85 GB?! That's how it ended for me...

ynimma · August 2019

Just a quick feedback on a seemingly non-important issue about ESO:
I had the idea of installing ESO on my new PC yesterday. My broadband is not great but unfortunately there's no chance for any improvement in the area I live.
So I started downloading the whole game and based on previous experience I expected it to take a long time (I usually leave the PC on downloading during nighttime) but when I spotted it'd be a hefty 85 GB and figured that even in full speed it'd take more than a week's time to overnight my PC, I simply gave up and switched it off.
I'll have no ESO any more it seems.

I play other things, one of which for example is flight simulation. It requires enormous amount of data to download for the accuracy of vector data, scenery textures, built-in modules, etc. so it's one thing well justified for larger containers to download and even that is not even close to ESO's gigantic size.
Does really an MMO has to be 85 GBs? And it's growing continuously?! (Last time I downloaded ESO because the launcher bugged in was also a painfully long process but it was south of 60 GB "only" and took me 5 nights.) Do I have to download a whole NASA chart of the neighbouring galaxies as well I just don't know about?

So yeah, I just give up. If there was a way to clear up this tremendous data pack and reduce the overall size to a much lower level that'd be very welcome.
Until then I'll just skip and have a smile on how the next update will increase the whole game size over 100 GB.
ESO is a great game but not that great for me.

vesselwiththepestle · August 2019

Just for your interest, ZOS announced at Quake Con (and made that information available on their website) that they are working on reducing the size of the game, so downloading and updating will go faster. This is scheduled for a patch in 2020, though.

Maybe you've got the possibility to download the game elsewhere with faster internet speed until then.

essi2 · August 2019

They are going to purge duplicate entries and unused assets as part of their ongoing performance/technical improvements. But we're probably still looking at 65 ~ 70GB of download.

PS. When this change goes into effect everyone will be forced to redownload the entire game at the new total size.

Ash_In_My_Sujamma · August 2019

You mentioned a "new pc" so I am just gonna throw this here just in case you already have the game installed on another pc.

If you have already downloaded and installed the game on another pc just copy the eso folder (the entire folder where the game is located) and the Elder scrolls online folder from your documents folder and paste them on your new pc (the game folder on the appropriate location on your program files folder of the ssd or anywhere on your hdd and the Elder scrolls online on your documents). After that you need to uninstall any version of visual c++ from your pc, and run the eso installer (not the launcher). The installer will launch normaly, ask you to download visual c++ 2010 and direct x (say yes) and the game is ready to play.

jcm2606 · August 2019

You do realise that 85GB is fairly normal for today's games? Hell, games are actually heading beyond 100GB, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War sits at 97.7GB for just the base game, not including DLC.

Comparing ESO to a flight sim isn't really a fair comparison, either. Since you're typically playing at high altitudes, a good distance away from objects, flight sims can get away with skimping on some details, where most other genres do need to care about small scale detail, which leads to assets being larger storage wise.

Additionally, flight sims can make excellent usage of asset sharing and instancing, further reducing the amount of storage space required. Other games, MMO's especially due to their naturally large scale, tend to use more unique assets for each zone, which contributes to their large size. (More games in other genres are following the large-scale open world trend, though, so you're seeing this in other genres, too.)

The fact that ESO is fully voice acted also contributes a huge amount to the size of the game. This is why ESO stands out from other MMO's with regards to how large the game is.

bearbelly · August 2019

The article on ZOS's Game Improvement Plan, here, includes a section on what they intend for improving the patching system.
Decreasing patch size is part of that plan, and I imagine the initial game download will also be affected in a positive way.

Look for the section Q1 2020: Update 25.

Just be forewarned: EVERYONE will need to re-download the entire game when Update 25 goes live due to the changes to file structure, etc.

ynimma · August 2019

Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »

You mentioned a "new pc" so I am just gonna throw this here just in case you already have the game installed on another pc.

If you have already downloaded and installed the game on another pc just copy the eso folder (the entire folder where the game is located) and the Elder scrolls online folder from your documents folder and paste them on your new pc (the game folder on the appropriate location on your program files folder of the ssd or anywhere on your hdd and the Elder scrolls online on your documents). After that you need to uninstall any version of visual c++ from your pc, and run the eso installer (not the launcher). The installer will launch normaly, ask you to download visual c++ 2010 and direct x (say yes) and the game is ready to play.

Thanks for the hint, I'll definitely look into this!
On the new PC the drive and volumes structure looks different though than on the previous one - do you think it'd cause trouble or when I run the installer I just have to point it to the right direction where I copied/pasted the whole lot?

Ash_In_My_Sujamma · August 2019

ynimma wrote: »

Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »

You mentioned a "new pc" so I am just gonna throw this here just in case you already have the game installed on another pc.

If you have already downloaded and installed the game on another pc just copy the eso folder (the entire folder where the game is located) and the Elder scrolls online folder from your documents folder and paste them on your new pc (the game folder on the appropriate location on your program files folder of the ssd or anywhere on your hdd and the Elder scrolls online on your documents). After that you need to uninstall any version of visual c++ from your pc, and run the eso installer (not the launcher). The installer will launch normaly, ask you to download visual c++ 2010 and direct x (say yes) and the game is ready to play.

Thanks for the hint, I'll definitely look into this!
On the new PC the drive and volumes structure looks different though than on the previous one - do you think it'd cause trouble or when I run the installer I just have to point it to the right direction where I copied/pasted the whole lot?

Just make sure to drop the "Elder Scrolls Online" folder from your "Documents" inside the "Documents" folder of your new pc and the game folder inside your hdd. No point in installing the game on your ssd keep it clean for important stuff like your OS. And then do the visual c++ thing I mentioned. I did that yesterday on my new pc and the installer had no problem recognising the location of the files.

ynimma · August 2019

That's splendid, thank you! Will give it a go!

CAB_Life · August 2019

140 GB if you want PTS, too. They did mention “file optimization” in their roadmap, so hopefully shrinkage is on the horizon.

WeerW3ir · August 2019

CAB_Life wrote: »

140 GB if you want PTS, too. They did mention “file optimization” in their roadmap, so hopefully shrinkage is on the horizon.

Can we negotiate on that, i give you 20GB?

Berserkerkitten · August 2019

Not a big surprise the game is so massive, what with all the recorded dialogue and the tons of different zones and everything. Apparently, it's the #1 reason why there's no Switch version of ESO. I'm aware the game would look and run like total garbage on Switch, but I'd still play it on there.

Deep_01 · August 2019

Back in 2016, I downloaded ESO once from steam and again the whole thing from launcher which gives the latest version (else it won't work and has no work around), to a total of 110 GB over 16 days straight.

If I had to re-download ESO in my current plan, it'd take way more time.

Rungar · August 2019

did that steam thing ever get fixed?