Why do we get less and less content every year for the same price?

Commancho

I'm seriously thinking about purcharsing Skyrim's chapter and renewing my ESO+. Yearly cost of subscription is 120 euro. Skyrim costs 40€. That's 160€/year. Then we still have alot of content being locked behind crownstore wall - housing, skins, mounts, skill-lines and skyshards. Is it still triple A game or some russian F2P garbage?

First of all that's just a stupid marketing trick to name Skyrim a chapter, because it's a DLC to which we have to purcharse DLCs. So we purcharse DLCs to DLC! Morrowind and Summerset costed 40€ and they had a full, huge map on the release day. All this nonsense has started with Elsweyr - a chapter which has the smallest area to explore, shortest storyline (it took me 10h play time to finish both N&S Elsweyr) and smallest ammount of extra features such as furnishing plans, motifs ETC.

I think this year I will stop to renew my ESO+. Maybe I will purcharse Skyrim on a sale for 12€ a couple of months later.
Why should I spend minimum 160€ a year to play this game (and still have no acess to full content), when I can have a several triple A games for this price...

For example - Red Dead Redemption 2 (47€), Metro Exodus (50€), Assassin's Creed Oddysey (23€), Battlefield 5 (19,99€), Resident Evil 2 (19,99€) = 160€.
Price of the small, cookie cutter DLC-chapter being same high as few months old RDR2 - see what I have done here?

Nemesis7884

i do really hope once the performance fixes and balancing is "done" they will tripple their effort on new content

FierceSam

I like ESO.

Sure there are loads of elements that are flat out f****d, the Crown Store landgrab is offensive and many areas would benefit from some genuinely creative intervention, but it’s my game and I like it.

€4 a week to play a game I like sounds like a price worth paying.

Commancho

FierceSam wrote: »

I like ESO.

Sure there are loads of elements that are flat out f****d, the Crown Store landgrab is offensive and many areas would benefit from some genuinely creative intervention, but it’s my game and I like it.

€4 a week to play a game I like sounds like a price worth paying.

That's a price of ESO+ standalone.
Full game = 60€
Yearly ESO+ sub = 120€
Yearly chapter purcharse = 40€
Crownstore = ???

It means that you have to spend 220 euro during first year to have access to most of the content. Then 160€ for every next year (assuming that you skip large piece of content in the crownstore). Thats 380€ during your first two years of playing a game. That's 50€ every 3 months for 6 years old game - that's a price of brand new AAA game - and still without access to full content in ESO because you need to purcharse crowns for that since first year crowns go on account upgrades... ;-)

My point is that at some point, for players like me, who have finished almost all content during past few years, it's not worth it anymore to continue donating a game. There should be at least some loyality program IMO.

Also price of cookie cutters Elweyr and Skyrim shouldn't be higher than 19,99€ on the release. These are NOT full chapters.

Faulgor

The first reason is, because less people are working on this game than before. Most of ZOS' staff is already working on their next MMO, I imagine.
The second is, that this year a lot of the devs are occupied with performance fixes, even seemingly unrelated teams like the combat team are trying to make ability calculations more efficient and less taxing on the servers, which means they don't have the time to develop new skill lines or classes.

Commancho wrote: »

First of all that's just a stupid marketing trick to name Skyrim a chapter, because it's a DLC to which we have to purcharse DLCs. So we purcharse DLCs to DLC! Morrowind and Summerset costed 40€ and they had a full, huge map on the release day. All this nonsense has started with Elsweyr - a chapter which has the smallest area to explore, shortest storyline (it took me 10h play time to finish both N&S Elsweyr) and smallest ammount of extra features such as furnishing plans, motifs ETC.?

