Do you agree that ESO is "the equivalent of more than 10 single player games"

RomanRex · May 22

No, I don’t agree.

It’s like Baskin Robins… 31 flavors, but ultimately, it’s all just ice cream.

fizzylu · May 22

I mean, I could see ESO story content and 100 percent-ing the zones being about equal to 10 small, finished in 2-3 days games.... but I can't get past Zenimax being the "most prolific AAA game studio, potentially ever" and the "they all have a certain level of quality that's just not found anywhere else" parts.
ESO chapters and other related content updates are miniscule (and not even necessarily any more frequent, in most cases) compared to the new content releases other MMOs get from their AAA game studios (WoW, FFXIV, GW2, for some examples). And I don't even know what to say about the quality difference part of it all because that was extra reaching.
That article is comical and in my opinion shows how out-of-touch Zenimax is with their game, it's player base, and apparently the rest of the MMO genre. So sadly, I find it hard to simply say that I agree with any of it and I can't help but question why any of the quotes included in it were even said. The only thing actually good about that article is that I could comment on it freely on the GamesRadar site without being censored. But with this self praising article plus the one about how much money they have made from earlier this year.... well, reading it really has made me start to rethink purchasing Gold Road (again).

Hapexamendios · May 22

If I go by time played, it's probably between 125-150 games. On RPGs asides from ESO I probably average about 100-125 hours per play through.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · May 22

ESO is larger then all single player TES titles combined so the answer would be yes (Not map size obviously, Daggerfall is the size of a RL country) but in terms of content, you need to finish over 700 quests just to get the achievements required to own the original three manor homes and that is just from the base zone quest nevermind all the content from Craglorn, Imperial City, Theves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Morrowind, Clockwork City, Summerset, Elsweyr, Dragonhold, Greymoor, Markarth, Blackwood, Deadlands, High Isle, Firesong, Necrom and Gold Road quests.

BretonMage · May 22

I wouldn't compare ESO with single player games, because ESO really is its own thing.

I have around 5000 hours in ESO, more than any other game, possibly more than all other games put together, BUT only a fraction of it is spent questing. Much of it is instead spent relaxing and farming, or hanging around my house decorating. Or doing fun combat things like dungeons or incursions.

ESO for me is more of a fantasy world experience than a story-focused game. Which is perfectly fine because the breadth of experiences in ESO more than makes up for the lack of depth (sorry) in its stories.

I don't think there's 10 AAA games' worth of story content, but there's definitely 10 AAA games' worth of activities to do.

Mik195 · May 22

Probably depends on how you look at it. If you consider time I've played in ESO vs. the most played 10 AAA games in my library, I am fairly sure ESO wins because I bounce off so many games that I've bought.

ThelerisTelvanni · May 22

Paulytnz wrote: »

So, my question or questions really are, do you personally agree with these 2 statements about ESO:

1 - "That's the equivalent of more than 10 single player games coming out one right after another"

2 - "ESO is, of course, a multiplayer game, but it releases yearly updates that have historically trended toward roughly 30 hours of new story content - which is indeed right in line with most single-player AAA releases"

For full context, this is from a semi interview I guess from someone I have never heard of with narrative director Bill Slavicsek.

The full thing (which is not really much - 2 min read) can be found here:

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/entertainment/other/elder-scrolls-online-lead-says-we-re-the-most-prolific-aaa-game-studio-after-making-an-mmo-that-s-the-equivalent-of-more-than-10-single-player-games/ar-BB1mJPeh?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=91c7f87fac9643acb9a7d012ff4d3674&ei=101

When I read it, I didn't really know what to think, but something felt at least a "little" off about it. I am really interested to know what others here, who are not from my country and who would likely never get to see this thing otherwise; would think of it.

Well I like TESO as an MMORPG, otherwise I'd play another game. And for an MMORPG TESO delivers new content on a regular basis in suficient quallety. Of cause there is always room for more

That beeing said I think the statement of the dev is a bit over the top. I do not know what AAA games the dev is personally playing but TESO cannot compate to 10 compleat singelplayer RPG games. At least of those that I buy.

Those beeing RPG games like TES 3 Morrowind, TES 4 Oblivion, TES5 Skyrim, The Witcher 3, Mass Effect 1-3, Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Knight of the old Republic, Dungeon Sige 2 just to name a few that instantly came to mind. And some of these games have a lot of added content thanks to MOD support for free. Of cause there are also a lot of RPG's that are worse that claim to be AAA games. So it depends on what you play and tases differ. If the random dice rolls and far to close gameplay to a pen & paper RPG had not killed it for me, Baldurs Gate 3 had also been a prime example! Awsome world, awsome story and a lot of content! And all for a fair price. Also I did not list Witcher 1&2 because they feel more like AA Titels as well as some others.

If we make a comparison on more equal footing and compare a TESO Chapter to a DLC like Blood and Wine for the Witcher 3, I have to say that each and every Chapter looses against the Blood and Wine DLC of the Witcher. With a TESO chapter Upgrade at 40€ verses 20€ for Blood and Wine. Not to mention that the normally 2 dungeon DLC's and the additional zone DLC we got for many yeares were not included in the chapter. Dragonborne (20€ | forTES5 Skyrim) and Shivering Isles (for TES4 Oblivion) also beat the chapers in my oppinion.

