Dragon Age 2 - Bonus Items List

I think it's all a bit excessively silly but hardly worth some of the hand-wringing. You can always save money by waiting for the Gold edition of any game - you either want the cheaper price or you want to play it now - I'm not sure why free in-game items would make any difference.

And I've said this before - there is no BioWare vs EA - they are EA. And they chose it - the Drs knew exactly where they were heading when they sold to Elevation Partners.
 
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I still don't get why people get so worked up on the DLC issue. I have bought a few DLCs for various games, decided that they are stupid and that I won't buy more.

And I have yet to see a game where DLCs is so important that playing it without is just no fun.

So why don't we either ignore the DLC and get on with our lives or buy it and then get on? The discussion is almost exactly the same as a couple of years ago with the Oblivion Horse Armor. Even the arguments are the same. DLC is apperantly an important revenue source for publishers and developers and it is here to stay. Why do we have to have the same discussion with every game that offers DLC?
 
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By the way, the 19 bonus item are unlocks, they are not DLCs. They show up in a different menu than the downloadable content in the game, unlike in Dragon Age: Origins.
 
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I basically agree with Gorath. "The industry" makes exactly this impression to me - like all "industries" do.

From a certain size on, creativity seems to simply vanish.

It's like in Biology : Small animals always striving for survival are the most competent ones, because their species is threatened by extinction all of the time.

No wonder that cockroaches and rats are so impressively able to survive almost anywhere.

Cockroaches are among the very, very, literally oldest fossils of land-living animals EVER found ! (they were found in a German quarry, by the way). Of all land living insects, the cockroaches have been surviving relatively unchanged for the longest time : About 200 Million years … (That's a very rough estimation since I don't have the reports on the fossils in reach.)

They must be quick to adapt to unnormal situations and conditions in order to survive.

The opposite is the giant, proverbial "Dinosaur".
The mega-companies, in other words.
 
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I'm rather sure that if the good doctors did not sell first to Elevation Partners and then to EA, Bioware would have gone the way of the dodo, or rather the way of Origins, Troika etc. And now be listed among the good old games now defunct companies that we long-time rpg-players would have sweet and sad memories of - nostalgia-wise - that is.

So, yes the doctors knew ecatly what they were doing when selling to Elevation Partners and then EA - the survival for their company. I, have however, no proof of this -other than my somewhat intuitive spider-sense...
 
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It's like in Biology : Small animals always striving for survival are the most competent ones, because their species is threatened by extinction all of the time.

No wonder that cockroaches and rats are so impressively able to survive almost anywhere.

<snip>

They must be quick to adapt to unnormal situations and conditions in order to survive.

The opposite is the giant, proverbial "Dinosaur".
The mega-companies, in other words.

I think you got it backwards Alrik.

The companies ARE trying to adapt to the changing marked. It is YOU that is the Dinosaur in this case; wanting the games to be like they were 10-15 years ago and rejecting new ideas like DLCs. ;)
 
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I'm rather sure that if the good doctors did not sell first to Elevation Partners and then to EA, Bioware would have gone the way of the dodo, or rather the way of Origins, Troika etc.

Based on what, exactly? BioWare was in no imminent danger of bankruptcy, had good relations with various publishers and produced only profitable games. This is pretty baseless speculation. The sales had nothing to do with survival, they had to do with expansion.
 
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didn't they quit the medicine industry to go into video games which was more profitable?

if thats the true and honest truth then it shows you why they produce shitty but popular games.
 
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didn't they quit the medicine industry to go into video games which was more profitable?

if thats the true and honest truth then it shows you why they produce shitty but popular games.

They were both working as physicians in Canada, so they don't make as much money as they do in the States. There are a lot of occupations that pay better than family practice and emergency medicine. I don't see, however, how you can make the logical leap that they started Bioware to make money. They had no way of seeing how big their company would get, as most developing houses fail spectacularly. Again, your disdain for the company hinders your ability to argue objectively.
 
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They were both working as physicians in Canada, so they don't make as much money as they do in the States. There are a lot of occupations that pay better than family practice and emergency medicine. I don't see, however, how you can make the logical leap that they started Bioware to make money. They had no way of seeing how big their company would get, as most developing houses fail spectacularly. Again, your disdain for the company hinders your ability to argue objectively.

read my profile.

then you'll understand why i cannot argue in a coherent, logical, nice, objectively, politely, steadily, clearly, coldly, coherent, logical, nice, objectively, politely, steadily, clearly, coldly coherent, logical, nice, objectively, politely, steadily, clearly, coldly.
 
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Proud owner of horse armor!! :biggrin:

Did it change the gameplay at all? No.

Did it enhance my enjoyment of the game. Yes.

Was it worth the $3 to me? Obviously.

I agree that the publisher is nickel & diming us sheep who are foolish enough to plunk down enormous wads of cash for toon bling. I also agree that it's not worth getting upset over.

