DLC Content, Whats your opinion?

[Von Biddulph]

Depends on what you think "improves the game" though.

For some people the game may be improved by having 100+ extra sprites depicting every single model of every tank-destroyer in the world, and for some improving the game may involve having the border of Smallville, Nebraska moved 2 pixels to the northeast.

Thats true, I'm sure you want to pull your hair out with some of the crazy requests/complaints people have. :rofl:

For ME, the improvement in Vicky Revolutions was that Laisse-faire economies became hands off, low taxes allowed capitalists to do what they were intended to do.. build factories and railroads. Was vanilla Vicky good? Absolutely but Revolutions made the original look incomplete.

 

[wosung]

Forgive me for asking:

Isn't it a bit early to vote or poll, when nobody, beside developers & beta-bunnys played around with this game, all the Developer Diaries nonewithstanding?!

Besides: The wish for DLC, like historical solid scenarios or other stuff, could lead to speculations that those will not be part of product one, or even worse, that product one might be somehow unfinished.

Last not least: Just asking 2 questions, don't want to appear impolite.

Regards

 

[UmOceano]

So you say we should have sold HoI3 for 49$ instead with all the spritepacks?

Just to chime in, if you sold HoI3 for 45€ with the sprites pack I would have bought it. I wouldn't mind paying 5 extra €s if that meant more money for Paradox with the bonus of tons of sprites.

 

[nestorius]

My only experiance with dlcs is with oblivion and fallout 3, tbh the fallout 3 ones are more like expansions while the oblivion ones are a bit strange and seem to be a bit like milking money from the customers.

I am a perfectionist so would probably pay for expansions and dlcs no matter what, plus I would prefer a different sprite for each model - ie different sprite for jet fighters to turbojets etc.

But I must say I would feel a bit cheated if I was forced to pay for it. An expansion like IN or NA or ARM or DD I am prepared to pay for but for improved graphics?, sounds? I dont know.

Then again I realise if noone pays for it there is no reason to make sprite packs and you just ship the game with 1 sprite per tank etc.

Frankly I am not sure I think that if DLCs are included they should probably include extra content excluding the sprites for instance scenarios for instance.

I dont even know how to answer the poll.

On the one hand I want sprites and music but I also think its a little cheeky to charge for them.


EDIT if the sprite packs did include every model having a different sprite for a single country then I have to say I would say I would buy it.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Forgive me for asking:

Isn't it a bit early to vote or poll, when nobody, beside developers & beta-bunnys played around with this game, all the Developer Diaries nonewithstanding?!

Besides: The wish for DLC, like historical solid scenarios or other stuff, could lead to speculations that those will not be part of product one, or even worse, that product one might be somehow unfinished.

Last not least: Just asking 2 questions, don't want to appear impolite.

Regards

Well we already know what scenarios will be coming with the game. So having additional scenarios added would be nice. I still stand by my opinion that we should only have expansions though.

 

[unmerged(1823)]

And no.. the spritepacks are not finished yet.. (Will be at aug 7th or our 3d artist will feel the whip.) 90% of the sprites for those were done after we had "feature freeze" on the game for the gold.

 

[FrreeeBird]

So you say we should have sold HoI3 for 49$ instead with all the spritepacks?

Possibly.

Depends on the cost analysis you guys did, if you think you can get enough people to purchase DLC to profit from the spritework (which I imagine to be much less intensive labor wise than the "meatier" aspects of the game) then selling them for a few bucks a pop works better than $49. In fact, you guys probably figure you'll make more money/sell more units by selling HoI3@$40 and then taking in money from DLC than you would selling the complete game @$50.

I see you guys doing this for profitability reasons, selling DLC is VERY scaleable . . . minor cost relative to the revenue stream.

Then again, would you roll DLC into future expansions? I'd advise against that as someone in the business world, excellent way to anger those who wound up purchasing DLC then the expansion, paying for the same content twice.

*shrugs*

I guess I'm just still bitter about EU3 not living up to my expectations, sorry for the angst in my first post. :hugs:

 

[vortexsurfer]

And no.. the spritepacks are not finished yet.. (Will be at aug 7th or our 3d artist will feel the whip.) 90% of the sprites for those were done after we had "feature freeze" on the game for the gold.

... which I interpret as the game has gone gold

 

[LeeDub]

I'm not opposed to the idea of DLC in general, it's just that developers quite often make DLC like, say, Bethesda's infamous Horse Armor, instead of releasing new quest lines or expanding the main quest (the middle of it, not extending it) in case of RPGs. Expansions are more or less guaranteed to offer improvements all around. Compare the Shivering Isles expansion pack with all the DLC for Oblivion. The first one offered much, much more than all the DLC combined and was actually cheaper. If you are going to make DLC, make sure you do it right - scenarios, for example, are much better idea for DLC than a couple of new sprites.

Don't make DLC like "Uganda Minister and Sprite Pack!", instead think of things like "The Underground State: Government-in-Exile Improvement Pack". Stuff that cannot be added in mods but improves playability. There is also the issue of patches. AFAIK, you have added ministers, models, and even technologies to HoI2 via patches, for free. Switching it to paid-for DLC is, for your customers, a step backwards.

I voted for DLC because I hope you are not like Bethesda and will not release crap to milk as much money as possible while lowering your standards. I guess what I'm asking is "do what you think is best for the company, but please don't screw us over"...

 

[Federkiel]

Sry, i don't understand the exact meaning of the latter two options.

