What I think

spy611b14_ESO

I've been with ESO since the beginning. Since the first rumors surfaced. When I first learned about the public beta, I was so exited and got all of my friends to sign up with me. I even started reading some of the blogs on TES fansites trying to catch up on some lore that I missed throughout Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. There was obviously, a lot of hype for this game.

I was so sad, when I looked in my email one day, and saw that I missed one of the early beta events. Sure, I got over it, when at the next beta I still had access and so did one of my friends. I remember that weekend clearly, my friend and I spent a long time playing it, heck, we didn't know what we doing half the time, but I loved every minute of it - being in Tamriel with a friend nonetheless was one of the best times I spent engulfed in the TES universe.

As soon as preorders started, I hesitated for a moment, as misfortune fell upon my friend, and he was unable to find the necessary funds to pick up the game. But by this time, I was well accustomed with another group of friends, a clan, and they led me to eventually purchase the Imperial Edition.

When the 5 day early access was approaching, I had an unnecessary hassle with my retailer (Gamestop) - I had nearly missed the early access, luckily I did not, but I was still plagued with a bug that apparently was more widespread than just to my account - I was missing the other bonuses of preordering/imperial access, such as the Imperial horse, the vanity crab, the treasure maps, et cetera. Sure, I did eventually recover them a few days later, but I was still a little ticked off because this bug was not global. Not to mention, the requirement to set up a subscription plan before receiving your 30 aforementioned "free" days of game time was a bit suspicious...

Don't get me wrong, the release was rather stable - sure, there were PROGRESS HALTING bugs on release, but still, to this day the game still hasn't crashed on me. I enjoyed the gameplay, I had a group of friends to play with - and the 5 guild feature was very appreciated - it got me set up with trading guilds/factional guilds/PVP/PVE guilds - and connected me with a larger base of players.

I've set up a 3 month subscription back in April, and it is set to end in just around two weeks. When the group of friends I came to ESO with lost interest in the game, we all pretty much stopped playing. We found new guilds or group of friends to go with, and in the end we as a clan went back to games we played prior to ESO.

I personally haven't logged in to play ESO in about a month. Part of this was because I deleted the launcher shortcut on my desktop, and being the ignorant and stupid me, was not able to easily find it. When I finally did find it, I patched up the game, read through the patch notes, and by the time I finished the DL/installation, I was already preoccupied with other games.

17 July, (and just by the mention of this date, I think some of you will see where this going...) I log onto Steam as I usually do, and I see this banner on the front page advertising ESO now on Steam. "Wow," I think, and do a quick google search to find the FAQ about ESO being on the Steam store somewhere around here this website.

I was unable to find any mention of linking my current ESO account with Steam, and I contact support seeing as there was no other option viable at the time. This was the opening part of my response by support:

"I understand that you want to connect your previous purchase of ESO to your Steam account. At the time, we currently don't have a way to do so. I assure you that this is something we're working towards at the moment and is our top priority. In the meantime, the only thing we can do is wait for that feature to be implemented."

It really got my hopes up. This paragraph I got from support really got my hopes up that within a few days, account linking would be possible. 10 days later, hearing nothing of the sort, I again google "Linking ESO on Steam" and find an 8 page thread asking about Steam keys. I can't remember exactly, but I spent a while reading through all eight pages, and to my demise, I saw the dreaded post by an admin stating that linking ESO accounts to Steam will not be possible.

I didn't know what to think about that. I spent about 10 minutes in disbelief.

It doesn't feel good, does it, to be led to believe something and then hearing the opposite. Now, I probably wouldn't have spent nearly an hour trying to write this thread if it were not for that reply I got from support.

I recall reading an announcement about ESO a while back, that when the console versions of the game come out, existing users will have an option to convert their accounts to consoles, progress and all, for (I believe), a small fee or so. Pardon me if I am misled, but I see no difference from converting an account from PC to consoles and from the Zenimax retailer or wherever my account information is stored to Steam.

Steam is where all of my previous ESO games are stored, and I would very much have loved to see an official ESO stand among them. Perhaps even the steam community would have persuaded me enough to get me back into the game and continue my subscription. But alas, it appears naught, but at least my time immersed in TES has not ended - I just picked up a new mod for Skyrim today - and I'll probably return to Skyrim tomorrow to fully explore all the new content the mod brought me.

Lastly, I have two more points. First, these forums. There needs to be a better separation of the english, french, and german subforums and perhaps a larger variety of them - more threads for feedback and suggestions, maybe even an off topic forum - I believe bringing more attention to this forum will help cement the community of ESO and provide longevity. My final point in this large point is ironic - I believe Steam could be the savior to my ESO drought, but that it was also the scourage that brought it about in the first place. One of the reasons I dropped ESO out of my daily gaming schedule was because of the large number of games that I picked up during last month's huge Steam Summer Sale.

tl;dr I would have appreciated to not be misled into thinking that linking ESO accounts to Steam would have been a possibility.

