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ZOS - A suggestion for your current Business Model.
Kamchuk
✭✭✭
ZOS,
First – I never complain without offering potential solutions. So:
According to the latest information showing the number of active players, perhaps your business model could use some tweaking. It looks obvious to the player base, (especially those that post to this forum), that the greatest issues you are having are related to NOT be able to handle the growth rate of this player base – (i.e. performance/stability of the game). That is both a credit to your creativity and to the popularity and love of this game that you created; but also, a curse in that the popularity and love for this game has outgrown your original designs and business model, (circa 2014). If you want to continue to reap the profitability of this game to feed investment in future games, perhaps you should consider some options.
Have you considered:
1. Leasing an industry leading game engine, (such as Cryengine for example), where your C++ code can be used to easily interface with it? This would free up maintenance/coding resources associated with your home-grown game engine based off of the HERO Engine.
2. Leasing from a Cloud Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS) provider. Specifically, one that can provide dynamic allocation of servers based on end user demands. There are three major IAAS providers – Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. This would free up your maintenance / administration resources / costs of your server farm.
3. Move as much of the player runtime stats to the client. The server-side code base would be responsible for providing realtime check sum and DB checks to ensure client runtime stats match server DB information (i.e. - to make sure people don’t cheat, etc).
4. Enforce pay to play for all players to cover the costs of leasing the game engine and the IAAS, plus your overhead and profit. If this game performs – most of us will pay for the virtual reality this game offers. (I personally have stopped ESO Plus and have not bought Greystone due to performance issues. I would gladly re-start ESO plus and buy new content if performance / stability is provided.)
5. (Optional, and a new radical idea) – make this game Open Source. You provide the complier and test environments through the PTS, precisely what features you are interested in, and the coding requirements. I think there are about 17 bazillion C++ coders out here that would LOVE to provide our services. That would free up your people to manage the incoming code and dedicate your resources to the next generation of MMO.
Something obviously needs to be done to fix your performance issues. Based on the number of Job Ads you have posted, you obviously need help if you want this game to continue to make a profit for your private investors. We love this game, but we cannot play it in its current state, and we are unwilling to pay for future content if it just doesn’t work.
Just food for thought…
First – I never complain without offering potential solutions. So:
According to the latest information showing the number of active players, perhaps your business model could use some tweaking. It looks obvious to the player base, (especially those that post to this forum), that the greatest issues you are having are related to NOT be able to handle the growth rate of this player base – (i.e. performance/stability of the game). That is both a credit to your creativity and to the popularity and love of this game that you created; but also, a curse in that the popularity and love for this game has outgrown your original designs and business model, (circa 2014). If you want to continue to reap the profitability of this game to feed investment in future games, perhaps you should consider some options.
Have you considered:
1. Leasing an industry leading game engine, (such as Cryengine for example), where your C++ code can be used to easily interface with it? This would free up maintenance/coding resources associated with your home-grown game engine based off of the HERO Engine.
2. Leasing from a Cloud Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS) provider. Specifically, one that can provide dynamic allocation of servers based on end user demands. There are three major IAAS providers – Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. This would free up your maintenance / administration resources / costs of your server farm.
3. Move as much of the player runtime stats to the client. The server-side code base would be responsible for providing realtime check sum and DB checks to ensure client runtime stats match server DB information (i.e. - to make sure people don’t cheat, etc).
4. Enforce pay to play for all players to cover the costs of leasing the game engine and the IAAS, plus your overhead and profit. If this game performs – most of us will pay for the virtual reality this game offers. (I personally have stopped ESO Plus and have not bought Greystone due to performance issues. I would gladly re-start ESO plus and buy new content if performance / stability is provided.)
5. (Optional, and a new radical idea) – make this game Open Source. You provide the complier and test environments through the PTS, precisely what features you are interested in, and the coding requirements. I think there are about 17 bazillion C++ coders out here that would LOVE to provide our services. That would free up your people to manage the incoming code and dedicate your resources to the next generation of MMO.
