Breath...

A point of information.

Zenimax likes to farm out work to other companies.

The forums are farmed out. Customer Support is farmed out.

Patch downloads are farmed out to a cloud company and the bandwidth is probably limited by contract.

I am actually wondering who they farmed out the server operations and infrastructure to.

Lolz never thought I would see a thread like this and here it is

Think he's referring to all the updates since release, whereas he was expecting less downloads once the initial game had been installed. Given it's the same client now as it was then, none of it comes pre-packaged with the launcher still.

Don't think I've ever played an mmo where they've updated the client to include all new patches in the initial download.

The following is just pure speculation:
Games going to Steam have to be greenlighted, which is quite an important process for independant games. I think that the constant updating process of a MMO is not very compatible with Steam's validation of content.

If you had bought a boxed version of the game, it would still be 1.0 and you would have had to do all the updates to reach 1.5.X.

@OP - totally feel your pain. Because it's my pain now too. Bought yesterday off steam due to the 65% sale/promotion.

@ others laughing at OP or throwing sarcasm that this is not a legit issue to complain about - it's a loss of time issue. How much you value your time is essentially the extent how much this may or may not affect you.

To me, bottom line is that even with reasonably decent 24 Mbps connection, it's half a day or so for the entire steam client plus the patches. Since the steam client is largely expected downtime, I'm really only counting the 2-3 hours of launcher patches as inconvenience.

It was my fault for registering my game key after starting up the game after steam installation but before launcher patches, and therefore losing basically 1 day off the 30 days included sub time with initial purchase (since the sub goes by calendar dates, not 24 hour clock - so buying the game on a weekend ending and having patches go into next "day" AM hours eats up 2 days sub time which I can confirm and see right on my account profile screen when I login to see remaining sub time.

So my fault and avoidable technically yes, but in my defense- you have no way of knowing the launcher will need all those patches until after you are shown the large hint to create/register your account right on the initial game launch screen.

Meaning if you are new to ESO, as I was, you buy off steam, download, click the newly created desktop icon to launch and setup game per the usual first launch after steam purchase all steam users get accustomed to, click all the EULA spam and you're shown a Create account button prominently centered on the client screen - all pre launcher check for patches.

So reasonably, unless you search and read threads like this pre-install, most if not all reasonable people are going to create their accounts, then lose 1-2 days sub time while you wait for patches that should have been included into the main client download off steam.

I figured one, maybe two patches to catch up, say back to 1.4 or something, but given other MMOs I've bought off steam have reasonably updated clients, I expected the same from a triple A publisher like Bethesda.

Yes, I now know it's actually Zenimax, but brand management 101 - it doesn't matter who the heck is managing / driving / serving - if it's your brand name on the product / service, it's your brand that takes the PR hit.

I'm going to still enjoy the game, and it's not like I hate Zenimax or Bethesda just because of this in the long run - but for sure in future if it ever comes down to close tie between couple games I want to try, I will favor the brand that didnt have issues like this that is so easily avoidable.

Sindala wrote: »

You got it in a sale......you get what you pay for

I'm sure you may not expect this response, but I did factor the sales price in my complaint.

I bought the Imperial edition for the greatly reduced price of $25.99. So the loss of 1 day included in purchase only cost me 1/30th of that price, so barely a dollar.

However, as I said, irrespective of price it is time that is the real value lost. What do you value a good chunk of your allotted "game" time even on an weekend day? I'm going to safely assume for most adult gamers with families, a whole heck of a lot more than the measly monetary value of $1 subscription value lost.

mozhackerub17_ESO wrote: »

@OP - totally feel your pain. Because it's my pain now too. Bought yesterday off steam due to the 65% sale/promotion.

@ others laughing at OP or throwing sarcasm that this is not a legit issue to complain about - it's a loss of time issue. How much you value your time is essentially the extent how much this may or may not affect you.

To me, bottom line is that even with reasonably decent 24 Mbps connection, it's half a day or so for the entire steam client plus the patches. Since the steam client is largely expected downtime, I'm really only counting the 2-3 hours of launcher patches as inconvenience.

It was my fault for registering my game key after starting up the game after steam installation but before launcher patches, and therefore losing basically 1 day off the 30 days included sub time with initial purchase (since the sub goes by calendar dates, not 24 hour clock - so buying the game on a weekend ending and having patches go into next "day" AM hours eats up 2 days sub time which I can confirm and see right on my account profile screen when I login to see remaining sub time.

So my fault and avoidable technically yes, but in my defense- you have no way of knowing the launcher will need all those patches until after you are shown the large hint to create/register your account right on the initial game launch screen.

Meaning if you are new to ESO, as I was, you buy off steam, download, click the newly created desktop icon to launch and setup game per the usual first launch after steam purchase all steam users get accustomed to, click all the EULA spam and you're shown a Create account button prominently centered on the client screen - all pre launcher check for patches.

So reasonably, unless you search and read threads like this pre-install, most if not all reasonable people are going to create their accounts, then lose 1-2 days sub time while you wait for patches that should have been included into the main client download off steam.

I figured one, maybe two patches to catch up, say back to 1.4 or something, but given other MMOs I've bought off steam have reasonably updated clients, I expected the same from a triple A publisher like Bethesda.

Yes, I now know it's actually Zenimax, but brand management 101 - it doesn't matter who the heck is managing / driving / serving - if it's your brand name on the product / service, it's your brand that takes the PR hit.

I'm going to still enjoy the game, and it's not like I hate Zenimax or Bethesda just because of this in the long run - but for sure in future if it ever comes down to close tie between couple games I want to try, I will favor the brand that didnt have issues like this that is so easily avoidable.

Don't feel bad, my connection is crap and every single update they have put out since launch has lost me a day of paid play time each. =D

I would imagine that there is more to "just update the Steam version" than simply uploading a new copy of the game to Steam.

Right now, Steam has a "golden master" of the game that was created at some point prior to the launch on Steam. I doubt that they make a new one of those every time they release an Update or patch. It is not as simple for them as just pushing a button on a vending machine and it could take ZOS weeks to complete this task.

P.S. - The last patch update came from the Akamai cloud, not Zenimax. I am not sure about the initial game load from Steam.

Xabien wrote: »

Don't think I've ever played an mmo where they've updated the client to include all new patches in the initial download.

Just for expansions usually. Although with ESO there have been some monumental updates (20 gigs+), to the point where you wonder if any of the original files are even present anymore.

I agree with the OP that given ESOs particular situation with the size of the updates, they might want to recompile their downloadable client and get ask Steam to do the same.

Of course with U6 around the corner they may just want to hold off too...

SFBryan18 wrote: »

Pretty sure the game does not download from Steam. I think Steam sells the game and then opens the real game client which downloads the game from the same place as everyone else. If Steam is taking forever to update, that's Steams fault.

Can't say whether the server the files I downloaded from steam were actually "steam" servers or not, but they downloaded just like any other steam game you buy - initiated, streamed, and managed via the steam client.

After that all got done, and then the game was launched for first time, then the ESO launcher went through the new user EULA, create account, etc, then updated the launcher + patches - in this case, every patch since launch of 1.0 or whatever was the release version.

I assume the launcher patches were coming from whatever ESO / Zenimax server hosts those files.

mozhackerub17_ESO wrote: »

Maybe it costs more, maybe it's a hassle they don't think is worth it. Bottom line - other MMO developers do it, Zenimax/Bethesda doesn't.

No. Zenimax/Bethesda has not, which is different than does not.