BF3 and DICE got bend over by EA...

ShadowHearth

http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2011/06/13/the-day-dlc-went-too-far/

lovely. :rolleyes:

so here is your fact. cut out content to make it dlc. I bet 100% it was not Dice idea...

Magill

This is exactly the type of DLC i absolutely hate !!

With CoD.. i can live with the map packs, its what most DLC/Expansions have always done, given extra content after release. But its this stripping the game of missions, maps and now guns that really takes the piss. They did it with dragon age, tiger woods and now battlefield... bit of a joke really. If they want to give bonuses to retailers, make it completely cosmetic not something that will impact the game.

Didn't Dice take a pot shot at CoD at E3 about the whole elite thing ?

p.s I know its not Dice's fault.

calex71

Hate that this is happening more and more now. While I'd normally be the 1st to cry FU EA, this is not the 1st game they have done this with nor are they the only ones doing it. The rage should be directed at the industry as a whole not just at EA who clearly could care less what johnny public thinks as long as they can rape every franchise they own for all the $ it's worth and over very little new IP and thus risk very little $. They simple don't care.

Why are they doing it ???? Because fools and their money are soon parted (I count my self in that grouping ) , sure only last month rockstar did the exact same thing and we bent over and gladly took it from L.A noire and it's cases clearly cut from the game to be given away as pre-order dlc and then cough up a few hundred MS Points for the other one we didn't get

Spear

Meanwhile, over in the Battlefield specific forum:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056296638

ShadowHearth

calex71 wrote: »

Hate that this is happening more and more now. While I'd normally be the 1st to cry FU EA, this is not the 1st game they have done this with nor are they the only ones doing it. The rage should be directed at the industry as a whole not just at EA who clearly could care less what johnny public thinks as long as they can rape every franchise they own for all the $ it's worth and over very little new IP and thus risk very little $. They simple don't care.

Why are they doing it ???? Because fools and their money are soon parted (I count my self in that grouping ) , sure only last month rockstar did the exact same thing and we bent over and gladly took it from L.A noire and it's cases clearly cut from the game to be given away as pre-order dlc and then cough up a few hundred MS Points for the other one we didn't get

i know what you mean: fools and theyr money are easy to be parted, but in all honesty we cant do much, EA knows it. we want that game! i really doubt, that people who are waiting for this game, wount buy it becouse of dlc. they will be furiuos, but still buy it...

there are millions of us, who want play BF3 now, We all want it, we wait it like a cup of water in desert. EA knows it.

its same as: going with estate agent to check on house you want to buy, and while looking at house, you jump from joy and scream how you love it and want it, Estate agent knows that he can take you for a loooooooooooong ride. you are you, Estate agent is EA

richymcdermott

see im not full of **** now am i boards.ie :pac::pac:

i wont be picking this up

sink

****it, I don't like it but I am not going to be a hypocrite and say I'm not going to buy it.

richymcdermott

sink wrote: »

****it, I don't like it but I am not going to be a hypocrite and say I'm not going to buy it.

hardly being a hypocrite :P

SeantheMan

sink wrote: »

****it, I don't like it but I am not going to be a hypocrite and say I'm not going to buy it.

Same, in fact I'll be pre-ordering it, and paying for the mappack

As much as I hate it, I'm not going to deprive myself of 100's of hours of quality gaming just to take a self righteous stand that will have no impact. They can have my 10euro or whatever it is.

Also, chances are down the line that content will be free, if you remember they gave away Special Forces, Armored and Euro for BF2 for free as part of an update. And the same with 2142.

sink

richymcdermott wrote: »

hardly being a hypocrite :P

It is if I know I won't be able to resist buying it.

Healium

Don't see what the big deal here is, to be honest. People are making it out to be the worst thing in the world. This happens with tons of games.

That's not to say that I didn't vote against it on the EA forums, I did. I also don't like the situation. I don't hear anyone bitching about the extra maps. Surely they'd solve everyone's problems if they just included the weapons with the Back To Karkland map pack, so anyone can buy them, if they choose to

richymcdermott wrote: »

see im not full of **** now am i boards.ie :pac::pac:

No, you still are.

