After the recent restructuring at ZOS, I'm worried for ESO's future.

voreo · July 3

I just wish MMO's had a switch ready to go singleplayer w/console commands if it ever has to go offline.

Not saying ESO is going anywhere, but I *REALLY* hate that companies don't have that style of switch ready. It's definitely one of the few mmos it feels like that could just transition to single player or p2p hosted servers on shutdown.

But its also probably not as simple as a switch either. XD

Estin · July 3

I'm not really sure how to feel about this. I wasn't expecting to see this type of news. I haven't played since U46 dropped because I'm dissatisfied with the current game direction, and I know others that feel the same way. I don't think ESO is suddenly going to get a lot more focus now, but there's also nothing else ZOS has to work on other than ESO, so who knows. I don't know what else could be implemented into the game if it got 5x more resources, but I do think a lot of it would need to be rebuilt to see any changes.

old_scopie1945 · July 3

This is Hack's take on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrIDR6cR8bg

Nemesis7884 · July 3

Honestly, what is the difference between the studio director and the game director if your studio only has one game?
I take Matt as a creative visionary and with the canceled project he probably doesnt see that much more he can do for ZOS and wants to explore new opportunities - it is sad yes, but I wish him the best and am looking forward to his future endeavours and I am 100% sure we will hear again from him on another project (18 years with one Studio / game is also crazy long for this industry).
The core team is still with us; ESO is going through a transformational process but I think for as long as it is making money it will be supported and the more players we can attract the more resources will flow into it...

old_scopie1945 · July 3

When your outfit is taken over by a larger corporation, your future is in the lap of the gods. Then you really are at the mercy of the shadowy money men.

SkaiFaith · July 3

old_scopie1945 wrote: »

This is Hack's take on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrIDR6cR8bg

I would have been more excited at the idea of ESO2 years ago, before I had invested so much time and money on this ESO.
I would now very much prefer to see this ESO update, have tons of money and time invested in it not only from the players but from the creators side - improve graphics, improve animations, improve writing, improve whatever is needed and make ESO great again, which in my opinion is already happening, just slowly... "Push the accelerator" on the improvements we are seeing and this game will be an absolute success, a glorious achievement, loved by many.

Personofsecrets · July 3

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

moderatelyfatman · July 3

Hey @Erickson9610
My main worry is that ESO has been neglected and put on life support for so long that it is no longer fixable. Whatever spaghetti source code that is the source of all the bugs, lags and crashed probably can't be fixed without a full rewrite in which case they might as well make ESO 2.0.

Then you have years of bad design decisions (hybridisation followed by patch 35, overpowered proc sets and now subclassing) that has led to a very limited choice of playstyles compared to other games. The long term player retention in this game is terrible compared to other MMOs.

@SkaraMinoc
For those people who feel that ESO has become 'to big to fail' because it is now ZOS's only real money spinner, remember that Microsoft has no qualms about closing down studios that they do not deem to be profitable enough in the long term.

LatentBuzzard · July 3

C_Inside wrote: »

On the contrary, it will go somewhere if it reaches 1 million signatures by the 31st of July. If this happens the petition will be taken to congress and they will be required by international law to review and consider it.

This is predominantly an EU based petition and there is no "congress" in the EU administrative institutions. There is also no international law that requires petitions to be considered and this is being done under the European Citizen's Initiative laws which are EU specific laws.

old_scopie1945 · July 3

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

I think this may be wishful thinking on Hack's part. After all he is a successful YouTube CC that concentrates on builds. An ESO 2 could be beneficial for his channel. As Ember will say "only saying".

Nemesis7884 · July 3

Eso 2 will not happen...why would it? Makes no sense when eso is still running....look at wow? If a 2.0 was a thing wed have it in development or already for wow which we dont and the alternative survival mmo was recently canceled...developing new mmos is too expensive compared to building upon an existing one...

And looking how eso has developed id say we are already on version 1.5...

