By Adam Smith on August 26th, 2011 at 4:07 pm.
Bah. There’s always something to grumble about. This time it’s the not entirely unexpected news that Skyrim DLC will have at least 30 days timed exclusivity on them thar three hundred and sixties. Two pieces of DLC have been announced and this mini-delay is almost the sum total of what we know about them. We don’t even know when they are released at all. It’s a timed delay to announced but undated DLC for a game that comes out on November 11th. Words on the internet speak of their size as being “substantial” so maybe it’s best that they don’t arrive too soon. After all, the game itself is rumoured to be supersubstantial and we’ll all need to get through that first. On the bright side, at least this means they are definitely confirmed for PC and we don’t have to worry that we’ve been abandoned, even temporarily, as we were made to with New Vegas.
26/08/2011 at 16:10 Stupoider says:
Not abandoned, but neglected.
26/08/2011 at 16:10 Crimsoneer says:
It’ll be rubbish anyway. First pieces of DLC always are…
26/08/2011 at 16:21 CaspianRoach says:
Dead money was pretty good.
26/08/2011 at 17:27 Prime says:
Dead Money was excellent.
26/08/2011 at 19:47 VileThings says:
Dead Money was ok at best.
26/08/2011 at 20:40 Berzee says:
Dead money was __________
26/08/2011 at 21:02 Rinox says:
Dead Money provoked differing opinions.
26/08/2011 at 21:59 The Colonel says:
♫ DLC can Fuuuuuckk Riiiiight Offffff ♫
27/08/2011 at 17:46 DigitalSignalX says:
Let me fix that for you:
♫ Zero-Day DLC can Fuuuuuckk Riiiiight Offffff ♫
26/08/2011 at 16:12 Zabinatrix says:
Well then maybe some of the worst bugs will be worked out before it reaches PC? Well, one can hope.
26/08/2011 at 18:30 Pardoz says:
Pish – this is a Bethesda game. Bugs are fixed by the PC mod community, not in-house Q&A.
26/08/2011 at 22:12 Wulf says:
It’s kind of nice that people are recognising this, now. I remember a time when people refused to admit that Bethesda games were perhaps the buggiest games on the market, despite quite sizeable, necessary, and ongoing fan patches. This is something I thought Obsidian always caught too much slack for and it baffled me, because as buggy as any Obsidian game ever was, every Bethesda game was at least a hundred times more so.
I remember in Fallout 3 where I had game-killer bugs. At least three that stopped me from completing the game. One such bug was where there was a huge section at the North-East end of the map which you couldn’t go into without the game locking up. This was fixed by modders and complained about for months before Bethesda finally (finally) did something about it. It wasn’t until their first DLC in fact that they finally fixed it. It was ridiculous. And in all my time in New Vegas I’d never had a single game killing bug like that. (There were bugs, sure, but nothing that would stop me from finishing the game.)
And there were some terrible quest bugs in Fallout 3 as well. Almost every escort mission in Fallout 3 was bugged for me near the beginning of the game’s life, with NPCs walking back and forth in a certain area and forgetting where they were supposed to go. And then there was the infamously broken Mesmetron, which Obsidian just took out of their version of the game because it was just too far gone and bugged to do anything with.
So yeah, I’m… frankly amazed to see this, because there was a time where people would swear up and down that Bethesda games were these beautifully polished gems that had nary a single bug. That’s why I’ve been so vocal in my defence of Obsidian by comparison. It’s just weird that Obsidian’s lesser, smaller scale bugs get picked up on when Bethesda’s bugs (which are massive in every game they’ve released) are on a much more noteworthy scale.
These days I just find it interesting. It is nice to see that people are waking up from their stupor about this, though. :P
26/08/2011 at 22:35 TillEulenspiegel says:
Pfft. Kids who don’t remember Daggerfall.
26/08/2011 at 22:53 Pardoz says:
Now? I’ve been bitching about this since Morrowind, when Bethesda gave up on fixing bugs and just let the mod community handle it.
