Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Pack 'Awakening' Announced

[mindcycle]

They plan to have 5 new characters ready for this by March? I forsee a delay. Also, I can't motivate myself to finish it even once.

You assume that the expansion isn't already completed. I'd wager that it was mostly complete, if not completely complete, back when the game was originally released and intentionally left out by EA to nickel and dime us with later on. Kind of like the day one DLC and other nonsense they've released so far..

Honestly, I wish I didn't have that feeling but the track record of DLC for this game and other EA games hasn't been anything more than an extremely apparent cash grab.

 

[Zenoth]

Considering that:

1) It's the continuation of DAO.
2) It's more than a DLC.
3) It's BioWare

I'll buy it, the PC version will probably cost about $10 less than the console version like s44 suggested above, I also agree on that. If not then I might wait for a week-end deal on Steam, either way we all know that at one point or another the price will be slightly or greatly reduced, at least for the digital version(s).

 

[shortylickens]

Yet another reason for me to wait a bit. I planned to wait a whole year for Dragon Age and its expected expansions to be available as a reasonable priced GOTY edition, and I bet it will still happen. We may even have one more expansion by the time that happens.

 

[mb]

Wow, $40 is just the MSRP, it will be on sale for $20 or less in no time. Quit whining.

 

[NoSoup4You]

It's important to keep perspective here, games are cheap compared to most other forms of entertainment. I spend $70 all the time just to play 18 holes of golf...etc.

As for DAO, I do agree with someone that said there's really not too many different ways to spec a character in this game. I mean, we need some variety here and it's important for the game's longevity. The differences between character builds is almost non-existent... I mean the choice between an Elf or a Human is truly only based off of role-playing/origin purposes and not stats/talent based. And that sucks. It would be nice if there was a significant, if not substantial, difference between the races. Elves could perhaps have faster aiming with shortbows (make it small, like 10%...etc.) and maybe humans get a slight bonus to critical chance with two-handed weapons...etc. Maybe this would spoil things for people that want to use an Elven two-handed swordsman or a Human archer, since their characters would be ever so slightly inferior...

 

[nitromullet]

Yet another reason for me to wait a bit. I planned to wait a whole year for Dragon Age and its expected expansions to be available as a reasonable priced GOTY edition, and I bet it will still happen. We may even have one more expansion by the time that happens.

Sure, it will happen eventually, but it looks like Bioware/EA have a plan for DLC/expansions.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/13/two-years-of-dragon-age-dlc-planned-expansion-packs-considered/

...as far as I can tell, that plan is to keep the game relevant and in the forefront of our attention via DLC in order to keep the price relatively high for the longest amount of time.

Honestly, I can't really fault them for this tactic or begrudge them any money provided the content is good. In a way they are looking at a sort of subscription type model, and you can bet most people will stop buying DLC as soon as the content starts to lag or people get bored with the game. So, the pressure is on them to keep the game fresh and the DLC high quality.

Personally, I think Shale and Warden's Keep DLC was more about giving players a vested interest in the game by associating content with their account in an attempt to discourage resale. Whereas, Awakening is actually going to be about real content and pushing the story further.

 

[Ichigo]

Did you guys not feel that the length/content of DA:O was worth retail price?

You're all arbitrarily outraged over the asking price but you have no idea whether or not it's worth it yet.

Console people buy games with <10 hour campaigns for $60. PC gamers cringe when something like this (dare I say the expansion will probably have more content/length than an Assasin's Creed 2/Uncharted 2) goes for $40.

And you wonder why developers are moving towards consoles.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Going to wait for the gold edition on this EA milking machine. Hopefully, I will be able to get all of the premium mods and the expansion packs in one package. Should be nice and patched by that time as well.

Still, I know it is going to be awesome and I can hardly wait for more Bioware goodness.

 

[Bateluer]

Did you guys not feel that the length/content of DA:O was worth retail price?

You're all arbitrarily outraged over the asking price but you have no idea whether or not it's worth it yet.

