As long as Gamers keep allowing companies to do this, they will keep doing it.
Same with DLC. Look at Rome 2. Upon release it also had a DLC at release. Which should never ever happen but because games allow it, these companies are going to keep doing it. It is unacceptable to release a game and a DLC on the same day, that is a huge kick in the teeth to your fans but games do it all the time because WE gamers have accepted it and allowed it to happen.
Same thing here. A box sale and P2P should not have extra locked content that requires more fees but since other companies have done it and it has gone well enough others copy it.
We gamers are to blame for the sad state the current gaming industry is in. We allowed this to happen, now we have to deal with it.
Your so right. As a gamer I'M tired of this from U.S. game companies. Tired of these so called AAA games and the way they treat gamer's. I'M not going to buy into this anymore. The more we put up with this the worse it will get. The sad part is they will make a ton of money on this too. But not from me anymore.
I highly doubt anyone complaining on this forum has EVER bought a CE of an MMO, otherwise you will realize that every single game that offers a CE has special items that you ONLY get with the CE.... hence the extra money, this is nothing new people....I personally always spend the extra for the in game goodies I get for them.
I really was super excited for this game. I'm still excited, but after a hint of what the future will look like in terms of business, NTY. If I'm subscribing, I deserve all of the content in the game.. ALL of it, none I have to pay for.
Like SWTOR, when I subscribed, everything was unlocked, 100%. There were still things I could purchase from the cartel shop, but none of it was actualy game content..
This is just stupid... If it were F2P, cool, but this is ridiculous.
I've defended the game here and I stick by my opinions that the GAME itself is a lot better than what it is made out to be. But this decision with the CE and pre-orders has seriously got to be one of the WORST ideas I have ever seen a company make.
Zenimax, you are already battling a negative public eye, with articles coming out about predicted failures, most likely to flop, hate all over the internet, etc etc. And this was JUST starting to turn around some after the last beta. There was a new positive spin from a lot of people. Obviously not all, but quite a few. Now you go and do this!! What is going on with your heads?! Is it really worth a few extra CE purchases from people who really want to be an Imperial to incur the MASSIVE backlash and hate this decision is provoking, and subsequent lost sales? This decision isn't just going to go away, for the entirety of the game's life people will talk about it, see Imperials running around and ask "I want to be an Imperial how do I get to be that?" "Oh you can't unless you got the CE when it launched."
And the BIGGEST ISSUE: This isn't a F2P game!!! If it was you could get away with this, but you are asking for box sale, plus sub (P2P game) and STILL pay locking content. And this isn't just some dumb costume or mount, it is an ENTIRE RACE! And this is after you said you wouldn't do this sort of thing!
You have 2 months to fix this Zenimax, make it available to everyone. Because you are doing WAYYYYYY more harm to yourself financially as it stands with the public backlash and hate than the small boost you would get from a few extra CE sales.
anyone can find negativity and hate about anything on the internet. "public backlash" comes from a vocal minority of people who try to turn nothing into something because they feel they are not getting enough attention on the interwebs. you are being overly dramatic.
It has been proven on these very forums, multiple times, that there is a considerable group of players interested in subscription based games. The most played MMO titles in the world are subscription based.
Every single F2P game I have played in the past few years, has been a nickle and dime joke.
Originally posted by keithian I just can't comprehend all of the whining. During the beta time period, there seems to be an overwhelming majority that disliked the fact that they couldn't play every race in any alliance. Perhaps they actually listened to the beta response and made a compromise with the preorder process giving people what they wanted? If this makes the majority happy for a change in direction, isn't that a good thing? Who cares if you think it is a cash grab or a lie. Again its the same question. If they are accommodating a request from beta feedback and reacting to some negative press, is it not good that they reversed course to some degree? Is this not more in line with the single player games now?????
You really can't comprehend it, or you refuse to comprehend it? Because it's pretty simple - they are paylocking content that should be a given to everyone in a box sale + sub P2P game. CE editions or preorders of an MMO should come with vanity items and fluff stuff for a P2P MMO - not an entire playable race. You can continue to downplay it or minimize it all you want, but it's an extremely shady business practice especially after them specifically saying they would NOT do stuff like this.
I highly doubt anyone complaining on this forum has EVER bought a CE of an MMO, otherwise you will realize that every single game that offers a CE has special items that you ONLY get with the CE.... hence the extra money, this is nothing new people....I personally always spend the extra for the in game goodies I get for them.
