CDPR thank to you Gamers! - CDPR Apreciation thread

eissa

eissa

Artanis "Altáriel" Nerwen Nos Finwe
A final "Thank you" card from CD Projekt Red

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Goodbye CDPR, i'll wait for your Cyberpunk 2077. if the Great War dont take the head start first
 
Here's some appreciation:

They need to get their shit together with Cyberpunk.

What ever praise Witcher 3 gets, it still feels like a crippled game. The visuals are nice, the sounds are nice, the storytelling element is nice... But the gameplay is boring as fuck. Samey combat grind through a ton of samey filler quests. Itemizationg is bonkers beyond belief through leveled gear and the "junk collector 2000" feature that is fast approaching Bethesda levels useless shit. The character system is weak and ineffective and with some weird decisions in the skillpoint allocation and progression. The minute to minute gameplay is simply boring and the game, despite its wealth of questing content, feels somewhat empty and definitely uninviting for another go of all the grind. A good thing is, that sometimes the quest grind is laced with a nice narrative, but in the long run... yeah.

The narrative carries it through, but with some severe hiccups if one is not into to the afore mentoined samey grind for about 80 hours. It's a highly overrated game; not Bethesda levels of shit, obviously, but it seems to get a lot of undue praise -- "undue" because, given how the game is, I just can't see where it's coming from and why.

Six and a fucking half slash ten. Still healthily above average for an action adventure, but... not up there with the best of them.

If Cyberpunk ends up as some sort of mix-breed Witcher meets GTA meets Sci-fi shooter "with some loose stats thrown in for show", if it turns out to become CDPR's proverbial Fallout 3 (remodeling their previous game), it's going to stay in the shelve until it's 90% off.
 
I like how they treat their fanbase and i really liked the first two games (the first one more so). However i'm not able to play the 3d part because they kind of promised to have a linux version after the release, but they just went silent after that, even though there were a number of people with linux who bought the game because they thought it was going to have a port (not me of course, as i never buy new stuff, or preorder anything). So that seemed like a shitty thing to do and of course the nvidia "breakworks" stuff was a little downer too.
 
I finally started playing The Witcher 3 a few days ago (previous pc couldn't handle it), and for all the hype and praise, I am a little disappointed. I absolitely loved the first game when it came, and thought it would save pc rpg's, and I highly enjoyed the second. Both of those did suffer from crappy controls however, but 2 was a big step up from 1 and things were looking good. Story and setting made the games, however. And so far I am very impressed with the writing in 3 as well. Story is interesting, quests are fun and pretty varied, and characters are believable. But oh my god, the controls and combat are a mess. I did not expect it to be this bad.

Looting is a chore, since you have to stand in the exactly right spot, and have the camera facing the right way. Some containers simply can't be looted because you can't find that sweet spot. On top of that, they thought it was a great idea to put candles and shit on top of half the containers in the world, or next to them, so looting them is made even more challenging because of a poorly implemented gimmick. I like the idea of being able to light and extinguish torches, fireplaces and the likes, but they could have easily limited it. Things I actually want to light up because of dark environments are instead hard as fuck to reach becuase, just as with loot, you have to stand in the exact right spot.

If you move too close to an object, you can't loot it either. Trying to move further away may very well move you too far away, because of the wacky controls.

And the combat... I love the concepts, with all the different oils, potions, bombs, signs, etc. But it just doesn't flow well. It's often really hard to tell when enemies' attacks will connect, blocking is useless as it will hurt you and stun you, it seems completely random if your attacks will connect, or if continuing a combo will be worth it or not. It just doesn't feel coherent and well put together. Maybe I'm just so used to the Souls series, and the combat here is similar enough but still different enough that it hampers my ability to get into it.

But yeah, overall.. I want to love the game, and I am enjoying it so far, but as @Kohno said: it feels crippled. I love the world of The Witcher, I love the characters and setting. And they have some damn good writers. But the game feels very unpolished, and this late after release I am amazed that some of the huge glaring issues have not been dealt with.

Either way, I'm a fan of CDPR - they went from small and obscure to huge, and without compromises. Their dlc program is a breath of fresh air, they respect their fans. I look forward to Cyberpunk. But I hope they step it up.
 
CD Projekt Red and Polish government launch €18m fund for 'innovative' games

'We want to catch up with booming gaming markets in [the US] or Canada'

The Witcher creator CD Projekt Red has teamed up with the Polish government to bolster local games developers working on boundary-pushing projects.

