Should forum access require ESO+?

NewBlacksmurf · February 2018

No because the subscription isn’t what many think it is. Games that use subscriptions as a mean to access the forums are games which the subscription is the requirement to access the game.

Here is how it works in almost every game.
Access to the game = access to the forums.

And to be clear.....a choice to subscribe doesn’t make you or anyone else more important or more valuable than any other person who spends money on this game.

You can buy and play, and then choose to buy crowns. The purchase of crowns comes by buying them or by subscribing, they are different methods but actually the same in terms of the result which is spending additional money. Same as those who buy shirts, wallets, bags, mugs, hoodies, etc from ZOS.

ZOS has created this divide and some people have mistakenly applied something else on top of the divide ....

crjs1 · February 2018

No no no... what a way to turn off new players. Anyway many non-subs financially contribute to the game through the crown store. Everyone should have a voice on the forums, any trolling can be dealt by moderators.

Taysa · February 2018

A few reasons why forum access given only to subbed members is a bad idea:

1) The forums are already restricted. You must have bought ESO at one point in order to post here, unlike free for all forums like Daybreak's where you need only to sign up for an account, regardless of whether you play any of their games or not.

2) There are more than a few non-subbed people who test out patches and post on the PTS forums. Restricting their access would force them to either ask a subscriber to post on their behalf or dishearten them from testing as a whole since they can't report anything.

3) A lot of people complaining about the state of ESO and how the devs handle things are coming from active subscribers unhappy with the state of the game, so making the forums subscriber only isn't going to help anyway.

4) As others have mentioned, there are several non subscribers who pay the same amount as the subscriber fee and beyond monthly in the form of crowns.

The only reason this forum should ever change to subscriber only is if the pay model changed to subscriber only like it was at launch. And since ZoS makes way too much money with their current system, it's not going to change back to a sub only game any time soon.

Jayman1000 · February 2018

Knowledge wrote: »

I think ESO+ should include the ability to post on the forums. This not only further incentivizes being an ESO Plus member but it will clean up the forums a great deal. There's quite a bit of players with only a copy of the game that have no desire to further support Zenimax and I feel like forum use should be a privilege.

Non sub players are players too you know. And they still paid for the game and they should have the ability to join the community, give feedback, discuss issues etc. Shutting non sub players out of the forum will only serve to alienate these players, it won't do any good for the game.

I also don't like your view that people that "don't want to support Zenimax" should not be allowed to voice their opinion. Sounds a bit fascistic to me. Sounds like you only want to allow the "correct" opinions. Don't think it would help you much with this anyway since there are many subbed players (myself included) that take issue with many parts of the game, and so we would still voice our opinion and dissatisfaction on the areas we are don't like.

ZOS_Mika · February 2018

Because this discussion has derailed and has not been constructive, we have decided to close it down.