The main difference I see between Bethesda and Obsidian is that Bethesda dumps the game on the market, packages a set of modding tools with it, and says “You fix it, we can’t be bothered.” Obsidian just dumps the game on the market and lets the community develop its own tools to fix it with.
26/08/2011 at 16:12 Sinnorfin says:
AT least they should shut up about DLC-s until release of vanilla…Its annoying..
26/08/2011 at 16:12 Mr_Hands says:
If this was the horrible backroom deal that needed to happen so we could get steamworks, I’m all for it.
26/08/2011 at 16:45 Kandon Arc says:
Delayed DLC and the pointless addition of steamworks to a game with no multiplayer features. I’m sorry, what did we gain from this exactly?
26/08/2011 at 18:32 Jumwa says:
We gained the loss of Games for Windows Live.
I’m not saying Steam is great, any DRM is too much DRM in my opinion. But that’s still a victory worth having.
27/08/2011 at 01:36 Kaira- says:
Wait, I don’t think Skyrim was ever going to have GfWL? It only had “Games for Windows”-thingy, which is not GfWL. So, we lost somewhat non-intrusive DRM and ‘gained’ Steamworks.
26/08/2011 at 16:14 djbriandamage says:
WTF!! My horse will be without armour for a month? Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the ponies!?
26/08/2011 at 16:15 Out Reach says:
All the time… I love fluttershy.
26/08/2011 at 19:59 thegooseking says:
Ok, now I really want to put horse armo(u)r on my forum avatar…
26/08/2011 at 16:16 pakoito says:
Unarmored horses :(
26/08/2011 at 16:17 Kdansky says:
Could they please offer to never release it at all?
27/08/2011 at 09:45 noom says:
My feelings on the matter precisely.
26/08/2011 at 16:20 povu says:
I’m okay with the Xbox 360 players being the beta testers again, like with New Vegas… Saves us from the nastiest bugs.
26/08/2011 at 16:20 Po0py says:
This is just stupid and selfish. Whatever.
26/08/2011 at 16:21 Vinraith says:
In light of Steamworks I’ll be waiting for a sale anyway, so take all the time you like Bethesda.
26/08/2011 at 16:22 CaspianRoach says:
Well I play the DLCs only after finishing the main storyline anyway, so I can wait.
26/08/2011 at 16:24 Adekan says:
Given that nearly all of the Oblivion DLC was 15-20 minutes of throwaway amateur hour content ( the only exception to this being the Knights one ) I will reserve my righteous indignation provided that they release with an editing tool of similar or greater function to the TES editor provided with Oblivion, since the modding content was leaps and bounds better than the official DLC.
26/08/2011 at 22:35 Betamax says:
Oblivion was released quite a long time ago, hell it was right when DLC first began to become what it is now really. Bethesda have obviously changed the way they go about developing it since then, much more likely we’ll see a Fallout-style model for Skyrim – fairly substantial content packs for a not insubstantial amount of moolah.
I’m just wondering whether the DLC will take us outside of Skyrim at all, and if so where. Previously it’s been expansion packs which have handled that, but who knows thesedays.
26/08/2011 at 22:41 Wulf says:
No kidding. The mods were amazing. The Deserts of Anequina, Lost Spires, Ruined-Tail’s Tale, and so many others. And all of them were also more interesting plotwise too than the official content. (This goes doubly so for Ruined-Tail’s Tale, the mod that made Oblivion worthwhile for me.)
27/08/2011 at 02:22 thebigJ_A says:
I think you have it backwards. The Knights of the Nine was the short, not-great one. Shivering Isles was on a map half as big as Cyrodiil. It brought back some of the Morrowind strangeness, too.
16/09/2011 at 00:14 Dave Mongoose says:
Adekan is referring to Horse Armor, Mehune’s Razor, the Orrery and the four hideouts. Shivering Isles was an expansion pack, not DLC :).