The investment fund will offer €18 million ($20.5m) to studios working in Poland on “industrial research and experimental development or experimental development only”.

“Any Poland-based company is eligible if only it has an innovative project to pitch, which fits within designated program parameters,” Stan Just, R&D manager at CD Projekt Red, elaborated to GamesBeat.

In addition, devs must be working with a budget of between 0.5m zloty ($130,000) to 20m zloty ($5.2m) and a timeline of up to three years.

Just added that the initiative isn’t aimed at start-up companies, but instead at established studios looking to move into more innovative work.

The grant is non-refundable, and will cover from 40 to 80 per cent of costs. The amount provided is dependant on studio size, research type and other factors such as agreeing to share research with other developers via events and magazines.

“[2014’s ‘Polish Games Treaty’] initiative was the starting point of our common effort to achieve better economical conditions enabling the local industry to make higher quality games,” Just observed.

“We wanted to catch up with booming gaming markets in [the US] or Canada, which are offering a wide range of financial support instruments to nurture the sector.”
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http://www.develop-online.net/news/...-launch-18m-fund-for-innovative-games/0221403
 
Honestly?

They make good games. They really do. They have good PR.

But their fanbase is unsufferable. Always talking about how they are paragons of virtue that can do no wrong. Cripes, just the whole ''16 free DLCs!'' thing was a bit lame. Most of it was skins, crappy armor sets or stuff like that. I think the actual content was 2 or 3 quests and NG+. Which is cool, don't get me wrong, but other games give just as much free DLC, if not more. Yet CDPR shouted their free DLCs on all the rooftops (with the fanbase more than following suit) if as it was some unheard of bout of superhuman generosity.

I also think that, while they are masters ae graphics and presentation, their gameplay is not very good. TW3 has worse combat than most Arkham-esque systems, which is made worse by that game being 100 hours long so if you are bored with attack-roll-Quen halfway through, the rest of the game is a bit of a slog.

I dislike using the term ''overrated''. But I do believe that CDPR gets loads of credit for things that other studios do, and sometimes do better, because they have good PR.
 
Ilosar said:
Honestly?

They make good games. They really do. They have good PR.

But their fanbase is unsufferable. Always talking about how they are paragons of virtue that can do no wrong. Cripes, just the whole ''16 free DLCs!'' thing was a bit lame. Most of it was skins, crappy armor sets or stuff like that. I think the actual content was 2 or 3 quests and NG+. Which is cool, don't get me wrong, but other games give just as much free DLC, if not more. Yet CDPR shouted their free DLCs on all the rooftops (with the fanbase more than following suit) if as it was some unheard of bout of superhuman generosity.

I also think that, while they are masters ae graphics and presentation, their gameplay is not very good. TW3 has worse combat than most Arkham-esque systems, which is made worse by that game being 100 hours long so if you are bored with attack-roll-Quen halfway through, the rest of the game is a bit of a slog.

I dislike using the term ''overrated''. But I do believe that CDPR gets loads of credit for things that other studios do, and sometimes do better, because they have good PR.
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i honestly dont care if the free dlc is deep in content or not. i just feel relieved that there is company that care for gaming quality and good policy. their price tags is always lower than most of AAA games today. price to content ratio are even better. could you count the other AAA games that have such?

blood and wine now is priced for US$19,99, that expansion have more content than all fallout 4 dlc combined for now.
 
They also own GOG.com and recently released their "GOG Connect" which they talk to developers and publishers and try to make them agree in letting players who own their games on Steam get those games free on GOG.com. It is up to the developers and publishers to accept if any of their games allows that, but the release of GOG Connect started with more than twenty games available for five days.

But still a "game selling" business that tries to give their products for free if the client already owns it from a different competitor is a nice move (even though I can see the benefits for the business from doing that too).

Sometimes CDPR seems too good to be true, and I find myself thinking if they are hiding something, or if I got so used to the "modern gaming business practice" that I just grew up cynical about it all. :confused:
 
Risewild said:
They also own GOG.com and recently released their "GOG Connect" which they talk to developers and publishers and try to make them agree in letting players who own their games on Steam get those games free on GOG.com. It is up to the developers and publishers to accept if any of their games allows that, but the release of GOG Connect started with more than twenty games available for five days.

But still a "game selling" business that tries to give their products for free if the client already owns it from a different competitor is a nice move (even though I can see the benefits for the business from doing that too).