1. I have no idea what you mean when you say Skyrim is "a DLC to which we have to purchase DLCs". Are you talking about the year-long story arc? There has been an ongoing story between Dark Brotherhood, Morrowind, CWC and Summerset as well, and you can play each individually just fine.
2. Summerset was actually cheaper, just 30€.
3. Elsweyr's playable area was no smaller than Morrowind or Summerset, it just had less impassable mountains.
4. Number of available motifs has indeed shrunk since Morrowind. At least one each is locked in the collector's edition (Divine Prosecution, Dragonbone, Sword Thane). The staggered release of motifs also pisses me off. Why can't Stags of Z'en release with Scalebreaker, or Senchal Guard and New Moon Cult with Dragonhold?

daemonios

Because people keep paying and rewarding this business model. Which is valid, but you appear to be on the losing side of the discussion. As am I. This is why I've cancelled my sub and keep waiting for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen to deliver on its promise of no microtransactions.

Mancombe_Nosehair

If you don't want to pay for a chapter, wait a year and pay someone with gold to have it gifted, like I do, or get it with plus or crowns.

Or wait until it goes on sale, and get it for around £10, usually around Christmas, like I did with Summerset.

rpa

If you feel something is not worth the money asked, don't purchase it. Works for me. If the performance really gets fixed they may get my money. If not, then there are plenty no nonsense games I've not played yet.

(Just got me Witcher 3 from GOG sale.)

Commancho

luton0watford4 wrote: »

If you don't want to pay for a chapter, wait a year and pay someone with gold to have it gifted, like I do, or get it with plus or crowns.

Or wait until it goes on sale, and get it for around £10, usually around Christmas, like I did with Summerset.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. It's just sad that there is no loyality program. I have been subscribing and purcharsing chapters since Morrowind. I also wish they would put efforts into developing this game which are adequate to their pricing, but I guess they are working on new MMO and they don't care. No problem, my money will go elsewhere.

Alienoutlaw

inflation

SpankinDamob

So I play everyday at a minimum of 4 hour. Honestly it’s more than that probably. It sounds like a nice average though. So if I pay 220 bucks that averages out to less then 15 cents a hour.

As far as the subscription price. In 1999 the monthly sub for Everquest was 13$. By 2004 when I started WoW it was 15$. Which is what I pay now. Personally I’m pretty happy inflation hasn’t affected sub prices in 21 to years much.

Honestly though if you feel that your not getting your money’s worth maybe look for something else that makes you happy. Never know what you might find.

Commancho

SpankinDamob wrote: »

So I play everyday at a minimum of 4 hour. Honestly it’s more than that probably. It sounds like a nice average though. So if I pay 220 bucks that averages out to less then 15 cents a hour.

This makes no sense. If you buy car X then you can't say "X has a good price because I have made Y distance with it so it's Z€/km". One guy is doing 100,000km yearly and other one in the same car 12,000km. The point is what you get for the price of your car and how it compares to another cars. Same is with video games. They are just a product. Or a service. Or both.

Tandor

Commancho wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

So I play everyday at a minimum of 4 hour. Honestly it’s more than that probably. It sounds like a nice average though. So if I pay 220 bucks that averages out to less then 15 cents a hour.

This makes no sense. If you buy car X then you can't say "X has a good price because I have made Y distance with it so it's Z€/km". One guy is doing 100,000km yearly and other one in the same car 12,000km. The point is what you get for the price of your car and how it compares to another cars. Same is with video games. They are just a product. Or a service. Or both.

Would you keep driving a car that was costing you a fortune in fuel and repairs etc compared to the benefit you were getting from it? I guess not, yet there seem to be a lot of players who are more than happy to fork out more money than they think a game is worth in order to keep playing what they consider to be an unplayable mess by a company that they think doesn't care. Eventually they post that they're canceling their subscription but usually with no indication that they're stopping playing. It's never made a lot of sense to me. If the game's worth playing, then play it, and if you're spending a lot of time playing it then it's worth paying for. Most of these forum complaints come across as just an excuse to play a game for nothing.

