Dragon Age

[Lakov_Sanite]

Would it help if they put in raiding? 

mmo's at least have a social aspect, using the same model for single player is just...not a good idea.

[Venkman]

Different user experiences. DA:O is not adding DLC to fix a bunch of bugs like we pay an MMO monthly fee to get. It's adding more story for a game about story for players who want more of that story. Yes, I know people are all aflutter about launch-day DLC and whatnot. Whatever. There's nothing wrong with adding DLC. Not like anyone complained about all the DLC for Fallout 3.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Different user experiences. DA:O is not adding DLC to fix a bunch of bugs like we pay an MMO monthly fee to get. It's adding more story for a game about story for players who want more of that story. Yes, I know people are all aflutter about launch-day DLC and whatnot. Whatever. There's nothing wrong with adding DLC. Not like anyone complained about all the DLC for Fallout 3.

the problem is its NOT adding story, it's adding side quests. it's just half-life 2.1 2.2 2.3  nothing in this expansion will add new gameplay or change the world in any drastic way.  they're looking at mmo's and thinking "hey lets just add a few level, give new loot and some new areas to explore and we'll be rolling in gold"  that's what any person after a quick buck would think but mmo expansions(good ones) add a lot more than that and even if they dont, people dont expect that much since the draw of an mmo is not the storyline. 

i have as much desire to play a dragon age expansion pack as i do to go through and play resident evil or half-life as one of the side characters that i dont give a fuck about.  yes the gameplay in DA was enjoyable but i dont play rpg's for the combat, i play them for the story.  what's that? they're adding more story? yes and no.  they're adding new questlines sure, maybe even expanding on the universe but its not going to be nearly as extensive as the original game nor will it truly advance the storylines already set in place. 

this expansion is for people who read EU star wars books but frankly i and a majority of people are not going to be arsed to care, not at a full box price.

[Velorath]

the problem is its NOT adding story, it's adding side quests.

The expansion is adding story.  In fact, IIRC from an interview about it, it's got a completely different cast of party members.

[Lakov_Sanite]

the problem is its NOT adding story, it's adding side quests.

The expansion is adding story.  In fact, IIRC from an interview about it, it's got a completely different cast of party members.

right, it's not the characters you know, it's a fucking side quest.  it's using the same game resources but changing the skins and adding a b-list cast of voice actors, have you never played a half-life mod? That's what this is.  You can dress it up as much as you like but you aren't getting the same amount of quality and content you got in DA and they are asking the same or near same price for it.
 that's unacceptable

[Velorath]

A side quest would be if they just added a new area for you to explore like they do with the DLC.  Everything else you said is pure speculation on your part (especially the b-list cast of voice actor's part since Bioware seems to be pretty good at getting voice talent for their games).

[Venkman]

right, it's not the characters you know, it's a fucking side quest.  it's using the same game resources but changing the skins and adding a b-list cast of voice actors, have you never played a half-life mod? That's what this is.  You can dress it up as much as you like but you aren't getting the same amount of quality and content you got in DA and they are asking the same or near same price for it.
 that's unacceptable

Fallout 3 DLC had plenty of side quests. It also had pushing-forward content on occasion. I don't think there's some hard and fast rule that Bioware is violating here, some decades only convention that's getting tossed out or anything. In fact, I can't really figure out why you care so deeply about it. They know they're not going to get a 100% tie ratio between original owners and DLC purchasers. So you're just part of that group they don't get.

This is Dragon Age Expanded Universe in the model of Clone Troopers or Tom Bombadil. Nothing wrong with that. Sequels push a story forward, or retcon stuff because they've got a bigger budget second go

[tmp]

right, it's not the characters you know, it's a fucking side quest.

It's not a side-quest, it's a followup. Your character continues their adventures after they've waved goodbye to the old pals. This does expand the main storyline just like say, ME2 expands the main storyline of ME even though it brings new characters to the table.

edit:

Yeah, fuck them. Three months out, and they'll have already whipped out enough content for ten dollars less the original box? My ass.

Their PC version team was supposedly done with their work for what's roughly a year now if i remember right. I guess they've been busy with more than just the Warden Keep DLC since then.

[Tebonas]

I hate to break it to you Lakov, but "same engine for other games" is not something people discovered from MMOGs.

The SSI gold box games 20 years ago were 9 full price games with basically the same engine (11 if you count Buck Rogers).

