Sight Unseen said:
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.
I suppose it is a bit presumptuous, though I could have sworn I read something about a shop already. Or was it about character races for sale? I'll have to see if I can find it, though it might have been something else. Still, I can't think of an mmo without some form of cash shop system to one degree or another, and I have my doubts that the team behind ESO will have the character enough just charge a sub fee and yet otherwise ignore the captive advertisement audience.
Also $15 times 12 months is $180 a year, for full disclosure and trying not to be biased.
sorry, typo there. Finger slid down to the 2 instead of up to the 8. Still, sort of make my point worse when it shifts from 2 full price games to 3
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.
What I was referring to was a fantasy sword and sorcery mmo. Obvious over-saturation in the market there. As such, the idea of it being a WoW clone is in the theme, tone and subscription model. High fantasy epic adventure with other people and you have to pay monthly to keep playing. Aside from the license fans, it is otherwise not standing out compared to the sea of such mmo, and as such having to pay a monthly fee is instantly a turn off, one that is avoided by WoW because WoW is seen as the mmo king and has the largest player base, therefore by conventional wisdom must be better (obvious issues there aside, this is just suppose to represent a generalized opinion.) Why pay to play the "clone" of it (in spirit and theme) that is unproven when you can just play the actual product?
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.
MMO are by default designed to have a lot of content and to take a lot of time. They are often built to be slower in leveling so that players can experience the massive amount of content and help with immersion. There is nothing wrong with this, by default. My point here was about how a game type that is intentionally slower to consume is being tied to a pay to play model that bests takes advantage of the slower gameplay consumption. Yes, I know that in a business sense that does make sense, but as a player, it also raises very valid complaints and concerns, especially in relation to gameplay decisions that may intentionally slow the game down further. Granted, my concerns are just concerns at the moment, but mmo have often been the largest culprits of intentional padding and slowdown tactics as it is. Adding in a payment model that actively benefits from such tactics is very worrisome and for many is the final straw in how much trust they are willing to give towards trying the game in the first place, especially given how often such payment methods have been abused in other mmo before.
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.
The advertisement aspect is in relation to it being an mmo. Every mmo I have come across, and especially true of FTP models, are essentially tests of will against the subscriptions or cash shops themselves. The game design is a constant barrage on the player to get them to keep paying or buy the extras, and as such the game itself acts like a constant commercial. Now, this might be very faint with just cosmetic aspects, or this might be built right into the system with paygates or cool down periods you have to buy your way past or by intentionally making the game excessively grindy for tasks, yet offer a quick way past with a little cash. Crafting systems are especially bad for this, though also things such as inventory space and on some games even leveling itself can be designed in a way that turns the gameplay itself into a test of patience in hopes of encouraging pay.
For free to play models, this is the trade off for the game itself (players are "paying" by putting up with the advertisement in the same way people who watch videos online pay by watching the adverts before them, with the only difference being that the adverts are owned by the game creators themselves). Of late though, games have been charging full price, yet include a cash shop aspect in order to milk consumers. Dead Space 3's crafting system for instance, making the game an advertisement that the player has to pay for as well, the worst of both worlds. A subscription model on a game with a cash shop (I will assume it will have one as I have yet to find an mmo without) is similar enough to that, but with the upfront pricetag, it is even worse. Players have to pay in order to pay in order to put up with constant advertisement telling them to pay.
