512 réponses à ce sujet

[JaegerBane]

Atakuma wrote...

I do believe that once you start developing dlc along with the main gameyou've crossed the line between providing additional content and simply exploiting the consumer.

The problem is, this belief implies that you believe you should be able to dictate what goes into the product you buy, with no change to cost. You can dress that up any way you like, but it still doesn't make sense.

[Tipsyfresh]

Snypy wrote...

Fredvdp wrote...

What variables in what config file are you talking about? And what do you exactly mean by 'all his dialog'? If you wish to make such claims, you should give us some proof.

Tipsyfresh wrote...
Sounds like impulse buying or blind-brand buying, if we don't have any reason to think it affects the base game in any way besides that it's listed as "extra content" dlc for whatever game. But as illustrated with Javik dlc, this stuff doesn't always happen in a vacuum (unlike dragon age 2 legacy or witchhunt:DAO -where the Add ons did just that, add on).

 Actually, you're missing the point right now. It's not like you were forced to buy the Day One DLC before you had played ME3. It was made available to everyone on day one, but if you didn't trust BioWare that they would deliver, you shouldn't have bought it. It's as simple as that. Why didn't you happily finish the game without the additional content? Then, if you felt that something was missing, you could've read several reviews to help you make up your mind whether or not it's worth your money. After all, you had multiple playthroughs of ME3, right?

If I  felt something was missing? I just now brought myself to play ME3 for a second time.  You said trust, like I said blind brand buying.  I...don't ...know.

[Atakuma]

Nevermind, i'm getting tired of this whole thing.

Modifié par Atakuma, 19 août 2012 - 08:23 .

[Tipsyfresh]

JaegerBane wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

I do believe that once you start developing dlc along with the main gameyou've crossed the line between providing additional content and simply exploiting the consumer.

The problem is, this belief implies that you believe you should be able to dictate what goes into the product you buy, with no change to cost. You can dress that up any way you like, but it still doesn't make sense.

Have you heard of a time before dlc? Also why does his belief imply that? This is why things like BBB exist and other consumer protection agencies, to reduce exploitation, manipulation of a market. If it doesn't make sense to you call your congressman.

[Tipsyfresh]

Atakuma wrote...

Nevermind, i'm getting tired of this whole thing.

I know, I think if we keep saying the same things it might change our minds lol

Modifié par Tipsyfresh, 19 août 2012 - 08:33 .

[Siran]

Tipsyfresh wrote...

Have you heard of a time before dlc?

Yeah. Before that it was called an "Expansion Pack" . I still have the ones from Battle Isle 1 and X-Wing and many more. Expansion for games are practically as old as games themselves, take any pen & paper RPG.

Technology changes, so that expansion content can now be delivered directly in digital form to the customer, which wasn't possible several years ago, when Internet wasn't as wide-spread. That's why we have DLCs now - but the only difference is way of distribution and therefore a much more streamlined delivery process.

Modifié par Siran, 19 août 2012 - 08:40 .

[Tipsyfresh]

Siran wrote...

Tipsyfresh wrote...

Have you heard of a time before dlc?

Yeah. Before that it was called an "Expansion Pack" . I still have the ones from Battle Isle 1 and X-Wing and many more. Expansion for games are practically as old as games themselves, take any pen & paper RPG.

Technology changes, so that expansion content can now be delivered directly in digital form to the customer, which wasn't possible several years ago, when Internet wasn't as wide-spread. That's why we have DLCs now - but the only difference is way of distribution and therefore a much more streamlined delivery process.

Dlc that's allowed now couldn't touch the size of actual expansions packs.   Don't be cute.  
Edit: Plus could you have taken what I said more out of context? Nope did that already 

Modifié par Tipsyfresh, 19 août 2012 - 08:46 .

[Siran]

Tipsyfresh wrote...

Dlc that's allowed now couldn't touch the size of actual expansions packs.   Don't be cute.  
Edit: Plus could you have taken what I said more out of context? Nope did that already 

You said there was a time before DLC, and I replied that then DLC was called Expansion Pack, what is out of context there?

