Why should content creators stick to ESO?

Turelus · March 2019

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

yodased · March 2019

https://youtu.be/PivbmaAwVqs

I've shared this on ESO forums, its the best i can do

karekiz · March 2019

amir412 wrote: »

No1 wants to watch a streamer doing the same PVE content over and over again,

I dunno ask WoW streamers

xaraan · March 2019

Maybe for casual viewers, pvp is more interesting.

But once you've seen a lot of it, or done a lot of it, it's just as repetitive as PvE IMO.

It's more about the personality of the creator for me. I've gotten enjoyment out of watching someone interesting do any content in the game, even chatting while doing writs, doing dungeons I've done myself a million times, BGs, whatever.

Not sure why people argue numbers. Hard to talk about numbers really - devs for the game cherry pick stuff to show off the game is doing well - all we can do is tell how the game feels when we play - how populated it is, how much the economy moves, etc. And it feels good. Streamers also have the embedded viewership problem that inflates numbers, so looking at viewercount isn't that great either. But it does seem like there are more people streaming lately than in years prior. In the end, we can try and parse numbers all we want, but shouldn't you just play and watch what you enjoy? I'll keep playing the game while I enjoy it and I'll keep watching streamers that are entertaining - no matter the numbers both sides throw around.

Shout out to ninja since he's my fav streamer right now.

Universe · March 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

No, really? It's almost like I addressed that exact point in my comment.

Show me some data that says that the ESO playerbase is declining.

I'll wait.

There is no proof.
The population numbers are not disclosed by ZOS, we can only assume based on what we see.

Turelus wrote: »

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

Steam sales and current players playing states are too narrow for making any assumptions.
It is true for the popularity of ESO on Steam, but not outside of it.
Note: Your quote has the wrong name in it, the mentioned forum user didn't post this, I did.

Ogou · March 2019

yodased wrote: »

https://youtu.be/PivbmaAwVqs

I've shared spammed this on ESO forums, its the best i can do

FTFY

nafensoriel · March 2019

Universe wrote: »

There is no proof.
The population numbers are not disclosed by ZOS, we can only assume based on what we see.

In an interview in 2017, the president of ZOS point blank stated there were 2.5 million unique monthly logins. Commentary outside of interviews since then has suggested this has grown to at least 3 million unique monthly logins.

So yeah. Plenty of proof. Just people who like to pretend MMOs powered by studios with hundreds of employees can survive on "just 100k players". (Fun fact.. they can't.)

Mojmir · March 2019

Gilvoth wrote: »

amir412 wrote: »

right now PVP is literally dead - Still not a single address from ZOS related to this game breaking issues.

eso is doing great in both PvP and PvE, right now we have more people playing eso than ever in its history and there really is no problems, other than as small group that keeps making threads asking for changes that only "they" want, and when the devs dont do those changes then there are complaints that eso is dead, broken, and flooded with problems and breaking issues, when none of those things are happening.
eso PvP is not dead, it is better now than ever before, and with MORE people now than ever in eso history.
there is no "breaking issues" in eso as you mentioned, all it is, is that devs simply dont agree with some of the views people currently have.
and I myself along with 90% of eso community agree with the devs.

Is that koolaid youre drinking sugar-free?

Universe · March 2019

nafensoriel wrote: »

Universe wrote: »

There is no proof.
The population numbers are not disclosed by ZOS, we can only assume based on what we see.

In an interview in 2017, the president of ZOS point blank stated there were 2.5 million unique monthly logins. Commentary outside of interviews since then has suggested this has grown to at least 3 million unique monthly logins.

So yeah. Plenty of proof. Just people who like to pretend MMOs powered by studios with hundreds of employees can survive on "just 100k players". (Fun fact.. they can't.)

Please share a link or two to the "commentary" if you have it available.
As far as I know there is no recent official statement about the population numbers.
I never said there are 100k players.
In fact it is reasonable to assume there are many...more than 100k players.
Though all we can do is to assume since there is no recent official statement.

nafensoriel · March 2019

Universe wrote: »

Please share a link or two to the "commentary" if you have it available.
As far as I know there is no recent official statement about the population numbers.
I never said there are 100k players.
In fact it is reasonable to assume there are many...more than 100k players.
Though all we can do is to assume since there is no recent official statement.

Because forum searches are hard...
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/386235/we-finally-know-how-many-active-players-are-adventuring-in-tamriel/p1

Wait. I know you'll complain that was 3 years ago and the game is somehow dying now. Except for all information to the contrary like an accelerated development cycle of new content. Games doing worse get less not more. This fairytale people have that ESO is dying because AvA is poorly represented is bunk. People play battlegrounds or play for PVE. AvA is for hardcore nutjobs(myself included) and a very bad tool for determining game health.

