How did WE fail as a SUB-Fee /MMO?

Malpherian · January 2015

Funkopotamus wrote: »

Honestly I am reading post after post on these forums as well as other forums everything from hate to love over the upcoming BTP/P2W system.

What I would like to know is exactly where we failed?
I understand as a SubFee MMO that there needs to be a steady number of subscribers for the game to stay alive. "EQ/AsheronsCalls player myself" Thing is I do not understand how a game that has the following like The Elder Scrolls fails and W0W is still rolling right along after all of these years.

I admit I was a console hold out until 13 days ago when I broke down and bought the PC version. I have a friend that works at GS and he told me ESO console release had been rolled back AGAIN till sometime NEXT YEAR. He told me they had just gotten an update about it and it was on the wall right there in front of me on the shelf release date 1/1/16 so I said hell with it and finally bought the PC version for $70.00 now 10 days after that..... this announcement comes along and I feel like I was robbed lol.

I was one of the people that WANTED the game to stay sub fee based even on the XBONE.

My question is this.. How did we the fans fail? Did the people holding the purse strings come to this decision because of the number of sub's are to low? Or was this the plan all along? To just get the game running and make the fans pay for a prolonged beta test and then drop everything to open a cash shop?

I just do not understand how a game with the reputation that TES has can not stay afloat when a game like W0W can stay Sub Fee based. ESO is going to have one competitor on the console _Neverwinter_ is being released before ESO so I wonder if that pushed them into rushing this out the door?

At the end of the day ZOS has to make money we all know that, but it just makes me sad to think there are not enough fans out there to keep this game SUB FEE based. Everyone knows what is going to happen when that Cash Shop door opens. There is no going back! You can say what you want about "It will only be cosmetics" but the fact is NO IT WILL NOT only be cosmetic. If there are exp bonus given to Premium players then there will be EXP potions in the cash shop. That will basically be advertisement for going premium.

So I ask for your thought's .. Was it we the fans fault for the game going BTP/P2W? Are we to blame because there are simply not enough of us. Was this the plan from the start and the fans paid for a beta test? I wanted ESO to be the game that stayed SUBFEE based and survive on the console.. Hell I played EQ Online Adventures on my PS2 for like 9 years lol. MMO'S can survive on the console.

Its simple, ZOS promised a game to rival The TES Franchise, and instead gave a run down battered barely akin MMORPG with nothing in common but the lore.

IF the Justice system, and Spellcrafting as well as the other factions (DB TG, etc)had been added before release, the game would have done 100x better. Even with all the bugs.

But the fact remains is that the game almost a year after release is still... An Unfinished Beta Version. Full of broken promises, and players are tired of it.

Kartalin · January 2015

On the bright side, even with it as a paid beta we will still have our same characters, experience and skill points, crafting levels, etc. It wasn't for nothing, at least.

/braces for LOLs

Malpherian · January 2015

ZOS should, have finished the PC version before they EVER started on a port for Consoles. Rather thn working and wasting resources side by side for 2 completely unfinished products, rather then one polished and working product, which could in turn fund the console ports.

Dave2836 · January 2015

EsORising wrote: »

Then they decided to take their time with the chinese gold farmers and obvious bots 24/7. To their credit they fixed but not till those problems killed half the community who went out to make hateful forums and youtube videos about the game. i.e. angry joe and that fat angry high blood pressure guy,. whats his name?

Now they have to market to the bottom feeders and trolls and combine them with the exisiting community. Actually thats when it goes F2P...lets hope it never comes to that.

Hate, like sex, sells very well in the media. On the radio there is a show called "War of the Roses" where a prank caller from the station talks to the significant other who volunteered to have them talk to his/her spouse/whatever. The ones that get the most laughs are the melt downs when the volunteer finds out they've been cheated on.

You actually give credibility to guys like Angry Joe and Boogie/Francis? I've watched a lot of Angry Joe videos, not so much Boogie though, but I must say a lot of his stuff is catered to garner the largest audience rather than objectivity. Video Game Journalism is broken, maybe because we have such a small venue, or that video games are thought of as a child's hobby ignoring the average age of our demographic. The fact that he is always seen wearing a Superman shirt tells of the image he is trying to show us. Brother gotta do more deadlifts to make that shirt emphasize what it really means.

