Opinions On Oblivion's The Orrery Quest

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O.K. I want a civil, rational discussion on Bethesda's new downloadble content. After the horse armor fiasco, I want to know what you guys think about the latest content download and the price. Is 150 points too much to ask for an added quest or is it just right?

The last time we had this conversation, my opinion was MORE CONTENT FOR THE COIN!

Having grabbed the latest content, a complete quest that cost significantly less than the horse armor did, I think that Bethesda is actually getting the idea that people want more content for their hard earned money and The Orrery is close to getting it just right.

What do you think?
 
Without seeing what the download is, I'd be more inclined to purchase a "Download Pack" then I would to buy a single quest; even if it was more expensive.

It'd be nice if they released "mini-expansions" that came with ~10 quests that are worthwhile, some new item drops and maybe some horse armor.

The only way I'd spend 150 points is if I somehow had 150 points leftover. For one quest I wouldn't even bother purchasing more points just to get it.
 
I think they put the Horse Armor on there because it took very little effort to do so and it's money in the bank for people anal enough to buy it. I won't, but if they didn't feel enough people would've I doubt they would've bothered.
In terms of expansions - I'd pay $3 for an ELABORATE mission, but it would have to be long and drawn out a-la doing multiple guild missions or a really big one like the final Thieves Guild mission.
I'd personally prefer spending $20-25 for a BIG expansion like the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games had.
 
Yay! A 20 minute quest, some new shitty abilities, and let's rape more people's marketplace points! What a waste... But on the plus side, at least you're getting a LOT more for your money than the horse armor... and that's a good thing :D
 
I personally feel the idea of charging a few bucks for very minor additional content is rediculous. Seeing as how they have sold, what is it at now, just shy of 2 million copies they can afford to do it for free. Plus, by adding the content for free they will be enticing more players to come over and play the game.
 
Heard it's a "fedex" mission that takes atmost 20mins. Woohoo!
 
steviep said:
Yay! A 20 minute quest, some new shitty abilities, and let's rape more people's marketplace points! What a waste... But on the plus side, at least you're getting a LOT more for your money than the horse armor... and that's a good thing :D
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A 20 minute quest? I thought it was a lot longer than that. Are you even playing Oblivion?
 
A quest that is like the last Thieves Guild quest (read: long, involved and interesting), and also gives a cool new item or open access to a cool new area would be worth 150 points. If it is a 20 minute boring no depth quest it is still off the mark.
 
Since the Orrey is not yet available for the pc version I cannot say if it is actually worth the cost, but the price of $1.89US for a well fleshed out quest with real content, not just decoration, seems ok to me.

I did not purchase the horse armor and most likely will not purchase the addons if they are just items like the horse armor.

I doubt the production of these small addons are precluding the development of something akin to Morrowind's Tribunal & Bloodmoon. I would rather have a large expansion than these, but until an expansion is finished I would be willing to part with $1.89US for added quests.
 
steviep said:
Yay! A 20 minute quest, some new shitty abilities, and let's rape more people's marketplace points! What a waste... But on the plus side, at least you're getting a LOT more for your money than the horse armor... and that's a good thing :D
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So I take it you are NOT satisfied with your purchase? How long did it take you to finish The Orrery? It took me longer than 20 minutes but I might not be the average gamer. How long did it take you? What other quest did this compare to (for you) to give others an idea how long the Orrery quest might take them (by comparing the two).

What made the new abilities "shitty"? Which powers did you try out so far?

This is all feedback for developers, I am interested in more specifics please, you can't fix something that is broke if no one will tell you what is wrong.
 
While on the one hand I can respect Bethasoft's capitalistic drive to squeeze as much money out of gamers as is humanly possible, I'd far rather just get a nice large expansion pack that cost me $30 (Cnd) or so that had a series of new quests, items, et cetera. I'm absolutely unwilling to be nickle and dimed to death. Moreover, the fact that they have all of these "extras" available so soon after the game was released indicates that these were things that the developers were initially intending to put in the game and just didn't have time to. The content they're putting out should either be included in a patch that resolves chronic crashes and play issues, or released in an expansion.

 
DamienThorn said:
While on the one hand I can respect Bethasoft's capitalistic drive to squeeze as much money out of gamers as is humanly possible, I'd far rather just get a nice large expansion pack that cost me $30 (Cnd) or so that had a series of new quests, items, et cetera. I'm absolutely unwilling to be nickle and dimed to death. Moreover, the fact that they have all of these "extras" available so soon after the game was released indicates that these were things that the developers were initially intending to put in the game and just didn't have time to. The content they're putting out should either be included in a patch that resolves chronic crashes and play issues, or released in an expansion.