Darkstorne

Commancho wrote: »

Morrowind and Summerset costed 40€ and they had a full, huge map on the release day. All this nonsense has started with Elsweyr - a chapter which has the smallest area to explore

Nope, you're confusing map size and scale. The in-game playable area in Elsweyr was roughly the same size as Summerset's, but unlike Summerset wasn't filled with impassable mountains, so if anything was larger in terms of game size. Add Q4's Pellitine to the total size of Elsweyr, and it's significantly larger than Summerset. And there's still a huge chunk of central Elsweyr yet to be added. Summerset will always remain a tiny island where you can run from the western shores of Alinor to the eastern shores of Shimmerene in 60 seconds because of ZOS' decision to create the entire island in a single Chapter. Another downside to that decision to create the entire island in the space of a single year is that every city in Summerset shares identical architecture. They didn't have the time to do each city justice. Imagine if Q4's Murkmire had instead been Alinor and its surrounding landscape, giving that city unique architecture and making the island of Summerset as a whole significantly larger.

So yes, it sounds small when you hear that Skyrim is only covering Solitude, Morthal, and Blackreach, but the playable area will be roughly the same as the previous chapters again. And now we won't have a Summerset situation where Skyrim is ridiculously small, all the cities share the same architecture, and you can travel from one city to the next in 30-60 seconds. Markarth and the Reach are coming in Q4, and no doubt Whiterun and Winterhold will feature in a future chapter

I do agree with you about lack of features in Skyrim though. No new class or crafting or weapon/guild skill line is a shame. Hopefully Antiquities and Mythic gear is more impressive than it currently sounds

RefLiberty

Nothing to lament too much from my side, I really dislike crown store and especially Casino Crates, from one single reason, it is a heavy block to have more content actually in-game.
In perfect world there should be much more stuff to unlock through actual gameplay, like wow has I dunno, around 250-300 mounts and 90% are unlockable through various achievements and activities.
Meh, no use, it will not change, it can get only worse.

Darkstorne

RefLiberty wrote: »

Nothing to lament too much from my side, I really dislike crown store and especially Casino Crates, from one single reason, it is a heavy block to have more content actually in-game.
In perfect world there should be much more stuff to unlock through actual gameplay, like wow has I dunno, around 250-300 mounts and 90% are unlockable through various achievements and activities.
Meh, no use, it will not change, it can get only worse.

I feel like it's getting better in that regard. Q1 and Q3 DLC have been offering cosmetic rewards for both entering dungeons for the first time and completing some of the hardest challenges. And Elsweyr added a unique mount and awesome title for completing all of its trial's achievements:

They've already confirmed Skyrim's chapter will be doing more of the same

EDIT: Forgot to mention the Antiquities system seems designed specifically for this purpose

drkfrontiers

Welcome to the Age of DLC!

Starlock

drkfrontiers wrote: »

Welcome to the Age of DLC!

No, welcome to the Age of Predatory Monetization. What this game does is well beyond what the Age of DLC threw at people.

Here we have a game that uses a F2P business model, but still charges for the base game and content updates. Oh, and it also has a subscription. Because greed.

ArchMikem

Commancho wrote: »

SpankinDamob wrote: »

So I play everyday at a minimum of 4 hour. Honestly it’s more than that probably. It sounds like a nice average though. So if I pay 220 bucks that averages out to less then 15 cents a hour.

This makes no sense. If you buy car X then you can't say "X has a good price because I have made Y distance with it so it's Z€/km". One guy is doing 100,000km yearly and other one in the same car 12,000km. The point is what you get for the price of your car and how it compares to another cars. Same is with video games. They are just a product. Or a service. Or both.

You're comparing a physical object to digital software.

bearbelly

How can you realistically gauge geographical area, at this point, when we haven't even seen a map yet?

The surface map will include at least a portion of Western Skyrim, including the island on which Icereach is located, then we will have Blackreach underground.
And, again, we don't know yet how big each of those areas will actually be in comparison to what currently exists.

