Explosive Zombie
Banned
This thread isn't about CDPR bad tho, it's about critics who liked game bad.
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At Least Now You Know Which Video Game Reviewers Are Sellout Clowns
- Thread starter LivingD3AD
- Start date
This thread isn't about CDPR bad tho, it's about critics who liked game bad.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
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buenoblue
Member
The own footage ban was indeed a terrible look for the industry. It's nigh on false advertising and cdpr and the gaming journalists should be punished for it.
But this game is far from terrible, as ever people built something up to be the best thing ever, only then to tear it down when it couldn't possibly live up to expectations. Take it for what it is, an eastern european pc focused janky rpg with a first attempt at fps mechanics.
Also the game was finished and released during a global pandemic.
Just do what you should for any game, wait a week then decide if it's worth your money.
But this game is far from terrible, as ever people built something up to be the best thing ever, only then to tear it down when it couldn't possibly live up to expectations. Take it for what it is, an eastern european pc focused janky rpg with a first attempt at fps mechanics.
Also the game was finished and released during a global pandemic.
Just do what you should for any game, wait a week then decide if it's worth your money.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
LOL.
Put that into perspective gamers.
All those game sites uploading their reviews of a 2077 PC code ASAP for your ad clicks. In return, they agree to an NDA like this from CD.
Definitely not the first NDA tossed around by publishers. But goes to show how much game studios have your favourite reviewer by the balls just so they could upload a review on day one instead of I don't know....... buy and play the game like everyone else on day one like a normal fucking gamer and do a review later.
But you know the drill of game reviews. Speed over quality or ethics. Got to get those clicks because 95% of them are too lazy to build up an audience like Angry Joe who doesn't seem to give a shit if he releases a review two weeks later.
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Spaceman292
Banned
All the negativity is just another circlejerking flavour of the month outrage almost entirely voiced by people who haven't even played the game.
Game is shit and deserves the “hyperbolic” reaction it’s earned.
BTW, OP, amazing writeup. I really gotta give a sideey to anyone still defending what CPDR did. It’s not just beyond the pale and as unethical a display as I’ve seen in this industry, it borders on criminality. I loved Witcher, still returning to it after enough time has passed, but I will never give these thieving hacks another penny.
True ... not what was promised. Mediocre GTA with branching story elements.
60+ hours here..on xbxSx. I desperately needed something on my Series X so I started playing on Xbox
- Mediocre world... The architecture and verticality is good but it is un interactable.
- Terrible traffic AI ....similar to Watch_Dogs 1 from 2013. If your car is 1 ft on the street 4 cars just stop behind you and then traffic stops generating.
- Brain Dead NPC.. no interaction same one line response...if that
- Exact Same Police mission x 100
- 99% of the stores/buildings are DEAD .. unable to go in...
- No taxi ....go to a purple fucking news stand to transport your ass
- Same obese fat fuck NPC walking on street with different skin color ...E X A C T same animation.
- Same side quests... go there kill NPC in different clothes/gang colors
- 1 hacking mini game... ONE
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s-bojan
Banned
Now we know?
This was not an issue for you https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...ents-are-part-of-the-problem/?sh=7d3ab1052d9b ?
This was not an issue for you https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...ents-are-part-of-the-problem/?sh=7d3ab1052d9b ?
Bragr
Banned
What police stuff?
Explosive Zombie
Banned
Stuff where if you commit crimes the police spawn on top of you.
Bragr
Banned
Hm yes, there are some parts of the game that apparently was never finished. The life paths are all almost the same, the cops and people spawn in right behind you, and part of the map aren't done yet. And this is the PC version. It really makes you wonder what sort of intense pressure they were under when it comes to releasing this, because they would have snagged 93-94 on Metacritic easy if they spent another 3-4 months on it.
That's not the sub-set of consumers that makes up the majority of games media traffic sadly. They will just go to the site which posts the first review and then stop caring.
I also very much doubt that the big companies could afford to go to a paywall model with significant job losses. There might be an argument that individual games journalists having patreons and Substack subscriptions is the future but not 100% it would support a huge amount of people which isn't inherently a bad thing.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
The counter-argument regarding the specifics of the NDA is that CDPR knew that the pre-release builds sent out under it had performance issues that they intended to fix with a day 1 patch; this is not exactly unusual or sinister.