Oh... care to tell me the last P2P sub model mmo that had a race in the pre-order or CE edition?
Don't sweat it. They will make it free eventually including CE stuff.
Something similar happened in EQ2. People that were vets and had played for 8 and 9 years had some items that were rewards for paying subs for these years.
Now think about it a min. Guy pays $15 a month for 5 years to get a item that was never available to anyone else unless they had spent the same 5 years. That comes out to 900 bucks that was spent on the game and the reward was very nice, So now one day SOE decided that the vets program had caused a major spread across the player base so they decided to put many of these so called one of a kind veteran rewards on a NPC that if you did a daily quest you could get the same item within 10 days of playing.
Taking it a step further these items that were 8 and 9 years of commitment which cost the vets `$1800 could be gotten from this NPC buy simply playing the game every day for 30 days.
It will happen and youre going to rage and rage. I guarantee you it will happen.
Originally posted by keithian I just can't comprehend all of the whining. During the beta time period, there seems to be an overwhelming majority that disliked the fact that they couldn't play every race in any alliance. Perhaps they actually listened to the beta response and made a compromise with the preorder process giving people what they wanted? If this makes the majority happy for a change in direction, isn't that a good thing? Who cares if you think it is a cash grab or a lie. Again its the same question. If they are accommodating a request from beta feedback and reacting to some negative press, is it not good that they reversed course to some degree? Is this not more in line with the single player games now?????
You really can't comprehend it, or you refuse to comprehend it? Because it's pretty simple - they are paylocking content that should be a given to everyone in a box sale + sub P2P game. CE editions or preorders of an MMO should come with vanity items and fluff stuff for a P2P MMO - not an entire playable race. You can continue to downplay it or minimize it all you want, but it's an extremely shady business practice especially after them specifically saying they would NOT do stuff like this.
This.I got no problem with CE editions in general and most only offer vanity/convenience items and titles.But an entire playable race no...
Also after making all sorts of arguments about why races were faction locked and some of them good ones it seems it was all BS and it was only done to monetize the game.I don't have any trust in the devs now.
I really was super excited for this game. I'm still excited, but after a hint of what the future will look like in terms of business, NTY. If I'm subscribing, I deserve all of the content in the game.. ALL of it, none I have to pay for.
Like SWTOR, when I subscribed, everything was unlocked, 100%. There were still things I could purchase from the cartel shop, but none of it was actualy game content..
This is just stupid... If it were F2P, cool, but this is ridiculous.
Looks like I'll keep on waitin' for WildStar.
yeah and I got the CE of SWTOR... it game with a BUNCH of in game items, including a speeder nobody else could get, and a nifty little statue...like i said ALL CE versions come with in game items of some sort.
Just don't buy the game. Voice your disdain with your wallet. I was considering buying this game, but thanks to OP (even though it was over the top), I won't dare spend any money on it. This is going for Wildstar and EQN, too. I am tired of the genre and more importantly tired of complaining about features, gameplay, fees, subs, options, and everything else.
I will admit games these days are extremely beautiful, have nice sounds and effects, but there is no imagination. EQN may have the best idea by combining Minecraft and EQ to make something nice, but I will wait to see if players are still around after 6 months.
TL;DR: Just don't buy it. You only provide positive reinforcement to gaming companies to milk more money from your pockets.
Originally posted by keithian I just can't comprehend all of the whining. During the beta time period, there seems to be an overwhelming majority that disliked the fact that they couldn't play every race in any alliance. Perhaps they actually listened to the beta response and made a compromise with the preorder process giving people what they wanted? If this makes the majority happy for a change in direction, isn't that a good thing? Who cares if you think it is a cash grab or a lie. Again its the same question. If they are accommodating a request from beta feedback and reacting to some negative press, is it not good that they reversed course to some degree? Is this not more in line with the single player games now?????
Yes they listened. They saw how popular the Empire race was and put it behind a 80 bucks PAY wall!
Nothing but an ordinary cash grab!
I was very interested in ESO, playing the beta weekend 2 weeks ago.
But this kind of crap is an Instant turn off for me! It means they have no faith in the game and desperately try to grab as much cash upfront as possible!
I am not going to touch this game with a 10 foot pole!
