Is the Game Dying already?

Zorak

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Grimnix173 wrote: »

I don't think this game is dying, but it has a real real bad cough.

All my friends have quit and they were MMO players. They couldn't get into the game I guess and Veteran leveling pretty much was the nail in the coffin.

Also Cyrodiil's cool factor wears off after about 30-50 hours of played I'd say. So people who joined this game strictly for the PvP are quitting because of the outdated design of that zone. Its just way too Casual.

The more and more I think about it this game was designed for 35-55 year old players and not the core of MMO's today the 18-30 year olds. I honestly feel like this game will be free to play. The incentive to resub just isn't there for a pvp minded player as

There are design issues (mainly centered around pvp) that make me feel more and more that ESO doesn't want to lock down the 18-28 year old market. They are trying to get that casual player who logs on for 2 hours of quest every few nights and pvps when he/she is bored of questing...These aren't MMO players these people sound like console players to me.
..

I guess my question would be this. Do you think they hit the market they aimed at? Several times in this statement you seem to imply that they did and it wasn't you or your friends market. You say several times it was a design decision. Do you think there are fewer people then they thought in the market they were aiming at? Because, unless they missed the market they tried to hit, or there were fewer people in that market then they thought, I'm not sure why the pricing structure would change.

IF they hit their market, it was a real bad call.

Because it wasn't the majority of MMO.

And I personally think the idea to make a hybrid between an ES game and a MMO severely limited the game.

Grimnix173

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Grimnix173 wrote: »

I don't think this game is dying, but it has a real real bad cough.

All my friends have quit and they were MMO players. They couldn't get into the game I guess and Veteran leveling pretty much was the nail in the coffin.

Also Cyrodiil's cool factor wears off after about 30-50 hours of played I'd say. So people who joined this game strictly for the PvP are quitting because of the outdated design of that zone. Its just way too Casual.

The more and more I think about it this game was designed for 35-55 year old players and not the core of MMO's today the 18-30 year olds. I honestly feel like this game will be free to play. The incentive to resub just isn't there for a pvp minded player as

There are design issues (mainly centered around pvp) that make me feel more and more that ESO doesn't want to lock down the 18-28 year old market. They are trying to get that casual player who logs on for 2 hours of quest every few nights and pvps when he/she is bored of questing...These aren't MMO players these people sound like console players to me.
..

I guess my question would be this. Do you think they hit the market they aimed at? Several times in this statement you seem to imply that they did and it wasn't you or your friends market. You say several times it was a design decision. Do you think there are fewer people then they thought in the market they were aiming at? Because, unless they missed the market they tried to hit, or there were fewer people in that market then they thought, I'm not sure why the pricing structure would change.

Good response. I think they hit the MMO market they were trying to get. They wanted to take Daoc's subs by recreating what they have done. Also giving GW2 players a new game with a similar style. They also wanted to take anyone bored with wow's style.

Also I think its a huge mistake to not realize how ESO's Art direction and style fit into today's culture. Game of thrones is huge right now. The Gritty med-evil style is in vogue right now. I think this helped gain a few gamer subs that were done with the cartooning worlds of MMO's past. If you don't know what I'm talking about watch an EP of GoT then go play eso with a great sword out...You'll feel like a badass.

What they are failing to do is keep the 18-28 players that were Skyrim fans and most likely fans of WoW in some fashion. These players have been searching for that next MMO for awhile now. These are hardcore players; they have come to expect certain things in a game, Options being one of them. In short ESO is an ice cream shop. They sell double chocolate, that it. People will get sick of Double chocolate and logging in every day. Because I don't want the same experience every day..

Its the lack of options that has turned my friends away.

My friends quit due to no world pvp and the zerg fest of Cyrodiil.

This is a concern some casual players won't even understand.

From the perspective of a RPG PvPer these are huge...Game breaking even.

Also Veteran ranking literally forces you to go from zone to zone. So linear. Also the only option to level is grinding quest, you can't even grind mobs to level in a reasonable time frame...

Teevesnacks

So people don't feel like chatting, gg the game is dead

Thesiren

I think the choice to use one megaserver with so much phasing is one of ESO's biggest flaws; that, and the major botting and gold farming that is allowed simply because of Zenimax's ineptitude and lack of preparedness in dealing with same.

Arreyanne

Three of the guilds I belong to are capped at 500 and they ain't trading guilds.

My normal playing is AM CST, where up until Sunday when the sub or get lost timer ran out during the morning there were approx 50-60 on from each of those guild since sunday the avg is 7-10

Maybe they all went back to work cant say they aint there to ask

Dignam

Game will be f2p in a few months and it will be to late.c Why do these companies keep making the same mistakes?

