The future of ESO?

Morgul667 · February 2019

It sums it up pretty well

Nice post

Ydrisselle · February 2019

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

No it does not take 150 million bucks to make a AAA mmo. It takes about 16 mil to produce market and release. When greedy corporation star handing out bonuses. Charging development teams to market IPs they created and demand 3 x the developer cost before the creators can get paid backend money. The bloat gets massive just look at bioware not one person that had worked their or built that company exist anymore . They stole the company the IP and exploited a mediocre game of the IP alone. Eso is a cash grab

16 million doesnt even cover the building rental or developers.
7 years x 50 x 100k is 35 million. That assumes that only 1/5th of ZOS is actually a developer.
Building costs are usually between 1000-5000 a square foot before you consider putting anything INTO that building.
Software licences etc for all the tech you need again spiral into millions. You cant just pirate 3DS or Word.
Gods if you think a game the size of ESO can be made with 16 million I want to see your detailed business plan. I seriously will fund it if it's remotely in the realm of reality just so i can rip off all your great ideas in streamlining production.
/edit Whoops I had developer budget at 245! an eyeballed total project budget not just salary!

Thehartclan wrote:

Here's some quick math for fun: The ESO has over 3 million players across all platforms. Assume ONLY 20 percent of those pay for a monthly sub for ESO Plus.At 15 dollars a month, that's 9 MILLION dollars a month at 600,000 users subscribed. So to your point, if it's tens of millions of dollars, they should be able to cover that after only several months, no?

I neglected to actually answer this. Sorry about that.
9 million a month isn't actually all that much when you consider what a studio of 250(the size of ZOS) costs to run.
From the above quote, you can see that just 50 developers alone would cost in excess of 500k/month on salary alone. This doesn't cover insurance, benefits, etc. If you add in all the support staff, licencing, building costs etc.. you aren't making anywhere near 9 million /m. Also bear in mind that with software development money is "boom and bust". Just because they make 9 million /month NOW doesnt mean they made 9 million a month aggregated. Remember for over 7 years ZOS had zero income and all expenses. Debt reimbursement isn't fun on the bottom line.

Historical data partner rift cost 10 million. Wow about the same. EQ 2 was about 14. Those massive inflated budgets started with EA . Zos took a 300 million dollar loan to start the studio. But that was for multiple games to build not just ESO.

Holy crap man, you do realize those budgets were based on titles from the late 1990s right? Software went through a few evolutions since then as well as the hardware that powers them. ESO was produced in the post 2000 software world. Salaries alone have SKYROCKETED since then as have operating costs. EA had nothing to do with increased budgets. Increased art assets is more to blame.

Seriously this is like saying a modern civic should cost as much as a civic from 1980.

Lol rift was developed in 2011 lol and game grunts salary went up by 11% over last 10 years . That's. 1.1 % COL in rease. the market is saturated. With millenials and the Ba in computer sciences making 60k a year . Terrance gw2 of all cos under 20 mil where the money went was purchasing studios and absorbing them and cannibalizing IPs

Umm, no. Rift was released in 2011, but it was developed before that for years. I can't even try to find out when they have started the development of it...

*facepalm* Scott hartsman started trion he left EQ 2 in 2006 mid development of the kunark expansion. Rift took about 4 to 5 years to develop. he himself stated in a podcast marketing development and publishing was roughly 50 mil i was wrong earlier by a long shot when trying to recall from memory what the cost was for wow,EQ2,Rift. after going back and looking i was very wrong. but the argument of ZOS does not have the money to produce evolving quality content is nothing more then fanboi defending a poorly directed game. and no why dont you go research what these kids right out of school are making for big name companies Like EA they dont make squat. the leads are paid well yes.https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/video-game-designer/salary/ look i make more then a senior developer . im union with a pension and i make over 100k a year . and those grunts work a crap ton of hours at the bottom. so no the 150 milion it cost to make SWTOR and the 100 mil for ESO was not spent on development team. because they dont ramp up production until its out of alpha . then the hiring frenzy starts and that can be 3 years into development . Big dollars are paid out to IP marketing and corporate feeders that do nothing but make decisions based on whats cheapest and how much profit will it make.

