Elder Scrolls Online's business model sucks compared to Guild Wars 2 (the competition)

JamuThatsWho

I pre-ordered GW2 and played the ever-living hell out of it; I loved my Sylvari MM Necromancer, and the game was blast to play with with its emphasis on exploration, personal narrative, jumping puzzles, lack of a restrictive 'Holy Trinity', etc.

What I didn't like was the "blink and you'll miss it" 2-week content release schedule, what I considered frustrating dungeoneering and a lack of balance which saw Necros consistently underperforming. KB+M also felt clunky, and I think the game would absolutely benefit from having native controller support, especially with the importance of jumping and dodging.

GW2 is good, but there are too many irritations and headaches for me to enjoy it as much as ESO.

Besides which, GW2 also has paid content in its expansions, and its cash shop is a little more P2W.

fuzzyyoda

Idk why you would not sub when actively playing this game. 15 bucks a month and you get crowns for every month you sub as almost a reimbursement for the sub. You can't compare P2P to F2P games. Coming from WOW the model makes way more sense. It's a sub based game but they actually let you continue to play casually if you don't have as much time during a specific month. I used to only sub to WoW during summers because I'd have less time during school to actively play. ESO allows me to continue to play casually. Pretty sure Zeni based their business model off the most successful MMO which is the smart thing for them to do. They won't change the business model until it starts to fail them.

fuzzyyoda

Basically what I'm getting from your post, is you don't want to sub to have access to the craftbag. I agree that is one change I think would be really nice. But changing core parts of their business model would inevitably screw some players who have already paid for content.

Kagukan

When I was looking for a MMO about a year ago it came down to GW2 and ESO. ESO won for a number of reasons.

Watchdog

You see, GW2 has what I see as a major flaw, compared to ESO.

It is not set in Tamriel. :-)

I am here for the lore, for the characters, for all the stories I can experience in one of my most favourite fantasy universes. I don't say GW2 is a bad game, it just doesn't play the right tune for me at all.

Cously

People play ESO because it is an Elder Scrolls game. Anyone coming here for any other reason will leave disappointed.

logarifmik

Cously wrote: »

People play ESO because it is an Elder Scrolls game. Anyone coming here for any other reason will leave disappointed.

At least, it's my reason to play the game, and it's why I wish it well, really.

Danikat

SilverWF wrote: »

Lake wrote: »

Money-loving ZOS would never copy the business model of a "poorly" monetized game like GW2.

This time last year, Guild Wars 2 hit all-time sales lows after endless quarter-to-quarter drops and was even below NCSoft's ancient Lineage I, Lineage II and Blade & Soul.



This year, Q1 2018, thanks to an expansion and monetization tricks like mount loot boxes, GW2 managed to bump up to 3rd place within NCSoft.



If GW2's revenue doesn't stay up, you can bet their consumer-friendly monetization will go out the window - especially considering how simple marketing additions like extra loot boxes helped boost revenue.

Where is ESO here, please?

ESO isn't included because these graphs are from NCSoft - who are GW2s publisher. Because Arenanet, who make GW2, are a wholly owned subsidiary of NCSoft they don't make their finances public, so NCSofts reports for their shareholders (and potential shareholders) are all players have to go on if they want to gauge how much money the game is making and what kind of financial position the company might be in.

Unfortunately for us Zenimax Online is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zenimax Media who are also a private company - meaning they don't have shareholders and therefore don't make this info public. So we have nothing to go on except what they choose to tell us (like when they announce player numbers) and what we can see they're able to produce - like making a new expansion recently and bringing out DLC periodically.

Linaleah

sadownik wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

GW2 costume dying is not actualy free. you need a special consumable. now.. if you play GW2 like me, sporadically and don't change costumes much once you get an outfit set - you are going to end up sitting on a lot of that consumable. but if you want to change outfits the way i tend to in ESO? (AE almost daily) that consumable is depleted very quickly and guess where you have to get more other then very occasional log in reward? that's right. cash shop. oh and other then basic set of dyes, all the other dyes have to be bought. oh sure, once they are unlocked, they are unlocked forever JUST LIKE IN ESO... but you don't get to unlock them via achievements. I mean... you can sorta craft random ones. but not the best looking rarest ones. and you never know what you are going to get out of the other ones, I have gone through random dyes giving me the same couple of dyes I already unlocked... over.. and over...

but speaking of log in rewards, that's one of the things I like better in GW2. login rewards just carry over, you do not lose any, just because you didn't log in for couple of weeks.

aside from that... i prefer level scaling in ESO to the one in GW2. why? because in GW2, it only truly becomes "go anywhere, at any time" if you boost your character leveling as it scales you DOWN to the zone level. yeah, sure its nice to have your materials instanced. but there is also 1. soft cap as for how long you can farm before they stop respawning for you for a while (and i believe its something small, like half an hour of zone farming, so you have to keep moving to other zones) and as it was mentioned above... you hit your craft bag limits very quickly anyways, without much to show for it. you know how 160 cp gear costs 10 as much to craft as 150 cp or lower? EVERYTHING costs that much or more to craft in GW2. this is how they compensate for materials being instanced. by making everything require a lot more materials.

