Video Games: Mystery Box Character Creation

[Fez]

5 hours ago, Gorn said:

All three lifepaths look interesting to me, although I don't think I'll have enough free time to play the game three times to experience them all. Nomad, as an outsider to Night City, seems to be the natural choice for a first-time playthrough, and I liked their Mad Max / Fallout / Borderlands vibe from the trailer.

I'm likely in the same boat, though there are two variables that could change things. One is that CDPR has said the game is shorter than The Witcher 3. They haven't said by how much, but if the critical path+important side quests is like 40 hours instead of 70 hours, that'd make a big difference. The second is finding out just how much the three lifepaths change the game. If it's just three different prologues and a few different dialog choices here and there (which maybe slightly change a few missions) than that's not enough motivation. But if each lifepath dramatically changes the game at certain points (like The Witcher 2 with the two completely different second Acts), that'd make it worthwhile.

[Ran]

@Fez I recall this interview with a developer where they talked about there being a main storyline, but that it could alter substantially based on side quests you decide to take or not and how they go, and that this could lead to a totally different ending. They also said that they're trying to go well beyond the Witcher 3 in the variety of endings there are, with "major variations" (which I suspect are largely lifepath dependent) and then a lot of minor variations within those groups as well.

I've also read somewhere that they suggested that your lifepath wasn't necessarily where you would end up by the end, i.e. you could be a Nomad who ends up associating strongly with the corporations and essentially being a Nomad-Corpo hybrid by the end, and so on.

[Guy Kilmore]

6 hours ago, Ran said:

I plan to play Corpo, though one aspect of it confuses me slightly. Nomad and street kids both suggest that you've been in this social stratum all of your life. Is the idea that in the Corpo lifepath the same? I guess this means your parents were corpos, oralternatively you were raised by the corporation as an orphan or some such. I don't know the lore well enough to know what the intent is with this.

I am not as familiar with Cyberpunk lore, but I am with Shadowpunk (Similar vibes in the setting) lore and having a background with the corporations, doesn't mean you are IN the corporate world, there can have plenty of things happen where you are no longer in the embrace of your corporate family.  (Hostile Takeovers, Bankruptcy, Debt, Getting Fired, etc., etc.)

[Caligula_K3]

Got the old Wii out of storage. It's time to slowly replay all the 3D Zeldas, starting with Wind Waker. It's such a good game in some ways (the music! the visuals and art design! the personality and immersion!) but it's also a lot more tedious than I remembered. I don't mind the long time spent sailing so much as needing to change wind directions every couple of minutes, and the dungeons are really boring, along with a lot of the overworld exploration. But still, it's such a charming game.

[Ran]

18 minutes ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I am not as familiar with Cyberpunk lore, but I am with Shadowpunk (Similar vibes in the setting) lore and having a background with the corporations, doesn't mean you are IN the corporate world,

Oh, for sure.

Spoiler

As I understand it, your opening mission as a Corpo will lead to you ultimately being double-crossed and 'fired' -- rather violently, one expects -- from your corporation; it feels like in all the lifepaths, after the opening mission, you're basically what the old CP2020 called a 'solo'

 

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there can have plenty of things happen where you are no longer in the embrace of your corporate family.  (Hostile Takeovers, Bankruptcy, Debt, Getting Fired, etc., etc.)

But my point is not where you are at the start of the game, but the idea that the Street Kid and Nomad lifepaths seem to indicate that that is what you've been from birth. I was wondering how, in Cyberpunk 2077 lore, you can be a Corpo since birth. I guess corporate exec parents, and there must be corporate schooling systems... I wonder if corporations run their own orphanages and such as well, to indoctrinate and train the next generation...

In fact, I found this post from some random Cyberpunk 2077 watcher, but I can't find any sources for their claims about "Corporate Metafamilies" and junior executives setting their kids on a competitive path in part because of how it reflects on them in the corporate hierarchy. Just fan fiction on their part, or something pulled from the games or lore that CDPR has put out? @Werthead I believe has the lore book CDPR put out, does it touch on any of that?

[Guy Kilmore]

Just now, Ran said:

Oh, for sure.

  Hide contents

As I understand it, your opening mission as a Corpo will lead to you ultimately being double-crossed and 'fired' -- rather violently, one expects -- from your corporation; it feels like in all the lifepaths, after the opening, you 

 

But my point is not where you are at the start of the game, but the idea that the Street Kid and Nomad lifepaths seem to indicate that that is what you've been from birth. I was wondering how, in Cyberpunk 2077 lore, you can be a Corpo since birth. I guess corporate exec parents, and there must be corporate schooling systems... I wonder if corporations run their own orphanages and such as well, to indoctrinate and train the next generation...

In fact, I found this post from some random Cyberpunk 2077 watcher, but I can't find any sources for their claims about "Corporate Metafamilies" and junior executives setting their kids on a competitive path in part because of how it reflects on them in the corporate hierarchy. Just fan fiction on their part, or something pulled from the games or lore that CDPR has put out? @Werthead I believe has the lore book CDPR put out, does it touch on any of that?

