Can anyone tell me if this is a core game item?

And if so, might I point out that the Wizard's Sleeve was bad enough? Or is to even things up, so both warriors and mages feel shafted? Or is this just the modders messing with me?

 

This is a real in-game item.

Now all you need to do is find the horse to go with it!

 

It's a "bonus" item from the RotDG DLC, Lorrelian. Added as a mockery of another game (I can't remember which).

 

It says the game: oblivion

 

First time I saw it I was like:

 

There was a thing with Oblivion players whining that horseback combat was nonexistent and that the inability to give horses armour made them fodder for monsters, IIRC. I am amused by the item's inclusion in DoD as a joke. Because Oblivion was a joke.

 

Aaah. And this is what I miss when I don't by overpriced graphics fests.

 

I just saw this yesterday in dredmors levels shop. Almost bought it actually because it was the first time I saw it and didnt know you cant wear it hehe. Was too expensive though, luckily

 

Yeah, basically, Horse Armor became the standard by which Bad DLC was judged... at least until Day One DLC started becoming a thing.

It was a horrendously overpriced (real money, mind you, not in-game - at least at first) vanity item for something you were only looking at while traveling.

Basically it was the Real-money Sparkle Dragons that Blizzard is gouging people for - only they were years ahead of their time, and doing it in a SINGLE PLAYER ONLY GAME WHERE YOU COULDN'T SHOW IT OFF. So they drew a lot of ire and it became a meme of sorts.

In any case, seeing it in RotDG made me giggle.

 

DLC is a cheap pile of BS being sold as if it was gold. *Real* expansions are properly called that. DoD has exactly zero DLC for a reason. They made an expansion that added a boatload of new content and reworked some that was already there. I will *NEVER* refer to RotDG as DLC. That would be an insult to the massive amount of work that has been put into it.

But I am pretty much off topic here. So I will shut up now. (I am not the only one, but that is no excuse.)

 

Actually, RotDG is both DLC (which means "DownLoadable Content" and refers to any additional stuff for the game that you can download) and an expansion. The fact that most DLCs aren't worth a squat and yet they exist because there's always someone to buy them is another thing entirely, and something that I find to be kind of mournful.

I don't really mind there being DLCs that add something relevant, especially since (in most cases, at the very least) it's far easier to just download something from an in-game menu (or something like that) instead of having to go to the game shop to get it. But, since video games are a serious cash-cow business now and many players lack a functional brain, overpriced glorified eye-candies will be released.

 

This feels relevant for some reason

 

I have this strange overwhelming urge to punch that man in the face.

Kinda the same way I feel whenever I see a picture of Bobby Kotick.

 

That sounded like he was literally saying he thinks ripping people off is justifiable simply because he can manage to do it.

What a *Expletive Deleted*. (BTW, I hope he dies of a preventable illness and the last few minutes of his life the doctors keep telling him he can pay for another few minutes of life...)

*Edit* Removed the video. No need to quote it. Sorry.

 

That's not exactly what it was about. The furor was over one of the first (the first?) paid DLC packs for Oblivion. It added Horse Armor.

Anyway I found this a quite a while ago in Brax's shop, it's been there since 1.0.9.

 

EA, Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda... They are all perfectly emblematic of what is truly wrong with the video game industry. Companies like Gaslamp, Bay 12, Mojang and the TONS of other indie devs putting out high-quality content with more replayability, for a fraction of the cost of a copy of whatever the latest Call of Doody is going for are the people who are going to save the industry and the hobby when the inevitable Second BIG Video Game Market Crash comes around (and this time no Atari or ET to blame).

 

I disagree - the companies are only making shoddy works because it pays to do so. If consumers started getting smart and not buying games without testing them or being very sure they are worth the money, companies couldnt get away with being dicks.