GW2 has its perks and honestly, it has a very different vibe to it from ESO. but... it has its issues too. it honestly feels like grass is greener syndrome.

Nope, you are talking about skin changing, dyes are free and for armor gliders and mounts

hmm... I haven't logged in in a while, but i distinctly remember having to use that thing whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, when I was messing around with my sylvari elementalist's look. I just happen to have a ton of them becasue there aren't a lot of looks in GW2 to play with, at least not without doing some heavy cash shop shopping (and yes yes, ESO costumes are also mostly cash shop, but vast majority of motifs are earned in game and that creates a LOT of look variation)

and technically, in ESO, dying your gear is also free. so... /shrug

to be honest, for all the convenience of trading in GW2 and it IS pretty convenient, aside from the whole having to go to one of the trader npc's to pick up your goods. I've always had huge trouble making gold in GW2, which made playing a LOT rougher. last I checked, GW2 doesn't have an equivalent of stealing and fencing loot for a solo player. even when it was the only MMO I played, I still had trouble. but.. they also killed a LOT of my enjoyment in it back when they changed daily meta quest from giving you a ton of pve options that could be completed ANYWHERE you wanted to, to limiting it to a very few specific tasks in specific zones and maker help you if you didn't like pvp or fractals. HoT finished off what daily meta changes started. I still occasionally log in and mess around, becasue the game IS beautiful, but its just... i don't know... it has lost its shine. I still don't have path of fire, playing through open beta weekend didn't endear me to it at all. but that's just me.

in any case... GW2 does get your pound of flesh from you, so many things are cash shop based. and becasue gold is far more of a pain than in ESO, even with all the trading conveniences... it pretty much encourages most players to buy gems to trade them for gold to the few players that managed to accumulate it (gold). and just... don't even get me started on legendaries or ascended gear grind. one of the reasons i gave up a long time ago on that stuff, even when I was still playing pretty much daily.. is becasue that grind makes ESO grinds look small. but you don't need either of those, you say? not if you solo, you do not, but... the game is also very VERY shallow if all you do is solo. meh.

but we are talking about monetanization, yes? like I said, they still get their pound of flesh from you, if you play with any degree of regularity. its just the illusion that they are "nicer" then zos.

Sylosi

Sigtric wrote: »

in any case... GW2 does get your pound of flesh from you, so many things are cash shop based. and becasue gold is far more of a pain than in ESO, even with all the trading conveniences...

There is really very little different in the GW2 cash shop from the ESO one, it is largely cosmetic stuff, XP boosts, etc.

Sigtric wrote: »

it pretty much encourages most players to buy gems to trade them for gold to the few players that managed to accumulate it (gold). and just...

LOL, part of why they don't monetize as well is precisely because any player that plays an above average amount can basically avoid spending cash on that game outside of expansions, take a player not bothered about cosmetics, in GW2 they can max out their character slots, bank space and bag space with gold, sure they won't be able to do it instantly, but even in WvW the worst place to get gold one weekend of zerging it wasn't uncommon to get a 100 gold just selling all the loot on the AH, and for much of the game around 100 gold was the cost of 400 gems on the gemstore.

Sigtric wrote: »

don't even get me started on legendaries or ascended gear grind. one of the reasons i gave up a long time ago on that stuff, even when I was still playing pretty much daily.. is becasue that grind makes ESO grinds look small.

The only grinds in that game are optional like legendary stuff or AP hunting, ascended is a piece of cake to get (they added multiple ways to get ascended), the game is also way less grindy when it comes to having more than one character, nor it there anything like CP, for the small team PvP you don't even have to level, it is way less grindy than ESO.

josiahva

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

nickl413 wrote: »

I saw a whole lot of "free free free" and not much explaining how the company plans to bring in a continuous flow of cash to support their game, in your thread that is "strictly about business model"

Are the content releases and the loot boxes/crown store exclusives not enough to make this a success? They're nickeling and diming on everything short of pay2win and the benefit of getting double transmutation shards is toeing a dangerous line already. Do they really need to inconvenience the player so much when it comes to materials found around the world that they sell "convenience features" that are standard among the competition to the point that it's a massive inconvenience to anyone else that doesn't cough up the cash?