The reality is that if a game is "coming in hot" so-to-speak there's not a lot of alternative. For the publisher they either miss out on launch-day promotion if they wait until the review code is the same as retail, or if they opt to put out a non-final version without NDA risk getting slammed for issues remediated by the time players get their hands on the game. Likewise reviewers miss out on page-impressions/attention by not covering the game, either by refusing to accept the NDA or not having access at all.
The bottom-line I guess is that this system is only a problem when the game-maker fails to live up to their implicit promise that all bugs will be squashed by the time the game hits the street. In this instance CDPR fixed some issues, but a huge number were left unaddressed particularly on the older consoles.
It sucks, but given Covid and the associated difficulties accompanying it, I guess there is an argument that CDPR did try and hold their end up, they just failed to do so completely.
As someone pretty much neutral on the whole issue, CDPR screwed up big by launching knowing all the issues the game had on the older consoles, and then sabotaging their relationships by acting like they were the sole distributors of the title in regards to offering no-quibble refunds. The second thing is probably the more egregious mistake of the two, as the stink will take a long time to get off them.
The reality is that if a game is "coming in hot" so-to-speak there's not a lot of alternative. For the publisher they either miss out on launch-day promotion if they wait until the review code is the same as retail, or if they opt to put out a non-final version without NDA risk getting slammed for issues remediated by the time players get their hands on the game. Likewise reviewers miss out on page-impressions/attention by not covering the game, either by refusing to accept the NDA or not having access at all.
The bottom-line I guess is that this system is only a problem when the game-maker fails to live up to their implicit promise that all bugs will be squashed by the time the game hits the street. In this instance CDPR fixed some issues, but a huge number were left unaddressed particularly on the older consoles.
It sucks, but given Covid and the associated difficulties accompanying it, I guess there is an argument that CDPR did try and hold their end up, they just failed to do so completely.
As someone pretty much neutral on the whole issue, CDPR screwed up big by launching knowing all the issues the game had on the older consoles, and then sabotaging their relationships by acting like they were the sole distributors of the title in regards to offering no-quibble refunds. The second thing is probably the more egregious mistake of the two, as the stink will take a long time to get off them.
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hemo memo
You can't die before your death
Yes, they are victim too...
Yeah everyone in this situation is a victim except the people who actually bought the game.
Lol
So? People wanted it to revolutionize open world RPGs or something and it didn't fulfill those lofty expectations? That's on gamers' expectations, not CDP.
The PC version was received VERY well by reviewers, and they're not lying about this. They might have agreed to NDA terms they shouldn't have, but you can't erase these positive impressions. Console players have a right to be pissed about this, but I personally don't care about versions for platforms I wasn't gonna play anyway.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
Some people talk like video games are politicians "lol you actually thought he/that game would keep his/its promises?"
MadchesterManc
Member
I know it's 2020, but people are aware that written media exists still? Signing an NDA prohibiting the use of your own video footage means nothing if the outlet is primarily written media & doesn't prevent anyone speaking about any issues - hence reviews mentioning bugs. CDPR sent out the best version of the game to reviewers, not a single console code in sight, so it will get generally good reviews across the board. The real 'sellout clowns' in this situation are CDPR with respect to the lack of clarity leading up to release of the console version for the sake of that sweet preorder moolah.
TriSuit666
Banned
I am surprised the bigger outlets allowed themselves to be pulled into an NDA like that, surely it would've needed a cursory glance by legal first?
And on top of that we can assume that video they did 'showcasing' the Xbox and PS4 base console performance was a load of bullshit? That's more telling of a concerted attempt to missell the product if true.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
LOL.
I think reading this recap will be more entertaining than playing the game when I get around to in 2021.
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K.S v2.0
Banned
They do? Is this on console? Coz on PC they don't do this, they always take a bit to arrive... If they literally ass drop you on console then wow, totally different AI logic.
