[IceFire]

Who are you referring to?

Um....EA....the publishers of Sims 2, Spore, and RA3.

[Scooby_Doo]

It'll be in an expansion pack.

Which is one of the reasons I'm waiting....

I'm still enjoying playing sims 2 from time to time and see no reason to "upgrade" to the latest pudding.

[Pred the Penguin]

Who are you referring to?

Um....EA....the publishers of Sims 2, Spore, and RA3.

Basically half the games you see will have EA on it...

[Leeko]

On WoW:
Each expansion has increased the level cap by 10, adds a whole new continent (the game shipped with two, that's nothing to laugh at), added some game-changing element (TBC added flying mounts and heroic dungeons, WotLK added vehicles and revolutionized questing), added a PvP battleground (a new one is coming out next content patch, as well), and several new spells for each class (and often in doing so completely changing class mechanics). And, in WotLK's case, adding a whole new class. They can only add more dungeons for so long before they have to extend the level cap and add new areas; eight tiers of raid advancement would be ridiculous to pack into the space that shipped with WoW. The expansions are completely worth it, if not necessary to have been made. And before any of you bash the game's quality... I think the 11 million active subscriptions speak for themselves. To surmise, a Sims expansion pack or stuff pack does not revolutionize the gameplay as a WoW expansion does. Plus there's plenty of content patches in between to sate the appetite for new things to do, and all the while the developers' passion and dedication shines through. Blizzard is a rare case where their success has been well earned; they make their games because they love to, and not specifically for the purpose of appealing to a mass-market.

On StarCraft 2:
SC and BW had three campaigns, and around 30 missions each. SC2: Wings of Liberty (the first one) will have around 30 missions total, and the two to follow it will be the same length and add content (i.e. new units), so I don't see what there is to complain about. Essentially, they're saying that they're not making any single player content for the Zerg or Protoss until they've got the main game out the door, and that they're going to focus on one race at a time in their expansions. Would you have complained about Brood War if it was the second in a StarCraft trilogy, and its campaign was Zerg-only? And despite what anyone may say, this decision was supposed to have been due to Blizzard not wanting to compress their planned story arc into one 30 mission campaign, and knowing their developers' passion for their games, I believe them. There's also no confirmation that Heart of the Swarm or Legacy of the Void will cost as much as the first act of SC2.


On TS2:
The Sims 2 was great for a long time. Expansions were a large part of what made TS1 fun and unique. I won't deny that they improve the game and add depth. However, EA clearly ran out of ideas and started doing it just for the money and not to expand on the game. I have a hard time believing Pets and Seasons were copouts for cash - they added a great deal of realism and gameplay that The Sims had been devoid of - and most of the others were decent. But Free Time... really? As if my Sims weren't busy enough already? Like they needed hobbies? Which, by the way, cramp the wants section and in doing so end up taking over their lives if you want them to have decent aspiration levels. And Apartment Life is just plain stupid. Oh, yay, I can put them in tiny houses! I also don't approve of the half-assed attempt at recreating TS1's Makin' Magic that was thrown in, which was possibly the most fun of TS1's expansions. And this was after they started making Stuff Packs, which I see as an attempt to tap into the success of TS1's most essential expanion, Livin' Large. I can understand if they were completely original items with new uses, or better than what you could get with TS2 or expansions, but no. They're just themed packs of furniture and decor which could have easily been thrown in with the expansions (as they were in TS1). Note that Free Time and Apartment Life were both developed after EA bought Maxis.

On Spore:
The simplification and kiddie-fication of Spore aside (which Will Wright, the father of The Sims and Spore, disapproved of, and was done entirely because of EA) I don't see EA diverting from the formula that sold 100,000,000 units of TS2 and its various expansions and stuff packs. However, despite all of this, I do think it's a great game... albeit not as good as what was originally shown at GDC '05 - the Spore that was Will Wright's vision. When I get around to getting the parts pack and Galactic Adventures (which I will, when I next revisit it), I don't plan on paying for them. EA can get by without another $50, and Spore should continue to be an example of the futility of DRM.

TL;DR:
Yes, Spore is turning into "the next TS2." Long live piracy!

[Blue Lion]

I played the Sims 1 for about half a night and got tired of making sure my sim peed and ate before he missed his car for work.

