So I logged in today, first time in two weeks...

Fuzzylumpkins · July 2014

5 guilds from early release. 3 trade guilds/ cross alliance, 1 rvr guild and my main guild that was comprised of (initially) 31 players directly from beta with additional 70 + players that each of us collectively knew from DAoC.

I do not actively log in anymore but here was the final look at the guilds I was in:

- Main guild 500 player cap by release, as of 3 weeks ago with a few that left, 489 players, 38 had logged in up until last month leaving 451 players inactive after the first month

-RvR guild: Capped the week after release, many came and went pending on playstyle- balanced out at 320 members: after vampire nerf there were never more than 40 on and last time I checked the roster I was the only active player in 2 weeks and that was logging in to check roster.

-all 3 of the trade guilds have players come and go , 2 are full but never have more than a handful of players on (always was the same 10-20 people) with hundreds inactive and 1 of the trade guilds has a GM that had updated and removed players every other week until he , himself, quit playing and the guild was down to 61 members of which I was the last to log in but the roster had a handful of players that still showed active up until that day.

Trend seems to be that no matter what we do or do not know about subs and player population, 5 guilds is 1 hell of a way to take the populations temperature and see it isn't very healthy.

Good luck spinning positives at Quakecon , Being in Dallas this weekend I promise I will not be anywhere near it. Nothing more can be done or said currently that isn't more empty words about great things coming that don't actually end up being great.

Gecko · July 2014

Mud_Puppy wrote: »

........... ..... ..... ....

Just when I thought things were looking up.
I know myself and... alot and I mean ALOT of people will call it quits at that point.

Same on my end. A lot of the people I play with would just cancel and more than likely stop playing.

Xnemesis · July 2014

Dude really Tera is the only F2P mainstream game they help manage the sky is def not falling. Every other game they have on their lists that are mmo's I haven't even heard of and were probably F2P from the start.

ers101284b14_ESO · July 2014

Xnemesis wrote: »

Dude really Tera is the only F2P mainstream game they help manage the sky is def not falling. Every other game they have on their lists that are mmo's I haven't even heard of and were probably F2P from the start.

It's already been proved that SleepyGiant has nothing to do with a game going F2P. It's just another way for doom and gloomers to try and grasp at any sort of negative. Just like trying to prove it with guild numbers.

purgation · July 2014

My 2cents as a long time MMO player, is that they made a classic mistake.

They made a really nice leveling game (mostly based around PVE questing) and then seriously botched the end-game.... the thing is, as most experienced MMO players will tell you... the end-game is EVERYTHING; A fun and engaging end-game is what makes an MMO work.

The RvR PVP had potential, but they blew it with bad rewards, lopsided campaigns, and by making it impractical to gain V levels through PvP,, while still letting V level be a nearly unbeatable advantage (Compounded by letting early exploit driven insta-V12s stand)

Few seem interested in V12 group instances, most likely for similar reasons.

The July "whats ahead" post gets it exactly backwards: It not necessarily that the V level content is grindy, but rather that players are CHOOSING to grind rather than to play the provided content... really that just about says everything that needs to be set about Vet content.

Some of the people here on the forums say things like "we just wanted Skyrim with some light grouping options" -- well, that's what you got, and now you've played through the content, just like a solo boxed game. No real point in subbing, which is the heart of the MMO model.

GreySix · July 2014

purgation wrote: »

Some of the people here on the forums say things like "we just wanted Skyrim with some light grouping options" -- well, that's what you got ...

... except, we didn't. In the current iteration of this game, folks still cannot group the following:

- main quest
- Fighters Guild
- Mages Guild

Singular · July 2014

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Singular wrote: »

and about 20% of my guild are still playing. I expected a lot of people to quit the guild, since I'm not logging on to lead it but nope, no one quit the guild - it looks like they simply don't log on either.

Got booted from one guild, another one is very active, and the other ones I'm in have about 50% inactive players (haven't logged in in more than 2 weeks).