Originally posted by Stimz but... you can just upgrade to the CE at any time, and be an imperial, so.,.... I dont see the problem.
So really if you want the full game you have to pay what? $80? $90? (plus a sub of course) I'm really not OK with that.
I am. Want more, pay more, sounds perfectly fair.
Originally posted by JJ82
Can you name another subscription based game that offered an exclusive race only to special edition buyers?
Star Trek Online's lifetime subscription option included an exclusive race, and at launch it was sub only.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
If you don't agree with what the company is doing, don't buy their product and ask your friends to support you by also not buying the product. As long as lots of people are willing to throw money at game developers, this kind of stuff will continue. Remember the huge backlash when WoW released a $25 mount? Lots of people still bought it and now this is a standard business practice.
As long as gamers continue to just pay whatever is asked just to get in first or to get some virtual item, we will continue to get hosed and developers will continue to nickel and dime us and then move to dime and quarter us.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
I highly doubt anyone complaining on this forum has EVER bought a CE of an MMO, otherwise you will realize that every single game that offers a CE has special items that you ONLY get with the CE.... hence the extra money, this is nothing new people....I personally always spend the extra for the in game goodies I get for them.
Oh... care to tell me the last P2P sub model mmo that had a race in the pre-order or CE edition?
Shadowbane is the last I can think of, and someone else pointed out STO.
The thing about all the CE perks like this is... If it's not just a reskin of an existing item/mount, they usually become opened up to the rest of the community pretty quickly after launch (within a few months). My guess is that Imperials will be an unlockable race, and CE just gets the key up front.
All they need to do is state that the new race will be open to everyone after a period of time, say 3 months.
People will buy the CE for the new race and they should let everyone else will get it later on, they must know that in an mmo it's not having soemthing that is important, it's having something first.
LOTRO has two classes gated behind the Moria expansion. F2P folks without the xpac can buy the classes with Turbine Points and they are expensive. Rift has a similar thing with class content gated by an expansion.
I think the point being made was that it is available somehow. But according to what we've seen so far, if you don't preorder you'll never have access to this race.
After reading the comments on this thread, I am starting to agree with the majority of people. I remember Matt Firor shooting his mouth off about 3 faction, race-specific pvp, just like Dark Age of Camelot. There are alot of DAOC alumni who perked up when Firor spoke about ESO's pvp mirroring DAOC.
Now they unlock every race into any alliance? That is a huge mistake. I was looking very forward to having race/alliance pride. The one thing I hated about Guild Wars2 WvW, was that you were fighting the same races. There was no real "war". Dark Age of Camelot did a great job evoking "realm/alliance pride", by having races and even classes unique within each alliance.
This is a huge mistake. There are a lot of new AAA MMORPG's coming out this year, and it will be a very competitive market in the near future. Between Wildstar, EQ Next, Archage, Repopulation, WOW expansion, and more, it is a very big mistake for ESO's developers to start breaking promises and "nickel and diming" their loyal fans. This is a great way to lose your "potential" customers.
The MMO gaming community is a very tough group to keep around. We don't like to be lied to nor taken advantage of. Too many past companies have tried that. They are all out of business or on their way out the door at present. There is such a huge MMO gaming community what is just dying to give our hard earned money away to an honest, talented MMORPG Development company, that supports and listens to our needs and concerns. The one company that can provide this service will be a very prosperous one.
my biggest issue with it arent the preorder CE items themselves.
Usually you can see how developers are aiming to develop the game over it's lifetime. This one seems to be kinda like a "Singleplayer-fast-moneygrab-game" due to all the stuff they are currently pushing out. You know, Box price, Subscription Fee, Ingame Cash Shop AND a cashgrab CE Edition. All in all this seems like a very short "project" of Bethesda - just grabbing as much money as they can before killing off the game, going free to play or even worse: shutting down the servers.
All these things just point into that direction and i don't feel supporting them until the game truly proves it doesnt want to go this way.
i saw someone mention this a while ago about the leak, but saved judgement until a official release. Tbh this isn't a great move, if you actually read it isn't just the race "Play as an Imperial and play in any Alliance. Gain unique bonuses, crafting styles, gear and more!". So you get armor that people can't get, crafting and other bonuses. You also have to remenber races have special passives and skills as well, which play a significant role in game-play unlike in other games. So i have to agree with OP about this one, for a p2p game this is not wise a stupied move. Lets see how this develops over the next few months, but don't think it well bold well.
