3 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Is this character more like Shale (a complete character with a full set of conversations), or more like Zaeed (a shell of a character with nothing to say when you talk to him)?

Naturally, I'm hoping for someone like Shale.

[John Epler]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

Felfenix wrote...

My only issue with these sorts of things is that they purposely withhold content just to charge more...

This, makes one wonder how many quests are going to be cut out of the game just to be readded as paid DLC later on. Gotta love the new EA Bioware.  

Except this isn't what we're doing. This isn't something we've ever done, at any point. I know many people are convinced that whenever we mention any kind of DLC that's released near the on-disc product that it's stuff we just tore out of the main game to sell for an extra price, but that's not true. DLC of any sort is budgeted and worked on in a completely separate fashion from the main game. For the most part, we need to be completely locked down content-wise a good two or three months in advance. More is preferable, of course, but there's a minimum of at least a month and a half.

Anything and everything that's worked on as PRC is both budgeted and worked on completely separately from the main game. Sometimes, the timelines intersect a bit - writers tend to be done with the game a little sooner than anyone else, so they've got some downtime to write dialogue and such. But we've never gone in and stripped something from the main game just so we could sell it after the fact. As it is, most of our projects end up in a lot of 14 hour days and long weekends at the office just so we can finish what you're actually getting on the disc. Nevermind extra content for us to cut so we can later repackage it and resell it. That just doesn't happen.

Of course, I work for the company, so I'm certain some people wouldn't believe me if I told them rain is wet. That's their prerogative! For the rest, though, I figured I'd chime in and dispel some of the fears.

[John Epler]

Esbatty wrote...

I appreciate the response, and fully understand. Sometimes people just think they got designers, writers, and coders in crates typing away at the keyboards while big pocketed money men bark orders at ya'll that they think will make them more money.

Money Man #1: Bigger Jugs!
Designer: Yessir!
Money Man #2: Put two more barrels on that gun! My lazy punk kid loved that crap in the 90's. Now he just kisses his roommate when he thinks I'm not lookin' when I go over with my wife for dinner.
Designer: Uhh... okay, sir.
Money Man #1: I'm talkin' like casabah melons, ya iPod swillin' hippie!
Designer: But sir, I'm running low on Ramen... my vision is blurring.
Money Man #2: I'm tellin' ya they'll pay an extra 10 bucks for downloadable jiggle physics like that volleyball game from that fightin' game with the bikinis and no actual fighting.
Designer: Yessir.... I pray for death.

I don't really blame people for believing the worst, to be honest. Game development isn't a very transparent process - the idea that we can be adding content until the day before a game hits the shelves is a fairly pervasive one, and that's partially because the average gamer doesn't know about things like certification times, content lockdown, all that wonderful stuff.

If I didn't work for a developer, I don't know if I'd necessarily understand all that myself. I like to think I'd give people the benefit of the doubt - but who knows? I might be one of the folks readying the pitchforks and torches as soon as news like this came out. And that's partially on the shoulders of the developers - we need to be a little more transparent about how the process works. Because it's very, very easy to see 'new content available at or close to launch' and immediately assume 'they cut it to sell it for more money!' It's not true (at least not for BioWare), and never has been (nor, I imagine, never will be) true, but it's certainly the easiest conclusion to jump to.

[John Epler]

Wulfram wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...


How is screwing you over? They made content on a different budget with a different time table.

All that means is that the decision to keep this content out of the game happened earlier in the process. 

It's irrelevant whether they made the content then decided "Hey, let's only give that to people prepared to buy a pig in a poke", or whether they first decided "Hey, let's make part of the game only available to people prepared to buy based on rubbish screenshots and shaky videos we keep telling people to ignore" and then made it.

Except the decision isn't between 'do we release this as DLC' and 'do we put it on disk', but rather 'do we release this as DLC' and 'do we not release it'. We do not have unlimited time and resources. We cannot simply put every piece of content we can think of on-disc, as it's not being completed during the development process. There is, simply, never enough time to do everything you want to - otherwise, if you decide to add every bit of content you can think of to the on-disc product, you're never going to release your game.

It's fine if you don't believe me, or don't agree with me - that's cool! Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But at this point, it seems obvious that debating this with you is pointless, and so I will withdraw from this discussion.