When it comes to ESO+ in particular, at the very least they really need to address the fact that their most valuable customers who spend hundreds of dollars to buy the content outright are devaluing their membership every time they spend money on the content releases. Over the last year, I've spent $100+ on crowns, $100 on the Morrowind CE, $90 on the Summerset CE and I'm getting an experience comparable to a MMO with a poorly implemented f2p model. It sucks.

Arobain wrote: »

With 6 max level characters ready for raids in gw2 and 8 CP 690 characters here, I have to say that gw2 has go cut a *** load of corners to make the model work, you don't see the shortcuts made unless you played the game a LONG time like I did and observant, trust me gw2 isn't as goody 2 shoes as everyone thinks. ESO is hella more buggy but zeni doesn't cut corners

What shortcuts are you referring to? I've taken an extensive look at their cash shop and all I see are net positives for Guild Wars 2 players. There are a lot of similar practices since the games themselves are very similar but I could go even further and talk about their implementation of loot boxes which are better too. They don't give duplicates and it costs far less to get the thing you actually want than it does to get the gem extractions out of a set of crown crates.

Lets be real here...extra transmutation crystals mean NOTHING. I find myself CONSTANTLY destroying them for inventory management. Its rare I need to transmute an item, and having ESO plus just means I destroy twice as many crystals as I would otherwise.

idk

There is a reason OP is here in ESO and not in GW2. That alone speaks huge volumes.

Second. GW2 is really of limited competition. Not near as much as OP seems to make it out to be.

Third, it would be horid idea for Zos to do things the GW2 way. ESO was never intended to be a GW2 clone for starters and players that like the GW2 model are there. Those that do not are pretty much here. Those that cannot move out of how MMORPGs used to be played are still in WoW and FF.

Based on some timely graphs someone provided on the first page of this thread it seems doubly good Zos is not doing things like GW2.

DenMoria

So GW2 and ESO have been out for about the same period of time, yes?

Now let's consider the original GW which came out originally in 2005.

So let's see NCSOFT and ArenaNet have been in the game for what, 13 years now just on this series as well as others.

Frankly they've had a bit more practice than Zeni.

Personally, I think they've done pretty well given their inexperience. There are certainly issues and they do have tendency of chasing the latest trend, but, give it time.

frausty

There is a reasoned argument with the OP but unfortunately it is a flawed one in my opinion.

Firstly GW2 is not the competition because it is not available across the same platforms as ESO so you are immediately not comparing apples with apples. I would also say that graphically ESO is streets ahead.

Whether you agree with ESO+ or not the advantages are there for all to see:

Full access to all DLC game packs
Unlimited storage for crafting materials
1500 crowns per month for mounts, pets, & more
Double Bank space for your account
10% increase to Gold & Experience acquisition
10% increase to Crafting Inspiration & Trait Research rates
Double Furnishings & Collectibles space in player housing
Exclusive ability to dye costumes
Double currency cap for Transmutation Crystals

The Crowns alone cost more than the ESO+ membership which means you can buy a lot of the content in the Crown Store for nothing as an ESO+ member. The Business Model here is to charge a monthly subscription to keep developing the game content and fixing issues but at the same time giving back more in-game value than the subscription actually costs. If you don't believe this is a good business model then I'm not sure that you understand economics all that well or that ZOS still has to make a profit for its shareholders.

The crafting bag issue affects you. it doesn't affect any of the people that I play with across 5 guilds. This isn't an issue with their business model more an inconvenience to you as you like to purchase the DLC outright - which you are perfectly entitled to do. The fact that a large number of people don't want to do that and want the benefits of ESO+ including the crafting bag is not a valid argument against the ESO business model.

The base ESO game is free to play. They gave Morrowind away for free for purchasers of Summerset, which whilst it may have annoyed some was a pretty good example of offering benefits to new players and increase the player base and ZOS's revenue.

Guild Wars 2 is releasing an expansion once every two-three years, the content released in the meantime is free and substantial. Chapters are released by ZOS on a similar timeframe and additional DLC is then free to ESO+ subscribers

Updates flesh out existing areas and mechanics, I would say again that this is the same in ESO if not done better - look at some of the content in the pipeline for Summerset.

The base game is entirely free So is ESO

I get the feeling your real gripe is with ESO+ rather than anything else. If that's the case then that's fine but it has nothing to do with the ESO business model globally just how it affects you and others that play the game the way you do.

I would also ask why you are playing ESO if you have so many issues with the game and it's creators. This business model has been around for a while so the hundreds of dollars you say you have spent must have been for a reason and I suspect that reason is ESO gives a much better player experience than GW2

I would also look at the financial statements of both companies. I haven't looked at the numbers that relate to GW2 but I have read the financials from ZOS and whilst they have a healthy balance sheet and are able to keep their shareholders sweet, if you look at the amount they spend every year you will see that their business model is working just fine.

