Will eso give world of warcraft a run for its money?

Tabbycat

I think ESO will do just fine and WoW will continue doing its thing until Blizzard pulls the plug.

knightblaster

Comparisons such as "giving WoW a run for its money" are inapposite, I think.

WoW is a singular phenomenon, which is the result of a nearly perfect storm of confluent factors in the early years of its existence. It isn't replicable in today's market. Perhaps Blizzard's replacement of it will do so, but imo the market today is just too fragmented for another game to emerge that will have 10m+ subs (as WoW did at its peak), or have the amount of subs WoW still has, today, almost 10 years after launch. WoW is the outlier, not the yardstick.

ESO will be a successful game, along the level of a GW2. It has its crowd it appeals to, and that is how the MMO space works today. The strategy isn't be "become the next WoW" (likely won't be another WoW that maintains that level of subs for 10 years), but to find a good niche, and cater to it in a way that retains a solid playerbase in that niche. CCP has done this with EVE very well, but EVE is no "WoW killer". I think ESO can also do this, with a more niche playerbase consisting of lore/TES fans, on the one hand, and DAOC-ish PvP fans, on the other. Those seem to be the two main niches the game is aimed at, and I think it does a fairly good job there and will retain many players from each niche. I don't think it will appeal very much long-term to the endgame-oriented WoW players who prefer all instance groups all the time type of gameplay, or to the competitive/arena/ladder PvP players, who don't like the DAOC approach to PvP. But those aren't the niches the game is aimed at.

reagen_lionel

It has alot of core functionality thats needed to compete with WoW.

-Chat bubbles

-More guild options and features

-Much better player matching in the world (wheres that damn survey? lol)

-More areas to put in cyrodil/access (there are alot of places and ruins you cannot even enter in cyrodil and recently made leveling in pvp less viable.)

-Widen the API-Addon functionality just a little bit.

-Persisting emotes (walking while doing /torch should not cancel the emote)

-More dynamic objects in the world/quests (there are alot of things scattered around that are interesting that you want to find out about. Such as the skeleton still in armor posed on a cliff in Bleakrock or the skeleton being hung off the cliff on the coast of Daggerfall city. As well as the various items scattered around you cant interact/pick up)

coryevans_3b14_ESO

paralysecub18_ESO wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

Ziz wrote: »

Right now, no. People won't be able to log in on Sunday.

ESO can't even beat Swtor at this point.

SWTOR when it was released still had the beta client, TESO is already past that step.

Have you forgotten how we players had to write our own ini files to be able to actually play that game? SWTOR was not stable and had a horrible code, no HD textures and legacy system, pvp was broken etc.

I had no issues with SW:TOR, playing pre-launch from preorder access, and after launch; the game and client ran smoothly. I got my Smuggler to level 14, then died of boredom on Coruscant. Haven't been back since. But the game, at least for me, ran fine right out of the box, and I did not have issues with bugged quests, crashes, or having to write any files.

ESO is a much buggier launch than SW:TOR was, IMO. On ESO I regularly encounter broken quests, graphics glitches, falling-through-the-world, wall hacking, etc. They are not usually game-breakers but do sort of derail the immersion a bit.

Anyone else remember the insane ability lag swtor had for the first month? and how laggy and bad pvp was? and how many times the servers went down? wow some peoples children.

wrlifeboil

ESO had the smoothest early access and regular access launch for an mmo in the last 7 or 8 years I've been playing mmos. No, the launch wasn't perfect. There is more latency today than on Sunday and Monday. There was that ~10 hour shutdown on Wednesday. But overall, both ESO's soft and hard launches went well given it is a brand new game and not an expansion to an existing mmo. Anyone who is complaining about ESO's launch problems hasn't been playing mmos for very long.

TuterKing

Who gives a rats ass if it's beats WoW or not. All I hope is it will have a healthy community and stays fun to play. Comparing TESO to other MMOs is really stupid and unhealthy. When TES 6 comes out were not all going to be like "will it kill COD/GTA?" Rather we will wonder if it is a good game.