Hey, I was just trying to correct a small error: you wrote that Rift was developed in 2011 - no, it was released which is fairly different

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

nafensoriel wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

No it does not take 150 million bucks to make a AAA mmo. It takes about 16 mil to produce market and release. When greedy corporation star handing out bonuses. Charging development teams to market IPs they created and demand 3 x the developer cost before the creators can get paid backend money. The bloat gets massive just look at bioware not one person that had worked their or built that company exist anymore . They stole the company the IP and exploited a mediocre game of the IP alone. Eso is a cash grab

16 million doesnt even cover the building rental or developers.
7 years x 50 x 100k is 35 million. That assumes that only 1/5th of ZOS is actually a developer.
Building costs are usually between 1000-5000 a square foot before you consider putting anything INTO that building.
Software licences etc for all the tech you need again spiral into millions. You cant just pirate 3DS or Word.
Gods if you think a game the size of ESO can be made with 16 million I want to see your detailed business plan. I seriously will fund it if it's remotely in the realm of reality just so i can rip off all your great ideas in streamlining production.
/edit Whoops I had developer budget at 245! an eyeballed total project budget not just salary!

Thehartclan wrote:

Here's some quick math for fun: The ESO has over 3 million players across all platforms. Assume ONLY 20 percent of those pay for a monthly sub for ESO Plus.At 15 dollars a month, that's 9 MILLION dollars a month at 600,000 users subscribed. So to your point, if it's tens of millions of dollars, they should be able to cover that after only several months, no?

I neglected to actually answer this. Sorry about that.
9 million a month isn't actually all that much when you consider what a studio of 250(the size of ZOS) costs to run.
From the above quote, you can see that just 50 developers alone would cost in excess of 500k/month on salary alone. This doesn't cover insurance, benefits, etc. If you add in all the support staff, licencing, building costs etc.. you aren't making anywhere near 9 million /m. Also bear in mind that with software development money is "boom and bust". Just because they make 9 million /month NOW doesnt mean they made 9 million a month aggregated. Remember for over 7 years ZOS had zero income and all expenses. Debt reimbursement isn't fun on the bottom line.

Historical data partner rift cost 10 million. Wow about the same. EQ 2 was about 14. Those massive inflated budgets started with EA . Zos took a 300 million dollar loan to start the studio. But that was for multiple games to build not just ESO.

Holy crap man, you do realize those budgets were based on titles from the late 1990s right? Software went through a few evolutions since then as well as the hardware that powers them. ESO was produced in the post 2000 software world. Salaries alone have SKYROCKETED since then as have operating costs. EA had nothing to do with increased budgets. Increased art assets is more to blame.

Seriously this is like saying a modern civic should cost as much as a civic from 1980.

Lol rift was developed in 2011 lol and game grunts salary went up by 11% over last 10 years . That's. 1.1 % COL in rease. the market is saturated. With millenials and the Ba in computer sciences making 60k a year . Terrance gw2 of all cos under 20 mil where the money went was purchasing studios and absorbing them and cannibalizing IPs

Umm, no. Rift was released in 2011, but it was developed before that for years. I can't even try to find out when they have started the development of it...

*facepalm* Scott hartsman started trion he left EQ 2 in 2006 mid development of the kunark expansion. Rift took about 4 to 5 years to develop. he himself stated in a podcast marketing development and publishing was roughly 50 mil i was wrong earlier by a long shot when trying to recall from memory what the cost was for wow,EQ2,Rift. after going back and looking i was very wrong. but the argument of ZOS does not have the money to produce evolving quality content is nothing more then fanboi defending a poorly directed game. and no why dont you go research what these kids right out of school are making for big name companies Like EA they dont make squat. the leads are paid well yes.https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/video-game-designer/salary/ look i make more then a senior developer . im union with a pension and i make over 100k a year . and those grunts work a crap ton of hours at the bottom. so no the 150 milion it cost to make SWTOR and the 100 mil for ESO was not spent on development team. because they dont ramp up production until its out of alpha . then the hiring frenzy starts and that can be 3 years into development . Big dollars are paid out to IP marketing and corporate feeders that do nothing but make decisions based on whats cheapest and how much profit will it make.

Hey, I was just trying to correct a small error: you wrote that Rift was developed in 2011 - no, it was released which is fairly different

You were correct I have no problem being wrong I've been married 22 years lol

Put · February 2019

I think what most people don't understand is exactly how ridiculously hard some bugs are to actually fix; and if they have a low percentage to occur and result in minor inconveniences, then ZOS would much rather focus on delivering new content or fixing very game breaking bugs, otherwise the time spent fixing small bugs such as 'Wayrest 1's door' are just diminishing for the time spent on the fix.

As for load screens: again, it's not something to just 'fix'. ESO is an insanely huge world with a lot of textures and moving parts to load in one given zone, long load screens can be common, but I rarely encounter infinite load screens at the minute.

Nerouyn · February 2019

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

what we have here is a cash grab. they made a very big game with lots of things to buy.

IMO that's inaccurate.

They reportedly spent a phenomenal amount of money making the game. Media releases stated that $300 million was poured into ZO. The base game is enormous to compared to most other MMOs and fully voice acted.

