The game is deeply flawed but fun. I think it would benefit greatly by moving toward the same model as The Secret World.
You have the base game all you can play for the initial buy in.
Cash shop items like mounts, non combat pets, vanity items.
DLC like additional leveling zones, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood.
It could never go F2P because of the console market, and the need to sell the units there. B2P is certainly viable, and has to be where it will head. They already have the backbone of the cash shop in place, with one mount and a race behind the paywall.
Why do you think it has to be b2p just becuase of console release? They have servers and a network connection and can dl the game.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
No I would not play this game if it went FTP, and why should I? It couldn't handle one payment model and now all of a sudden a rush of cheapskates in FTP will make it all better? I don't think so. The game is rotten at the core, it's not the payment model.
Yes FTP or even BTP works. I am lucky enough to be a part of TSW community and it has made no diference to the awesome community other than there be more people around.
ESO will go BTP at some point, where that point is unfortunately, will be be sooner than later in my opinion, the game just has too many flaws. If you love ESO (as much as I love TSW) then you need to accept that they will need to do what they need to do to keep the game you love alive. If that means BTP then so be it, the alterantive is "sunsetting".
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it.
As for ESO, I want to love it because I'm a huge TES fan and a huge MMO fan (Perfect game for me! Right!?), but I can't stand how anti-group friendly the game is and how on the rails themeparky it is. Grouping is an after-thought. 99% of the game's content is solo content. The group dungeons are 1 per zone? 3 per every 10 levels? Public dungeons are joke and one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. Phasing preventing you from playing with friends, the lack of mentoring system, vertical progression and lack of group content in general is so seriously disturbing I'm often at a loss for words when I'm playing.
When I heard "The Elder Scrolls - Online" I immediately thought it was going to be a horizontal progression based, group content heavy, free roaming open world where it'd feel like Marrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim, but with lots of friends to share in the adventure! Just log in, group up with your buddies and see what trouble you could randomly find out in the massive open world!
What we got was an on the rails quest hub chasing themepark that stifles grouping at every turn. Want to do a quest with you friend? Oh you can't because you already did it. Want to help them with their quest anyway? You can't, you're moved to a different phase! Want to play with a friend who just got the game a few days ago? You cant! He's lvl 25 and you're lvl VR5! It just goes on and on. I've always hated how modern MMOs have become so entrenched in the mentality that they have to over-cater to solo play, but ESO takes this to a whole new level. It's by far the most anti-social MMO I've ever seen.
If I wanted to play a solo TES game, I'd play Oblivion, Marrowind or Skyrim.
However, my wife and I are VR10, and most of my friends are nearly there. Hopefully with future updates they'll keep our interest with lots of meaningful group content for us... but I won't hold my breathe.
Originally posted by SonOfValmar
There are very few objective arguments that can be lobbied against F2P (or even B2P, which is a silly term anyways) at this point. P2P seems to just be a hold over from an older era considering companies do themselves no favors to support reasons to pay monthly for a game.
That is what it comes down to. What is the point in paying monthly for a game? What are you as a customer receiving in compensation for spending your money in such a manner? There are so many different ways to play games (PC, Console, Handheld, Browser, Apps) as well as so many different types of games in circulation that there is little reason to pay more than 40$ for a game let along pay an extra 15$ (assuming the standard subscription cost) every month.
MMO's no longer give gamers an experience they are unable to enjoy in another game. Games which specialize in certain areas, whether that be providing a riveting story line or offering player vs player content, provide a better experience than one can find in a MMO.
The only advantage that MMO's have going for them is the ability to "play" with "thousands" of players at once. However, most all MMOs never use this as anything more than a novelty. Playing with thousands of players is usually done very superficially (see ESO for the most recent example of this problem) which offers no advantage to playing the MMO in the first place.
