Icey games' thread

Started by Icey, Mon 05/03/2012 02:58:23

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Hudders

Quote from: Ghost on Sat 12/05/2012 14:35:53
DLC just doesn't make sense for me- if anything, it motivates me to wait a while before I buy a game.

That is true. I waited for the Fallout 3 GOTY edition because of all that.

LimpingFish

#201
Quote from: Noctis on Sat 12/05/2012 14:16:02
Well I like some DLC. When I beat Final Fantasy.XIII-2 I pissed cause it said "to be continued". Now many people and I though they where making a FF XIII-3. The truth is that your gonna have to download Episode DLCs and one of the theme will be the real ending of the game. I have also found out that Final Fantasy Versus XIII is gonna have 2/3 of it's story as downloadable content.

This is called "Screwing The Consumer". It's evil and shitty and not something to aspire to. It's also born out of a need to meet fiscal deadlines, by rush releasing a half-finished game, and to have six-months of exploitable "new" content after the fact. There's no reason for you to structure your project like this.

Quote from: Noctis on Sat 12/05/2012 14:16:02
This is stuff I am pointed out here for trying to do but it's really now what I am trying to do. Quest DLC is just other side stories that I made up of ideas for other games. This stops the whole the overload of games going into production cause I can devote all those thoughts into one game even after I have released it.

How would this DLC work? If you're just supplying a code that unlocks extra quest content that's already included with the main game, then you're dealing with the equivalent of "on-disc DLC", something just as evil and shitty as withholding content. If you're planning to have quests in the form of new downloadable assets, how do you plan to actually get those assets into your game? I'm not the most technically savvy user, but is that even possible with AGS?

Quote from: Hudders on Sat 12/05/2012 10:49:30
For the record, I wasn't trolling. Not really.

Fair enough. :)
Steam: LimpingFish
PSN: LFishRoller
XB: TheActualLimpingFish
Spotify: LimpingFish

Ryan Timothy B

Quote from: LimpingFish on Sat 12/05/2012 19:12:28
I'm not the most technically savvy user, but is that even possible with AGS?

It "could" be done if you were to add a room before release that accesses the downloaded text script and the images that go with it. But you wouldn't be able to create a room with a unique walkable area and such without having it made before releasing the game. Unless you were to create your own walkable areas.

But I believe his type of DLC is already made and released with the final version just awaiting an unlock code. Which I agree is quite pathetic.

Ghost

IIRC Khris and Monkey had some ideas how to make "true" DLC happen (one way was to implement DLC as new AGS games that are just run from the main game I think). I bet there ARE ways that make true DLC possible with AGS, but it would still require a lot of planning in the original game.

When a game engine can easily implement DLC, I do not blame any company for taking advantage of it- let them try and get some extra money, and either fail or succeed. But why add DLC to a game just to use the feature as a "selling argument"- it's not new, it's NOT extremely popular, and it requires time and energy that could better be used somewhere else. I still remember the infamous Oblivion "horse armour" and the silly dresses for Alice: Madness returns.

Make a solid game, and people will more likely shout "Yay" for a sequel, that's the point I'm trying to make, I think  (nod)

Victor6

Quote from: LimpingFish on Sat 12/05/2012 19:12:28
I'm not the most technically savvy user, but is that even possible with AGS?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but AGS can't load art assets at a later date so any 'DLC' would need to use existing sprites \ backgrounds. You could possibly get away with DLC if you'd written a tile based game and stored all the room information externally - kinda like operation forklifts level editor.

Ponch

Not to encourage anyone to make DLC, but wouldn't it be possible to use Patch Maker or something similar to add content to your game at a later date? I did that with one of my Barn Runner games when I made a "Special Edition" version following my crushing defeat at the 2010 AGS Awards. No one reported any problems with using it.

Ryan Timothy B

Quote from: Victor6 on Sat 12/05/2012 20:33:02
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but AGS can't load art assets at a later date so any 'DLC' would need to use existing sprites \ backgrounds.
DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile(string filename)

It's quite easy to be done.

m0ds

You can DLC this character from Icey next week!

      oo
       _
\c====8/
     /  \.cha

Ghost

When you tilt your head it looks even more suggestive...  :-[

Icey

I'm curious to know what that is :D

Victor6

Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 12/05/2012 21:18:23
DynamicSprite.CreateFromFile(string filename)
It's quite easy to be done.
Goddamnit,  how did I miss that? It would be a pain in the arse for animations, but it pretty much murders the point of using tilesets beyond the quasi-benefits of room data, or memory\file size (which no-one has really cared about for years).