I felt DAO was worth the price I paid for it, though I still haven't finished it. It wasn't outrage reflected in my post, as there's almost no information about the expansion available yet. My concern was that the game has only been out for less than 3 months and there's already three<?> official DLCs, which added almost nothing to the game, and an expansion announced. We all knew expansions would be coming, but I don't think any of us believed them to come this quickly. EA's influence?

 

[Craig234]

Makes sense to me. I think many players are ready for the expansion.

World of Warcraft exposed, with its 11 million subscribers, that while people might balk at paying $200 for a game they enjoy for a year, they'll pay it for a year of WoW.

And we all know some games are 'bargains' that we buy once and play hugely.

This seems like an attempt to sort of merge the two models, with a game that's not subscription, but keeps the dollars coming in for new content.

I think it's fine. It has to begood for us to buy it, and do we want to cmplain there are no good MMO's (how many here are harking back to Baldur's Gate 2) or that it's more expensive?

Some of the gouging is annoying. But most of us will put up with it for a game we enjoy.

Chest only in DLC, bonus exp that helps win the game only in DLC, powerful items to help win the game only in DLC, and so on, ya, it's annoying.

But there are plenty of good game companies out of business, too.

 

[Alex C]

My concern was that the game has only been out for less than 3 months and there's already three<?> official DLCs, which added almost nothing to the game, and an expansion announced.

Two of the three are free when you buy a new copy of the game. If they were trying to nickel and dime us they could have easily charged a few bucks each for them. I'm not familiar with how this stuff works, but my guess is that they had a lot of ideas they wanted to implement but rather than go the Duke Nukem Forever route and delay the game every time they had a new idea, they set a deadline, put out a highly polished final product, and put resources into additional content as they became available.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I'd wager that it was mostly complete, if not completely complete, back when the game was originally released and intentionally left out by EA to nickel and dime us with later on. Kind of like the day one DLC and other nonsense they've released so far...

If I sold you a paper bag containing $40 in exchange for $20 would you consider it a beneficial trade? What if I originally had kept $60 in the bag but removed $20 before the swap? What if I originally had kept $X in the bag but removed $X-40 before the swap? In each case the only thing that matters to you is what is in the bag when you buy it, and your determination of fair value has nothing to do with things I previously removed from the bag.

Similarly, Dragon Age at launch as shipped was either worth the $50 to you or it wasn't. Either take a stand and say that Dragon Age is overpriced or leave it alone. It doesn't matter when Bioware made the content, nor how it was originally packaged. They could have literally spent thousands of hours separating an already integrated product and it would still be irrelevant. We end up with the result not the process, and I personally feel that the result was well worth the price. There is plenty of room for disagreement on the optimal price level for you since it depends on your willingness to pay, but discussing content that they "took out" has no bearing on whether the original offering was fair or not.

My concern was that the game has only been out for less than 3 months and there's already three<?> official DLCs, which added almost nothing to the game, and an expansion announced.

Why is that a concern for you? Would you not agree that having the choice of purchasing an additional expansion is better than not having that choice? I thought Dragon Age was very well done and it seems pretty early at this point to assume the expansion will be poorer quality.

 

[mindcycle]

Similarly, Dragon Age at launch as shipped was either worth the $50 to you or it wasn't. Either take a stand and say that Dragon Age is overpriced or leave it alone. It doesn't matter when Bioware made the content, nor how it was originally packaged. They could have literally spent thousands of hours separating an already integrated product and it would still be irrelevant. We end up with the result not the process, and I personally feel that the result was well worth the price. There is plenty of room for disagreement on the optimal price level for you since it depends on your willingness to pay, but discussing content that they "took out" has no bearing on whether the original offering was fair or not.

I'm not taking a stand against the cost of the game so i'm not sure what you are attempting to argue there. I'm taking a stand against the whole DLC nickel and dime concept.

Instead of focusing on creating innovative ideas, EA's current approach is to find a game formula that works and then nickel and dime customers who enjoy that game formula by basically releasing the same thing over and over again. There is also pretty strong evidence that they'll go as far as intentionally leaving out finished content to later use in this process.

