Greek Factions are Day 1 DLC in Rome 2, also releases September 3rd, 2013

So CA announced the CE and release date for Rome 2 today (September 3rd, 2013), along with the new Greek States Culture Pack DLC which includes Athens, Sparta and Epirus. You get the pack for free ONLY if you pre-order the game, otherwise you have to buy it separately off of Steam.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...pre-order-details-and-the-Collector-s-Edition

What’s more, if you don’t want to pre-order, you can still pick up the Greek States Culture Pack when it goes on sale on day one.

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aka "**** you if you don't pre-order, we'll charge you for something that should be included for free"

Yeah, I've got a better idea, I'll just wait until all the DLC is out and pick up the gold edition or some equivalent bundle on sale. That way it will be patched up, I'll have a complete game, and mods will be out for it.

While the new Rome II looks great, I am rather... turned off by this pre-order thing. I don't have anything against DLC, but this isn't the way to do it. Day One DLC means they've been working on it while they were already making the original game, and it's cutting off features for extra profit, isn't it?


Oh, but at least everybody will get the Pontus DLC free! Except I feel like it's just like cutting off one of the originally playable factions and then saying it's DLC and it's free ot make people happy.


Anyhow, given my terrible budget, I won't be able to preorder Rome II anyways, and I'll have to wait until it's at least half off.

I don't mind it - it's possible that it's not finished enough to be ready for RTM, but it's able to be ready for the actual release date without having to be written onto thousands of disks and distributed worldwide. I'm probably going to pre-order it, the game will cost the same either way but I'll still get the extra three factions.

It doesn't matter if they had time to finish it before they had to finalize the disc based content or not for several reasons. Its going to be finished and ready by release (if not before it) as it is, and its being given out for free to anyone who pre-orders it the night before release but not the people who buy it on release day or week. Since the game uses Steamworks and there will probably be a day 1 patch anyway they don't need to have EVERYTHING done by the time they print the discs, they have the time between 'Gold' and release to keep adding content and fixing bugs. The only reason they (probably SEGA's orders) are charging for it after release to to make content that should be included with the game in the first place (something which other companies like CD Projekt manage to do just fine, even with smaller budgets) to incentive pre-ordering the game and punish customers who don't. Plus they are already giving out Pontus on the release day patch for free to everyone as well.

Its not like its for some unimportant faction like the Iceni who are once again a playable faction even though all they did was get conquered by the Romans. The Greeks had a huge impact upon the world, even if the sun is setting on their military conquests at the start of the game's time period. Although Pyrrhus of Epirus did give the Romans a run for their money.

Its almost as bad as Koch Media cutting out the Ranger Mode difficulties from Metro: Last Light (which is, and is advertised as, the only way to fully experience the game) for the same kind of pre-order for free or pay extra for part of the game they cut out bs. Its completely unacceptable, even if you don't think "it doesn't affect me" because you are pre-ordering anyway, because sooner or later it will (if it hasn't already, there have been plenty of awful cut-content "DLCs" already >_<).

Isn't this what games have been doing for far longer since the rise of DRM and money squeezing? Pre-order and you get something neat which has been made for the game? Some games did posters, some did really nice manuals, some did game content.

Why is this such a travesty? Can someone explain it to me?

The majority of the time the bonus is just some items or a couple of units or something small like that and not really important. This is THREE playable factions all of which are very important historically and one of which even had a chance at crushing the Romans before they formed their empire. Also as I already pointed out, its content that should be included in the game for free regardless of when you buy it.

What's the obsession with pre-orders about, anyway? Is it just to try and get people to buy it at full price, or what? And, if so, why haven't publishers of other media jumped onto the bandwagon?

They get the majority of sales from pre-orders and the first few weeks, they also use that to judge how financially successful a game is. And yet they keep making it less and less worth pre-ordering.

Oh, and if the game is bad then getting people to pre-order helps too.

Traitorfish said:

What's the obsession with pre-orders about, anyway? Is it just to try and get people to buy it at full price, or what? And, if so, why haven't publishers of other media jumped onto the bandwagon?

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Well, after reading that they'll continue with this day-one DLC BS, I just decided I'm not going to pay full price for Rome 2 and wait a couple of weeks/months after release.

Traitorfish said:

What's the obsession with pre-orders about, anyway? Is it just to try and get people to buy it at full price, or what? And, if so, why haven't publishers of other media jumped onto the bandwagon?

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It used to be back in the days of bricks-and-mortar stores only, and people would preorder to make sure they got a copy instead of showing up to find it was sold out

Traitorfish said:

What's the obsession with pre-orders about, anyway? Is it just to try and get people to buy it at full price, or what? And, if so, why haven't publishers of other media jumped onto the bandwagon?

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Yeah, basically what PrinceScamp said.

The other reasoning, at least with the first-day DLC is to cut into used purchases. Any used buy at Gamestop or Amazon is a purchase taken away from the developer so publishers are constantly looking for new and interesting ways to force customers to buy the game new.

Except when it comes to PC games that use Steamworks, the second hand sales argument is completely invalid since there aren't any. Hell, PC games in general don't have much of a second hand market anymore.

Maniacal said:

Except when it comes to PC games that use Steamworks, the second hand sales argument is completely invalid since there aren't any. Hell, PC games in general don't have much of a second hand market anymore.

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Yeah. It certainly still applies to console games though.

Silly question, but - for the rest of us, what exactly is going to fill the pointy bit of the Balkans and most of the Near East?

Flying Pig said:

Silly question, but - for the rest of us, what exactly is going to fill the pointy bit of the Balkans and most of the Near East?

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Minor factions I assume.

I think the days of empty conquerable provinces are over for the Total War franchise, which makes me happy.

Flying Pig said:

Silly question, but - for the rest of us, what exactly is going to fill the pointy bit of the Balkans and most of the Near East?

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It'd basically be like in Empire and Shogun II with minor, unplayable factions, but factions nevertheless. So basically if you don't have the Greek states DLC, Athens and Sparta will just be unplayable. If you have them, then they are unlocked.

I take it that unlocking them will not be as simple as it was in the original Rome.

Flying Pig said:

I take it that unlocking them will not be as simple as it was in the original Rome.

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Nope, unlocking them would mean buying the DLC. Or pre-ordering the game so you get the DLC "free".

Flying Pig said:

I take it that unlocking them will not be as simple as it was in the original Rome.

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In addition to what cybrxkhan said, you also may not even be able to mod them back in even if the files are in the game already (as was the case for at least some of the DLC units in Empire). I think they made them much harder, if not impossible(ish) to mod in in a patch too but don't quote me on that. Also none of the main fansites will let you mod them in, talk about it there, or post a mod putting them in.

I don't think Athens was an individual power during this period, it was either part of the Hellenic League (in one of its many incarnations) or incorporated proper into one of the Diadochoi empires.