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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

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... sooo ... Grace expected to be cyborg and is disappointed that the game starts before the character is turned into cyborg?

(Not played it, but read wiki article)

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Reading Dan's comment on this one, it just dawned on me that DLC is the video games version of splat books for table top role playing games and like video gamers, table top gamers bitch about it being a cash grab by the makers all the time.

I'm sure this is another duh statement but I'm slow sometimes.

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In a sense, although there are some peculiar differences.

 

As you know, in table top you could get modules or additional rules books, for the most part. Earlier in the video game industry, a successful game could receive an expansion which usually consisted of lower quality, but at least substantial content, like a splat book. Generally this meant you would buy another diskette or CD with more plot, adventures, missions... a selection of material with some sort of common framework. Honestly, it was sort of like a stepping stone to a sequel in many cases.

 

However, with the advent of digital content delivery, developers realized that they didn't need to release these large collections of new content, they could sell very small pieces individually and potentially make much more money. DLC can be as large as a historical military campaign with maps, missions and new units in a strategy game, or as small as a few cosmetic items like hats and ties in an computer roleplaying game. DLC can thus be considerably worse than a splat book, because they can essentially sell you each page of the book separately, or indeed, just market a bunch of post-it notes with no rhyme or reason.

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There are very small splat books now.  Granted most of those are PDF files on rpgnow.com, but I have seen 32 page booklets for 7 or 8 bucks in my FLGS.

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10 hours ago, banneret said:

In a sense, although there are some peculiar differences.

 

As you know, in table top you could get modules or additional rules books, for the most part. Earlier in the video game industry, a successful game could receive an expansion which usually consisted of lower quality, but at least substantial content, like a splat book. Generally this meant you would buy another diskette or CD with more plot, adventures, missions... a selection of material with some sort of common framework. Honestly, it was sort of like a stepping stone to a sequel in many cases.

 

However, with the advent of digital content delivery, developers realized that they didn't need to release these large collections of new content, they could sell very small pieces individually and potentially make much more money. DLC can be as large as a historical military campaign with maps, missions and new units in a strategy game, or as small as a few cosmetic items like hats and ties in an computer roleplaying game. DLC can thus be considerably worse than a splat book, because they can essentially sell you each page of the book separately, or indeed, just market a bunch of post-it notes with no rhyme or reason.

The only reason we see tiny DLC these days is because digital distribution is cheap enough and easy enough to allow for that business model. Before digital distribution, the cost of printing the content to disk and shipping it to stores, on top of the costs to develop the content, would have required a price point too high for gamers to be willing to pay for such a small amount of content. So the companies would have to create enough content to stuff onto the disk to justify the cost of making the disk.So if one of the developers came up with a really cool idea for a few additional missions after the product has already been sent to the printers, that idea will get discarded unless they can find enough crud to pad out the space on a disk. Digital distribution and DLC allows for small concept additions, as well as for concepts and content that didn't make it in the original product due to time and/or budget restrictions.

The tabletop business has similar concerns. Splat books need a large-ish amount of content to justify the price to cover the printing and shipping costs. Though, as mlooney mentioned, some tabletop companies are taking advantage of digital distribution to allow for smaller content releases. I've seen a pdf full of story seeds (just the ideas and concepts of stories to get you started) for a few dollars, though admittedly it was dozens, if not, a hundred or so story seeds. Something that's nice to have if one is experiencing writer's block, but largely unneeded otherwise. Tabletop RPG's even have an equivalent to cosmetic DLC: miniatures. They're largely unneeded though can be really nice to have. Miniatures can help with immersion for some people, though the same could be said for cosmetic items in a CRPG. It's even technically possible nowadays to get miniatures through digital distribution, though that requires you to have access to the equipment for 3d printing.

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6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

The only reason we see tiny DLC these days is because digital distribution is cheap enough and easy enough to allow for that business model. Before digital distribution, the cost of printing the content to disk and shipping it to stores, on top of the costs to develop the content, would have required a price point too high for gamers to be willing to pay for such a small amount of content. So the companies would have to create enough content to stuff onto the disk to justify the cost of making the disk.So if one of the developers came up with a really cool idea for a few additional missions after the product has already been sent to the printers, that idea will get discarded unless they can find enough crud to pad out the space on a disk. Digital distribution and DLC allows for small concept additions, as well as for concepts and content that didn't make it in the original product due to time and/or budget restrictions.

