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Weekend Confirmed Episode Whimsy | Let's All Love Loving Things

I don't think the fact that it was planned and budgeted for since the beginning makes it any less shitty that they'd segment out a piece of the game that, from what I hear, can affect the main story experience, and charge it as DLC.

I can understand if it's some extra weapons or armor, or even a goofy side quest, but something that changes the way the main story is perceived should be included in the original product, IMO.

The example they used, paying extra for deleted scenes on dvd, that practice is perfectly fine with me. Deleted scenes are like alternate versions of what could have been...they don't have any "canon" implications. But that's not what's happening here from what I understand. This is more like taking out the Han Solo parts of Star Wars and charging it extra if people want his character included in the story. At least, that's how it's been explained to me. I guess I'll find out if I ever decide it's okay to give Bioware my money again.
 
I need to correct Garnett, ChipIn is not like Kickstarter. It's not a pledge. Once you donate money it's donated right away. Suprised Garnett never heard of it. So many game sites/communities use ChipIn for Child's Play.
 
Can't help but notice all the arguments about consumer entitlement and artistic intent go right out the window when Ariel gets (rightfully) annoyed by the ending to FFXIII-2. Why can't you understand Lord Toriyama-san's glorious artistic vision consisting of non-endings and DLC promises!

Anyway, applying "vote with your wallet" to DLC is stupid because the lesson learned isn't people don't like DLC, its people don't like "worthless" DLC. Mattas even brought up how he doesn't buy things like weapon packs. If From Ashes under performs EA won't not include DLC in the next Mass Effect, they'll just make it more important to the story so you are more encouraged to buy it. People have every right to complain online if they don't like the practice

Thank god for GOTY editions, thats when I'll get around to picking up ME3
 
Curufinwe said:
Jeff is the only podcast host I have heard shilling for Bioware on this one.

On other podcasts like the CAGcast, the Giant Bombcast and the Gamers With Jobs conference call, the consensus opinion has been that the Prothean character is such a vital and interesting part of the story that including it on the disc but charging $10 extra for it is bullshit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRRpGlmtws8&feature=g-all-lik&context=G225f3afFAAAAAAAAAAA
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1UP defended Bioware too, but it´s not a surprise. Jeremy Parish never misses an opportunity to side "above" the public.
 
Harlock said:
1UP defended Bioware too, but it´s not a surprise. Jeremy Parish never misses an opportunity to side "above" the public.
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There is no doubt video game bloggers tend to despise their readers. I understand why someone like Jeremy Parish takes on such a patronizing attitude; he thinks his readers are mouth-breathing idiots. See, we're ripping into Jeff yet we're the consumers of his show, but he probably thinks we're a bunch of twats.
 
Harlock said:
1UP defended Bioware too, but it´s not a surprise. Jeremy Parish never misses an opportunity to side "above" the public.
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I listened to that podcast too, and the IGN guy they had on was scathing about a lot of the story. It was good stuff.

But sadly it was Scooter's last podcast there.
 
I stand corrected on Max Payne 3. Interesting, though, that the additional info hadn't made it through my filter.

Some of you seem to be eagerly hopping on the slag Jeff train. I don't particularly agree with that side of the argument but that doesn't invalidate it. If you want it brought up in the conversation, articulate the point a little better than name-calling.

The content on the show each week reflects a mix of what we played and found to be the topic of conversations we had. I think we'd have done Journey a disservice to talk about it on this episode because it raises a number of interesting game concepts to talk about as well. Rest assured we won't miss it.
 
Blazyr said:
I don't particularly agree with that side of the argument but that doesn't invalidate it.
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Jeff's argument, as I understood it, from a logical standpoint: "The situation is the way it is, because of the way it is." It's tautological and it is not one that will to change anyones mind.
 
Curufinwe said:
I listened to that podcast too, and the IGN guy they had on was scathing about a lot of the story. It was good stuff.

But sadly it was Scooter's last podcast there.
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So it was good because he agreed with the concensus/your opinion? Hmmmmm



And my two cents on the Prothean character is that although it's crappy what they did, i expect most of us who played through all 3 games bought it. So it doesn't matter how angry they make us, we're still complicit in the whole thing.

I'd be intrigued to know how many people annoyed with DA2 made a point of not buying ME3 because of that
 
EA/Bioware have done so much to put me off of DA2 and ME3 that I think I now derive more pleasure from the thought of not having given them any money than I ever would from playing the games.
 
