Just a heads up for the pr side of things with Reddit

mdb800 · April 24

There are a number of moderators from other subreddits across Reddit that seem to be taking some sort of offense due to the Oblivion remaster and a number of changes that happened with elder scrolls online. I'm not exactly clear as to what they are. My Reddit account doesn't comment on politically sensitive topics or subreddits or anything that would be considered rated "g" Or greater. A couple of others I know have indicated the same thing.

Why this may require your attention (It may not). There were a number of moderators from the assassin's Creed subreddit months ago banning ,spam messaging people from other video game subreddits including the elder scrolls online. In my case it was because a conversation about the yokudans and the akaviri and speculating their origins was deemed as racially offensive towards one of the characters in assassin's Creed. Other people from all over Reddit were getting the same sort of negative attention and it ended up hurting the sales of assassin's Creed shadows because an unofficial subreddit was going around antagonizing people starting fights creating controversy where it doesn't belong. Trying to imply a certain subreddit is making some sort of stance when it isn't, those sorts of things.

For this particular instance that just happened with the New subclass (yes, someone was quoting subclasses as well as evidence of being offensive); it appears to be the inverse of the issue. Rather than a particular subreddit that is unofficial and unconnected to the developer, it's outside subreddits that are antagonizing people who discuss a certain topic to create a chill effect to discourage people from talking about certain productions. I don't know what the playbook is here.
I'm not trying to bring up drama in this. I just simply do not know what the controversy is as I am completely blind to it and it's not been explained to me and searching through Google does not make anything more clear.

I'm just pointing it out as it happened to me and others were also noting that they've

Hrolthar · April 24

I read all of that and I still haven't got a clue what happened?

wilykcat · April 24

I won't use reddit due to too much drama on there. The official forums are much more tame.

Elsonso · April 24

Reddit is still a thing?

Just kidding. Not sure what, if anything, ZOS can do about Reddit. The r/elderscrollsonline subreddit is run by people generally friendly to ESO and ZOS.

Other Elder Scrolls subreddits may differ.

mdb800 · April 24

Elsonso wrote: »

Reddit is still a thing?

Just kidding. Not sure what, if anything, ZOS can do about Reddit. The r/elderscrollsonline subreddit is run by people generally friendly to ESO and ZOS.

Other Elder Scrolls subreddits may differ.

I feel the same way. I don't think zoss or Bethesda can do anything about it. But the best we can do as is consumers and fans is just build awareness for when we see these sort of things happen.
I really don't want to see a day when elder scrolls falls victim to some sort of obscure controversy that no one knows what the controversy actually is, but at the same time receives the same negative attention nonetheless.
My fear here is that consumers will perceive that elder scrolls is in fact doing something wrong when it isn't. And to be clear, I'm not so sure what the controversy is if there's even any at all.

valenwood_vegan · April 24

Not really sure how zos would control what people are discussing on reddit, but subclassing has been a controversial addition to the game here on the forums too.

mdb800 · April 24

Hrolthar wrote: »

I read all of that and I still haven't got a clue what happened?

To make it short: random Reddit moderators seem to be antagonizing people participating in known elder scrolls subreddits like the elder scrolls online or talking on threads that deal with the Oblivion remake. Why or how they are jumping the gun to deem some sort of offense is beyond me and I have no clue what the explanation is but it's happening. And unfortunately it's happened before with other titles from other developers.

spartaxoxo · April 24

I don't quite understand what happened with subclassing? I don't even mean the why. But what you experienced to make this post.

DenverRalphy · April 24

Read the OP a few times in an attempt to understand what exactly is being asked. Any chance you can simplify both the summary and the question?

I got maybe half the gist. That's about it. Sorry if English isn't your native language.

mdb800 · April 24

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I don't quite understand what happened with subclassing? I don't even mean the why. But what you experienced to make this post.

There are random subreddit moderators from other subreddits that have nothing to do with elder scrolls banning and sending notifications to users who participate in discussions regarding the Oblivion remaster. These are moderators from seemingly unrelated subreddits with some of them having nothing to do with gaming at all.

The subclassing quote came from a moderator of a subreddit that I asked "who they were. What they found was offensive and did I ever posted them before with the past?"

I am confident but not certain that there's just a number of trolls doing this.

Syldras · April 24

Okay, I think I have understood the problem. But how exactly can this forum help? What are we supposed to do? Random reddit mods can ban and moderate their forums on reddit how ever they wish, be their decisions fair or unfair, we can't do anything about that.

mdb800 · April 24

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Read the OP a few times in an attempt to understand what exactly is being asked. Any chance you can simplify both the summary and the question?

I got maybe half the gist. That's about it. Sorry if English isn't your native language.

That's my apologies. I put in way too much detail because I was trying to make sure no assumptions were made:

Essentially I'm asking if anyone else experienced this and to be on the lookout that when posting Or responding to subreddits regarding the Oblivion remaster If it's happening to other people as well.

