Report: Cyberpunk 2077’s Development Didn’t Fully Begin until 2016, E3 2018 Demo Was “Almost Entirely Fake”

[MadMummy76]

1.) Plan and set realistic expectations early.

I'd say know when to drop features and scale back instead. You can't have a perfect plan. Dare to alter it, even when it hurts. For example a little known fact is that Deus Ex had tons of cut features, and even entire levels, character arcs completely dropped due to lack of time or narrative problems. But you'd never know playing the game, and it's still one of the best narrative games ever created, or the best if you ask me.

2.) Under promise, over deliver

I think the hype just made everyone make up their own minds on what to expect, and most of it were totally outlandish and unreasonable, but even more would've added very little to the experience. For example the NPCs having full 24 hours life cycles. It makes zero difference to me whether an NPC was spawned 5 seconds before getting flattened under my car, or the game has built an entire life story for them.

3.) Don't try to release on all platforms on the same date.

Agreed on that one. Funny this issue is only raised when the console version has problems. For years we have been enduring low effort PC ports of console optimized games.

 

[MadMummy76]

Yeah but really... what trade show demos aren't fake? I think they all are.

This "Oh but it's fake" thing has been blown out of proportion by a few zealots, much like the crunch issue. Of course it is fake, if the game was finished in 2018 they'd be releasing it, not demoing it behind closed doors. The point of a rolling demo is to show their vision for the game, and of course to sell the game. Gamers are such a stupid mob (with respect for the exceptions).

 

[Armenius]

This "Oh but it's fake" thing has been blown out of proportion by a few zealots, much like the crunch issue. Of course it is fake, if the game was finished in 2018 they'd be releasing it, not demoing it behind closed doors. The point of a rolling demo is to show their vision for the game, and of course to sell the game. Gamers are such a stupid mob (with respect for the exceptions).

Regardless, the demo looked almost exactly like the final product. Even if it were fake I'd say it was a pretty good representation of what they were building at the time.

 

[Dan_D]

For example the NPCs having full 24 hours life cycles. It makes zero difference to me whether an NPC was spawned 5 seconds before getting flattened under my car, or the game has built an entire life story for them.

I couldn't agree more. This is a point I tried to make but couldn't find the words for it. I don't creep on NPC's or really care about them. They just need to look the part when I see them or run them over, hit them with stray gunfire, etc. People whining about them not having a pre-programed life cycle makes no sense to me. Sure, it could add to immersion, and it was touted by CDPR, but ultimately it got cut because it was a huge technical challenge that didn't really benefit the game a whole lot.

Agreed on that one. Funny this issue is only raised when the console version has problems. For years we have been enduring low effort PC ports of console optimized games.

Exactly. We've suffered ****ty ports like Mass Effect 1, Arkham Knight, and far too many to count. All of the sudden multi-platform is a problem when console gamers get the short end of the stick.

This "Oh but it's fake" thing has been blown out of proportion by a few zealots, much like the crunch issue. Of course it is fake, if the game was finished in 2018 they'd be releasing it, not demoing it behind closed doors. The point of a rolling demo is to show their vision for the game, and of course to sell the game. Gamers are such a stupid mob (with respect for the exceptions).

This is a good point.

Regardless, the demo looked almost exactly like the final product. Even if it were fake I'd say it was a pretty good representation of what they were building at the time.

Not only did the final product look much like the demo stuff, but was visually upgraded since the 2018 E3 demo. Some things like the environmental hacking control weren't up to what was shown in the demo, and we knew wall climbing / running was taken out long ago. So, in light of that it was pretty close content wise.

 

[Armenius]

I'm reminded of fake Fermi boards

View attachment 786

 

[Brian_B]

Exactly. We've suffered ****ty ports like Mass Effect 1, Arkham Knight, and far too many to count. All of the sudden multi-platform is a problem when console gamers get the short end of the stick.

Nah, that isn't true. There's been plenty of butthurt from PCMR folks on bad ports. One finally breaks in the PCs way, and there is an equal amount of butthurt from the Console folks now. Same thing, different team - it's no different, you just are seeing it from a different perspective than normal.

