Game isn't even a year old on consoles yet...

And (to add to above post) you gotta realize that a ton of plaers that start a game during release are not gonna stick around.

I use my xbox friends list as reference. Like over half started the new halo, now no one plays. Everyone started smite now one plays. Over 20 started Neverwinter now only two play.

According to my little demographic, the most player retaining games so far are: fallout 4 (give it time) Neverwinter (the two consistent players are more consistent with this game than others) and ESO (eso has consistently 9 players on)

So from my history, eso is one of the more lasting games already (for console)

I'm not sure if the game is actually dying, but I do think the population has decreased quite a bit.

Forums tend to be the whinge-fests for any game... the happy people just keep on playing & never even look at the forums. The PVP areas may take a hit in the population due to the frustration of lag & other PVP related issues but I think the PVE player base will remain strong.

Since the sale there has been a lot more people in the earlier zones. I dont know how many of them are new and how many are just people making alts but either way one must assume that those new chars were created to play through the game. Which means more people out doing dungeons/dolmens/etc.
It sure doesnt feel dead to me.

also:

aidenmoore wrote: »

No one doing world boss dailies in Wrothgar. I can confirm, ESO is dying.

I dont know if you are being serious or sarcastic about the Wrothgar bosses but I see them being run constantly throughout the day/night. Like really, all the time. /shrug

M

not dying at all. in every mmo there's people sticking around for a few months and losing interest after that. in every mmo there's people dedicated to the game and sticking around for years. what you see here is a game that's maturing, not dying

It's too soon to really tell, but it's not going to take much longer if the issues persist. It's no too late to fix them now.

But if there aren't going to be fixes, I'm afraid it'll eventually will be.

Dying is a strong word, but I can certainly say this: there are far, far fewer active players than there once was. People rarely do trials any more. Most PvP campaigns are empty. IC is empty. It sometimes takes ages to find groups for pledges. Some of this may be explained by people exploring Wrothgar/MA, but to be honest I think the player base has shrunk.

On top of that, I question many of the more recent development decisions, which seem to be grounded exclusively on the crown store model:

- In order to force people to buy the DLCs, all dropped gear is now BoP so there's no chance you'll get it from other players. To make matters worse, the community seems to agree that drop rates are exceedingly low, especially for highly-valued traits (divines, infused);
- Crafted gear at the new level cap is prohibitively expensive, while at the same time the materials for it are much rarer, i.e. only someone with a whole lot of in-game moolah is going to be able to afford the materials unless they buy the DLC and farm them;
- Motifs broken down into pages, and in the case of glass, broken down again into pieces. They went from rare drops in all kinds of containers to ultra-rare drops from few sources. Worst example is again the glass motif, which can only drop from quests you can only do once a day.

These sort of decisions may be understandable from a business perspective, but they feel like punishment for those who DID buy the DLCs or who, like me, are ongoing subscribers.

Finally, there's the omnipresent issue of bugs, exploits and balance. ZOS' track record is appalling in dealing with these. They did fix the long loading screens for me, but it took them 2 months to do it, and others are still complaining. Other long-standing issues remain unfixed.

I sincerely hope ESO will survive its growing pains, but I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the near future ZOS simply cashed out and took down the game.

There are certain things they need to do urgently.

A) Fix lag
Give cyrodill its life back
C) Get rid of the *** RNG grindfest
D) Fix up the absolutely lazy dev mode UI interface. Non clutter is one thing but at least have an inbuilt UI that allows detailed information to be turned on or off FFS.
E) Guild trader system needs a massive overhaul.

Thrasher91604 wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

In order to force people to buy the DLCs, all dropped gear is now BoP so there's no chance you'll get it from other players.

May be some dropped gear is BoP, but not in the normal zones.

All dropped set gear in the new zones/dungeons is BoP.

Happy now?

not dying at all
PVP players may think it is, but PVE is strong as ever.

I still see starter zones filled with people... and I continuously create and delete characters, so I would definitely notice if there was a huge decline. Plus, it all depends on when you normally play as playing during the week you won't see nearly as many people as evenings and weekends.

Catblade wrote: »

I think it's trying to commit suicide. Someone refer eso to the suicide hotline

*DINGDONG*

Suicide Hotline: What the?! Phones don't go dingdong.

-picks up phone-

Suicide Hotline: Hello yes, this is the Suicide Hotline, how may I help you?

ESO: I wanna commit suicide

Suicide Hotline: Please don't, you're just a teenager. You do lots of stupid things, but when you mature, things'll get better

ESO: Really!?

-ESO boosts DK and Temps, balances the classes and adds the Thieves Guild-

-10000000 players return to the game-

ESO: Oh wow it did. Thank you so much!

Suicide Hotline: NP, that'll be 1000€

ESO: Uh... can I pay with crowns?

Can't speak to the Xbone or pc crowd but anyone denying a HUGE ps4 playerbase drop for the last 3 weeks is either blind or trying to fool themselves. All the major trade cities and craglorn have been ghost towns. I bet just tonight there probably wasn't 20 players in Eldenroot at peak hours.

Hey , I'm not wishing it , its just the flat out truth. Will things rebound? I believe so but nothing like it was before. This games reputation doesn't attract former players to rejoin amd word of mouth among the gaming community keeps new players from even starting.

It doesn't matter what people think, it's dying.