Cyberpunk 2078

[Ran]

The only aspect I personally would like to see more of in the sequel game -- and I can understand why they wouldn't do it because it'd unbalance things -- is having more Cyberspace/hacking stuff going on. A more complicated process than just the simple terminals/encryption hacking, maybe stuff that takes place entirely as a netrunner immersed in a bath trying to punch through ICE and daemons and so on, cat-and-mouse with enemy netrunners, and so on. 

But it'd be unbalancing, as I said. Everyone would just want to play netrunner if they had this whole experience that no one else got, while still also being able to do regular missions.

Otherwise... I guess better driving, but I've heard that driving with a controller is a lot better than keyboard, keyboard is all-or-nothing in terms of input.

Braindances were a cool idea, but I think it'd be interesting if you did a mission or three where you were hired to do crazy stuff for a virtu (well, besides the Bells of Laguna Bend). Which could then, when the virtu editor was reviewing it, could open some big mystery when they spot something you missed. Sort of how people notice Mr. Blue Eyes around, right? Just do one where the person watching you is actually noticed by other people and the details you pick up from the BD sends you off into a conspiracy-laced hunt for more information.

 

[Kalbear]

26 minutes ago, Ran said:

The only aspect I personally would like to see more of in the sequel game -- and I can understand why they wouldn't do it because it'd unbalance things -- is having more Cyberspace/hacking stuff going on. A more complicated process than just the simple terminals/encryption hacking, maybe stuff that takes place entirely as a netrunner immersed in a bath trying to punch through ICE and daemons and so on, cat-and-mouse with enemy netrunners, and so on. 

 

I think a way you could do something like this is by doing it similar to Johnny - have it be an entirely different character experience. Imagine it was like GTA 5, where you were popping in on several character's stories that were interleaving, and advancing them all differently at times. Or just have it as a couple one-off things that you do similar to the braindance experience. 

[Ran]

Kind of dig that, but it'd be a different approach if they did that.

I could see some one-offs, like using the excuse of the "doll" tech to basically turn you into a badass netrunner who can do the heavy cyberspace stuff and not just combat quickhacking.

My very first brush with cyberpunk as a genre was the game Circuit's Edge, which was in the same setting as George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails. One of the conceits of the setting is that you could plug chips into your head that gave you new skill sets and even personalities, and could swap them around as needed. The doll thing reminds me of that.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Ran

[karaddin]

Give me more of that Paco drugged hallucination quest, that one was great lol.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

As much as I love night city I’d like to explore other major cities in this world in the sequel, like NYC maybe. There’s plenty of good lore like NUSA, free states, Europe, Japan etc so we could definitely do with other locations in the future. And buying flying cars !

Also,please keep certain moments in third person to increase the cinematic quality of it. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

10 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

 

Another thing s that the world of Cyberpunk is weirdly anachronistic now. That's not really a fault of CDPR or anything and they did a good job extrapolating a world where the Soviet Union is still around, Japan is this weird mega powerful nation, China is a nonissue, global warming isn't a thing of note. There are no streaming things - people still broadcast TV and radio and talk about scheduling times! But that's not a huge deal, just one of those weird alt-futures like Fallout. 

Not entirely true, there are references to how most species have died out due to climate change, the Voodoo boys themselves were originally climate refugees from Haiti and NC is supposed to be located in Northern California, but the environment with its dust storms and desert more closely resembles Southern California/Arizona which is a direct consequence of Global Warming. I’m glad they keep the world building subtle, unlike say a David Cage game. 

China had a lot of wars apparently that fucked up their development, Japan is mostly influential only cause of the Arasaka Corp, again the in game shards fill you in with all of this info.

I like how this board likes Cyberpunk so much that both this and the previous  cyberpunk threads were allowed to exceed more than 20 pages without locking it  such blatant favouritism !

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Werthead]

On 10/17/2023 at 8:43 AM, Ran said:

Yeah. That and Impulse Radio are the ones I kept turning to when driving around, with the latter basically just being an hour of House music that Elba curated. 

Sadly, I get "I Really Want To Stay at Your House" a lot less than I had hoped. Think I heard it maybe six times across 80 hours. For shame (though partially my fault, I spent too much time bunny-hopping around once I had air dash...)

Someone posted a video showing V randomly singing a bit of the song themselves when triggering a "wait until time xxx" transition, and apparently for both male and female V. Someone else said it was bullshit and they couldn't trigger it themselves and accused the person of singing it themselves, although it did sound like the CP77 voice actors, so who knows.

On 10/17/2023 at 5:20 PM, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Another thing s that the world of Cyberpunk is weirdly anachronistic now. That's not really a fault of CDPR or anything and they did a good job extrapolating a world where the Soviet Union is still around, Japan is this weird mega powerful nation, China is a nonissue, global warming isn't a thing of note. There are no streaming things - people still broadcast TV and radio and talk about scheduling times! But that's not a huge deal, just one of those weird alt-futures like Fallout. 

It's an alt-history now. The OG game flashes back to the assault on Arasaka Tower in Night City in 2023, and even back further to 2013 (the original timeframe of the OG TTRPG from 1988), when clearly Night City does not exist and the first two corporate wars have not happened.

CDPR said they wouldn't mess with the timeline and screwing the timeline around to avoid hitting a moving target is an exercise in insanity.

[Werthead]

 

[karaddin]

What's the actual point of divergence from history? It's already diverged by the 80s and Saburo Arasaka fought in WW2 so I've assumed its probably related to him and the founding of Arasaka in the couple of decades after WW2 but actually have no idea.

