Change Call of Duty: Ghosts' Dog Into a Wolf For $2

[Steven Bogos]

Change Call of Duty: Ghosts' Dog Into a Wolf For $2

Is Call of Duty: Ghosts' "wolf skin" the new horse armor? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108564-Bethesda-Says-People-Are-Still-Buying-Horse-Armor]

Anyone who's heard anything about Call of Duty: Ghosts should know that the dog is someone you really care about [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw&t=1m17s]. But what if you don't care about dogs? What if you're more of a cat person? Or a wolf guy? Well then, Activision has got you covered, announcing a $1.99 DLC pack that changes the multiplayer "guard dog" killstreak into a wolf.

The DLC will be available from December 12 as a timed-exclusive on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One. There's no word yet on when it will be coming to the game's other platforms, but we have been assured it will get there eventually. The guard dog killstreak can be activated after a player gets five consecutive kills without dying. Doing so dispatches a dog to your side that will follow you, growl when enemies are nearby, and attack them.

This DLC draws a surprising amount of parallels to Bethesda's infamous horse armor [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/horse-armor], which cost $2.50 and offered a single cosmetic change. Since then, the term "horse armor" has come to be associated with useless and overpriced DLC packages.

But it now looks like Activision is stepping up to the plate, in an effort to replace the horse armor moniker with "wolf skin". Seriously, is anyone at all excited by this? The worst part is we all know it will most likely sell incredibly well, prompting the release of more such packs (stay tuned for the coyote and hyena skin packs!)

Source: Activision Official Instagram [http://instagram.com/p/hynwXNyp9T/]

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[Eddie451]

Charging for cosmetics in a 60$ title... Remember when people had to unlock these kind of things in games? What happened to that?

 

[Legion]

Many people will laugh at them charging $2 for a wolf skin for the dog.

What made me laugh is that such a DLC is an exclusive for the Xbox. You'd think that kind of deal would be made on something a little bigger. I cannot see people thinking "Hmm, should I get an Xbox with COD, a PS4 or a PC? Think I will go with the Xbox, they let me buy a wolf skin DLC."

 

[llubtoille]

To be fair, the oblivion horse armor was more than just a texture alteration,
It added a vendor, a quest (taking you to the vendor) as well as the armored horse model and two texture options (elven or steel),
and furthermore the armor also gave a stat bonus to the horse =D

I could be mistaken, but this looks like they just retextured the dog and removed the armor (though it's hard to tell without a side by side comparison)

On the other hand, $2 is hardly a big ask and is no worse (imo) than the $10 WoW pets or LoL skins

 

[josemlopes]

To be fair, the oblivion horse armor was more than just a texture alteration,
It added a vendor, a quest (taking you to the vendor) as well as the armored horse model and two texture options (elven or steel),
and furthermore the armor also gave a stat bonus to the horse =D

I could be mistaken, but this looks like they just retextured the dog and removed the armor (though it's hard to tell without a side by side comparison)

On the other hand, $2 is hardly a big ask and is no worse (imo) than the $10 WoW pets or LoL skins

I just bought Call of Juarez 2 for the Xbox 360 for 2$ in their own marketplace, it really isnt much but at the same time it does feel overpriced in comparision.

 

[mechalynx]

Well this is kind of what Lionhead/Micro$oft did with Fable III. Charged you a pretty penny for an ingame potion that let you change your dog's breed, doing nothing else but re-skinning it. I can (and in fact have in GW2 and Maple Story) get behind this sort of crap in an f2p MMO, but seeing devs pull shit like this in single player makes me want to not be a gamer anymore.

Then I remember that I don't even give a fuck about CoD and its ilk and dive back into my RPGs with awesome modding communities.

 

[Baron_BJ]

Well this is kind of what Lionhead/Micro$oft did with Fable III. Charged you a pretty penny for an ingame potion that let you change your dog's breed, doing nothing else but re-skinning it. I can (and in fact have in GW2 and Maple Story) get behind this sort of crap in an f2p MMO, but seeing devs pull shit like this in single player makes me want to not be a gamer anymore.

Then I remember that I don't even give a fuck about CoD and its ilk and dive back into my RPGs with awesome modding communities.

