Is ESO an MMO first, or "TES Online" first? You decide!

Kappachi · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

What's weird to me is in the beginning, maybe even just a few years back with vvardenfell I would have said it priotizied the MMO but nowadays I believe it's more faithful to ES than Fallout 76 is to Fallout. The quests have choices with proper consequences, minor as they may sometimes be it's enough to want to roll different characters to see the other results, the combat & reward structure feels very much like ES and the various activities and things to do all feel accurate to the lore and reward you for delving into them far more than any other mmo would do...

Not to mention mythics and set bonuses being far and above what any other MMO, even most RPGs aside from the very hardcore arpgs like PoE2 or even Diablo IV allow you to do giving for a much grander RPG experience, spellcrafting aided in that as well.

katanagirl1 · January 2025

Both.

I came here because of Oblivion and Skyrim but I do both PvE and PvP now. I do not pick just one.

manukartofanu · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

CatoUnchained wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

I would divide the userbase into 3 groups.

1. Straight chapter players: only play ESO as a single player game, don't engage with other players or the crown store outside of dlc

2. Casual hybrid players: into chapter stories, questing, but also mmo social activities, housing, trading and collecting

3. MMO players: play ESO like an MMO, may also engage in all other activities

Of course, in reality it's much more granular than that. Of this group the target audience has pretty clearly been group 1 since Morrowind. They, of course, are not well-represented in the forums despite generating the most revenue IMO.

Group 3 is the most embittered as they were the target audience at launch, but have felt alienated from ZOS as they've watched the game change in ways they do not prefer.

What I think ZOS has tried and failed to do by nerfing the poop out of their own gameplay is get group 1 into the MMO side of the game. It seems they may be re-thinking this approach, but we'll have to see.

Even if the first group were the top revenue drivers, which is highly debatable, focusing on them is a risky strategy. They’re an unreliable audience that requires constant effort and significant marketing resources to engage. They might skip buying the new chapter altogether and opt for a different game if another game's advertisement catches their attention more effectively.

That said, moving away from chapters says a lot about the direction being taken.

You're obviously talking about the casual players who only log on for a few hours/week, right?

How am I supposed to interpret the first group here? Players who play consistently would fall into the second group anyway.

JemadarofCaerSalis · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

AzuraFan wrote: »

If ESO was primarily MMOish, I would have tried it out and dropped it.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

1. Price - A lot of people might not be able to buy TES6 when it comes out, so they will stick with what they have already paid for: eso, especially since ESO is still getting new content. No, it isn't like a brand new game, but it will still be something to keep them interested while waiting for TES 6 to come down in price.

Since it'll be part of PC and XBox Gamepass on day one, price shouldn't be an issue for anyone. Just subscribe for a month or two.

Doesn't matter, not everyone has gamepass, nor can afford it, which is my entire point.

bmnoble · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

If it were not for the Elder scrolls setting to get me to try the game, I wouldn't be here, same applied for SWTOR and Star Trek Online, for the time commitment an MMO requires to make any progress, to get me to start playing it needs, a setting/world building that already has my interest.

Renato90085 · January 2025

why not both..

munster1404 · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

I treat ESO like a single player game, because there is nothing like it.

ChaoticWings3 · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

This is a hard topic to comment on especially since I do engage in the social aspect of the game and enjoy the trading portion of it with the collectibles. However my main focus since day one has been questing and lore collecting. I literally try to talk to every foreseeable npc I can find at every quest stage to get the new dialogue (which is fully voiced acted and has kept me coming back to this game compared to others). I have been recently focused on reading the lore books as I quest (something I didn't do before because I was focused on the mmo aspect and not the rpg aspect) and started a new playthrough with a dk going through the questlines in order as best as I can. It is very refreshing since dk was my first class and still enjoy it.

I still think dungeons and trials are still fun to run with a group since it is fun to complete an objective together although I'm not exactly a fan of how they implemented a non repeatable quest in dungeons so most players never get to experience the story there without a very dedicated group (hence why I still would ask for a story mode difficulty for the dungeons to experience the story). PVP I'm off and on with because I defiantly have the most fun with the the combat at this point and duels with others have been great. But I get bored after about 3 or so battlegrounds or 2 hours of Cyrodill and would rather do something slower like crafting. With the new leads in Imperial city though I have been playing there every so often to rebuild my telvar whenever new ones come out which has been pretty fun....but usually end up losing half it to that one NB.

