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Zenimax Online has crippled ESOs core player base
jiveturkey12
Member CommonPosts: 1,262
Elder Scrolls Online's core player base has been crippled from day one of the games annoucement. Here are my reasonings,
1. Hero Engine Debacle
When the game was first announced, one of the key features toted was the use of the same engine as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the very controversial "Hero Engine". As soon as the Game-Informer Article hit the internet forum posts blasting the use of the engine shot up right here on MMORPG.com; along with articles confirming this fan outry on Massivly and other major MMO publications.
Here is where I give the ESO Devs some credit, as they quickly dispelled the previously announced feature as nothing more than a simple "Whiteboard" which they used to make the "Real Engine". But suspicions had already begun in the community since the original announcement, even diehard Elder Scrolls fans reamined wary, with features like "Voice-Overs" and All-Age Appropriate Graphics still confirmed, things started to seem too similar to other projects from the Hero Engine.
2. Game-Informer speaks Candidly about lack of Core Elder Scrolls Series Features
Along with the Game-Informer article also came a further hit to not only Hardcore Elder Scrolls fans, but also to the general fans of megahit "Skyrim"; the ES series most accesible link to the gaming community. Features like Player-Housing, Were-wolves, First-Person combat, wernt making the transition to the Elder Scrolls MMO "Because of the constraints inherent to an online game" according to the games developers, but Zenimax Online assued the fans they would be "including everything that makes sense."
3. Three-Factions, Race-Locked, No Imperials
So it wasnt long after Zenimax Promised to "Include Everything that makes sense", that they gave us information on the games core mechanics, which included Three Factions at war against each other. DAOC fans quickly flocked to the games forums and other sites giving the game its most solid boost of concurrent fans since the previous announcments.
But even with the small impact the DAOC community gave to ESO, it was completely overshadowed by the complete abandonment of many Core Elder Scrolls fans, who saw the three race locked factions as a complete deviation from the games well standing lore, as well as a limit on player interaction between all races which had never been seen in a full fledged ES game before.
The lack of a core ES Race (Imperials) from the mix, placing them instead as a more antagonistic NPC roll, also came across as a strange decision as they had always been a default choice for many first time players of the game not familiar with the ES lore. (This is because of the overtly "European-American" look Imperials have)
In Conclusion - A Mature Audience detracted by an Adolescent game
So now what we are left with is a completely divided community, ESO's target audience has been consistently shown to be All-Age Appropriate, even though the core features of the Elder Scrolls Franchise have always been more adult-themed/ oriented. The advent of DAOC fans to the game is a fair audience but incomparable numbers wise to the outflux of core Elder Scrolls fans, and Adult Gamers who made up the games Core Audience.
Does anyone feel that ESO can recover from such poor early development/PR choices?
Comments
How can you "recover" from the truth?
Tes core audience is CONSOLE GAMERS
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
LOL no it is not using a heavily modified version of the Skyrim engine, NOWHERE does it say that. They built their own engine from scratch after the Hero engine was used as a prototyping system.
Of the 11 million Skyrim sales to date, approximately 2.5 million of those were on the PC. That's more users than any MMO has ever launched with. SWTOR came close at 2.1 million.
Also, the move to add Mac support will allow many console gamers, who might have a Mac instead of a PC, to connect as well.
There is no solid dividing line between PC and console gamers, I have a PC, a 360 and a PS3. My girlfriend has a Wii so that completes the console trifecta in our household. PC is my main gaming platform, but I have the other consoles for exclusives I might want to try. There is a lot of cross-pollination and many people who bought Skyrim on the 360 or PS3 might have had a computer that could run it, but didn't bother because they prefer the controller, the couch and/or the big-screen tv.
As I said before, this is not a core userbase, this is roughly 500 people who will come to this game just for the RvR. How many people still play DAOC? If it was that amazing, trumping all other issues, it would have kept that audience, but it's not, it's actually rather boring after about a month, becuase there's nothing dynamic, it is the same boring game of tug-of-war over and over.
The OP's assessment is fair, their core userbase is/was TES fans and they utterly squandered it. What do they have left: 250,000 or so MMO nomads who will go back to WoW once they've reached max level and 500-1000 hardcore RvR nutjobs who hang out in Cyrodiil the whole time.
If its console gamers they better have controller support and a 360 version then.
