Risen 2 - Two More DLCs?

JDR13 said:

Would you also rather they charged $10 for day 1 DLC like Bioware?

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That's exactly what I'd be charged if I didn't pre-order. Not good.

CountChocula said:

I bought Gothic 1, Gothic 3 and Risen from Steam, spent a great deal of time trying to get them to work properly and sadly I have never been able to play any of these three games due to severe tech issues / control problems. I very much hope not to get burned again with Risen 2.

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Those "severe tech issues" must be related to your system. Gothic 1 and Risen are extremely stable and almost entirely bug free for most people, and Gothic 3 is mostly bug free now with the final community patch.

Thrasher said:

That's exactly what I'd be charged if I didn't pre-order. Not good.

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I've seen nothing to indicate that Treasure Island is going to be available to purchase on Day 1. Afaik, it's a free bonus for people who pre-order, and will be sold later. Similar to the Tracer Tong mission for Deus Ex. The difference being it's not exclusive to any particular retailer.

I don't quite get why people get so annoyed with this. I can understand the arguments against DLC in principle, as opposed to the classic expansion, which many prefer. OK. But if you accept that the DLC is a worthwhile addition, then why would you feel ripped off by it's existence? Thinking as a developer day 1 DLC may indeed make a lot of sense: A game goes gold about 1 month before it hits the stores, right? So there is a month where most of the team is our of work. The time before that, you probably have at least a month where features are locked and bug fixing is the order of the day - so your writers, designers, artists are largely out of work - I doubt it makes much sense to have them all work as highly paid beta-testers. Your publisher probably won't fund the next sequel or an expansion until he sees how the game performs, so you can only dedicate a small team to starting that up. You may have enough funds however to fund a DLC, or getting a bit of extra funding for that from the publisher would be much easier than for a big project.
For you as the consumer you get a choice: you can play the vanilla game which is still the same thing, or pay an extra for extra content. You have all the freedom in the workd to first test the game and decide whether you like it enough to pay the extra. That should not be too hard to handle for a person that grew up in a market economy, surely?

The right thing to do for developers is to include every idea and content they have in mind and know they can make in the original game itself and begin making DLCs and expansions after the game is released based on the reception and demand of the fans. Also DLCs always prevent me from getting a game when it first comes out and I usually wait to play it until I'm sure no more extra content will be released for the game. I strongly dislike DLCs, but I can't blame developers for practicing this kind of trade. You can't stay in the business by staying loyal to every ethical and moral rule. Costs are high and the market is unforgiving. You easily can get bankrupt if you don't use every chance to make a few more bucks.

I wouldn't mind if I had some easy way to be absolutely certain what I would be getting, and when I'd get it.

Now, I feel obligated to pre-order to ensure I have the "full" game on day 1 - because I have no idea what I'll be missing without this DLC.

I don't react well to this kind of manipulation.

I'm sure it's a suit decision, however, and one would hope PB aren't behind it.

It's the norm these days - and most people don't seem to mind it, so it will stay the norm - until it gets worse.

JDR13 said:

Gothic 1 and Risen are extremely stable and almost entirely bug free for most people

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Does this look stable and bug free to you?

CountChocula said:

Does this look stable and bug free to you?

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Considering how long you've been looking for an answer to that issue, it should be obvious to you that it isn't common. I've never seen or heard of it before, so I'm pretty sure the problem has something to do with your system and not the game.

Most likely, it's related to the changes you made to the ConfigUser.xml file, as you mentioned in the other thread that you didn't have the issue prior to that.

DArtagnan said:

I wouldn't mind if I had some easy way to be absolutely certain what I would be getting, and when I'd get it.

Now, I feel obligated to pre-order to ensure I have the "full" game on day 1 - because I have no idea what I'll be missing without this DLC.

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That's exactly the part I honestly don't understand. Why does the existance of a DLC mean that the game you have is not the "full" game? I just never had this thought, to me a DLC is just an extra you can get to add to the "full" game.
Some examples: Now these never were day 1 DLC, but e.g. for Morrowind, I only got one or two of the official mods/DLC - it didn't make me feel like I didn't have the "full" game, I just didn't have some extras I wasn't particularly interested in. Same for Oblivion, I never bought any of the DLC. But I had a full game. With one exeption: There was this door to the Orerry - that did irritate me, bcause it did indeed feel that something had been deliberately cut. But still, the DLC were extras, but I didn't like the base game well enough to shell out extra for DLC, so case closed.
Third example, I got some free DLC for the Wichter 2 (maybe not day 1, iirc, but close). Great, thats nice of them! But the game didn't feel less complete before I got that, nor more complete after I got it. I would not have paid for it, because I already had a full game.
So unless you had a legitimate complaint about the incompleteness of the base game (which in the case of R2, we can't know yet) why would you feel you are not getting the "full" game?