Tho I do get it if that's the case why. Not like they can hold pre-loaded in what little RAM exists.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
Technically I think they spawn out of nowhere on all platforms but on PC it might be harder to notice because they spawn further away. I mean... it's true of all open world games really, even stuff like GTA or RDR, the higher the wanted level the more shit spawns in, the problem for (maybe just console players?) is how blatant them spawning in is. There's a video where a guy has them spawning on his rooftop (I haven't been able to replicate this on PC)
Windom Earle
Member
I actually think this game is a masterpiece (on PC) and I haven't ran into too many bugs. I can understand some of the outrage but it's getting annoying how people find so much joy in just shitting on it.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
There's something fucked with the AI because it goes beyond police spawns. Random NPCs and cars will be totally different from one second to another when they are out of view and you pan the camera back into view. It's like 2077's city of 100s or 1000s of random people walking around can be zapped in or out of a scene in hopes you don't notice.
It's not like Skyrim or Fallout where an NPC will be in the same general location. It's like 2077 engine cant save specific NPC data, just a general "NPC #1 should be here". But not "NPC #1 should be here who is blonde, wears a red shirt, fat, jeans".
People had those early videos which showed this fuckery:
1. Guy was on a busy highway. He looked ahead and behind him showing NPC cars. Then the kept doing it and the cars would change.
2. Some wheelchair guy. The player ran away, ran back and the wheelchair guy was still there but a totally different character model.
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THEAP99
Banned
You make claims without any proof. Saying they bought awards, bought reviews, made their own metacritic user reviews - no proof whatsoever. You're still in the coping phase weeks and months later it's so sad, when will it end?
K.S v2.0
Banned
This sounds more like a case of badly implemented deferred rendering than AI fuckery... ie where invisible geometry and objects are simply unloaded if they are directly behind the player.
I remember some tech talk about the Decima engine and how HZD achieved its visuals with the paltry resources on base PS4, had a lot to do with resource management like this. Granted REDEngine4 and Decima aren't the same but you'd like to think at some rudamentry level there'd be similar behavior since it really would be impossible to keep everything held in RAM/VRAM on console.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Worst ever I played was Daggerfall. Hugely buggy game too. No surprise, look who makes it.
But I swear half of the monsters you fought spawned behind you. And this even came in tight dungeon corridors where you cleared a path!
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K.S v2.0
Banned
It won't, the same way it will never end with you mentally ill copers desperately trying to cope with the fact that reality doesn't mirror Clown World™, no matter how loud you scream IT'S MA'AM.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
I've seen the videos of this but I can't get it to happen on my version, never seen it, honestly. I don't think it's just me being obtuse either, I've got like 20 hours of my game time recorded and uploaded to Youtube if anyone wants to comb through it and see if I'm full of shit. I have had bugs but they all feel like streaming issues due to not playing on an SSD, like travelling too fast across the map in a sports car means sometimes I need to sit and wait for things to load in.
K.S v2.0
Banned
I'd definitely put money on streaming issues too, especially since on PC there's a 'Slow HDD' option. There's definitely a LOT of streaming going on... I also see issues on PC like poles for street signs and lights missing, NPC bodies missing but hands and head and feet are there, holding a phone... a phone floating in mid air where an NPC is supposed to be, etc.
Walk away some distance and come back, its all gone and clean again, but travel very quickly into a dense area (fast travel to Chinatown, this one is the best example) and there'll be a LOT of these glitches... T-boned NPC's stuck in geometry, etc... almost like the engine cannot load it all fast enough to keep up, or the streaming times out.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Yah its a console thingy. Not on PC at all.
Likely due to RAM limitation like you said.
K.S v2.0
Banned
On console does it continually refresh the cops spawn like GTA? Or can you actually kill them all and silence things for a while? On PC you can actually kill all the cops and it will go quiet for a while and you can run away in peace.
This is pretty common actually, and it's not only game industry to do this.
But, these stories about videogame companies who basically do whatever they want with journalists are an open secret. I remember Ubisoft who say journalist have to fly to London and try their games inside their building for two or three days and base their review on that. Or the good old days with Microsoft who invite you to this mega party and then call you for approving your review.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Influencer culture
Saber
Member
This and by the people who were already doing drama and cancel culture before the game launched(twitter, reera, etc).
TheStam
Member
I've ran into a few bugs, but all in all it's a great game, a solid 9/10 and better than almost every open world WRPG out there. Probably not as good as The Witcher 3 for me, but then again that's the best RPG experience I've ever had. Still enjoying CP2077 a lot and in one-two years time when they've patched it and added content in terms of free DLCs and an expansion, it will surely be regarded as a classic.
