ESO Has Sold Another 1.5 Million Copies Since BE3 - 8.5+ Million Copies Sold

Balamoor

jaye63 wrote: »

And we STILL only have 1 server. Come on ZOS... time for EAST/WEST NA servers.

That is not a completely insane idea.

GreenhaloX

So, does this mean "good news" and that we could expect ESO to be around for more times to come and not crash and burn this year or the next. Ha ha

Elsonso

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Dominoid wrote: »

At an Elder Scrolls Online press event, Matt Firor confirmed to our own Bill Murphy that the game is sporting 8.5 million players. At E3 2016, ESO had 7 million players and has grown by 1.5 million since then. This number is based off of units sold and is not simply a tally of registered accounts.

According to Firor, the population is split fairly evenly among all platforms. Currently, Elder Scrolls Online is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One.

http://www.mmorpg.com/elder-scrolls-online/news/matt-firor-85-million-eso-players-right-now-based-on-sales-1000043197

Quoting a player base like that is only meaningful to shareholders. The active player base is what we would like. Because many people are counted twice for pc/console even though they are now only active on console after the release.
I could assume that the active "played within last month" to be significantly lower than that number.

Yeah, but how do you define "active"? No matter how you do it, someone will say you are not doing it right. If ZOS did it, you can be sure that people would crawl out of everywhere to challenge the numbers. Case in point right here in this thread regarding the 8.5 million number.

The number is what it is. Number of units sold. It is an important number, to them.

Compared to TES 3 Morrowind, TES 4 Oblivion, and Fallout 3, it is pretty clear that ESO will be considered a success by everyone at ZeniMax Media. This is the stick by which they are likely to measure. Is it a blockbuster, like Skyrim and Fallout 4? No. But, it is also not a failure. Remember that ZOS is an untested, unproven, studio that has sold 8.5 million copies of its first game. Yeah, they are doing the happy dance, no matter what we think.

Now, TES 3 Morrowind has sold the least of all of the ones I mention above. As near as I can figure, given an almost complete lack of sales data, it has sold around 4 million copies, lifetime. The real question is this: At what point does ESO Morrowind outsell TES 3 Morrowind, and will they tell us?

Balamoor

GreenhaloX wrote: »

So, does this mean "good news" and that we could expect ESO to be around for more times to come and not crash and burn this year or the next. Ha ha

If you are a rational person yes....if you are one of the toxic ten that lives on the forums, it just means "Zo$" is hiding something and the game is going to die much sooner than expected. :-/

Mojmir

Balamoor wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

So, does this mean "good news" and that we could expect ESO to be around for more times to come and not crash and burn this year or the next. Ha ha

If you are a rational person yes....if you are one of the toxic ten that lives on the forums, it just means "Zo$" is hiding something and the game is going to die much sooner than expected. :-/

Hypocrite much?lol

Wifeaggro13

zaria wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

But ... isn't ESO dying?? 8.5 million copies sold? That can't be right because people on these forums say it's dying!

I don't think anyone is saying it is dying. I think more people are complaining because it sucks as a mmo and fair as a single player RPG. And it's buisness model is highly predatory, with little longevity to what you pay for

Look around on the forums for people saying the sky is falling and its dying.

Predatory business model how? Genuinely interested to know how you think it's predatory. It's the same kind of setup as all B2P mmo's out there with no pay to win armour or weapons in the cash shop. Basically just cosmetics. And if you're talking about Morrowind talk to WoW players who are forced to sub to play and have to pay for expansions.

As an mmo it was never the most standard of mmo's. it's not WoW or GW2 etc. I would certainly like to see more group content, absolutely but it's kept me entertained for over 3 years.

Gloom clouds gonna gloom cloud eh?

no im not talking of Morrowind i actually think it is a good decision, I am talking about double dipping the content, Reselling of old DLC's with cosmetics that cant be aquired in game, im talking about pay walling game features like inventory management behind a sub yet calling the game B2P, I'm talking about starting as sub , going B2P to appease the microsoft debacle , redesigning the game to appeal to the gullible new to MMO market. im talking about making all these single player DLC's with no longevity and selling them for a premium cost while doing nothing for the community that actually plays the whole game while subbing. Yes their business model is predatory you just chose to ignore it.

If you'd like to see a business model that's actually quite predatory, I would like to suggest that you go and play LOTR Online.

That game micromanages basically everything it has and runs it through the cash shop, whilst having a prompt at least once every 10 minutes asking if you'd like to use said cash shop.

And as for the crafting bag, yes it's handy but we went over two years without one. You can (with some skill) manage your inventory if you don't hoard everything.

