217 réponses à ce sujet

[Torrential]

I still don't feel they need to add much to what is already a 115 hour game - if you try to complete everything. I agree, that I play these games for the well written story lines and characters, but I feel like we got that already. Again, we have more companions in Inquisition than we've ever had. I don't see the point in releasing a DLC every couple months... have they ever done this? 

 

I understand the point about time, but if a game is a good, I'll come back to it. True fans of Dragon Age aren't going to drop the game and never return to it just because the DLC didn't come out "in time." 

 

What's a 'true fan', let's define that term for your argument to make sense. Is it someone who says, I am a true fan? Does it have a criteria? Or are you making up the term to fit your argument? Like for example, someone who doesn't need DLC or new content to keep them interested in playing a game? 

The point is, because A, it'll sell, and B, if the quests and story are done right it'll be enjoyable and C, you retain more customers for your future products.

 

Have they ever done this? Which company Bioware? Some companies put them out pretty regular yes, but let's look at the series first. How many did origin get: 

 

7  Quest/Story expansions

http://dragonage.wik...ntent_(Origins)

As well as a lot of other content.

How many did DA 2 get

 

3 Quest / Story expansions

http://dragonage.wik...(Dragon_Age_II)

 

As well as a fair bit of other content.



 

[Jeffry]

I don't NEED to play it. If it turns out to be anything like how CDPR is advertising it to be, it'll be all over YouTube and people will be on this very forum bragging about how great it is compared to how bad and terrible and greedy DAI and Bioware are.

 

You can bet your sweet ass they will be here to let BW/EA know how an AAA RPG game can be done a bit differently and without treating their PC fanbase like filthy pirates

 

 

Doesn't matter who makes it, EA, or anyone for that matter. Focus on one thing, and that one thing is better than trying to focus on two things, it's just common sense.

 

Having said all this about the stall in decent single player, character/story driven RPG titles, Beth might finally be moving their behinds and making the next TES sequel and fallout 4 after that we've only been waiting on forever, even mentioning the phrase fallout 4 seems to delay news about it. Nuts when you think that it's been waiting all this time to be in the works (if it even is), given how popular the two games were.
 

 

Common sense and EA don't go well together most of the time

 

Well, Fallout 4, but what about Valve and Half-Life 3?

[AlanC9]

The game has to pay for itself at some point. That's not a decision Bioware developers make. That's made at the corporate level.

I thought it was made at the sanity level.

[o Ventus]

You can bet your sweet ass they will be here to let BW/EA know how an AAA RPG game can be done a bit differently and without treating their PC fanbase like filthy pirates 

 

"How an AAA RPG game can be done a bit differently"

 

Implying that the Witcher is substantially different from every other Western fantasy RPG, what with its magic and elves and monsters.

[Jeffry]

"How an AAA RPG game can be done a bit differently"

 

Implying that the Witcher is substantially different from every other Western fantasy RPG, what with its magic and elves and monsters.

 

Not dumbing the game down in order to bring in every player imaginable, not putting an unnecessary multiplayer in the game, no DRMs, free DLCs and so on is kinda unique among western RPGs or for that matter games in general.

[o Ventus]

Not dumbing the game down in order to bring in every player imaginable, not putting an unnecessary multiplayer in the game, no DRMs, free DLCs and so on is kinda unique among western RPGs or for that matter games in general.

I think every time someone utters the words "dumbing down", they lose a finger. No better way to punish idiocy.

 

In what way does adding multiplayer make the game worse?

 

The overwhelming majority of AAA games utilize DRM and have been for some time now. While this is a bonus for CDPR as far as their customers are concerned, it's not a good idea for long term business.

 

No game has ever had free DLC before, ever.

 

Literally the only thing on your list unique to CDPR is the bit about DRM.

[AlanC9]

The overwhelming majority of AAA games utilize DRM and have been for some time now. While this is a bonus for CDPR as far as their customers are concerned, it's not a good idea for long term business.

