So how soon before the first DLC? And what effect will they have?

[rickyriot 1009]

This is not a hate thread, purely a question to the DayZ masses. I feel the need to point this out at the start as perhaps this thread could be seen as a hater thread. It's not, I love the game for all it's flaws, and done so since the early(ish) days of the mod. 

 

Now onto the question...

 

How long will it be before we see non-free DLC's being offered for DayZ? And if/when they appear what will they do for the community in terms of affecting the balance of the game. I am not discussing free DLCs, as they will be by implication available to all, just the paid for DLCs.

 

The premise...

 

DayZ got a lot uptake at the start of it's alpha, more so than anyone expected. This leaves BI with a bit of a 'jam today' situation in terms of revenue. I fully expect them to deliver in regard to taking the game to Beta and hopefully Final, however where do they make their future money? Game sales will naturally increase as the game gets more feature rich and more stable, but what about all those players who have paid a relatively low price (in comparison to other games) for what will soon be quite a heavily developed title. The easiest way? Monetise those who have already paid for the base game by offering DLCs.

 

Why is it likely...

 

Looking at the progression of Arma3 it holds some parallels to DayZ. Both open world FPS games that were developed by the same company, started out as an Alpha and both are sold primarily through Steam (which allows for easy DLC selling). In fact, have a look at this: Arma 3 DLC Bundle and it will show that BI is not against offering paid for DLCs and ones that offer quite a significant addition to the game. If that sets a precedence then it seems almost inevitable that BI will offer pay for DLCs.

 

The problem...

 

So what would a DLC offer? New clothing? New weapons? Always starting spawn with a baseline of certain loot? Looking at that link in the previous paragraph the things offered could be seriously game changing; better weapons, better vehicles (obviously vehicles in general would need to be implemented first). The core issue here is the balance of the game. I am not inherently against DLCs, per se, so long as they don't alter that, but there is the rub - I don't think that you can. The minute you offer people the choice to pay money to gain an advantage you will ruin the balance. Granted it's unlikely those who are fairly decent in the game are going to pay for content they can loot for but then that relies on the content offered by a DLC being available without DLC. It also opens up the situation where BI may restrict those without the bought DLC from using the content offered by it. For example, offering a vehicle that you cannot enter unless you have paid to do so.

 

So there we have it, to summarise the question; when will we see paid for DLCs, if ever, and what will they mean for the game in general.

 

 

TL;DR? DLCs - will they happen, and if they do will it fuck up the in game balance.

 

 

(edited: to amend the poll a little to offer a n/a option in the second vote)

Edited June 1, 2014 by ricp

[rickyriot 1009]

As a slight caveat to the above, I have not touched on two subjects that you would naturally flow on from this debate. Those being the introduction of microtransitions and the porting of DayZ to other platforms. Both have different effects on the revenue stream to BI. I have purposely not included them as I wanted the main poll question to be as simple as possible; DLCs yes/no, and game balance bad/good.

 

Edit: If you answered Yes to the first poll question, could you reply in terms of the timeframe you expect them to appear? This doesn't need to be exact. It can be a contextual reference (ie: during the move to Beta) or absolute (by Q1 2015).

Edited June 1, 2014 by ricp

[SmashT 10907]

I expect if we ever see any DLC it would be something along the lines of new maps.

[rickyriot 1009]

I expect if we ever see any DLC it would be something along the lines of new maps.

 

Well done (and I don't mean that in a patronising fashion at all), when I was writing the OP I couldn't think of a way that DLCs wouldn't affect the core balance of the game but certainly paid for maps might be the primary way you could.

Edited June 1, 2014 by ricp

[rickyriot 1009]

Oh, and to nail my colours to the mast, I do see DLCs being offered and sadly I do see them affecting the vanilla game balance. It's just a hunch and as I said in the opening post I don't want to come across as a hater, but I just have a feeling that's the way it will go.

 

In terms of timeline I would expect to see them being offered as soon as the game leaves Alpha.

[bastins 14]

The problem...

 

[...] Looking at that link in the previous paragraph the things offered could be seriously game changing; better weapons, better vehicles (obviously vehicles in general would need to be implemented first). The core issue here is the balance of the game. [...]

