Maintenance for the week of May 18:
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – May 18, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – May 18, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 13:00 UTC (9:00AM EDT)
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – May 18, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – May 18, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 13:00 UTC (9:00AM EDT)
The issues on the North American Xbox megaserver have been resolved at this time. If you continue to experience difficulties at login, please restart your client. Thank you for your patience!
So, apparently, ESO has "around one million current subscribers."
-
gurugeorgey✭✭In my experience of MMOs, it's a pretty healthy MMO, there are ALWAYS players around, wherever I go, and that's good enough for me.
To the business thing, it's a business thing called "market segmentation" that's driving it. MMOs just seem to be falling into this pattern. The first year or so is with subs, and there are plenty people who are willing to pay subs get a pristine gaming experience un-marred by the cash shop. There are also a few people who love the game to bits and will throw money at ZOS, and play whether it's a sub, or whether there are lots of cool things they can buy in a cash shop.
Then there are more people willing to pay less, they get the cash shopped game; then there are even more people willing to pay very little to zero - they'll get the game later in its life as the devs wring the maximum they can from the cash shop and tailor the game to that. By that stage, the game, having been tailored more and more to a more and more casual experience, will have lost some of its initial magic that the subbers got, but hopefully the devs will steer a steady course and it won't go as badly to seed as LOTRO went.1 -
You guys seem to forget the power of the cash shop. 1 mil subs = 15mil a month. But, with subs plus a shop now... they'll potentially make more. This isn't an attempt to just get more people to sub. But, also possibly more money. They paid for what they needed with their sure thing (stable monthly income). Now that they have a stable player base. They make money optional and put cost out for things they know people will spend money on. They'll make more money than before, you can bet on that.0 -
Wolfshead✭✭✭✭No way they had dropped P2P with one million subs ...
Again drop P2P was not ZoS idea the was more or less force by microsoft if want the game on Xbox One for microsoft did not want drop the own subscribe the have on Xbox One but sony was willing to drop there.If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled; for you are in Elysium, and you're already deadWhat we do in life, echoes in eternity2 -
AssaultLemming✭✭✭✭AssaultLemming wrote: »To put that in perspective...that mobile phone game that has been advertising recently with Kate Upton has 2 million people playing every day and generates a million dollars a day revenue with almost no overheads...and that's why they are moving to b2p and why eventually they will go f2p...
Did you just compare a phone app game to a mmo ?
Yep, but just to illustrate that a million subscribers at 15 a month is only half what a crappy phone game can make using a f2p model.1 -
arqe✭✭✭ZoS already stated they were going to change payment / playing method before the launch.
They know times are changing and almost no video game player wants to pay monthly fee's to play just 1 game. They said game model will change later on.
So this is not about ESO doing bad or not. They know what players wants ( player does ) so they make a move according to that. Also console launch helping too.
Console players paying 60$ year already to play games online with their consoles. They wont be paying 5$ monthly for console service + 15$ to play only ESO. Microsoft didnt wanted to remove Xbox Live fee just for one game , so is Sony with PSN.
It was all expected and planned ...
1 -
Attorneyatlawl✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I have no special knowledge of the subscription numbers. My gut tells me that this probably isn't far off the mark, though.No way they had dropped P2P with one million subs ...
Cash shops are wildly successful. Look at the mobile gaming market. So its not about whether or not they needed to go B2P, its about whether or not they calculated they could make even more money off of a cash shop. Obviously they figured that they could. I don't like it, but then it isn't my business to run.
This. It's simply a profit calculation made as to the best way to make money (the purpose, by the way, of for-profit corporations, and the responsible thing for them to be doing as a company rather than a charity)
. Nothing wrong with that. I'm not a fan of the business model personally, but there's no denying it can work extremely well when executed properly and exceed the profitability a flat fee as their maximum intake per month for any given number of players could over time.timidobserver wrote: »IMO ESO will be fine for a while. There is no competition atm. By the time there is competition they will have had time to put together a lot of content(hopefully.)
Agreed wholeheartedly. While I have plenty of things I think they'd do well to fix up significantly such as the user interface, I'd be hard-pressed to call any other MMORPG a better game for people who want RVR gameplay (as a very, very long-time DAOC and WAR player). When they fix the lag problems in Cyrodiil over time between actual code-based fixes and incentivizing more of the map to be used at a time instead of zergballs of doom, and when they implement the Imperial City, I'm not honestly sure I can think of any upcoming MMORPG that would be of interest to me other than possibly Camelot Unchained (which I am an original kickstarter alpha backer of). Even then my attitude has always been to compare it to ESO by the time it comes out (2016).One million subscribers... not one million ACTIVE subscribers.
