Cyberpunk 2077

[Xolvix]

Yeah but sometimes there's luck involved. Depends on who you get dealing with your refund, the amount of time played, any other factors, etc. Now they're just removing the bar so as long as it was from the Store, you get your refund, no questions asked.

By far the best refund policy I've seen though is, funnily enough, GOG - you can get a refund up to 30 days after purchase, even if the game was downloaded, launched, and played. Given they sell DRM-free games with DRM-free installers, that is surprisingly generous.

[chakkman]

I got refunds on Microsoft store, on Steam and on UPlay, all no problem... of course they won't refund your game if you played it through in 20 hours.

[revelator]

Ouch got the unkillable NPC problem with cyberpunk as well, this time in the training simulator of all things xD. Seems some problems from witcher 3 spilled over to this new game.

[demagogue]

This whole situation is looking like No Man's Sky, which has probably been noticed a lot before. Overhyped, pushed to release too early, massive backlash, but people can still see some of its potential, and in a year or two or three they'll probably come out with enough patches, or some great overhaul patch, to make it the game it was meant to be, not necessarily perfect, but as good as Witcher III for better & worse. It apparently already looks great (for the people that have the rig for it) anyway.

But anyway, this is the reason I'll hold off on buying this until those future patches, if the reviews have turned around. I also expect it'll be greatly discounted by then, again like the last No Man's Sky release that got a lot of buzz for making it into a good game.

[Anderson]

18 hours ago, Xolvix said:

By far the best refund policy I've seen though is, funnily enough, GOG - you can get a refund up to 30 days after purchase, even if the game was downloaded, launched, and played. Given they sell DRM-free games with DRM-free installers, that is surprisingly generous.

Thank you for your comment. You triggered my interest in the topic.

Indeed GOG has the most generous refund policy, concerning video game stores. It turns out that the second best place for refunds is only the Uplay refund policy that is - 14 days and no apparent 2 hour maximum limit to play the game like Steam and the Epic Games Store. The 14 days minimum limit for refunds is actually EU directives at play. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm

Thankfully other non EU companies also follow these rules. Still, doubling that time limit on behalf of GOG is always welcome. It's just expanding on a minimum of rules that exist already, independently of these companies' interests. An intelligent guess would be that companies with their HQ in the EU, are more likely to strictly follow and enforce the 14 days rule. So, Uplay and GOG seem to be the best place to expect a refund from.

The most draconic, twisted play on these rules that I've seen is on Origin where you can make a refund request within 24 hours after you first launch the game. Or, 14 days from the day you bought it, if you have not launched the game.

Lastly there are the companies that are loose on the 14 days rule, without this time limit being strictly enforceable - Xbox store and Play Station store. That means that every decision to refund, depends on time played. So, the 14 days rule isn't set in stone if you played 100 hours for example. Sadly, Blizzard's Battle.net doesn't have any precise rules on refunds at all.

In the end, it was only common sense to extend more generous rules on refunds to consoles. But I don't see how 1 week, is, somehow, enough for all interested people to obtain that refund. I'm sure that most people don't even know a refund exists. Let alone on these favorable conditions.

Tbh considering the scale of the lack of communication, CDPR ought to make the code open source or something. Maybe that can help fix the game faster with the help of die hard fans.

Digging deeper in history, it is not difficult to see how GOG's financial troubles caused them to rush Cyberpunk 2077 too. But I wonder if fans will buy that excuse in the long run:

https://kotaku.com/facing-financial-pressures-gog-quietly-lays-off-at-lea-1832879826

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212184409-What-is-the-Fair-Price-Package-?product=gog

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Anderson

[STiFU]

I wholeheartedly trust in CDPR that they will fix all issues and turn this game into the brilliant game it is supposed to be. So I won't get a refund for it and I would ask anyone to show some support and just believe in them!

The game just shouldn't have been released this early, that's all.

[peter_spy]

Life is really simpler when you've learnt not to succumb to FOMO, and you only buy "GOTY" editions of games, or buy games a year after release. Time is always on your side. And if you want to have something to talk about with friends, just agree you all will buy the game 6-12 months from now. You're all adults, it's not food, you'll live

[STiFU]

14 hours ago, peter_spy said:

Life is really simpler when you've learnt not to succumb to FOMO, and you only buy "GOTY" editions of games, or buy games a year after release. Time is always on your side. And if you want to have something to talk about with friends, just agree you all will buy the game 6-12 months from now. You're all adults, it's not food, you'll live

Yeah, I was going to wait a little longer myself, but I got this new graphics card recently, so obviously I wanted to go try it out in Cyberpunk!  

Anyway, considering the Raytracing performance in Cyberpunk is not very good with my 3060 Ti, I started checking out a few other games with raytracing, namely Ghostrunner and Control.

• Ghostrunner: The Raytracing performance is also really bad and aside from some off-screen reflections, I really didn't see a notable gain from Raytracing, so I disabled it again. As a game, Ghostrunner is really fun, 'though. Definitely recommended!
• Control: Here I get all around good performance with raytracing enabled and it just looks stunning. Such a beautiful game!! And the story telling is also really good, so I'll definitely finish this one!

