Cyberpunk 2077

[Ange]

While saves are binary data of absolutely everything you did snapshoted at any given moment with proprietary(custom) serializers and deserializers.

Just stop talking nonsense.

16+ years of changes in the database with hardware changes over time and they still did not managed to fail with data integrity,

Its public knowledge that WoW runs on Oracle DBs, not sure why you feel its worth mentioning, a live DB with many people working on it to either fix performance issue, create features or change the structure over time I am not sure why you think its a given that nothing bad could happen.

[Edge-]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...el-development

In the wake of Cyberpunk 2077's release, CD Projekt is overhauling its development strategy.

The company today announced an initiative dubbed "Red 2.0" intended to create "a transformation of the studio and a change in the way it develops videogames."

Starting next year, CD Projekt plans to work on multiple AAA games and expansions simultaneously. Under its previous approach to development, the publicly traded company went more than six years between major releases The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077.

"We want to be sure that we can work with two global brands at the same time while ensuring top quality of our products," said CD Projekt Red chief technology officer and head of production Paweł Zawodny. "We emphasize technological advancements and we want to set up versatile teams which combine various specializations and competences. These teams will be further assisted by a cross-projects group of experts, who -- owing to their expertise -- can contribute to key aspects of development."

Handling multiple projects at once will require a larger team, and the company said it is ramping up recruitment efforts and looking "to more actively pursue mergers and acquisition opportunities."

To that end, CD Projekt today announced the acquisition of Vancouver-based Digital Scapes, a team of around a dozen developers that partnered with the company on the last couple years of Cyberpunk 2077 development. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Digital Scapes will become CD Projekt Red Vancouver, with Marcin Chudy serving as studio head.

Beyond the move to parallel development, CD Projekt Red plans to have shorter marketing campaigns that show their games running on every platform where they'll be released.

Shorter campaigns is good, showing of actual gameplay from hardware and not just PC footage because the console footage is garbage is good. Picking up a new studio to help is good.

But I feel like after CP faceplanted so hard...moving to parallel development on multiple titles isn't the best look?

Finally, CD Projekt's new strategy called for the studio "redoubling its efforts to secure a sustainable and caring work environment."

I hope that includes telling the company executives to stop being such dishonest shits.

They need to fully fix CP and get back on PS4 and out for next-gen before they start announcing big shit like this. Clean your house before talking about building an addition.

[Tech614]

"yo guys we totally failed to make 1 game at a time so we're gonna start making multiple games at the same time"

What an absolute statement lol. Maybe fix cyberpunk to the point where sony actually sells it on their store again before we start talking about making multiple games at the same time. This company didn't learn anything based off that statement.

[Edge-]

What an absolute statement lol.

Amusingly...weren't they already doing this with the single/multiplayer aspects of CP? Just without necessarily a full secondary studio (that appeared to be working on the game in part anyways)? IIRC they confirmed MP was in development in late 2019 and that it had a dedicated team working on it, and the plan was that the main team would rotate off CP single player to work on MP after the game released, with a target MP launch of "after the DLC is all out".

I can't make any sense of this right now. They need to fix their bloody game before talking about bold, ambitious plans.

[Jastall]

"yo guys we totally failed to make 1 game at a time so we're gonna start making multiple games at the same time"

What an absolute statement lol. Maybe fix cyberpunk to the point where sony actually sells it on their store again before we start talking about making multiple games at the same time. This company didn't learn anything based off that statement.

That was my first reaction as well. The announcement is obviously aimed at shareholders first and foremost; look, we'll have multiple games in development at once! Growth potential baby! Not like said shareholders care one whit about a now old game being fixed or not.

Guess they aren't even pretending to be about gamers first anymore. Not that I ever believed that sort of claptrap mind you, but still.

[Edge-]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cd-...nd-the-witcher

And...maybe RIP CP2077 multiplayer, especially in the nearish future? More from the call -

"Previously we hinted that our next triple-A would be a multiplayer Cyberpunk game, but we have decided to reconsider this plan," says CDPR Joint CEO Adam Kicinski during the above presentation.

"Given our new systematic and more agile approach, instead of primarily focusing on one big, online experience, or game, we are focusing on bringing online into all of our franchises one day. We are building an online technology that can be seamlessly integrated into development of our future games. This technology will power online components we choose to introduce in our games, and will ensure we can do so without any great technological debt."

Now that's a great longterm strategy! I don't mean this with snark, that's a good move...but damn if it all doesn't come off as they abandoning the MP project they spent years talking up as a stand-alone product as one of the selling points of CP2077 itself.

[RobertoCarlos]

Sounds like a plea for shareholders to stay strong <3

"we have a plan for expansion and internal growth. Cyberpunk was merely a setback for this great company. We WILL come back stronger.

