Elder Scrolls Online Has Five Years of Content Planned

[Cecilo]

One of the major problems is that with so many people streaming or recording their gameplay. It is a rush to record or stream the new content. To be the first to have it. Many people will do things as fast as they can, rushing through the game, playing the game yes, but rushing.

Then when they get to the "End Game", There will be no content, so they quit, which will make their viewers consider quitting or not starting at all. People don't join in, their friends don't join, their friends don't join there is no reason to go back because no one you know or like is playing. It quickly snowballs.

Couple all that with ESO being set, what was it? One Thousand Years before Skyrim? Something like that, it's during the second era. No one is really going to care about the lore of the Second Era, because it is over, everyone knows how it ends. The Nords are united under Tiber Septim, he creates the Third Empire, the current nation of Elves is defeated by Tiber Septim who stole a Dwemer construct and used it to crush the Elven Armies.

Sure they can tell more personal stories about the Second Era. But none of them will be YOUR Story. It's just another theme park. Like WoW.

 

[Tarkand]

Forgot my most important point:

Bare with me here this is a hypothetical & rhetorical question: an experiment of thought.

Which would seems more appealing to you if you where a person who only buys 1 game every 5 years?

Game A
-$960 game
-5 years free content
-no subscription fee for those 5 years.

Or Game B
-$60 game
-5 years free content
-$900 worth of subscription fees over 5 years.

Neither (hint: they're the same), You'd buy Skyrim or TESVI and mod the shit out of it for the next half a decade.
I just can't look at ESO with sub fees and not see a game that just costs more than it should.

(by this point, I've well and truely lost my mind and it's time to go to bed)

First thing first - I'm not actually even interested in Elder Scroll Online. I actually only played about 50 hours of Skyrim and while I enjoyed myself, I wouldn't consider myself a fan.

I guess it's more that I'm annoyed at a rather poor grasp of personal finances... pet peeves of mine to see people blame their lack of fund for not doing something when it's not that they don't have the money, it's just that they don't understand how to balance their budget.

To take your example, Game A vs Game B - they aren't the same at all.

Game A requires a major upfront investment. Depending on your weekly income, it may very well demand for you to save up as you may not have that much disposable income around and still be able to pay stuff like rent or food. That or max out your credit card or incur some other form of debt. But let's say you can afford to pay it up front - what happens if after 4 months... or a year... or 2... you get tired of it? You've just blown hundreds of dollars.

Game B requires no real investment... paying 60$ upfront on entertainment is something most people are comfortable with. Spending 15$ the following month is even less expensive. If you get tired in 4 months, you just stop paying. And that's it.

It's the same reason why people buy cars/houses/other major purchases with monthly payments instead of upfront... few people can afford the 30K for a new set of wheels, but a couple hundred a month is manageable.

Let's be honest here... pick any one of your activities. Even trivial stuff like picking up some cheap Dunkin Donut's Coffee before work. Calculate how much it cost you per month/years. Stretch it over a 5 years period. Holy shit, I can't believe I spent 780$ in coffee over the last 5 years (That's 3 1$ coffee a week...)! I have to stop drinking coffee now it's way too expensive!

That's no way to live life

 

[Whispering Cynic]

Five years worth of content, eh? Too bad I don't plan on forking over five years worth of subscription fees.

 

[Tarkand]

There's a lot of problem with mmos... but them being expensive isn't one of them.

Now, for sure, the guy who buys skyrim for 60$ and logs in over 300 hours on it is getting his money's worth much more than the mmo player... but objectively speaking a MMO at 14.99$ a month is one of the cheapest hobby around.

After only 4 months you already paid the same as a new retail game (and that is if you buy it at release). Imagine if those games were a 4 month rental. And the fact that there are MMO's that work like rental games just shows how it can actually be done (back then if may have been justified but now its just taking over the fact that people are used to it).

Its the same thing as people complaining about Killer Instinct, Microsoft called it Free to Play so people either expect not to pay a single cent (you can only play as 1 character but you can still do everything with that one) or complain that it should have been a 60 retail game while there is a content pack to unlock everything that is a lot cheaper then a retail game, and in case you only care about the fight and not bonus costumes then its even cheaper.