And seeing what death stranding 2 can do on the existing console generation (how??????) Id say we still have more room to go..

old_scopie1945 · July 3

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Eso 2 will not happen...why would it? Makes no sense when eso is still running....look at wow? If a 2.0 was a thing wed have it in development or already for wow which we dont and the alternative survival mmo was recently canceled...developing new mmos is too expensive compared to building upon an existing one...

And looking how eso has developed id say we are already on version 1.5...

And seeing what death stranding 2 can do on the existing console generation (how??????) Id say we still have more room to go..

The thinking is that an ESO 2 would be on another time line, running in conjunction with ESO. Like the stand alone ES games. That's my take on it anyway.

As for your post, I agree and it makes a lot of sense. At the moment ZOS will no doubt think they have had their fingers burnt. The cancellation of one project will make them wary and they will be cautious on starting a new one. For the time being anyway.

colossalvoids · July 3

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

People come and people go. I remember how sad and worried people were when we lost Paul Sage (and his crazy shirts), Nick Konkle, Lawrence Schick, and several others early on in game. Rumors abounded. But the game continued to thrive and get better, I have no input as to the layoffs and the canceled new game. I just worry about ESO.

Those points plus Eric's departure were the major points to why ESO spearheaded downward heavily, we clearly were able to see the major decline after every of those people departured from the project.

Tra_Lalan · July 3

I wonder if we will see some sort of welcoming letter from the new studio director. Or perhaps some other form of communication that would adress playerbase concerns.

Matt stated he is stepping away later this month. So maybe we will see something.

old_scopie1945 · July 3

There seems somewhat more than a bit of doom and gloom on the Forum at the moment. I am a somewhat glass half empty kind of guy, but I am not getting those negative vibes. As some guy said "you can't please all of the people all of the time". As pointed out above "people come and people go" and has always been so. We are all replaceable, even though we don't like to think so and things keep on rolling along.

No doubt at ZOS things are up in the air at the moment. Matt was the figure head at ZOS, but we don't know how involved he was with ESO atm. He may have been more involved in the new project. The only thing we know is that we don't know anything, and may never know. We do know that we have a very capable team on ESO at the moment. ESO is as much Rich's baby as it was Matt's, so in that regard I am happy.

I feel the reason given for the change in planning policy this year is acceptable, and I am happy with it. Apart for the reasons given, they may want to stretch the content over a longer time scale. That being said, it can only bode well for the longevity of the game in that case. At the moment, with things as they are, ZOS will want to hold onto ESO like a drowning man to a life raft. They know it still has legs and will want to profit from it more so now than ever. Who knows they may even gain a few very willing hands.

I know there is consternation amongst us over the events of the past year. Folk have perceived some negative signs, but it is only because we love ESO so much that we are concerned.

Desiato · July 3

C_Inside wrote: »

But its also probably not as simple as a switch either. XD

It's not. Plus it's not what we've been paying for. Buyer beware. We don't "own" any of this.

Elsonso · July 3

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Eso 2 will not happen...why would it? Makes no sense when eso is still running....look at wow? If a 2.0 was a thing wed have it in development or already for wow which we dont and the alternative survival mmo was recently canceled...developing new mmos is too expensive compared to building upon an existing one...

And looking how eso has developed id say we are already on version 1.5...

I don't think there will be an "ESO 2", either.

However, that does not mean that ESO needs to stagnate. I do agree with the premise, and have stated this a number of times over the years, that some of the technology that was developed for Blackbird could potentially make it back into ESO. It costs a lot to create a new game engine only to cancel the game. If an existing game can benefit from all that R&D, then it makes some sense to port over things. The money will not have been wasted. Note that I am not talking about an engine swap. ESO is using a custom engine for ESO, just as Blackbird was going to be on a custom engine for that game. However, sibling similarities might make things that Blackbird was doing relevant in the ESO world.

ZOS has been revising their game design, engine and tools, and it got touched on in the Kinda Funny videos. It is possible that this tech transfer is already happening.

Desiato · July 3

The thing about eso 2 is that eso had been extremely successful selling chapters, yet only a middling mmo in terms of an mmo playerbase.