For a whole bunch of reasons it appears to have massively underperformed. That being the case ZO then had to slash ongoing development costs and scramble to recoup the cost of developing the original game.

So what you see as a greedy cash grab I think is most likely them just trying to break even and keep operating.

That said some of their monetization strategies are repugnant.

TheBonesXXX · February 2019

So as long as this game caters to its investors rather than its players, this game will never like any other game ever reach its full potential.

So as long as the developers keep this attitude will you pay for access, and nobody sues them they'll keep getting away with this.

truthfully until you provide a lawsuit and you sue the whole entire gaming world, and stop letting the entertainment industry get away with unethical practices, nothing will happen.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

Nerouyn wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

what we have here is a cash grab. they made a very big game with lots of things to buy.

IMO that's inaccurate.

They reportedly spent a phenomenal amount of money making the game. Media releases stated that $300 million was poured into ZO. The base game is enormous to compared to most other MMOs and fully voice acted.

For a whole bunch of reasons it appears to have massively underperformed. That being the case ZO then had to slash ongoing development costs and scramble to recoup the cost of developing the original game.

So what you see as a greedy cash grab I think is most likely them just trying to break even and keep operating.

That said some of their monetization strategies are repugnant.

Did not spin 300 million solely on ESO. They took a 300 million dollar loan from an equity firm to start the studio, to develop multiple online games. I don't think it was ZOS original intention to go cash shop no premium game. What happened was the console generation being highly compatible with PC. that took a lot of development time and dollars away from continuing their post production content for the game . That's a partial reason Why it under performed out of the Gate. Once they release the console they started producing content for the game it was already too late. We don't really know how much of that 300 million they poured into ESO but it was a very shallow game at launch so game system wise it couldn't have been exorbitant. 150 mil about half of their initial loan is speculative . No eso is very profitable if it was not they would shut the doors

Thehartclan · February 2019

@nafensoriel I hardly see how you would classify many of the issues I've listed as cosmetic. UI errors are not cosmetic. Freezing when using certain wayshrines is not cosmetic. Getting stuck when reading a writ bounty board is not cosmetic. I'd also argue that cosmetics are one of the biggest cash components for ZOS in ESO. People spend hundreds of dollars on cosmetic aspects of this game, so why not seek to further enhance and improve upon it? I don't understand your point here.

@Put I'm not sure how you quantify the amount of people who share the same game play experience issues I do, or the hundreds of players I know who share similar experiences, as a small percentage. Again, look at the entirety of the EU server right now. Not a small percentage. Some fixes may be easier than others, but that's also not the point. I don't frankly care how difficult it is for a developer to fix their broken game - as a paying customer I expect to spend more time playing than more time staring at load screens or getting frozen or losing time because a group struggles to communicate during a trial when the voice chat decides to crap out. Bugs happen, we get it. And no game, especially of this nature, is bug free - yes. It doesn't mean a developer should choose to ignore efforts to at least try and fix them?

@TheBonesXXX I'm sure there are a ton of politics that play into it, especially being that the studio isn't independent and has a parent they roll up to. But it's sad to say the least; and you're a brave soul to even utter "law" and "suit" in one sentence. The last post I saw even mention this was immediately removed by ZOS. But this isn't a topic about what we as consumers can or should do, it's about holding the studio accountable and looking to them for some simple customer service in responding to a very simple question that I will ask yet again: What's the future of ESO?

JJBoomer · February 2019

the future of ESO is the same as ALL MMO's.

It will either have a long life, or it won't. At some point, yes, this game will shut down and everything you worked for, paid for, will be gone forever and you will not get refunds or any compensation for it.

ESO has become pretty cash grabby, which means that ESO is already on a set path to shutting down. How long that will take, we don't know? That all depends on the game's ability to bring in new players, and how long new and current players will be willing to keep spending money.

ESO could have a nice long life, if they went back to their subscription only model. Which before, I opposed, but now support.

But yeah, when an MMO goes cash grab, at that point, the future is terminal, is just a matter of time.

So basically, stop worrying and just enjoy the game for as long as we have it.

Thehartclan · February 2019

@JJBoomer and that may be, but like I said, i'm looking to ZOS for an answer that's transparent and honest. It's the least they could do.

JJBoomer · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@JJBoomer and that may be, but like I said, i'm looking to ZOS for an answer that's transparent and honest. It's the least they could do.

The chances of you getting a transparent and detailed/honest answer is pretty slim, because businesses/corporations just don't do that. Keeping consumers in the dark makes them easier to manipulate and profit from. Literally every business does this to one degree or another. Bethesda/ZOS is no different.

If they were willing to answer what you want answered, it would have happened by now.