Not to mention, they've only discussed in any detail just the first half of the year. Other than a couple of vague hints, we don't have a clue, yet, what Q3 and Q4 is going to bring.

But people just gotta complain about it, anyway, though, huh?

Gythral

Simple
Inflation

(shareholder cost raises all the time)

FierceSam

Commancho wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

I like ESO.

Sure there are loads of elements that are flat out f****d, the Crown Store landgrab is offensive and many areas would benefit from some genuinely creative intervention, but it’s my game and I like it.

€4 a week to play a game I like sounds like a price worth paying.

That's a price of ESO+ standalone.
Full game = 60€
Yearly ESO+ sub = 120€
Yearly chapter purcharse = 40€
Crownstore = ???

It means that you have to spend 220 euro during first year to have access to most of the content. Then 160€ for every next year (assuming that you skip large piece of content in the crownstore). Thats 380€ during your first two years of playing a game. That's 50€ every 3 months for 6 years old game - that's a price of brand new AAA game - and still without access to full content in ESO because you need to purcharse crowns for that since first year crowns go on account upgrades... ;-)

My point is that at some point, for players like me, who have finished almost all content during past few years, it's not worth it anymore to continue donating a game. There should be at least some loyality program IMO.

Also price of cookie cutters Elweyr and Skyrim shouldn't be higher than 19,99€ on the release. These are NOT full chapters.

Sorry... my mistake. Thanks for the correction.

€50 a quarter is less than €4 a week

I can’t buy a single round of drinks for 2 for that.

But you know what? It’s your money, so you decide what you want to spend it on.

AhPook_Is_Here

I don't get it, most of the content if you are interested in it, you can experience all of it in 1 month, why sub for 12, why not just sub for the 1 month that you play the chapter then wait for the next year? that cuts 110 off your estimate.

Unseelie

Everyone with have a clue knew there would be no new classes as it matches up to previous release pattern. We just got Necro so there would be none this time. People build up things in their heads with no supporting evidence but still lash out when it does not happen .
They also addressed the map size concerns multiple times during the streams.
There is a roadmap for the year with fixes and updates but there is no miracle button.
I love how there are multiple in this thread who say they are not going to play and cancel yet still post and still log in to play and will still be logging in next month .

The game definitely needs work on the engine but the reality is that there are many that do not see the issues that others have in their day to day play. I average about 88-90fps dipping into the 40s in only extreme situations.
I do not pvp and am not in the EU so I am sure that factors in.

I have also seen other games mentioned, and good luck and God speed to you. Every game has issues and every game has forums full of people cursing the existence of the very game that they play and those who make it. And for the record any game that tries to enter the mmo market without a crown store type things is DOA. There is a reason every mmo out there worth mentioning has one.

Ratzkifal

Well, they said the overland size of Western Skyrim is smaller than Elsweyr but they also said that 40% of the content is going to be underground, making it larger in total than Elsweyr and presumably Summerset and Morrowind too.

In terms of features Morrowind came with a class and a pvp mode,
Summerset only with a new craft and skill line,
and Elsweyr with just a class and "dragons" which is a feature that's actually not a feature at all. In terms of new content it's the smallest chapter release.

Skyrim comes with two new minigames and attached skill lines and the non-feature of underground content, just like dragons. So it does offer more than Elsweyr, especially if we count the vampire rework as new content.

Does it justify the price and not being included in ESO+ though? Probably not, no. But just remember that you can always unsub until you saved the money for it. Personally I think if they continue to go with these year-long stories, they should start giving us a seasonpass already that includes the entire year's content at a reasonable discount.