1200 words later, I would like to thank anyone who took the time out of their day to read my rant, and I apologize if there was a specific subforum for this topic which I was too ignorant to find.

KariTR

First, let me offer my condolences for your untimely death.

Second, I'm not sure why you thought account linking would be available within a few days. There is NOTHING in the reply from CS to suggest that was going to happen. Nothing.

Third, you have not been misled. Sometimes intended actions cannot be carried out for whatever reason. It does not mean the intent was absent.

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Kos

spy611b14_ESO wrote: »

I've been with ESO since the beginning. Since the first rumors surfaced. When I first learned about the public beta, I was so exited and got all of my friends to sign up with me. I even started reading some of the blogs on TES fansites trying to catch up on some lore that I missed throughout Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. There was obviously, a lot of hype for this game.

I was so sad, when I looked in my email one day, and saw that I missed one of the early beta events. Sure, I got over it, when at the next beta I still had access and so did one of my friends. I remember that weekend clearly, my friend and I spent a long time playing it, heck, we didn't know what we doing half the time, but I loved every minute of it - being in Tamriel with a friend nonetheless was one of the best times I spent engulfed in the TES universe.

As soon as preorders started, I hesitated for a moment, as misfortune fell upon my friend, and he was unable to find the necessary funds to pick up the game. But by this time, I was well accustomed with another group of friends, a clan, and they led me to eventually purchase the Imperial Edition.

When the 5 day early access was approaching, I had an unnecessary hassle with my retailer (Gamestop) - I had nearly missed the early access, luckily I did not, but I was still plagued with a bug that apparently was more widespread than just to my account - I was missing the other bonuses of preordering/imperial access, such as the Imperial horse, the vanity crab, the treasure maps, et cetera. Sure, I did eventually recover them a few days later, but I was still a little ticked off because this bug was not global. Not to mention, the requirement to set up a subscription plan before receiving your 30 aforementioned "free" days of game time was a bit suspicious...

Don't get me wrong, the release was rather stable - sure, there were PROGRESS HALTING bugs on release, but still, to this day the game still hasn't crashed on me. I enjoyed the gameplay, I had a group of friends to play with - and the 5 guild feature was very appreciated - it got me set up with trading guilds/factional guilds/PVP/PVE guilds - and connected me with a larger base of players.

I've set up a 3 month subscription back in April, and it is set to end in just around two weeks. When the group of friends I came to ESO with lost interest in the game, we all pretty much stopped playing. We found new guilds or group of friends to go with, and in the end we as a clan went back to games we played prior to ESO.

I personally haven't logged in to play ESO in about a month. Part of this was because I deleted the launcher shortcut on my desktop, and being the ignorant and stupid me, was not able to easily find it. When I finally did find it, I patched up the game, read through the patch notes, and by the time I finished the DL/installation, I was already preoccupied with other games.

17 July, (and just by the mention of this date, I think some of you will see where this going...) I log onto Steam as I usually do, and I see this banner on the front page advertising ESO now on Steam. "Wow," I think, and do a quick google search to find the FAQ about ESO being on the Steam store somewhere around here this website.

I was unable to find any mention of linking my current ESO account with Steam, and I contact support seeing as there was no other option viable at the time. This was the opening part of my response by support:

"I understand that you want to connect your previous purchase of ESO to your Steam account. At the time, we currently don't have a way to do so. I assure you that this is something we're working towards at the moment and is our top priority. In the meantime, the only thing we can do is wait for that feature to be implemented."

It really got my hopes up. This paragraph I got from support really got my hopes up that within a few days, account linking would be possible. 10 days later, hearing nothing of the sort, I again google "Linking ESO on Steam" and find an 8 page thread asking about Steam keys. I can't remember exactly, but I spent a while reading through all eight pages, and to my demise, I saw the dreaded post by an admin stating that linking ESO accounts to Steam will not be possible.

I didn't know what to think about that. I spent about 10 minutes in disbelief.

It doesn't feel good, does it, to be led to believe something and then hearing the opposite. Now, I probably wouldn't have spent nearly an hour trying to write this thread if it were not for that reply I got from support.

I recall reading an announcement about ESO a while back, that when the console versions of the game come out, existing users will have an option to convert their accounts to consoles, progress and all, for (I believe), a small fee or so. Pardon me if I am misled, but I see no difference from converting an account from PC to consoles and from the Zenimax retailer or wherever my account information is stored to Steam.

Steam is where all of my previous ESO games are stored, and I would very much have loved to see an official ESO stand among them. Perhaps even the steam community would have persuaded me enough to get me back into the game and continue my subscription. But alas, it appears naught, but at least my time immersed in TES has not ended - I just picked up a new mod for Skyrim today - and I'll probably return to Skyrim tomorrow to fully explore all the new content the mod brought me.

