Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/acii- ... rt-of-game



You cunts. Even if this was cut because your budget or time was running short, to say it like this comes across as nothing more than you deliberately hacking your game up so we can pay half the sticker price again to get what was originally the full experience. I don't care how fucking good the game is, this practice can fuck right off.

Devil's advocaat:

I don't see what the fuss is about. This was unfinished content they wouldn't have done in time for the release date anyway. Dimmers, or anyone else who has finished AC2: is it a short game? It hasn't felt short to me so far.

Completely isn't a short game, no. In fact I'd reached my fill of exposition and killing the same guy 4 times over by about 6/8's of the way through.

I wouldn't say it was particularly short. I put about 25 hours in to nearly max it, but stuck almost entirely to the main story, doing very few of the side missions.

He does sound like a cunt in the quote above, though.

I knew someone would say that, and it'd probably be you, DocG.

I don't care how good the game is, how much stuff was already in it, or what the reason was for cutting it. The way he says it, that this was originally part of the game and they decided they'd hold it back to sell to us later at further cost, THAT is what gets my back up. Why not give us the genuine reason why it was hacked out so you don't come across like a money grubbing cunt?

It's not like this is GoW2, where they've given a huge pack of new multiplayer maps and thrown in some cutting room floor stuff as a bonus.

It's not like this is GTA4, where they've given you a complete game and then given you two full-featured episodes as DLC afterwards.

I say again, there might well be a genuine reason behind it. But the way it's been said, this was stuff deliberately left out so they could charge you another £5 for each chunk. And if they don't want people to think this is a rip-off, they shouldn't make comments that make it sound like it is.

I still want this game.

Im going to get it soon.

I don't really care.

He did give you the reason -- they wouldn't have enough time to do everything they wanted. If they envisioned X amount of features, but it turns out they need 400 man months to do this or whatever, but only have 300 available, they need to lose 100 somewhere. You can't just lose 1 man month from 100 different features -- that's what results in ARMAII style buggy messes. They obviously decided to lose 100 man months over 2 or 3 different features.



..and then sell them to you later, when they'd finished. Isn't this what he says in your quote?

Don't forget English is the man's second language, too. Hardly surprising that something as subtle as "gizz uzz munny" was transcribed.

Dragon Age presents an interesting point to this, Pod.

On the one hand, we have the controversial Warden's Keep, which adds a feature that should have been in the game (infinite storage chest) and presents this in the cuntiest way possible ("The Grey Wardens owe me and you must help, by purchasing this DLC").

But on the other hand, we have the Stone Prisoner, which was something that was originally cut from the game due to - surprise! - time and money constraints... only for them to then finish it in time for the main release, and so they gave it freely to everyone who paid for the game new.

Now, fair enough, perhaps Ubisoft didn't finish AssCrud2 quick enough to finish off these two 'lost missions'. But to then say 'yeah, we knew this was gonna happen, so we figured why not finish them off later and then charge you for them?' is the issue here.

AC2 is coming off lightly here. From the information we can see, the DLC is things that were cut. It doesn't look like it was a day 1 decision to have bit x y and z as DLC. Though for all we know it could be. I can't remember what game it was, (I think it was a Codies driving game), but the DLC files were 256kb, or whatever the Xbox live minimum filesize is -- the cars you DLC "unlocked" were already on the disc and that. The files were just simply the key. :/

Is that like a satanic snowball?

He sounds to me like a guy trying to run a business and at the same time, make some money. DLC is a great way for developers to make more money on top of what they make by selling the games so whilst he hasn't explained it in the best way, I can't say I blame him for doing this... Not that I'll buy the game anyway. I thought the first one was pump.

Oh this one is good, they've actually listened to the complaints made against the first game.

In the olden days , you'd never get to see cut content. And when it comes down to it, you don't have to buy it.

It seems quite clear to me what the Ubisoft guy meant; the clumsy wording I suspect comes down to a bad translation and/or a journalist greedy for hits who knows how to get discussion forums going.

"Money grubbing cunt"? As opposed to what? Someone who inherited enough wealth to never have to work for a living? I go into an office every day and charge a pretty healthy rate for it. When my client is in the lurch (usually due to their own piss poor planning) and I have to pull their arses out of the fire, I charge a rate that's somewhere between healthy and startling. Am I a money grubbing cunt? Is anyone who works for a living?

Still, it's not like any games studios have gone under in the last year, is it. It must be corporate greed!

I don't understand why people get their knickers in a twist about this, either, despite that being a far more clear-cut money making move than the stuff we're discussing here.