DaBuddaDa said:
There is no doubt video game bloggers tend to despise their readers. I understand why someone like Jeremy Parish takes on such a patronizing attitude; he thinks his readers are mouth-breathing idiots. See, we're ripping into Jeff yet we're the consumers of his show, but he probably thinks we're a bunch of twats.
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DaBuddaDa said:
Jeff's argument, as I understood it, from a logical standpoint: "The situation is the way it is, because of the way it is." It's tautological and it is not one that will to change anyones mind.
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You should read this article as it reflects what Jeff was arguing on this show and goes on to make some other interesting points too.

It's not productive or interesting when people immediately accuse others of being shills or corporate cocksuckers when they don't just jump on the internet hate bandwagon.
 
Massa said:
It's not productive or interesting when people immediately accuse others of being shills or corporate cocksuckers when they don't just jump on the internet hate bandwagon.
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Point directly at where I "immediately" called Jeff a corporate cocksucker or shill or even implied as such. I directly challenge you to and you won't find it because I am in no way shape or form doing anything of the sort. I'm actually agreeing with many of the points Jeff made in the podcast. You're projecting so hard it's not even funny. If you're having trouble articulating why my arguments are invalid or where your disagreement lays, I'd prefer it if you'd instead try harder and not fall back to pointing fingers, accusing me of "jumping on the internet hate bandwagon." These threads used to be filled with intelligent back and forth about the topics they covered on the podcast but I wonder if I'm just talking to myself at this point. Seems sometimes like all that's left are the trolls and sycophants.

The link you provided has nothing to do with anything I have been discussing in this thread. I understand that this is not about the delivery method of the content. I never said it was. Could you elaborate on how you feel it is relevant to my arguments and what I should be looking for?
 
DaBuddaDa said:
There is no doubt video game bloggers tend to despise their readers. I understand why someone like Jeremy Parish takes on such a patronizing attitude; he thinks his readers are mouth-breathing idiots. See, we're ripping into Jeff yet we're the consumers of his show, but he probably thinks we're a bunch of twats.
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I'd be happy if he leaves the podcast. Never been a fan. He came into prominence by virtue of GL's stint at shacknews. This really is Garnett's show.

Otherwise; would we even be discussing JC's pov? And when your co-podcasts guests call you out for your overt enthusiam for games; an enthusiam that is clearly not sustained; its time to move on.

don't like his take on skyrim. "I enjoyed it. so who cares if your ps3 version is broken".

entitled?! He probably thinks the skyrim ps3 guys were entitled for expecting a game to work.

Dude always sounded like he loved the sound of his own voice.
 
JaxJag said:
You mean all the people trying to change the ending are just being critics, and don't feel they are entitled to anything?
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Those are crazy people. Just like annoying Star Wars fans who keep going on about George Lucas raping their childhood and whatnot. :p
 
This isn't about star wars and crazy fans, so please stop. Just stop. The issue is, as it has usually been, about those who criticize consumer unfriendly practices commonly being dismissed out of hand and labeled as entitled, and this is often done without even the pretense of trying to understand the points brought up by those particular critics.
 
lttp a bit as i just heard this tonight but....

I usually like Cannata but that was pretty painful. He really missed the point. This is why we need Leahy. It wouldn't be nearly as painful if someone was able to actually confront him about this stuff.

This is all about having to forcing people to pay $70 in order to have a complete experience of the game while putting up a $60 price point to the less informed people ("complete" being subjective but a lot of people feel From Ashes is pretty necessary to the story).

As for why this being complete before launch was important, that's because unless we have access to their financial books we do not know how much additional resources were able to be put towards the project because of their decision. I mean you can take any other decent sized game out there and just theorize spots that could have been put behind an additional pay wall and we would not have been able to tell that they could have easily not done that and still justify the budget. 60 dollars already seems like plenty to spend to insure that big budget games can be budgeted up until release and it has worked that way for that much money or cheaper for a while now, and the developers have not done a good enough reason explaining why they need even more money to fund prerelease development now.

Even if you are ok with prerelease budgets taking launch day dlc revenue into consideration, garnett touched on a good point about how if they had a complete design document finished but decided they needed launch day dlc content to fund their vision, then they choose poorly. If they were to have to compromise their vision to meet the budget constraints that not having launch day dlc would have given them they would have chosen the least interesting and least important content to cut and forget about. So yeah maybe it'd be cool to let gamers fund that one bit they couldn't have put in otherwise, but From Dust is far from the least interesting and least important content in that game and if they were going to cut something it doesn't feel that this was it in the consumers eyes.

