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Reader Comments (44)

Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:09PM flit said

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Hey, Video game companies, I'll give you $2.00 if you stop with these exclusive pre-order offers.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:10PM kentuckyfried said

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The best way to get most/all of these is to pre-order online and then never pick up anything.

As I was mentioning on some other forums, Gamestop has always threatened to charge you $5 for belated pick-ups but I've never actually seen them call their bluff (yet)
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:10PM Obienator said

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This exclusive pre-order bullshit is getting on my nerves.

And trust me it's gonna get worse, before it gets any better.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:19PM atrimus said

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who said it was gonna get any better?
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Posted: Oct 18th 2009 11:14AM Prox said

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Lately, most preorder bonuses have been items that make your character overpowered. I play games for the challenge, not for the "achievement" points, so these are pretty easy to pass on. I'm sure some people are drawn in by stuff like "the super awesome sword that kills everything in one hit and oh yeah you also regen health and are faster", but I'd rather do without and have fun with the game.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:10PM Shadowbender said

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Surprise, surprise. (Sigh).
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:16PM KungFuChaosNinja said

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Pre-order DLC is becoming pretty standard practice for new releases and it sucks. What is you're a kid and don't have the money to pick up a game right at launch, and they never put the content up as DLC to purchase? That means they'd be screwed out of the content forever. Every user should get this for purchasing the game, thus the only people that wouldn't get the content would be pirates.

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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:17PM KungFuChaosNinja said

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*if
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 8:47AM Stumpymcdonut said

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People need to calm down, it's one item that doesn't make any difference to the gameplay aside from making it easier. I'm sure you can just mod in these items once the toolkit comes out if you're desperate to have an easier experience, although those who want that will probably just use cheats anyway.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:16PM TheDarkWayne said

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Come on people stop bitching about these things. Since everyone hates gamestop so much, realize that these things keep them from making money off of used sales by getting people to buy em new. Besides, it's not like +3 memory rings are vital to your gameplay experience
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:17PM RKN said

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Would these in-game items eventually come to later versions via DLC or is pre-ordering the only way to get them? I hope at least with the PC version, I can download them anyways, its one thing I don't mind torrenting. Fuck this pre-order bullshit.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:27PM einhanderkiller said

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You can just mod them into the PC version.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:34PM (Unverified) said

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I only torrent stuff I can't get in the States.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:19PM panzerjedi said

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You left out Direct2Drive.

Dalish Ring (Increased effectiveness of healing effects, Subtract damage from darkspawn attacks, Increase combat health regeneration)
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:19PM Stumpymcdonut said

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Do try and remember that the PC version was delayed by EA and was finished about 9 months ago. If it were released as originally intended, now would be a good time for some DLC. I'd be more worried if the devs had done absolutely nothing for 9 months except making adjustments for consoles to be honest.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:20PM (Unverified) said

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at first I ignored this game.. but after seeing all the trailers, the story looks good and it seems ridiculously deep. well, looks like I'm gettin an action rpg soon enough either way whether it be DA:Origins or Demon Souls.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 2:04AM iHavePants said

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Dragon Age is not an action RPG.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:25PM Shadowbender said

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I'm sorry I know this is off-topic but I just had to post this. This is probably one of the mot hilarious things I've ever seen

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/957206/borderlands/videos/borderlands_spc_realgamer.html
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:31PM (Unverified) said

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Don't forget EA's Fire Band:
Magical fire is used with great care in the construction of these rings. After a few unfortunate incidents of singed eyebrows and burnt hair, there is some speculation that this is why the Formari often shave their heads.

Stats:
• Adds to Stamina
• Adds to fire resist
• Adds to spirit resist
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:32PM TherionMEC said

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From what I understand from the Dragon Age website all pre-orders have the memory ring, amazon just isn't listing it.

Also, this is news? These pre-order bonuses have been known for months.

You also didn't list any other store's pre-order items:

EA Store: Band of Fire
Direct to Drive: Dalish Ring
GameCrazy: Guildmaster's belt
Play.com: Feral Wolf Charm
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:37PM AoE said

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GamersGate is offering the Band of Fire as well.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:36PM Shane86 said

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I'm buying it from Amazon, cheaper than buying off steam.
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Posted: Oct 18th 2009 11:02PM Rather Dashing said

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The Steam version actually comes with a piece of DLC that is sold separately from the version on Amazon. And the Steam version doesn't need to deal with the disc version's disc check.

Though you can resell the disc version of Dragon Age and obviously can't re-sell the Steam version.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:36PM RKN said

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Amazing how much sway the consoles have now, despite how much more powerful a PC is now over the current consoles, Epic and ID will delay their engines until the next console generation, so PC gamers are left tapping their feet with their far more powerful GPUs.