Going B2P very likely saved Elder Scrolls Online. Between the state that the game launched in and all the whiny people saying they'd never pay for a sub, going B2P or shutting up shop was likely their options.

Now to address your last point about single player DLC's, we must delve a little deeper into the Elder Scrolls target audience. So this could be a longer one.

A lot of players have come to this game because it's an Elder Scrolls game having never touched an mmo before. They've no idea about mmo mechanics and the such and just wanted to play an Elder Scrolls game. This is why a lot of the content is single player. For example let's take Craglorn as an example. They had to redesign that zone because people were not keen on doing group content in a zone. They would have much rather done stuff solo. Quite often here we have people asking for a solo Cyrodiil and Imperial City campaign without PVP. We have people on here asking for solo options for 4 player dungeons.

ZOS are clearly catering to the game's biggest playerbase with these single player DLC with the odd group boss thrown in for good measure. A lot of people don't even like group bosses in the overland.

At this point I would say ESO is less an mmo than an online RPG with some group content for good measure. Because that's who plays it. Had many more hardcore mmo players have played then it could have gone that way instead. But let's face facts, the PVP community is small (certainly all of the issues with Cyrodiil have driven away a big chunk of the PVP community - look at that I acknowledged a problem! For this game certainly isn't all good and certainly has its problems!) and those that compete for leaderboards are also a very small chunk compared to those who just want to play an Elder Scrolls game.

Now as someone who likes trials and also intermittently enjoys PVP, I would like to see more things for both added and I would like to see longer content for groups as trials are rather short. I find group content fun.

But let us also not forget those that burn out the content in a couple of days and say they're bored - we get those in all online games. I've seen them in WoW and many other places.

So no I choose to ignore nothing but thanks for your concern

The end game population was here , they had a large MMO population . they left in all honesty due to the lack of anything engaging in the game. the game design and direction redirected itself to appease the console market thats just the facts, that market was new to MMO's and expected a skyrim type game.>Personally i dont think ESO design has anything to do with trying to capture this elusive casual market. I think its because its easy and cheap for them to shovel poo content out and the churn player will buy it reguardless. if they made actuall good group content people would play it but they dont so you have a DPS meta that is not accessible to the average player of the game but just for arguments sake you believe what Matt fior says about ESO sales. Or you can take what a well respected financial news organization says about ESO sales.The truth is ESO is a bad MMO and a Average single player RPG lol.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/archenemy/2015/07/20/the-resounding-whimper-of-the-elder-scrolls-online-release/#61c808905ce9

Well anybody using Vgchartz for source for pc game sale is pretty far off as they only count physical copies. Not the digital from own store nor steam.

The rest was pretty much an subjective game review from someone who did not like the game.
Subjective as it was far more feeling based than standard in reviews.

No i dont doubt the sales of the game. But ESO does not have 8.5 million players. i doubt it retained even 25% of those sales.I liked ESO pre Tamriel one my biggest complaint was they were not investing any money into making a MMO just cash shop items and easy baked single player DLC's, cheap content at a premium cost. the tale of the tape is in retention and ESO retention was very bad its a chaotic churning player base that does not actually play all of the game and when they tried the content was too hard so ZOS nerfed it into unchallenging snore fest. ESO sold out its community for fast bucks , thats all there is to it. Welcome to the corporate MMO. anyone with talent and experience long since left ESO's dev team.

zaria

Balamoor wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

So, does this mean "good news" and that we could expect ESO to be around for more times to come and not crash and burn this year or the next. Ha ha

If you are a rational person yes....if you are one of the toxic ten that lives on the forums, it just means "Zo$" is hiding something and the game is going to die much sooner than expected. :-/

M'aiq told me they will start selling permanent emperor bonus in the crown store

vyndral13preub18_ESO

Balamoor wrote: »

Yeah you can count the hatetards on one hand ...

Balamoor wrote: »

....if you are one of the toxic ten that lives on the forums...

Oh no it is spreading!

Or someone has a very strange hand....

zaria

lordrichter wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Dominoid wrote: »

At an Elder Scrolls Online press event, Matt Firor confirmed to our own Bill Murphy that the game is sporting 8.5 million players. At E3 2016, ESO had 7 million players and has grown by 1.5 million since then. This number is based off of units sold and is not simply a tally of registered accounts.

According to Firor, the population is split fairly evenly among all platforms. Currently, Elder Scrolls Online is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One.

http://www.mmorpg.com/elder-scrolls-online/news/matt-firor-85-million-eso-players-right-now-based-on-sales-1000043197

Quoting a player base like that is only meaningful to shareholders. The active player base is what we would like. Because many people are counted twice for pc/console even though they are now only active on console after the release.
I could assume that the active "played within last month" to be significantly lower than that number.

