Imagine a new ESO 2

MorallyBipolar

Sarannah wrote: »

There is a reason why MMO's never get a '2', unless the first flopped massively. Releasing an ESO 2 would kill both ESO1 and ESO 2, as the trust would be gone due to all the years of gameplay and purchases being lost.

Technically ESO is already ESO 2, as each update is using new and better functions/techniques.

Vengeance bait and switch has already killed all trust in ZOS.

Gabriel_H

Xarc wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Based on the information above, I think TESO is potentially a very important source of revenue to fund the development of other Bethesda games.

Fallout 4 had $750m in revenue just on launch day.
Skyrim continues to sell and is passed 60m units which even at it's current lower than launch price is more than $2bn.

solo game launch day VERSUS 11 years of MMORPG game with online store & dlc/chapter every year (now season pass), you cant compare at all
skyrim still alive but it's free mods, fallout too.

Both Fallout 4 and Skyrim seperately have generated more revenue for Zenimax than ESO. Your premise was ESO was funding other Bethesda games. That simply isn't true.

Sources?

Your figures.

If ESO has been making $180m for the last few years and that's the highpoint, it's made way less than $2bn in its lifetime.

Skyrim has sold 60m units - as I said even at current prices that's in excess of $2bn without any pay for DLCs.
Fallout4 is estimated to be over 30m units sold - with 12m of those being on launch day to the tune of $750m, and the remaing units at current prices would be around another $500m - $750m.

MorallyBipolar

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

ESO 2 is even more unlikely after MS just axed Zeni's only other MMO project with the people (from ESO) who were working on it..

The people working on the new MMO were either new hires or people transferred over from ESO. When the layoffs happened around 25 people were transferred back from the new MMO to ESO. So staffing for ESO actually increased.

You're expecting us to believe you have access to inside information that's never been reported publicly. You can't possibly expect us to believe you're a ZOS employee, so please try to limit your claims to actual known facts.

Gabriel_H

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

ESO 2 built on a new engine, set in a different age and really well thought out with all the negative and positive things learned from the current version taken into note. You really still have a massive chance to make literally the best MMO ever, any time after Elder Scrolls 6 will do that's if daddy Microsoft will lend some pocket change.

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

ESO is built on a modified HERO engine. That's why for the first 4-5 years the HERO engine splash screen was displayed every time a player would log in to game.

And if ZOS is so good with their engine and modifying it, why aren't they fixing the plethora of major issues they're having at the engine level?

ESO was built on HERO for prototyping. They moved to a in-house custom engine for final release.

Frior back in 2012: https://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/05/25/why-the-elder-scrolls-online-isn-39-t-using-heroengine.aspx

Xarc

I asked chatGPT the following question: Is ESO potentially a source of funding for Bethesda to develop other games like fallout4?
The question is closely linked to a possible ESO2, to stay on topic.

Here the answer : (I asked him for a summary because the answer was very detailed and took up 10 times more text (with amounts in dollars)


Yes — it is very likely that The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) helps financially support other Bethesda projects, including large single-player games like Fallout 4.

ESO generates stable, recurring revenue (subscriptions, DLC, microtransactions), estimated at around $15M per month, and has accumulated about $2 billion since launch. This makes it one of Bethesda’s most profitable long-term titles.

In contrast, Fallout 4 required many years of development, a large budget, and produces mainly one-time sales rather than continuous income.

Publishers like Bethesda/ZeniMax operate with a shared financial pool, not isolated budgets per game. That means revenue from ESO flows into the company’s central treasury and can be reinvested into any project.

This pattern is common in the industry: profitable live-service games often fund the long production cycles of big single-player titles.

Conclusion:
ESO almost certainly acts as a financial backbone that helps fund large projects like Fallout 4 and stabilizes Bethesda’s finances over the years.

Gabriel_H

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

ESO 2 is even more unlikely after MS just axed Zeni's only other MMO project with the people (from ESO) who were working on it..

The people working on the new MMO were either new hires or people transferred over from ESO. When the layoffs happened around 25 people were transferred back from the new MMO to ESO. So staffing for ESO actually increased.

You're expecting us to believe you have access to inside information that's never been reported publicly. You can't possibly expect us to believe you're a ZOS employee, so please try to limit your claims to actual known facts.

*sigh*

Just because you don't know something, doesn't mean it isn't public: https://aftermath.site/zenimax-unions-microsoft-layoffs-mmo-elder-scrolls/

MorallyBipolar

Gabriel_H wrote: »

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

ESO 2 is even more unlikely after MS just axed Zeni's only other MMO project with the people (from ESO) who were working on it..

The people working on the new MMO were either new hires or people transferred over from ESO. When the layoffs happened around 25 people were transferred back from the new MMO to ESO. So staffing for ESO actually increased.

You're expecting us to believe you have access to inside information that's never been reported publicly. You can't possibly expect us to believe you're a ZOS employee, so please try to limit your claims to actual known facts.