Cockles & Whelks
Banned
That's what you get for using next gen power on... more flashy bollocks over substance.
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
Freelance Yakuza
Member
I agreed Cdprojekt was dishonest
I agreed most reviewers are sellouts
But I can't sympathize with someone who pre order games. Wait for more info befor buying anything.
I agreed most reviewers are sellouts
But I can't sympathize with someone who pre order games. Wait for more info befor buying anything.
For sure reviewers should come under a lot of criticism here.
WHY do they insist on having their review ready to go before launch?
Why couldn't they just say "we do not accept the terms of the NDA so we cannot accept your review code"?
It's actually worse for CDPR if the big outlets are refusing to review the game at launch since all the people looking to the review sites before making a day one purchase are going to make a decision based on that.
This is where you see why what they've done here is wrong. The review site gets their clicks by having a review ready to go for launch. The publisher gets their sales numbers by blocking reviews of the base console version. Funny how the solution is the one where both sides win, isn't it?
So who loses here? People who bought the game on console based on glowing reviews.
Instead of Gamespot putting out an outlier review followed by a discussion video where the reviewer kind of ruins her own credibility, they should have made a full video explaining why they won't review the game at all. Just lay it all out there. CDPR wanted to hide the base console version and wanted to hide bugs by insisting that only stock footage be used. Don't give them a review score.
I am so disappointed in folks like YongYea and Skill Up because they basically said "it's awesome but a little buggy on my cutting edge gaming PC". Aw, thanks lads. Any chance you could have just waited a few days to see how it runs on the base consoles that most of your audience owns?
A lot of people coming out of this looking really bad.
I am pretty certain that CDPR would outsource their marketing work or would have headhunted specific people for marketing and its basically their job to make sure the game sells as many copies as possible. They will do whatever they can legally get away with.
Game reviewers on the other hand have no such obligation. They basically put out dishonest reviews to get views on their videos and hits on their website.
Playing the game on PS5 and it's fine for me. Gave it a go on PS4 and its a total disgrace. That's not the point though. Reviewers should have just refused to accept the terms.
WHY do they insist on having their review ready to go before launch?
Why couldn't they just say "we do not accept the terms of the NDA so we cannot accept your review code"?
It's actually worse for CDPR if the big outlets are refusing to review the game at launch since all the people looking to the review sites before making a day one purchase are going to make a decision based on that.
This is where you see why what they've done here is wrong. The review site gets their clicks by having a review ready to go for launch. The publisher gets their sales numbers by blocking reviews of the base console version. Funny how the solution is the one where both sides win, isn't it?
So who loses here? People who bought the game on console based on glowing reviews.
Instead of Gamespot putting out an outlier review followed by a discussion video where the reviewer kind of ruins her own credibility, they should have made a full video explaining why they won't review the game at all. Just lay it all out there. CDPR wanted to hide the base console version and wanted to hide bugs by insisting that only stock footage be used. Don't give them a review score.
I am so disappointed in folks like YongYea and Skill Up because they basically said "it's awesome but a little buggy on my cutting edge gaming PC". Aw, thanks lads. Any chance you could have just waited a few days to see how it runs on the base consoles that most of your audience owns?
A lot of people coming out of this looking really bad.
I am pretty certain that CDPR would outsource their marketing work or would have headhunted specific people for marketing and its basically their job to make sure the game sells as many copies as possible. They will do whatever they can legally get away with.
Game reviewers on the other hand have no such obligation. They basically put out dishonest reviews to get views on their videos and hits on their website.
Playing the game on PS5 and it's fine for me. Gave it a go on PS4 and its a total disgrace. That's not the point though. Reviewers should have just refused to accept the terms.
I kind of disagree.
If a game I like the look of has a nice special edition I might pre-order.
Or I might pre order digitally so it's loaded up and ready to go at midnight on launch.
Or I might pre order a physical copy that I can just go and pick up on launch day.
Normally this happens after seeing a lot of hype and gameplay footage. 9 times out of 10 I have been very happy to have preordered and be playing a game at launch and seeing the reactions online etc.
I kind of do feel sorry for people who fired up CP2077 on launch day on PS4 only to see the total mess of a game they had just bought. I think review sites etc helped contribute to this con.
This is exactly what game companies want. To "hype" people into blind buying. Don't fall for it. I stopped preordering forever ago.