The best way to get a result is to not give them money. To force their hand financially. But the reason this never works is because consumers as a whole refuse to do this. It would take the entire playerbase to withhold their wallets, for ZOS to be like "well crap, now we have to answer to them if we want to keep going"

The problem is, when this solution is put forth, the amount of consumers willing to do it, is usually negligible, profit wise. It can be made up.

I agree with you, honesty and transparency would be nice. But as long as ZOS is not in a forced position to have to do that, they won't. Period.

So we either need to inspire a large, and I mean MASSIVE amount of the player base to cancel subs and refuse to funnel money into crowns, or we need to radically accept things the way they are and work with what we have.

or we move onto another game and let this one die. None of these options are particularly pleasant, but they are the ones we have.

I mean we could get really deep into why capitalism and unregulated corporate power is to blame. But this forum is not the place to have that kind of discussion.

TheBonesXXX · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@nafensoriel I hardly see how you would classify many of the issues I've listed as cosmetic. UI errors are not cosmetic. Freezing when using certain wayshrines is not cosmetic. Getting stuck when reading a writ bounty board is not cosmetic. I'd also argue that cosmetics are one of the biggest cash components for ZOS in ESO. People spend hundreds of dollars on cosmetic aspects of this game, so why not seek to further enhance and improve upon it? I don't understand your point here.

@Put I'm not sure how you quantify the amount of people who share the same game play experience issues I do, or the hundreds of players I know who share similar experiences, as a small percentage. Again, look at the entirety of the EU server right now. Not a small percentage. Some fixes may be easier than others, but that's also not the point. I don't frankly care how difficult it is for a developer to fix their broken game - as a paying customer I expect to spend more time playing than more time staring at load screens or getting frozen or losing time because a group struggles to communicate during a trial when the voice chat decides to crap out. Bugs happen, we get it. And no game, especially of this nature, is bug free - yes. It doesn't mean a developer should choose to ignore efforts to at least try and fix them?

@TheBonesXXX I'm sure there are a ton of politics that play into it, especially being that the studio isn't independent and has a parent they roll up to. But it's sad to say the least; and you're a brave soul to even utter "law" and "suit" in one sentence. The last post I saw even mention this was immediately removed by ZOS. But this isn't a topic about what we as consumers can or should do, it's about holding the studio accountable and looking to them for some simple customer service in responding to a very simple question that I will ask yet again: What's the future of ESO?

I wouldnt hesitate to say it to them in person either, I simply do not care if I offend.

I say what I think, usually based off of acute observation.

Thehartclan · February 2019

@JJBoomer It's easy to assume that all corporations are big, bad and ugly monsters out to steal our money. They aren't, and I like to think a studio like ZOS isn't that.

I can speak personally from having worked at the corporate level for a Forbes500 company and global giant - and they are transparent and they are honest. They listen to their customer base and respond. They are not anything described above.

Yes, we can stop giving them money - in this situation that could work, but that's not the solution to challenging big corporations because the reality is they all fall under a handful of parent companies that essentially run everything. I'd love to not give Comcast money - but I don't have a choice where I live if I want internet. I choose to give money to ZOS to provide me with an amazing gaming experience - and in many capacities they do deliver; but I see the game getting more and more clunky and prone to breaking as time progresses.

If there isn't a plan to work towards continuing to optimize and upgrade the game and gear themselves for huge success on a new console when it hits, then they should just say so. And I do believe the team there is ethical and would do so. Maybe i'm ignorant or maybe I just believe the majority isn't bad. I haven't seen anything to make me feel otherwise as of yet, so again I remain hopeful that the studio will, in some capacity, react/respond to what is again, a very easy question.

Thehartclan · February 2019

@TheBonesXXX I'm with you 100 percent. We are paying customers and as such we have the right to express frustration when we feel the product we are receiving is lacking/broken/not performing to the standard it should. And I don't disagree with the turmoil in EU and some other things I've seen around lately that a large scale customer led revolt (class action) could easily appear if ZOS fails to address some of these super basic questions their fans and paying customers are asking. Not all of their customers are kids living at home; many of us are high paid professionals with a means to get things done and take care of business.

I would hope that the studio would react and respond well before anything like that ever came to be though, and despite my gut telling me to not hold my breath, I do remain hopeful that discussions like this will be seen and heard and will be responded to in some way, shape or form.

Thehartclan · February 2019

@JJBoomer I'll add that I would be completely fine with them responding with "We have no plans to address many or all of the continual issues with game play and plan on letting this game naturally lead it's own course." Fine. At least it's an answer and it allows me to make an educated decision about whether or not I continue to buy the product.

JJBoomer · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@JJBoomer It's easy to assume that all corporations are big, bad and ugly monsters out to steal our money. They aren't, and I like to think a studio like ZOS isn't that.

