We're Going to Be Rich!

Jenvas1306

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I actually got into the beta for ESO before the last beta weekend. the game didnt phase me and I was underwhelmed coming from playing skyrim just before.
it feels clunky and really didnt phase me, even GW2 beta was way better...
But I will give it another chance this weekend again.
So far no MMORPG could hold up with what WoW delovers and thats really sad.

(also, the races totally dont work in ESO, they dont look right and most come in 50 shades of ugly)
 

Jhonie

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Oct 24, 2011
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We have a saying here in Sweden. "Smaken är som baken" (lit. Taste is like (a/your) butt) It basically means that tastes differ, and preferrances and values is a very personal thing. Evaluations based of preference are never universal. I wish people would remember that a bit more.

Sure, TES games has always been very free, very single-player oriented experiences, and making an MMO addition to the franchise sure was an unconvetial move. I find thinking of TESO as a spin-off game rather than an official entry in the main series to be much easier on my poor mind.

Now, different people have different priorities and preferences when it comes to TES games. Me, I'm a lore nut. My prime source of worry when it came to TESO was that they would not stay true to the established canon. The small trivia. The smaller, more obscure Khajiiti factions. The old races of the Black Marsh. Things like that.

After playing in the last beta, some of those fears were placated. Sure, I didn't go very far and only played as a Khajiit, but the moment I found out that the guys I had just helped in a side-quest were part of the flippin' Ahzirr Traajijazeri, well, I had a rather lengthy fangirl squealing fit.

...I tend to obsess about the beast races. A lot.

Anyway, when it comes to the main story, as far as I played, I have to admit I was positively surprised. It starts off quickly and I have to admit I found myself more engaged in it than I did in Skyrim, albeit not by a great margin. Like I said, Lore Nut. I easily get absorbed in the story.

Art-wise, not bad. Not as grey and gritty as previous installations, and I like colour. Sure, it might be a bit more simplistic than Skyrim, but that's a matter of resource management. TESO is a big game. A really big game. One can't expect massive, in-depth visual detail from an MMO. There are people who are making these models. Human people. Me, I find it appealing. Perhaps not as appealing as the Grove in GW2, but that's like the most beautiful place ever. Because plant people.

Flower-power, yeah!

Ehrm... So, back to TESO.
Combat-wise, well... It plays like an MMO, except more like a TES game. It's an odd mix, but it works, and the combat never was the strong point of the TES franchise in the first place, so I'm willing to forgive a relatively sub-par combat system, as long as I get my treasure trove of trivia. If I wanted engaging combat, I wouldn't go to an Elder Scrolls game anyway. Personally, i do not mind MMO-style combat, and do not find the TESO version detrimental to the experience. Bottom line, It's not perfect, but in my opinion it definitely plays better than Skyrim or Morrowind's combat system.

In conclusion, I find TESO flawed. Like every dev team, Zenimax are only human, and I try to keep that in mind, and so should you. Humans are flawed. That is a fact of life.
However, I still find TESO very much enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the beta this weekend. It's not perfect, nothing is, and I can think of a dozen things they should have done differently, but I still consider buying it. Because I find the game fun to play and the world interesting enough to dig for my treasured trivia in, and for me, that is enough to give it a chance.

Well, as soon as they drop or at least lessen the subscription fee, I mean for the love of Mara... ._.
 

Darkcerb

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Mar 22, 2012
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I'd imagine "We're only human...forgive our terrible game" wont wash with publishers or buyers. It never has before and nor should it.
 

Jhonie

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Darkcerb said:
I'd imagine "We're only human...forgive our terrible game" wont wash with publishers or buyers. It never has before and nor should it.
If that's meant as a reply to my post, I apologise if it came across like that. I'm just trying to say that no-one is perfect, and that applies to game devs as well, so expecting perfection is nothing short of delusional. Imperfect is fine. Terrible is not fine.

However, I do not find the game ESO terrible. In fact, I find it very much enjoyable. Flawed, but enjoyable. Now their policies on the other hand, that is an entierly different matter. Imperial edition and the Explorer pack is plain bull feces.