If the game as it is presented on the disc looks like bad value to you, don't buy it. If the add-on DLC looks like bad value to you, don't buy that either. No-one is forced to buy games or to buy DLC, so why do people feel upset or betrayed by this? If games publishers push this too far, people won't buy it and they'll have to tone it down. Conversely, if people are buying this DLC, then by economic definition they are not pushing it too far. I just don't understand where the emotion comes from.

Stealthy?

It's not like it's new anyway. The example I always use is how stuff not finished for doom 1 (see E1M6 of this alpha made its way into Doom2, as a full release. In any game, there is plenty of stuff removed due to time/manpower/money restrictions. With DLC, much of that can now be funded to a point where it could be released rather than keeping it for other games or discarding it.

To be honest this is ubisoft, the tesco value activision were talking about; I think this is very much intentionally planned. So much that the DLC has been listed on eurogamers release dates since the start of this month, first was dated in jan, and pretty much an exact month for the next one in feb. May have actually been before the game was released actually.

I still think its a dickish move, I'd be less shitty about it if it was before or after the story but its from the middle, playing a game once through is enough nevermind having to play it through again properly and having to pay an extra tenner. Again to play the game properly you have to pay and extra tenner, to see the proper story you have to pay an extra tenner. Lets stop wanking them off saying its a good game, there dicks and you know it.

Its like fifa leaving out manchester united until a mid-season edition because they have the mosy fans and will buy the game regardless, and then we'll release one with manchester united in and they will buy it again. Which they pretty much do, but the teams change in real life and owen is now in the squad and ronaldo is out and they still buy it.

May be drunk, may be a dick, will have a read in the morning or afternoon or never.

runcle, don't give EA ideas like that, ffs!
I have no problem with dlc as such, however, having read about dragon age's shittrick, i have refused to buy it (dragon age). This doesn't seem to be from the same category, as stated, it is more standard practice when running a project to a deadline. However, the question here is what content has been dropped. If we are talking about a few side missions or side quest, a la oblivion's dlc, fair enough, i say. If,however, as Runcle states, it is from the middle of the game and part of the main quest, that is a different story. They had a choice of what to drop and release for dlc, and chose main storyline over sidequests. I have no problem with money grabbing, i do so myself, but there is a duty of care to release a product fit for purpose. Would the people advocating this behaviour be doing so if it were a physical product made by, for example, microsoft? I think not.

Why would anyone buy the second game at full price after the piece of shit that was the first game?

I mean, sure, it's been getting great reviews, and when I can get it for under a tenner I might, but the real rip off is having the gall to charge full price for the sequel to a terrible game.

The first was a great game, sadly let down by absolutely no variety; it had a lot of promise and potential, and that alone was enough for me to at least consider the sequel. Fortunately, it improves on the first in pretty much every single way, and truly is quite an excellent game.

It can't be that jarring an omission though, because I haven't read any reviews that say "eh, what, why is there a chunk missing?". Malabar, Dimrill, anyone else who's completed it: did you notice there was a piece of story missing?

What Malabar said. The first one was, to my mind, a clear missed opportunity; a game where the promise was great but the nuts and bolts didn't live up to the promise (basically it was too repetitive). That's exactly the stuff that a sequel can address.

The story jolts forward as it says "memory node corrupted" for a couple of segments.

Dr G, my prob (and I guess Dimmy's too) is that they shove achievements onto these DLC things to target completionists. That's still the biggest cunt's trick they can play.

Hmm. Would you prefer if DLC never had achievements? I thought Microsoft's rule that the 1000/1000 had to be available either on the disk or with free DLC is pretty fair, myself. But then I don't care about cheevos anyway, so maybe my opinion doesn't count much.

That's like complaining that they put addictive substances in cigarettes. Or alcohol in beer.

Ah, is that what it said? I must have blinked, but I did notice it jumped from memory segment 11 or so to 14. I thought I was further from the end; the story is so jumbled it's difficult to tell if things are missing, though.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through it, and despite thinking it's a great game, I'm finding it tough to do more than the odd mission or two at a time without getting distracted. I think I'd have found it over-long if these two missions had been included.

Why are the controls so shit in AssCrud 2? Finding the climbing ridiculously shit at the moment. Keeps doing the exact opposite of what I want, and I've died three times as a result. Uncharted 2 pisses on it.

I found them fine, as long as you only had an end goal and didn't mind the route; try to do anything remotely precise, however, and it'd throw a hissyfit and drop you from a rooftop. Or better yet, it'd just have you bump into a guard and stumble around instead of assassinating him like you told it to.