I'm not picking a fight here but I think your view is way too narrow and your arguments, whilst well structured and well written fall a good way short of making the point you originally set out to make.

Rain_Greyraven

It's really amazing to me, that some people have so little to do with their lives they can make presentations just to bang on a game....I wonder if they are actually deluded enough to think this will make a developer change a business model that will be successful with or without them?

Or is it just more entries in the book of grudges which in the end mean jack and Ship.

But whatever.....to me personally

GW2 is boring, the Voicing acting is cringy, the MMO manifesto was and continues to be the biggest and most laughable fail/lie in the history (Yes worse than Dikatanna) of game development and though I am not happy with the Social Justice message of summerset that is a drop in the bucket to the continual beat down you get with the shillelagh of Virtue signaling +10 from GW2 "Living Story"

I have actually heard people say while playing GW2 "Am I playing a game or going through an indoctrination session?" Even Mike O'Brian admitted it was heavy handed at times during Gamescom.....though after that statement they ramped it up even more.

GW2 world also really can't decide what it wants to be other than to strut around proclaiming. "Look how artsy I am" It's kinda like the Drama major you knew in College and avoided every time you saw them jazz dancing down the hall.

I think honestly GW2 left the best parts of their design philosophy which that actually had in GW1.

I'll stick with ESO, I have many criticisms with the engine, the pandering, and some of the design choices, but I certainly wouldn't choose anything like GW2 over ESO.

But hey that's just me.

KingMagaw

Sigtric wrote: »

Lol in what world is GW2 any meaningful competition? To anyone? Have you seen their revenue figures?

Have you seen Zenimax's revenue figures for Elder Scrolls online to compare?.


Please link.

frausty

KingMagaw wrote: »

Sigtric wrote: »

Lol in what world is GW2 any meaningful competition? To anyone? Have you seen their revenue figures?

Have you seen Zenimax's revenue figures for Elder Scrolls online to compare?.


Please link.

They are a private limited company so that information is not freely available to the public. Zenimax Europe overall revenue figures for the last public report are available but Zenimax as a whole is a private company in multiple countries.

You could send a request to the press desk for the figures

griffkhalifa

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

It's really amazing to me, that some people have so little to do with their lives they can make presentations just to bang on a game....I wonder if they are actually deluded enough to think this will make a developer change a business model that will be successful with or without them?

Or is it just more entries in the book of grudges which in the end mean jack and Ship.

But whatever.....to me personally

GW2 is boring, the Voicing acting is cringy, the MMO manifesto was and continues to be the biggest and most laughable fail/lie in the history (Yes worse than Dikatanna) of game development and though I am not happy with the Social Justice message of summerset that is a drop in the bucket to the continual beat down you get with the shillelagh of Virtue signaling +10 from GW2 "Living Story"

I have actually heard people say while playing GW2 "Am I playing a game or going through an indoctrination session?" Even Mike O'Brian admitted it was heavy handed at times during Gamescom.....though after that statement they ramped it up even more.

GW2 world also really can't decide what it wants to be other than to strut around proclaiming. "Look how artsy I am" It's kinda like the Drama major you knew in College and avoided every time you saw them jazz dancing down the hall.

I think honestly GW2 left the best parts of their design philosophy which that actually had in GW1.

I'll stick with ESO, I have many criticisms with the engine, the pandering, and some of the design choices, but I certainly wouldn't choose anything like GW2 over ESO.

But hey that's just me.

Not to mention all he really said was that GW2 is cheaper to play than ESO while ignoring all the drawbacks that entails.

Davor

WarMasterCyp wrote: »

GW2 has redshell implemented on it though, they get their money by selling your data.

Who doesn't have my data and sells it? It seems everyone sells my data and I am the only one not making money from it. So what is your point? ESO had redshell. They did say it might come back, so your point is?

AlexanderDeLarge

griffkhalifa wrote: »

Basically all you said in this thread is that you want to pay less to play ESO. You say GW2 (which I've never played) has a better business model...except you don't define what having a better business model is. Is it just that it's cheaper for the consumer? That isn't a better business model because the game will die out due to lack of funds to support it. Based on the graph that another user presented, that's exactly what is going to happen. So I think all you really did was point out that ESO actually has a better business model. If it's not worth it to you to pay what ESO charges, don't play.

I did define how it's better. I cited every single example. Also telling someone who has spent thousands of hours, hundreds of hours and 4 years of Elder Scrolls Online (one of them before the game went buy2play where the model was completely different) is idiotic.

