The Elder Scrolls Online

[Lucas]

Looks like a good F2P model, especially for new players that don't particularly care about bonus xp and crafting gains, but just want to level a couple characters to the cap. No lame inventory/chat/character slots limitations, apparently.

[01101010]

Now the question will become, how pay-walled will this game be?

[tmp]

Now the question will become, how pay-walled will this game be?

[Samprimary]

were any date guesses set or

[sam, an eggplant]

They stopped selling 6 month subs in December, and pulled from stores shortly thereafter, so we all knew it would be in less than 6 months. Don't think we started going into specific dates, though.

Looks like a reasonable monetization approach too; experience gain, cosmetics, and actual content.

Looking forward to this.

[Draegan]

I look forward to playing again myself. I liked the game but didn't enjoy the unfinished feel of it.

[Signe]

You can play free if you want in March.  If you still want to sub, you get what ever their cash shop money is called every time you sub.  It's like 1500 for 1 month, 4500 for 3 months... that sort of thing.  I think it'll be stuff like mounts and pets and clothing.  They claim there won't be items sold for real money that would put freebie players at a disadvantage.  In June they'll have the Mac stuff and console stuff launched.  I don't know what that will be like but I can't afford to update my consoles.  A shame, really, because there are things in this game, like the quickslots that I don't even use much because it's a pain.  I think that sort of stuff would work much better on a console.  I think I'll sub one more month just to see if it's better.  The new things they're adding should really improve it.  If enough people from here start playing we should join a guild together.  I miss playing with you guys.  You make me laugh.

[tazelbain]

At this point, slight variations on things that have been worn out for at least a decade just isn't going to cut it.

[Tannhauser]

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.

I'm feeling confident. Don't think they shut down by Jan 2016, F2P will give them a decent boost, even if it is a dead cat bounce. Unless they blow it on the cash model of course.

Well one of you won a steam game it seems.

[Miasma]

Back when I was still playing there were addons that made quickslots suck a little less.  Have they added that new solo zone or is everything in the endgame still group only?

Honestly the biggest thing that upsets me is Signe saying there are still bugs in the quest lines.  That is completely insane, they have had enough time to fix that crap by now.  Of the thousand or so quest lines in the game an acceptable rate of bugs at this point would be five.  Having to fix things in three places for PC, PS4 and XboxOne is only going to slow them down.  Maybe that console launch will have all the bugfixes that should have been done months ago...

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.

I'm feeling confident. Don't think they shut down by Jan 2016, F2P will give them a decent boost, even if it is a dead cat bounce. Unless they blow it on the cash model of course.

Well one of you won a steam game it seems.

For the love of spite whoever loses needs to buy the other ESO as the steam game.

[Hawkbit]

Standalone TES games are typically on a five-year ship cycle.  This positions the online game to create a tie-in to the next standalone game.  I don't expect their systems to integrate, but their marketing and online content sure will. 

[Miasma]

Their next game should be fallout so this whole thing shouldn't have any relevance.  If it isn't fallout, that would suck.  I want fallout.

[sam, an eggplant]

ESO is deliberately set thousands of years before the single-player games so direct continuity is not really a concern.

[Signe]

Their next game should be fallout so this whole thing shouldn't have any relevance.  If it isn't fallout, that would suck.  I want fallout.

Me, too.  So much.

[Ingmar]

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.

I'm feeling confident. Don't think they shut down by Jan 2016, F2P will give them a decent boost, even if it is a dead cat bounce. Unless they blow it on the cash model of course.

Well one of you won a steam game it seems.

Not yet. The bet is about whether the game folds entirely, and we'll see in a year who wins.

[5150]

Console launch June 9th, sub-free starting March 17th

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2015/01/21/eso-heads-to-consoles-june-9th

I have an unused retail key, if I activate this now does it qualify me for anything over free players or should I wait until free to play launches? (could I even use it then?)

[Miasma]

You still have to buy the game itself, there is just a no sub option, so you wouldn't have to buy the game.  They used to have some way to transfer your PC account to console, that was time limited I think.  So maybe if you activate it now you might still be able to swap it to a console version for free (if you wanted to do that).  You'd have to look into it to make sure.

[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.

I'm feeling confident. Don't think they shut down by Jan 2016, F2P will give them a decent boost, even if it is a dead cat bounce. Unless they blow it on the cash model of course.

Well one of you won a steam game it seems.

Not yet. The bet is about whether the game folds entirely, and we'll see in a year who wins.

We all knew the game would go F2P, that would have been a silly bet. The idea was if the game totally shit the bed. The fact it went F2P earlier than I thought it would is a good thing for my bet. But after about August we'll have a decent idea if it's going under.

[Lantyssa]

Going Buy-to-Play might give it enough legs to last the year.  Going f2p definitely would have.  We'll see if it's enough of a bump, but I doubt cutting the sub alone is enough to ensure its long-term prospects.

I still think it's a better model, but you still need a decent game since that initial cost acts as a barrier.

[Paelos]

My hope is that they screw up the release and make the cash shop so ridiculous it confuses everybody.

I'd say it's still 50-50 if it lasts the year if the console influx of cash bombs out.

