Mass Effect 3 has day zero DLC (MAJOR SPOILERS)

[anthony87]

Oh how I wish the OP had used an actual SPOILER TAG(HINT HINT!!!) rather than just blurting out his spoiler at the start of his post....

Oh well....I've brought this on myself

http://www.craigboyce.com/w/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Homer_Simpson_Facepalm1.jpg

To be honest this headline will be everywhere by the days end. Anyone looking for a reason to get on EA, Bioware and Origin's case are pretty much going to go to town with this. People will undoubtedly be talking about this for years to come alongside SWTOR and DA2 as Bioware/EA failures so really it was altogether unavoidable.

Actually aside from the news about James Vega and the stuff that the OP has mentioned, I've avoided every single piece of ME3 related media barring the trailers and demos. I've been hearing things around forums about loads of plot leaks and something about a journalist(?) but I've no idea what the hell any of it means.

Hopefully it'll remain that way ^_^

 

[Clonekiller]

Complain all you want, it won't change anything. It never does. Maybe it is a cynical view on the matter, but raging helplessly with froth at your mouth is just as helpful. Only less healthy on your nerves.

We live in a free market. At the end of the day, a company only makes money as long as we the consumers participate. Now, I will grant you, we gamers are pretty bad at putting our money where our mouths are. We like to sit around and complain about stuff while still spending money on that new copy of Call of Duty. However, if we actually follow through with our words, we can truly make a difference.
Imagine this for a moment: Because BioWare is planning on releasing this DLC, 100,000 consumers cancel their pre-orders. (not an unrealistic amount of people considering the number of pre-orders) At $60 a copy, not including CEs, this results is a projected loss of $6,000,000. Six million dollars is a lot of money, and in order to make up for the loss, EA would have to sell 600,000 copies of the DLC. Since EA and BioWare have no guarantee that the DLC will sell that well, they will doubtless change their policy, since that policy will probably result in a major loss. That's why people, like me, have proceeded to cancel orders and send letters of objection to EA. As they demonstrated with Battlefield 3 and the pre-order only weapons, EA will change a bad policy if it means losing money. That's why talking about this kind of thing, and more importantly acting on it is important. Us consumers hold the power. The only reason companies like EA gets away with this crap is because we play dead, thinking that we don't have a say. The fact is, we do. We just need to make use of that power.

 

[Keava]

ME2 had this too.
Honestly, I don't mind day 0 DLC at all, as long as it's not something that's clearly cut from the game to leverage more money. This seems to be fine, as it's a chunk of separate content from the main story.

Fact is, there's a big period between the code being finished and sent to be printed to disc and the actual release. A period in which you still have a full set of developers, familiar with the coding/design before the dust settles on - a perfect time to make extra goodies. Don't like it? Simple : Don't buy it. It's an optional extra for people who want more.

EDIT : I'm also going to guess that outside of the new mission/areas, there'll be very limited interaction with the bonus squad member (Like Zaeed and Kasumi from ME2, where they were on your ship, but you couldn't talk to them directly)

No. ME2 did not have this, nor did DA:O. DA2 had pre-order bonus like that. Both Zaeed and Shale came with every fresh copy of respective game, They didn't ask You to shell out 20$ more for CE to get it.

Day-0 DLC, especially with such character (it's not some random dude we're talking about here getting added to Your team, it's significant character lore-wise), that is only available as part of CE or for additional payment is simply rip-off.
You do not punish customers that are willing to pay You for Your product by taking content away from them and forcing them to pay more for what should be in game from the start. I have nothing against project 10$, it's justified by the way big game retailers treat used copies market, but using CE's for that? That's not acceptable.

 

[Erttheking]

Call me crazy but despite the race of the squad mate, walking around with him will be like walking around with Legion in ME2 IE you'll be wondering why no one is looking twice at it and why there's nothing important about him outside of talking to him and a single mission related to him. Yeah, not exactly losing sleep over this. Also I'm pretty sure info about this came out a month ago so you people are really behind the ball

P.S. Why the flying fuck is there a ME3 leak every week?

