Dragon Age DLC

[Humodour]

Ok, I know we've bandied around the whole DLC issue in the other Dragon Age topics, and I know a third topic might be excessive, but this topic is less about the game and more about the bizarro sales pitch going on here.

 

For those not in the know, when you make camp in Dragon Age, you have a little place to talk to your companions, buy and sell gear, and craft. It works like the ships in KotOR and ME. You will also notice a guy concerned about his family. He offers you a quest. But before you think about accepting, he hits you with a sales pitch.

 

So in order to do this quest, you have to pay for it separately.

 

Now I'm not typically bothered by DLC. In fact I rarely bother with it, and I think it is a creative way to continue the development cycle of a game.

 

But what bothers me is the fact that Dragon Age has been out for less than a week, and they are already trying to peddle content. That means this was done when the game was done, and they withheld it to milk some more bucks out of the player, and then they put it front and center in the game. It isn't in some tucked away corner, it is staring you right in the face, saying "if you don't buy me, you aren't getting the full experience."

 

So I'm a bit perturbed, to say the least. I'm not someone who gets too wound up over video games, but this did push a button for me.

 

They did this for Borderlands, too. It's disgusting, and I'm certainly not going to buy it.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It's disgusting, and I'm certainly not going to buy it.

 

This.

I might buy it if it comes out in a combined pack but for the most part I think I'll skip the DLC for now. However, the main game is great - so, yeah, Dragon Age is worth the money I just wish the DLC was handled better.

[Gorth]

Lets just say that Tigranes convinced me *not* to buy Dragon Age (I am quite sure it was unintentional). First off, I don't like DLC and Microtransactions as a business model at all. Reminds me too much of the con men of old. Second, if you have to sign up on some "social" site to get downloadable stuff, including patches for the game proper, I call it quits. Third, looking at the game on the shelf today, before walking away from it, I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the price tag. 110$, it is the most expensive new release I have seen for a very, very long time.

 

I exercise my consumer right to vote with my money. I withheld my vote

[Bokishi]

Soon it will be "Want to fight last boss? pay 20 bucks pls"

[Syraxis]

Third, looking at the game on the shelf today, before walking away from it, I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the price tag. 110$, it is the most expensive new release I have seen for a very, very long time.

 

[Monte Carlo]

Posted in wrong thread, sorry guys.

 

BTW, I usually agree with hurlie, but for some reason I'm quite taken with the whole DLC thing, it's like I can expand a game I'm enjoying without having to download a Trojan-laden mod (found that last week) or traipse down to the shops.

 

Can I burn DLC to disc in case I transfer everything to a new puter?

Edited November 7, 2009 by Monte Carlo

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Trojan-laden mod (found that last week)

 

 

Really? I've never had the issue with mods - what one was it and from where?

 

 

Can I burn DLC to disc in case I transfer everything to a new puter?

 

Yes, just "rip" the DLC out of your "C:\Users\[YourName]\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns" folder -make sure to get the AddIns XML from the "C:\Users\[YourName]\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings" as well- after you've downloaded it if you want to back it up.

[Monte Carlo]

^ There were about a dozen trojans in various (older) Weimer mods for BG2 that AVG picked up on a deep scan last week.

 

Minor issue about DLC, and a question for Bio: why is there are nifty in game DLC updater but not one for automatically updating the game with patches, eh? It's small things like this that make them look like Starbucks.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

^ There were about a dozen trojans in various (older) Weimer mods for BG2 that AVG picked up on a deep scan last week.

 

Are you sure it was not the result of bad hex editing or the like? It seems like a false positive is more likely in that case.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Dunno what that is, but looked around some BG2 modding forums afterwards and discovered that some other folks had found them too.

 

BTW, no disrespect to Wes, he's a modding uber-god and has provided me with many hours of free and pleasurable gaming.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

^ Dunno what that is, but looked around some BG2 modding forums afterwards and discovered that some other folks had found them too.

 

That makes me think it's a false positive stemming from a byte mismatch test or the like. It's not unheard of, in fact it's not that uncommon at all.

[Humodour]

Lets just say that Tigranes convinced me *not* to buy Dragon Age (I am quite sure it was unintentional). First off, I don't like DLC and Microtransactions as a business model at all. Reminds me too much of the con men of old. Second, if you have to sign up on some "social" site to get downloadable stuff, including patches for the game proper, I call it quits. Third, looking at the game on the shelf today, before walking away from it, I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the price tag. 110$, it is the most expensive new release I have seen for a very, very long time.

 

I exercise my consumer right to vote with my money. I withheld my vote

 

Seconded. Earlier I was talking about just the DLC, but upon reflection there seems little point bothering with the actual game at all.

