What if ESO had an offline mode?

[amoebae]

 

 

Also reasons why you don't want to see it go F2P, regardless of the reasons.

The horrible truth of F2P is that in the majority of cases it simply kills those games. Sure, it may bring more players to the game who might not have played otherwise, or actually earn the company more money than the game would earn from subscriptions, but therein lies the part that generally leads these games down a long and ugly road.

 

With f2p accounts, it means that anyone and everyone can download the game, make a few dozen accounts, and do little more than harass other players (for fun) or spam obscenities in whatever channels they have access to. With f2p, the average age of players drops significantly as you start having more and more of that group of players age 10+ playing, making no attempt to actually learn the game, then begging or throwing a fit when they hit some point where they have to pay real money to get something. Meaning that the community as a whole generally goes to crap making it harder to find capable and mature players to group with for endgame content. All of this before you even start to include those player accounts related to hacking, scamming or gold selling, made infinitely easier by virtue of being able to create an account, pass around equipment or money, then delete that account so that the game's staff can't trace the transaction or ban the group of accounts fast enough.

 

with a F2P world, generally development tends to follow one of two plans. Either the base game and lower areas are made free, with expansions (endgame areas) requiring some form of payment, or the game never really sees any large content updates and instead rolls out minor ones every month to try and suck money from players. In the first case, what you usually end up with is essentially a game with portions of it cut out and put behind a payment barrier, often feeling isolated even to those players who are paying for it. One of the reasons for this feeling of isolation is because it disrupts the flow of play since these areas usually have to be locked behind some sort of loading screen or area transition, or simply make you have to continually check with guild/party members to make sure they can even access these areas every time you want to do something (nevermind the sudden drop of population inside these areas making it harder to find groups). In the second case, it usually means that the game enters into an endless cycle of pricing out cosmetic items, RNG boxes, or minor powerups in order to generate money, diverting talent away from making actual game content. While the game may start to look more interesting after a few years of this, that interest tends to be very shallow since about the only thing ever being added is just a new coat of paint on existing assets that players are shelling out $10-30 a month on with the occasional %50 more exp for 2 hour item that cannot be traded/sold and ends up being entirely useless at level cap. And it becomes impossible to break out of this constant cycle since this cycle ultimately becomes the most reliable way of generating enough money to keep the game running.

 

With few exceptions, once a game has gone F2P, noteworthy additions to that game world become non-existent. There is a reason why there is SO much content in WoW compared to almost every other MMO... They've never gone F2P, so have always had a reasonably consistent budget to invest in development of the game and creation of new content.

 

 

You've hit the nail on the head.

 

As someone relatively new to MMOs, I can attest to the fact that it's natural to want to get the content without paying a sub. A monthly fee is hard to justify, probably for most people, especially if you've got other household outgoings and maybe have a sub to netflix, or cable tv, or whatever. And of course for younger players or those who are unemployed, stumping up the box price once is possibly doable, but making an investment every month is less so.

 

However, what I've come to realise is that you simply get a better quality game if there is a sub, and when it comes to MMOs you have to think in an entirely different way than you do about single player or even co-op games. Expecting to be delivered top notch content, have it maintained, have populated servers, and be allowed to access everything - but without paying for it... it's naive and it misunderstands how MMOs are made and sustained.

 

I stopped playing SWTOR after a while, I couldn't justify the sub anymore because I didn't have the money to spend on something I wasn't playing that often. But now it's got to the freemium model I definitely won't be picking it back up. I hate that model. It's detrimental to the whole community, even if some people are happy they get to experience some of the content for free. The way they've chopped up the game so that you get an extremely pared down version for free, and have to keep paying a little bit here, a little bit there to access other features is 1) against my principles and not a model I want to support; and 2) not good for the game in the long run for the reasons you mention above.

 

For a game like an MMO, if you want it to be successful, and if you want it to have polished content, regular in-depth updates, a healthy community etc., you have to be prepared to invest in that. It is, I'm afraid, a case where you don't get something for nothing. We expect different things these days because of the proliferation of freemium, f2p, cash stores etc.... but those games are cash grabs, they rarely have any depth or longevity.

 

Stamping your feet and saying, "but I want the game to be what I want it to be, and I don't want to pay for it" is all well and good, but it's selfish, naive, and it entirely misunderstands what this game model is all about. ESO isn't intended to simply be Skyrim online, or the next installment in the TES universe. If you go into it expecting that, you're going to be disappointed, and you are wrong to expect it to be that in the first place. It's an MMO set in the Elder Scrolls universe. It's trying to bring TES and MMO gaming together in an interesting way that might appeal to players of both. It can't expect to please everyone, nor is it probably trying to. There's an element of, "but it's a TES game, it should appeal to me because I'm a TES fan, and I'm angry it doesn't" but that sort of thinking needs to stop. It's not TES VI. It was never intended to be. It's not an offline game, and it can't be (it's technically not possible to make it one).

