» Sun Dec 11, 2011 9:27 pm
If they have a "next" version... it should be completely FREE and DLC supported.
Start with ONE SINGLE TOWN... So people can see if it RUNS for them... So all those "manageable bugs" can be fixed ASAP... and it only expands where you want it to expand... Not 6GB of data downloaded all at once... 90% of which, you don't see until you have completed a majority of the game... (And from a programming perspective, using samller files that are easier and faster to load and extract data from, that can actually be defragged. Since large files are usually skipped, remaining fragmented, and limit searching speeds for the game itself.)
EG, Releasing "Whiterun" and the surrounding lands as the "Free" part. Then releasing neighboring land areas, as the "Pay content", Like $5 an area... With associated "extra content", available for each area loaded. (Eg, loading a new area also adds things to the original area, or replaces data in the "required lands", needed to load that extra land area. Replaces, as opposed to just adding to the original lands, since you will be leveling and growing with the land expansion. Perhaps also suppressing lands until appropriate levels are reached. So starting a new character would only load the original land, only loading the purchased other lands once you reached certain points in levels, or quests, even though you may have purchased $100 worth of upgrades. New characters would not be burdened by the modified world, which has grown to difficult levels. Also since the things which may have been replaced by the purchase, while playing a higher level character, would be most of the lower-level things, also known as low-level-clutter.)
Updates could also be managed by each DLC... Progressive like the DLC itself. (If the first free part played perfect as 1.7, but the next area needed patches to 1.9 which botched the original free-content... That upgrade would not load until the other DLC area was loaded...)
Think of it like this... You played Oblivion.... Now you buy the DLC Skyrim... Now the border opens-up to the north... and you can simply walk to Skyrim, from Oblivion. (Slight possible loading pause, but physically connected. Plus, conversations and quests would be added to Oblivion, directing you to Skyrim, as well as obvious quests in Skyrim, now directing you back to Oblivion... (The DLC should not be THAT LARGE... And if it is growing in layers/areas... the loading delays could be zero... since you only load two or four DLC areas at a time at a time.)
Sure, it would make a land as large as skyrim, cost nearly $400... but it would not be THIS BARRON, and this SPARSE... or this bugged. (You wold also not be forced to walk half way across the continent for a mission. Staying near each area, until directed to the other areas.
Heck, start it reverse... start us on the edges, and let us work our way to the "big city" from the "Small towns", watching the world grow with us... with our actions. Once reaching the big city, and high-leveled.. send os out into the dangerous wilderness with more DLC, expanding the land to fill-in the voids. (Voids being the dangerous places we avoided.. sticking ot the safe roads and zig-zagging through the continent, with DLC.)
