Congratulations to CFC for getting us FREE DLC! (the mongols)

[Fool Inc.]

Yea, this is probably content that was supposed to originally be in the game, but with-held purposely because they knew they had to give something 'free' to help quell the bad-release reactions from consumers.

I highly doubt that was the case at all. More likely the Mongols were planned as the 1st DLC and was going to be free all along. The reason they are free is to make Civ players (whom of are an older age range than the usual gaming community) more accustomed to and accepting of the whole DLC process. It's a tried and true method of marketing that's been around for ages.

 

[zonk]

When you hurt a girl's feelings you buy her flowers. That doesn't make the problem go away but it paves the way for a reconciliation.

Firaxis just bought us flowers...maybe we can sit down and talk about it now?

Love to, but Firaxis doesn't want to talk about the fundamental issue... They turned Civ into a wargame and that's not what a lot of us wanted.

The flowers are nice and all, but it doesn't change the fact that any chance of reconciliation begins with admitting you've been sleeping around with wargames and then promising in earnest to stop sleeping around with wargames and finally STOP SLEEPING WITH WARGAMES!

 

[Vellis]

Exaggeration.
You are listing stuff made from seperate people, all working at the development house who already, guess what, work there! If each guy does his thing at the same time, it'd take a few days at most.

I'd say that 5€ (remember the $1 to 1€ conversion rate on the ridiculous internets) times 50k (conservative dlc sale estimate) = 250.000€ for a week's work is a pretty good deal. Not even a weeks work, since we cant count the xml dudes entire week if it took him 20min to write the file, and we cant count the entire offices week if it took 1 morning meeting to decide the civ.

They do other stuff at the same time as well, so..
250.000€ for a couple of hours work (a days work all combined perhaps, two max) is a pretty damn good deal.

Lol, a days work to design, model, render, code, and balance a new civ? Your kidding, right? Me thinks your understanding of software design is a bit flawed.

"Making games is hard" - Valve

 

[troytheface]

the assyrians and babylonians should be in every civ ever made for all of eternity

and the mongols as well

they never have the assyrians. like the first war civ. makes no sense

but yeah, the mongols left out and Siam in? Siam? did siam like conquer people and colonize australia or something?

 

[Edgecrusher]

I highly doubt that was the case at all. More likely the Mongols were planned as the 1st DLC and was going to be free all along. The reason they are free is to make Civ players (whom of are an older age range than the usual gaming community) more accustomed to and accepting of the whole DLC process. It's a tried and true method of marketing that's been around for ages.

I agree without a doubt that Mongola was planned to be the first DLC, if not planned to be in the original game.
If you unpack the art files, from the game, there is art references to genghis khan.
Also, and this is going on theory, but....
There are 18 leaders in the original game. Each is asigned a leader index between 0 and 20 (21 spots).
That leaves 3 spots un used, which are ,"3", "10", and "14"
Alphabetically:
3 falls between Aztec and China (Babylon)
10 falls between Greece and India (Inca)
14 falls between Japan and Ottomans (Mongolia)

Given the quotes pre-release about the "Quecha" language... is it out of line to suspect that the Inca might be the target for the next released Civ?

Then take into account a "Duel Civ / Scenario Pack" announcement by D2D pre-release and the omission of Spain and Spain's historic conquest on the Inca... could this DLC be that? Just makes you think.

Then again, this Mongolia and Babylon being announced together could be considered that, but who knows.

 

[Vordeo]

I agree, based on simple mathematical reasoning. At a purchase price of $50 and with 18 civs, the game itself costs 50/18 = $2.78 per civ. This is the absolute maximum price that can possibly make sense; in reality a much lower price would be warranted since that $50 also pays for the rest of the game's content, of which the civilizations are only a small part.

No, just no. Things are worth what people will pay for them. From there you look at the demand for the product and ascertain what price will get you the highest profit. It's a basic tenet of economics.

If Firaxis think they can make the highest profit selling additional civs at $5 (and frankly I'm sure they know more about this than random people on the internet), then they'll set the price at that. You can argue about how it's immoral, or that they should be setting something else, or even complain that you're not willing to pay anything over $3, that's fine, but your argument that 'pricing it over $2.78 is the maximum price that makes sense' just does not hold water.

Exaggeration.
You are listing stuff made from seperate people, all working at the development house who already, guess what, work there! If each guy does his thing at the same time, it'd take a few days at most.

A.) Yes, and if they weren't working on this, they'd be working on another project. It's not like they're just hanging around the office: whatever time they spend on this is time taken away from another game.

B.) I don't think anyone outside of 2K knows how long it takes to create a full civ, so we can't say it only takes them a week to make a civ.

 

[Dudu42]

Hmmm

Pretty clever.