I recently had a discussion with a friend and he said that there were no major breakthroughs in graphics since Crysis with SSAO etc. I argued that the latest major breakthrough is the rise of screenspace and raytraced reflections. Control, Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk are perfect examples of that. Everything feels that much more geometrically connected in that world with those reflections all around. Love it!

[peter_spy]

From what I've seen, Control is kind of a "system seller" for cards with raytracing. It looks really awesome. But then, it's just reflections. Given the usual fast pace of action games, there's little time to admire that, and it doesn't translate to innovative gameplay yet (if ever). Although not sure if the latter is necessary, tbh. Cards with pixel shader had similar story.

Edited December 20, 2020 by peter_spy

[STiFU]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

From what I've seen, Control is kind of a "system seller" for cards with raytracing. It looks really awesome. But then, it's just reflections. Given the usual fast pace of action games, there's little time to admire that, and it doesn't translate to innovative gameplay yet (if ever). Although not sure if the latter is necessary, tbh. Cards with pixel shader had similar story.

Not all graphical features have to translate into gameplay! It's fine if some just look good!!  That being said, I can imagine it being utilized for physics based puzzle games or a platformer in the style of Shadow Puppeteer, just with mirrors instead of shadows.

Anyway, regarding Control, the game offers tons of time to admire the views: In between fight scenes, you spent a lot of time navigating and looting. Aside from reflections, the lighting and shadowing is also improved, but the improvement here are just nuances that are hard to detect without being able to toggle the feature on and off. All I can say is, it looks utterly beautiful sometimes.  

[jaxa]

The Dark Mod will have raytracing before the year 2077.

[peter_spy]

24 minutes ago, STiFU said:

Not all graphical features have to translate into gameplay!

I'd go even further and say they almost never do. Usually they just sell the same shooting moving pixels in the head in a new wrapping, as so far it worked. But similarly to first cards with pixel shader, I'd wait a while longer, until the first crappy implementation is out and the refined version is in. That might not happen in a year or two though.

[JackFarmer]

10 hours ago, STiFU said:

Not all graphical features have to translate into gameplay! It's fine if some just look good!!  That being said, I can imagine it being utilized for physics based puzzle games or a platformer in the style of Shadow Puppeteer, just with mirrors instead of shadows.

Anyway, regarding Control, the game offers tons of time to admire the views: In between fight scenes, you spent a lot of time navigating and looting. Aside from reflections, the lighting and shadowing is also improved, but the improvement here are just nuances that are hard to detect without being able to toggle the feature on and off. All I can say is, it looks utterly beautiful sometimes.  

Do you think I can expect a decent version for the PS4 in the near future?

[STiFU]

26 minutes ago, JackFarmer said:

Do you think I can expect a decent version for the PS4 in the near future?

I mean, they got Witcher 3 on the Switch, which seemed like a near impossible task, but they pulled it off. So they should be very capable to get CP to run and look properly on the PS4. Although, I am sure it won't look as good as God of War or TLOU2 in the end.

[Xolvix]

11 hours ago, peter_spy said:

I'd go even further and say they almost never do. Usually they just sell the same shooting moving pixels in the head in a new wrapping, as so far it worked. But similarly to first cards with pixel shader, I'd wait a while longer, until the first crappy implementation is out and the refined version is in. That might not happen in a year or two though.

Counterpoint - excessive blur, film grain and depth of field effects. Having your vision obscured can dramatically affect the gameplay!

[cabalistic]

As far as ray-tracing goes: it's definitely not essential or anything, but wet surfaces in Cyberpunk look drop-dead gorgeous with it. Streets in the rain are really something. Not that it looks terrible without it, it's just that little bit more eye-catching

Here's a shot without RT:

And here it is with RT:

[peter_spy]

6 hours ago, Xolvix said:

Counterpoint - excessive blur, film grain and depth of field effects. Having your vision obscured can dramatically affect the gameplay!

Yeah, but we don't need a dedicated hardware for these effects

5 hours ago, cabalistic said:

And here it is with RT:

I must say SSR looks very impressive here, but RT probably shows its strength in motion (reflecting objects that are outside the view without that weird fade out effect).

Here's an in-depth look at RT in control btw.

 

[HMart]

19 hours ago, cabalistic said:

As far as ray-tracing goes: it's definitely not essential or anything, but wet surfaces in Cyberpunk look drop-dead gorgeous with it. Streets in the rain are really something. Not that it looks terrible without it, it's just that little bit more eye-catching

Here's a shot without RT:

And here it is with RT:

I can only look at that and say, wow SSR for how fast it is compared to RT, is very realistic and to my eyes, others are free to disagree, is good enough.

I certainly don't care if it reflects stuff outside the view or not, if they look "good enough" and are fast that is all what matters to me. But I stopped caring about graphics in 2009.

Edited December 21, 2020 by HMart

[STiFU]

Here is the same video, but for Cyberpunk. As you can already tell by the thumbnail of that video: Raytracing is not only about having proper reflections. Seeing these side-by-side comparisons, I really cannot imagine going back to playing without raytracing in either CP or Control.

