Civ V and paid downloadable content - how would you feel about it?

[Chalks]

Why is it stupid, care to explain?

You say "what if" then list a bunch of things they're not going to do because it would be really bad.

Then you say "see, if they did a bunch of bad stuff it would be bad!"

Yes, genius, well done. If they came round to your house and burnt it down, that would be bad too.

 

[501st Legion]

You say "what if" then list a bunch of things they're not going to do because it would be really bad.

Then you say "see, if they did a bunch of bad stuff it would be bad!"

Yes, genius, well done. If they came round to your house and burnt it down, that would be bad too.

Funny, I would have said the same thing if my thread was asked in a Total War fan forum before the "Special Forces" edition of Empire: Total War was announced.

Considering that Babylon is locked to all but a few, there's the potential that 2K won't stop there... Other companies are already asking users to pay $3.25 for just 6 measly units you know - http://store.steampowered.com/app/34178/.

 

[Chalks]

Funny, I would have said the same thing if my thread was asked in a Total War fan forum before the "Special Forces" edition of Empire: Total War was announced.

Considering that Babylon is locked to all but a few, there's the potential that 2K won't stop there... Other companies are already asking users to pay $3.25 for just 6 measly units you know - http://store.steampowered.com/app/34178/.

They might potentially do loads of terrible terrible things. Yes. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that they will.

An additional civilization is totally acceptable DLC. Digital special editions ALWAYS come with extra digital content - what else do you expect for them to have?

Extra stuff to the standard game is perfectly fine for DLC. If they release a bunch of mods, and they're all crap and not worth it then guess what? You don't buy them. Wow, that's hard.

You might as well make a thread saying "Hey firaxis, don't make Civ 5 suck!". Yeah, they might make it suck, but since you have no reason to actually think that is there any point to saying it?

 

[501st Legion]

They might potentially do loads of terrible terrible things. Yes. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that they will.

An additional civilization is totally acceptable DLC. Digital special editions ALWAYS come with extra digital content - what else do you expect for them to have?

Extra stuff to the standard game is perfectly fine for DLC. If they release a bunch of mods, and they're all crap and not worth it then guess what? You don't buy them. Wow, that's hard.

You might as well make a thread saying "Hey firaxis, don't make Civ 5 suck!". Yeah, they might make it suck, but since you have no reason to actually think that is there any point to saying it?

If that's what you feel, then I'll get back to you in several months after the game's released.

 

[Chalks]

If that's what you feel, then I'll get back to you in several months after the game's released.

Perhaps it would be better to get back to everyone then?

 

[Commander Bello]

The difference between DLC and expansions as WL and BTS is that DLC will be a matter of copyright.
Therefore, alteration of parts of the DLC most probably will be illegal. Which in turn means that sites like this forum here will have to be very careful about allowing the upload of user-made graphics, mods and so on.

This in turn means that DLC will limit the distribution of mods - and that in turn will limit the modder's willingness to make mods.

Bottom line: DLC is a means for companies to make more money. It will limit the chance of getting new graphics, new gameplay features for the customer.

 

[snowlyon]

DLC is a mixed bag to be sure. I am up in the air whether it will be a good thing or a bad thing for CIV and all the folks that will be playing it. I have this "gut" feeling gonna be seeing some "important" or "classic" units only available via DLC that one would really think should have been offered in the original game itself.

I am "hopeful" they take this the right way...but have a sneaking feeling that its gonna be a rough road ahead. just my opinion though and time will tell.~

 

[zarakand]

Dragon Age did this.

I gotta say that DA's DLC > any DA mods, especially since most user DA mods, are, shall we say, only visual in nature .

DA also offers both DLC and an expansion pack. I'm going to take a guess and say that's going to be the model for Civ 5: 1) DLC of scenarios/civs, maybe a fan-made mod that is bought and distributed by Firaxis 2) Expansion pack with rules changes/big gameplay enhancements.

I agree, I'm willing to give it a chance. The only thing that concerns me is how will DLC work when you don't have an active internet connection?

For example, in Dragon Age if I'm on the road or somewhere I don't have wi-fi it can not verify/log in to my account leaving me unable to play my characters. This annoys me tremendously and has led to me refusing to buy any more DLC.

