There shouldn't be day 1 DLC in Portal 2

[NightlyNews]

About a week ago everyone was on about the day 1 hats and animations in Portal 2. The idea was almost instantly shut down by the community as these superficial things aren't necessary and we shouldn't ***** about them.

I for the most part agreed. However, I just got around to beating Portal 2 and am now pretty pissed off with the store because it stole time from other areas of the game.

Overall I'll be honest I was a little disappointed with Portal 2. Didn't seem incredibly polished and always felt when I got stuck it wasn't because the puzzle was difficult. More because the set pieces of the puzzle were disguised as to better fit the storyline. I'm a huge proponent of function before graphics. Edit: If you stop reading here please don't just link experienced points. I've read it it's very well written, but I obviously don't agree.

I could go into many specific reasons as to what I didn't think was polished, but instead will give you one good example (SPOILERS BELOW DO NOT READ)

Huge part of the game. As you are about to encounter Wheatley you are pushed to his platform and crushers by a box instead of a faith plate. If you remember back to the trailers its actually an original faith plate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GUT78G7gDI). When this alpha faith plate shoots you over it doesn't even move or seem to be animated in any way and it kind've bothered me as it didn't seem to make sense. What bothers me is this could've been animated or replaced with a new face plate by a graphics artist (you know the ones who were doing pay for animations and hats).

I have no problem with day 1 dlc. But, the game should be polished to a shine if you can't wait for the game to be out a week before putting up that content.

Edit: A lot of people are disagreeing with me. Which was expected I had already heard most peoples opinion on the subject, just wondered if anyone had an argument against some specific cases. Overall Portal 2 is still a great game you should buy. At the same time it's the only valve game I've ever bought and immediately after beating wish I had waited for it to go on sale. My gripes are small, but whatever I reserve my right to ***** about how gaming is heading to microtransactions. I don't like how pointless achievement points have replaced the skins as a reward for doing interesting or difficult tasks did in old games.

 

[Zechnophobe]

About a week ago everyone was on about the day 1 hats and animations in Portal 2. The idea was almost instantly shut down by the community as these superficial things aren't necessary and we shouldn't ***** about them.

I for the most part agreed. However, I just got around to beating Portal 2 and am now pretty pissed off with the store because it stole time from other areas of the game.

This is false, so the rest of what you have to say is invalid.

You need to think of a game machine as more than just a crank, where you turn it for long enough and you get a game out. And if you turn it longer, you get a better game instead.

In reality, game companies have lots of different people working on them, on different things. Lots of different cranks. And if some aren't being turned, they aren't doing anything.

Once all the art assets for the game are basically finalized, there is a long lag time where marketing, maybe some last minute QA, and other post production things are going on. The guys who make cute little hats, or animate gestures do not WORK on the ARG. They have nothing to do.

Might as well give them a few extra spins by allowing people to buy some extra content they create.

 

[FlashHero]

Lawls you think the store took time away from the main game....anyways a faith plate would have been offsetting there...WHY..because then it would be the ONLY faith plate that is sideways in the game..that's why it is a wall instead of a faith plate.

EDIT: i lied sort of..there are sideways ones but they were vertical sideways and not horizontal ones which would be the one needed for that spot.

 

[bob1052]

The game didn't have bad Day 1 DLC, in fact it is a significant upgrade over what EA has been doing to spark the name Day 1 DLC.

If you think otherwise you are an idiot and don't understand what the bad kind of Day 1 DLC is.

 

[The Blue Mongoose]

Why does it matter if it's a wall or a faith plate?

I thought it was a wall because they're generally what you see the AIs moving around. Like the walls are their hands/limbs. Plus, that makes it all the more unexpected when it shoves you along.

Anyway, that doesn't mean the game wasn't polished, it means they used a wall for a purpose other than being a wall.

And yes, the puzzles in Portal 2 were not as brilliant as the puzzles in Portal. But you know why? Because Portal was a puzzle game with a tiny bit of story. Portal 2 is a story game with some puzzles.

 

[Hiphophippo]

This is false, so the rest of what you have to say is invalid.

You need to think of a game machine as more than just a crank, where you turn it for long enough and you get a game out. And if you turn it longer, you get a better game instead.

In reality, game companies have lots of different people working on them, on different things. Lots of different cranks. And if some aren't being turned, they aren't doing anything.

Once all the art assets for the game are basically finalized, there is a long lag time where marketing, maybe some last minute QA, and other post production things are going on. The guys who make cute little hats, or animate gestures do not WORK on the ARG. They have nothing to do.