Unless you think the president of the company is ill-informed about his companies main product.

As far as the comments for 3m UniUsers/month I specifically said comments. As in industry word of mouth or hearsay. All signs point to it being accurate however considering trends and the steadily rising population numbers and total account numbers. MMOs have been around long enough that we can extrapolate certain things ya know.

VaranisArano · March 2019

Perhaps I am naive to assume that if a content creator is spending time and effort and money on playing ESO, that they are doing it for two reasons:

1. It is what the people who watch them/visit their sites are interested in.
2. They actually like ESO.

When those factors diminish, I'd expect them to move on.

And while I can't speak to how much these content creators actually like ESO - though I hope they do - I note that despite the many predictions over the years that ESO is dying, we appear to be approaching the 5th anniversary with little to no signs that we should panic because the sky is falling.

Malprave · March 2019

Universe wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Sanctum74 wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

amir412 wrote: »

right now PVP is literally dead - Still not a single address from ZOS related to this game breaking issues.

eso is doing great in both PvP and PvE, right now we have more people playing eso than ever in its history and there really is no problems, other than as small group that keeps making threads asking for changes that only "they" want, and when the devs dont do those changes then there are complaints that eso is dead, broken, and flooded with problems and breaking issues, when none of those things are happening.
eso PvP is not dead, it is better now than ever before, and with MORE people now than ever in eso history.
there is no "breaking issues" in eso as you mentioned, all it is, is that devs simply dont agree with some of the views people currently have.
and I myself along with 90% of eso community agree with the devs.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm, paid promotion, or you are just playing a completely different game then the rest of us.

Copies sold does not mean more players. Pvp and major pve areas have no where near the population that they used to have and there's plenty of videos and threads showing all of the performance problems.

We complain because we care about the game and just want the basic mechanics to work. White knighting and ignoring these issues does nothing to help the population and longevity of the game.

The trend-line is obviously going up. That's just Steam. If you look more closely at the stats, you tend to see jumps when big updates release (particularly the Chapters), and then a decline shortly thereafter, but the trend-line keeps pointing up.

Have you considered that the population density of certain zones/instances has gone down because there are more zones/instances now? Yeah, sure, maybe there aren't as many people in Rawk'kha or Elden Root as there used to be, but what about all of the people in Alinor or Lilmoth or Vivec City or the Brass Fortress? And perhaps there aren't as many people in Cyrodiil because a lot of them are playing BGs (a much easier way to get the PvP fix in, IMO).

Obviously there's no way to know how many people are playing on XB1/PS4/non-Steam PC. But as a proxy for game popularity, look at /r/elderscrollsonline:

Who knows. I certainly haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that the population is *decreasing*.

Also, as far as content creators go, here's some info on the two most popular (Fengrush and Alcast, as far as I know):

Fengrush Twitch livestream views over time:

Alcast Twitch livestream views over time:

Alcast YouTube subs over time:

It just looks to me like all of the stats are trending up.

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Quantitatively, I would agree with you. But, qualitatively I would expect the total population trend to be in agreement with the trend on Steam, i.e. increasing.

klowdy1 · March 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

I don't care? I never watch streamers, they annoy me frankly. The only ESO youtuber i watch is Kevduit.

Lol, that guy DOESN'T annoy you? I have tried to watch him about a dozen, I really gave him a shot, but I cannot stand the way he talks, but I'm also not a WWE fan. I'm sure he's a good guy, but the character he plays in his videos is far too much for me.

Odnoc · March 2019

Content creators? You mean streamers? That's not really creating anything, just recording themselves playing a game. Who cares what they do, less time watching = more time playing.

Ydrisselle · March 2019

amir412 wrote: »

Why should any content creator stick to ESO?
No1 wants to watch a streamer doing the same PVE content over and over again,
Pepole likes to watch PVP, and right now PVP is literally dead - Still not a single address from ZOS related to this game breaking issues.
So what option does ESO's content creators has? Stream a fashion content? A guide "how to design your char"?

Shoutout to Kristofer_ESO for this awsome video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivbmaAwVqs

As soon as an ESO streamer starts to play exclusively PvP, I won't watch the stream at all. I'm simply not interested in PvP streams. I know, I'm not a representative of the target community, but to think that only PvP streams are interesting...

MassPandemic · March 2019

Turelus wrote: »

Well, a lot of them seem to be doing okay.

