The Witcher 3... So... Cyberpunk 2077

[greypanther]

Possibly controversial... I appear to be the only person that doesn't really like The Witcher 3...

No not the only, though I have never bothered with it having decided Witcher 2 was rubbish, so will avoid. I hope Cyberpunk is better, but will wait a long while and think about buying for a long while.

[pjknibbs]

No not the only, though I have never bothered with it having decided Witcher 2 was rubbish

Deciding Witcher 3 is rubbish because you didn't like Witcher 2 is like deciding to not play Skyrim because you didn't like Daggerfall; the two games are so utterly different that you simply can't reliably make that judgement. Unless you decided Witcher 2 was rubbish because you didn't like the main character, of course, since he's about the only thing carried over between the games!

[greypanther]

In fact no I did not like the main character at all, maybe I was too quick to judge, nor did I like the whole feel of the game for want of a better description. I also did not like the combat system.

I did look at 3 on You Tube and it seemed to be more of the same, so I avoided it.

In what way does 3 improve on 2?

[pjknibbs]

Well, the combat system is definitely not the same--the one in 3 is less "twitchy" and more RPG-like. (I found I had to use a controller for 2 because the fights were so frenetic, whereas mouse and keyboard was fine for 3). The game itself is a giant open world instead of the rather linear and restricted 2. Oh, and you definitely don't get any stupidly terrible fights like the one against the hydra-headed thing from 2.

One other thing which is done much better: tutorials! 2 dropped you pretty much in the deep end, with your very first fight being a major castle siege including a dragon. 3 eases you in much more gently, with an entire tutorial area to explore and quest in before moving on to the game's main zones.

[RegisterMe]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/0 ... ore-507339

[euclid]

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/10/16873 ... rojekt-red

Cheers Euclid

[Morkonan]

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/10/16873 ... rojekt-red

Cheers Euclid

Clicked on the vid in that article.

I felt compelled to shove a corkscrew into my ear and twist it until the pain stopped... I am now dead.

A special "thanks" to whoever chose that friggin' soundtrack. Srsly... wtf? Why does it sound like alleycats mating in a washing machine to me? Somebody thinks it sounds good, I guess.

[pjknibbs]

Why does it sound like alleycats mating in a washing machine to me?

I dunno, maybe someone inserted a corkscrew in your ear or something?

[clakclak]

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/10/16873 ... rojekt-red

Cheers Euclid

Clicked on the vid in that article.

I felt compelled to shove a corkscrew into my ear and twist it until the pain stopped... I am now dead.

A special "thanks" to whoever chose that friggin' soundtrack. Srsly... wtf? Why does it sound like alleycats mating in a washing machine to me? Somebody thinks it sounds good, I guess.

The song in the trailer was made by London based band Archive. I assume it is a matter of taste, but their music also changes a lot from song to song. For example this song is the same band as this one and this one.

[Morkonan]

Why does it sound like alleycats mating in a washing machine to me?

I dunno, maybe someone inserted a corkscrew in your ear or something?

I dunno... I'm dead now, so everything is kind of fuzzy. I do remember being reminded that the human body has a number of sphincters, not just the one everyone jokes about.

The song in the trailer was made by London based band Archive. I assume it is a matter of taste, but their music also changes a lot from song to song. For example this song is the same band as this one and this one.

Thanks for the samples! Well, I suppose they're still looking for their "muse." I really hope they don't do the whole soundtrack for this game. If they do, I hope it's directed by someone else. I'm not trying to criticize someone's favorite band or music or whatever. That's up to individual tastes. I've got a pretty wide range that only stops at certain things. This band is full-stop, gawdawful, for me, though.

To not derail:

I really enjoy me some good "cyberpunk." But, it's easy to screw up. There's a lot of stuff out there that focuses far too much on "cool setting bro" and not enough about how the characters deal with that setting. I like a lot of dystopia in my cyberpunk and also appreciate diversions and mixed genres, like "Shadowrun." I don't mind people throwing a kitchen-sink full of ideas at cyberpunk, just so long as they make it "human" and "relatable", if not "relevant."

[clakclak]

@Morkonan Don't worry. While I do like some of their stuff I also hope that they do not do the Soundtrack. There are other people more qualified for that task.

