If ESO goes f2p, I hope they make the UNSUB button really, really easy to find.

I'd like to see someone on their payroll that can "balance" the classes without nerfing everything that is actually effectively and FIX BROKEN SKILLS

I can't believe there are people who want games to go free to play.

How could that possibly improve the game for current players? The only thing free to play does for games is attract a bunch of people who weren't originally interested in the game. Bribing those types of people into playing this game will only hurt the community. I would rather have 100,000 ESO fans than 1million players, most of whom only play cause it's free.

Free to play benefits the suits collecting the money, not the players. Please explain how I'm wrong about that.

Cimos wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

Cimos wrote: »

ESO will never be str8 F2P. It may end up like GW2, where you buy the game, and then theres no sub. But I doubt ESO will turn into a full on free game where u can download and play at no cost.

Why? It's doing far worse than SWTOR was when it had to go F2P (and then it started making way more money when it did). I'm not saying the game will be free to play tomorrow, but after six more months of Zenimax's poor patches, balancing, big fixes, and customer support...

SWToR had to pay IP bills so they had to get revenue to keep coming in. Although ZOS is supposed to have invested alot, its their IP so they shouldnt have as many financial obligations to meet.

I think its far more likely that the game just drops the sub fee and only updates content once a quarter.

Just think about consoles. There is no way they would make this game F2P on consoles...and thats 6 months away. They want everyone's $59.99. And honestly, the game is worth $59.99. In today's game economy, $60 should yield 50+ hours of gameplay on all gaming platforms. Heck, I paid $59.99 for Titanfall and I've played a total of about 10 hours...

What you think the box price is worth is irrelevant, there is more than just production cost they have to recoup. They need subs (or some other form of revenue) to keep pumping out content and then fixing the avalanche of bugs that new content created.

kasain wrote: »

In so e ways wow is. Buy a blizard game they give 6 to 12 month wow free. Basicily ftp. They did that with diablo 3

The misinformation in this one is strong.

You cannot buy any Blizzard game and get that much time in WoW. It's never happen. Best you'll get is the standard free month that comes with all new purchases of the base game.

Personally I believe you're thinking of the Annual Pass from back in 2011. Pretty much it was sign a contract saying you wouldn't let your sub last for a year and you got the following:
-Guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria beta at some point
-A free digital copy of Diablo 3 upon release
-Exclusive in game mount

That's it. You were still paying for twelve months of WoW. How you paid for it was up to you: monthly, 3/6 month blocks, game cards. Hell if you got free time out of recruit a friend then that was fine as well. The only requirement was that you kept it active for twelve months.

Now the people who pre-ordered the collector's edition of D3 were more than a bit unhappy with said promo for a free copy of the game. As compensation Blizzard did give them four free months of WoW if they were taking part in the Annual Pass and entered in a CE D3 key to upgrade their free copy (essentially the price of buying the standard version of D3 which is also the price for four months of most MMO subs).

As someone who took part in that promo I felt it was an awesome deal. Sadly however as is typical with the extremely vocal and unpleasable portion of the fanbase things got wrecked. People apparently couldn't read the fine print, weren't pleased with it for whatever reason, were angry that they didn't get day one beta access, ect. Blizzard eventually let people break off the contract in exchange for giving up their copy of D3, beta access and the mount. Add to the fact that people treated the beta like an extended demo. Most didn't even seem to grasp the concept of a beta, didn't bother to report bugs and instead complained loudly that MoP's beta was broken and unfinished.

In short Blizzard's experiment essentially ensured that they'd never do an Annual Pass again. As far as claiming WoW is F2P you COULD make the argument that it's F2P in a sense. There is a free starter version but you're extremely limited in what you can do and there is a cap of level 20.

Anyway this was a bit of a drift off topic but I felt it had to be addressed. In the future I would personally recommend not speaking "facts" when in reality it's misinformation.


As for the actual topic on hand it's hard to say. There's only a handful of MMO's that run subs and could really be considered mainstream or widely known. I honestly feel ESO is doing much better than people are claiming but without the actual sub numbers it's very hard to say. Honestly I think if ESO is in the 1-2 million range then it'll be fine for some time.

Don't laugh. People tend to forget that WoW is the exception to the rule. I know it's hard to believe but before WoW came around MMO's with more than one million players were just downright unheard of.

As for the whole F2P argument I'm with most the people here. If it goes B2P I'll be a bit worried but likely still play. If it goes full on F2P with a premium option I may dabble a bit but I'll likely be out for good. F2P was what ruined Star Trek Online for me and honestly I feel that while it may keep the game running for a while I feel that in the long run it's essentially that nail in the coffin that says the time for that MMO is limited.

This MMO, imo, is not worth a sub...at all imo....

