194 réponses à ce sujet

[Sarevok Anchev]

I cant understand how some people can just shrug thei shoulders and say that this is fine!
Why are you playing such an RPG and no Action-game?
Its about the story, the world, the atmosphere.
And then there walks a NPC along and talks about buying Add-Ons!
Hello???
That really sucks!
Sure thats no reason for me to not buy the game, but I will - right now - say in at least this post, that i really dislike even to imagine this situation.
Theres more than enough Ads and commercials for this game:
- installation screen
- EA account
- Dragon Age website
- Ads on gaming sites

and people arent stupid. They will like this game and they know for the DLC's.
Theres no need for such methods.

The game is more than enough corrupted by the Darkspawn.
No need for EA-spawn corruptive blights.

Modifié par Sarevok Anchev, 25 octobre 2009 - 10:26 .

[thheNO]

This is taking the beggars in Oblivion to a whole new level.



"Hello, do you got any money? Sure you can give me some, so you get some news. NEWS: Go to store and buy DLC; it's really awsome"

[slmisfit]

Ekardt wrote...
Too many people want too many different things. How many extra DLC sales will they make with this as opposed to how many they will end up losing? By doing this they can only increase profits in the long run, and I applaud EA/BioWare for coming up with such a great marketing technique.

Yes, but having the DLC tab on the main menu screen flash when there's new DLC available, or having a message pop up on the main menu telling you new DLC is available, is much more acceptable than having this in-game NPC running around. Both would get your attention, but one is more insulting and annoying than the other. I don't think any of us are forgetting that Bioware/EA is a company that need to make money to stay afloat, but doing it this way is just... ugh. Very frustrating. <_<

Modifié par blasphemae, 25 octobre 2009 - 10:31 .

[Nighteye2]

Lucy_Glitter wrote...
 As in, they tell you about a new quest and then proceed tell you to go buy it from the online store. 


What the? Look, I am not usually like this, really, I am usually polite. First, the surveys rewarding in-game content, and now this. Can you tell EA to get knotted? Because you appear to have upset quite a few people, including me. Why would I want some NPC telling me to give them money and break all my immersion? This isn't a store and frankly I find it pretty depressing that was even considered in the first place.

I don't like getting all, "disgruntled customer" on anyone, and nor have I actually, ever done this before but this just got me. I am so confused and weirded out by this notion, and I want to know why this was done.

We don't know how exactly it's done. The NPCs may not break the 4th wall, if they don't tell you about the DLC - instead, just getting a pop-up about the DLC would work better. They may have taken that approach.

Anyway, I'd still prefer to have no ingame DLC sales.

[Ekardt]

jeckaldied wrote...


Putting giant writing in the sky "visit bioware.com for dlc news" would make more people aware of dlc, even more than an npc, why don't they do that then? The history of anything shows that any large orginization will push the boundries as much as possible, frankly, I want to show them that I think this boundry should be stopped here.

Because the way they designed it like this, it will only break immersion for a tiny fraction of really picky people. The boundaries will never stop, they will keep pushing and pushing and pushing, long after all of us and our children are dead. Thats how the world and business work.

Eveyrone is completely overexaggerating these NPCs. It seems like people are under the impression that the NPCs are going to either run screaming at you going "IF YOU DONT BUY THIS DLC MY WHOLE FAMILY WILL DIE PLEASE HELP!" or actually trick you into buying the DLC. The BioWare staff have commented that these NPCs will hardly be either of those, that their sole purpose is to simply let more people know about interesting new DLC that might be worth a purchase. Im pretty sure the devs have even hinted at there being an option in the menus to disable these NPCs.

[Lord Thing]

Ferret A Baudoin



To clear up a few things.



Fernando's statement that the sales transaction is immersion breaking (and should be) and my statement that the questgiver is very immersive aren't contradictory (as has been pointed out). The dialog, character, etc. are all firmly in world. It's just the mechanics of buying the DLC that is GUI-rific and makes it clear you're about to spend money.



Warden's Keep was devised and implemented by a completely separate team and it had no relation to anything the main team was working on. We started work on it at a time when things were getting to increasing levels of locked down in the main game - somewhere before we needed the Bat Signal and a signed order from the Prime Minister to unlock a resource. The questgiver is in a separate module and with scripting mojo he's inserted into the main game.



In many respects our team is the first modders, and it's been fun and challenging working out the kinks in the system. And the end result is we created some fun content and also (and possibly more importantly) we've made it easier for the community to make their own adventures.