There's legitimate criticisms to be made and it should be criticized. Especially by people who actually play the game.

idk wrote: »

There is a reason OP is here in ESO and not in GW2. That alone speaks huge volumes.

Second. GW2 is really of limited competition. Not near as much as OP seems to make it out to be.

Third, it would be horid idea for Zos to do things the GW2 way. ESO was never intended to be a GW2 clone for starters and players that like the GW2 model are there. Those that do not are pretty much here. Those that cannot move out of how MMORPGs used to be played are still in WoW and FF.

Based on some timely graphs someone provided on the first page of this thread it seems doubly good Zos is not doing things like GW2.

I think most people here would say that they play Elder Scrolls Online DESPITE the terrible business model and the technical issues. I play both games on rotation. The only reason I'm even playing Elder Scrolls Online is because I had the crowns to afford the storage chests to make the game tolerable as a crafter. If I didn't buy them on sale, these crowns would have been $80. That would have been $80 on top of my $100 Morrowind Collector's Edition and my $90 Summerset Collector's Edition plus the dungeon packs and Clockwork City.

If I didn't already have the crowns saved up, I would have quit entirely. Also as someone already pointed out, the cash shops are practically identical except Guild Wars 2 does pretty much everything better and even the games themselves are pretty similar.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, those graphs were entirely without the context that those numbers were taken during the Heart of Thorns era where the game launched in a poor technical state and a lot of people left because it was obscenely difficult. It also left out the fact that NCSoft's Korean grindfest games exploited whales for everything they're worth while Guild Wars 2 has a much fairer model. Pretending as if Guild Wars 2 is some failure is disingenuous as hell. There's debate on whether Elder Scrolls Online or Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO but they're extremely close.

Don't act like Elder Scrolls Online wouldn't be able to survive without nickel and diming people with the crafting bag and the shoddy implementation of their loot boxes.

MerlinPendragon

Unless you have access to the books and records of ZOS, you don't have much weight criticizing their business model.

Your criticism compares only one other game, and while some points are valid, I don't see how much of it related to the business model of ESO, as the title of your post suggested.

DanteYoda

Danikat wrote: »

I play both and I like both, but I definitely feel like - for me - GW2 is better value for money. As long as I log in once every 2-3 months I get all the 'DLC' for free and just have to buy expansions every couple of years (assuming I want them, I'm not the type to blindly buy an expansion just because it's for a game I like, I want to know what's in it first) and cosmetic items if I want them.

Whereas in ESO I'm buying expansions annually (again, assuming I want them) and cosmetics and DLC. Although the fact that most of the DLC is just dungeons has made that a lot cheaper for me. I don't mind dungeons but I don't play them often enough that it's worth buying more, so I'm down to just buying 1 DLC a year. But that's not really a great system for me or ZOS because it means I get less content and they get less money from me.

Arobain wrote: »

As usual, my actual experience gets ignored because people have a vendetta

That might be because you didn't provide much detail, so it's difficult for anyone to comment on your experience.

Arobain wrote: »

With 6 max level characters ready for raids in gw2 and 8 CP 690 characters here, I have to say that gw2 has go cut a *** load of corners to make the model work, you don't see the shortcuts made unless you played the game a LONG time like I did and observant, trust me gw2 isn't as goody 2 shoes as everyone thinks. ESO is hella more buggy but zeni doesn't cut corners

I'm in a similar situation - played GW2 since it came out and ESO since it went buy-to-play and I have max level characters in both - but I have no idea what you mean here. What corners are they cutting and what is the impact on players?

Lake wrote: »

Money-loving ZOS would never copy the business model of a "poorly" monetized game like GW2.

This time last year, Guild Wars 2 hit all-time sales lows after endless quarter-to-quarter drops and was even below NCSoft's ancient Lineage I, Lineage II and Blade & Soul.



This year, Q1 2018, thanks to an expansion and monetization tricks like mount loot boxes, GW2 managed to bump up to 3rd place within NCSoft.



If GW2's revenue doesn't stay up, you can bet their consumer-friendly monetization will go out the window - especially considering how simple marketing additions like extra loot boxes helped boost revenue.

Bear in mind though, saying a game isn't doing as well as Lineage is like saying it's not doing as well as World of Warcraft. In spite of not being well known in Western countries (I don't think it was ever even released in Europe) Lineage is one of the most successful Asian MMOs.

Also maybe I'm being naive but I've always gotten the impression that GW2's developers were never trying to make as much money as possible, just enough to keep making the game they want to make. (I hope that's the case, otherwise the companies founders must be kicking themselves for quitting Blizzard during the development of WoW.)