Anyone else?

the guild you lead and stopped showing up for, no one plays in... Im shocked. Shocked i say...

One guild is very active... What ever that means. Are there only 3 people in the guild but they are very active? 500 people and they are all very active?

And one guild seems to be about 50% active... Which again means nothing. How was it 2 weeks ago? How many people are in it? How many 2 weeks ago...

To sum up here is some useless info on a bunch of nothing, that means nothing, discuss!

A guild leader has nothing to do with whether people choose to play or not. That's up to them - unless, you know, you're like joined at the hip or something.

As I said above, but you apparently missed, I expected everyone to just ditch the guild - I mean, if I was in a guild where the guild leader wasn't logging on, and there wasn't a lot of activity, but I still wanted to play, I'd just ditch it.

Nope, because everyone basically just ditched the game. As I said above, except for one guild I'm in, which had a lot of actives.

Anyways, a lot of people above seem to have similar experiences - massive member decreases. Hopefully for Zenimax, new players are constantly joining.

wrlifeboil · July 2014

Fuzzylumpkins wrote: »

5 guilds from early release. 3 trade guilds/ cross alliance, 1 rvr guild and my main guild that was comprised of (initially) 31 players directly from beta with additional 70 + players that each of us collectively knew from DAoC.

I do not actively log in anymore but here was the final look at the guilds I was in:

- Main guild 500 player cap by release, as of 3 weeks ago with a few that left, 489 players, 38 had logged in up until last month leaving 451 players inactive after the first month

-RvR guild: Capped the week after release, many came and went pending on playstyle- balanced out at 320 members: after vampire nerf there were never more than 40 on and last time I checked the roster I was the only active player in 2 weeks and that was logging in to check roster.

-all 3 of the trade guilds have players come and go , 2 are full but never have more than a handful of players on (always was the same 10-20 people) with hundreds inactive and 1 of the trade guilds has a GM that had updated and removed players every other week until he , himself, quit playing and the guild was down to 61 members of which I was the last to log in but the roster had a handful of players that still showed active up until that day.

Trend seems to be that no matter what we do or do not know about subs and player population, 5 guilds is 1 hell of a way to take the populations temperature and see it isn't very healthy.

Good luck spinning positives at Quakecon , Being in Dallas this weekend I promise I will not be anywhere near it. Nothing more can be done or said currently that isn't more empty words about great things coming that don't actually end up being great.

Are those 451 inactive guild members still paying their $15/month? If so, ZOS can afford to be smug with all the f2p-hoaxers and fps-whiners.

Malpherian · July 2014

Alright seems to be some confusion here:

1. I never actually said ESO was going F2P. I said SG's specialty is F2P development, Which it is, no matter what else they do, every game they have helped on development went F2P shortly (Being 6 months to a year) after them joining, and I know for a Fact Tera and SWTOR partnered them, right before they went F2P.

Does this mean ESO is going to go F2P? No, SG does do other things with their teams besides F2P, But let me ask you this.

What does F2P Development entail?

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

What does SG do?:

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

SG does all of that and while this does not mean that they specifically are working on an F2P system for ESO, I guarantee you, they have one ready for display and are encouraging ZOS to go that route, especially with ESO bleeding Subs like they are.

If you ever played a Sub Game that went F2P, you know the first sign is an in game cash shop. If that is added there is a 99.9% chance the game is working it's way toward F2P. I have never played a Subscription MMO that added a cash shop and did not go free to play.

Some games I can use as evidence:

Tera
Aion
SWTOR
Perpetuum
EvE Online (Not Yet F2P but working it's way there according to the Dev blogs)
Rift

Which games have SG partnered with, which then went F2P 6 months to a year, year 1/2 later?

Tera
Aion
SWTOR
Rift

and Now

ESO (Not F2P yet)

Does this mean ESO will go F2P? No it doesn't, Does my personal experience with SG and any game they associate themselves with tell me it will? Yes it does.