[sam, an eggplant]

They plan to relaunch the game with the console release, that's why all the PC SKUs were pulled from shelves. They also revamped the new player experience (again).

ESO could do quite well as a B2P game. Bioware turned SWTOR around and they're incompetent tools, the Zenimax Online guys seem (slightly) more clueful. But of course that depends on implementation, and we just don't know enough yet.

[Mattemeo]

ESO is deliberately set thousands of years before the single-player games so direct continuity is not really a concern.

I must have missed that when I was playing the beta... makes me wonder what happened in all that time to make the good looking denizens of TESO into the Gordon Ramsay-esque troglodytes of Skyrim...

[Paelos]

They plan to relaunch the game with the console release, that's why all the PC SKUs were pulled from shelves. They also revamped the new player experience (again).

A total relaunch with the console release would win me the bet if they closed all the servers down for an extended time. So I'm fine with that.

[ajax34i]

[...] makes me wonder what happened in all that time to make the good looking denizens of TESO into the Gordon Ramsay-esque troglodytes of Skyrim...

Nothing happened.  You're a prisoner in every game; the guards punch you in the face just before the initial fade from black, thereby ruining your vision, so you just see the world at whatever resolution and with whatever faces each game has.

[Trippy]

The Elder Scrolls Online is now The Elder Scrolls Online: Trammel Tamriel Unlimited and is now using the Guild Wars model of free to play after you buy a box (i.e. no more subscriptions).

[Mandella]

The Elder Scrolls Online is now The Elder Scrolls Online: Trammel Tamriel Unlimited and is now using the Guild Wars model of free to play after you buy a box (i.e. no more subscriptions).

I believe the term is Buy To Play (BTP).

Honestly, I think it is the best compromise with the FTP crowd. Buying the box encourages at least a little investment into the game, where as FTP just brings the browsers, griefers and gold farmers and such to generate infinite troll accounts..

I imagine you can still have a subscription if you want to?

[01101010]

The Elder Scrolls Online is now The Elder Scrolls Online: Trammel Tamriel Unlimited and is now using the Guild Wars model of free to play after you buy a box (i.e. no more subscriptions).

I'd rather a 3-7 day free trial to try it out before I actually throw money at the box cost. Going to be waiting some more.

[Trippy]

The Elder Scrolls Online is now The Elder Scrolls Online: Trammel Tamriel Unlimited and is now using the Guild Wars model of free to play after you buy a box (i.e. no more subscriptions).

I believe the term is Buy To Play (BTP).

Honestly, I think it is the best compromise with the FTP crowd. Buying the box encourages at least a little investment into the game, where as FTP just brings the browsers, griefers and gold farmers and such to generate infinite troll accounts..

I imagine you can still have a subscription if you want to?

Yes. There's an ESO Plus membership you can purchase. So I should've said no more mandatory subscriptions.

[Lantyssa]

Been playing it the past few weeks in anticipation of this.  For some reason it's grabbed me better this time than my attempts in beta.  (I suppose way better since those ended with me quitting in the tutorial and two minutes after landing on the starting isle.)

[Falconeer]

It was good before and I am sure it's even better now after all the patching and fixing and adding (stuff, including the Justice System). It's definitely worth a reinstall if you had bought it before.

Is it worth getting a box now? Depends on where you stand to MMORPGs (Not Skyrim) these days. If you can still stomach the formula, compared to all the traditional ones out there this is definitely good.

[Zetor]

Hmm. I remember having some fun with this game near launch (completed the main quest + first set of maps, then quit). I had four gripes that kept me from subbing:

• Greedy cash shop for a game with a monthly sub (I guess this is resolved now)
• Lots and lots of bugs (I suppose this one got better too)
• Responsiveness and latency problems, especially when it came to blocking / getting the most out of strong attacks; exacerbated by playing on a US server from EU
• Obnoxious inventory issues (and no, I wasn't a hoarder)

For those who played recently: has the game improved in any of these areas, and if so, how? I'm especially curious about latency and combat responsiveness.

[Lantyssa]

Latency is fine for me, but I'm in Texas, so not far from where ever the NA servers are located.

Inventory is a problem, but I am a hoarder.  Would probably be okay, but I'm saving metal, wood, cloth, leather, runes, and reagents.  The did revamp Provisioning so there are fewer ingredients, but there still seem to be a ton.

Having a 1 month sub from just starting the game I got 2000 ESObux.  I could buy a pet or two with that.  There wasn't much else in the shop that interested me, but there also wasn't anything that wasn't ignorable either.

[Nevermore]

Are combat animations any better than they were at release?  I think my biggest problem in terms of game play was that combat didn't feel engaging at all.

[Falconeer]

TESO combat isn't that great coming from TERA, but is otherwise more than OK and much better than the rest of the competitors. To me the simple fact that you click the left mouse button and your weapon actually swings is enough to make the combat more compelling than pretty much every other MMORPG out there that doesn't use the same system. But to each their own and about that, I am curious, the combat of what MMO do you consider engaging these days?

[Lantyssa]

They are better, yes.  Nothing to write home about, but I didn't feel like I had to force myself through the tutorial, either.