I understand stretch goals. I'm not a fan. But it seems to be common here on the forums here that you are either against it or a fan ...

Correction: you're either a hater or a fanboy.

I loved New Vegas, and I agree with stuff like Old World Blues the distinction gets a little blurry, but there is still a difference worth noting between something like Old World Blues and Bloodmoon in size and scope.

And price. Bloodmoon was $30, OWB $15 and was at least half the size of Bloodmoon.

I figure the expansion was always planned, because they (Obsidian) knew the full length of the story they planned to tell in PE was out of the scope of a 3 million-ish budget.

I honestly don't understand why some of you are whinging that Obsidian isn't doing something different or revolutionary. We all wanted them to make a game without the constraints a publisher would put on them and that's why the bulk of us are donating/investing/chipping in (wont get into an argument about that side of it). I can't blame them for not trying something radical.It might not wash for the bulk of the audience (lets face it - it ain't the console or casual crowd we are talking about here but old school rpgers). There's lots of ideas given already by a good number of backers which might get into the game. It wont be perfect.Not everyone will be happy. But it will be a game hopefully many of us will be happy with because the game will have been made by developers who care about their product (bugs aside from previous games...) & for us the gamers.

I's not arguing against OWB or any other DLC guys. I'm saying there is a reason to specify it's a real expansion pack. If you disagree, well... I dunno what to tell you. Selective blindness to be crotchety?

As lovely as OWB was, Shivering Isles scope it was not.

Semantics, but still.
What is an "Expansion Pack"? How is it different from "DLC"?
Please don't answer "Quality", since there were shitty expansions, and there are excellent DLCs. So, what makes an "Expansion Pack" different from a "DLC"?

This is one of those over-thinking things where you don't see the obvious because you are dwelling on making a larger point. Expansion packs in the RPG existed for years and were large, $30 on average, and added a lot more new content and area on average than Old World Blues (by a large margin).

DLC for whatever reason is the term we use for modern download additions. Could they technically be called expansions too? Sure, and I actually often refer to them as such. However you're missing the obvious if you ask me (or Obsidian) to clarify what the fuck they meant when they said a real expansion pack. They mean what was released under that label, in a box, for years, before smaller content additions took precedence.

Shivering Isles for Oblivion or Awakening for Dragon Age, rather than the obviously smaller stuff.

How is this even an argument? You guys are baffling me right now.

Not really arguing, but I am also annoyed by their choice of words.
For me, DLC and expansion are synonyms, both mean additional content that requires the base game to play. Their choice of "A Real Expansion Pack" instead of "A Solid Beefy DLC" is pure marketing speak. The content they'll create is the same, the delivery method is the same, the price will be either worth it or not for each of us, but they choose the "nostalgia word" for added effect.

On the other hand, can you think what the reactions to them saying "A brand new DLC 6 months after the game's release" would have been?

JMich
It should be measured in hours I think. I don't think a 10-hour DLC can ever count as an expansion though, 15+-20 hours, yeah maybe.

I completely disagree. "A beefy DLC" does not mean the same thing as "expansion pack" to me at all. Old World Blues is a beefy DLC but much smaller than the average Bethesda expansion.

So the answer in "What difference does an Expansion Pack have from a DLC" is "Length"?

Size and scope, I'd say.

I don't mind them calling it a downloadable expansion. Rather than arguing about semantics and marketing techniques, I'm more interested in what this is going to be about. Hopefully, they'll shed some light on it in the near future.