Cyanhide · July 2014

Malpherian wrote: »

What does SG do?:

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

Its funny that your own post disproves you. Cash shop purchases -> they don't make a cash shop, they facilitate the purchase. That's a huge difference. This fall's under account and management of people's money. To keep it secure.

A mod has already come and said they helped with the account management during beta. If you go to their site, it also says " for the upcoming new MMO Elder scrolls online " emphasis on upcoming. So it isn't a new partnership.

And the last thing, if you look at the success of the SW:tor free to play model, they would at least put it with their projects. I can't find any link on their website showing they worked with SW:TOR.

Malpherian · July 2014

Cyanhide wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

What does SG do?:

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

Its funny that your own post disproves you. Cash shop purchases -> they don't make a cash shop, they facilitate the purchase. That's a huge difference. This fall's under account and management of people's money. To keep it secure.

A mod has already come and said they helped with the account management during beta. If you go to their site, it also says " for the upcoming new MMO Elder scrolls online " emphasis on upcoming. So it isn't a new partnership.

And the last thing, if you look at the success of the SW:tor free to play model, they would at least put it with their projects. I can't find any link on their website showing they worked with SW:TOR.

SWTORs f2p model is one of the least successful models on the market.

TERA Online's system is the "Best" on the market. And maintains More players and a Higher income then ANY other F2P game (Currently).

Also ZOS are not allowed to talk about, confirm or deny anything on these forums (unless it's a permission granted upcoming feature, in which "jessica" will post about it), so take anything they say with a grain of salt.

Every game that has went F2P has denied they were going F2P until the system was already in place, and ready to go. It's just marketing policy they want to milk your subs until the very last moment.

coryevans_3b14_ESO · July 2014

AngryNord wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

We even told them they were going to lose a huge majority of TES fans because of it's restrictions.

Any REAL Elder Scrolls fan (i.e. someone who didn't just become a "fan" due to Skyrim) know that classes have been in all Elder Scrolls games except Redguard.

So true. Love all the TES noobs who use skyrim as an example. Skyrim was the least TES game of them all imo.

LrdRahvin · July 2014

Malpherian wrote: »

Cyanhide wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

What does SG do?:

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

Every game that has went F2P has denied they were going F2P until the system was already in place, and ready to go. It's just marketing policy they want to milk your subs until the very last moment.

^ This. Trion even went so far as to still be peddling year long subs only a month before the KNEW they'd be going f2p with Rift. Developers can pull some SERIOUSLY shady stuff.

Malpherian · July 2014

ZOS do not respond to most posts because they don't want to, it's because they are not "allowed" to. And when they do respond, its a vague uninformative statement.

The ZOS person your quoting stated that SG has worked with ESO on accounts since beta.

As others have pointed out in this thread, Sleepy Giant is one of our partners, and they've helped with ESO account management since since beta. We hope this clears up some of the concerns people had.

She did not say they were not working with them on F2P, she did not state that they were not planning F2P. In fact she doesn't state anything at all, other then confirming they are working with SG and have been since Beta in one way or another.

Vahrokh · July 2014

Malpherian wrote: »

SWTORs f2p model is one of the least successful models on the market.

Honestly, SWTOR is an huge failure under so many aspects that it's just fair that its F2P sucks. It's just in theme with the game.

Ilmm · July 2014

Everyone except for myself has left the game. I've got another few days, then I'm gone. Such a disappointment, this game.

Malpherian · July 2014

coryevans_3b14_ESO wrote: »

AngryNord wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

We even told them they were going to lose a huge majority of TES fans because of it's restrictions.

Any REAL Elder Scrolls fan (i.e. someone who didn't just become a "fan" due to Skyrim) know that classes have been in all Elder Scrolls games except Redguard.

So true. Love all the TES noobs who use skyrim as an example. Skyrim was the least TES game of them all imo.