DLC seems to be killing the proper expansion pack, which makes me sad :(. I’d rather have another big feast of game than lots of self-contained snacks.
Morrowind is the first game I remember having DLC: ‘Siege at Firemoth’ and ‘The Helm of Tohan’ both added major side-quests to the game with unique loot at the end… and Bethesda gave them away for free! Even the smaller plug-ins they gave away like area-of-effect arrows added more than horse armor.
26/08/2011 at 16:25 Gazebo says:
Notch needs to hurry up and finish that game already.
26/08/2011 at 16:28 db1331 says:
I think you are mistaking this game for “Rolls”, the new baking sim out in November.
26/08/2011 at 16:34 lasikbear says:
You could also be confusing it with “The Eldar Strolls”, the new 40k themed walking simulator.
26/08/2011 at 16:38 Magnetude says:
No, you must be thinking of Rolled Parchments sir.
26/08/2011 at 17:12 ArcaneSaint says:
@lasikbear: or perhaps with the DLC pack, “The Eldar Strolls: Beggarfall” Which includes homeless people falling from the sky. Or the Garena-compatible multiplayer version, try to guess how they call that one.
27/08/2011 at 02:23 thebigJ_A says:
Fimion want sweet scroll! Saweeet Scwoll!
26/08/2011 at 16:25 mjig says:
Oh no! how will I survive without my extremely overpriced piece of subpar quality content?
26/08/2011 at 16:26 db1331 says:
This doesn’t bother me at all, but it’s just a dick move because they aren’t really paying for their players to play something early, they are paying to withhold content from other players for a month. Like I said though. I couldn’t give a shit. I guess I will have to explore some of the 200 hours of already available content I haven’t even looked at yet. Or I could play some free DLC made by the mod community, or maybe even try my hand at making my own.
I don’t care if the Xbox version gave me early DLC AND a blow job. I would still rather have it on PC.
28/08/2011 at 13:51 Prime says:
I dunno…a blow-job might just swing it in the X-box’s favour. You should get on that, Microsoft/Bethesda. And no ten-penny hookers, either. My peen deserves something classy.
26/08/2011 at 16:26 ZIGS says:
Gentlemen, I’m from game studio XYZ and I’m here to announce that the upcoming announcement of the temporarily delay of the patch for the not yet dated DLC for our next game has been delayed. Have a good day
26/08/2011 at 16:31 aeromorte says:
pff as long as we get mod tools there can be no dlc crap
26/08/2011 at 16:44 Moonracer says:
I’ve come to accept that with Bethesda games, I will simply buy the game a 2nd time a year later in GOTY version. Since that will include all of the DLC. By then I’m excited for all the DLC And a 2nd playthrough.
26/08/2011 at 16:50 applecup says:
lolfreepublicity
26/08/2011 at 16:59 StingingVelvet says:
Sadly this has proven effective for them in the past, though I think mainly against the PS3. Not sure why they bother doing this against the PC. Chances are if you are wanting the PC version you are going to get the PC version anyway, since it is substantially better.
27/08/2011 at 00:20 malkav11 says:
I hate that they do it at all, but I especially hate that they do it to their own goddamned platform. Because yes, Microsoft, Windows is a platform of yours. Remember that? Remember how you keep saying you’re going to support PC gaming? Well, here’s a hint: you don’t fucking do that by forcing timed fucking exclusives that exclude the PC.
26/08/2011 at 17:04 Johnny Lizard says:
Could “supersubstantial” be shortened to just “stantial” or does that not make sense?
26/08/2011 at 17:09 Magnetude says:
Stantial sounds right. You’ll be whelmed by the amount of content on offer!
26/08/2011 at 17:28 frenz0rz says:
Obligatory “this is why I come to RPS” post.
26/08/2011 at 17:04 Alphabet says:
Have they patched F:NV into a playable state yet? I am (quite unsarcastically) really looking forward to that game.
