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Bioshock Downloadable Content to Increase Replay
Instead of expanding the story or adding additional content, Ken Levine's goal with DLC for Bioshock is to increase the replayability factor. 1up reports: "'Diablo II, to me, was a great model for an expansion, because it enhanced the original game, but also extended the game, too. I'm not a really big fan of expanding things just by linearly adding to the experience, adding a new campaign, as much as I am of enhancing the original experience and adding replayability to that experience,' said Levine in a post-release interview in the latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine. 'I think that certainly BioShock's combat experience is great, but it could be broader. I'm a little more confused as far as how to expand the narrative experience.'" He goes on to suggest some plasmids, cut during development, might see their way back into the game. Otherwise, not a lot of detail available on what 'adding replayability' might mean.
Big Daddy Telekinesis Football.
from reading the rather pathetic "article", is that they're looking for someway to get you to pay more but they aren't really sure what yet. From all accounts, it's a good game on its own that simply doesn't lend to an expansion. It's pretty pathetic when they feel like they have to muck it up with crap like this.
And as a quick aside rant, downloadable content, the newest buzzword for hacks, maps and mods, is getting a bit out of hand. I understand Microsoft's desire to give all content value, because they make money off every sale. At a more base level, even as a traditional PC gamer who is used to a decade of free downloads for my games I can certainly concede that some addon content is worth paying for. But when developers start stretching for ways to sell you trivial additions to a game it's getting a bit out of hand. What happened to the philosophy of giving a game and its community longevity through developer support?
Besides the more plasmids that was mentioned in the article, you could add a few gameplay modes and/or achievements to get people to play it more.
... not the things I mentioned)
eg, a speed game (beat the game in (x) time); change it so death backs up to the last time you passed a chamber; beat the game without any deaths; beat the game w/out using any weapon other than the wrench (which makes it VERY difficult to take down a big daddy if you're trying to play w/ no deaths), play w/out the research camera bonuses; play w/out the ability to hack.
Now, would I pay for this? Probably not. (I say 'probably' as there might be something _really_ cool that they come up with, but I don't know what it would be
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It's probably to address the one bulletpoint that Bioshock didn't aim to hit (and rightfully so): Multiplayer.
Remember, Deus Ex was originally a single player game that got MP added in as a patch. I don't see the need for it, but if it could potentially help them sell another million copies of a "GOTY" edition then I'm sure someone up in management is howling for it.
I was disappointed in the replay value of Bioshock. I just didn't feel compelled to rerun the game with a different set of plasmids; the choices I made were almost all based on the strenght level at a particular time and my personal style, so replaying it wouldn't have changed much for me without seeing my style change significantly (one of the reasons I hated the randomized plasmids portion of the game.) I'm unsure of how much new plasmids would add to the game.
On the other hand, I've replayed Episode 2 twice (once for the commentary alone) and Portal 4 times (not including small section plays.) Partly, this might be due to the size of the games, but I also think it says something about the nature of the game design. Perhaps Bioshock is better off releasing bonus maps (with the plasmid outtakes) rather than trying to broaden the current game's combat. Perhaps they could include new, insight-filled "pda plotlines" in them as well.
Demented But Determined.
1. Explosion Plasmid- The games got a decent physics set up. But why only let the grenade launcher have the fun?
2. Rapture- The place is huuuuuge based on the opening scene. Lots of places like high-rises, were never fully touched. Let us fully explore it.
3. Big Daddies- I thought one of the most enjoyable experiences was fighting those things. I always relished these fights as I quickly surveyed my surroundings for the best battle plan. Give us more scenarios which to fight these things, which leads me to....
4. Environment- Rapture actually made me consider where i was going to run during a fight. As most fps'ers can attest (I'm looking at you Halo), you just duck, run, turn, kill. Bioshock's environment made me run to where I'd best be able to take the foes down, not simply hide. I'm not just running. I'm looking for water, or leading them away from water when I set them on fire. Give us more scenarios to exploit with plasmids(see #2 if your having trouble).
5.Story- Perhaps put the character into the role of a resident who didn't give in to the plasmid rush and is trying to get out. Remember those signs "Let this end! Let us Ascend!"? Now, they've gotta give into the plasmids they watched destroy rapture in order to escape...wow. that's actually not a bad idea.
6. Those "minigames" got pretty damn annoying pretty quick. Every hackable device has the same puzzle setup. Once you hacked every device type once, you have seen the setup for every minigame. It doesn't differ, except in the minor ways you solver it. Give us some alternate minigames or cut the whole experience out.
7. Optional: Multiplayer. Everyone and their mom has a multiplayer option now adays. Bioshock doesn't need it in my opinion, but then again, with the plasmids, you've got a pretty interesting setup.
8.Ummm....more plasmids?- The plasmid balance in the game was pretty neat I thought, so good that I was never thinking "Man, I wished they had made a plasmid." But with new scenarios and setups, I'm sure some ideas will come.