Yeah, but how do you define "active"? No matter how you do it, someone will say you are not doing it right. If ZOS did it, you can be sure that people would crawl out of everywhere to challenge the numbers. Case in point right here in this thread regarding the 8.5 million number.

The number is what it is. Number of units sold. It is an important number, to them.

Compared to TES 3 Morrowind, TES 4 Oblivion, and Fallout 3, it is pretty clear that ESO will be considered a success by everyone at ZeniMax Media. This is the stick by which they are likely to measure. Is it a blockbuster, like Skyrim and Fallout 4? No. But, it is also not a failure. Remember that ZOS is an untested, unproven, studio that has sold 8.5 million copies of its first game. Yeah, they are doing the happy dance, no matter what we think.

Now, TES 3 Morrowind has sold the least of all of the ones I mention above. As near as I can figure, given an almost complete lack of sales data, it has sold around 4 million copies, lifetime. The real question is this: At what point does ESO Morrowind outsell TES 3 Morrowind, and will they tell us?

You can define active any way you want. last logged in hours played each month, buying dlc or is eso+.
However I don't think numbers with both pc and console version is that huge. number with multiple copies is far rarer.
Number of people who bought the game is important as its sales, they are also an focus group for bringing back to buy more.
Number of active players is far far lower than number of games sold, this is common for MMO.
I don't think ESO Morrowind will outsell the original but it will probably come pretty close.

Just walking around in the game shows that the game is very much alive, lots of the complains is about server performance, this is good news, as its easier to fix than empty zones.

JD2013

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

But ... isn't ESO dying?? 8.5 million copies sold? That can't be right because people on these forums say it's dying!

I don't think anyone is saying it is dying. I think more people are complaining because it sucks as a mmo and fair as a single player RPG. And it's buisness model is highly predatory, with little longevity to what you pay for

Look around on the forums for people saying the sky is falling and its dying.

Predatory business model how? Genuinely interested to know how you think it's predatory. It's the same kind of setup as all B2P mmo's out there with no pay to win armour or weapons in the cash shop. Basically just cosmetics. And if you're talking about Morrowind talk to WoW players who are forced to sub to play and have to pay for expansions.

As an mmo it was never the most standard of mmo's. it's not WoW or GW2 etc. I would certainly like to see more group content, absolutely but it's kept me entertained for over 3 years.

Gloom clouds gonna gloom cloud eh?

no im not talking of Morrowind i actually think it is a good decision, I am talking about double dipping the content, Reselling of old DLC's with cosmetics that cant be aquired in game, im talking about pay walling game features like inventory management behind a sub yet calling the game B2P, I'm talking about starting as sub , going B2P to appease the microsoft debacle , redesigning the game to appeal to the gullible new to MMO market. im talking about making all these single player DLC's with no longevity and selling them for a premium cost while doing nothing for the community that actually plays the whole game while subbing. Yes their business model is predatory you just chose to ignore it.

If you'd like to see a business model that's actually quite predatory, I would like to suggest that you go and play LOTR Online.

That game micromanages basically everything it has and runs it through the cash shop, whilst having a prompt at least once every 10 minutes asking if you'd like to use said cash shop.

And as for the crafting bag, yes it's handy but we went over two years without one. You can (with some skill) manage your inventory if you don't hoard everything.

Going B2P very likely saved Elder Scrolls Online. Between the state that the game launched in and all the whiny people saying they'd never pay for a sub, going B2P or shutting up shop was likely their options.

Now to address your last point about single player DLC's, we must delve a little deeper into the Elder Scrolls target audience. So this could be a longer one.

A lot of players have come to this game because it's an Elder Scrolls game having never touched an mmo before. They've no idea about mmo mechanics and the such and just wanted to play an Elder Scrolls game. This is why a lot of the content is single player. For example let's take Craglorn as an example. They had to redesign that zone because people were not keen on doing group content in a zone. They would have much rather done stuff solo. Quite often here we have people asking for a solo Cyrodiil and Imperial City campaign without PVP. We have people on here asking for solo options for 4 player dungeons.

ZOS are clearly catering to the game's biggest playerbase with these single player DLC with the odd group boss thrown in for good measure. A lot of people don't even like group bosses in the overland.

