Day-One DLC Files Appear on Mass Effect 3 Discs

piscian18

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Ferreting around in Mass Effect 3's disc files yields information about DLC which runs counter to statements released by the game's producers.

When an Xbox Live leak made it apparent last month that the additional character promised for players who bought the Collector's Edition version of Mass Effect 3 would be made available to everyone in the form of day-one DLC, there ensued something of a brouhaha among certain groups of gamers. The nature of the character, whose species makes him an interesting part of the game's lore, added a new dimension or five to the apparent discontent.

To try and clarify the situation, a few of the game's producers released statements describing how development of the DLC had not interfered with the development process for the main game or its costs. The game's director, Casey Hudson, took to Twitter to say, "It takes about 3 months from "content complete" to bug-fix, certify, manufacture, and ship game discs. In that time we work on DLC."

However, it has now come to light that some of the files from this particular DLC (listed as From Ashes) can be found within the data on the main game's disc. As an avid file-investigator over at Crystal Palace Zone points out, "the build which leaked in November, the official demo, and now the standard retail release of Mass Effect 3 all contain voice files for the [From Ashes] squad member. There's also a full set of model and animation files for the [character], but file encryption makes it impossible to open these for further inspection."

He continues, "These files are just as big as they are for other, non-DLC characters, suggesting that the art, animation, and voice assets for the DLC character were developed at the same time, not after the completion of the project. If these assets were developed after end of development, they would have to be downloaded - not unlocked directly from the disc."

Crystal Palace Via Theescapist

On a somewhat related note depending on your perspective

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9453-Goodbye-BioWare-Hello-Indie

It's interesting, then, that many industry veterans are leaving the big studios - and the big salaries --
to go indie. I talked to two such veterans, with almost twenty years of experience between them,
who decided to leave one of the biggest studios of all -- BioWare.

At one point, a senior producer took him aside, intent on showing him the ropes,
and asked him how long he'd been with the company.
"I was at the bottom of the ladder again even though I'd been there for seven years."

Just an FYI Larry Moe and Curly and now Shemp. Please keep it civil. I like this thread more open than closed.
 
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EA has piss poor management of their dev studios & unfortunately BioWare seems to have been manhandled way too much. This day 1 DLC BS shouldn't be occurring at all when its already bundled with the golden master release.
 
This DLC business is so freakin weak. money money money money money
 
This is just an example of executives hell bent on extracting the maximum amount of money from the game fans (which is why corporations exist), but going about it in an extremely clumsy way...

Get a clue...

Only the very talented and industry recognized few can leave those studios and go Indie unfortunately... The rest are forced to follow questionable directives, but won't disagree because they need to work...

Until people stop buying, this will continue...
 
The gaming market needs another collapse. With the ease of digital distribution, we should be seeing more self published titles and fewer overlooked gems.
 
Yeah, that's why I don't buy EA games, the only reason Origin exists isn't just to peddle EA games, but to circumvent Steam's insistence on getting a cut of the DLC sold through the Steam store.

EA stands for money money money rather than putting customer's first.

All your loyalty means nothing to them.
 
It's interesting, then, that many industry veterans are leaving the big studios - and the big salaries --
to go indie. I talked to two such veterans, with almost twenty years of experience between them,
who decided to leave one of the biggest studios of all -- BioWare.
Tbh, 10 years experience per person isn't exactly "veteran" from where I am looking. It's just someone who is an experienced professional. In many areas of the corporate world one wouldn't even be eligible for an executive level position as someone with 10 years of experience.

Be that as it may, game devs just like book authors are looking at the big publishing houses and determine that they do not longer need them. If you are good at self-promotion then you don't need EA. You can make a game, put it on the Internet, and keep all the profit rather than have EA gobble up the overwhelming majority of the profit.

Since video games are no longer a geeks/nerds only sport venture capital is accessible to those who have a good concept and business plan. This is where 10 years of experience will definitely come in handy in terms of building credibility.

In the future we will see more "indie" releases which will ultimately rival the quality of current AAA titles and folks like EA and Ubisoft will no longer be as important to devs as they are today.

Yeah, that's why I don't buy EA games, the only reason Origin exists isn't just to peddle EA games, but to circumvent Steam's insistence on getting a cut of the DLC sold through the Steam store.

EA stands for money money money rather than putting customer's first.

All your loyalty means nothing to them.
Uhm, the purpose of a business is to make money. Why wouldn't EA cut out Steam/Valve when it comes to selling games. That's exactly what those "veteran" devs are going to do, they are going to cut out mainstream publishers because money means something to them.

