Peninsula Campaign DLC?

[Fisherking]

It looks like it is already in the files.

It seems to show up on Napoleon's Military Academy.

The fist Portuguese & Spanish flags and the last British & French flags have (spa_ with them and a smaller unit mix for the last two.

Here is the link to the French Units: http://totalwar.honga.net/napoleon_u...p?f=spa_france

When they get around to releasing it is another matter entirely.

[Nigel]

Please pardon a stupid question, but what is a DLC ?

[ollicompolli]

Please pardon a stupid question, but what is a DLC ?

Downloadable content. Meaning you have to pay a bit of cash for elite unit/campaign.

[Fisherking]

Please pardon a stupid question, but what is a DLC ?

It is Down Loadable Content

Something the industry has latched onto and CA started using it with Empire Total War.

Some elements are included already in the game but it has to be unlocked via Steam.

It is usually quite inexpensive but you still have to buy it if you want to have it.

This campaign is not yet even announced, we just stumbled over it.

[Suraknar]

I am very picky to which games I buy now.

A couple of months ago I was looking for a railroad game, and went to browse Steam listings and there is one that practically got released with one or two locomotives and they offer additional locomotives in the form of DLC..they lost me as potential customer then and there.

I am not interested in buying games piece by piece.

I would be willing to buy an expansion to a Full game, but not bits and pieces of content, they are trying to apply the "hamburger Industry" standards on to gaming, "Want to super charge your Fries?"...it is ridiculous.

So now I check games thourougly before I buy them if I see that the core game is practically naked and you have to buy a bunch of DLC's there after, I simply look elsewhere, because it is a big world out there, and someone else may have made a similar game without the greed sauce.

BTW, DLC comes in direct Conflict with modding from a financial point of view, modders offer for free what the DLC is trying to offer for money.

[antisocialmunky]

I am very picky to which games I buy now.

A couple of months ago I was looking for a railroad game, and went to browse Steam listings and there is one that practically got released with one or two locomotives and they offer additional locomotives in the form of DLC..they lost me as potential customer then and there.

I am not interested in buying games piece by piece.

I would be willing to buy an expansion to a Full game, but not bits and pieces of content, they are trying to apply the "hamburger Industry" standards on to gaming, "Want to super charge your Fries?"...it is ridiculous.

So now I check games thourougly before I buy them if I see that the core game is practically naked and you have to buy a bunch of DLC's there after, I simply look elsewhere, because it is a big world out there, and someone else may have made a similar game without the greed sauce.

BTW, DLC comes in direct Conflict with modding from a financial point of view, modders offer for free what the DLC is trying to offer for money.

Because the some of best selling games in the last year had no modding community.

[iHelp]

I'm opposed to downloadable content in general, however I wouldn't mind paying a little bit of money for an entire campaign, like the War of 1812, Peninsular War, maybe some of the South American revolutions, etc. It's just the unit DLC that drives me crazy, who would pay extra for a bunch of units?

[NimitsTexan]

Me.

[caravel]

"Action figures sold separately".

[gollum]

I am not sure that DLC is against modding in the long term. Its a business sophistry and trick alright, and it tries to cash in on the enthusiasm and impact a new release may generate on the fanbase. I am sure that it'll come out in the first few months of a release and nevermore - who would buy ETW dlcs now? Modding on the other hand, certainly must be contributing sales in the long run - just by simply generating a strong community, let alone interesting variants using the game engine.

I wouldn't be surprised if CA delays publishing modding tools with the aim to maximise dlc sales. But i doubt that CA will try to kill modding in the long run or anything.

In any case, with teh napoleonic period having a strong following, modding acticity already flourishes it seems in the twc, and i am sure it will for as long as the game can be run in pcs. The tw engine has plenty of parameters to alter the gameplay into something that its more for hardcore gamers, more historically accurate, of more scope, with more units/factions; there are endless varieties and an audience for each.

All this doesn't mean that CA is not overly commercial or "sold out" as my generation used to say about certain r'n'r bands, back in the day. CA has sold out, but its now old news. Its also old news that it won't be coming around - what we see is where things are going. To be honest its not to my taste overall and so i abstein, however i can understand that plenty of others dont mind that in the least; they'll play and buy the games and have fun with them, and this forum is for them.

[Yun Dog]

My question is where does the line get drawn as far as what get included in the game and whats gets sold as DLC. Napoleon was given a low (7) by Australian PC gamer because it was too lite on. The temptation is going to be for the game company to sell the minimum with the game and as much as possible as DLC thus maximizing profits. How are gamers going to judge when they are getting a poor deal, having already purchased, and also having already purchased they get squeezed to buy the DLC to get the most of their game. A game which without DLC they may have gotten alot more included with and enjoyment from. So we pay for a game that is a cut down version, and then pay more to get the complete game we should have gotten in the first place. Im sorry but CA is starting to sicken me to my stomach. I havent bought into their latest NTW con and it looks like I wont be buying into their games ever again.

I know the whole DLC is here to stay argument, Dragon age was a much more complete game out of the box than ETW or NTW - and theres the difference
But will the punters be discerning enough - its tough when really youve goto buy the game to find out - a fool and their money - and it looks like gamers to a large extent are fools - sorry

I guess what Im saying is: surely the pennisular campaign should have been included in the game - shame on them

[gollum]

Originally posted by Lord Yunson
So we pay for a game that is a cut down version, and then pay more to get the complete game we should have gotten in the first place. Im sorry but CA is starting to sicken me to my stomach. I havent bought into their latest NTW con and it looks like I wont be buying into their games ever again.