We're gonna take what we learned with cyberpunk and double down on our committments because "when its ready, its ready" is not just something we follow within our core values but gives us meaning to get out of the bed in the morning and give gamers just everything they deserve. You guys are the best."

Link for buying shares here ------>

[Jastall]

Sounds like a plea for shareholders to stay strong <3

"we have a plan for expansion and internal growth. Cyberpunk was merely a setback for this great company. We WILL come back stronger.

We're gonna take what we learned with cyberpunk and double down on our committments because "when its ready, its ready" is not just something we follow within our core values but gives us meaning to get out of the bed in the morning and give gamers just everything they deserve. You guys are the best."

Link for buying shares here ------>

Seriously, I'm not into the whole "gamers rise up" thing but this 100% reads like a shareholder-friendly PR pieces (perhaps in preparation for the upcoming trial?) and not like they're actually addressing the concerns of their players.

As for the multiplayer being dead, I hope so. Wouldn't want to see the FO76 tier broken mess that would be if they can't get the single-player to not be jank city without months and months of patching.

Bringing online to all their franchises? Ugh, this brings 2010s EA flashbacks now.

[Edge-]

Seriously, I'm not into the whole "gamers rise up" thing but this 100% reads like a shareholder-friendly PR pieces (perhaps in preparation for the upcoming trial?) and not like they're actually addressing the concerns of their players.

As for the multiplayer being dead, I hope so. Wouldn't want to see the FO76 tier broken mess that would be if they can't get the single-player to not be jank city without months and months of patching.

Bringing online to all their franchises? Ugh, this brings 2010s EA flashbacks now.

Because they're speaking to shareholders, not players. I doubt this has anything to do with any potential litigation, that would be about past statements not future plans. This is very much them trying to keep shareholders happy and holding shares.

And online to all their franchises doesn't mean they're gutting single player. It's clear that they'll have two tracks - single player/RPG development and the multiplayer elements for those games.

[Jastall]

Because they're speaking to shareholders, not players. I doubt this has anything to do with any potential litigation, that would be about past statements not future plans. This is very much them trying to keep shareholders happy and holding shares.

And online to all their franchises doesn't mean they're gutting single player. It's clear that they'll have two tracks - single player/RPG development and the multiplayer elements for those games.

As to the bolded... I'll believe it when I see it. Development isn't a zero sum game -the guy doing the netcode isn't necessarily going to bugfix T-posing NPCs for example-, but that still means they won't have a good, working SP experience as their sole focus... and they made some janky ass games with that as their sole focus, even before Cyberpunk mind you. I really don't think going from working on one single-player RPG at a time, to multiple games that will have MP components will end up going well for them. Spreading yourself thin when you could already hardly deliver one flagship game in an acceptable state isn't the best plan as far as I'm concerned. I know that most studios start working on their next game well before the current one actually launches, but it seems like they want to do far more than that.

Best scenario is that they'll pull a Bioware- have the multiplayer be largely forgettable for most people since the SP will be the meat and potatoes. Worst case scenario is that they screw up both components trying to do something they can't truly deliver (sounds familiar yet?). I've played very, very few games that had both a quality single-player experience and a fun, enduring multiplayer, and I rather doubt current CDPR can achieve that.

[Edge-]

As to the bolded... I'll believe it when I see it. Development isn't a zero sum game -the guy doing the netcode isn't necessarily going to bugfix T-posing NPCs for example-, but that still means they won't have a good, working SP experience as their sole focus... and they made some janky ass games with that as their sole focus, even before Cyberpunk mind you. I really don't think going from working on one single-player RPG at a time, to multiple games that will have MP components will end up going well for them. Spreading yourself thin when you could already hardly deliver one flagship game in an acceptable state isn't the best plan as far as I'm concerned. I know that most studios start working on their next game well before the current one actually launches, but it seems like they want to do far more than that.

Best scenario is that they'll pull a Bioware- have the multiplayer be largely forgettable for most people since the SP will be the meat and potatoes. Worst case scenario is that they screw up both components trying to do something they can't truly deliver (sounds familiar yet?). I've played very, very few games that had both a quality single-player experience and a fun, enduring multiplayer, and I rather doubt current CDPR can achieve that.

That's literally what their statements say. They're not going all EA, "Single player is dead, every game will be multiplayer." which was a hard position from EA.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cd-...nd-the-witcher

Before saying any of this, Kicinski stresses that the company will remain a developer of primarily singleplayer RPGs. There's also no specifics on what those online components or elements might be, other than that they will be integrated through GOG Galaxy.

Now, we can all agree that Kicinski probably doesn't have the most trust from the gaming community, but he's speaking with investors. Given that there's more money in online, I'm inclined to believe him on this.

It sounds more like technology that will allow them to add MP elements to games rather than full MP modes or stand-alone MP releases like what they wanted to do with CP (which was the GTA Online approach).