Loyalty is irrelevant these days. The customer is looking for the lowest possible price and will switch brands immediately when such price is available from a different brand. Loyalty is especially irrelevant in the video gaming market because past purchases do in no way guarantee future purchases. You invoke loyalty, but will you buy a shitty title from EA just to demonstrate your loyalty to them (if you had it)? No, of course not. So you are asking for loyalty while not wanting to keep a company in business even if it hits a rough patch. Just something to think about.
 
I can't believe people are surprised about this. This is EA we are talking about. And this is the reason why I am waiting on a sale before I buy Mass Effect 3, and this coming from someone who is literally one step away from killing someone to quench his thirst for more ME goodness. Day one DLC and the content is one of the most important things in the ME universe. Fuck EA and fuck Bioware for being blatantly greedy with this shit. Bad enough us PC gamers got to spend $60 for a game when the $10 surcharge is on consoles to pay for the god damn licensing fee to Sony and M$. Fuck them in the ass with a rusty dildo with broken glass super glued to it.
 
EA has piss poor management of their dev studios & unfortunately BioWare seems to have been manhandled way too much. This day 1 DLC BS shouldn't be occurring at all when its already bundled with the golden master release.

Bioware has turned into the bitch that we all predicted was going to happen when EA bought them.
 
Bioware has turned into the bitch that we all predicted was going to happen when EA bought them.

Quite unfortunate for us. BioWare was definitely a template for may devs to follow but not anymore.
 
Yeah, that's why I don't buy EA games, the only reason Origin exists isn't just to peddle EA games, but to circumvent Steam's insistence on getting a cut of the DLC sold through the Steam store.

EA stands for money money money rather than putting customer's first.

All your loyalty means nothing to them.

Ofcourse! and this shows Steam as being the lesser of two evils.

ROFL, just ROFL
 
m77S3.png
 
*chucked picture down the garbage can*

I don't pay for Day 1 DLC, why anybody does is beyond me, it's a tax on stupid. Stupid people buy Day 1 DLC.

Hell, I don't even buy games on Day 1, Day 1 $60 price tags are a tax on stupid. Same game will be available at Christmas for less than $20 bucks and all the DLC will be available at a discount, or hell, even bundled.

You heard it here first.

Why pay full price when you aren't getting the full game unless you pay more? It's a tax on stupid and a punishment for being impulsive when you do.

Multiplayer is nothing more than a checkbox on the features list, if you want your RPG's to be RPG lite because they made a multiplayer mode when they could have been focusing on making a better SINGLE PLAYER ARR PEE GEE, then more power for you.

Squeal all you want about production costs and whatnot. You do know the game itself didn't cost much to produce, right? The advertising budget for the game probably exceeds the amount spent on the actual game itself.

Call of Derpy games since CoD 4 have spent as much as FOUR TIMES the production budget of 50 million, so that's 200 million on advertising alone.

That you guys do not want to look at facts or do any research and instead believe the spoon fed bullshit that is shoved at you from inside your prison cells thru the slit in the door saddens me.
 
That you guys do not want to look at facts or do any research and instead believe the spoon fed bullshit that is shoved at you from inside your prison cells thru the slit in the door saddens me.

I care very little for what saddens the Bill O'Reilly of HardForum.
 
I care very little for what saddens the Bill O'Reilly of HardForum.

So, don't spout false numbers as a rationale for paying $60 for a game when that's nowhere near the true cost of the game itself and the $10 extra you are paying for games is just sheer profit, it doesn't go towards recouping production costs.

If games were $50, they would still make a huge profit, just not as much as they would have if they charged $60.

Guess what? They would cut their advertising budget.

Economics.
 
I watched the whole game beginning to end on Twitch TV because I refuse to support these greedy practices on mainly principle alone. I won't spoil the plotline, but I'll say this, the day one DLC is the least offensive insult. Atrocious dialogue/writing and COD gameplay all in the pursuit of adding a new audience to the franchise is a spit in the face of fans that elevated the first two games to cult status.
 
I watched the whole game beginning to end on Twitch TV because I refuse to support these greedy practices on mainly principle alone. I won't spoil the plotline, but I'll say this, the day one DLC is the least offensive insult. Atrocious dialogue/writing and COD gameplay all in the pursuit of adding a new audience to the franchise is a spit in the face of fans that elevated the first two games to cult status.