At this point I would say ESO is less an mmo than an online RPG with some group content for good measure. Because that's who plays it. Had many more hardcore mmo players have played then it could have gone that way instead. But let's face facts, the PVP community is small (certainly all of the issues with Cyrodiil have driven away a big chunk of the PVP community - look at that I acknowledged a problem! For this game certainly isn't all good and certainly has its problems!) and those that compete for leaderboards are also a very small chunk compared to those who just want to play an Elder Scrolls game.

Now as someone who likes trials and also intermittently enjoys PVP, I would like to see more things for both added and I would like to see longer content for groups as trials are rather short. I find group content fun.

But let us also not forget those that burn out the content in a couple of days and say they're bored - we get those in all online games. I've seen them in WoW and many other places.

So no I choose to ignore nothing but thanks for your concern

The end game population was here , they had a large MMO population . they left in all honesty due to the lack of anything engaging in the game. the game design and direction redirected itself to appease the console market thats just the facts, that market was new to MMO's and expected a skyrim type game.>Personally i dont think ESO design has anything to do with trying to capture this elusive casual market. I think its because its easy and cheap for them to shovel poo content out and the churn player will buy it reguardless. if they made actuall good group content people would play it but they dont so you have a DPS meta that is not accessible to the average player of the game but just for arguments sake you believe what Matt fior says about ESO sales. Or you can take what a well respected financial news organization says about ESO sales.The truth is ESO is a bad MMO and a Average single player RPG lol.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/archenemy/2015/07/20/the-resounding-whimper-of-the-elder-scrolls-online-release/#61c808905ce9

You almost made a couple of good points (which might I add I addressed) but ... Then you quoted a Forbes article from 2015 before any DLC packs, before one Tamriel ...

And Forbes.

Katahdin

Balamoor wrote: »

jaye63 wrote: »

And we STILL only have 1 server. Come on ZOS... time for EAST/WEST NA servers.

That is not a completely insane idea.

Yes it is insane. I am east coast and I have friends that are west coast. We want to be able to play together. Locking NA into two seperate servers is not a good idea.

They need to allow the server to make more shards/instances when there are alot of people in the map but still allow people to travel to each other. That will solve the overcrowding problem.

zaria

Katahdin wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

jaye63 wrote: »

And we STILL only have 1 server. Come on ZOS... time for EAST/WEST NA servers.

That is not a completely insane idea.

Yes it is insane. I am east coast and I have friends that are west coast. We want to be able to play together.

They need to allow the server to make more shards/instances when there are alot of people in the map but still.allow people to travel to each other. That will solve the overcrowding problem.

Yes and fix the back system who run this, looks to me like housing instances overloaded it.

Kenthros

I am not bashing this game at all, I love it so please don't take this the wrong way. But them saying the units sold as it being the rate at which something is good is pretty silly, and really a poor way to put it. But sales = sales no matter how you put it.

Here we have 8.5 million, so great sales, half of which is easily the bots so that's 4.25 they had to buy the account if they got banned then another and so on. Then if you lump in folks that grab sale items just to have, folks that wanted eso through steam even though they bought the game before steam, that's another little dip in the numbers. In the end they are all sales no matter how you spin them so its great for them ether way, I see folks all over and I love it. But if caring for only units sold and not retention it could be a disheartening feeling for other folks.

Balamoor

Katahdin wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

jaye63 wrote: »

And we STILL only have 1 server. Come on ZOS... time for EAST/WEST NA servers.

That is not a completely insane idea.

Yes it is insane. I am east coast and I have friends that are west coast. We want to be able to play together. Locking NA into two seperate servers is not a good idea.

They need to allow the server to make more shards/instances when there are alot of people in the map but still allow people to travel to each other. That will solve the overcrowding problem.

I'm pretty sure they are already using AWS and you do realize that you can have bicoastal Data centers that can feed into the same realm instance yes? Considering the length of time some of the hops are taking for some users it would actually be a significant improvement, cost is really the major issue.

Malmai

JinMori wrote: »

Many people are pissed by overpopulation, while they do not realize that the more money there is, the more resources there are. More developer, better servers, more active world etc.....

True but servers still laggy like always... performance didnt change one bit... terrible...

Dawnblade

Pointless data-point is pointless as far as determining player activity and engagement, especially by platform / region.

Of course most other game companies also report pointless cherry picked data-points, so it's not like this is an issue exclusive to ZOS and ESO.

This data-point might have some relevance if other MMOs released cumulative sales numbers for the base game, but I've never seen total cumulative sales figures for older MMOs.

Anecdotal - I have two accounts, one purchased a little over a year ago and another purchased a couple of months ago, both acquired for less than $10 online (not ZOS).