Lastly, I have two more points. First, these forums. There needs to be a better separation of the english, french, and german subforums and perhaps a larger variety of them - more threads for feedback and suggestions, maybe even an off topic forum - I believe bringing more attention to this forum will help cement the community of ESO and provide longevity. My final point in this large point is ironic - I believe Steam could be the savior to my ESO drought, but that it was also the scourage that brought it about in the first place. One of the reasons I dropped ESO out of my daily gaming schedule was because of the large number of games that I picked up during last month's huge Steam Summer Sale.

tl;dr I would have appreciated to not be misled into thinking that linking ESO accounts to Steam would have been a possibility.

1200 words later, I would like to thank anyone who took the time out of their day to read my rant, and I apologize if there was a specific subforum for this topic which I was too ignorant to find.

This is one of the best things I have ever read on these forums.

Liquid_Time

Well I read it. I want a

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO

KariTR wrote: »

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Disagree. It was well written and as much as I hate long posts I had a real pleasure reading it.

OP, sorry to hear about your issues, but standalone ESO shouldn't be too bad. Steam is not everything

Fleymark

Just curious, what does having a game linked to steam actually do for you?

It's been years since I used it.

KariTR

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Disagree. It was well written and as much as I hate long posts I had a real pleasure reading it.

Which has nothing to do with the point I made - this is a forum, not a blogging site.

Nazon_Katts

@KariTR no one's forcing you to read what you might deem a blog post. And I take any novel of half decent quality over pointless post any time.

@spy611b14_ESO welcome to the boards!

Loco_Mofo

KariTR wrote: »

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Disagree. It was well written and as much as I hate long posts I had a real pleasure reading it.

Which has nothing to do with the point I made - this is a forum, not a blogging site.

What the hell are you talking about. This is the perfect place for the OP to provide this sort of well written constructive feedback. People might be in a similar situation as him and find his post helpful.

nerevarine1138

Fleymark wrote: »

Just curious, what does having a game linked to steam actually do for you?

It's been years since I used it.

Pretty much nothing. It lets you share the fact that you're playing with your Steam friends, and you can collect meaningless virtual cards.

OP: did this really need its own thread? We've been putting up with a full week of complaints about the horrors of non-integrated ESO (which is interesting, given the fact that I don't remember a single thread being created demanding a Steam edition of the game prior to it being released). This didn't particularly add anything to the discussion except misplaced accusations of "broken promises" which were never made in the first place.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

It is well-written but I will file it under "billionth post complaining about Steam and whatever else people complain about these days."

Why does everyone have to give us a separate post about these things, I really want one mega-thread so it takes up less space. And yes I know I don't have to click on it, tyvm!

BTW @nerevarine1138 I actually asked tech support before release why they weren't releasing it on steam, and the guy gave me a long spiel about how incredibly difficult it would be to put it through steam with the complexity of the game yada yada. So I sort of requested it. I certainly wanted it, it's just not a deal breaker for me.

OP, they will surely let you move your game to Steam at some point. I don't know why everyone is so impatient. With a new game, there's just a lot of features you are going to be waiting on. I don't think it's unreasonable to give ZOS some time with these kinds of things, if they so choose to give people that option.

KariTR

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Disagree. It was well written and as much as I hate long posts I had a real pleasure reading it.

Which has nothing to do with the point I made - this is a forum, not a blogging site.

What the hell are you talking about. This is the perfect place for the OP to provide this sort of well written constructive feedback. People might be in a similar situation as him and find his post helpful.

16 paragraphs and 1200 words (cheers OP) to tell us that CS had sent an email saying they were working towards accounts being able to link to Steam and the OP feels misled that it didn't come to fruition.

That's what I am talking about.

Nazon_Katts

KariTR wrote: »

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

pavelcherepanskyrwb17_ESO wrote: »

KariTR wrote: »

And finally, and with all due respect, this is a discussion forum, not a blog. Your disappointment could have been summed up in a line or two and added to the thread/s started by a few others who were as disappointed as you to find they wouldn't have Steam overlay without a copy of the game purchased through Steam.

Disagree. It was well written and as much as I hate long posts I had a real pleasure reading it.

Which has nothing to do with the point I made - this is a forum, not a blogging site.

What the hell are you talking about. This is the perfect place for the OP to provide this sort of well written constructive feedback. People might be in a similar situation as him and find his post helpful.

16 paragraphs and 1200 words (cheers OP) to tell us that CS had sent an email saying they were working towards accounts being able to link to Steam and the OP feels misled that it didn't come to fruition.

That's what I am talking about.

It may have been a rather verbose essay, but for all it's length it's still easy to be ignored, if that's not your cup of tea. There's absolutely no need and reason to be so gruff and unwelcoming towards a new poster, who did nothing wrong, but taking his time with expressing his thoughts.