Might as well give them a few extra spins by allowing people to buy some extra content they create.

What this guy said. It's a failing to assume you understand the development cycle of something this large unless you are right in the middle of it. Art guys didn't have something immediately so they spent time on hats.

Sound logic. It's easy profit.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Hat: Model, texture, parent to bone. Total time: an hour, maybe two.

Why is this an issue again?

 

[NightlyNews]

Hat: Model, texture, parent to bone. Total time: an hour, maybe two.

Why is this an issue again?

How long would've it taken to replace a single bloody face plate they already had the model and texture for then!?

It was offputting enough that it made me lose immersion before an important part of the game.

 

[NightlyNews]

This is false, so the rest of what you have to say is invalid.

You need to think of a game machine as more than just a crank, where you turn it for long enough and you get a game out. And if you turn it longer, you get a better game instead.

In reality, game companies have lots of different people working on them, on different things. Lots of different cranks. And if some aren't being turned, they aren't doing anything.

Once all the art assets for the game are basically finalized, there is a long lag time where marketing, maybe some last minute QA, and other post production things are going on. The guys who make cute little hats, or animate gestures do not WORK on the ARG. They have nothing to do.

Might as well give them a few extra spins by allowing people to buy some extra content they create.

Hmm if you had finished reading it I addressed that point the graphics artists making hats could've fixed my problem. If I didn't like the level design I'm aware that they can't become a graphics artist to fix the problem. Except all of my complaints were graphical in nature. I liked level design, but thought the locations should have been streamlined and there were parts that seemed left behind from their in house beta renderings. Both complaints would be sent to the same people adding in hats (I assume for how many valve pushes out they may have separate people by now).

 

[DeadlyYellow]

How long would've it taken to replace a single bloody face plate they already had the model and texture for then!?

It was offputting enough that it made me lose immersion before an important part of the game.

Haven't played the game, so I have no clue what your beef is with this face plate.

Honestly, can't say I care too much either.

 

[MetroidNut]

I've played through the section in question three times - two of those times were in a row, an hour ago. I have never at any point noticed that the faith plate doesn't move. I'm not so sure that's a case of assets being diverted from polish to hats; seems to me that particular faith plate's animation was just an unnecessary detail, the lack of which was only noticeable to a minute number of players and bothersome to a very small percentage of them. Actually, why divert resources from more important things (for instance, making the actual in-game faith plates look good) or more profitable things (say, hats) to fix it?

And I don't think one can just assume that the guys in the Faith Plate Animation Department were also the hat-makers. It's entirely possible Valve, for example, took guys from TF2's team for the purpose of headgear creation. It would make a lot of sense, actually, given their preexisting knowledge of such matters.

And lastly, even in the unlikely event that the inclusion of hats made the game significantly worse, the guys at Valve can spend their time on whatever they want. They're a company and they have to turn a profit; they're still selling you a complete game, it just happens to come with optional head-based addons for those with promiscuous amounts of disposable income.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8834-Experienced-Points-DLC-Again.2

Read number 4. Shamus says it better than I could, but the point is: little bugs and texture errors like this happen in every game. The DLC had nothing to do with it. If you want to be angry at DLC, that's your prerogative, but actually come up with a legitimate reason first.

 

[NightlyNews]

How long would've it taken to replace a single bloody face plate they already had the model and texture for then!?

It was offputting enough that it made me lose immersion before an important part of the game.

Haven't played the game, so I have no clue what your beef is with this face plate.

Honestly, can't say I care too much either.

Basically what if in a random map on tf2 the scout had the nail gun he did in their beta shots instead of his scattergun. Would seem out of place. What if you then knew they wasted resources on hats rather than polishing this easy fix.

 

[NightlyNews]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/8834-Experienced-Points-DLC-Again.2

Read number 4. Shamus says it better than I could, but the point is: little bugs and texture errors like this happen in every game. The DLC had nothing to do with it. If you want to be angry at DLC, that's your prerogative, but actually come up with a legitimate reason first.

I understand his points, but even he emphasizes the separation of game development. A lot of polishing actually comes from the graphical department. Go look at their early videos they changed how faith plates look a couple times and the shield wall things as well.

If this was made by any other company I wouldn't mind it at all. But, even though I have no problem with the mann co store in tf2 and in fact love it because it has attracted a lot of development time to an old game. Valve has started to prioritize monetization over polish. Which I expect from everyone, but valve.

I see it in their desire to throw multiplayer in all their games and including shops in all their games.