Nemesis7884

Darkstorne wrote: »

Commancho wrote: »

Morrowind and Summerset costed 40€ and they had a full, huge map on the release day. All this nonsense has started with Elsweyr - a chapter which has the smallest area to explore

Nope, you're confusing map size and scale. The in-game playable area in Elsweyr was roughly the same size as Summerset's, but unlike Summerset wasn't filled with impassable mountains, so if anything was larger in terms of game size. Add Q4's Pellitine to the total size of Elsweyr, and it's significantly larger than Summerset. And there's still a huge chunk of central Elsweyr yet to be added. Summerset will always remain a tiny island where you can run from the western shores of Alinor to the eastern shores of Shimmerene in 60 seconds because of ZOS' decision to create the entire island in a single Chapter. Another downside to that decision to create the entire island in the space of a single year is that every city in Summerset shares identical architecture. They didn't have the time to do each city justice. Imagine if Q4's Murkmire had instead been Alinor and its surrounding landscape, giving that city unique architecture and making the island of Summerset as a whole significantly larger.

So yes, it sounds small when you hear that Skyrim is only covering Solitude, Morthal, and Blackreach, but the playable area will be roughly the same as the previous chapters again. And now we won't have a Summerset situation where Skyrim is ridiculously small, all the cities share the same architecture, and you can travel from one city to the next in 30-60 seconds. Markarth and the Reach are coming in Q4, and no doubt Whiterun and Winterhold will feature in a future chapter

I do agree with you about lack of features in Skyrim though. No new class or crafting or weapon/guild skill line is a shame. Hopefully Antiquities and Mythic gear is more impressive than it currently sounds

markarth is likely for q4...really looking forward to it..most interesting city in skyrim.... hopefully some winterhold and whiterun too but i doubt it

Mettaricana

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

i do really hope once the performance fixes and balancing is "done" they will tripple their effort on new content

They probably will and along with it triple the new and old bugs... i honestly don't think the devs could place a mug on a table in a bar ingame without creating a game breaking exploit...

Eric_Prince

My only concern is payment. I just dropped WoW after about 6 or 7 years of playing. I honestly don't know how much other countries pay for subscription there, but russians pay ~9$.

And for that we have locations triple (or more) size of Summerset. Many battlegrounds of different size and with many different modes. I'm honestly remembered every damn corner in ESO BGs. But modes - well, I like them a lot. Just want a bit more, you know. We have big bank and inventory space. And we don't need to pay absolutely nothing more, just really small monthly subscription.
And WoW is still one of the best MMO in the world, while Blizzard isn't trying to suck every dollar from our pockets.
I like ESO much more in terms of content, lore, factions and graphics, that's why I dropped WoW. But man, I wish this wouldn't cost me that much money to have a comfortable game...

jircris11

Eric_Prince wrote: »

My only concern is payment. I just dropped WoW after about 6 or 7 years of playing. I honestly don't know how much other countries pay for subscription there, but russians pay ~9$.

And for that we have locations triple (or more) size of Summerset. Many battlegrounds of different size and with many different modes. I'm honestly remembered every damn corner in ESO BGs. But modes - well, I like them a lot. Just want a bit more, you know. We have big bank and inventory space. And we don't need to pay absolutely nothing more, just really small monthly subscription.
And WoW is still one of the best MMO in the world, while Blizzard isn't trying to suck every dollar from our pockets.
I like ESO much more in terms of content, lore, factions and graphics, that's why I dropped WoW. But man, I wish this wouldn't cost me that much money to have a comfortable game...

Average wow expectations in us us 40-80 usd. Plus mandatory sub, and it was not untill a while ago that you originally had to buy all the expansions that totaled up to around 350 to just start playing as a new player. So yes blizzard did and still does suck players dry. Eso+ is purely oprional. Also eso+ is 15usd a month for us in the USA.

Eric_Prince

jircris11 wrote: »

Eric_Prince wrote: »

My only concern is payment. I just dropped WoW after about 6 or 7 years of playing. I honestly don't know how much other countries pay for subscription there, but russians pay ~9$.