People can complain that the "Free to Play" is somewhat of a glorified demo (although you can fight against anyone online and you get all the stats and shit) but to ask for the game to be more expensive in favor of a more traditional game description? Thats just nuts that show that buzzwords like "F2P" and "retail" still work.

It might be the fact that english is not first language, but I'm having a hard time telling if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me on this one.

That being said... how many triple AAA game last longer than 4 months? Most of them have a pretty limited content value to begin with. And even if they don't - how many of us go for 100% completion anymore? Once you've beat the game once, it's pretty hard to resist the siren call of the new hotness that just came out in order to replay the game you've already beat.

Buying 3 triple AAA games a year is the same amount of money as being subscribed to a 14.99$ mmo for a year. How many gamers buy this few games however?

I'm not saying it's the cheapest Hobby around (although it certainly one of the cheapest) or that they aren't way to save even more $... but at face value, 14.99$ a month is not price gouging.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Forgot my most important point:

Bare with me here this is a hypothetical & rhetorical question: an experiment of thought.

Which would seems more appealing to you if you where a person who only buys 1 game every 5 years?

Game A
-$960 game
-5 years free content
-no subscription fee for those 5 years.

Or Game B
-$60 game
-5 years free content
-$900 worth of subscription fees over 5 years.

Neither (hint: they're the same), You'd buy Skyrim or TESVI and mod the shit out of it for the next half a decade.
I just can't look at ESO with sub fees and not see a game that just costs more than it should.

(by this point, I've well and truely lost my mind and it's time to go to bed)

First thing first - I'm not actually even interested in Elder Scroll Online. I actually only played about 50 hours of Skyrim and while I enjoyed myself, I wouldn't consider myself a fan.

I guess it's more that I'm annoyed at a rather poor grasp of personal finances... pet peeves of mine to see people blame their lack of fund for not doing something when it's not that they don't have the money, it's just that they don't understand how to balance their budget.

To take your example, Game A vs Game B - they aren't the same at all.

Game A requires a major upfront investment. Depending on your weekly income, it may very well demand for you to save up as you may not have that much disposable income around and still be able to pay stuff like rent or food. That or max out your credit card or incur some other form of debt. But let's say you can afford to pay it up front - what happens if after 4 months... or a year... or 2... you get tired of it? You've just blown hundreds of dollars.

Game B requires no real investment... paying 60$ upfront on entertainment is something most people are comfortable with. Spending 15$ the following month is even less expensive. If you get tired in 4 months, you just stop paying. And that's it.

It's the same reason why people buy cars/houses/other major purchases with monthly payments instead of upfront... few people can afford the 30K for a new set of wheels, but a couple hundred a month is manageable.

Let's be honest here... pick any one of your activities. Even trivial stuff like picking up some cheap Dunkin Donut's Coffee before work. Calculate how much it cost you per month/years. Stretch it over a 5 years period. Holy shit, I can't believe I spent 780$ in coffee over the last 5 years (That's 3 1$ coffee a week...)! I have to stop drinking coffee now it's way too expensive!

That's no way to live life

I see your point, after a good night's sleep I can see my errors and such.
However, it's not about my lack of funds, I just don't see spending that much money on 1 game being worth it.
I don't know how to explain it in ways that make sense to other people, I'm not very good with words.
So for both our sake, lets just forget about it, not buy the game like we both intend and then move on with our lives

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Not sure how they will get over the problems that face most of the latest MMOs, the aforementioned theme park world design. Seems to be a problem that no MMORPGs are getting past. Will be interesting to see if ESO can make the world feel alive. What I really want though is a good Co-Op elder scrolls game, 1-4 player, a small party to tackle dungeons and boss fights. Of course then they would have to figure out how to make wider doors....

 

[Turner Shanks]

What concerns me is the fact I have never played a vanilla Elder Scrolls game, I always mod because I'm never completely happy with the way it operates as sold and they give me the tools to make it perfect for my own specific tastes. Hell I think I've spent more time modding any given entry to the series than I have playing it.