 

[Loethlin]

TL;DR

Ok, that's a joke, I did read it and I agree with your points.
But, what we do here, in this thread, is NOT acting, it's NOT "making them see", we just complain. Most people here won't cancel their pre-orders, won;t send their letters, so this whole thing we have going on here is pointless bitching.
YOU did your job, as you said. You sent your letter, cancelled your pre-order. I did my job too. As indifferent as I might seem, I refuse to bend over and take it like a champ.
What I still don't understand, however, is the outrage about something that was not only known for a very long time, but also completely predictable.

 

[Akio91]

TL;DR

Ok, that's a joke, I did read it and I agree with your points.
But, what we do here, in this thread, is NOT acting, it's NOT "making them see", we just complain. Most people here won't cancel their pre-orders, won;t send their letters, so this whole thing we have going on here is pointless bitching.
YOU did your job, as you said. You sent your letter, cancelled your pre-order. I did my job too. As indifferent as I might seem, I refuse to bend over and take it like a champ.
What I still don't understand, however, is the outrage about something that was not only known for a very long time, but also completely predictable.

Because it's wrong and I honestly believe that it's bad for the industry. No one's going to try their hardest to make a complete game, because they know that if anything goes wrong, or if they're in a time crunch, they can release everything else as dlc. This, of course, implies that said DLC isn't already on the disc (and there's no defending that).

 

[Loethlin]

Because it's wrong and I honestly believe that it's bad for the industry. No one's going to try their hardest to make a complete game, because they know that if anything goes wrong, or if they're in a time crunch, they can release everything else as dlc. This, of course, implies that said DLC isn't already on the disc (and there's no defending that).

I'm having issues with your use of future tense here. It's like you assume this kind of thing wasn't going on for several years now. And what did we do, collectively, as gamers? Nothing. Not one thing, since this model of publishing games is oh so much present.
I might disagree, you might disagree, but as a whole, most of us only cry about it, but don't follow up on it.
This is exactly why I expect the worst, predict the most dick moves on publishers' side and generally believe than we can say fuckall, but nothing will change.

 

[Nurb]

You guys have no clue how they're screwing customers. Unless you pay more for the Collectors Edition, the FULL PRICED game is incomplete. The DLC isn't just a squadmate, it's a big reveal about the protheans which is a trigger for the whole mass effect story.

ZERO DAY DLC = Game Content developed and removed to be sold seperately

This isn't just "horse armor" here, it's a big part of the story, and it's exploititive and makes the regular game incomplete.

 

[RatRace123]

I already knew about it, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

I preordered the game, so Prothy will be joining my squad. But, to have such a potentially important character locked away as DLC, seems really really cheap.

I guess if he's not all that important, then it's more acceptable, but I doubt that's the case. And the fact that he's locked for the Collectors edition only, that's horrible.
And I've watched Total Biscuit's vid and he hit it on the head!

 

[ShindoL Shill]

ME2 had this too.
Honestly, I don't mind day 0 DLC at all, as long as it's not something that's clearly cut from the game to leverage more money. This seems to be fine, as it's a chunk of separate content from the main story.

TotalBiscuit did a video about this DLC, and it is pretty plot important, given that it gives background to the Protheans. Also, last time the Day 1 DLC was free if you bought the game new. This is not.

 

[jakko12345]

This is crazy. Why is everyone being so complacent when this is such brazen exploitation? An actual, living Prothean is HUGE and essential to the plot, and they have the audacity to charge extra for it, ON DAY FREAKING 1. Totalbiscuit absolutely nailed it.

 

[Trekna]

ME2 had this too.
Honestly, I don't mind day 0 DLC at all, as long as it's not something that's clearly cut from the game to leverage more money. This seems to be fine, as it's a chunk of separate content from the main story.