TESO is a different game from WoW and should be treated as such. Instead of comparing it to other games just ask the simple question, is it fun and is it worth playing?

blackwolf7

Imo, once you reach end game here, you'll probably look for another game. More or less this will become ffxiv, big hype on release but then a lot of people gave up halfway because their problems arent getting fixed right away.

The main reason why blizzard games are strong is because of their customer support. You email them about something, they promise you to reply within 72hours but always in less than 24 hours. You file a ticket here, they promise to reply in 48hours, they reply 5days later.


Gamers these days are impatient kids who wants instant service. They demand it in every free mmo and given that this is a paid mmo, they expect a better service.

Gameplay wise, well gameplay wise it is okay but the lack of visual eye candies for characters makes this game look more biring than other mmoz

Absconditus

byghostlightrwb17_ESO wrote: »

well not really, given the impossibly bad launch of WoW, look where its login issues got it, amazing how fast people forget somethings

Now let's be a bit realistic here. How many other options did we really have back in those days. There weren't exactly dime a dozen MMO's on the market like it is today. There weren't non-subscription options with as good, if not better, systems behind them, equally if not larger worlds and more fluid combat, etc.—Today we have so many options for other MMO's to play, and some of these have been designed to not be a subscription-based game from the start, and pulls this off very well.

As for if a game can beat x, y or z as their competitors in the market; Who really cares? Does it even matter? Why is this question always posed by some players?

What matters is that this game, so far, has not managed to convince me that I'd to want to subscribe further. And there is a subscription to this game. I'm enjoying it, but they aren't really offering me anything I can't get, in a more improved form (as I see it), from another non-subscription MMO game, e.g., a game that released in late August, 2012. A game that has been doing bi-weekly content updates for months now (some being better than others granted), without a single maintenance required behind it, and the only lockout comes from downloading and patching the client before you're allowed access right away again. So it's a game that's always there when I wish to play it.. and I don't even need to pay a monthly fee for it? Really? A game that has a massive world, a lot of lore from its first installment and excellent responsive fun combat. A game that offers on a basic level the same kind of features, PvE/large-scale PvP between 3 factions, and small-scale arena/tournament PvP too. And taking into consideration the few times I've needed to contact their Support, I've gotten good, human-feeling responses within 3-5 hours! That's bloody brilliant. I've been compensated without even asking for it. They're also rather excellent at keeping the community up to date on what is coming, they announce things well in advance and communicate with their players frequently. There's so much awesome with the game and the people managing it, and I feel embarrassed about not appreciating it more, before I started playing ESO now as my secondary MMO. I've been spoiled rotten by this other game, and it's made me forget all the horrible "standards" the MMO games tends to have, simply because they're pulling off managing their own game as well as they are. As I've said in my posts before, I am not going to name drop a competitor on an official forum, especially when I'm"praising it". If you've played the game, you know what game I'm talking about. If you haven't, chances are it's not too hard to figure out what game it is anyways.

What ESO has going for it, in my case, is that I am a Elder Scrolls fan. I do enjoy the Elder Scrolls games, and I do feel like I'm getting, in some ways, the Elder Scrolls feeling, out of my time spent leveling in ESO. I am enjoying it, don't get me wrong. But that isn't necessarily enough for me to want to subscribe beyond having played it for 30 odd days. I don't even see why a game should require subscriptions in the first place. Not when there's as excellent pay-once options as there are, available on the market. I want to love ESO enough to subscribe, I do, I just don't feel that strongly about it. At least not yet. I need them to convince me as to why I should go back to a subscription-based MMO. And they need to make me feel like this isn't just going to be yet another one that will fall short and that will be going Free to Play down the line, making a hot mess of itself, as it was never designed for this purpose (—you know, the typical thing that happens to mostly all MMO releases over the recent years, that's aimed themselves at the subscription model).