Arreyanne wrote: »

wasn't the first expansion for GW2 when you bought it you also had to pay for a copy of the original game? Whether you owned the original game or not IIRC that first expansion was like 59.99?

Just asking nvr bought it and probably nvr will

According to GW2's developers $59.99 was the price for the expansion and the base game was included for free (which is why they released a free to play version at the same time). Kind of like how Morrowind was included with Summerset pre-orders - you weren't paying for Morrowind as well as Summerset and the price didn't go down when they stopped including it - it was a freebie.

But the way the original announcement was worded did make a lot of people think they were being charged for the base game - including me. I kept re-reading the announcement, the online store and the forum trying to work out how to buy just the expansion until they clarified that it'd cost the same either way. I didn't mind paying that once I understood but it was very badly worded and confusing and I didn't want to pay for something I didn't need if there was another option.

DanteYoda wrote: »

dungeons were literally removed,

I know it's a very minor point, but misuse of the word literally is one of my pet hates so I'm going to comment on it. Dungeons were not literally removed - they're all still in the game, fully playable, and they've added more mini dungeons (Fractals) and started making raids.

What they did was cap the gold you could earn from dungeons each day and offer new ways to get precursor weapons (which previously were mainly obtained by buying exotics with dungeon tokens to throw into the Mystic Forge) which also dropped the price on precursors.

Apparently a lot of the hardcore dungeon crowd who loved doing "difficult" group content (if you can call GW2 dungeons difficult) actually didn't care about that at all. What they loved was an easy way to grind gold so as soon as it was no longer the most profitable option they dropped it like a hot rock and went to grind other things instead, mainly open-world events.

shaielzafine wrote: »

Costume dyes are free to apply, but you end up buying the dyes from the gem store and it's a gamble what you get for the little packs.

You know GW2 dyes are tradable right? If you want a specific dye, or just don't like to gamble, you can buy them from the Trading Post. Some of them are expensive, but there's usually cheaper options which are very similar, and IMO any price for a direct sale is better than gambling.

Dungeons were removed from Arenanets design, they stopped making them.. Fractals are a grindy abomination and are nothing like dungeons..

Yes grind fits Guildwars 2 very well..

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

It's really amazing to me, that some people have so little to do with their lives they can make presentations just to bang on a game....I wonder if they are actually deluded enough to think this will make a developer change a business model that will be successful with or without them?

Or is it just more entries in the book of grudges which in the end mean jack and Ship.

But whatever.....to me personally

GW2 is boring, the Voicing acting is cringy, the MMO manifesto was and continues to be the biggest and most laughable fail/lie in the history (Yes worse than Dikatanna) of game development and though I am not happy with the Social Justice message of summerset that is a drop in the bucket to the continual beat down you get with the shillelagh of Virtue signaling +10 from GW2 "Living Story"

I have actually heard people say while playing GW2 "Am I playing a game or going through an indoctrination session?" Even Mike O'Brian admitted it was heavy handed at times during Gamescom.....though after that statement they ramped it up even more.

GW2 world also really can't decide what it wants to be other than to strut around proclaiming. "Look how artsy I am" It's kinda like the Drama major you knew in College and avoided every time you saw them jazz dancing down the hall.

I think honestly GW2 left the best parts of their design philosophy which that actually had in GW1.

I'll stick with ESO, I have many criticisms with the engine, the pandering, and some of the design choices, but I certainly wouldn't choose anything like GW2 over ESO.

But hey that's just me.

You can't really bag out the voice acting.. Both games use exactly the same people.. Marvel Heroes Online also used the same people..

andreasv

I think you're all dumb for playing either ESO or GW2. You fools should all be preparing your characters for Battle for Azeroth!

Nuff said!

Wolfpaw

The only reason I'm playing ESO over GW2 is due to giving up on PC Gaming. Building, maintaining, cost, and comfort I moved to console.

My fovorite parts of GW2,
-No downtime for updates/patches
-No additional levels, and gear jumps.
-Stability
-WvWvW

ESO champion point system is horrible, divides the base drastically.

griffkhalifa

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

griffkhalifa wrote: »

Basically all you said in this thread is that you want to pay less to play ESO. You say GW2 (which I've never played) has a better business model...except you don't define what having a better business model is. Is it just that it's cheaper for the consumer? That isn't a better business model because the game will die out due to lack of funds to support it. Based on the graph that another user presented, that's exactly what is going to happen. So I think all you really did was point out that ESO actually has a better business model. If it's not worth it to you to pay what ESO charges, don't play.

I did define how it's better. I cited every single example. Also telling someone who has spent thousands of hours, hundreds of hours and 4 years of Elder Scrolls Online (one of them before the game went buy2play where the model was completely different) is idiotic.