Uh....
"while the MMO counts around a million current subscribers"
That's about as plain-English as it can get that it is indeed current subscribers @Gidorick
. Edited by Attorneyatlawl on March 16, 2015 7:05AM-First-Wave Closed Beta Tester of the Psijic Order, aka the 0.016 percent.
Exploits suck. Don't blame just the game, blame the players abusing them!
-Playing since July 2013, back when we had a killspam channel in Cyrodiil and the lands of Tamriel were roamed by dinosaurs.
________________
-In-game mains abound with "Nerf" in their name. As I am asked occasionally, I do not play on anything but the PC NA Megaserver at this time.5 -
LtCrunch✭✭✭✭✭
✭
Holy misinformation Batman!ZoS already stated they were going to change payment / playing method before the launch.
They know times are changing and almost no video game player wants to pay monthly fee's to play just 1 game. They said game model will change later on.
So this is not about ESO doing bad or not. They know what players wants ( player does ) so they make a move according to that. Also console launch helping too.
Console players paying 60$ year already to play games online with their consoles. They wont be paying 5$ monthly for console service + 15$ to play only ESO. Microsoft didnt wanted to remove Xbox Live fee just for one game , so is Sony with PSN.
It was all expected and planned ...
NerdSauce GamingLaughs-At-Wounds - Sap tanking since 03/30/14ßrandalf - Light armor tanking since 03/03/15Brandalf Beer-Belly - Tanking drunk since 12/30/161 -
Seraphyel✭✭✭✭✭WraithAzraiel wrote: »Check the article: https://games.yahoo.com/news/see-awaits-elder-scrolls-online-152430165.htmlYahoo! wrote:The Elder Scrolls Online did not have a glorious first year; while the MMO counts around a million current subscribers, ......
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
That's some dreamy made up numbers.
1 million subscribers? And they make TU four months ahead of console launch to lose $30-40 million? Haha.
And where should they be? PvP is EMPTY.
If ESO right now has 100k subscribers, we could count that as quite high. 1 million is just a laughable estimation.When will you people get it.
ZOS didn't drop the Sub Fee because ESO was doing bad. The lowest ESO subs were at around 500k, for the past few months we were well above 1mil. (To put it in another perspective, WoW is dropping out of the 2mil subs in the West)
Now I can't say for sure why they dropped it.
The most logical explanation is because Microsoft refused to drop the Xbox Live fee. Based on that it wouldn't make sense to keep Sub on PS4 and PC, while being B2P on XBOX 1 lol.
So there you go. Either Microsoft forced this on them, or ZOS just wants more money from us. It doesn't really matter as I'm sure ESO will have quality updates and healthy playerbase for at least next 10 years. (Can't see any other MMOs that have so much potential).
They are dropping the fee because ESO was doing bad. How can anyony deny that? Did you play the game the last months? There were quite less players.
If they would drop the fee because of the console version, they would do that 1 day before console version and not 4 months ahead to lose $30-40 million. Please get serious.
________
If ESO EVER had +1 million subscribers, Zenimax would have told us. That's the best indicator for high sub numbers. If they had 1 million or 1,2 million, we would have known because there would have been some official news about it.ZoS already stated they were going to change payment / playing method before the launch.
They know times are changing and almost no video game player wants to pay monthly fee's to play just 1 game. They said game model will change later on.
So this is not about ESO doing bad or not. They know what players wants ( player does ) so they make a move according to that. Also console launch helping too.
Console players paying 60$ year already to play games online with their consoles. They wont be paying 5$ monthly for console service + 15$ to play only ESO. Microsoft didnt wanted to remove Xbox Live fee just for one game , so is Sony with PSN.
It was all expected and planned ...
Zenimax NEVER stated that. They ALWAYS said ESO is worth the sub fee and that's why it is P2P.
It is about ESO doing bad or not. It's obvious and it's simple.
Zenimax knows what players want? Yeah, that's why they made ESO like it is / was at launch.Dazmilan09 wrote: »You guys seem to forget the power of the cash shop. 1 mil subs = 15mil a month. But, with subs plus a shop now... they'll potentially make more. This isn't an attempt to just get more people to sub. But, also possibly more money. They paid for what they needed with their sure thing (stable monthly income). Now that they have a stable player base. They make money optional and put cost out for things they know people will spend money on. They'll make more money than before, you can bet on that.