Jeddahwe

After the initial thrill has faded quality of life will take front line...Things like auction house, group finder, a clear and easy way to figure out min/max.

The idea of min/max is not important at start simply pick one of the 4 classes that appeal the most to you is fine launch time, but realize that players amount of fun is influenced by progression which is based on perceived min/max (set a goal and go for it) if I can't set a gol because I can't figure out min/max then 'fun' diminishes and motivation to play goes way down.

annarr1117nub18_ESO

Zenimax must make TESO the GREATEST MMORPG since GW2!!!

Altheina

I believe World of Warcraft has established itself a permanent foothold in mmo industry as such that it's near impossible to be toppled by even another fantastic newer mmos. It has become a religion to millions of its players that don't really care about its dated graphic.

Many of the players may shift away temporarily and try other new games but eventually they will come back for they have established themselves and dedicated their time so much in wow that it's very hard for them to move on...

Audigy

paralysecub18_ESO wrote: »

Audigy wrote: »

Ziz wrote: »

Right now, no. People won't be able to log in on Sunday.

ESO can't even beat Swtor at this point.

SWTOR when it was released still had the beta client, TESO is already past that step.

Have you forgotten how we players had to write our own ini files to be able to actually play that game? SWTOR was not stable and had a horrible code, no HD textures and legacy system, pvp was broken etc.

I had no issues with SW:TOR, playing pre-launch from preorder access, and after launch; the game and client ran smoothly. I got my Smuggler to level 14, then died of boredom on Coruscant. Haven't been back since. But the game, at least for me, ran fine right out of the box, and I did not have issues with bugged quests, crashes, or having to write any files.

ESO is a much buggier launch than SW:TOR was, IMO. On ESO I regularly encounter broken quests, graphics glitches, falling-through-the-world, wall hacking, etc. They are not usually game-breakers but do sort of derail the immersion a bit.

Oh?

That shows again how different games can be for people. I was rewriting the whole settings.ini to actually have a tiny bit of "graphical entertainment" in my game, a lot of modders shared theirs due all the issues other players were facing.
EA took away every type of customization from SWTOR as it was bugged for many systems, like the view distance slider, HD texture settings and more. Grass popped up, NPC´s or players did - it was horrible.

TESO however runs totally smooth, steady FPS, wonderful view distance if you put it on 100, no pop ups or lags - I love it

I hope for you that they fix the issue´s you are facing, as TESO is great if it runs smooth

Shimond

Not unless the elder scrolls are a big thing in China for some reason. Really this kind of "x MMO needs to beat WOW" mentality needs to die a fiery death.

wrlifeboil

Shimond wrote: »

Not unless the elder scrolls are a big thing in China for some reason. Really this kind of "x MMO needs to beat WOW" mentality needs to die a fiery death.

Never poke a complacent giant in the eye.

Sarenia

Shimond wrote: »

Not unless the elder scrolls are a big thing in China for some reason. Really this kind of "x MMO needs to beat WOW" mentality needs to die a fiery death.

WoW's release timing, accessibility (re: runs on awful hardware), and relatively bug-free nature drew mass amounts of people in early in the history of MMO's. So it stuck with people.

Now, a lot of those people don't have much perspective on the industry beyond that game, so they draw on the only knowledge they have -- thus the existence of the phrase "wow killer" and all the threads online asking "will this kill wow?".

It's really not a good game by any measure, it's just mediocre at a lot of things and has a cult following, in the same way that many cheesy 80's bands and movies have cult followings, simply because they stuck in peoples' brains at a critical juncture in their lives.

That game will probably continue to have a large following for many years, until it gets shut down, but that does not speak to quality. It just speaks to the cult following, of which quality has no bearing on. Any company seeking to one-up WoW is aiming their sights extremely low from an artistic standpoint (and game design is indeed high art).

