Teladi DLC would have been free?

jasonbarron · Post by **jasonbarron** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 01:58

It wasn't exactly "fine print". The directions on what it would take to redeem the DLC as free were stated quite clearly to anybody who actually took the time to read them. Nobody has anybody but themselves to blame, if blame needs be assigned. I do feel for anybody who is truly interested and missed out, and it seems that from what CBJ said in a previous thread that the company is going to see what they can do to help these people acquire the DLC (my interpretation of his comment), so there's really nothing to get worked up about.

Relax and enjoy what's left of the holiday, gents:)

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 12:40

I have an eye twitch alright, and I to feel the tedium. Though this is the correct topic, I think I might start another thread about it. Either way, I feel you pain OP

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 14:27

Received the "X:Universe News 56" email about the new Teladi Outpost DLC, the one which says it's free if we purchase now, and after having an internal war with myself I decided I should suck it up and support the company I've loved for years.

I bought X:Rebirth

After beating myself stupid trying to work out why the DLC wasn't free, I went back to the email.

http://i60.tinypic.com/672hhk.jpg

Turns out it's free if purchased before 14.12.2014, and the email directing me to quickly buy it was sent on 16.12.2014

{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

danpaul88 · Post by **danpaul88** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 14:45

It was also mentioned in X Universe News #55, which was sent out last month;

http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/201411_1_44News.html

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 14:59

I would imagine it's probably been advertised in quite a few locations.

danpaul88 · Post by **danpaul88** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 15:51

Indeed it was... I thought you created the topic to complain nobody told you about it before the cut off date? If that wasn't the point of the topic, then what was?

Vector_Gorgoth · Post by **Vector_Gorgoth** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 20:31

I'd had Rebirth on my wishlist for a long time, waiting to see if Egosoft actually fixed the glaring problems the game had at launch. Now I'm going to remove it and forget about the whole mess.

"DLC" is another term for releasing an unfinished game and then trying to bilk customers into paying more cash just to get what they should have gotten to begin with; I wasn't surprised when Rebirth was a mess at release-- that's the track record Egosoft has with most of its games: "Wait a year and it'll be good", but I figured they'd do what they'd done with previous games: add missing content and fix bugs in a series of free patches.

But now Egosoft is doing the modern, cynical development approach that finishing a game can be turned into an ancillary, post-purchase source of revenue. Why should I pay any money to a company that does that?

As long as there is paid DLC for X Rebirth I won't buy it or any other Egosoft products.

Post by **Santi** » Fri, 26. Dec 14, 21:03

Vector_Gorgoth wrote:I'd had Rebirth on my wishlist for a long time, waiting to see if Egosoft actually fixed the glaring problems the game had at launch. Now I'm going to remove it and forget about the whole mess.

"DLC" is another term for releasing an unfinished game and then trying to bilk customers into paying more cash just to get what they should have gotten to begin with; I wasn't surprised when Rebirth was a mess at release-- that's the track record Egosoft has with most of its games: "Wait a year and it'll be good", but I figured they'd do what they'd done with previous games: add missing content and fix bugs in a series of free patches.

But now Egosoft is doing the modern, cynical development approach that finishing a game can be turned into an ancillary, post-purchase source of revenue. Why should I pay any money to a company that does that?

As long as there is paid DLC for X Rebirth I won't buy it or any other Egosoft products.

The DLC doesn't fix any issues with Rebirth, what is does is the patch 3.0 that is free if you own the game. You seem to be badly misinformed regarding X Rebirth.

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Sat, 27. Dec 14, 02:54

danpaul88 wrote:Indeed it was... I thought you created the topic to complain nobody told you about it before the cut off date? If that wasn't the point of the topic, then what was?

At it's base level I'm showing a snapshot of an email received on 16.12.14 saying that if we "hurry up" and purchase the game before 14.12.14 then we get the DLC free.

Ultimately the aim of this thread is left open to the viewer, they'll interrupt it according to their own understanding. Think of it as an FYI.

I left your reference alone before because I'm really trying to avoid bad mouthing Egosoft about this, or getting into a useless argument, but I'll say it now; no-where in your link to "X Universe News #55" does it say an actual date, it only says December. Though "X Universe News #56" gives a specific date the delivery date made it redundant.

Cisor · Post by **Cisor** » Sat, 27. Dec 14, 08:42

I must admit to not understanding Egosoft's reasoning for this DLC freebie.
If they wanted to reward the customers who bought the game while in a broken state (which seems fair to me) then all that should be required is proving one bought the game before some cut-off date. This would be workable whenever the customer decided to give the game another go.
As it stands now they seem to only want to reward those that not only bought it broken but also persevered with it until 14/12/2014. And looking at the Steam usage stats, that not very many people at all.
It may not be Egosoft's intent, but they're punishing all those people who bought it broken and got on with other games without checking back on the forums or bothering with the newsletters. To me that seems likely to be the vast majority.
.

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Sun, 28. Dec 14, 06:40

It's actually a smart move, especially if one accounts for the game going on special a couple of weeks later.

X:Rebirth got one of the lowest scores I've ever seen on Steam, so a special now attracts back Fans who forgot how bad it was, it also attracts new people checking out the special.

Teladi DLC is only owned by those who got it free, so it's Steam rating would be exceptionally high.

So new & old will see the game has poor ratings, but the DLC (released a year later) has reviews saying how great the game now, without ever realising (unless they have Enhanced Steam add-on) that the people leaving these reviews got it free.

