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To tell you the truth, playing these games taught me that I really don't care for quest-dependent games. I feel like CDPR games have no way to interact with the

To tell you the truth, playing these games taught me that I really don't care for quest-dependent games. I feel like CDPR games have no way to interact with their pretty worlds outside of the heavily scripted quests. You can generally just go anywhere you want, take anything, even loot the entire office of the captain of the army, and nobody even reacts. Contrast this to Bethesda games, where the entire game is an elaborate simulation that can be poked and prodded as you please. In fact I've never even completed a main quest in a Bethesda game, I just spend all my time exploring and dicking around and it's WAY more fun than the on-rails theme park rides that are CDPR games.

TillE 4y ago
Totally agree. It's the design philosophy of pick from a menu of scripted choices vs interact with a simulated world. I don't think Bethesda has ever quite lived up to that ambition even in the days of Daggerfall and Morrowind, but they have at least tried.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Morrowind was pretty close. Clunky by modern standards, and I remember playing it on Xbox years ago and having no f-ing clue where to go or what to do -- a lot of GameFAQs helped -- but it really made it feel like a real world.
Isinlor 4y ago
I like simulation-like open world games, but Witcher 3 was one of the very few games with a good story. To be honest I think the only one that I cared about. Especially the bloody baron questline was amazing storytelling. Heart of Stone was also great story based on Polish ballad Mr. Twardowski. Cyberpunk is unfortunately nowhere near as good in terms of the story as the Witcher.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Hard disagree, cyberpunk had a fantastic story, compared to the witcher 3 that I've tried to finish about 4 separate times and failed every time - the side quests are fantastic, the main quest is just unbelievably dragged out and boring. Everyone mentions the blood baron quest - and yes, it was great, outstanding even. I've never seen anyone mention anything after that point - it's just a mess of narrative that gets in the way of some other great content in that game. Cyberpunk has great main quest and memorable side stories.
  - Isinlor 4y ago
    I played the Witcher 3 twice trough leaving a small bit of the second expansion unfinished just because I don't want this game to end. I lost interest in Cyberpunk quite early. To me Cyberpunk is too American with overdone themes. Although the Cyberpunk anime is great. Simple story, but has really well put together characters and delivers emotional punch. I will have to try to get back to the game. Maybe on second try it will be better.
    - bsder 4y ago
      The Cyberpunk anime got the fact that the environment was a character while the video game didn't. A tremendously important point in the Cyberpunk anime was the fact that their world was really horrific to live in. You could live semi-miserably and go out in an untimely fashion--possibly even in a blaze of glory--or you live completely miserably and could go out in an untimely fashion with a whimper. Living well and pleasantly was really never on the table. Whereas, Cyberpunk the video game is the standard, kinda-generic power fantasy. You never really feel "oppressed" by the overall system as you're kind of outside it.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Frankly, I think they're both bad. CDPR gets a lot of stuff right, but their self-insistence on their world and storytelling is only rivaled by Final Fantasy. Cyberpunk's main quest feels like Fallout 4 with a fake veneer of moral ambiguity, and the sidequests are either penis-based or another car who wants to lecture me on their philosophy of the week. Almost every single mission in that game had me cringing, to the point that I'd mute the dialogue and still wince as I read the subtitles. It's... pure suck. As for my review of the gameplay... it's just Borderlands again. I can't be fooled like this, sorry. The Witcher 3 is weird, relative to Cyberpunk. I haven't finished it, but it's writing is a lot more grounded and less... bad. The gameplay feels clunky, though, and the pacing is completely fucked (cutscene -> fetch quest -> cutscene -> fight -> GOTO 0;). Neither of these games really deserve commendations for the way they handled questing, and even the most heralded RPG interactions like Dark Souls and New Vegas leave plenty of room for improvement.
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Dalewyn 4y ago
I realized this rather spectacularly with MMORPGs. I've long been a fan of open world MMOs with basically next to no mandatory quests. Think Runescape, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory, etc. Loved them, and Ragnarok Online is to this day still among my top favorite games of all time. One day, Guild Wars 2 dropped to great hype and fanfare and I bought it to try it out. Good fucking god damn hell in a shit basket, I fucking hated it. Quests everywhere. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Walk around a bit? Here's a side quest! Pan the camera? Here please take this quest! No? How about this quest?! It is still the worst use of $60 bucks that I've ever spent.
- TriangleCoconut 4y ago
  OOT: You've just described my exact most memorable gaming experiences over the last two or so decades. I've been struggling to find something I liked enough of late. Would you mind sharing what you're into these days?
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Japanese mobile games, namely Fate/Grand Order and Princess Connect! Re:Dive. Playing on the Japanese home servers, mind, since I speak Japanese. (RIP English Priconne, Crunchyroll is bad civilization.) I don't have the kind of time or energy to devote to grinding anymore like I used to in RO and the like, but I'm always a sucker for good writing which FGO and Priconne give me in spades. And before anyone mentions it: Yeah yeah, they're gacha games. Gambling. I don't care. Japanese gachas are generally good, and I'm getting my money's worth when I whale. :V
- tmtvl 4y ago
  Some people prefer paying $60 for a blank canvas with some brushes and paint, others prefer a good book.
- bigger_cheese 4y ago
  As someone who likes Guild Wars 2 the game makes the distinction between quests (i.e. the Story) and Events which are constantly occurring in the world. As you wander through zones in the world dynamic events will spawn for example you might run into a merchant in need of an escort between villages or you'll run across a farmer who needs you to defend his flock or whatever. Many events are simply on a timer and some are triggered by specific actions you (or another player) have done elsewhere in the world. The events can be simply once off events or they can be more complex with multiple states. I.e. an event can spawn where a bunch of npc soldiers want to take back a mine from monsters - players can escort them to the mine help them clear it out. If successful then later on other NPC's will move into the mine new vendors will become accessible etc. Later still the monsters will congregate and launch a new offensive to retake the mine an event will spawn to help defend the new settlement. I like the feeling this gives the world. For me at least it makes the game world feel like it's fresh and things are constantly happening even when your character is not around the world is alive and things are changing all of the time. This is different from my experience playing an mmo like World of Warcraft, which had static NPC quest givers in zones and once you'd done the content, which tended to be stuff like kill 15 of this enemy and then report back to me - there was little reason to revisit the zone again. The questline in guild wars 2 which reveals the larger narrative and your characters personal story is instanced content, separate from the event system. None of the events in Guild Wars are mandatory you can ignore all of them to your heart's content - don't feel like escorting the merchant you can walk past him on the road. Don't want to help the farmer defend his flock from the wolves - you can go right on ahead and ignore it. So it's strange you would get hung up on that aspect of the game. If you wanted to run around and explore the open world going from zone to zone as you please you can go right ahead and do just that.
tormeh 4y ago
Calling Bethesda games "simulation" is a bizarre exaggeration. You mean the games where NPCs will let you rob them if only you place a bucket on their heads? That's a no from me. I don't think any games I've ever played did world-scale simulation well. I've heard good things about Dwarf Fortress, though. I'd rather have tightly constrained but well executed experience than an unconstrained experience where everything is dumb.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  DF simulation goes to crazy degrees of detail, that's the fun part in it. Even for combat where two ASCII characters are fighting they have actual physiology in play calculating hit locations and the effects of different weapons on different parts of the body and even internal organs. All for a line of text in a combat log most people won't read.
- uejfiweun 4y ago
  Wow, I clearly have a different view on games than you (nothing wrong with that of course). To be honest, I thought the bucket head on NPC thing was a fantastic example of how you can interact with the systems of that world in creative ways.