I can see some people argue either From Ashes doesn't make mass effect incomplete or the dlc wouldn't exist in the game if the game didn't combine to 70 dollars with it included, but Cannata completely missed what the problem was and his light patronizing of people that had issue with the dlc was not the right way to go about it. Its really unfortentant every time I see critics/bloggers/podcasters take up either the "its good for business" side or the "you can choose not to buy it" because then you are forgetting your position as people that give opinions on games to people that are not business people but gamers that are looking to you to gain a better insight to the games that they play. They don't really care if business have found a good way to get more money out of them and its obvious that they don't have to hand money over to buy the game from anyone. All they want you to talk about is if such and such decision is good or not for them. You could maybe argue why the decision to create the From Ashes DLC the way they did was good for the gamer (yourself) overall in your opinion, but unfortunately Cannata did not do that.

OK now I can go back to listening to the podcast. I'm still going to enjoy cannata as i generally enjoy hearing people that love games more often then hate them, but that part was a little out of hand.
 
Mister Saturn said:
This isn't about star wars and crazy fans, so please stop. Just stop. The issue is, as it has usually been, about those who criticize consumer unfriendly practices commonly being dismissed out of hand and labeled as entitled, and this is often done without even the pretense of trying to understand the points brought up by those particular critics.
Click to expand...
Umm, that was the point I was making. It's an analogy. I'm willing to bet Microsoft bucks that the Penny Arcade people have complained about Star Wars at some point, let alone the other professional game enthusiasts who use the "e" word.

Also, regarding the DLC, the easy solution would have been to actually make the DLC CE exclusive for some period of time and make your money from the people buying the CE, not from day one DLC.
 
With Batman Jeff's argument was that without the Catwoman content it still feels worth the money and is a full game. That may be true in a reality where you don't know about the Catwoman content, but that's not our reality.

Would Ghostbusters still feel like a complete movie without the shock-therapy introduction? Sure, probably. But I don't think consumers would take kindly to Ghostbusters without that scene playing in a theater for full price while right next door the cut with that scene plays for extra.

The "if you didn't know this content was missing you wouldn't miss it" argument is fatally flawed in that not only do we know the content is missing but the publisher is actively reminding us of it and offering to sell it to us.

What bothers people is the feeling that they are getting something incomplete and then being sold the rest separately - a feeling that publishers purposely foster. That's very different from features that are cut as part of a normal development cycle and never resurface.

If you don't want me to think that my game is incomplete don't explicitly tell me that it is. Once you do that you sort of lose the right to call me entitled for pointing out what you yourself already have.

The example they used, paying extra for deleted scenes on dvd, that practice is perfectly fine with me. Deleted scenes are like alternate versions of what could have been...they don't have any "canon" implications.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this topic is prone to bad analogies. Deleted scenes are generally deleted for a reason (generally quality/pacing), and they are more of a curiosity for film buffs than anything else. Generally a cut without deleted scenes was considered better without them. Adding the scenes in doesn't enrich the experience. The proper analogue in games would be a level that was half-finished and cut for being poorly designed, or a level used solely for testing.

The Mass Effect DLC is more akin to buying a book, seeing thats chapter 3 and 7 are missing, then seeing them sold separately for $10. Whether or not the book seems long enough without those missing chapters it still feels awfully shitty.
 
After reading the spoiler thread I would not change a thing about the ME3 ending. Taste the Rainbow videos and Marauder Shields comics are sooo good! Best ending this generation - I'm on Team Jeff
 
I honestly have to wonder if it would make any difference to Jeff if the content was actually removed from the finished game before being sold as DLC. He seemed to draw that line in the sand but I don't see why considering his argument.

Not to mention that there is no way for the consumer to tell if they did rip it from the completed game.
 
Margalis said:
Yeah, this topic is prone to bad analogies. Deleted scenes are generally deleted for a reason (generally quality/pacing), and they are more of a curiosity for film buffs than anything else. Generally a cut without deleted scenes was considered better without them. Adding the scenes in doesn't enrich the experience. The proper analogue in games would be a level that was half-finished and cut for being poorly designed, or a level used solely for testing
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And deleted scenes weren't produced 'on a separate budget, without which they wouldn't exist.' They were produced on the core budget of the project and removed based on 'editorial' values, which is perfectly fine, the same thing happens in video games.

The closest analogy to this was Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, a level that was removed because it didn't quite work, and made available for free as a tech demo for new HDR lighting features and developer commentary system in Source Engine... not THE FREEMAN IS LEGEND GO BUY DLC LOL.
 
HamPster PamPster said:
After reading the spoiler thread I would not change a thing about the ME3 ending. Taste the Rainbow videos and Marauder Shields comics are sooo good! Best ending this generation - I'm on Team Jeff
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Yeah you really have to weigh everyone's collective disappointment with the sheer mirth the aftermath has provided.
 
