Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) killed by Zenimax before launch

[Highlord Laan]

Link

ZeniMax General Manager Matt Firor confirmed TESO's subscription model in an interview with GameStar. "Charging a flat monthly (or subscription) fee means that we will offer players the game we set out to make, and the one that fans want to play," Firor said. "Going with any other model meant that we would have to make sacrifices and changes we weren't willing to make."

ESO won't last six months P2P. The Old Republic, an MMO with a massive audience...didn't last a year. And it had a much, much larger fan base to draw on. ESO, being pay to play, will be demanded to be WoW, plus BC, plus Wrath, plus Cata, plus Mists straight out of the gate. All of it at once. Offer everything it does, be just as easy, just as fast, have just as active arenas, gated content and repetitive endgame grinding to keep the basement dwellers happy. Since Bethesda is going for a WoW model, the majority of the players will want a reskinned WoW. This is a given.

Just like they demanded from Warhammer Online.
Just like they demanded with Everquest 2.
Just like they demanded Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Just like they will demand from Elder Scrolls Online.

Think Bethesda has the chops for it?

No, they don't. Going F2P would have let Bethesda make a free flowing MMO that people could have played, dropped, picked up again and learn to love for all of it not-being-current-build-WoW warts over a period of time while the game is refined. Guild Wars 2, Dungeons and Dragons, and Lord of the Rings have all proven this. But how an F2P make a kind of game players want to play? PARADOX, I say! Tricks and shenanigans!

Now? With P2P, not so much. People will be paying constantly, and therefore will demand constant attention, or they will leave, with few ever coming back. Bethesda's decision has killed ESO before it even launches. I'm cackling with glee. Another pack of shortsighted corporate jackoffs have shot themselves in the foot because they were too busy looking at WoW's (decreasing) revenues to see the writing on the wall, and it's goddamed hilarious.

If EA couldn't keep a brand new MMO (and all the flaws that entails) with a horrendous fan base going with a subscription model, Bethesda/Zenimax sure as fuck doesn't. And Beth/Zeni doesn't have anywhere near EA's ability to soak up the kind of economic hit a failed MMO generates.

Do we want to start guessing/making bets on who's going to pick up Beth's IP's? I hope Fallout goes to Obsidian.

[Grumman]

I was expecting this to suck from the first official announcement, when I found out their creative director had a worse understanding of how they could implement a feature than I did. Finding out they expect people to rent their half-assed WoW clone is just another nail in the coffin.

[Spoonist]

Uhm, of course they will do it P2P first and of course they will go the F2P route after a while. Its called revenues.
If you look at the sales curve of almost all MMO releases you will have the "oh new and shiny" crowd that is willing to pay to play. You need that cash flow, both for your investors but also for developing the next step. Then when the sales curve start to drop your transition to micropayments and F2P. If you had a big following you can sometimes even get in a P2P expansion before changing model.
And that is generic and not specific to a certain game. This specific game could suck donkey balls or be golden, it doesn't matter, it still makes economic sense to do it this way. (and yes I know there are games which go F2P from the start - then it is usually a different investor model behind it, like WoT.

You have similar sale curve models for ordinary games, but there it is more - how long on full price - when to launch the first sale - when to launch the first bundle - etc.
All of which aims to keep that sales curve generating cash.

[Vendetta]

On the other hand, they eat a PR backlash from having had to back down from a sub model, having been low content for the sub period (which every MMO is bound to be), and having been sub based at first makes it harder to come up with a free to play model that doesn't annoy the playerbase into going away before they've given you money.

[CaptHawkeye]

What's your opinion on the gameplay? I haven't even been able to ass-myself to watch a video of it yet because i'm already willing to bet it's just going to ape the centuries old World of Warcraft play model. Every other MMO seems to just copy them or World of Tanks. So I find it pretty hard to do anything but write the genre off for at least another 3 years.

[Vendetta]

It's a direct input game not a "wait for autoattack, occasionally click hotbar" WoW style game, and I think they've made sure it's still playable first person like the rest of the elder scrolls games.

They've been talking about how they're reorganising the questing model for MMOs, instead of finding the guy with the exclamation point floating above his head to be told to collect twenty bear asses you wander around the world chopping stuff, and when you chop something that's involved in a quest like that it just pops up in your journal.


So, it might be worth a look when the sub model fails and it goes F2P *I'm a smarmy asshole*

[TheFeniX]

I think trying to make your subscription based MMO like WoW is the dumbest idea because people are just going to go play WoW. There's no way possible to attain anywhere near the level of content WoW had, even at it's launch.

