Bloodstained aims for a Staggered Content Release!

Maybe I'm in bizarro land but this is a blessing to me not a problem. I hope to god the dev team doesn't get scared away from this idea due to a few negative opinions on it. 

If I have to wait till well beyond 2018 to play this game because a few people demand that some extra modes must be made available at the same exact time as the main game i'll go insane. This is not DLC you have to pay for that got cut out of the main game, it's additional content that they had to add on because we kept beating their goals effectively pushing the date further and further back. This is a good solution to allow people to play the game they actually want to play earlier without withholding the hold package till an extremely late date so it all releases at once.

The exact opposite of what Mighty no 9 did. Waiting on fixing up online mode when the actual game is ready to go.... People were complaining heavily as to why they have to keep waiting for a mode that isn't the main appeal anyways.  Patch in the online later they said. Goes to show you, you can't please EVERYONE as they say.

Yep, all things considered, depending on just how much money you pledged...you won't even need to pay for what could possibly be "DLC" after release.

To keep myself extremely short and simple



I am totally fine with this 

Testing your extensive, cursive words with the forum administrator is unwise. Just saying.

On-topic: I backed Bloodstained before any other mode or feature was even hit. So I don't care if what I didn't technically pay for (at the time) isn't included with what I initially wanted.

Well, on a forum like this we eat demons for breakfast. There's a time and a place for that, though, and this thread doesn't have to be it. I can understand why you're angry, and sympathize with you, but even if you don't think your language was excessively foul, if someone else asks you politely to turn it down, it's a mild request a reasonable man would accommodate. And as I'm sure you and all of us can agree, it's a lot more fun dealing with reasonable people than demons ;D So let's all try to be reasonable rather than combative, and keep our discussions generating more light than heat.

And on that note, perhaps IGA and his team will end up surpassing your expectations.  Like I said, I understand your complaints about DLC, it can get pretty annoying. However, if IGA is following the Shovel Knight example, he's not going to be nickel-and-diming you. In Shovel Knight's case, backers got all the "DLC" *for free* when it was released--i.e if you backed the proper tier in the original timeframe, you could download Plague Knight free of charge. So yeah, while it'd be nice to have everything ASAP, if that's not doable you'll still be getting everything you paid for, just in chunks rather than one package. Patience is a virtue, and good things come to those who wait

Motoko is back!

Glad to hear that you're content with this decision.

CastleDan and others, while I lean more toward agreeing with you all, I feel like I should perhaps explain some more of the other side...

It's not as much that these guys are just anti-DLC or necessarily feel like they're being ripped off. It's just a classic gaming consumer's desire to have a physical product, independent of on online connection, that is itself the complete work. A large part of Bloodstained's backer demographic would include people that gamed from the 80s and 90s and still collect games. Bloodstained next to their Castlevania 1s through LoS 2s not in its actual fullness on the media displayed just won't do it for the collector, fan completionist, whichever you would call them. I can really empathize with that.

However, what I would posit to them is to consider the scenario that the physical release of Bloodstained will already be a complete Igavania game. If you look at SotN:

Base game
Richter Mode

And besides some password codes to technically change the base game a bit, that's about all there is. In a standard portable Igavania game, you get more or less the same as the above with the addition of Boss Rush or similar. Bloodstained is set to have, in addition to most likely at least these 2-3 things at release, Igarashi's largest castle ever. Sitting it beside SotN, Aria, Dawn, Portrait and so on, you wouldn't be able to really say that it was less of a game.

It's just a different time now, but in this case, it's a good thing. We're getting more, additional things we before wouldn't have ever expected, for free...and I maintain the very likely possibility that for the collector down the line who wants the 10+ modes all on disc, I imagine a "complete" physical version with all of it would be released later. I personally wouldn't want to be bombarded with that all at once just for the sake of being overwhelmed to the point that I wouldn't enjoy them as much individually.

That's my point, mostly - the full game, what we would otherwise get in an Igavania game, will already be present from how it sounds to me. There's no "less game", but "more game" just due to the age we live in now and current technology. Things can be added and fixed. It's a good thing in this context. It's not as much a good thing in other scenarios unrelated to Bloodstained, i.e. how I myself -hate- having to play single player on a server as is the current trend for larger games, or how DLC is sometimes actually what should have been in the base game to start, occasionally requiring more of an investment than the initial purchase. We're not looking at these things here from what we know.

I think it just takes looking at it all from a different perspective than what came to us in cartridge games. Even if the sheer volume of free additional stuff coming to backers or the possibility of a compiled physical package later isn't a consolation, the evident idea that day 1 Bloodstained looks to be more than previous Igavania standards should ease concerns as well.

Looking forward to more info on it. I'd keep these things in mind regardless, though.

Well, one possible solution that could please both sides could be that the digital copy releases with x modes, and every backer gets a redeem code for their tier, and they wait to ship the physical discs with the complete game when all the modes are finished and the game gets its final update,

That way everybody gets the game in a timely manner, the devs get the reprieve of a staggered release and additional backer feedback on possibly making modes more awesome, and the physical backers get a disc with the full game on it but dont have to wait longer to get the game (shipping and all that), also would give fangamer a little extra time to make sure theres enough stock to fill every order so they arent dealing with as much stressful crunch time^_^

What do yall think? And pease keep in mind for all this speculation we dont know what is actually considered part of the staggered content, it could be the server to run all the online modes

I don´t really know what staggered content means, even after translating it-.- but i see 3 possibilities:

1. When it´s like MMO-maingame+expansions, the concept sounds damn nice, the maingame is complete itself (what we´ve all paid for by smashing stretch goals in the KS campain).
The expansions are DLC (for paying $$$ or Kickstarted itself, whatever), which would bring a Worldmap with locations beside the castle for example, also beeing the the foundationstone for placing IGA´s next castle/game on would be a step to make it even bigger and better from year to year like we all know from MMO´s. The good ones are complete itself but growing over the years into something even closer to perfection.

2. When it´s like that PS4 and XBOX games..,fully incomplete releases for max money+releasing minor additional DLC content every few weeks to rip off blameful amounts of money from the pawns that hoped for a good game-.-

3. To ensure the release date, the game will be broken into pieces and releases one after another..

When staggered content means 1, than i´m perfectly fine with it and pay every amount of money to them for doing so. It would be the perfect step in the future of gaming,because a fusion made of games and gamelike expansions, where every part in the line has it´s own destiny and also they´re destinys unite over the years into something huge&epic is so much greater than a line of stand-alone games, banishing every few years the "old king" from the throne..

When staggered content means 2, hell no! When Sony and Microsoft decided for doing so, they had only mobile gaming in they´re mind, cheap games without any sense, designed to rip off unlimited money via DLC from facebook teens without a trace of intellect...
What they did to encounter that, was create beautiful games,selling for max money but way to incomplete to have fun with...AND ripping off unlimited amounts of money via DLC from all people not playing mobile shit..
I can understand that gamers hate DLC when they are only knowing that two types of mockery but when someone has seen expansions for MMO´s or Nintendo DLC, he knows that the possibility of getting much more than expected for his money, still exists.
Don´t think IGA will do so, Bloodstained stands for breaking that circle of condemnation against gamers!

When staggered content means 3, hell no! let her sleep a year longer until the castle appears! Only wanna see the castle we´ve founded all together in the most fun campain ever!^^