Believe me, there were "Expansion Packs" that certainly don't have the size of the likes of the LotSB DLC. And please stop patronizing me, I really doesn't help your argument.

[Snypy]

Tipsyfresh wrote...

Snypy wrote...

Tipsyfresh wrote...
Sounds like impulse buying or blind-brand buying, if we don't have any reason to think it affects the base game in any way besides that it's listed as "extra content" dlc for whatever game. But as illustrated with Javik dlc, this stuff doesn't always happen in a vacuum (unlike dragon age 2 legacy or witchhunt:DAO -where the Add ons did just that, add on).

 Actually, you're missing the point right now. It's not like you were forced to buy the Day One DLC before you had played ME3. It was made available to everyone on day one, but if you didn't trust BioWare that they would deliver, you shouldn't have bought it. It's as simple as that. Why didn't you happily finish the game without the additional content? Then, if you felt that something was missing, you could've read several reviews to help you make up your mind whether or not it's worth your money. After all, you had multiple playthroughs of ME3, right?

If I  felt something was missing? I just now brought myself to play ME3 for a second time.  You said trust, like I said blind brand buying.  I...don't ...know.

Too many assumptions on my part, sorry. From everything you've said in this thread, I figured that you actually bought From Ashes and played it.

Anyway, if one is very satisfied with ME1 and ME2 (including all their related DLCs), then one has little reason to worry about the Day One DLC not meeting his expectations. That's regardless of whether this person has played ME3 yet. It's not the same as blind brand buying.

Blind brand buying, in my opinion, would be if I bought DA2 (without reading any review about the game whatsoever) just because I enjoyed the ME trilogy.

Modifié par Snypy, 19 août 2012 - 09:05 .

[AsheraII]

JaegerBane wrote...

Ironically this is the root of the whole issue - the developers still want to actually sell the DLC, so while its never made as a vital part of the game, it has to be suitably interesting to convince players to buy it much earlier than they'd normally buy DLCs and/or expansion packs.

The problem is that if they do well enough in drawing the player in, it creats a scenario where someone arbitrarily decides its interesting enough to 'qualify' as part of the base game. Add a bunch of people who's grasp of software development is inversely proportional to their entitlement issues (seriously, they describe thse DLCs as 'stripping content out to sell later' as if it was a freakin' apple pie that they've taken a slice of) and you have what we see here.

I mean, to be honest, I'm still chuckling about the guy who was claiming the devs were 'violating his rights' - these people don't seem to have a grasp on reality.

You're pretty much spot-on there. The release on Day 1 simply confuses a lot of people into thinking that a DLC that was mostly developed parallel to the main game was probably cut out from the main game. And trust me, they may have postponed building the exact game locations and scripting the finished storylines and dialogues, most of it was developed long before that already: most objects found within the DLC would have been created long before piecing everything together, most of those are actually re-uses of objects found elsewhere. The storyline has been written down long ago as well, it may have gotten some final polishing, but not much. Almost all the voice-overs were recorded together with the main game.

If anyone wonders what happens when you cut content out of a game to sell it seperately as an expansion or DLC, then I suggest you play ANY one of the games from the C&C, C&C: Generals or Red Alert series without the expansion, except for the original C&C game, and start up a mulitplayer game, picking some random faction, and letting your opponent decide what faction to play based on the faction you picked. Like it or not, those games actually DID suffer cut content that was released later as an expansion. You'll litterally feel like you're missing some units, even if you never played any of those games with expansion before. It's one of the things that started killing the series very early on already.

Games from the C&C and Red Alert series blatently miss some units in their initial releases. C&C: Generals is basically unplayable for any faction except China without the Zero Hour expansion. THAT is cut content. EA used to do that constantly, and it gave EA such a bad name, that even though they stopped doing it, they still suffer from it.

