Why should content creators stick to ESO?

MaxJrFTW

I don't get the stubbornness of MMO developers. They keep focusing on PvE, meanwhile PvPers always pull far higher numbers on twitch and youtube. PvE has its place, but it should not be the main focus.

Their funeral though. Eventually a better MMO will come along and hopefully will give people what they want. Until then, ESO is the best we got.

Turelus

Zacuel wrote: »

I don't get the whole streaming thing.

I must be old school because I'd rather play the game over watching someone play the game.

I really don't get it. Not even trying to be sarcastic.

What am I missing about this?

For me I watched ESO content when I can't play ESO (work, travel, etc.) or I have a stream open and listen whilst playing ESO.

ChunkyCat

That’s a video of someone complaining about a video game.

I watch that video and all I think is this mofo needs to get a life.

Casterial

ChunkyCat wrote: »

That’s a video of someone complaining about a video game.

I watch that video and all I think is this mofo needs to get a life.

Hes passionate and cares for the game, but he is heavily misinformed on development cost

MrGraves

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

I don't get the stubbornness of MMO developers. They keep focusing on PvE, meanwhile PvPers always pull far higher numbers on twitch and youtube. PvE has its place, but it should not be the main focus.

Their funeral though. Eventually a better MMO will come along and hopefully will give people what they want. Until then, ESO is the best we got.

Streamers/YTers ofc have their place in the community but that's not what the game is about. Regardless of the demand for PvP I don't think that's really what ESO is about either. It's an MMORPG and it's for an existing, popular franchise for people who like TES. Not to say it's only for pre-existing TES fans and not new ones but elder scrolls games are hardly about twitch/yt or pvp.

MaxJrFTW

karekiz wrote: »

amir412 wrote: »

No1 wants to watch a streamer doing the same PVE content over and over again,

I dunno ask WoW streamers

What's your point? Other than Towelliee, most of the top WoW streamers are PvPers. Cdew is a pvper, Ziqo, Venruki, Pikaboo, Bajheera, Swifty, all pvpers. Method only gets a lot of views when a new raid released, and that's because their whole raid team is posted on the front page of twitch that whole week.

Sodapoppin, Lirik, Reckful, Mitchjones, were all WoW PvPers who branched out. Asmongold is doing the same and can hardly be called a WoW streamer anymore. What's more, he rose to popularity doing rated battlegrounds in MoP.

That's not even counting the european streamers because honestly i don't know any of them.

starkerealm

LiquidPony wrote: »

Universe wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

No, really? It's almost like I addressed that exact point in my comment.

Show me some data that says that the ESO playerbase is declining.

I'll wait.

The issue with Steam isn't that it doesn't represent the overall size of the community. It's also not representitive of overall population trending (in the specific case of ESO.) Many content creators, particularly on Twitch, actively discourage use of Steam and suggest buying direct from ZOS, because of issues with the Steam login authentication servers.

So, unfortunately, the time when we could point to Steam and say, "see, the population is growing by X% with a margin of error)" is no more.

MaxJrFTW

ChunkyCat wrote: »

That’s a video of someone complaining about a video game.

I watch that video and all I think is this mofo needs to get a life.

He's passionate about his hobby, a lot of people are. What's so hard to understand?

idk

Turelus wrote: »

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

When Steam shows an increase in players that use Steam it might be reflective of the entire picture but we cannot be certain.

It is possibly an indication but knowing the difference between Steam users and the general PC gaming population (and consoles) would help us understand better how worthy those numbers are.

Sorry, spent to much time studying math including statistics, sampling and real surveys that I am a stickler on these little issues.

Though the logic contained in what you quoted is not the reasoning. If Steam users were reflective of the larger population in question then it would be a reliable indicator. I am just saying we do not know.

Turelus

idk wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

When Steam shows an increase in players that use Steam it might be reflective of the entire picture but we cannot be certain.

It is possibly an indication but knowing the difference between Steam users and the general PC gaming population (and consoles) would help us understand better how worthy those numbers are.

Sorry, spent to much time studying math including statistics, sampling and real surveys that I am a stickler on these little issues.

Though the logic contained in what you quoted is not the reasoning. If Steam users were reflective of the larger population in question then it would be a reliable indicator. I am just saying we do not know.

Fully agree, and I made a point to state we/I don't know as we don't. Just for me logic would state if every other market area is seeing increases in players stand alone clients for PC would be as well.