Every TES game has had classes, But you were not LOCKED into your classes traits and rolls, you ahd the ability to change and do whatever the hell you wanted.

a TRUE TES fan would know this, and not try and make him or herself look like an uneducated.. fan...

By useing this as a refernce to why it's ok for ESO to have classes, when anyone whos actually played TES games knows the class system in ESO is NOTHING similar to ANY of the class systems in the other TES games.

In Fact the TES class System has more in common with RIFT, then any TES title.

SirAndy · July 2014

My main guild has 110 Members as of last night and a quick check showed about 3/4 of them had been active within the last 2 weeks.

I'm on the west coast and usually get a bit of play time in after work and there's about 15 people online at that time. During weekends that number is much higher.

Also of note is the fact that the guild bank is really active. We have a lot of crafting players and there is a large amount of items going in and out on a daily basis.

Btw. this is a casual guild, not organized.

Tandor · July 2014

So far as all these inactive guild members are concerned, I'd be interested to know whether they were mainly PvP'ers. Those are the most volatile and non-committed players, moving from one flavour of the month PvP game to another, as they realise that each new MMO isn't the DAoC2 they thought it was going to be. They're also the most vocal players on the board, as they always are because that's their style, and they happen to be the ones who suffer most from any teething issues with performance or class balance. PvE'ers just coast along, non-competitive and soaking up the lore - especially if they are rooted in the Elder Scrolls IP, and less likely to suffer from performance issues because they don't congregate in large numbers. It would be interesting to analyse the playstyle of those who are quitting (as opposed to those who merely say they are, or who are logging in less than they did in the first flush of launch, as happens in any new MMO).

Elember · July 2014

My RP guild which was extremely active the first few months has dwindled to near to nothing now and even when I go to the private site they created for it I can't get anyone to answer any questions about it which makes it seem like they have basically folded.

I blame a lot of this on ZOS and the way they developed ESO as a single player gaming experience and RP being more suited to multiplayer is completely and totally a waste of time.

RP'ers want to group to do main questline because that's how RP'ers do it...

RP'ers want to group to do fighters guild and mages guild questlines, some you can most you can't. RP'ers want to group for ALL game content and because ZOS did not seem to have the staff/talent to make ESO a true multiplayer game they completely dropped the ball and never recovered it and that has left RP guilds with nothing to do and no reason to want to login...

Shame that...

GreySix · July 2014

Yeah, this isn't a group-friendly MMO.

Kewljag_66_ESO · July 2014

Hlaren_shortsheath wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

Seems to be the common theme on the forums, all sorts of guild masters are reporting empty guilds, even my crafting guild (not mine but the one Im in) which had 500+ active people 2 weeks ago, now only has about 20 active people.

The consensus I'm gathering is that the sub ratio next month will be far less then it was this month int he report.

But in all honesty if ZOS would just remove classes, then 1.5 Million TES fans would come die hard running back. (As that's the reason they didn't buy the game or sub at release after beta).

But I don't think ZOS is wise enough to see that, especially after they ignored our please in the beta to ditch the things. We even told them they were going to lose a huge majority of TES fans because of it's restrictions.

Sleeping Giant is now working with ZOS apparently also, and their specialty is F2P marketing. So I guess ZOS is going F2P in the next 6 months to a year.

awesome post and complete truth from what i have seen. the classes are not balanced nor is the survivability of the lesser classes and damage output. its just not balanced and they claim they want to raise it slowly to come inline with the other classes, but i see that as an excuse to not do it.
eso is made for the people who love skyrim, the morrowind lovers just arent their main concern. my main belief that this happened was 2 reasons, which are 100% speculation and only a guess, but, my belief is that
1) sales = apeal to the skyrim lovers = high subs = make the nord type tank massive damage output and massive survivability.
and 2) again, purely speculation here, but, i think some one high up in eso likes nords and that massive tank nord type class and style so they made the game to put a big smile on one persons face.
as far as the guild's go, my guild had over 110 people in it the very 1st week of launch, i now have 3 active people who play daily and they have both stoped logging in recently and told me they went to play another mmo (darkfall) so basicly i am the only survivor left in my guild and i have heard reports that the same thing has happened to alot of guild's.

