First, and most importantly, we did podcast recently, if you'd like to partake of our dark ... something or whatever.
That being said, I keep checking my damn RSS feeds because there is, for the first time in months and months, no forthcoming Bioware DLC announced. That's just damn peculiar. OR IS IT?
Words can't describe the disbelieving chuckle that fell out of mouth when their super-secret announcement a few weeks ago turned out to be the Bioware Bazaar. What the fuck were they thinking, hyping that up like that?
Anyway, I enjoyed both Stolen Memory and Awakening, as both showed promise, and teased some amazing characters, but I felt both fell short in fleshing those characters out as well as they could have. I'd like it if future Bioware DLC/expansions actually focused more on building characters (and less on sullying our HDDs with horrid platforming vehicles.)
Of course, I would argue that DLC is problematic for RPGs, unless it takes place after the core adventure. This isn't to say that it will never work properly, but I would've much rather had my first experience with Return to Ostagar be in the context of the initial playthrough, whereas much of it fell a little flat dramatically when played after the core game, when I knew that my warden was dead, and Alistair had ascended to the throne, and I was playing in some weird pseudo-context that existed outside of the actual game that I'd played.
Within the game, it works pretty nicely, After the game, kinda like Stolen Memory, it doesn't quite work. It's hard to get nearly as worked up when a) the world in which you're playing is in some weird 'frozen' state, and b) the overarching stakes are no longer raised.
Expansions, though, work quite well, even if Awakening totally dropped the ball on the dead warden import. Instead of being able to import your world, and start a new warden, they instead imported your dead warden as being alive, thus disregarding the great sacrifice he/she made.
Anyway, as I was saying, it's my belief that I'd rather play a 30-40 hour expansion with full characters rather than a mission at a time.
I do like the ME2 guns n' armor downloads, though.
Also, I should mention the Lost Odyssey DLC, Seeker of the Deep. THAT was an interesting way to do RPG DLC. While it could only be played in an active save, it was pretty much a balls-out hardass dungeon, and totally awesome in terms of challenge. It's the kinda shit that RPG vets live for. It got so insanely hard, I never finished it.
Honestly, when it comes Bioware games, I think I'd be okay with nothing but massive expansions a la Awakening, but I'd like them to be more fully integrated with the original world. By that, I mean, import the dead warden as dead, have the maps stitched together and allow movement between the worlds, import all the DLC stuff, etc.
What about you? How do you like your RPG post-release content?
-Blaine
Posts
Dragon Age Day 2023
4 months ago
I have hated pretty much all the DLC so far, but felt that DA: Awakening almost got it right (really think $30 was the right price too). The last one before than to get it pretty much right, and only other from this console cycle that I can think of RPG-wise, was Shivering Isles for Oblivion. What used to be a pretty much assured progression in PC games is suffering from the urge to keep people from selling their 360/PS3 game, leading to a trickle of DLC to start no later than 3 months after the game is released.
ReplyDeleteI miss the whole full game, 1 - 1.5 year wait, huge $30 expansion pattern (sometimes 2-3 expansions even) that most PC games followed, and it holds true especially for an RPG that is better taken in with chunks of playtime rather than in an hour long add-on. After not playing Dragon Age or Mass Effect for a while I forget almost how to play, and by the time I am back into my groove the expansion has ended. In addition, short in these cases means almost completely lacking in story, since to end in a 'To Be Continued...' would cause huge public outcry.
Fallout 3 had something in-between, but the only one to really hit home was the one that carried on past the end of the game, and once again there was the issue that your character could be dead at that point.
This is another issue with the small DLC, as many RPGs have one or more characters dead, or with the option to end up dead, by the time the credits roll. This makes a full-blown expansion in the style of DA:Awakening the best way to go, but the issue is that they would have heard quite a bit of outcry if they turned off character importing if you chose a certain ending.
I think a middle ground would be a trickle of new items to be released every month or so for free - nothing major, just a sword or new set of armor - followed by big expansion 6 months to a year down the line with a forced new character, as that would allow you to get new gear for your 50-hour character and give you a reason to experiment with a new class for a 20 hour DLC add-on, once again with the new equipment.