ZOS needs to do what other MMO games have done and either share quarterly/yearly data (with graphs) or show number of online players in the log-in screen. We all know they won't know because sadly they hold dear to keeping everything secret to market it the way they want (grrrr marketing).

MikaHR

Blizzard stopped showing numbers when they went sharply south.

Very very few (if any) MMOs share the numbers because pretty much all are in decline.

Turelus

MikaHR wrote: »

Blizzard stopped showing numbers when they went sharply south.

Very very few (if any) MMOs share the numbers because pretty much all are in decline.

EVE Online has shown them always, and continue to be open about data and users.

However that's probably because they were a smaller independent company and didn't have a crazy corporate culture like most AAA publishers tend to have.

MikaHR

Thats one....out of how many? And numbers arent very good for EvE too.

Zacuel

Okay.... I think I got it. Thanks for the explanations.

I guess it's just not for me.

I look up guides all the time. I just tend to avoid videos because I just want the info without having to listen to everything else.

Turelus

MikaHR wrote: »

Thats one....out of how many? And numbers arent very good for EvE too.

As in EVE Online? It's never had a massive population in MMO terms but they develop to their size which is why I feel the game does so well.

Trying to be the next WoW is a good way to make yourself fail, better to work towards making a good game and letting the population grow naturally.

idk

Turelus wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

When Steam shows an increase in players that use Steam it might be reflective of the entire picture but we cannot be certain.

It is possibly an indication but knowing the difference between Steam users and the general PC gaming population (and consoles) would help us understand better how worthy those numbers are.

Sorry, spent to much time studying math including statistics, sampling and real surveys that I am a stickler on these little issues.

Though the logic contained in what you quoted is not the reasoning. If Steam users were reflective of the larger population in question then it would be a reliable indicator. I am just saying we do not know.

Fully agree, and I made a point to state we/I don't know as we don't. Just for me logic would state if every other market area is seeing increases in players stand alone clients for PC would be as well.

ZOS needs to do what other MMO games have done and either share quarterly/yearly data (with graphs) or show number of online players in the log-in screen. We all know they won't know because sadly they hold dear to keeping everything secret to market it the way they want (grrrr marketing).

I agree that the information would be nice. The issue for Zos publicizing the info one way or another is what the trend actually shows. We know the Cyrodiil and raiding community has been getting smaller.

However, Zos has always chosen to be quiet about the number of actual players in the game. Have they ever published a real number of anything other than total accounts started or copies sold?

Mathius_Mordred

Well, returning player here, I've spent the last two years developing systems for Star Trek Online on the community side, running 9 fleets (guilds), creating websites and various other work with that game. In the light of their recent decisions I, and a few others have decided to bring our group, or some of them, to ESO. For some it's the first time, for me, it's catching up as I was here from closed beta.

What I see now is a huge amount more content in the last three years, whereas I'd nearly done all the achievements I am now at a third of the total. The dungeon finder actually works now, although the wait time can vary from seconds to 20 minutes so far, that's probably because I play very late in the EU evenings. The game has never seemed so alive to me, very busy in most places and lots of chat going on. It occurred to me that with a much larger set of maps now than when I used to play, it's surprising that the population doesn't seem more thinned out, it still seems as busy everywhere. I see no signs of a decline at all.

Streamers seem to be popular, it is something we started with STO but as that is a much smaller game it's hard to get many followers, however it is a great way for the game to be promoted, I did it to promote our fleet and the game, personally I'd rather not bother as it's a lot more work, but on the other hand it brought us new members which are always good.

We're looking forward to exploring Tamriel as a new guild, as soon as we can think of the name. We want it to have the initials SRS, same as our STO fleets, so we can use the website as a portal to each game's pages.

Good to be back.

jainiadral

Why should they stick to it? Because they want to...? Isn't that the whole point of playing a game? Never mind, grossly naive am I.

starkerealm

MikaHR wrote: »

Blizzard stopped showing numbers when they went sharply south.

Very very few (if any) MMOs share the numbers because pretty much all are in decline.

Not exactly. MMO numbers do tend to spike and drop off sharply after each content drop. That's kinda par for the course. Blizzard stopped publishing WoW's exact numbers after they started seeing a sharp decline. The assumption is that the game hasn't recovered (and that's entirely possible), but saying, "No MMO publishes numbers because all are in decline," is a logical fallacy.

When it comes to ESO, we really don't know the numbers. Could be up, could be down, but it does shield Zenimax from the investors getting nervous if they have low turnout for one content drop.