ShadowHearth

sink wrote: »

It is if I know I won't be able to resist buying it.

You see lads. My point proven .

And yup. I'll be on the same bandwagon . Between two evils I better choose lesser one

NTMK

Would EA please **** off and leave Dice alone. all the have to do is market the game and they'll be rolling in it. Stop interfering FFS

I'm not one bit happy about this but it still wont stop me from buying it:(

Benzino

At this stage I don't buy DLC, they are complete rip-offs. I have just finished LA Noire and really enjoyed, but R* can f*ck off if they think I'm buying their DLC which was clearly part of the original game. The last time I brought DLC was for GTA IV which I thought was great value for money.

Remember the awesome expansion packs such as Opposing Force for Half Life, bring them back I say!

SeantheMan

To the people who are saying "I won't buy DLC for this game" , the chances are , that they will give this DLC content to server providers for free. So it will be on most /all servers rotations.

Which then means if you love this game, and it does look like it will be amazing, that you will be kicked everytime a map from the DLC pack comes on.

This will get infuriating I have no doubt, and depending on how much you enjoy or value the game.....regardless of your view on DLC, you will probably end up buying it just so you don't get kicked off every single server.

Zillah

Benzino wrote: »

Remember the awesome expansion packs such as Opposing Force for Half Life, bring them back I say!

Making games was a lot easier and less expensive back then. Who's going to pay for such an expansion for a modern game; you?

Notorious

SeantheMan wrote: »

As much as I hate it, I'm not going to deprive myself of 100's of hours of quality gaming just to take a self righteous stand that will have no impact. They can have my 10euro or whatever it is.

I'm reluctantly agreeing with you. I think it's a joke that a game can have planned DLC ready before the game is even released. If a group of people decided to vote with their wallets, I'd join in. If consumers were to take a stand, EA would be forced to stop this nonsense.

At the same time though, it's great business for EA. Look at COD:BO; if you want the full games content, could end up spending close to €100 for the complete game.

Edit: I'll most likely buy the game, but definitely not the DLC.

Grayditch

Zillah wrote: »

Making games was a lot easier and less expensive back then. Who's going to pay for such an expansion for a modern game; you?

What a snotty response.

gizmo

Notorious wrote: »

I'm reluctantly agreeing with you. I think it's a joke that a game can have planned DLC ready before the game is even released. If a group of people decided to vote with their wallets, I'd join in. If consumers were to take a stand, EA would be forced to stop this nonsense.

At the same time though, it's great business for EA. Look at COD:BO; if you want the full games content, could end up spending close to €100 for the complete game.

Edit: I'll most likely buy the game, but definitely not the DLC.

I don't understand why people can't get this. Projects like these are planned months in advance with development time and resources (Read: money) allotted for the development of content aimed at DLC. Sometimes it's made during the main development cycle, other times it's worked on exclusively after launch but it's still always planned. If it was not going to be offered as DLC then they simply wouldn't make it.

As for the current issue, my problem with it is that it's exclusive to DLC rather than something that can be unlocked with X hours of play like Bad Company and which is just an early unlock with the LE edition of the game. Here's hoping they do a similar u-turn once again.

Liber8or

I just skimmed through the original article, and the author states that the weapons removed and added to the DLC pack will give those who pre-order an advantage.

This is not true though. EA released a statement in response to the community boycott declared and said that the weapons do not unbalance the game or give advantages, they are simply different models of weapon statistics that already exist in the game everyone will play, regardless of whether or not you pre-order. They are just skins people... Statistically, Pre-Order Shotgun X will have the same effect as Standard Shipped Shotgun Y - they will just look different.

If you pre-order you get cool looking weapons, oh and a map (which you will be able to buy after you play the game anyway).

Seriously, gamers these days are becoming more and more like reality tv fans - they love all the 'drama'.