Intentional or not it's a very smart move, though a small -% on the DLC would have helped more.

slickrickulous · Post by **slickrickulous** » Tue, 13. Jan 15, 15:07

I have every X game, had pre-ordered X-Rebirth Collector's edition and logged over 120 hours in it so far. But because I haven't played for the last few months I miss out. That's hardly fair. I have literally hundreds of games just in my steam library. Can you really expect me to keep track of all announcements from all of them, all the time?

I even read the newsletters, but like many have already said, #55 doesn't explicitly state that the DLC will not be free to current owners after release, and #56 arrived the day after the deadline.

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Tue, 13. Jan 15, 15:28

Not sure about the old version, but the current Collector's Edition ships with Teladi Outpost DLC included.

Propheta · Post by **Propheta** » Tue, 13. Jan 15, 16:35

normally i read every patch but for this i have to thanks linolafet on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/XRebirth/commen ... until_the/

never seen a dev praying ppl to take a free dlc

Post by **linolafett** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 16:05

I cant do more than that

Slashman · Post by **Slashman** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 20:28

I would have thought there were more sure ways to do this kind of thing.

For instance, sending a Steam coupon to the account of each Rebirth owner on the day before launch. They could then redeem the coupon for the free DLC.

Alternately, sending an activation key via registration of the game on the forums.

There may be downsides to each of those suggestions though, so maybe that's why they didn't use them. I know other companies have used them before successfully.

I'd just call the first DLC free. Period. And leave it at that.

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 21:29

I guess some can just...

[ external image ]

Ch4rged · Post by **Ch4rged** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 21:29

So Hello all. Long time X fan since X2, first time poster. I have been watching the updates periodically for rebirth eagerly waiting for this game to reach a solid state of finality, or at least resolve a sum of the issues. So today I reinstalled it knowing patch 3.0 came out a little ago. To my dismay I don't recall reading on steam, or at least understanding the patch and DLC for 3.0 had a timeline to claiming it. If anything I may have read it that people who purchased rebirth before DEC 15th would get it. I found out today this was not the case.

My issue is who do I have to ask to get my copy of this DLC? I was one of the first to preorder Rebirth on steam and I would like to believe that I was one of the persons the Devs hoped would claim the DLC sooner. Right now I feel a little betrayed simply for not sticking around for more then 6 months perusing the forums regularly. Honestly I just got tired of window shopping and being overly eager for new patch releases.

I totally get the devs need to make money for working on something and I am all for that. Once this game is kink free any dlc that comes out after I will gladly pay full price for Smile Very Happy.

Oh I'd like to add why I was confused. The News reel on steam states the teladi DLC is free to everyone.

"The DLC was initially going to be free for anyone who owned or purchased X Rebirth by November 1, but Egosoft has decided to make it free for everyone as "a thank-you gift for all X Rebirth owners." It does, however, require the 64-bit version of the game; Egosoft said in the patch notes that there will not be a 32-bit version of the 3.0 update, and that the Teladi Outpost DLC is not compatible with prior 32-bit releases."

As the News feed is directly controlled by the game publisher I hold responsible, despite the source of the written article.

spankahontis · Post by **spankahontis** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 23:12

Abraxis86 wrote:I did buy it, and I have clearly interacted plenty with this forum, and the modding of prior games, for 3 years prior to X:Rebirth's release.

I havn't checked in for over three months because life. This disqualifies me for reparations over having my money held for a year on pretense? This is just silly.

Why draw the line at an arbitrary time limit? Those that didn't notice lapsed due to lack of interest. No interest was due to having been sold something that wasn't interesting. Egosoft wants to apologize for this fact by offering first DLC for free, but only if you were interested enough in what they sold to notice the offer... This is an illusion from a paradox. By design, it rejects a large portion of us whom it is supposedly meant to target. A pretty easy way to say sorry.

A bit silly. And a poor way to treat initial investors if intentional, which I choose to believe it was not. Which is why I bring it to attention.

And yet you missed all the advertising, mentions on the forum about the new DLC.

You only have yourself to blame i'm afraid.

Slashman wrote:I would have thought there were more sure ways to do this kind of thing.

For instance, sending a Steam coupon to the account of each Rebirth owner on the day before launch. They could then redeem the coupon for the free DLC.

Alternately, sending an activation key via registration of the game on the forums.

There may be downsides to each of those suggestions though, so maybe that's why they didn't use them. I know other companies have used them before successfully.

I'd just call the first DLC free. Period. And leave it at that.

They must have a timestamp of when the game was installed?
Can't hurt Egosoft to be kind and see those that bought the game and give them it free?

Grevas · Post by **Grevas** » Thu, 15. Jan 15, 23:34

Oh... My...

In case someone want's to complain for missing out on the free DLC, you should bother Steam support. It's their systems fault. Not that it'll help you much.

As i see it by how Steam works (assumptions here):
The DLC has been free as long it wasn't released. After sending it out, you tack a price tag on it -> you can't get it free anymore.

Steam does not want to deal with developers and put stuff into players libraries. The only exception is free weekends - but those also get removed afterwards -> their system doesn't work that way.

To be able to claim a product for free, the publisher would've to give away Keys, which again go through Steam systems & i wouldn't be surpised if steam demanded some share on those sales.

TL;DR:
Technical limitations. Sorry.

Teladi DLC would have been free?

DLC email