Data Mine Costumes and What It Means For ESO (IMO)

MikeB · February 2016

Kaynehusky wrote: »

You... DO realize that the people who find and fix bugs, and the people who design vanity items and stuff, are very DIFFERENT people, right? Designing content and fixing bugs are two VERY different jobs. They're jobs that happen at the same time, no less.

Yes, but those people still get paid out of the same pot as those that program and design the game. If you have $100US and spend $75US on people to design and program crown store items, that only leaves you with $25US to pay people to program the rest of the game. If you reverse that then you have more $ to pay people to program the game an fix bugs but at the expense of people to design crown store items. Every business has a budget.

MikeB · February 2016

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

MikeB wrote: »

This post is my opinion and I know a lot of people still enamoured by ESO and ES fan-boys/girls will not agree with it, but please keep the comments civilized.

So you essentially would like to get a pre-emptive insult in at anyone who might disagree but then expect others to maintain decorum?

What are you even talking about? What part of that sentence was insulting? I meant no insult. What do you call people that just started playing or care not about balance and bugs? What do you call someone that play's a game just because of its title or the company that made it? I suppose I could said ES devout but some may not have understood what I meant.

Tavore1138 · February 2016

MikeB wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

MikeB wrote: »

This post is my opinion and I know a lot of people still enamoured by ESO and ES fan-boys/girls will not agree with it, but please keep the comments civilized.

So you essentially would like to get a pre-emptive insult in at anyone who might disagree but then expect others to maintain decorum?

What are you even talking about? What part of that sentence was insulting? I meant no insult. What do you call people that just started playing or care not about balance and bugs? What do you call someone that play's a game just because of its title or the company that made it? I suppose I could said ES devout but some may not have understood what I meant.

Generally if people start accusing people who disagree of being fanboys/girls that could be considered a strawman approach and some might easily be offended by the implication that by disagreeing with you they were in this category rather than, you know, humans beings with their own opinion who might disagree with you for rational reasons instead of being brainwashed automata?

KhajitFurTrader · February 2016

MikeB wrote: »

Yes, but those people still get paid out of the same pot as those that program and design the game. If you have $100US and spend $75US on people to design and program crown store items, that only leaves you with $25US to pay people to program the rest of the game. If you reverse that then you have more $ to pay people to program the game an fix bugs but at the expense of people to design crown store items. Every business has a budget.

But how is this budget created in the first place? Could it be through Crown store sales? Would it be good business sense to emphasize those productivity assets of your business that generate the most revenue, so that all other assets can be paid as well and the business as a whole be kept operational?

You assume much, but from your assumptions I can tell that you have no experience in enterprise-level software development. Developers/programmers don't grow on trees, those with any kind of relevant experience even less so. There's an adage in software development, "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". Think about it. You simply cannot "reverse budgeting" and hope for short-term results. Long-term, how do you keep paying them without the matching revenue? And don't think that experienced people wound want to hire with a company that has a reputation for high turnover rates. Not if they have a choice, and those with experience do.

Of course, your opinion is your opinion, and given how defensively you have stated it, you don't really seem eager to discuss it. I wonder why. But you have asked: What is your opinion when you see so many crown store items with so many game issues? Well, my opinion is that they are doing their best in the interest of the longevity of the game and the company. For any in-game store to stay interesting and attractive for customers over any length of time, there needs to be a regular sense of "new", i.e. the novelty is what keeps people coming back and what comprises the allure and incitement to continuously make purchases, and thus creating revenue. So I will attest them good business sense. If you'd rather not see them doing things this way, please ask yourself why you'd want to see the game wither and die in the long-term. But that, of course, is just my opinion.

b92303008rwb17_ESO · February 2016

MikeB wrote: »

With the latest data mining it appears ESO has produced another 30-40 vanity costumes on top of several other crown store items. I don't know what this says to everyone else but in my head I think they spend a lot of time making crown store items, a lot more than other nonsub mmo's, and not enough time finding bugs and fixing existing game issues. This is of course just my opinion and what goes through my head when I see all the crown store items with bugs still in the game since beta. This means, to me, that it's more about making short term money than the games overall health, well-being and longevity.