Burgo

gizmo wrote: »

I don't understand why people can't get this. Projects like these are planned months in advance with development time and resources (Read: money) allotted for the development of content aimed at DLC. Sometimes it's made during the main development cycle, other times it's worked on exclusively after launch but it's still always planned. If it was not going to be offered as DLC then they simply wouldn't make it.

I think its in part due to the fact that people perceive that since the devs are announcing the dlc pre-launch that it could have been included in the game, and as such is just seen as money gouging on the devs part, also haven't there been a few instances where content that has been on the disc has been locked as dlc?

gizmo

Burgo wrote: »

I think its in part due to the fact that people perceive that since the devs are announcing the dlc pre-launch that it could have been included in the game, and as such is just seen as money gouging on the devs part, also haven't there been a few instances where content that has been on the disc has been locked as dlc?

In the first case that's a mix of ignorance and entitlement. Not really much developers can do about that unfortunately but thankfully there's a decent number of people who actually think about it rather than rushing to grab the nearest pitch fork and flaming torch.

As for the content being on disc and locked out, I've commented on this several times before and it's the same in this context. Yes, the content may be there, either due to the reason I stated above i.e. allowance was made in the budget for it's development in the knowledge it would be locked out or due to a technical requirement revolving around the fact that in multiplayer games every client must have the same build/content as each other. The Bioshock 2 skin pack was a recent example of this.

Magill

Man up gizmo..... You keep saying this DLC is planned in advance.. OBVIOUSLY ITS PLANNED IN ADVANCE !!! It doesn't stop it being complete and utter bullsh1t !

I seriously doubt that it cost them anything extra to make these attachments, they just pull developers away from making the main game.

http://youtu.be/db7-m0YuNU8?t=5m30s

This guy pretty much nails it for me, I have no problem with cosmetic stuff being DLC on release day but items that will impact the MP is silly.

gizmo

Magill wrote: »

Man up gizmo..... You keep saying this DLC is planned in advance.. OBVIOUSLY ITS PLANNED IN ADVANCE !!! It doesn't stop it being complete and utter bullsh1t !

I seriously doubt that it cost them anything extra to make these attachments, they just pull developers away from making the main game.

http://youtu.be/db7-m0YuNU8?t=5m30s

This guy pretty much nails it for me, I have no problem with cosmetic stuff being DLC on release day but items that will impact the MP is silly.

Well then unfortunately you have no idea how the development process works then. Pulling people off what they're working on to concentrate on DLC does cost money, simple as. Have you any idea how long it would take to model one of those weapons? Then skin it? Then animate it? Then get the appropriate sounds for them?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it'd take a week, week and a half max.

stop shilling for EA gizmo, this is daylight robbery plain and simple

Magill

gizmo wrote: »

Well then unfortunately you have no idea how the development process works then. Pulling people off what they're working on to concentrate on DLC does cost money, simple as. Have you any idea how long it would take to model one of those weapons? Then skin it? Then animate it? Then get the appropriate sounds for them?

Thats the problem tho... they arent really pulling anyone off anything are they ? The guys who have developed the rest of the attachments are almost certainly the same guys that develop these "Exclusive retail" attachments... if they didnt pull them off to make them what exactly would they be doing ? OH THATS RIGHT... They'd be doing the same ****ing thing or they'd be doing NOTHING and still getting paid.... hence not costing them anything.

Matthewthebig

Magill wrote: »

Thats the problem tho... they arent really pulling anyone off anything are they ? The guys who have developed the rest of the attachments are almost certainly the same guys that develop these "Exclusive retail" attachments... if they didnt pull them off to make them what exactly would they be doing ? OH THATS RIGHT... They'd be doing the same ****ing thing.... hence not costing them anything.

Here here!