26/08/2011 at 17:05 CMaster says:
I got FO:NV at Christmas and hit no major bugs.
Practically, it won’t get fixed much more from this point on I think.
26/08/2011 at 17:32 Prime says:
I’ve found a couple of tweaks that let you play the game more or less smoothly but I still get random crashes to desktop. Not every 20 minutes like before, more one every three play sessions.
Beautiful game; unstable engine like a crazy ex.
26/08/2011 at 18:10 Alphabet says:
It’s such a shame, and a disgrace for Bethesda. They sold a lot of copies – you’d think they’d make sure the game worked perfectly eventually. (Ideally on day zero, but really, they should have a stable engine and quests fixed within a year after release, no?)
26/08/2011 at 18:59 TillEulenspiegel says:
they should have a stable engine and quests fixed within a year after release, no?
Seeing as Oblivion still requires the fan patch to fix hundreds of little bugs…no. Wouldn’t ever expect that from Bethesda or their licensees.
26/08/2011 at 17:27 LQ says:
I wonder how much Microsoft paid ZeniMax for those 30 days.
26/08/2011 at 17:41 CMaster says:
I suspect nothing in cash. I think that is true for most of the exclusivity deals. What MS do appear to do is offer marketing, possibly both in terms of advertising spend, but also promotion through XBL.
26/08/2011 at 17:28 Pointless Puppies says:
I had already decided against buying it day 1 when Howard smugly and shamelessly admitted it was a straight up console port, coupled with the fact that it’ll be $60 on launch for absolutely no reason. Delaying DLC because Microsoft bribed them to only supports my decision ;)
27/08/2011 at 03:21 Mattressi says:
Son of a bitch – I missed that one. I just looked it up then and, sure enough, Howard says that they develop it for the console and that then “porting to PC is usually not too bad actually”. He also mentions accessibility…so far Skyrim’s sounded good, so maybe “accessible” won’t be synonymous with “it’s CoD, but with swords and magic”.
I dunno, that’s really ruined it for me now. Definitely not a day 1 purchase any more: I’ll wait a few weeks and see what others say about it.
26/08/2011 at 17:31 frenz0rz says:
I accidentally read that as ‘Skyrim delayed’.
One minor heart attack later, I realised my error and sighed a thousand sighs of relief.
26/08/2011 at 17:48 Jahandar says:
It’s a shame the PC has to suffer because of the petty sibling rivalries of the toy systems.
26/08/2011 at 18:56 Jumwa says:
I think Microsoft considers the PC in direct competition with it as well, so I don’t think even with the PS3 out of the picture they’d stop sabotaging PC releases of games.
26/08/2011 at 19:46 Pointless Puppies says:
@Jumwa:
Indeed. Goes “perfectly” in line with Microsoft’s “we totally give a shit about the PC now, guys! Listen to us!” line they keep feeding us.
26/08/2011 at 20:42 Jumwa says:
“We’re totally here to help PC gaming! Now here… we paid these awesome developers to release their hotly anticipated titles with Games for Windows Live built in!” Evil cackling ensues.
27/08/2011 at 00:01 Nick says:
its funny how often they wheeled that one out isn’t it?
28/08/2011 at 13:55 Prime says:
If by “funny” you mean “pathetic, insulting and annoying”, then yes.
26/08/2011 at 18:17 Bennyjh says:
meh… mods > dlc
26/08/2011 at 19:05 Sidorovich says:
I just hope they better integrate the DLC into the main game this time around – no more quest pop up windows or doors that remained locked a la The Orrery.
26/08/2011 at 20:17 Alphabet says:
Yeah, that was offensive and stupid. It’s hard to come up with good mini-expansion-packs, which is what I think a DLC should be. Borderlands managed it beautifully. Too often it’s just extra content that adds nothing. (Though even expansion packs can fail, of course – I hated the Shivering Isles, which felt underpopulated, random, and trite to me, and I never even finished Bloodmoon or Tribunal despite playing through Morrowind maybe eight times….).