 

I'll stick with nifty indie games (like HoN, Plants vs Zombies, World of Goo, Torchlight) and developers largely loyal to the PC like Blizzard and Valve. On that note, I regret purchasing Borderlands.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Here's the thing. I started work there on June 10th. At that point, the main Dragon Age game was in content lockdown. No changes to the content would be made unless something was deemed to be broken and required fixing. The design and programming team were already working on the console versions of the game. Though, a DLC team had been formed to create downloadable content. When I started working, there was no DLC content available to load up. There was some minor hooks that didn't really lead anywhere at that time (Levi was in the camp for example), and they only existed on the PC version of the game. The content of the DLC was created after content lockdown had occurred. Had there not been a team created to work on DLC, it wouldn't have been created.

 

After we had submitted our release candidates, testing and work was still being done on the content in the DLC. This is impossible to do on the main game after it has been submitted for certification.

 

 

Starting work on extra content after the main game has completed is the way to go, no one can argue with that. The problem is that it looks like Bioware did all of it at the same time, removed some parts and then tried to sell them to consumers who have already paid full price for a full game. And thats guaranteed to upset people.

 

With Mass Effect, it was clear that the DLC was created separately from the game. So people did not feel like they were being ripped off like they do now.

[Maria Caliban]

It is easy for me to believe that the DLC was developed after the main game was done. As I said, I just think they need to wait a bit after the commercial release to start pushing it, especially if they are going to push it while I'm in the game. Talk about immersion breaker!

 

This is the free DLC I have for Dragon Age:

War Mage Amulet

Erimies Many-Pockets

Lucky Stone

 

This is the DLC I got from the CE:

Bergan

[Humodour]

^ Dunno what that is, but looked around some BG2 modding forums afterwards and discovered that some other folks had found them too.

 

That makes me think it's a false positive stemming from a byte mismatch test or the like. It's not unheard of, in fact it's not that uncommon at all.

 

 

Yeah. The Torchlight main executable is accidentally flagged as a virus but some prominent virus scanners.

 

I say the solution is to ditch virus scanners.

[alanschu]

Soon it will be "Want to fight last boss? pay 20 bucks pls"

 

Perhaps I'm just a blind optimist, but I think that the fallout from a decision like that would be far too much to overcome.

 

People are already up in arms about Day One DLC that's tangential to the main story.

 

I don't see this as a slippery slope.

 

 

 

Gorth, I probably wouldn't buy the game for $110 either

[alanschu]

As a note, I found a download (.exe file) for the Dragon Age Patch. I'm not sure if it requires you to be logged in to use it, but it seems like the idea that you need to be logged in may be misleading.

 

Link

[Monte Carlo]

I got the patch from a third party site which installed no problems.

 

Still wondering why there isn't an in-game updater a la NWN series.

[alanschu]

Yeah I asked about that at work (if there was one) but the person I asked wasn't 100% sure.

 

The auto-updater type interface I thought was slick, and it seemed to be par for all of their titles since NWN.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I don't have any problem with DA DLC, but how it's presented is pretty bad. I think the way F3 (as a pretty obvious comparison) handled it is less irritating. That is, in F3, there's no presence or hint of the extra content if you haven't purchased it. Once you install it, the indicator pops up in game.

[alanschu]

I can understand that perspective. I'm not really sure where I stand on it to be honest.

 

Though when I first encountered it the first thing I thought was "This seems like a really good idea," at least from a marketing perspective because it makes it hard/impossible to miss available DLC when some people (perhaps the majority of people?) might not otherwise know it exists.

 

I don't know if it will annoy more than it promotes though. I hadn't seen it done before.

[Mera]

I will probably wait for the inevitable GOTY! edition if I buy it at all.

[Humodour]

DLC should either be a) free, or b) big, as big an expansion pack, and sold both digitally and in retail stores.

 

I.e. DLC as it is shouldn't exist and we should have normal expansion packs. Ship the x-packs digitally as your main method if you want to bypass physical distribution costs or whatever.

 

Anything less than an x-pack just feels like a rip-off.

[jjc]

I will probably wait for the inevitable GOTY! edition if I buy it at all.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition includes all the DLC and costs exactly what I paid for Fallout 3 with no DLC last year.

 

If they have "two years of DLC" planned for Dragon Age, I'll wait two years and see what's on the shelf then. At that point, I might as well give it another year and come back when it's dropped to the $20-30 range. I get excited enough to buy a title at launch a couple times a year, tops. DLC schemes like Dragon Age's are ideal for dousing that excitement.

[Monte Carlo]

It is a bit in your face, I agree.

 

And, yeah, all of this stuff will be bundled into a bonus edition by Easter for a lot less. Hmmm, should I be forgiving and suggest this might be a learning curve for them? OTOH, nah, just quit being so Starbucks about it Bioware.

 

I'm still sort of enjoying online shopping in-game, I know, it's weird but I kinda like it.