286 réponses à ce sujet

[Cainne Chapel]

I dont think that argument that "DLC should of been included and dev cycle should of been longer" really holds water. If that was the case, there'd never been any additional content for any games and every game would take +1 year to make as they just keep packing things in.

Its not feasible. From a developer or business stand point. As it is, you would have to assume in order to make deadlines, content has to be cut, a lot of times its minor things you never notice. But as for LOTSB and Arrival, they're releases were 9 months to almost 14 months after release. So to say that a longer dev cycle would have attributed to those two missions being in the game is a bit silly.

Both of those missions were clearly made after the game was wrapped up, which is easy enough to tell. As I highly doubt it takes the team 14 months to make an 1-2hr mission.

That said, it just seems like arguing for arguments sake over DLC in general.

As an aside I can understand you not liking "choices" made for you. Unfortunately for the sake of their story they're going to assume choices were made in any case. Really no helping that. Their story moves ahead at the pace they want it. Just like you cant change the fact that shepard is human, a spectre, alliance special ops and now a former cerberus agent.. you cant change the fact that the outcomes of arrival and LOTSB bridge some minor gap between ME2 and ME3.

Story wise it may not be to your liking, but *shrugs* no one likes EVERYTHING now do they?

[Homebound]

me3 consequences, the blackbox gets released and the alliance's rep gets pwned, zaeed is now a potential boss enemy, and liara is still shadowbroker no matter what.

[Sheppard-Commander]

InviolateNK wrote...

LuPoM wrote...

Well Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival are pretty relevant for the story!
Atleast try those, I'm not a "money cow" aswell but those, plus Overlord and Kasumi deserved my money.

Zaeed and Hammerhead were free, I wonder why you even mentioned Zaeed there oO

They weren't exactly free, their part of the collector's or digital deluxe edition.

Can we stop posting erroneous information like this? Thats wrong, Zaeed/Hammerhead are "free" if you have a valid Cerberus Network code redeemed, which comes free with any new purchase of ME2. It has absolutely nothing to do with better-than standard editions of the game. If you purchased ME2 second hand, you will need to buy access to CN which is $15 USD if I remember correctly. (Ah...spending money just so you can spend more money.)

Abispa wrote...

He may have bought the games used.

It would be hypocritical for anyone who defends the idea of buying DLC to then criticize someone else for not buying them. It's the player's money, the player can decided how s/he wants to spend it, or not.

As for LotSB, I'm interested to see if that *spoiler* that happens to Liara happens without Shepard's help if you don't play it. That could have an interesting effect on their relationship.

Err...no. thats not hypocritical. nonsensical yes, as its not their own money and people are obviously free to make their own decisions regarding their own property. Hypocrisy means criticizing someone for something, and then doing the very thing you are criticizing them for.

Modifié par Sheppard-Commander, 01 juillet 2011 - 07:48 .

[Sheppard-Commander]

Cainne Chapel wrote...

I dont think that argument that "DLC should of been included and dev cycle should of been longer" really holds water. If that was the case, there'd never been any additional content for any games and every game would take +1 year to make as they just keep packing things in.

Its not feasible. From a developer or business stand point. As it is, you would have to assume in order to make deadlines, content has to be cut, a lot of times its minor things you never notice. But as for LOTSB and Arrival, they're releases were 9 months to almost 14 months after release. So to say that a longer dev cycle would have attributed to those two missions being in the game is a bit silly.

Both of those missions were clearly made after the game was wrapped up, which is easy enough to tell. As I highly doubt it takes the team 14 months to make an 1-2hr mission.

That said, it just seems like arguing for arguments sake over DLC in general.

As an aside I can understand you not liking "choices" made for you. Unfortunately for the sake of their story they're going to assume choices were made in any case. Really no helping that. Their story moves ahead at the pace they want it. Just like you cant change the fact that shepard is human, a spectre, alliance special ops and now a former cerberus agent.. you cant change the fact that the outcomes of arrival and LOTSB bridge some minor gap between ME2 and ME3.

Story wise it may not be to your liking, but *shrugs* no one likes EVERYTHING now do they?

Umm...ME3 was announced in December 2010. It will be released in March 2012. Count the months. And thats the announcement...ME3 has almost certainly been in development longer than Dec '10.

Your arguement is pretty funny. I recall a game called Morrowind that I bought for less money and managed to get several times over per playthrough the hours spent played as I do through a ME2 playthrough even with all of the DLC's. It has less to do with not being feasible as it does corporations seeing the opportunity to nickle & dime gamers without end, and that mindset has expanded to even the core game now. Gamers (like you) accept and excuse games that fall short on content, so the corporations are content to keep squeezing gamers' pockets while offering less and less content for money spent. Less work for them, while still pulling in the same coin for core games means more coin in their pockets, this is also the case with micro-transaction content that amounts to 1-2 hours of play at most.