EA had a "Story-based" WoW-clone with less leveling content than Vanilla WoW and a KOTOR (really just Bioware) style of storytelling/dialog system. "Failure" was the only option, but only because EA literally built the game up for it. ESO seems to be going the same route with their checklist style of game creation. Then again, the game doesn't have nearly the hype SWTOR did, so they may be able to eek out a few ten/hundred thousand subs and turn a steady profit without fucking the whole thing up.

[Serafina]

The only way a subscription-based model can really work is you offer something that's both well done, and really different from WoW.

[bilateralrope]

The problem I see with a subscription model is in convincing people that the game is significantly better than F2P/B2P* MMOs, or different enough that there is no F2P/B2P game to compare it with. I haven't been paying much attention to ESO, is it looking like it could justify the subscription cost ?


*Buy 2 play. Games like Guild Wars 2 where you have to buy the game to start playing, but the only money you may need to pay to access the content is expansions.

I was expecting this to suck from the first official announcement, when I found out their creative director had a worse understanding of how they could implement a feature than I did.

Could you elaborate a bit on this please ?

[Vendetta]

I've heard the argument that they might get away with it because of the people leaving WoW representing a potential audience for other sub based games, but that might not be true. They might be leaving WoW because they're actually not willing to pay for the MMO experience in the current market at all, either because there are now lots of ways for them to not do so, or because they've simply tired of MMOs in general.

[Meest]

To me subscription just makes me research more into how much content will be available at launch compared to a free to play or buy to play. So I guess in essence it will be harder to get the box sale to try a month vs try as long as you want. Was looking forward to it just based on the lead dev being Matt Firor one of the major guys behing DAOC, so I expect the RvR to be good, and it sounds good on paper with a resource war to unlock content. Is that worth $15 a month, I'm not sure yet but it is my favourite type of MMO style. Wondering why the $15 a month is still standard, and not some hybrid system where you can choose other plans other than discounts for long term payment. For example something like more limited character slots for $5 and things of that nature to help it blend in the micro transaction style people seem to like more now.

[TheFeniX]

I've heard the argument that they might get away with it because of the people leaving WoW representing a potential audience for other sub based games, but that might not be true. They might be leaving WoW because they're actually not willing to pay for the MMO experience in the current market at all, either because there are now lots of ways for them to not do so, or because they've simply tired of MMOs in general.

WoW has had issues holding onto subscribers after pre/post-patch/expansion increases. From what B.net posters have been stating (so take this with 8 pounds of salt), the cata/MoP dev team has managed to lose the entirety of the subscribers that the BC and WotLK devs managed to get paying to play WoW. I think a lot of this has to do with blowback from the community after the cake-walk late WotLK was compared to how brutal early cata was. Yet, by the end of cata, Blizz seemed to have just given up and started throwing epics at the playerbase. From what I've read of MoP, subscribers aren't to happy that a lot of the shinies are hidden behind a brutal rep grind that can only be tackled with copious amounts of dailies. No longer can a dungeon runner like myself do the slow-grind with tabards.

It basically boils down to the narrowing of content: you have to do X in order to break through a content wall. People don't like that shit. They want options and options seem to be evaporating constantly.

SWTOR skimmed quite a few subs off Blizz but couldn't hold them because launch SWTOR was narrow enough as it was, but EA/BW handled issues with areas like Ilum but just gutting them and making them ghost-towns. PvP, in general, also became non-viable for character advancement, requiring PvE in order to maintain the demands of PvP. PvPers obviously did not like this change. Oh and crafting was always a joke and only had certain paths to be profitable/fund another advancement path. By the time I quit, the only real way to progress was via PvE questing/raiding. The game also lacked any other entertaining time-sinks. The "re-roll" option BW came up with was insulting because, across 8 "classes," you could do probably 90% of faction content with 1 play-through.

I don't think the market is unwilling to pay monthly for the MMO experience. I just think blizzard is doing a poor job keeping their content fresh. And people aren't willing to pay out for some shitty WoW clone.

Wondering why the $15 a month is still standard, and not some hybrid system where you can choose other plans other than discounts for long term payment. For example something like more limited character slots for $5 and things of that nature to help it blend in the micro transaction style people seem to like more now.

I've wondered about this myself. I think it's an extension of the "Tell a person a pill costs $4 and it will cure their headache, tell them the same pill costs $.50 and they'll complain it doesn't work." If you go above $15, your product had better be a masterpiece. Go under $15 and your product is a cheap knock-off of "real" MMOs. This is what really drives me nuts about consoles games: every piece of shit out there is $60 no matter the quality or the content.

Hell, for $5 a month, I would straight up leave my WoW account active just to have the ability to run a dungeon/do some fishing/etc whenever I felt like it. As it stands right now, it sits inactive because I can't justify the cost because I won't be able to play that much. Even if I had to deal with only running X content one a week/month, I could put up with that.