[Flipside]

On WoW:
Each expansion has increased the level cap by 10, adds a whole new continent (the game shipped with two, that's nothing to laugh at), added some game-changing element (TBC added flying mounts and heroic dungeons, WotLK added vehicles and revolutionized questing), added a PvP battleground (a new one is coming out next content patch, as well), and several new spells for each class (and often in doing so completely changing class mechanics). And, in WotLK's case, adding a whole new class. So the $50 is absolutely worth it. Plus, they can only add more dungeons for so long before they have to extend the level cap and add new areas; eight tiers of raid advancement would be ridiculous to pack into the space that shipped with WoW. The expansions are completely worth it, if not necessary to have been made. And before any of you bash the game's quality... I think the 11 million active subscriptions speak for themselves. To surmise, a Sims expansion pack or stuff pack does not revolutionize the gameplay as a WoW expansion does. Plus there's plenty of content patches in between to sate the appetite for new things to do, and all the while the developer's passion and dedication shines through. Blizzard is a rare case where their success has been well earned; they make their games because they love to, and not specifically for the purpose of appealing to a mass-market.

Eve Online has also added hundreds of features and places, completely re-worked the Graphics engine to DX10 levels and has only about a tenth of the monthly income, and didn't charge a penny for those upgrades.

Blizzard makes an absolute fortune each month from WoW, there's absolutely no justification whatsoever in demanding yet more from people who are already paying for the service.

Guild Wars I can forgive, because the game itself is free, but Blizzard is, to my mind, just taking the piss.

[Akalabeth Angel]

On StarCraft 2:
SC and BW had three campaigns, and around 30 missions each. SC2: Wings of Liberty (the first one) will have around 30 missions total, and the two to follow it will be the same length and add content (i.e. new units), so I don't see what there is to complain about. Essentially, they're saying that they're not making any single player content for the Zerg or Protoss until they've got the main game out the door, and that they're going to focus on one race at a time in their expansions. Would you have complained about Brood War if it was the second in a StarCraft trilogy, and its campaign was Zerg-only? And despite what anyone may say, this decision was supposed to have been due to Blizzard not wanting to compress their planned story arc into one 30 mission campaign, and knowing their developers' passion for their games, I believe them. There's also no confirmation that Heart of the Swarm or Legacy of the Void will cost as much as the first act of SC2.

Okay, so in the above you say that the BW expansion was roughly the same length as the original game but was likely cheaper. But SC2 will have the expansions at the same price for roughly the same value as BW but it's okay???

I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo about Starcraft is anyway. Most of the fandom seems to come from the multiplayer. When the SP story has a bunch of redneck humour I'm not sure how the term "epic" can be applied to it. Epic in my opinion requires a sense of scale, Starcraft doesn't have that. Nor does SC2 by the looks of it. You play SC1 and the units are all the same size, then you cut to a cut scene and the flying Zerg are massive bombers and so forth. It's like a different story altogether. The last game for me that was truely epic is probably Freespace 2. Though there's a lot of games I haven't played.

[Leeko]

On WoW and EVE:
EVE Online has 300,000 active accounts, which is less than 1/10 the monthly income. I think that speaks for itself.
In my opinion, the reason EVE expansions were free is because no one would want to pay $50 for an expansion to a game of lesser quality to WoW. Content patches have also done much of what you praise EVE for doing; patch 3.0 (the WotLK patch) overhauled the graphics and added achievements, and every content patch since and before (with the exception of the veeeery early ones and patch 2.0) has added a new dungeon and often new questing hubs. In the case of the upcoming patch 3.2, three new dungeons, two quest hubs, and an expansion of patch 3.1's Argent Tournament.

On SC2:
"Redneck Humor"
...
???
And as I said before, there is NO CONFIRMATION that SC2 expansions will cost as much as the first release of SC2. And the term "epic" can be applied to StarCraft because of its rich backstory - which would not be possible without single player - and if you think everything's the same size then you've never seen a zealot and a carrier next to one another. But that's irrelevant, "epic" isn't just a matter of size. Lightsaber battles are epic, so why not an RTS? In 1998 you just couldn't have that kind of scale running at 600x800 anyway.
Your criticisms are all about SC1, which don't apply at all to SC2... ever looked at screenshots?