I can speak personally from having worked at the corporate level for a Forbes500 company and global giant - and they are transparent and they are honest. They listen to their customer base and respond. They are not anything described above.

Yes, we can stop giving them money - in this situation that could work, but that's not the solution to challenging big corporations because the reality is they all fall under a handful of parent companies that essentially run everything. I'd love to not give Comcast money - but I don't have a choice where I live if I want internet. I choose to give money to ZOS to provide me with an amazing gaming experience - and in many capacities they do deliver; but I see the game getting more and more clunky and prone to breaking as time progresses.

If there isn't a plan to work towards continuing to optimize and upgrade the game and gear themselves for huge success on a new console when it hits, then they should just say so. And I do believe the team there is ethical and would do so. Maybe i'm ignorant or maybe I just believe the majority isn't bad. I haven't seen anything to make me feel otherwise as of yet, so again I remain hopeful that the studio will, in some capacity, react/respond to what is again, a very easy question.

So:

1.) corporations don't have to be big to be shady. All they need, is to have the means to get away with it.

2.) maybe you worked for a good corp, but umm Forbes500 companies are actually notorious for not being transparent and honest. Hence the economic crisis we experienced and continue to experience. So I'm not sure if you genuinely believe big corps are saintly, or its willful ignorance, but literally, there is immense amounts of data, studies and statistics that show how corporations, especially big ones, abuse, manipulate and cheat consumers. I would highly suggest more research.

3.) I don't fault you AT ALL for being optimistic and wanting to see the best. I think that's admirable, but its not realistic. More would need to happen politically, and on a large scale for corporation to have to be beholden to the consumer, which they all should be tbh.

but like I said, the forum here is not a good medium for this kind of discussion. So as I said in my first post, I think we need to just stop worrying and enjoy the game as it is, as it comes, for as long as we have it. We deprive ourselves of happiness and enjoyment over things we realistically have little to no control over.

I'd like to not circle this over and over again. So I will let you continue. I've put my piece in here.

TheBonesXXX · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@TheBonesXXX I'm with you 100 percent. We are paying customers and as such we have the right to express frustration when we feel the product we are receiving is lacking/broken/not performing to the standard it should. And I don't disagree with the turmoil in EU and some other things I've seen around lately that a large scale customer led revolt (class action) could easily appear if ZOS fails to address some of these super basic questions their fans and paying customers are asking. Not all of their customers are kids living at home; many of us are high paid professionals with a means to get things done and take care of business.

I would hope that the studio would react and respond well before anything like that ever came to be though, and despite my gut telling me to not hold my breath, I do remain hopeful that discussions like this will be seen and heard and will be responded to in some way, shape or form.

If I as a welder, machinist, mechanic, or Mason pulled some of the stuff these companies do. I would not have a job.

Thehartclan · February 2019

@JJBoomer Fair enough. I appreciate the discussion regardless. I'll leave you on this note:

To generalize that all corporations are evil isn't accurate. Yes, many of the largest companies, at least in the US, are rooted in pure greed and politics: WalMart. Comcast. Proctor and Gamble... the list goes on. ZOS is far from that scale and is micro compared to those companies and as a smaller corporation I expect more willingness from them to hear their customer base.

Change doesn't come by sitting back and just being okay with mediocrity. That complacency is exactly what those large evil companies feed on; so actually this is the perfect platform to address the overarching and super simple question "What is the future of ESO?" Zenimax has even said they aim to be more transparent with their customers, so here's a a perfect chance for them to follow through with that.

I don't roll over for anyone when I give them money for a product or service and I've no qualms about speaking up and asking questions. I think it's very realistic to want and expect the best, especially when dealing with a product that is a commodity and NOT a necessity and i DON'T have to give them a single dime.

I've vested over 40 days of game play and hundreds of dollars into ESO, so I think it's completely warranted for me to ask the studio what the plans for the future of the game are and if there's any mindset to further improve and enhance the game play experience seeing as how it's currently suffering.

Adieu.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@JJBoomer Fair enough. I appreciate the discussion regardless. I'll leave you on this note:

To generalize that all corporations are evil isn't accurate. Yes, many of the largest companies, at least in the US, are rooted in pure greed and politics: WalMart. Comcast. Proctor and Gamble... the list goes on. ZOS is far from that scale and is micro compared to those companies and as a smaller corporation I expect more willingness from them to hear their customer base.

Change doesn't come by sitting back and just being okay with mediocrity. That complacency is exactly what those large evil companies feed on; so actually this is the perfect platform to address the overarching and super simple question "What is the future of ESO?" Zenimax has even said they aim to be more transparent with their customers, so here's a a perfect chance for them to follow through with that.