Jdray

actually a little over populated if you ask me

Thesiren

Dignam wrote: »

Game will be f2p in a few months and it will be to late.c Why do these companies keep making the same mistakes?

If ESO went F2P, it would take well over a year, simply because the development time on a F2P transition easily takes a year or more. A few months my foot-- Rift, Tera, Everquest 2, they all took well over a year. LoTRO and DDO too.

zaria

Zorak wrote: »

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

IF they hit their market, it was a real bad call.

Because it wasn't the majority of MMO.

And I personally think the idea to make a hybrid between an ES game and a MMO severely limited the game.

It might also be an marketing decision set long ago by smart people.
We all know any wow clone will be directly compared with wow and is an fail if it don't have all the features wow has. Do not make an WOW clone.
This is Wildstars main problem, its an obvious wow clone and it will be directly compared with wow, still I give them credit for focusing on areas wow has ignored like large raids, it might be the feature who save it.

In short don't copy other blindly hoping it will make an hit.
Find an niche and stick to it, EVE is doing well as it has no competitors, Star Citizen might change this, yes this is always an danger.

Rotherhans

@Ravinsild bad choice of guild, Hypey Joe basically killed his own Guild with the last whiney "review".
As for the motif sales, well that one was killed by Zeni themselves with their latest drop rate nerf.

Chomppa

RianaTheBosmer wrote: »

I don't see it on Daggerfall at all, very busy, but I do agree that AD is quieter and it's damned nice and I, for one, never have zone chat on and I'm sure there are a lot of players like me.

I'm also leveling an alt in AD and yeah , I have my zone chat turned off . As for the population drop , I haven't really noticed it .

Melian

Well, they nerfed the motifs to the point where they pretty much never drop, so that's why you're not seeing people selling those. I have no idea about the rest, I haven't seen it, although I'm sure it's normal for people to spend more time in a brand new game (just as they do in a game that has a new expansion pack).

xDonMega

The reason the game is dying is because people like you were in Beta.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Ravinsild wrote: »

Well then this must be the literally shortest lived MMO in history.

I think APB will hold that record for a while yet.

Managed a few weeks before the servers were shut down.

Granted it was due to Realtime Worlds collapsing but still ... dead game was dead.

Laura

well you joined AD. thats where all the FOTM people went. EP seems busy still.

Angry army and all that. They are called content locusts for a reason - they join an MMO get all they can out of in a month because they have almost a spiritual vendetta against the subscription fee.

Shortest lived MMO, dying, dead.. literally every MMO I ever played (besides the original everquest) had threads like this with predictions.

Do I think it dropped off? absolutely. Do I think some will come back and new ones will join as things people wanted are added to the game? yes.

will it ever have WoW numbers? nope.

Hypersillyman

Every MMO is always dying all the time. They start dying in beta and are declared dead the first day of release. Every MMO is the worst MMO in the history of the genre. They are empty and boring no matter how many people they supposedly have on line.

If you were to believe what commonly gets posted on the forums for these games, you would begin to believe that there has never been a successful MMO ever. Every single MMO that has ever existed has been an abject failure and the entire genre sucks, is evil, kicks puppies, eats babies, and should just generally be avoided because no one in their right mind would ever lower themselves to play one.

I've been hearing stuff like this since UO. The same stuff has bee said about the entire video game industry for over 30 years. Ever since the industry collapsed and almost vanished back in the early 80s.

To be honest, it does start to get a little tiresome after a few decades.

Amsel_McKay

Laura wrote: »

well you joined AD. thats where all the FOTM people went. EP seems busy still.

Angry army and all that. They are called content locusts for a reason - they join an MMO get all they can out of in a month because they have almost a spiritual vendetta against the subscription fee.

Shortest lived MMO, dying, dead.. literally every MMO I ever played (besides the original everquest) had threads like this with predictions.

Do I think it dropped off? absolutely. Do I think some will come back and new ones will join as things people wanted are added to the game? yes.

will it ever have WoW numbers? nope.

Never again will we experience another Everquest 1998-2000 feeling in a game... that is what I miss. WOW was good but no EQ1, all the other 8 or 9 MMOs I played never lived up to EQ1.

ESO I have this niggling feeling is failing, because all my friends who have played all these other MMOs with me seem to have already left ESO and I find that strange. I like the game, I dont LOVE the game and I am already (after a month) getting board which again is not like me... most MMOs even new ones keep me excited a lot longer

ZurinArctus

One of the guilds I saw in practically became a ghost town, but it was full of veteran beta players who hit VR10 quickly.