Sometimes CDPR seems too good to be true, and I find myself thinking if they are hiding something, or if I got so used to the "modern gaming business practice" that I just grew up cynical about it all. :confused:
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just once maybe, they tried to be worse than bethesda in term of copyright of their games. they sued pirates back when witcher 2 is release. maybe they realised its futile, but know that they didn't support piracy at all.

And, could you find any torrent right now that contain witcher 3? i dont think so, as they always ask DMCA to purge any.
 
eissa said:
just once maybe, they tried to be worse than bethesda in term of copyright of their games. they sued pirates back when witcher 2 is release. maybe they realised its futile, but know that they didn't support piracy at all.

And, could you find any torrent right now that contain witcher 3? i dont think so, as they always ask DMCA to purge any.
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Yeah, that is quite true :aiee:.
But at least after the backlash they stopped doing it :lmao:.
Many companies used to do it when CDPR did it and some still continue to do it now.
Since there were so many doing it back when CDPR was "caught" doing it, torrentfreak.com did an article about how they were not the only ones doing it and how the others still do it (the article was from 2012 so who knows if these companies still do it or not).
Here are the companies mentioned in the article:
  • Atari
  • Koch Media for Techland and for themselves
  • DAEDALIC Entertainment for Lucas Arts and Eidos/Square Enix
  • Codemasters
  • BitComposer
  • Eidos/Square Enix/Warner
  • Ubisoft
  • Kalypso Media
  • dtp entertainment
  • Aerosoft
What is worst is that the article ends with saying that this is only the tip of the iceberg:
The bad news is that the above sample is just the tip of the iceberg – dozens of devs and distributors of lesser known games are sending out these letters demanding anything from 300 to more than 1000 euros to make cases go away. But despite there being many games companies at the end of these settlement chains, three local names – Koch Media, dtp entertainment AG and Kalypso Media GmbH – appear more than any other.

It would be great if the companies listed above followed CD Projekt’s example and reconsidered their support for these horrible settlement letters. If any gaming publications would like to see the full list of games companies engaged in these schemes, feel free to contact us and we’ll happily send them over.
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Link to the full article:
https://torrentfreak.com/square-enix-eidos-other-game-giants-all-demand-cash-from-pirates-120115/

EDIT: I forgot to mention that GOG.com is giving System Shock 2 for free if you access their front page using Gog Galaxy and click the claim button. Just in case anyone is interested.
 
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eissa said:
And, could you find any torrent right now that contain witcher 3? i dont think so, as they always ask DMCA to purge any.
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Just found one in kickasstorrents with over 500 seeds and 1600 leeches. Also found a bunch of them in some private torrent sites that i used to have an account in.
 
eissa said:
i honestly dont care if the free dlc is deep in content or not. i just feel relieved that there is company that care for gaming quality and good policy. their price tags is always lower than most of AAA games today. price to content ratio are even better. could you count the other AAA games that have such?

blood and wine now is priced for US$19,99, that expansion have more content than all fallout 4 dlc combined for now.
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I'm not saying they suck or anything. Value wise, few AAA titles can match them. But I also feel that they squeeze every ounce of good will out of their fanbase, which swallows all of their PR hook, line and sinker and makes them into demigods of gaming that can do little, if any wrong.

Oh, and I wouldn't take Bethesda as a benchmark for value DLCs. That said, of course both Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone were great DLCs with loads of value while keeping the polished feel the main game had. Kudos to CDPR for that.

Albeit to be fair, they are based in Poland while selling a product (mostly) to European and American markets. Economically, that's a very sound model. I'm willing to bet the average CDPR employee is paid much less in zloty than the average Bioware, Obsidian or Bethesda employee is paid in US or Canadian dollar, while being no less skilled if not moreso, and selling their products on a very similar market. That, and the successful GoG platform definitely allows them to go all-out when funding TW3.

Not to say they don't deserve their success, they absolutely do. But when we speak of value, economical factors are important. All that development time costs money, after all.
 
Well I don't know about the economical factors, but on the CDPR recruitment page they say this:
We’ve always got your back!

If you decide to hop on board and join the team, CD PROJEKT RED will provide full support with relocating, getting the necessary paperwork done, and finding a place to call home. We take every possible step to ensure you never feel alone with anything regarding the relocation process.