Dunhilda

Just enjoy ESO while it lasts, only logical thing to do.

nerevarine1138

blackwolf7 wrote: »

*snip*
The main reason why blizzard games are strong is because of their customer support. You email them about something, they promise you to reply within 72hours but always in less than 24 hours. You file a ticket here, they promise to reply in 48hours, they reply 5days later.

*snip*

Go to the WoW forums right now, and I guarantee you that there are threads in CS complaining about the replies taking too long.

Sarenia

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

blackwolf7 wrote: »

*snip*
The main reason why blizzard games are strong is because of their customer support. You email them about something, they promise you to reply within 72hours but always in less than 24 hours. You file a ticket here, they promise to reply in 48hours, they reply 5days later.

*snip*

Go to the WoW forums right now, and I guarantee you that there are threads in CS complaining about the replies taking too long.

Indeed.

My own experience with Blizzard support is atrocious as well. I don't play World of Warcraft, but one of their other games.

It's easy for people to confuse quality with familiarity, and something familiar is not necessarily something good.

SpieleNerd

What really gets me Mad, this endless Discussion about Subscription, jesus christ.. what is the problem if you dont like this system then play some f2p MMO
but stop moaning about how you want f2p in ESO
if ESO gets f2p,(with allthis pay2win BS) i am out!


wow has never beign f2p, still the same people who are comlaining about ESO not beign enough wow like, are talking about f2p on the other hand...

make up your mind, as i always say "you cannot buy a Shooter and then go to the forums and complain that there are no Racing cars in it", in MMO`s this ALWAYS happens and in the end this whole community moaning and gamedesign bending of the soul and heart of the game, destroys it in the end.
while the moaning crowd moves then to the next MMO (boooring, game .. i jumped all quest dialogs it was sooo boring, hit lvl 50 after 36 Hours THERE IS NOENDGAME!!!!11 where are the flying mounts ? and pandas ? OMG!

if you dont like things about this game go... play another one, there are plenty



english is not my native language, nevertheless i hope i could make my point understandable.

Vikova

WoW is giving itself a run for its money, but not in the typical positive way. No single game will kill WoW, it will slowly die a necrotic death on its own.

Saerydoth

I didn't quit WOW for ESO specifically...I quit about 4 months ago. But I had been playing WOW for almost 8 years, and it was just getting stale and boring. Everything is been there, done that. Most of the changes Blizzard is making seem to be of the "increase the amount of time it takes to do everything so people complain less about lack of content" and adding pointless grinding where there used to be none. Also, I REALLY don't like the direction the game has headed, especially for my class (resto shaman). The devs have made some really bad decisions, and rather than admit it they just got really egotistical and stubborn and made the problem worse (basically, shaman healing consists of using 2 spells on cooldown and that's it).

All the exploration has been removed from WOW, it is a rush to max level, and then once you get there you either raid or PVP, or you sit around bored. All content that isn't current max-level content is basically obsolete. There is a LOT of content in WOW, but most of it pointless (since with every updates Blizzard renders everything except what is the most current obsolete). ESO with its focus on exploration is an extremely refreshing change in this regard.

I really hope that Zenimax doesn't go this direction. I would like to see ALL content in ESO remain relevant when there are updates/new content. Not just "cap is now level 60, all level 50 content is now useless and obsolete". PLEASE don't go this direction with expansions. This is what ruined WOW over time, and I don't want this to happen with ESO.

KingRebz

Davidm wrote: »

Will elder scrolls online give world of warcraft a run for its money?

WoW has nearly everything to offer that ESO offers...ESO doesnt offer half as much as what WoW offers..

scarsreminder80

In a nutshell - yes. ESO will give rise to a new era of MMOs. And quite frankly, its time.

One of the biggest reasons for World of Warcraft's success was its lore. Warcraft I, II, and III all built its lore and back story giving rise to a fan base that was prepared for the next Warcraft adventure. So in reality, W.o.W. was successful when it was just W.