And you seriously think the gold farmers are chinese? They outsource that job to people in Asia, that's true enough, but do you really think a 14 year old who's only jobs might have been a farmer or a textile worker has enough command of the English language to spam chat and negotiate prices?

Suru · January 2015

We failed due to player expectations and their lack of tolerance for "bugs" in a new MMO, seriously you couldn't just do the next quest? I loved this game from the very beginning and I was able to tolerate it but many weren't. Plus with other Sub MMO's like warcraft, some people couldn't afford it. In the end I don't like it going B2P, but overall its a convenience to all PC players, and ESPECIALLY console players. Now Console players do not have to pay for online (Xbox Live) and the Sub for the game. The only other game doing Sub for PC and Console is the FF series, but their Sub is only on PC and PS4 (where its already free to play online?), game is not even on xbox. This model conveniences all parties while still being profitable. I for one will still continue to sub and support this game.

Dave2836 · January 2015

Suru wrote: »

We failed due to player expectations and their lack of tolerance for "bugs" in a new MMO, seriously you couldn't just do the next quest? I loved this game from the very beginning and I was able to tolerate it but many weren't.

Unfortunately, the mass public likes instant gratification. Fast food is all the rage, Short order cooks are in high demand (although there are some who will disagree with me), and slave labor... what can I say about buying a well knitted shirt from old navy for $3 when it's made from an impoverished country like Lesotho?

This isn't my first video game, and it sure isn't my first video game with bugs, or even this many bugs. Name one video game you had that worked flawlessly without needing and update? Last one I played was Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Baal off the collection CD. And even that game had updates already built in. Does nobody remember altering the properties of an executable for a game to change the operating procedure so the game could even launch? I had a few of those as well.

The phenomenon of releasing games before they were finished is old hat, I've already accepted it, and determined the quality of the game depends on if the developer creates a fix for the problems.

miahq · January 2015

The fans didn't fail anything. The game launched in terrible shape, and considering the move to console they knew they wanted, the sub system was a terrible choice to begin with. When it comes down to it that's why they're going b2p, because they'd get killed on console sales otherwise, and right now their PC base sucks because they've so monumentally screwed up the release.

Zyrakk · January 2015

I don't think it was that we failed. As other people have said, the current sub numbers are more than enough for ZOS to be profitable.

One of the main reasons they dropped the sub is because not every console player is like you, and most wouldn't want to pay another sub on top of their current one that they pay to be online.

Also games that have gone f2p like SWTOR have actually done really well. And by dropping the sub it will also encourage more players to join, which will be realy good as we will be able to find groups quicker and have more people to play with. And with the increased amount of money they will hopefully make, it will mean more content for us.

miahq · January 2015

Zyrakk wrote: »

I don't think it was that we failed. As other people have said, the current sub numbers are more than enough for ZOS to be profitable.

One of the main reasons they dropped the sub is because not every console player is like you, and most wouldn't want to pay another sub on top of their current one that they pay to be online.

Also games that have gone f2p like SWTOR have actually done really well. And by dropping the sub it will also encourage more players to join, which will be realy good as we will be able to find groups quicker and have more people to play with. And with the increased amount of money they will hopefully make, it will mean more content for us.

The subs so far have actually been pretty crappy, as I think is best highlighted by quotes like this one from about six months ago, "As of this writing, their subscriber numbers chart somewhere around 772,374, which is very good for an MMO that was thought to be D.O.A."

When you have to phrase it like that to make it a positive statement, that's a pretty bad sign. And my guess would be the numbers have dropped since then, considering PvP at peek hours isn't exactly blowing up every campaign. Those numbers also aren't enough to be profitable with what's expected from a sub format.

SWTOR might do well business-wise as f2p, but that model doesn't depend on 95% of the actual players! it's mostly milking a few addicts for every penny they can. But, you're right about consoles. Ultimately they dropped to b2p because sticking with the sub would've killed their console sales. That's also why they're trying so hard to reinvent the game before it launches, to try and over-write the frankly rather terrible press and buzz the game has gotten so far on PC with exciting news about how it's a totally new game.

It all has about zero to do with fans and what fans want-- despite their statements to the contrary-- and about everything to do with re-marketing the game for console release in the hopes of cleaning up. That doesn't really instill a lot of confidence in me when it comes to cash shops and their new premium membership, in regards to the the b2win model.

