Do you have faith in Firaxis to put out good DLC?

[Davor]

Do you have faith in Firzxis to put out good DLC? I am leary of them doing it. By judging them on how they did the Civ Rev DLC, I am not too optomistic about them doing a good job.

I didn't like how the DLC was so small. How it only added a little bit each time to the game, and I also didn't like how all the DLC was not linked all together, so I didn't buy all of them, just 2 of them.

I am hoping that Firaxis has learnt from this experinace, but do you think they will do better? Do you think Civ V DLC will be small packs like Civ Rev, only 4 or 5 improvements per pack. Or do you think Civ V DLC will be bigger, and we will get more bang for the buck?

I am afraid Civ V DLC will include one or two new Civs. One or Two new uints and buildings, (basically per Civ, so if it's 2 Civs, 4 units or buildings, 4 Civs it will be 6 units or buildings and so they would say, 6 new units, when in fact it is only 2 since you can only play one civ at a time. ), or do you think we will get 4-5 new Civs and 5-10 new units that are not unique and any civ can use them.

How about tech? Do you think we will get 5 new techs or only one or two new techs per DLC?

Do you think once we buy a DLC we can use all of them together, or only play one DLC pack per game?

Just curious as to what you guesses and opnions are on this.

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

More importantly:

"Do you have faith in 2K to allow for reasonably priced DLC?"

 

[Zhahz]

I dislike the concept of DLC...about as much as I like seeing several threads on the same topic in the first 2 pages.

Blah. I'm off to read the game guide I just bought hours before 2K randomly decided to release the manual.

 

[Davor]

More importantly:

"Do you have faith in 2K to allow for reasonably priced DLC?"

Well at least the Civ Rev DLC was reasonably priced so I guess Yes on that. I never thought of that. Thanks for bringing it up.

 

[Selous]

Well at least the Civ Rev DLC was reasonably priced so I guess Yes on that. I never thought of that. Thanks for bringing it up.

for the civrev deprived what dlc could u get and how much was it?

 

[cccv]

More importantly:

"Do you have faith in 2K to allow for reasonably priced DLC?"

Exactly. I don't doubt that the DLC civs will be every bit as balanced and interesting as the civs already in the game. I'm not quite cynical enough to think that once they run out of civ ideas they'll stoop to selling us buildings piece by piece, then second leaders for each civ, then santa hats that we can put on them at Xmas, etc. But I am cynical enough to know that the purpose of DLC is to exploit the consumer for as long as you possibly can, so I also wouldn't be too shocked either.

But the civs they release will be fine, no better or worse than what's in the game now. Only question is if the price will be right.

 

[Maniacal]

No, I don't. No offense to Firaxis, but I highly doubt they have much power over the DLC anyways, and I haven't seen any of it yet either.

I have only felt like I was not ripped off (even if just by the price) for when I bought the DLC for Empire: Total War. I bought it when it was all 10% off and together it came out to less than $20 USD which, with 4 campaigns and 4 or 5 unit packs was worth the money as a small expansion pack.

The only other DLC I have bought has been for Borderlands, which I have yet to play though from what I've seen and heard the DLC for Borderlands is good.

However, I have also bought a number of the DLCs for Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age, and I have been less than satisfied and felt somewhat ripped off. While I quite enjoyed Leliana's Song for Dragon Age, it was short (like all the other DAO DLC I had seen my friend play through) and didn't add very much new content, indeed many of the locations were simply recycled if not the same from/as the main game.
In Mass Effect 2, some of the DLC armour packs were definitely not worth it, thankfully I once again had my friend (who bought all the dlc) get them and regret them so I didn't have to. One weapon pack was really good, but still, charging for 3 extra weapons is lame. The Overlord DLC was good but not worth $8. Katsumi is a really interesting and excellent character addition to the game but her mission was still incredibly short if cool, and I wouldn't say it was worth the money charged either.

The Lair of the Shadow broker at least looks and sounds like its at least a good couple of hours of gameplay and a solid addition, but they still jacked the price up further.


Anyways my point is, there's a lot of DLC that really isn't worth ANY price, and the DLC that IS worth it is almost always overpriced and no matter how good you are left with a sense of having paid too much (because you did). I'm NOT made of money, and buying a half-dozen DLCs for Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 cost me as much as a FULL GAME (~$48) with only a few hours of content. I really hope this doesn't happen to Civ5. If stuff is going to be added (I guess I could see extra civs as DLC) then either price it to its content/length (and cheaply) or don't bother.