So long as we keep giving tacit approval of these practices, we will keep getting less value for our money spent. But I dont have much room to say anything...like I said, I bought the DLC's, so they got my money too. A point will come though where I will not pay even if I very much want to see the content...like with the alternate appearance packs, those are so trivial that they really should have been added to a mission DLC to given them a minor bump in value, but no they where given individual price tags.

Modifié par Sheppard-Commander, 01 juillet 2011 - 08:03 .

[littlezack]

The first time I played ME2, I  couldn't get any of the DLC. I still felt it was a very complete product. The DLC was nice, but ultimately just added stuff. I didn't feel like the game was missing Zaeed or Kasumi. They were fun characters, but hardly nescessary.

For me, that's how DLC should be - fun stuff to tinker around with, extend the life of a game, but not required in the least. I don't have any more problem with buying DLC than I have with paying extra for bacon on my subway sandwiches.

[AlanC9]

the_one_54321 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
2. If some content is specifically designated as optional, then the effect is has on my game should be equally optional. It is a bad practice to tell me later that the content that I did not play happened anyway.

While I've got some sympathy for this, wouldn't that just mean that they'd say Arrival and LotSB are mandatory?

Well then they should have been included with the game, shouldn't they? 

No more than ToB should have been included with BG2.

[Xeranx]

AlanC9 wrote...

Xeranx wrote...

Who knows?  LOTSB and Arrival might have been in the release of ME2 with a longer development cycle.  They would have come up with something different.  As to whether it would have shipped or not: if ME2 had the same development cycle as ME it would be probably ship around the same time ME3 is to ship next year.

AlanC9 wrote...
It's OK to complain about the short dev cycle  -- I wasn't bothered by the stuff you mention, but that's personal taste. But you asserted a relationship between the short dev cycle and the bridging DLC, and I don't see how that's tenable.

I didn't see that your post was edited, but the part in bold above is relevant to what you added.

I think it's unlikely that Arrival gets added in to ME2 - I'm sure that where ME2 ended was where they always wanted it to end. LotSB, maybe that would have been in. But let's say they're both in ME2 as released. In that case Bio makes different bridging DLCs, as you yourself say.

So how is the short dev cycle relevant to DLCs, again? Or are you just taking advantage of this thread to make an unrelated complaint.

Honestly I didn't decide to grab a soap box and bull horn to start preaching, and I really dislike the insinuation.  But you tend to do that a lot and I've learned to just go with it in your case.  There'd be no point to using a thread to make an unrelated complaint when I can make a thread about the complaint I want to make.  Just to let you know: There was one thread I came across that brought to mind something I wanted to discuss.  I didn't make the comment because the larger part of what I would have gone into would have taken the thread in another direction and there wasn't enough for me to start a thread on the topic.  As to what the topic was or what thread it was that brought the idea of my comment to mind I don't know.  I honestly didn't think my comment would have spawned what it did.  I honestly wasn't looking for a whole debate on it.

As to your question (the pertinent one anyway): What does the idea of bridging DLC bring to your mind?  To me it says they needed something to tie the two games together.  Why?  Because it's not being pieced together like they had intended.  Something's missing from ME2 that would give it some connection to ME3.  Kind of like how Shepard said the Reapers were still out there and he/she was going to find a way to stop them (or something like that) in ME.  The way it appears, Arrival can be created and put it in the next installment to serve as a flashback of sorts?  

I feel the short development cycle was relevant to LOTSB, Arrival, and Overlord in that I feel they could have been included (if they were to exist at all) in ME2 if the development cycle were similar to that of ME.  That's it.  I referenced, earlier, Shepards statement about wanting to find a way to stop the Reapers in ME after the Battle of the Citadel was won.  Short, to the point, and a great lead-in for a sequel.

[littlezack]

And I'd also like to note that I very distinctly remember  one of the biggest complaints about ME1 was that there wasn't enough DLC.

[AlanC9]

Xeranx wrote...
Honestly I didn't decide to grab a soap box and bull horn to start preaching, and I really dislike the insinuation.  But you tend to do that a lot and I've learned to just go with it in your case.  There'd be no point to using a thread to make an unrelated complaint when I can make a thread about the complaint I want to make.  Just to let you know: There was one thread I came across that brought to mind something I wanted to discuss.  I didn't make the comment because the larger part of what I would have gone into would have taken the thread in another direction and there wasn't enough for me to start a thread on the topic.  As to what the topic was or what thread it was that brought the idea of my comment to mind I don't know.  I honestly didn't think my comment would have spawned what it did.  I honestly wasn't looking for a whole debate on it.