happened to me in eso

2 months ago class were not balanced..... now after all the balance and updates it seems to be very balanced on the battle field. The problem was the FPS drop. which took about 3 weeks to fix and made large battles PVP and PVE almost slow mo and unplayable. they finally fixed that a few days ago. SO really most issus are gone. Not sure if people will come back or not but the game is actually good now and improving

nerevarine1138 · July 2014

Malpherian wrote: »

Cyanhide wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

What does SG do?:

* Cash Shop Purchases
* Account integration and management
* Marketing, and IN game Marketing Development
* Reception studies for/and Development of Payment Systems

Its funny that your own post disproves you. Cash shop purchases -> they don't make a cash shop, they facilitate the purchase. That's a huge difference. This fall's under account and management of people's money. To keep it secure.

A mod has already come and said they helped with the account management during beta. If you go to their site, it also says " for the upcoming new MMO Elder scrolls online " emphasis on upcoming. So it isn't a new partnership.

And the last thing, if you look at the success of the SW:tor free to play model, they would at least put it with their projects. I can't find any link on their website showing they worked with SW:TOR.

SWTORs f2p model is one of the least successful models on the market.

TERA Online's system is the "Best" on the market. And maintains More players and a Higher income then ANY other F2P game (Currently).

Also ZOS are not allowed to talk about, confirm or deny anything on these forums (unless it's a permission granted upcoming feature, in which "jessica" will post about it), so take anything they say with a grain of salt.

Every game that has went F2P has denied they were going F2P until the system was already in place, and ready to go. It's just marketing policy they want to milk your subs until the very last moment.

Please give the conspiracy theories a rest. No one wants to hear about how you think the game is going free-to-play, how you're an "industry insider," or how Blizzard paid you thousands and thousands of dollars. None of these things are true, and it's just getting sad.

Elember · July 2014

The F2P model that Perfect World uses for their MMO's works well. Everything in their games can be had by playing the game and grinding out the content to get the items you want, or you can get out your credit card and buy those items. However there is zero content that is not available to the player that wants to play FREE and never pay a dime all it takes is determination and time to do it.

Perfect World MMO's: http://www.arcgames.com/en/games

Cyhawk · July 2014

AngryNord wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

We even told them they were going to lose a huge majority of TES fans because of it's restrictions.

Any REAL Elder Scrolls fan (i.e. someone who didn't just become a "fan" due to Skyrim) know that classes have been in all Elder Scrolls games except Redguard.

You mean "classes". Nothing really differentiated the classes in the previous games except a handful of passives. Nothing stopped a "Thief" from casting spells in Arena. This held true all the way until ESO. The whole idea of a class in TES games was to give yourself a general indication of how they would play out with the bonuses given. A battlemage could just of easily worn heavy armor and never cast spells just as a Warrior could of only cast spells and never swung a weapon.

The point was, nothing has ever been locked out from the player (Ok armor types in Arena, but that's another issue) and is one of the reasons a lot of TES fans didn't play ESO.

But I get what you mean :P

Cyhawk · July 2014

murklor007neb18_ESO wrote: »

Malpherian wrote: »

But in all honesty if ZOS would just remove classes, then 1.5 Million TES fans would come die hard running back. (As that's the reason they didn't buy the game or sub at release after beta).

Really? You think out of all the things wrong with the game, broken PvP, no competition with lack of guild tags, no roleplayer aids, no EU server, plethora of bugs, broken guild stores, boring gameplay, boring veteran levels, forced group endgame, 5+ hours maintenances, etc etc etc... It was the class division that made 1.5 million TES fans run away?

