MOTpoetryION wrote...
We all have opinions on things but it doesn't mean mine is any better then yours or vise versa.
It seems (to me) that forums are populated by people evoking one of two different philosophies:
A) "Different" means "different". There is no obligation to classify the differences as being "better" or "worse".
Viva la difference!
There's a Wrong way of doing something, and then there's
my way
Unfortunately, it seems that the A people are a distinct minority.
***********
In regards to DLC and where it's coming from and where it's going:
TRUE anecdote
In the very early days of TSR (creators of D&D and AD&D), they
started with a newsletter,
The Strategic Review. (T-S-R, it was no coincidence.) After only 7 quarterly issues, the newsletter was replaced by
The Dragon monthly magazine. Because of the immense and growing popularity of D&D and AD&D, it was THE place for people to catch up on what was new and to submit their game ideas.
Anyone that has played the paper-and-pencil version of D&D and/or AD&D know that a HUGE amount of what was available were umpteen gazillion modules. The source material for many/most of those modules goes back to
The Dragon: Every year the magazine had its annual "Design Your Own Module" contest. The winner had the great satisfaction of having his module published and he became an honest-to-goodness
published game designer. And he got a whomping 1% royalty on the sales. [At a time when E. Gary Gygax was pulling down
a industry-leading 14% royalty I might add. Ahh, the stories I could tell.....]
Now, I laid all this out so you can properly appreciate these next points:
There were
thousands of entries each time the contest ran.
In the rules for entry there was the statement, "All submissions become the exclusive property of TSR, Inc."
And all that material cost TSR
nothing. Sure the very large majority of submissions were c***, but there were always a couple hundred decent submissions. MANY of those were reworked, details changed, and then supposedly "written" by whichever design staffer EGG liked currently. But the bottomline was that there was always a LOT of game material ready for final layout; the presses were seldom idle at TSR. (The actual constraint was cashflow -- which eventually killed TSR. Too many parasites and not enough worker bees to keep the hive humming.)
******
Now the reason I mention all of that anecdote is because of how it bears on DLC. And
toolsets. And player-made
mods.
Ahh. More than likely, you're "already there".
BioWare -- and most every other popular game company -- has no lack of material to work with to keep the DLC pipeline flowing. The main design team works on the basic framework, while keeping control of the game universe. Sort of like, they set the "policy" that everyone must follow. And, believe me, that is, in and of itself, a HUMONGOUS job. What they produce is an iceberg: we only see about 10% of all they do. But that other 90% MUST be there to keep the thing afloat.
But DLCs are like those AD&D modules: ideas that are mapped out to be implemented into the larger game world. Creating one from scratch is almost exactly like writing a book from scratch. It's doable, but seriously time consuming. UNLESS someone hands the writer a VERY detailed outline at the beginning of the process. Then it's just a matter of fleshing out the synopsis. And that makes it like 75% of the project is already done.
Instead of scrambling around trying to figure out, "What would make a good story, something that our fans want to see?", _WE_ have already told them. (That there is literally the #2 reason why so many games are now backed by discussion forums.) Our topics of discussion inevitably touch on, "Wouldn't it be great if,,," The mods that are created and become popular show the company what to put into the next edition of the game. And the player creations with the toolset fill in an immense amount of game "canvas".
LAST MAJOR POINT [All together now! "Thank God!"]
The main design team WILL be responsible for actual expansions. But more than likely, little DLCs will be thrown together by "new recruits" and interns that have maybe one staffer checking up on them periodically to make sure they stay on track. Then whatever the DLC teams produce will get polished by the pros before being released. Be assured that on any popular game, there will be no lack of "volunteers" to be bottom-of-the-food-chain apprentice game designers. (Almost like working at McDonalds, in a way. Plus I'm sure you've heard about how, as an industry standard, game designers have to put in a HUGE number of hours each week.) The actual bottleneck in releasing DLC content is freeing up enough of the main team to do that polishing on what the DLC produces.
[Hmm. Now I'm wondering how much of the RtO snafu stems from....^^^^]
Retour en haut