NeroBad

I feel sorry for main PVPers, beacuse it is obvious that ESO since launch had few new features for AvA and got a lots of performance problems. There were more campaigns with bigger cap in them. Those who bought the game in the hope that it will be an equally improved experience in both PvE and PvP, are understandably disappointed.

BUT the game is far away from dead, it is clear now that the game is a PvE heaven with some PvP content. For 10-20 EUR/USD you can enjoy a little less immersive but multiplayer Elder Scrolls univerese with 300+ hours of content (speed runners who only listens to the first letter of every dialogue please spare me).

And the new zones, yes the new zones. They are beautiful, interesting, and full of interesting and well written quests. They are the reason I stoped to be hyped for Beyond Skyrim and Skywind (I will play them if they come out but nowdays I rarely check the news about them).

True ESO is far from being a popular game to watch, but ZOS occasionally makes elusive twicth drops to ecourage players to view them, also they post about content creators on their social media, and invite the popular and positive content creators to their HQ for discusoin about the game's future.

And my answer to the question, they shouldn't except if they like to make them! Make content about experience you like, make guides if you like to make them, if you are disappointed, bored etc switch to something other!

Miswar

Casterial wrote: »

I watched the video, firstly I love Jack don't get me wrong, but hes entirely wrong.

Yes, the game did launch as a failure, yes it did swap to B2P / Cash shop.

He often complains about PVP, which for the devs its probably about ~5-6% of the total population, maybe less.. So why cater towards those gamers?

Firstly, making money to make sure the product stays alive and able to afford development is important. A long time ago the game industry set a price for game packs / games $30/$60. This is wrong, I work in the game industry, I personally believe games should cost $60+++ for base, and packs can be $15-30, why? Well look at movies, movies have TRIPLED in prices of the last few years, game development cost is no different.

Another thing, Bethesda is publically traded(TakeTwo), Zenimax also does support this game, bug fixes aren't as easy as you all think it is, you fix one thing, create about 20 others sometimes. Its no easy task. ESO PVP has many issues, the server does has issues, the performance isn't there.. But this is mainly all issues with PVP and not the PVE... So what can they do? Well PVP isn't where the money is at in this game, they also admitted in the past that the Cyrodiil creation / plan was poorly executed, its too late as stated by Wrobel a while back, its too late to go back and fix it...

I think Jack forgets one thing, Zenimax is a company, a business first. Like the game isn't bad. I think he forgets that almost every game now days is "how can we make our return on the product"
A mobile game can cost $20million++++ to make, MMO are one of the hardest games to work on, by far hands down the second is MOBA and RTS.

Also, to fix the "ping issue" in Cyrodiil you need to restructure it, it could be down to the base core game engine code or networking code causing this issue, but theres so many particles, so much stuff going on in such a large world thats not phased that is all being loaded into the server, I feel like most forget this game use to be 1k+++ ping daily, sitting at ~300-400 is a large improvement, I'm glad they're making changes to PVP, especially since PVP makes them almost no money.

Yes, the players may spend money in the cash shop, but thats not directly related to PVP, PVE is where the money is.

I personally came back to ESO to just PVE to be honest, I like to waste time, I basically am tired of PVP in almost all games, its all not good.

I say PVP players should be glad that the entire issue in Cyrodiil is slowly being improved, that we still have a combat team that watches PVP, I do wish that our balance team would play the game more than looking at Data because issues like Heavy Armor and the power gap between Stam/Magicka also wouldn't be as bad, but hey what can we do? The game is great, but its DEFINITELY PVE focused, despite having a great combat system, PVP is no majority for the game, and PVP definitely doesn't make any money back now days.


Oh Also game products release often bad because of pressure from the company
-> Don't forget! Give a game time, the company DOES care, its just their investor "the publisher" always needs a return on the product. In this case ESO probably has to make $150,000/day or more to stay operating, or it could lose marketing, it could lose head count.... They have to pay back the publisher, they have to pay off marketing, etc.

There is a lot words wasted on your "testament"... first off you state that you "firstly I love Jack...." than you go to your rant and whatever and conculed that you hate PvP and you came back because of Pve.

You also make a lot of assumptions and general no brainer conclusions that apply to any business but make it sound like you actually do know something.

...you obviously are not even following the video creators channel considering the above since bulk of his content is PvP related.

As for you refering "Cyrodiil SLOWLY been improved" ...and as for game having +1k ping... lol that would actually mean that there is no connection to the servers whatsoever... and that pretty much concludes the third thing you claimed that you work on gaming industry which considering this revelation is obviously what it is...

