Fantasy Life Segregation of DLC and Non-DLC Fantasy Life Players

[RichGamerton]

Apparently, People who have DLC on Fantasy Life can't play with people who don't have DLC. Doesn't this slightly decrease the multiplayer value? Also, it separates the Fantasy Life community a bit, too. What do you guys think? Was it the wisest choice to make the game like that? Just curious as I hear it talked about among people who have the game.

 

[Hayleia]

I don't think they can do it another way. I am doing a game (Smash Bros Open) that somehow works with DLCs, and since I don't do this kind of "segregation", you can experience desync if you play with someone who doesn't have the same "packages".

Basically, if player 1 has a pet coming from a DLC, and player 2 doesn't have the DLC, how can player 2's game handle player 1's pet ? It doesn't have any data for that pet. It's like trying to send a Gen 2 Pokemon to a Gen 1 Pokemon (not talking about remakes, talking about the original games), it can't work.

The only two solutions I can think about to not "segregate" would be to either include the "DLC" in all games but only activate it on people who buy it (not really "Downloadable" Content, more "Unlockable") but that wouldn't be very ethical and it would probably be more hackable that the current solution, or to make the DLC free for all (like an update) but they wouldn't make a lot of money from it.

 

[RichGamerton]

@Hayleia Whoa. I downloaded that game on my TI-84! It's really fun! Say, could you make Marth for me? If the source code is open, I could just add him myself

 

[Hayleia]

Lol, we're getting off-topic pretty fast

And yeah, Marth could be done. And you don't even need the source code to add him, characters are loaded from external files (appvars). You just need to follow one of the tutorials I didn't finish to write yet
So yeah, for now, you can't really make a character yourself but you can at least start spriting

(And maybe I am really picky on calc names but the TI-84 doesn't exist
There's always something behind the "84", either a "Plus" or a "Pocket", sometimes both, sometimes followed by a ".fr" or a "SE" and now even "CSE". This used not to matter that much since all "84" calcs were all compatible, but now there is the CSE and it breaks almost all compatibility with previous models so you can't stop describing your model at "84" or we don't know what calc you are talking about).

 

[PsycheTrance]

I'd like to mention that a game (Dark Souls and its sequel) does the "DLC and Non-DLC can do multiplayer" thing. And so far I haven't seen anyone managing to hack them (at least on the PS3 version as far as I know). The PC version now has the NoSteam type of hack though. But thats PC gaming and the pirates that come with it hahaha.

 

[2205]

@Hayleia the DLC is already present on the cartridge, what you pay for is basically an unlock that in only 2 blocks.

Even though I can see why it is disappointing, on a developer's side I can see why this can't be free, and why it is coded this way. In Japan, the DLC was really a downloadable content (not an unlock), and it would have been difficult to manage the players like Hayleia pointed out. When the game came out here, if they wanted to support DLC + Non DLC players in the same game, it would have required way more coding, QA testing and whatnot, and would have ended in being way more expensive.

On a player's side, it sucks, really, but I can see why it is made this way.

 

[RichGamerton]

@Hayleia Whoa. You are pretty picky about that, are you? I thought people usually have the "Plus" model so I didn't add that part. Anyway, back on the main topic at hand...

 

[Hayleia]

@Hayleia the DLC is already present on the cartridge, what you pay for is basically an unlock that in only 2 blocks.

Even though I can see why it is disappointing, on a developer's side I can see why this can't be free, and why it is coded this way. In Japan, the DLC was really a downloadable content (not an unlock), and it would have been difficult to manage the players like Hayleia pointed out. When the game came out here, if they wanted to support DLC + Non DLC players in the same game, it would have required way more coding, QA testing and whatnot, and would have ended in being way more expensive.

On a player's side, it sucks, really, but I can see why it is made this way.

Wow, I didn't know it was not a real DLC on non Japanese consoles. Well that's stupid. OK, I can understand why they did this in Japan (with what I said), why they then decided to put it directly in the game and make people pay for an unlock, and release that as soon as possible... but why can't they make an update now allowing people without the DLC to play with DLC people ? If the data is present, there really is no reason.

 

[2205]

Because it is not allowed in Japan either, which means that it's something that doesn't exist at all and would need a team pulled to do it, and in the long run it may be really expensive for them to create that said patch with no real benefit/profits for them.

 

[Hayleia]

I don't think it's expensive. On the contrary, making a program support external files (like DLCs) is usually a lot harder than getting a program that supports external files to work with internal data. And the former took me less than 4 days to implement in SSBO. So I don't think it would take time and I don't think it would be expensive for a paid team of several coders.
And the benefits would be there in my opinion. Because I for example would love to get the DLC but if one of my friends finally decided to buy the game without the DLC, I'd be very annoyed. So I didn't buy the DLC even though I want it. If they solve that problem, I'd get it so they would get money.

 

[Yumi Chi]

Well I just had this issue not to long ago... After receiving this game for Christmas my friend wanted me to play.. I was informed that I needed DLC to play with her so using the last amount I had on my account I bought it .. not thinking it really was a need till one of my other friends who just recently got the game, wanted to play with me and we came up with a error of mismatched versions .. she spent a day finding someone to get her a card... though the annoying part is many games use DLC but never forbid playing with others without it... What makes this game so special just lock the items so those without DLC can't get them from a friend simple ..It is very annoying to see them do this and should be implied better then it is at this time ....

It's like forcing you to buy it O.O or Saying Ha Ha you can't play with your friends now cause they had money to buy it and you didn't -_- ....

 

[532]

I don't really think the game should have this kind of segregation. I agree, it does split Fantasy Life communities. They could just simply disable DLC elements when playing with a non-DLC player, just like in CoD games( A person with no map packs can still play with a DLC Map pack owner, that map just won't appear)