Spiritreaver_ESO · January 2015

Suru wrote: »

1)We failed due to player expectations and their lack of tolerance for "bugs" in a new MMO, seriously you couldn't just do the next quest? I loved this game from the very beginning and I was able to tolerate it but many weren't. 2)Plus with other Sub MMO's like warcraft, some people couldn't afford it. In the end I don't like it going B2P, but overall its a convenience to all PC players, and ESPECIALLY console players. Now Console players do not have to pay for online (Xbox Live) and the Sub for the game. 3)The only other game doing Sub for PC and Console is the FF series, but their Sub is only on PC and PS4 (where its already free to play online?), game is not even on xbox. This model conveniences all parties while still being profitable. I for one will still continue to sub and support this game.

@1- Gotta cry foul at this point. I was one of the many beta players that reported tons of bugs WELL BEFORE launch. Most of the reported bugs were flat-out ignored seemingly-many of which WERE game halting bugs that you really couldn't just do the next quest. because they literally left your character stuck.

Does the Balreth questline in EP sound familiar? How about the death jumps to hit that lamp in the Coldharbour library? Or pretty much anything to do with the 'Groundskeeper'?

There is the reasonable allowance of some bugs in a new game. Then there is what ZoS did with allowing long known problems into the first live version. That is on them, not the subscribers.

@2- If someone can't afford $15 a month sub fee, well i can see that being possible. But it is not a convenience to them or anyone else changing the payment model, that's just a rationalization.

Also think about this: How many gamers do you know that only buy 4 games a year? I don't know about you, but most ppl i know(myself included) that are gamers usually buy more than 4 AAA titles a year and across many platforms. The significance of me asking about 4 games is that is(minus taxes) what a $15 a month sub works out to when you throw in the initial cost for the box.

@3- ZoS should have seriously used Square-Enix's treatment of FFXIV's initial flop as a picture-perfect example of what to do after TESO's problematic launch. SE redoubled their efforts, fired the guy responsible, listened to player feedback, and let all early adopters play for free until the game was ready for relaunch.

And i think the reason FF14 isn't on a MS console is actually a good indicator of a reputable company: MS said that SE would have to make concessions to them or FF14 wouldn't make it to their console. Those concessions would have had consequences on the quality of the other platforms versions of FF14. SE then rightly said, 'Sorry, no deal'.

Lots of issues could have been avoided had ZoS had just focused on PC/MAC and getting those versions solid BEFORE looking to expand their pool of customers.

miahq · January 2015

malikwalker_ESO wrote: »

@3- ZoS should have seriously used Square-Enix's treatment of FFXIV's initial flop as a picture-perfect example of what to do after TESO's problematic launch. SE redoubled their efforts, fired the guy responsible, listened to player feedback, and let all early adopters play for free until the game was ready for relaunch.

This would've been a great place to start. And I agree, FFXIV is an example of a game that really put the franchise fans ahead of a model completely about profit, and because of that they were able to attract a decent number of people even on console to a sub.

ESO really came across as a rushed, half-thought out game to begin with. And at this point they've basically said screw it, let's just worry about console sales. That's why they're working so hard to rebrand it as an entirely new game now, as well as why they're switching to b2p.

Frankly the idea that if you make an MMO based off a popular franchise and your sub numbers stink, that it's somehow the fault of the fans for not supporting it enough, is just a bit silly. If they wanted more support from ES fans, they should've made a game more of them would want to play in the first place. It's not my fault if you crap out a bugged POS and I don't want to play it. That pretty much sounds like it's entirely their fault.

Funkopotamus · January 2015

The_Great_Maldini wrote: »

The OP is bordering on Stockholm syndrome. I believe like others that this was planned a long time ago to match up with the payment model of consoles. I don't think it's anything the elder scrolls fans failed to do.

Calm down there Jason Isbell,
I do not think you understand the question or you are taking it wrong.

Also the "Microsoft/Pstation price negotiation" never held water with me.
I mean think about it . How many people here have a Xbox live account and still play W0W or still play ESO? I never understood the problem with that.

There are plenty of people that have Station/xboxlive accounts and play MMO's on PC so what is the problem here?

Zershar_Vemod · January 2015

We?

Speak for yourself OP.