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I agree with you completely. While I have the Xbox360 version, I would be more interested in a large expansion pack for $20-30 as you stated. I've already bought this quest, but don't have any plans to beat it till i'm done with the Mages Guild quests. I just don't find small expansions like this satisfying. I would rather have one huge expansion that opens up an entire new world within the game with all new series of quests, and even new area's as well. I like how they did Fable, the Lost Chapters as they added so much more. I also like the expansions to Morrowind how there were also in big clumps. This game is buggy, but masterpieces like this only come once every 3-4 years, which is why i'm so able to forgive them.
 
How are they squeezing as much money as possible from gamers? It's $1.89...it's not like it'll put you in debt. I don't have much money myself, and am far from wealthy, but $1.89 is trivial. It's less than a gallon of gas or milk and bread.
 
DanMattia said:
How are they squeezing as much money as possible from gamers? It's $1.89...it's not like it'll put you in debt. I don't have much money myself, and am far from wealthy, but $1.89 is trivial. It's less than a gallon of gas or milk and bread.
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20x1.89=$37.80. I'm all for it IF they start making worthy mods. The modding community can do better stuff than this once they get a proper model importer/exporter.
 
Personally I can't see myself paying for a single quest or some eye-candy as an add-on to the game, especially a single player game. When you consider the sheer amount of quests and armor in the game already, there really is no reason to release content on a per piece basis. Well, except for the "we'll make MORE money this way" reason. Not to mention when compared with the cost breakdown of quest/items in the game these are both way over-priced.

If I was to buy anything it would have to add significantly to the game and not anything short/short lived. As for horse armor, I kept coming out of dungeons/battles to find either my horse had run off (I think, I've got two unaccounted for) or died while I was battling some creatures away from it. I've refused to buy any since then and just run everywhere.

To me, releasing these seems to say that they were ready already, or near completion, and were held back simply for this reason. It's kind of like a DVD release, they release the DVD then a few months later they release the Director's Cut with deleted scenes to get you to buy the disc twice.

Should this trend continue I wonder how long until we're charged on a "30 minute mission" (RPG) or "number of enemies killed" (FPS) basis. You're just getting into the mood for a nice session of gaming when the little window pops up: "You need to purchase more time to continue on in the game. Is it okay to charge your credit card?". When we reach this stage it will be the death of gaming for me.

Just my $0.02 worth.
 
i rather they come out the an expension pack than forcing me buy a single piece at time,
 
ValeX said:
Sounds eerily similar to "Half Life 2 - Episode One" dontcha think?

-- Here, pay us $20 and you can play for a little while, then we're gonna have to charge you again.....*shrugs*

Grrr.......

ValeX
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I think it sounds more like Microsoft wanting to move Windows to a subscription basis. "Here lets hold your computer and your data hostage until you pay us 400$ for another year of Windows"
 
I am not in favor of ring tone game play. (That is the nickel and diming everyone talks about).

I will not buy this sort of thing so I suppose I am not the demographic they are targeting. I would be happy to buy online content if it was on a much larger scale. If they released something along the lines of bloodmoon I would be happy to download it and pay for it (as long as there is some sort of registration to protect the investment in case of hardware failure.)

I would prefer they added to the area of the map instead of just some interiors as well.
 
My 10 cents. Exactly.

The original news blurb on hardocp.com by Steve says "new quest...cost far less than the horse armor did"

Here's the official download site:
http://obliviondownloads.com/StoreCatalog_ProductList.aspx?SubCategoryId=1

The horse armor mod is $1.99
The upcoming Orrery for PC will cost $1.89 according to the site.

Where is the far less? :)

Or were you referring to the xbox 360?

My thoughts on the horse armor: Bethesda flubbed the delivery for the PC version. It isn't able to verify and activate on windows thats 64 bit, and many european installations of windows cannot activate it either. The only thing that bethesda has said officially is that they are working on fixing it. And that was weeks ago.
And unfortuantely for the people who bought it earlier, from what I understand, the download link goes dead after 3 days (better back it up so you dont have to shell out another $2 in a hdd crash), so I dunno how bethesda is planning to distribute an updated version.
 
I personaly like the option to purchase an extra quest (or 10) for a buck or two each. Some times I dont have $30 for a full-blown 15+ quest expansion but would like to play some new content.

As long as they dont get carried away w/ it...I DO believe the Horse Armor was a rip-off, but I do like the 'individual quests for a buck' concept.

Bloodgod42

Quote: Where is the far less?, lol
 
Devistater said:
My 10 cents. Exactly.