Perhaps an appropriate analogy is the photographer that takes your picture and prints it out, shows you it and tries to get you to buy it. If you dont buy it, he throws it away.

The argument is that the DLC already exists, so it should be included with the game.

Should the photographer give you the picture for free, since otherwise he will be throwing it away?
 
thepotatoman said:
This is all about having to forcing people to pay $70 in order to have a complete experience of the game while putting up a $60 price point to the less informed people ("complete" being subjective but a lot of people feel From Ashes is pretty necessary to the story).

As for why this being complete before launch was important, that's because unless we have access to their financial books we do not know how much additional resources were able to be put towards the project because of their decision. I mean you can take any other decent sized game out there and just theorize spots that could have been put behind an additional pay wall and we would not have been able to tell that they could have easily not done that and still justify the budget.
Click to expand...

The Superbowl as day one, on the disc, $10 DLC for Madden 13.
 
IMACOMPUTA said:
I like Jeff Cannata too. I really think its a vocal minority situation going on in here.
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I love what Jeff brings to the show too but I don't understand his DLC argument.

I also don't get why they are getting heat for their ME3 ending opinions. They didn't seem to like it much and could empathize with fans about it, they only seemed to balk at the idea of customer pressure to force changes to it.
 
HamPster PamPster said:
After reading the spoiler thread I would not change a thing about the ME3 ending. Taste the Rainbow videos and Marauder Shields comics are sooo good! Best ending this generation - I'm on Team Jeff
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Unless BioWare can make a even more retarted retcon ending to cause bigger internet melt down. ;)
 
Oh yeah, I accidentally made Garnett Lee in Mass Effect 2 :

masseffect22011-12-04ytj4f.png
 
NullPointer said:
I honestly have to wonder if it would make any difference to Jeff if the content was actually removed from the finished game before being sold as DLC. He seemed to draw that line in the sand but I don't see why considering his argument.

Not to mention that there is no way for the consumer to tell if they did rip it from the completed game.
Click to expand...

That's his basic argument: EA gets to define what's the complete Mass Effect 3 experience, and people should look at what they're getting for their $60 to decided whether it's worth it or not. The fact that there's DLC for the game, and when it comes out, doesn't change the main product they're selling.
 
It's going to be fun listening to Jeff struggle to express his love for journey. Sometimes when he REALLY enjoys something his vocabulary, nay the english language itself, is unable to atriculate that level of loving

I bet Garnett says its worth $2,000 :P
 
This podcast sucks. Jeff had a Daffy Duck all along and never used it? Come on!

Has Andrea "final fantasy sucks" Rene played Kingdom Hearts? I always loved all the Disney characters in it, seems like what she wanted from Epic Mickey

eznark said:
I kind of want to listen to these guys whine about BioWare changing it's mind after bitching about fans whining.
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You can't tell Bioware what to do - "Fan's should not demand Bioware give them a new ending."

I tell Bioware what to do - "Bioware should not give fans a new ending."

Either way, I'm pretty sure I've heard more about people "demanding" a new ending from podcasts then I've actually seen online. Arguing against the most extreme comments online is always the easy way out
 
HamPster PamPster said:
This podcast sucks. Jeff had a Daffy Duck all along and never used it? Come on!

Has Andrea "final fantasy sucks" Rene played Kingdom Hearts? I always loved all the Disney characters in it, seems like what she wanted from Epic Mickey



You can't tell Bioware what to do - "Fan's should not demand Bioware give them a new ending."

I tell Bioware what to do - "Bioware should not give fans a new ending."

Either way, I'm pretty sure I've heard more about people "demanding" a new ending from podcasts then I've actually seen online. Arguing against the most extreme comments online is always the easy way out
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I honest can't tell which direction you are spinning the "extreme fan" angle. But if you want to get a sense how many people want the ending change, here it's a poll from CNET.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105...l-should-bioware-change-mass-effect-3s-ending
 
tino said:
I honest can't tell which direction you are spinning the "extreme fan" angle. But if you want to get a sense how many people want the ending change, here it's a poll from CNET.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-...fect-3s-ending
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I look at GAF. As far as I know, no one here actually wants a new ending outside of the crazy
indoctrination
people. Most people just think the ending is garbage and, in some way, want them to admit it.

Especially when the last thing you see in the game is "GET READY FOR DLC".
 
firehawk12 said:
I look at GAF. As far as I know, no one here actually wants a new ending outside of the crazy
indoctrination
people. Most people just think the ending is garbage and, in some way, want them to admit it.

Especially when the last thing you see in the game is "GET READY FOR DLC".
Click to expand...

You don't have basis to make that statement. I don't buy the indoc theory and I want a new ending.
 
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