Torquebow · January 2015

The main reason I left when the game first launched was the VR system as a whole. I don't like hitting max level, then being told the only way to enjoy any end game content was to basically RE-LEVEL. But that is being removed soon, so meh, Im back. There are a ton of people playing this game, so I'm not sure why it's actually going B2P, and everything is speculation at this point.

Bouvin · January 2015

Funkopotamus wrote: »

Snip

It was planned from the beginning.

Rescorla_ESO · January 2015

The game at release just wasn't fun enough and lost a lot of its initial subscribers within 90 days. I myself have maintained my subscription for the entire time but I have taken extended breaks to play other MMOs since TESO was launched.

The hardcore PVPers left because PVP in Cyrodil was not meaningful and suffered from lag. The hardcore PVE raiders left because the endgame raid content was lacking. A lot of players left because of the VR grind and dislike of having to grind thru Cadwells Silver and Gold.

Hopefully now that the console is getting released soon the dev team will be freed up to start developing new PVP and PVE content and redesign the existing content and systems to improve the quality of the game.

rawne1980b16_ESO · January 2015

Funkopotamus wrote: »

Thing is I do not understand how a game that has the following like The Elder Scrolls fails and W0W is still rolling right along after all of these years.

WoW is the exception not the rule.

It came out at the right time. MMO's were a niche genre before it came along, we didn't have millions of players, we only had a couple of hundred thousand. On top of that we didn't have a huge choice of them.

Now people have spent a lot of time in that game and don't want to move to something new while some developers seem to think they are going to get millions of players using a subscription model.

The problem there is MMO's aren't niche anymore and we have an absolutely massive selection to choose from.

Elder Scrolls does have quite a big fan base but quite a few Elder Scrolls fans don't like this game. Star Wars has a bigger fan base and SWTOR didn't manage to stay subscription either.

To top it all off it was, has been said, unfinished at launch.

It's still missing a lot of critical "Elder Scrolls" features like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild (which we were told were coming). Player housing has got quite popular recently too and we were told it would be 2 years at the very least before we'd see it here. I imagine that may be even longer now. Some people weren't happy about that and left.

The problem some of us have is there isn't enough here to keep us playing long term. I was here for beta (thus the username I forget to have normalised) and a couple of months after launch but I left because I was bored and wanted to check some other MMO's out. I came back yesterday to give it another look.

To be fair, it was the VR ranks that bored me. I don't like the AD zones, my characters are Daggerfall and Ebonheart. I got my Daggerfall character to 50 and it was sent to AD zones for it's VR ranks and I dropped it. Don't like them, not going to do them. So that character is stuck at VR1 because I don't see the point in forcing myself to play through something I won't enjoy. That also killed any enthusiasm I had with alts because i'd eventually hit the same brick wall.

Auricle · January 2015

How 'we' failed? Seriously?

Wow. Blame the victim much?

miahq · January 2015

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

Funkopotamus wrote: »

Thing is I do not understand how a game that has the following like The Elder Scrolls fails and W0W is still rolling right along after all of these years.

WoW is the exception not the rule.

It came out at the right time. MMO's were a niche genre before it came along, we didn't have millions of players, we only had a couple of hundred thousand. On top of that we didn't have a huge choice of them.

Now people have spent a lot of time in that game and don't want to move to something new while some developers seem to think they are going to get millions of players using a subscription model.

The problem there is MMO's aren't niche anymore and we have an absolutely massive selection to choose from.

Elder Scrolls does have quite a big fan base but quite a few Elder Scrolls fans don't like this game. Star Wars has a bigger fan base and SWTOR didn't manage to stay subscription either.

To top it all off it was, has been said, unfinished at launch.

It's still missing a lot of critical "Elder Scrolls" features like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild (which we were told were coming). Player housing has got quite popular recently too and we were told it would be 2 years at the very least before we'd see it here. I imagine that may be even longer now. Some people weren't happy about that and left.

The problem some of us have is there isn't enough here to keep us playing long term. I was here for beta (thus the username I forget to have normalised) and a couple of months after launch but I left because I was bored and wanted to check some other MMO's out. I came back yesterday to give it another look.

To be fair, it was the VR ranks that bored me. I don't like the AD zones, my characters are Daggerfall and Ebonheart. I got my Daggerfall character to 50 and it was sent to AD zones for it's VR ranks and I dropped it. Don't like them, not going to do them. So that character is stuck at VR1 because I don't see the point in forcing myself to play through something I won't enjoy. That also killed any enthusiasm I had with alts because i'd eventually hit the same brick wall.