If you're willing to pay for something added months after a game ships, why would you be opposed to paying for the exact same extra just because it happens to be made available at launch?

I thought the earlier commenter's car options analogy was pretty spot on.

EDIT: I will say that I detest Bioware's requirement to tie the content to your Bioware social site profile. That has caused no end of frustration for me with managing content purchased under one profile for DA:O and the content bought under a different profile for ME2.
 
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My guess is based partly on a comment made by a Bioware developer, either here or in the (old) Bioware boards. He or she clearly stated that Ray and Greg's time were used to gather support, go to the meeting, secure money for the company's next projects. With the sale to EA, Ray and Greg did not have to do this anymore, but could concentrate on running their company.

And yes, they quit medicine, I think they were working as ER doctors?, to establish Bioware. Or rather Bioware was created first. They first 'game' they worked on was some sort of medical software programme that could help doctors do analyses and diagnoses (I think?). And then, in an interview (maybe on evil avatar?) they told that in 1995, they took a big leap (of fate) and started the company, Bioware, maxed out all their credits card and were really really scared about not making any money at all from BG1. However, it all worked out in the end. And yes, the good doctors are business people too. So they also looked for ways to expand their business - and they did so by selling (out?) to EA.

However, thinking that the DLC is EA's idea would be giving EA way too much credit. Ray and Greg from Bioware did say, many years ago, that they wanted to give players and gamers incentives to buy the game, not punish them. They would do this with DLC as a way to encourage players and gamers to buy games at their original release date.

I also agree that all this dlc and unlockable items business is way too much.
 
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I think Bioware should be ashamed of taking advantage of the OCD-challenged. We who can't resist having EVERY unlock-able and downloadable item!

We should have a sit-in at the EA and Bioware offices! ;)
 
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I think you got it backwards Alrik.

The companies ARE trying to adapt to the changing marked. It is YOU that is the Dinosaur in this case; wanting the games to be like they were 10-15 years ago and rejecting new ideas like DLCs. ;)

Could be. I admit that I'm too conservative already for quite a lot of games.

And that's why I absolutely LOVE Drakensang 2 ! ;)



Besides, the term "OCD" gives several meanings on Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCD_(disambiguation)
 
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Based on what, exactly? BioWare was in no imminent danger of bankruptcy, had good relations with various publishers and produced only profitable games. This is pretty baseless speculation. The sales had nothing to do with survival, they had to do with expansion.

I agree, I don't see the basis of the argument that Bioware "had no choice" and would have disappeared the way Troika and many before them had. As a comparison, not a single one of Troika's games sold well at all, thanks to a lot of bad luck and poor management from their publishers. Bioware, on the other hand, released nothing but profitable games, starting specifically with BG2. Their last game before being bought out by Elevation Partners, I believe, was Kotor, a game that by all accounts became a big hit (especially for an RPG). So I believe that as long as Bioware would have kept making quality games, they would have survived just fine without EP or EA.

This is what makes Bioware's EA partnership so frustrating to many; they had actually become an RPG developer that was not facing the imminent possibility of financial failure, and they achieved this status, IMO, through making 4 high quality, creative RPGs (BG, BG2, NWN, Kotor). So IMO, there is not enough evidence to justify Bioware's EA partnership with the argument that their backs were against the wall and were facing inevitable extinction. In fact, the opposite might be true; given the treatment of developers by huge publishers like EA and their demands to make nothing but absolutely gigantic hits, Bioware might be in more danger now than they ever would have been before the EA "partnership."
 
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Who are we kidding with these fantasies? It's the way it has been with many small successful companies, their owners sell their company to bigger corporate conglomerates to get filthy rich. It was a sellout by the Doctors to EA. Very simple...
 
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Look at what they are doing with DLC, pressuring people into preordering so they get all the content,packing major storylines in with collectores editions,begging for facebook friends to get an item.Biowares dlc has permeated our buying experiance.DLC is mandatory from publishers and is considered at the concept stage.Before the first wire frame is drawn, they are thinking of ways to break up the content to milk your wallet. Im not against dlc
 
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Im not against dlc adding to the game after release , but it kills me to see content created in tandem with the original game to cash in on day one. And i think its safe to say that nobody abuses DLC like EA.
 
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Look at what they are doing with DLC, pressuring people into preordering so they get all the content,packing major storylines in with collectores editions,begging for facebook friends to get an item.Biowares dlc has permeated our buying experiance.DLC is mandatory from publishers and is considered at the concept stage.Before the first wire frame is drawn, they are thinking of ways to break up the content to milk your wallet. Im not against dlc
 
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I get what you're saying, rich, but the more and more I think about it, I think this has more to do with picking out every single flaw in Bioware's business practices, regardless of how puerile or ridiculous it may be to do so. If you look around, just about anything is going to come with optional equipment. How many times have you heard the phrase, "Order now and receive _____!"

I think some of us need to rein our criticism in a bit and pay more attention to whether or not we're letting our Bioware bias affect the legitimacy of our arguments.
 
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