How soon will people stop making stupid polls :
1. Never
2. See no 1
3. See no 2

They'll do it alongside console release to cater to console gamers and make more money in initial sales.

I give it till October-November before f2p, unless something big happens before then.

F2P games are too expensive to play.
I hope they never do it.

Laura wrote: »

david271749 wrote: »

cisadanepajsuxrwb17_ESO wrote: »

How soon will people stop making stupid polls :
1. Never
2. See no 1
3. See no 2

Umm. I pick #2.

You moron! clearly the answer is 3!

Hey, ***! I have a right to my own opinion!

Speculation and pointless threads are useless.

realistically if it sells as many copies between pc and consoles as skyrim did, and they get a month or 2 of subs out of each player, than they probably made their money and could run the game on empty for years with a skeleton crew. ESO only cost just over double to produce than skyrim, according to estimates, and maintaining an MMO is infinitely cheaper than producing one.

If they currently have a full production crew working on something... we've yet to see evidence or hear about it. so far, it appears that it is just a skeleton crew for PC, while the rest of the Devs are hard at work getting the console versions ready, and I'm pretty sure they will have their hands full for at least 3-4 months after console launch, dealing with the new problems.

If they don't have a separate team working on a big expansion, or large content update... November...

Hodorius wrote: »

F2P games are too expensive to play.
I hope they never do it.

swtor have a pretty good model as far as f2p goes, but I agree. I don't ever want to see ESO take on that Perfect World model. If they did I would leave.

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

david271749 wrote: »

Alazarz wrote: »

Speculation and pointless threads are useless.

Just as useless as your own speculation and useless comments?

Half of us think it'll be FTP inside of 12 months at the time of writing so I'd hold off on your little Happy Dance if I were you.

I think it'll be ftp inside 12 months. And my purely subjective reason is that if even as big a fan of this game as me, who would have bought a lifetime sub if I could at the beginning, is going to walk away once the 6 month sub lapses because of the stupid VR nonsense then they've really screwed up.

Oh, I won't be doing a happy dance. I agree with you on your latter point though. The game was better pre-VR. Grinders and power levelers ruined it for us. Then they went to pvp and started complaining. Nerf this. Nerf that. Now people who actually enjoy pve and story have to pay x amount of gold every other week to respec, because someone is getting their ass handed to them in Cryodil.

6 months after consoles. I feel like ESO will be a different game though and be epic

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

I think it'll be ftp inside 12 months. And my purely subjective reason is that if even as big a fan of this game as me, who would have bought a lifetime sub if I could at the beginning, is going to walk away once the 6 month sub lapses because of the stupid VR nonsense then they've really screwed up.

But that is the wrong way to look at this issue. You're emotionally involved.
Any decision to the game's future is done by reasoning and from a business point of view.
You think since you're disappointed everyone has to be. Or since you witnessed your guild dry up, every guild must be. That is fundamentally flawed perception.

Here are a few points why I think this game will not go f2p within at least 18months (if at all).

- Right now the game still sells good. Even before release it was on the top selling lists. Right now it still is on Amazon and even on the top 5 list for physical copies sold (only in Germany, didn't look for other countries. Maybe someone else can pitch in).
And the Gametime card (30days of play time) even ranks higher on amazon.
And doesn't show the digital copies sold.

- There are many new players streaming into the game.

- Zenimax has invested heavily into the game. We're talking about serious dollars here. They are committed and don't plan to make this game look like a failure too soon - never a good idea for your stock ratings.

- They have hard facts and inside information about what is wrong, what is true and how long to fix it.

- ESO is a business. Disappointment shows emotional investment. When the bugs got fixed they will focus marketing to target these disgruntled customers. Experience with similar projects in the past shows many will return. If they stay is the question that is interesting.

- They also have the console joker up their sleeves. That is a fresh market of loyal customers. They cannot make the pc version go f2p before they have sold enough console versions.

There are probably even more reasons.