Something obviously needs to be done to fix your performance issues. Based on the number of Job Ads you have posted, you obviously need help if you want this game to continue to make a profit for your private investors. We love this game, but we cannot play it in its current state, and we are unwilling to pay for future content if it just doesn’t work.
Just food for thought…
18
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JinMori✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I especially like the put stats calc on client and then do a server check, because it's clear that the servers can't handle everything.
Everytime they put more on the servers the performance gets worse.
Yea it will be more prone to cheating, but you can still rat cheaters out because of server check, it's just less intensive.Edited by JinMori on May 30, 2020 10:56PM1 -
Mettaricana✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I wish they never left pay to play content was much nicer less monetization and overall the player base was less scummy and entitled. Lot less bugs bots exploits and overall crap. Devs and the company seemed to actually care back then now its all reskinned second mortgage payment horses and pet noises for bug fixes...8 -
JinMori✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Although i would find it hard to believe that they didn't really think of all of this already.1 -
Watchdog✭✭✭✭✭
✭ZOS,
First – I never complain without offering potential solutions. So:
According to the latest information showing the number of active players, perhaps your business model could use some tweaking... (snip)
I stopped reading any further right here.
What numbers? Steam? Only noticing those playing through Steam? Or some other numbers?
You see, I haven't been part of the Steam statistics for ESO activity for over a year and a half. As soon as I found out I could buy the game directly from ZOS, I did so again and I have never looked back.Member of Alith Legion: https://www.alithlegion.com2 -
Iccotak✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭a main reason they don't make subscription required is that console already has to pay in order to play game online.4 -
Kurat✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Enforce pay to play? Why you think they made it subscription free 1 year after the launch.10 -
Glurin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Oh pay to play will improve performance alright. But only because of the sudden and significant drop in population, along with all the money that those people spend in other ways. It won't do anything about scummy, toxic or entitled behavior. Nor will it magically fix all the bugs and exploits."He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster...when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you..."10 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭1. The game's performance with the current number of players has little to do with the engine itself but the design of everything the server has been asked to do.
Take Cyrodiil as a prime example since that is where we experience the worst performance. Zos has reduced the player cap per campaign significantly over the years yet Cyrodiil performed better in the first few months of the game with the largest population ever permitted in a campaign than it does today.
Zos has added more load to the server via various calculations since the game launched and that is the key problem. It is everything from moving checks from a trusted client to the server-side to CP calcs, all the various buffs and more. The engine does not reduce the number of calculations.
Further, changing the engine for a game of this size is a major project that takes years to plan from start to end, not months. If this was the fix Zos would likely already be on it.
Of note, Zos is not giving serious consideration in bringing the base game zones up to the graphics standards of the new zones per Rich in a recent interview. That is a much smaller project than the suggestion in the first point.
2. ESO is already in a server farm. The NA servers are probably in a farm owned by Google, Amazon, or Microsoft.
3. Cheat Engine works great with a trusted client. ESO launched with a trusted client and we ended up having players fired off ultimates one right after the other since Cheat Engine overrode the client check to make sure they had enough ultimate.
I do not know about everyone else but I do not want to return to those days.
4. This point is based on the first point being a silver bullet to solve all the performance issues with ESO and unfortunately that is not the case.
5. I doubt Zos is interested in losing control of one of the top MMORPGs. No reason is provided as to why decentralizing the game will improve performance unless OP is suggesting we all play on different servers and become more like Minecraft or Ark Survival but with better graphics.
Maybe OP can elaborate on this last point to explain why Zos would give up such a lucrative investment that is bringing in serious profits and how having a bunch of individual programmers that are not working to together will make things all better. Otherwise, this is the idea that is least likely to be discussed in Maryland.
No offense. It is good to provide ideas as Zos has discovered and fixed some performance issues players have pointed out.3 -
Marto✭✭✭✭✭
✭2. ESO is already in a server farm. The NA servers are probably in a farm owned by Google, Amazon, or Microsoft.
It uses AWS, as a matter of fact.