Spear

It's all irrelevant now, EA and Dice gave in and everyone gets the PWP content.

richymcdermott

Sure i said it a week ago its gonna get worse

None of us will never learn and some just make excuses for the companies and get robbed ,where do you draw the line ?

gizmo

Magill wrote: »

Thats the problem tho... they arent really pulling anyone off anything are they ? The guys who have developed the rest of the attachments are almost certainly the same guys that develop these "Exclusive retail" attachments... if they didnt pull them off to make them what exactly would they be doing ? OH THATS RIGHT... They'd be doing the same ****ing thing or they'd be doing NOTHING and still getting paid.... hence not costing them anything.

Er, no. It would actually depend on the company that they'd be working for. For instance, if the project was planned correctly then their work would be synced with that of the rest of the team so there'd be very little thumb twiddling until the very end of the project when the art is generally completed. At that point they'd either be moved onto a new project which is in production or preproduction or in the absence of either of these, simply let go, as happens so often these days.

Winters

gizmo wrote: »

Er, no. It would actually depend on the company that they'd be working for. For instance, if the project was planned correctly then their work would be synced with that of the rest of the team so there'd be very little thumb twiddling until the very end of the project when the art is generally completed. At that point they'd either be moved onto a new project which is in production or preproduction or in the absence of either of these, simply let go, as happens so often these days.

You seem to know what you are talking about but I think I'm going to just act the retard and say YOUR WRONG BECAUSE THE INTERNET RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE. Clearly when making games it takes a couple of days to do all the graphic work and then they sit around the office throwing a ball about waiting on the next big release and not stuff inbetween. CLEARLY.

Cuddlesworth

gizmo wrote: »

Well then unfortunately you have no idea how the development process works then. Pulling people off what they're working on to concentrate on DLC does cost money, simple as. Have you any idea how long it would take to model one of those weapons? Then skin it? Then animate it? Then get the appropriate sounds for them?

Do you? I would guess about a full weeks worth of working hours split between 5 people averaging out about 20k per weapon including licensing rights.

Winters

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Do you? I would guess about a full weeks worth of working hours split between 5 people averaging out about 20k per weapon including licensing rights.

SURE, it only takes like 5 minutes to record a gun sound and get it right anyway. And making 3D models, sure, 10 minutes with detail. No time at all for animation. And no need to QA it anyway, throw it all in.

johnny_ultimate

Pre-order DLC is fine as long as it's completely useless (extra costumes, non-overpowered weapons etc...). If people want to spend their hard earned money ordering it somewhere specific for some irrelevant extra, it's their money, let them. Obviously enough people are doing it *shrugs*

Only thing I'd have a major issue with is something like maps being tied to pre-orders, automatically splitting the multiplayer community. **** knows it's annoying enough booting up a game after a few months of release only to be met with suggestions to buy new maps.

Yes, it's a shame that the two extra LA Noire cases weren't included on disc. But given they're completely superfluous to the main game it doesn't really matter.

Again - vote with your wallet. People seem to forget that. People are buying, and this is the result. Clearly the publishers have something to do with it, but the problem is much more fundamental than that. People want extra crap. Look how much they were willing to pay for the war horse download code on ebay. And apparently horse armour is profitable. Publishers are smart business people, the public themselves are the idiots.

NTMK

Looks like they backtracked today
Link

A point of clarification for all of our Battlefield fans. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack to all Battlefield 3 players later this year – for free. Read on for more details on this and Back to Karkand.

So maybe this is stating the obvious, but all of us at DICE are here because of our passion for games and the passion to bring you the games we too love to play. I always knew our pre-order offers for Battlefield 3 would be open to misunderstandings. This post is an attempt by me to answer any questions you have.

I would like to start by clarifying that the Physical Warfare Pack is a time-based exclusive. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3 at a retailer carrying the Physical Warfare Pack, don’t worry. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack for free to all Battlefield 3 players later this year.

The Physical Warfare Pack will be available as a pre-order bonus all over the globe. Right now, the UK is the only country where it has been announced, but stay tuned to get constant updates on where you can pick this up in your country. And remember, if you do not pre-order, you will still get access to this content at a later date, free of charge. If you do pre-order, you will get access to it from day one.