I can't help but feel that upon trying The Elder Scrolls Online I will be unhappy with the same things I am always unhappy with in these games and without the ability to fix it and full knowledge it will never be fixed for my tastes I will lose the will to play it through.

Doesn't help that they are charging rent for this house I don't think I'll like without the ability to touch it up, a nice fleshed out demo/trial (or beta access) will remove that complaint from me however.

 

[Simple Bluff]

While I don't doubt that they can make content that can last 5 years, it's more of a matter if they will do so.

What Bethesda said during the development of Skyrim is irrelevant, TESO isn't being made by them. That's not to say that you shouldn't be wary, but still.

Anyway, I like the sound of this, if they can deliver. I really don't believe the game will sell quite as bad as people seem to think and I'm hearing good things from the Beta. I won't be able to play it for long time so I'm hoping it's still active by the time I can pick it up.

Y'know what's kinda weird? Spell-check recognizes "Bethesda" but not "Skyrim."

 

[josemlopes]

There's a lot of problem with mmos... but them being expensive isn't one of them.

Now, for sure, the guy who buys skyrim for 60$ and logs in over 300 hours on it is getting his money's worth much more than the mmo player... but objectively speaking a MMO at 14.99$ a month is one of the cheapest hobby around.

After only 4 months you already paid the same as a new retail game (and that is if you buy it at release). Imagine if those games were a 4 month rental. And the fact that there are MMO's that work like rental games just shows how it can actually be done (back then if may have been justified but now its just taking over the fact that people are used to it).

Its the same thing as people complaining about Killer Instinct, Microsoft called it Free to Play so people either expect not to pay a single cent (you can only play as 1 character but you can still do everything with that one) or complain that it should have been a 60 retail game while there is a content pack to unlock everything that is a lot cheaper then a retail game, and in case you only care about the fight and not bonus costumes then its even cheaper.

People can complain that the "Free to Play" is somewhat of a glorified demo (although you can fight against anyone online and you get all the stats and shit) but to ask for the game to be more expensive in favor of a more traditional game description? Thats just nuts that show that buzzwords like "F2P" and "retail" still work.

It might be the fact that english is not first language, but I'm having a hard time telling if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me on this one.

That being said... how many triple AAA game last longer than 4 months? Most of them have a pretty limited content value to begin with. And even if they don't - how many of us go for 100% completion anymore? Once you've beat the game once, it's pretty hard to resist the siren call of the new hotness that just came out in order to replay the game you've already beat.

Buying 3 triple AAA games a year is the same amount of money as being subscribed to a 14.99$ mmo for a year. How many gamers buy this few games however?

I'm not saying it's the cheapest Hobby around (although it certainly one of the cheapest) or that they aren't way to save even more $... but at face value, 14.99$ a month is not price gouging.

I was disagreeing.

When playing an MMO dont you also buy other games? The time spent playing during those 4 years will be all that higher to justify having to buy again then the time spent on a typical game for his entire life span (not taking into account DLC's)?

Also, games drop prices very fast, most games I buy cost less then price of one month (Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2 and Max Payne 3 9,99$ each).

A single game cant be compared to 3 games, it should be compared to one. A few years ago the excuse that it was an MMO and it needed to run servers was acceptable but now you can compare it to Guild Wars where it offers the same at the price of every other game.

 

[GAunderrated]

That's ambitious, I like it.
But I'm still unsure about whether or not this makes the fee worth it.

I mean, if you look at it as the fee means your paying for 5 years worth of content.
People who jump in 5 years later (providing the fee still exists then) will have spent less and got more, than say if I buy it at launch and spent 5 years playing.
I'll being drained of cash and essentially punished for loyalty and dedication to a franchise I love.

I did a quick calculation. (correct if wrong)
After 5 years of extra content, with a fee of $14.99 a month, I've spent $899.40 (£577.54)

TES is one of my favorite games, but is it worth a thousand dollars?
Not to me unfortunately.

I'm always startled when I see comments like this. It reminds me of back when I played WoW and people who told me they couldn't afford to play it because it was 'too expensive' and then would go on thursday night (While I was raiding) and would blow several time the wow monthly fee in one evening... an exercise they repeated every week.

