12 réponses à ce sujet

[afhdjs]

An expansion would give us larger locations to explore and new locations, rather than recycling or modifying existing places. I would also allow a much larger sub-story to be added to the game. I'm not in favor of adding a new story after the main story of the game has concluded, like the Awakening expansion to DAO, but an expansion that adds a large new story arc to the main story of the game, which can be played for 25 to 30 hours would be nice.

[Allan Schumacher]

Technically both the terms expansion and DLC do not denote quantity. DLC stands for downloadable content and is merely a method of content distribution. All DLC are expansions, as they expand the original game's content.

 

 

Historically, expansions were only larger (or specifically, added more content as accurately speaking, most DLC these days is a lot more data) because the prominent retail distribution required a different volume of content as publishers wouldn't start pressing CD/DVD and such for small data volumes sold at proportionally low prices. It wasn't worth the effort.

 

Very astute my friend.

[Allan Schumacher]

Now that we have the attention of a BioWare employee, why not ask directly:

 

What is the team's preference for future content regarding DAI? Larger content like say Awakening, smaller content like Warden's keep or more of an episodic kind like the DAII DLC?

 

 

 

 

Or if you can't answer due to NDA, what would you personally find more suitable?

 

 

I understand this is a case-by-case basis, but is the team (or you) more akin towards fewer and larger, or more and smaller additions?

 

Well, the problem is that I can't speak for the team's preference since I'm just me, and I don't know the whole team's preferences.

 

I like the story based stuff like FONV's DLC, and stuff like ME3/DA2.  Although I'm not the best gauge, as I don't replay games nearly as often anymore, and it takes me replaying a game to want to pick up the DLC (FONV's DLC is pretty dope though <.<)

[Allan Schumacher]

What I'd be interested in Bioware attempting is serialized DLC. Which is to say, a set of DLC that tells an overarching story line. Having missions encapsulated in a 2-5 play time run can feel a little forced or lacking in plot. But if you tell a longer story like you would in an expansion except over the course of 3-4 DLC, you'd be able to have the fullness of an expansion story while also the benefits of a quicker release cycle.

The problem is, of course, that the player might need to buy every episode of a DLC in order to experience the story, depending on how it is set up. Of course, TellTale and their episodic content doesn't force you to buy all prior episodes to play their games, so I guess that wouldn't necessarily be something Bioware (or the player) would be locked into.

 

There are dependency restrictions put forward by first party that complicate this, so each DLC would still need to be entirely stand alone.  Meaning we'd need to be creative with carrying along choices and whatnot, and couldn't require the player to have any items or anything like that from a previous DLC.

 

Obsidian ran into this with their DLC for FONV, and Josh Sawyer circumvented it in a PC mod that allowed things like item modifications to be applicable to items from other DLCs and so forth.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'd need to take a look at the details further, but TellTale in TWD recaps previous episodes decisions in a "Last Time On The Walking Dead," which explains events, setup and prior decisions to what is relevant for the upcoming episode. If you didn't play previous DLC, the game would have a canon set to choices it defaults to and mentions in this said recap.

Of course, it would be a little difficult for things like items and other plot flags, as you said. If, for instance, Bioware done with DA2's DLC and required that you have the Key weapon from Legacy in a future DLC, would the character automatically gain that weapon upon starting the second DLC? Conversely, if you played the second DLC first, then went back and played Legacy, would that Key disappear from your inventory so that you could regain it again? If you made different choices in Legacy than you would have in the default that was set up in the theoretical second DLC, then played the third, would the game assume Legacy's choices were what happened or the default or would it be...


...oh dear, I think I've gone cross-eyed.

 

Telltale's games are episodic content, not DLC built around a core game.  It's not the same thing.

 

It would depend on whether or not things changed with respect to DLC policy (reading upon the Dishonored DLC) since it's not a technical limitation.  (You explained a technical solution for me when I am well aware of it)

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, since Bioware has released close to 20 SP DLCs under the DA and ME franchises since 2009 and not done something like this before, I assumed it was pretty much a given that it would be a change in DLC policy.

I was merely agreeing with you that the technical problem you suggested would be a bit thorny.