What ends up happening is gamers money is tied up in one product so they don't have additional funds to purchase something else. Great for EA's business, not so great for other developers and publishers. Now competition is fine, but IMHO this approach is a slimy way to make additional profits off your customers. Especially since in the case of this expansion EA is charging you close to the same amount twice for what is essentially the same game.

The other issue is that they end up focusing less on helping out other developers who may bring in new and innovative ideas, and instead focus more on milking the same concepts over and over. EA has a lot of money to throw around being as big as they are, but instead of using that power to help the gaming industry by supporting many different developers and ideas they'd rather make huge profits off of only a few ideas.

If this doesn't concern you that's fine, but just be aware of what your money is really going toward supporting before attempting to call out people who actually understand what's going on.

 

[zinfamous]

/waits for platinum edition 1.5 years later.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I'm not taking a stand against the cost of the game so i'm not sure what you are attempting to argue there. I'm taking a stand against the whole DLC nickel and dime concept... There is also pretty strong evidence that they'll go as far as intentionally leaving out finished content to later use in this process.

I'm arguing that your stand is irrational. The point of my cash-in-paper-bag analogy was that you cannot rationally divorce the result (value of the game at launch) from your argument (they took out content for the DLC). If the game was a good value at launch it is irrelevant whether they added content, removed content, or exchanged content for somebody's beanie baby collection.

What ends up happening is gamers money is tied up in one product so they don't have additional funds to purchase something else. Great for EA's business, not so great for other developers and publishers. Now competition is fine, but IMHO this approach is a slimy way to make additional profits off your customers. Especially since in the case of this expansion EA is charging you close to the same amount twice for what is essentially the same game. The other issue is that they end up focusing less on helping out other developers who may bring in new and innovative ideas, and instead focus more on milking the same concepts over and over. EA has a lot of money to throw around being as big as they are, but instead of using that power to help the gaming industry by supporting many different developers and ideas they'd rather make huge profits off of only a few ideas.

Nearly every sentence here is of concern to me for multiple reasons. Let's just agree to disagree on the basic fundamentals of the free market.

 

[mindcycle]

I'm arguing that your stand is irrational. The point of my cash-in-paper-bag analogy was that you cannot rationally divorce the result (value of the game at launch) from your argument (they took out content for the DLC). If the game was a good value at launch it is irrelevant whether they added content, removed content, or exchanged content for somebody's beanie baby collection.

I didn't buy the game because I don't support EA, but that's besides the point here really. In one respect you are right, if I had bought the game and enjoyed it then it would have been a good value for me personally. However, my main concern is not whether or not the original game was worth the money they are asking for, but rather the concept of intentionally removing content to sell later. IMO that is the wrong way to do honest business.

Nearly every sentence here is of concern to me for multiple reasons. Let's just agree to disagree on the basic fundamentals of the free market.

Agreed. If I remember correctly you and I had this discussion already awhile back.

 

[rchiu]

I didn't buy the game because I don't support EA, but that's besides the point here really. In one respect you are right, if I had bought the game and enjoyed it then it would have been a good value for me personally. However, my main concern is not whether or not the original game was worth the money they are asking for, but rather the concept of intentionally removing content to sell later. IMO that is the wrong way to do honest business.



Agreed. If I remember correctly you and I had this discussion already awhile back.

What do you mean removing content to sell later? All the Dragon Age DLC are not required for players to complete the game or fully enjoy the game. The game by itself is already much better than 95% of the games on the market and if you played it or read the reviews, you'd know that.

Selling additional accessories and add-ons to already completed product has been standard business practice since the beginning of time. I don't know what your problem is with such practice. If the product is lacking or unoperatable, I'd see your point but it is not the case here.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Milk away, baby. First launch day DLC, then this (already!). Good thing for me that DA:O isn't good enough to play more than once, and I got it on sale.

 

[Dumac]

I don't know what everyone is complaining about. Assuming this is an actual expansion with substantial content, then this is godsend. I am tired of the bullshit DLC expansions for 5, 10, or 15 dollars that add shitty recycled content. This seems to be a fullblown expansion, something games have ignored for a while now.