Unfortunately, the old way of doing things has conditioned us to expect certain things, that the smaller forms of DLC can't live up to. there's also the shady practice of having content that was clearly intended to be part of the base game, because there are painfully, immersion breakingly, obvious hooks for it IN the base game, parceled up and offered at launch. combine that with the the disparity between the companies that take the time to still do full expansions as their DLC content, compared to the ones that just throw recolored skins, texture swaps, and slightly retooled versions of existing assets at you, which in a few cases are kinda pathetic, and it's not hard to see where the ire comes from.

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3 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

Unfortunately, the old way of doing things has conditioned us to expect certain things, that the smaller forms of DLC can't live up to. there's also the shady practice of having content that was clearly intended to be part of the base game, because there are painfully, immersion breakingly, obvious hooks for it IN the base game, parceled up and offered at launch. combine that with the the disparity between the companies that take the time to still do full expansions as their DLC content, compared to the ones that just throw recolored skins, texture swaps, and slightly retooled versions of existing assets at you, which in a few cases are kinda pathetic, and it's not hard to see where the ire comes from.

Oh yes. I was going to acknowledge the fact that DLC gets misused and abused, but then I realized I was winding up for a rant that was tangential to the point I was trying to make. So I didn't delve into the rant and got on with my point. And I don't want to go full rant right now, as I should be asleep, but in short: Yes DLC gets misused and abused butbI honestly believe it's a net positive for the industry and end users alike.

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Sounds like small bits of DLC shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's A) clear what you're buying, and B) priced appropriately.  So, are tiny bits of DLC available for 10¢ or 25¢, or do they never offer anything for less than $0.99 or $1.99 or such?

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2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Sounds like small bits of DLC shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's A) clear what you're buying, and B) priced appropriately.  So, are tiny bits of DLC available for 10¢ or 25¢, or do they never offer anything for less than $0.99 or $1.99 or such?

Some sites have minimum prices.

At Smashwords, for example, you can publish an ebook and make it free - but if you charge for it at all, you must charge at least 99 cents.

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4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Sounds like small bits of DLC shouldn't be a problem, as long as it's A) clear what you're buying, and B) priced appropriately.  So, are tiny bits of DLC available for 10¢ or 25¢, or do they never offer anything for less than $0.99 or $1.99 or such?

Usually DLC for non-phone games are between 5 and 30 dollars, depending on the content. Small cosmetic items generally range between $1 and $15, again based on the amount of content (Or the licenses being used. A Han Solo skin would cost more than turning Akuma's vest pink, for instance). Often you'll see packs of cosmetics for larger amounts of money, rather than individual costumes for smaller. It is generally always very clear what you're purchasing...the appropriateness of the pricing is a bit more hit and miss. And then there are the things where the DLC is intended for the main game, but can't make it in for a variety of reasons (Cut content that they want to put back in being one, where they leave hooks for it in the base game). Then there's the more malicious times where it's cut intentionally, and actually done before the game goes Gold... (Though this doesn't happen nearly as often as people like to gripe about. It certainly DOES happen, though. Assassin's Creed 2 did this. I believe one of the Dragon's Age games did it as well). And most commonly is when the game goes gold and can't be changed, but the devs still have 2-4 months between when the game went gold and when the game releases, so they work on the first DLC content during that time, and have more content available for purchase during the release window of the game. (This often gets labeled as the previous by conspiracy theorists).

Phone games are a bizarre bundle of Other Issues, and generally fall into "micro transactions" rather than "DLC Purchase", though lots of people have begun conflating the two.

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Essentially, "gold" is the official public-release version. And when you're releasing a physical disk in a pretty box possibly with assorted "supporting" material (such as a catalog listing the company's other recent products), the thing must "go gold" some time before it can actually be released - because most likely the assembly of the complete package is occurring in some second-world country and the result has to be shipped to the first-world buyers.

With electronic distribution, of course, a product can "go gold" at 10 AM and hit the market at 10:05. Electronic distribution is also much less expensive than preparing masses of atoms and hauling them around the planet.

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32 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

What does it mean for a game to "go Gold"?

It's a carryover from when software was distributed on magnetic media, like floppy discs and cassette tapes.

You can only copy magnetic media so many times before it wears out, so you've got to be careful with the master copies. When the software was done, they would make a "golden master" of it, which is what they just called the source. From the golden master, they'd then make a dozen or so copies called "silver masters". The silver masters would then be used as the source for the actual consumer copies of the software.

Copy the silver masters hundreds of times until they wear out, and when they do, go back to the golden master to make more silver masters, so you can make more consumer copies.