So it seems eso's main business has been selling chapters to single player tes fans who aren't converted to mmo players at a high rate. They play eso like they would a Skyrim dlc.

IMO, this is why the mmo community in eso has always seemed so small.

So if this perspective is correct, future tes games and dlc would preclude the need for eso 2. Perhaps coincidentally, eso doesn't have chapters anymore.

However, if they can pivot eso to a successful mmo -- vs the "online rpg" paradigm they've maintained for around 9 years -- then that would change things. I feel that is what zos is trying to do now.

Pixiepumpkin · July 3

I personally have no confidence in the future development of ESO, not at least on par with what was created in previous chapters.

Landmark was nothing but a grain of sand on a beach compared to ESO, but when Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was bought out by Columbus Nova and restructred as Daybreak Games, they let go of the creative vision and lead for Everquest Next and Landmark, Dave Georgeson. They appointed his right hand man Terry Michaels as the new lead (sounding familiar yet?) The development for Landmark slowed down drastically, longer periods between updates, less communication by the dev team who were previously putting out videos at least twice a month if not more.
Eventually they started releasing game packs with armor skins and material packs for like 20 bucks as a cash grab. It only took two years after they let go of Dave to shut the game down.

ESO makes more money, has a much larger player base than Landmark did but at the end of the day the corporate bean counters are going to make the call.

My bet is that the lesser performing IP's get sold off, possibly even Elder Scrolls if the $ is high enough. Zenimax will be shut down (its costly to do business in Rockville Maryland).

Austin may stay afloat (Tx is cheaper to operate in, its why so many businesses are relocating there turning it into California 2.0), but will be absorbed into another company or just rebranded something Xbox Microsoft.

The only way to prove to Microsoft that ESO is worthy is to spend a ton of money on this game. I myself can not do that any longer. Its too expensive for the return in entertainment it gives.

I wish Matt the best, I don't think he deserves this in anyway shape or form, and I say this as someone who does not belive RvRvR (DAoC) in works in the modern day and have always thought it was the wrong decision for ESO. He was the man who got the ball running, but then again Zenimax as a culture has a habit of letting go of the guy who started it all (Robert Altman ran off his co-partner Christopher Wheeler who started Bethesda) so in an odd way it seems fitting. I do wish him the best though.

And Kevin, its good to keep a positive outlook and hope for the best, but your statement has to real value because it does not matter what Zenimax wants, its all about papa Microsoft now (as evidence of what has transpired recently with the layoffs).

mrreow · July 3

Times have changed and economy has kicked ppl butts. I myself have cut all the digital items spending, possibly forever.

If a live service cannot sustain on subscription, expansions alone then it is bound to fail sooner or later when times get a little bit rougher and people eliminate digital “items” as a first housebudget optimisation.

If business model requires steady microtransaction income then it is brittle indeed

$5 cosmetic skin feels essential when money is flowing, but becomes completely frivolous when you're choosing between that and groceries. Meanwhile, a $15 monthly subscription that provides 50+ hours of entertainment still feels reasonable.

The sub + expansion model has some real advantages during economic downturns. Players get a clear value proposition - they know exactly what they're paying for and when. There's no psychological pressure from daily store rotations or limited-time offers designed to create urgency. Games like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV have weathered multiple economic cycles precisely because their revenue model aligns with how people actually budget during tough times.

There’s also widespread issue of downwards spirals of doom when corporations gut products that do not grow which causes them to shrink which causes more gutting because they are out of touch with how player retention works and how brittle it is. Not understanding the business of live service game.

The executives making these decisions often come from other industries and fundamentally misunderstand that player retention in games operates more like a delicate ecosystem than a traditional product line.

When they see declining numbers, the MBA playbook says "cut costs to maintain margins." But in gaming, those cost cuts often target exactly what keeps players engaged - community managers, regular content updates, bug fixes, performance improvements. These seem like "overhead" on a spreadsheet but they're actually the lifeblood of retention.