The first has had several months of paid subscription time (a month when I bought it back in early 2016, again since late Dec 2016, ending this month), the other has never had a paid subscription.

The first has been played actively when I've had a subscription, and not at all in between subscriptions, the other is only used for extra storage / mail bounce when I'm actively playing the first.

Also for comparison is that ATVI sold 3.3 million copies of WoW Legion (PC only - subscription required to play) expansion last year on day one (pre-orders / launch sales) with a retail price of $49 and few discounts available versus ESO selling 1.5 million copies of the base game (PC and consoles combined - no subscription required) over the past year at a much lower retail price with many discounts available.

zaria

Kenthros wrote: »

I am not bashing this game at all, I love it so please don't take this the wrong way. But them saying the units sold as it being the rate at which something is good is pretty silly, and really a poor way to put it. But sales = sales no matter how you put it.

Here we have 8.5 million, so great sales, half of which is easily the bots so that's 4.25 they had to buy the account if they got banned then another and so on. Then if you lump in folks that grab sale items just to have, folks that wanted eso through steam even though they bought the game before steam, that's another little dip in the numbers. In the end they are all sales no matter how you spin them so its great for them ether way, I see folks all over and I love it. But if caring for only units sold and not retention it could be a disheartening feeling for other folks.

I don't think they count goldfarming bots bought with stolen credit cards where they did not get money from sale.
That is pure loss, not sale. They could said number of accounts and this could bundled the beta ones too if they wanted.

And an corporation rarely lie wildly about sales numbers either.

WalkingLegacy

zaria wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

GreenhaloX wrote: »

So, does this mean "good news" and that we could expect ESO to be around for more times to come and not crash and burn this year or the next. Ha ha

If you are a rational person yes....if you are one of the toxic ten that lives on the forums, it just means "Zo$" is hiding something and the game is going to die much sooner than expected. :-/

M'aiq told me they will start selling permanent emperor bonus in the crown store

Wouldn't surprise me if they did

vyndral13preub18_ESO

zaria wrote: »

Just walking around in the game shows that the game is very much alive, lots of the complains is about server performance, this is good news, as its easier to fix than empty zones.

I guess i will be the hater, you know what the mega server tech what you see in game may mean very little?

All it would take is to let a shard hold more people before a new one opened. That would make the same amount of people look like more and could possibly send performance to the tank.

And before you say why would they do that, look at what you wrote. That is why. The same reasons games in the past would change the number of players it took to make a server say full. To make the game look more alive, because it makes people feel good.

Am I saying they did this? No. Am I saying we have no way of knowing if they did? Yes.

Elsonso

zaria wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Dominoid wrote: »

At an Elder Scrolls Online press event, Matt Firor confirmed to our own Bill Murphy that the game is sporting 8.5 million players. At E3 2016, ESO had 7 million players and has grown by 1.5 million since then. This number is based off of units sold and is not simply a tally of registered accounts.

According to Firor, the population is split fairly evenly among all platforms. Currently, Elder Scrolls Online is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One.

http://www.mmorpg.com/elder-scrolls-online/news/matt-firor-85-million-eso-players-right-now-based-on-sales-1000043197

Quoting a player base like that is only meaningful to shareholders. The active player base is what we would like. Because many people are counted twice for pc/console even though they are now only active on console after the release.
I could assume that the active "played within last month" to be significantly lower than that number.

Yeah, but how do you define "active"? No matter how you do it, someone will say you are not doing it right. If ZOS did it, you can be sure that people would crawl out of everywhere to challenge the numbers. Case in point right here in this thread regarding the 8.5 million number.

The number is what it is. Number of units sold. It is an important number, to them.

Compared to TES 3 Morrowind, TES 4 Oblivion, and Fallout 3, it is pretty clear that ESO will be considered a success by everyone at ZeniMax Media. This is the stick by which they are likely to measure. Is it a blockbuster, like Skyrim and Fallout 4? No. But, it is also not a failure. Remember that ZOS is an untested, unproven, studio that has sold 8.5 million copies of its first game. Yeah, they are doing the happy dance, no matter what we think.

Now, TES 3 Morrowind has sold the least of all of the ones I mention above. As near as I can figure, given an almost complete lack of sales data, it has sold around 4 million copies, lifetime. The real question is this: At what point does ESO Morrowind outsell TES 3 Morrowind, and will they tell us?

You can define active any way you want. last logged in hours played each month, buying dlc or is eso+.
However I don't think numbers with both pc and console version is that huge. number with multiple copies is far rarer.
Number of people who bought the game is important as its sales, they are also an focus group for bringing back to buy more.
Number of active players is far far lower than number of games sold, this is common for MMO.
I don't think ESO Morrowind will outsell the original but it will probably come pretty close.