If any content was cut from ME3 for the From Ashes DLC, you simply wouldn't be able to get past Thessia without it. However, if ME3 had been released with From Ashes getting released 3 months later, nobody would've noticed that it wasn't there. People would just play through the entire game and finish it. The forums would just be full of complaints about why such a cool character was added so late, because now they have to play through the whole game again to find out how Javik interacts throughout the rest of the game.

Modifié par AsheraII, 19 août 2012 - 09:16 .

[Tipsyfresh]

@ siran

Sorry I thought expansion packs were common knowledge. I used that question to highlight that games were once developed without dlc and when the developer wanted to provide more content that warranted being shipped out, it happened...and we gladly bought it. Business changes, so does the consumer (see internetz). Besides that, I thought you were being sarcastic, sorry if I came off harsh or patronizing..

Also I never came across an expansion pack that was like you described (I was and am a smart consumer), but I believe u. But just because it can be streamlined doesn't mean it should. Not every old ps1 game is on the psn( bad example but u get the idea).

[Tipsyfresh]

@ snypy

No youre partly right I bought it, probably preordered it if I could've. (my thoughts, hey extra teammate, plus protheans=awesome)

The blind brand thing, for me, stems from posts on this thread saying that we had no reason to expect from ashes to be significant to the base game or that we should consider the content as a (uh oh) "completely" separate type of entity from the base game. It would seem like if I felt this way, I then should be a smart consumer and not buy it until I play the game or know more about the dlc (see Avatar of Vengeance?) this is because I'd be blind to info on the dlc rather than having months of reviews to go on when buying the base game.

[Siran]

Tipsyfresh wrote...

@ siran

Sorry I thought expansion packs were common knowledge. I used that question to highlight that games were once developed without dlc and when the developer wanted to provide more content that warranted being shipped out, it happened...and we gladly bought it. Business changes, so does the consumer (see internetz). Besides that, I thought you were being sarcastic, sorry if I came off harsh or patronizing..

Also I never came across an expansion pack that was like you described (I was and am a smart consumer), but I believe u. But just because it can be streamlined doesn't mean it should. Not every old ps1 game is on the psn( bad example but u get the idea).

I guess we both misunderstood each other there. I was only trying to say, that there's always been additional content, even before there was the Internet or DLCs and the barriers between what's an Expansion Pack and what's a DLC are rather fluent today anyway. I guess, an Expansion Pack now is larger in scale and maybe is even shipped in a retail box. Back in the day, where there was no other distribution available, even smaller content was shipped in retail boxes.

For instance the first X-Wing expansion "Imperial Pursuit" I'd take as an example - it didn't have more new ships or different enemies, came out mere months after the original X-Wing game and just added one more storyline, much like "Overlord" or "Arrival" do today. Back then it was called an Expansion Pack, today it'd clearly be a DLC.

By "streamlined" I meant that the development process can be parallelised and be almost "just-in-time" delivered as you can skip any shipping or DVD pressing by releasing something as a DLC, that's what makes them so fast to market. Something that just wasn't possible with the "old" Expansion Packs. I didn't mean stream as in stream or download to a PC / console (regarding PS1 games on PSN I haven't really made up my mind. But as I never had a PS1 I think having the ability to download these for a compared to today's console prizes rather small fee is quite welcome. If you already own these games on PS1 your view certainly may differ)

Modifié par Siran, 19 août 2012 - 09:47 .

[LinksOcarina]

Tipsyfresh wrote...

@ snypy

No youre partly right I bought it, probably preordered it if I could've. (my thoughts, hey extra teammate, plus protheans=awesome)

The blind brand thing, for me, stems from posts on this thread saying that we had no reason to expect from ashes to be significant to the base game or that we should consider the content as a (uh oh) "completely" separate type of entity from the base game. It would seem like if I felt this way, I then should be a smart consumer and not buy it until I play the game or know more about the dlc (see Avatar of Vengeance?) this is because I'd be blind to info on the dlc rather than having months of reviews to go on when buying the base game.