We all know those dirty console peasants get confused with a mouse and keyboard, their feeble minds can't comprehend that many buttons.
It's scientifically proven.
I'm not a brony or anything, but holy shit your avatar made your comment so much more hilarious!
You dont have to care what TES Fans think or believe, you dont even have to follow the core-gamer crowd who ususally plays mature games like Skyrim.
If you honstly believe that ESO can support a stable player base on RvR fans, DAOC Fans, and Children ages 9-15, then yes by all means go ahead. No one is saying your not aloud to believe that, passionately or otherwise.
What I am explicitly stating is that Zenimax Online Crippled its own Core Player Base when they decided to alienate the Mature community that concurrently buys Elder Scrolls games along with alienating the "Skyrim-Only" crowd, or people who know Elder Scrolls simply from the "Skyrim" Brand. The game represents nothing appetizing for either of those two audiences which make up a massive amount of possible future sales for "Elder Scrolls" online.
Do you think that Zenimax Online is honestly doing their best job securing this games future development and release?
I believe your OP hit the nail on the head.
However I wonder what you would say to their incredible backtracking during E3 when the message of "MMO fans will feel at home" changed drastically to "TES fans will feel at home?"
Then, after E3, they all but vanished into nothing. Excuses were made, like Dishonored being Bethesda's focus marketing wise, and the incoming GW2 clouding the hype-space, but now that both of those excuses are moot, we still haven't heard anything aside from the odd twitter clue.
Developers might not often listen to their fanbases, but publishers certainly do, especially when the outcry is so vocal. I can imagine that there was a shitstorm in Bethesda Softworks when the reaction came down the pipe, and that shitstorm landed heavily on ZOS' head.
There are several possibilites for this of course.
Perhaps they have heard the outcry, and have gone silent, hard at work to bring TES fans what they want, and what the IP deserves.
The only other option I can think of is that they've buried their heads in the sand completely until beta, and we won't hear anything else until they're ready to start showing their gameplay, hoping everyone's forgotten their first impression.
I don't feel crippled at all.
I feel encouraged to avoid it like the plague.
a yo ho ho
It would be more interesting if they pulled an XCOM and the game got delayed by 10 years to "fix" it.... and then fail anyways.
Hahaha, that would be pretty hilarious, except XCOM is doing exceedingly well for a turn-based strategy game.
The one thing that keeps nagging at me about TESO, other than the fact that its nothing more than DAoC2 + Standard Themepark stuff in an Elder Scrolls skin, is the whole "Hero Engine..oh wait...Not Hero Engine" issue.
When Zenimax first announced the game, they made a point of mentioning the Hero Engine. Then, only after they got lambasted by the community about it, did they retract/ammend that statement to say that they were ONLY using the HE as a "Whiteboard" and they were creating their own "In-House" engine for the actual game.
Ok...so why even mention the HE in the first place? Why not just state from the beginning that are you creating your own engine for the game?
Something about that still just doesnt sit right
Tried: EQ2 - AC - EU - HZ - TR - MxO - TTO - WURM - SL - VG:SoH - PotBS - PS - AoC - WAR - DDO - SWTOR
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Playing: Skyrim
Following: The Repopulation
I want a Virtual World, not just a Game.
ITS TOO HARD! - Matt Firor (ZeniMax)
I feel ya OP. I really do. Your post is eloquent and case well stated. Most MMO'rs already know the watering down that happens when any popular IP turns massive. It's really not surprising, even though ES is possibly the last sacred home for what remains of the SRPG'rs out there. Yes, it's about to be desecrated. Your house. My house.
So what? Just pass on it. Skyrim would only be better with co-op or LAN modes, not as an MMO. There is nothing Zenimax can do to please SRPG fans...no dividing line that will maintain your immersion, belief, or perspective of the Elder Scrolls world. You cannot drop 5,000 people into a (previously) built Elder Scrolls world and preserve everything you hold dear about the series...unless of course you want a SWTOR-esque experience: a massively single player game. That MIGHT come close.
Its not gonna be what you want? Just let it go...or if you're that hyped about it, work your way into beta and suggest away.
I meant the betreyal XCOM
The FPS/TPS
Oh right, almost totally forgot about that one, I thought it was cancelled, much like I hope TESO ends up being (although with 300 mil in investment and 5 years of dev time, that is unlikely).