I really mean no disrespect but maybe go vent your anger againts PvP related issues to other threads since it is blatantly obvious that what you just want to do.

That pretty much sums it up..have a nice 1.

RinaldoGandolphi

ESO has been losing and in decline for quite sometime, folks are just used to it.

I need no more proof than Google Trends to see where ESO sub numbers declined and never recovered



https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2014-05-01 2019-03-14&geo=US&q=/m/0jt2y_q

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4104329

The massive nose bomb on the graph after the release of Imperial City in 2015 on Google Trends is why ZOS had to start charging money for chapters that were previously included in ESO+, because that massive exodus forced their hand. They had to bring in money with what they had left.

As you can see from the chart, ESO has maintained a steady, yet mediocre population and interest on Google. The fact the interest in ESO on Google as a whole has maintained its consistency even 2 years after i orginally posted this I am vindicated, all the people who said i was wrong were the ones who were wrong...Google has invested 100 of billions of dollars in R&D to analyze trends, to get a glimpse of what people are thinking about...were are so lucky that Google lets us look ata small part of that data for free.

If something is popular and great, then it is searched for on Google ALOT, it is always on peoples minds, hence if its always on peoples minds its what they are always doing. Most of the worlds population searches with google, and things related to ESO aren;'t exactly searched a whole lot. there is a reason sites like ESOHead, and ESOStats were abandoned...because the traffic isn't there because the game isn't anywhere near as popular as the forum defenders here like to think it is.

Even when presented with hard data from a reputable source like Google, folks here will still ignore it and tell you that you are wrong...funny how the Google trends has maintained its consistency nearly two years later after i originally posted this. The majority of the comments on ESO Facebook and ads from users are mostly negative, Firor barely got a whisper of an appaluse at E3 last year simply because no one really cares about ESO.

Fact is ESO has 10 mill buys across 3 platforms in 5 years, Fallout 4 sold more than that in 3 days,Skyrim sold more than that on launch in less than a week. ESO has not been the commercial success folks think it is...they are only getting buy with crown store sales and DLC...ESO isn't a failure, but it isn't exactly a resounding success either...its simply a mediocre game...and mediocre games and products often live far longer than they should....look no farther than Windows 8 or Windows Vista, both of which were mediocre and made microsoft a lot of money, but that still doesn't change the fact they were mediocre and not really succesful.

kylewwefan

What are you gonna create content for? Maelstrom arena runs were huge. Now their old. Still visited, but old. I couldn’t imagine making a video of taking a keep. It’s such a laggy ugly frame by frame mess. I don’t even want to be there. Open world potato smashing. Yay. 1VX. Lame. Battlegrounds have potential. But their kind of lame with all the dueling tanks running around. Players kind of killed any interest in watching.

What gets views in ESO? Guides. Walkthroughs. Build videos. 🤢DPS tests.

Did you read the charts you put out? Alcast. 60k subscribers. 1500 views. Fengrush 3000 views.....ya know popular videos get like 200k views....


It’s their passion to put out videos showing how to do something. That I can applaud.

Sypher is trying to go business. He had to leave ESO to do it. Just an outsiders observation.

NeroBad

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

ESO has been losing and in decline for quite sometime, folks are just used to it.

I need no more proof than Google Trends to see where ESO sub numbers declined and never recovered



https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2014-05-01 2019-03-14&geo=US&q=/m/0jt2y_q

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4104329

The massive nose bomb on the graph after the release of Imperial City in 2015 on Google Trends is why ZOS had to start charging money for chapters that were previously included in ESO+, because that massive exodus forced their hand. They had to bring in money with what they had left.

As you can see from the chart, ESO has maintained a steady, yet mediocre population and interest on Google. The fact the interest in ESO on Google as a whole has maintained its consistency even 2 years after i orginally posted this I am vindicated, all the people who said i was wrong were the ones who were wrong...Google has invested 100 of billions of dollars in R&D to analyze trends, to get a glimpse of what people are thinking about...were are so lucky that Google lets us look ata small part of that data for free.

If something is popular and great, then it is searched for on Google ALOT, it is always on peoples minds, hence if its always on peoples minds its what they are always doing. Most of the worlds population searches with google, and things related to ESO aren;'t exactly searched a whole lot. there is a reason sites like ESOHead, and ESOStats were abandoned...because the traffic isn't there because the game isn't anywhere near as popular as the forum defenders here like to think it is.

