The Elder Scrolls Online Will Have Subscription Fees

Chizzicle

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Mar 11, 2011
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I'm not all too happy with this, but assuming we get at least the standard 1 month subscription when buying the game, I will get it just to try it.

Considering that when Skyrim came out, my play time after the first week was about 100 hours and had reached 200 hours after a month, if this is anywhere near as good or interesting (which I kinda doubt but we'll see), and I can stay interested long enough to play it as much as I did Skyrim, 200 hours should be easily enough to experience most of what the game has to offer and make a decision whether or not to keep playing. If on the other hand it does not keep me interested enough to test it thoroughly, that most likely means it won't be worth paying anything more.
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
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kenu12345 said:
Sight Unseen said:
kenu12345 said:
You do realize you will also be paying that initial 60 on top of the subscription cost right
Do you have a source for this? As far as I know this has never been confirmed anywhere. Maybe it's just a free download once they receive your subscription payment. Until I see a confirmed source for this I'm going to be skeptical of that.
Not sure if this is considered a good source but I did a quick search and got this http://www.walmart.com/ip/20895851?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227015557193&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=18156486550&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=40018939270&veh=sem
Thanks for that link. I wouldn't consider that a hard source for a few reasons:

a) it could all be placeholder information
b) Walmart is not really the best source for accurate gaming information
c) it could come bundled with a few months of pre-paid subscription


But I'll definitely keep that in mind, and it would suck to have to pay $60 and then $15 a month for the game, but I'll have to wait and see what the game is like before I judge anything.
 

Whytewulf

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Dec 20, 2009
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I prefer a subscription model. There is very little Free in F2P, GW2 might be an exception. I have no problem paying for something that offers a continuing evolving game play. These companies have to make money also. In addition, you can always start sub and go f2p, but you can't go the other way.
 

PatrickXD

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Aug 13, 2009
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Does Guild Wars 2 not exist, or something? There's a third option here, guys, and it has led to one of the fastest selling MMO's of all time - if not the most.
I was looking forward to the announcement that TES:O would require a one off payment, and include aesthetic microtransactions. Now I'm just going to ignore the title, because one game is not worth £120/year.
 

Sight Unseen

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Nov 18, 2009
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PatrickXD said:
Does Guild Wars 2 not exist, or something? There's a third option here, guys, and it has led to one of the fastest selling MMO's of all time - if not the most.
I was looking forward to the announcement that TES:O would require a one off payment, and include aesthetic microtransactions. Now I'm just going to ignore the title, because one game is not worth £120/year.
Fast initial sales but precipitous drop off after 2 weeks is not an ideal sales model for an MMO that should be designed to keep gamers playing for a long time. It means that they get a large initial recovery of their investment but then nothing to sustain them to develop the game further.

I'm not at all an expert on GW2, but several people here have been posting about the glaring drawbacks of their model ( no apparent long-term growth of the game, temporary updates, expensive microtransactions, player population drops, etc) If a company wants to maintain and nurture a player base for an MMO they need the financial assets to be adding compelling and substantial content and show long term growth of the game to encourage their fanbase to keep playing, and a buy once and be set forever model doesn't work that well when you have to also consider server maintenance and upkeep and longterm growth of the game.
 

Grabehn

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Sep 22, 2012
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And now, although sadly, I'm out. Don't have time to make the price be worth it, although I like the idea. Games with fees generally have a all around better community than those without them. I do expect them to come up with the "we're going f2p" a while after release.
 

Jenny Jones

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Jun 10, 2013
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On the one hand paying consistently for a game after you bought it isn't exactly something I would enjoy. However if they are true to their promise of monthly content updates and those are significant updates then we might see it work. I have played free to play MMOs and the content updates are usually new power creep items when sales of the last one have dwindled. Story wise content might come every 6-12 months, everything you can unlock is ONCE PER CHARACTER which is fine if you only have 1 but rapidly goes up for trying new stuff with new characters.

All in all if you pay a sub and get everything for free, never have to pay for new items, new content and they're removing the incentive to create ultra powerful items to sell more and actually balance a game then I'd be all for it. The proof will be be in the pudding though. If the content updates are monthly, good and engaging enough that it tells a story and gives you plenty to do for even 2-3 weeks then subbing is great. If it's updates for the sake of updates and making it looks good then it will fail.

Just try to keep in mind that for the price of 3 games you're getting a game that is fun, interactive and evolving for a full year.
 

