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[Lectorog]

also, I am really bothered by the day 1 free DLC for Rome 2 total war (a couple of factions). If it is day one, and free, why don't you add it to the basic game? would it take too much  disk space? Why bother making a DLC, on the first day, for free if it would be much more convenient to just stick it into the game?

Because the game is completed long before release day.

[nenjin]

For me I guess it's many of Darksiders 2 DLC. Lots of weapon DLC and it all manages to ruin your early game experience.

[Darkmere]

Did you buy it used and thus had to pay to get the ending changes (as they required the multiplayer pass), or are you referring to the "We heard you liked having new DLC which adds to the plot months after you stopped caring about the game, so here's some new DLC which adds to the plot" thing which happened months later?

I didn't buy it used and refused to bother trying to disable Origin. A friend has it on Xbox. The first two referenced having to pay for more of the core story, the Javik which was on-disc but was a paid unlock, and Leviathan which filled in more of the core backstory, but did so far after I was done with the game. The endings were ... well. Free and all, but by that time I just watched them on youtube and forgot about it. Too little, too late, and the dig at people who didn't like their terrible ending was just petty. Anyway, it's all been done before, so I'd rather let it rest at that.

[scriver]

Metro: Last Light, "Ranger Mode".
Ranger mode made Metro 2033 so much better it's insane. The devs even came out and said that Ranger Mode is the best experience for Last Light. 
I don't know if it was a publisher or developer idea but it's one of the most insulting DLC practices I've seen.

Oh and every single on-disc DLC. Such a dick move. I'm looking at you Saints Row the Third.

According to Deep Silver, it was THQ who planned a separate release of the Ranger Mode, with the developer havingno say in it.

I call bollocks on that and think that Deep Silver just needed a scapegoat.


also, I am really bothered by the day 1 free DLC for Rome 2 total war (a couple of factions). If it is day one, and free, why don't you add it to the basic game? would it take too much  disk space? Why bother making a DLC, on the first day, for free if it would be much more convenient to just stick it into the game?

Because how successful a game is considered to have been is decided by how how much it sells in the first 1-3 months something. Which is also the period when all games, regardless of how polished they have been, are at their buggiest. So the publishers want to dissuade people from "wait-and-see" mentality and make them to buy as early as possible, before the hype is gone and, if the game is bad, opinion has turned against it. The standard way of incentivising this has become to offer free DLCs with a pre-order.

I honestly can't grasp your logic at all. The free patches only add to your gameplay, even if you can't access all of the new features. You couldn't play muslims before, you can't play them after the patch... I'm not sure what's changed. Certainly nothing's changed for the worse. Would you seriously prefer being locked out of playing multi with people who have the DLC?

The free patches are there for two things
1) To make sure everyone can play with everyone else
and
2) Nagging

Now ignoring the second... the point I was trying to make is to say the "DLC is free" is to entirely misrepresent it. It isn't free, it is just already in your game but locked from you.

This still doesn't make any sense. The patches contains plenty of free new features and content besides the stuff you can't access unless you buy the DLCs.

[BigD145]

What is everyone's most upsetting DLC experience?

That DLC that __________________ .

[Djohaal]

Other than all DLC, what ticks me off is badly planned DLC that breaks the core game or makes it easy. Tropico has some awful add-ons which make several missions a breeze so inbalancing they are.

[Neonivek]

Other than all DLC, what ticks me off is badly planned DLC that breaks the core game or makes it easy. Tropico has some awful add-ons which make several missions a breeze so inbalancing they are.

Dear holy goodness yes.

Heck even just ordinary gameplay... Modern times for example completely breaks the game over its knee.

[motorbitch]

bf3, that dlc @60$ making ppl that owned it skipping players not owning it in the queue.
did not buy it, did never logged into bf3 since, will not even pirate any ea game ever.

[Teneb]

I honestly can't grasp your logic at all. The free patches only add to your gameplay, even if you can't access all of the new features. You couldn't play muslims before, you can't play them after the patch... I'm not sure what's changed. Certainly nothing's changed for the worse. Would you seriously prefer being locked out of playing multi with people who have the DLC?

The free patches are there for two things
1) To make sure everyone can play with everyone else
and
2) Nagging

Now ignoring the second... the point I was trying to make is to say the "DLC is free" is to entirely misrepresent it. It isn't free, it is just already in your game but locked from you.

Let me show you an exemple of stuff that was added by patches in CK2: The technology system was completely overhauled in the last patch. So were rebels are now led by generals. And adventurers can appear to claim land. and christians can re-unify the religion.  They could have made that exclusive to the DLC. They didn't. How is that nagging?

[Knight of Fools]

This topic reminds me of DLC Quest.