The Elder Scrolls Online will see its own success because it meets the pre-requisite fan base already. The lore and back story are already built.
Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all built the foundation and ESO is simply the next evolution to the series.

It will give its fan base the same chance Warcraft players had. 5 million beta testers give good indications that The Elder Scrolls Universe is vast and this new edition offers the MMO generation an opportunity to become a part of that Universe.

I'm no market analyst, but I would expect to see somewhere around 9-11 million subscriptions at its peak.
But that being said, ESO will only succeed if its customer service can rival WoW's. That is one standard set by Blizzard/Activision that cannot be ignored.

WyeVxndzz

byghostlightrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Ziz wrote: »

A huge factor in the success of a game is wether or not people CAN EVEN LOG IN!

well not really, given the impossibly bad launch of WoW, look where its login issues got it, amazing how fast people forget somethings

Agreed AND HOW, huzza.
How quickly we forget waiting in queue to even get onto a server.
Maybe people glossed that over as "okay" because it appeared the log-in client was working but seriously in the early days it wasn't pay-to-play it was wait-to-play.

WyeVxndzz

Sarenia wrote: »

See my signature.

Um.. you don't appear to have one. =D

WyeVxndzz

TuterKing wrote: »

Who gives a rats ass if it's beats WoW or not. All I hope is it will have a healthy community and stays fun to play. Comparing TESO to other MMOs is really stupid and unhealthy. When TES 6 comes out were not all going to be like "will it kill COD/GTA?" Rather we will wonder if it is a good game.

TESO is a different game from WoW and should be treated as such. Instead of comparing it to other games just ask the simple question, is it fun and is it worth playing?

Well just to be slightly chill here, if not taken as a provocative question but an honest one, the OP can be putting out feelers to see if most of his guildies or online WoW friends will trickle out of that game. Maybe they're considering inviting their friends to find them in ESO but are checking on what the mood of early users is about the games survivability.

temjiu

I'll say the same thing I've said in every "can X beat WoW" thread I've seen in my decade and a half of playing MMO's.

WoW was an anomoly...NOT the standard. It didn't define what most MMO's can or will do. It had a unique blend of timing, technology (for the era), talent (speaking of the dev's), and blizzards (at the time), instinctive gift for creating addictive games.

Since it's inception, many games have used what was learned from WoW, and made improvements. but the blend that existed at the time for WoW simply isn't there any more. Even the WoW of today can't compete with the WoW of 4-5 years ago. It's like the perfect storm. lots of storms since then, but it was all about synergy of timing and technique and talent.

Much of that talent has gone different places. Technology has been advanced in all MMO's, not just WoW. and the environment that existed when it hit full steam isn't there any more. All the MMO players that were new blood at that time are now all older, seasoned, and more cautious. been there, got the t-shirt kind of deal.

I enjoyed WoW for many years, as well as many other MMO's before and after. in my humble opinion, ESO has the makings of a great MMO that will last many years. But I could care less if it ever gets close to WoW, thats not the point, WoW's not the standard.

The real question is...can it keep Bethesda in a positive enough state that they can continue quality improvements and expansions? I think so. Which is enough for me. I'm loving it so far....it's rekindled a feel for MMO's that I haven't had in years. So my hat's off to Bethesda...GG, keep it up.

Korah_Eaglecry

I dont think ESO will ever reach the pinnacle of success that WoW has found. But WoW is slowly crawling towards its inevitable fate. And as gamers look for new alternatives. ESO may prosper thanks to the need for a new Fantasy Genre MMO.

But Zenimax will need to step up its marketing and establish itself with its own dedicated playerbase before hoping to siphone gamers from other games.

Laura

as long as wow can be run on a toaster it will be the juggernaut

Sarenia

Laura wrote: »

as long as wow can be run on a toaster it will be the juggernaut

Not sure about WoW, but Gentoo can be run on a toaster. ;D