The Orrey - Uh, that's it?

[Keith]

Despite the fact that it offers more than the silly dress-up-pony mod at a cheaper price, it still feels like a rip-off.

Here's what you get for your $2 [SPOILERS, I guess]:

- 1 lame fetch quest (with a crappy, immersion-breaking way of initiating the quest - a note just pops into your inventory - and no additional backstory or narrative development)

- access to the Orrey, which gives you a power-spell ("+20 Personality, -10 Luck" was what I got) when you click on it that changes "based on the phases of the moon" (those who were hoping this "phases of the moon" marketing line referred to werewolf-powers or some such thing are sorely out of luck)

I would happily pay $$ for an interesting quest and a new area to explore. But an uninspired 'fetch these items' quest and a single (though admittedly cool-looking) room just doesn't cut it.

[Jackstar]

Can that cool-looking room be used for long-term storage? Can you fast travel into the room, or do you have to land outside and then open a door?

[Igor Muravyev]

All I can say is that I saw it coming.

[Matthew Gallant]

I feel a magic storage crate (that looks just like a plain wooden crate) coming on.

[roguefrog]

A nonsensical Fed-Ex quest? You've been had.

[stusser]

Bethesda reportedly sold over 100,000 horse armor mods. Assuming MS let them keep 50% and all of the paid downloads were from xbox live (which seems likely, doesn't it?), that's $100,000 for realistically 10 man hours of work. $10,000 per hour. Not too shabby.

Of course they're pissing off their customers, it's a gip, and we know it, and they know we know it, and they know we know they know we know it, but there's too damn much money in it to stop.

I expect lots more of these. They'll continue to sell well on the xbox360 and seriously, who cares about the PC players anyway?

[Xemu]

I'm not at all privy to the details of Bethesda's operation but it was almost certainly more than 10 hours of work. The testing on it alone, not to mention deployment, is easily several times that I'd imagine.

The interesting thing about Marketplace is that it really is just that -- a more pure opportunity for supply and demand is hard to find. Its really unclear to me whether the way for Bethesda to maximize profits is finding a low enough price point to crank these babies out every few weeks like they are doing now, or make larger "mini expansions" at a higher price point and really only directly target the harder core players.

[Jason Cross]

Looks like Bethesda is burning through their goodwill pretty fast. Not really a great idea for a relatively small "indie publisher."

[wildpokerman]

Originally Posted by Jason Cross

Looks like Bethesda is burning through their goodwill pretty fast. Not really a great idea for a relatively small "indie publisher."

Since when is a game company that set a sales record for their current game and has their last game on the top 25 best selling of all time an indie?

[HRose]

Still loot oriented more than content oriented. Still taking the worst out of mmorpgs.

[ElGuapo]

1.25 cents per point, right?

So the Orrey is $1.88. I guess you have to decide if that's worth it.

Question: Why does releasing additional content piss off their customers? What if they didn't release additional content? Would that piss off their customers? Or not piss them off?

I'm assuming the mentality is that Bethesda should give these things away for free. As in, assign artists, programmers, and supervisor staff for no return on their time at all, just for goodwill. As if that would influence a single fan to buy the next game, or decide not to.

Not defending Bethesda, per se, just wondering why people think they are pissing off their fan base. Or if they are, and why. And how it relates to available content for download on Xbox Live.

[Sean Hargraves]

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

I'm assuming the mentality is that Bethesda should give these things away for free. As in, assign artists, programmers, and supervisor staff for no return on their time at all, just for goodwill. As if that would influence a single fan to buy the next game, or decide not to.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/download...es_plugins.htm

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Originally Posted by yurislave

Since when is a game company that set a sales record for their current game and has their last game on the top 25 best selling of all time an indie?

Did Morrowind sell over 8 million copies? Since when ..?

[Jackstar]

I suspect he might have meant "list of top 25 best selling games of all time on the xbox" but I could be wrong.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally Posted by yurislave

Since when is a game company that set a sales record for their current game and has their last game on the top 25 best selling of all time an indie?

You're thinking of the developer. The publisher in this case is Microsoft, which is possibly the only indy to own multiple concurrent game consoles... as a sideline.

[Brad Wardell]

Hollowed are the Orrey. ;)

[RichardC]

SLAP!

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Actually, the publisher is not Microsoft. It's 2K Games, which means that yurislave is partially right: San Andreas was published by Take Two, which is the parent company of 2K.

Bethesda used to publish their own games, however. Why did they sign up with 2K for this one?

[WarrenM]

Of course they're pissing off their customers, it's a gip, and we know it, and they know we know it, and they know we know they know we know it, but there's too damn much money in it to stop.

That's completely silly logic. If they sold 100,000+ horse armors to people who wanted to buy them - who is getting gip'd exactly?