Bioshock is a pretty awesome game. There doesn't need to be a bunch of tweaks and adjustments to make it a game that you'd want to play. That said, even playing through it three times, you've gone through most of the scenarios the developers had in mind when they setup the level.
import system.cool.Sig;
"From all accounts, it's a good game on its own that simply doesn't lend to an expansion. It's pretty pathetic when they feel like they have to muck it up with crap like this.
Why is this an issue for you? Amazingly enough, you're not forced to buy any downloadable content that comes to be. If you don't think it's worthwhile, the world will merrily spin along its way if you choose not to buy it. Your game will remain pristine, with none of the mucking up that you dislike.
"Looking for someway to get you to pay more but they aren't really sure what yet."
A video game company what wants your money, thinks downloadable content might be successful, but is still just in the "thinking about it" stage?
Say it isn't so.
You're the same AC that posted in the Portal thread yesterday huh? Anyways, you have some valid points. Not being able to play a single-player game offline is ridiculous. But its not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. Steam usually updates fairly quickly(with an average connection), and I pretty much always have an active Internet connection running... I would go out on a limb and say that your points are a non-issue for the typical user. Plus, you're missing out on some really fantastic games.
So I can create a few hours of extra fun from Bioshock for myself and the whole world.
One of the complaints about the original game that I'm aware of is that the FOV is not user-adjustable, hence the game experience is exactly the same on a widescreen monitor as it is on a traditional 4:3 monitor. For a while, at least, there was a minor hue and cry about this among the dualhead enthusiasts and their ilk. Although I think the game currently plays fine on my widescreen monitor, it might be interesting to add content for WS and multihead players, such as a FOV adjuster, additional diagnostics (e.g. map stays visible on second monitor), and subtle enhancements to ensure that any improvements don't break the game experience. For example, if you expand the field of view, you want to make sure hidden enemies don't spawn in plain sight.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I'm not really sure it's the X-Box-isation that's the problem here. To my mind, many of the problems with Bioshock (which is still a very good game) are mirrored in one of this year's earlier releases - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl (which from now on I'm just calling "Stalker").
Unlike Bioshock, Stalker was PC only, but when I think about the ways in which Bioshock falls short of System Shock 2, Stalker parallels it absolutely.
You highlight perhaps the biggest problem, namely the lack of any real need to select a "path" for your character. In both games, you basically just grab the best guns you can and as much ammo for them as you can, max out your upgrades (but don't worry if you make the wrong choice, you can revisit this whenever you want) and don't worry too much about shaping your character in the long run.
To my mind, the root of the problem lies in the fact that both games decided to eschew the idea of any kind of xp system, ostensibly on the grounds that xp reduces immersion. As evidence against this argument, I'd present Deus Ex. The lack of an xp system seriously reduces the incentive to explore, particularly once you know you've completed your arsenal. In Deus Ex, I did one playthrough for the plot and then went back and obsessively explored every corner of every level. In Bioshock, I just can't be bothered - I know I picked up all the guns and plasmids and frankly, by the time I reached the last boss on a second playthough, I'd be no better off than I was first time around. In Stalker, after the first 2 hours, I realised there was just no point in doing sidequests (of which there are no end), because they generally gave me no more ammo and health than I would use in completing them and didn't advance the plot at all.
Consoles have had some great games with vast amounts of depth. Simply blaming the existence of a console port for a game's limitations is a little simplistic.
I like how the summary for the article was about the same length as the article.
In other news, I'm sure when Levine says he's not "interested" in adding a new campaign or whatever it's just justification for reintroducing minimal material that was cut from the game and charging for it. We already know Bioshock 2 is greenlighted and I doubt he was hemming and hawing in that board meeting. I might sound negative about this but thats mostly because of the disingenuous way that the information is presented. I actually think its kind of interesting that all of the cut material of yesteryear has become bonus content. I wonder if our ancestors who took breaks from clubbing dinosaurs to watch the Wizard of Oz would want to see a Making Of feature or if that would taint the experience for them.
Actually, Steam has an offline mode, where you can play your *gasp* offline games. A connection is only required for updates, and to activate the game initially.
From the article: "There's no multiplayer and the storyline doesn't lend itself to simply dropping in additional "levels.""
It doesn't? Rapture is an entire underwater city. Certainly it would be an easy matter to let the bathysphere go to additional locations, each with a self-contained storyline.
One might as well say that the Diablo II storyline didn't lend itself to simply dropping in additional "levels"... until Act 5 got added.
Is anyone worried that with these incremental additions to games, that the original game will get smaller and less detailed?
Or
Do you think that it'll raise the quality of games, because if they're not good no one will buy the increments?
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
Yes. As far as I'm concerned, the copy protection renders the game unplayable, since I can't purchase it, and I won't "rent" it. Instead of focusing on "replayability", perhaps they should work on "playability".
Well, you learn something you don't care about every day.
He's not the only one. Bioshock didn't work for me either. But I don't have any sort of moral problem with SecuROM. In my case, it's a technical problem. SecuROM simply does not work. No error message of any sort, no helpful information. The demo just won't start. It's because the SecuROM install failed. Silently.