EDIT: I can understand that adding a Civ will take some balancing and playtesting but still, I'm not going to pay anything more than $2 for a civilization that could be modded in and which i may or may not use.

 

[Dave_Oz]

DLC is horrible, i would rather full expansion packs like CIV 4 got, that actually add alot of content and gameplay.

Everything DLC offers, can be done for free with good mods, so i see the whole idea as silly.

 

[cembandit]

I have never liked the idea of DLC but done right, it can be a good thing...

Bad companies kill modding right off that bat as part of their DLC plans. I don't see this happening, so this is a good sign.

Good official DLC, extra civs, more units, etc....would be welcome. Some people will always complain about price, so I won't touch that argument, as it is so relative.

Gameplay DLC could be killer, and help people have a specific gameplay experience: like an espionage pack, etc.

No matter how much good DLC a company makes at a fair price, there will always be forum complaining that it should have been in the game in the first place.

 

[DalekDavros]

for the civrev deprived what dlc could u get and how much was it?

CivRev had "Ancient Ruins" kind of like goody huts except that they had specific ones that each gave a specific effect (e.g., Atlantis was always located at sea and would always give you a few techs when found). The DLC packs each contained 4 new wonders (one per age) and one new ancient ruin, for a cost of $3.75 US. They told you what the wonders were, but didn't bother telling you what they did. Most were lame things that you wouldn't build anyway.

They also released a couple of "scenario packs" for $1.25 each.

 

[DalekDavros]

No matter how much good DLC a company makes at a fair price, there will always be forum complaining that it should have been in the game in the first place.

From an economics standpoint (i.e., Pareto efficiency), they're usually correct. The big problem with DLC is that only a small fraction of the people who buy the game buy the DLC, so the company has to charge a huge price for it in order to cover development costs. Say 1 in 10 people who buy Civ V buy the Deluxe Edition of Civ V (as a stand-in for DLC, since it has a fixed price now) for an extra 10$ each. If 2k had only offered one edition, they could have sold it for an extra 1$ and given everyone the features of the Deluxe Edition, while making the same profits. Assuming that people who don't think that the other edition/DLC has 10$ of utility would at least think that it has 1$ in utility, we'd all be better off if they'd done this.

 

[Thormodr]

If they put out a proper expansion that added a lot to the game like BTS did for cIV, then I'd be happy. Adding espionage would be a start.

If they just put out a new Civ here and a new Civ there, I won't be too impressed.

 

[War_Pig]

From an economics standpoint (i.e., Pareto efficiency), they're usually correct. The big problem with DLC is that only a small fraction of the people who buy the game buy the DLC, so the company has to charge a huge price for it in order to cover development costs. Say 1 in 10 people who buy Civ V buy the Deluxe Edition of Civ V (as a stand-in for DLC, since it has a fixed price now) for an extra 10$ each. If 2k had only offered one edition, they could have sold it for an extra 1$ and given everyone the features of the Deluxe Edition, while making the same profits. Assuming that people who don't think that the other edition/DLC has 10$ of utility would at least think that it has 1$ in utility, we'd all be better off if they'd done this.

This isn't really right and your example is out of context since both ARE out at the same time, that is not the same as DLC at all.

The point of DLC is to add things to the game after its release. Would you rather buy the game then that is it? No more anything added.

I like the true expansion pack more myself too but even then it comes down to the same thing as DLC, Do you think the price of said add-on is worth the added content?

 

[wilebill]

An expansion pack sells for more and can justify more development expense. I think they will do one DLC and then get to work on the first expansion.

 

[Iceciro]

I know a lot of people who were turned off of buying Civ V at all just because there was an everything edition, and then an "everything but babylon" edition. A lot o them have impressed upon me 2k probably would've been better off just offering a $60 game with babylon as the only option.

DLC rings a lot like that for me - for every Mothership Zeta, you get about four horse armors.

If DLC continues to be these "double civ and map packs" I will remain unimpressed, unless they come at a low price like 2.50.

If suddenly they're like HAY GUYS WE ADDED ESPIONAGE AND TWO NEW CIVS FOR 10 BUCKS, it would be sold as soon as I could get it, as long as they did it right.

 

[Ranbir]

Not 100% given a nice bunch of the features in Warlords and BTS were already developed and released by modders. The DLC will have to be -really- special and not just things that we used to have normally in regular editions of Civilization (like Civs/leaders/units pre-emptively denied to us)