Why can't the PC version come out before the console version of a game and yet in so many other cases, the PC version is delayed so those PC gamers will just give in and buy a console if they don't have one and the console version of the game?

Every attempt is being made to shoot PC gamers in the foot, so many people want to see PC gaming dead and are making every attempt to do it.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:39PM (Unverified) said

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At least you can get by with a slightly weaker GPU instead of spending a ton of money.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 8:40PM ch3burashka said

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Is it just me or are retailer-exclusives getting more and more frequent?
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 10:14PM (Unverified) said

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Hear that? Its the sound of retail software distribution in its last desperate dying throes.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 10:29PM ch3burashka said

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After watching Demon's Souls videos, I imagine that sound to be the bell that the weird octopus-face monster rings before it sends out a shockwave, then picks you up with its octopus face and kills you. Scary.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 9:03PM Floppypants said

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This is pretty pointless for PC players who can use the editor to create any item they want.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 11:01PM (Unverified) said

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i work at game crazy and we're giving away some sort of dragon armor for mass effect 2 AND dragon age origins.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 11:12PM (Unverified) said

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the armor is for the collectors edition, and every retailer selling the CE will have the armor. Well if you were a game stop employee you would have told us it was exclusive to your store. Glad I shop at amazon Best buy or target only for games.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 2:13AM TherionMEC said

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The armor is for any new purchase, as is the shale character quest thing.
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 11:48PM asg said

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I use a mac so I'm really really hoping the console versions will play okay
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Posted: Oct 16th 2009 11:57PM (Unverified) said

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no night vision goggles? laaame
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 1:17AM (Unverified) said

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Renting instead of buying it:

-10 to Disappointment
+52 dollars saved
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 10:50AM Mats said

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Renting is about as good for the company that made the game as buying it from a friend who made a copy on his home computer. Sure, you pay "someone" but there is no money going back to the company.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 3:10PM Pharoah4187 said

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Not really. The rental company pays a premium price for the rights to lend out the game for a profit. I'm not going to profess to know the numbers, but it's well above the retail value of the game. While it may not help the direct sales of the game as much as if everybody that rents the game would, the developer/publisher still see some cash flow from it.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 4:44PM Mats said

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No, publishers see no exstra cash from this. The renters just buy normal copies and rent them. No kickback to the publisher like the movieindustry has.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 3:26AM (Unverified) said

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I'm in the UK and Amazon here ARE doing the Memory Band with pre-orders as well as the Lion's Paw...
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 8:45AM Stumpymcdonut said

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They release DLC because people kept buying it back when it first came out. And now the rest of us need to buy it to get a full game.

If I were a publisher I'd do the same thing, why make £30-40 on a game when you can also add DLC and get an extra £20 or more on top of that? It's a no-brainer.

The other argument is that DLC is essentially the spiritual successor to expansion packs, just less content and usually cheaper.

What does piss me off is when a company removes content in order to release it as DLC. (ie spore, sims etc). With this game I can kind of understand, as I'm pretty sure that this was developed after the game was finished. They planned to add DLC, but I don't think it was like the case of spore "right, we have ideas X Y and Z already made and working in the game, lets put X into the game and sell Y and Z as DLC".
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 11:32AM (Unverified) said

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How come no one mentioned the awesome $10 gift card that Amazon is giving away, instead everyone is talking about the stupid DLC. If I can get $10 off on a $50 game on launch day, that's 20% off. ON LAUNCH DAY. Let me see GameStop do that.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 12:33PM (Unverified) said

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This is a single player game? Why do I need this stuff unless the game balance is poor to start with? I'll fill the inventory with crap within an hour of play anyways.
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 12:49PM (Unverified) said

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@RKN:

Nobody is shooting PC gamers in the foot except the PC gamers themselves. Game piracy is rampant in the PC scene. Why should game developers spend millions of dollars creating a PC-exclusive game that will be on a torrent 5 minutes after release, if not before that?

Your comment about PC's having a more powerful GPU is totally irrelevant. Game devs want to reach as many people as possible so they can make as much money as possible. This means releasing games across all systems simultaneously (more or less).

On a side note, I used to be a huge PC gamer for years, until I realized it was stupid to spend a thousand bucks every year or two in order to have the most powerful computer, when you can instead spend $500 or less on a console, and be able to play the newest games for the next 7+ years. PC gaming will never die completely, but there sure aren't many reasons to make a huge investment into it (either by the devs or the gamers themselves).
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Posted: Oct 17th 2009 12:57PM Misfit Toy said

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I've had pre-order bonuses in the past. They're nice for the first few hours. After that you usually discard it for something that is better.
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