"Going Gold" was the term for finishing the product and being at the stage where you're ready to make the golden master. With optical media and digital distribution, there's no need for a golden master anymore, but the phrase "Going Gold" stuck as meaning "done with the product".

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20 hours ago, Matoyak said:

Phone games are a bizarre bundle of Other Issues, and generally fall into "micro transactions" rather than "DLC Purchase", though lots of people have begun conflating the two.

... in lot of phone games, there is nothing "micro" on those transactions.

19 hours ago, Howitzer said:

It's a carryover from when software was distributed on magnetic media, like floppy discs and cassette tapes.

You can only copy magnetic media so many times before it wears out, so you've got to be careful with the master copies. When the software was done, they would make a "golden master" of it, which is what they just called the source. From the golden master, they'd then make a dozen or so copies called "silver masters". The silver masters would then be used as the source for the actual consumer copies of the software.

Copy the silver masters hundreds of times until they wear out, and when they do, go back to the golden master to make more silver masters, so you can make more consumer copies.

"Going Gold" was the term for finishing the product and being at the stage where you're ready to make the golden master. With optical media and digital distribution, there's no need for a golden master anymore, but the phrase "Going Gold" stuck as meaning "done with the product".

While not exactly for the same reason, there still IS equivalent of "golden master" for optical media: the master disc used for pressing. There is no equivalent for digital distribution, of course. Or for cases where you distribute the content on burned CD-Rs, but I don't think anyone is/was doing that.

 

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Not that digital distribution is exempt from source degradation, for no medium defies entropy.
 

Consider the miniature. First, a sculptor creates a master sculpt or green. She then creates a master mould from the sculpt, which she can use to cast either production miniatures or reference miniatures which would then be used to create production moulds. Neither moulds nor the sculpts used to create moulds will last forever, regardless of what she does, but handling production through derivative assets will allow her to both preserve the master(s) and greatly expand maximum production volume.
 

Digital media degrades as well, for instance files on flash media can exhibit significant bit rot after a few hundred reads. However, between redundant storage and regular maintenance, as well as relatively low failure rates, you can effectively keep your source intact with minimal effort. That is, unless you're dealing with environments with a lot of ionization, like, say, near reactors or in space. In those cases, you have to create redundant systems which are simple, hardened, monitored (generally mutually, with some sort of voting/ruling system) and have some form of automatic recovery (flash/reinstall from static archive).

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45 minutes ago, banneret said:

However, between redundant storage and regular maintenance, as well as relatively low failure rates, you can effectively keep your source intact with minimal effort.

This is why I've started using M-DISC for archival purposes, seeing as how more and more devices are capable of writing to it. Only very important archives for now (e.g., my work on 3DR/Apogee music), since the media is outrageously expensive.

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On 07/07/2016 at 0:49 PM, banneret said:

Digital media degrades as well, for instance files on flash media can exhibit significant bit rot after a few hundred reads.

Digital media degrades just as analog ones. Difference is that you can't make error recovery on analog media. You can - and in fact, are already doing that even without knowing - add error recovery on digital media, making possible to detect which bit exactly degraded and then recover the original value and writing it elsewhere.

(Most trivial method of error recovery is to store everything three times and use voting, but parity and more complicated error recovery codes allows to repair more errors with less redundancy. Unless, of course, we speak about high ionization, where even having everything three times may not be enough to fix errors faster than they are happening.)

And, obviously, you can't make exact copy with analog, but you CAN make exact copy with digital - year later on different, year younger, medium.

On 07/07/2016 at 1:37 PM, ProfessorTomoe said:

This is why I've started using M-DISC for archival purposes, seeing as how more and more devices are capable of writing to it. Only very important archives for now (e.g., my work on 3DR/Apogee music), since the media is outrageously expensive.

It might be safer and cheaper to burn another copy every year on normal medium. Of course, the disadvantage would be that you need to do something every year.

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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It might be safer and cheaper to burn another copy every year on normal medium. Of course, the disadvantage would be that you need to do something every year.

With the predicted shelf life of M-DISC, I think the price balances out. The only reason I'd need to re-burn would be to keep up with advancing technology, although I believe DVD is going to hang around for many years to come.

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2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

although I believe DVD is going to hang around for many years to come.

Not being sarcastic, but is it? I had to purchase some DVDs for a school project last fall and the manager of the electronics department at my local Walmart told me they won't be stocking DVDs starting Spring 2017.

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