I view the term franchise as being synonymous for exploitation.
 
Since NKDietrich's image is a bit single sided, despite it's swipes at how consumers view game development...

Here is another relevant image. I believe it also applies aptly into this, more so on the thrid point of the image.
dlc-mona-lisa-1.jpg



Yes, some may believe it should of been part of the game, others may believe it's "optional side content with no real effect," however, it still doesn't dispell: why is it on the launch game discs? At that point, it can be viewed as a pure money grab.
 

Yeah and thats exactly why everyone is leaving to go indie. Fuck multiple teams. Fuck production schedules, fuck cost versus return, fuck suits and the giant purple dildo they ran in on.

"Multiple teams with Vastly different responsibilities" THEN MAKE A DIFFERENT FUCKING GAME. That excuse is paper thin.

I would much rather another team spend time make a badass Mass Effect 2D sprite RPG then make me another fucking gun or multiplayer map or a fucking ingame keychain. Good god no wonder they're leaving in droves. I'd rather kill myself than spend all day doing that.
 
Since NKDietrich's image is a bit single sided, despite it's swipes at how consumers view game development...

Here is another relevant image. I believe it also applies aptly into this, more so on the thrid point of the image.
dlc-mona-lisa-1.jpg



Yes, some may believe it should of been part of the game, others may believe it's "optional side content with no real effect," however, it still doesn't dispell: why is it on the launch game discs? At that point, it can be viewed as a pure money grab.

Someone should change the images, where it says Original, and include price tags

$50, $50, and Now would be $60

What's crazy is those Expansion Packs back then would often pack enough content to be roughly equal to one full game produced today . . . .

When you see a 2, 3, or 4 attached to a game name these days, it's often just an expansion pack of the first game.
 
Whats even worse in some cases they don't clearly state or preview what you're getting in the DLC. This has happened and is completely predatory.

Up to this moment Bioware has been reasonably on the line, but you can expect more and more people to be leaving.

What more interesting to note is that PC Independent Development for the is most part is thriving. Independent Development for Consoles is not. Microsoft and Sony continuing to raise fees.
The last count I saw was 40k for a 1mb patch. This is causing a lot of studio to digital distribution by stuff like desura gamergate steam etc.
 
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Someone should change the images, where it says Original, and include price tags

$50, $50, and Now would be $60

What's crazy is those Expansion Packs back then would often pack enough content to be roughly equal to one full game produced today . . . .

When you see a 2, 3, or 4 attached to a game name these days, it's often just an expansion pack of the first game.

Heh, CoD after WaW (which is argueably, short of Nazi Zombies, not much more than a MW1 mod - thinking about pre 2005 era mods, not the light ini editing we see nowadays) would probably be the most guilty. Almost no gameplay changes, just mostly new maps, new weapon skins. Sometimes, not even new maps :eek:, since old ones are resold in DLC.

Oh, well. It is what it is, anyways. Nothing really to be done about it, since people are now willing to defend such practices.
 
Whats even worse in some cases they don't clearly state or preview what you're getting in the DLC. This has happened and is completely predatory.

What you're getting is fucked, that's what you're getting, lol.

Fucked, because you are paying $60 on top of whatever the Day 1 DLC's are and what they cost.

I bought Fallout New Vegas on sale during the Steam sales.

I think my total cost was what, $13-15 bucks? Included the game and all DLC's . . . . .

THAT is smart spending, bucko.

How about the current Steam sale? Borderlands GOTY edition which includes ALL DLC's, for $7.49 . . .

talk about a bargain.

Remember kids, $60 Day 1 purchases, Day 1 DLC purchases, are all a tax on stupid. It's equal to flushing your money down the drain on lottery tickets, only you don't win anything here, just like with the lottery.
 
This DLC bullshit is getting out of hand. We all saw this coming folks. Vote with your fucking wallets, and pay no heed to the bullshit publishers and their apologists are spouting about them "deserving" to get paid more. You're either a part of the solution or you're a part of the problem. We're in this boat because people allowed them to get away with this shit.
 
Heh, CoD after WaW (which is argueably, short of Nazi Zombies, not much more than a MW1 mod - thinking about pre 2005 era mods, not the light ini editing we see nowadays) would probably be the most guilty. Almost no gameplay changes, just mostly new maps, new weapon skins. Sometimes, not even new maps :eek:, since old ones are resold in DLC.

Oh, well. It is what it is, anyways. Nothing really to be done about it, since people are now willing to defend such practices.

