By Alec Meer on October 21st, 2011 at 3:45 pm.
To all things, DLC. It’s the law. The law of slightly tiring microtransactions. This law includes Robot Entertainment’s impressively ridiculous Orcs Must Die, which is due two globs of DLC in the not too distant. The first of these is Artifacts of power, which launches for $2.49 next Tuesday. I could describe them to you, but I have a headache and need a lie down/hug, so I’m going to show them to you instead. No, don’t weep for me. I’ll live. If you can really call it living.
“Once downloaded, the Artifacts of Power will appear in your spellbook and can be used on any level in the game,” you filthy great CHEAT.
$2.49 you say… I’d prefer more maps but sod it.
BTW I’m sorry to hear you’re poorly Alec, I’d hug you but I don’t want to catch whatever ague you have.
Also that would be the second time I’ve /hugged you and tongues would wag! Imagine the wagging!
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Agreed, more levels would have been better. As it is, I’m not interested since I’ve already beaten the game.
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Not disagreeing on maps, but what it also needs is new enemy types, so that each trap has a specific enemy or enemy group that it is stronger against, or at least, presents the illusion of that property. “Wallhuggers” would be a very simple enemy type that would obviously favor certain traps or layouts.
Then it needs new modes, especially a mode with no shooting, or extremely limited shooting, so your trap placement is more important. Then it needs a infinite money mode, perhaps with a numerical limitation on traps. Then it needs an endless mode, with numerical trap upgrades that work in that mode only.
All of these kinds of things require design work, not art work.
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“All of these kinds of things require design work, not art work.”
Design, yes. AND GREAT HUGE BIG SWATHES OF CODE.
Also, your aforementioned wallhuggers need art. As do the new levels built to accomodate them.
I don’t really have a point, except “It’s not really as simple as you seem to think it is.”
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The kobolds seem to like hugging the walls, the best uses of the grinder IMO is catching the little bastards before they trigger your other (more-or-less ineffective against them) traps.
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Yeah, I was hoping to see a few new levels coming with the new weapons.
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All those new game modes sound like pretty simple tweaks, actually. Should be easy enough to impose certain restrictions.
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DLC already?
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My thoughts exactly. I’ve removed this from my buy pile now. There is too much to play as it is, let alone things that want to rip me off with DLC.
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If the game is *done*, what’s the harm?
If it doesn’t look interesting, don’t buy it. It’s clearly an optional extra rather than something important.
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It’s also on the Xbox 360, meaning it probably had a nice long certification process. I rather think they had the time.
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I’ve been enjoying Orcs Must Die far more than I expected. Not sure if I’ll buy this pack, but I’d happily shell out for more maps.
Maybe some challenge modes, too. Like an endless survival mode, or one where it chooses all your traps for you, a la Plants Vs Zombies post-campaign.
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How about they fix the keybinding issue, then we can talk DLC.
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Maybe they just forgot:
“Hey guys, how’s the keybinding GUI coming?”
“Zero bug reports regarding keybinding so far, must work perfectly.”
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That’s suppost to come in a patch which’ll land early next week.
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I’m not convinced. Why would I want to replay al levels with different traps/abilities? There’s plenty of that in the game allready.
Not sure if i want to support Robot entertainment any further eitherway. They might make something like AoE Online again. :p
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mm the traps and the alchemy things look nice, but those bracers are ridiculous.
Also, I’ll buy maps not these.
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DLC managed to alter my buying habits. Now I only buy stuff on the complete version one year after it launches and probably with a heavy discount on Steam.
Thanks DLC!!!
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I wish I had the strength to do that with Arkham City. I do it for literally *every* other game, but unfortunately I simply must have it as soon as possible. Give me some credit for getting it for £20 on PC though. I can’t wait a year, but I can wait a month.
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Knowing that it will be much less of a pain in the arse to buy it later in addition to it being significantly cheaper rather encourages one to wait.
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I think these companies would benefit form releasing a fully rounded compelling package that gets people thinking ‘wow, they threw everything at it!’ and charging for that, rather than holding back and then trying to fiddle away at our purses for an extra couple of quid and get the rep for being yet another game people aren’t sure about buying, made even less sure by the prospect of this automatic, mindless DLC drain. They make more money and earn a good reputation by being straight with the customer.
Making people think you’re just another greedy developer isn’t good sense.
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This looks to me like “hey we made this cool stuff but couldn’t fit it into the base game so we polished it up and released it as DLC”. Your argument might ring true if they chopped out a few levels of the game and released them right away as paid DLC. As it is, calling developers “greedy” for trying to sell something seems pretty silly.
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I like the heXen reference with the green flasks.
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Not to mention the Gauntlets of the Necromancer from Heretic!
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OMD, so a buy for me. If only to support the devs!
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I’m halfway through the Nightmare maps, and there are still 10 traps I never used. I’m not sure I need more of them.
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Seems rather expensive for what’s offered, really. I’d rather pay a bit more and have, say, two new modes, three new maps and this. As it is I’ll probably wait for the Steam discount.. next year’s summer.
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I was thinking of buying the game, but this? dlc so soon? this just turned me off.
no buy here, thanks a lot.
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Don’t be silly. The game offers fantastic bangs for your bucks and is well worth a purchase. It’s not like they ripped out a bunch of levels and are trying to sell them now. It’s a tiny very inexpensive DLC most likely consisting of stuff they created after the game went gold.
Buy the game, ignore the DLC and be happy. No windmills to fight here.
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You may call it silly, but I had the same reaction. I do so more and more these days: an announcement of paid DLC means I cancel my preorder (or just delete the game from my wishlist). Microtransactions are poison to a good gaming experience for the frugal gamer, and I will not support it.
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Actually, i heard it gets boring really fast, that’s why i was on the fence.
Stuff they created after the game went gold sounds like the perfect bonus to give to those who bought their game instead of pirated it. that is the difference between a new company who want to treat their costumers as costumers and not as walking wallets.
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I already own Orcs Must Die! and have enjoyed it a lot. This said, I would not have bought the game if I knew of such petty attempts to syphon cash from the customers. It seems that some companies never learned from Bethesda’s mistakes and must make their own Horse Armour. Other than Rockstar and Bethesda (as ironic as it is), I do not believe companies ‘get’ DLC.
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if you don’t like dlc then don’t buy jesus christ quit being such entitled babies
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And there we have “entitled”, the non-word of 2010.
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Well, I guess you’re entitled to your opinion.
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There’s always a tit in entitled! :p
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So this isn’t the extreme weight-loss fantasy game “Orcs Must Diet”?
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I want an infinite mode, or 100 wave mode, that gets progressively harder.
I always get to have all the cool expensive stuff in the end, and then… Well then it ends.
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