Subscriptions, at this point, are nothing but a hold over from an era long dead. There is no advantage to the company from running this model other than double dipping with Subs and F2P type cash shops, and there is no advantage to the player since MMOs offer nothing that cannot be found in a different game which would not require you to pay hundreds of dollars per year for entertainment.
The quoted post describing the advantages of F2P, as well as the simple question of 'What does a MMO offer that another genre does not?' give too many reasons to scoff at the idea of paying hundreds of dollars just to enjoy a game.
Very good points. The P2P model is seriously dead. I have no idea where the people over at zeni got their education, but they've made way too many mistakes with ESO and the monetization model they chose was one of the biggest mistakes, imho.
Originally posted by rodingo
That is probably one of the best pro f2p arguments you will find on these forums, but also the only argument anyone should need.
Though I'm not a major fan of f2p, I'm not really a p2p fan either. I prefer b2p or the game has to be of the utmost quality and innovation if they want to EARN my money with a subscription. Just like MMO publishers aren't a charity for a gamers, I'm not a charity for MMO publishers.
Thank you for your compliment. I would like to note that I'm personally a "fan" of P2P. It always ends up being cheaper for me. I've been known to drop some pretty hefty amounts of cash in F2P games lol. (as long as they were worth it!)
But what I prefer has no bearing on what is objectively the better monetization model.
Based on the extraordinary amount of hate this game has going for it, even if ESO were to go F2P, why would you play it? If the forums and reviews are to be believed, you are looking at a boring, half-single player, half-mmo, bad combat, poor graphics, no content, quest grinder.
Not counting bugs, because we'll assume bugs are fixed by F2P time.
It sounds horrible, and if I believed a game to be everything that people claim ESO to be, I would never touch it. My time is too valuable to spend playing a game this bad.
I didn't think it was worth playing after trying out a beta weekend. A game is either worth playing or it isn't imho. Making it F2P doesn't do anything to improve the quality of the game. The price point was not an issue the quality of the game was.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Putting it the other way around. If ESO goes F2P I will quit playing it. I have played a couple of previous-subscription MMOs before that are now F2P and since they went F2P, the game itself also went through some dramatic changes and loosing it's appeal to me because of the changes (and I don't mean the community here)
Since the game would turn into a gold sellers dream if it went f2p or b2p .. no, i'd rather not have to keep updating mods to try and combat chat spam. Sure you can say it would be limited to /say etc but then ppl would bitch about limits and try to get more for free.
Since the game would turn into a gold sellers dream if it went f2p or b2p .. no, i'd rather not have to keep updating mods to try and combat chat spam. Sure you can say it would be limited to /say etc but then ppl would bitch about limits and try to get more for free.
Except we already saw that P2P didn't prevent ESO, and any other P2P game, from being a gold-farmer's dream. F2P vs P2P is not how you combat gold farmers.
This argument is so silly and divorced from reality I don't even see why people still make it.
The ONLY reason I'd even consider trying this game would be to see how the storyline unfolds. I played a bit in the beta, and found it interesting, but overly grindy and not at all group friendly, and thus pointless as an MMO.
To be honest, I think I'd rather see a youtube playthrough of the entire storyline, rather than actually having to spend the time to do it myself.
LOL. This thread is kind of ironicly funny. Everyone says they still wouldn't play it as f2p until they fix the bugs? Well then I guess sub based pay model was the way to go and justifies it, it shows that people who want things free are so spoiled they wouldn't even play it if it had bugs in it. The only reason to go free to play would be to get more customers, but if the free 2 play crowd doesn't want it, then it should by default stay pay to play.
Who says on a forum that they want something to be free to play but are unwilling to play even if its free, then camps that game in a forum to say that? What kind of people are we dealing with here?
I'm still wafting for a logical argument to come out of the free to play crowd. Every argument is smoke and mirrors to justify not having to pay for something, and the ones silly enough to spend money are just getting hosed left and right. But still it continues. The only "F2P" games that don't back door you are ones the USED to be P2P since they weren't designed from the ground up to screw you over.