On the flip-side though, you have a ton of fans who don't care what the content of the DLC actually is, they will buy it regardless. You also had it as a known pre-order bonus for collector edition adopters who felt like picking it up for that reason, or for the extra weapons, costumes, little, unecessary bits, or just to get the game on time.

So to be honest, From Ashes as a DLC being significant to the game or not is fairly irrelevent, because that comes down to a personal taste. The caveat of that is many people seemed to be insulted or misinformed about its implementation, and decided to claim the sky was falling over sitting down and thinking like a developer for a moment.

[ghost9191]

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

[Tipsyfresh]

@ Links

I can't argue with what you're saying. But this is exactly why this discussion came up, and probably why EA released that article with IGN. People that will buy when they don't know what they are buying, it's why regulation exists anywhere, I'm not even going nearly that far though.

It is hard to let big and dramatic statements slide, but we here are all smart enough to see through those distractions (see politics). And you're right, you just got think a Lil bit.


Oh and I'm not sure about your second paragraph comments, I will say that I think the significance of the dlc to the base game is important. But I've been open to being convinced otherwise but what has been shared by the pro business/pro day1 has only led to more plot holes *yawns*.  Sorry, more questions about business ethics, consumers etc.

Modifié par Tipsyfresh, 19 août 2012 - 10:18 .

[spirosz]

Publishers are going off what gamers do and what do most of us do? We buy the DLC. So what will they continue to do? Sell Day One DLC, regardless of the "minority/hardcore" complaining. The majority don't care, regardless of the quality and quantity of the DLC, they just like the idea of something "new and fresh", it's simple really. We speak with our wallets and it's not helping.

[Tipsyfresh]

spirosz wrote...

Publishers are going off what gamers do and what do most of us do? We buy the DLC. So what will they continue to do? Sell Day One DLC, regardless of the "minority/hardcore" complaining. The majority don't care, regardless of the quality and quantity of the DLC, they just like the idea of something "new and fresh", it's simple really. We speak with our wallets and it's not helping.

Do you know why EA participated in IGNs article then? Rather than writing about something people care about. 



Edit: I do like ur icon tho:D

Modifié par Tipsyfresh, 19 août 2012 - 10:25 .

[Atakuma]

ghost9191 wrote...

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

Exactly. Money is the only justification for it, yet they still insist on pretending like they're doing it for the consumer.

[coles4971]

Atakuma wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

Exactly. Money is the only justification for it, yet they still insist on pretending like they're doing it for the consumer.

What, do you really expect them to just go "we do day 1 DLC to get more money"?

Their public image is damaged enough the way it is.

[SP2219]

coles4971 wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

Exactly. Money is the only justification for it, yet they still insist on pretending like they're doing it for the consumer.

What, do you really expect them to just go "we do day 1 DLC to get more money"?

Their public image is damaged enough the way it is.

No, not at all.  I expect them to say sorry.  I think pretty much everyone else was expecting that as well. 

And that would do a great deal to REPAIR their reputation.

[Atakuma]

coles4971 wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

Exactly. Money is the only justification for it, yet they still insist on pretending like they're doing it for the consumer.

What, do you really expect them to just go "we do day 1 DLC to get more money"?

Their public image is damaged enough the way it is.

Funny enough, there is a video or something of John Riccitiello pretty much doing just that. I'd rather they just say nothing, because making statements that make you seem completely oblivious to criticism isn't all that great for PR either.

Modifié par Atakuma, 19 août 2012 - 10:47 .

[DukeOfNukes]

Selene Moonsong wrote...

You missed Stan's point completely. The Producers and various Leads determine what is a finished product, and only them.

Sooo...Superman 64 was a "finished game"? What about KOTOR 2, where I doubt Obsidian and Lucas Arts would both make the same claim? "It's done because I say so" seems rather arbitrary.

To offer it up as Day 1 DLC is not a bad thing, it is provided for those who would want it, and DLC has never been required to complete a game, but provide more story content that makes the game, IMHO, re-playable.

