Is there really any point to DLC for LA Noire?

I suppose it depends on what your definition of DLC is too.. to me, it should be something that expands a story, there are new discoveries, or it brings in something new, fun and useful.

The problem with LA Noire though, is that the main character (Det. Phelps) dies at the end of story. And because of the type of game, the DLC is pretty much limited to vanity aesthetics (suits, cars, etc.) and storyline driven DLC.

LA Noire DLC is a collection of "old adventures" before his death.

Does that interest you? If you found out that a TV series was revealed to be "all just a dream", would you even watch it in the first place?

With Phelps dead, what's the point in continuing the story? If he had lived, at least there would have been new "adventures" for you to follow, and the story could have been further extended or developed.

I think what had happened was that they didn't think it through clearly, and just tried to borrow from the success of RDR's DLC. But, they didn't consider the major differences between the two game genres.

RDR is a multiplayer action GTA-style game. (In the GTA games too, there's very little empathy for the main character as they are really just an outlet for your more villainous inner desires. If your character dies, no big deal, the next GTA will just have a new "bad guy" to play anyways.) RDR DLC consists of mostly new weapons or multiplayer maps. Besides, John's son Jack could just carry on his legacy if the story were ever extended in future DLC.

LA Noire, though, is completely different. It was marketed as a Single Player detective game with an immersive story line. The types of people who buy this game weren't interested in multiplayer shooting and action gameplay, but rather the story and it's people.

Your DLC options are pretty limited here. Why would you create a story, plan on extending the story, but have the main character DIE before extending the story?

It's just a simple logic failure, and I hope it's a lesson learned. DLC could have been MUCH more successful if Phelps was still alive, and they continued to develop his story and personal development. You need to get people addicted to a story; one where they can't wait to find out what happens next.

Perhaps LA Noire should have ended with a cliff hanger instead: the players are left wondering what happened to Phelps in the storm drain, and there was an "anonymous" funeral at the end of LA Noire instead. DLC for storyline driven games need to be marketed like successful novels.. you keep buying more books in the series to see what happens to your favorite characters next.

I've brought the proper template back up now, and the layout is all fixed. Comments still broken in some cases, but Google Engineers are apparently working on the issue.

I tried testing out about 10 other templates while I was trying to fix the problems, but they all just look like crap. It's hard to find a good Blogspot template, but I'd like to switch things up a bit sometime in the future.

I try to soak up as much information about Titan as possible, and I noticed something interesting in a PC Gamer article about GDC 2011 that they seemed to pick up on that no one else has written about (yet).

Here's what was odd about the article:

Chris Metzen is first talking about WOW lore, then customization, and then this continuation along the same line of thought:

“It’d be really cool if I could design my own castle and have people run through it. It’d be fun if I could design this big, epic quest line and let my friends run through it. The thing you run up against is quality level. With WoW, you’re going to get millions of submissions. There’s a lot of creative people out there. But maintaining a level of editorial control and quality control is just logistically impossible. But it’s something we talk about from time to time. I think it would be amazing if we were able to open this thing up.”

And then he talks about the following, like a "While we're on this subject.."

“Obviously, I can’t get into what our thinking is in particular [with Titan],” he said. “But if you’re fortunate enough to have that hit game that’s beloved by X number of people, that expectation of performing again or outdoing the competition that’s also learned from your big hit can become very, very intense.”

So.. was this part of his speech? He's talking about customization within games, which relates to the subject of Titan. Or was this a separate line of questioning?

I'll know more if I can ever get my hands on a video recording of the event. But, I thought it was of note since PC Gamer themselves made a connection between the two.

However, on the subject of their Next Gen game Nathan Grayson did continue to say:

And there’s plenty more where that came from. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Metzen after the panel for an exclusive interview, and you’ll see that in the coming days.

Implying that there should be actual Titan information, but I think he just worded it this way to attract more readers.. or maybe it was just incorrect formatting.