The Pickup quest, but I recommend doing all gigs and police actions available before doing the part of The Pickup where you meet up with Jackie, then moving into The Heist which carries you out of Part 1. The goal is maximized Street Cred and skills.

Edited: Clarified because you should be wowed by Dexter DeShawn, Evelyn Parker, Meredith Stout and Judy Alverez before the last minute. 😊

Updated this post…

 

[Huntn]

This game refuses to die. Rumour has it, another DLC is coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if true.
-CP2077 is well loved.
-CDPR staff probably want to do it justice by releasing some of their previously cancelled content.
-Nvidia showcase and all GPU reviews are free advertising.
-The successor is at least 3-5 years away.
-With GTA, Rockstar has showed that you can squeeze money out of a game for years post release.

Watch 1min from 4:00

Spoilers
3 Days ago: Rumors of a 2nd DLC… not sure if these are new or the same existing rumors.

Rumour: New Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Is Incoming, Developer Leak Suggests

Night City never sleeps

www.pushsquare.com

My view: I realize that CP 2077 as a story with the characters we know seems pretty wrapped up one way or another depending on how you chose, which includes the Nomads riding off into the sunset so to speak.

Phantom Liberty is a worthy DLC, yet I critique it for plunking down in the middle of V’s story. V’s story is urgent, life threatening, a race against time. Personally I don’t see her/him taking a break to go help President Myers. I would have preferred a prequel to The Heist, but realize the way it was constructed, Phantom Liberty has some higher demand combat in it, and the way it was constructed required that it be with a more experienced player. At least it seemed that way to me.

It also seems a little bit awkward, but valid to say play through the story once skipping the DLC (Dog Town quest), to get the vanilla experience, and then go back and do Phantom Liberty. But because when the DLC came out, at that point, I had long ago completed the game and I was rusty and starting up from scratch and jumping into Phantom, liberty was awkward for me. Just better to do the whole game, get warmed up, and take the DLC where it appears, with the knowledge that it’s not something that would be a priority for V due to the pressing issue facing that character. But it is more wonderful adventures in Night City, so I’ll take it. I could easily see that character saying screw the President, who cares, I’ve got my life imploding and my tribe to worry about, does it really matter who’s in charge at the top?

New Players: Be aware that certain choices in Phantom Liberty will cut out vanilla CP2077 endings, it’s also possible to complete the DLC and can continue on into the end of the vanilla game. Research is required and in previous posts, I included links about this, but maybe you don’t want to know and just take your chances. 🙃 This is how I feel about it, in real life when you make a mistake sometimes you can mitigate that, but in a game it’s structured so, typically you’re not allowed to change a significant choice you made, when you realize you made a mistake. And personally, I don’t want to spend 500 hr in a game to get the bad ending. That’s just me.Yeah, the use of strategic saves is important and a lifesaver. 🙂


So maybe a new DLC…
Night City itself is an amazing, monumental accomplishment and while I might see picking up with Nomads in the Pheonix area, this would require creation of another city, a lot of work. I’d instead imagine, continuing with building on something in or close to Night City which would allow for some existing characters, but require insertion of new characters which I’m ok with.

See the thing is, to try to hold on to V, which the only way he/she confidently survives intact, but is stripped of her/his cyber abilities and the loss of just about everything she/he cares for seems like a non-starter, unless the developers decide after choosing the surviving path which they’d have to force on the story and provide a cure returning V’s cyber abilities, which seems like a longshot. Or heading off to Phoenix hoping for, and getting a cure on the horizon could be doable but the developer would be back in the situation of having to create a brand new environment.

So I project anything beyond “new features” approaching a new DLC will be based in Night City, and usually DLC‘s build on what came before, which hopefully not just a new chapter dropped into in the middle of the V story, which would be pushing it IMO. It might have to be a new main character but someone close to the original story. Or maybe an actual prequel with one of the existing characters, but I think what can we agree (maybe 😜) that V’s story is over as far as Night City is concerned. But what do I know? ☺️

 

[Macalicious2011]

So I project anything beyond “new features” approaching a new DLC will be based in Night City, and usually DLC‘s build on what came before, which hopefully not just a new chapter dropped into in the middle of the V story, which would be pushing it IMO.

Pushing it? I'm not so sure. Look at games like GTA5, Starcraft, Minecraft or counter strike. A huge percentage of gamers are happy to play the same title for 5-10 years. People love Night City and can't get enough of it!

Although CP2077 is almost 5 years old, I can't think of many other open world games that look at good, has lots of indoor and out door variety, have diversity in the skill tree and run very well.

A new DLC would be very timed this month as CP2077 will now be exposed to tens of millions of Switch owners who have never played the game. Now, Dads will be able to play princess peach showtime with their 6 year old daughter and then switch to CP2077, the minute the child has left the room. Mind boggling!!

The DLC will also give CP2077 fans who buy the switch, an execute to buy a copy of the game for a 2nd or 3rd platform. You can see in CDPR annual report that fixing the game and spending a fortune on Phantom Liberty has paid off. The game is still selling well and probably will continue to do so until GTA6 is available.

 

[Huntn]

Pushing it? I'm not so sure. Look at games like GTA5, Starcraft, Minecraft or counter strike. A huge percentage of gamers are happy to play the same title for 5-10 years. People love Night City and can't get enough of it!

Although CP2077 is almost 5 years old, I can't think of many other open world games that look at good, has lots of indoor and out door variety, have diversity in the skill tree and run very well.

A new DLC would be very timed this month as CP2077 will now be exposed to tens of millions of Switch owners who have never played the game. Now, Dads will be able to play princess peach showtime with their 6 year old daughter and then switch to CP2077, the minute the child has left the room. Mind boggling!!

The DLC will also give CP2077 fans who buy the switch, an execute to buy a copy of the game for a 2nd or 3rd platform. You can see in CDPR annual report that fixing the game and spending a fortune on Phantom Liberty has paid off. The game is still selling well and probably will continue to do so until GTA6 is available.

I did not mean abandon Night City, which my argumrnt is they’ll keep that, it’s just the V story is very perishable, and it would be pushing it to create another chapter and plunk it down in the middle of the V story like they did with the Phantom Liberty DLC, unless…unless.they come up with a new story with new characters, but it would be absolutely clever, if you’re playing someone else, just happened to bump into V and/or other regulars from the original story, but centered on a different story where your paths cross for some period of time! I could buy that. But I might miss Johnny. 😆

 

[Macalicious2011]

I did not mean abandon Night City, which my argumrnt is they’ll keep that, it’s just the V story is very perishable, and it would be pushing it to create another chapter and plunk it down in the middle of the V story like they did with the Phantom Liberty DLC. 😆

This I agree on!