I know in Shadowpunk, I would go so far to say that, I mean Outer Worlds is an example of this, that children are not always the property of their parents, but property of the Corporation.  So you would be raised by who best suited the Corporation's needs.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Oh, for sure.

  Hide contents

As I understand it, your opening mission as a Corpo will lead to you ultimately being double-crossed and 'fired' -- rather violently, one expects -- from your corporation; it feels like in all the lifepaths, after the opening mission, you're basically what the old CP2020 called a 'solo'

 

But my point is not where you are at the start of the game, but the idea that the Street Kid and Nomad lifepaths seem to indicate that that is what you've been from birth. I was wondering how, in Cyberpunk 2077 lore, you can be a Corpo since birth. I guess corporate exec parents, and there must be corporate schooling systems... I wonder if corporations run their own orphanages and such as well, to indoctrinate and train the next generation...

In fact, I found this post from some random Cyberpunk 2077 watcher, but I can't find any sources for their claims about "Corporate Metafamilies" and junior executives setting their kids on a competitive path in part because of how it reflects on them in the corporate hierarchy. Just fan fiction on their part, or something pulled from the games or lore that CDPR has put out? @Werthead I believe has the lore book CDPR put out, does it touch on any of that?

That's how it works in Cyberpunk too. For the most part, where you're born is where you stay. There's a caste system in place effectively. And you can in theory move around it, but usually you only move down. From the original game that was a lot of it - you were born not just into a corporate family but a specific corporation, you were raised in arcologies and had everything about the intrigues and struggles from a very early age, that sort of thing. The world of Cyberpunk is heavily segregated.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Gorn said:

All three lifepaths look interesting to me, although I don't think I'll have enough free time to play the game three times to experience them all. Nomad, as an outsider to Night City, seems to be the natural choice for a first-time playthrough, and I liked their Mad Max / Fallout / Borderlands vibe from the trailer.

Reportedly the game is shorter than The Witcher 3 in terms of a single playthrough length, but longer since the three lifepaths each have their own specific quests you can't access with the other characters. I think it was ~50 hours per playthrough (as opposed to ~85 for The Witcher 3) so a full playthrough of all three lifepaths is likely to be around 150 hours. Which is a lot, but a lot less that what some people have put into Skyrim or Fallout 4 in a single playthrough.

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I plan to play Corpo, though one aspect of it confuses me slightly. Nomad and street kids both suggest that you've been in this social stratum all of your life. Is the idea that in the Corpo lifepath the same? I guess this means your parents were corpos, oralternatively you were raised by the corporation as an orphan or some such. I don't know the lore well enough to know what the intent is with this.

The general idea is yes. The world of Cyberpunk is highly class-based. It's possible for a respectable middle-class youngester from an okay school and college to get a foothold in the lower levels of a megacorp and over the course of several decades rise to middle-management. They would have to be exceptionally gifted to be elevated to the upper tiers. Street kids might be able to get a job in corpo security, but it's tough. In particular, the corps prefer employees to exclusively use their tech and ware, so if an outsider rolls into Arasaka sporting implants and gear from three other companies, that's not going to fly (and in some cases getting it torn out and replaced is medically impossible).

To get into the upper tiers of high management, you really need to be born into the culture, raised in a Darwinian struggle for corpo supremacy, with excellent contacts.

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I am not as familiar with Cyberpunk lore, but I am with Shadowpunk (Similar vibes in the setting) lore and having a background with the corporations, doesn't mean you are IN the corporate world, there can have plenty of things happen where you are no longer in the embrace of your corporate family.  (Hostile Takeovers, Bankruptcy, Debt, Getting Fired, etc., etc.)

One of the big differences between the two settings (well, apart from the elves and trolls and magic not being around in CP77) is that the megacorps in Cyberpunk are much more monolithic. There's mergers and takeovers and things for small companies but it's quite difficult for big new ones to arise. The only really big new one to emerge post the previous Cyberpunk tabletop games and before 77 is a Chinese one (which is more course-correction because Mike Pondsmith didn't think China would be a major player back in the 1980s).

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In fact, I found this post from some random Cyberpunk 2077 watcher, but I can't find any sources for their claims about "Corporate Metafamilies" and junior executives setting their kids on a competitive path in part because of how it reflects on them in the corporate hierarchy. Just fan fiction on their part, or something pulled from the games or lore that CDPR has put out? @Werthead I believe has the lore book CDPR put out, does it touch on any of that?

Yup, that's pretty much how it's defined in the lorebook as well, although they don't use the term "corporate metafamily." That sounds like it might be from the P&P game.

[Kalbear]

Halo Infinite delayed to 2021. Not that surprising given Covid and the feedback on the gameplay, but does make me a little sad. 

[Jace, Extat]

Halo died with Cortana. 4 was a fair effort at succeeding the series, but 5 was unforgivable.

[Werthead]

Go to Meridian on Horizon: Zero Dawn. Did a few quests there, unlocked a load of collectable hunts back in the starting area and then went back to do them. After doing that I'm on 18 hours into the game and apparently I've just hit the 50% mark on the main storyline (not counting the DLC), so yeah, it's a 40-hour game even with if you do a lot of the side quests and get a load of the collectibles.

