January 2025 Roadmap

Laddey · January 6

RomanRex wrote: »

]I don’t want to invest either knowing there’s a big, ambiguous change coming in a few months. It’s better to pause and wait.

This.

Aldoss · January 6

Elvenheart wrote: »

I can’t think of any other industry where a company says more information about what’s coming up is going to be revealed on [date] and [date] and some people take the attitude “That’s not good enough! We want answers NOW!” The sense of entitlement just boggles my mind. I too I’m looking forward to those answers, but I do not feel I have the right to demand them before ZOS is ready to give them.

You're hearing criticism/feedback and taking it as entitlement. That's not what's happening.

My wife and I have contributed thousands to this company up until U35. We would really love to support it again, but ZOS haven't done anything to prove to us that they are a company worth our wallet.

The people asking for more details are doing so because ZOS have a proven track record of withholding information and then flat out dumping it on us in PTS week 1, only to have much of their ideas be logically flawed or completely absent from the reality of the game experience. It's then a crunch to try and get all the holes in the hull plugged before a sinking ship gets published.

U44 is a perfect example of this. They could have communicated that they were focusing on BGs months earlier and actually engaged the community to determine how to best manage the new system and how to have something functional delivered on patch day. They didn't do that, and so now my wife and I sit in 10-15min BG queues, waiting for a match to pop, and even when it does, there's a less than 50% chance that the game will even start because of 1 player who afk'd or was in combat during the 60 sec ready check.

These are really simple logical errors that could have been caught well before PTS week 1. They could have helped the BG guilds orchestrate more PTS events to actually test the new BGs and give ZOS more data on the match making system. Once again, they chose to not do that and so here we are.

I'm not demanding anything from ZOS. I'm explaining to them what I'd need to start opening my wallet again. I am a ready consumer. They can choose whether or not our wallet is important to them.

Elvenheart · January 6

Laddey wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

]I don’t want to invest either knowing there’s a big, ambiguous change coming in a few months. It’s better to pause and wait.

This.

Then that’s a decision anyone who feels this way has to make for themselves. Me, I’ve chosen to keep subscribing and wait for the reveal on Jan. 9th and the one in April. If I like what I hear, I’m going to keep subscribing, but if I don’t like the direction they are taking the game I may cancel. What I’m not doing is expecting ZOS to give me the info earlier than what they’ve stated just because I don’t want to wait. It’s that attitude that is boggling my mind right now.

Aldoss · January 6

Elvenheart wrote: »

Laddey wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

]I don’t want to invest either knowing there’s a big, ambiguous change coming in a few months. It’s better to pause and wait.

This.

Then that’s a decision anyone who feels this way has to make for themselves. Me, I’ve chosen to keep subscribing and wait for the reveal on Jan. 9th and the one in April. If I like what I hear, I’m going to keep subscribing, but if I don’t like the direction they are taking the game I may cancel. What I’m not doing is expecting ZOS to give me the info earlier than what they’ve stated just because I don’t want to wait. It’s that attitude that is boggling my mind right now.

Again, you're conflating people asking for engagement with people demanding something like an entitled child. They are not the same.

Here's what I think would have saved U44...

Date: July 10th, 2024
OP: @ZOS_Kevin

Subject: Feedback Needed: PvP sneak peak for U44

Hi everyone,

While we're not ready yet to deliver full details on what we're working on for the much hyped PvP system slated to arrive in Q4 at the end of the year, we would like to ask some questions to help guide us along and to ensure that our dev time best corresponds with the way you, our players, actually play the game.

We are now ready to reveal that this update is surrounding Battlegrounds! The team has been hard at work redesigning the battleground maps to bring forth an entirely new way for battlegrounds to be played: team versus team!

With this in mind, we'd love to know the following:

- Are you excited about the possibility of having 2-team battles, as opposed to 3-team?
- What are your thoughts on solo vs group queue?
- What are your thoughts on team sizes? 2v2? 4v4? 8v8?
- What are your thoughts on the queuing? Does our current queue system work for you? How could we improve it?

Etc. Hopefully you get the point by now.

You know what's awesome about this? They don't even need to care! Seriously. They don't. They could continue to ignore the forums, but the illusion of choice and agency is sometimes indistinguishable from actual choice and agency. ZOS could forever hide behind the facade by saying, "we looked into your feedback, and this is what we found to the best path forward." Their current strategy of silence, silence, silence, silence, then DRAMA, SHOCK, AND AWE on PTS day 1 doesn't afford them this, so they always lose.

Obviously that's not what I want as a consumer, but the fact that ZOS doesn't already do this is what boggles my mind more than me sharing feedback boggling yours.

At the best, they could have learned some valuable info prior to devoting resources to it. At the worst, it's business as usual.

alpha_synuclein · January 7

Elvenheart wrote: »

Laddey wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

]I don’t want to invest either knowing there’s a big, ambiguous change coming in a few months. It’s better to pause and wait.

This.

Then that’s a decision anyone who feels this way has to make for themselves. Me, I’ve chosen to keep subscribing and wait for the reveal on Jan. 9th and the one in April. If I like what I hear, I’m going to keep subscribing, but if I don’t like the direction they are taking the game I may cancel. What I’m not doing is expecting ZOS to give me the info earlier than what they’ve stated just because I don’t want to wait. It’s that attitude that is boggling my mind right now.

And what's boggling my mind is to why a company who's income depends (at least partially) on long-term engagement continues to fail in communicating long term perspective. And what is even more boggling, is that this approach is being normalized by customers.

ESO is doing the "we hint something, but nothing solid, and keep silent until it drops" thing since I started playing. I never liked it, but it wasn't as baffling when the questions we were asking were more like what zone we see next, rather than what kind of content will be released at all. It's not like anyone is asking about specifics.

