The Elder Scrolls Online

[Draegan]

Oh yeah, I posted this in the topic about ~2ish years ago at this point, guess where we are?



1. Rumors surface of a big IP AAA MMO done by some studio that has a good enough track record that people are curious.
2. As info trickles in fanboys get hardons, everyone speculates, IS THE HOLY TRINITY REALLY GONE THIS TIME? MAN I HOPE THE PVP IS LIKE DAOC!!
3. Breathless sorta-gameplay video of early beta/alpha product with devs talking over it about how they're really gonna do it right this time and how excited they are.
4. Fan news site opens.
5. Beta; game at best looks promising if they fix XYZ.
6. Game comes out, XYZ aren't fixed.
7. XYZ are never fixed, or fixed so slowly people get frustrated. Some big technical issues; servers, client, website, whatever.
8. Game does not immediately accrue WoW's numbers, publisher shitcans 3/4ths of the staff. Every big name creative head leaves.
9. Game stagnates, loses subs, everyone but dedicated fans move on.
10. F2P/Maintenance Mode.

I'm confused, you're describing every game ever.

[Malakili]

Well, all bad games at least.  At least those made in the last 10 years or so.

[Maven]

Good theory. I think MMOs would do better without the stoking of hyperbolic fantasies in the user base and excessive expectations of return on investment. For example, I think Old Republic is doing well for itself -- despite all that was put into it at the start.

[shiznitz]

I do wonder if a new game would have a better launch profile if one just launched without any pre-launch hype at all.

The other model that I am surprised has not been tried is the premium sub model with a capped subscriber base.  Build a small, tightknit game that only allows 5,000 players and charge $25-50 a month.  The aura of exclusivity might be quite powerful.  The game still has to be good - which seems to be the hard part.

[Miasma]

There was an original EQ server that charged $25 a month.  It was premium and so they had a lot more GM events where they would spawn as monters/allies and play out events.

[Ozzu]

There was an original EQ server that charged $25 a month.  It was premium and so they had a lot more GM events where they would spawn as monters/allies and play out events.

Hell, I think it was $40 a month to play on that server. I think it was called the "Legends" server or something. Yeah, that didn't go over well.

[shiznitz]

Not a bad proxy for what I had in mind, but it was plugged into a 10 year old game as opposed to a fresh one.

[Miasma]

Every large patch resets all the damn settings for everyone, it's insane.  All your keybinds, options, tutorials and colours reset back to fucking default.  Infuriating.  All we got was more shitty group content and a bunch of new bugs in exchange.

Edit: Even my God damn chat settings ffs.  This is going to take an hour to unfuck on all my characters.

[Nija]

Find the text files that contain those settings and set them to read only - or if that fucks up the patch, copy them elsewhere after you've got everything set.

When they patch you can use winmerge to examine the changes.

[Miasma]

It also introduced some sort of graphical stuttering which I can't get rid of no matter how I fiddle with the graphic settings.  So the patch broke my configs, reduced performance, added bad group content, raised the level cap but didn't add any new solo content to get there, introduced a new trait which would take another seven months to research for crafting and broke some other stuff.  I've cancelled by sub, think I'm going to take the winter off from video games.

[shiznitz]

Don't buy tickets to a shit show and then complain when poop lands on you.

[Paelos]

So ends teh Miasma TESO experience. It was a good run. I still expect the game to completely implode before 2016.

[Fabricated]

I just want you all to know, this game still exists apparently.

[CaptainNapkin]

Any word on this moving to a f2p model yet? I'm curious to check it out, but no longer interested in paying monthly fee for any mmo.

[Draegan]

Apparently they put in a lot of good quality of life changes and fixes. Still can't be assed to actually find out what those are exactly.

[Scold]

Is it DIKU? Is the combat like in the Elder Scrolls series or bullshit EQ/WoW model combat? Is there story content on the scale of SWTOR or close to it?

[Draegan]

Honestly I had a great time playing through the quests and story solo. Class system is really awesome. However it kind of failed in the  mmo department.

Combat is between tera and gw2.

[veredus]

It's a great shared world single player game. Very much worth going through the story once. The biggest fail is how hard it is to do things with other people unless they are the exact same step in the exact same quest as you. Supposedly they were trying to fix that but haven't played in awhile.

[Draegan]

Apprently they fixed the phasing thing.

[Ingmar]

Did they ever add a straight-on 3rd person camera option?

[veredus]

No. But then I don't think it needs fixing. It took me less then 30 minutes to get used to it and it was fine after that.

[Rendakor]

I dealt with it for about 30 minutes in the beta before uninstalling. It's worse than a lack of invert mouse option.

[Nevermore]

I seem to remember from my time in beta that it would center the camera if you zoomed all the way out.  Otherwise I'd have done the same thing as Rendakor.

[Draegan]

Right. It was only over the shoulder if you were up close to your character. Camera was fine.

[Sophismata]

I dealt with it for about 30 minutes in the beta before uninstalling. It's worse than a lack of invert mouse option.

There's no invert mouse option?

When did invert mouse stop being the default selection, anyway. Half-Life?

[Rendakor]

The lack of invert mouse was Arche Age I think; pretty sure you could invert it in ESO.

[Teleku]

When I rule the world, people who ever click the 'invert mouse' option are the first ones going straight to the camps.  Along with people who use trackballs instead of mice.

[Typhon]

When I rule the world, people who ever click the 'invert mouse' option are the first ones going straight to the camps.  Along with people who use trackballs instead of mice.

GULP!

[Lucas]

When I rule the world, people who ever click the 'invert mouse' option are the first ones going straight to the camps.  Along with people who use trackballs instead of mice.

GULP!

 

[Paelos]

Trackballs are terrible. You should be in prison. 

[Yegolev]

Mouse for gaming, trackball for work.

[Paelos]

I find it funny that this is what it takes to bump the thread. This game. Honestly.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/12/30/the-elder-scrolls-online-quietly-removes-six-month-subscriptions

Hey look kids, we're moving long term subs. Wonder why???

http://gamerant.com/elder-scrolls-online-consoles-delay-2015/

Probs because the console release that I still believe will never actually happen got delayed again until December 2015? Why not just say October 2030? It's just as real.

[Hawkbit]

I think it will be a strong B2P release on console, provided they find a way to monetize past the initial sale.  Especially if they find a way to not gate core content without payment.  I can see future classes being $20 per, legendary questlines for $10, all the extras like skins and xp boosts, pets.

The trick is to perform a strategic relaunch as FFXiV did and catch a whole swath of console gamers that really don't follow MMOs but like Skyrim. 

[Ginaz]

I think it will be a strong B2P release on console, provided they find a way to monetize past the initial sale.  Especially if they find a way to not gate core content without payment.  I can see future classes being $20 per, legendary questlines for $10, all the extras like skins and xp boosts, pets.

The trick is to perform a strategic relaunch as FFXiV did and catch a whole swath of console gamers that really don't follow MMOs but like Skyrim. 

I don't know.  I think once console gamers realize not only is this NOT like Skyrim, but there's pay walls gating content , it'll be dead in the water. 

[Paelos]

I still think the game will go F2P by March, and have shut down or completely retooled before the end of 2015. Ingmar and I have a steam game riding on this.