The Elder Scrolls Online Will Have Subscription Fees

[ViciousTide]

$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.

 

[ViciousTide]

No especially when we can easily download a Mod for Skyrim that allows multiplayer and nudity...

 

[Ishal]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

That's... kind of disappointing. I'm still interested in playing though... someday.

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]

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]

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?

 

[Exterminas]

Ah, another attempt to turn back the clock and enter the mythological age before games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2.

Why should the fact that no other AAA-Subscription-MMO succeeded after WoW stop anyone from adopting that model?

 

[kenu12345]

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 :/

It aint for me because right now those are all empty promises just like the old republic. Its coming off alot like that game plus this really aint that lore friendly with the actual games. You can say all you want but the actual single players already offer all this and seemingly much better

 

[kenu12345]

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?

15 dollars consistantly for one game is alot. I would understand multiple games but to spend a hundred dollars a year on one game is silly for me

 

[endtherapture]

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?

That includes a one off cost of £30 to buy the game, plus costs of Xbox live and Playstation to play it online. It all adds up and some of us have bills and rent to pay.

And let's be honest, a lot of MMOs give you that much content because you have to grind and grind and grind to get your moneys worth.

 

[runic knight]

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?

It is the notion that in order to play a game for a year, one has to pay 120 dollars, where as any normal release (to say nothing of the countless free-to-play models) costs at most 60 to play it indefinitely. Some people want to know they are making an investment that will last a while, and even beyond the rip-off price per year, there is the knowledge that there WILL be a cash shop of some sort, and that subscription mmo are a dying breed with the only one still viable being the king of mmo WOW, and only because they got it right at the right time and can maintain their audience simply because they still hold the majority. A new mmo with a subscription model has to clear the hurdle enough to get a solid, reliable player base and as every attempt to copy WoW has shown, no one wants to pay for a clone of WoW, be it a clone of the game or of the subscription model.

Also, even if an indie game only gives a half dozen hours of gameplay, it can be revisited indefinitely and is often a more rewarding experience. An MMO is, by design, a slow grindy slog solely done to test the player patience, be it to get them to buy from the store or, in this case, to milk them of money as they pay the subscription fee month after month. And all this at a time when corporate greed has been shown to negatively affect gameplay (dead space 3 anyone?), so there is a backlash against any sort of obvious money ploy. A game of the genre designed to be a long grind to begin with charging money incrementally as you make the slog will cause anyone interested to pause, especially when the market is over saturated by other mmo that are more trusted, have more reliable player bases or just don't charge you a monthly fee to run the gauntlet while still being advertised at for the duration.

 

[Sight Unseen]

It aint for me because right now those are all empty promises just like the old republic. Its coming off alot like that game plus this really aint that lore friendly with the actual games. You can say all you want but the actual single players already offer all this and seemingly much better

Fair enough. There are already two really obvious guilds/ questlines for them to add though that should be really awesome: the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines. Those two are notably absent from the core game, but I'm sure they will be added as a content update, and hopefully the storylines will be as awesome as the Oblivion ones, not so much the Skyrim ones.

In terms of lore, i'm not much of a TES lore knowitall, since this game takes place 1,000 years before the other games in a period I don't know much about, I probably won't notice some small inconsistencies in backstory. But the motivations for the different factions and the overall struggle for power seems to make enough sense for me. There are a few lore-junkies though who have already posted their displeasure over differences but I don't think it'll be enough to ruin the game for any but the most hardcore TES fans.

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?

It is the notion that in order to play a game for a year, one has to pay 120 dollars, where as any normal release (to say nothing of the countless free-to-play models) costs at most 60 to play it indefinitely. Some people want to know they are making an investment that will last a while, and even beyond the rip-off price per year, there is the knowledge that there WILL be a cash shop of some sort, and that subscription mmo are a dying breed with the only one still viable being the king of mmo WOW, and only because they got it right at the right time and can maintain their audience simply because they still hold the majority. A new mmo with a subscription model has to clear the hurdle enough to get a solid, reliable player base and as every attempt to copy WoW has shown, no one wants to pay for a clone of WoW, be it a clone of the game or of the subscription model.

