Hey, I was wondering what post-release support for this game will be like? Will there be free patches, paid addons, or free maps? This looks like a cool game and I'd hate to see it go the way of ETQW. Also: discuss possible ways for future expansion (eg maps, classes, etc)

Well, I've never found a game where you actually have to pay for a patch so I'd assume they're free. I'd also assume they'll be addons and such to keep the game interesting... You don't put this much effort in a game then just abandon it and move onto another project. Hopefully they don't rush them and do a crap job then make them really expensive too, I've seen it happen to a lot of good games these days. Mass produce expensive crap instead of making a few mind-blowing additions to the game.

Mac loves to make people pay for patches, but that's neither here nor there >.>

SD has historically been very supportive of their games. Patches are just about guaranteed. Official addons and new content are still unconfirmed, but I would be surprised if SD didn't eventually release something. At the very least, PC will have lots of user-made content.

The one thing that SD has confirmed is that they want to support the competitive community, offering tournaments and whatnot.

That's very true, but this is their first game with Bethesda and will also be their first original game. Not saying this guarantees anything, but it is different which may mean they'll have a different approach to additional content.
The Tournaments sound fun though, that could be interesting.

Bethesda is just a publisher, which mostly means that they are forking out the money necessary to put the game on the shelves. It will still be up to SD to manage the game. "Publisher" would also normally mean that they get a lot of the decision making power, but Beth typically allows devs to do what they like with a game, only rarely stepping in. The fact that Beth let SD push the deadline back 6 months for a second time simply for better balancing shows how willing they are to work with the devs.

Bethesda is not just a publisher they are also a developer. I also do know what publisher is and what they do, but my point is that this is different. It's not a complete reverse or anything, but it's hard to compare BRINK! to their other games, when all of them were built upon a series, and at least most of them they were working with id Software before. This is their first original game and they may decide to support it more because of that fact.
I'm not saying that you're 100% wrong I'm just saying that in my opinion there's a good chance they'll support the game with additional content. It would make sense and seems highly plausible.

Beth is a developer of other games, but in this case, they are only a publisher. They are not directly involved in the development of the game, so they will not be directly involved with any development after release.

SD has made games for other IP's before, but the gameplay was made from scratch each time, only borrowing the "world" of the series (Mostly storyline and visual style). In fact, the objective and class based gameplay is largely similar to their past games. The only time when the fact that they are creating a new IP makes a big difference is in creating the virtual world that Brink occurs in, which admittedly is a pretty big step.

Both SD and Beth are committed to continued support of all their games, so if anything, the fact that Beth is involved should be a push in the right direction when it comes to new content. All games developed by both Beth and SD have included DLCs or new content, at least that I can think of. This obviously doesn't include games made before the time when downloaded patches were common. (Such as Daggerfall)

So, as you can see, I agree that SD is likely to release new content, but my earlier point was that SD has been very careful to say that they will not be thinking about DLCs until after release.

I would almost guarantee that there will be DLC content. Also Beth is almost like a publisher for a movie. They get the money together and let the devs do their job, which is make the game great.

Well.. About DLC, updates and such, I'm pretty sure Microsoft and Sony will make us shell out some money for those :l

I'd hate to see any console exclusive DLC like what Homefront is doing :down: It just isn't fair to everyone who spends their hard earned money. I know Microsoft and Sony dish out a lot of money for exclusive DLC but I'd be disappointed if SD took that route.

And I'd hate to see more chargable DLCs all in all, but that's something I just have to coop with :l

And yeah, exclusive DLCs to one platform is kinda.. [censored]

Free is always good

Yeah.. Free is always good, but I seriously doubt that it would be free if Splash Damage made DLC :l

Have'nt they started doing this with the PC too? (Steam)

Usually PC versions get free DLC things, but consoles you have to pay for it. Like Left 4 Dead >.>

I hope they release an SDK soon after launch and port the best PC content over to the consoles. Eveybody happy.

Well apparently Sony didn't want it.



Indeed it is.



FTW! :celebration:

okay, well all this is good and dandy but I'm still wondering if SD will get tired of Brink and drop it like they did ETQW. ETQW was a great game and it had a good following for awhile, but I think due to the lack of support from the developers (through patches and what-not) it failed to keep people interested. For me personally: I'm wondering if its really worth pre-ordering if the community is going to dropped on its head like what happened before.

It was more Activision dropping it, not SD. SD continued to patch it in their own time with their own money. I've heard a bunch of players say that ranked servers is more what killed it.