[Keith]

Originally Posted by jafd

Can that cool-looking room be used for long-term storage? Can you fast travel into the room, or do you have to land outside and then open a door?

As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing you can interact with in the room other than the button that gives you your bonus power spell. I see no reason to believe dropping an item in the Orrey would be any different from dropping an item in any other room in the game. (It's not *your* Orrey -- you just helped "rebuild" it for the mage's guild with your fetch quest, and are presumably allowed access because of this (although this is not explained in-game).)

I'm fairly certain you can't fast travel to it -- it's located in the entrance lobby for the mage's guild (you have to open a couple of doors to get there).

[RichardC]

Originally Posted by EpicBoy

That's completely silly logic. If they sold 100,000+ horse armors to people who wanted to buy them - who is getting gip'd exactly?

People who were looking forward to good content, only to find that the legions willing to buy crappy fantasy ringtone-type content don't make it worth Bethesda's time to do anything good?

[DeepT]

I think people need to realise the difference here. With the horse armor mod, you knew what you were getting. With the Orrey, you didn't. The former is ok, the latter is not.

[RichardC]

I'd say it's more a matter of trust. I don't want to know every little in and out of everything I download, I just want to be able to think 'that sounds cool, and I trust Bethesda to have done it properly for my money'.

For instance, rebuilding the Orrery sounded like a proper quest. Not FedEx and a button.

[SpoofyChop]

Originally Posted by EpicBoy

That's completely silly logic. If they sold 100,000+ horse armors to people who wanted to buy them - who is getting gip'd exactly?

Well first of all, we're all getting "gyped" by you when you keep posting flamebait crap.

Second, it's OrreRy not Orrey everybody.


This thread has awful spelling.

[WarrenM]

Well first of all, we're all getting "gyped" by you when you keep posting flamebait crap.

I didn't start the thread, I'm simply posting an opinion. That's allowed, isn't it?

Willing customers are purchasing an available product. Yet somehow someone is getting gip'd. How?

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Charybdis

For instance, rebuilding the Orrery sounded like a proper quest. Not FedEx and a button.

You're wrong. It's a simple fetch-these-items quest, with the one line explanation - provided in that pops-in-your-inventory note - that the reason you're fetching is because the items are needed to rebuild the Orrery*. After you fetch, you press a button.

A "proper quest" has one or more of the following: an interesting backstory, unexpected twists, multiple paths, compelling character interaction, etc, etc. There are many examples of such quests in Oblivion. And when I'm paying for premium content, I expect to be getting the best Oblivion has to offer. Instead, I get what is probably the single least interesting quest I've done so far in the game. People should expect more from Bethesda, and more for their money.



* Oooops!

[Balasarius]

Originally Posted by ElGuapo

I'm assuming the mentality is that Bethesda should give these things away for free. As in, assign artists, programmers, and supervisor staff for no return on their time at all, just for goodwill. As if that would influence a single fan to buy the next game, or decide not to.

See: Blizzard - Diablo 1.10 patch.

What percentage of WoW's 6 million sales were influenced by the Diablo 1.10 patch?

1% ? .5%?

The number can get really small and still be cost effective.

This is why Blizzard rules. As do other companies that give away content for free. I'm pretty sure Bioware did it with both BG1/2 and NWN.

And it is also why Bethesda definitely does NOT rule.

[stusser]

Value is subjective. I wouldn't pay $10 for a stick of gum, even though I like gum and $10 is an insignificant amount of money to me. I simply don't feel a stick of gum is worth it, and I imagine that most would agree with me.

I would really be interested in the statistics comparing xbox and PC sales. My guess would be that well over 95% of sales were on xbox live. Paying 150 "microsoft points" is very different than pulling out the creditcard and charging $1.89 in a secure web transaction.

It's all very anti-consumer but because it's brand new and MS paid for tons of marketing everybody kinda ignores the pink elephant. Almost nobody is saying "Holy shit, MS actually got people to pay $2 for a Kameo wallpaper on their gaming console?! What a horrible ripoff!" Instead, they say "Wow, xbox live has Kameo wallpapers for a couple of microsoft points. Isn't that clever and innovative! Welcome to the HD generation!"

[James Gutierrez]

Originally Posted by Balasarius

This is why Blizzard rules. As do other companies that give away content for free. I'm pretty sure Bioware did it with both BG1/2 and NWN.

And it is also why Bethesda definitely does NOT rule.

Right, because Bethesda just gave away a free editor for creating content.

[SpoofyChop]

Originally Posted by EpicBoy

I didn't start the thread, I'm simply posting an opinion. That's allowed, isn't it?

No. You're not allowed to post opinions unless they're epic. Otherwise it's false advertising. And stop spelling gyped wrong.