Yes TESO is pushing out a decent amount of content, but they also heavyly monetise the game. Locking a lot of nice things behind paywalls instead of giving them out ans cool rewards for cool content. As well as making some content tideos and selling skip tokens. Not to mention all the compromises they had to do for beeing an MMORPG compared to a pure blooded singelplayer RPG. But TESO's releases are always between ok and good. Yes ZOS is sometimes making expectations the fail to compleatly cover. Sometimes they do not live up to the great inspiration of the Singelplayer TES games with known locations, lore and so on, but most of the time they do just fine.

But unlike the singelplayer RPG's TESO has a lot of repetetive content! Good singelplayer RPG's do not! They have still something new and cool to discover after many hours of gameplay. The best of there class can still suprise you with a cool location or quest after 200 hours of cool gameplay without feeling to repetative! Captevating me for weeks or months! And thanks to choices along the way replayabilety os often also fun and rewarding! TESO on the other hand has some rather linear story with few cool new locations to revisit each year and with a lot of repetative content.

In a €/fun hours playtime comparison an independent game like Stardew Valley can beat a TESO chapter. However that's not an RPG but thater an farming sim and therefor disquallifyed. It also has less production value without voiced NPC's and dialoge options beeing absent for the most part.

So honestly I think the dev went to far ahread of himself bragging like that. I understand that you can be proud of your work but that sounds a bit out of touch. At least to me.

If I have the choice between a real good Singelplayer RPG and a relativ good MMORPG like TESO, I perfer the Singelplayer RPG. It just offers a better expirience. At least from my expirience. Especially for the money! But good Singelpayer RPG's that hit my taste are rare so I'll be playing TESO for a few more years and enjoy the world, ZOS builds for us with a lot of effort and passion, I guess

SeaGtGruff · May 22

Alpheu5 wrote: »

30 hours of story content if you roleplay-walk everywhere and listen to every dialogue tree, maybe.

No way I'd consider the current iteration of ESO a whopping 10 feature-complete singleplayer games in one. 1 for the base and 2 for the combined DLCs and chapters.

A lot of the time comes from running repeatable content with friends or randoms. Take ESO offline and you're left with a lackluster quest system that takes the "RP" out of "RPG" and a combat system filled with elements that needlessly demand dozens to hundreds of hours to individually complete.

30 hours of story content? For the entire game? That's absurd. When I started playing ESO in mid-2017, it took me several weeks of playing up to 8 or more hours per day, every day, just to get through Vvardenfell and some of the base game zones. That was running around doing alliance and zone questlines, not doing repeatable daily quests, and I was literally trying to pick up and do every quest and side quest that I came across. It took me months to play through all of the zones and finish Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold. And you think there's only 30 hours of story content? Not even close to being believable.

CrazyKitty · May 23

ESO costs more than 10 single player games combined. We know that for sure.

DinoZavr · May 23

comparing single players games and MMOs is comparing grapes vs. oranges.
i adore ESO but Final Fantasy offers the similar lots of content, same goes for WoW and other top MMOs
so this comparison has no practical sense, sorry for that

SickleCider · May 23

Only with skewed optics.

VisitHammerfell · May 23

Yes. I have over 9000 hours in ESO, and my other highest games are 300-400. I've only done a fraction of the questing and still have so much to do besides that between fashion, housing, antiquities, achievements, fishing, etc. Like to me as far as value, it's similar to how a campaign of Critical Role is worth several seasons of a TV show.

Meanwhile Oblivion & Skyrim, as much as I love them, you play for 70 hours and it's over and you can't go back to your characters or houses you spent all that time on

Personofsecrets · May 23

Is it the equivalent of a gotchya if all I do are dailies?

Mansquito · May 28

With all the paid DLC it has and length of time the game has been out it should be equivalent to 10 games long. Instead the question really should be, does it have the variety of 10 games and the answer is no. Very little is added in terms of variety with mechanics and quality of life. It's usually just a re-hash of an old zone, a new dungeon and loads of cosmetic stuff. Of course the story in that zone is and all the farming that comes with the new zone add to the size of the game but it doesn't really make it 'good'.

I'm actually surprised people continue to buy this stuff.

wolfie1.0. · May 28

If eso was a series of single player games, it may match the time to play requirements, the story would be good, but it would suffer. Esos best aspect is in the MMO parts of thr game.

darvaria · May 29

Not sure about single player games because I don't play them. I've tried many MMO's and ESO has got to be in the top 5. WOW comes and goes. Only thing keeping WOW up is going back to classic versions. I mean really how many times are they going to rope us into killing Hogger? All the WOW killers have died. Rift great game but dead. Arche Age dead. New World .... not even commenting. Players leave and most end up back here ..... if they still play MMO's. You have to admit, most MMO's are outright terrible.

ESO is worth 10 MMO's.

xclassgaming · May 29

depends which games, but the game is HUGE. and i mean -huge-. it does really depend whioch 10 single player games. pacman is a single player game. but we know its bigger then tes 3, tes 4 and tes 5 combined and even futher. the game is bigger then alot of other games, and is 100% bigger then any triple A games releasing atm.