Considering hte core Audience for TES games are console gamers and not MMO players is this such a bad thing? The vast majority of TES games sales is, and always will be from consoles and the modding community. TESO attempts to give MMO gamers a game remeniscent of older style MMO's within a framework of lore and game design elements of TES. Along the way there will alot of players from both the console and the MMO. I can definitly state that if TESO was a port of Skyrim into a MMO, aint no way in hell would I play it. Mainly because I hate the combat in TES but primarily a true port to MMO would HAVE to include open conflict, FFA style ganking style PvP. Aint no way will I ever play any style of non consentual PvP.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Except for the fact that ESO started development in 2007, so they would have also been using an early alpha of the engine.
Good point, this is hopefully the case.
Regardless, an engine is only as good as the team developing for it. A bad team can make Cryengine look like crap and a good team can make something amazing with Ogre.
With sentiments like "housing is too hard" and "real-time combat is impossible," I have little faith in the bloated, over-funded and visionless team.
First off, your completely mislead with this statement. There is no modding community on the xbox, the only modding community for TES has always been on the PC ONLY. Therfore you just stated that the vast majority of game sales are from consoles but also PC sales. I believe that means there is a contradiction in your own statements.
And I think its a little obvious that PC sales of Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowing were all very high. Are you counting Steam sales of Elder Scrolls games as well? Yes they were not the numbers of the console but thats simply because of accesibility, not because of the type of gamer. So im sorry my friend but you are wrong on all counts here.
Are you telling me that you believe Console gamers would be more interested in a Thrid-person Themepark MMO rather than a Mature First Person MMO??
Reading comprehension much? I said the 2 biggest sources of TES community is Consoles and Modders. Note the inclusion of the word "And", which is typical used in the english language to convey: (used to connect grammatically coordinate words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with; as well as; in addition to; besides; also; moreover:"
In other words it means to differentiate the 2 groups anot to imply them being the same group: If I had said The Modding Console community then you would be correct but since I split the 2 groups with the word "and" it is implcitly meant to distinguish 2 groups of gamers.
No my post was to show that the vast majority of TES fans belong to 2 distiinct groups, and (theres that word again which means I am about to seperate 2 different things so follow along here) to show that in order to make a successful MMO then you MUST appeal to the MMO crowd. Zenimax is hoping to get enough of those 2 crowds (well mainly the console crowd) to hopefully come over to the PC market while attempting to appeal to the MMO vets. They could of done this a different way, but then again market analysis shows that WoW clones dont do well and the director is a former Mythic employee (of DAoC fame) it stands to reason the decision from the start of development was to capture some of the magic of RvR DAoC crowd. Common sense dictates the reasoning behind this concept and as much as you may not like it or dont agree with it, it is a valid and totally legitimate endeavor. Primarily due to already knowing that the MMO version will not appeal to the console gamer and it isnt feasible to make a WoW clone so what else is left.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
The numbers deceive you.
2.5 million Skyrim sales on PC to date.
250,000 DOAC players at its peak.
Even if every single last one of them (including myself) return, that is 10% of the potential userbase if they'd catered to the TES PC users.
Not all 2.5 million of those Skyrim users are modders, sorry to burst your bubble.
Even at the time of ESO's inception, Oblivion outsold DAOC's peak numbers on PC by over double.
7.1 million for consoles and 1.7 million for PC, so again why wouldnt they create the MMO version for the PC crowd (i.e. MMO)
DAoC also came out during the pre-WoW era and 250k at that time was #1 or #2 for subscribers. Any future statistics must include a Largely and exponentialy greater playerbase of the MMO market.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
No, 2.45 million (to be exact), not 1.7.
Oh ok, we'll just throw the numbers out the window and make baseless assumptions based merely on prejudice since the numbers suddenly aren't working in your favor.
You must realize that, the only people hungering for DAOC's RVR to return, the userbase you are counting on to save your precious TESO, are those who played DAOC and enjoyed it. If 250,000 is your sample base, then you must account for those who didn't enjoy it enough to be waiting for another game to utilize the RvR system for the next 10 years.
At best, most generous estimate, I give you 10%, 25,000 people.
Let's say they charge 60$ at retail and 15$/mo to those 25,000 people.
In order to break even on their 300 million dollar budget, they will need appoximately 900 months to do so. That's 75 years.
Good luck with that.
PS: even with all 250,000, 7.5 years to break even. Not a good timeframe.