DLC or Expansions ?

[LordMM]

It's finally payday and I was going through some strategy games to Purchase. Went into the Paradox section and then ......I saw the gargantuan list of DLC's some of their games require. Seriously, I don't mind DLC's, but when your game needs a dozen DLC's to add enough features to it. It really depressing. In the end, I am probably going to end up buying Shadow Empire

I was wondering if DW2 will be following the Expansion model or the DLC model. I personally believe that people are slowly getting tired of DLC's and would much prefer a full-fledged expansion with plenty of added game mechanics, features, races etc.. other than the expansions being sold as half a dozen DLC's.

Though, this is just my personal opinion and my personal understanding of things. What do others here think ?

[arvcran2]

What is the difference (pardon my ignorance)?

Shadow Empire :thumbs up: - Very Good!

[Erik Rutins]

Still being discussed. We're definitely still doing full expansions, but I expect that we will also mix in some faction DLCs just to get more of the other factions from DW1 to a fully playable state more quickly for folks whose favorite faction didn't make it into the initial release.

[SaltiMilk]

God I really do hope internal politics will be an area of expansion.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

So some cheapish dlc to add in some wanted features and races along with pricey expansions to add in new mechanics and storylines. Seems fine and in line with what everyone else is doing. I don't mind the dlc/expansion approach as long as it's not done on the EA model of holding back features then selling them later when everyone starts to complain about the lack of them.

Here is an idea at least for a bit later. How about a dedicated mod dlc or expansion so you guys get a bit of a financial incentive to open up the engine with maybe some ship cosmetic customizations so you can change around how your empire looks? Mod teams have gotten to the point they rival a dev house now and some dev houses are harnessing that power to help sell their own games. Empire at war's devs just tossed out a huge update basically opening up the game completely for the mod teams to chew on and its reportedly driving up sales like mad since there is a rather disappointing lack of decent franchise games out there for the big sci fi series.

Other than that looking great so far! [8D]

[zebanovich]

More DLC's and/or expansions is better than few, because that means game development and improvement isn't dead and it continues which is important for any 4x game.

I don't care if gazillion of DLC's will make overall game price more expensive as long as those payable upgrades are adequately tested by the devs and don't ruin game by introducing new bugs and
as long as bugs and user suggestions are getting fixed/introduced the price is fine for me. (although bugfixes are supposed to be free! not included in DLC's that one has to pay)

Take for example gal civ 3, there are 17 DLC's (if I counted correctly) which boosts game price to over 100€ (excluding discounts) but that's pretty much reasonable price for the amount of content and overall gameplay is
deep enough to be good.

On another side there are games (I'll refrain from naming them) with similar amount of DLC's and price, but some 50% of DLC's break previous gameplay and bring more bugs than what new content is worth it,
what's even worse is when nobody cares to address those issues but instead pushes new DLC's [:@]

Distant Worlds is awesome game not because of shiny features but because of it's unique and deep gameplay that squeezes anyone's brain hard enough to feel that original 4x experience.

I only hope you guys don't make a mistake with DW2 similar to what sid mayer's civ5 made in comparison with civ4, civ 4 is good strategy game however limited,
the mistake with civ5 become childish graphics and simiplification of game mechanics that are supposed to be managed by player (not computer) which ruins the title as well as existing users who played previous version.

I see there will be new graphics in DW2, that's definitely fine for better experience since DW1 graphics were simple,
just want to say any addition to gameplay complexity, more detailed configurability of the AI and gameplay and AI automation will make this game even better because these 3 things is what makes this game so much better than most other 4x-es.

Whish you all the best in your development efforts! [&o]

EDIT:
Oh, btw I know you guys depend heavily on having a coffee maker as near to keyboard as possible, so here is one [:)]

[Raagun]

I think huge amount of DLC actually hurt Paradox game sin the end. You dont get much late comers. I basically dropped their games because I fell behind their DLC line. Some moderation is required.
Maybe Amplitude is better example. They have DLC for races, but even late comer can get all.

Also price per race is huge question. Or maybe you must buy them to be "playable" but AI still can appear as ones. But this is question for team.

[BigWolfChris]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

I think huge amount of DLC actually hurt Paradox game sin the end. You dont get much late comers. I basically dropped their games because I fell behind their DLC line.

I think the issue is, these days games/DLCs don't drop in price as time goes by anymore. So with Paradox it's pointless catching up on missed DLCs outside of sales, so this pushes people buying only during said sales. But, multiple publishers have run analytics around it and have decided this method gains greater income

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: LordMM

It's finally payday and I was going through some strategy games to Purchase. Went into the Paradox section and then ......I saw the gargantuan list of DLC's some of their games require. Seriously, I don't mind DLC's, but when your game needs a dozen DLC's to add enough features to it. It really depressing.

Paradox DLC policy makes extreme cases look like mild cases. It is their entire business model to finance the team for further work with DLC's.

As far as their DLC policy is concerned, Stellaris is propably the best of the Paradox games:
All DLC parts except audio files are already part of the game installation. They are simply locked behidn a simple check. Multiplayer games use all the DLC that the host has - so you can easily testplay them.
And it does seem reasonably similar to DWU or maybe DW2 (in that it has a decently helpfull UI, unlike 1 [;)])

And given that the checks are done in the files for modable code, it would also be rather easy to...just turn them off. I doubt Paradox will allow any code like that to stay public for long. No idea where to get it from, except making it yourself.

But overall with Paradox, you really have to wait for a Sale if you want the DLC.

[eXplorminate_Rob]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Still being discussed. We're definitely still doing full expansions, but I expect that we will also mix in some faction DLCs just to get more of the other factions from DW1 to a fully playable state more quickly for folks whose favorite faction didn't make it into the initial release.

I love this model. No one feels like they *need* the DLC, which prevents it from being mandatory, and we can choose to support you through other means than just buying expansions.

I have a few races I'm hoping you'll DLC sooner rather than later

[Fenarid]

I do not mind having Expansions + DLCs as long as the price is adequate to the content. In Paradox games, it happened that they added 3 buttons (nothing hard to implement in game mechanics) and asks 15$ for that.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

I think huge amount of DLC actually hurt Paradox game sin the end. You dont get much late comers. I basically dropped their games because I fell behind their DLC line. Some moderation is required.
Maybe Amplitude is better example. They have DLC for races, but even late comer can get all.

Also price per race is huge question. Or maybe you must buy them to be "playable" but AI still can appear as ones. But this is question for team.

Yup, that how they manage to kill Stellaris. Paradox was getting too greedy with all those DLCs. You can disabled the DLCs, but the game itself somewhat strange. After many patches, changing the game itself, was a huge let down.