That's debatable. DLC is required to "Complete" Mass Effect 2, because without Arrival and LotSB, Mass Effect 3 makes even less sense than it already did. I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I bought both, and don't regret either one...as they were both better than the main game content. But the fact remains, I don't get all of Shepards story without it.

Making claims that day 1 DLC was actually cut material and that the game is incomplete is barely civil and is rather insulting when the individual making the claim was not a member of the BioWare staff that Stan mentioned.

I didn't work for NASA in the 1960's either, but I still believe man has been on the moon. Proof has been mentioned several times. Javik was included in the leaked script from nearly a half year before the finalized product. Rumours were going around for as long as I can remember about a Prothean squadmate. You can enable Javik by changing 2 lines in the games code (admittedly, probably a glitchy, unbalanced version of him.) You're right, I don't have any 100%, clear cut evidence that Javik was cut for the expressed purpose of selling him off...but you don't have any 100% clear cut evidence that he wasn't. I'm not burning BioWare at the stake here, I'm asking that they consider the implications of their decisions.

If you disagree with a desogn, development, or other business decision, everyone is free to say so and why they disagree, as long as it is in the form of constructive criticism and follows the Site Rules.

There's an article I REALLY wish I could find, basically insulting the idea of "constructive criticism". All criticism is constructive, if you're in the right state of mind. If people call me a jerk often enough, it's not "constructive", but eventually I'll go "Hey, maybe I should stop being such a jerk all the time!"

[estebanus]

Of course they can.

It's called "money."

[AsheraII]

SP2219 wrote...

coles4971 wrote...

Atakuma wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

maybe i didn't go through all 17 pages, but i am pretty sure they can justify day one dlc, 10$ extra simple

MONEY

Exactly. Money is the only justification for it, yet they still insist on pretending like they're doing it for the consumer.

What, do you really expect them to just go "we do day 1 DLC to get more money"?

Their public image is damaged enough the way it is.

No, not at all.  I expect them to say sorry.  I think pretty much everyone else was expecting that as well. 

And that would do a great deal to REPAIR their reputation.

Sorry? Sorry for WHAT? Sorry for being a commercial organization that wants to make money?

And if you're talking about REPAIRING their reputation.. EA definitely "behaved" a lot better the past 2 years than it used to. Hell, we even got a totally free of charge Extended Cut DLC out of it. If you told about any gamer that EA was giving away free extra content about 5 years ago, you'd get a look like he saw water burn.
If I had called EA Support 5 years ago telling them how some in-game reward didn't reach my inventory, I'd be lucky to even get an English speaking person on the line instead of some automated menu. And I would've been even more lucky if that "support" person told me anything else than "sux2bu". Right now, when my commendation pack from Multiplayer doesn't arrive within 24 hours, I can call EA, get a real operator on the line, and receive my com pack within 5 minutes!

Big Bad EA is sadly still in a lot of gamers' minds, but I have to say, that quite a few big names in the games industry are heading or even passing the point where EA was 5 years ago, while EA definitely turned away from certain practices or changed them in such a way that they now benefit not only themselves, but also the gamer. People change, organizations change, and for a commercial organization, EA isn't treating her customers too bad anymore.

Sorry, but I'm getting sick 'n tired of all the self entitled kids demanding to get things their way free of charge because their mom doesn't borrow them her credit card.

Day 1 DLC, and DLC in general for that matter, is a very profitable scheme for EA, there's no denying that. But then, so are the expansions for about any game, and those have all been made just to make some extra profit from a title. It worked like that for the past 20 years already. And that's basically what DLC's are: game expansions. They're just generally smaller AND cheaper. And instead of having to pay 40 bucks for an expansion of which you care about only half it's contents, DLC's allow you to pick only those DLC's catering to you, while ignoring and NOT paying for the DLC that you don't care about.

Yes, some companies offer lots of free DLC, and build their whole business model around not charging for DLC. That's entirely their decision. Feel free to buy their games. They don't have any Mass Effect games on offer though.