Maybe a blood dlc is a good idea?

Maybe a blood dlc is a good idea? For example, when CA released the Total War series, there is no blood effect like the current Age of Empires 4, but they will soon release blood dlc. This is a good way for CA to lower the game’s age rating phase. And relic can make more money.
A big problem with Aoe 4 is the cartoonish graphics. I think it can be solved by properly reducing the color saturation and blood pack.

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I’d hate it if they tried to monetize blood like CA did.
I consider that to be some of the most predatory types of DLC imaginable.

However, I wouldn’t mind if it were a free DLC.
Or if it were simply an option that is by default turned off.

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It’s depressing that we have to wish for a DLC for something that was present in Age of Empires I in 1997.
Or WarCraft from 1994, one of the first RTS that had blood that I can remember .

Yes - optional DLC (similar to hi-rez texture packs on Steam that allow to cut download size of the base game) enabling these elements is better than not having it at all.

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Free dlc may be the only way for them to deliver it without docking the age rating.
But idk, I think they won’t bother and the community will have to make it with a mod in 2022.

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DLC optional/free ok, otherwise I would never pay to have a basic feature.

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let’s not repeat CA’s failures.

image

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Sure some blood instead of them flashing dust when hit would be nice and its not like it would move the game to higher rating. Its all done because of Asia so DLC would fix that.

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It’s mostly negative though because it’s paid instead of free.

CA’s excuse (which I have no idea if it’s true or not) is that if it was included in the base game or offered as a free DLC (which basically means it’s part of the base game), it would raise the ESRB/PEGI rating up to 18+.

AOE4 is currently at 12+. Personally I would love a $2-3 blood and gore DLC like CA released for Total War games.

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Idk I dislike having to pay for a DLC like that. Then again we can choose to spend our money differently.
Im unsure about whether a free dlc vs a paid dlc makes an impact on ESRB/PEGI ratings.
To us it might sound logical but im unsure about their particular criteria/methods.

In my case, i’d just wait for a modder to add the blood in instead of pay for a DLC.

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In practical terms how does age rating even matters? On Steam, and pretty much everywhere else, you can pick whatever DOB you want to and buy all hentai games even if you’re 12.
It does affect things like marketing of course, but for players, in digital age… Unless parents are really controlling their children while browsing the Internet it does not affect anything.
People are one google/bing search away from seeing heavy gore/porn, pretending some red pixels in a stylized game destroy souls of our children is cute at best.
But that’s a different topic.

BTW when it comes to SEGA- they could charge like 0,20$ for that DLC it that was just about working around legal stuff and making blood actually a paid feature…

Personally I would love a $2-3 blood and gore DLC
Jesus Christ.

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If you are at an age where you can buy games for yourself then obviously the rating doesn’t matter. Parents, who decide which games to buy their 12 year old children will most likely not buy a game rated 18+. It’s that simple.

In case it wasn’t obvious (though I’m sure it was), I would love a $2-3 blood and gore DLC over the current situation, which is being locked into the Teletubbies version of medieval warfare.

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I don’t think we should pay to have blood. It’s so basic, you’d think the game would already have at least some pixels of it. There aren’t even lasting corpses.

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I’d pay $1 for this DLC.

#offtopic Taking advantage, how ridiculous is the world today? I remember when I was a kid, I watched Dragon Ball, Saint Seya and Street Fighter, all with a lot of blood and violence. Society today is raising butter boys.

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I would like some AoE2 blood added into the base game or at least as a free DLC. What I do not want is to turn AoE into TW violence," Blood, guts, gore, yay"
If I want that I play CoH

They just need to dial up the contrast, and make some death animations a bit better. No need for excessive blood.

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Exactly. Why do you want to change AoE with a little blood splatter to this
image

Needs blood, not severed limbs.

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You know there is a lot of space between blood on unit textures and ground where a soldier fell, and dismemberment and disembowelment.
IV is stylized enough that TW (or Dawn of War I-II) approach wouldn’t fit at all. But we don’t have even basic blood pools.
It does negatively impact battlefields- another thing on top of no skeletons, no arrows or other projectiles on the ground, no kill animations, very mediocre fire effect or building destruction etc. that would create great atmosphere. There is just nothing +. The most barebones system you can imagine.

How cool it would be to see additional small touches and quirks like wolfs spawning near places where xx units died within xxx seconds, or ravens circling above the battlefields.
I’d love to see nearby ponds or rivers turn red after huge battles, but that might be too hardcore for mentioned stylized, chilled approach of AoEIV.

+I’m sorry, there are arrows (half as big and thicc as bolts from siege ballistae) that magically disappear from bodies they’are stuck in after 2 seconds. Truly a technology that can fully utilize all processor cores.

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Yeah just seeing a small pool of blood would be fine.

Just corpses staying on battlefield with little pool of blood under them would be enough.

Though i would love some cannon carnage but that would push the games rating for sure.

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