Can you name another subscription based game that offered an exclusive race only to special edition buyers?
Star Trek Online's lifetime subscription option included an exclusive race, and at launch it was sub only.
I stand corrected, there was another really bad game did it also.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
It will be interesting to see how far companies take this considering that even this move is being defended heavily by many fans. And I'm speaking honestly, it will be very interesting.
So now, what do the defenders of this game have to say? Yesterday you were saying that the Imperial race was fake and Zenimax wouldnt do that. Today, its even worse, cough up to unlock races from factions on top of cough up to play a race.
Access to the imperial race is only 20 bucks more than the standard edition. I think they are banking on this fact- that most people will not be upset with restriction of content by a relatively small paygate.
I personally think it's fine. It's a good thing it wasn't any more than $20, because they would have been heavily criticized otherwise.
Comments
Your so right. As a gamer I'M tired of this from U.S. game companies. Tired of these so called AAA games and the way they treat gamer's. I'M not going to buy into this anymore. The more we put up with this the worse it will get. The sad part is they will make a ton of money on this too. But not from me anymore.
I highly doubt anyone complaining on this forum has EVER bought a CE of an MMO, otherwise you will realize that every single game that offers a CE has special items that you ONLY get with the CE.... hence the extra money, this is nothing new people....I personally always spend the extra for the in game goodies I get for them.
I really was super excited for this game. I'm still excited, but after a hint of what the future will look like in terms of business, NTY. If I'm subscribing, I deserve all of the content in the game.. ALL of it, none I have to pay for.
Like SWTOR, when I subscribed, everything was unlocked, 100%. There were still things I could purchase from the cartel shop, but none of it was actualy game content..
This is just stupid... If it were F2P, cool, but this is ridiculous.
Looks like I'll keep on waitin' for WildStar.
anyone can find negativity and hate about anything on the internet. "public backlash" comes from a vocal minority of people who try to turn nothing into something because they feel they are not getting enough attention on the interwebs. you are being overly dramatic.
It has been proven on these very forums, multiple times, that there is a considerable group of players interested in subscription based games. The most played MMO titles in the world are subscription based.
Every single F2P game I have played in the past few years, has been a nickle and dime joke.
You really can't comprehend it, or you refuse to comprehend it? Because it's pretty simple - they are paylocking content that should be a given to everyone in a box sale + sub P2P game. CE editions or preorders of an MMO should come with vanity items and fluff stuff for a P2P MMO - not an entire playable race. You can continue to downplay it or minimize it all you want, but it's an extremely shady business practice especially after them specifically saying they would NOT do stuff like this.
Oh... care to tell me the last P2P sub model mmo that had a race in the pre-order or CE edition?
Don't sweat it. They will make it free eventually including CE stuff.
Something similar happened in EQ2. People that were vets and had played for 8 and 9 years had some items that were rewards for paying subs for these years.
Now think about it a min. Guy pays $15 a month for 5 years to get a item that was never available to anyone else unless they had spent the same 5 years. That comes out to 900 bucks that was spent on the game and the reward was very nice, So now one day SOE decided that the vets program had caused a major spread across the player base so they decided to put many of these so called one of a kind veteran rewards on a NPC that if you did a daily quest you could get the same item within 10 days of playing.
Taking it a step further these items that were 8 and 9 years of commitment which cost the vets `$1800 could be gotten from this NPC buy simply playing the game every day for 30 days.
It will happen and youre going to rage and rage. I guarantee you it will happen.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
This.I got no problem with CE editions in general and most only offer vanity/convenience items and titles.But an entire playable race no...
Also after making all sorts of arguments about why races were faction locked and some of them good ones it seems it was all BS and it was only done to monetize the game.I don't have any trust in the devs now.
yeah and I got the CE of SWTOR... it game with a BUNCH of in game items, including a speeder nobody else could get, and a nifty little statue...like i said ALL CE versions come with in game items of some sort.
Just don't buy the game. Voice your disdain with your wallet. I was considering buying this game, but thanks to OP (even though it was over the top), I won't dare spend any money on it. This is going for Wildstar and EQN, too. I am tired of the genre and more importantly tired of complaining about features, gameplay, fees, subs, options, and everything else.
