Where Is Return To Ostagar? – Victor Wachter Gives Answer
Jan 28
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View all posts by CaK (218 Articles)
Chief-in-Editor. He has been involved in the Online Community since 1996, and established several successful European gaming websites. Among them were projects for Neverwinter Nights, WarCraft, Diablo and Quake--just to name a few. In late September 2009, he started to develop this blog with the support of BioWare/EA.
With BioWare’s wall of silence sustained, more and more people are beginning to ask whether, or not, Return to Ostagar will ever be released.
It is a legitimate question after all. BioWare is still advertising for the November 19th 2009 announced Dragon Age: Origins DLC, yet excluding the recently bodged 360 release, there has been very little to ease the minds of a worried Community–many of whom have already either paid, or bought the points, for RtO.
So the paying customers have been left with the costs, while the other half of the Community has sat like a cat on a hot tin roof and demanded answers. In return BioWare has remained silent.
Up until today, BioWare’s modum operandi has been to lock every newly created thread on RtO. Usually with vindication, as many of these have been made for the soul purpose of bashing BioWare for “the poor way [BioWare] has handled this DLC release”, as one Community member wrote.
Victor Wachter, BioWare’s Community Facilitator, has now broken the silence in response to just one of those innumerable threads and this time with more than just ‘End of Line’, or ‘thread closed’. Here is what he had to say:
FYI, I am pulling together a status update. Hoping to have some amount of info for you today (not likely a release date, but a “where we stand”) We don’t want to leave you in the dark til then, but we want to make sure what the update is accurate.
It looks as if we should be recieving another announcement soon. So stay tuned as we bring you up to the minute news regarding the, eventual, Return to Ostagar.
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14 comments
Comment by Krovikan on January 28, 2010 at 12:48 am
The entire way this has been handled is really bad; Frankly I'm expecting the update to be more of the same vague statements about quality. Bioware in my mind needs to do one of two things release an honest update, what they did wrong, what is wrong with lots of detail and what they are improving. Or the second thing say the issues are one thing; however we realized the quality of the entire module was not up to our standards and decided to pull it until they are able to do the entire thing. Either way, this will haunt the franchise until Dragon Age 2 comes out and there is nothing they can do.
Lets be honest though the update is going to be "We found are trying to isolate the issues and we will not release it until it meets our quality" Which will cause 10 times the flaming threads that have opened up. I am really sad about this though, and hope this is not Bioware following in the foot steps of Westgate when it was bought out by EA.
Oh btw, I just got my t-shirt from hot topic and love it :) well worth the 20 bucks, and you get a DLC which is nice
Comment by Krovikan on January 28, 2010 at 12:53 am
Opss westwood, sorry I'd edit but I'm not logged in.
Comment by CaK on January 28, 2010 at 12:53 am
Rumors are already circulating that Ray Muzyka confirmed a "possible" release next week. The "possible" is by me since we have no such official statement.
Comment by psulli on January 28, 2010 at 1:37 am
This DLC stuff is a frustrating experience as a customer. And EA/bioware at times take a very condescending-stonewalling stance in dealing with these situations.
I keep trying to generate some narrative in my head to give excuses to EA/bioware … but my frustration keeps butting in and whining about ~$5.00 that could be earning interest in my account instead of EA/bioware's account.
Comment by Uilleand on January 28, 2010 at 2:07 am
i dunno…I'm generally pretty content to sit back and wait for any DLC, whatever. I trust that BioWare isn't just holding it back out of some sort of spite. They've said there's something wrong with it and they're fixing it. So. Cool. I should want to download something buggy?
I would have thought that most BioWare/RPG fans would have learned their lesson with KotOR II and pushing a product before it's finished. The world won't end cause I can't play the game right now. In fact…it gave me time time to finish Mass Effect 2. ^_^
Comment by Smy on January 28, 2010 at 2:11 am
Well, since this DLC has taken so long, I fear there will be colossal disappointment as a communal reaction. I mean, yes, Avatar took 15 years in the making, but it is an industry changer and provided everything people had hoped for. To put it bluntly, it delivered on the hype. Thus far, DLC has been very lacking for DAO.
I am apprehensive about brining this up, however I feel the release of "Mass Effect 2" and some of the issues leading up to its release as well as the the myriad of launch problems with its DLC may have rearranged some resources across the board. You have to admit, there has been a lot of crisis control as of late for BioWare and a new product launch takes priority over another post launch DLC release, regardless of separate project teams.
Here's to hoping they are able to deliver. Fan bases are most certainly fickle things.
Comment by @txa1265 on January 28, 2010 at 3:01 am
I wonder if they wouldn't be wise to just issue this for free at this point … I recall how Ascaron did that with Sacred Plus turned them from heel to hero.
Comment by darkorpse on January 28, 2010 at 4:43 am
I am dissapointed, I have to say that first. No the world won't end if I can't play the DLC, but a release date is a release date. If you can't deliver ON that date, then there should be a penelty. I don't know what it should be, but hey, we are all consumers and we were promised something that should have arrived on a spacific date, and they didn't deliver. If I did that in my work I would probably lose my job. I don't know if giving it away for free would be the answer, but maybe include a leet item or something cool, or even just make it better than what it sounds like.
Comment by darkorpse on January 28, 2010 at 4:43 am
I love the games they have put out in the past and I waited for months to play DAO, plus I play it on pc and xbox. I do love this game and I will play it plus buy all the DLC's but I don't think it is asking too much to give a little bit to the fans out here wanting to get their game on. The only other thing that bothers me about this is how tight lipped they are, atleast give a daily update!?! is it hard to have a blog….saying, "hey we got a lot done today, one day closer to end result hopefully only 5 more ect….? I guess I just handle customer service different. sorry for venting, thanks for looking!
Comment by Ken Calis on January 28, 2010 at 4:53 am
Please read our latest article. Victor promises a more frequent update basis in the future. As for the blog. Well, you've found it, didn't you? We work closely with BioWare :)
Comment by darkorpse on January 28, 2010 at 5:23 am
thats me, I went and read the RTO info first as that has been the center of my interest lately. I then read the latest post. Thank you. and now where to find the info, my home page has been reset, thankd for the update.
Comment by Robert on January 28, 2010 at 11:25 am
They released a comment on the boards stating that the game would be out soon. There will be what i understand is a title update and with one to two days the DLC will release. This is good news. Sure we don't have a specific date but it's without a doubt getting closer now. With feedback from the company my opinions are growing. Depending on how the DLC turns out along with awakening in march I might even look at mass effect 2. Due to the RTO problems I withdrew my order of ME2 and wont be purchasing the game untill i'm sure the company can be trusted again. who knows how long that will be.
Comment by Mark on January 28, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I think many of you are taking this entirely too seriously. The rhetoric in this article is laughable at best.
Comment by Joe on January 28, 2010 at 10:42 pm
I was one of the few that actually got the i guess bogus version of return to ostagar when it was put out on the servers the first time. Oddly enough I never ran into that server issue that freezes specializations like it was explained. Maybe I got lucky, I dunno though if ostgar is under construction still it means I probably got the unfinished product as it doesnt mention duncan outside of obtaining his swords. For those of you that doubt my ostagar travels my xbox live name "Ride Kick" feel free to check my achievements.