Oh and lets not forget Planetside 2, where you can pay upwards of $7 for a single gun. Out of what must be hundreds.

You obviously haven't been around the F2P block. In APB: Reloaded, you can't permanently unlock a gun with in-game cash, and a single gun out of 20 or so guns costs $50. You can also pay $5 - $10 for a single weapon skin. Then, there's the cars you can buy, car parts, clothes, premium...

All told, you could dump about $400 on the game and still not have everything. And imagine, these purchases weren't even account wide for a long while after the game came out.


Out of curiosity, what would everyone be happy with as far as release dates for DLC? It can't be too early, because then the cries of "it should have been part of the game" come out and those who only buy the core game feel cheated. It can't be too late, or most people have moved on from the game to the new shiny piece of software.

So, what's a good release schedule?


For me, I think companies should wait at least a month or two, depending on the game, for new DLC. Once the new DLC comes out, it should be priced fairly - If it's just aesthetic, make it $2.50 at most, and don't sell individual items. Make it a pack. A large pack. Don't sell small packs of weapons, either. I'm looking at you, Deus Ex: HR and Just Cause 2. Make those a part of a patch that comes along with campaign DLC or something, or make it a large pack of weapons. Like, $1 per 10 or 20 weapons at most.

DLC isn't hard to make for most games. The engine is there, and at most you'll have to do a little bit of coding for special events. If you make your DLC cheap, you improve the value of the core game because, hey, you can get all this cool DLC for like $10, and every time new DLC comes out they patch in some of its content for free! People will love you.


I'd also be curious to see what'd happen if the price of the core game were lowered slightly with each new DLC, and if folks who owned the game before the DLC came out would get a fair discount on the DLC. It'd increase the perceived value of the game and encourage new people to buy the game, who may just end up paying full price for the DLC because they like it and want more.


DLC in general could be done better and could use some experimentation as to best sell it more and make it more palatable to more gamers.

[DeKaFu]

I was rather disappointed with the fact that the DLC animals in Tokyo Jungle, despite being only unlockable via DLC and said DLC only being made available weeks or months after release, all of the animals in it were already in the base game. You could be killed and eaten by crocodiles or silkie terriers in a regular survival game on launch day, and a lot of them were featured in the story mode. And yet, you had to wait a month after release for the privelege of paying a few dollars to actually unlock them as playable. It happened in the Japanese version and then again later when it was released in English, so it definitely wasn't a matter of having to work on them after the base game was released.

It's like they thought the way to get people to stop complaining about day one DLC was to include it but just not make it possible to purchase it until an arbitrary point in the future...

[motorbitch]

bf3, that dlc @60$ making ppl that owned it skipping players not owning it in the queue.
did not buy it, did never logged into bf3 since, will not even pirate any ea game ever.

I can't understand this.

Please could you or someone else clarify?

they sold a premium package. premium owners then skipped non premium owners when waiting for a free slot to join a server.

[612DwarfAvenue]

I don't get why people are bringing up Planetside 2. You do realize you can unlock everything ingame without paying a single real-world dollar? The real-money option's there for people who want to pay money instead of time to unlock something.

It's not even DLC, since it's already in the game. It'd be like saying unlocking abilities in an RPG is DLC.

[Neonivek]

I don't get why people are bringing up Planetside 2. You do realize you can unlock everything ingame without paying a single real-world dollar? The real-money option's there for people who want to pay money instead of time to unlock something.

It's not even DLC, since it's already in the game. It'd be like saying unlocking abilities in an RPG is DLC.

It is a micro transaction system with a unrealistic way to unlock it in game... with either genuine upgrades or vital upgrades to make something viable.

[Azated]

I don't get why people are bringing up Planetside 2. You do realize you can unlock everything ingame without paying a single real-world dollar? The real-money option's there for people who want to pay money instead of time to unlock something.

It's not even DLC, since it's already in the game. It'd be like saying unlocking abilities in an RPG is DLC.

It is a micro transaction system with a unrealistic way to unlock it in game... with either genuine upgrades or vital upgrades to make something viable.

Not long ago, mosquito's and their NC/VS counterparts were basically useless unless they had rocket pods. The nerfed the pods to the point where they aren't uber OP but now they aren't worth buying any more, cost for value wise.

And then you have the small arms; I can't speak for anyone but TR, but their default sniper rifle is pathetic. It takes two or three direct hits for a kill, but if you drop a few dollars and buy a bolt action sniper it's one hit kills to the heart we all apparently have in our little toe.


Personally, I think the Sims series goes a little overboard with their DLC. There was something like 15 or so DLC packs for the sims 3, and they were all valued at somewhere betwen $10 and $50.