People choose their own entertainment. For some people gaming is not the only activity they enjoy and to them $14.99 a month is too expensive for a side hobby unless they dedicate all their time to it which lots of people would not be interested in.

It made no sense to me then, it makes no sense to now. That is mostly because you are so far into the trees that you can find any reason to justify it. You can't understand why people wouldn't want to spend nearly $1,000 over 5 years on a single game that will kick you out the second you stop playing says that much.

To use your figures... this means you'd be spending .50$ a day on this game.

This is a type of bias conformation you are attempting here. If you break down the amounts of all your bills they can sound very reasonable. That is why many people get into loans that look reasonable when broken down but is a rip off. If you want to break down value I pay $0.000000000000000000000000000000001 cents per day with the flat fee of $60 I payed for skyrim. So value per day for ESO than skyrim is 1000000000000000000000000000000x more. Still not that great of value considering one's value is lost the second you stop paying.

my responses are in bold

 

[Apostheum]

... Still not that great of value considering one's value is lost the second you stop paying.

Thank you for pointing this out. That's probably one of the more important points.

Once you stop paying your subscription; all value is gone. And everything you've invested so far, is taken away from you.

If you play for 1 year, and then stop playing. Then you've lost ~180 dollars + the initial retail fee. That's my biggest gripe with it. When I pay something, I want something solid back. When I buy skyrim, I can play it for as long as I feel. Safe in knowing that the money I shelled out will forever be sheltered in a digital asset that is mine to use at my leisure.

With a subscription model, you lose everything once you stop playing. You're essentially feeding a monster to keep it from destroying your invested time, and the hostage-held time investment gets larger and larger the more you feed it. The longer you do it, the more you have to lose.

That's why quitting MMOs is hard. That's why we have MMO-addicts.

 

[kenu12345]

MMO players have the attention span for a mmo game a "normal" gamer has for a single player game... or rather they have a longer attention span because i honestly dont know anyone playing a singleplayer game for a couple of months in a row.

*raises hand* I've played single player games for months before and so has my friends.Its really not that rare... Anyway on topic eh dont care still too expensive maybe if I didnt have to buy the game on top of the subsciption but eh

 

[Angelous Wang]

five months is [sic] the end-game needs to be good

I may be wrong on this since it has been a while, but was not one of the problems that ToR had was that people hit the end game content way earlier than they were expecting? As in within a week or so of launch? Five months seems an excessive amount of time for them to expect people to sit around waiting to see the end-game content.

As a guy that was playing end game content in beta, yes that was a major problem for ToR. Practically all the beta players were level 50 within a week.

We didn't get to keep our characters of course, but we knew everything there was to know (boss strategies ect) so it made it extremely easy.

 

[Bailos]

... Still not that great of value considering one's value is lost the second you stop paying.

Thank you for pointing this out. That's probably one of the more important points.

Once you stop paying your subscription; all value is gone. And everything you've invested so far, is taken away from you.

If you play for 1 year, and then stop playing. Then you've lost ~180 dollars + the initial retail fee. That's my biggest gripe with it. When I pay something, I want something solid back. When I buy skyrim, I can play it for as long as I feel. Safe in knowing that the money I shelled out will forever be sheltered in a digital asset that is mine to use at my leisure.

With a subscription model, you lose everything once you stop playing. You're essentially feeding a monster to keep it from destroying your invested time, and the hostage-held time investment gets larger and larger the more you feed it. The longer you do it, the more you have to lose.

That's why quitting MMOs is hard. That's why we have MMO-addicts.

How do you lose anything? That's like saying going to the movies or buying food has no value once you stop watching and eating. I bought Shadow of the Colossus for $30, and I haven't touched it in years. But I can pick it up any time I'd like. Granted, ESO's servers won't last forever, but if I play for a year and stop, I can pick it up any time.

 

[Lunar Templar]

So did ToR... and we all know how that ended up. This thing just has flashing red warning sides all over it. Time will tell, but I'm not seeing it.

The MMO community are content locusts by and large. They'll play it for a few months, then they'll leave. When exactly the exodus occurs is dependent on a few things. The speed at which bugs are fixed, the rate at which new content is added. etc etc.