Altogether I like that there is harder content available but I have been veering towards a simpler exploration playthrough on non-vet content after getting most of my builds together. I will do the harder content on occasion but it hasn't been my main focus as of late.

PapaTankers · January 2025

ESO is an MMO first! Prioritize things like PvP and endgame PvE combat.

The way the question is worded it sounds like another one of them "us vs them" questions.
Never have I ever seen a playerbase as divided as in ESO.
It can easily be both.

Erickson9610 · January 2025

Thank you all for the responses so far. It's really insightful getting to see which aspect of ESO the community members of the forums feel the strongest about.

As I've said in the original post, this game is an Elder Scrolls themed MMO. Though, unlike other MMOs, it adapts and builds off of many of the features of the singleplayer games which would be considered taboo in most MMOs — for instance, the ability to join every guild in the game and learn every crafting profession, which is usually not possible to do on one character in other MMOs. However, this game also adopts MMO tropes such as classes, of which any one character can only learn one set of class skills, much unlike the TES games which came before.

This is why I found it fitting to create a poll asking which of these two sides players feel the strongest about. This is not a question about "casuals" versus "non-casuals", as I believe you can be a casual in both TES games and in MMOs. I should've reworded the poll options, because there is some overlap between what the MMO side and the TES side bring to the table — I'd personally just attribute questing/roleplaying to TES and the combat system to MMOs.

What's important is determining whether players prefer ESO being more heavily influenced by the legacy of the singleplayer TES games, or more heavily influenced by the MMORPG genre as a whole. ESO can be both, but is it more of a singleplayer TES game or more of a massively multiplayer online game?

Toanis · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

ESO's niche is being Skyrim online with a mediocre MMO attached.

Concerning the RPG part of MMORPG, ESO only competes with SWTOR and that game's time of storytelling is all but over.

ESO's housing is excellent but I'd put that in the RPG / modding part, so on the MMO side we have Waifu dressup, which is okayish, but everything combat related, from big scale PVP and huge PVE encounters with complicated mechanics to even just fast paced action combat has been done far better by other MMOs. Cobbler, stick to your trade.

SWTOR can serve as a lesson of what happens when you don't stick to your thing and switch back and forth between catering exclusively to the MMO or the RPG crowd, eventually alienating both players and devs from either camp.

Bobargus · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

I hate anything that is designed to be hard, such as the trials and veteran dungeons in this game.

I play ESO as a "Skyrim Online" kind of a game. An rpg, rather than an mmo.

RaddlemanNumber7 · January 2025

ZOS tries to both and, to some extent, inevitably fails. Hopefully when PvP skills are disconnected from PvE/overland skills this will not be such a painful feature of the game.

Shara_Wynn · January 2025

There was no option for there to be both. So I didn't vote.

There has always been questing and single player options in MMO's for as long as I can remember them (30+ years of playing them).

Why does it have to be one or the other? Surely it would be in the best interests of ZOS (or any games company) to cater for both the hardcore and casual gamer.

Moving away from yearly chapter releases into improving existing content with some new content mixed in throughout the year, might be the thing that saves ESO imho. For me, there are no other MMO's on the horizon that offer what ESO does. If they can improve existing content, make overland more challenging, improve graphics, add new quests and stories to existing zones, then I will look forward to it.

There are plenty of up and coming PVP focused MMO's for those who want that to be their main focus.

**Edit**

It is a fallacy that MMO's are supposed to be for group content only.

SkaiFaith · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

I think Bethesda won't put a co-op mode in TES6 to not compete with ESO. I expect TES6 to remain fully single player, with the exception of a dedicated mod probably.

I also suspect that a lot of players have an experience like mine: played single player TES games, then jumped in ESO and now... It would be too hard to leave the shared world. Seeing other people running around makes the game feel way more alive and the player less lonely.

Sure there will be some ESO players that will enjoy TES6, but I expect a lot of them to remain here in ESO exactly for the multiplayer aspect - not necessarily talking about PvP or endgame but simple company.

"ESO is TES multiplayer" is what makes it a success. That said, the MMO side is important too but probably not in the same way it is in other MMOs. ESO is quite unique.