As far as the advertising nature of the DLC questgiver - I ask you to play with an open mind. The questgiver isn't a shill, he's hopefully an engaging character with a problem and an opportunity for the PC. From my perspective there are many games I'm more than happy to pay for DLC to expand my game experience, and what we've done is made it so that everyone has an opportunity to know that there's more stuff available.



That awareness is something that I wager everyone on this forum would find redundant - but there are a huge number of RPGers out there that don't read daily gaming news, subscribe to our newsletter, or visit us here. This way everyone is informed and can decide yay or nay on having some further adventures.



When you see it in action, let us know what you think. Although, please try to do so in a civil manner. We earnestly care about making your experience great. No foolin'.

This is a dev quote from this thread.



I don't have much else to say right now, cos setting up NUnit Tests for an assignment has me in a really foul mood <_<

[MrGOH]

I thought folks had come to terms with this, but apparently I was incorrect.



For the record: only 2 NPC's who sell DLC are in the vanilla game, and they're connected with the Stone Prisoner (which nearly everyone here will get for free and will thus never see this particular purveyor of extra content) and Warden's Keep. Subsequent DLC NPC's will have to be patched in - if Bioware wises up to the uproar on the net over these DLC salesNPC's, the player will be able to switch off any updates which add DLC salesmen into the game.



My prediction is that this method of DLC sales is here to stay - hatred of it may be intense, but I suspect NPC's making sales pitches will only amount to a minor irritation for the vast majority of players. That's not to say the Sturm und Drang over this issue is unwarranted, just that lamentations about the state of gaming and corporate greed don't tell EA's marketing people anything new - everyone knows that people hate being overtly marketed to, regardless whether such methods work.

[Ekardt]

Sarevok Anchev wrote...

and people arent stupid. They will like this game and they know for the DLC's.
Theres no need for such methods.

Actually, the general populace (of America at least) are quite stupid. To think otherwise is just ignorant bliss, no offence meant.

60% of the people who buy this game will never visit this or any other Dragon Age related website, and a huge portion of that 60% will simply ignore the DLC tab on the main menu, even if it is flashing saying "New DLC!"

I know tons of people that simply dont care for DLC and downright refuse to give it a try. If there are NPCs in the world to explain to you what the DLC is about there are plenty of people that will go "Well hmm, it does sound interesting and if this guy is telling me about it it must be pretty good. Lets give it a try"

The only instance where I can think of these NPCs being completely morally wrong and corrupt is if BioWare makes poopy DLC. if thats the case, ill personally come to the forum and apologize to all of you and submit to your superiority. Ill even bring my own pitchfork.


EDIT: Also, MrGOH, you sir are like a much older version of myself. You have held and continue to hold my respect, comrade.

Modifié par Ekardt, 25 octobre 2009 - 10:47 .

[Sarevok Anchev]

C'mon! ten years ago i would have agreed with the dev.

But who play today such a game will know more than enough about the worldwideweb.

Dont forget the registering of the game. Thats the location where EA/Bioware should

give some informations for new stuff ("do you want to sign for the Dragon Age newslatter?" y/n)



At least "experienced" players should get the option to turn this dialog-part off.

For me this has no place in a single-player camapign.

[Ekardt]

The devs hinted heavily in a thread awhile back about adding a toggle to turn these NPCs off. I wouldnt fret too much.

[Hamarabi2006]

This topic is already going in the other forum, but I'll post my two cents here as well just for prosperity. *chuckle*
***************

I am disheartened to find so many rude people in this thread. It makes me wonder if some of you are really EA representatives in disguise by the way you are acting. You come to this discussion about a worthy topic and whine about people whining and that makes you hypocrites. WOW!

I am vehemently opposed to an in-game "DLC Merchant / EA Salesman" because I feel that it is a despicable marketing invasion that should never be tolerated by the consumer else it careen out of control.

Indeed, advertisements are getting out of control. For example, I went to Game Trailers the other day and clicked on a trailer only to be presented with an advertisement about another game before I could view the trailer. Aren't the trailers themselves advertisements? Why am I forced to endure an advertisement within an advertisement (you can't even skip the ad)? That's right, get into people's face with over saturated advertising and see what it gets you. This makes me not want to go to that site ever again.

I hate advertisements in the middle of the entertainment that I already paid for and I agree that the simple act of consciously ignoring an NPC is still breaking immersion. How would you like it if a character from your favorite movie started advertising in the middle of a dramatic scene of that movie!? I know that I will see the NPC DLC Merchant and think to myself, "OMG! There's that EA telemarketer / Salesman again!" and will no longer be immersed. I will be irritated.