Or if you want to go lower prices expansion packs: Ultima 7+Forge of Virtue, Ultima 7/II+Silver Seed.

I find that whole DLC business Bioware conducts appalling. And beyond buying their Collectors Edition, they will never see a dime from me on that. But an Expansion Pack a few months after the original game? Perfectly legit if it delivers enough content for the price.

[Venkman]

Ok, time to ask: besides vague smoldering over a launch day DLC, what exactly is wrong with Bioware's DLC strategy? Not like Shale nor a storage container are absolutely required.

[eldaec]

1) Too expensive.
2) The Shale strategy is a blatant grab at the first sale rights of the consumer.

[eldaec]

Also, since you mention Fallout 3, everyone had the same complaint back then, too little content, too much reliance on giving away cheap overpowered bullshit (which I can do myself with console commands), costs too much.


The reason you didn't see so many posts about it was that the delay between launch and the DLC meant fewer people were interested in the first place.

[Venkman]

Good summary. And that's exactly my point.

The only real difference is that Bioware decided to front load it. But that's it. These are all blatant money grabs. So? If people are willing to pay for it, they should go into development. Or, they should go into development only if people are willing to pay for it. I paid for Shale and am glad for it. I haven't gotten Warden's Keep but probably will. Because I enjoy the world enough to fund further development in it. Meanwhile, other people go buy L4D2 for whatever reason

Would people feel the same if Bioware wasn't under EA now? I still feel like there's a residual bias there.

[Tebonas]

The first day DLC is dangerously close to cutting content out of the complete game just to sell it to the customer again. Especially with it already being integrated into the core game (the NPCs that tell you to buy so-and-so to do his sidequest).

It just reeks of "press some more money out of the poor schmucks".

[Reg]

I was particularly offended by the storage chest in Warden's Keep. Supposedly there was a technical problem preventing them from putting it into the regular game and yet a mod came out giving you a storage chest less than a week after the game was released.

edit : word fix

[Lakov_Sanite]

Pretty much they are selling you a car at full price and sell you the tires at an extra charge, even though they've had them in the back room the whole time.

[Koyasha]

I found Warden's Keep a bit too expensive for the content, myself.  Just a bit.  A couple relatively minor tweaks - being able to re-enter the keep and a little more involvement after taking the place, as well as one more quest, particularly one that linked outside the keep, even a relatively short one, and it would have been just fine for me and I'd have had no complaints at all.

On the other hand I have nothing but praise for the Shale strategy.  It's trying to get rid of the secondary market, which is as far as I'm concerned a fine and reasonable thing to do, while giving people a choice if they do buy a secondhand copy, making it possible for the company to still make some profit.  I have no love for the used games market, and anything they can do to cut into that without causing me problems (like limited installs do, for example) is ok in my book.  The only issues I have with it are the same issues with anything that doesn't provide me physical media and especially anything that needs to be 'activated' online, but those are entirely separate issues, and they're common to a lot of things, not just DLC.

The launch day DLC I don't have an issue with.  Although it's the one thing I'd say people are somewhat justified in taking issue with, I don't care.  I'd rather pay extra for a little content that wouldn't have been in the game anyway, and having it available immediately instead of waiting a month or two for it is just fine in my book as well.

As for the expansion, I don't think much needs to be said.  Of course I'll buy it, and in the tradition of all the expansion packs BioWare has ever made, I expect that it'll be quite good.  If you think otherwise, you've gotten too cynical, I think.  Every expansion pack BioWare has ever released has been more than worth the cost, and all of them except for Tales of the Sword Coast essentially qualify as entire games in their own right.

[Reg]

I'll buy the expansion but I have no intention of being nickel and dimed by DLC that offers an hour of play and a couple of over-powered items at 10 bucks a shot.

[eldaec]

  I'd rather pay extra for a little content that wouldn't have been in the game anyway

Yes they would have.

I find it hard to get too outraged about, but lets be honest about this, shale and the keep are clearly central story elements that would have been in the game if not for a marketing strategy specifically designed to extract extra cash for features that look good in a trailer, to reduce players resistance to paying for DLC, steal the consumer's first sale rights, and all without making the price increase visible through sticker prices.

Return to Ostagar is much more a fallout 3 or oblivion style dlc. A cheap and easily ignored shot to tempt people with loot.  Shale and the Keep are much more manipulative, precisely because EA have just reviewed the initial design and looked for a couple of features that sound saleable, then ripped them out to charge extra.