 

[STiFU]

On 12/20/2020 at 10:05 AM, peter_spy said:

From what I've seen, Control is kind of a "system seller" for cards with raytracing. 

I just wanted to chime in again and say that Control is way more than just a system seller. I finished the game now and the finale was just utterly brilliant as far as the story arc and the level design is concerned. The gameplay is fun and evolves over the course of the game. The sound got quite some punch (use headphones on high volume!), which pairs just perfectly with those stunning raytraced graphics and all that debris and weird visual effects flying around.  The only negative point I have on this game are the incredibly bad DLCs, which are really not much more than fetch quests and some post-game challenge.

If you want to play this game, I recommend getting the base game rather than the ultimate edition, as those DLCs really dilute the experience.

[peter_spy]

I actually did get Control on Steam winter sale I don't have an RTX card, but the game still looks amazing with SSR and quality of lighting this high. I kind of have a problem with Remedy games, and it's present here too: graphics is their forte, but other parts seem to stand out, in a bad way. E.g. I didn't like writing in Alan Wake (IMO it's basically Stephen King wannabe internal monologues), and here the protagonist does it too. While the voice acting is pretty good, the writing is again somewhere between meh and facepalm. Animation seems to have taken a hit too; character movement feels like on roller skates, and facial animation looks quite stiff and artificial. None of that makes me put the game on the shelf yet, but it impacts my experience a bit.

Edited December 26, 2020 by peter_spy

[JackFarmer]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

 E.g. I didn't like writing in Alan Wake (IMO it's basically Stephen King wannabe internal monologues), and here the protagonist does it too. While the voice acting is pretty good,he shelf yet, but it impacts my experience a bit.

And how do you navigate?

Is it like Max Payne or Alan Wake?

Hopefully note. :(((

Peter,  I think it was a good idea NOT to buy it....

[STiFU]

11 hours ago, peter_spy said:

 graphics is their forte, but other parts seem to stand out, in a bad way. [...] the writing is again somewhere between meh and facepalm. Animation seems to have taken a hit too; character movement feels like on roller skates, and facial animation looks quite stiff and artificial. None of that makes me put the game on the shelf yet, but it impacts my experience a bit.

Ok, yeah, the facial animations are not the best, especially not, if you use any other language than english. So, switch to english, and it is acceptable at least. Not next-gen, but still good for previous-gen standards.

I really don't know what you mean about character movement animations. Especially flying looks and feels awesome. And just regular running etc. works quite well. Not AssCreed-well, but well enough.

Also, I would argue that gameplay is pretty solid, so it doesn't really stand out in a bad way, as you put it.

As far as the writing is concerned, I guess this is a very subjective matter. The storytelling is vague and weird (in a good way), which instantly got me hooked. The whole story about the Hiss (a weird infection creating the enemies in the game) could possibly be categorized as cosmic horror: it is weird, it is hard to fathom what the Hiss actually is. To me, that is totally interesting. I liked how the protagonist always talks to herself, which will be explained later in the game. The storytelling is in no way comparable to Alan Wake, which really was weak. The only thing that might be a little facepalm-worthy are how everyday object become "enchanted" by the Hiss, but it works well within the bounds of this game.

Something else they did good is athmosphere. You always hear the infected whispering. There is almost no soundtrack aside from ambient sounds, which creates a lonely and weird atmosphere and makes those few moments with actual soundtrack really stand out. The soundtrack works especially well in a near-finale scene (ashtray labyrinth), which also featured one of the most exciting leveldesign moments of the last 5 years in my oppinion.

[STiFU]

10 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

And how do you navigate?

Is it like Max Payne or Alan Wake?

Hopefully note. :(((

Peter,  I think it was a good idea NOT to buy it....

You have approximate quest pointers where you need to go, but no ingame compass, which is good as it encourages you to actually pay attention to your surroundings. That being said, the single-layer map can be sometimes hard to read in those multi-layered areas, especially so because you cannot zoom in the map. Still, you'll find your way around somehow.

Anyway, my personal experience with the game and the game's 85% on metacritic say that it is in fact NOT a good idea NOT to buy it...  

[peter_spy]

56 minutes ago, STiFU said:

I really don't know what you mean about character movement animations.

It feels a bit like skating, her running and walking feels more like gliding over surfaces. And when she runs into something, and you keep the directional key or pad pressed, she keeps running in place, so that does look silly

As for the internal monologue, it would be much better IMO, if the protagonist didn't have to say things in her head, and then say it out loud to a character in dialogue. Yes, that's how it works in real life, more or less, but it doesn't mean it's interesting for the viewer (at least to me it's rather bland or annoying).

I didn't get far yet, so I can't comment on the gameplay much (and I didn't in the previous post as well). It feels okay; again, kind of standard Remedy stuff, shooting guys with guns regardless of what paranormal force controls them (in Alan Wake it was black, here it's red and that's about it in terms of differences ).

Maybe if I wasn't slightly familiar with the concept of the SCP Foundation, I'd want to come back to play it every evening, just to see where the story goes. Unfortunately, as a whole, it's just okay-ish to me. Great graphics and lighting; great sound design too, as you mentioned. But other aspects didn't grab me with anything in particular (yet?).