Portal 2 is a great game, but coming from one of my favorite developers I just left it underwhelmed. Rather than spending resources on making a truly great game they seemed to overemphasize playtest dumbing down things, advertising and the item shop. Although the items themselves are pretty quick to make. The infrastructure for the source items is a bloody mess and your lying to yourself if you think it was easy to implement. It took them several months to perfect it in tf2.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

And yes, the puzzles in Portal 2 were not as brilliant as the puzzles in Portal. But you know why? Because Portal was a puzzle game with a tiny bit of story. Portal 2 is a story game with some puzzles.

Muffin for Yahtzee reference

That last faith plate thing did bother me a bit....but after having Wheatley spend three minutes trying to convince me to willingly jump down a deadly pit, I got over it.

 

[NightlyNews]

Lawls you think the store took time away from the main game....anyways a faith plate would have been offsetting there...WHY..because then it would be the ONLY faith plate that is sideways in the game..that's why it is a wall instead of a faith plate.

EDIT: i lied sort of..there are sideways ones but they were vertical sideways and not horizontal ones which would be the one needed for that spot.

Remember the level where you stop the laser and then replace it with an aimed one to move the laser. Afterwards you hit one sideways from the floor and two three side by side layered wall aerial faith plates that send you sideways.

They definitely had a model for sideways faith plates.

 

[KeyMaster45]

If you turn the camera to face the plate that launches you to wheatley at the end of that little trip you will see that it does indeed to a bumper animation. It's also not a box, it's an airlock panel. If it bothers you so much just imagine it's because wheatley's an idiot and thought it would be a good idea to use that instead of a faith plate. I mean damn; how do you even know that's something they accidentally left in there? Did you raid Gabe Newell's garbage or something and find a memo that states "Hey guys we forgot to remove that thing from right before chapter 9".

Not polished? Dude did we play different games? That game was fricking pristine from my point of view. You're also waaay late to the whining party, take it to the Valve forums I'm sure they'd love to hear your opinion on how a fricking panel you see for about 10 seconds of the game time ruined EVERYTHING for you. How the hell does the store detract from the game? I didn't even know where it was until I finished the single player campaign and I started digging around in main menu.

TL;DR: grow up and stop crying over petty things like vanity items for multiplayer because you've got some niggling feeling that such a tiny thing somehow affected the game.

 

[Jordi]

I don't like this DLC either, but that's just because I don't like any DLC that was conceived of before a game is launched. It's not the worst DLC put into a game by a long shot, but that gets offset that this was done by Valve. One of the few developers that have such a pristine reputation that you wouldn't expect this from them.

It is incredibly naive of people if they think that (almost) no time was spent on making this. It might look simple, but that's the case with a lot of things in software development. Trust me, you need way more than two hands to count the number of manhours that went into this. In addition to making the hats themselves, code had to be written for equipping and displaying the hats, and the store itself obviously needed to be programmed as well. All of that also needs to be tested.

Maybe they didn't spend that much time on it, but obviously multiple people worked on this for multiple days. Now, it's possible that those people were done with their other duties and that they didn't really have anything else to do. I wonder how they handled that situation before DLC existed. Did they just gave those people time off? Fire them? Make them work on a different game? I really don't know, but it seems more likely to me that maybe they spent that extra time polishing their work (nothing is ever perfect).

tl;dr: Compared to the development time of the rest of the game, it probably didn't take that long to whip up the hat store, but you can bet it's less negligible than some people would have you believe. That time could have been spent on (even) more polish.
I guess it's also about the kind of attitude that you communicate to your customers. You can say 'as soon as we're "done" (more or less) we're going to develop other things that you have to pay extra for if you want them', or you can say 'nothing's ever perfect, but we're going to spend every "extra" time we have in getting closer to that goal'.

 

[viranimus]

People are still confusing the term Downloadable CONTENT and Downloadable Addons?

Really, how many threads has there already been to explain the difference between the two now? There was no CONTENT on day 1. Content indicates extended gameplay such as more puzzles, Extra narrative, Extra fights. Was any of that available on day 1? No, it was addon features like skins and hats that extend the game experience in no way shape or form.

I personally have no interest in portal, But it irks me to distraction that people cannot seemingly get the difference of two completely different and unrelated things, even after its been said here alone at least a dozen times by as many different people.

So Ill be the next to say this... the arguments about "It was wrong to have day 1 DLC in portal 2" are completely incorrect and invalid because there was no Downloadable content.

Now can we put this to rest, and perhaps focus on ANYTHING else?