Well, you can make an argument that the lack of DRM doesn't really hurt CDPR. It's hard to tell because there are no apples-to-apples comparisons in gaming. Whatever TW3 does in sales relative to DAI, or Skyrim, or any other game we pick, we'll never be able to disaggregate the DRM from all the other differences.

No game has ever had free DLC before, ever.

That depends on the definition. I can think of a few DLCs released without charge. But yeah, in the "there's no such thing as a free lunch" sense, you're obviously right. In retrospect, maybe Bio should have held a bunch of content off of the DAI disc and released it as a free DLC this month.

[o Ventus]

Well, you can make an argument that the lack of DRM doesn't really hurt CDPR. It's hard to tell because there are no apples-to-apples comparisons in gaming. Whatever TW3 does in sales relative to DAI, or Skyrim, or any other game we pick, we'll never be able to disaggregate the DRM from all the other differences.

That depends on the definition. I can think of a few DLCs released without charge. But yeah, in the "there's no such thing as a free lunch" sense, you're obviously right. In retrospect, maybe Bio should have held a bunch of content off of the DAI disc and released it as a free DLC this month.

"Long term business". CDPR isn't a very old company, and while the lack of DRM does score them brownie points with a lot of people, those who pirate games are still going to pirate their games and hurt them in the long run. It's good for good will, but "please don't pirate our stuff" isn't a very efficient way to protect yourself from pirates. I'm sure CDPR can handle a handful of pirates though, since CD Projekt, their parent company, also owns GOG, which makes them a ton of money.

 

I can't say for the Enhanced edition of the first Witcher, but TW2 Enhanced Edition is probably the only thing I can think of that could be called a "free lunch" in this sense. I wouldn't even call that "DLC" as much as I would call it a content patch. It added a few hours of side quests and cinematics, but the rest was largely bug fixes and optimization improvements. Blizzard does that every 6 months or so with WoW, but nobody is saying Blizzard is a great company for giving away free stuff. Wasn't TW2 also not available for consoles until the Enhanced Edition update, or am I remembering it wrong? If that's the case, then I would hesitate even longer to call it "free lunch", because people still had to pay to play.

[Jeffry]

I think every time someone utters the words "dumbing down", they lose a finger. No better way to punish idiocy.

 

In what way does adding multiplayer make the game worse?

 

The overwhelming majority of AAA games utilize DRM and have been for some time now. While this is a bonus for CDPR as far as their customers are concerned, it's not a good idea for long term business.

 

No game has ever had free DLC before, ever.

 

Literally the only thing on your list unique to CDPR is the bit about DRM.

 

I kinda dislike the term "dumbing down" but it is the quickest way to describe that issue. You can't deny that a lot of games nowadays have they interesting features stripped or gutted in favor of more "streamlined" gameplay. It is good in some cases, but more often it hurts the game.

 

By taking away resources from the main game. Different people work on the MP, but all those money spent on it could be spent on improving the single player campaign in some way (be it extra content or fixes for the current buggy one). Again, the added MP can very well prolong the interest in the game as we could see in ME3 where it was done very well, but often almost nobody even plays the MP after realizing it sucks, since it was not needed and not wanted and it is in the game for one reason only - microtransactions.

 

Well, CD Projekt and its distribution service GoG are going pretty strong at the moment with no DRM, continuously expanding GoG's portfolio. It is in no small part thanks to the fact they are one of the very few to follow this path. If nobody put DRM in their games, they wouldn't get all that extra love and in turn, money.

 

Except the Witcher series I don't know if there have been other games as well with free DLCs, there most likely were, I just don't know about them. But both previous Witcher games have received tremendous post-launch service. Enhanced editions upgrades, as well as DLCs were completely free and they improved the game significantly. The Enhanced Edition for Witcher 2 for example added not only extra bug fixes, but also extra quests, cinematics, narration between chapters and new intro and outro CG movie, among other things. The first Witcher 3 free DLCs are already scheduled.