I don't see many people selling motifs either, but I think that's in part due to the recent patch that altered drop rates. Both motifs and recipes seem to have been effected by the change, so whenever I do see a Daedric or Ancient Elf (seem to be the hottest flavors lately) come up, it sells for a ton.

Xithian

They put a diminishing returns thing on lootables that kicks in so fast you cannot loot one entire building's worth before you start to get empty containers. That's why motif sales are quieting down. It's got nothing to do with how many people are playing and everything to do with them being a royal pain to get now.

Vampire bites dying down? That's because everyone and their grandmother has vampyrism. Due to the exponential growth of vampires over the weeks it's now almost trivial to get a bite.

I wont get into AngryJoe and why his guild might possibly be going quiet. Suffice it to say that none of my guilds are "dying". Zone chat is never quiet during the day. If you play at 3am, yes, but that's true in most games with regional servers.

Yes, many people did not resub. No, the sky is not falling.

Laura

Amsel_McKay wrote: »

Laura wrote: »

well you joined AD. thats where all the FOTM people went. EP seems busy still.

Angry army and all that. They are called content locusts for a reason - they join an MMO get all they can out of in a month because they have almost a spiritual vendetta against the subscription fee.

Shortest lived MMO, dying, dead.. literally every MMO I ever played (besides the original everquest) had threads like this with predictions.

Do I think it dropped off? absolutely. Do I think some will come back and new ones will join as things people wanted are added to the game? yes.

will it ever have WoW numbers? nope.

Never again will we experience another Everquest 1998-2000 feeling in a game... that is what I miss. WOW was good but no EQ1, all the other 8 or 9 MMOs I played never lived up to EQ1.

ESO I have this niggling feeling is failing, because all my friends who have played all these other MMOs with me seem to have already left ESO and I find that strange. I like the game, I dont LOVE the game and I am already (after a month) getting board which again is not like me... most MMOs even new ones keep me excited a lot longer

I agree my only hope has been pantheon but its obvious we are a niche market because the funding isn't doing so well.

https://www.pantheonrotf.com/

d0e1ow

Game is popping as far as I can tell. Motifs for sale in my trading guild's store, people talking in zone chat.

Game seems fine. It's really not ever going to be a massive game, but it's not crashing and burning.

d0e1ow

Laura wrote: »

Amsel_McKay wrote: »

Laura wrote: »

well you joined AD. thats where all the FOTM people went. EP seems busy still.

Angry army and all that. They are called content locusts for a reason - they join an MMO get all they can out of in a month because they have almost a spiritual vendetta against the subscription fee.

Shortest lived MMO, dying, dead.. literally every MMO I ever played (besides the original everquest) had threads like this with predictions.

Do I think it dropped off? absolutely. Do I think some will come back and new ones will join as things people wanted are added to the game? yes.

will it ever have WoW numbers? nope.

Never again will we experience another Everquest 1998-2000 feeling in a game... that is what I miss. WOW was good but no EQ1, all the other 8 or 9 MMOs I played never lived up to EQ1.

ESO I have this niggling feeling is failing, because all my friends who have played all these other MMOs with me seem to have already left ESO and I find that strange. I like the game, I dont LOVE the game and I am already (after a month) getting board which again is not like me... most MMOs even new ones keep me excited a lot longer

I agree my only hope has been pantheon but its obvious we are a niche market because the funding isn't doing so well.

https://www.pantheonrotf.com/

Weren't you a big fan a few weeks ago, Laura? It seems... we have traded places.

ExiledKhallisi

Never have I been alone for longer than 1 min without seeing another player.
Gonna go out on a limb and say sometimes there's to many players around.
Give the game some time for the perm residents to settle in.
You guys are jumping to conclusions with no data.
Up in beta days it always seems more populated because progression is slow.

Rolled.

Catches_the_Sun

Well, I suppose the rumors are true. AD has truly fallen to the might of the Ebonheart Pact! Seriously though, I haven't seen much of a change. I wouldn't base anything on the availability of Motif drops since that rate has been nerfed recently so you naturally won't see as much. Also keep in mind that Trading Guilds are becoming more established & the fees for selling items on those stores have dramatically decreased. Many people are simply listing stuff on those Guild Stores.

My zone chat is as annoying as ever...even with people who despise the game they just paid an extra month for. As others have stated, population is spread out more than ever, with some being in Veteran content, some rolling alts & that sort of thing. I can't go to one questing area & feel like I'm questing alone...there are always a few others around doing the same quest. The same goes for dungeons.