The unbelievably jaded, biased and "it's all about me!" type of people, that is who we are dealing with here.
Like the guy above with his anti F2P bias.
And the OP with his initial "judging by the amount of hate for this game" comment in his original post. Etc. etc. etc......
This has simply become a whiners forum. It has no basis in anything close to MMO reality.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Comments
Why do you think it has to be b2p just becuase of console release? They have servers and a network connection and can dl the game.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it.
As for ESO, I want to love it because I'm a huge TES fan and a huge MMO fan (Perfect game for me! Right!?), but I can't stand how anti-group friendly the game is and how on the rails themeparky it is. Grouping is an after-thought. 99% of the game's content is solo content. The group dungeons are 1 per zone? 3 per every 10 levels? Public dungeons are joke and one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. Phasing preventing you from playing with friends, the lack of mentoring system, vertical progression and lack of group content in general is so seriously disturbing I'm often at a loss for words when I'm playing.
When I heard "The Elder Scrolls - Online" I immediately thought it was going to be a horizontal progression based, group content heavy, free roaming open world where it'd feel like Marrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim, but with lots of friends to share in the adventure! Just log in, group up with your buddies and see what trouble you could randomly find out in the massive open world!
What we got was an on the rails quest hub chasing themepark that stifles grouping at every turn. Want to do a quest with you friend? Oh you can't because you already did it. Want to help them with their quest anyway? You can't, you're moved to a different phase! Want to play with a friend who just got the game a few days ago? You cant! He's lvl 25 and you're lvl VR5! It just goes on and on. I've always hated how modern MMOs have become so entrenched in the mentality that they have to over-cater to solo play, but ESO takes this to a whole new level. It's by far the most anti-social MMO I've ever seen.
If I wanted to play a solo TES game, I'd play Oblivion, Marrowind or Skyrim.
However, my wife and I are VR10, and most of my friends are nearly there. Hopefully with future updates they'll keep our interest with lots of meaningful group content for us... but I won't hold my breathe.
Very good points. The P2P model is seriously dead. I have no idea where the people over at zeni got their education, but they've made way too many mistakes with ESO and the monetization model they chose was one of the biggest mistakes, imho.Thank you for your compliment. I would like to note that I'm personally a "fan" of P2P. It always ends up being cheaper for me. I've been known to drop some pretty hefty amounts of cash in F2P games lol. (as long as they were worth it!)
But what I prefer has no bearing on what is objectively the better monetization model.
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I wouldn't.
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Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Since the game would turn into a gold sellers dream if it went f2p or b2p .. no, i'd rather not have to keep updating mods to try and combat chat spam. Sure you can say it would be limited to /say etc but then ppl would bitch about limits and try to get more for free.
Except we already saw that P2P didn't prevent ESO, and any other P2P game, from being a gold-farmer's dream. F2P vs P2P is not how you combat gold farmers.
This argument is so silly and divorced from reality I don't even see why people still make it.
Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL
The ONLY reason I'd even consider trying this game would be to see how the storyline unfolds. I played a bit in the beta, and found it interesting, but overly grindy and not at all group friendly, and thus pointless as an MMO.
To be honest, I think I'd rather see a youtube playthrough of the entire storyline, rather than actually having to spend the time to do it myself.
The unbelievably jaded, biased and "it's all about me!" type of people, that is who we are dealing with here.
Like the guy above with his anti F2P bias.
And the OP with his initial "judging by the amount of hate for this game" comment in his original post. Etc. etc. etc......
This has simply become a whiners forum. It has no basis in anything close to MMO reality.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Mostly to try the PvP, see how it compares to GW2 in my eyes.
I don't see myself trying ESO once Archeage is out though.
I decided not to play it BEFORE launch and going to the rip off that f2p is wouldn't change that on bit.
NOTE: I am not trying to ignite a good vs bad f2p debate. It is just my opinion that f2p is not the way to go.
Let's party like it is 1863!