[Kalbear]

37 minutes ago, karaddin said:

What's the actual point of divergence from history? It's already diverged by the 80s and Saburo Arasaka fought in WW2 so I've assumed its probably related to him and the founding of Arasaka in the couple of decades after WW2 but actually have no idea.

It's mostly that the original background was written in the 80s and envisioned the world of Cyberpunk in 2020. There is a LOT of source material and background based on that, and I don't think they wanted to retrofit it or throw it away. And a lot of it is very much anachronistic - it's a view of the near future as written in the 80s in the US. So Japan's zaibatsus are obviously going to be a massive power, the Soviet Union is always going to be around, China is going to be kind of...there, but nothing special, and the rest of the world is largely nonexistent or inconsequential aside from resource grabs and exploitation. 

I think it's good in a lot of ways that they did do it this way - it gives them more freedom, a more rich background, and allows for the tech to just go kind of nuts (like we thought it would in Cyberpunk) without having to worry about being too actually close to the real world. But there are jarring things there too. The biggest one that still bothers me is the racialization of the gangs and those stupid-ass names they have - which are basically lifted from the source material and make me cringe.

Makes me a little sad they didn't go with one of my favorite expansions - the Cybergeneration one - where in just 7 short years nanotech goes fucking insane and gives people superpowers. But they wisely nerfed that and went back to the solos and runner system instead.

21 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Not entirely true, there are references to how most species have died out due to climate change, the Voodoo boys themselves were originally climate refugees from Haiti and NC is supposed to be located in Northern California, but the environment with its dust storms and desert more closely resembles Southern California/Arizona which is a direct consequence of Global Warming. I’m glad they keep the world building subtle, unlike say a David Cage game. 

I guess? But it's still not a big deal as far as what we understand today - especially given that there has been, like, virtually no attempt to make things particularly less polluted or less environmentally damaging. It is almost certainly too subtle. I get that's not what they were going for, but any world where gas stations are a thing in 2077 (even if they're using ethanol, which is still going to decompose into CO2) is going to have some bad times from a climate change perspective. 

21 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

China had a lot of wars apparently that fucked up their development, Japan is mostly influential only cause of the Arasaka Corp, again the in game shards fill you in with all of this info.

Japan is a lot more than just Arasaka. Most of the cyberware is Japanese. The most developed area in the town is the Japan town area. The general culture has tons of Japanese links to it - the food, the fashion, the graphics, the music. The cars are still quite Japanese too. There are even digs to how the Arasaka properties in night city are just trash compared to the luxury of Japan. 

 

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I guess? But it's still not a big deal as far as what we understand today - especially given that there has been, like, virtually no attempt to make things particularly less polluted or less environmentally damaging. It is almost certainly too subtle. I get that's not what they were going for, but any world where gas stations are a thing in 2077 (even if they're using ethanol, which is still going to decompose into CO2) is going to have some bad times from a climate change perspective

I think I'd say catastrophic climate change is part of the setting, but only a backdrop to the story. The world has been utterly fucked by it, but humanity failing to address it was a foregone conclusion and they didn't even try. Not sure about the table top setting of course where a lot of it is back in what is now our time, but by 2077 it feels like its just a really depressing take on where we could wind up - denialists win, everything goes to shit so whats the point in even trying.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

. The most developed area in the town is the Japan town area.. 

 

Just a nitpick but the most developed area is corpo plaza/northern Heywood, Japan town is kinda dingy by comparison. I agree with the rest of your points that Japan certainly has much more soft power which yeah is tied to the fact that it was written in the 80s. It makes me want the sequel to take place in Japan or some other place outside of NC even more as it’s a really fascinating world. 
 

There are even references to colonies on other moons that declared their independence from earth after a rebellion against the corpos there so a lot of great potential in terms of settings for the sequel 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Which OS do you guys favour ? I’ve seen a lot of cool Sandy combat videos on YouTube but personally I still prefer the good old cyberdeck as I’m more of a slow paced combat guy, and even with a fairly low int level (9) I can use Quick hacks + Tetratonic Rippler quite effectively. 
 

Also for some reason the apartments when bought on the website cost half as much than in person at the lobby lol, not sure if it’s bug or not 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

although it did sound like the CP77 voice actors, so who knows.

Saw that. Pretty sure it was a private mod and cloned voices.

@Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

Apogee, this run. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Facing a bug with a boxer named Aaron in one Phantom Liberty side quest in which after doing his quest you need to wait for him outside an area and I’ve been waiting for him for a couple of hours for him to turn up and end the quest but he still hasn’t shown, anyone else faced this issue ? 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

There is usually a place to sit down to pass that time that moves things into place, I think.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

57 minutes ago, Ran said:

There is usually a place to sit down to pass that time that moves things into place, I think.

Yeah in this case nothing is assigned on the map, think I’ll just wait it out in game time. 

[Ran]

What is the name of the phase of the mission? Waiting for him to reach out or meet him at X location?

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

14 minutes ago, Ran said:

What is the name of the phase of the mission? Waiting for him to reach out or meet him at X location?

It’s the end of No Easy Way Out when you need to meet Aaron after exiting the scav base. No particular point in the area to wait for him. 

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

It’s the end of No Easy Way Out when you need to meet Aaron after exiting the scav base. No particular point in the area to wait for him. 

Weird. When you leave the Scav base, you're supposed to get the next phase, which is waiting for him to reach out. You don't see him again until some time after that.

It should take 3 days before he gets back to you, in game, so ... maybe, yeah, wait that amount of time and see.