But I wonder if Inca comes alone, without Spain or Maya. Or maybe Spain comes along with Maya, not on a DLC but in an expansion... Then we could have Spain, Portugal, Maya. Inca and Aztecs in a new world colonization scenario, maybe even with Dutchs...

 

[QuoVadisNation]

This whole business model leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It's essentially nickle and diming for content they otherwise would have included in the release. Even if that one is free, no thanks.

 

[spoooq]

B.) I don't think anyone outside of 2K knows how long it takes to create a full civ, so we can't say it only takes them a week to make a civ.

Well, mod-makers should be able to compare directly, if they are able to total up the time it takes as effectively as a manager would. Working out how long it took to do something can be as hard as working out how long it WILL take! There's also the quality issue of course. As good as the mod-makers here can be, professionals put out higher quality, especially with 3D animations.

First person to quote this and start blathering on about ciV being low-quality gets slapped!

 

[QuoVadisNation]

Umm.. also.

Is the World Builder out yet? Or they going charge for that too?

 

[Mustakrakish]

Well, haha, Temujin lived on a horse. He died falling off a horse. Legend has it he was born on a horse.

Showing him not on a horse would have been silly.

I kind of wish they would have modeled a steppe pony though.

Ow that's cute! And it wouldn't look like he stole Alexander's horse...

 

[zonk]

Umm.. also.

Is the World Builder out yet? Or they going charge for that too?

It's out. It's free. It's as underwhelming as the game itself.

 

[Tarkeel]

Umm.. also.

Is the World Builder out yet? Or they going charge for that too?

World builder has been out for a while.
Look under "Tools" in your Steam library.

 

[Fool Inc.]

This whole business model leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It's essentially nickle and diming for content they otherwise would have included in the release. Even if that one is free, no thanks.

That's not exactly true. It's more like you are paying a slight premium for using something that they were going otherwise going to include in an expansion next year.

 

[Bhoy]

Am I to believe, in addition, they are charging $4.99 for the Babylonians?

Who to hell is going to give them more money while the game is in this state?

 

[Vordeo]

Well, mod-makers should be able to compare directly, if they are able to total up the time it takes as effectively as a manager would. Working out how long it took to do something can be as hard as working out how long it WILL take! There's also the quality issue of course. As good as the mod-makers here can be, professionals put out higher quality, especially with 3D animations.

Yeah, the modding/coding doesn't take too long (though I'm sure it'd take them longer than regular modders, as they'd need to test, etc.), but the art and music preparation could take ages. The 3d animations, for instance, would have to be top class. I don't know if the music in the game is composed in house or not, but if it were that would take a significant amount of time.

Ow that's cute! And it wouldn't look like he stole Alexander's horse...

I would be insanely happy if Genghis' initial animation (when you first meet him) is stealing Alexander's horse and beating him up.

 

[Vordeo]

Am I to believe, in addition, they are charging $4.99 for the Babylonians?

Who to hell is going to give them more money while the game is in this state?

Me, possibly. I'm thinking about it, leaning towards buying the thing.

 

[avandol]

1. Decide which civilization.
2. Decide which leader.
3. Decide traits that suit the civilization.
4. Decide traits that suit the leader.
5. Composer(s) to do the peace & war scores & any unique music for scenario.
6. Research & write dialogue for leader.
7. Do casting for voice actor for leader (must speak a similar enough language fluently and so on).
8. Schedule recording session in studio with voice actor and sound engineer(s) and actually do it.
9. Research the leader and civilization and have writer(s) do the Civilopedia entries.
10. Art director to decide general direction for the leader scene and the two unique units/buildings.
11. 3D artists build the meshes for leader scene and the unique units/buildings.
12. Texture artists do the textures for the leader scene and two unique units. Shaders especially may need extra work.
13. Illustrator(s) do the 2D interface artwork for Civilopedia and unique unit/buildings.
14. Animators animate the leader, horse (in this case), unique units and buildings. Just think of the speech, facial expressions, gestures, unit idle animations, fighting animations, movement.
15. Sound engineer creates the sound for the leader scene and unique units and makes it play at the correct instances (syncronized properly).
16. Programmers add code/scripting for all of these new things (a lot of stuff!).
17. AI programmer/Game designer(s) create the AI personality suitable for the leader.
18. Map maker(s) make the world for the scenario.
19. Game designer(s) set up & tweak the scenario.
20. Testing, balance concerns. Q/A. Smooth integration delivery through Steam must be set up.

Even listing these things is exhausting so I'm not going to thinking of what else is missing from it. You can imagine that these things cost real money - paying all those professionals to do all that work. Game creation is a very complicated expensive task these days.

