Bethesda's said it intends to release fewer downloadable content packs for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim than it has done with previous titles.
"We would like to do DLC; we don't have any specific plans yet, but they've been really successful and we like making them," Howard said in an interview.
"So right now I can say that we'd like to do less DLC but bigger ones - you know, more substantial."
In the past the Elder Scrolls dev's been a bit hit and miss where DLC's concerned; Fallout 3's add-on packs caused a flurry of complaints over bugs and glitches, while Oblivion's overly-expense Horse Armour needs no introduction.
"The Fallout 3 pace that we did was very chaotic," Howard admitted.
"We did a lot of them - we had two overlapping groups - and we don't know what we're going to make yet, but we'd like them to be closer to an expansion pack feel."
Comments
24 comments so far...
Confused_Dude on 29 Jun '11 said:
Thank god!
spaceman_DOUG on 29 Jun '11 said:
How about you just make the actual game bigger?
StonecoldMC on 29 Jun '11 said:
If this Game is going to give us hundreds of hours of Gameplay, whats the point in DLC?
wrightandrewjame on 29 Jun '11 said:
Yes! The Fallout DLC on the whole was quite crap. Make a much larger, much better DLC with a good storyline for Skyrim and I (and many others no doubt) will be very happy.
People are moaning like hell on the COD debate about the £10 DLC calling it a rip off. Fallout's DLC at £7.99 a time for a couple of hours gameplay, now that's a rip off.
Because you can never have enough Elder Scrolls. Never.
El Mag on 29 Jun '11 said:
A couple of Shivering Isle type of add ons will be good enough. Any DLC that so much as mentions armour along with horses/unicorns/dragons/asthmatic pit donkey though and i'll kick a puppy.
almanac2015 on 29 Jun '11 said:
There's loads of point in DLC. Both Morrowind and Oblivion added new areas. The Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion was ace. It took me longer to complete than most games, and added a vibrant world to explore that was different from Cyrodiil (the main environment in Oblivion).
The same could be said for the Morrowind expansion Bloodmoon.
Hopefully the DLC will be released a while after the game as an excuse to go back to it when already completed.
CrispyLog on 29 Jun '11 said:
if they have armour for dragons I'm buying it and you call bully me all you want, but i won't care because I'll be flying along on my pimped out dragon!
almanac2015 on 29 Jun '11 said:
To be honest armour DLC wouldn't surprise me - they've joked about it in the past and some free DLC for horse or dragon armour would be quite funny. As long as it's free.
kilatomato on 29 Jun '11 said:
Please do a Morrowind and just release two huge expansion packs. I loved those two so much, and Bloodmoon was amazing (in fact, Im expecting Skyrim to remind me of it a lot for obvious reasons).
Id happily pay 2/3rds or even the full price of the game in cash for content that AMOUNTS to pretty much the full game than pay 20 odd pounds for a couple of small spurts that dont even amount to 1/2 the games content and are easily forgettable.
Apart from the expansion all of Oblivions DLC was forgettable, and Fallout 3s wasnt a huge improvement. Point Lookout was nice, and Broken Steel was okay - but that doesnt get points because of how s**t the main story was in the vanilla game.
almanac2015 on 29 Jun '11 said:
I also liked Knights of the Nine, but it wasn't exactly an expansion, just a pretty small quest line. There were too many of those in Oblivion, would have preferred an expansion to the smaller content releases.
El Mag on 29 Jun '11 said:
You say that now Crispy but what if the dragon pimping was sponsored by Tim Westwood!
Every time you add something to your dragon you need to sit through him yapping s**te, and you can't squish him to get rid.
TerrorK on 29 Jun '11 said:
I'd rather just see a couple of expansions, ala Bloodmoon and Tribunal for Morrowind and Shivering Isles for Oblivion. Or maybe three that aren't quite as big as those, but still substantial.
RichPerry on 29 Jun '11 said:
I'd love to see an NPC in one of the town selling horse armour for extortionate amounts. Would be a nice little nod to the fans.
Either way, I'm getting this game, and am greatly anticipating more news on DLC for it.
jim2wheels on 29 Jun '11 said:
I agree with all of the above.
Moribundman on 29 Jun '11 said:
Have you read how big this game is going to be already?
The frightened and confused anti-DLC bandwagon with its scattergun ideologies and mismatched agendas is rolling out early on this one. I don't think you people really understand how proper DLC is put together - from the business model, to the work done, to the time frame to the staffing...
What do you moany cretins do for a living? Probably toilet cleaning? OK, imagine a biiiiig building full of dirty toilets; you and your buddies put in a "hard day at the office" and clean the s**t off each and every one of them. Because you have done so well in your toilet cleaning endeavours, the man who runs the building asks you if you'd be interested in popping next door and cleaning the toilets in another smaller building he owns down the road that evening for a wodge of extra cash, and for the kudos that everyone in the 'hood will know how good you are at your work. So you do the other building that evening and tales are told for many weeks about how good you are at cleaning up other peoples excrement.
Now imagine some annoying little c**t walks in the building the next day and asks why you didn't clean the sinks while you were at it. And then someone else comes in and smugly says they're going to hold it all in until you've cleaned all the toilets on the street so they can use the "toilet of the week". And in Obsidian's case, you tell people they can come in and start taking a dump again while you're still scrubbing away with your toilet duck...
jim2wheels on 29 Jun '11 said:
You could apply that line to DLC enthusiasts like yourself.
For every good piece of DLC you could show me, I'll be able to show you 5 that are blatant money grabs. The quality ratio on todays DLC is appalling, that's not just my opinion, critic reviews of DLC are mostly scathing. Now, I'm not suggesting what they say is the final word etc. But, it's less weighted than yours or mine.
What the guy says in this article makes me want to buy their DLC - the keywords being "expansion pack". Rather than map/costume/level we cut out pack
BenThomasFoster on 29 Jun '11 said:
point in DLC is that they can focus totally on the fun of the game rather than just getting it done. They can add new game mechanics as well ect but may just get this for PC won't really need DLC unless it gets 9.0+ raitings
metallicorphan on 29 Jun '11 said:
i would gladly pay another 2400 points for a shivering isles type expansion,it was well worth the points
but even so,i hope DLC for the game does not happen until at least say February,i like to squeeze the living s**t out of the full game first,and trust me from November 11th i will be doing just that(unless it gets delayed)
MutilateTheDead on 29 Jun '11 said:
You've never played elder scrolls have you? If they made the game any bigger it would blow your console/PC up! They some-how already fit about 20 average size games onto one disc with oblivion!
MPH on 29 Jun '11 said:
That could spiral on forever. Game nearing gold? Let's push it back and add more in. Game nearing gold again? Let's push it back further and add even m-m-more in. Game nearing gold once more? Let's cancel it yo and make it for another system. Game nearing gold again for the last time hopefully? Let's push it back and call it Elder Scrolls: Forever. Mediocre reviews ensue upon release.
Metagen on 29 Jun '11 said:
Ah expansion packs...remember those things? Thems were the days. Also, Moribundman, I have no idea wtf you are talking about but you can clean your own damn toilets.
pRM8 on 29 Jun '11 said:
More like an expansion pack sound great. I've never seen the point of s**tty little DLC that is just a few mb in size like armour or clothes etc. I mean that's what mods are for right?
nb_nmare2 on 29 Jun '11 said:
Considering there are numerous games with an RRP of £39.99 (add at least an extra tenner on top of that for PS3/360 games) which only offer you six or seven hours of gameplay, £7.99 for two hours is a bargain.
PlanesOutcast on 9 Jul '11 said:
Damn right!