I don't roll over for anyone when I give them money for a product or service and I've no qualms about speaking up and asking questions. I think it's very realistic to want and expect the best, especially when dealing with a product that is a commodity and NOT a necessity and i DON'T have to give them a single dime.

I've vested over 40 days of game play and hundreds of dollars into ESO, so I think it's completely warranted for me to ask the studio what the plans for the future of the game are and if there's any mindset to further improve and enhance the game play experience seeing as how it's currently suffering.

Adieu.

ESO post 2016 has been making money off a churn population. The problem is that population is drying up. They have sold as many copies as its gonna sell. Eso plus is dwindling and players are not returning for content up grades because its the same update over and over just different skin.only so long a game can last with out evolution. Eventually players dont want to play the same boring zone content with mediocre story .

Nerouyn · February 2019

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Didn't not spin 300 million solely on ESO.

I didn't claim that they did. I accurately stated that that sum of money was poured into the company, not ESO.

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

They took a 300 million dollar loan from an equity firm to start the studio, to develop multiple online games.

There's ESO and Fallout 76. Anything else?

The $200 million estimate is probably about right.

https://mmos.com/editorials/most-expensive-mmorpgs-ever-developed

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

What happened was the console generation being highly compatible with PC.

This is why ESO bombed.

Guild Wars 2. A smaller, much cheaper - buy to play (i.e. no subscription) and a very, light and inoffensive cash shop. Also quite fun. Very profitable and successful. As a publicly listed company NCSoft is legally required to report those details and we know them.

GW2 hurt ESO bad.

ESO's story is great but kneecapped by a bunch of things.

One of the most popular aspects of their hugely successful single player games is mods. Can't do those easily with an MMO so instead ZO gave us super *** UIs and tedium like with inventory management to force players to use addons. But they're obviously not the same. A mod lets you tailor to a game to your tastes or add something fun to it. ESO addons really just let you fix the *** UI.

If I pay for a game I shouldn't have to search for and download extra stuff to make it playable. Tedious. A lot of people probably just judged the base game as it was and buggered off.

And of course it's not really an Elder Scrolls game.

It has classes. You can't max all skills and stats. Race matters.

WTF?!

And back at launch, your choice of race was limited to 3. Per faction that is. Sure you could pre-order but many people have been burned by pre-orders and with the game not looking very Elder Scrolls'y a lot of people didn't. And at launch faction didn't just apply to PvP. It also restricted PvE.

Many MMO players are members of guilds who move between or play across multiple games. What if your guild chooses a faction with race options you don't like? What if you'd always played a Khajiit and loved them but your guild chose DC?

And right from the outset there was a horrifically glaring example of their intentions for the cash shop.

You had to pay extra to play an Imperial.

Personally I never play humans but it's a bit awful to tell players who enjoy one particular race that they have to pay more for the game.

And then there's sneaky manipulative *** to try to force players into guilds, because that tends to promote retention, eg. no AH, crafting materials taking up so much space and needing 10 players to access the guild bank. But a lot of player would have just hated those things and quit.

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

No eso is very profitable if it was not they would shut the doors

Hardly.

The game bombed critically and financially. Of that there's no doubt.

Just look at the "chapters are not DLCs" shenanigans. Taking those away from subscribers to squeeze a bit more money out of them. They had to be desperate for cash to try that.

You must remember that their single player Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles made them stupid amounts of money. They're not even remotely poor. They could comfortably afford to keep ESO going regardless.

And shutting down ESO would seriously hurt their image. This isn't like other MMOs which aren't based on big IPs. The single player Elder Scrolls titles are critical, popular and financial juggernauts. As much as possible they'd want to keep up the appearance that ESO is doing great!!!

russelmmendoza · February 2019

Is it just me or am I the only one playing the quest/story line?

Every time I make a new toon, I run them through the story line.

Well I do get distracted with events, but I play events on my main mean nb.

Its the one with the most skill points, competitive if you will.

I love the lore story quest, everything else is just for fun.

I do hate all the nerfs though, just saying.

Nerouyn · February 2019

Accidental double.

Wifeaggro13 · February 2019

Nerouyn wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Didn't not spin 300 million solely on ESO.

I didn't claim that they did. I accurately stated that that sum of money was poured into the company, not ESO.

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

They took a 300 million dollar loan from an equity firm to start the studio, to develop multiple online games.

There's ESO and Fallout 76. Anything else?

The $200 million estimate is probably about right.

https://mmos.com/editorials/most-expensive-mmorpgs-ever-developed

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

What happened was the console generation being highly compatible with PC.

This is why ESO bombed.

Guild Wars 2. A smaller, much cheaper - buy to play (i.e. no subscription) and a very, light and inoffensive cash shop. Also quite fun. Very profitable and successful. As a publicly listed company NCSoft is legally required to report those details and we know them.

