With all due respect, 2K would have to be extremely stupid to do such a monstrously evil act. Sure they are trying to milk us dry with bite-sized DLC's (my personal hope is they'll eventually get bundled in some kind of super-deal, perhaps a year on from now), but it is a whole other level of nasty to charge money for content provided by volunteers. There might even be some legal problems.
I agree, people are over-reacting imo.
I know a lot of people, especially on this and other PC modding sites have a big problem w/ the concept of paid DLC, but imo, it really isn't that big a deal. Especially when what they are offering is actually worth it, and not over-priced, which believe it or not, most DLC being put out these days is well worth it and is a FAR cry from the days of "Horse Armor".
That being said, when the whole concept of paid "DLC" was introduced I, as a "PC gamer" whole-heartedly rejected it. Back then I felt like a lot of people do on this site now, but then I got a 360 and started seeing what the DLC actually consisted of. In most cases (by far the majority, imho), the DLC they are putting out is NOT content that was held back from the retail release to simply squeeze every last cent out of the consumer. Rather, most of it is akin to sort of mini-content-expansions if you will, and priced fairly. And the stuff that isn't a fair amount of additional content, mostly smaller stuff like "skins", or new weapons or in this case, new leaders or civs , is priced accordingly.
I know I'm not going to win anyone on these forums over on paid-DLC, but I'm just trying to say that it's not all doom-and-gloom, especially b/c Firaxis is still releasing the full SDK. In all cases that I've seen where a PC game allows modding in addition to paid DLC, the DLC just isn't as important as it is on a console b/c the community can put out content that is, quality-wise, equal to what the devs can put out. I mean, you guys can still mod the hell out of the game, and I'm willing to bet that you will be able to do everything you can in Civ4.
Look at it this way, from what I have seen Firaxis is bending over backwards to make this version of Civ specifically for the "hardcore" (I hate using that word, but it is the one that fits best in this instance) Civ fans. They know what you guys like, what you want, and they have repeatedly said they are making this to appeal mainly to the "hardcore", while still making it accessible to newbs, and those introduced to the series via CivRev. What I'm trying to say is that I seriously don't think they are going to "betray" you all, and do something silly like, say, make creating a new Civ impossible w/ the toolkit. That just doesn't make sense imho, they know who buys their games, and they want you to keep buying their games.