[Morkonan]

@Morkonan Don't worry. While I do like some of their stuff I also hope that they do not do the Soundtrack. There are other people more qualified for that task.

Inspired by your post, I jumped around searching for "cyberpunk" music. Everything from hard thrash punk to Gregorian chants came up...

Vangelis did the original score for Bladerunner, the quintescential "dystopic cyperpunkish" movie. It's really a little bit removed from cyberpunk, but it's close to enough to count. Johnny Mnemonic is a bit closer, I think. There's not a whole lot of similarity in scores, there, though.

So, what would be good music for a "cyberpunk" movie, in general? What sort of represents the theme of cyberpunk? I visited a subreddit on cyberpunk music, but that didn't provide much illumination.

Brooding (dystopic) to furious action (punk'ish)? Some heavy metal comes to mind.

Some sort of electro-metal-synth musc? Maybe a few tracks of something "wondrous" and Vangelis-like, just to calm the nerves?

Why all this music talk?

Bladerunner and Vangelis composing for it was A Big Deal ™ at the time. When it hit the screen, people went nuts over it - A treat for the eyes and ears. Producers have been chasing that experience ever since. I don't know that it can be duplicated, but you can bet that anyone trying to really define a cyberpunk product is going to consider trying to chase that experience, again, at least in some way. They are certainly, without a doubt, going to try to define their experience of "cyberpunk" by intimately connecting the music to that experience. And, if they don't, they'll be trashed and thrashed by cyberpunk fans. It's a "must have" component.

[red assassin]

Some sort of electro-metal-synth musc?

Master Boot Record?

[Morkonan]

Some sort of electro-metal-synth musc?

Master Boot Record?

Interesting flavors, there. (Listened to some of their youtubes.) I definitely hear old hard/floppy drive motors with 8bit overtones.

But, from what I've heard, they sound too similar to "game music." Intentional? Maybe. Every track had its suitable "game overlay" with unmistakable imagery being evoked.

That's what music does, after all. It "evokes."

So, classic 8-bit games, mostly platformers, are "evoked" there. However, importantly, there are some instances I could see that being very useful in certain scenes. I don't mean scenes of a character jumping from crate to crate in a warehouse while being shot at... I mean the underlying theme, but with more of an orchestral presentation that removes the 8-bit tone in favor of the analog horns and strings.

Writing "describe music" ain't easy.

Still, it was cool stuff. I swear there are real floppies in there, though. If not, then it's doubly-cool stuff. Did they include any modem tone strings? (Frick, used to know those strings instinctively, since I had to use 'em to connect to bbs's. I'm fookin' too old.)

[red assassin]

I'm pretty sure it's all synthesised and there's no actual recordings of anything in there, but I'm not 100% certain.

[RegisterMe]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/0 ... ore-508565

[Solomon Short]

so I'm hoping they include a decent and varied character progression system in 2077 that *does* allow me to choose to be a ranged character if I want.

I'm hoping for a some kind of hacking god that uses guns...

If they stay true to the R. Talsorian Games "Cyberpunk" universe, which presumably they will since there's no point making a point of the ties to it otherwise, each role will be distinct with little to no crossover (this was true even in CyberBarbies... err... Cyberpunk v3)

Um, yes, I did acknowledge that their hands were tied because of us having to play Geralt of Rivia? I merely hope that we don't have similar restrictions in Cyberpunk 2077, which is their own IP so their hands aren't tied anymore.

It isn't their IP though. It's based on Cyberpunk 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 Regardless, there is likely no main protagonist... Unless CDPR decide there will be.

It's based on the "Cyberpunk (2013, 2.0.2.0, & v.3)" by R. Talsorian Games, & my recollection of the initial announcement was that Mike Pondsmith (owner of RTG & author of much of it's product, particularly Cyberpunk) was a member of their development team (Game Dev/Programming has been his day job for decades).

And he was always a proponent of "Iconic" characters, such "Netrunner" Rache Bartmoss, "Solo(/Mercenary)" Morgan Blackhand, "Rockerboy" Johnny Silverhand, "AI/ex-Netrunner" Alt, "Corporate" Dave Windham, etcetera.

So having a single main protagonist option (or at least a limited number of them) is entirely within the realm of possibility.

[RegisterMe]

Found the right thread!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMA75tqwFQQ