I don't really have a problem with Dragon Age costing the price of the box plus shale/keep, the game is bigger than a typical single player game, I wouldn't really object to a higher sticker price. But manipulative is about the nicest way you can describe the route EA actually took.

Perhaps part of why I can be sanguine about this, is that EA's record suggests that DA and ME2 will be two of the last Bioware games worth playing anyhow - making the whole issue moot.

[eldaec]

It's trying to get rid of the secondary market, which is as far as I'm concerned a fine and reasonable thing to do

What is reasonable about it?

[caladein]

All extra content is a going to be an upsale.  Be it a $40 expansion pack or a $7 piece of DLC.

Is Warden's Keep $7 worth of fun?  Yes, especially as I've played it multiple times. 

Is Awakening going to be $40 worth of fun?  Probably, considering how much I like Dragon Age and how good BioWare expansions usually are.

(I'm not including Shale here because it's more the arbitrary get-money-from-used-sales "DLC" that all of EA is doing of late.  As someone who buys games almost exclusively via Steam or other similar services, they're all irrelevant as "extra content" to me.)

[Velorath]

Pretty much they are selling you a car at full price and sell you the tires at an extra charge, even though they've had them in the back room the whole time.

A car won't go anywhere without the tires.  Dragon Age is a complete game without Warden's Keep.  Even the storage chest's usefulness is a little dubious.  It was so far out of the way that I've pretty much never used it.

[tmp]

What is reasonable about it?

To be more exact it's trying to make some money from the second hand sales where otherwise there'd be none. Which is pretty reasonable from the money making standpoint.

[Reg]

So when someone comes up with a way to charge you extra money that goes to the manufacturer when you buy a used car you'll be in favour of it?

[tmp]

If there's car + service model being used by manufacturer to sell their product it basically means the 'car' part is worth only a part of price of the whole package. Compared to situation where the 'car' was the whole deal. Sucks for the guy who is trying to get rid of the car but if i'm the second hand buyer then it's hardly my problem.

(unless i'm the seller of course. But then it's not like i didn't know the situation before i made my purchase)

[Reg]

I don't buy or sell used games so it doesn't affect me. But I don't see why I should be supportive of new and creative ways to increase prices when there's no benefit to the consumer.

[Velorath]

So when someone comes up with a way to charge you extra money that goes to the manufacturer when you buy a used car you'll be in favour of it?

You mean like how some warranties aren't transferable to subsequent owners?

[rattran]

Residual value is still value. I know a lot of people who buy console games knowing that they'll pay $60, but can then sell it/trade it and recoup some of that value. Removing resale ability reduces the initial 'value' of the game by removing residual value.

[Koyasha]

Yes they would have.

I find it hard to get too outraged about, but lets be honest about this, shale and the keep are clearly central story elements that would have been in the game if not for a marketing strategy specifically designed to extract extra cash for features that look good in a trailer, to reduce players resistance to paying for DLC, steal the consumer's first sale rights, and all without making the price increase visible through sticker prices.

Return to Ostagar is much more a fallout 3 or oblivion style dlc. A cheap and easily ignored shot to tempt people with loot.  Shale and the Keep are much more manipulative, precisely because EA have just reviewed the initial design and looked for a couple of features that sound saleable, then ripped them out to charge extra.

Shale and the keep aren't central story elements.  The keep especially is completely and utterly divorced from the rest of the game.  It's a bolted-on addon that has zero effect on the rest of the game, is never, ever mentioned outside of the dialogues that are specifically part of the DLC, and if anything, is too separate from the game because some of the events that occur there should have more of an impact on the rest of the game, such as Avernus being able to tell you more about the Wardens and all sorts of things.  Shale, similarly, is never mentioned, never brought up, there never seems to be even the slightest hint of its existence unless you have the DLC installed.  That's not what content that has been cut feels like.  Every game I've ever played that has cut content of any significance has clear and obvious clues pointing toward the fact that 'something is missing'.  Look at Baldur's Gate 2 and the Twisted Rune, or Fallout 2 and the EPA for good examples of complete games that had partly completed content cut.  You can tell.  If there's content cut after having been developed and put into the game, especially a central story element, you can tell when it's missing because it's almost impossible to scour the game completely clean of any reference to it.