The original news blurb by Steve says "new quest...cost far less than the horse armor did"

Here's the official download site:
http://obliviondownloads.com/StoreCatalog_ProductList.aspx?SubCategoryId=1

The horse armor mod is $1.99
The upcoming Orrery for PC will cost $1.89 according to the site.

Where is the far less? :)

Or were you referring to the xbox 360?

My thoughts on the horse armor: Bethesda flubbed the delivery for the PC version. It isn't able to verify and activate on windows thats 64 bit, and many european installations of windows cannot activate it either. The only thing that bethesda has said officially is that they are working on fixing it. And that was weeks ago.
And unfortuantely for the people who bought it earlier, from what I understand, the download link goes dead after 3 days (better back it up so you dont have to shell out another $2 in a hdd crash), so I dunno how bethesda is planning to distribute an updated version.
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Think he's talking about the Xbox, Horse armor=$2.50 Orrery=$1.88. I think Bethesda had ~$1.90 in their heads all along before the game came out. They just knew everyone would want the first buyable mod so they put $2.50 on the price tag. But let's not jump to assumptions here. :)
 
Erasmus354 said:
I think it sounds more like Microsoft wanting to move Windows to a subscription basis. "Here lets hold your computer and your data hostage until you pay us 400$ for another year of Windows"
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So you do realize that Microsoft not only had nothing to do with the price, they also had nothing to do with the fact that this was a "pay-to-play" piece of content at all? Microsoft is simply providing the virtual shelf space, it was Bethesda who decided to release this, it was Bethesda who decided to charge for it, and it was Bethesda who set the price at 150 points. Blaming Microsoft makes about as much sense as blaming your ISP, simply because they allow the content to be delivered to you.
 
JethroXP said:
So you do realize that Microsoft not only had nothing to do with the price, they also had nothing to do with the fact that this was a "pay-to-play" piece of content at all? Microsoft is simply providing the virtual shelf space, it was Bethesda who decided to release this, it was Bethesda who decided to charge for it, and it was Bethesda who set the price at 150 points. Blaming Microsoft makes about as much sense as blaming your ISP, simply because they allow the content to be delivered to you.
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MS is to blame in an indirect way. If bethesda had only released it on PC, I doubt they would have charged any money for official downloadable mods. They didn't for morrowind.

In addition,from what I understand (I dont have an xbox 360), the ONLY way to get mods into gamers hands is through the xbox marketplace thing. And since MS wants to make a profit, and I can garuntee you they take a percentage off the top, bethesda kinda has to charge for it. And charging for xbox 360 and not for PC wouldn't really be "fair" so they have to charge for PC as well.

BTW on a side note, ISP's have been blamed for downloadable content before in court cases. Thats why the current USA law is basically that if an ISP doesn't check what its delivering, its not responsible for it. Which is why they dont generally filter stuff, if they did, they'd have to be 100% accurate or face getting sued again for infringment.
 
In my opinion:
If they can put out a few of these tinly addons and then package them together for say a 20% discount. I'm on board.

For PC users (myself inculded).
I could not bring myself to buy this on Xbox even if I owned one. Morrowind had way to many 3rd party downloads from very skilled moders that people could download for free.

I am a bit afraid that all of these mini addons will take away from the overall depth.

Things I'm willing to pay money for:
- A pack of VERY unique wepons/armor that have mini quests to obtian them. $5-10
- Adding a city $5-7
- Adding a new guild (Mora Tong, or Great Houses) $7-15
- opening up a section of the map $10-15

If some (or please please all) of the above happen the game will grow and become truly an expancive game beyond all.
 
...So THAT's why the Orrey is empty. That mage mentioned it like...once, and it was always "needs key to open". I popped open the console (PC Version), hit unlock, and went in there...big empty room. Guess I might be paying to turn empty room into a quest. :(
 
Devistater said:
MS is to blame in an indirect way. If bethesda had only released it on PC, I doubt they would have charged any money for official downloadable mods. They didn't for morrowind.

In addition,from what I understand (I dont have an xbox 360), the ONLY way to get mods into gamers hands is through the xbox marketplace thing. And since MS wants to make a profit, and I can garuntee you they take a percentage off the top, bethesda kinda has to charge for it. And charging for xbox 360 and not for PC wouldn't really be "fair" so they have to charge for PC as well.

