Are DLCs a good thing?

[Antalis]

Well, in my opinion DLCs are not necessary and dangerous for the mod community, because a game should be full playable at the start. I think, that DLCs are not good at all, because some publishers could think, that they could sell a half finished game and you have to buy the rest of it with DLCs (well, look at almost the same units for western europe factions in ETW, maybe because of this?).
Maybe publishers could think, that mod tools should not be shared with the community anymore, because they want to sell us units, maps, campaigns and so on.
I know, that I don´t have to buy DLCs, but I think that they have the potential to ruin the modding world. You can see that since DLCs were bought for ETW that there is no real support for the mod community.
I was a member of a mod team a few years ago (Hellenic TW for MTW) and I´m very frustrated because of this all.
I think, that DLCs are the wrong thing for a company to sell their games for a long time. I still keep playing RTW mods till today. So, if developers want to sell their games not only on the beginning (and 50 Euro are enough. I´m not willing to pay for more units and so on), then they should support the mod community, develope well made addons with new features for mods and don´t sell DLCs.

What is your opinion about DLCs?

[daniu]

Well, in my opinion DLCs are not necessary and dangerous for the mod community, because a game should be full playable at the start.

I really don't see why DLCs are dangerous to the mod community... it's not as if people don't use mods anymore, AUM seems to be pretty popular, or am I missing your point?
As for playability, ETW was playable from the start (for a given value of playability ); what does "fully" playable mean?
If you consider vanilla ETW plus the entirety of DLCs as "full", then you're right, ETW was not "fully" playable;
they way I see it, vanilla ETW is "full" and DLCs are an addition.

Also, speaking from an MP perspective, DLCs are the only viable way to get an extended unit roster that doesn't make the games incompatible; very few people play modded MP because it is quite a hassle.
This could be remedied by making the mods themselves Steam-based DLCs, that would also make them much more accessible to a broader audience.
I doubt they would be able to be offered for free still though due to some hosting fee I guess Steam charges.

[Antalis]

@daniu:
Yes, you´re right: There are mods, but the modability of ETW is very limited and I guess its maybe because the publisher doesn´t want to share modding tools and informations, because of economic issues, so they could sell DLCs. I think that it should be possible to have both: Some DLCs, but really as an addition and not that a company sell units that should be in the game at the beginning to have an unit rooster thats worth the name (thats what I meant, when I said, that it should be fully playable. Well, bugs are another story) and to support the mod community with tools and sharing informations. Every game I know had much more sucess when supporting their creative community potential. Don´t get me wrong: I love the TW series since Shogun and enjoy ETW with the unit mods. But I see the potential of such an engine and maybe its the DLCs that caused the lack of suporting the mod community.

[joedreck]

Why could? It's practise. There is no CA support for modders anymore. They write about, but I never saw any support. I wrote to CA many times, but never get an answer or help about modding.

I think E:TW have the smallest modding community ever of the Total War series. You can count on one hand the modders. N:TW will be much harder I think. With this strategy CA get, what they want. If they make DLC, all kids will buy it. So they give mamas and papas hard earn money to CA.

I think with the next TW titel after N:TW, the mod community will die. I think CA probably active react on released mods and tools. I think about a mail of their advocate about copyright.

[Don in the North]

i strongly disagree with all DLC that requires payment, regardless of how small amount of money is required.
it also segregates the community, those that have it and those that dont. what you pay when you buy a game should be all you ever, ever have to pay. everything else should be done for free as , even with DLC, games will still be abandoned by developers. alot of games have been, and all games will suffer this eventually. So paying extra money doesnt exactly extend the lifespan of a product, in my opinion no money should be paid at all for DLC.

[Ahlerich]

dlc are not dangerous at all. one can decide if little change is worth little money.
it corrupts the modding community though and therefore i must say for games that want a modding community its unsuitable. i guess sega thought the same

[vonDuus]

DLC that you have to pay for sucks. When I buy a game I expect it to be the full game, especially if I have paid 40 or 50 pounds/euro/dollars for it. With dlc I end up paying perhaps 100 quid for a full game.