I don't see many of their dedicated content creators struggling to get views or have things to talk about. They have new content to explore/talk about every three months.

I don't think lack of support for content creators is a great argument for why PvP needs love or should be improved.

gotta say i agree i mean the game has a consistent content cadence and it's better than most mmos. I love we get a new chapter every year it's just a bit smaller than a typical wow expansion, and this year they are trying to weave a continuous story throughout the whole year. I like this idea and hope they keep it going it gives them a chance to really explore stories in the game and not have them be rushed to a chapter or a small dlc. I usually don't get into stories in most games especially mmos but eso does a good job at this mostly because its voice acted for me personally.

The thing i would say though is they need to do more different kinds of content id argue , it does get stale after a while when they havepatches that are this predictable story dlc , dungeon dlc , chapter , new area story dlc. Id love more maelstrom arena like content or an addition to the arena stuff like that , that isn't routine like we've been getting. They are probably nervous to stray away from what they have found is working well for them though after the tough launch.

Ohtimbar · March 2019

The term 'content creator' sounds like ad-speak birthed by YouTube execs, and overly generous in most cases. That said, if they can't make ends meet with eso they should try other games or get real jobs.

Mr_Walker · March 2019

Why would anyone sit down and watch other people playing a game when I would sooner be playing it myself...?

Sylvermynx · March 2019

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would anyone sit down and watch other people playing a game when I would sooner be playing it myself...?

QFT.

Casowen · March 2019

I personally believe that the game player system needs to be changed more than anything else. I made a post some weeks back to which ace, I had basically said that, along with more streamed line engine changes. I do not doubt zme's ability to make great art and content however how things go under the hood is what effectively derails the immersion for me. And a lack of understanding that had me sort of vent it as being an engine change, when in fact an engine investment and enhancement for a more fluid and organic feel is what I would like to see, to which end I keep modeling black desert online. Accordingly, I think saying phrases like " why should we add more content" is misleading to zme's goals as they continously add more probably because its the easier route, while doing what I mentioned above isnt.

Eldar_Ftw · March 2019

Ohtimbar wrote: »

The term 'content creator' sounds like ad-speak birthed by YouTube execs, and overly generous in most cases. That said, if they can't make ends meet with eso they should try other games or get real jobs.

QFT

Sorta off topic, one of my former work buddies just quit his job/position at work to become a youtuber/twitch streamer...he was easily making $2,800 a month at our job...I'm all for doing what you love to do but NOTHING is worth having no ways of health benefits, 401k and being a "content creator" you ether become big or you barely break even (if you're lucky).

Also @ the TC if you think ESO is dying and lacking content, go play WoW, then you'll realize what a dying MMO feels like.

MrGraves · March 2019

I mean I assume people would just make videos abt eso bc they like playing the game and like sharing stuff with others.
outside of friends only creator I watch is Elara Northwind on youtube. She makes some pretty awesome homes and that's what I'm interested in seeing. + it's beneficial to me because seeing what homes other people make in ESO is inspiring for my projects.

ESO does need to run better but I don't think it needs to run better for content creators. (or streamers in this case I guess...??) I don't really play pvp and if I do it's usually battlegrounds. Game mostly runs fine for me outside PvP which I don't really care for and wouldn't really care to watch someone doing PvP unless the video/stream was informational like "how to pvp" or whatever for people like me that don't play it enough to know the pvp trends. Only other case I will watch someone play pvp is if it's a friend.

MikaHR · March 2019

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Why would anyone sit down and watch other people playing a game when I would sooner be playing it myself...?

You can make a case for "e-sports"...same as football, basketbal or any other sport.

But....not ESO, numbers for ESO are abbysmal in that department.

It seems that people that visited ESO HQ last week got some form of sponsorship/monetary support from ZOS.

Turelus · March 2019

Universe wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

No, really? It's almost like I addressed that exact point in my comment.

Show me some data that says that the ESO playerbase is declining.

I'll wait.

There is no proof.
The population numbers are not disclosed by ZOS, we can only assume based on what we see.

Turelus wrote: »

Myrkgrav wrote: »

Steam is not a reliable indicator for checking how large the ESO player base is, far from it.
Most ESO players don't use Steam to play ESO.

Even so, the fact it shows an increase would say that more people are playing now than in the past.

Steam sales and current players playing states are too narrow for making any assumptions.
It is true for the popularity of ESO on Steam, but not outside of it.
Note: Your quote has the wrong name in it, the mentioned forum user didn't post this, I did.

ooph, sorry guess I messed up when deleting a lot of the other quoted information.

