The Elder Scrolls Online

[Ginaz]

Who cares about alienation? This isn't a game. This is a cash grab before they are forced to admit defeat, and I believe that's been the plan for months. They know this thing sucks internally. They are downright admitting it by letting you skip the part that's supposed to hook you into the game.

Meh, that's a massive overstatement. There's a game here, it will have players. I don't really like it but there's been plenty of work put in and they will have a player base.

Its going to go like every other MMO, except for WoW of course.  Lots of people playing the first month followed by a mass exodus and server merges until things stabilize with a player base that is not what the developers wanted but is still stable and profitable.  Mark my words.  Its like I'm the Nostradamus of MMOs.

[Nebu]

This game might set a new record for the conversion to F2P.  The only hope they have is to milk people for the box cost.  There's no way anyone but the diehard fans will pay a sub fee to play this shit.

[Tannhauser]

Who cares about alienation? This isn't a game. This is a cash grab before they are forced to admit defeat, and I believe that's been the plan for months. They know this thing sucks internally. They are downright admitting it by letting you skip the part that's supposed to hook you into the game.

Meh, that's a massive overstatement. There's a game here, it will have players. I don't really like it but there's been plenty of work put in and they will have a player base.

Its going to go like every other MMO, except for WoW of course.  Lots of people playing the first month followed by a mass exodus and server merges until things stabilize with a player base that is not what the developers wanted but is still stable and profitable.  Mark my words.  Its like I'm the Nostradamus of MMOs.

I agree with you.  Although I'm one of the few here that enjoy it, it galls me to no end that I can buy the box and sub but can't play the Imperial race.  You know, until the cash shop offers it.    Also disappointed in crafting.  Too much of a time sink to raise crafting levels.  There's just several things I personally think need to be re-balanced.

[ajax34i]

Can you put baskets on people's heads?

[Ginaz]

Can you put baskets on people's heads?

I don't think so.  And, sadly, you can't fill your house full of cabbages, either.

[Lantyssa]

That's the other thing.  It's the sandbox and modding elements I love.  EQ Next is more likely to be close to what I want than a supposed Elder Scrolls game.

In Morrowind I made a faerie and golem race.  In Skyrim I just made a cute summonable wisp.  In all the games I just wandered around doing whatever and playing house.  If I do a quest it's either coincidence or because I wanted a bit of structure between my wanderings.

[Modern Angel]

The crafting issues are compounded by the fact that there's no auction house. That is fucking insanity in a modern game. If there's a boner for people interacting with one another, find another way to do it.

Theory: seeing how difficult it was to get GW2's mega-AH working, this is down to technical limitations on their part. They'll eventually get it sorted and the first major feature addition will be an AH. However, because they've covered their limitations in MMO-speak about community and interactions and shit, the advent of the AH when it does come will be accompanied by player arguments.

All that said, I'm going to be playing it. I'm not super down on the game. There are definitely decisions that just seem bizarre to me (racial gating, no cross faction PvE, auction house) but those aren't, believe it or not, core to the way I play MMOs now.

[Der Helm]

Wait ? What ? They are planning to launch without an AH ? 

I was under the impression it was disabled for the last beta weekend.

[Nevermore]

To have an AH they might have to hire someone competent to work on a UI, and they can't have that!

[Modern Angel]

Wait ? What ? They are planning to launch without an AH ? 

I was under the impression it was disabled for the last beta weekend.

Nope. Here's the clue that they're full of shit about the reasons why, too: they have them but for guilds only. As in, you can sell only to members of your own guild. Their stated big idea is to get people to join trade guilds (since you can join five guilds at a time) and trade that way. But that's still a 500 person cap on trading.

It's sooooo dumb

[Nebu]

Hey 2004... your MMO is calling!

No AH is just clownshoes in this day and age. 

[Paelos]

You know what, at this point I'd put money on the fact this shuts down within 18 months. It just gets buried under it's own incompetence and Bethesda pulls the rip cord to save the brand.

Total failure by late 2015.

[Ingmar]

You know what, at this point I'd put money on the fact this shuts down within 18 months. It just gets buried under it's own incompetence and Bethesda pulls the rip cord to save the brand.

Total failure by late 2015.

I'll take that bet. Steam game $40 or under of our choice, payable Jan 1 2015? You win if they've executed or even announced a total shutdown of the game by then.

[Paelos]

Well for starters it would be Jan. 1 2016, so 18 months after the console release which I think is in June.

And my only qualifier would be if they say they are shutting it down to retool the game like what final fantasy did, that counts as a shut down. Basically if they announce they are pulling all servers offline and starting over, or if they just give up.

Oh and lets make it $20 Steam game, it could be on sale if you like. That's my limit for silly bets.

[Modern Angel]

I like this stupid bet. There is no way they're shutting it down in 1.5 years. Even if it's a flaming garbage scow (it's not) they won't shut it down that soon.

[Paelos]

It all depends on how embarrassed Bethesda is by the damage to the brand. After Skyrim you know they want to put out another iteration of that game ASAP. It was massively popular. If this thing shits all over the IP, I'm thinking they pull the plug and start promoting something else.

[satael]

Wait ? What ? They are planning to launch without an AH ?  

I was under the impression it was disabled for the last beta weekend.

