Elder Scrolls Online - Dropping Subscriptions

Separate studios they might be, but it's all Bethesda and it's subsidiaries.
True, but I don't think that the MMO can be a big loss for them. given that they managed to extract more than $80 upfront from millions of people. Which leaves running costs, and we now see appropriate adjustments.
 
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Simply the existence of "convenience" items, ie. pay-not-to-grind, means that playing the game means grinding. That's enough right there to keep me away.
 
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I played some of the beta, and it didn't feel like grinding at all! It was basically an Elder Scrolls game, although a bit more focused, funneled, and not quite as open. However, it had some large areas, and lots of content to be found off the beaten path. It was a good game back then, I imagine it's even better now.
 
It's probably the least "grindy" MMO I'm aware of, unless you consider strong story content grinding - as that's the primary way to level up.

In fact, I almost wish there was optional grinding for progression - but that's not really what they were going for.
 
I enjoyed my time in the beta. I opted not to get it on release, because we have a one-year-old, and my sparse playing time couldn't justify a subscription. I'll look forward to jumping back in now and then once I see a sale on the game.
 
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If Carbine dropped CREDD (cash for gold faciliated cheating for complete scrubs) from WildStar I'd consider it.

If Bethesda paid me, I might (but probably still not), play ESO. I'd love to see an Elder Scrolls VI - a real Elder Scrolls game, and I'd love it more if it had limited co-op you could host yourself. But ES as an MMORPG - bad idea no matter how they sell it.

As a (former?) life long MMORPG fan, one thing is consistent with MMORPG development - companies keep coming up with bad ideas and ways to make MMORPGs suck. If they had just let MMORPGs stay niche, stay about grouping/challenge/danger, then the genre wouldn't be such a toilet full of turdlike games.
 
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I'm likely to jump in on this, pay once and then play for free. Have to wait and see how much it changes first though.

From what I've heard Dart and Fluent say, it sounds like my kind of mmo. Heavy exploration elements are right up my ally.
 
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Still bitter about the success of Skyrim? ;) Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Online Studios are two seperate entities. Mark Firor, of Mythic Entertainment fame, runs ZOS while Todd Howard runs Bethesda Softworks. Now if you're hoping that Zenimax media goes belly up, then you're hoping for the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs. Nice.

Here are the various dev houses:

Bethesda Game Studios, established in 2001.
ZeniMax Online Studios, founded in 2007.
id Software, acquired in June 2009.[35]
Arkane Studios, acquired in August 2010.
Tango Gameworks, acquired in October 2010.[36]
MachineGames, acquired in November 2010.[37]
Battlecry Studios, founded in October 2012.[38]

Well, I am certainly not hoping for people to lose their jobs…. I am just hoping they could get something better to work on, that is all.

Anyway, given how many and dedicated fans they have, I don't think such a thing will ever happen, they are the only developer who can develop broken and bad games, and have people fix it for them for free and even get praised for it, perhaps they should have made the MMO modable too? so that people could help them fix that as well ?
 
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they are the only developer who can develop broken and bad games, and have people fix it for them for free and even get praised for it, perhaps they should have made the MMO modable too? so that people could help them fix that as well ?

Get off your soapbox. How in the world is Skyrim a bad game. One of the highest rated and biggest selling games of all time. It may have been a bad game in your opinion but not for the typical gamer. Personally, I probably experienced 1-2 bugs in about 150 hours of content when I played at release.

The reason people work for free and try to make their games better is because they are so good. Just like the fans did for troika - Temple of Elemental Evil, Arcanum, VtM: Bloodlines. I suppose these were bad games as well? Wait, I thought Bethesda Softworks was the only company this happens to?
 
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People like different things for different reasons :)

GG has a serious problem with Skyrim and, apparently, ESO as well.
 
Get off your soapbox. How in the world is Skyrim a bad game. One of the highest rated and biggest selling games of all time. It may have been a bad game in your opinion but not for the typical gamer. Personally, I probably experienced 1-2 bugs in about 150 hours of content when I played at release.

The reason people work for free and try to make their games better is because they are so good. Just like the fans did for troika - Temple of Elemental Evil, Arcanum, VtM: Bloodlines. I suppose these were bad games as well? Wait, I thought Bethesda Softworks was the only company this happens to?

Well, I guess it depends on who plays the game, but we have players here who played it after several patches and a are still experiencing around 100 bugs. I thought most people didn't like Vanilla Skyrim that much, but liked it after mods but I am not sure, as this game is very strange, it is a kind of love hate thing, some people here hate it and cannot understand how anyone can think it is any good. While others here love it and cannot understand how anyone can think it is that bad. A really strange game.

As for Troika it is hardly a good example as they went bankrupt.
 
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People like different things for different reasons :)

GG has a serious problem with Skyrim and, apparently, ESO as well.