Game developers are the people who should care about this, because they decide whether to include extra copy protection or not. The Steam copy protection was enough for Valve and their games, but not for Bioshock. To the Bioshock developers, and others like them, I ask: is SecuROM worth it? If it is, then the total benefit ($) must be greater than the total cost ($).
The benefit of SecuROM is said to be "more sales", because fewer people can pirate the game. The costs of SecuROM are incurred in (1) customer support, (2) lost sales due to people who pirated the game because SecuROM prevented it from working, (3) lost sales due to people who didn't buy the game because of SecuROM, (4) bad publicity because of SecuROM, and (5) the SecuROM licensing fee.
Unfortunately, not all of these are quantifiable. But you can take the support costs and the licensing fee, and compare them to the sales revenue. How much piracy would SecuROM need to have prevented in order to be worthwhile? Could it actually ever be successful in doing so, given that piracy is quite easy if you are so inclined? In particular, is it worth adding an extra copy protection layer on top of the existing one in Steam?
I am sure that Sony, the makers of SecuROM, have many answers to these questions and are somehow able to quantify the piracy that SecuROM is said to prevent. I am sure that they make no mention of bad publicity and lost sales due to SecuROM: they probably say that most people don't even know what copy protection is. And that's true, but those people will still be inconvenienced by it when it doesn't work, and they'll still hassle your customer support and tell their friends. Like any snake oil vendor, Sony won't tell you that their product doesn't work. So developers keep buying it, and games don't work properly.
One day, game copy protection will be standardised by Microsoft and all the third party vendors will be forced out of business. And that'll actually be a good thing, because Microsoft simply cannot do worse than SecuROM and Starforce and all the other half-assed hackers in the copy protection business. The only nice thing I can say about SecuROM is that it was included in the demo, so at least I found out that it didn't work before I paid for the game.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
How many people without broadband internet are going to be purchasing games online through steam*, where all content is downloaded, not installed via disc?
If you don't have home internet, or it's too slow to be usable in downloading patches - that's what removable media and traditional patches would be for.
Now, if you lost your access to the internet for a good period of time, regardless of reason, then you might have a problem. Still - at least for Steam most people have a stable game already. They might not get new content, playing online multiplayer's right out, but they'll be able to play their single player games in their current condition for as long as they like.
*Or equivalent, Stardock comes to mind, though they're definitly second rate compared to valve/steam.
I don't read AC A human right
... remove the DRM and online activation scheme. So that when I want to replay BioShock years from now to recapture the rapturous experience, I won't be denied the pleasure because the activation servers have been shut down. Or when I want to replay BioShock on my laptop while on a business trip, I don't have to be online to get approval when I install the game from the original media while sitting in the terminal waiting for my late plane. Or when I played Bioshock after receiving it as a birthday gift and playing it while traveling to the visit inlaws in another state, I want to replay it when I get home and install it on my own PC.
THAT is replay value. Stupid little addons don't qualify.
Depends on the librarian, I suppose, but, if you ask first, and it's not during a particularly busy time, and you're not a dick about it, the answer to your question is "pretty much all of them."
They exist, literally, to serve, and most libraries have no problems doing something a little out of the ordinary, like letting you plug your own computer in for a short time, as long as it doesn't disrupt their normal operations too much.
Some of them even have wireless now, so you can use a laptop to access their connection without having to plug in.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I rescued the little sisters and got tons of adam from tanenbaum, about 200 for every three sisters rescued, so that leaves you short 40 compared to killing them. Still, I just can't complain about my trusty wrench, so I've not yet been tempted by that Incinerate 3. Short of icing them, nothing seems to have the stopping power of the wrench. Hell, I hit guys in the face with the grenade launcher at point-blank and they don't die. Burn them and they run around screaming and then lose their loot. Ice them and they stand still and then lose their loot. Now if the bees turned them into Eddie Izard I'd use it a lot more often.
I much prefer Valve's approach -- Lost Coast, Half-Life 2 Episodes, where I can get a completely new game.
Yeah, go ahead and add features and playability to the elements you carry over -- but also give me a new story, new areas to fight through, even a completely new environment.
To me, "enhancing replayability" is a cop-out, so they can selectively implement whatever they feel like -- a new gun here, an upgraded map there -- rather than having to replace almost everything, and upgrade what you keep.
Also: I'll pay for an expansion. I won't pay to enhance replayability.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If you're posting this to Slashdot you clearly have the means to activate your game, stop looking for a problem where there is none. Complaints about the longevity of Steam games are valid (Valve won't live forever, after all), and so are concerns about not being able to sell them like you can physical discs, but seriously, complaining about activation in this day and age?
Waaaaah, my bank is EEEVIL, I have to have a TOUCH TONE PHONE to get access to customer support! What a travesty! How much effort do you have to exert to keep a computer OFF the internet nowadays anyway, especially if it's your primary gaming machine?
You don't need to activate PS3 games, mostly because piracy isn't nearly as large a problem as it on PC.