SWTOR failed to attract the larger fan base because it was still pretty much your run of the mill MMO. I mean if you don't play MMOs already, you probably aren't going to start just because it's Star Wars themed. Especially since you're talking about a movie franchise.

ESO, because it was based off of an RPG game series probably had a better shot of attracting the franchise fan base, but they screwed that up when they made a series based on completely open world, sandbox style RPG into a theme park MMO. You can't exclude one of the biggest things people love about the series and then expect them to still buy it... that and the terrible, half-a**ed feel of the game in many aspects: countless bugs; a PvP system advertised as massive scale AvA but build seemingly entirely around an individual player centered experience in a largely empty feeling environment-- plus failing to actually live up to their own hype about how the system could perform; and end game system that was boring and seemingly thrown together; PvE quests that were basically the same go kill x number of y, or collect A number of B, type quests they said you wouldn't find, etc etc etc.

tryia3b14a_ESO · January 2015

I think the bottom line is that they didn't make their money back. We failed by not giving them enough money I guess. They still owe on the loan they took to develop this game.

Just read some of the negative reviews on metacritic and you'll see why players were disappointed with this game. It's one of the most linear MMOs in recent years, with really nothing to do other than quest to level, and it's based on one of the most open world single player games in recent years.

And not to mention how buggy and unplayable it was at first. I died so many times due to using a weapon skill that basically caused my character to freeze up and not be able to attack anymore. That's a bad player experience. That's the kind of thing that a company should try to avoid at any cost.

tryia3b14a_ESO · January 2015

Funkopotamus wrote: »

I just do not understand how a game with the reputation that TES has can not stay afloat when a game like W0W can stay Sub Fee based. ESO is going to have one competitor on the console _Neverwinter_ is being released before ESO so I wonder if that pushed them into rushing this out the door?

Before Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls was always kind of Cult Classic, not really super popular. Warcraft 3 sold more than a million copies in its first month, which was really good back then. World of Warcraft was made by the same development team as Warcraft 3. They knew their fans and they knew the game they had made before and why it was successful.

WoW sustains itself and it's super large development team off 6-10 million subscribers, plus 300 million in micro transaction fees. Large development team means good rate of content.

ESO had 600,000 subscribers at its peak. ESO was not made by the same people as Skyrim. Fans expected it to be like Skyrim, the game that had brought them in to the Elder Scrolls World. And it was not like that at all. Only the lore was the same, and many of those Skyrim fans could care less about the lore.

SgtPepperUK · January 2015

miahq wrote: »

This would've been a great place to start. And I agree, FFXIV is an example of a game that really put the franchise fans ahead of a model completely about profit, and because of that they were able to attract a decent number of people even on console to a sub.

The other main thing FFXIV has done is tackle the perception of the sub model in the modern MMO market. When they relaunched it they realised that they needed to go that extra mile, that subs now are really a premium service that have to go above and beyond what B2P and F2P MMOs offer.

They've done this by doing things like giving subscribers rewards, things like pets, mounts and vanity items, they've put out regular updates with a considerable amount of playable content, including a new class, and that content has been very well polished.

They've done this with a much much smaller dev team than ESO has.

ZOS could, with effort, have made the subscription model work, there is still a market for subscription MMOs even now but companies wanting to go down that route have to put more effort in and work hard.

Bugged content, updates that do little to extend the amount of playable content and broken promises do not cut it.

miahq · January 2015

tryia3b14a_ESO wrote: »

Funkopotamus wrote: »

I just do not understand how a game with the reputation that TES has can not stay afloat when a game like W0W can stay Sub Fee based. ESO is going to have one competitor on the console _Neverwinter_ is being released before ESO so I wonder if that pushed them into rushing this out the door?

Before Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls was always kind of Cult Classic, not really super popular. Warcraft 3 sold more than a million copies in its first month, which was really good back then. World of Warcraft was made by the same development team as Warcraft 3. They knew their fans and they knew the game they had made before and why it was successful.

WoW sustains itself and it's super large development team off 6-10 million subscribers, plus 300 million in micro transaction fees. Large development team means good rate of content.