Fact is, there's a big period between the code being finished and sent to be printed to disc and the actual release. A period in which you still have a full set of developers, familiar with the coding/design before the dust settles on - a perfect time to make extra goodies. Don't like it? Simple : Don't buy it. It's an optional extra for people who want more.

EDIT : I'm also going to guess that outside of the new mission/areas, there'll be very limited interaction with the bonus squad member (Like Zaeed and Kasumi from ME2, where they were on your ship, but you couldn't talk to them directly)

No. ME2 did not have this, nor did DA:O. DA2 had pre-order bonus like that. Both Zaeed and Shale came with every fresh copy of respective game, They didn't ask You to shell out 20$ more for CE to get it.

Day-0 DLC, especially with such character (it's not some random dude we're talking about here getting added to Your team, it's significant character lore-wise), that is only available as part of CE or for additional payment is simply rip-off.
You do not punish customers that are willing to pay You for Your product by taking content away from them and forcing them to pay more for what should be in game from the start. I have nothing against project 10$, it's justified by the way big game retailers treat used copies market, but using CE's for that? That's not acceptable.

Dragon Age: Origins and Shale. It's the same thing.

The character that gets added is nothing more than a relic, it's not a pivotal part of the story and if his stasis chamber was never found the story of the game wouldn't change.

 

[Still Life]

Whoops.


Day 1 DLC in general has never bothered me. For whatever reason, I've never felt automatically entitled to all the content available on launch. I either buy it if I think it's worth the asking price or ignore it if I don't.

I find this is a point of contention for a lot of people. This DLC was announced long ago and I think it's not a stretch to say that the reaction will be divided between those who accept Bioware's statements that the DLC is not a portion of the game 'cut out' and sold separately, and those who invariably play the cynic's card.

I don't think it is too much of an issue for me either way as I have the CE pre-ordered, so I get the DLC included.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Dragon Age: Origins and Shale. It's the same thing.

No
It's
not.

Those
were
free
with
ALL
NEW
COPIES.

 

[tendaji]

Frankly I'm curious if that 'leaked script' that talks about how the Prothean would be a major plot point to the story is actually a real script. Because that's what a lot of people seem to be going on (other than Protheans being the ones who brought the races to space-faring age, like the civilization before them and so on and so forth). I'm not upset or anything, because I have the CE pre-ordered and not planning on changing that.

 

[Right Hook]

Do you know why EA does this?

Because it fucking works, that's why. People buy it.

Stop giving them money for it, and they'll stop doing it.

But-but I want it!

 

[Trekna]

Dragon Age: Origins and Shale. It's the same thing.

No
It's
not.

Those
were
free
with
ALL
NEW
COPIES.

I
CAN
TYPE
IN
CAPS
ONE
LINE
AT
A
TIME
TO
!

Boy, that made my point so much better didn't it.

It's the same thing. Physical copies of the game had Shale. Certain download copies did not.

 

[Beryl77]

The question is, will the Prothean be an important character or not. If he's going to play some part in the lore then I think that this is just horrible.
They could have done it like with Zaeed, where you get him as a squadmate when you buy a new version of the game. However, he didn't play any big part in it anyway. I still think it's bullshit and EA is overdoing it but as long as that's the case with the Prothean as well and he won't have any big part in the game, I don't care too much.

Also, I've heard from people who've read the leaked script that

Spoiler

the Prothean is going to be in the game anyway, the DLC just let's you use him as a squadmate.

It's the same thing. Physical copies of the game had Shale. Certain download copies did not.

Now this isn't true. He was available to anyone who bought a new version of Dragon Age. They did this mainly to reduce used sale games.
The Prothean squadmate on the other hand is only available to people who bought the CE or if you buy the DLC additionally.

 

[Beryl77]

Sorry about the double post.

 

[DirgeNovak]

The did the exact same thing for Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2.
What the fuck did you expect?