For Battlefield: Bad Company 2, many in the Battlefield community were very vocal about wanting additional, new maps to expand the multiplayer experience. With Battlefield 3, we want to make sure we can increase your library of maps quicker than we did for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. We also want to give you something special for pre-ordering, as pre-ordering is basically your way of saying you believe in DICE and Battlefield 3. When we announced that everybody who pre-orders Battlefield 3 would get an entire future expansion pack at no extra charge, I knew we had created a very generous pre-order offer.

Back to Karkand is a massive, themed expansion pack available a period of time after the base game, developed by a separate team here at DICE -- the same team that brought you Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. If you played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam, you have a pretty good idea about the scope and ambition of our expansion packs. This is so much more than just four remixed maps.

If you pre-order Battlefield 3, you will be able to play Back to Karkand at no extra charge as soon as it is released, but it is not day one DLC and it is not on the base game disc. We think it’s a sweet deal, and it’s available to everyone everywhere. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3, you can still buy Back to Karkand separately and play it as soon as it is released, the very same date as anyone who pre-ordered. In other words, there is no segmentation of the community when we launch the base game.


There are more pre-order offers for Battlefield 3 out there, and in order to try and avoid any confusion we will return within the next couple of weeks to detail all of them as well.

As always, post any questions you have here, in our forums, on Facebook, or Twitter. We are listening and value your opinion.

Cheers,
Karl Magnus Troedsson
General Manager, DICE

gizmo

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Do you? I would guess about a full weeks worth of working hours split between 5 people averaging out about 20k per weapon including licensing rights.

Actually that's pretty close! You're probably talking about a one man week split between those five people. Not allowing for any tweaking or alterations which need to be made at the end of course.

So, that's roughly a week for one weapon, multiplied by how many weapons in your DLC pack? As I said, it costs money.

SeantheMan

NTMK wrote: »

A point of clarification for all of our Battlefield fans. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack to all Battlefield 3 players later this year .............I would like to start by clarifying that the Physical Warfare Pack is a time-based exclusive. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3 at a retailer carrying the Physical Warfare Pack, don’t worry. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack for free to all Battlefield 3 players later this year.

Not to say "I told you so" ...but in my original post earlier

SeantheMan wrote: »

Also, chances are down the line that content will be free, if you remember they gave away Special Forces, Armored and Euro for BF2 for free as part of an update. And the same with 2142.

Noone has any faith in any companies anymore.

calex71

Damn it I sharpened my knives for nothing, well I'm off to adverts.ie to try and get rid of all these pitchforks and torches I ordered, better cancel that lynchmob I booked too

Kiith

calex71 wrote: »

Damn it I sharpened my knives for nothing, well I'm off to adverts.ie to try and get rid of all these pitchforks and torches I ordered, better cancel that lynchmob I booked too

Save them for Activision/Bobby Kotick. I'm sure they'll do something even worse then Elite which will require a good deal of pitch forks.

SeantheMan

So given the above news, is everyone still jumping on the bann-wagon and still not gonna buy it ? or is "time specific -content" considered ok to the point where it can avoid your moral compass and you will buy the game :P

NTMK

SeantheMan wrote: »

So given the above news, is everyone still jumping on the bann-wagon and still not gonna buy it ? or is "time specific -content" considered ok to the point where it can avoid your moral compass and you will buy the game :P

I was never jumping on that wagon merely walking beside it with my 2 preorders on the game:P it there timed exclusives which will be released for free later in the year then its ok but to have content completely unavailable to users who dont shop at x store is rediculous

Cuddlesworth

Winters wrote: »

SURE, it only takes like 5 minutes to record a gun sound and get it right anyway. And making 3D models, sure, 10 minutes with detail. No time at all for animation. And no need to QA it anyway, throw it all in.

Lets be clear on this. While those interviews sound great and really show the great "conceptual" work and amazing "theory" behind what they are trying to do with the game, they are talking about the game and how the game was designed to look and feel. That takes real work, testing and vision. Creating a 3d model of a real gun, skinning it, putting minor animations on it, getting a sound bite for it and modeling its characteristics are quite small things in comparison in terms of man hours and cost to the overall game.

gizmo wrote: »

Actually that's pretty close! You're probably talking about a one man week split between those five people. Not allowing for any tweaking or alterations which need to be made at the end of course.

