MBJ: Patching the cut cities and careers for free?

July 31, 2008 – 8:14 am

There is a poll running over at Warhammer Alliance asking players how they would feel about the cut content being delivered in pay-to-play expansion rather than a free content patch. Currently, the results are as follows:

44.44% - Yes, and if they did I would come to their houses or where ever they sleep at and find them.
47.14% - No, some of you guys blow this crap out of proportion its just a game.
8.42% - Other

While the YES option is written in a fairly off-putting way (seriously, you’d have to be a psychopath to actually take it that far or even suggest it), it still hasn’t discouraged a large number of people from choosing it.

I personally chose OTHER because, while I would be pretty annoyed that they tried to scam me on content they have been talking about for a very long time, I’d still prefer a game to be expanded horizontally rather than vertically, and an expansion that included new class and city content help to do just that.

Here’s what Mark had to say:

Folks,

I would be very, very angry, how’s that?

Now as to my reasoning. First, during the development process of most creative ventures, things get cut and changed. That happens in games, books, films, television, etc. Secondly, for examples, things such as scenes that are cut from a movie are then are put into a “Director’s Cut” or “Special Edition” etc. I don’t think that it is wrong for a filmmaker to cut things out of his/her own film in order to make the film great and then offer them on a special DVD. Now, I wish they would put them on the same DVD as the original film is on but I have no real problem with the practice. While some people may disagree, it is a widespread practice and one that I don’t have any problem with morally, ethically, etc. Making a game, especially an MMO, is no different in that respect. We cut out things, change things, etc. during a development process and when the development process is three years long, well, even more can get cut and changed. However:

We have been talking about these classes and the cities for quite a while. And while I absolutely believe that we have the right, if we so choose, from every ethical, moral and legal perspective to cut them out totally or put them in the game in a paid expansion, that doesn’t mean that we should do that. We’ve always tried to hold ourselves to a higher standard. No, we’re not perfect, yes we make mistakes and yes, yes, yes we are also a business but just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should do something. In this case, what we want to do and what we will try our best to do is to make sure that if/when we bring back those classes and these cities (sorry for the if, don’t read more into it, just being careful) that players will not have to buy them from us as part of a paid expansion but rather just part of the content updates that we did so well for DAoC.

And that’s why I would be very angry because we tried to do something and for some reason(s) we couldn’t make it happen. And that always pisses me off…

Mark

At least it’s his intention to ship this stuff free of charge, so that’s a bonus! It makes me feel a little better about the cut content knowing that they are at least hoping to give it back to us in a content patch rather than a paid expansion. Blizzard took the other approach Mark mentions because hero classes were talked about during WoW beta for quite a while, and players of that game are only starting to see hints of it 4+ years later in a pay-to-play expansion.