 

The problem with looking at Arma 3, though, is that it's not strictly a multiplayer game like DayZ, so it can get away with seemingly unbalanced DLC.  If they were to release DLC for DayZ, they will almost certainly do so knowing that things need to remain balanced.

[DropBearChick 1216]

When modding comes the tools might be paid for but other than developer maps nothing will be dlc, because unlike arma series there is no storyline, and therefore the 4 other things games make dlc or microtransactions for are maps, guns, items such as clothing and cars and camos, so i really doubt any of these will be paid for especially since the modders will probs just make a free version.

[rickyriot 1009]

When modding comes the tools might be paid for but other than developer maps nothing will be dlc, because unlike arma series there is no storyline, and therefore the 4 other things games make dlc or microtransactions for are maps, guns, items such as clothing and cars and camos, so i really doubt any of these will be paid for especially since the modders will probs just make a free version.

 

It's a very valid counter argument to paid for DLCs, however if that is the case then how do BI aim to generate money from a game that has seen a development cycle and revenue stream that has had an unlikely early spike? 

 

Edit: I have no problem with BI making money, btw, just want to point that out. Would hate to see them kill the golden goose though.

Edited June 1, 2014 by ricp

[DropBearChick 1216]

What, they need more money? They e sold over two million copies each at 30 Au a pop thats over 60 million dollars AU, plus i have quite a few friends waiting till barious milestones to play eg vehicles, fixed zombies, release, base building or bananas in holsters.

[rickyriot 1009]

What, they need more money?

 

I am tempted to put in a *sarcastic fry* meme here. BI is a company, it needs to make money in order to continue trading, developing DayZ and developing new titles.

 

They e sold over two million copies each at 30 Au a pop thats over 60 million dollars AU,

 

That is "back of a cigarette packet" mathematics, it simply doesn't work out like that. The net profit made will be massively less than simply multiplying the price paid with the amount sold. Vastly so.

 

plus i have quite a few friends waiting till barious milestones to play eg vehicles, fixed zombies, release, base building or bananas in holsters.

 

Now that is a fair point. It is obviously open to debate the level of untapped market there is out there. The problem I think BI have is that they tapped into that market early and as such will not see the standard return of investment based on the money they are spending on developing the title now.

[DropBearChick 1216]

I still think that

A) if there is any dlc it wont be till full release

B) it will only be maps

C) even if you factor in steam costs, hiring costs, licensing costs etc etc etc, it still means bi is making 30 plus million wich is more than enough to make more games as well as the revenue from arma 3 and 2 and dayz was pretty cheap compared to games who made similar sale figures seeing as theres no publisher, next to no marketing and so on.

D) there will be no point if the modding community is good enough.

[hells high 676]

What, they need more money?

Its almost like they're a company or something...

 

 

 

http://www.bistudio.com/company/developers-blog/465-roadmap-14-15-dlc-strategy-blog

 

According to BI's new strategy for DLC, any would be presumably be open and available for everyone to use.

[The Aquatic Land Walrus 565]

If DayZ has DLC, tell me. I want to make sure that Rocket was assassinated by the chairman of WarZ.

[AoWGaming 2]

Hoping No to DLC, The Map idea wasnt too shabby if it was too be added though.

[UltimateGentleman 355]

I don't see how DLC's would fuck up the balance they could just have some servers, I'd love to see some game mode DLC's

 

So you could have an endless horde DLC where you spawn with full gear a gun and ammo and there's constantly zombies chasing you around and you have to survive as long as you can.

It would be great fun, currently the game gets very very boring once you have everything you need it's just not hard to survive at all and the only thing left to do is kill people which also gets boring.

 

Endless horde mode, zombie player mode, animal horde mode(like wolves and bears everywhere)

Shit like that would be awesome.

 

 

Any DLC shouldn't affect the base game they should be separate, like how stable is to experimental.

[FrostDMG 398]

If you guys think there'll be no DLC... Pleaee you're being delusional.

I'm pretty sure we'll see a new map or something similar.

HOWEVER. I doubt there will ever be DLC if private servers are released soon after the SA Launch.

[rickyriot 1009]

I don't see how DLC's would fuck up the balance they could just have some servers, I'd love to see some game mode DLC's

 

So you could have an endless horde DLC where you spawn with full gear a gun and ammo and there's constantly zombies chasing you around and you have to survive as long as you can.