Ahh, well I don't know about ESO, but I don't like when a company plays tricks on their subscribers, on the other hand every MMO company does it more or less.. so I cannot blaim them too much about this.
 
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As for Troika it is hardly a good example as they went bankrupt.

Not relevant at all. All 3 of the games are still being fixed by the fans and were heavily criticized at launch for bugs. All 3 of them are highly regarded by most of us here.

Also, while skyrim was not a wonderful games for me, merely good, I still acknowledge that it is one of the most successful games of all time hence a whole load of people must of loved it more than they do a typical game.
 
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Not relevant at all. All 3 of the games are still being fixed by the fans and were heavily criticized at launch for bugs. All 3 of them are highly regarded by most of us here.

Also, while skyrim was not a wonderful games for me, merely good, I still acknowledge that it is one of the most successful games of all time hence a whole load of people must of loved it more than they do a typical game.

It is very relevant of course, Troika released broken games, which fans fixed, but they did not get away with it, they were punished and went bankrupt. But Betheshda can get away with it and it is probably because it is in the expectations by the fans that their games are first and foremost for modding.
 
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Ahh, well I don't know about ESO, but I don't like when a company plays tricks on their subscribers, on the other hand every MMO company does it more or less.. so I cannot blaim them too much about this.

I don't really know what you mean by tricks - but it's true that publishers tend to want to please their investors, and marketing is saturated with deceit.

I don't see what that has to do with the people working on the game - or even the game in itself.

But, as I said, we all like different things for different reasons. I gave up trying to understand why people love and hate what they love and hate many years ago.

All I know is that we have our reasons - and there's no way to establish an opinion about the value of a game as factually right or wrong. Certainly, I've never seen anyone succeed - not even remotely.

I've seen a LOT of people being frustrated with other people who don't agree about games - and I'd rather expend my energy on something other than frustration :)
 
Yes, yes you are right Dart. I should probably stay out of these threads I again fail to contribute with anything constructive.

It is just that someone wrote in this thread and said they hoped failure of ESO would not affect single player elder scrolls games, and I thought wow it'd be great if it did… that was all.

It is just because I think Skyrim / Oblivion are very good examples of how to not make games, and if they are overly successful they might influence too many other developers in a bad way.
 
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It is very relevant of course, Troika released broken games, which fans fixed, but they did not get away with it, they were punished and went bankrupt. But Betheshda can get away with it and it is probably because it is in the expectations by the fans that their games are first and foremost for modding.
Troika released games for niche audience and were broken.

Betsheda releases games for casual audience and are broken. Just like other AAA games now a days.
 
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Yes, yes you are right Dart. I should probably stay out of these threads I again fail to contribute with anything constructive.

It is just that someone wrote in this thread and said they hoped failure of ESO would not affect single player elder scrolls games, and I thought wow it'd be great if it did… that was all.

It is just because I think Skyrim / Oblivion are very good examples of how to not make games, and if they are overly successful they might influence too many other developers in a bad way.

Yes, I understand your frustration with these games that you don't personally enjoy.

I remember feeling the same way about a lot of games, some years ago.

But I think I changed my mind at some point, when I realised that my opinion about a game shouldn't dictate how developers create games - and that if millions of gamers love a game that I don't love - then their opinion is of no less value than my own.

So, I kinda stopped trying to control opinions - and instead simply worked on expressing them and arguing why I hold them. Of course, I still get frustrated sometimes, when games like Call of Duty get all the attention and success, and games like System Shock never get made again - because developers don't think they're profitable enough. But I try not to let it get out of hand - and I must accept that people like different things for different reasons.

But that's just my approach.
 
Get off your soapbox. How in the world is Skyrim a bad game. One of the highest rated and biggest selling games of all time. It may have been a bad game in your opinion but not for the typical gamer. Personally, I probably experienced 1-2 bugs in about 150 hours of content when I played at release.
Good lord, can you please burn your copy and send it to me?
1-2 bugs in 150 hours? On my side it was 150 bugs in 1-2 hours.
My steam game is obviously bugged more than yours.

Typical gamer is what? The person who spends their time on Facebook, WoW and phone?

Is Skyrim a bad game? It is.
And by that I don't mean the stupid grind design and disastrous UI as it can be dealt with by norespawn and SkyUI mods.

The strategy of never patching the game and getting GOTY everywhere for bug-o-rama is now used as excuse for other developers to release broken products. While I'll be the first one to say give me broken gem instead of polished turd any day, Skyrim is broken turd with nice visuals.

One of highest rating and bestselling games of all time is also Sims 3. Does that make it good? I don't think so.
It just makes it profitable.

Is ESO any different than Skyrim? I dunno. After Skyrim, there is no way I'm touching any new Elder Scrolls game before someone on this site guarantees it's bugfree or near it. Not you, but someone who recognizes bugs when they see it.
 
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