Just walking around in the game shows that the game is very much alive, lots of the complains is about server performance, this is good news, as its easier to fix than empty zones.

My point is that, no matter how "active" is defined by someone, someone else will take issue with it. Some will take issue with it if ZOS defines it, just because they defined it. I seem to recall that someone, maybe Rich, sort of defined it on ESO Live when talking about some of the numbers he looks at. Defined for his purposes, of course.

I define active as "logged into the game world at least once in the last 14 days", with no regard to what they did, how long they were online, or anything other than logging into the game world. That is a rather stringent definition, so if I were doing this for the purpose of determining player activity level, I would extend that to 28 day, or more. Why more? Because ESO is a big game and it might be a month between times when I see someone, if I see them at all.

I will not disagree that PC NA is very busy, all the time. As near as I can tell.

Balamoor wrote: »

Katahdin wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

jaye63 wrote: »

And we STILL only have 1 server. Come on ZOS... time for EAST/WEST NA servers.

That is not a completely insane idea.

Yes it is insane. I am east coast and I have friends that are west coast. We want to be able to play together. Locking NA into two seperate servers is not a good idea.

They need to allow the server to make more shards/instances when there are alot of people in the map but still allow people to travel to each other. That will solve the overcrowding problem.

I'm pretty sure they are already using AWS and you do realize that you can have bicoastal Data centers that can feed into the same realm instance yes? Considering the length of time some of the hops are taking for some users it would actually be a significant improvement, cost is really the major issue.

AWS is irrelevant to the ESO game servers. That might be important for something like Legends, or BattleCry. AWS is where the install image and patches come from, last I looked.

One centrally located megaserver in Texas is better than an East Coast and West Coast server that has to remain constantly linked so that they appear to be one server, or worse, are split so that only players on the server can see players on the server.

Stopnaggin

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

But ... isn't ESO dying?? 8.5 million copies sold? That can't be right because people on these forums say it's dying!

I don't think anyone is saying it is dying. I think more people are complaining because it sucks as a mmo and fair as a single player RPG. And it's buisness model is highly predatory, with little longevity to what you pay for

Look around on the forums for people saying the sky is falling and its dying.

Predatory business model how? Genuinely interested to know how you think it's predatory. It's the same kind of setup as all B2P mmo's out there with no pay to win armour or weapons in the cash shop. Basically just cosmetics. And if you're talking about Morrowind talk to WoW players who are forced to sub to play and have to pay for expansions.

As an mmo it was never the most standard of mmo's. it's not WoW or GW2 etc. I would certainly like to see more group content, absolutely but it's kept me entertained for over 3 years.

Gloom clouds gonna gloom cloud eh?

no im not talking of Morrowind i actually think it is a good decision, I am talking about double dipping the content, Reselling of old DLC's with cosmetics that cant be aquired in game, im talking about pay walling game features like inventory management behind a sub yet calling the game B2P, I'm talking about starting as sub , going B2P to appease the microsoft debacle , redesigning the game to appeal to the gullible new to MMO market. im talking about making all these single player DLC's with no longevity and selling them for a premium cost while doing nothing for the community that actually plays the whole game while subbing. Yes their business model is predatory you just chose to ignore it.

I don't understand, are you saying they don't do anything to improve the game? Because I remember they did say they would release quarterly updates, so far the have. They said they would not introduce p2w, they haven't. The sub model is fine, I get what I paid for, plus I get crowns. I'm not seeing anything predatory as far as being able to enjoy what I have paid for, so they release dlc with added fluff later on. Good for them, do you need to buy anything from the cs to play the game, nope.

The game has its problems no doubt. Some are annoying especially since they have been around for years. The customer service department need some serious work. But all in all the game seems very healthy to me. The updates keep pouring in, whether small or large. It's not as easy to keep up with a living game as far as fixing things and not breaking other things when fixing somthing. The servers could use an upgrade or lower the instance cap to make it run smoother. So yes it does have problems, but imo it's still the best mmo out right now.

Regardless of howany people bought multiple copies of the game to get the extra fluff, those who play on different platforms and such, they apperantly like the game enough to purchase it again. For a 3 year old MMO I think the sales numbers are pretty good, even if they are sales to stores and are sitting on a shelf. Those stores have the information needed to warrant buy those copies as well. I'm sure they would buy them if they though they wouldn't sell. And in all reality it doesn't matter what anyone on here, pro or con thinks, the game will continue until they decide to pull the plug. When that happens we will all move on to the next thing that peaks our interest.