What's the place you can preorder the game to get Treasure Isle? If I use the official Polish shop of the local distributor, I won't get it (they're offering the game itself, but not the "preorderers get Treasure Isle" deal). I cannot preorder Risen 2 on Steam - the option just does not display for me. Is this another case of Polish gamers being screwed (like with New Vegas) or am I missing some other option?

Thrasher said:

Bethesda was smart NOT to advertise this crap before release.

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What? They announced that there would be at least 2 DLC, and that they would be timed exclusives for the Xbox 360. How is that not advertising?

Elwro said:

... I cannot preorder Risen 2 on Steam - the option just does not display for me. Is this another case of Polish gamers being screwed (like with New Vegas) or am I missing some other option?

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No, we can't pre-order on Steam in the US either. I don't know where you can for the DLC bonus yet.

GhanBuriGhan said:

That's exactly the part I honestly don't understand. Why does the existance of a DLC mean that the game you have is not the "full" game? I just never had this thought, to me a DLC is just an extra you can get to add to the "full" game.

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I think the issue stems largely from the day 1 aspect, as it´s fairly natural to expect any story content that was finished before release to constitute a "full" game.
Personally I came to sorta accept that given the whole publisher/developer thing, this extra content likely operates on extra resources and wouldn´t be developed at all if it didn´t present potential extra returns.

However, in the case of the Risen 2´s DLC (and also ME3´s extra companion one, for example), the additional issue is that the content itself really feels like something too vital to be just "extra", since Treasure Island seems like an additional content for two of the game´s main characters which also finishes a fairly major quest from Risen 1. That´s where the manipulation is - the DLC seems like a vital piece of content, however by the time I´ll know whether I´d consider it vital or not I won´t be able to get it for free.
Capitalism and all, ok, but I don´t have to like this . Besides the issue I´m gonna mention next, I don´t really mind day 1 DLCs in whose cases it´s clear they´re not vital at all (even if neat to have).

At last, but not least, these day 1 DLCs/preorder items shift games´ baseline balance (however good or bad it is) and developers usually don´t care to implement balancing measures of the base game for the cases when one or more of these extras is present.
Speaking of which,

GhanBuriGhan said:

Third example, I got some free DLC for the Wichter 2 (maybe not day 1, iirc, but close). Great, thats nice of them! But the game didn't feel less complete before I got that, nor more complete after I got it. I would not have paid for it, because I already had a full game.

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Nice of them indeed, however, all the additional items not only make the game feel different, they also do it for worse in my not so humble opinion - some of the items render some TW1 import bonuses meaningless and the gauntlets skew part of the (already shaky) loot progression altogether as you won´t find anything better till the last chapter.
A good way to introduce these additionals would be to spread them throughout the game, but nooo, they just had to dump them all right into Geralt´s starting inventory .

Thanks for the explanation DeepO. I guess I just have so little interest in DLC (especially for a game I haven't played yet) that I simply never get to the point that I have enough interest or knowledge about it that I would get that feeling that it would be essential to my enjoyment of the main game. Also I am rarely a day 1 purchaser anyway, so the day 1 conundrum tends to kinda bypass me.

WorstUsernameEver said:

What? They announced that there would be at least 2 DLC, and that they would be timed exclusives for the Xbox 360. How is that not advertising?

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My point is that Bethesda did not have pre-order boni of extra DLC at day 1. It's that aspect that is annoying. Skyrim DLC is coming much later.

BTW, there is more of this pre-order shit coming down the tubes.

Preorders exclusively at North American GameStop stores will also receive the “Pirate’s Clothes” equipment set, which gives the player additional stat bonuses and a wicked extra pistol from the start of the game, in addition to the Special Edition extra content.

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http://www.gamersdailynews.com/stor...-Now-Available-Including-Special-Edition.html

To add insult to injury, Gamespot appears to only be offering PS and XBOX releases. Not PC version. :/

huh? It looks like you've got that reversed?

Thrasher said:

huh? It looks like you've got that reversed?

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My bad just caught that I was in a hurry. The pc in April and the consoles in May. Its the other way around. As for dlc and timed exclusives I don't really care anymore its here to stay thanks to people spending millions on it.

Yeah, I saw the May 22 date for PC on amazon. Makes me worry more about the release being consolized... The combat in particular sounds like it took a hit vs. the first Risen. :/

Frozen Fireball said:

The right thing to do for developers is to include every idea and content they have in mind and know they can make in the original game itself and begin making DLCs and expansions after the game is released based on the reception and demand of the fans.

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This is not an uncommon suggestion - and I understand the sentiment behind it. I do think it makes for a better game if it is produced with the developers thinking of it as a complete work unto itself. In some games for which DLC was planned and worked on throughout the high level design process for the game (stuff like storyboarding and whiteboarding before any real coding starts) - you get the distinct feelings that some areas and beginnings of plot threads seem to exist for no other reason than to serve as connection points or blank spots for content to be added at a later date.