I agree Steam isn't a sample of everywhere, but we all normally agree that more people play ESO outside of Steam than within Steam so logically it would make sense that if Steam sales and popularity are going up the non-steam areas on PC would be as well.
No we have no evidence of it, but personally it doesn't make much sense to see Steam getting better and better player numbers and non-Steam PC going in reverse.

Alucardo · March 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

I don't care? I never watch streamers, they annoy me frankly. The only ESO youtuber i watch is Kevduit.

Wait, you don't like annoying content creators yet you watch Kevduit?

Zacuel · March 2019

I don't get the whole streaming thing.

I must be old school because I'd rather play the game over watching someone play the game.

I really don't get it. Not even trying to be sarcastic.

What am I missing about this?

Alucardo · March 2019

Zacuel wrote: »

I don't get the whole streaming thing.

I must be old school because I'd rather play the game over watching someone play the game.

I really don't get it. Not even trying to be sarcastic.

What am I missing about this?

People watch streams for different reasons. Some watch them to find out how a great player does what they do. Some watch because the person is just plain entertaining, and others because they like the community. When you're tired of playing, sometimes it's nice just to hang out with a bunch of people who enjoy the same game.

MikaHR · March 2019

Zacuel wrote: »

I don't get the whole streaming thing.

I must be old school because I'd rather play the game over watching someone play the game.

I really don't get it. Not even trying to be sarcastic.

What am I missing about this?

For "e-sports" its the same reason as for sports.

But ESO is not an "e-sport"..and it shows in numbers, pretty much no one watches the streams, as its ultimately pointless.

And a note that "content creators" are not just about streaming, as it would be quite catastrophic for anyone to be just an ESO streamer.

Casterial · March 2019

I watched the video, firstly I love Jack don't get me wrong, but hes entirely wrong.

Yes, the game did launch as a failure, yes it did swap to B2P / Cash shop.

He often complains about PVP, which for the devs its probably about ~5-6% of the total population, maybe less.. So why cater towards those gamers?

Firstly, making money to make sure the product stays alive and able to afford development is important. A long time ago the game industry set a price for game packs / games $30/$60. This is wrong, I work in the game industry, I personally believe games should cost $60+++ for base, and packs can be $15-30, why? Well look at movies, movies have TRIPLED in prices of the last few years, game development cost is no different.

Another thing, Bethesda is publically traded(TakeTwo), Zenimax also does support this game, bug fixes aren't as easy as you all think it is, you fix one thing, create about 20 others sometimes. Its no easy task. ESO PVP has many issues, the server does has issues, the performance isn't there.. But this is mainly all issues with PVP and not the PVE... So what can they do? Well PVP isn't where the money is at in this game, they also admitted in the past that the Cyrodiil creation / plan was poorly executed, its too late as stated by Wrobel a while back, its too late to go back and fix it...

I think Jack forgets one thing, Zenimax is a company, a business first. Like the game isn't bad. I think he forgets that almost every game now days is "how can we make our return on the product"
A mobile game can cost $20million++++ to make, MMO are one of the hardest games to work on, by far hands down the second is MOBA and RTS.

Also, to fix the "ping issue" in Cyrodiil you need to restructure it, it could be down to the base core game engine code or networking code causing this issue, but theres so many particles, so much stuff going on in such a large world thats not phased that is all being loaded into the server, I feel like most forget this game use to be 1k+++ ping daily, sitting at ~300-400 is a large improvement, I'm glad they're making changes to PVP, especially since PVP makes them almost no money.

Yes, the players may spend money in the cash shop, but thats not directly related to PVP, PVE is where the money is.

I personally came back to ESO to just PVE to be honest, I like to waste time, I basically am tired of PVP in almost all games, its all not good.

I say PVP players should be glad that the entire issue in Cyrodiil is slowly being improved, that we still have a combat team that watches PVP, I do wish that our balance team would play the game more than looking at Data because issues like Heavy Armor and the power gap between Stam/Magicka also wouldn't be as bad, but hey what can we do? The game is great, but its DEFINITELY PVE focused, despite having a great combat system, PVP is no majority for the game, and PVP definitely doesn't make any money back now days.

Oh Also game products release often bad because of pressure from the company

-> Don't forget! Give a game time, the company DOES care, its just their investor "the publisher" always needs a return on the product. In this case ESO probably has to make $150,000/day or more to stay operating, or it could lose marketing, it could lose head count.... They have to pay back the publisher, they have to pay off marketing, etc.

MrGraves · March 2019

I've never really understood the appeal to watch sports either honestly. I know lots of people do but that's something I could never get behind.