*sigh*

Just because you don't know something, doesn't mean it isn't public: https://aftermath.site/zenimax-unions-microsoft-layoffs-mmo-elder-scrolls/

Too bad for you that article doesn't say what you claim it does.

xR3ACTORx

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Do you mean they can update the engine anytime as they updated animations successfully?

Tyrobag

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Tyrobag wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Western MMO development is pretty dead.

Most big MMOs in development are cancelled because it is a gamble that is a way too expensive gamble in this day and age.

Peon made a great video about the genre a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bWVCb60VfM

So no, ESO2 will never happen.

The MMO market was 26 billion last year with a 15% projected increase. If they are failing it is their own fault as developers.

And you haven't realized the people that those "projections" are made by? A little tip: if a corporation says something with a percentage in it, ignore them. You'll get lied to less lol. XD

"ESO 2" would just be a horrible idea on all fronts. The game is already hemorrhaging players because of the current design philosophy, monetization, and poor writing for recent DLC (that they wont call DLC, so they don't have to give ESO+ access to it). Making a new version that is only that, with nothing good to fall back on while dividing the community would be a death sentence for both versions of the game.

I study data not emotions.

Data made and processed by people whose only emotion is greed.

xDeusEJRx

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

There is a reason why MMO's never get a '2', unless the first flopped massively. Releasing an ESO 2 would kill both ESO1 and ESO 2, as the trust would be gone due to all the years of gameplay and purchases being lost.

Technically ESO is already ESO 2, as each update is using new and better functions/techniques.

Vengeance bait and switch has already killed all trust in ZOS.

If that surprises you at all, you must be new to the game.

This is a near mirror situation with No proc in 2021. ZOS has always been looking for "easy" ways to fix performance in the game and inadvertently hurt a section of the playerbase by enforcing rulesets. Original no proc was for about 4 ish months.

Not sure how people still had any trust after all this time, it's not as if there was much reason to.

Joe_90

Look at recent version two's such as Dragon's Age and Dogma. How happy were people with those? Better the devil you know I say.

Gabriel_H

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Do you mean they can update the engine anytime as they updated animations successfully?

"25 people were given the chance to transfer over [from the canceled MMO to Elder Scrolls Online],” said Gobelle. “I don't think everybody took it, but those that did take the transfer option to come back, they're all back."

Gabriel_H

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Do you mean they can update the engine anytime as they updated animations successfully?

Capability and quality are not the same thing.

xR3ACTORx

Gabriel_H wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Do you mean they can update the engine anytime as they updated animations successfully?

Capability and quality are not the same thing.

You are free to believe whatever let's you sleep well

SwordOfSagas

fizzybeef wrote: »

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

ESO 2 built on a new engine, set in a different age and really well thought out with all the negative and positive things learned from the current version taken into note. You really still have a massive chance to make literally the best MMO ever, any time after Elder Scrolls 6 will do that's if daddy Microsoft will lend some pocket change.

And loosing all the progress in the game we played for 10 years? Happy new grind happy new buy everything again?
I personally would feel scammed and say : No thanks!

It would be a completely new game in a different age, it would make no sense carrying stuff over.

BardokRedSnow

Would prefer they keep their lore additions in the 2nd era tbh lol. Maybe it could be the rise of Talos just before the turn of the third era, at best.

fizzybeef

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

ESO 2 built on a new engine, set in a different age and really well thought out with all the negative and positive things learned from the current version taken into note. You really still have a massive chance to make literally the best MMO ever, any time after Elder Scrolls 6 will do that's if daddy Microsoft will lend some pocket change.

And loosing all the progress in the game we played for 10 years? Happy new grind happy new buy everything again?
I personally would feel scammed and say : No thanks!

It would be a completely new game in a different age, it would make no sense carrying stuff over.

Oh cool so a new way to milk players while we loose everything and eso isnt even done yet (speaking for the left out bits of the map for example)

LalMirchi

I imagine a new ESO 2 every time start the game, somehow that never happens.

I would surmise that most players often imagine what their own versions of the game could be like, that would be innumerable versions existing all at once.

Gabriel_H

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Do you mean they can update the engine anytime as they updated animations successfully?

Capability and quality are not the same thing.

You are free to believe whatever let's you sleep well

Nothing to do with "believe", they are definitionally different. Please, lets not get into the sillyness of debating what the generally accepted meaning of words is.

Capability refers to the potential to perform a task.
Quality is the measure of how well that task is performed.

CAB_Life

Gabriel_H wrote: »

CAB_Life wrote: »

being MS’s only and flagship MMORPG.

MS owns Activision which owns Blizzard which owns WoW!

Edit: Typo

You are of course completely correct. I meant to say “action MMORPG”—since amended. WOW is such a decrepit, non-entity to me (despite how popular it remains) that it didn’t even come to mind lol

xR3ACTORx

Ah sure if ZOS is capable of updating their spaghetti code than I am very sure crossplay will be also very easy to be implemented with this engine.

As i said. You are free to believe whatever makes you sleep well while the issues are obvious.