How many of these Salesmen will be in the game? Just one to start, but will they start sprouting up all over the place in the future? Would 1 out of every 5 NPCs be DLC merchants? Will they eventually start advertising other EA games or merchandise? EA will push this as far as customers will tolerate, therefore, it is important to voice your opinions now. Do not let this get any further out of control.

Let's face it, EA does not give one iota about anything other than profit and they are experimenting with ways to procure more of it. They are pushing the limits of their customers to see how far they can go. They take away 5 bushels of apples and give you back 3. The people think they won a victory, but they still got screwed. Do not forget that they implemented a $50 rental system for ME PC using DRM just recently, though the backlash did prove damaging to their bottom line, temporarily, all it took was for them to remove the frequent phone home requirement and even though the unethical business practice of limited installs was still in effect, the masses of stupid people rejoiced. How does it feel to be hustled?

I think the people that EA is trying to reach are not interested in story or talking to NPCs in the least. They are interested in exploring and hack and slash game-play and would not likely even approach the DLC merchant. On the other hand, people that would be interested talking to every NPC and savoring every moment of the game, story, dialogue, voice acting, quests, etc, are the ones that would already buy the DLC in the first place and are fully aware of its existence.

MMOs have advertising in the main menu and I have been able to tolerate this without much trouble. While the game is checking for patches it downloads any news items and advertising the developers/producers want to display. People are forced to see it, before they even start playing but it doesn't effect the game-play. There's no reason why this wouldn't work for Dragon Age.

Modifié par Hamarabi2006, 25 octobre 2009 - 10:54 .

[Churchdown Yank]

...
Actually, the general populace (of America at least) are quite stupid. To think otherwise is just ignorant bliss, no offence meant...

None taken, but you're wrong.  I lived in the U.S. for 30 years.  For the last 8 I've lived, worked and travelled in Europe and other parts of the world...  People in the U.S. aren't any stupider or more ignorant than most other places.

[Zilod]

Ekardt wrote...

jeckaldied wrote...


Putting giant writing in the sky "visit bioware.com for dlc news" would make more people aware of dlc, even more than an npc, why don't they do that then? The history of anything shows that any large orginization will push the boundries as much as possible, frankly, I want to show them that I think this boundry should be stopped here.

Because the way they designed it like this, it will only break immersion for a tiny fraction of really picky people. The boundaries will never stop, they will keep pushing and pushing and pushing, long after all of us and our children are dead. Thats how the world and business work.

Eveyrone is completely overexaggerating these NPCs. It seems like people are under the impression that the NPCs are going to either run screaming at you going "IF YOU DONT BUY THIS DLC MY WHOLE FAMILY WILL DIE PLEASE HELP!" or actually trick you into buying the DLC. The BioWare staff have commented that these NPCs will hardly be either of those, that their sole purpose is to simply let more people know about interesting new DLC that might be worth a purchase. Im pretty sure the devs have even hinted at there being an option in the menus to disable these NPCs.

is not to be picky... is like if you purchase a ppv and in the middle of the action here that it is stopped by the adv... really i alredy payed for the game why i should get such things?

and maybe the chars atm is not that intrusive but if it will become something usual i really see in the future something like the guy screaming "IF YOU DONT BUY THIS DLC MY WHOLE FAMILY WILL DIE PLEASE HELP!"

this is just a bad way to do business and to try to profit by everymean you have at your disposal whitout bothering about the end user.

if they just want to let people know that there is a new dlc, put a damn adv on the menu... new dlc? here that a the a dlc button will blink telling you what new awesome dlc is available whitout having dumb npcs running around the world and bothering you about the dlc just before you about to fight a dragon

[Sarevok Anchev]

Thx for the info

Now it wont be necessary to send EA/Bioware my package with 1000 Killer-Boo's in it *g

[Ekardt]

I still say that they will make much more money than they will lose with these NPCs, and personally, I say more power to BioWare. Id like them to make as much money as possible, we're already underpaying them for the game. Compared to how much content is in a standard retail game these days, Dragon age is worth about 200 dollars or so.

[Ekardt]

Churchdown Yank wrote...

...
Actually, the general populace (of America at least) are quite stupid. To think otherwise is just ignorant bliss, no offence meant...