I seriously doubt any MMORPGs or similar games use their own servers nowadays. The advantages of IaaS and servers that dynamically adapt to the playerbase cannot be understated.
"According to the calculations of the sages of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, the batam guar is the cutest creature in all Tamriel"1 -
Yamenstein✭✭✭✭✭ZOS,
First – I never complain without offering potential solutions. So:
According to the latest information showing the number of active players, perhaps your business model could use some tweaking. It looks obvious to the player base, (especially those that post to this forum), that the greatest issues you are having are related to NOT be able to handle the growth rate of this player base – (i.e. performance/stability of the game). That is both a credit to your creativity and to the popularity and love of this game that you created; but also, a curse in that the popularity and love for this game has outgrown your original designs and business model, (circa 2014). If you want to continue to reap the profitability of this game to feed investment in future games, perhaps you should consider some options.
Have you considered:
1. Leasing an industry leading game engine, (such as Cryengine for example), where your C++ code can be used to easily interface with it? This would free up maintenance/coding resources associated with your home-grown game engine based off of the HERO Engine.
2. Leasing from a Cloud Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS) provider. Specifically, one that can provide dynamic allocation of servers based on end user demands. There are three major IAAS providers – Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. This would free up your maintenance / administration resources / costs of your server farm.
3. Move as much of the player runtime stats to the client. The server-side code base would be responsible for providing realtime check sum and DB checks to ensure client runtime stats match server DB information (i.e. - to make sure people don’t cheat, etc).
4. Enforce pay to play for all players to cover the costs of leasing the game engine and the IAAS, plus your overhead and profit. If this game performs – most of us will pay for the virtual reality this game offers. (I personally have stopped ESO Plus and have not bought Greystone due to performance issues. I would gladly re-start ESO plus and buy new content if performance / stability is provided.)
5. (Optional, and a new radical idea) – make this game Open Source. You provide the complier and test environments through the PTS, precisely what features you are interested in, and the coding requirements. I think there are about 17 bazillion C++ coders out here that would LOVE to provide our services. That would free up your people to manage the incoming code and dedicate your resources to the next generation of MMO.
Something obviously needs to be done to fix your performance issues. Based on the number of Job Ads you have posted, you obviously need help if you want this game to continue to make a profit for your private investors. We love this game, but we cannot play it in its current state, and we are unwilling to pay for future content if it just doesn’t work.
Just food for thought…
Hehe make it open source. That ain't ever gonna happen. I do like your first two suggestions definitely.Crown Crates are a trap. Don't fall for the gamble! Balance? What Balance? Balance, smellance.
Necro for them RP feels.0 -
ArchMikem✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Cryengine? PCs combust at just the mention of it.
Source 2 would be a perfect choice. It gives beautiful visuals and even potatos can manage it.CP2,100 Master Explorer - AvA Two Star Warlord - Console Peasant - Khajiiti Aficionado - The Clan
Quest Objective: OMG Go Talk To That Kitty!0 -
Noxavian✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭ZOS,
First – I never complain without offering potential solutions. So:
According to the latest information showing the number of active players, perhaps your business model could use some tweaking. It looks obvious to the player base, (especially those that post to this forum), that the greatest issues you are having are related to NOT be able to handle the growth rate of this player base – (i.e. performance/stability of the game). That is both a credit to your creativity and to the popularity and love of this game that you created; but also, a curse in that the popularity and love for this game has outgrown your original designs and business model, (circa 2014). If you want to continue to reap the profitability of this game to feed investment in future games, perhaps you should consider some options.
Have you considered:
1. Leasing an industry leading game engine, (such as Cryengine for example), where your C++ code can be used to easily interface with it? This would free up maintenance/coding resources associated with your home-grown game engine based off of the HERO Engine.
2. Leasing from a Cloud Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS) provider. Specifically, one that can provide dynamic allocation of servers based on end user demands. There are three major IAAS providers – Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. This would free up your maintenance / administration resources / costs of your server farm.
3. Move as much of the player runtime stats to the client. The server-side code base would be responsible for providing realtime check sum and DB checks to ensure client runtime stats match server DB information (i.e. - to make sure people don’t cheat, etc).
