Dragon Age - Upcoming Combat-Oriented DLC

1Up seems to have the scoop on BioWare's Comic-Con revelations at the moment, with news of an upcoming, unnamed DLC for Dragon Age on display. Apparently this one will be particularly action-oriented (the others weren't?):

The DLC is designed to be for high-tier characters to traverse a punishing dungeon against high level enemies. While the DLC was never named (nor was the name of the dungeon), the focus of this new content is entirely combat based encouraging players to use their tactics against hordes of enemies. This also means that you should not expect any story elements ala Awakening. Other details such as release date and price were not given either, but it is nice to see that the life of Dragon Age: Origins isn't over yet, even though it's sequel is less than a year away.

More information.

Nice. They are preparing their "fans" in advance for the DA2.

Also, I like how in the end they just said "fuck it" to story. Considering that not one DLC in all three games (ME/ME2/DA2) had remotely interesting story to sit through, not surprised.

Leliana's Song and (particularly) The Stone Prisoner both had relatively interesting stories. I actually think The Stone Prisoner was up par with the most of main quests (shit happened, no one knows why so you need to investigate, a shocking revelation at the end). And Shale is an interesting character too.

I'm not buying into this tripe about hating DA2 before we know squat about the game, but I'm starting to dread DLC, too. I would have been much happier with a real expansion that uses the character I made. The only DLC I bought was the Warden's Keep and that really didn't seem worth it. It's like I went to a resteraunt and bought a big chicken dinner, and now the waiter is buzzing around trying to sell me a single chicken nugget for a dollar or a roll for 90 cents. I don't want these little bite-sized things and, even if I did, I wouldn't pay that much for them!

Edit: I think Shale is a special case. That's free content for everyone who buys the game. It only costs extra for people who buy (or are given) used copies or rent the game. It seems more akin to a pre-order perk to me than DLC. Do PC gamers buy used games that much?

Originally Posted by Zloth
Do PC gamers buy used games that much?

Publishers don't see revenue from a lot of the people playing their games, let's put it that way.

Shale was excellent content, quite agree. Other DLC I've enjoyed includes Point Lookout, Broken Steel, Witches Wake and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, not to mention a couple of things not in the RPG genre. The thing I most like about DLC is it's purely optional - if the game isn't worth the price on it's own then I won't buy it, ditto the DLC.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Publishers don't see revenue from a lot of the people playing their games, let's put it that way.

Imho it's exactly this way.

Since when do we have commercial PC games ?
And since when are publishers mourning about lost money/sales caused by the secondary market ?

To say it's "greed" is too short-sighted. I feel it's kind of a change in the whole system. Or in the thought-pattern. Some kind of new fashion in terms of games publishing economy.
To me, it appears as if someone has put out an article in some economics newspaper or so
which founded an entirely different belief-system regarding economics in PC gaming or video gaming as a whole.

And everyone jumped onto that waggon.


But … - It could also have something to do with the need to get much more money in,
because much more money is consumed by game developments.

Whih could mean - assumed this assumption is right - that WE as the gamer' collctive - are responsible for it, because we - or at least the majority of the whole market of all available customers (no matter which genre - which means not only RPGs) - are responsible for the price increase of developing games,
because WE always want better games - in terms of graphics, in terms of technology.

But on the other hand … This could also be an illusion of developers - driven by gaming magazine reviwers/editors, who BELIEVE that gamers ALWAYS want the best, newest, graphically most shiney stuff … An illusion that might not necessarily be true, considering that face book farming game, which doesn't look at if it needs the newest tesselation engine at all.

So … someone wants to make developers believe that they need to do the technically most advanced games in order to get them appreciated (by gamers) and then sold to / bought by gamers world-wide … This sounds too much like a real conspiracy theory to me …

Someone has to stop this mess.

I really don't understand who's looking for even more combat after DA:O. The Dark Roads alone was wave after wave of combat. Almost all the battles were the same. It just came down to managing healing supplies and injury kits after a while.

I likely will not buy this expansion.

I am actually cool with this.

I love strategic rpg combat , and i love dungeons.