And for that we have locations triple (or more) size of Summerset. Many battlegrounds of different size and with many different modes. I'm honestly remembered every damn corner in ESO BGs. But modes - well, I like them a lot. Just want a bit more, you know. We have big bank and inventory space. And we don't need to pay absolutely nothing more, just really small monthly subscription.
And WoW is still one of the best MMO in the world, while Blizzard isn't trying to suck every dollar from our pockets.
I like ESO much more in terms of content, lore, factions and graphics, that's why I dropped WoW. But man, I wish this wouldn't cost me that much money to have a comfortable game...

Average wow expectations in us us 40-80 usd. Plus mandatory sub, and it was not untill a while ago that you originally had to buy all the expansions that totaled up to around 350 to just start playing as a new player. So yes blizzard did and still does suck players dry. Eso+ is purely oprional. Also eso+ is 15usd a month for us in the USA.

jircris11 wrote: »

Eric_Prince wrote: »

My only concern is payment. I just dropped WoW after about 6 or 7 years of playing. I honestly don't know how much other countries pay for subscription there, but russians pay ~9$.

And for that we have locations triple (or more) size of Summerset. Many battlegrounds of different size and with many different modes. I'm honestly remembered every damn corner in ESO BGs. But modes - well, I like them a lot. Just want a bit more, you know. We have big bank and inventory space. And we don't need to pay absolutely nothing more, just really small monthly subscription.
And WoW is still one of the best MMO in the world, while Blizzard isn't trying to suck every dollar from our pockets.
I like ESO much more in terms of content, lore, factions and graphics, that's why I dropped WoW. But man, I wish this wouldn't cost me that much money to have a comfortable game...

Average wow expectations in us us 40-80 usd. Plus mandatory sub, and it was not untill a while ago that you originally had to buy all the expansions that totaled up to around 350 to just start playing as a new player. So yes blizzard did and still does suck players dry. Eso+ is purely oprional. Also eso+ is 15usd a month for us in the USA.

Oh, I totally forgot to say about expansions! Yeah, they're quite expensive, but still. Zones of triple size, almost the same money. Well, that's for us of course

Unseelie

Eric_Prince wrote: »

My only concern is payment. I just dropped WoW after about 6 or 7 years of playing. I honestly don't know how much other countries pay for subscription there, but russians pay ~9$.

And for that we have locations triple (or more) size of Summerset. Many battlegrounds of different size and with many different modes. I'm honestly remembered every damn corner in ESO BGs. But modes - well, I like them a lot. Just want a bit more, you know. We have big bank and inventory space. And we don't need to pay absolutely nothing more, just really small monthly subscription.
And WoW is still one of the best MMO in the world, while Blizzard isn't trying to suck every dollar from our pockets.
I like ESO much more in terms of content, lore, factions and graphics, that's why I dropped WoW. But man, I wish this wouldn't cost me that much money to have a comfortable game...

While I am glad that you liked your time with WoW, your experience is not shared by everyone.
On the forums there is continual bashing about bugs and content. Yes the lands are huge but most are totally not used and once a new patch hits they are totally left to rot. As for monthly ESO costs me exactly the same as a wow sub except i get more for that sub in crowns , xp, craft bag and more.
Yes there are multiple battle ground options but few are used and populated. Bag space is something ranted and hated for years and the total bag space is much smaller than what you get in ESO and I do not even have to mention the crafting bag vs the reg bank in wow. Plus you pay gold to unlock more bank space in wow, and then stick a bag in that spot and you pay more gold to unlock the reg bank. Yes it is not alot of gold but the value of gold in each game is relative.
Plus I know a huge chunk of wow players would do anything to be able to share their bank with their alts, it is something constantly requested on the boards but they have stated that it is not possible.
Their last expansion was viewed as a major low point and the new 8.3 has been panned by most on youtube and the forums.
The worlds and lands in wow feel totally dead where as with ESO every town feels alive and the world feels alive.