It's not always about something being carved out for the purpose of being repackaged as DLC. Rather, and often more glaringly, it is something that feels out of place on its own as though it only existed to serve as a drop in or lead in point for some planed DLC. These things stand out like large empty spots on grocery store shelves; it really doesn't matter if those shelves had been full and then emptied or if the store had just opened and not finished stocking. Either way it looks like something is missing - and developers seem to be far less subtle about these DLC lead-ins and insert spots they put in the original games. The possibility and background of the DLC having a presence in the lore in the form of a few rumors and details in conversation/plot - those don't bother me if they're unobtrusive. Big mostly empty buildings, seemingly pressing plot hooks, or interesting areas rendered inexplicably unexplainable - that's bad game design.

Consider the casino in the latest Final Fantasy game (ick, I know). It's a mostly empty and purposeless area with only a single gameplay component included at launch - a slot machine. Whether or not the other casino games are content withheld to be sold as DLC is largely immaterial; it screams "incomplete" and "dissapointment" regardless of whether or not you had played previous installments and considered the casino to be a standard part of the game. Also, whether or not the actual additional casino games to-be-added were started on in earnest before launch makes no difference in this regard. Whether that DLC was started 2 days ago or 10 months ago does not make the feature at launch seem any more or less incomplete; it seems pretty bad either way.

Incongruous magical drop boxes for DLC that appear to serve the purpose of advertising the purchasable items than any real convenience - ala KOA:R - serve as a small but pretty glaring example of this. There's no reason that DLC or bonus items could not simply be added to your inventory and set not to take up space like some other items already in the game. The delivery box really only serves to remind players who do not have those items that they are missing something - be they the bonus items or the inevitable item packs. The drop box is more universally damaging to the game - though in a small way - than the existence of the bonus and DLC items because it intrudes whether or not you know or care about its potential contents.

I am not bothered then by DLC being developed before the game comes out. I'm also not bothered merely by it being planned early in the process. I'm bothered when the game feels glaringly incomplete or contains incongruous components that serve almost as in-game pop-up ads for DLC by reminding you of those things you're missing in the game. If game designers are going to plan DLC during the design process, then they need to be less lazy about how those plans effect the design of the base game. Don't put in a casino with 1 game, don't put in drop boxes for current or planned item packs especially if they are completely out of place in the setting. Do not have large arenas placed prominently in the world which are either inexplicably vacant and inactive or the path to which are blocked by an invisible wall and a reminder to buy it.

Still - I can't lament the effects of planned DLC awkwardly intruding into the base game without mentioning one of the best examples of the problems of less-planned DLC being attached later with the the skill and grace of a third arm surgically attached with a butcher's knife and duct tape. I am referring to Fallout 3's Shattered Steel - the somewhat controversial and jarring way in which it changes the ending of the game seems to be something that earlier planning may have well avoided if it were done carefully enough.

Games that don't tank can pretty much be expected to get DLC; in a similar way to success used to be a good predictor of expansions and obviously still is for sequels. It also makes sense that developers wouldn't be very passionate or good at their work if they didn't have to believe a game they are working on at least has the potential to be good and successful. It makes sense that they would also consider possible DLC or expansions at this point - but do so carefully to avoid the things mentioned above.

They also know that many of the development tasks end at certain points during the process - high level design elements being fairly locked down often more than a year before release. So it does make sense that parts of the development team whose jobs are done and whose skills have no use in the later phases of development; most obviously would be someone like a concept artist who doesn't have much to do during the testing and debugging process. Might as well have them start on something - prioritizing corrections on any reports relevant to their specialty that come back to them from the testing team while they work on DLC or expansions instead of twiddling their thumbs.

some facts
gamersgate and steam both list the release date as april 24 for the pc, and mention nothing about additional dlc at $50 gamefly and gamestop don't even mention the pc version yet. amazon has the pc special edition version for also $50 but you get a poster and the treasure island dlc. however they have this being released on may 22 but this could be wrong or because the boxed edition will take longer for the pc as the console version are $10 more and being released on the same date.

many games have released special editions that come out upon release with extra stuff to entice people to buy the game early and that has never bothered me as early adopters should be rewarded not those who sit back and wait for rock bottom sales. bitches gotta eat yo. and by bitches i mean the lovely pirahnas in this case.

dollartree and mcdonalds attitudes aren't going to help the smaller devs stay afloat but whatever. i'm betting that a large portion of people complaining about this aren't going to be ponying up to fund the recent and sure to be more coming kickstarter games despite a much larger portion of those procedes going to the devs and them making games that are catering even more to a niche and non-consolized crowd.

Well, this is off my list. I've avoided games with tons of early DLC and day 1 dlc ever since the horse armor fiasco. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

This isn't the kind of crap you'd expect from Piranha Bytes. Damn shame.