CD Projekt RED Announces Cyberpunk

I thought this was really interesting, I watch Grace for movie news so it was kind of a surprise to see her talk about this, although I guess she is still talking about movies.... well... I enjoyed the video nonetheless and thought I'd share it here for others to see.

 

Thanks. And I also took the time to read your post, nice one too!

I wanted to reply directly because what you've done in that GTA5 session I remember doing it a few times all the way back in GTA3 I believe (or it was in Vice City maybe). At the time when GTA3 came out, when it comes to 'living, breathing worlds' we only had very few select games in that vein and the ones we did have up until GTA3 came out were pretty limited, and suspension of disbelief was way more important then we would care to admit today even in retrospect (I.E. we imagined the 'rest of the game's world' in our mind more than the game itself had it actually built). But GTA3 back then... man, it was a game changer. Now I didn't have to imagine that "somewhere out there in this city" maybe some random punk is trying to steal some girl's purse, because it was actually happening from time to time, and you only had to be there at the right time to witness it.

Now obviously, being the game that it was especially at the time how still limited or let's say not quite 'plausibly' done it was made by the devs is another thing. That's because even though some random nameless NPC was generated by the game's system, it was obvious enough that the guy in question didn't actually have his own apartment and his own life style with a full 24/7 routine and that - ultimately - he was living in the city too. I understood even back then clearly enough that such NPCs were generated out of the blue in some unseen angle past the Field of View (or past Draw Distance limits) from my character. Not only that but when it comes to actual action-reaction A.I. behavior and what follows such a scene (such as a girl's purse being stolen) it didn't always make actual sense.

For example (and this can surely be found on YouTube, they are among some of the most classic of GTA series A.I. behaviors ever since GTA3) you'd have a random guy on a scooter, he stops at a red light, gets off his scooter, starts running for a random girl on adjacent street (at this point if the traffic light turns green it doesn't matter, the guy doesn't come back and the cars behind the scooter don't all just turn around, some do, but some don't and it creates a line up behind), steals her purse and then proceeds to simply just run away on foot, leaving the scooter behind apparently forever (at this point he's running so fast it was probably a better idea to leave the scooter behind). The best part? Oh, the best part. The victim decides to run for the scooter, apparently becomes the owner, and nonchalantly drives away from the scene. Other famous examples in veins of the following (or far worse) would be: Paramedics coming to an accident scene, only to run innocents over with their ambulance; hilarious every time (then of course their A.I. prioritize the newly-made victims and completely ignore the original person they came to the scene for), Firefighters getting to a scene AFTER the fire extinguished itself over time, so they get off their firefighter vehicle, very calmly walk to the burnt carcass of whatever other vehicle went in flames earlier, stop a moment, and turn around only to once more just calmly walk back to their truck and drive away. I mean hey, they came for a fire, right? Fire is gone? No need to be there so yeah, better just leave, job's done!

BUT... despite all this, at least when it came to GTA3 at the time even though some of those examples were (and still are) hilarious to witness it was still absolutely amazing how you could just walk down the street and out of nowhere some random guy on the other side starts running because he spotted some cops and they start going after him. It was amazing because it was happening, because you didn't have to imagine it anymore. The pure feeling to know that the game you were playing could provide such instances of (semi) plausibility just because its game world was dynamic and living and breathing life enough to provide such 'little things' was crazy. Because a game like GTA3 would have been a game that I would have spoken of as being some kind of a game in a very far future back when I was stuck with my NES and we still didn't have anything else to play and imagine beyond maybe Arcade games (which at the time of the 8 bit and 16 bit era were the contenders for technology and games complexity).

So yeah, long post (again) just to say that being able to walk down some park at sunrise in a virtual city because you feel like it and just being able to look around and seeing actual "real" in-game dynamics like seeing every single other NPCs within the Draw Distance of your character having their own things to do is just mind blowing when you think about it. Because at this point, we are well past the unpredictable A.I. behaviors of the GTA series, or also well past the very straightforward routines of the Elder Scrolls franchise. Remember how NPCs in Oblivion would just stare at their city walls and * sniff * all day long until someone interrupted their wall-staring contest and asked them about their opinions of Mudcrabs? Now, some franchises improved upon that stuff over time (thankfully). I mean GTA4's NPCs - in general - are a bit better in complexity (I.E. number of different things they actually do at random and how they react to events around them), similarly so GTA5 did fairly well (although compared to GTA4 it's still pretty similar but still a good improvement since GTA3). With the Elder Scrolls and the Fallout franchise (NPCs in towns and villages, etc) it was always cringy, wonky and janky in Oblivion (I think Morrowind was actually better for NPCs but I'm not entirely sure, it's been way too long for that one) and Fallout 3, but it vastly improved with Skyrim and Fallout 4 also became a level of quality above Fallout 3 as well.

But when I look at Cyberpunk? Dude... I mean just Witcher 3, already, had a VERY good version of this apparent full NPC routine system. I actually did that a few times in Witcher 3 (following NPCs around a bit to see what would happen). What I was very surprised by in Witcher 3 was how, at least apparently so (from my own experience) every single NPCs in the game were actually not merely randomly spawned at some arbitrary spot to fill up the world (such as the GTA franchise does, at least when it comes to NPCs outdoors and in the busiest locations) but actually had a permanent residence (at least the ones that weren't homeless in the game world). They would actually have their routine of waking up and doing their stuff at various times (some would wake up earlier for work, such as merchants, some would wake a little late and would just attend some public places and sit on a bench most of the day, there's a bit of everything really) and then coming back to their place when the sun starts to set. The feeling then, to just enter a village or a bigger city in Witcher 3, knowing at the back of your mind that every persons you see here around you moving and doing their thing actually 'belong' to this game world and weren't just randomly produced in some shadows 3 miles away 30 seconds ago to fill up this street as you walk by is amazing.