So, that's roughly a week for one weapon, multiplied by how many weapons in your DLC pack? As I said, it costs money.

I'm quite surprised by this. I really was guessing, its been a long time since I had to do any game design and things change so quickly.

merc.ie

The generic extra weapons from the Physical Warfare pack will probably have near identical equivalents available to everyone from the get go.

Think of the LMGs in BC2, most over them overlap in performance with each other.

gizmo

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I'm quite surprised by this. I really was guessing, its been a long time since I had to do any game design and things change so quickly.

Personally I thought it'd take a little longer but I poked one of our animators and that's what he said. The big thing of course is that it takes so many people to do the work, modelers to texture artists to riggers and effects guys, it's definitely not a case of one guy just toiling away on it when he gets a chance. It also depends on having your art and animation pipelines set up beforehand but in this case, for DLC content, that's a given.

richymcdermott

http://gritbit.com/2011/06/anonymous-game-developer-comments-on-drm-piracy-and-ea-issues/

yammycat

gizmo wrote: »

So, that's roughly a week for one weapon, multiplied by how many weapons in your DLC pack? As I said, it costs money.

The people who make the gun would all be on the payroll, there wouldn't be any extra cost involved to make the gun that wouldn't have been spent anyway.

Profit on DLC far far greater that the game itself, it could generate 10% of revenue for less that 1% of the development time.

Xambo

Killing the Battlefield "aura" What a shame!

ShadowHearth

yammycat wrote: »

The people who make the gun would all be on the payroll, there wouldn't be any extra cost involved to make the gun that wouldn't have been spent anyway.

Profit on DLC far far greater that the game itself, it could generate 10% of revenue for less that 1% of the development time.

the way i see it they allways make a full game and then take a knife to chop of dlc parts for it. dlcs which come out way later would be different, not all thought.

I just dont believe they got separate budget for prerelease dlcs, sorry, but thats just bull****.

example: l.a. noire. i got that slip of a tongue prerelease dlc from gamestop. i allways try to leave dlcs for later, but not in this case... as i got that case when i finished 3 or 4 cases and i was like WTF?! why dlc is in the middle of the game?!

i can see where did they came with vip code for bad company 2, which was fair enought. you buy second hand, but a 10 quid code, but with that code, you got all the content that was released! ( maps )

shortcuts for weopons -fair play too. personally for me - unlocking weopons and bits is part of the experience, having them all unlock at beggining wuld be a bit boring.

gizmo

yammycat wrote: »

The people who make the gun would all be on the payroll, there wouldn't be any extra cost involved to make the gun that wouldn't have been spent anyway.

Except if the gun wasn't made in the first place which is the entire point.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

the way i see it they allways make a full game and then take a knife to chop of dlc parts for it. dlcs which come out way later would be different, not all thought.

Generally speaking that's not what they would do. It may happen in some studios but to do so would be an example of awful project management. It's much more beneficial to them to set out the content to be created at the beginning of the project and include the DLC content in that rather than turning around half way through development and shaving off existing content for that purpose.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I just dont believe they got separate budget for prerelease dlcs, sorry, but thats just bull****.

It's not a separate budget in that case, it's part of the main budget.

The post on reddit is pretty much bang on the money by the way although I would have preferred if he had explicitly said to avoid the second hand market in his advice given what he had said in the rest of the article. That being said, I can't imagine he'd be awfully popular if he did.

yammycat

gizmo wrote: »

Except if the gun wasn't made in the first place which is the entire point.

No, the people who make the gun are on a salary, whether they make the gun or drink coffee and do the crossword the cost is the same.

gizmo

yammycat wrote: »

No, the people who make the gun are on a salary, whether they make the gun or drink coffee and do the crossword the cost is the same.

That's not quite how it works, see my earlier post here.