Techwolf_Lupindo · January 7

"Re-log to Nvidia App."

What about SteamDeck users?

ZOS_Kevin · January 7

Ingenon wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for posting this January 2025 Monthly Roadmap!

I am curious about what time the January 9 Livestream starts. I would like to rearrange schedule and watch it. Will it start at 1 PM EST like the December Livestream did?

Twitch Drops Fest - OK, I logged into twitch.tv and cleaned up my streamers list. Multiple streamers I had watched play ESO in the past who are not streaming ESO now, so I unfollowed them. And I see on https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/streamers that several new streamers have been added. The roadmap picture shows drops of a mount and either a costume or style.

And a Pan-Tamriel Celebration that overlaps a new Golden Pursuit? Whoa! Maybe next time put them one after the other, instead of both overlapping?

Just following up here. The livestream is scheduled for 2pm ET. Here is the article.

Ingenon · January 7

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for posting this January 2025 Monthly Roadmap!

I am curious about what time the January 9 Livestream starts. I would like to rearrange schedule and watch it. Will it start at 1 PM EST like the December Livestream did?

Twitch Drops Fest - OK, I logged into twitch.tv and cleaned up my streamers list. Multiple streamers I had watched play ESO in the past who are not streaming ESO now, so I unfollowed them. And I see on https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/streamers that several new streamers have been added. The roadmap picture shows drops of a mount and either a costume or style.

And a Pan-Tamriel Celebration that overlaps a new Golden Pursuit? Whoa! Maybe next time put them one after the other, instead of both overlapping?

Just following up here. The livestream is scheduled for 2pm ET. Here is the article.

Thanks!

Ingenon · 3:41PM

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for posting this January 2025 Monthly Roadmap!

I am curious about what time the January 9 Livestream starts. I would like to rearrange schedule and watch it. Will it start at 1 PM EST like the December Livestream did?

Twitch Drops Fest - OK, I logged into twitch.tv and cleaned up my streamers list. Multiple streamers I had watched play ESO in the past who are not streaming ESO now, so I unfollowed them. And I see on https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/streamers that several new streamers have been added. The roadmap picture shows drops of a mount and either a costume or style.

And a Pan-Tamriel Celebration that overlaps a new Golden Pursuit? Whoa! Maybe next time put them one after the other, instead of both overlapping?

Just following up here. The livestream is scheduled for 2pm ET. Here is the article.

@ZOS_Kevin

I just got an email from The Elder Scrolls Online <no-reply@email.bethesda.net> (partial copy below).

The email says the start time is 1 PM EDT. The article says the start time is 2 PM EST. The United States and Canada are not on daily savings time on Thursday January 9th. So having the email state a time in EDT (daylight savings time) does not make sense to me when the clocks are set to EST (standard time) during the winter months. Please ask the folks responsible for the email to consider fixing this for next time.

JAN 9—SAVE THE DATE

Join us Thursday, January 9 for a preview of the all-new content coming to ESO with Update 45! Community Team members Jess Folsom and Gina Bruno will be joined by Lead Encounter Designer Mike Finnigan and Lead Combat Designer Brian Wheeler as the group showcases the upcoming base-game patch as well as the first dungeon pack to arrive in 2025.

Be sure to tune in to Twitch.tv/Bethesda this Thursday at 1PM EDT, and don’t forget to link your ESO and Twitch accounts to earn drops. We hope to see you there!

fizl101 · 3:57PM

Its similar for UK times, the article says 7pm GMT, facebook ESO account says 7PM BST which is summer time. I'm assuming GMT is correct, but for people outside of the US and UK, having a mix of unfamiliar acronyms is going to make it tricky for them to convert to their local time accurately

ZOS_Kevin · 4:30PM

Ingenon wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for posting this January 2025 Monthly Roadmap!

I am curious about what time the January 9 Livestream starts. I would like to rearrange schedule and watch it. Will it start at 1 PM EST like the December Livestream did?

Twitch Drops Fest - OK, I logged into twitch.tv and cleaned up my streamers list. Multiple streamers I had watched play ESO in the past who are not streaming ESO now, so I unfollowed them. And I see on https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/streamers that several new streamers have been added. The roadmap picture shows drops of a mount and either a costume or style.

And a Pan-Tamriel Celebration that overlaps a new Golden Pursuit? Whoa! Maybe next time put them one after the other, instead of both overlapping?

Just following up here. The livestream is scheduled for 2pm ET. Here is the article.

@ZOS_Kevin

I just got an email from The Elder Scrolls Online <no-reply@email.bethesda.net> (partial copy below).

The email says the start time is 1 PM EDT. The article says the start time is 2 PM EST. The United States and Canada are not on daily savings time on Thursday January 9th. So having the email state a time in EDT (daylight savings time) does not make sense to me when the clocks are set to EST (standard time) during the winter months. Please ask the folks responsible for the email to consider fixing this for next time.

JAN 9—SAVE THE DATE

Join us Thursday, January 9 for a preview of the all-new content coming to ESO with Update 45! Community Team members Jess Folsom and Gina Bruno will be joined by Lead Encounter Designer Mike Finnigan and Lead Combat Designer Brian Wheeler as the group showcases the upcoming base-game patch as well as the first dungeon pack to arrive in 2025.

Be sure to tune in to Twitch.tv/Bethesda this Thursday at 1PM EDT, and don’t forget to link your ESO and Twitch accounts to earn drops. We hope to see you there!

The time was incorrect on that communication. The livestream is 2pm EST. Sorry about the confusion there. We have chatted with the team in charge of that communication to clear up process going forward.