TillE 4y ago

Totally agree. It's the design philosophy of pick from a menu of scripted choices vs interact with a simulated world. I don't think Bethesda has ever quite lived up to that ambition even in the days of Daggerfall and Morrowind, but they have at least tried.

red-iron-pine 4y ago
Morrowind was pretty close. Clunky by modern standards, and I remember playing it on Xbox years ago and having no f-ing clue where to go or what to do -- a lot of GameFAQs helped -- but it really made it feel like a real world.

Isinlor 4y ago

I like simulation-like open world games, but Witcher 3 was one of the very few games with a good story. To be honest I think the only one that I cared about. Especially the bloody baron questline was amazing storytelling. Heart of Stone was also great story based on Polish ballad Mr. Twardowski. Cyberpunk is unfortunately nowhere near as good in terms of the story as the Witcher.

gambiting 4y ago
Hard disagree, cyberpunk had a fantastic story, compared to the witcher 3 that I've tried to finish about 4 separate times and failed every time - the side quests are fantastic, the main quest is just unbelievably dragged out and boring. Everyone mentions the blood baron quest - and yes, it was great, outstanding even. I've never seen anyone mention anything after that point - it's just a mess of narrative that gets in the way of some other great content in that game. Cyberpunk has great main quest and memorable side stories.
- Isinlor 4y ago
  I played the Witcher 3 twice trough leaving a small bit of the second expansion unfinished just because I don't want this game to end. I lost interest in Cyberpunk quite early. To me Cyberpunk is too American with overdone themes. Although the Cyberpunk anime is great. Simple story, but has really well put together characters and delivers emotional punch. I will have to try to get back to the game. Maybe on second try it will be better.
  - bsder 4y ago
    The Cyberpunk anime got the fact that the environment was a character while the video game didn't. A tremendously important point in the Cyberpunk anime was the fact that their world was really horrific to live in. You could live semi-miserably and go out in an untimely fashion--possibly even in a blaze of glory--or you live completely miserably and could go out in an untimely fashion with a whimper. Living well and pleasantly was really never on the table. Whereas, Cyberpunk the video game is the standard, kinda-generic power fantasy. You never really feel "oppressed" by the overall system as you're kind of outside it.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Frankly, I think they're both bad. CDPR gets a lot of stuff right, but their self-insistence on their world and storytelling is only rivaled by Final Fantasy. Cyberpunk's main quest feels like Fallout 4 with a fake veneer of moral ambiguity, and the sidequests are either penis-based or another car who wants to lecture me on their philosophy of the week. Almost every single mission in that game had me cringing, to the point that I'd mute the dialogue and still wince as I read the subtitles. It's... pure suck. As for my review of the gameplay... it's just Borderlands again. I can't be fooled like this, sorry. The Witcher 3 is weird, relative to Cyberpunk. I haven't finished it, but it's writing is a lot more grounded and less... bad. The gameplay feels clunky, though, and the pacing is completely fucked (cutscene -> fetch quest -> cutscene -> fight -> GOTO 0;). Neither of these games really deserve commendations for the way they handled questing, and even the most heralded RPG interactions like Dark Souls and New Vegas leave plenty of room for improvement.