 

[MadMummy76]

Nah, that isn't true. There's been plenty of butthurt from PCMR folks on bad ports. One finally breaks in the PCs way, and there is an equal amount of butthurt from the Console folks now. Same thing, different team - it's no different, you just are seeing it from a different perspective than normal.

I never heard about class action and removal from stores and offering full refunds over bad PC ports. And I've seen some that were worse than cyberpunk on console. Not just buggy, but outright unsuitable to play on PC, I've seen ports that had no graphics menu on PC or you couldn't re-map controls. Both are essential and industry standard features.

 

[Dan_D]

I never heard about class action and removal from stores and offering full refunds over bad PC ports. And I've seen some that were worse than cyberpunk on console. Not just buggy, but outright unsuitable to play on PC, I've seen ports that had no graphics menu on PC or you couldn't re-map controls. Both are essential and industry standard features.

Which is why I brought up Arkham Knight. On PC, it was virtually unplayable for many people. SLI didn't work, it was flat out unplayable off mechanical hard drives, and a host of other problems. It was so bad that Rocksteady actually offered refunds to PC users with the promise the game would be fixed post-release through subsequent updates. This was actually true, and now its fine aside from broken SLI support, but that's a dead end anyway. But when the game came out, SLI support was far more common in AAA titles.

 

[Brian_B]

I never heard about class action and removal from stores and offering full refunds over bad PC ports. And I've seen some that were worse than cyberpunk on console. Not just buggy, but outright unsuitable to play on PC, I've seen ports that had no graphics menu on PC or you couldn't re-map controls. Both are essential and industry standard features.

You know, storefronts like Steam started implementing blanket return policies... before that, software was a "Once it's opened, no return" type thing, and digital refund was pretty much unheard of.

PCMR people complained so much, about so many different things, that it doesn't even have to be a broken game. They can just not like it and request a refund....

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Yeah but really... what trade show demos aren't fake? I think they all are.

I was reading the thread over at DSOG on this and someone tried to make a constructive comment to that effect. Basically explaining that often at trade shows a 'slide version', not to be confused with slide presentation, of the game is shown to represent ideas, not neccesarily a finished project. A lot of people called that person a shrill but I feel it was a valid point. CDPR is far from the first and surely won't be the last. There's other issues in this rollout but I feel that particular detail should be noted.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Which is why I brought up Arkham Knight. On PC, it was virtually unplayable for many people. SLI didn't work, it was flat out unplayable off mechanical hard drives, and a host of other problems. It was so bad that Rocksteady actually offered refunds to PC users with the promise the game would be fixed post-release through subsequent updates. This was actually true, and now its fine aside from broken SLI support, but that's a dead end anyway. But when the game came out, SLI support was far more common in AAA titles.

Yep, it wasn't until I got a 1080 Ti, plus all those patches back then, I could really play it with max settings in 1440p. Ahh, that wound still hurts a little since I'd only just gotten around to finishing Arkham City that same year using SLI @ 1080p and was really looking forward to it then. I did, however, get a giggle recently running the bench with the 3090 in 5120x1440 and watching it mostly hold 100-120 FPS.

 

[Dan_D]

Yep, it wasn't until I got a 1080 Ti, plus all those patches back then, I could really play it with max settings in 1440p. Ahh, that wound still hurts a little since I'd only just gotten around to finishing Arkham City that same year using SLI @ 1080p and was really looking forward to it then. I did, however, get a giggle recently running the bench with the 3090 in 5120x1440 and watching it mostly hold 100-120 FPS.

My RTX 2080 Ti could barely manage 60FPS in Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Now, it can handle it on the same settings getting 80-90FPS, sometimes more. I haven't tried Arkham Knight, but I saw videos on that with 3090's already. Hilarious.