GW2 hurt ESO bad.

ESO's story is great but kneecapped by a bunch of things.

One of the most popular aspects of their hugely successful single player games is mods. Can't do those easily with an MMO so instead ZO gave us super *** UIs and tedium like with inventory management to force players to use addons. But they're obviously not the same. A mod lets you tailor to a game to your tastes or add something fun to it. ESO addons really just let you fix the *** UI.

If I pay for a game I shouldn't have to search for and download extra stuff to make it playable. Tedious. A lot of people probably just judged the base game as it was and buggered off.

And of course it's not really an Elder Scrolls game.

It has classes. You can't max all skills and stats. Race matters.

WTF?!

And back at launch, your choice of race was limited to 3. Per faction that is. Sure you could pre-order but many people have been burned by pre-orders and with the game not looking very Elder Scrolls'y a lot of people didn't. And at launch faction didn't just apply to PvP. It also restricted PvE.

Many MMO players are members of guilds who move between or play across multiple games. What if your guild chooses a faction with race options you don't like? What if you'd always played a Khajiit and loved them but your guild chose DC?

And right from the outset there was a horrifically glaring example of their intentions for the cash shop.

You had to pay extra to play an Imperial.

Personally I never play humans but it's a bit awful to tell players who enjoy one particular race that they have to pay more for the game.

And then there's sneaky manipulative *** to try to force players into guilds, because that tends to promote retention, eg. no AH, crafting materials taking up so much space and needing 10 players to access the guild bank. But a lot of player would have just hated those things and quit.

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

No eso is very profitable if it was not they would shut the doors

Hardly.

The game bombed critically and financially. Of that there's no doubt.

Just look at the "chapters are not DLCs" shenanigans. Taking those away from subscribers to squeeze a bit more money out of them. They had to be desperate for cash to try that.

You must remember that their single player Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles made them stupid amounts of money. They're not even remotely poor. They could comfortably afford to keep ESO going regardless.

And shutting down ESO would seriously hurt their image. This isn't like other MMOs which aren't based on big IPs. The single player Elder Scrolls titles are critical, popular and financial juggernauts. As much as possible they'd want to keep up the appearance that ESO is doing great!!!

ZOS did not make FO76 Bethseda did

nafensoriel · February 2019

Thehartclan wrote: »

@nafensoriel I hardly see how you would classify many of the issues I've listed as cosmetic. UI errors are not cosmetic. Freezing when using certain wayshrines is not cosmetic. Getting stuck when reading a writ bounty board is not cosmetic. I'd also argue that cosmetics are one of the biggest cash components for ZOS in ESO. People spend hundreds of dollars on cosmetic aspects of this game, so why not seek to further enhance and improve upon it? I don't understand your point here.

Wayshrine issue? Never had one. Ever. If this is a console problem its most likely network related and not necessarily a bug. Consoles generally have... quirks that are impossible to work around. I've also never once gotten stuck on a writ board after 5 years and max chars doing them daily. 99% of bugs I've encountered can be cleared with /reloadui or a relog. That fundamentally puts them in the "cosmetic" category with an easy built-in fix.
Fixing something barely broken isn't remotely as cost-effective as fixing things that are broken... and frankly, you will never really know what's really broken because developers are under no obligation to actually tell you. So far the arguments against ZOS seem shallow and subjective. Considering they are currently considered the best MMO out there it stands to reason they must be doing something right eh? Let's let them keep doing that why don't we?

DaveMoeDee · February 2019

JJBoomer wrote: »

...

So we either need to inspire a large, and I mean MASSIVE amount of the player base to cancel subs and refuse to funnel money into crowns, or we need to radically accept things the way they are and work with what we have.

...

I would love to see people stop buying cosmetics so that they devote all resources to releasing new narrative content, though I know that isn't what you mean.

DaveMoeDee · February 2019

nafensoriel wrote: »

Thehartclan wrote: »

@nafensoriel I hardly see how you would classify many of the issues I've listed as cosmetic. UI errors are not cosmetic. Freezing when using certain wayshrines is not cosmetic. Getting stuck when reading a writ bounty board is not cosmetic. I'd also argue that cosmetics are one of the biggest cash components for ZOS in ESO. People spend hundreds of dollars on cosmetic aspects of this game, so why not seek to further enhance and improve upon it? I don't understand your point here.