deleted 4y ago

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Dalewyn 4y ago

I realized this rather spectacularly with MMORPGs. I've long been a fan of open world MMOs with basically next to no mandatory quests. Think Runescape, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory, etc. Loved them, and Ragnarok Online is to this day still among my top favorite games of all time. One day, Guild Wars 2 dropped to great hype and fanfare and I bought it to try it out. Good fucking god damn hell in a shit basket, I fucking hated it. Quests everywhere. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Quests. Walk around a bit? Here's a side quest! Pan the camera? Here please take this quest! No? How about this quest?! It is still the worst use of $60 bucks that I've ever spent.

TriangleCoconut 4y ago
OOT: You've just described my exact most memorable gaming experiences over the last two or so decades. I've been struggling to find something I liked enough of late. Would you mind sharing what you're into these days?
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Japanese mobile games, namely Fate/Grand Order and Princess Connect! Re:Dive. Playing on the Japanese home servers, mind, since I speak Japanese. (RIP English Priconne, Crunchyroll is bad civilization.) I don't have the kind of time or energy to devote to grinding anymore like I used to in RO and the like, but I'm always a sucker for good writing which FGO and Priconne give me in spades. And before anyone mentions it: Yeah yeah, they're gacha games. Gambling. I don't care. Japanese gachas are generally good, and I'm getting my money's worth when I whale. :V
tmtvl 4y ago
Some people prefer paying $60 for a blank canvas with some brushes and paint, others prefer a good book.
bigger_cheese 4y ago
As someone who likes Guild Wars 2 the game makes the distinction between quests (i.e. the Story) and Events which are constantly occurring in the world. As you wander through zones in the world dynamic events will spawn for example you might run into a merchant in need of an escort between villages or you'll run across a farmer who needs you to defend his flock or whatever. Many events are simply on a timer and some are triggered by specific actions you (or another player) have done elsewhere in the world. The events can be simply once off events or they can be more complex with multiple states. I.e. an event can spawn where a bunch of npc soldiers want to take back a mine from monsters - players can escort them to the mine help them clear it out. If successful then later on other NPC's will move into the mine new vendors will become accessible etc. Later still the monsters will congregate and launch a new offensive to retake the mine an event will spawn to help defend the new settlement. I like the feeling this gives the world. For me at least it makes the game world feel like it's fresh and things are constantly happening even when your character is not around the world is alive and things are changing all of the time. This is different from my experience playing an mmo like World of Warcraft, which had static NPC quest givers in zones and once you'd done the content, which tended to be stuff like kill 15 of this enemy and then report back to me - there was little reason to revisit the zone again. The questline in guild wars 2 which reveals the larger narrative and your characters personal story is instanced content, separate from the event system. None of the events in Guild Wars are mandatory you can ignore all of them to your heart's content - don't feel like escorting the merchant you can walk past him on the road. Don't want to help the farmer defend his flock from the wolves - you can go right on ahead and ignore it. So it's strange you would get hung up on that aspect of the game. If you wanted to run around and explore the open world going from zone to zone as you please you can go right ahead and do just that.

tormeh 4y ago

Calling Bethesda games "simulation" is a bizarre exaggeration. You mean the games where NPCs will let you rob them if only you place a bucket on their heads? That's a no from me. I don't think any games I've ever played did world-scale simulation well. I've heard good things about Dwarf Fortress, though. I'd rather have tightly constrained but well executed experience than an unconstrained experience where everything is dumb.

theshrike79 4y ago
DF simulation goes to crazy degrees of detail, that's the fun part in it. Even for combat where two ASCII characters are fighting they have actual physiology in play calculating hit locations and the effects of different weapons on different parts of the body and even internal organs. All for a line of text in a combat log most people won't read.
uejfiweun 4y ago
Wow, I clearly have a different view on games than you (nothing wrong with that of course). To be honest, I thought the bucket head on NPC thing was a fantastic example of how you can interact with the systems of that world in creative ways.