I'm well aware. Based on the responses here that ZOS has nothing to do with Reddit, but it's something I want to bring attention to because we have seen what happens when platforms like Reddit don't enforce their policies. + As a result, some named brands get dragged down with a false sense of perception of who is doing what.

In the case of assassin's Creed, there are a lot of people who published erroneously that Ubisoft was going around mocking anthropology students from University or people who play lore intensive fantasy video games (like the elder scrolls) when it's in fact, a few moderators on Reddit are aiming to abuse that image and harm the reputation of the developer.

mdb800 · April 24

Syldras wrote: »

Okay, I think I have understood the problem. But how exactly can this forum help? What are we supposed to do? Random reddit mods can ban and moderate their forums how ever they wish, be their decisions fair or unfair, we can't do anything about that.

The answer that question is I certainly do not know and I don't ask that question without any expectation that there is a resolution. It may just be one of those things that we got to be aware about and where levelhead that. If someone gives us grief that we're elder scrolls fans, they're probably doing so for ulterior reasons than what they're actually stating. We'll never know unless we speak up to each other that these things are happening and when we all know about it, we realize it's nothing personal.

The second part of this is very clearly, so 10 years in the future when people go and look it up, they see threads like this and realize other people were complaining about some sort of false narrative by a bunch of Reddit mods invent some sort of controversy against elder scrolls.

spartaxoxo · April 24

Okay. Can you verify that I have understood this correctly?

On Reddit, the moderators from various video game subreddits are banning people unfairly. It is unfair because the ban was for discussing Oblivion: Remastered and the Elder Scrolls Online's new feature. The new feature that gets you banned is subclassing.

You want to raise awareness because this same thing happened to Assassin's Creed and it unfairly hurt that game.

Is this correct?

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · April 24

Reddit is not a healthy place. Maybe now you are finding that out and the rabbit hole goes deep. My advice is to move on from Reddit but if you can't for some reason then tell the moderators of those other subreddits to take a hike. Don't let them have any power over you.

Pevey · April 24

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Okay. Can you verify that I have understood this correctly?

On Reddit, the moderators from various video game subreddits are banning people unfairly. It is unfair because the ban was for discussing Oblivion: Remastered and the Elder Scrolls Online's new feature. The new feature that gets you banned is subclassing.

You want to raise awareness because this same thing happened to Assassin's Creed and it unfairly hurt that game.

Is this correct?

It's really unclear, but I think he is saying he was discussing the Oblivion Remaster, and he was banned because he was also a poster on the ESO subreddit. The moderator who banned him mentioned subclassing.

All very unclear. Seems like a one off, not a systemic issue.

Of course, be aware that many Elder Scrolls fans are very much NOT fans of ESO, so if you go into a subreddit and say anything negative about the remaster, they may see you are an ESO player and act accordingly.

Soarora · April 24

I don’t think ZOS is in charge of the Reddit?

Also, whatever happened there is not why Assassin’s Creed: Shadows has bad PR. I’ve never heard of what you’re saying but I’ve heard plenty about the various complaints of AC: Shadows…

licenturion · April 24

I think Reddit is still fine if you are in official subreddits. Those are usually policed well against rotten apples and the communities seem to be fairly fun and helpful to each other.

The Steam forums have become the sewers of gaming these days because to jester farming and some people who claim to be the rescuers of humankind.

AC Shadows has some bad PR but is still the second best selling videogame of 2025. Minorities are very loud and vocal but in the end the only thing they do is create their own echo chamber while the world moves on.

sans-culottes · April 24

Respectfully, this might be better suited to Reddit itself, since it seems to concern moderator behavior on that platform. It’s not clear what relevance this has to ESO or to the function of these forums. If there’s a specific game-related issue—especially one connected to subclassing or in-game systems—then that’s worth discussing, of course. But broader speculation about Reddit moderation or cross-subreddit conspiracies doesn’t seem particularly on-topic here.

mdb800 · April 24

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Okay. Can you verify that I have understood this correctly?

On Reddit, the moderators from various video game subreddits are banning people unfairly. It is unfair because the ban was for discussing Oblivion: Remastered and the Elder Scrolls Online's new feature. The new feature that gets you banned is subclassing.

You want to raise awareness because this same thing happened to Assassin's Creed and it unfairly hurt that game.

Is this correct?

You're correct : except that these moderators come from other subreddits that might not have anything to do with video games at all. For example, the one that I was able to speak with the moderators through modmail, the one that mentioned subclassing (albeit out of context) was on some sort of Canadian immigration subreddit that wasn't that big. But I did get banned from two subreddits that did deal a gaming and one of them was reset era action

ZOS_Hadeostry · April 24

We are going to go ahead and close this thread down, since it's focused on Reddit and not the happenings in the Elder Scrolls Online and here on the forums.