The only thing I'm not doing are the hunting grounds, because they are bananas.

[Caligula_K3]

Wow, that's pretty big news for Microsoft... COVID must have had a huge effect on development if they're willing to delay their big launch title. I guess it really is the best strategy to just keep quiet about announcing all games these days until you're 99.9% sure that you can release it on time. I wonder if Cyberpunk will be delayed again too.

It's kind of reassuring to hear that Horizon Zero Dawn is "only" a 40ish hour game. That sounds pretty reasonable; I'm feeling pretty burnt out on 100+ hour games right now.

 

[Gorn]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Reportedly the game is shorter than The Witcher 3 in terms of a single playthrough length, but longer since the three lifepaths each have their own specific quests you can't access with the other characters. I think it was ~50 hours per playthrough (as opposed to ~85 for The Witcher 3) so a full playthrough of all three lifepaths is likely to be around 150 hours. Which is a lot, but a lot less that what some people have put into Skyrim or Fallout 4 in a single playthrough.

OK, that's not too bad, I've got more than that logged in Fallout: New Vegas (multiple playthroughs). I thought it would have the same length as The Witcher 3, which would have been too much to play three times. I never really got around to playing The Witcher 2 for the second time (partly because I'm satisfied with the choices I made in my first playthrough), so I still feel like I missed out on that.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Pillars of Eternity is not BG2(no game is) but I'm enjoying my current replay. I restarted at max difficulty though. I'm not sure but it feels they reduced to difficulty.  PoE2 is a bit less fun because it went the way of NWN2 and made the class system even more complicated. It is not overwhelming like NWM2 but I would prefer simpler mechanics. 

Running around with 3 firearms and shooting mages in the face with a blunderbuss never gets old though. I just wish the game had a soulbound gun.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Wow, that's pretty big news for Microsoft... COVID must have had a huge effect on development if they're willing to delay their big launch title. I guess it really is the best strategy to just keep quiet about announcing all games these days until you're 99.9% sure that you can release it on time. I wonder if Cyberpunk will be delayed again too.

It's kind of reassuring to hear that Horizon Zero Dawn is "only" a 40ish hour game. That sounds pretty reasonable; I'm feeling pretty burnt out on 100+ hour games right now.

 

I also unlocked the "Golden Fast Travel Backpack", which basically means you can fast travel between any campfire in the world for free, which makes the bits where you have to travel right across the map a lot faster. HZD's map isn't the biggest, but it's big enough (and strewn with enemies) enough to make it a pain when all you want to do is travel back to a quest-giver to complete the task. 

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I also unlocked the "Golden Fast Travel Backpack", which basically means you can fast travel between any campfire in the world for free, which makes the bits where you have to travel right across the map a lot faster. HZD's map isn't the biggest, but it's big enough (and strewn with enemies) enough to make it a pain when all you want to do is travel back to a quest-giver to complete the task. 

I'm at 12 hours now, and, considering the progress I've made recently, I guess I can now believe 40 hours for the game length. I'm very excited to hear that there's a free fast travel item too. I like the combat just fine, but considering the amount of time it can take, there's simply way too many enemies on the map ( and it makes it kinda unbelievable that humanity has survived at all with this many hostile machines around; although unrealistic enemy amounts is a constant problem in games). I also think if there were like a quarter as many random enemies on the map that would help a lot with the desolate setting that all the environments and world building are trying to convoy.

An annoying issue I've had is that getting caught in the geography during combat. At least 4 or 5 times now I've clipped right into a wall when rolling and gotten stuck. Last night it straight up crashed my game when it happened in a Cauldron.

[Ran]

If anyone has been considering trying GeForce Now's paid tier, Nvidia is doing a special half-price deal for a limited time -- $24.95 for 6 months of the service, plus a bunch of Hyperscape stuff (Ubisoft's battle royale FPS). I think it may be the first time they've done a half off deal, or at least it's been a long while since they've done it. Personally tempted as six months means it would take me through the launch of Cyberpunk 2077.

The difference from the free tier is that you can do 6 hour sessions per day, can have RTX on, and get priority in their queues.

[Werthead]

Troy: A Total War Saga launches today and is also 100% free on the Epic Store for 24 hours. Although they're going by US time, so it won't be available until later on.

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Troy: A Total War Saga launches today and is also 100% free on the Epic Store for 24 hours. Although they're going by US time, so it won't be available until later on.

I've decided to not get it. I'm still highly reluctant to sign up on the Epic Store. I've been watching previews of Troy, and the game looks a bit of a mixed bag, so despite the free offer, I will wait.

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've decided to not get it. I'm still highly reluctant to sign up on the Epic Store. I've been watching previews of Troy, and the game looks a bit of a mixed bag, so despite the free offer, I will wait.

Fair play. I thought Thrones of Britannia was diabolical, to the point of it only being the second modern game I've ever got a refund on, but obviously for £0 Troy is worth a punt.