Now ca has started to sicken you in the stomach? heh - a little late for that...

[Yun Dog]

Now ca has started to sicken you in the stomach? heh - a little late for that...

Hope dies last

[Graphic]

Like it or not, DLC is a part of the industry from now on and it's not going anywhere. "It's not about right or wrong, General. At this point, it simply is." - Metalocalypse. So boycotting on principal is a bit pointless at this stage. It's done...enjoy the new content or don't.

How moddable ETW and NTW are is a separate issue entirely. If CA wanted to crush the modding community to boost sales of their DLC unit packs, I don't think they would have allowed it so that custom unit creation is at least one of the areas where modders have total freedom. Think about it. If CA really did want to destroy modding, it could be done. There are so many PC games out there that are absolutely, 100% unmoddable. Even ones on engines like Unreal that can be extremely moddable. If they wanted to kill mods all they had to do was push the proverbial red button. When ETW came out no one thought it possible that custom unit models could be added to the game, that it was totally "locked out" because of CA's hideous new business practices, but look at things now.

Fact of the matter is CA never supported the modding community to begin with (except for some 3dmax script for RTW that everyone already had, I hear) but never hindered it either. What we're seeing with the new games is just growing pains associated with figuring out an entirely new engine and file structure; nothing's really changed with regards to CA's stance on modding. I suspect they simply didn't give moddability consideration when designing the new engine, but that's not the same thing as locking it out and trying to destroy it. TW modders are smart kids, they just need time to figure things out.

Anyway, if they do come out with a Peninsular campaign DLC, I'll get it if it has enough new content and isn't just a zoomed in Spanish map with all the same old units.

[gollum]

Pretty much on the spot. CA lightly supported the modding community and gossip has it that in various instances it benefited from it, like say from napoleonic tw 2 made by the Lordz.

[Fisherking]

I was giving some thought today on the map. It seems to be THE THING that they have been unable to mod.

Since they used actual earth topography for the map, it was likely not developed in house. I have worked on converting satellite mapping data into maps and it is not a breeze. The amount of clutter that has to be taken out is unbelievable. You can’t just take google earth and put it into a usable format for games.

Unless someone has access to compatible files or the whole world is actually contained in the map data, there is not going to be any new areas added. Trade theaters maybe but battle ready terrain, you had best think again.

I could be wrong. Someone may know better and if they do I look forward to their maps. But I am not holding my breath.


More on topic, if CA is still mod neutral we are lucky. I don’t think their business model looks any more like Robber Barons than just about anyone else’s. They could be middle of the road in that regard, I don’t know. But I don’t see them as the worst.

DLC seems to be the strategy of the month for most game developers and I don’t see it as evil or usury.

I will buy what I like and pass on the rest.

What happened with ETW was disappointing. They fixed it to a usable state and I can live with that, not love it but live with it.

They moved on to NTW.

It is time for us to move on too. Either we like what they have done or not but it won’t do any good to dwell on the past.

[Jolt]

At last Portugal gets some deserved love.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I was giving some thought today on the map. It seems to be THE THING that they have been unable to mod.

Since they used actual earth topography for the map, it was likely not developed in house. I have worked on converting satellite mapping data into maps and it is not a breeze. The amount of clutter that has to be taken out is unbelievable. You can’t just take google earth and put it into a usable format for games.

Unless someone has access to compatible files or the whole world is actually contained in the map data, there is not going to be any new areas added. Trade theaters maybe but battle ready terrain, you had best think again.

I could be wrong. Someone may know better and if they do I look forward to their maps. But I am not holding my breath.

IIRC, the first empire earth had a feature whereby you could download elevation data to use in the map editor and generate a map from that. And that game was released November 2001. Not to say it's easy, just doable.

CR

[Fisherking]

Granted! I over stated the case. Today there should be quite a bit of processed and cleaned data available in some form. That only leaves the compatibility issue. Lets hope that is also a small problem.

I must say that when I did that work we got the first 386s with the unheard of amount of 4 mb of ram. We had 486s by the time we finished.

New image data would be no less cluttered but there should be sufficient clean data for use.

It is good to know that no one else need spend days going around a city scrape or country side removing parked cars, people, animals, garbage cans, and litter piles from graphics files just like pc garbage collectors.

[Graphic]

What happened with ETW was disappointing. They fixed it to a usable state and I can live with that, not love it but live with it.

I guess I'm still in the minority of people who like ETW. It was ROUGH at release, but by 1.3 most of the huge problems were gone. With the patches (and Luntik's AI mod) I think it's quite nice. Hopefully 1.6 removes the need for the AI mod.

But NTW does show how stripped down ETW was in terms of the little things. It was suspected before, but NTW confirmed that ETW was rushed. It seems obvious to me that SEGA was really hounding them to release something, so they shoved ETW out. The patches and the the beauty of NTW (I think it might be my favorite TW) make up for that mostly in my eyes, and the discount price of NTW doesn't hurt either. I can live with ETW's faults since I think it gave them the space they needed to really dote on NTW.