Actually as I understand it, this is the situation.
1) BioWare make the PC version of Dragon Age. The game is finished and ready for a March 2009 release.
2) EA buy BioWare and announce Dragon Age to be coming to consoles.
3) BioWare puts a skeleton crew on Dragon Age to cut costs, the simultaneous release benefits them due to marketing reasons.
4) All this time while the console ports are being ported, the Dragon Age artists and designers are sitting on their asses all day. Mass Effect 2 is too far from release for the whole company to be in on crunch, The Old Republic is being developed thousands of miles away.
5) Said people start making some DLC.
6) Said DLC turns out to be finished by the time the game is finished.
7) Why hold out on it when you can pack it in for extra value in the premium editions and sell it day one?
Yep, if you don't get the digital copy with Warden's Keep for free, it'll be available as DLC on day one.
that always seems kinda hinky to me.
It's what happens when your game is content-locked 6 months before release. Lots of time for the artists, writers, etc to work on other stuff.
I don't understand this explanation. The disks were not burned 6 months ago, they kept working on the game. How is it different from a normal game where you just carve out a portion to sell separately? It strikes me as incredibly greedy, well maybe not that, but dishonest. It seems like a way to increase the price of your game without marking up the box price.
Its not greedy. What happens is that months before a game goes gold, they content lock it. This means that they add no new content or assets to the game. This way the game has time to go through quality control and iron out all of the bugs within it. Testing a game and fixing the bugs, especially a game this massive, is extremely time consuming. If they were adding content during that testing phase, the testing would never finish because new bugs would be constantly added along with the new content.
Now, you have programmers, writers, artists, etc sitting around doing nothing while QC is going on. Even though they're doing nothing, you're still paying them. You could fire them, but its a far better investment to put them to work. So the go ahead and start making DLC. The DLC is far smaller then the game, so it is possible to churn it out and get it through QC far quicker then the full game. This leads to release day DLC. While you can put it out for free, you still have to pay all of those artists, writers, programmers, etc, so you charge a small fee to recoup the resources you put into making the DLC.
Then people bitch and moan and complain that this is all stuff that was actually in the game and has been pulled so they can charge more when the people complaining don't know much if anything about software development.
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited October 2009
I do kind of find it funny that a game that is coming out on pc with a toolset for some reason also have 5-8 or however many things attached to the special edition that will probably be made in the toolset in under 3 days. That or godly versions of them.
There comes a point in the baking of a cake in which it is no longer practical to add ingredients without completely messing things up. That is the point at which the cake can be considered to be "content locked".
There comes a point in the baking of a cake in which it is no longer practical to add ingredients without completely messing things up. That is the point at which the cake can be considered to be "content locked".
There comes a point in the baking of a cake in which it is no longer practical to add ingredients without completely messing things up. That is the point at which the cake can be considered to be "content locked".
So is frosting the DLC?
More like a mini cake made out of leftover dough by the dude who would otherwise only be pretending to work to get his 8 hours in.
There comes a point in the baking of a cake in which it is no longer practical to add ingredients without completely messing things up. That is the point at which the cake can be considered to be "content locked".
So is frosting the DLC?
More like a mini cake made out of leftover dough by the dude who would otherwise only be pretending to work to get his 8 hours in.
There comes a point in the baking of a cake in which it is no longer practical to add ingredients without completely messing things up. That is the point at which the cake can be considered to be "content locked".
So is frosting the DLC?
the DLC is having room service bring the cake to your hotel room for 20% service charge, and then the room service guy asks for a tip.
As I see it, the extra time probably means Bioware has had more time to do maintenance and evaluation checking on the PC version of the game. This is a good thing.
Posts
1) BioWare make the PC version of Dragon Age. The game is finished and ready for a March 2009 release.
2) EA buy BioWare and announce Dragon Age to be coming to consoles.
3) BioWare puts a skeleton crew on Dragon Age to cut costs, the simultaneous release benefits them due to marketing reasons.
4) All this time while the console ports are being ported, the Dragon Age artists and designers are sitting on their asses all day. Mass Effect 2 is too far from release for the whole company to be in on crunch, The Old Republic is being developed thousands of miles away.
5) Said people start making some DLC.
6) Said DLC turns out to be finished by the time the game is finished.
7) Why hold out on it when you can pack it in for extra value in the premium editions and sell it day one?
8) ???
9) Profit.
If you want to see them trying to add stuff they couldn't finish in time, you will see them trying to add stuff they couldn't finish in time.
It is pointless to debate this.
Its not greedy. What happens is that months before a game goes gold, they content lock it. This means that they add no new content or assets to the game. This way the game has time to go through quality control and iron out all of the bugs within it. Testing a game and fixing the bugs, especially a game this massive, is extremely time consuming. If they were adding content during that testing phase, the testing would never finish because new bugs would be constantly added along with the new content.
Now, you have programmers, writers, artists, etc sitting around doing nothing while QC is going on. Even though they're doing nothing, you're still paying them. You could fire them, but its a far better investment to put them to work. So the go ahead and start making DLC. The DLC is far smaller then the game, so it is possible to churn it out and get it through QC far quicker then the full game. This leads to release day DLC. While you can put it out for free, you still have to pay all of those artists, writers, programmers, etc, so you charge a small fee to recoup the resources you put into making the DLC.
Then people bitch and moan and complain that this is all stuff that was actually in the game and has been pulled so they can charge more when the people complaining don't know much if anything about software development.
So is frosting the DLC?
More like a mini cake made out of leftover dough by the dude who would otherwise only be pretending to work to get his 8 hours in.
So kinda like donut holes, yeah?
...I'm hungry.
For some dragons.
the DLC is having room service bring the cake to your hotel room for 20% service charge, and then the room service guy asks for a tip.
....just like donut holes in fact.
Dragon Age: Origins: Just like donut holes?
Dragon Age: It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.
Dragon Age: Dragon Age with a Origin
Origins is the donut, Warden is the holes.
Dragon Age : Continuations?
Dragon Age : Status Quo
Would be ironic if they used Marilyn Manson for the trailers againOH NO IT WOULDN'T IT'S AN URBAN MYTH
Presumably
"Dragon Age: <Noun that is relevant to the occurences in the game>"
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