DLC is such a stupid idea. I will never pay for it. Some people may argue that its like an expansion pack and it adds to the longevity of the game, but i think its a ripoff. Expansion packs used to cost between 20 and 30 euros and gave a lot of value for money. Just compare for example Baldur's Gate 2:Throne of Baal, to the bits of game they're selling as Dragon Age or Fallout 3 DLC.

DLC doesn't cost much, but I still don't buy it. It's usually dribs and drabs of content for games I've finished long ago, and the content isn't enough to tempt me back.

There are exceptions. I think the mirror's edge pure time trials pack was worthwhile.

Also, there has been a fair amount of decent free DLC. One of Crackdowns packs, the Army of two DLC, lots of burnout paradise stuff, some halo 3 maps (After a while), some forza cars, etc.

All sweeping statements are stupid.

I've downloaded a stupid amount of Rock Band DLC, as well as independent video series The Guild, and Peggle & Peggle Nights.

All Portuguese smell of... port.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero are the shining examples of compelling DLC, I reckon.

It would of been nice to have a discount system or something though, Buy 10 tracks get one free.

Well track packs fulfill that to a certain amount, but I fully agree. The Queen track pack was the heftiest discount I've encountered for getting the full lot.

Isn't that free on YouTube?

& geese

And on http://www.watchtheguild.com
But it was sponsored by Microsoft from Season 2, so it was up on Live before anywhere else.

It was free on Live as well, like, but I just mentioned it as an example of DLC I had got.

I don't really buy into AC2 being significantly less repetitious than AC1, I mean I enjoyed them both but I struggle to see how DLC for the second has any monetary value whatsoever... it's slightly more of exactly the same thing and you can get that by, y'know, just switching it on and goofing around. The story (which has a neat enough central premise but, drawn out to game-length, is mostly drivel) certainly doesn't matter enough make DLC essential and, if it did, the retail disc would be conspicuously incomplete. DLC, by definition, has to be stuff you don't need.

Anyway, in a fit of pique I picked up the version with the shipyard thingy and if it's what I think it is then it wasn't really worth the difference in price. And that's half the trouble with releasing dribs 'n' drabs this way -- I have no definite idea exactly what I have and what is missing, and it's a fucking vidgame so I'm sure as shit not going to take the time to research it. What I'm actually going to do is wash my hands of AC2 and give it to a mate now I've bested MegaPope. Thinking about which bits of a game I might or might not have -- too much hassle!

And good luck with AC3 because there are a million other things I can spend my money on than not-quite-complete vidgames. While I'd stop short of saying it's a rip-off, it's certainly disengaging.

That's just 'stuff' though, rather than 'DLC'. Unless you have a Guild game that I don't know about.

[edit]Ooh, Season 3 Ep 1!

The whole of Season three you mean.

Right, seriously, I hate this fucking game. I'm in a church trying to find some bollocks I couldn't give a shit about and I've fallen because of shitty inaccurate controls more times than I would've liked to. In fact, about 10 times more. Fucking shit.

Also, seeing as it has taken me somewhere approaching four hours to actually start the game properly after all of the preamble bullshit, why am I still none the wiser when it comes to what the icons mean, what my character can do, and what the fuck is going on generally? I'll tell you why; it's because Ubisoft don't know how to make a game properly. I'm seriously tempted to read the fucking manual. If the occasional "hint" popping up for a split second (usually referring to something completely irrelevant anyway) is the best they can manage for a tutorial, fuck it. Yeah, I know there's a combat tutorial but that's not the whole game. It's just awful, confused and ill-thought out. I can see it improving gradually as I learn the game more, but talk about a brick wall of bollocks to get into it, and I still can't see the control system magically clicking later on. Also, less repetitive than the first game? Pull the fucking other one. A few more assassin moves and weapons does not make the underlying game any less repetitive.

Seriously wondering how EG gave this such a glowing review. If it gets better the next time I play it, and I mean a LOT better, I can probably see it scraping an 8 because it's so pretty and reasonably fun. But it's more than just a little bit flawed to narrowly miss a 10/10. I seriously feel like the people who actually bought the first game probably felt. Luckily for me, I borrowed it and gave it back when I got bored. Can't do that this time.

Poor tutorials/guidance leaving you floundering without knowing which buttons do what is one of my biggest pet hates in games. AC1 was pretty good in terms of tutorial I thought; maybe AC2 is guilty of assuming they don't have to explain the basics this time because everybody who bought the game would have played the first one?

I had no problems. With the controls or knowing what the icons meant. Maybe the fault lies with you rather than the game?