I want expansions to the game, yes - but i do definitely not want to download anything. Hardcopies are the only thing for me.

So, what option have i got to choose then?

 

[Ex Mudder]

Microtransactions in HOI3? Never saw that coming.

Personally, I don't like buying 1 or 2 dollar (or euro, or whatever) things with a credit card, and that includes online.

I also don't use sprites... but I seem to recall that Naval units always use sprites, at least in HOI 2.

I would probably download a Naval Sprite Pack - just to make the Pacific War look pretty. What is the good of having pretty US Ships when you get Generic Japanese Ships? The army with the best uniforms usually loses the war, after all.

Alternately, a European Theater Spite Pack and a Pacific Theater Spite pack might make sense.

As for downloading music, I still have the Eu3 CD. Wouldn't mind more music prices comperable to an MP3 download on Amazon.

My main concern is time commitment. I'd rather have the Devs working on full bore expansions, not periodic releases of eye candy. And as much as I hate to say this, I hope the eye candy isn't too profitable - otherwise game publishers might spend more money on eye candy and less on the actual game.

I also worry that the first HOI3 expansion will just bundle all of these nickle and dime things into it, and I'm fairly sure the HOI 3 complete will do so as well.

 

[unmerged(1823)]

Then again, would you roll DLC into future expansions? I'd advise against that as someone in the business world, excellent way to anger those who wound up purchasing DLC then the expansion, paying for the same content twice.

Yeah, that would not be very nice to people.

I guess I'm just still bitter about EU3 not living up to my expectations, sorry for the angst in my first post. :hugs:

No worries, i just hope hoi3 lives up to the expectations you have.

I know how sucky it is when you have high hopes for a game and wait for it, and buy a CE at releasedate, and then the game is not what you wanted it to be.

I can only promise that I personally like the games when we do them.

 

[unmerged(61671)]

I would love to see DLC, at short frequent intervals, and then that DLC collected and added to a heftier expansion pack at a later date. But DLC's and expansions aren't exclusive - the DLC's feed into the expansions.

I think they are both great ways for companies (whether - or maybe especially for - smaller companies like Paradox, and also for the big companies) to exploit revenue streams, keep the games on peoples hard-drives, keep them out of the hands of trade-ins and keep people playing and talking about a particular game.

I would be really happy if there was a whole slew of DLC content for HOI3, that I could opt in to buying. If that was on the shelf and was pretty cheap, I would certainly browse and buy. And if I can get that quick, rather than waiting 18 months for a big drop, then more power to the consumer, man. And I will probably get the expansion too, even if I already have 40-60% of the content within it.

Paradox, do everything you can to get more money off us, stay in business and giving us shit-hot games.

 

[unmerged(45977)]

Also, I hope that HOI3 is a complete game instead of a game that's unfinished and needs DLC's and expansion packs to be the great game it was supposed to be.

 

[FrreeeBird]

No worries, i just hope hoi3 lives up to the expectations you have.

I know how sucky it is when you have high hopes for a game and wait for it, and buy a CE at releasedate, and then the game is not what you wanted it to be.

I can only promise that I personally like the games when we do them.

Thats the bad thing about HoI3 for me, I have VERY high expectations from playing HoI2 (and various mods) and what EU3 eventually became.

 

[PkK]

Accumulate enough content to put make an expansion out of it. If you have some small improvements content-wise that areN#t worth making an expansion just put it into the next patch. Charging for content that just went into patches in previous games (like small additions to the tech tree or the improvement of the spy system) would increase your BB (which currently due to the way this was handled in previous games is rather low).

Philipp

 

[DocMorningstar]

Good DLC vs Bad DLC

There is micro-content and macro-content. Micro would be things like sprite packs, music packs, new ‘units’ etc. Macro are things like expansion packs.

I don’t mind ‘paying’ for micro content – as long as they aren’t relevant to core game function. What I mean by this is that I am cool paying 1.99 for a sprite pack – but I am *NOT* cool with paying 1.99 for a ‘enhanced AI’ DL. Music pack = Good! New unit class pack = Bad! (because that means I have units that someone else doesn’t this isn’t really relevant to HoI3, fortunately)

Off the top of my head, I think these would make the ‘best’ micro-DLC

Graphics packs
Sounds/Video packs
‘Complete OOB’ packs (IE, every german division ever made, laid out as a template so you can do things ‘properly’ for the grognards)

Um, that’s what I’ve got

Oh, yeah, of course expansion packs are ‘pay to play’

-Doc

 

[ALordaB]

I´m not a fan of micro transactions, so I´ll go with the expansions only option.

 

[dvandyke]

Stuff that wasn't quite finished before the deadline should be included in patches. New features should be combined and sold in quality and expansive expansion packs like IN even if they cost a bit more. Paradox have always done a good job of updating and improving your games with free patches but the games with expansion packs are not cheap and I consider this part of the service I pay a lot of money for. It is a lot easier to alienate people than it is to build up loyalty and you would be stupid to risk it for the sake of a few euros.

 

[unmerged(58541)]

No way i value my money during an economic crisis!In an user point of view this is another trick to delay implementation of ideas for expansions so the company gets more money.I never got Armaggedon and i never regretted about it !
In my opinion a game must almost perfect and fully finished when released,then its time for 1-3 balancing patches and a new project.Releasing expansions per year with additional content is the same thing as a drug dealer giving you free dose to get you hooked.