Wayshrine issue? Never had one. Ever. If this is a console problem its most likely network related and not necessarily a bug. Consoles generally have... quirks that are impossible to work around. I've also never once gotten stuck on a writ board after 5 years and max chars doing them daily. 99% of bugs I've encountered can be cleared with /reloadui or a relog. That fundamentally puts them in the "cosmetic" category with an easy built-in fix.
Fixing something barely broken isn't remotely as cost-effective as fixing things that are broken... and frankly, you will never really know what's really broken because developers are under no obligation to actually tell you. So far the arguments against ZOS seem shallow and subjective. Considering they are currently considered the best MMO out there it stands to reason they must be doing something right eh? Let's let them keep doing that why don't we?

While I also have no idea what the wayshrine issue is, where did you get the idea that "they are currently considered the best MMO out there"? While it is the only MMO I have played, I think you are overly impressed by marketing. And reader polls.

Obviously, with the investment in the game, it will be in every top 10 MMORPG list. But people can debate all day about who is #1.

Kilnerdyne · February 2019

The Past

The Present

The Future

Thehartclan · February 2019

nafensoriel wrote: »

Wayshrine issue? Never had one. Ever. If this is a console problem its most likely network related and not necessarily a bug. Consoles generally have... quirks that are impossible to work around. I've also never once gotten stuck on a writ board after 5 years and max chars doing them daily. 99% of bugs I've encountered can be cleared with /reloadui or a relog. That fundamentally puts them in the "cosmetic" category with an easy built-in fix.
Fixing something barely broken isn't remotely as cost-effective as fixing things that are broken... and frankly, you will never really know what's really broken because developers are under no obligation to actually tell you. So far the arguments against ZOS seem shallow and subjective. Considering they are currently considered the best MMO out there it stands to reason they must be doing something right eh? Let's let them keep doing that why don't we?

I don't think simply because you have not personally experienced these issues you get to dismiss them as not a major flaw or problem that afflicts more than just a couple of people. Nor does a problem require a majority of users to encounter it to warrant a fix. If you have paying customers experiencing issues with your product then the expectation to have some sort of general acknowledgement about the overall lifespan of the game is no ridiculous thing to ask. I'm not asking for specific solutions. I don't know what combination of things need to be done to make people happy - that's really not the intent of my topic.

When I ask about the longevity of this game it's because I want to gauge how much more of a monetary and time commitment I'm willing to give. And to simply use my own personal experiences with game play issues is by no means out of the ordinary or unexpected.

All I want to hear is the studio give it's customers some broad insight into the future of this game. Period.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · February 2019

Kilnerdyne wrote: »

The Past

The Present

The Future

So true so true.
Go back to pre-launch videos (2013-2014), and listen to what the devs and leads said about "what we want for ESO"....
But then they started leaving, (Paul, Nick, etc). Now Wroble and oh Akatosh I'm so sad about this, Lawrence Shick now leaving.

I followed ESO since 2 years BEFORE launch, so excited about what they were about and what they had planned....
Now to the present....... A "Poke'-Man" style grind of "Collect 4 of these and get this and then collect 10 of those and oh hey here is a new event 2 weeks after the last one etc etc etc....."
For the love of Akatosh WTH????

Well we know the "Future of ESO".... It is IMO sad and why I have gone from almost 30 - 40 hrs a week of game play to maybe 5-10 hrs a week, and from $100- $200 a month to well maybe $40 every month or two? And that includes my sub!
Bottom line is this and I hope Zo$ wakes up and see's it!!!......
“When the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, they end up running the companies. The product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products.”

My 2 drakes.... Huzzah!!!

Bam_Bam · February 2019

Sixsixsix161 wrote: »

Hope we're not going down the same road as Rift did.

Woke up one morning last October and discovered that Trion Worlds (Rift, Defiance, and more) was out of business and had been sold to a German gaming company named Gamigo.

Here we are almost mid-February, and they still are struggling to get things under control.

Totally unexpected, especially since Trion had just a few weeks earlier purchased all the equipment belonging to another gaming company that went out of business.

Can still play Rift, but it's almost dead, players have, and continue, to leave, and Gamigo is not providing a lot of updates as to what their plans are.

Hope ESO is not going there.

6

As soon as a game is released, it will forever be playing catch-up to technology. You'll find that the first 5 years are awesome but often the game becomes to look dated quickly.
Developers know that modern games have a limited productive (money making) lifespan. Older games have massive fan bases that can sustain the game regardless of the technology fade.

Modern games don't have that luxury.

Content is created because content sells. It's a given. And it's why most developers don't have the cojones to do an update dedicated to performance and optimisation it's a step into the unknown.

And in ESO's case, that is a crying shame. Because some dedicated, TLC, would work wonders for this great, but neglected, game. The amount of players such an update would bring back, would far out weigh the few new players that new content would bring in.
And the main reason long-term players leave, it seems, is because the lack of care, brutal nerfs and unchecked server issues sucks the enjoyment out of the game.

IMHO