Problem is only that DAO really didnt excel at combat encounter design. Dark roads were yawn fest…. actually there were handfull of good encounters in whole game.

So , well. It all depends how they do it.

Originally Posted by Malk
Leliana's Song and (particularly) The Stone Prisoner both had relatively interesting stories. I actually think The Stone Prisoner was up par with the most of main quests (shit happened, no one knows why so you need to investigate, a shocking revelation at the end). And Shale is an interesting character too.

Because, Stone Prisoner originally was not a DLC. Shale character was in the original design. I think because of EA's pressures Bioware removed this part from the game and offer it as a DLC. If you open the dialog file with the editor and look to the dialog trees there is a shale_main.dlg file in the original DLCless game, as well as Shale's dialogs in other dlg files.

BioWare already explained Shale was part of the original design but pulled because of time pressures. Then, with more time than expected because of the console releases, they reinstated it as Day 0 DLC.

You could argue they may be lying but I don't really see why they'd bother.

Originally Posted by Malk
Leliana's Song and (particularly) The Stone Prisoner both had relatively interesting stories. I actually think The Stone Prisoner was up par with the most of main quests (shit happened, no one knows why so you need to investigate, a shocking revelation at the end). And Shale is an interesting character too.

The Stone Prisoner would have been part of the original game if we weren't in the 'DLC era'. It was released at the same time of the game, and it was pretty much included with every purchase of the game, so for all practical purposes, it's part of the original game.

Originally Posted by Gokyabgu
I think because of EA's pressures…

You think wrongly . Allow me to quote BioWare's Derek French (news comment #48 in the linked thread):

If you have had any experience with a BioWare game launch I can firmly state that all delays and target platforms rest solely at the discretion of BioWare. We chose to delay the game. We chose the platforms we want it to be on. EA acquired BioWare and Pandemic about 2 years ago and they have been supportive about our decisions, not the cause of them. We are doing exactly what we want to do on this project.

Derek French
Technical Producer, Live Team
BioWare

Originally Posted by wolfing
The Stone Prisoner would have been part of the original game if we weren't in the 'DLC era'.

We wouldn't be able to play The Stone Prisoner at all, if we weren't in the 'DLC' era.

Originally Posted by kalniel
We wouldn't be able to play The Stone Prisoner at all, if we weren't in the 'DLC' era.

Even without a DLC system, if they had wanted to, they could have 'patched it in'. If you are saying that they may not have bothered - probably so, since it would have required more effort. But others - Witcher anyone? - have released new modules/ content/whatever - without a DLC system, simply as thanks. Not for money or points. That's something I respect and appreciate.

@Moriendor: if EA own Bioware, then they will undoubtedly influence the way that Bioware does business. Just because Mr French - a mere cog in the machine - says something, doesn't mean its what really happens behind the scenes ;-)

Originally Posted by booboo
Even without a DLC system, if they had wanted to, they could have 'patched it in'.

I agree. There were several sorts of patches in the past where additional content was "patched in". For Republic Commando, for example, there was even a "patch" that consisted of nothing but a multiplayer map !

Originally Posted by booboo
But others - Witcher anyone? - have released new modules/ content/whatever - without a DLC system, simply as thanks. Not for money or points. That's something I respect and appreciate.

Isn't "patching in" effectively the same thing as free DLC? This is just semantics.

Well, to me there is still a difference between a "patch" and a "DLC" … But regarding the content, from a purely technical point of view, you might be right …

And there were also expansion packs long before 'DLC'. You would, for $15 or so, get the equivalent in gameplay time of like 20 DLCs together, instead of the 1.5 hour extra play every other week.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Isn't "patching in" effectively the same thing as free DLC? This is just semantics.

Just making the point that a DLC "delivery system" (as built into ME2, DA:O etc) is not necessary for new (or free new) content in a game. A previous poster suggested that "without DLC" (which I took to mean the delivery system/infrastructure) we would not have had Shale in DA:O.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Isn't "patching in" effectively the same thing as free DLC? This is just semantics.

It's not really semantics if someone picks up a used copy and as a result is unable to install the "free" DLC. Free DLC, in this case, is meant to hamper/discourage the second-hand market…