The really amazing thing to me is how many of the same negative posters are still here complain about how bad this game is. Or how they are so against ZOS and their business model, which isn't any different then any other business. So either they still find enough enjoyment to stick around or they just love to argue against ZOS and anything positive that come from the community. I personally feel that if I was done with the game I sure wouldn't be lurking in the forums just to spout a bunch of negative comments.

zaria

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Just walking around in the game shows that the game is very much alive, lots of the complains is about server performance, this is good news, as its easier to fix than empty zones.

I guess i will be the hater, you know what the mega server tech what you see in game may mean very little?

All it would take is to let a shard hold more people before a new one opened. That would make the same amount of people look like more and could possibly send performance to the tank.

And before you say why would they do that, look at what you wrote. That is why. The same reasons games in the past would change the number of players it took to make a server say full. To make the game look more alive, because it makes people feel good.

Am I saying they did this? No. Am I saying we have no way of knowing if they did? Yes.

Yes they rigged the dungeon finder to kick you 75% of the times you try to go to an dungeon with an premade group.
they also added an long delay on load times. Then I played this morning load times was 2-3 seconds.
Main issue is not population in zones, its trying to load them. I have an powerful pc so I don't get crashes but load time is an issue.

No I do not know how they spit instances or merge them. Not even sure this is done or number is set on maintenance.
They also want to find the right balance, not so many it get too crowded and not too few people so it feel empty.
However minimum number of instances is 1.

dbgager

Having more people running around the game is good in every way. The only negative is performance and whether the server can handle the load. I don't understand anybody saying they are doing this only to fool people into thinking the game has more people than they say. They are doing it to make the game better. Happy people are people that keep playing. Never are you going to have like 1 million people online at the same time. Even with 8.5 million accounts . I don't imagine there is more than 7-15k at any one time. Thats still way more than most MMOS. Which in my experience are dead compared to ESO. And I have played FF 14 . Secret World, Star Wars, and Rift recently. ESO has more people running around than any of those.

dday3six

Balamoor wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why do you guys care so much about the "active player count"? Every area is noticeably populated and you can find people doing group content relatively easily.

It's a buy2play game. Once they've bought in, it doesn't matter whether they're active or not and it directly benefits you considering that money goes into maintenance and content creation.

Because in their small hate filled minds it must fail, it must be nowhere near their god King WoW, and they must scream their hate hourly on the forums.

So they will Emmanuel Goldstein this Bi*** until their perception becomes universal reality. Will that ever actually work? of course not most rational people just laugh at these goobers.

Again their is a reason I don't announce to folks one of my Hobbies is gaming.

My mind is small and hate-filled because I think active player count is a better reflection of how well a game is doing?

So, let's dive a bit deeper into this. Active player count speaks more toward player retention. For a game with a business model similar to ESO. Keeping players playing is important because a large part of the revenue comes from after purchase sells. So for that aspect of it a player count based on units sold doesn't really tell us much.

Before you think everyone who favors a different evaluation wants the game to fail, perhaps delve into reasons why they might favor that eval method. Hyperbole and lumping group association can be small minded from either end.

dbgager

dday3six wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why do you guys care so much about the "active player count"? Every area is noticeably populated and you can find people doing group content relatively easily.

It's a buy2play game. Once they've bought in, it doesn't matter whether they're active or not and it directly benefits you considering that money goes into maintenance and content creation.

Because in their small hate filled minds it must fail, it must be nowhere near their god King WoW, and they must scream their hate hourly on the forums.

So they will Emmanuel Goldstein this Bi*** until their perception becomes universal reality. Will that ever actually work? of course not most rational people just laugh at these goobers.

Again their is a reason I don't announce to folks one of my Hobbies is gaming.

My mind is small and hate-filled because I think active player count is a better reflection of how well a game is doing?

So, let's dive a bit deeper into this. Active player count speaks more toward player retention. For a game with a business model similar to ESO. Keeping players playing is important because a large part of the revenue comes from after purchase sells. So for that aspect of it a player count based on units sold doesn't really tell us much.

Before you think everyone who favors a different evaluation wants the game to fail, perhaps delve into reasons why they might favor that eval method. Hyperbole and lumping group association can be small minded from either end.

Money is what keeps a game going. This game you have to purchase to play for most unless you sub with ESO+. SO that is the fuel that determines the health of the game. Not active players. Most are not paying a penny to be active.

dday3six

dbgager wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why do you guys care so much about the "active player count"? Every area is noticeably populated and you can find people doing group content relatively easily.