Crown Shop offers literally nothing. A good cash shop earns millions, ESO cash shop is boring and hasn't got many things you can buy.At the same time, it makes more sense as B2P fits far, far more in line with your standard console subscription.
It does, but not 4 months ahead the console version.Edited by Seraphyel on March 16, 2015 8:56AM3 -
WraithAzraiel✭✭✭✭✭
✭WraithAzraiel wrote: »Check the article: https://games.yahoo.com/news/see-awaits-elder-scrolls-online-152430165.htmlYahoo! wrote:The Elder Scrolls Online did not have a glorious first year; while the MMO counts around a million current subscribers, ......
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
That's some dreamy made up numbers.
1 million subscribers? And they make TU four months ahead of console launch to lose $30-40 million? Haha.
And where should they be? PvP is EMPTY.
On what megaserver do you play where PvP is empty? There's almost always a queue to get into Thornblade NA during prime time.
If it's EU, I can understand. If you're on NA, you must be on the buff campaigns at all times.Edited by WraithAzraiel on March 16, 2015 9:18AMShendell De'Gull - V14 Vampire Nightblade
Captain of the Black Howling
"There's no such thing as overkill..."
"No problem on the face of the Earth exists what can't be fixed with the proper application of enough duct tape and 550 cord."
P2PBetaTesters
#Tamriel_BETA_Team
#BETA_TESTER4LYF
DominionMasterRace
#GOAHEADTHEYGOTCANDY
#SEEMSLEGIT1 -
Smaxx✭✭✭✭✭It's the same for EU except during the day on weekdays. It's all but empty, also most zones have many players, Daggerfall for example is almost as filled as on day one.0
-
Seraphyel✭✭✭✭✭On what megaserver do you play where PvP is empty? There's almost always a queue to get into Thornblade NA during prime time.
If it's EU, I can understand. If you're on NA, you must be on the buff campaigns at all times.
EU, yes.
But just think about this: those campaigns can hold 2000 players (or did they increase the maximum number of players?). Most EU campaigns are half-empty. But lets take the maximum number of players for both, EU & NA - that would be 10k + 10k. That are 20k players playing PvP if it would be
Let's say there are 20.000 players playing PvP on the NA server (and I think that's quite an impossible guesstimation due to the empty campaigns) - where are the other 980k? Sure, not many players are into PvP but only 2%? That's ridiculous. And remember, ESO was advertised as a PvP game.It's the same for EU except during the day on weekdays. It's all but empty, also most zones have many players, Daggerfall for example is almost as filled as on day one.
Because there are less copies of the same zone. That's the reason for those crowded starter zones. Besides that the zones are quite empty, too.
And I NEVER saw more than one EU campaign with queue in the last 4 weeks.Edited by Seraphyel on March 16, 2015 9:35AM1 -
Siluen✭✭✭✭Hmmm.
"ESO has 200.000 subscribers" = "Proof! The game is dying!"
"ESO has 1.000.000 subscribers" = "False information! Boooo!"
I have no idea how many subscribers are around exactly, but I still see plenty of people, even in Cadwell's silver on my alt. Thornblade always has a queue at primetime (EU) and usually about 3 bars during the day. Cities like Riften and Deshaan are usually very busy and this is not taking into account the amount of people that are likely in a different phase of the city than I am.2 -
stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭If ESO has hundreds of thousands of players, no wonder they are ignoring the PvP crowd. The PvP regulars are only a few thousand people (eight campaigns worldwide, each with a population cap of around 1200 players and not all full even at peak hours), and it would be a huge weight off ZOS' shoulders if they didn't have to keep trying to fix Cyrodiil to make such an insignificant part of their customers happy.
However, the recent official statement from Paul Sage indicates that they still consider PvP important.
A million subscribers at this moment? No way. A million people who have played the game before and could possibly be logging in tomorrow? Sure. But I doubt we will see all that many actually logging in.
1 -
Lorkhan✭✭✭✭✭AshySamurai wrote: »
or maybe... One milion premium membership subs + crown store > $15mi0 -
Seraphyel✭✭✭✭✭stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »If ESO has hundreds of thousands of players, no wonder they are ignoring the PvP crowd. The PvP regulars are only a few thousand people (eight campaigns worldwide, each with a population cap of around 1200 players and not all full even at peak hours), and it would be a huge weight off ZOS' shoulders if they didn't have to keep trying to fix Cyrodiil to make such an insignificant part of their customers happy.