Muizer · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

I don't know any other MMO's tbh. I have to say, I do not like, and never have liked, the way end-game PvE is implemented in this game. I mean the whole sweaty obstacle course thing and the unnecessary and contrived trinity focused game play. For me open world PvP is a much more natural kind of end-game. Guess I'm in a small minority though.

Koshka · January 2025

PapaTankers wrote: »

The way the question is worded it sounds like another one of them "us vs them" questions.
Never have I ever seen a playerbase as divided as in ESO.
It can easily be both.

This. Tribalism sucks, and developing an mmo game for just one category of players is a losing strategy. Especially now, with slowly dwindling population and TES6 on the horizon.
Besides, there are people who like both the "casual" side of the game like lore and housing and the "hardcore" stuff like pvp or group pve. For example, I am a huge lore fan since Morrowind, I love building custom houses and at the same time the only combat-related content I enjoy is vet hm group content lol.

Elsonso · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What's important is determining whether players prefer ESO being more heavily influenced by the legacy of the singleplayer TES games, or more heavily influenced by the MMORPG genre as a whole. ESO can be both, but is it more of a singleplayer TES game or more of a massively multiplayer online game?

There are a ton of fantasy MMO games out there. Only one of them is based on Elder Scrolls, which is primarily a single player experience.

Elder Scrolls players who want to play with other Elder Scrolls players in a manner that is fully supported by the studio and publisher have no other option but ESO.

MMO players who want to play a with other MMO players can go to a number of other games.

It is both an Elder Scrolls game and an MMO, but I think it should be an Elder Scrolls game first and an MMO second. MMO features that do not make the game a better Elder Scrolls game should be a lower priority than features that make it a better Elder Scrolls game.

PapaTankers · January 2025

ESO is an MMO first! Prioritize things like PvP and endgame PvE combat.

Elsonso wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What's important is determining whether players prefer ESO being more heavily influenced by the legacy of the singleplayer TES games, or more heavily influenced by the MMORPG genre as a whole. ESO can be both, but is it more of a singleplayer TES game or more of a massively multiplayer online game?

There are a ton of fantasy MMO games out there. Only one of them is based on Elder Scrolls, which is primarily a single player experience.

Elder Scrolls players who want to play with other Elder Scrolls players in a manner that is fully supported by the studio and publisher have no other option but ESO.

MMO players who want to play a with other MMO players can go to a number of other games.

It is both an Elder Scrolls game and an MMO, but I think it should be an Elder Scrolls game first and an MMO second. MMO features that do not make the game a better Elder Scrolls game should be a lower priority than features that make it a better Elder Scrolls game.

What about mmo players who also enjoy elder scrolls theme? What other options do they have? There are always single player elder scrolls games questers can enjoy.

Crazy how this can apply both ways right?

What about people who enjoy all aspects of the game?

Taril · January 2025

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Why does it have to be one or the other? Surely it would be in the best interests of ZOS (or any games company) to cater for both the hardcore and casual gamer.

The main concern is usually to do with workload and available resources.

Catering to "Hardcore" audience means spending time and resources on creating new Veteran content, Trials and "Harder Overworld" style things like what Craglorn was supposed to be and incorporating things like "Gear Chase".

Catering to "Casual" audience means spending time and resources on creating new stories, furnishings, houses, new maps to explore and more things to encourage people to revisit older zones (Like revamps and addendums to older stories)

A team can only work on so many things at once. A development team is not infinitely large. So they will have to pick and choose what to work on. If they spread themselves too thin, then neither audience is happy (As can be noted with the recent responses to their latest stuff - With endgame PvE players not particularly happy with the most recent content and how it plays so heavily into the Arcanist's cleave and casual PvE players not having particularly great stories)

It's one of the pitfalls for the MMO notion of "Make content for everyone" - It's all well and good in theory. But in practice you run into the issue of maintaining development of all these multitudes of systems (Especially as business are want to reduce staff for better net profits more so than increase staff in order to expand the capabilities of development)

PapaTankers · January 2025

ESO is an MMO first! Prioritize things like PvP and endgame PvE combat.

Taril wrote: »

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Why does it have to be one or the other? Surely it would be in the best interests of ZOS (or any games company) to cater for both the hardcore and casual gamer.

The main concern is usually to do with workload and available resources.