 

There will be a TES VI one day. This isn't it.

 

It is a great game though.

[amoebae]

 

and its fans such as yourself being the reason it wont succeed. which ive always said (and im not basing you in any way, ive said this since the beginning) Skyrim fans will hop in, realize its not Skyrim, and not like the game.

 

SWTOR i believe was a fully voiced game. as in every character and NPC was a different voice. it was one of its biggest promotions and why it cost so much to make.....unlike GW2 where Liam O'Brian Basically plays the entire Sylvari Race lol

 

lastly the game isn't being developed by Bethesda Directly. its being developed by Zenimax Online Studios. which is owned by Zenimax Studios which owns Bethesda and a bunch of others (Id Software and Arkane Studios to name a couple of the more popular companies)

 

No, I don't like the game because it's not Skyrim, I pretty much don't like the game because it's a MMO. All this blah blah "it's going to be different from other MMOs"...it's not. Zenimax, Bethesda, whatever you want to call them (The BSG logo is on the game client screen btw) are milking the cow and we all know what that does in the end to a series.

 

I just hope they do a good job on Fallout 4 and TESVI...

 

 

Well see, if you don't like MMOs then I don't understand why you'd be so surprised that you don't like this game. Because... it's an MMO >_>

 

Even when companies attempt to make something different to other MMOs, it's still an MMO. That's not about to change.

[amoebae]

no MMO will ever use that much hotkeys ever again. go look at other MMOs coming out on PC only all of them have limited hotkeys.

 

you needed at least 20 keybinds for high level PVP on WoW on some class it could reach 30s even 40. you have 8 on every class in GW2.

 

TES:O would benefit from 2-3 more keybinds

 

You get 12 in total at level 15. 10 standard and 2 ultimates. One sorcerer build makes it possible to have more.

[amoebae]

Whoa, you look cool. :smile:

 

Here's my Dunmer:

 

http://puu.sh/6QOwR.jpg

 

This was about 7 levels ago, so I have much cooler armour now. :smile:

 

 

Also, I glitched through an invisible wall and got to explore a new zone (Deshaan), and I visited Mournhold. It doesn't look like the one in Morrowind's Tribunal expansion but it was still pretty cool. Also, that zone was largely unfinished (massive drop-offs, no NPCs, no wayshrines etc.) and I was lucky enough to see it all. :tongue:

 

Got lots of screenshots if anyone is interested (I'm allowed to, right?)

 

No, you're not allowed, unfortunately.

 

The press were allowed a limited lift to the NDA, so they could post 15 minutes of footage, 15 screenshots, and talk about anything up to level 15. We, as players, are allowed to talk about anything we have seen in press coverage. You could stretch that to say we can talk about anything we might be able to argue could be in press coverage. So effectively we could probably get away with talking about content up to level 15. But if you go and read the NDA that is currently still active, it prohibits everything like it always has done.

 

We cannot post game content, which includes screenshots or streams. I don't know why twitch allowed those streams earlier. Maybe they hadn't been reported.

 

I've been talking reasonably freely about the game. I'm holding onto my screenshots though. Do what you think is best, but do so at your own risk.

[hector530]

They removed the email watermarks so they Dont seem worried about posting stuff and video game "press" means just about anything forum post, YouTubers, steamers, etc

[Vagrant0]

 

 

We cannot post game content, which includes screenshots or streams. I don't know why twitch allowed those streams earlier. Maybe they hadn't been reported.

 

I've been talking reasonably freely about the game. I'm holding onto my screenshots though. Do what you think is best, but do so at your own risk.

 

Actually, there were a good number of people related to ESO who were just going around and both reporting the streamers and banning the players who were streaming the game. Atleast from the story I was told by someone who happened to be sitting next to some of the devs doing it at the time. This is also something that many companies seem to be aware of and do regularly when dealing with NDA content that is open to the public. If there were some streamers who were not banned right away, chances are they will probably be banned in the near future and probably prevented from being part of any future beta or ESO gameplay... If not tracked down and fined in some of the more extreme cases.

[HimeBunBun]

Probably beating a dead horse - but what would be the point of this?

The entire point of MMORPGs is that it is online.
You do not ~have~ to engage with people, but it's there so you can talk to others, and go into a party and work together.

I personally just do not see the point of this, at all.

 

I love MMORPGs, and I also like Morrowind and Skyrim. If I want an "offline" mode, I will play those.
It's the logical step, not to ask for a game made to be online, to have that option.