Personally I flat out refuse to buy any game worth 10€ or more without trying a demo and I am hesitant with even cheaper games - the only reason I even got DoD was because luckily a mate gifted it to me because he knows im into roguelikes. This is not because Im cheap but because I dont want to support bad publishers who make bad games. On the other hand I will buy games from publishers I think make a great product even if I am not interested in that particular game (Binding of Isaac for instance is an awesome game concept with deep and dark humor and great ideas but its too fastpaced for me - I love the concept though and I think such initiatives are very healthy for the gaming industry and gaming scene in general, so I will support publishers who make such games because I want to see more of them)

I dont get gamers to be honest. You dont buy any other product today without seeing it or testing it - you dont buy a house without seeing it, you dont buy a car without trying it, you dont buy a sweater without seeing if it looks good on you and you would not buy a program on the computer without trying the free-to-try version so why the hell would people do so with games? (granted, for arguments sake, that consumables are usually bought without seeing or testing first but even they often have options to try a small package for a low price before comitting to a larger package - or even give out free samples)

 

I am about to get bitched at for breaking the rules. I do not trust demos. I have seen demos that worked fine, but the finished game did not. That is a bait and switch. Why do I mention this? Because I never buy a game until I have played the full version and determined it is actually doing what it claims to and is worth supporting.

I have purchased DoD + RotDG twice already. (Each time for myself.) I will gladly pay for decent games. But I will not buy garbage.

Games that are released for sale these days are rarely better than a late Alpha stage of development. They crash often, have memory holes, and it seems the developers often spend more time dreaming up day zero DLC "Addons" that should have been a part of the base game than actually making the game work. Indie games are often the exception. Commercial games use this as the rule.

Horse armor is a good example because it was something that should have been left to those best capable of fixing it in every possible way: Modders.

There are other similar examples of this sort of BS all the time. That one was experienced by many many people though.

 

I blame (in some part) consoles.

Consoles have simply enabled companies like EA to do bad business and things like XBLA and whatever Sony's answer to that is are feeble attempts at mollifying a part of the customer-base that is becoming increasingly aware of how thoroughly they are being bilked. Console gamers are stereotypically (and in my opinion the stereotype is a lot closer to the mark than people would like to admit) easily cheated, easily reeled in by OOH SHINY and big franchise names and promises of gaming with all their best buddies everywhere all the time etc. and no complicated PC stuff... IMNSHO exclusive-to-console gamers are people who have opted for "easy mode" approaches to gaming without noticing or at least choosing to acknowledge the severity of the inherent price hikes and huge limitations on content and freedom as an end-user.

 

Well the problem is that companies are there to make money to their shareholders and investors. That is the sole basis of their existance. That means that, if they can make money doing something then they should - that is not to say they should rob people naturally because that is illigal but you get the point Im sure.

Since people have, time and time again proved that they will buy bad but expensive products based on a few pretty pictures, the only logical recourse for companies is to make such games. They are cheaper to make and make a ton of money. If they did have Intellectual Property (IP) which could make money like this but still did not use it, they would not meet their sole purpose and thus be bad companies - and bad companies die out.

If people started thinking before buying and stopped buying games with no demo, companies would realise that the most profitable action is to make a demo for their games - and with demos available you can pick which games you want to buy (and thus support which, in turn, means more of that type of game) and which ones you could opt out of (and thus not support, hindering the making of more such games).

I do not personally think this is a great state but that is how business works and why consumers have a large part of the fault in so many bad games coming out. My old business professor said for instance that companies do not give to charity or refuse to use child labour (even though legal in the countries where they do it) because they are nice people - they do it because it is bad for business to get a reputation as a polluting bastard or as a child exploiting company while having a reputation of being socially responsible, nature friendly and fair company is great for business since it attracts more customers. Again, its not a good thing but that is unfortunately how business works and the more money involved, the more oriented about money it becomes.

That said, screw horse armor and all things like it

Edit: I understand your sentiment when blaming consoles but think about this: If people did not use things like XBLA, would the companies even bother making it? Probably not - so if consumers stopped using it, it would fade away. Saying that Consoles are responsible is easy and, at first glance, a good idea but without customer support, consoles would not matter at all.

Edit 2: Yeah I guess my point is that if customers actually bothered researching the state of affairs I doubt that companies would get away with it - sadly, many customers are too lazy. That said, I think it is wrong to blame the people doing their job instead of blaming the consumers who refused to do theirs.