However, the recent official statement from Paul Sage indicates that they still consider PvP important.
A million subscribers at this moment? No way. A million people who have played the game before and could possibly be logging in tomorrow? Sure. But I doubt we will see all that many actually logging in.
That sounds quite right.
1 million "buyers" = yes - I think ESO sold roughly 1 million copies
1 million "subscribers" at the same time = no, never - their peak has been 770k in June
Final Fantasy XIV ARR counts sales as "registered" accounts ( +4 million registered accounts = +4 million sales).
Please be or at least get serious.0 -
Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭golfer.dub17_ESO wrote: »There's no way there's a million subscribers when every zone I go to except Craglorn and Deshaan are completely dead.AssaultLemming wrote: »AssaultLemming wrote: »To put that in perspective...that mobile phone game that has been advertising recently with Kate Upton has 2 million people playing every day and generates a million dollars a day revenue with almost no overheads...and that's why they are moving to b2p and why eventually they will go f2p...
Did you just compare a phone app game to a mmo ?
Yep, but just to illustrate that a million subscribers at 15 a month is only half what a crappy phone game can make using a f2p model.
So, what you are saying is that ZOS should drop ESO, or at least put it on the back burner, and make an Elder Scrolls Mobile game? Elder Scrolls: Tamriel To Go
More on topic... is it possible that ZOS had, as of the end of 2014, 1 million subscribers, defined as accounts with active game time? Yes, it is possible. Because new accounts must pick a subscription plan to activate the free month, I also expect that any subscription estimates includes all accounts with active game time, including accounts that have a canceled subscription. If the source of this information is SuperData Research, then I expect that the basis for this information comes from Zenimax Media and is not a SWAG. Numbers obtained after Christmas 2014 would include Christmas sales and activations and could reflect a bump in subscription numbers.
If find it doubtful that they had 1 million active accounts that were logging into the game on a regular basis, but I have no basis to compare active subscriptions with in-game activity. I can say that 1 million is not even within an order of magnitude of how many people I have seen in the game.
XBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
Total in-game hours: 11321
X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus2 -
BBSooner✭✭✭✭✭
✭While it would be nice to be able to have the comfort of a 1.2m playerbase, I trust that number about as much as I trust the doomsayers giving 100k-200k estimates just because they have some anecdotes.1 -
Merlin13KAGL✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭
Yes, with the full faith of their previous integrity backing the way...Sorry but I dont trust such dubious data.
Unless ZoS says so the it isnt true
Just because you don't like the way something is doesn't necessarily make it wrong...
Earn it.
IRL'ing for a while for assorted reasons, in forum, and in game.I am neither warm, nor fuzzy...
Probably has checkbox on Customer Service profile that say High Aggro, 99% immunity to BS2 -
Extremeties✭✭✭WraithAzraiel wrote: »Check the article: https://games.yahoo.com/news/see-awaits-elder-scrolls-online-152430165.htmlYahoo! wrote:The Elder Scrolls Online did not have a glorious first year; while the MMO counts around a million current subscribers, ......
Thoughts?
As much as I like ESO, I find it VERY VERY hard to believe seeing as how most the VR zones, Craglorn included are all practically empty. I have literally gone through every VR zone to see if I could find ANYONE and I came across maybe 15 people MAX, again including Craglorn. Now I know there's different phases of each zone but come on.. 15 ppl max throughout all the VR zones and I check consistantly for my own knowledge. Now, if you go in to the lower non-vr zones, you see people but no where near a million+.
This is one thing I've hated about phasing systems and I hope one day a dev team does away with them because it absolutely DESTROYS any sense of a massive game/world being populated. Players thrive on seeing lots of people even if their computers cannot handle it, its a good feeling knowing you see a ton of people around. It's motivating. When you see hardly anyone, it turns you off mentally.
Back on topic, there's no way in bloody hell it has over a million, or even close to a million, at least from my observation of seeing empty ass zones for quite awhile and as someone mentioned above, if they had a million or close to a million, no way in hell would they deviate from P2P. Its too much income to throw away.
My question is - How many devs do we have left actively working on making content for the game compared to what there was at launch?
Edited by Extremeties on March 16, 2015 2:08PM3 -
Zershar_Vemod✭✭✭✭✭When will you people get it.
ZOS didn't drop the Sub Fee because ESO was doing bad. The lowest ESO subs were at around 500k, for the past few months we were well above 1mil. (To put it in another perspective, WoW is dropping out of the 2mil subs in the West)
Now I can't say for sure why they dropped it.