ESO had 600,000 subscribers at its peak. ESO was not made by the same people as Skyrim. Fans expected it to be like Skyrim, the game that had brought them in to the Elder Scrolls World. And it was not like that at all. Only the lore was the same, and many of those Skyrim fans could care less about the lore.

Although that was one of the more common retorts you heard from people on these forums (this isn't skyrim online!) I'd agree, it largely tanked because it WASN'T skyrim online. You can't turn an open world sandbox rpg into a linear theme park MMO and expect people to just deal with it. Between that and the half-thrown together feel, the endless bugs, and it shouldn't be any mystery why it couldn't sustain a p2p model.

grimjim398 · January 2015

All these theories are tailored to people's personal complaints about the game. The fact is that the game could never have been sustained in the subscription model if the big companies who control the console networks did not allow it; the people who understood this issue have been telling us this all along but many of us, me included, didn't listen. The console revenue stream is too important to the investors to ignore. ZOS has probably known this was coming for a while and just didn't want to say so because they went out on a limb to try the subscription model. So it goes.

Dave2836 · January 2015

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

Funkopotamus wrote: »

Thing is I do not understand how a game that has the following like The Elder Scrolls fails and W0W is still rolling right along after all of these years.

WoW is the exception not the rule.

It came out at the right time. MMO's were a niche genre before it came along, we didn't have millions of players, we only had a couple of hundred thousand. On top of that we didn't have a huge choice of them.

Now people have spent a lot of time in that game and don't want to move to something new while some developers seem to think they are going to get millions of players using a subscription model.

The problem there is MMO's aren't niche anymore and we have an absolutely massive selection to choose from.

Elder Scrolls does have quite a big fan base but quite a few Elder Scrolls fans don't like this game. Star Wars has a bigger fan base and SWTOR didn't manage to stay subscription either.

To top it all off it was, has been said, unfinished at launch.

It's still missing a lot of critical "Elder Scrolls" features like Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild (which we were told were coming). Player housing has got quite popular recently too and we were told it would be 2 years at the very least before we'd see it here. I imagine that may be even longer now. Some people weren't happy about that and left.

Well, not quite the whole truth of the origin. Back in 1997 when Battle.net was in its experimental phase with Diablo, and then Starcraft, alot of single players started playing online with each other. Then in Diablo 2 came out and became one of the most anticipated hits of the year solidifying the bonds of battle.net relationships. Blizzard has been experimenting with online mmo content in small steps whether by design or happy accident, all the liars, thieves, and general jerks congregated together as one huge dysfunctional family. To say a large majority of them moved into WoW is an understatement. Aaaaaaaaaand, thats how the online mmo toilet bowl was made.

The best TES ever had was the modding community. If ZOS had been paying attention to the mods being made, they might have an idea about what we want to see in these TES games. And I'm not talking about tig bitty statues nor golden shower mods either.

kevlarto_ESO · January 2015

Sallington wrote: »

One word: Consoles.

This about 100x over^^^^^^^^^^^

JD2013 · January 2015

There's two avenues of thought here.

Firstly the game should have been held back and released as it is now. Let's say post 1.6. With the Justice System and the Champion System. I have a feeling that these systems are going to make it feel much more like a traditional ES title.

To me though it's always felt like an ES title. Deep and involving questing for one. With fully voiced NPC's and a large world to play in. Even in zones you can wander off the beaten track and find something new. But players aren't used to that kind of questing in MMO's. They're used to standard "go get 20 boar tusks" quests. However this isn't the fault.

I've been playing FF XIV recently. I was amazed at how alive the world felt with random events and dungeon stuff and duties and stuff that wasn't just main or side quest stuff. The only real random events they have in ESO is the anchors and that's really it. There's no real "wow look at this I'll go join in with all these players!" Factor in the game at all. It's all kind of flat. The dungeons are a very short affair, too. Nothing great about them at all.

And this is speaking as someone who actually likes the game. It had so much potential as an ES title. They could have placed any number of random events and meeting random NPC's on the road leading to a quest or something in a delve ercetera. Random attacks from Molag Bal and Oblivion, or other Daedric Princes other than just the anchors. Anything to make Tamriel feel as alive as it has in precious games.