It would be great fun, currently the game gets very very boring once you have everything you need it's just not hard to survive at all and the only thing left to do is kill people which also gets boring.

 

Endless horde mode, zombie player mode, animal horde mode(like wolves and bears everywhere)

Shit like that would be awesome.

 

What you have described there would be specific server setup not DLC. When I mention DLC, and certainly in the context of this thread, it's content you pay for that is only available for your use. The ability to own a specific weapon that only you and others who have bought that DLC can use for example.

[St. Jimmy 1631]

A whole expansion could suit DayZ better. Or they can do like in A2 that if you don't own the DLC you've lowered graphics on the content. I don't know how they could handle other than map DLCs in a way they're trying with A3.

 

/Oh and about when the first DLC could happen... well I guess 2015 Q4 is the earliest point.

Edited June 1, 2014 by St. Jimmy

[SFRGaming 718]

What, they need more money? They e sold over two million copies each at 30 Au a pop thats over 60 million dollars AU, plus i have quite a few friends waiting till barious milestones to play eg vehicles, fixed zombies, release, base building or bananas in holsters.

They don't receive ALL of that money. Large portions of it go to other companies.

[Daemonkid 493]

 

-snip-

Oh god now. That sounds really awful. Gouge out my own eyes kind of bad.

On topic. The only thing I will EVER pay for as a DLC would be a new map, and that's if it's 5$ at the most. 

F this DLC fad. 

[Element47 2480]

What you have described there would be specific server setup not DLC. When I mention DLC, and certainly in the context of this thread, it's content you pay for that is only available for your use. The ability to own a specific weapon that only you and others who have bought that DLC can use for example.

 

this is an extremely limited view on what a DLC can provide. you should then maybe rephrase your original post & title to something along the lines of "will we see additional buyable items available per DLC/microtransactions or even a whole ingame store with loot"

 

 

 

I personally can see things similar to METROs Ranger Mode released as DLC. And if you look at the recently released (horrible) Karts DLC Arma3 you get an ide a howa DLC might affect gameplay. I'd prefer to see a Ranger DLC and Ranger-only hive than "Dayz Racing League" servers, to be honest

 

But cosmetic Items available per microtransactions? like differently textured tactical vest? Additional attachments? not so much. The need to scavenge for items is at the core of gameplay, purchasable items would quite probably break the game and i am quite sure the devs are aware of that.

 

that said, we surely will see modded private hives with different starting gear as soon as it becomes possible. the dayz mod has spawned quite a number of horrendous abominations in this regard, and once private hives and modding are enabled, this will transfer to SA, no doubt.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

DLC is a money grabbing way for companies to release a not full game and then charge you more money to complete it..  I personally hope there won't be any DLC for DayZ and people will create maps as mods instead.

[rickyriot 1009]

this is an extremely limited view on what a DLC can provide. you should then maybe rephrase your original post & title to something along the lines of "will we see additional buyable items available per DLC/microtransactions or even a whole ingame store with loot"

 

Did you read my first post fully or just read the title and the poll questions? Perhaps it was my fault for providing a TL;DR, but if you had read the full post it would be obvious to what I am referring and the problem of in game balance in regard to purchasable DLC. It's clear you didn't read my second subsequent post as I explained the lack of referencing micro transactions.

However, I do think you have addressed the issue I was trying to raise with your following paragraph...

 

But cosmetic Items available per microtransactions? like differently textured tactical vest? Additional attachments? not so much. The need to scavenge for items is at the core of gameplay, purchasable items would quite probably break the game and i am quite sure the devs are aware of that.

 

...and I certainly share your concerns expressed. Although the devs being aware of the consequences and being able to stop the decision being made to include them (either as microtransactions or as DLC) are not mutually inclusive.

[dinosaurlegs 42]

They have to have content to start with before they can make people pay to download more.

[kimmaz 63]

Atleast in the mod, what features you got depended on what server you played on. Some had missons, some had serge AI, ect. If they give more features away in a DLC, they must have dlc spesific servers? the dlc merly allowed you to join those servers with those features? 

 

I think most of the mods will come to dayz standalone, with a new dayz commander. like epoch, namalsk, overwatch and so on. And that standalone itself is more like the mod was in the beginning.