Even when presented with hard data from a reputable source like Google, folks here will still ignore it and tell you that you are wrong...funny how the Google trends has maintained its consistency nearly two years later after i originally posted this. The majority of the comments on ESO Facebook and ads from users are mostly negative, Firor barely got a whisper of an appaluse at E3 last year simply because no one really cares about ESO.

Fact is ESO has 10 mill buys across 3 platforms in 5 years, Fallout 4 sold more than that in 3 days,Skyrim sold more than that on launch in less than a week. ESO has not been the commercial success folks think it is...they are only getting buy with crown store sales and DLC...ESO isn't a failure, but it isn't exactly a resounding success either...its simply a mediocre game...and mediocre games and products often live far longer than they should....look no farther than Windows 8 or Windows Vista, both of which were mediocre and made microsoft a lot of money, but that still doesn't change the fact they were mediocre and not really succesful.

True compared to those two games the game purchase rate are not that good, but
1, They are huge commercial succeses
2, They are solo games, and ESO as an MMORPG is in a not so popular genre (behind the ever great shadow of WoW)

Microtransaction in MMORPG are very common (I can hardly say a biiger one without it), so typically an MMORPG has bigger costs to maintain but bigger revanue from a typical player (subs,dlcs,etc).

On Steam charts it has a positive trend. On twitter it has a much more positive community (they also post there mosre info). Reddit is also have a more positive note, and on Steam it has a mostly positive review score in recent and longterm.

So yeah there are those who defend it too heavely, but also there are those who present data, but like to show only the negative ones, so they can prove their disappontment in the game is shared amongst the majority even sadly for them its not.

Turelus

Some interesting figures here as well.

https://altarofgaming.com/all-mmos-sorted-by-population-2018/

I don't think ESO is in any danger of dying any time soon, it's not the world record setting success that WoW was but nothing has been since because WoW hit the right niche at the right time.

ESO had year after year gotten more awards, more attention, and personally I feel more players and attention. I think the games doing very well, it just doesn't have the same level of interest as other games which reach more people, MMO games and ESO are still a niche.

Edit:

Here's my comparison of some bigger MMO names as well. ESO is sitting comfortable at #2 it seems, might not be growing at a massive rate but it's also not in a trending fall like someone else on that graph.

JTorus

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

Take a hard look at the company from the top down. If ESO isn't getting the hardware and software development it needs, maybe Altman and Weaver are the problem.

Altman.. Altmer. Heh.

Altman needs the money for other things, like fuel for his wife's jet.
Not that anyone's ever seen the thing.

JTorus

Turelus wrote: »

Some interesting figures here as well.

ESO had year after year gotten more awards, more attention, and personally I feel more players and attention. I think the games doing very well, it just doesn't have the same level of interest as other games which reach more people, MMO games and ESO are still a niche.

Awards are self ingratiating within the gaming industry just as they are in the rest of the entertainment industry.
They are not always the best metric to judge a thing's value.

MikaHR

Turelus wrote: »

Some interesting figures here as well.

https://altarofgaming.com/all-mmos-sorted-by-population-2018/

I don't think ESO is in any danger of dying any time soon, it's not the world record setting success that WoW was but nothing has been since because WoW hit the right niche at the right time.

ESO had year after year gotten more awards, more attention, and personally I feel more players and attention. I think the games doing very well, it just doesn't have the same level of interest as other games which reach more people, MMO games and ESO are still a niche.

Edit:

Here's my comparison of some bigger MMO names as well. ESO is sitting comfortable at #2 it seems, might not be growing at a massive rate but it's also not in a trending fall like someone else on that graph.

Blue line (ESO) is showing clear downtrend (skewed by scale becasue of WoW line...which also someone claimed "is not in decline trend!!!!!!!!!!") ....and its not no2. lost that spot. Its as clear as day.

You can actually look at the chart you yourself posted....or i guess mae you wannabe chart and post delusional "interpretation" of that imaginary chart....like you did.

Guild Wars 2 is what happens when you introduce raids and new tier of gear (which ESO is VERY close to with insane power creep from both CP+gear)

MikaHR

Here is one very interesting chart....and THE one that Zenimax should work on.

Reverb

amir412 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Well, a lot of them seem to be doing okay.

I don't see many of their dedicated content creators struggling to get views or have things to talk about. They have new content to explore/talk about every three months.

I don't think lack of support for content creators is a great argument for why PvP needs love or should be improved.

You do realise that those which are doing "ok", does not have real viewers but gain viewers by iFrames from websites?
.

Cite your source.

And stop using the word “literally” until you understand how to use it correctly. In this context you would have been better using “practically“ or “comparatively“.