Tips/Pointers for ZoS making better ESO commercials/ads?

Mascen

So I was scrolling though YT videos last night when the algorithm remembered that I play ESO and was given this short commercial of a guy turning into a redguard and sizing up a monster followed by a woman who turns into a dunmer and is messing around at an alchemy table with the slogan being something like "Play as you want"

It was bland; well intentioned mind you, but bland and too short to hook someone in. So the question is, could we the community come up with better advertisements?

I also ask this because as fire as the High Isle reveal trailer was a few years back, people still love doing tiktoks and YT shorts of the Ascendant Lord fighting the 3 heroes. So ESO definitely has advertising potential, but I think we could come up with better ideas.

Syldras

Mascen wrote: »

So I was scrolling though YT videos last night when the algorithm remembered that I play ESO and was given this short commercial of a guy turning into a redguard and sizing up a monster followed by a woman who turns into a dunmer and is messing around at an alchemy table with the slogan being something like "Play as you want"
It was bland; well intentioned mind you, but bland and too short to hook someone in.

I just checked whether Bethesda or ZOS has that video on their youtube channel (and noticed that the ZOS channel hasn't posted anything for 8 years...), as some companies do that with all their ads, but it seems they don't. From the description, it sounds rather... uninspired.

And while I haven't seen that one yet, I recently come across an ESO text ad on Reddit all the time. Not sure what the English text is (as I'm sure that ad also exists in English), but the one displayed in my language would translate to "ESO is warm, playful, dark and bright, challenging and entertaining." Not sure if that's a wonky translation of something said during the last reveal stream? Anyway, it sounds rather strange. Not sure if "warm and playful" are attributes many people are interesting in when it comes to online games... And rather than being told that a medium is "entertaining", I'd want to know what exactly it's about, how does gameplay look like, what's the story in case it's a story-focused game, etc.

Mascen

Syldras wrote: »

Mascen wrote: »

So I was scrolling though YT videos last night when the algorithm remembered that I play ESO and was given this short commercial of a guy turning into a redguard and sizing up a monster followed by a woman who turns into a dunmer and is messing around at an alchemy table with the slogan being something like "Play as you want"
It was bland; well intentioned mind you, but bland and too short to hook someone in.

I just checked whether Bethesda or ZOS has that video on their youtube channel (and noticed that the ZOS channel hasn't posted anything for 8 years...), as some companies do that with all their ads, but it seems they don't. From the description, it sounds rather... uninspired.

And while I haven't seen that one yet, I recently come across an ESO text ad on Reddit all the time. Not sure what the English text is (as I'm sure that ad also exists in English), but the one displayed in my language would translate to "ESO is warm, playful, dark and bright, challenging and entertaining." Not sure if that's a wonky translation of something said during the last reveal stream? Anyway, it sounds rather strange. Not sure if "warm and playful" are attributes many people are interesting in when it comes to online games... And rather than being told that a medium is "entertaining", I'd want to know what exactly it's about, how does gameplay look like, what's the story in case it's a story-focused game, etc.

I tried finding it afterwards too but it doesnt seem to be on youtube for some reason. Swear on my grandfathers grave thats how the add went down though. But yeah different mediums require different formats, like if youre going for a tiktok format you wanna do something sweet and to the point whereas you can get away with longer format content on places like youtube. And on the other hand, engaging in meme culture worked well with the High Isle trailer so there is that option.

Syldras

@Mascen Seems like it was a version of the video shown here now - posted a month after your thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/677979/live-action-trailer-the-elder-scrolls-online-your-world-your-way

Soarora

I agree it was pretty bland. The “play how you want” slogan also has caused fundamental problems where people get intense about build viability in group content. I really think ZOS needs to put down the slogan for a minute and make a post explaining exactly what they mean by it.

Nissowolf

People won't read it. @Soarora . They'll stay on their first opinion. Really, not a lot of people are going on the forum compared to the population of the game.

Personnally, if i have pointers to give to zos on what to say in your ad for ESO, it would be that :
What brought me into the game is not the gameplay. It's not the classes, it's not the dungeons or the trials. ESO is far too easy for a mmo to compete on that scene with FFXIV or Wow, which are its two major rivals in my understanding.

What brought me to ESO, it's the Lore. It's the story, the immersion. I LOVED the cinematic trailers that showed the factions' heroes, evolving year after year. I loved the story until summerset.

But ESO is making a game for people they deem unable to comprehend a complex story, with nuanced characters. When they can. People are smart, people can appreciate a story that is complex, that talks about mature themes, that send a message. But currently, this is not the case, and the lore is butchered year after year, and people are not considered intelligent enough to comprehend a complex story, so they go for a quest with a npc that repeat litteraly everytime what you're doing, why you're doing it, what it will accomplish, to make sure you follow everything.

That is a problem, because we are not respected as customers, and as players.
Every expansion, every chapter that i can think of since elsweyr included were sold with the nostalgia argument. "you can have dragons" "you will visit solitude from skyrim" "you will go back to skingrad from oblivion !" "hey, have you seen necrom from morrowind ? You can go there too !"

High isle is the only expansion that had a good start, the story started as interesting, potentialy leading to a change in the politic of the elder scrolls world, the cinematic trailers were good, the ascendant lord was badass, and all. But the story has been butchered at the end. A shame to have a vilain with no substance, no real motivation, no nuance. Just "hahaha, i want to conquer the world !". Yeeaaaaah.

And the speech that i heard about solstice, in the article about wormblood, is terrible. It looks honestly like a bad fanfiction written by a person who prompted chatgpt to create a sequel to the main quest of ESO. So we have a wannabee manimarco that is actually the hidden cousin of the main guy that got a mission to reform the wormcult, and he's also a potential vampire.
That's just bad. Really bad.

Zos can do better, they did better with morrowind, with clockwork city, with orsinium, with dark brotherhood, with summerset.
But they need to up their metaphorical game, they need to accept that they must work to create a good story that will engage the player and give him the will to redo the story sometime, because he got a lot of fun in it.

ESO is a MMO in which every quest, every character is voiced. The main thing that brings people to it is the immersion, it's the lore of it, it's the quality of the quests. So stop butchering your work, because you can do incredible story if you want to make the effort.

@ZOS_Kevin I hope you can share my thoughts with the team, i don't mean it in a specifically negative or unconstructive way. But currently i am not thrilled by the story you offer, because i've seen you make much better quests. And each year, i hope you will make something satisfying, that i will love.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

I think the best game adverts are the ones that make you want to play the game by showing something cool, generally these revolve around interesting story elements for most MMOs. The generic 'You can play this' type adverts we've had recently that just show random people that could be playing ESO is really uninspiring.