Every time you open your mouth about games it's a flood of forgotten memories. Holy shit dude. Cyberpunk 2020. That's some straight-up Walter Jon Williams shit right there. As far as the parties: As I recall, you're a Feynman fan. Feynman loved parties because he refused to acknowledge the awkwardness which means he was never awkward. Eccentric? Surely. Brilliant? Without a doubt. But I think we can agree that Feynman was on a different level than most people at the parties he went to and not only did he go to them regularly, he thrived there. An observation? You're deeply passionate about the things that interest you. However, you assume that it's impossible for the people around you to be passionate about those things as well. You're young; you've been surrounded by children most of your life and children are cruel because they can be. They explore the limits and effects of cruelty on each other in order to calibrate. Adults are calibrated. And they can smell fear. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a giant nerd. Carl Sagan was a giant nerd. What they have in common is a passion for engaging other people where their nerdiness lies. Your task, the next time you go to a party (you will go to a party) is to figure out a way to explain your weather simulations to average ordinary people in such a way that they understand how cool it is. Your problem right now is that you know down to your very bones that it's only cool to you and that makes your position defiant and insular. The nerd that plays with action figures by himself is a loner. The nerd that influences others into playing with action figures through his charisma and enthusiasm is a leader. We all predict the dialogue flow without thinking. That's the point - we're not thinking, we're having fun. We all find the drama and social structures transparent. They are the framework within which we explore each other to find the stuff we don't know. It's supposed to be effortless. Then you can expend your efforts on important stuff, like getting laid.It's a choice between Cyberpunk 2020 and Earthdawn.
I really, really hope you also know about Cyberpunk 2077? CD Projekt Red (the guys behind The Witcher series, and probably the best game developers alive now) have not released anything besides that 4 year old trailer and that it's going to be an RPG, but they are most definitely still working on it. I am SO hyped for this game. edit: Oh and this tidbit of info.
Trailers are easy. gameplay is hard. Watching that was like observing the Stations of the Cross: First we stand at the Shrine of Zhora. Then we bow before the Ghost in the Shell Geisha. We nod in passing to Molly from Neuromancer. Then we prostrate ourselves before Judge Dredd. It's what ultimately doomed cyberpunk - the early works were about the uneasy assimilation of technology by the fringe and what it would do to society. It became about the fashion; Outland is every bit the Western High Noon was, despite the fact that it's set on one of Saturn's moons. There already is a cyberpunk video game. It's called Mirror's Edge. And just like the early cyberpunk, it was necessary to adapt to different mechanics in order to make the gameplay interesting. It's what ultimately doomed the Matrix series to the dustbin of history; they plumbed all the tropes of cyberpunk but wrapped them around a garden-variety messiah narrative in order to make it accessible to the general public but that easily-accessible messiah narrative is boring and the cyberpunk tropes are no longer fresh. Roy Batty is a toddler now.
If the witcher series is any indication 2077 is going to be largely about the morality of the various shitty decisions you have to make in a world where cybernetics create inequity. I really like the development company, CDPR, and think they could do great things for the cyberpunk genre. Mechanically, I liked Mirror's Edge - it used interesting mechanics that weren't all fighting. But as far as it's merit as a sci-fi story, I don't think it had much. I played ME1 in college a lot and couldn't even paint the story back in broad strokes today (time trials were fun though.) But based on their past works, I think CDPR will avoid the pitfall. The witcher games were all about non-black and white moral decisions. It wasn't, "do you want to hug or punch this baby?" it was more, "do you want to save these children from getting eaten, or save that village from a wrathful spirit?" I feel like they get story.
I fully agree and for all we know it could be a total dud. But if any developer can pull it off it's CD Projekt Red. The whole reason The Witcher 3 is so great is because it perfectly blends an open world RPG and interesting combat with great storylines. And The Witcher's world, characters, stories and themes are faithfully adapted from a fantasy book series and expanded upon. If TW3 is anything to go by, this will be to Mirror's Edge what Mirror's Edge is to Superhot.