 

Also as a bonus, CD Projekt doesn't follow the conversion rate of 1 USD = 1 EUR. When they did it in the case of Witcher 2, they added the real difference (which I believed was something around 15 USD) back to their customers' GoG accounts. DAI went (and still goes if not on sale) for 60 € on Origin in my country. Witcher 3 base price is 40 €, 36 € if pre-ordered, 34 € if one owns either the 1st or 2nd game and 32 € if one owns them both. On top of that you'll get NWN: Diamond Edition for free, comics, soundtrack, artbook and all that shizzle. What could I get for standard 60 € DAI pre-order? Few weapons, armors and one mount. If I wanted the soundtrack and more ingame bonuses, the game went for 70 €. Is the Witcher 3 going to be half the game DAI is since it costs half the money? Not really, it just shows they are not greedy bastards and actually treat their customers as they should be treated.

[Jeffry]

"Long term business". CDPR isn't a very old company, and while the lack of DRM does score them brownie points with a lot of people, those who pirate games are still going to pirate their games and hurt them in the long run. It's good for good will, but "please don't pirate our stuff" isn't a very efficient way to protect yourself from pirates. I'm sure CDPR can handle a handful of pirates though, since CD Projekt, their parent company, also owns GOG, which makes them a ton of money.

 

I can't say for the Enhanced edition of the first Witcher, but TW2 Enhanced Edition is probably the only thing I can think of that could be called a "free lunch" in this sense. I wouldn't even call that "DLC" as much as I would call it a content patch. It added a few hours of side quests and cinematics, but the rest was largely bug fixes and optimization improvements. Blizzard does that every 6 months or so with WoW, but nobody is saying Blizzard is a great company for giving away free stuff. Wasn't TW2 also not available for consoles until the Enhanced Edition update, or am I remembering it wrong? If that's the case, then I would hesitate even longer to call it "free lunch", because people still had to pay to play.

 

Like DRMs protect the games from being pirated The only games who managed to stay protected by them are the ones using always online DRM and computing a lot of things on their servers at the same time, like Diablo 3. No DRM policy is in today's world better protection than harsh DRMs, since more and more people are fed up with them.

 

Btw the development studio CD Projekt Red was founded in 2002 and their first game The Witcher came out in 2007. Their parent company CD Projekt is 8 years older.

 

Yeah, the Enhanced Edition for TW2 was released the same day as Xbox360 version of the game. But nobody had to pay anything for the EE upgrade, it was truly free for everybody. And on top of that TW2 received several DLCs ranging from ingame items to quests. And you kinda make it sound like the EE upgrade was insignificant. In reality it really has made the game better, especially its 3rd act that kinda lacked content. Do you see other companies giving any real content to everybody for free (not promos or anniversary gifts) in a SP game?

 

Yeah, MMOs do not really count. Guild Wars 2 could count tho or EVE Online if you manage to farm a lot of ingame money and pay for your time with them. WoW absolutely does not count, because you pay Blizzard monthly fees for extra content.

[o Ventus]

I kinda dislike the term "dumbing down" but it is the quickest way to describe that issue. You can't deny that a lot of games nowadays have they interesting features stripped or gutted in favor of more "streamlined" gameplay. It is good in some cases, but more often it hurts the game.

 

Features, yes. "Interesting" features, not really.

 

 

By taking away resources from the main game. Different people work on the MP, but all those money spent on it could be spent on improving the single player campaign in some way (be it extra content or fixes for the current buggy one). Again, the added MP can very well prolong the interest in the game as we could see in ME3 where it was done very well, but often almost nobody even plays the MP after realizing it sucks, since it was not needed and not wanted and it is in the game for one reason only - microtransactions.

 

Sure, except the MP doesn't detract from the single-player resources. It didn't in ME3, and it still isn't in DAI.

 

Well, CD Projekt and its distribution service GoG are going pretty strong at the moment with no DRM, continuously expanding GoG's portfolio. It is in no small part thanks to the fact they are one of the very few to follow this path. If nobody put DRM in their games, they wouldn't get all that extra love and in turn, money.

 

I would say the fact they host regular sales with enormous discounts bring in more money than the lack of DRM.