The Perks

Aside from working on games which are on everyone’s lips, we offer you a full array of benefits:

  • Private healthcare
  • Multisport card providing free or heavily-discounted gym membership, martial arts classes, and more
  • 20 or 26 days of paid leave (depending on contract / experience type)
  • Paid sick leave
  • Bank holidays (13 days)
  • Two kitchens with all the stuff you need to make the food that you like
  • Fresh fruit and a selection of teas, coffee etc., to power your work day
  • A fully stocked canteen for employees
  • A company library of games and books
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And on GOG.com they also say this:
What we offer:
  • A unique opportunity to enter a booming industry and to influence the future of digital distribution.
  • A gamer’s paradise where you will be surrounded by games - living & breathing them!
  • A competitive salary and great, laid-back work atmosphere in our office based in Warsaw, Poland.
  • A chance to work in an international environment with exceptional experts.
  • A Profit Sharing Program after 6 months of work, where employees share 10 % of GOG.com's net profit (paid out once a year).
  • Access to a health care and sport activities package.
  • A full-time job in our Warsaw, Poland headquarters.
  • A relocation package for foreigners as well as assistance from our HR throughout the whole process.
  • Polish language lessons, should you need them.
  • Frequent social activities, free fruits, an in-house cantina and other goodies are a standard.
  • Free access to CD Projekt RED & GOG.com games.
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I have been digging around the Zenimax recruitment site for 27 minutes now and I can't find any information on what "perks" you get working for any of the Zenimax companies. So I can't say if this is better or worst than Zenimax, I wasted too much time on Zenimax so I didn't check other gaming companies, if anyone wants me to for some reason just say so and I will waste my time digging around :postviper:.

And now the mandatory links from where I got those quotes:
http://en.cdprojektred.com/meet-the-rebels/
http://en.cdprojektred.com/recruitment-process/
https://www.gog.com/work#/art-graphic-designer
 
Risewild said:
Well I don't know about the economical factors, but on the CDPR recruitment page they say this:


And on GOG.com they also say this:

I have been digging around the Zenimax recruitment site for 27 minutes now and I can't find any information on what "perks" you get working for any of the Zenimax companies. So I can't say if this is better or worst than Zenimax, I wasted too much time on Zenimax so I didn't check other gaming companies, if anyone wants me to for some reason just say so and I will waste my time digging around :postviper:.

And now the mandatory links from where I got those quotes:
http://en.cdprojektred.com/meet-the-rebels/
http://en.cdprojektred.com/recruitment-process/
https://www.gog.com/work#/art-graphic-designer
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this is just literally mojang studio after notch sell it to microsoft. a 1 billion dollar just to make the employee happy and well fed :P
 
I found some reviews of working on Bethesda Softworks though:
Glassdoor.com 7 May 2016 said:
Pros
Great products, great opportunities for game enthusiasts, marketing and tech people

Cons
Aggressive and individualistic culture. Limited structure and organization is aging without renewing upper management or management approach

Advice to Management
Build up more team spirit and less individualism. Motivate and show appreciation for the hard working staff more often
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Indeed.com February 24 2014 said:
Bethesda Softworks is a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. Perhaps that is why they have lost touch with the local DC Metro area community. Their corporate structure and competitive drive has led them astray from hiring local, passionate, talented, applicants and has them focused on repeating their tried formula. This has led them to produce many of the same type of Role Playing First Person Shooter type video games, which have become more and more underwhelming as time passes. Bethesda hires only "published" artists, which is problematic for up-and-comers trying to make it into the videogame/technology industry. How can an artist become "published" in the gaming world when no one takes a chance on them? Furthermore, they provide no job security or opportunity for advancement within the company for their employees, both contract and permanent. The work environment is a hostile one for new hires. The supervisors have little patience for error and do everything to inform subordinates of their displeasure, short of out right saying so. A lasting productive environment must be built on teamwork, trust, and encouragement, qualities which fall short for the Bethesda Staff. Employment at Bethesda isn't all bad, the work tends to be fun, when you're not being hounded by someone else, and the in-house cafeteria and gym provide for delicious cuisine, and the ability to burn off those pesky calories. Overall, not the best experience. If you're actively seeking an "in" to the videogame industry, look elsewhere.

Pros
Excellent quality food for employees, on-site gym.
Cons
Poor management, overly competitive, close-minded staff
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Risewild said:
I found some reviews of working on Bethesda Softworks though:
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unsurpringly, just like what i deduce from most of fallout 4 feature. seems many of good idea were thrown, but none except few have good correlation with each other.
 
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