The downward spiral accelerates because player communities are incredibly sensitive to signals that a game is being abandoned. The moment players sense the developers are pulling back, they start leaving preemptively. Nobody wants to invest time in a dying game. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where the cost-cutting measures designed to save the game actually kill it faster.

dcrush · July 3

majulook wrote: »

Microsoft is heavily investing in AI (as are lots of tech companies).

IMHO Microsoft is looking at AI to be the core of development in the next couple of years. AI will become the primary developer of the Windows operating system, all of Microsoft software, along with peripheral designs and Marketing strategies.

Perhaps Zenimax was developing an MMO based on the Terminator franchise and it got shut down by AI!

*Skynet intensifies*

fizzybeef · July 3

Maybe they finally focus on ESO again now. Game felt long enough on maintenance mode

Tenn60 · July 3

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

I obviously don't know their reasons, but it seems more than sensible to me to scrap the new IP. New MMOs just aren't what keep high player engagement, "ripened" MMOs do. Diluting their own customer base for a couple launch sales probably won't cover the losses that a slowed development on two fronts would incur. If the innovation is not great enough it just won't have enough pull over the cost sunk in other games for a lot of customers. And the new game shine tends to wear off rather quickly.
Bioware could have had a smooth gig with SWTOR, but that was apparently not good enough. Hell, I even think Funcom would be better off reviving its older games rather than making that Dune game, but at least there is a market for that IP. I don't know if this is necessarily the consequence of this cancellation, but doubling down on ESO seems to be the smart move. I don't really need any more MMOs with arrested development in my collection.

It was a terrible decision to build a new MMO in parallel with ESO. Even if it was a better game, ESO has critical mass and I don't see people transitioning to a new game.

When has that ever worked? Its rare enough to have a successful game, but continuing the success in a new franchise, most unlikely.

Now the real shame is what could have been if they didn't devide their attention. If its the same genre, they might be able to incorporate some of the resources.

Now that the other game is gone. PLEASE get back to basics and focus on balancing classes. Get rid of subclassing. Get rid of arcanist beam. Develop another DLC class to sell. Build more full feature zones.

I see people asking on here for them to get rid of both subclassing and the beam and I don’t know what the expectations are. In my experience in game most casual players seem to like the changes or are indifferent at worse. The ones affected are the more hardcore and endgame players and that is not even close to a majority of player base. I just don’t see them making big wholesale changes like that to appease a portion of the playerbase especially with the arc beam. I do think there should be some bonuses for staying a pure class to help players that prefer that class identity but if they take away the subclassing they’ll be in the same boat now with people complaining and asking for them to bring it back, but will have invested even more time and resources into reverting the changes, and from a corporate standpoint where bottom line is the most important thing it wouldn’t make sense. I do agree the zone could use some work, I know they said something about a community event to break the wall and I think they messed up by not including it or something to draw people to the new zone because the main quest took me under an hour to complete, the world bosses are better than west Weald not relying on shields and heal mechs but by no means impressive or something to draw you back into. It’s essentially a farm spot for people looking to make money off of patterns and motifs for time being. In still kinda waiting to see what happens when they expand the zone, and size matters very little if it’s full of stuff to do but right now it’s a mostly empty small zone with a few things to do but nothing to draw you back into. But to go back what you said I would not hold my breath on them making whole sale changes to subclassing or the arcanist any time soon even with the changes in the organizational makeup of the company.

AzuraFan · July 3

mrreow wrote: »

If a live service cannot sustain on subscription, expansions alone then it is bound to fail sooner or later when times get a little bit rougher and people eliminate digital “items” as a first housebudget optimisation.

Most important: It's terrible that so many people at ZOS lost their jobs yesterday, probably many who used to work on ESO and had their hearts in this game too. So in terms of people, it was a terrible loss.

In terms of finances and ESO, maybe the hyper-focus on monetization will ease up a bit. I assume (though this is complete speculation like everything else in this thread) that some of the income from ESO was going towards the cancelled project. Maybe a lot of it. So now that there's only ESO, which if it was contributing to the support of the other project, will look better on the balance sheet, maybe we'll see more reasonably priced content passes, and crown store items like crates won't be so stingy.

