What am I paying a subscription fee for?

pallan68b14_ESO · April 2014

"We will be bringing down the North American megaserver for maintenance and disabling logins tonight at 11:47pm EDT. We'll let you know as soon as we have an update. Thank you for your patience."

Translation,

We'd like to thank you for spending your hard earned money on a broken game. Please ignore all the game breaking bugs, server lag, rollbacks, and server outages. Although we did have beta testing, we were too busy counting the money from preorders to get these issues fixed. While most other MMO's fail within months because of the same issues, we consider ourselves special and have learned nothing from them. Thanks again folks! We go FTP in a week.

Lag · April 2014

Technically you haven't payed for a subscription fee until the beginning of May.

cjmarsh725b14_ESO · April 2014

I see you haven't played many MMOs before.

pecheckler · April 2014

I wish the online video game industry had service level agreements like so many other hosted services.

Fozee · April 2014

I'm not sure $15 is hard earned. Most of us probably make that in the bathroom every month at work.

pallan68b14_ESO · April 2014

Too many to count cj. Just find it funny that this happens on every MMO out there. I expected it, but it doesn't mean I can't poke fun at it.

thegamekittenub17_ESO · April 2014

Since it is a free month, they don't worry too much about how messed up this game is at this time. Nor do they worry about taking down servers anytime they want or need too. Sooo, let's see if this continues when we are actually paying 15 a month.

It is all I could think of while I am annoyed about not being able to play.

Zarec · April 2014

So they shouldn't fix critical bugs? Ok...I hope you enjoy running in place.

Also...the Terms of Use spell out instances like this for emergency maintenance. Do you really think they would bring down the server on a saturday night because they wanted to? No...it means they found something that needed fixed now, not later, not next week, NOW.

So to answer your question, you're paying a sub so you can play the game and your fee helps maintain the integrity of the game which sometimes means emergency maintenance. No it isn't ideal but it happens, specially during the first couple weeks of release as more players are present and unknown bugs start being found.

I'm just curious what was found, it either means a major exploit was found or something really bad was found that could pose a risk to the game or server.

darkkterror_ESO · April 2014

Lag wrote: »

Technically you haven't payed for a subscription fee until the beginning of May.

Damn, I wasn't fast enough, not by a long shot.

Sacred_Warrior · April 2014

Le sigh. Will refrain from insults here and let angry customer vent. Still funny yet really irritating.

lionheart051 · April 2014

This game is epic!!! LEFT ME IN MOOOTAAA FOOOKAAA!!!!!

Lookoutitsdomkeub17_ESO · April 2014

It won't be down all month with it?
I don't understand your logic here. Besides, it's emergency maintenance. It's better to take it down and fix it than to continue to allow large groups of people to lose items and experience painfully long load times. Hell, some people couldn't even log in. It's necessary maintenance.

nhisso · April 2014

LMAO, TC. Cry harder, please. Whiny, entitled brat-gamers all over the boards. Go back to whatever MMO you think is superior (ALL of which had problems during the first couple of months).

tripiseanb14_ESO · April 2014

Shut up.
The server was having issues so they brought it down to fix it. Quit your crying.

LedHed · April 2014

I just wish they would give us some kind of time frame, even if they don't meet it.

pallan68b14_ESO · April 2014

lol well after reading the angry comments, I thought I would get a better reaction to this one. I'm just saying after a decade of rough MMO releases, you'd think that a lot of these issues would be ironed out. While I understand the reason for the maintenance, and the subscription fee, I just don't see how this stuff isn't fixed before launch.

To put it in perspective, when you go out and buy a brand new car, wouldn't you find it kind of irritating to bring the thing to the shop every week?

Ergophobian · April 2014

pecheckler wrote: »

I wish the online video game industry had service level agreements like so many other hosted services.

Like who? Please list a hosted service that promises uptime. The best anyone can do is "We try for 100%, but we can't promise anything."

I pay Comcast $80 a month, I've had "downtime" with them for 7 months they can't solve. I can't do anything about it.
I pay T-Mobile $120 a month, and many times calls simply won't go through. I can't do anything about it.
I pay Zenimax $15 a month, for unlimited access to a really cool game. Since launch, it has been down for a total of 2 hours when I actually was available to play.
It's a game, get over your entitled selves.

felixgamingx1 · April 2014

Ask Morgan Freeman he explains things so well.

Phyrdrin · April 2014

What's hilarious is watching the forums explode with redundant threads that will be ignored by the moderators anyway. But, rage on ^___^ I've officially labeled the forums Elder Scrolls: Offline as it is a massive source of entertainment to tide me over between crashes, bugs, lack of customer support, and unscheduled maintenance :P

ByrenV · April 2014

Zarec wrote: »

I'm just curious what was found, it either means a major exploit was found or something really bad was found that could pose a risk to the game or server.

im guessing it has something to do with the total gear/skill point/progression loss that happened to several players

Tweek · April 2014

pallan68b14_ESO wrote: »

"We will be bringing down the North American megaserver for maintenance and disabling logins tonight at 11:47pm EDT. We'll let you know as soon as we have an update. Thank you for your patience."

Translation,

We'd like to thank you for spending your hard earned money on a broken game. Please ignore all the game breaking bugs, server lag, rollbacks, and server outages. Although we did have beta testing, we were too busy counting the money from preorders to get these issues fixed. While most other MMO's fail within months because of the same issues, we consider ourselves special and have learned nothing from them. Thanks again folks! We go FTP in a week.

This. This. and This.

Polished and lag free launch...lol

The bank glitch cause players to lose ALL of their items and bank slots which makes playing this game useless, and if you wanna send in a support ticket expect an automated response and to NEVER have your items returned to you.