Fable III did worse than that. They charged you to buy the BLACK DYE. You had to pay real money for the ability to color your crap black.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I bet they won't even change the dog's many lines of dialog, the cheap bastiches!

 

[Teoes]

While it'd be fun to dog-pile[footnote]O-ho-ho, d'you see what I did there?[/footnote] on MS/Activision for this, what they're doing is, sadly, hardly unique. Hate the game, baby - not the player.

Damn it'd be nice if we could unlock this stuff with in-game progress or cheat codes.

 

[JoJo]

Fable III did worse than that. They charged you to buy the BLACK DYE. You had to pay real money for the ability to color your crap black.

I remember that, the micro DLC really left a sour taste in my mouth after a game I otherwise mostly enjoyed, I don't mind paying for truly additional content but a colour change? Pah...

OT: $2 is only pocket change so I guess this could be worthwhile if you really like wolves, I don't have the game so it's not really an option for me either way.

 

[Bindal]

The weapon skins in BO2 I got behind (even bought two of them) because that was a weapon-camo (something you could basically use ALL the time and everyone could see it), one version of all three recticles and a player-card.

The dog... well, you only see it if you actually use that streak. Meaning you may never see it because either you don't use the streak or don't get the streak when you use it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is just stupid greedy.

I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who'd buy this.

 

[l3o2828]

Charging for cosmetics in a 60$ title... Remember when people had to unlock these kind of things in games? What happened to that?

My thoughts exactly.
I completly despise the way the industry is going, then again this is Activision so being surprised at this kind of bullshit , coming from them specially, is stupid. They do this all the time.

 

[rofltehcat]

Charging for purely cosmetic DLC is fine, at least for me. I hate it when something that actually affects balance is DLC-only.
I'd prefer it, too, if everything other than massive expansions was unlock-only but I'm ok with cosmetic stuff and inconsequential content.
However, I also have to agree with some of the Jimquisitions: The game devs/publishers cannot really be trusted to conserve the integrity of the game when they can cut content and unbalance stuff to earn more money.

 

[Muspelheim]

Perhaps if you offer a furry reskin, instead, Microsoft. That'd be fun.

[User has been appropriately dealth with.]

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/584/521/0ae.jpg

 

[Aeshi]

What if you're more of a cat person? Or a wolf guy?

This bit made me think there was going to be another DLC as well as the wolf one that replaces the guard dogs with cats before I read onwards and found that was not the case

A shame, I think it'd be pretty funny to sic a load of angry cats on your enemies

 

[Pebkio]

Man... how'd they pull off motion capturing a wolf?

To be fair, the oblivion horse armor was more than just a texture alteration,
It added a vendor, a quest (taking you to the vendor) as well as the armored horse model and two texture options (elven or steel),
and furthermore the armor also gave a stat bonus to the horse =D

Also, this. It seems that the wolf skin is even more worthless than the horse armor. At least the armor took several lines of code to get working properly AS horse armor. This is just replacing one texture file with another.

Wait... there was one more thing I wanted to quote... where is it... oh, it's in the same post:

On the other hand, $2 is hardly a big ask and is no worse (imo) than the $10 WoW pets or LoL skins

At least LoL has the decency of NOT being a full retail game and/or with a paid subscription.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Charging for cosmetics in a 60$ title... Remember when people had to unlock these kind of things in games? What happened to that?

My thoughts exactly.
I completly despise the way the industry is going, then again this is Activision so being surprised at this kind of bullshit , coming from them specially, is stupid. They do this all the time.

One thing I like about Naughty Dog is that they still do this in their games. I liked how you could unlock pointless skins and effects in Uncharted 2 which made replaying the game actually fun (pissed me off when their B team took that out of Uncharted 3 cause I had no reason to touch it again). It reminded of the ps2/gamecube/Xbox days and it's pretty sad that encouraging players to play your game has since been replaced with micro transactions.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Since their not forcing the DLC on anyone and it changes absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay, does it really matter? Some people might want a wolf guarding their backs, others a Dragon and others yet some sort of tentacle cat-girl robot in an SS. Handschar uniform - let them pay if they want says I.