I will admit games these days are extremely beautiful, have nice sounds and effects, but there is no imagination. EQN may have the best idea by combining Minecraft and EQ to make something nice, but I will wait to see if players are still around after 6 months.
TL;DR: Just don't buy it. You only provide positive reinforcement to gaming companies to milk more money from your pockets.
Yes they listened. They saw how popular the Empire race was and put it behind a 80 bucks PAY wall!
Nothing but an ordinary cash grab!
I was very interested in ESO, playing the beta weekend 2 weeks ago.
But this kind of crap is an Instant turn off for me! It means they have no faith in the game and desperately try to grab as much cash upfront as possible!
I am not going to touch this game with a 10 foot pole!
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
If you don't agree with what the company is doing, don't buy their product and ask your friends to support you by also not buying the product. As long as lots of people are willing to throw money at game developers, this kind of stuff will continue. Remember the huge backlash when WoW released a $25 mount? Lots of people still bought it and now this is a standard business practice.
As long as gamers continue to just pay whatever is asked just to get in first or to get some virtual item, we will continue to get hosed and developers will continue to nickel and dime us and then move to dime and quarter us.
Shadowbane is the last I can think of, and someone else pointed out STO.
The thing about all the CE perks like this is... If it's not just a reskin of an existing item/mount, they usually become opened up to the rest of the community pretty quickly after launch (within a few months). My guess is that Imperials will be an unlockable race, and CE just gets the key up front.
All they need to do is state that the new race will be open to everyone after a period of time, say 3 months.
People will buy the CE for the new race and they should let everyone else will get it later on, they must know that in an mmo it's not having soemthing that is important, it's having something first.
LOTRO has two classes gated behind the Moria expansion. F2P folks without the xpac can buy the classes with Turbine Points and they are expensive. Rift has a similar thing with class content gated by an expansion.
I think the point being made was that it is available somehow. But according to what we've seen so far, if you don't preorder you'll never have access to this race.
After reading the comments on this thread, I am starting to agree with the majority of people. I remember Matt Firor shooting his mouth off about 3 faction, race-specific pvp, just like Dark Age of Camelot. There are alot of DAOC alumni who perked up when Firor spoke about ESO's pvp mirroring DAOC.
Now they unlock every race into any alliance? That is a huge mistake. I was looking very forward to having race/alliance pride. The one thing I hated about Guild Wars2 WvW, was that you were fighting the same races. There was no real "war". Dark Age of Camelot did a great job evoking "realm/alliance pride", by having races and even classes unique within each alliance.
This is a huge mistake. There are a lot of new AAA MMORPG's coming out this year, and it will be a very competitive market in the near future. Between Wildstar, EQ Next, Archage, Repopulation, WOW expansion, and more, it is a very big mistake for ESO's developers to start breaking promises and "nickel and diming" their loyal fans. This is a great way to lose your "potential" customers.
The MMO gaming community is a very tough group to keep around. We don't like to be lied to nor taken advantage of. Too many past companies have tried that. They are all out of business or on their way out the door at present. There is such a huge MMO gaming community what is just dying to give our hard earned money away to an honest, talented MMORPG Development company, that supports and listens to our needs and concerns. The one company that can provide this service will be a very prosperous one.
my biggest issue with it arent the preorder CE items themselves.
Usually you can see how developers are aiming to develop the game over it's lifetime. This one seems to be kinda like a "Singleplayer-fast-moneygrab-game" due to all the stuff they are currently pushing out. You know, Box price, Subscription Fee, Ingame Cash Shop AND a cashgrab CE Edition. All in all this seems like a very short "project" of Bethesda - just grabbing as much money as they can before killing off the game, going free to play or even worse: shutting down the servers.
All these things just point into that direction and i don't feel supporting them until the game truly proves it doesnt want to go this way.
Just my to cents, opinions are welcome!
I stand corrected, there was another really bad game did it also.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
So now, what do the defenders of this game have to say? Yesterday you were saying that the Imperial race was fake and Zenimax wouldnt do that. Today, its even worse, cough up to unlock races from factions on top of cough up to play a race.
Has this swayed your opinion of the game?
Access to the imperial race is only 20 bucks more than the standard edition. I think they are banking on this fact- that most people will not be upset with restriction of content by a relatively small paygate.
I personally think it's fine. It's a good thing it wasn't any more than $20, because they would have been heavily criticized otherwise.