BTW on a side note, ISP's have been blamed for downloadable content before in court cases. Thats why the current USA law is basically that if an ISP doesn't check what its delivering, its not responsible for it. Which is why they dont generally filter stuff, if they did, they'd have to be 100% accurate or face getting sued again for infringment.
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On topic guys; it's been argued before, and has gone nowhere.
 
movax said:
...So THAT's why the Orrey is empty. That mage mentioned it like...once, and it was always "needs key to open". I popped open the console (PC Version), hit unlock, and went in there...big empty room. Guess I might be paying to turn empty room into a quest. :(
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You are paying, essentially, for what was removed from the final product to nickel and dime people, IMO.

As an answer to Steve, my friend (who purchased it for his 360 and later regretted it as a waste of a few bucks) let me know that it wasn't worth the 20 minutes it took him to finish it, and the few abilities that you gained. Beyond specifics, and the possibility of an exaggeration... I would certainly rather a whole bunch of these quests, extra items, and the like, be bundled in a $20 expansion pack. At least then, I'd be more likely to feel I'm getting my money's worth... it would also feel like they put some actual work into it, rather than removing things from the final product to sell them back to us. I'm just waiting for the pay-per-download 1.2 patch to come along :rolleyes:
 
movax said:
...So THAT's why the Orrey is empty. That mage mentioned it like...once, and it was always "needs key to open". I popped open the console (PC Version), hit unlock, and went in there...big empty room. Guess I might be paying to turn empty room into a quest. :(
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Heheh, makes you wonder if that was a section they didn't have time to finish for release of the game and decided to charge money to add it, or if it was planned to be an add on and didn't have anything to do with time constraints at all.

I'm curious, Have you noticed any other empty areas like this that?

steviep said:
. I'm just waiting for the pay-per-download 1.2 patch to come along :rolleyes:
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Not going to happen.They would get mobbed if they charged for patches. Just look at all the problems with the PC release.
Besides, they've already discussed the first patch in an official post. They said basically that:
1) they'd release a beta version of the patch first and
2) you should back up all your save games because they implied that ones modified by the beta patch might not be compatible with the final patch, and you might have to reinstall the game when the final patch arrives
They didn't mention anywhere about charging for patches.

Personally, I agree with other people's expressed sentiments, I'd much rather pay $10 for a pack of these (pack meaning more than 5), than $2 each for a bunch of small ones.
 
Devistater said:
MS is to blame in an indirect way. If bethesda had only released it on PC, I doubt they would have charged any money for official downloadable mods. They didn't for morrowind.

In addition,from what I understand (I dont have an xbox 360), the ONLY way to get mods into gamers hands is through the xbox marketplace thing. And since MS wants to make a profit, and I can garuntee you they take a percentage off the top, bethesda kinda has to charge for it. And charging for xbox 360 and not for PC wouldn't really be "fair" so they have to charge for PC as well.

BTW on a side note, ISP's have been blamed for downloadable content before in court cases. Thats why the current USA law is basically that if an ISP doesn't check what its delivering, its not responsible for it. Which is why they dont generally filter stuff, if they did, they'd have to be 100% accurate or face getting sued again for infringment.
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Out of respect for lesman I'll bite my tongue, as much as it pains me. But I'll just have to say, Damn those companies that want to make a profit!
 
The cost is fine with me. I was even one of those lame people that thought the horse armor was priced decently oddly. On the flip side of it, Im a Union Employed worker in NYC, so the value of just 200 Market place points is really nothing to me. It would of went to what, 2 more pepsis or something =). Havn't downloaded the Orrey content for my 360 as of yet but hey, 150 MP Points is better than 200. So either way, I am not complaining at all. I already have a crapload of market place points as it is. Might as well use them up instead of burning them on themes & Icon packages.

-DarkLegacy
 
I downloaded it and it was a fast quest, with nocturnal's cowls 5-10 minutes but it is a step in the right direction and some of the buffs very useful. I didnt buy horse armor because I find the horse a waste. but I would like larger more in-depth quests. I like long hard quests that take hours like the final thieves guild quest. Id like to see the wizards tower to have some majors quests with it and a way to home grow nirnroot
 
I'd complain if this game sucked. But as it stands this game is very well put together. For me it's the most enjoyable game I've played in a long time. If the game sucked then I'd complain about paying for stuff.
 
The real reason they do this is because for every person that says they are not going to buy it there are 2-3 people willing to pay for it. Since there are so many people with i have to have the latest of everything(aka the xbox 360 that sold for double because some dumbass had to have it). If everybody would just stick to there guns and not give them the power to shift you be charging 2.00 dollars for what took them a whole 3-4 days to make. Make them give you more by not buying garage. My i think 2 dollars for 20-40 minutes is B.S. since the game already offer's so much. If you buy this you will be screwing us in the end since the will not release exp. packs they will nickel and dime us to death. Just like everything else in this world. Also Bethesda should be ashamed for trying to over milk this already great cash cow

Just my 2 cent's
 
This quest expansion worked out nicely for me since I finished the game, including all the 360 achievements, the day before it was released. It is definitely a 20 minute quest. You retrieve 4 items from 4 camps and each camp has 1-3 dwarven enemies. Grab the parts, fast travel back to the mage guild.

