Consider :

1) We are now almost three weeks from the last "we'll have an announcement soon" statement from the developers. This is not soon.

2) MS had a place holder slot for Honest Hearts with vendor supplied graphic, which presumably means they where given a date for it and that date got missed.

3) Print publications, with long lead times, appear to have been given a peak at the 3rd DLC, and told they could run the story in upcoming issues, despite the fact that there is still no public announcement.

4) Reference letters for laid off Obsidian folks are seem to indicate that significant portions of all/most later DLCs are done. The combination of layoffs and glowing letters usually suggests that there a money problems. Nothing solve money problems like releasing software.

5) The developers have enough time away from developing new content to fix bugs. While always a good think, its the new content that pays the bills. Obsidian people is keeping its remaining employees busy without getting new software out. Pretty big hint that they have something they expect to bring in new money soon, without additional direct work.

6) The 1st DLC when non-exclusive much earlier than people thought. While we don't know anything about the contract, it is not inconceivable that this was triggered by low sales numbers. IE, MS guaranteed that the Xbox version would sell at least enough to recoup costs, and when it didn't gamesas was free to open it up.

7) Even a casual read of the forums suggests that fans are unhappy with the radio silence and that the delay is costing gamesas money.

8) An official tease would quite people down and help to hold interest. Even if the DLC got bumped a week or two from the initial date, an announcement of some sort is in gamesas's best interest. And it has been since at least March.

Conclusion:

The 2nd DLC is probably done. It has probably been done for a while now. The 3rd DLC is probably mostly done. The 4th might be done. The lack of both a DLC and an announcement of the same is probably the result legal matters forcing both gamesas and Obsidian to hold radio silence. It might be the result of a falling out between the two, or it could be related to the dust up with Interplay. It could be something else entirely. But whatever is holding things up, its not related to creating the DLC. Its almost certain to be a legal matter.

DLC #2 IS done, but it was explicitely stated they were concerned with releasing the patch first, and after the patches little fiasco, they may be working on fixing the patch first.

Then they could have released an announcement about the DLC when they released the patch. The focus on fixing bugs is admirable and needed. But it doesn't go very far in explaining why there has been no announcement.

I keep on thinking how close they are to releasing the DLC and I end up making a new character in the process, I've made 2 so far both over level 30.

hmm yeah Bethesda. The mob are getting restless. "within the next month"? a screenshot? the promo video? something? anything?

My money is on PSN being down.

doesn't stop them putting a promo up on Youtube, Bethblog, their main website....

Hey. Very soon.


Ha. Just kidding. They said that in February.

Look at this:

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/113/1135174p1.html

Dead Money was announced on November 17.
Released in late December.
At the earliest, we're looking at late May, but more likely, June. June. 7 months.
Over half a year between DLCs...lol..that's absurd..

Bethesda.. being the controllers of space and time went forward into the future, found out the best time to release the DLC"s to gain the most profit and sent the information back to their past selves. The only reason they have delayed the DLC's is because they knew the best time to release them would be after Bin Laden's Death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u9JAt6gFqM

guys, if Brink launches in 7 days, I don't think we can expect to see another product from Bethesda during that same 7 days. I would expect 2-3 weeks for HH, also to make sure PSN is available to distribute the product.

This is the only plausible explanation.

They switched to Valve Time, that all

I'll be happy with an official release date. Even if it is next month.

Ok, well ponder on this a bit:

Bethsda enlists obsidian the "original makers of the fallout series"
-Obsidian when they joined up with this endevour did not know the abilitys of any of the engine/software products that they were to be using
-Bethsda did of course enlighten them in the use of this and things sailed smoothly untill the first release of FNV

After the Release both Bethsda and Obsidian try for a while to conquer the issues with the buggy gameplay with repeated patches and hotfix's
-The game improves to the point were its actualy playable and everyone forgets about the issues were there are training gaps were Obsidian does
not fully understand a majority of the software while still adding content

Dead Money
-DLC goes as planned and is warmly recieved by the public, except for some bugs progress continues on
-Obsidian/Bethsda understand the unbalanced issues with the game mechanics and attempt a fix
-Fix goes horribly wrong

Current day
Bethsda/Obsidian are working on correcting more issues that are burried in the game while still trying to manufacture DLC to keep revenue up.
Even though the next dlc is finished the team wants to make sure that they dont want to walk into another wall like their 2 previous situations

I believe the delay is because the Obsidian/Bethsda team is being cautious because of the buggy play so far and are worried about losing a fan base.
And I agree with this idea becuase if they do releasse a dlc that is bugged like crazy the fan base will shrink considerably. By fixing these issues before hand it
reduces further issues down the road when they are operating with a ghost crew to just fix bugs.

Granted legal issues do have some hand in this but not entirely a majority is the pressure from the public to maintain a playable game that is fun and meets the
expectations of its users, us.

And I also agree that they should at least give us a trailer of sorts to keep us occupied otherwise the fan base could forget or not care about the release.

im ready for Escalation tommorow!!

Consider that the forum is chock full of threads whining about not getting the DLC AND flaming about the unplayability of the base game and patches. These are two diametrically opposed processes. You can't pump out DLC as fast as you can AND make sure you fix all the problems and avoid them in future releases at the same time. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't. I guess I'll spend my time waiting for the DLC listening to the [censored]ing and whining coming from both sides.

-Gunny out.

Hell ye-ah!

Gunny Fan Club: current membership: 1. Actively seeking new members.

-Gunny out.

Yeah!

Wait, what? :swear:

Don't fret. Charter membership comes with a commemerative tie clip and a free weekly newsletter. :hubbahubba:

-Gunny out.

Quiet people down? Hold interest? Maybe for a single day. Maybe. Definitely NOT worth it. IMO.

I think that Bethesda had planned to release a trailer after the patches were installed, but the patches were all f ed up. They had to patch the patches. Im not even sure if the non-english version is out yet.

Then they would be smart to run the dlc with the new patches on all platforms like 7000 times to make sure it is good.

They are doing what they told us they would do as far as I can see.

I think we ll get a teaser tomorrow, or this week and a pretty rapid release date. all IMO

Yeah, I'm still going to buy it.