I can literally get the same experience I get here in GW2 but arguably better....for just the box price...and get content/patch updates on a regular bases....for free. Let's repeat that....FOR FREE!

Until Zeni adds a ton of things to do once a player hits cap, then it might be worth it. I am tired of most new MMO devs focusing on the 'leveling experience' and putting majority of the development costs largely into VO rather than creating a deep end game/things for players can do once they hit the cap. Also tired of MMOs devs 'promising' more/better content AFTER release. Here's a tip, design a metric ton of it before you release instead of making empty promises. Good idea, yea?

It's like...let's work on the hook to get box sales/intial subs for a quick buck instead of thinking up 1000s of ways to keep people around later on. Nope, let's repeat the exact same mistakes countless other failed MMOs have made over the years...yep! Pretty much, this is...SWTOR 2.0 to me but with a less enjoyable leveling experience and with even less end game which is kinda pathetic.

Lastly, I am glad many are enjoying ESO...more power to ya! But I do expect this game will be forced to go F2P eventually if things do not improved immensely and more importantly...quickly. I really hope they can do it but I remain highly doubtful judging by my past experiences with more MMOs than I can recall...but you never know...you never know.

Well, off to that new MMO that just came out; it's comforting to know that once I hit their cap...they have stuff for me to do. And don't let some haters fool ya, while it might look 'kiddy', it sure don't play that way; you need some serious skill to be 'good'. Yea, I might end up not playin this one in the long term too but so far I am impressed and having a total gas so that's a good sign, I think.

One thing the game won't see is me, if the game goes f2p, and f2p is only like the biggest lie in gaming history, and to this date I have not found one f2p game even worth playng for free( I have tried a ton of them), once you spend enough money in a free to play game to get some what equal to what you get for 14.99, you end up spending way more that 14.99 in a free to play game. LOL
The word Free, seems to hold a lot of power over some people, sad really..

I find it highly unlikely that they'll go F2P before the console release in six months. There's absolutely no way that they'll want the stigma of failure driving people away from purchasing the console version.

I'm betting that they're banking quite a bit on console sales being pretty big. If you think about it, there are, in general, very few "western" RPGs out for the consoles, most of them are asian-influenced, anime'ish titles. I think that's one of the reasons that Oblivion and, especially, Skyrim sold so well on consoles. Since most console games are unlikely to be reading the forums on a PC game it's possible that they'll just see, "Elder Scrolls Online for XBox One and PS4!", advertising and purchase it based on their experience with Skyrim on a console.

The above is all conjecture and my opinion!

Finally, if ESO goes F2P both my wife and I are out. We positively hate what F2P does to games.

Firstly, can people stop saying that swtor went f2p, because it didnt. What you're thinking about is the trial version of the game you get to try, if you want to play the actual game, you have to pay.

Secondly, with consoles coming out, they arent going to go f2p for a while due to that investment.

Thirdly, zeni being a private company, they don't have to give out numbers on subs, or anything really (this means there is no reason to make any speculations, because everyone can only guess)

Fourthly, if it goes F2p, I want a refund for the hours of my life back.

This is a good game, this launch is a good launch. If you don't think so then you really either weren't there for other mmo launches (fun idea: Google what happened at WoW's launch, then come back and try saying this was bad. I'll give you a freebie: A good portion of servers were down for, not only a day, but some up to 20.)

In the case of SWTOR, EA is a parasite company who doesn't give a damn

Truer words have never been spoken.
I try to avoid anything EA, but they have grown so large sucking the life out of so many games that those parasitic tendrils are everywhere.

When the game goes f2p, Iwill stop playing.
It's not a question of "if" but rather "when" it does happen.

F2P would be a cancel for me also. People act like it's the wave of the future. I would rather pay my 50 cents a day and earn what I get in game. The kids like F2P so they can keep playing when they get grounded or others can buy their way to the top. If you cant pay the 50 cents a day maybe you should be doing something besides sitting in front of a computer. Don't come at me with jobs are hard to find or money is tight as you sit with a computer that plays these games and an internet connection that prolly runs close to 100 bucks a month.

OP: Why did you add the "when" to your title, after the mods changed it to if? How absolutely sure it will go to ftp?

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

TazerReloaded wrote: »

The only people who want ESO to be f2p are 16 year olds who have no bank account yet and think everything in life is free. Zenimax/Bethesda spent around 200 million dollars and several years of development on this project, of course they want some money back.
And $15/month is nothing compared to other activities one can spend so much time with, even other games are more expensive. For an average game you pay $60 and play for 20h, in ESO you can play 100h+ per $15.

SWTOR spent half a billion, and went f2p in 6 months

But it was a badly received, badly conceived, game.