 

Except the Witcher series I don't know if there have been other games as well with free DLCs, there most likely were, I just don't know about them. But both previous Witcher games have received tremendous post-launch service. Enhanced editions upgrades, as well as DLCs were completely free and they improved the game significantly. The Enhanced Edition for Witcher 2 for example added not only extra bug fixes, but also extra quests, cinematics, narration between chapters and new intro and outro CG movie, among other things. The first Witcher 3 free DLCs are already scheduled.

 

I remember the heavy majority of TW2's DLC being gear and items, nothing actually substantial save a quest or 2. And like I said, the Enhanced Edition added new quests and cutscenes, but the bulk of the deal was bug fixing and optimization (also a revamp of the control scheme for console people).

 

Also as a bonus, CD Projekt doesn't follow the conversion rate of 1 USD = 1 EUR. When they did it in the case of Witcher 2, they added the real difference (which I believed was something around 15 USD) back to their customers' GoG accounts. DAI went (and still goes if not on sale) for 60 € on Origin in my country. Witcher 3 base price is 40 €, 36 € if pre-ordered, 34 € if one owns either the 1st or 2nd game and 32 € if one owns them both. On top of that you'll get NWN: Diamond Edition for free, comics, soundtrack, artbook and all that shizzle. What could I get for standard 60 € DAI pre-order? Few weapons, armors and one mount. If I wanted the soundtrack and more ingame bonuses, the game went for 70 €. Is the Witcher 3 going to be half the game DAI is since it costs half the money? Not really, it just shows they are not greedy bastards and actually treat their customers as they should be treated.

 

In what way does charging $60 (or the equivalent) mean they are greedy? That's the standard for literally every AAA release. Both Witcher games thus far released to a price of $60 if you didn't buy them with some kind of discount.

 

The pre-order deals and bonuses are also exclusive to GOG, which I wouldn't necessarily call a point in favor of the Witcher, since GOG is not only a single distribution service (and I guarantee you not as many people shop on GOG as they do on Steam or through retail), but the parent service for CDProjekt. that would be like claiming that Portal 2 is a good game because people who pre-ordered that on Steam also got the first Portal in a bundle. It's a nice bonus, but the extras don't make the game any better. It's an incentive you make you spend money, the same as any other company.

[Jeffry]

Sure, except the MP doesn't detract from the single-player resources. It didn't in ME3, and it still isn't in DAI.

 

 

In what way does charging $60 (or the equivalent) mean they are greedy? That's the standard for literally every AAA release. Both Witcher games thus far released to a price of $60 if you didn't buy them with some kind of discount.

 

The pre-order deals and bonuses are also exclusive to GOG, which I wouldn't necessarily call a point in favor of the Witcher, since GOG is not only a single distribution service (and I guarantee you not as many people shop on GOG as they do on Steam or through retail), but the parent service for CDProjekt. that would be like claiming that Portal 2 is a good game because people who pre-ordered that on Steam also got the first Portal in a bundle. It's a nice bonus, but the extras don't make the game any better. It's an incentive you make you spend money, the same as any other company.

 

You know that the resources for both MP and SP come from one source and that is EA? I am not saying that without MP the game would have that much higher budget to spend on just SP. But it for sure would be at least a bit higher than what the SP part receives when there is MP added as well. ME3MP substracted something from SP, but it was so good that it was worth it.

 

60 USD is ok and it is indeed the standard, but I was talking about the prices in Europe, we don't really use dollars here. 60 EUR is not ok and in no way in hell is 1 EUR a substitute for 1 USD. Well, nowadays with the super strong dollar it is somewhat different than what it used to be in december and all those long years before that, but still. My point was that CD Projekt with their Witcher games doesn't try to milk their EU customers for extra money just because they live in Europe and they out of their own pockets added money on those EU customers' GoG accounts. Can you name any other company that has done something like this? A company that decided to make less profit from a huge portion of their fanbase just because it was the right thing to do? (Ofc such good will is an excellent PR and because they are not a charity, they don't for sure do it for the good will alone)

 

Some extra bonuses on GoG are very well in favour of TW3. You can get the game there cheaper than anywhere else, with more bonuses than anywhere else, with a free game on top of that and you can support the company who made the game directly. Yes, it is because both GoG and TW's developers are subsidiaries of their parent CD Projekt company and can thus offer you the best deal, but you can't really say it is similar to Steam and Valve games, because Valve has never done anything like this. Also all new games on Steam cost way more than their retail versions in basically the whole Europe (and by way more I mean by more than 33% for new AAA titles). And you are right that more people shop on Steam than on GoG, but that is their loss in the end in the case of TW3.