ViciousTide

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Aug 5, 2011
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$20 for skyrim, unlimited use for the rest of your life.... or $15/month?
We are not idiots. It will go f2p within 3 months.
I rather buy a high quality game for $40 that has recurring multiplayer action for years, then ever pay monthly for a game.
 

Ishal

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Oct 30, 2012
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Ishal said:
Bad experiences I take it?
Nah, sarcasm, but it doesn't necessarily read like that on the interwebs.

I was actually blown away that TESO is using "professional customer service" as a selling point.

It's sort of like "Come to McDonalds, where our service people wash their hands after using the bathroom."
Ahh, I see. And yeah I agree. Customer service in MMO's tend to stink any way you look at it. ToR was a nightmare because of origin and EA. They even had a problem where you literally couldn't unsubscribe from the game. Most MMO's have a "rebuttal" feature. Where you click the unsub button and a character or notification shows up to say "Are you sure you want to unsub?"

In ToR's case, their was a droid who popped up to try and talk you out of it with a message. But the window he appeared in blocked the unsub button so you couldn't click it. It was fixed right away, but needless to say it was pretty poor and got a lot of people salty.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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endtherapture said:
My GW2 server is pretty crowded most of the time. I love how they're giving people a reason to come back and place the game every 2 weeks to see the living story.
GW2 has some headway to make but it's progressing quickly. The lacking thing I see right now is PvP. But they've already added a lot last I checked. And with the inevitable expansion pack coming out, I can't wait to see what the PvP scene will be like down the road here.

Thoralata said:
TheComfyChair said:
God dammit Bethesda!

You're competing with World of Warcraft and The Old Republic, games which offer more updates and more content every month than any other MMO, doesn't have a sub at all, and is by all accounts is doing pretty well for itself.

If you want to shoot yourself in the foot with a .50 cal, at least do it with a less potentially interesting MMO.
Fixed that for you to be more economically accurate.
Actually, WoW is steadily dying (good riddance) and The Old Republic... I don't know about that TBH.
 

Mutant150

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Jan 4, 2012
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This is excellent news. I strongly prefer a sub model, but I would rather pay a higher monthly fee if guaranteed the absence of any form of cash shop whatsoever.
 

Sight Unseen

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Nov 18, 2009
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Caramel Frappe said:
NOOOOOoooooooooooo- NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

WHhhyyy?! I was so looking forward to this, having an Elder Scrolls online MMO where I can finally play with people apart from the single player Elder Scroll games. But, now... Th, they decided to have a subscription fee of $15 dollars a MONTH??! I can't even believe this. I'm out, I'm...... I'm done guys.
The biggest disappointment to me in 2013. Congrats for, making me a very sad panda Bethesda and the other company I don't care to mention. Losing over 3/5ths of your customers isn't worth it... Or more depending on how many are hurt by this like I am.
Is that not just a little bit too dramatic? Also that 3/5ths "stat" was a nice pull out of nowhere stat, and I'm sure most people won't be AS upset as you are by this. Judging by your response it's almost like Zenimax Online Red Wedding'ed your whole family and THEN stole your cupcake. Relax it's just a game... a game that you can play for 4 months before you pay what it'd cost if it was a regular retail release...
 

endtherapture

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Nov 14, 2011
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Sight Unseen said:
Caramel Frappe said:
NOOOOOoooooooooooo- NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

WHhhyyy?! I was so looking forward to this, having an Elder Scrolls online MMO where I can finally play with people apart from the single player Elder Scroll games. But, now... Th, they decided to have a subscription fee of $15 dollars a MONTH??! I can't even believe this. I'm out, I'm...... I'm done guys.
The biggest disappointment to me in 2013. Congrats for, making me a very sad panda Bethesda and the other company I don't care to mention. Losing over 3/5ths of your customers isn't worth it... Or more depending on how many are hurt by this like I am.
Is that not just a little bit too dramatic? Also that 3/5ths "stat" was a nice pull out of nowhere stat, and I'm sure most people won't be AS upset as you are by this. Judging by your response it's almost like Zenimax Online Red Wedding'ed your whole family and THEN stole your cupcake. Relax it's just a game... a game that you can play for 4 months before you pay what it'd cost if it was a regular retail release...
There's a pretty negative reaction to it on TESO Facebook page.
 

Apostheum

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Mar 30, 2011
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No... You were the chosen one.
NO.
I can't support this. I just can't. It's principle.
This will be another SW:ToR.
If they're LUCKY, they can switch to an f2p model similar to what Rift did. Then they could maintain a solid playerbase without putting in the ludicrous limitations SW:ToR did.