There's legitimate criticisms to be made and it should be criticized. Especially by people who actually play the game.

idk wrote: »

There is a reason OP is here in ESO and not in GW2. That alone speaks huge volumes.

Second. GW2 is really of limited competition. Not near as much as OP seems to make it out to be.

Third, it would be horid idea for Zos to do things the GW2 way. ESO was never intended to be a GW2 clone for starters and players that like the GW2 model are there. Those that do not are pretty much here. Those that cannot move out of how MMORPGs used to be played are still in WoW and FF.

Based on some timely graphs someone provided on the first page of this thread it seems doubly good Zos is not doing things like GW2.

I think most people here would say that they play Elder Scrolls Online DESPITE the terrible business model and the technical issues. I play both games on rotation. The only reason I'm even playing Elder Scrolls Online is because I had the crowns to afford the storage chests to make the game tolerable as a crafter. If I didn't buy them on sale, these crowns would have been $80. That would have been $80 on top of my $100 Morrowind Collector's Edition and my $90 Summerset Collector's Edition plus the dungeon packs and Clockwork City.

If I didn't already have the crowns saved up, I would have quit entirely. Also as someone already pointed out, the cash shops are practically identical except Guild Wars 2 does pretty much everything better and even the games themselves are pretty similar.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, those graphs were entirely without the context that those numbers were taken during the Heart of Thorns era where the game launched in a poor technical state and a lot of people left because it was obscenely difficult. It also left out the fact that NCSoft's Korean grindfest games exploited whales for everything they're worth while Guild Wars 2 has a much fairer model. Pretending as if Guild Wars 2 is some failure is disingenuous as hell. There's debate on whether Elder Scrolls Online or Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO but they're extremely close.

Don't act like Elder Scrolls Online wouldn't be able to survive without nickel and diming people with the crafting bag and the shoddy implementation of their loot boxes.

No you did not say how it's inherently better. Again, all you said was that it's cheaper. And as evidenced by that graph, the game is making less money which means it's going to die out sooner rather than later. How is that a better business model? You sound childish and seem like you just want a cheaper game. You are not objectively identifying the differences in the business models and the pluses and minuses behind each business model.

You still haven't defined what having a "better business model" means. In general terms it means making more money...which ZOS is clearly doing. So AGAIN, all you really said was that ESO actually has a better business model.

You have an extremely naive worldview, apparently. I don't think anyone is claiming ZOS "wouldn't be able to survive" without charging for the crafting bag. But it's more profitable for them to do so because people are clearly willing to pay for it. BETTER BUSINESS MODEL.

Rain_Greyraven

DanteYoda wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

I play both and I like both, but I definitely feel like - for me - GW2 is better value for money. As long as I log in once every 2-3 months I get all the 'DLC' for free and just have to buy expansions every couple of years (assuming I want them, I'm not the type to blindly buy an expansion just because it's for a game I like, I want to know what's in it first) and cosmetic items if I want them.

Whereas in ESO I'm buying expansions annually (again, assuming I want them) and cosmetics and DLC. Although the fact that most of the DLC is just dungeons has made that a lot cheaper for me. I don't mind dungeons but I don't play them often enough that it's worth buying more, so I'm down to just buying 1 DLC a year. But that's not really a great system for me or ZOS because it means I get less content and they get less money from me.

Arobain wrote: »

As usual, my actual experience gets ignored because people have a vendetta

That might be because you didn't provide much detail, so it's difficult for anyone to comment on your experience.

Arobain wrote: »

With 6 max level characters ready for raids in gw2 and 8 CP 690 characters here, I have to say that gw2 has go cut a *** load of corners to make the model work, you don't see the shortcuts made unless you played the game a LONG time like I did and observant, trust me gw2 isn't as goody 2 shoes as everyone thinks. ESO is hella more buggy but zeni doesn't cut corners

I'm in a similar situation - played GW2 since it came out and ESO since it went buy-to-play and I have max level characters in both - but I have no idea what you mean here. What corners are they cutting and what is the impact on players?

Lake wrote: »

Money-loving ZOS would never copy the business model of a "poorly" monetized game like GW2.

This time last year, Guild Wars 2 hit all-time sales lows after endless quarter-to-quarter drops and was even below NCSoft's ancient Lineage I, Lineage II and Blade & Soul.



This year, Q1 2018, thanks to an expansion and monetization tricks like mount loot boxes, GW2 managed to bump up to 3rd place within NCSoft.



If GW2's revenue doesn't stay up, you can bet their consumer-friendly monetization will go out the window - especially considering how simple marketing additions like extra loot boxes helped boost revenue.