ESO really lacks an identify, it lacks class balance and it lacks in fixing issues that need fixing ASAP. What is your opinion when you see so many crown store items with so many game issues?

This post is my opinion and I know a lot of people still enamoured by ESO and ES fan-boys/girls will not agree with it, but please keep the comments civilized.

It's kinda ironic that you call people who are not going to agree with you fanboys and expect them to keep civilized at the same time. I find it very hard to be civilized with you.

Moonshadow66 · February 2016

30-40 new costumes seem to be a lot.. at first sight.
Not so when half of them are just retextured which takes just a few seconds of work.

CJohnson81 · February 2016

This is dumb. It's like people presume that these costumes and crown store things are happening overnight. As if Thieves Guild dev started the morning after Orsinium came out. We are all aware how much longer console release took than expected. Now in that time, I know the common thought is that ZOS is doing nothing but in actuality, they likely have built a nice backlog of new content ready to go. You know that promise for new dlc every quarter? Yeah, they had to start working on that quite a while ago. They have separate teams working on bugs and patches for the live game. Please stop pretending that a new dress coming out today is what is stopping an overnight class rebalancing or something of that nature. We should all be aware that those types of fixes come out incrementally and they are actually coming. This latest release on the PTS souls be a testament to that.

nimander99 · February 2016

There couldn't possibly be a team dedicated solely to making CS item and a team dedicated to other aspects of the game... that's just not possible.

Inarre · February 2016

Well, considering designing costumes brings in more money to support the team who fixes glitches who don't support the company by bringing in money directly, I don't have much to complain about.

bedlom · February 2016

I would hardly say ESO is lacking identity lol

Alabyn · February 2016

Kaynehusky wrote: »

You... DO realize that the people who find and fix bugs, and the people who design vanity items and stuff, are very DIFFERENT people, right? Designing content and fixing bugs are two VERY different jobs. They're jobs that happen at the same time, no less.

But they get paid with the same money, regardless of the staff proportions.

MikeB · February 2016

Wow. It amazes me how defensive people are being and accusing me of being defensive. I just made a topic of stuff going through my head with no emotion whatsoever.

If you take any of my post in this thread as insulting or read it as I am being defensive I apologize as it was and still is not my intent. Just wanted to see if others feel the same as me outside of the 15 people I used to play with regularly.

MikeB · February 2016

nimander99 wrote: »

There couldn't possibly be a team dedicated solely to making CS item and a team dedicated to other aspects of the game... that's just not possible.

On this, I guess my, and others, previous post weren't made clear. I know there are different teams working on game code and crown store items. The thing is regardless of what team they work on there's a budget they have to stick to and if 75% (made up #) is going to crown store and 25% (again, made up) to fixing bugs, glitches and balance obviously more effort, money and wo/man hours are in making new or reskinning Crown Store items than fixing the aforementioned issues.

Erdmanski · February 2016

Costumes are easy to make and generate revenue.

Fixing bugs are hard and require time and money.

Therefore, you must sell the costumes to generate the funds to hire additional programmers. Remember this game doesn't require a subscription, so staying profitable is ZOS's first priority.

MikeB · February 2016

Erdmanski wrote: »

Costumes are easy to make and generate revenue.

Fixing bugs are hard and require time and money.

Therefore, you must sell the costumes to generate the funds to hire additional programmers. Remember this game doesn't require a subscription, so staying profitable is ZOS's first priority.

Yes, I know. But as stated they release a lot more items than other mmo's w/o a sub and also have a lot more in-game issues than those same games. Fundamental game mechanic issues.

Most seem to forget this game was in dev for 7 years, several years more than their competition, and the competition was released with less issues and to this day has less issues.

Let me ask you. How many games have you played that had bugs reported in beta that still existed almost 2 years after release?