I think your analogy is too narrow.
It's more like that there's an (inflated) object and people in two teams are running around putting it into something.
It could indeed be football.
Or basketball, handball, american football, gaelic football, rugby, field hockey, ice hockey,…

Well, I personally just trust CDPR at this point. They haven't given me a reason not to trust them that it's going to be an RPG.
However I know that my trust might be disappointed. The game after CP77 won't be a pre-order for me then.

Don't forget, the character, story and lore didn't have much to do with CDP anyway, they are all concepts drawn mostly from an existing framework. A bit like dev who makes Game of Thrones games that 'have good story at least' etc.

Cyberpunk is a different property entirely taking a completely different source material as its inspiration. If you're only enjoyment of Witcher was the elements they didn't really have to create themselves then you could be setting yourself up for disappointment if you're following a developer instead of a taste preference.

True.

But IMO, CDProjekt version of The Witcher 3 is a better version of Geralt and company than the books. At least from what I've read… just a few stories.

Book-Witcher is scattered feeling. Geralt isn't very likable. He barely has a personality. But I have not read all the books.

I can't say I trust them necessarily. They made one great game. But from what I've seen of Cyberpunk (that name sounds so old-timey) I'll end up playing it. Will likely wait for release reviews. But Skillup (I think) on Youtube has some very positive pre-release impressions after six hours. That guy is pretty good, but he does get kind of "excited" about some games that I just don't feel… Most games don't really do much for me. I'm pretty picky. Especially when it's gonna be a 50 hour game… If I'm not really, really absorbed? I'll never finish it.

Anyway, at least mechanically, Cyberpunk looks very well done. We'll see I guess.

W3 had a magic to it via Geralt. He was just bitter, cynical and "been-there, done-that" to cut through the High Fantasy tropes and gobbledegook. It made me enjoy the tropes and gobbledegook even more! I hope the main character in Cyberpunk can have some of the same "distance" from the criminal gangs, the cops, the politicians, the citizens, etc that Geralt had. Or at least some of it. Geralt managed all that without breaking the fourth wall. He really was the "electrolyte" in the game that allowed me to suspend my disbelief and become a part of the world. Elves, Dwarves, Sorcerers, Kings, Bandits? I've seen it all, too, time and time again. Just like Geralt.

I watched the recent demo on a youtube video, and it wasn't that great.

The game looks a bit too "gangsta" if you ask me.

Also, I hate the main character guy's voice. No way in hell would I play through the whole game listening to that lame voice. So I will have to play as the female character, which I'm cool with.

But overall, that demo was somewhat "meh". Maybe it didn't show off the game properly (I hope)

I think somewhere (can't find it anymore, I think an interview with some CDP dev), they acknowledged that complaint, and said they aim for a slighty shorter, better paced main story for CP2077.

In terms of lore and worldbuilding, I agree to a large extent. CDP added a few bits and pieces but most of it was already there.
In terms of characters, the situation is similar. I'd still note that some interesting characters have been introduced by CDP. The Bloody Baron, Letho, Johnny.

In terms of the actual story covered in the game I disagree. That's not covered in the novels. Sure, the novels are a pretext for the games' story. But that's it.
Similarly, I think a Game of Thrones game could make a claim on having come up with their own, good story, depending on whether they cover the same material as the books & films.

If they kept on giving me add-ons with the same quality as HoS and BaW I don't think I would have stopped till now. :D

I'd say that they made three games, clearly improving each time with the last game being superb.
Of course they won't be able to increase quality by the same margin again. And with CP77 the preconditions are different. I don't even expect it to be as good as TW3.
Still I trust them enough to expect that I'll at least like the game and to take the risk to have it preordered.

I think that's debatable. Personally, I liked all the Witcher games almost equally, and there are certain aspects in the TW1 and TW2 that were done better than they were in TW3. The third game sold more of course, but it was also more mainstream and better marketed than the prior games.

As far as the length, yeah, TW3 can be overwhelming. I think it's important to remember though that how much time it takes depends largely on the player. I bet many of those people complaining that it was too long are also the same OCD types who feel compelled to do a lot of things they don't have to do.

Witcher 2 and 3, ok, different qualities in each of them. But Witcher 1… that was a large step below them. Witcher 1 was good at the time, but replaying it after a few years was really painful.

It was their first game and it was 2007. Like you said, good at the time, and that's the only way it should be judged.

If you mean production values, sure. Anything else is subjective. I still think TW1 has the best soundtrack of the three, and the alchemy system was better by far. They really dumbed-down the alchemy in the later games.

You're right. It's debatable and subjective.
It's still true for me personally.

Ok, fair enough.

But I don't see production values so much as the problem, really (which I would understand to be anything like landscape design, graphics, voice overs, sound track).

My main problems were QoL and Gameplay. The combat system was fairly odd, and you needed to go running back and forth between areas / maps, incessantly.

And the story telling just wasn't that … I dunno … fluid?

Personally I loved Witcher 1, though mostly due to the storytelling. Yes I did go back to replay it and found that parts hadn’t aged well, particularly the combat. But it’s still probably my favorite and has things that I wish they had kept in later games.

I had a lot more issues with W2. A lot of parts were dumbed down and I didn’t like the story or storytelling style. W3 I really liked though.

Train, taxi, subway, teleport ( who knows it’s the future.)

I don’t have a problem with vehicles for going from point A to point B. I’m just not interested in car chases, car shoot-outs, racing a gang member for pink slips, drive your car to x spot on the map in 30 seconds or fail the mission, etc.

I like racing games. I used to really enjoy crashing up my car in burnout or trying to evade cops in need for speed but I don’t like it in my other games. It never seems to be executed very well. Especially if they want to emphasize immersion. Eventually you will crash or run over someone and either no one will care or you’ll waste your time driving to the other side of town to wait for police agro to fade.

Maybe they could do what they did with horses in the Witcher and just let me press a key and the car will take me there.