Lets see:
Points 1-4 = 10-15 minutes. Heck, probably not even work time but a creative flash wiping my ass when sitting on the toilet.
Point 5 = a day at max. Meaning approx 1.000 dollars cost. Dont be fooled though, its probably half that. Musicians dont get paid well.
Point 6 = 30 minutes. Research? Please, be realistic.
Point 7+8 = 1 hour. Fluently ... Lol. Next you'll try to tell me Ramses is actually speaking egyptian. You do know that no one actually knows how that language was spoken? And thats just one example. Maya, Incan, Aztec. Much the same.
Point 9 = 2 hours. Wikipedia is your friend. Dont mistake the entries here for anything of actual scientific value.
Point 10-13 = a day at maximum. Professionals in the grafics dept. dont need much time, you'd be surprised.
Point 14 = Okay, if I'd actually go and do that myself it'd take up to a week maybe, to get all needed movements. Nowadays you get those out of the box though, so maybe 1000 dollars for the program.
Point 15 = this is done in point 5. You dont think the composer is someone different, do you (unless they take a classic piece and redo it).

Point 16 = 2 hours. Actually this is just a mod and it takes the coder not even a day to add the few lines to include some grafic and sound content.
Point 17 = 1 hour. Creating an AI could take sometime, but I am VERY sure that they have a certain engine for that where you add modular traits. Anything else would be very uneconomic and blown up.
Point 18 = Now this could actually take some time. I'd go for 4 hours here, since the map makers have lots of experience.
Point 19+20 = 0. That actually made me laugh.

That sums up to roughly 40 hours of work. Lets make it 50 hours.
Add another 20 hours for the guys of the finance dept. to get everything ship shape (aka bore in the nose and keep the blank look).
Putting it on Steam takes a couple of clicks. You dont think they change their coding or anything when someone sells some soft over their platform, do you.

Overall I'll grant 100 hours of work. And that stretches it. We are NOT talking about an expansion. We are talking about a map and a single Civ. A single modder doesnt need that much time for that, minus the video sequences and voices.

Then lets say 100 hours for 150 dollars the hour. Which is way too much, but its about what coders in the industry take for their work (sometimes).
Makes 15.000 dollar in my book. Cost. Since I am in a spending mood, I'll double it to include personnel costs.

30.000 dollars.
So only 15.000 buyers of Civ5 would have to buy the DLC to make profit.

Last figure I read was 350.000 copies sold in September Source.
10% is a very low figure. I'd guess its much higher, but would settle for at least 30-40% .
That would mean that probably 100.000 people buy the DLC.
500.000$ profit with not even 50.000$ cost. Thats ... nice.

 

[Edgecrusher]

That's not exactly true. It's more like you are paying a slight premium for using something that they were going otherwise going to include in an expansion next year.

I am curious how they are going to handle these grand expansions.
If expansions are just a bundle of the DLC, with one or two extras, one can assume there will be a huge uproar of the masses here.

However, if the Expansions are game changing additions (Religions, Espionage, Additional Units and other concepts that have been excluded, in addition to a few civs), and the DLCs are limited to Civs/Scenarios. Thats another story.

Hmmm

Pretty clever.

But I wonder if Inca comes alone, without Spain or Maya. Or maybe Spain comes along with Maya, not on a DLC but in an expansion... Then we could have Spain, Portugal, Maya. Inca and Aztecs in a new world colonization scenario, maybe even with Dutchs...

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, if a first "expansion" per say, focused on Colonization, and the ensuing Revolutions that ensure from said Colonization, given how popular the Revolution mod was for 4. It might be smart to try and tap into that. In fact when Civ4 Colonization was announced, I was surprised they released it as a stand alone game, not an expansion built off of the the Civ4 Game that included some features, but anyway thats another story.

Given that:
Spain, Portugal, Inca, Maya, Vikings and Zulu have been excluded thus far, its not out of question that these 6 civs, combined with the above mentioned features of an expanded colonization concept, and revolution control, could be the focus of a first expansion. There is also a lack of Meso-american city-state names, a new city state branch could be added as well.

That doesn't even include the Religion ommission (There are Relgion named tags in various XML files, in addition to a Religion Flavor assigned to the leaders)
Religious concept as well with Religious City-States to this, or the focus of a 2nd expansion...Vatican, Mecca, Jerusalem... maybe religions are founded in these city states, and they are the engine that primarily spreads religion, and the players/ai can choose to be tolerent, or aggressive with such religion. City States could have crusades against rival religion city states,
Though this a sensative topic at the moment.....

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Ow that's cute! And it wouldn't look like he stole Alexander's horse...

Haha, I guess many European knights made fun of the tiny Mongol horse compared to their mighty warhorses . . . until the arrows started at least.