I bought some of the dlc for ETW, and even if it was not expensive, I got nothing that I couldn't have had by downloading some unit mods. I guess this is the main reason why they don't want to do business with modders any more, mods are for free.

[scott_e]

I used to hate it but when im sitting in the house and im bored and i can access new content quickly via DLC, its pretty tempting. Stuff i never would have ordered otherwise.

[Shay]

DLC is for idiots. You already handed over your hard earned cash for a product but people are still willing to pay yet more money for units that are already in the game but require unlocking.

[Elmar]

In theory I'm all for DLC, even paid for, to expand on the original game.
But sad to say, the practise is that typically content that should be in the base game is withheld for later DLC release. DLC pricing is all over the map too. Some are a good deal, others a rip off.
Some games studios have enough faith to allow modders to compete with official DLC, and seem to do well in selling anyway.

In ETW, believe some factions were short-changed out of the box for the benefit of the to follow DLC, and we were "lucky" to get one DLC set for free because of the seriously borked-ness of the base game. I also firmly believe their intent to sell DLC is directly related to them making ETW harder to mod.
As I said before, some games studios can have DLC and mods live happily next to each other. But in the case of CA I'm not that surprised they don't feel that way. The modding community generally has a good track record of quality stuff, the official CA products have had amateurish flaws exposed time and time again. By not wanting to compete with modders CA seem to indicate they can't compete with modders, and I concur.

[daniu]

DLC that you have to pay for sucks. When I buy a game I expect it to be the full game

That's like saying "games that you have to pay for suck".
"Full game" is per definition what's initially delivered, everything else is "additional content".
It's not as if you don't have a "full game" if you can't recruit Swiss Guards.

[Sardonicus]

I won't buy DLC but for those with money to burn, have a go, who cares?
My cigarettes and booze come first.

[irish437]

I don't mind paying $2 for 15 elite units. I just wish they would focus on perfecting the game before charging me for something else.

A game as grand as Empire, if it worked perfectly would be worth a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately it still has problems.

[Hellenikon]

I am all for expanding the game, be it throught dlc or expansions, but the current trend of DLC is way too "smart" from CA. What i mean is that those DLC that CA is selling are not supposed to improve the game overall, they are a sort of cut content added later, and very few of it. If a company really wanted to improve their game, completely, for example they would make a dlc-expansion, which would include a new campaign and add new factions with new units, and perhaps adding a new feature to the game as well, related to that campaign. Really that is just what expansions used to be, i think that improving the game and not making it for free is fine, but what is not fine is sell small pieces of the game, that is not improving it and looks extremely cheap. So in short yes i dislike dlc, because it does not have the quality to improve the game. I would rather pay more money but get something substantial (a sort of expansion) than 3 bucks and get a flashy unit. I hate how evident is that the objective of the DLC is to make easy money and not to improve the game at all, it should be the other way around, improving the game while still gaining money so it is worthwhile to do it.

[daniu]

Don't forget that adding units is not as simple as drawing some nice uniforms and putting some numbers into a database.
It might be for modders (not to belittle anybody's work, I'm not saying it's easy), but CA needs to check every change in the unit roster so as to not ruin game balance.
For the campaign, it might not matter that some faction gets a Über-unit in 1765; but for MP, it can easily be a game-breaker.
And don't say "but most people play SP", I know that; but it's no reason to kill MP.

[hobopunk]

I still regard stuff in DLCs as stuff that should be in vanilla.

[daniu]

I still regard stuff in DLCs as stuff that should be in vanilla.

Warpath too?

[Antalis]

Warpath too?

Yes. I always didn´t liked, that all natives are the same: There exists so many different indian tribes in that time frame, with such different way of living and looking.

[daniu]

Yes. I always didn´t liked, that all natives are the same: There exists so many different indian tribes in that time frame, with such different way of living and looking.

And they had "Empires" so you should be able to play them as the title of the game suggests?

[Antalis]

And they had "Empires" so you should be able to play them as the title of the game suggests?

I´m always unlocking all factions (its fun to play as a minor nation to fight against powerful nations) and also if I want to play as europeans I want an enemy that fits into the setting of the area and time frame.