Elder Scrolls Online's First Microtransaction Is a Horse

[Starke]

....I don't.... This.... I don't even.....

I'm sorry but The Elder Scrolls Online is going to fall flat on it's face moments after coming out.

People will pay subscription for a game that looks this good, sure. But it won't last if you're cramming this crap down our throats.

'Some' people will pay subscription. I'm not one of them.

Bring me Fallout 4!

and bring on the announcement of "we have decided to make the fallout MMO instead, and cease working on FO4!"

i can understand charging for a mount, if it is simply a skin (horse armour for once kinda makes sense). but having to buy the actual ability to ride the mount is just fucking greedy. didn't old republic pull this shit when they went free to play?

You don't have to buy the ability to ride a mount with cash. You can buy a mount with 17k gold. It's just kind of a pain in the ass on your first character, so they added a cheap mount as part of the CE, and now they're allowing people to buy just that portion of the CE with a different skin. TOR went full asshole and charges for more quickslot bars and the ability to equip 'epic' gear, among other things.

I think they bumped them all to 42k, but that could have been a glitch.

Also, the usually cited complaint is that enemies drop 1gp per... and that's true... but as you advance through the game, gold does become much easier to acquire. And, on a character I played a couple hours over the weekend, I'd managed to rack up about 5k, without really trying to.

Yeah, the horse doesn't actually bother me. It could be a bad sign, but I don't think so. From what I've seen with the game, there's a real focus on NOT introducing a slurry of microtransactions. Doesn't mean there can't be any, but there's no obvious chopped out features.

 

[Deathfish15]

Achievement: Old Spice - "I'm on a horse."

Look at your game, now look at me, now look at your game again. Sadly, it's got microtransactions. Look down, now look up again. It's your horse, the thing you use to get around, AND it's behind a paywall. Look away, look back. It's a a load of angry Elder Scrolls fans outside of a building, and you're helping them burn an effigy. Look down once more, and back again. You've returned to your home where you haven't bought this crappy game, money still in your pocket. Always vote with your wallet. I'm in a powersuit.

You win the internets today, congratulations.

This is no different than WoW, where some mounts can be bought from the online store, but the game gives you plenty of chances to not do that.

Untrue. In WoW, the mount is the skin and you still have to purchase the training from vendors in-game using gold; there's no way around this. Essentially, mounts in WoW are cosmetic. In TESO, there's no training needed and the mount is the ability to increase travel speed, thus it is far more than just cosmetic and it is game breaking (especially in Cyrodille, where the distance between fights is either 10 minutes walking or 4 minutes riding a horse).

 

[Someone Depressing]

I like not being evicted.

Maybe in a year, Zenimax.

 

[Mike Fang]

Oh for God's sake. You want to have a subscription fee? Fine, it's a legit business model, if not the most popular one. You want to have a cash shop? Fine, just so long as what it offers is cosmetic and/or convenience items and not demanding a person pay to get the basic features of the game after it was advertised as F2P. But having BOTH? No. No, no, nonononononono. $15 a month is too much to ask from a customer to THEN demand MORE real money from them. Make those items available for in-game currency; don't get greedy when you're already getting regular payments from customers.

 

[SecondPrize]

Oh for God's sake. You want to have a subscription fee? Fine, it's a legit business model, if not the most popular one. You want to have a cash shop? Fine, just so long as what it offers is cosmetic and/or convenience items and not demanding a person pay to get the basic features of the game after it was advertised as F2P. But having BOTH? No. No, no, nonononononono. $15 a month is too much to ask from a customer to THEN demand MORE real money from them. Make those items available for in-game currency; don't get greedy when you're already getting regular payments from customers.

You can buy a horse with in-game currency. You can't buy the Palmino horse in game though. Speaking of in game, the term cash shop in mmos has always referred to an in game item store which accepts real money. That's why people raised a fuss about WoW adding a cash shop when they had already sold services and skins through account management for years. With ESO you have to go to account management to buy the imperial upgrade, cheap spotty horse and name change. It's not a cash shop.

 

[schrodinger]

Now release armour DLC for the horse and these shenanigans shall come full circle. I do wonder if it was done on purpose though, like intentional trolling on their part.

 

[WeepingAngels]

- Buy the game for $60
- Pay a $15 monthly fee
- Probably still have to buy expansion packs
- Still they have microtransactions

If I were interested in MMO's, I would still say fuck that.

 

[duwenbasden]

Untrue. In WoW, the mount is the skin and you still have to purchase the training from vendors in-game using gold; there's no way around this. Essentially, mounts in WoW are cosmetic. In TESO, there's no training needed and the mount is the ability to increase travel speed, thus it is far more than just cosmetic and it is game breaking (especially in Cyrodille, where the distance between fights is either 10 minutes walking or 4 minutes riding a horse).

Not to mention the ridiculous cost of rolling and dashing. My nightblade/rogue was level 20 with 10 points on stamina and I can maybe dash for 15 seconds and/or 4 rolls before all the stamina is gone.

 

[Mortuorum]

Y'know what's funny about that whole Horse Armor thing? That shit would be acceptable today. Pointless cosmetics are the norm for DLC nowadays, not to mention how ludicrously overpriced DLC has become in recent years. It just goes to show how shitty our standards have become when no one bats an eyelash at Sims 3's DLC costing over $400 in total, but everyone still shudders at the mention of Oblivion's Horse Armor.

You'd still think Bethesda/Zenimax would be very sensitive to releasing horse anything as DLC after the Oblivion horse armor debacle. I can taste the irony and it is bitter.

 

[Charli]

Are you telling me I have to pay real money to get a mount in the game? If that is the case, fuck zenimax. Because that is just messed up. It's almost like they want to ruin their IP with this game.