Because it helps keeping at least some amount of suspension of disbelief away to some degree (there's a threshold after which too much makes the product just intolerable, in my book; but I suppose that's just me; but SOME of it is never a bad thing as long as the core game doesn't suffer from it overall). Some of it is always good (in my opinion) because well... we're humans and we all have a varying degree of imagination one way or another. In Cyberpunk when we'll wake up our character to look by the window like in the 2018 video and tell ourselves "Good morning Night City!" then of course (and especially for actual role-players) suspension of disbelief kicks in because even though most of us know that at this point (while still in the apartment) chances are that there's maybe no more than 'x' number of NPCs actually doing their thing (as much as the game can sustain within the 'Drawn Distance' limitations) it won't really matter anymore because when you actually experience the game, when you come out of your apartment you know that everything in the game's world is belonging there. That every NPCs have 'their spot', and that very few of them (if even any of them) will ever have been the product of some generic randomization NPC system that makes a bunch of them spawn 2 streets away just so that this street you're on right now fills busy because the group that spawned away are now walking toward you but they actually don't REALLY have a purpose (any purpose, doesn't have to mean anything important to be significant in the eyes of a gamer; especially if there's 300 NPCs around, it's the little things then that will start to matter) in this game's world at all, and they will just disappear from your view and the game world itself in about 30 seconds.

That's why, THAT is why that famous "Intersection Scene" as I like to call it, from that 2018 40 minutes video, just keeps blowing up my mind every time because especially with Witcher 3 as a real example (and proof, that CDPR do have such a system in place for their NPCs) I know very well that something like 99% of every single moving persons around have their spot in the game. They came from "their place" that morning (or that night), they are currently going to Point B, C, D or however many other phase they have to follow in their routine, and they will go back to their place (or some other NPCs' place, too; examples of which I have seen in Witcher 3 actually) by night time (or by morning) and will go to sleep or sit on a bench or stop by a 24/7 restaurant or something like that and resume their routine the next day (or even have a new one, who knows how better their NPC system got since Witcher 3 now).

And ALL of that... is JUST concerning the seemingly unimportant, random stuff that nameless NPCs do to give the game's world a 'living, breathing' feel to it. It doesn't even represent the core game itself. Oh and to add fire to the hype fuel... to anyone reading this whom might not have been aware of it, you know that 2018 40+ minutes video? So the WHOLE demo, absolutely everything we saw in it from the moment it began, to the street chase scene to the NPC 'Corpo' woman meeting they have to the moment V goes attack mode in the facility? Ok... so ALL of that happens in ONE of the SIX main districts of Night City (namely: Watson District). So if anything and as I presume a very safe bet would be saying something like the full game being about five or six times bigger and more complex than that demo. And that's a very crude way to put it just based off of the information that the Night City Map reveals and nothing else, it doesn't even show how many layers each District have, or how many buildings we can actually enter, and how many floors in each one are interactive... and of course that's not even counting the whole Night City Metro which might well be its own underground living and breathing world.

Anyway, I could keep on going about this but in my humble 'gaming life' since I started with the NES I can easily say that very few games got me by the balls like that prior to release.

 

Was a really interesting video, thank you.

Regarding famous actors in video games tho... it's been the case for quite some time now. From Kevin Spacey , Gary Oldman etc.. in Call of Duty.
Wing Commander 3 in the 90s featured Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, i think we're just reaching a point at which modern movies and video games are using the same tools and we're able to replicate in games highly detailed performance captures at a level of fidelity close to movies.

I won't mention Star Citizen / Squadron 42 for my own sanity.

 

I wonder what the preorder / sales numbers between PC platforms will look like.
I chose GOG of course.

 

I'll get in on Steam and hopefully, if I can get my hands on the CE, I'll get that too. Did the same with Witcher 3.

 

I think they brought in Keanu because they're fans of his and he is known to be a sci-fi nerd.
We don't know how much CDPR paid for him, he certainly has enough money to take a pay-cut for a passion project.
Let's see how the game plays out before we raise torches.

And please, don't pre-order games that you can't refund.

 

I dont think this game can fail so preordering should be ok on this one. I trust CDPR.

 

https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1138523814868992002

 

Raytracing in CP2077 announced.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...d-real-time-ray-tracing/?nvid=nv-int-gr-92432

 

This doesn't surprise me at all.

 

Man you guys are way too obsessed with Keanu Reeves. All I want is to explore the city by night with my Quadra V-Tech.

 

Some of these new screenshots look great. But this one....





On the other hand, I have no fears about this game being downgraded.

 

I don't know what this is, but it's not music.

 

It's a techno remix of the line "Here's Johnny" from the film "The Shining", it's quite an old track now, I remember listening to it on Rage, which is an Australian music show.... it's been going for... gosh, decades now I think.. but yeah, it's like, pretty old.. I just thought it was funny because the image @jim2point0 posted said Where's Johnny, and the track is called Here's Johnny...

Spoiler

My sense of humor is stupid ok don't judge me or my taste in music xD

 

Don't put yourself down, I got your joke.

edit: anyway Johhny is a reference to Keanu Reeves' character.

 

^^Great interview, lot's of really cool information.

 

^^yes, here's another one also with some new information

 

The only thing i can find to nitpick on, is that i prefer to play RPG's in 3rd person - i am not sold on the 1st person aspect of it.