I'm just saying. You shouldn't completely dismiss a game just because they're trying something different than usual. You might be pleasantly surprised.

But again, it's all a matter of taste, but that doesn't mean that people should look down on others because they enjoy a game that you do not.

Edit: I do not mean this in an accusatory sense. This is just something that everyone should keep in mind. Bashing someone for liking a game is even more bull than Imperial edition, and those who do should be ashamed.
 

Lightknight

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Nov 26, 2008
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themilo504 said:
I don?t know enough about elder scrolls online to know if this is what?s happening, but it would not surprise me if it was.

I do think that a elder scrolls mmo could work if it actually played like elder scrolls.
Elder Scrolls online is amazing, all I'm going to say about that.

The question is whether or not it being amazing matters. Have there been other non-WoW MMOs that were also "amazing"? Or were all these failures more mediocre attempts to unseat the king or simply not good enough? I thought the Star Wars MMO was quite good. The game cost somewhere around $150 to $200 million to make. It rose to 1.7 million in February 2012 but that started to taper off in a few months. In May it fell to 1.3 million and fell beneath 1 million in July. Every month at over 1 million is more than $15 million (the 1.7 million users being a $25.5 million month). That doesn't include the sale of the game. Then, in 2013 under the free to play model, they estimate that they made $139 million in revenue (in game purchases?) and they still have some subscription income that isn't included in that number.

So this is one of the most profitable games of 2013 and appears to already be well in the black depending on what their expenses are.

So maybe it isn't gangbusters like WoW but this is still a profitable business model. I will be a subscriber for the Elder Scrolls though, at least for a few months.
 

MoltenSilver

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Feb 21, 2013
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Read the article a half-dozen times, still can't figure out if its supposed to be a general analysis of the industry or taking potshots at someone specific.

Hiramas said:
Whoever expected that is just inexperienced with MMOs or plain stupid.
You're absolutely right about an mmo not being able to reasonable live up to Skyrim. Which is exactly the problem I and others have with it; I don't want an mmo that, limited by its format, can only achieve a percentage of what its single-player predecessors did. I want an improved Skyrim sequel. As you also said, I'm not obligated to play it just because I play Skyrim, but that's also sidestepping why people like me are angry at ESO being developed: there's only so much investment money to go around, and it went to an MMO instead of another single-player experience. It would be tolerable if there was actually competition out there, but there isn't; it's incredibly frustrating when there are no experiences on par with Skyrim being released or developed recently, of which a large reason is because every company and their mothers are jumping on the mmo bandwagon instead.
 

sageoftruth

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octafish said:
Publishers never seem to realise that WOW and COD aren't the rule, they are the exception...
My father doesn't even realize that COD and WOW are different types of games. He's like "They're both war games, rigtht?
 

Senare

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Jhonie said:
...I tend to obsess about the beast races. A lot.
Then how did you react on the (presumed) fact that the legs for Khajiit are not beast-like in TESO?
 

PuckFuppet

Entroducing.
Jan 10, 2009
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Lightknight said:
themilo504 said:
I don?t know enough about elder scrolls online to know if this is what?s happening, but it would not surprise me if it was.

I do think that a elder scrolls mmo could work if it actually played like elder scrolls.
Elder Scrolls online is amazing, all I'm going to say about that.

The question is whether or not it being amazing matters. Have there been other non-WoW MMOs that were also "amazing"? Or were all these failures more mediocre attempts to unseat the king or simply not good enough? I thought the Star Wars MMO was quite good. The game cost somewhere around $150 to $200 million to make. It rose to 1.7 million in February 2012 but that started to taper off in a few months. In May it fell to 1.3 million and fell beneath 1 million in July. Every month at over 1 million is more than $15 million (the 1.7 million users being a $25.5 million month). That doesn't include the sale of the game. Then, in 2013 under the free to play model, they estimate that they made $139 million in revenue (in game purchases?) and they still have some subscription income that isn't included in that number.

So this is one of the most profitable games of 2013 and appears to already be well in the black depending on what their expenses are.

So maybe it isn't gangbusters like WoW but this is still a profitable business model. I will be a subscriber for the Elder Scrolls though, at least for a few months.
Roughly where I sit also.