But I will also say that this game received the biggest levels of hatred that I've ever seen for a new MMO ever. And now that the game is going B2P most of these people are changing their minds and will play after all. Because they're cheap. They were not willing to even think of supporting this title because "I don't pay subs." Well. They got their wish. It's going B2P so they can play it. And it's a sad day because one thing this game really needs is content updates. And now we will be lucky to get 3 - 4 of those a year. To everyone blaming consoles, I hear FF XIV is going very well as a sub model on Ps4. I play it and enjoy it on there.

There's blame on both sides. Zenimax for not being more open with us and whatnot, players for levelling hatred at the game and never willing to try new things.

TL;DR: Cheese for everyone!

Lynnessa · January 2015

Dave2836 wrote: »

I do feel the b2p hybrid model is the future of gaming. The model came about from the far east where people didn't have the time to play regularly, and the optional sub model permits the playerbase to spend time and $$$ they think thegame is worth. More often than not the game becomes healthier and the playerbase becomes stable over time.

This only happens if the game designers want to make the game better and not about the cash grab. I have faith in them it's the former, as i am looking forward to a larger playerbase of casual players. You hardcore people are too intense for me with the min/max builds.

Sallington wrote: »

One word: Consoles.

These are the answers that ring true.

miahq · January 2015

JD2013 wrote: »

There's two avenues of thought here.

Firstly the game should have been held back and released as it is now. Let's say post 1.6. With the Justice System and the Champion System. I have a feeling that these systems are going to make it feel much more like a traditional ES title.

To me though it's always felt like an ES title. Deep and involving questing for one. With fully voiced NPC's and a large world to play in. Even in zones you can wander off the beaten track and find something new. But players aren't used to that kind of questing in MMO's. They're used to standard "go get 20 boar tusks" quests. However this isn't the fault.

I've been playing FF XIV recently. I was amazed at how alive the world felt with random events and dungeon stuff and duties and stuff that wasn't just main or side quest stuff. The only real random events they have in ESO is the anchors and that's really it. There's no real "wow look at this I'll go join in with all these players!" Factor in the game at all. It's all kind of flat. The dungeons are a very short affair, too. Nothing great about them at all.

And this is speaking as someone who actually likes the game. It had so much potential as an ES title. They could have placed any number of random events and meeting random NPC's on the road leading to a quest or something in a delve ercetera. Random attacks from Molag Bal and Oblivion, or other Daedric Princes other than just the anchors. Anything to make Tamriel feel as alive as it has in precious games.

But I will also say that this game received the biggest levels of hatred that I've ever seen for a new MMO ever. And now that the game is going B2P most of these people are changing their minds and will play after all. Because they're cheap. They were not willing to even think of supporting this title because "I don't pay subs." Well. They got their wish. It's going B2P so they can play it. And it's a sad day because one thing this game really needs is content updates. And now we will be lucky to get 3 - 4 of those a year. To everyone blaming consoles, I hear FF XIV is going very well as a sub model on Ps4. I play it and enjoy it on there.

There's blame on both sides. Zenimax for not being more open with us and whatnot, players for levelling hatred at the game and never willing to try new things.

TL;DR: Cheese for everyone!

Most of the people on here were actually all in favor of keeping the sub model, there were at least a few polls on it. The FF comparisons though, honestly I think that's the only franchise I've ever seen that actually did listen to fans instead of just saying it. They succeeded because they were willing to accept a smaller sub number to start and saw it more as winning back fans.

ESO has essentially taken the same path as SWTOR, with the added bonus that by getting rid of the p2p model they may do better on console sales. It just strikes me as an entirely financial decision.

Lynnessa · January 2015

miahq wrote: »

ESO has essentially taken the same path as SWTOR, with the added bonus that by getting rid of the p2p model they may do better on console sales. It just strikes me as an entirely financial decision.

ESO was announced for console from the get-go. The console market, like it or not, is a big and probably necessary source of profit for Bethesda and the Elder Scrolls franchise. Has been since Morrowind.

Do you really think it makes sense to charge console players a subscription fee? Do you really think that was ever planned?

Also, consider what happened to Playstation owners with Skyrim. They didn't get any of the bug fixes or DLC until long after those things were released on XBox, ostensibly because of technical difficulties with Sony's hardware/software. I suspect there will be similar inconsistencies between platforms with ESO.

This console release, and the B2P model that goes with it, isn't a failure at all. It's incredibly ambitious.