Removing the classes isnt going to make the game any more fun. All it would do is create a build meta and then you'd have 100% vampire insert-FOTM-here instead of just 25% now. The skill system in ESO is not nearly enough varied to allow for the removal of classes. You cant be whatever you want, all you do is gimp yourself.

you really think that? Guess you haven't been exposed to many games in your life then. There is another MMO, pretty popular. Been going on for longer than even WoW has that has no major restrictions on what a player can be. Sure there are FOTMs, but then people counteract that with anti-builds. Support is always needed and is always played. Overall, there is always a balance in the game, even when things get out of hand and end up getting a nerf. I'm talking about Eve, the only MMO to ONLY increase its userbase over the years.

We'd have to have free-ish skill resets to make this happen, but its entirely within the realm of possibility. Then again ZoS probably won't do it. I also agree there aren't enough skill lines to do this just yet, but it'd be a start.

Fuzzylumpkins · July 2014

wrlifeboil wrote: »

Fuzzylumpkins wrote: »

5 guilds from early release. 3 trade guilds/ cross alliance, 1 rvr guild and my main guild that was comprised of (initially) 31 players directly from beta with additional 70 + players that each of us collectively knew from DAoC.

I do not actively log in anymore but here was the final look at the guilds I was in:

- Main guild 500 player cap by release, as of 3 weeks ago with a few that left, 489 players, 38 had logged in up until last month leaving 451 players inactive after the first month

-RvR guild: Capped the week after release, many came and went pending on playstyle- balanced out at 320 members: after vampire nerf there were never more than 40 on and last time I checked the roster I was the only active player in 2 weeks and that was logging in to check roster.

-all 3 of the trade guilds have players come and go , 2 are full but never have more than a handful of players on (always was the same 10-20 people) with hundreds inactive and 1 of the trade guilds has a GM that had updated and removed players every other week until he , himself, quit playing and the guild was down to 61 members of which I was the last to log in but the roster had a handful of players that still showed active up until that day.

Trend seems to be that no matter what we do or do not know about subs and player population, 5 guilds is 1 hell of a way to take the populations temperature and see it isn't very healthy.

Good luck spinning positives at Quakecon , Being in Dallas this weekend I promise I will not be anywhere near it. Nothing more can be done or said currently that isn't more empty words about great things coming that don't actually end up being great.

Are those 451 inactive guild members still paying their $15/month? If so, ZOS can afford to be smug with all the f2p-hoaxers and fps-whiners.

Once your sub runs out, your character sits in the guild until it is removed and as the GM had also quit playing, no. They are not paying subs and no one is there to remove dead weight. So no, zos isn't getting sht out of them. Just inactive names in an inactive guild. Quitting doesn't remove your character from the game, if that was the logic you were trying to use.

Loco_Mofo · July 2014

Please don't mention people leaving the game around here.

Jimmies will be rustled.

ers101284b14_ESO · July 2014

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Please don't mention people leaving the game around here.

Jimmies will be rustled.

It's not about people leaving the game. People leaving and joining is completely natural. Pushing your ideas that the game is dying and going F2P by using sources that have already been proven false is whats annoying. Like when people try to use VG Chartz even though it has been proven that they are not reliable. Or try to use guild numbers like no other MMO on the planet has ever had dead guilds. So far this game is functioning like any other Sub based MMO. People leave People join.

Kulthax · July 2014

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Please don't mention people leaving the game around here.

Jimmies will be rustled.

It's not about people leaving the game. People leaving and joining is completely natural. Pushing your ideas that the game is dying and going F2P by using sources that have already been proven false is whats annoying. Like when people try to use VG Chartz even though it has been proven that they are not reliable. Or try to use guild numbers like no other MMO on the planet has ever had dead guilds. So far this game is functioning like any other Sub based MMO. People leave People join.

Guild numbers is a solid metric to use for one reason-Megaserver.