 

I'm referring to Microsoft and Sony policy for what type of restrictions exist on DLC and how they interact with each other.

 

I cited FONV because they wanted to enable DLCs that had interdependencies among them but it wasn't allowed.  Josh Sawyer mentions this as to why the (exceptionally high quality) mod he released for the PC could not be released as a patch, which would also benefit the consoles.  There's too much interdependency between the DLC with it (the mod requires all the DLC).

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't know.  I respect Josh a lot though and he's always come across as a very straight shooter to me, so I take him at his word when he says it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Undoubtedly. Just seems like an odd hurdle for MS and Sony to out out there.

 

After giving it some thought, can you think of any?

[Allan Schumacher]

I do not consider a game that is episodic content (like Telltale) to be equivalent to episodic DLC that attaches to a base game.  It may seem the same, but there are differences.  Especially with your suggestion about buying individual episodes separately (unless I misread something).

[Allan Schumacher]

I would think MS and Sonywould look at TellTale episodic content the same way as they would DLC episodic content, in terms of the certification process and effort involved on their party to launch it.

 

I'm not sure why you'd think that though.  The most fundamental difference is that one is attached to a different product that is required.  The other is not.  That doesn't strike me as trivial.

[Allan Schumacher]

How is it any different then the "episodic content" that was added to say ME3 from that DLC? All DLC is essentially episodic content. So how can having minor content or story driven content in a game like DA or ME as DLC be so different then releasing fragmented story arcs that culminate to tell a complete and different story, then what each individual component story offers?

 

How many dependencies does ME3's DLC have between each other?  Does Citadel require data from Leviathan to work properly?

 

 

If you're releasing a story in piecemeal chunks that's fine.  It's whether or not there's anything from one DLC that requires anything from another piece of DLC.  So the difference between an episodic game, and an episodic DLC that is sold piecemeal, is that an episodic game is more like selling a game with several sequels where you can import in your data, whereas DLC for our game is not.

 

So it depends on the amount of overlap required.  If the DLC is all self-contained, it seems like Microsoft and Sony have less of an issue with it.  Once there's dependencies on other DLC, things seem to get murkier.  Since Telltale games are not DLC, the comparison isn't really applicable.

[Allan Schumacher]

I still don't see how its an issue for Microsoft or Sony. When it comes to the multiplayer CoD and Battlefield, or any FPS (Halo) have no issues when it comes to the DLC they have that operates in the same way that DLC for any Bioware product would. It still and extension of content that requires compatibility between a base and an secondary component(s). You don't need to have Battle-suit 1,2,3,4 to play the game with an iteration or combination of those would be DLC's, yet the base product and those DLCs are all compatible. 

 

I'm not sure if we're still talking about the same thing, so I'll try to reset this.

 

There's nothing stopping us from making a story and spreading it across several different DLCs.  However, based on things such as an explanation as to why he couldn't just patch in the changes that he made for Fallout New Vegas due to interdependency issues, I'm inferring that there's something that First Party doesn't like about DLCs requiring other DLCs to be present in order to work properly.

 

I don't actually know the answer, but I do not consider something like Telltale's games to be analogous.  They are different products.

 

So while I imagine that there'd be no issue if we made a story spread across several DLCs, if we made it so that explicit programmatic/code/data references depended on a different piece of DLC, things get murky.  I am reasonably certain, however, that you cannot have a DLC depend on another DLC.  What that means in terms of technical requirements, however, is something that I don't know.

 

 

Are there DLCs out there that effectively "import" data from other DLCs to do more things?  If so then it's reasonably easy to disprove my hypothesis.

[Allan Schumacher]

I was giving it a bit of thought on the way home, and I was wondering if the restriction was mostly on patches.  Because the idea that patches requiring DLC seems hella bad, or even patches that only apply to those that own some DLC and it could get messy.

 

Though at the same time, it doesn't explain why FONV has a special Anti-Materiel Rifle denoted with a (GRA) that accepts the mods that GRA DLC provides, while Sawyer's mod ends up removing the distinction.  In the base game with GRA, you cannot mod the default AMR.