However, if it is a one time authenticate for that PC so I can play without internet then I have no problem with it.

 

[gskyes]

I'm afraid this is only the beginning.
Next we will hear that Gamestop is also offering pre-order content with a different leader and civilization. Then Direct2Drive and Amazon will join in the madness as well. One or more of these will be unbalanced and overpowered.
I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Samus_au]

The difference between DLC and expansions as WL and BTS is that DLC will be a matter of copyright.
Therefore, alteration of parts of the DLC most probably will be illegal. Which in turn means that sites like this forum here will have to be very careful about allowing the upload of user-made graphics, mods and so on.

This in turn means that DLC will limit the distribution of mods - and that in turn will limit the modder's willingness to make mods.

Bottom line: DLC is a means for companies to make more money. It will limit the chance of getting new graphics, new gameplay features for the customer.

Well yes, of course if a modder decides to repack the (say) the Babylon Civilization and release it as their own mod that would be illegal, just like if they tried to repack the contents of BtS as their own. I cant see how that will limit the distribution or creation of mods though. You could still make a mod that could tweak Babylon, but it would only work for people who already have that them.

I do agree that DLC is a slippery slope and it has a lot of potential for abuse, but until we see what they are offering and at what price its hard to say. ETW, Oblivion are good examples of (mostly) terrible DLC, offering things that are borderline useless. Borderlands on the other hand had pretty good DLC packs, each adding some useful features to the game.

As long as the price is fair, it doesn't segregate the mutliplayer community and is actually useful I'm ok with it.

 

[The Almighty dF]

Why is it stupid, care to explain?

"I can't even be bothered", which translates roughly to "I don't know anything, I just wanted to say something that made it sound like I know something. I'M TOO ANGRY TO EXPLAIN MY VIEWS."
No offense Chalks, not saying you're an idiot, just saying this and some other comments being tossed around in these threads... sound pretty dumb. Gotta pick on your post as an example of this. (It still beats the claims that Steam is malware/adware/spyware, though. Which is bordering on "You keep using that word, I don't think you know what it means.")
These threads are kinda derailing into they changed it now it sucks versus fanboyism.
If we can -please- stick to some grounding, it'd be nice. We don't want to end up like the various "My leader's not in, now it sucks" threads, now do we?

 

[sgrig]

Releasing paid-for content one bit at a time will be a terrible blow for the mod community. Currently you just have mods for vanillas/warlords/bts. So there are just three groups of users - those who have vanilla, those who have warlords, and those who have BTS. If you make a mod or a scenario, you can target one of these groups, and use the appropriate content as base material for your own mod.

However assume now you have 5 different small DLCs, each one is offering either a new civ or a new unit, or new terrain, whatever. Now there will be people who have all of them, or a certain combination of these DLCs or none of them. In fact there will be 32 different combinations.

Now if you are a mod maker and want to use something from a DLC, this immediately limits your target audience. So to be more inclusive, you don't use any DLC content in your mod. This however limits what you can do. Moreover this puts DLCs and mod makers in direct competition with each other.

 

[Commander Bello]

Exactly.

 

[Samus_au]

Releasing paid-for content one bit at a time will be a terrible blow for the mod community. Currently you just have mods for vanillas/warlords/bts. So there are just three groups of users - those who have vanilla, those who have warlords, and those who have BTS. If you make a mod or a scenario, you can target one of these groups, and use the appropriate content as base material for your own mod.

However assume now you have 5 different small DLCs, each one is offering either a new civ or a new unit, or new terrain, whatever. Now there will be people who have all of them, or a certain combination of these DLCs or none of them. In fact there will be 32 different combinations.

Now if you are a mod maker and want to use something from a DLC, this immediately limits your target audience. So to be more inclusive, you don't use any DLC content in your mod. This however limits what you can do. Moreover this puts DLCs and mod makers in direct competition with each other.