[Flipside]

On WoW and EVE:
EVE Online has 300,000 active accounts, which is less than 1/10 the monthly income. I think that speaks for itself.
In my opinion, the reason EVE expansions were free is because no one would want to pay $50 for an expansion to a game of lesser quality to WoW. Content patches have also done much of what you praise EVE for doing; patch 3.0 (the WotLK patch) overhauled the graphics and added achievements, and every content patch since and before (with the exception of the veeeery early ones and patch 2.0) has added a new dungeon and often new questing hubs. In the case of the upcoming patch 3.2, three new dungeons, two quest hubs, and an expansion of patch 3.1's Argent Tournament.

So you seem to be of the opinion that because you don't like a game, it's ok to expand it for free? Whereas if you like the game, you should be expected to pay?

I bet Blizzard wished they had more customers like that.

Edit:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1041353/wow-makes-huge-profits

Blizzard paid off maintenance costs for servers etc with 2 months worth of income, that's nearly a Billion dollars a year spare, and they can't put any of that money aside for upgrades?

And remember, that's your money they are making each month, and yet when it comes to update the Engine, in order to make sure that nice 135 million per month keeps on coming, who gets to foot the bill?

[Akalabeth Angel]

On SC2:
"Redneck Humor"
...
???
And as I said before, there is NO CONFIRMATION that SC2 expansions will cost as much as the first release of SC2. And the term "epic" can be applied to StarCraft because of its rich backstory - which would not be possible without single player - and if you think everything's the same size then you've never seen a zealot and a carrier next to one another. But that's irrelevant, "epic" isn't just a matter of size. Lightsaber battles are epic, so why not an RTS? In 1998 you just couldn't have that kind of scale running at 600x800 anyway.
Your criticisms are all about SC1, which don't apply at all to SC2... ever looked at screenshots?

SC2? Looks like SC1 with better graphics.

What I'm saying is that the cutscenes didn't match the game. Yes a Battleship or whatever it's called was bigger than a marine during gameplay, but then you get to the cutscenes and battleships are massive and the battle is much much larger and it's just not the same story. It just didn't draw me in. Granted, I played it years after it was first released, but in terms of graphics and so on I'm pretty forgiving since most of the games I played are older titles anyway. And I've never played multi for SC1, I never play multi these days really. I only buy games for the singleplayer. I finished SC1 at least, and most of the expansion . . . which is more than I can say for DoW1.

Btw there's no confirmation that the "expansions" will be cheaper either. They're all stand alone games. They all offer the same value. Why would one be cheaper than the other? Logically, they're probably following the episodic route that Valve took. The games themselves might be cheaper than the average game, but they'll be more expensive than expansions. So whether a person saves money or not in the end, who knows.

Don't worry. Everyone's doing this these days. Remember Valve said they would deliver more free content for Left4Dead? And as far as I know nothing was ever released. Nothing released except of course a press statement announcing Left4Dead2.

On WoW and EVE:
EVE Online has 300,000 active accounts, which is less than 1/10 the monthly income. I think that speaks for itself.
In my opinion, the reason EVE expansions were free is because no one would want to pay $50 for an expansion to a game of lesser quality to WoW.

Lesser quality? By who's definition? Mind you, they're both **** in my opinion.

[SpardaSon21]

I'll probably end up pirating SC2:WoL to try it out.  If I think its worth the $40 or $50, I'll buy it.  If Blizzard tries to turn it into another WoW money-printing machine, I will hate Blizzard with a passion.  I used to be a rabid fanboy, but then WoW got released, forever souring me on them.

[Leeko]

SC2? Looks like SC1 with better graphics.

What I'm saying is that the cutscenes didn't match the game. Yes a Battleship or whatever it's called was bigger than a marine during gameplay, but then you get to the cutscenes and battleships are massive and the battle is much much larger and it's just not the same story. It just didn't draw me in. Granted, I played it years after it was first released, but in terms of graphics and so on I'm pretty forgiving since most of the games I played are older titles anyway. And I've never played multi for SC1, I never play multi these days really. I only buy games for the singleplayer. I finished SC1 at least, and most of the expansion . . . which is more than I can say for DoW1.

Btw there's no confirmation that the "expansions" will be cheaper either. They're all stand alone games. They all offer the same value. Why would one be cheaper than the other? Logically, they're probably following the episodic route that Valve took. The games themselves might be cheaper than the average game, but they'll be more expensive than expansions. So whether a person saves money or not in the end, who knows.