The most logical explanation is because Microsoft refused to drop the Xbox Live fee. Based on that it wouldn't make sense to keep Sub on PS4 and PC, while being B2P on XBOX 1 lol.
So there you go. Either Microsoft forced this on them, or ZOS just wants more money from us. It doesn't really matter as I'm sure ESO will have quality updates and healthy playerbase for at least next 10 years. (Can't see any other MMOs that have so much potential).
Honestly, I've been thinking both because they have kept subscriptions as an option while dangling a carrot in the crown store to get people to buy "cosmetic only" items in that store in addition.
But yeah, Microsoft tends to just give the finger to online services.
House Nyssara (NA)
Black Market Traders
Order of the Lamp Post
Thorn Brigade
VR15 Nightblade Vampire0 -
Attorneyatlawl✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Divad Zarn wrote: »yeah 1 mil subscribers and only ~10k using game official forum right? cmon
Your account number is around 4,700,000 for the forum registration. That's not approximately 10k. -First-Wave Closed Beta Tester of the Psijic Order, aka the 0.016 percent.
Exploits suck. Don't blame just the game, blame the players abusing them!
-Playing since July 2013, back when we had a killspam channel in Cyrodiil and the lands of Tamriel were roamed by dinosaurs.
________________
-In-game mains abound with "Nerf" in their name. As I am asked occasionally, I do not play on anything but the PC NA Megaserver at this time.4 -
jamesharv2005ub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭You guys have to remember not everyone is into pvp. To even be competitive you have to be vr14. So I would guess less than 10% of players pvp on a regular basis. Also a snapshot of one time you were logged in and saw this many online doesnt mean thats a number you can base it on as factual.0 -
Bloodfang✭✭✭✭✭jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »You guys have to remember not everyone is into pvp. To even be competitive you have to be vr14. So I would guess less than 10% of players pvp on a regular basis. Also a snapshot of one time you were logged in and saw this many online doesnt mean thats a number you can base it on as factual.
Based on my experience from other MMOs 10% is a big estimate..
Most players never even take part in PvP..I doubt there is 2% of daily PvP playersEdited by Bloodfang on March 16, 2015 3:24PM1 -
Rosveen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭
Notice that he joined in March last year, probably at launch or during one of the last beta weekends. 5 mln beta testers don't really count. Less than 5k users have earned the First Anniversary badge so far, I wonder how many it will be on April 4th.Attorneyatlawl wrote: »Divad Zarn wrote: »yeah 1 mil subscribers and only ~10k using game official forum right? cmon
Your account number is around 4,700,000 for the forum registration. That's not approximately 10k.
87k people earned first comment badge, 19k wrote 10 comments, less than 3k wrote 100 comments.0 -
KBKB✭✭✭✭✭
✭Nope, wouldn't have gone B2P if that was the case simple bizniz logic. Also you all play the game you really think there is one mill + active players? if so you are seeing quadruple.1 -
NukeAllTheThings✭✭✭✭✭ZoS already stated they were going to change payment / playing method before the launch.
They know times are changing and almost no video game player wants to pay monthly fee's to play just 1 game. They said game model will change later on.
So this is not about ESO doing bad or not. They know what players wants ( player does ) so they make a move according to that.
Every bit of what I quoted is completely false. Read the sig line"it's important to state that our decision to go with subscriptions is not a referendum on online game revenue models. F2P, B2P, etc. are valid, proven business models - but subscription is the one that fits ESO the best, given our commitment to freedom of gameplay, quality and long-term content delivery. Plus, players will appreciate not having to worry about being "monetized" in the middle of playing the game, which is definitely a problem that is cropping up more and more in online gaming these days." - Matt Firor1 -
Kragorn✭✭✭✭✭
Lies, damned lies and statistics?WraithAzraiel wrote: »Check the article: https://games.yahoo.com/news/see-awaits-elder-scrolls-online-152430165.htmlYahoo! wrote:The Elder Scrolls Online did not have a glorious first year; while the MMO counts around a million current subscribers, ......
Thoughts?
Edited by Kragorn on March 16, 2015 3:54PM0 -
Kragorn✭✭✭✭✭
If that's the case it's an appalling climb-down by ZOS, and one that I can only hope they live to regret.I think the entire conversion was due to Microsoft's refusal to waive their XBL fees. ZOS and Bethesda aren't stupid, they know that their potential playerbase would be crippled on the Xbox platform if players were required to subscribe to both XBL and ESO. So here we are.
1