Otherwise, it will fail, and a TES-game will have been driven into the dirt in a humiliating and even shameful way. It's descent fueled by its publishers' greed.
 

New Frontiersman

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Feb 2, 2010
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That's... kind of disappointing. I'm still interested in playing though... someday.

Yuuki said:
Enjoy having paid $90 over 6 months, or $180 over the course of a year.
Well when you put it like that... maybe not. I don't think any game is worth that kind of money, maybe if they had a free version I could try out; just to test it out maybe, and possibly upgrade later. But at those prices, I have other, cheaper games to play.
I don't think I'd have time to play it anyway, I'm really to busy and have to much else on my plate to be able to put foward the time required to get into an MMO.
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
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Caramel Frappe said:
Sight Unseen said:
Caramel Frappe said:
NOOOOOoooooooooooo- NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

WHhhyyy?! I was so looking forward to this, having an Elder Scrolls online MMO where I can finally play with people apart from the single player Elder Scroll games. But, now... Th, they decided to have a subscription fee of $15 dollars a MONTH??! I can't even believe this. I'm out, I'm...... I'm done guys.
The biggest disappointment to me in 2013. Congrats for, making me a very sad panda Bethesda and the other company I don't care to mention. Losing over 3/5ths of your customers isn't worth it... Or more depending on how many are hurt by this like I am.
Is that not just a little bit too dramatic? Also that 3/5ths "stat" was a nice pull out of nowhere stat, and I'm sure most people won't be AS upset as you are by this. Judging by your response it's almost like Zenimax Online Red Wedding'ed your whole family and THEN stole your cupcake. Relax it's just a game... a game that you can play for 4 months before you pay what it'd cost if it was a regular retail release...
I'm not sure how to respond, for I am indeed upset but at the same time not going to start anything with you good sir.
I'm certain that a large sum of people will want nothing to do with this game now, or just move on because subscription fees are almost a killer.

I know for a fact I don t want to put up with having to subscribe, add info, put in my credit card, get into a game working up my character and playing only having to shut down my account because I can't afford paying $15 a month. I would just love playing whenever without any issues coming up, without having to pay because then I feel like I have to cram in time to get my $15 worth.
That's just me though... I am upset overall by this. I hope you can accept that rather then telling me not to be upset at all. I'd rather have them steal my cupcake actually, for that's like $3 only while $15 a month adds up to over $120 a year lol.
Of course you have every right to be upset by this news if you're that vehemently against subscription based payment models. I don't know anything about your social or economic status and I wouldn't descend to preaching that you're wrong because it all comes down to subjective preference.

I'm just extremely perplexed and confused why so many people (not just you) are reacting like this is a total death sentence for a game which I feel has shown a ton of promise and has done a good job to appeal to both hardcore elder scrolls fans with the mechanics and lore and world, as well as to MMO fans in their PVP and PVE systems that they've shown so far.

I feel like $15 a month is pretty reasonable for a game that will likely have thousands of hours of content. This game takes place over all of Tamriel, and all (or most) of the provinces have playable content. Morrowind, Cyrodiil, and Skyrim, in their respective games all contained hundreds of hours of content on their own; if TES:O has even half the content density of those games, then Tamriel will contain literally thousands of hours of content as well as emergent gameplay and a PVP system that has me more excited than any other MMO pvp system that I'm aware of. They said that they will provide regular content updates and new areas, guilds and questlines ( whether they are expansions ala WoW remains to be seen). And all of this isn't worth $15 a month? Like I've said before, I spend that much a week on lunches at work, and they don't give me nearly the enjoyment that this game will bring (if it's good) and the lunches here are FANTASTIC. Even 25-30 hours a month I think would be worth my subscription and that's not really all that much, although I guess it depends on your social life and obligations.

Anyway, you're not wrong to be upset by this and you have every right to be upset if it means a lot to you. I'm just confused and I don't see why it's such a deal breaker. I'm sorry if any of this or my previous reply came off as condescending or rude. I don't mean to but sometimes I come off that way when I type :/
 

Nocturnus

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Oct 2, 2007
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Fifteen dollars a month for a gamer is a lot of money? Really? 0.o..

... on what planet.

Unless you're pirating the ever living crud out of your games, which i'm going to assume that nobody is, you're looking to spend that much for even a good indy title. And it won't give you hundreds of hours of content. Maybe... twelve? If you're lucky?