Sit at a dungeon boss & just watch for a few minutes to see how many different people come to kill that boss. I did this today as I sat there trying to use a skillpoint. Think about that...how many dungeon bosses there are in how many zones & @ this one boss you're watching, at least 2 or 3 different people are killing it every time it respawns, which happens in under a minute. I wouldn't get too concerned.

KerinKor

Ravinsild wrote: »

Why are there no motifs or anything being sold at all? What happened?

Bots happened and ZOS solution is to nerf content to the ground and so hit legit players in the process .. Motif drops were nerfed to Oblivion so that only the botters get them in any numbers at all and from my game mailbox they're selling them via mail.

Shaun98ca2

People call this game grindy....HA you MUSTA never played EVERGRIND I mean EVERQUEST.

I loved that game but MY GOD its was MONTHS in the same "zone" really it was a SPOT in a zone. Killing the same mobs over and over and over and over and over again.

And the variety of mobs in the spot was 3 different ones to kill maybe 4. ENDLESS downtime. I mean downtime DURING combat, downtime between combat, downtime waiting for respawns, downtime cause you lost your healer and now its 4 hours till you get another one and GOOD luck the 5 of you surviving a pull...1 monster will DROP 5 people GO FIGURE.

Try playing for 6 hours gain a level and die just to lose it...thank god for clerics. Reduce that xp loss to about 2 hours and your good.

Everquest there weren't no QUESTs well like a few hidden ones but for the most part they were worthless and grinding was really the only method of leveling.

grizzbi

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Ravinsild wrote: »

grizzbi wrote: »

I've yet to find any real interest in this kind of post. It just happen in any social activity: some people leave, new ones arrive. When a game start, many people join at the same time. Then things settle down a little. People are just spread around zones, levels, activities...

While your premise has a degree of merit: People being spread out may indeed account for quieter zone chats, perhaps...

It does not explain less and less people signing into guilds, only logging in to "feed their horses" and the general quietness of guilds and guild activity.

Is people not signing in, presumably having left the game, a sign of settling down? Is this a positive or good thing? Isn't it a bit soon to be "settling down"? Ordinarily shouldn't the first few months be of constant growth, more busy than ever before, busier than the month prior as new people join and the game retains old players due to its value and quality?

You say ordinarily like you know what you are talking about, yet you dont sound like you have played any subscription based mmo in recent years.

The trend has always been once the free time is up numbers go down. It is what happens from there that is the issue. Do they hold? Do they spiral down? Do they go up?

That's true. Experience with mmo shows that after the first month there's always a significant population loss. It's absolutely normal and it's to be expected, whatever is the mmo.

The only thing that truly matters are the trends and the percentages. There was a poll a few days ago on Reddit. You could think that it would have been used by angry people to express their dissatisfaction. But surprisingly, it showed that after the first month, the unsubscribed people percentage was quite low. And among these people, many of them were willing to come back later for different reason.

I've played many mmos and I can tell you that this one is not particularly in a bad shape. On the contrary, most of the - silent - people are still subscriber and continue to play.

But people who are not satisfied themselves for different reason always try to bring the subject "The game is dead". It happens in every mmo. And - most of the time - that's just trolling. Don't expect these kind of discussion to bring anything interesting.

Krovax

In all the releases I participated in and it have been basically all the mayor ones since 2000, you will always see that. People are excited, still on their free month and invest all the spare time they can. Even though they still might like to play, once you dumped a 100h into a game, at least for me, real life starts to be quite funny too again, so you tend to play less, but still keep playing.

You also have to keep in mind that most players ride the initial wave to endgame and it always seems crowded as long as you stay in the wave. Not in VR, said wave has flattened a lot, I get to do dungeons by myself again, etc.

In my guild, a lot of people are trying the Wildstar open beta, but that closes on the 19th and I expect to see some return to ESO with more online time.

Shimizu

I'm one of those that's only logged on for the past week to feed my horse.
Generally speaking I prefer the crafting/economic side to things rather than the burn fight kill side to things, and the limitations on trading and inventory space have started to kill the enjoyment a bit. I'm hoping we'll see improvements in both these areas soon so will be sticking around, but I see no reason whatsoever to try and craft/earn cash/improve character with the current state of things.

leandro.800ub17_ESO

There are 2 kind of players leaving for now
The ones that rushed to VR10 and are out of thing to do
The ones that ended 30 days period and didn't like the game enough to continue subscription
I think the amount of joining is still bigger