 

Charging you more just because you don't live in the USA is greedy. Charging you 33% (!!!) more on their online distribution services than what you could get the game for from any local retail store is greedy (they already save a lot of money from not distributing the physical copies and by selling them directly). If you can't see the greediness at least in this asepct, than I have no words. I have accepted the fact that some people here on BSN are awfully apologetic towards BW and to my shock and amusement even EA and almost all their mistakes and foul plays, that they refuse to take off their rose-tinted glasses for even a while but what I can't understand when some people are blind even when they are served facts on a silver platter. (Not targeting he previous sentence on you personally, unless you choose to ignore this last paragraph or will be trying to defend this greediness, then yes, it is targeted on you as well)

[Keitaro57]

About the conversion USD to €, it remembered me another company. Nippon Ichi Software America. They have an online store in america and made a new online store for the customers in europa. But with the conversion 1 USD = 1 £! At final, the same game was selled 60 $ in america and more than 100 $ in Europa!

So, yes, game publishers tend to milk their fanbase. It is only a matter of time before other publishers do the same thing...

[Benman1964]

 

Beta ...... it's a beta.
This one needs to get out of bay-tah    first before any Delta-Lambda-Gamma.

[PhroXenGold]

About the conversion USD to €, it remembered me another company. Nippon Ichi Software America. They have an online store in america and made a new online store for the customers in europa. But with the conversion 1 USD = 1 £! At final, the same game was selled 60 $ in america and more than 100 $ in Europa!

So, yes, game publishers tend to milk their fanbase. It is only a matter of time before other publishers do the same thing...

 

While a straight switch from $ to £ is a bit dubious, going from $ to € is not so clear cut a case of "money grabbing", at least in the case of gaming. I know that, for some companies, (Paradox Interactive confirmed this applies to them so I would assume it applies elsewhere), due to the differing fees and costs involved, they get essentially the same amount of money when they sell a game on Steam for $10 as they do when they sell one for €10. So while European customers might pay extra, the fault lies not with the the publishers.

[ThreeF]

 

60 USD is ok and it is indeed the standard, but I was talking about the prices in Europe, we don't really use dollars here. 60 EUR is not ok and in no way in hell is 1 EUR a substitute for 1 USD.

Witcher 3 is 60euro in my country for PC version and 70euro for Xbox and PS4.

[Dubya75]

Bioware already said they weren't going to make a full blown expansion to this game.  

 

I don't know how accurate your statement is, but if it is, then I would say they are missing a HUGE opportunity here since this game lends itself perfectly towards a big expansion. Like Awakening was to Origins.

They created 10 massive areas that are all waiting to be filled with actual meaningful content. 

[durengo]

i would prefer to get every half year one big story + problem patch dlc or expansion for dai until we get in 3 years a new dragon age game.

instead that we get with haste in 3 month 10 broken and little dlc .. each one with less content.

[Lee T]

Beth might finally be moving their behinds and making the next TES sequel and fallout 4 after that we've only been waiting on forever, even mentioning the phrase fallout 4 seems to delay news about it. Nuts when you think that it's been waiting all this time to be in the works (if it even is), given how popular the two games were.

The Bethesda teams shifted from Oblivion to Fallout 3 as soon as their work was finished on Oblivion and then to Skyrim. They've been working on their next project since Skyrim is finished. They just don't like talking about a project until it's pretty much done.

[xkg]

CDPR isn't a very old company

 

Depends on what you mean by "old". You may not be aware of that, but as a company in gaming business, they are older than Bioware for example.

[Sartoz]

@Sartoz

 

Where have they said that ME4 will primarily be multiplayer? I know they are/were hiring people to help with MP, but not that it was the focus of the game. I thought the MP game was Shadow Realms...