26/08/2011 at 20:50 benvardboy says:
My experience of mods for Oblivion haven’t been great (as in I broke two copies of the game trying to get them to work) so instead of saying “mods>dlc” I will say “meh, at least the DLC should be less buggy when it comes to me”.
26/08/2011 at 21:01 pipman3000 says:
At least 50% of the DLC won’t be sex, fetish, and nude mods*.
*There’s also home and cheat mods but Bethesda probably has that covered**
**oh wow a free houses with the frikkin cure for vampirism.
26/08/2011 at 21:04 pipman3000 says:
“Put some huge tits on that argonian and call it a day” – TESNexus.com
26/08/2011 at 21:53 benvardboy says:
@pipman3000 Too true mate. Too f**king true.
“There is over 9,001,000 modders in the Oblivion community, yet no one but TotalBiscuit told me I would spend the next two days modding it, then not playing the mods because they broke the game. Or made everyone look like they came from a perverted anime.” – Benvardboy
27/08/2011 at 00:03 Nick says:
“I will say “meh, at least the DLC should be less buggy when it comes to me”.
You.. you are familiar with Bethesda right?
27/08/2011 at 00:19 benvardboy says:
@Nick Of course I know the DLC will be buggy, but the DLC will be that little less buggier for me.
26/08/2011 at 21:35 elnalter says:
wasn’t going to buy this game anyways
26/08/2011 at 22:26 vecordae says:
The game looks interesting, but I’ve had a really hard time with the Elder Scrolls series. I love the way the games look on paper, but then I fire one up and find the games permeated with a bland sort of clunkiness in both characterization and mechanics. I’ll probably nab Skyrim on sale at some point down the line, but feel little need to buy it day 1.
That said, if the DLC being XBL-only for a few days is good for Bethesda’s bottom line in the long run, then that’s fine. If waiting 30 days for an optional piece of content I don’t care about means their next good game comes out a bit sooner, I’m all for it.
26/08/2011 at 23:24 PoipleOne says:
This constant stream of DLC nonsense is why I’m buying the GOTY edition for sale in 16 months. I deeply enjoyed the DLC for Fallout 3, and the stuff they put out for Oblivion was fun, but I’m not going to keep the game installed for 8 months after I’ve beaten it to fire it up again and play through a couple hours of content every 1.5 months. I’ll get New Vegas later this year for that same reason.
28/08/2011 at 14:03 Prime says:
This is something that isn’t said enough around here. That you only spend so much time with a game before moving on. To be expected to come back to a game for a few hour’s worth of content a few months down the line is really bizarre. Not to mention by that point you’ve lost a lot of the immediate familiarity you had with the game’s locations and mechanics. Also, doesn’t boredom set in after a while, even with your most beloved games?
I just finished New Vegas and was lucky enough to pick up the current three bits of DLC in a steam sale. I’ve finished those but now I learn there’s a fourth and final piece on the way. Having slogged through 70 hours of gaming I’m really looking forward to getting to the end and uninstalling. Not that I haven’t had fun – it’s been tremendous – but there’s only so much of my life I want to give to any game, and this is starting to really push at those boundaries. God knows how it must be for people who bought the game on release.
Yet another argument for GOTY editions, I guess.
26/08/2011 at 23:56 Wozzle says:
DLC before the game is even out.
>.>
27/08/2011 at 02:17 thebigJ_A says:
Well, I guess that’s one small plus for people like me who’s crap PCs can’t run this, and so are forced to play it on 360. It’s pretty stupid, though.
I’d still rather wait the thirty days and have access to mods :(
27/08/2011 at 07:54 virtualmatrix258 says:
And this is why I am not buying the game until its $20 on Steam. Not paying full price to give a company that neglects PC my money. I’ll give them that small percentage during a sale, nothing more. Enjoy your console crowd.