4. Enforce pay to play for all players to cover the costs of leasing the game engine and the IAAS, plus your overhead and profit. If this game performs – most of us will pay for the virtual reality this game offers. (I personally have stopped ESO Plus and have not bought Greystone due to performance issues. I would gladly re-start ESO plus and buy new content if performance / stability is provided.)
5. (Optional, and a new radical idea) – make this game Open Source. You provide the complier and test environments through the PTS, precisely what features you are interested in, and the coding requirements. I think there are about 17 bazillion C++ coders out here that would LOVE to provide our services. That would free up your people to manage the incoming code and dedicate your resources to the next generation of MMO.
Something obviously needs to be done to fix your performance issues. Based on the number of Job Ads you have posted, you obviously need help if you want this game to continue to make a profit for your private investors. We love this game, but we cannot play it in its current state, and we are unwilling to pay for future content if it just doesn’t work.
Just food for thought…
I was on board with your statement until you gave them credit for their "creativity".
With the way vampire and necromancer are, I think you're overestimating how creative they are.
Let us not forget the big new vampire ultimate this year is a re-skin of an existing ult that has very similar effects of an existing ult with a morph that uses the old ult and another morph that just does basic stat changes.
Not to mention the form itself is just an existing model but without wings and tampered around a bit.
Let's also not forget magicka hasn't gotten a single new weapon in the entire 6 years the game has been out. People are still forced to use one of two staves for magicka builds. Very creative choice there.
To say they excel in creativity is....a bit of an overstatement.
I will give them credit on beautiful trailers and environments that act as smoke and mirrors to hide their awful design choices, though.6 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭2. ESO is already in a server farm. The NA servers are probably in a farm owned by Google, Amazon, or Microsoft.
It uses AWS, as a matter of fact.
I seriously doubt any MMORPGs or similar games use their own servers nowadays. The advantages of IaaS and servers that dynamically adapt to the playerbase cannot be understated.
Thx for the verification. I could not recall which service they used.
Yes, there is an advantage to using such services, but many have misconceptions about using a service like AWS and cloud computing. ESO still resides on its own server infrastructure for each of the six gaming servers. It does not magically adjust to the loads.0 -
fred4✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
Preposterous. Search YouTube and learn about the development process of Dragon Age Inquisition. Bioware was forced into the Frostbite engine, but that engine was not designed for RPGs, causing them massive headaches. I guess it's possible something exists that would fit ESO, but you're talking about a rewrite / refactoring of large amounts of code. That's more likely a recipe for the company to go under.Leasing an industry leading game engine, (such as Cryengine for example), where your C++ code can be used to easily interface with it? This would free up maintenance/coding resources associated with your home-grown game engine based off of the HERO Engine.
I'll just direct you to another post. By that account (seems to be speculation, but more informed than yours) ZOS are already far more sophisticated than you probably give them credit for. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6791027/#Comment_6791027Leasing from a Cloud Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IAAS) provider. Specifically, one that can provide dynamic allocation of servers based on end user demands. There are three major IAAS providers – Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. This would free up your maintenance / administration resources / costs of your server farm.
I watched a Fengrush video a long time ago. Apparently the game had issues with cheating in the past. There was this thing called the "lighting" patch that killed performance. Many people thought that was due to the visual effects, but Fengrush pointed out that ZOS had to move a lot of validation to the servers, due to hacking. For a comparison, when a third party writes a traditional Windows program, the operating system has to validate they're not doing something illegal. This takes up to 40% of processor time on a Windows machine. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I read / heard this, but the salient point is that it is a really big number. ZOS had to go that route. You think they can effectively roll that back? Nope. They did it for a reason.Move as much of the player runtime stats to the client. The server-side code base would be responsible for providing realtime check sum and DB checks to ensure client runtime stats match server DB information (i.e. - to make sure people don’t cheat, etc).