Catering to "Hardcore" audience means spending time and resources on creating new Veteran content, Trials and "Harder Overworld" style things like what Craglorn was supposed to be and incorporating things like "Gear Chase".

Catering to "Casual" audience means spending time and resources on creating new stories, furnishings, houses, new maps to explore and more things to encourage people to revisit older zones (Like revamps and addendums to older stories)

A team can only work on so many things at once. A development team is not infinitely large. So they will have to pick and choose what to work on. If they spread themselves too thin, then neither audience is happy (As can be noted with the recent responses to their latest stuff - With endgame PvE players not particularly happy with the most recent content and how it plays so heavily into the Arcanist's cleave and casual PvE players not having particularly great stories)

It's one of the pitfalls for the MMO notion of "Make content for everyone" - It's all well and good in theory. But in practice you run into the issue of maintaining development of all these multitudes of systems (Especially as business are want to reduce staff for better net profits more so than increase staff in order to expand the capabilities of development)

I think this would apply more if we would be talking about a small Indie studio.
This is zenimax we are discussing here. A studio backed by microsoft. A studio that sells 100 dollar virtual homes and god knows how many gamba crates.
I literally see more comperhensive updates on small indie games or small studios in general.

I think that at that point it wont even matter. They are never going to serve veteran players.
They will never serve casual players either, but casuals will remain happy nontheless as they havent got a clue how bad they actually have it.
Most of them have no prior experiance with other mmos or multiplayer games.

Taril · January 2025

PapaTankers wrote: »

I think this would apply more if we would be talking about a small Indie studio.
This is zenimax we are discussing here. A studio backed by microsoft. A studio that sells 100 dollar virtual homes and god knows how many gamba crates.

It applies to all studios equally.

The overall revenue a company makes =/= how much money gets spent on developing games.

Yes, theoretically, Microsoft could bankroll a massive development team. But they don't.

Just like for any other game studio, it only gets what the executives give it (Which for larger studios is as little as possible because profit margins and all that).

Thus, the developers of ESO have to make do with the team they have and the resources they have available, irregardless of how many billions of dollars Microsoft has.

XSTRONG · January 2025

ESO is an MMO first! Prioritize things like PvP and endgame PvE combat.

I play Eso as an mmo but you can also do story quest so its both.

I only did one zone quests and thats Northern Elsweyr because that was released when I started play Eso.

I would probably start doing questing if they were more challenging and rewarding then they are now, I cant get interested in a story when its so easy and unrewarding for doing it.

TaSheen · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

metheglyn wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I just saw a comment in another thread that mentioned the first option as the ideal for ESO, and I thought, "If that's what ESO was, I wouldn't be here."
So, yeah, I'm with @TaSheen on this one: very happy ESO is not like WoW in that way. I did the endgame grind in WoW once upon a time, and I never want to go back to that kind of gaming.
I really just like hanging out in Tamriel and questing around, roleplaying my characters. The minigames I can take or leave, depending.

Exactly this.

I don't think ESO neccessarily has to die once TES6 is released. Sure, some players will leave for TES6 for a while, but at some point, even with mods available, you have seen everything and want some new stories and places. And it does make a difference, for people who are interested in the lore, at least, whether it's 2nd era or 4rd era and whether movement is restricted to one province or whether we can move around on the whole continent. So, even if I have to split my freetime on both ESO and TES6 after the latter was released, I still don't see them as competitors.

Yeah, I feel the same way regarding TES6. I'm sure I will play it when it releases (I've played every Elder Scrolls game in its time) and I am looking forward to it. But however good it is, as a single player game it won't have the longevity of content that ESO does. Plus, I really like the second era lore I've been getting exposed to in ESO, and one of the upsides for me is the Tribunal is still in existence. It kind of broke my heart in Skyrim when I realized what the Dunmer had been reduced to.

Oh, moi aussi! Right now, alongside ESO, I'm playing both Oblivion and Skyrim; adding TES VI to that is a definite YES! If I'm still alive and able to play games when (if...) it ever releases....

WhiteCoatSyndrome · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

PapaTankers wrote: »

What about mmo players who also enjoy elder scrolls theme? What other options do they have? There are always single player elder scrolls games questers can enjoy.

Not recently. *glares at years since Skyrim*

Elsonso · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

PapaTankers wrote: »

What about mmo players who also enjoy elder scrolls theme? What other options do they have?