None taken, but you're wrong.  I lived in the U.S. for 30 years.  For the last 8 I've lived, worked and travelled in Europe and other parts of the world...  People in the U.S. aren't any stupider or more ignorant than most other places.

I think you misunderstood, ive never left the U.S.    i was speaking for what I know, the rest of the world could very well be equally as stupid, but I wouldnt really know so I didnt speak for it.

[Lucy Glitter]

Everyone hates frequent, irritating ads on radio stations and television. People just get too tired of caring, and that's sad. I don't want to become someone who is too tired to care about something like this. Why do I want an advertisement in my actual game? I have enough of it elsewhere.

Games are meant to put you somewhere else, away from a world full of people asking you for money... so on so fourth. I reiterate, why do I want an ad in my game? 

Modifié par Lucy_Glitter, 25 octobre 2009 - 11:04 .

[KethWolfheart]

I hate advertisement in games. How would you like to pay to go to a movie and halfway through one the characters on the movie turns and says, for an extra $15 you can get this added cut scene?



I agree with that dev post that they want to get the word out - but why not do it at the start up menu or when you launch the game? Then you let people know but it is not in the game.



Ads have gone way out of control and this just isn't right. We are already paying for the game - we shouldn't be getting ads in-game period.

[Arttis]

All we ask is a game that does not do anything to make us annoyed or something like that in a moderate or major way.Ads has always been that moderate annoyance.An npc that tells you to buy something when you expect to get a quest or something interesting is kinda annoying...Some people are more sensitive to things then others things.Some people play games for a certain reason while others may do it for another reason.Some people just do not like people complaining because it is annoying to them and they think everyone should just go with the flow and be happy with what you have.Many ways we can all avoid the things that annoy us,but how many would do it?

Oh well...people will always disagree and argue...

[Ekardt]

I love you as much as I could possibly love a random Dragon Age forumite, Lucy; truly I do. But Video Games have been traveling down this path for a while now, and to think that its going to change any time soon is false hope. Its going to continue, and its going to get worse. You can accept it and try to adapt or fight it and lose.

Ive got some extra squee if you need cheering up. How about a facepalm for the video game industry, Lucy?

[q0rra]

Oh boy, I wasn't even aware of this.

I wonder how it'll sound with voice-overs :X

[Varenus Luckmann]

Wait.. are you people saying that there's actually an NPC in Dragon Age: Origins that tell you to go download the DLCs on a site?

That'd just be beyond retarded. If that's true, it's a definite deal-breaker. Not because it's horrible in it's own right, but because it's just horribly, horribly bad taste to put it in an RPG.

And someone said that "Bioware won't change now that EA owns them! They'll have more OPTIONS to do what they want with their games!". Poor saps.

[Lucy Glitter]

Ekardt wrote...

I love you as much as I could possibly love a random Dragon Age forumite, Lucy; truly I do. But Video Games have been traveling down this path for a while now, and to think that its going to change any time soon is false hope. Its going to continue, and its going to get worse. You can accept it and try to adapt or fight it and lose.
Ive got some extra squee if you need cheering up. How about a facepalm for the video game industry, Lucy?

It's hard to accept it, though. Very, very hard.  I can see why you don't mind it, and I can see why you can see it as a good marketing strategy. I could go on and on about how much I hate the amount of ads in comic books, the 15 minute ad breaks. See, in China, they have this policy that ads have to be short (about 3 seconds) so they are straight to the point and then they go away and leave you alone. Don't people say that Asia are pretty ahead with some elements? They offer stress-less version of advertisements. Why can't DA have a pop up? It would serve the exact same purpose and I can imagine the same amount of people will buy the said DLC. I don't want the DA Shamwow  popping up and trying to beat Leliana or Morrigan to a pulp. It's also irritating how they didn't tell us before. 

I would like some squee and perhaps a facepalm on the side, Ekardt. <3



p.s I made a poll! http://social.biowar...1066/polls/297/

Modifié par Lucy_Glitter, 25 octobre 2009 - 11:16 .

[Nekator]

Ekardt wrote...

I love you as much as I could possibly love a random Dragon Age forumite, Lucy; truly I do. But Video Games have been traveling down this path for a while now, and to think that its going to change any time soon is false hope. Its going to continue, and its going to get worse. You can accept it and try to adapt or fight it and lose.
Ive got some extra squee if you need cheering up. How about a facepalm for the video game industry, Lucy?

Mhm.. accepting this with such an "we can´t do anything about it" attitude is probably the worst one can do.. then it will really only going to get worse.