If you're not hit by the bank glitch then the auto-ban will no doubt get you for giving gold to a friend to for mailing you guild members too many times....lol really getting our moneys worth.

To top it off shut the server down on SATURDAY NIGHT lol

Kiss 90% of the player base goodbye in first 3 months if these things continue..I have played enough MMOs to know. For reference look at what has happened/is happening to The Old Republic.

Tweek · April 2014

ByrenV wrote: »

Zarec wrote: »

I'm just curious what was found, it either means a major exploit was found or something really bad was found that could pose a risk to the game or server.

im guessing it has something to do with the total gear/skill point/progression loss that happened to several players

If this is actually happening to people then everyone will leave. This should be fixed ASAP and the server should be SHUT DOWN until the game is actually READY.

ByrenV · April 2014

Tweek wrote: »

ByrenV wrote: »

Zarec wrote: »

I'm just curious what was found, it either means a major exploit was found or something really bad was found that could pose a risk to the game or server.

im guessing it has something to do with the total gear/skill point/progression loss that happened to several players

If this is actually happening to people then everyone will leave. This should be fixed ASAP and the server should be SHUT DOWN until the game is actually READY.

i can assure you it is happening...from first hand experience

Attorneyatlawl · April 2014

Lag wrote: »

Technically you haven't payed for a subscription fee until the beginning of May.

Wrong. The subscription fee is part of the retail pricing of the game, and factored into it as such when made available for purchase.

Arunei · April 2014

/sigh

Well, for one, you aren't paying a subscription fee yet. For another, it's called EMERGENCY maintenance for a reason. They wouldn't pull the servers offline just to lol at everyone RAEGFACING all over the forums.

I mean, what, would you prefer them to leave the servers bugged as opposed to taking them down for a few hours to fix something? In case you haven't noticed, a lot of people have been having serious load-time and login issues as of yesterday. This maintenance is most likely to patch up whatever was causing dozens of people to literally be unable to play.

But no, no. Let's leave the buggy, screwed-up servers online so people can continue to scream how there are so many bugs that need fixing RIGHT NOW. If people aren't whining about the servers being up and buggy, they're complaining about them being down and getting fixed.

Attorneyatlawl · April 2014

Arunei wrote: »

/sigh

Well, for one, you aren't paying a subscription fee yet. For another, it's called EMERGENCY maintenance for a reason. They wouldn't pull the servers offline just to lol at everyone RAEGFACING all over the forums.

I mean, what, would you prefer them to leave the servers bugged as opposed to taking them down for a few hours to fix something? In case you haven't noticed, a lot of people have been having serious load-time and login issues as of yesterday. This maintenance is most likely to patch up whatever was causing dozens of people to literally be unable to play.

But no, no. Let's leave the buggy, screwed-up servers online so people can continue to scream how there are so many bugs that need fixing RIGHT NOW. If people aren't whining about the servers being up and buggy, they're complaining about them being down and getting fixed.

We paid $100 for the box which included a $15 subscription month inside of the price. I'm glad they took the servers down for the time being to fix them, but saying that the month is "free" is absurd. The dollar-fifty's worth of subscription paid for but that was inaccessible, I couldn't care much less about.

Arunei · April 2014

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

We paid $100 for the box which included a $15 subscription month inside of the price. I'm glad they took the servers down for the time being to fix them, but saying that the month is "free" is absurd. The dollar-fifty's worth of subscription paid for but that was inaccessible, I couldn't care much less about.

But the thing it, it IS a free month. Just because you or anyone else decided to pay the extra money for whatever version doesn't make it any different, seeing as people who bought the standard $60 version ALSO got the 30 free days. You paid that extra money for the, well, extras.

NONE of that "box price" was towards the free month. You didn't pay 85 of it for the game and then the last 15 for the sub fee, if that's what you're saying. If I'm misunderstanding you then it's because I've been up too long and should probably get some sleep.

christian.griffinb16_ESO · April 2014

Ergophobian wrote: »

pecheckler wrote: »

I wish the online video game industry had service level agreements like so many other hosted services.

Like who? Please list a hosted service that promises uptime. The best anyone can do is "We try for 100%, but we can't promise anything."

I pay Comcast $80 a month, I've had "downtime" with them for 7 months they can't solve. I can't do anything about it.
I pay T-Mobile $120 a month, and many times calls simply won't go through. I can't do anything about it.
I pay Zenimax $15 a month, for unlimited access to a really cool game. Since launch, it has been down for a total of 2 hours when I actually was available to play.
It's a game, get over your entitled selves.

Better idea: how about YOU stop enabling this kind of thuggery by shrugging and going 'welp, watcha gonna do'.

Attorneyatlawl · April 2014

Arunei wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

We paid $100 for the box which included a $15 subscription month inside of the price. I'm glad they took the servers down for the time being to fix them, but saying that the month is "free" is absurd. The dollar-fifty's worth of subscription paid for but that was inaccessible, I couldn't care much less about.

But the thing it, it IS a free month. Just because you or anyone else decided to pay the extra money for whatever version doesn't make it any different, seeing as people who bought the standard $60 version ALSO got the 30 free days. You paid that extra money for the, well, extras.

NONE of that "box price" was towards the free month. You didn't pay 85 of it for the game and then the last 15 for the sub fee, if that's what you're saying. If I'm misunderstanding you then it's because I've been up too long and should probably get some sleep.

Lol, I guess you think free shipping is really free too, huh? It's factored into the price of all versions.

Socratic · April 2014

The monthly subscription is for access to their servers with them reserving the right to bring the servers down within reason. Debating against truth is futile.

Tweek · April 2014

You are paying a subscription fee for a game you plug hundreds of hours into and then have your entire character randomly reset, customer support takes five days to answer you and when they do they let you know they cannot give you your items and gold back.