On the other hand, ESO could be squeezed for dollars even more, either by ZOS or Microsoft, because the focus won't be on making ESO the best it can be at this point, but on making dollars.

I guess we'll see.

Knowing that Microsoft has no problem shutting down studios out of the blue and cancelling stuff, if I were ZOS, and I had just the one game now, I'd focus on making it the best it can be at this point. I know they can't go back to the content generation heydey, but they need to do better than they've been doing recently when it comes to the main content they're releasing. Obviously the bean counters are keeping a close eye on the financial side, so I'd want to make sure this game's population stays healthy, meaning retention and attracting new players, and I'd want people to be spending money, through subs and in the crown store.

My one hope from this is that ZOS will get back to seeing players as valuable customers, and will stop doing stuff like making ESO+ subscribers pay for stuff they already have. Maybe the suits (I know the devs have no control over this, or the community team, so it's never been them) will realize that hey, maybe milking subscribers, bumping up items in crates a level, and charging outrageous prices for reskins isn't the way to go now. Instead of seeing us all as cash cows, if they can go back to seeing us as valuable customers who want this game to succeed but want to be treated with respect when it comes to what we spend and receive for our money, maybe there's hope.

LPapirius · July 3

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

ESO on an engine that could support it would be lively and active for decades. It would last longer than WoW.

Elsonso · July 3

LPapirius wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

ESO on an engine that could support it would be lively and active for decades. It would last longer than WoW.

I think ESO can easily last longer than WoW, but perhaps WoW isn't the game that should be used for comparison. As a former WoW player, my feeling is that WoW is on a multi-year decline. They seem to have lost their way.

I am also worried that the ESO team has gotten lost, as well. It just seems like their rudder is broken and they haven't noticed yet because they haven't plowed into the river bank. As an Argonian might say, ZOS is just letting the current pull them down the river.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · July 3

dcrush wrote: »

majulook wrote: »

Microsoft is heavily investing in AI (as are lots of tech companies).

IMHO Microsoft is looking at AI to be the core of development in the next couple of years. AI will become the primary developer of the Windows operating system, all of Microsoft software, along with peripheral designs and Marketing strategies.

Perhaps Zenimax was developing an MMO based on the Terminator franchise and it got shut down by AI!

*Skynet intensifies*

LOL!
Kinda off subject, but had to laugh at this as Terminator was one of Bethesda's very first games in 1992!

LPapirius · July 3

Elsonso wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

ESO on an engine that could support it would be lively and active for decades. It would last longer than WoW.

I think ESO can easily last longer than WoW, but perhaps WoW isn't the game that should be used for comparison. As a former WoW player, my feeling is that WoW is on a multi-year decline. They seem to have lost their way.

I am also worried that the ESO team has gotten lost, as well. It just seems like their rudder is broken and they haven't noticed yet because they haven't plowed into the river bank. As an Argonian might say, ZOS is just letting the current pull them down the river.

I, and many others including big name streamers, lost faith when U35 dropped. Even after all the feedback we still got a nighthollow stave in a jerking motion for templar jabs and a ton of changes that wiped out the trial and trifecta groups.

Estin · July 3

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Please, let's not ever see ESO 2.

I wouldn't want to see an ESO 2 either, but I wouldn't mind seeing an ESO 2.0 as long as it doesn't change the core of the game too much like with what happened when Runescape 3 first came out. I don't mean to trash things, but ESO as it is is fairly limited on what it can do. I'm not saying that it needs WoW's or FF14's large scaled maps with flying mounts, or a larger ability bar, but it can certainly do with some improvements to bring it into the modern age. As long as the core gameplay feels exactly the same, I would be all for it.

Finedaible · July 4

Looking back, I've got to wonder if some of the fundamental decisions made for ESO hampered its potential.

One big decision was when they restructured how the game worked to be able to use Stadia... well, that certainly did not pan out well.