Expansions make good games even better, and since I readily enjoyed dragon age, I am excited for this expansion.

Assuming it is actually an expansion, that is, and not bullshit.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

15 hours for $40 is a good deal? The early Kotaku report on it, I believe, contains a quote from a BioWare dev saying that they are anticipating about 15 hours from the new content.

 

[Dumac]

15 hours for $40 is a good deal? The early Kotaku report on it, I believe, contains a quote from a BioWare dev saying that they are anticipating about 15 hours from the new content.

1. It is unclear whether $40 is for the PC version as well or for only the console versions, with the PC version being $30. Either way, we both know that is an unimportant maximum, just like saying Dragon Age was $50. I payed $45 for the Collector's Edition on launch, and could have got the normal for $35.

2. Who knows how accurate that hours estimate is. There were estimate for DA:O play-time that went from 30 hours to 70.

3. If it truly has such a bad Hoursollars ratio, then I won't be getting it at launch. But even so, I believe this is better than the recently standard DLC expansions that provide no real substantial content whatsoever (i.e. Mass Effect and Fallout Expansions)

 

[JoshGuru7]

Milk away, baby. First launch day DLC, then this (already!). Good thing for me that DA:O isn't good enough to play more than once, and I got it on sale.

There is a strong perception that PC games need to be priced at $50 on release and console games need to be priced at $60. These values are entirely arbitrary but they result in the vast majority of mediocre games out there being overpriced and the few good titles being underpriced. DLC and expansions are a way for companies that release good titles to realize more than $50 from them and as such are an incentive for releasing really good games.

What really bothers me about the rhetoric surrounding DLC is what would have happened if Bioware had only released the complete package at $65. You would have seen the increased price mentioned in reviews but readily explained away as being worth it for most gamers due to the amount of gameplay present. Instead, Bioware adds an additional choice (base game for $50 without DLC) and somehow consumers the world over are worse off for it.

15 hours for $40 is a good deal? The early Kotaku report on it, I believe, contains a quote from a BioWare dev saying that they are anticipating about 15 hours from the new content.

I didn't notice a quote regarding estimated playtime other than calling it a "major add-on". Maybe you can double check that figure? At any rate, I would be surprised if they were actually advertising this in terms of hours of content since the additional questing is far from the only thing they are adding in the expansion. They're also adding five new playable characters, increasing the level cap, and adding skills/abilities.

 

[mindcycle]

What do you mean removing content to sell later? All the Dragon Age DLC are not required for players to complete the game or fully enjoy the game. The game by itself is already much better than 95% of the games on the market and if you played it or read the reviews, you'd know that.

Selling additional accessories and add-ons to already completed product has been standard business practice since the beginning of time. I don't know what your problem is with such practice. If the product is lacking or unoperatable, I'd see your point but it is not the case here.

Day one DLC means that that content was finished before they released the game and was intentionally left out or removed it to nickel and dime customers with after the release. An full blown expansion pack that's set to be released a mere 5 months after release reeks of this too. Expansion packs are fine, but DLC after DLC of the same crap over and over again is what I have a problem with.

Like i've already said in a previous post, if you want to support this nickel and dime mentality go right ahead. I just don't see it as being good for the gaming community so I refuse to support the concept just like I refuse to support EA.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

I didn't notice a quote regarding estimated playtime other than calling it a "major add-on". Maybe you can double check that figure? At any rate, I would be surprised if they were actually advertising this in terms of hours of content since the additional questing is far from the only thing they are adding in the expansion. They're also adding five new playable characters, increasing the level cap, and adding skills/abilities.

Hence why I said "I believe...". I can't check Kotaku at the moment, but I did glance at the story yesterday, and I thought I remembered seeing them mention 15 hours. I may be mistaken, however.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I'll certainly wait for others to play it and then decide if it's worth my money. I don't see how adding new characters can spice things up unless there are new races and classes to go with them.

IF... they make it so you can just explore the vast world on your own a bit more then I might consider picking it up on Day 1. But that would take a fundamental change to the game design so I doubt it'll happen.