It's a buy2play game. Once they've bought in, it doesn't matter whether they're active or not and it directly benefits you considering that money goes into maintenance and content creation.

Because in their small hate filled minds it must fail, it must be nowhere near their god King WoW, and they must scream their hate hourly on the forums.

So they will Emmanuel Goldstein this Bi*** until their perception becomes universal reality. Will that ever actually work? of course not most rational people just laugh at these goobers.

Again their is a reason I don't announce to folks one of my Hobbies is gaming.

My mind is small and hate-filled because I think active player count is a better reflection of how well a game is doing?

So, let's dive a bit deeper into this. Active player count speaks more toward player retention. For a game with a business model similar to ESO. Keeping players playing is important because a large part of the revenue comes from after purchase sells. So for that aspect of it a player count based on units sold doesn't really tell us much.

Before you think everyone who favors a different evaluation wants the game to fail, perhaps delve into reasons why they might favor that eval method. Hyperbole and lumping group association can be small minded from either end.

Money is what keeps a game going. This game you have to purchase to play for most unless you sub with ESO+. SO that is the fuel that determines the health of the game.

Units sold represents the purchase of the game whether it's base or bundled with previous DLC does really factor into it. However DLC and/or ESO+ are part of the after purchase sells I was referring to. It's basically any secondary purchase that can be bought after the intial purchase of at least the base game. So the Crown Store in short.

Speaking of the Crown Store. You believe ZOS would take the time to manage and maintain it if was not a significant part of their revenue stream?

Edit: Active players represent potential for Crown Store sells, so it does matter. Then of course are players staying and continuing to play. If otherwise new players won't want to start. Either way it doesn't invalidate the sells numbers to prefer an active player figure.

Gordon906

7 Million???

CapnPhoton

Tandor wrote: »

It's a great achievement, and well deserved given the present quality of the game. I can imagine the 10 million barrier being broken in June with Morrowind launching simultaneously on all platforms. Finally Blizzard have a real competitor!

World of warcraft has been on a decline for years, evident with server consolidations and a disappointing recent expansion. Its only a matter of time when other games will surpass it. But this is sort of the nature of the business. Where WoW exploded in popularity largely by friends wanting to play what their friends play, those original people are older and more apt to play what they want.

dbgager

dday3six wrote: »

dbgager wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Balamoor wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why do you guys care so much about the "active player count"? Every area is noticeably populated and you can find people doing group content relatively easily.

It's a buy2play game. Once they've bought in, it doesn't matter whether they're active or not and it directly benefits you considering that money goes into maintenance and content creation.

Because in their small hate filled minds it must fail, it must be nowhere near their god King WoW, and they must scream their hate hourly on the forums.

So they will Emmanuel Goldstein this Bi*** until their perception becomes universal reality. Will that ever actually work? of course not most rational people just laugh at these goobers.

Again their is a reason I don't announce to folks one of my Hobbies is gaming.

My mind is small and hate-filled because I think active player count is a better reflection of how well a game is doing?

So, let's dive a bit deeper into this. Active player count speaks more toward player retention. For a game with a business model similar to ESO. Keeping players playing is important because a large part of the revenue comes from after purchase sells. So for that aspect of it a player count based on units sold doesn't really tell us much.

Before you think everyone who favors a different evaluation wants the game to fail, perhaps delve into reasons why they might favor that eval method. Hyperbole and lumping group association can be small minded from either end.

Money is what keeps a game going. This game you have to purchase to play for most unless you sub with ESO+. SO that is the fuel that determines the health of the game.

Units sold represents the purchase of the game whether it's base or bundled with previous DLC does really factor into it. However DLC and/or ESO+ are part of the after purchase sells I was referring to. It's basically any secondary purchase that can be bought after the intial purchase of at least the base game. So the Crown Store in short.

Speaking of the Crown Store. You believe ZOS would take the time to manage and maintain it if was not a significant part of their revenue stream?

I am not talking about the crown store. I am talking about considering Active players as the #1 determination on the health of the game.

1 Purchase ( accounts)
2 Subbed ( ESO+)
3 Crown Store

At least in my opinion..

Molydeus

Sausage wrote: »

At 3 year mark WoW was snowballing like a MF. ESO's underachievement just keeps continuing.

Hard to say if they can do anything to the Story, but I would most definitely add Companions with Stories, so people can do Dolmens, Public Dungeons and World Bosses, also revisit the Dolmens again. That would imho, improve the Journey quite much.

Derp. WoW entered a very different market with much less competition than ESO has goneup against. Context is important. How many MMOs were around when WoW started? How many now?