Mike Laidlaw via Twitter soon after the game was launched...

 

Current patch focus from 1-5 supports this. Apparently patch 6 follows the same pattern. Also, there is an article about the Edmonton Studio staff moving on to help with ME4 (which makes sense) and only a skeleton staff left for DAI, plus a team for DLC development. You can figure out EA/Bio priorities from the last tidbit of info.

[Dubya75]

Mike Laidlaw via Twitter soon after the game was launched...

 

Current patch focus from 1-5 supports this. Apparently patch 6 follows the same pattern. Also, there is an article about the Edmonton Studio staff moving on to help with ME4 (which makes sense) and only a skeleton staff left for DAI, plus a team for DLC development. You can figure out EA/Bio priorities from the last tidbit of info.

 

What, Mike Laidlaw tweeted that ME4 will be mostly multiplayer? You got a link to that tweet?

[Sartoz]

He linked a blog that stated that was the case.  I'd take anything with a grain of salt from any other source from BioWare.

 

 Big Snip

Well, I hope you do not take all of Bio marketing BS to heart, either. 

 

But, I do agree with you with regards to game review web sights. and video reviews with Bio marketing reps. After all, EA spent a ton of money on DAI game promotion.... just look at the video cinematics vs actual game play cinematics/cut scenes animations. That, to the descerning eye, should tell you were the money and cinematic resources for the game went.

 

In any case, DAI is of the past.. a success from EA's point of view... look at their most recent Fianacial quarter results and what the seniors execs have to say about DAI. Next on the agenda is ME4 and that is where the focus must be placed and why the Edmonton staff moved on to help with Montreal's ME4 (except for a DAI skeleton crew and DAI DLC team).

 

Of course, if one believes that DLC development is the same as DAI support, then what can one say? Personally, DAI has tons of issues that won't be looked... the main reason, in my view, why Bio asked players to beta test patch5.  My understanding about patch 6 is that the patch-list seems to be following patch 5 in terms of Bio priorities vs gamers' pleas/suggestions or what not.

 

So, to summarize, I did read Laidlaw's twitter message regarding multiplayer support and patch 1-5 enforces that message. But, hey... maybe in 2016.

[Lilithor]

I think every time someone utters the words "dumbing down", they lose a finger. No better way to punish idiocy.

 

If losing a finger is a good way to punish idiocy you must really hate your fingers for wishing them gone.

For me it is very useful. Having less variables available for the player to control and understand actually makes the game available for more people, people who are not into understanding what each stat does, and for me these people are dumb and dumbing down works just fine to describe how they spoil the game for me while making it more pleasing for people unable to think. So how do you describe the game becoming easier for people to play by not allowing them to allocate stat points, having each class-stat improve attack for the given class, being gear oriented, not enabling you to customize tactics in depth and making the game playable easily without you understanding anything about its mechanics?

Let's just suppose, as I do, that you really believe it is not dumbing down, how is it that people that got bored while I was explaining stat points trying to convince them to play Origins played and finished Inquisition just fine? One of them never played a RPG game before. I wonder how people who once argued with me that they would only play auto-build MMORPGs or find builds online to follow love Inquisition. In short, everybody I knew that dismissed Origins because it was too complicated and they disliked pausing the game to issue commands liked or absolutely loved Inquisition. On the other hand since DA2 my Pathfinder/DnD friends avoid the franchise like the blight. It is surely just coincidence that people that introduced me to Neverwinter Nights (yes, I was late in knowing Bioware, played infinity engine games by 2004~2005 after taking my time with Neverwinter Nights) aren't the ones playing Inquisition and people that I never managed to convince playing NWN2, DAO or DA2 are now playng Inquisition.

I guess I can probably make my daughter play Inquisition but she is not yet ready for the "romantic" content. But I'm pretty sure that when it comes to gameplay she can hold the left mouse button just fine (she is 8).

[AlanC9]

Depends on what you mean by "old". You may not be aware of that, but as a company in gaming business, they are older than Bioware for example.

That's the publishing end. CDPR, the development house proper, is several years younger than Bio.