One of the issues you get when you discuss something like "Is this good?", particularly when it comes to video games which are very individual experiences, is hyperbole.

Was WoW the best thing ever? It was good, it had a very consistent tone and was well designed. However you rarely get people who are able to look at a product without the extremes, then you have the people who tend to swing towards an extreme because they see other people like them there. It is a vicious cycle much more worthy of an article than the banal assessment of recent MMO development cycles.

Is ESO going to fail? Probably, the market is broadly made up of people who are still of the mindset that if you like it you must dislike everything else, the same people who drive the actual cycle that the article was alluding to and are entirely apathetic to the idea of being part of improving the market/industry. More often that not the people who argue either way for a games chances, particularly in a broader public setting, are just dancing to the tune of the executives and the investors.

As an example of that look at EA, regarded as a terrible company and a pox on the entire industry, but easily able to occupy the same space as other "better" companies because any chance of a change is impossible when the market itself is equal parts apathetic and zealous. The zealots drive people one way or the other, keeping franchises afloat regardless of their actual quality, so that those who have associated themselves with a given franchise aren't loyal so much as their are subject to the franchise itself. It is the "If I buy it nothing will change, if I don't buy it those jerks win. Better buy it." effect.

As much as ESO or Wildstar are points of discussion the actual conversation people need to be having is whether or not constantly espousing the ethos of "You like this, therefore you're stupid/wrong and I'm right/better" is something that can be addressed.
 

RelexCryo

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BrotherRool said:
People always want their single-player games to be turned into MMOs because they want the world to feel more real. They imagine Pokemon where every trainer you fight is an independent person with a life and a thought process and you really are battling away across the lands. A world with thousands of Jedi. Skyrim with every shopkeeper behaving like a human being. The whole world but more true.

And then they play the new game and realize that MMOs are nothing like that
Star Wars Galaxies started out like that. Then came the NGE....sheesh. After that, I just quit. Storekeepers were actual people. Buildings and towns were made by people. The major problem with that game before NGE was the lack of balance and polish. Many quest lines were literally broken, many player skill sets were literally broken. Like pistoleer, for example. Disarming shot simply did not work.

Star Wars Galaxies was originally a game built on roleplay and immersion, which was honestly focused on making you feel like the world was real. But it had a downright horrible amount of broken stuff. NGE tried to "solve" balance issues that could have been fixed quickly by a competent team by replacing purchaseable skills with narrow, restrictive "classes," thereby removing a large part of the roleplaying element.
 

Jhonie

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Oct 24, 2011
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Senare said:
Jhonie said:
...I tend to obsess about the beast races. A lot.
Then how did you react on the (presumed) fact that the legs for Khajiit are not beast-like in TESO?
Correct. They are not. That is because this time, just like with Skyrim as well as oblivion, the Khajiiti variant that is playable is the Cathay, instead of the Suthay of Morrowind, who does indeed have plantigrade legs and much more paw-like feet. The appearance of a Khajiit differs greatly depending on the phase of the moons during his/her birth, you see. Seventeen types are known, but there are said to be more. No, it is not the human-like feet that bothers me. After all, the Ohmes are nearly indistinguishable from the Bosmer, and they were the variant playable back in Arena.

No, what bothers me is that so far, in TESO, the only Khajiit variants I've seen to far are the playable Cathay, the 'supposed' Senche, who not only to my great annoyance are treated as pets, but actually are the smaller Pahmar (or possibly Pahmar-raht, but that micht be a bit generous) as well as the Alfiq, who looks pretty much like housecats.

Both the 'senche' and the Alfiq are treated like pets as far as I've seen in ESO, and THAT is what really pisses me off. Seriously. All different Khajiiti variants (except possibly the Mane, but he's a bit of a special case) can be birthed from ANY other Khajiiti type. They all look the same at birth, but as they grow older, they adapt the form that the moons decide for them. I like that more forms are actually shown in ESO, but they really need to get the names right. Senche are not tiger-sized; they are the size of horses. Sheesh!

Seeing more khajiiti types at all is an improvement, mind, but I'd really prefer if they got their facts straight.