Gabriel_H

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Ah sure if ZOS is capable of updating their spaghetti code than I am very sure crossplay will be also very easy to be implemented with this engine.

As i said. You are free to believe whatever makes you sleep well while the issues are obvious.

The engine isn't the thing stopping crossplay. There are several layers to game code with the engine being just one part. The hold up in crossplay will be in the platform and resource layers.

And again, "believe" has nothing to do with it. It's simply understanding what words mean and how things work.

Mesite

I remember Defiance and the replacement Defiance 2050. I heard that the people who played Defiance were upset they couldn't transfer the in-game items (costumes etc) to the new 2050 version and many refused to play and it never took off.

I haven't spent loads in ESO so I'll definitely play ESO 2.

However, I said I wasn't interested in a ESO classic. So - a bit of a paradox there.

Apollosipod

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

ESO 2 built on a new engine, set in a different age and really well thought out with all the negative and positive things learned from the current version taken into note. You really still have a massive chance to make literally the best MMO ever, any time after Elder Scrolls 6 will do that's if daddy Microsoft will lend some pocket change.

ESO is built on an in-house custom engine. They can update it anytime to upgrade the capabilities.

Sure wish they would commit to an upgrade. Old console tech forcing this game to literally eat itself (see the most recent animation changes) to do anything else are just going to kill the game in order to accommodate a new crown crate

Uristqwerty

Bad news on expecting players to upgrade: AI datacentres have been devouring graphics hardware for a few years, and now they're majorly driving up RAM prices too. In my opinion, the best solution would be to split the game data itself into a low-detail version and a full one if it's possible, chosen between during game installation/update, so that old consoles and low-spec PCs don't even need to download the high-quality assets, while those who have the hardware can get even fancier animations without being held back as much.

On the other hand, that'd take significant development resources, and I'd assume the devs would have already considered it were it a practical option.

Ingel_Riday

SwordOfSagas wrote: »

ESO 2 built on a new engine, set in a different age and really well thought out with all the negative and positive things learned from the current version taken into note. You really still have a massive chance to make literally the best MMO ever, any time after Elder Scrolls 6 will do that's if daddy Microsoft will lend some pocket change.

I'd never play ESO 2. I don't have time for two MMOs. I barely have time for one.

It's why I always felt a little conflicted about Matt's MMO project. You know, the one that Microsoft killed a few months ago. I don't have time for two MMOs each throwing FOMO events at me. I also don't have the bankroll to buy loot crates in both of them, costumes, or the like. Good on ZOS to try and diversify, but I'd never purhcase it (and, truth be told, I never appreciated developers and funding from ESO purchases being used on it).

I'd feel the exact same way towards a hypothetical ESO 2, only with more vitriol. It would pull so many people away from ESO that the latter would TRULY enter maintenance mode, and I'd be tied to a legacy game getting only the most perfunctory of updates every year or so. Would suck.

Also, I tend to feel that people hungry for ESO 2 are expecting all their grievances about ESO to magically be solved by it... and how? It'd be made by the same team, probably re-using as much code as humanly possible to reduce production costs. You'd wind up getting stuck in combat with weapons disappearing anyway. There's no point in it.

Al_Ex_Andre

Devs do what they do, and my goal is not to change their goals. But I won't sign for an ESO 2. ESO can last forever, and I will be pleased to play it as long as it exists.

They can upgrade and update ESO anyway in whatever shape they want, so no need of an ESO 2.

AzuraFan

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Maybe Microsoft will suddenly reverse course and re-fund zos, hire a huge new team, and pour money back into mmo's. Or they'll sell the IP to some magic company with deep pockets and an appetite for risk. Anything is possible. But even then, we probably wouldn't see an actual product for a decade. But really, we'll be lucky at this point if they even invest further in eso.

Especially with TES6 looming in the background. Sure, not all ESO players will want to play it, but I'm betting the majority will. So why invest more in a game that's probably going to experience a significant population dip in the future?

Having said that, I always have an SP game on the go but still log in to ESO every day, so TES6 wouldn't stop me from playing ESO. But the way 2025 has gone, and now the potential changes to PvP, doesn't inspire confidence in the future of this game.

It seems to me (can't be sure) that MS is reducing investment in ESO. Given that, ESO 2 is a pipe dream.

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Also, I tend to feel that people hungry for ESO 2 are expecting all their grievances about ESO to magically be solved by it... and how? It'd be made by the same team, probably re-using as much code as humanly possible to reduce production costs. You'd wind up getting stuck in combat with weapons disappearing anyway. There's no point in it.

Not necessarily, but... I loved the first Guild Wars and couldn't wait for the second one to be released. Unfortunately, I didn't like the second one. They changed a lot, and I just didn't enjoy it as much, which was really disappointing. An ESO 2 would not be ESO with bug fixes, QOL improvements, and better graphics. It would be something completely new and different, otherwise there would be no point in doing it. If it's just to address grievances, they'd be better off overhauling the ESO engine and doing the work here (won't happen - read the tea leaves!).