I will repeat. In 1998, with the technology of the time and running at 600x800 resolution you just couldn't display the scale of, say, SupCom. And your aversion to multiplayer is a serious bias; StarCraft shines in multiplayer. It's the same deal as Halo, really. Epic story, but limited replayability, which is offset by amazing multiplayer. You should give it a try sometime.

So you seem to be of the opinion that because you don't like a game, it's ok to expand it for free? Whereas if you like the game, you should be expected to pay?

Blizzard paid off maintenance costs for servers etc with 2 months worth of income, that's nearly a Billion dollars a year spare, and they can't put any of that money aside for upgrades?

And remember, that's your money they are making each month, and yet when it comes to update the Engine, in order to make sure that nice 135 million per month keeps on coming, who gets to foot the bill?

I have no idea what you mean by what you think my opinion is. My point was that EVE doesn't have anything on WoW as far as free updates go. And besides that, you need the latest patch to even play WoW. Ergo, the overhauled graphics that came with patch 3.0 were freely available without having to buy the expansion pack it was made to prepare for (which is a point in and of itself, the graphics update was out before the expansion pack). "Putting aside money for upgrades" doesn't mean anything outside of "continuing to pay their development team to  make new content,"... and content patches are out every couple of months. As far as I'm concerned the only reason EVE's "expansions" are a selling point is because the word "expansion" has a different connotation than "patch." And EVE's expansions are far more comparable to WoW's content patches.

As far as I'm concerned they can have my $15 a month if they want it, they can even have another $50 for another expansion if they want it. There's a huge difference between EA and Blizzard. EA makes games that appeal to the widest possible audience, and dumbs down franchises that it acquires (Spore and Red Alert 3 are prime examples). Blizzard has a history of killer apps, and until they make a deliberate sellout move, they have my devotion for it.

To use a metaphor, just because an artist isn't starving doesn't mean he's doing it for the money.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I will repeat. In 1998, with the technology of the time and running at 600x800 resolution you just couldn't display the scale of, say, SupCom. And your aversion to multiplayer is a serious bias; StarCraft shines in multiplayer. It's the same deal as Halo, really. Epic story, but limited replayability, which is offset by amazing multiplayer. You should give it a try sometime.

Serious Bias? I don't dislike the game because it has multiplayer, I just chose not to play it. I don't particularly care for RTS much anyway.
And are you telling me that in 1998 they couldn't make a big pixel image just as easily as a small pixel image? No they limited the size of the ships, etcetera for gameplay's sake. For me, it was a little bit of a stretch to see these tiny dozen Zerg suddenly turn into a thousand super creatures laying waste to the landscape. It's like you're supposed to be in some huge epic war but really you're just fighting little skirmishes. If the cut scenes were toned down a bit I might've been able to make a better connection between what it showed me and what was actually being played out, but as it is I didn't buy it. That and the humour is all tongue in cheek.

Btw another game came out in 1998, it was called Freespace 2. And guess what, they could represent the scale of a Sathanas compared to the scale of a little wee fighter. And it was awesome.  (EDIT - oops it came out in 1999. Oh well replace "Sathanas" with "Lucifer" and my statement stands. Though perhaps FS1 wasn't quite as epic).

I don't have a problem with outdated graphics. I played Thief: Dark Project for the first time 8 months ago. It's the most immersive game I've ever played.

[Leeko]

Serious Bias? I don't dislike the game because it has multiplayer, I just chose not to play it. I don't particularly care for RTS much anyway.
And are you telling me that in 1998 they couldn't make a big pixel image just as easily as a small pixel image? No they limited the size of the ships, etcetera for gameplay's sake. For me, it was a little bit of a stretch to see these tiny dozen Zerg suddenly turn into a thousand super creatures laying waste to the landscape. It's like you're supposed to be in some huge epic war but really you're just fighting little skirmishes. If the cut scenes were toned down a bit I might've been able to make a better connection between what it showed me and what was actually being played out, but as it is I didn't buy it. That and the humour is all tongue in cheek.

Btw another game came out in 1998, it was called Freespace 2. And guess what, they could represent the scale of a Sathanas compared to the scale of a little wee fighter. And it was awesome.