Also, even if an indie game only gives a half dozen hours of gameplay, it can be revisited indefinitely and is often a more rewarding experience. An MMO is, by design, a slow grindy slog solely done to test the player patience, be it to get them to buy from the store or, in this case, to milk them of money as they pay the subscription fee month after month. And all this at a time when corporate greed has been shown to negatively affect gameplay (dead space 3 anyone?), so there is a backlash against any sort of obvious money ploy. A game of the genre designed to be a long grind to begin with charging money incrementally as you make the slog will cause anyone interested to pause, especially when the market is over saturated by other mmo that are more trusted, have more reliable player bases or just don't charge you a monthly fee to run the gauntlet while still being advertised at for the duration.

I'd like to make a few comments regarding your post:

As far as I know there has been no mention of either a cash shop or an initial purchase of this game that have been officially announced yet and while it might be likely that one or more will exist, it is still jumping the gun until it is confirmed one way or the other, and just making negative hype over a feature that may not exist.

Also $15 times 12 months is $180 a year, for full disclosure and trying not to be biased.

I don't think that TES:O is a WoW clone in very many aspects at all other than that it's an MMO and has a subscription and that it has dungeons and combat... Maybe this game is different enough from WoW to be able to stand it's own. Like you said, all the wow clones have failed, and this is because they were trying to emulate WoW too much when WoW already exists, so people don't see the point in playing it because they're already established in WoW. I'm not certain that TES:O will be different enough to dethrone WoW and I certainly won't make any such claims, but I think that it can definitely find it's own niche and be successful in it's own right because it is doing several things very differently than WoW.

From what I've seen of TES, it looks a lot less grindy than most MMO's and looks more like Skyrim in terms of gameplay. The quests all seemed to have narratives and you can obtain quests by simply exploring and finding cool dungeons to go through. Yes you level up by using your skills more and more, but it seems like they're trying to make that experience compelling and not just a linear slog from one generic "Kill 15 boars" quest to another or camping one monster spawn for 50 hours so you can finally have fun in the PVP. This is an initial impression and I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

There's been no sign or indication that there will be advertising or product placement at all so I don't know where that came from.

 

[Yuuki]

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.

Where the heck are you getting your info from? I just checked now (3:45pm in USA so not exactly peak times):

Population:
Very High - 10 servers
High - 30 servers
Medium - 11 servers

There's 22,000 people online right now.

 

[Nocturnus]

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?

That includes a one off cost of £30 to buy the game, plus costs of Xbox live and Playstation to play it online. It all adds up and some of us have bills and rent to pay.

And let's be honest, a lot of MMOs give you that much content because you have to grind and grind and grind to get your moneys worth.

Maybe if you play.. Final Fantasy XIV or XI. There are plenty of games out that aren't a "grind", some of which even have pretty compelling narratives and storylines.

EverQuest II, The Secret World, heck, even Guild Wars 2 are a huge departure from that. Matter of fact, most games now adays have been moving away from that so much that the "old school" MMO people are upset.

Quite frankly, i'm happy that the grinding days are behind us as MMO Gamers.

 

[kenu12345]

It aint for me because right now those are all empty promises just like the old republic. Its coming off alot like that game plus this really aint that lore friendly with the actual games. You can say all you want but the actual single players already offer all this and seemingly much better

Fair enough. There are already two really obvious guilds/ questlines for them to add though that should be really awesome: the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines. Those two are notably absent from the core game, but I'm sure they will be added as a content update, and hopefully the storylines will be as awesome as the Oblivion ones, not so much the Skyrim ones.

In terms of lore, i'm not much of a TES lore knowitall, since this game takes place 1,000 years before the other games in a period I don't know much about, I probably won't notice some small inconsistencies in backstory. But the motivations for the different factions and the overall struggle for power seems to make enough sense for me. There are a few lore-junkies though who have already posted their displeasure over differences but I don't think it'll be enough to ruin the game for any but the most hardcore TES fans.

I honestly don't see how they are going to do the thiefs guild quest line. I hope its more oblivion but I don't seeing an mmo doing that. Seems mostly action so it seems like it would be at skyrim level or worse. I hated having to kill somebody in the thieves guild questline on that.