I paid $25 for WAW. Played for 5 minutes. *Blinked* and uninstalled it. If it had a campaign I couldn't find it.
 
I paid $25 for WAW. Played for 5 minutes. *Blinked* and uninstalled it. If it had a campaign I couldn't find it.

The campain wasn't much to talk about. Just follow leader, and shoot when allowed. At least the cutscenes were few (countered by massive amounts of scripted movements and actions).
 
So, don't spout false numbers as a rationale for paying $60 for a game when that's nowhere near the true cost of the game itself and the $10 extra you are paying for games is just sheer profit, it doesn't go towards recouping production costs.

If games were $50, they would still make a huge profit, just not as much as they would have if they charged $60.

Guess what? They would cut their advertising budget.

Economics.

It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.
 
It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.

Markets can be affected by consumer outcry, though really only if it affects profits :p
 
It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.

Right but there's a difference between "We're doing this to make money because we want more of it." and "If we didn't do this we'd have to fire everyone and close the doors."
 
Right but there's a difference between "We're doing this to make money because we want more of it." and "If we didn't do this we'd have to fire everyone and close the doors."

If you really believe that, I got beachfront property in Baghdad, Iraq to sell you.
 
It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.

Translation: "Let's make this political by calling things socialist." :rolleyes:

People have every right to be annoyed at this. It doesn't make their opinions less valid because we feel like spinning some political tripe into the mix.
The signs are here blatantly telling us that they knew this was going to happen. It's the method that people are not happy with.
 
If you really believe that, I got beachfront property in Baghdad, Iraq to sell you.

If you mean that ironically yeah, that's exactly how suddenly almost half the 100+ IW studio found themselves driving to work at activsion on Monday and driving to work at the pseudo independent Studio Respawn on Tuesday.

"we have to rinse you for every penny because our developers are starving.. and coughing up blood all over my armani suit." - Publisher Suit.
 
If you really believe that, I got beachfront property in Baghdad, Iraq to sell you.

I'm not sure how you misunderstood what I was saying. This post here would indicate to me that you *do* support selling day-1 DLC for $10. My post was merely pointing out that if a company wants to make money, that's fine, but putting it up as though they'll go out of business if they don't charge $5 for horse armor is a bit silly and a different matter entirely.
 
It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.

Well, the market = consumers, consumers = gamers, and profit levels are determined by how much consumers are willing to pay. So I guess we already live in a "United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers."

It's just sad that people are willing to pay for this.
 
It's called maximizing profits. Welcome to capitalism. Feel free to start your own United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers, rather than what the market will bear.

Which isn't the point of course, but I generally expect you to miss the point anyways.

My part in capitalism can be found at www.cheapassgamer.com
 
Well, the market = consumers, consumers = gamers, and profit levels are determined by how much consumers are willing to pay. So I guess we already live in a "United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers."

It's just sad that people are willing to pay for this.

I especially love how everyone who trots out that sad, tired old argument assumes that someone complaining "I don't like what Company X charges for Product Y" implies that this person wants to FORCE Company X to charge less. Not the case! I don't want to force EA to do anything, I want them to do some things but I don't want to be able to force them to do those things. Just because I applaud one company for doing what I want doesn't mean I think it should be illegal to do things any other way.
 
Well, the market = consumers, consumers = gamers, and profit levels are determined by how much consumers are willing to pay. So I guess we already live in a "United Socialist Republic of Gaming where "acceptable" profit levels are voted on by gamers."

It's just sad that people are willing to pay for this.

No, we live in a capitalist society where people don't buy it if it is too much. Thus, if sales are doing well, which I believe they are, they're charging a fair price.

Translation: "Let's make this political by calling things socialist." :rolleyes:

People have every right to be annoyed at this. It doesn't make their opinions less valid because we feel like spinning some political tripe into the mix.
The signs are here blatantly telling us that they knew this was going to happen. It's the method that people are not happy with.

I'm not trying to make it political; he brought up economics, I named the system he was advocating. He seems personally offended that they're trying to turn a profit on it, despite the fact that he repeatedly states he won't buy any of their games anyway.


Which isn't the point of course, but I generally expect you to miss the point anyways.

If I miss your wild-ass points, then I know I've hit the bullseye.
 
No, we live in a capitalist society where people don't buy it if it is too much. Thus, if sales are doing well, which I believe they are, they're charging a fair price.

The problem is that you don't get to decide what anyone *else* thinks is fair.
 
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