I don't have a problem with outdated graphics. I played Thief: Dark Project for the first time 8 months ago. It's the most immersive game I've ever played.

Not liking multiplayer is a serious bias because you're judging the gameplay based on its worst parts. I never meant to imply you didn't like it because you don't like multiplayer.

Back then at 800x600 resolution, as I have said twice already, a huge something-or-other would take up most of the screen, and lots of them would cause serious framerate issues with the technology of the time. I have no idea what you mean by "tiny dozen zerg suddenly turning into a thousand super creatures," but if you are referring to the way the Zerg build everything organically by mutation then that's an extremely petty criticism.

And, by the way, FS2 came out in 1999. And considering it was developed in a year, versus SC's three (four?) year development cycle, the one year difference between release means a four year difference from when development on SC started... which means a four year graphics gap. But aside from that, the RTS genre didn't enter the third dimension to stay until well into the 21st century, and with good reason There's a big difference between the amount of stuff onscreen in FreeSpace and any RTS.
But that's comparing apples to oranges. That would be like saying "Sim City sucks because you can't see the people as clearly as you can in The Sims!" The gameplay depended on having huge ships like the Sathanas. In StarCraft having carriers twice as large as they are would impair the gameplay.

[Flipside]

I have no idea what you mean by what you think my opinion is. My point was that EVE doesn't have anything on WoW as far as free updates go. And besides that, you need the latest patch to even play WoW. Ergo, the overhauled graphics that came with patch 3.0 were freely available without having to buy the expansion pack it was made to prepare for (which is a point in and of itself, the graphics update was out before the expansion pack). "Putting aside money for upgrades" doesn't mean anything outside of "continuing to pay their development team to  make new content,"... and content patches are out every couple of months. As far as I'm concerned the only reason EVE's "expansions" are a selling point is because the word "expansion" has a different connotation than "patch." And EVE's expansions are far more comparable to WoW's content patches.

I wholly disagree that Eve updates are anything different to WoW updates, just like WoW, they've not only updated Graphics, but expanded the play area and dynamics, and introduced new skills, since the levelling system works differently from WoW.

As for your opinion, I'll simply quote you:

In my opinion, the reason EVE expansions were free is because no one would want to pay $50 for an expansion to a game of lesser quality to WoW.

Personally, I think reason Eve expansions are free is because there are so many player-run scams in the game that they'd see a company-run scam like this coming a mile away. And I'm not trying to defend Eve Online, because I left it some time ago because I wasn't particularly enjoying myself.

If you're happy paying Blizzard $50 on top of your monthly payment, fine, but please don't try to convince yourself they 'earned' it or 'deserve' it, at least accept it for the rip-off that it is, even if you intend to pay it.

[Mongoose]

If you're happy paying Blizzard $50 on top of your monthly payment, fine, but please don't try to convince yourself they 'earned' it or 'deserve' it, at least accept it for the rip-off that it is, even if you intend to pay it.

That's the joy (curse?) of the free market, though.  It doesn't matter one bit what you "deserve" or "earn"...it's all about what people are willing to pay for.  And if millions of WoW subscribers are willing to pay $50 for each of those expansions, I don't blame Blizzard in the least for charging that much.

[Flipside]

Same here, if they can exploit the market and the market is willing to let itself be exploited, then best of luck to them, it just winds me up when people try to convince themselves that such an obvious rip-off is justified.

[Scotty]

How about we leave that distinction to the individuals it affects, Hmm?

[Flipside]

Not in this case, no, that this is a blatant rip-off is undeniable fact, regardless of how good the game is.

Once again, I restate, if people are prepared to spend that money to enjoy the game, best of luck to them, but to earn 8 figures a month from a game, and then charging the customers in order to expand the game and maintain/increase that 8-Digit number is a rip-off, no matter what way it is looked at, this isn't about opinion, it's about cold-hard business practice. It works, because people let it work, but that doesn't change the fact that there's no real salient reason for charging that price, other than the fact it is the highest they can 'get away with'.

[Leeko]

"Blatant ripoff" is your opinion. Mine is that you get what you pay for, which is why I pay. Someone once said, "Everything is worth what the buyer will pay for it." ...Or something like that, it was one of the quotes in Civ IV.
The discussion is moot at this point, I much prefer the StarCraft argument.