 

[Zarathustra]

Which is why I brought up Arkham Knight. On PC, it was virtually unplayable for many people. SLI didn't work, it was flat out unplayable off mechanical hard drives, and a host of other problems. It was so bad that Rocksteady actually offered refunds to PC users with the promise the game would be fixed post-release through subsequent updates. This was actually true, and now its fine aside from broken SLI support, but that's a dead end anyway. But when the game came out, SLI support was far more common in AAA titles.

I got that game free with a GPU or something (can't remember). I installed it at launch, I didn't personally have any problems with it, it seemed to run OK, but I do recall lots of people complaining.

Ultimately I only played it for ~10 minutes or so, not because of the bad launch, but because I found the game completely and utterly uninteresting.

 

[Brian_B]

I was reading the thread over at DSOG on this and someone tried to make a constructive comment to that effect. Basically explaining that often at trade shows a 'slide version', not to be confused with slide presentation, of the game is shown to represent ideas, not neccesarily a finished project. A lot of people called that person a shrill but I feel it was a valid point. CDPR is far from the first and surely won't be the last. There's other issues in this rollout but I feel that particular detail should be noted.

To look at this a bit differently - look at the pre-release concepts that Blizzard and S/E put out - those aren't in-game engine demos, those are full blown CGI cinematic events, and can only loosely be considered representative of what in game image quality will represent. Blizzard makes them out as fully CGI rendered movie events - S/E for the most part at least uses engine footage, and then stitches it together like a movie trailer.

Just a couple of examples. You would have to be utterly naive to believe that a Blizzard trailer was representative of game quality, and to be fair, no one is really making that claim. But for some reason people are saying that the CDPR trailer needs to be...

 

[MadMummy76]

You know, storefronts like Steam started implementing blanket return policies... before that, software was a "Once it's opened, no return" type thing, and digital refund was pretty much unheard of.

PCMR people complained so much, about so many different things, that it doesn't even have to be a broken game. They can just not like it and request a refund....

You are comparing apples to oranges.
What is your point? That killing the golden goose or at least trying to is not an overreaction? People seem to love to hate things nowadays. It's not even just dislike, but deep bubbling hate, they don't just hate the game but want to ruin it and the company that has made it. Because it is not exactly as they imagined in their dreams. And of course this is not just console users, many PC idiots are guilty of the same thing. This is starting to become a common theme, that first started with Mass Effect Andromeda.

 

[Denpepe]

o look at this a bit differently - look at the pre-release concepts that Blizzard and S/E put out - those aren't in-game engine demos, those are full blown CGI cinematic events, and can only loosely be considered representative of what in game image quality will represent. Blizzard makes them out as fully CGI rendered movie events - S/E for the most part at least uses engine footage, and then stitches it together like a movie trailer.

If you check blizzards footage from blizzcon you will find a lot of concrete info on the diverse wow expacs and some in game footage. + as an active player it is pretty easy to get in beta's to check things out.

 

[Brian_B]

You are comparing apples to oranges.
What is your point?

I was responding to Dan_D who seemed to imply that this outrage was somehow unique to CDPR, or to console users. It isn’t, PCMR folks are just as bad, and claiming righteous indignation over first world problems is industry - if not culture - wide.

I am just as guilty in my rants over hardware availability if I’m honest about it

 

[Brian_B]

If you check blizzards footage from blizzcon you will find a lot of concrete info on the diverse wow expacs and some in game footage. + as an active player it is pretty easy to get in beta's to check things out.

I’m sure it exists but I’m not an active player and the CGI trailers are what I see invariably, not in game footage. Just showing how that seems to get a pass, but CDPR is getting hung out to dry over it - probably over sensitivity to the Witcher 3 perceived graphics downgrade from an early W3 trailer.

 

[MadMummy76]

I was responding to Dan_D who seemed to imply that this outrage was somehow unique to CDPR, or to console users. It isn’t, PCMR folks are just as bad, and claiming righteous indignation over first world problems is industry - if not culture - wide.

I don't think anyone actually uses PCMR unironically.

 

[Brian_B]

I don't think anyone actually uses PCMR unironically.

I do mean some affectionate jibing with it - but mostly it’s just to differentiate between Team PC and Team Console. Maybe you have a different term you would prefer?