Much as I like this idea as a PvPer, ESO is one of the few games hanging on to not being completely free already. I am under no illusion that the players who suffer from performance issues are mainly the ones in Cyrodiil, at least up until recently. These are a minority and those that understand they are suffering from server issues, rather than their own incompetence, are fewer still. How come Cyrodiil is pop locked every night? I don't go there at that time. I can't stand it. Lag is not enjoyable. More casual PvPers seem adapted to the environment and don't care that much.Enforce pay to play for all players to cover the costs of leasing the game engine and the IAAS, plus your overhead and profit. If this game performs – most of us will pay for the virtual reality this game offers. (I personally have stopped ESO Plus and have not bought Greystone due to performance issues. I would gladly re-start ESO plus and buy new content if performance / stability is provided.)
[sarcasm] Nah. Those are mostly suffered by Cyrodiil players, a small minority. ZOS have gotten this far by being coy about the subject. Why change now? [/sarcasm]Something obviously needs to be done to fix your performance issues.0 -
xXMeowMeowXx✭✭✭✭✭
✭Laughs in lag
Everyone thinks they can fix eso
Especially, without knowing anything about the inner workings of their studio or budget. These posts are just fantasy proposals and nothing more.
You want to help so badly, apply for a job with ZOS to work on ESO. *claps slowly*Edited by xXMeowMeowXx on May 31, 2020 5:53AM2 -
Marto✭✭✭✭✭
✭Cryengine? PCs combust at just the mention of it.
Source 2 would be a perfect choice. It gives beautiful visuals and even potatos can manage it.
Source is *notoriously* bad at big open worlds. That's why all source games are made out of small rooms, buildings and corridors. The closest thing to source open worlds is Titanfall 2 multiplayer maps, and even those use a heavily modified engine.
Source doesn't even fully support features that are pretty much mandatory for any open world game, like distant LOD and not rendering whatever is out of your field of view.
Maybe Source 2 will. Who knows. Either way, it is years away from becoming commonplace.
Don't take it personally, but your comment really exemplifies how the average ESO player has no clue on what the engine for ESO is, why they use it, and what ZOS should do with it."According to the calculations of the sages of the Cult of the Ancestor Moth, the batam guar is the cutest creature in all Tamriel"1 -
richo262✭✭✭✭✭
✭If ZOS ever raised a pay wall at this stage, the class action would kill the game.
All the players that invested money into the game via DLC's, Chapters and other crown items would essentially get shafted. I'm aware of what the TOS says regarding ownership/license, but what the courts say about it is an entirely different question.
I don't think ZOS would ever do that anyway, given the base game isn't far off going free to play.
I do however like the idea of open source, but won't happen.0 -
PrimusNephilim✭✭✭✭✭I'm left wondering just how many on here actually run/own a business or even manage an operating budget....0
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volkeswagon✭✭✭✭✭
✭it seems their performance issues are tied to two things. One is the amount of people in the zone and two which is the biggest cause : the amount of people in a small area. Which is why you see the biggest issues at busy dolemans, trials and raid groups in the 'diil. Just seems like processing and equipment issues. So maybe some of these suggestions will work. As for pay to play they already have that. ESO plus and crown store sales cover maintenance cost0 -
SirAxen✭✭✭✭✭Taleof2Cities wrote: »
Don't you Imgur me, good sir.
(Not, but really, someone really close to me...let's call them an SO interviewed for a position at ZOS 6-7 months ago for technical account position. Basically, a job where you coordinate between the engineer side and business side. TAM.)0 -
deleted221106-002999✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Kamchuk wrote:5. (Optional, and a new radical idea) – make this game Open Source. You provide the complier and test environments through the PTS, precisely what features you are interested in, and the coding requirements. I think there are about 17 bazillion C++ coders out here that would LOVE to provide our services. That would free up your people to manage the incoming code and dedicate your resources to the next generation of MMO...
With that many coders and so much love why not just cut out the middle man and make a novel open source (mmo) game with no in game currency, a store that sells players/coders creations (add-ons, furniture, skins...) for cash paid to creators (small deduct for admin/server upkeep)....
You did say 'be radical'.
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