That is "Elder Scrolls players who want to play with other Elder Scrolls players in a manner that is fully supported by the studio and publisher have no other option but ESO."

The key aspect is that I expect that the bulk of the players are playing this game because of the Elder Scrolls. If the intent is to play the best MMO, or play some other fantasy setting, then I would not expect to find them here as a first choice.

Sure, someone can wander in and play the game while hating all of the Elder Scrolls stuff, or even start playing without any interest in Elder Scrolls and learn to like it. Ultimately, my feeling is that most players are here, and not somewhere else, because of Elder Scrolls more than MMO. Even if it is both.

ESO is not the best or most popular MMORPG out there, and I never expect that it will rise to that. What it can be is the best Elder Scrolls MMORPG. That is the core strength that ZOS can play to.

PapaTankers wrote: »

What about people who enjoy all aspects of the game?

Not an issue, if you ask me. Elder Scrolls and MMORPG are not mutually exclusive, but there are areas where they do not overlap. That is why I added:

"It is both an Elder Scrolls game and an MMO, but I think it should be an Elder Scrolls game first and an MMO second."

I think that if ZOS were to attempt to compete in the MMO market at the expense of the Elder Scrolls market, they will be on the short path to failure. Whatever they do in the MMO space has to be in harmony with the Elder Scrolls space, and that does include story, single player experience, and solo players.

Having the core Elder Scrolls market segment leave the game for the "single player games" is not the answer. Players may do this on their own, if ESO is not "single player" enough. I believe ZOS needs to retain as many of them as they can.

Adremal · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

Got here out of curiosity because it's TES, stayed for the same reason. Though given the up and downs I often find myself taking months-long breaks from ESO (which I also do from other MMOs but due to entirely different reasons, e.g. burnout as opposed to content drought).

JiubLeRepenti · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

I wish it were more like an MMO. But I can't deny that what brought me to this game in 2016-2017 was my love for TES III: Morrowind.

But today, as an endgame player and someone who is purely dedicated to powerleveling, I wish the game had more challenge and difficulty. If you just look at previous chapters, less than 5% of the zones (in other words: trials and certain WBs) were made for veteran players.

metheglyn · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

TaSheen wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I just saw a comment in another thread that mentioned the first option as the ideal for ESO, and I thought, "If that's what ESO was, I wouldn't be here."
So, yeah, I'm with @TaSheen on this one: very happy ESO is not like WoW in that way. I did the endgame grind in WoW once upon a time, and I never want to go back to that kind of gaming.
I really just like hanging out in Tamriel and questing around, roleplaying my characters. The minigames I can take or leave, depending.

Exactly this.

I don't think ESO neccessarily has to die once TES6 is released. Sure, some players will leave for TES6 for a while, but at some point, even with mods available, you have seen everything and want some new stories and places. And it does make a difference, for people who are interested in the lore, at least, whether it's 2nd era or 4rd era and whether movement is restricted to one province or whether we can move around on the whole continent. So, even if I have to split my freetime on both ESO and TES6 after the latter was released, I still don't see them as competitors.

Yeah, I feel the same way regarding TES6. I'm sure I will play it when it releases (I've played every Elder Scrolls game in its time) and I am looking forward to it. But however good it is, as a single player game it won't have the longevity of content that ESO does. Plus, I really like the second era lore I've been getting exposed to in ESO, and one of the upsides for me is the Tribunal is still in existence. It kind of broke my heart in Skyrim when I realized what the Dunmer had been reduced to.

Oh, moi aussi! Right now, alongside ESO, I'm playing both Oblivion and Skyrim; adding TES VI to that is a definite YES! If I'm still alive and able to play games when (if...) it ever releases....

Haha, yeah, it has been a very long wait!

Midni · January 2025

ESO is "TES Online" first! Prioritize things like questing, roleplay, and minigames.

In my books, ESO is its own league. I absolutely love it as a storytelling space shared with other players, the stories and arcs are awesome, the player-run economy is brilliant and fascinating to me, the guild system allows for the broadest range of social organization, and Cyro is the place where I feel super free and unbound most of the times. I think it opens up lots of possibilities for players with different interests while bringing us together in different ways. I fell in love with Skyrim, and ESO has taken that feeling and turned it into a home.