Maintenance for the week of October 5:
• [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – October 8, 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC) – 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – October 8, 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC) – 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
The Markarth DLC and Update 28 base game patch are now available to test on the PTS! Read the full patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/pts/
Life after the switch to B2p/f2p: a perspective
stipe1991
Soul Shriven
Hi I am actually relatively new to this game I just joined a week or so ago and am enjoying it. However I have been following it since before launch. I was a console hold out. I played Skyrim and loved it and was very excited to play it. Needless to say the delays for the console launch were discouraging. I find it ironic that after I break down and by the game for the computer they finally put a firm date on the console release. Never the less I digress. I've played two other MMOs each for 4 plus years. Both have gone through the dreaded payment model change that is currently about to hit. Having survived both I thought I would share my experience. Whether it helps or hinders is for the reader to judge.
The first experience was with Dungeons and Dragons Online. That was probably one of the first MMOs to ever make the switch. First of all the time leading up to the switch was dreadful. For almost 9 months prior to the announcement there was no new content and barely if any developer communication. I believe the game came very close to dying because there was nothing new coming to the game. The forums were flooded with players begging for information and nothing. after the announcement you'd have thought they had announced the end of the world. Over 80% of the player base was convinced it would kill the game. Yet 4 years later the game is still here and doing well. They push out content updates at least 3 times per year. They've had1 major expansion and added numerous other small touches to the game. Now the cash shop does sell more than cosmetic items. You can buy health potions and such truffles. The biggest thing is ability tomes arguably a pay to win type thing and occasionally they sell experience stones that allow you to significantly level up a character. The trade off for all that is the game continues to exist. Has decent end game content and the developers have continued to put out new content. However, most of the new content is not free neither are some of the new classes they introduced. If you pay a monthly sub like the ESO premium then everything is included but if not the you must buy whatever content you want to play. Interestingly though they have included ways in game to get turbine points (the cash shop currency) for free. So theoretically, with a lot of grinding you could unlock the entire game fore free.
The second game I was involved in the switch was Star Trek online. They to went to the free to play model. Their switch was more sudden with hardly any lapse in Dev communication or interruption in their content cycles. They chose to give the entire game away for free. All content can be played for free. However, a lot of the nicer ships and all of the higher tier ones are locked in their store. Subscribers can get access to basic higher tier ships for free while free to play have to pay for even that. However. Their real method of making money is to introduce uniques non-traditional ships in what they call lock boxes. These lock boxes drop for free. But you need a key to open them. They keys can only be bought from the store for money. Sadly, with these ships it's still a lottery I've personally spent 50 buck buying keys once which got me like 50 lock boxes to never get the ship I wanted. The flip side is since they went FTP they put in a while new faction, added a new expansion and continue regular content updates.
There are obviously perils and pitfalls with changes like this. I have not been here long enough to judge what this will mean for ESO but I did want to share what directions and out comes I have seen before. The game will survive there is ampul proof of that. We will have regular content I'm sure of that as well. How the rest plays out is very unclear.
The first experience was with Dungeons and Dragons Online. That was probably one of the first MMOs to ever make the switch. First of all the time leading up to the switch was dreadful. For almost 9 months prior to the announcement there was no new content and barely if any developer communication. I believe the game came very close to dying because there was nothing new coming to the game. The forums were flooded with players begging for information and nothing. after the announcement you'd have thought they had announced the end of the world. Over 80% of the player base was convinced it would kill the game. Yet 4 years later the game is still here and doing well. They push out content updates at least 3 times per year. They've had1 major expansion and added numerous other small touches to the game. Now the cash shop does sell more than cosmetic items. You can buy health potions and such truffles. The biggest thing is ability tomes arguably a pay to win type thing and occasionally they sell experience stones that allow you to significantly level up a character. The trade off for all that is the game continues to exist. Has decent end game content and the developers have continued to put out new content. However, most of the new content is not free neither are some of the new classes they introduced. If you pay a monthly sub like the ESO premium then everything is included but if not the you must buy whatever content you want to play. Interestingly though they have included ways in game to get turbine points (the cash shop currency) for free. So theoretically, with a lot of grinding you could unlock the entire game fore free.
The second game I was involved in the switch was Star Trek online. They to went to the free to play model. Their switch was more sudden with hardly any lapse in Dev communication or interruption in their content cycles. They chose to give the entire game away for free. All content can be played for free. However, a lot of the nicer ships and all of the higher tier ones are locked in their store. Subscribers can get access to basic higher tier ships for free while free to play have to pay for even that. However. Their real method of making money is to introduce uniques non-traditional ships in what they call lock boxes. These lock boxes drop for free. But you need a key to open them. They keys can only be bought from the store for money. Sadly, with these ships it's still a lottery I've personally spent 50 buck buying keys once which got me like 50 lock boxes to never get the ship I wanted. The flip side is since they went FTP they put in a while new faction, added a new expansion and continue regular content updates.
There are obviously perils and pitfalls with changes like this. I have not been here long enough to judge what this will mean for ESO but I did want to share what directions and out comes I have seen before. The game will survive there is ampul proof of that. We will have regular content I'm sure of that as well. How the rest plays out is very unclear.
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fromtesonlineb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭I've played three games that did this: LOTRO, Rift and SW:TOR.
Of those, LOTRO was destroyed by it (it faithfully followed the destruction of DDO you relate) and Rift carried on pretty much as it was .. it came down to the integrity of the developers as to how it panned out, Turbine simply showed the typical corporate greed you expect from their overlords at Warner Brother's, Trion although making a few mis-steps by and large kept faith with their players and their integrity remained largely in tact I would argue.