Khris

QuoteIt would be a pain in the arse for animations

Not really, you could use an array of DynamicSprites and filenames like anim1_001.png, anim1_002.png, etc. and it's a simple loop.

Victor6

Quote from: Khris on Sun 13/05/2012 10:46:37
Not really, you could use an array of DynamicSprites and filenames like anim1_001.png, anim1_002.png, etc. and it's a simple loop.
Ultimately you're going to have to write specific code for DLC characters, even if you're just using the static files like video memory. Adding a single spot animation isn't the problem, it's the break from the existing Characters \ Views, and the need to re-write code for walkcycles, speech frames, idles, etc that strikes me as being more trouble than it's worth.

Icey

I was thinking of different ways to get DLC to work for me. One way to do it is to have all the stuff in game. I been playing around with it in PMQ Online. All I have to do is have a file that is made to lock the DLC insdie the game. I know how to do it too.

DoorKnobHandle

#214
If you put all the 'downloadable content' in the game right from the first release and just unlock parts of it later, then what the hell does that have to do with, you know, 'downloadable content'? Why would you do that anyways? Why not just finish the game, polish it, test it and then release it as one game? Everybody would be fine with that and it's super easy to do with AGS - because AGS is designed for exactly that.

You simply copy what you see freaking Square Enix do - but you don't take the time to actually understand why they do what they do and how they do it. You copy the big words and 'features' but miss the substance! We've had this with the whole role-playing system (character levels, skill trees, damage/experience calculations and so on) and with multiplayer gameplay before - now it's DLC.

Icey

I don't recall starting the talk of DLC. But no that's stupid dude, why would say oh you can unlock a mushroom later in the game. But if you want you can download the DLC and get it now. I make it where you get the DLC get the what you get and if you don't get it than that's that. No special stuff for you. If it's possible than it can be done. I can get mad at any company for the DLC that make but do they care and do they listen? Nope, sometimes. But they change cause it's what they want to do. Now I listen and at some points a care. But it's my stuff and if outsiders like my games than they'll give the DLC a shot.

Ghost

There is nothing wrong with wanting to give a player more content, icey. What people point out (correctly) is that using DLC as a selling feature when the thing you deliver isn't DLC, the whole point is somewhat moot- who would spend a lot of time to put content into a game and then not use it right away?

Let's say you have a role playing game made in AGS ( ;-D ) and you use a certain structure for your weapons. You release the game and people are all hyped because the weapon system is really very cool. THEN you release a small file that is read by your game and creates a new weapon, probably using an existing sprite but with totally new effects and such. That is basic but "true" DLC and I can get my head around the idea that people would shell out small amounts of money (it's just one weapon, after all). This could be extended to a weapon pack. And so on. If your game is interesting enough to play it another time with the awesome new weapons, you have a base for a DLC model.
But setting up thirty weapons, and then lock half of them and just TELL me at some point how I can unlock them... that's not DLC. It's also a very vulnerable system, because you couldn't stop me from telling other people how to unlock the stuff in their copy of the game, so you kill your own revenue.

Again, I am all for giving a player as much as he's willing to take, but DLC evolves. Many commercial games are already tailor-made to support it, others have it shoehorned on, but in order to make money from it you need a solid, popular game first, and I think that should be your main focus.

Absolutely positively put: You have a vast universe in your mind. You want to make it cool and you want to be on par with your source material. But DLC is young and new, and it was created because there was a base. That base is good, solid games.  ;)

ThreeOhFour

Quote from: Ghost on Mon 14/05/2012 23:19:57
But setting up thirty weapons, and then lock half of them and just TELL me at some point how I can unlock them... that's not DLC. It's also a very vulnerable system, because you couldn't stop me from telling other people how to unlock the stuff in their copy of the game, so you kill your own revenue.

This is "unlockable content". Games have had this forever, only they used to make you complete certain challenges in order to get that unlockable content.

5 years ago or so somebody decided to start giving you trophies for doing the challenges instead, and made the actual content cost more money - taking the idea of an expansion pack and breaking it down into smaller and smaller chunks.

Ghost

Quote from: PONYHEAD on Mon 14/05/2012 23:29:19
This is "unlockable content". Games have had this forever, only they used to make you complete certain challenges in order to get that unlockable content.

"Figure out the Konami Code" was my favourite  ;)

Khris

I HAVE to comment on this.

Icey:
Unless your game can handle actual DLC, don't call it DLC. It's as simple as that. Nobody (except you) needs or wants pretend DLC, just like nobody needed pretend Beta unlock codes.
Grow the fuck up already.

And it's MEANT, not men't.

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