The quest was probably accurately priced but they cheaped out when it came to the details. For example, they just used the dwarven shield icon for the pieces of the machine in the inventory list. It reminded me of Westwood Studios first addon for C&C Red Alert where they just added lightning attack ability to the radar tanks and called them telsa tanks. And if you want to get nit-picky there also was only one additional piece of voice dialog.

All in all, worth the money if you have points kicking around your account. Just don't expect too much from it.
 
steviep said:
As an answer to Steve, my friend (who purchased it for his 360 and later regretted it as a waste of a few bucks) let me know that it wasn't worth the 20 minutes it took him to finish it, and the few abilities that you gained. Beyond specifics, and the possibility of an exaggeration... I would certainly rather a whole bunch of these quests, extra items, and the like, be bundled in a $20 expansion pack. At least then, I'd be more likely to feel I'm getting my money's worth... it would also feel like they put some actual work into it, rather than removing things from the final product to sell them back to us. I'm just waiting for the pay-per-download 1.2 patch to come along :rolleyes:
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You mean you were the 3rd person into the thread and opened it up with the comments about "shitty" content and "raping" people's market place points and you do not own the downloadable content or the game itself? Rushing into a thread as fast as you can to yell "Yay! A 20 minute quest, some new shitty abilities, and let's rape more people's marketplace points!" and you don't even have the game / content??

Now your fall back excuse is "I heard it from a friend"? :confused:

Real nice. :(
 
I wouldn't poke my head into the thread had I known nothing about it. As a user of the PC version, I certainly know better than to purchase it myself. I mean... the modding community can and will give us a lot better, and for free. But if you would like me to go to my buddy's house and sit around for 15 minutes and beat up on a few dwarves, just to post the same thing... no problems there :p

Bottom line is that he regretted his purchase, as I'm sure a lot of people are. To those who justify it like this ("there's so much content in this great game already, they are allowed to nickel and dime us!") think of it this way... I paid 50 bucks for 200 hours of gameplay. Is an extra $2 worth 1/4 of an hour?
 
steviep said:
I wouldn't poke my head into the thread had I known nothing about it. As a user of the PC version, I certainly know better than to purchase it myself. I mean... the modding community can and will give us a lot better, and for free. But if you would like me to go to my buddy's house and sit around for 15 minutes and beat up on a few dwarves, just to post the same thing... no problems there :p

Bottom line is that he regretted his purchase, as I'm sure a lot of people are. To those who justify it like this ("there's so much content in this great game already, they are allowed to nickel and dime us!") think of it this way... I paid 50 bucks for 200 hours of gameplay. Is an extra $2 worth 1/4 of an hour?
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Do these threads matter sooo much? Is the only thing important to you is to feel like your opinion really laid down the law or to show the flaming light of what you consider truth? Because frankly--even over the internet--an awful lot of your posts makes ya come across as a real jerk IMO. That's regardless of whether you're right or not.

Sometimes it's better to just let things go and say nothing if you want friends (IRL and otherwise)... If that isn't important to you at all, then I don't think there's much more that can be said.

Navy
 
Bethesda imho is treading on some shaky ground.

First off, the release of Oblivion came along with so many bugs in game(granted no game release is perfect or bug free), they were lucky that the content of the game balanced out the problems.

To have purchasable mods before they release a main patch just looks bad in my eyes. That alone shows they are more interested in making a "quick profit" than sending out patch's to fix the bugs.

That almost seems like the Microsoftian Mentality which Bethesda shouldn't lean towards it is just bad for business in the eyes of the consumer.

But like others have mentioned if they make an expansion pack (like they did for Baulder's gate) I will purchase it - plain and simple. Bethesda has made an outstanding update/expansion on a great RPG series.

What Bethesda should do is make an expansion pack for each of the other locations that adds on to Oblivion (i.e. eylsewere(sp),morrowind, etc). That would rule.
 
I agree that I'd prefer an expansion pack or bundle of lots of content priced appropriately over buying a $2 single mission. I also agree that a patch is needed more then any other downloadable content. I'd hate seeing the devs waste time developing fluff when a patch is more important, but if this was truly content that was removed from the game, only to be added back in for more money, I guess they're not wasting any time after all. Of course, then I have an even bigger issue with them... :rolleyes:
 
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