And this isn't dangerously close to horse armor, it has surpassed it. A mount is a must have in most MMOs, I'm assuming this game isn't any different.

Theres mounts in the game when I playtested but they're ludicrously expensive for a starting player. Creating an early imbalance like this is kinda of shit. WoW offers mounts but you absolutely must still have the level and ability to ride it (also there 250+ amazing ones you can get just by playing normally, the store ones are only marginally nicer). I did not see any such methodology in ESO

Honestly I wouldn't recommend this MMO... I dunno what the hell they're doing with it.

 

[Seracen]

"Things are not looking good for the wallets of Elder Scrolls fans."

Actually, no, I think this is more of a problem for Zenimax...

Everything I've seen, played, and read about ESO screams cash grab that's going F2P in like a year.

Seriously, fuck off with a cash shop ON TOP of a sub and then offering something like a horse.

This completely. I've played the beta, there isn't anything there that will convince me to pry $15/mo from my wallet, in addition to whatever other bollocks they try to take from me.

It's a great MMO, as far as that go's, and I wish those who play it well. But me? No, not unless it goes F2P, or has a sub along the lines of a yearly discounted fee (like XBL or PS+).

Subs plus microtransactions can go straight to hell, unless it is simply convenience stuff that can be earned eventually anyway (like mounts in SWTOR). Even still, at least SWTOR is F2P, I'd never dream of paying for it otherwise (I never paid for it anyway...but still).

 

[Mike Fang]

You can buy a horse with in-game currency. You can't buy the Palmino horse in game though. Speaking of in game, the term cash shop in mmos has always referred to an in game item store which accepts real money. That's why people raised a fuss about WoW adding a cash shop when they had already sold services and skins through account management for years. With ESO you have to go to account management to buy the imperial upgrade, cheap spotty horse and name change. It's not a cash shop.

Okay, fine, cash shop, account service, however it differs in the fine details, the results are the same; demanding more money on top of a regular payment. A rose by any other name..or in this case, a stink weed.

 

[Britisheagle]

This must be a joke, seriously. EA has a contender for worst gaming company ever otherwise, at least their microtransactions come after only paying for the base game, not paying an additional fee per month.
Hopefully this is just a joke or a momentary decision, if not then this is an article that truely demonstrates what a mess the gaming industry is in.

Vote with your wallets.

 

[RandV80]

Honestly they should just make horses reasonable to acquire in game and add in the stupid horse armour. I'm under the impression that it was so bad that it looped around and became funny, a joke they can toss in as a form of self depreciating humour. And a lot of it came from a PC vs console angle, where on PC you can acquire a near unlimited amount of mods & additions to your game for free, while on console you have to pay actual money and all you get is some stupid horse armour.

 

[SecondPrize]

You can buy a horse with in-game currency. You can't buy the Palmino horse in game though. Speaking of in game, the term cash shop in mmos has always referred to an in game item store which accepts real money. That's why people raised a fuss about WoW adding a cash shop when they had already sold services and skins through account management for years. With ESO you have to go to account management to buy the imperial upgrade, cheap spotty horse and name change. It's not a cash shop.

Okay, fine, cash shop, account service, however it differs in the fine details, the results are the same; demanding more money on top of a regular payment. A rose by any other name..or in this case, a stink weed.

Yes, they're demanding extra money, if you want the skin and ease of early horse on your first character. Still doesn't mean you can't earn it in game, still doesn't mean there's a cash shop.

 

[Parnage]

WoW did it is not an excuse. WoW started selling stuff because players wanted to. After the panda monk pet for charity folks wanted more so blizzard gave them more stuff to buy. Having said that I still don't personally like it but they did what was wanted of them. And do try to remember this stuff was started in like 2009 the game being five years old at that point.

Unlike these ESO crumbums who managed to go from "shop" to.. "no no shop at all" to "surprise shop!" in the span of a few months. These guys are obviously trying to force as much currency out of the player as possible as soon as possible and it's not okay. This isn't some company realizing that the playerbase wanted to spend money on cosmetic items it's a bunch of take the money and run ish decisions that should make anyone with a sense of caution nervous.

If you love and I mean really love elder scrolls you may enjoy this(I mean I've got a weak spot for Kotor) but otherwise you are throwing your money away on this forgettable title.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Queue the gamer misanthropy!
Honestly, I can't think of the last multiplayer game I played that didn't have pay shop of some kind.

WoW, Tera, Neverwinter, Borderlands 2 etc etc.. It is a common theme of games these days.

It doesn't make it right. Especially when they are charging you 14.99 a month just to have access to their game.

You really wanna see gouging? Look at the Blizzard store right now. You can BUY MAX LEVEL for WoW. Not to mention its a decade old game which has held it's 14.99$ a month model since its inception. I have yet to see thread complaining about that though. Oh right thats because the majority of threads are just people parroting the popular opinion, which right now is just how dissa-fucking-pointed they are with ESO.

Well this certainly isn't my thread. I can't stand Blizzard. It is just as bullshit for them to be doing it. I do agree about everyone just being a parrot on forums though.

 

[The White Hunter]

Really? I have to buy a Horse after I buy the game? That's ridiculous!

I was thinking about buying it, but I certainly won't now.

And then you have to subscribe also!

I'm guessing I'm too late to this party to say something about horse armour.

 

[StormDragonZ]

I, for one, look forward to seeing the next microtransaction to be either armor for the horse, or a booster to let your horse gallop 10% faster for an hour... or both, but the armor lasts only for a week.

 

[AlwaysPractical]

This stinks of publisher and executive interests :/ I doubt any of the developers of ESO went: yeah, we'd love our game to shoot itself in the foot several more times.