What is reasonable about it?

It's taking away a sale from the game company, doesn't really benefit the consumer all that much, and primarily spawns parasite middlemen that make a damned large profit from the resale while actively discouraging people from purchasing new games in favor of purchasing used ones, because they get more profit that way.  It also drives prices up for the customers that buy it new (and thus for the customers that buy it used, since the used prices are based on the new ones) or makes it necessary for producers to cut costs and thus reduces development budgets, since it means they sell less boxes.  None of those things are good for people who want to play more good games.

While there is some value to the consumer in the fact that you can sell or trade the game and recoup some of your value, that provides nothing to the creator, and more importantly, does absolutely nothing to encourage the production of more good games.

[CmdrSlack]

Residual value is still value. I know a lot of people who buy console games knowing that they'll pay $60, but can then sell it/trade it and recoup some of that value. Removing resale ability reduces the initial 'value' of the game by removing residual value.

The thing is that ultimately, resale value for a video game is set by the resale shop owners. GameStop is only going to give you what it wants to give you for a used game. Given that the cost of "keeping" a game on GameFly and buying that same game used at GameStop are cheaper in favor of GameFly (if you don't factor in some portion of the monthly fee), obviously the secondary market value isn't exactly fixed.

It does nothing to harm the right of first sale. The purchaser of a new game still has the ability to re-sell the game. Whether that game is worth the same as another on the secondary market has no actual impact on the fact that one can still re-sell the game. If someone has a hard time finding a buyer for a really shitty game, does the shitty game design also act as an attack on the right of first sale?

[eldaec]

So when someone comes up with a way to charge you extra money that goes to the manufacturer when you buy a used car you'll be in favour of it?

You mean like how some warranties aren't transferable to subsequent owners?

Yes, like this example of corporate sharp practice which is illegal in a fair number of countries.

[rattran]

What I'm saying is that the $60 initial price of the game may be too high if you remove/reduce the trade-in/resale ability. $60 is too much for shitty games in any case. I don't buy used games, and I don't trade in games.

And resale price may be set by the reseller, but value is determined by customers. Just like initial sale price. Sure, you can price your 'turd-ina-box' at $59.99 (CE $69.99 with bronze turd action figure and bonus DLC) but if no one buys it, customers didn't agree that it's value matched.

[Venkman]

Which is exactly what is going on here. Shale is no more a requirement than the storage chest from Warden's. They're both very valuable, but your game isn't fundamentally impacted by the lack of either. These are not required editions ripped from the core game just to try and get around an at-retail price cap with some nickel and dime bullshit. You can tell because even without them, most people won't ever play 100% of the game. There's more actual narrative-based content here than half the MMOs out there.

I know people like to kneejerk against new business models. And even after all this time and dethroning, people are still heavily biased towards anything even tangentially associated with EA. But DLCs are not any more an established business model than those scammy buy-fuel-for-*ville games on Facebook. It's all fluid.

And I particularly smirk at anyone bitching about non-required DLC purchases when they're off gladly paying to beta an MMO that's been out for a few years 

[Azazel]

Ok, time to ask: besides vague smoldering over a launch day DLC, what exactly is wrong with Bioware's DLC strategy? Not like Shale nor a storage container are absolutely required.

I can't see any reason at all that the DLC couldn't have been

1) Rolled into the main ganme as a free download. Like games used to do just a couple of years ago.
or
2) Rolled into the expansion pack.

How much DLC has this thing had so far now?


Oh, and here's my newdrage reasoning. Nothing to do with "EA hate".

The first day DLC is dangerously close to cutting content out of the complete game just to sell it to the customer again. Especially with it already being integrated into the core game (the NPCs that tell you to buy so-and-so to do his sidequest).

I was particularly offended by the storage chest in Warden's Keep. Supposedly there was a technical problem preventing them from putting it into the regular game and yet a mod came out giving you a storage chest less than a week after the game was released.

[Velorath]

I know people like to kneejerk against new business models. And even after all this time and dethroning, people are still heavily biased towards anything even tangentially associated with EA. But DLCs are not any more an established business model than those scammy buy-fuel-for-*ville games on Facebook. It's all fluid.

It's just moral outrage for its own sake.  That's why you've got people here who support Steam with purchases all of a sudden becoming champions of the used game market.  They don't really give a shit, they just want something to bitch about.