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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?
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.
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;
So I can create a few hours of extra fun from Bioshock for myself and the whole world.
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
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?
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.
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?
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