Hey, I just couldn't figure out what the hell the link was supposed to be between DLC and the shortened dev schedule. Which I guess you've finally gotten around to.

As to your question (the pertinent one anyway): What does the idea of bridging DLC bring to your mind?  To me it says they needed something to tie the two games together.  Why?  Because it's not being pieced together like they had intended.  Something's missing from ME2 that would give it some connection to ME3.  Kind of like how Shepard said the Reapers were still out there and he/she was going to find a way to stop them (or something like that) in ME.  The way it appears, Arrival can be created and put it in the next installment to serve as a flashback of sorts?  

You really think that the reason they did bridging DLC is because they didn't like where the ME2 ending left them? And that ME2 might have had a better ending if they had only taken more time to write a better one? 

I think the DLC is there because it makes money. Whatever ending ME2 had is irrelevant; there would still have been bridging DLC even if Arrival had been part of ME2 from the initial script outline. The more important a DLC is the more likely people will buy the DLC.

Edit: so, if all you're actually saying is that the particular content of Overlord, LotSB, and Arrival might have been included in some parallel-universe version of ME2, then we don't actually have any disagreement. As long as we both recognize that in that parallel universe our counterparts will be discussing three different DLCs that could have been included in that version of ME2 if only Earth-2 Bioware had taken yet another year to release ME2.

Modifié par AlanC9, 01 juillet 2011 - 08:56 .

[Il Divo]

Xeranx wrote...

A sequel is one thing.  It's a continuation.  The sequel requires the preceding be known, but the preceding or prequel shouldn't need to setup the next installment.  An expansion is another.  DLC are expansions.  Or at least they're supposed to be.  They shouldn't be necessary to move the story along.  They should only be made available to explore whatever world the dlc pertains to.  DLC should not be vital to the main story.  It should only serve to enhance what you've already played.

But dlc is still a continuation. If we can have Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, there's no rule which says that we cannot have Mass Effect 2.5.  
 

Here's where the anti-dlc argument breaks down.

I played Mass Effect. The game is incomplete, since the battle with the Reapers has only just begun. If we follow your reasoning, a full-fledged sequel should never have been made. Mass Effect 1's development time should have been delayed until the whole story was provided. This was not the case. I had to pay a separate fee for Mass Effect 2 (and likewise for ME3). 

This argument breaks down. Purchasing a sequel should not be necessary to move the story along if we follow that reasoning. Yet, we also have many examples of expansions which continue the storyline (Throne of Bhaal, Starcraft's Brood War, Warcraft's Frozen Throne, Morrowind's Tribunal). 

In  a question, why cannot dlc be used to continue a storyline, when both expansions and sequels have been used to do the same?

Modifié par Il Divo, 01 juillet 2011 - 04:13 .

[MightySword]

I think "effecting" the game is really the problem here, it's rather just an excuse for people to vent about DLC ... because I don't see how this is different from everything that has been always happening. BGII made a lot of assumption going from BGI, TOB also made some assumption if I remember correctly. HOTU made some assumptions going from the original NWN ...etc...

If anything, "strictly" from the content consistency angle, the DLC is giving you more options (at a price), but it certainly not taking anything away. The reason I used the word "strictly" because people tend to lump their hate about DLC and don't admit the positive things about it. I'm no fan of DLC, the only one I ever bought from Bioware is the Warden Keep for DA, and I promised I would never buy any other DLC, ever. Until this day I still make good of that promise so yeah, I'm not a fan of DLC. But that doesn't mean I have to bring the hammer down on it on every angle.

Modifié par MightySword, 02 juillet 2011 - 05:15 .

[JamesStark]

the_one_54321 wrote...

Zaeed? Kasumi? Liara becoming the [spoiler here]? Arrival?

I didn't play any of these. I'm never going to play any of these until they start handing them out for free or in a big package deal. So what happens to my game at the start of ME3? One of these was even apparently critical to the beginnig narative of ME3.

Well, Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival will have happened. The outcome ends up the same no matter how you played it anyway so it won't for you into a paragon/renagade role if you don't want to.

If they're in the game, Zaeed and Kasumi will likely be meeting you for the first time.
Although I'm not sure why you wouldn't have Zaeed, as he WAS free.
The rest I wont judge you for not buying though. It's your money.

You forgot Overlord by the way. No idea what they'll do with that though. I imagine they'll keep it minor if they bring it up at all.