I agree that this is a pretty ambitious approach, and were this pre-CP I think folks would be pretty bullish on it but after CP it calls a lot of their decisions into question.

[Jastall]

That's literally what their statements say. They're not going all EA, "Single player is dead, every game will be multiplayer." which was a hard position from EA.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/cd-...nd-the-witcher



Now, we can all agree that Kicinski probably doesn't have the most trust from the gaming community, but he's speaking with investors. Given that there's more money in online, I'm inclined to believe him on this.

It sounds more like technology that will allow them to add MP elements to games rather than full MP modes or stand-alone MP releases like what they wanted to do with CP (which was the GTA Online approach).

I agree that this is a pretty ambitious approach, and were this pre-CP I think folks would be pretty bullish on it but after CP it calls a lot of their decisions into question.

Maybe it's just me being weird/jaded, but I don't think you can make a truly good game, either single-player or multiplayer, without giving your all to just one of the two modes, or leaving one as the red-headed stepchild who gets the scraps. The design priorities are just too different. And yes, I'm fully aware I'm saying this on a primarily WoW fansite.

I actually thought about it in the shower, and I believe the last game I played that had great SP and MP was... Starcraft II? Great campaigns and the multiplayer was, well, Starcraft. In fact RTS are just about the only genre where you can find a quality SP and MP experience with anything remotely approaching consistency, and I can still count the number of RTS that would fit the criteria on one hand. Certainly I've played no RPG that had a great MP component or derivative, the closest one would be ME3 whose multiplayer mode was pretty cool but ended up being repetitive.

And I sure don't believe the company whose higher ups/investors pushed them to release a buggy and fairly disjointed mess too early will suddenly be capable of delivering a polished SP experience alongside a rock-solid multiplayer one. I've been wrong before, but I really don't think I'll be on that one.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Pretty sure most MP games are repetitive in some degree.

[RobertoCarlos]

Pretty sure most MP games are repetitive in some degree.

Every game is repetitive. The question is, how engaging is that loop, and how well does it hide it.

[zealo]

That was my first reaction as well. The announcement is obviously aimed at shareholders first and foremost; look, we'll have multiple games in development at once! Growth potential baby! Not like said shareholders care one whit about a now old game being fixed or not.

Guess they aren't even pretending to be about gamers first anymore. Not that I ever believed that sort of claptrap mind you, but still.

Oh no, CDPR isn't about to just give up on that sort of claptrap, they're experts at the sort of marketing Gamers™ eats right up and will continue to play that card.

[Traveler Voltin]

cautiously optimistic would probably be a good mindset from now on.

i do hope adding to the work load wont mess things up and we get another cyberpunk issue.

[Graeham]

I'd rather see their focus put on a meaty single player experience. Not every game needs to have multiplayer capabilities. I guess we can't expect another game along the lines of The Witcher 3 from the company, though.

[kaminaris]

Not exactly. Saving in single player games is a notoriously hard problem to solve, because state of the game can grow without bounds. Then there is the real world issue if you save all values of all entities, your save files end up being unreasonably large. Saving all actions that lead to current state means you have to replay all of those actions at load time, which even if you could do correctly, means unreasonably long load times. So most games choose to do "something in the middle", which works reasonably fast and isn't too obviously broken.

A few projects I've seen keep an explicit GameState, where all essential info that is needed to restore the current point goes. Even then, you need to actually verify that changing those values without going through intermediate steps doesn't break invariants, and gameplay programmers often have to think about that proactively, which is why it so often goes wrong.

You're right that WoW doesn't need to deal with those issues at all, since the world is not persistent (any change not actively tracked such as world boss being dead is wiped out after a restart), and the only state it needs to save is the player's character.

You said exactly the same thing I did.

I know that games cut corners and not save useless info or straight up tries to reproduce word state from few variables but that is irrelevant in this context. I used to deal a lot with binary serializers to save complex object states.

The point is, comparing wow restore old characters to single player game saves is absolute nonsense.

[Selastan]

I'm also very disappointed, I already did a stealth/hacker run, but I've found it to be my preferred playstyle so I'd probably run that again (with some different setups) but this kind of stings, I had to dedicate quite a lot of resources and time to get maxed out legendary hacks and gear for it, but I guess there are other hacks and workarounds.

Also, It doesn't seem that they fixed the painting money printer exploit, or the armour stacking exploit, I had expected these not to survive 1.2 as these can easily break the game difficulty.

I've already uninstalled the game, as I still had crashes at times (in which it somehow only crashed my GPU) and didn't want to bother with that for my second run. I might try out 1.2 in a few weeks if I have some more time for it.

I wouldn't call armor stacking an exploit. Good RPGs just have generally 'broken' mechanics that work as-intended, and armor stacking is one of em.

[hellhamster]

Lol @ that corpospeak statement. I would personally short the shit out of CDPR after that, this is the point of no return.

Looks at charts: ahahahha.