Bear in mind though, saying a game isn't doing as well as Lineage is like saying it's not doing as well as World of Warcraft. In spite of not being well known in Western countries (I don't think it was ever even released in Europe) Lineage is one of the most successful Asian MMOs.

Also maybe I'm being naive but I've always gotten the impression that GW2's developers were never trying to make as much money as possible, just enough to keep making the game they want to make. (I hope that's the case, otherwise the companies founders must be kicking themselves for quitting Blizzard during the development of WoW.)

Arreyanne wrote: »

wasn't the first expansion for GW2 when you bought it you also had to pay for a copy of the original game? Whether you owned the original game or not IIRC that first expansion was like 59.99?

Just asking nvr bought it and probably nvr will

According to GW2's developers $59.99 was the price for the expansion and the base game was included for free (which is why they released a free to play version at the same time). Kind of like how Morrowind was included with Summerset pre-orders - you weren't paying for Morrowind as well as Summerset and the price didn't go down when they stopped including it - it was a freebie.

But the way the original announcement was worded did make a lot of people think they were being charged for the base game - including me. I kept re-reading the announcement, the online store and the forum trying to work out how to buy just the expansion until they clarified that it'd cost the same either way. I didn't mind paying that once I understood but it was very badly worded and confusing and I didn't want to pay for something I didn't need if there was another option.

DanteYoda wrote: »

dungeons were literally removed,

I know it's a very minor point, but misuse of the word literally is one of my pet hates so I'm going to comment on it. Dungeons were not literally removed - they're all still in the game, fully playable, and they've added more mini dungeons (Fractals) and started making raids.

What they did was cap the gold you could earn from dungeons each day and offer new ways to get precursor weapons (which previously were mainly obtained by buying exotics with dungeon tokens to throw into the Mystic Forge) which also dropped the price on precursors.

Apparently a lot of the hardcore dungeon crowd who loved doing "difficult" group content (if you can call GW2 dungeons difficult) actually didn't care about that at all. What they loved was an easy way to grind gold so as soon as it was no longer the most profitable option they dropped it like a hot rock and went to grind other things instead, mainly open-world events.

shaielzafine wrote: »

Costume dyes are free to apply, but you end up buying the dyes from the gem store and it's a gamble what you get for the little packs.

You know GW2 dyes are tradable right? If you want a specific dye, or just don't like to gamble, you can buy them from the Trading Post. Some of them are expensive, but there's usually cheaper options which are very similar, and IMO any price for a direct sale is better than gambling.

Dungeons were removed from Arenanets design, they stopped making them.. Fractals are a grindy abomination and are nothing like dungeons..

Yes grind fits Guildwars 2 very well..

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

It's really amazing to me, that some people have so little to do with their lives they can make presentations just to bang on a game....I wonder if they are actually deluded enough to think this will make a developer change a business model that will be successful with or without them?

Or is it just more entries in the book of grudges which in the end mean jack and Ship.

But whatever.....to me personally

GW2 is boring, the Voicing acting is cringy, the MMO manifesto was and continues to be the biggest and most laughable fail/lie in the history (Yes worse than Dikatanna) of game development and though I am not happy with the Social Justice message of summerset that is a drop in the bucket to the continual beat down you get with the shillelagh of Virtue signaling +10 from GW2 "Living Story"

I have actually heard people say while playing GW2 "Am I playing a game or going through an indoctrination session?" Even Mike O'Brian admitted it was heavy handed at times during Gamescom.....though after that statement they ramped it up even more.

GW2 world also really can't decide what it wants to be other than to strut around proclaiming. "Look how artsy I am" It's kinda like the Drama major you knew in College and avoided every time you saw them jazz dancing down the hall.

I think honestly GW2 left the best parts of their design philosophy which that actually had in GW1.

I'll stick with ESO, I have many criticisms with the engine, the pandering, and some of the design choices, but I certainly wouldn't choose anything like GW2 over ESO.

But hey that's just me.

You can't really bag out the voice acting.. Both games use exactly the same people.. Marvel Heroes Online also used the same people..

Okay then it had to be the terrible writing I mean honestly......Listen to the Norn opening dialogue compared to Cold Harbor or the Stros Makai quest.....it's laughable.

andreasv wrote: »

I think you're all dumb for playing either ESO or GW2. You fools should all be preparing your characters for Battle for Azeroth!

Nuff said!

Azeroth and Blizzard are jokes......Any company that forces me to raid to experience any of the major story does not deserve my support, any company that caves to mindless agenda based virtue signaling doesn't not deserve my support. Blizzard is also an extremely toxic company despite the front they display...if you have any doubts of that Google Chris Metzens interview on why he "retired" from Blizzard.

[Deleted User]

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