You do raise some interesting points here. I guess it depends on what they end up publishing as DLC and how the modding tools handle it. Say you have a mod that adds an extra trait to each leader, as long as the game doesn't blow up because there is an extra leader, one isn't changed, etc. then that could work. Oblivion handled its paid DLC and mods without any real impact to the user.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Well I hope the DLC is anything better than the recent one I've purchased for Modern Warfare 2. We got the 5 new maps, but couldn't choose what mode we can play since it was all random for all the new maps. Man I was going apeshit about that we first couldn't choose what map we can play with the one we had, but now we couldn't choose which mode for the new ones. All I wanted to do was play Free For All, not get gang raped by hardcore clan players.

 

[NikNak]

It really depends. Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Neverwinter Nights 1/2 had arguably good official DLC and terrific user mod communities. There was some overlap and conflicts, but overall it's been a good experience.

Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1/2, and Empire Total War have been horrendous with regards to user mods versus DLC. Although DA offers an editor and user mods, the system is so unfriendly and obtuse that we'll likely never get past basic item and U/I mods for the most part.

I'm adopting a "wait and see" attitude with CiV's mods. I expect 2K to really push the paid DLC, however, so I lean slightly more towards "this is going to suck."

 

[Arkangelus]

I thought it might be coming, but had hoped that it wouldnt. Its a very slippery slope.

Extra civs and leaders etc is something that I would never be interested in purchasing on their own, but something I would expect from an expansion pack. I had an unexpected amount of extra fun from Civ 4 when I tried to work some obscure tactics involving the Celts and their unique bonuses etc, but I'd never be tempted enough to pay any sort of extra for an extra Civ. I'm going to assume that this is Steam-only for 3/6 months and then they get patched in, but the extra civilizations as DLC just seems like a really bad road to go down.

Professional maps and scenarios as DLC might have more merit to it - ultimately with the extra resources they have to work with, they SHOULD be able to produce superior quality than amateur mods, but I'd really doubt that anyone would pay, say, $5/€ for an extra map. Maybe if they came as substancial packs or were just individually a dollar or euro each, but the pricing on this is hard to get right.

I think one of the big mistakes they've made is making the digital, Steam-only version the collector's edition. I'll often quite happily pay an extra £5-10 for a second DVD disc, CD sountrack, shiny metal box, but... a couple of mp3 files, a single civilization and an mpeg file, all just digital? The biggest market for special editions is collectors who like the silly little plastic statues and like to have a box to put on a shelf, so it seems to be something of a misfire doing it this way.

And I'd assume it'll work almost identically to the Sims - you can only add new things to the game if you pay for it and its official, and you can only alter existing objects. So you can make nuclear spearmen if you want via a mod, but you can only get a new nuclear artillery unit if you buy it officially.

Frankly with a game I'd expect to last for as long as Civ 5, when it comes to the bonus material I'll happily play through as and against the base 18, and would just be annoyed if I never got access to the Babylonians eventually. It'd be nowhere near enough to motivate me to pay more for my version of the game, and if it caused any balance issues or locked off content from me then it would only cause annoyance. The best in-game bonus content for buying the 'special edition' would be something like your tanks having a different paint job in online multiplayer, but functioning exactly identically for balance. Not that you got extra guns or that you get access to special things.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

From Gamespy:

And the Deluxe Edition will include the new Babylonian civilization and its ruler, Nebuchadnezzar II.

You've got to be ing kidding me...

 

[player1 fanatic]

DA's modability is flawed at best compared to cIV for example.

Also, Dragon Age DLCs are encrypted so you can't make derivative works from them (which is what is modding about), at least not legally.

 

[Frasco]

I think it's not a good idea. Say I haven't payed for a particular DLC that includes a new unit (the rifleman bane for instance), and then I'm trying to MP against someone who did. Either our versions are not compatible, or he can't use a unit he paid for against me or my riflemen get unfairly wiped from the game. How about that?

Other things. Say I pay for shiny Templar knights, and once they are released 2k learns they are overpowered and patch them down. Is that fair? Maybe I paid for the darned Templars just because they were overpowered and then I am taken my Super Templars away for sucky ones?

Bad news on the other hand is that this kind of resilience reminds me when expansions to games first came out. And now we just love those packs. Same will happen eventually with DLC's I guess.