I donno if I agree with that, the real problem is there's be given no reason lately to do anything BUT rush to the end game, 'cause that's where the real game starts'.

And it annoys the fuck out of me, cause 'the end game' content is usually a boring grind on a gear treadmill. 'Get gear to run a raid to get more gear to run another raid' kinda none sense, which is the fastest way to get me to drop the game like a sack of bricks.

 

[Karadalis]

MMO players have the attention span for a mmo game a "normal" gamer has for a single player game... or rather they have a longer attention span because i honestly dont know anyone playing a singleplayer game for a couple of months in a row.

*raises hand* I've played single player games for months before and so has my friends.Its really not that rare... Anyway on topic eh dont care still too expensive maybe if I didnt have to buy the game on top of the subsciption but eh

Then they must have been excellent games. Honestly nowadays there arent that many single player games left you can loose yourselfe in. Skyrim being one.. or the souls games, monster hunter if thats your thing.

But most games nowadays are play and forget kinda deals. Well forget might be a bit harsh but they have little to no replay value. And the replay value there is is most often only a more difficult setting but essential the same game.

And to a certain degree this goes for MMOs too. You can only make so many alts before the game gets boring and you have seen everything, especially with theme park mmos.

 

[Caiphus]

Roll up, roll up.

Five years of microtransactions planned for ESO.

 

[Tarkand]

I was disagreeing.

When playing an MMO dont you also buy other games? The time spent playing during those 4 years will be all that higher to justify having to buy again then the time spent on a typical game for his entire life span (not taking into account DLC's)?

Also, games drop prices very fast, most games I buy cost less then price of one month (Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2 and Max Payne 3 9,99$ each).

A single game cant be compared to 3 games, it should be compared to one. A few years ago the excuse that it was an MMO and it needed to run servers was acceptable but now you can compare it to Guild Wars where it offers the same at the price of every other game.

From my experience when I was playing WoW? Very few. Because if I'm playing another game, I'm not grinding for money and doing my daily for money to buy consumable and repair my gear. I'm not doing arenas and battleground. I'm not raiding. It could be that my point of view are tainted by the fact that I was a guild leader in an end game guild... but between a full time job, a girlfriend and managing my guild - I certainly did not have time to buy and play the new games that come out every other month.

I actually took a 6 months break in the middle of my 4 years of WoW addiction... and during that 6 months break, I bought at least 4 games. I also started to go out more, spent more on drinks, restaurant, movies, etc.

Then I got sucked back in by the next expansion.

Ironically, once I stopped playing WoW... one of the first thing I did was to go on Steam and catch up on all those games I had missed.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't regret stopping playing WoW. I don't regret kicking the addiction. But if there's one thing I can't deny, is that I was spending a lot less money on videogame (and well, pretty much everything else) while I was playing WoW.

 

[Tarkand]

This is a type of bias conformation you are attempting here. If you break down the amounts of all your bills they can sound very reasonable. That is why many people get into loans that look reasonable when broken down but is a rip off. If you want to break down value I pay $0.000000000000000000000000000000001 cents per day with the flat fee of $60 I payed for skyrim. So value per day for ESO than skyrim is 1000000000000000000000000000000x more. Still not that great of value considering one's value is lost the second you stop paying.

my responses are in bold[/quote]

It's not they CAN, it's they should. People living above their means is a huge problem in today's world.

The fact that once in a blue moon, a triple AAA games comes out that can give you 300hours+ of playtime doesn't change the fact that 14.99$ a month for entertainment is dirt cheap. I mean come on, have you gone to a movie recently? You'll spend much more than that for about 2 hours and it'st just as much 'lost' the second you stop watching.

Try and pick up any other hobby honestly... and see if you can get anywhere with 14.99 a month - I have friends who ice climb, ride motorcycle... I am myself in wargaming as my avatar may give away... really, 14.99 a month is a lot of money? Even videogames outside of mmorpg, baring the very few rare occassion like Skyrim, will end up costing you more than a mmorpg.

 

[Grabehn]

I still play Oblivion, I think that says enough. I wanted to play this, but I don't have money to pay a monthly fee, nor see a game being worth a monthly fee. I paid 20 bucks for Oblivion.