I kind of like the idea of not having a "global AH" in theory. Unfortunately it will never work properly in practice in any way that would be interesting instead of just being a hindrance and an annoyance to trading stuff in game.

edit: I like the idea of markets being handled like for example EVE where the items have a "physical location" and the buyers are spread out instead of being in just one location

[tmp]

Nope. Here's the clue that they're full of shit about the reasons why, too: they have them but for guilds only. As in, you can sell only to members of your own guild. Their stated big idea is to get people to join trade guilds (since you can join five guilds at a time) and trade that way. But that's still a 500 person cap on trading.

It's sooooo dumb

This reminds me, did FF14 add the AH for their "2.0" re-launch, or do they still only have the option of walking from npc to npc to check out what the players put on sale in these?

[Ard]

Full on AH.  All the extremely blatant stupidity got purged by the new producer.

[Paelos]

So Ingmar, we on for this bet under those conditions? I do like having action on spectacular failure of a terrible cash grab (right or wrong).

[Numtini]

In a small game, if you have regional AH's, people just pick one and everyone starts to gravitate to that one location. I, personally, like shopkeeping mixed with a housing system a la UO or SWG, but that takes a lot of convenience out of the system. Not having anything is a joke.

Eve can have disparate pricing because of its size. Eve has over 5000 systems. That's probably more than all the zones and cities in all the other MMOs added together. It also has a sophisticated set of options for shipping.

[Nebu]

In a small game, if you have regional AH's, people just pick one and everyone starts to gravitate to that one location. I, personally, like shopkeeping mixed with a housing system a la UO or SWG, but that takes a lot of convenience out of the system. Not having anything is a joke.

DAoC did an interesting take on this.  You could purchase a vendor for your house and people could either buy your wares at a central market for an additional fee or run to your house and purchase directly to avoid a surcharge.  It's very old-school, but gave you an excuse to look at the personalization of people's houses.

[koro]

In a small game, if you have regional AH's, people just pick one and everyone starts to gravitate to that one location. I, personally, like shopkeeping mixed with a housing system a la UO or SWG, but that takes a lot of convenience out of the system. Not having anything is a joke.

DAoC did an interesting take on this.  You could purchase a vendor for your house and people could either buy your wares at a central market for an additional fee or run to your house and purchase directly to avoid a surcharge.  It's very old-school, but gave you an excuse to look at the personalization of people's houses.

What you described is how EQ2 does it. From what I remember, DAoC's only listed where the stuff was sold, and you had to trudge out there to get it. Kind of like UO's vendors, but with a direction guide.

[Ginaz]

In a small game, if you have regional AH's, people just pick one and everyone starts to gravitate to that one location. I, personally, like shopkeeping mixed with a housing system a la UO or SWG, but that takes a lot of convenience out of the system. Not having anything is a joke.

DAoC did an interesting take on this.  You could purchase a vendor for your house and people could either buy your wares at a central market for an additional fee or run to your house and purchase directly to avoid a surcharge.  It's very old-school, but gave you an excuse to look at the personalization of people's houses.

There was something like that in swg, too.

[Fordel]

DaoC's system was butt unless you had a house near the trading board.

[Nebu]

DaoC's system was butt unless you had a house near the trading board.

You quit before the changes.  You could buy from the entrance to housing (for a fee) if you didn't want to run to the central markets.  Not bad for a 12 year old game, especially considering that ESO and its bloated budget has nothing. 

[Fordel]

None of which made selling things any better for the dumb bastards with houses in the boonies. Unless you had a rare'ish item, no one was going to truck to your shop or pay the shipping fee when they could get the same stack of potions from the house five feet to their right.

[Samprimary]

I wouldn't put money on closure, but I would put money on F2P conversion easily. I just don't know whether I would put it at under 24, 18 or 12 months, and I'm not willing to put in the personal long term game experience necessary to get a feel for that.

On a total hunch I'd say F2P under 18 months.

[Morfiend]

On a total hunch I'd say F2P under 18 months.

I think you could safely say that about 95% of the MMOs released since 2011.

[Surlyboi]

Nine months, tops.

[Ingmar]

So Ingmar, we on for this bet under those conditions? I do like having action on spectacular failure of a terrible cash grab (right or wrong).

Sure.

[Samprimary]

On a total hunch I'd say F2P under 18 months.

I think you could safely say that about 95% of the MMOs released since 2011.

yeahhhhhh, ugh, it's not even remotely a bold prediction, but I kind of just get a sense that it will be within a year and a year and a half because I think they'll be clingy about the game and push it for a while.

[Lantyssa]

They'll be clingy, but once in the wild the returns will determine how long.  I'd say a year before free to play, and that's being conservative in my guess.  I wouldn't at all be surprised by it happening sooner if it's doing poorly.

[Nebu]

I said it earlier and I'll stick with it.  This game will sell a lot of boxes just like SWTOR did.  The problem is that once people see how they were scammed, they won't stick around.  I have to wonder how much this mess will damage the EO franchise.

[Falconeer]

And it will go F2P 11 months later, like SWTOR did. A F2P relaunch is an opportunity for all new buzz, all new advertising, all new articles on all gaming sites, all new people trying it, with 11 months more polish and content than at launch.

You could almost say that these days the real launch of an MMORPG is when it drops the paid beta phase subscription model and goes F2P.