The Bethesda Culture: A possible explanation for the lack of info.

acolyte2475b14_ESO

I think we have been all pretty frustrated with ESO and the lack of content/info that we get. But there is something that I just now realized. That's kind of they way that Bethesda has always done things and it seems to have carried over into ESO.

Take a trip over to www.theelderscrolls.com and also a memory trip back to 2010 when Skyrim was on the verge of release. That site, for a game that later became one of the best selling in history, had little to no info about it. Same goes for Fallout and all the other Elder Scrolls games. It's just kind of how they do things.

And honestly it has worked for them. They save loads on advertisement and marketing and the games just speak for themselves.

I think what happened in the case of ESO is this attitude carried over into a MMO, a genre that depends on a internet connection, and thus, it's players are tuned in and expectant of a steady stream of news, info, and content. This is also expected when a subscription is added into the mix or if the expectation is set to fork out cash on a cash shop.

In essence I think the transition from a single player experience to a MMO, PR wise is something they have still yet to adjust to. Cultures do develop internally in companies and are very hard to dislodge especially when veteran employees are calling the shots. But I do feel things are starting move in a better direction

In closing, I see a lot of people that are beginning to post things like "is ZOS intentionally trying to kill ESO?!?" and this is of course not true. But I do think that ZOS should take heed of these kinds of comments, how ever outlandish, as a barometer for how the community is feeling as a whole and how their community relationship has not been working out so far. I think they are slowing beginning to adjust to the MMO way of things and I feel like once Imperial City is announced and launched it will mark a turning point in the way they communicate with the community and the more expedient release of future content.

Yinmaigao

The difference is who owns ESO. While the intellectual property is Bethesda, ZeniMax is the one using the rights for that interjection property.

Kinda like how the Avengers are Marvel property, but distributed by Walt Disney studios.

Zazaaji

Yinmaigao wrote: »

The difference is who owns ESO. While the intellectual property is Bethesda, ZeniMax is the one using the rights for that interjection property.

Zenimax owns Bethesda entirely. Bethesda owns the Elder Scrolls property however, and for some reason I do not understand Zenimax does NOT own Elder Scrolls despite Zenimax owning Bethesda. It's rather complicated, needlessly.
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log234

You have many very good points, and yes Zenimax =/= Bethesda, but they do have some of the same suites standing behind them.
I don't think Imperial City update will be a major turning point I think it can be the start of an improvement for the better.
There is quite a bit of new staff at Zenimax now, and when they are getting more comfortable perhaps they will bring some change. I do hope that Rich Lambert will see what the community needs.

JDar

Zazaaji wrote: »

Yinmaigao wrote: »

The difference is who owns ESO. While the intellectual property is Bethesda, ZeniMax is the one using the rights for that interjection property.

Zenimax owns Bethesda entirely. Bethesda owns the Elder Scrolls property however, and for some reason I do not understand Zenimax does NOT own Elder Scrolls despite Zenimax owning Bethesda. It's rather complicated, needlessly.
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It's all the same thing. It's all Bob Altman.

acolyte2475b14_ESO

I think they should take a chapter from EvE Online and dice up large content release into smaller parts. So instead of releasing major content every 6 months to a year, you can release a steady stream of content every few weeks. This has worked out well for EvE Online and I think it would work very well for ESO.

Also fixing bugs when they are fixed rather then waiting for a later patch would be a huge improvement.

log234

acolyte2475b14_ESO wrote: »

I think they should take a chapter from EvE Online and dice up large content release into smaller parts. So instead of releasing major content every 6 months to a year, you can release a steady stream of content every few weeks. This has worked out well for EvE Online and I think it would work very well for ESO.

Also fixing bugs when they are fixed rather then waiting for a later patch would be a huge improvement.

The problem with releasing bug patches every day is that the ESO data is stored in quite large files, so the smallest updates they can release are on several hundred MBs to 1-2 GBs. So then it's better to group them together to have one download of a couple GBs a week than having up to 2GB updates every day.

Kuroinu

What Bethesda do with their big titles like Fallout and TES is the best way to go about PR. They shut up until it's ready within a few months.

Too many companies do quite the opposite and tease here and tease there too many times throughout the games development process until you just don't feel as hyped as you initially did. I actually got bored of hearing about a game that I was interested in this way and ended up not buying it lol. But to be honest, players need to have some self control and patience so that they stop demanding and pressuring devs/community reps for information. Sometimes knowing is more of a burden than actually getting a surprise. This Generation seems really info. demanding and that can hurt a game more than help, especially if the PR team is giving out info. as much as people are demanding it. Like I said before, you can get tired of hearing about it, but people keep asking and eventually start caring less. So shutting up until it's almost ready is the best PR.

I'm sure we all agree on that we'd rather have something released when it's ready than something we all know too well about a lot of games in this generation.