[Grumman]

I was expecting this to suck from the first official announcement, when I found out their creative director had a worse understanding of how they could implement a feature than I did.

Could you elaborate a bit on this please ?

I was thinking of the ways you could make the player housing appeal to the carebear roleplayer types - making houses instanced with a physics engine so you can decorate, giving other players "read" (you can visit but can't take anything) or "write" (my home is your home) access to your house, and how you could have a combination of bulk housing on telescoping streets and premium loft and basement housing on the main streets.

Then I found the quote saying "you can't own a house because it's 'too hard to implement in an MMO'." Despite, you know, other MMOs implementing player housing in the past.

[Esquire]

Which one were you thinking of?

[Block]

Everquest 2 has had housing done in that manner for at least 6 years.

[Meest]

Dark Age of Camelot had a zone just for housing, and it was also used as a marketplace, you had bulletin board style posts at street intersections where you could look up sale postings then literally go to the person's house and buy it. Could hire an NPC to sell stuff if you weren't online also, outdated now with auction houses but an interesting community builder. Had multiple house sizes, and could put crafting stations etc, and certain mobs would be trophy mobs that you can then hang up in the house.

[Highlord Laan]

Dark Age of Camelot had a zone just for housing, and it was also used as a marketplace, you had bulletin board style posts at street intersections where you could look up sale postings then literally go to the person's house and buy it. Could hire an NPC to sell stuff if you weren't online also, outdated now with auction houses but an interesting community builder. Had multiple house sizes, and could put crafting stations etc, and certain mobs would be trophy mobs that you can then hang up in the house.

All of that requires work on the developers part that doesn't involve more glowy and spikey armor bits, or more "endgame" grinding content that keep the screaming basement dwellers and their "hardcore" guilds/clans/whatever happy and entertained.

Remember. This is the WoW MMO market. Community is a distant, barely thought of third place to more raiding grinds and pvp rewards for keyboard facesmashing.

[InsaneTD]

You have realised that, that 15 a month is in addition to your gold/plus level subscription. A friend worked out that the first year will cost 500 assuming you jump in at launch and don't buy the game on special.

[StarSword]

Hell, even World of Warcraft has gone to a freemium model (up to level 20 is free). I think that leaves Eve as the only subscription-only MMO left.

I hope this kills Zenimax Game Studios so the series stays single-player for good.

[Borgholio]

Not actually. EVE lets you buy game time using in-game currency. I haven't paid for my EVE subscription with real money in over two years.

[InsaneTD]

Which is actually easy to do in the two week trial if you get the game off the Eve website rather then steam.

[Terralthra]

Hell, for $5 a month, I would straight up leave my WoW account active just to have the ability to run a dungeon/do some fishing/etc whenever I felt like it. As it stands right now, it sits inactive because I can't justify the cost because I won't be able to play that much. Even if I had to deal with only running X content one a week/month, I could put up with that.

Fully agreed. Fuck, I pay $5/month for ad-free websites, even though I have ad-blocker software, just to encourage people to adopt that model of revenue. Charge me $5/month, and I might just get my account going again. Not at $15/month, and they'd have to work out something with expansion amortization, because Pandas and pokemon are not worth $40 to me.

[Grumman]

Not actually. EVE lets you buy game time using in-game currency. I haven't paid for my EVE subscription with real money in over two years.

EVE's certainly an interesting one. I don't want to play a game with its approach to griefing, but it's often good fun to read about it from the outside. Like that bank that vanished when the founder converted all its assets into battleship, spent the rest on a bounty on his own head and went off into deep space, cackling like a supervillain.

[bilateralrope]

Hell, even World of Warcraft has gone to a freemium model (up to level 20 is free).

When I look at the full list of restrictions I don't see a freemium model. I see a trial account.

Which is actually easy to do in the two week trial if you get the game off the Eve website rather then steam.

It's easier if you get a 21 day buddy invite off an Eve player.

Fully agreed. Fuck, I pay $5/month for ad-free websites, even though I have ad-blocker software, just to encourage people to adopt that model of revenue. Charge me $5/month, and I might just get my account going again. Not at $15/month, and they'd have to work out something with expansion amortization, because Pandas and pokemon are not worth $40 to me.

Since my first MMO-like game was Guild Wars, I've always felt that charging a subscription fee and for each expansion is a bit greedy. Now, with so many MMOs that don't charge subscriptions, how does Blizzard convince new players to pay for WoW instead of playing one of the cheaper MMOs ?

[InsaneTD]

Brand name. It's the biggest mmo out there and has brand power behind it.