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[Column] General: Could B2P Hurt Elder Scrolls Online?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Welcome to Player Versus Player, the column that pits two MMORPG writers against each other in a battle wits, tears, and experience points. Twice a month, we take to our podiums to debate both sides of your most heated arguments. This week, Elder Scrolls Online rocked our newsfeeds with the bombshell that the game would be going buy-to-play before its summer console launch. Our topic: Is this a good thing for the game or the beginning of the end?
Read more of Christopher Coke's and Ryan Getchell's Player vs Player: Could B2P Hurt Elder Scrolls Online?
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I've been in two games that transitioned from a pure sub model to a hybrid. The transition is never pretty. The first 3 months are going to see a lot of problems, then the novelty will wear off and all the troll-lings will settle on a new host to satisfy their short attention span. It's going to be ugly, but it will settle down.
I'm more concerned about post-console launch. After the hiccups have been smoothed, then we'll see what they intend to do with the B2P model.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
"A subscription ensures a great community!" said nobody with a brain ever.
Seriously, business model only plays a small part in the quality of a community. The type of game and the genre are far, far more important. The "gated community" mentality is false and anyone holding it is incorrect.
The Secret World is a bright conversion example.
But they converted because they had to survive and they were completely honest with the players from day one. It's different than ESO.
Zenimax treated their biggest backers like second-class players and proved that the team cannot be trusted.
Now lets see who keeps playing for 4-5 months by picking pocketswhile the shop is the only thing regularly updated.
And do you seriously think that after that period updates are going to drop like rain?
Even TSW and GW2, both having great B2P models, could not afford updating regularly. In both games, you still run the same end-game PvE-wise as in launch.
And thinking the above would happen to ESO is being optimistic.
I hope I'm wrong, but what I see in the future for ESO on PC is nothing but failure and disappointment.
ESO has walked away from the pvp community....The pvp community has walked away from ESO. B2P changes nothing in this reguard. This part of my comments I know to be true.
As for the pve community......I think the sales of ESO for the console will be a shot in the arm.A BADLY NEEDED SHOT,because I'm guessing there will be many like me who have already or will unsub until there is compelling new content..
MY conjecture is we will see a DLC focused on Cyrodiil for the next attempt to inject revenue into the company..
As for me...I see no compelling reason to return as a subscriber.....AVA is not being supported....so I've returned again to DAOC.
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I feel badly that the directors of ESO's development have chosen the path they have. I thought ESO was going to be in large part DAOC 2. .Matt Firror decided that was not to be,and so I'm wandering...returning to an old refuge.....until................
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
ESO never had a good community from the way it was set up, with the megaserver, joining up to 5 guilds, separate pve and pvp, being able to be a part of 2 pvp campaigns and then being able to easily switch to another campaign. All of that made it a huge lobby game.
Someone else really needs to manage this game. It could have been great.
I'm thinking that there will be lots of bugs with this big release. This will be deflected with the news of new dlc coming out. People will hope the new content will include bug fixes. A few things will be fixed most won't. Rinse and repeat.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Somewhat misleading comment in the article: with b2p Zenimax won't be keeping up with its 4-6 week schedule .... suggesting that it has been maintaining a 4-6 week schedule since launch. 4-6 weeks became 6-8 weeks became every other 6-8 weeks for content to allow them to focus on fixes.
In fact - for all intents and purposes - everything that Zenimax has done since the PC launch - redesigning the layout of dungeons, changing crafting, provisioning, scrapping VR, making the game "more ES like" with the CS and Justice system, the name change etc. are all aimed at the console launch.
They say that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Zenimax is hoping TESO gets a second chance. Remember whilst the game didn't launch on console it was pulled so late that it was reviewed in the console press. And the reviews were based on the - less than stellar - PC launch. So a second chance is not a done deal.
If they get it right?
Skyrim sold lots; Activision has just announced Destiny now has 16M registered users. As a publisher would you prefer:
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
Keep that drama train rolling MMORPG, your salaries depend on it.
/spit
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I think it'll help it. Their plan to take advantage of subs for a while until they released on console should work out really well for them. What's strange to me is how anemic their shop looks at this point. I'm sure they'll drop some nice bombs on the store a month or so after the change to try and get maximum eyeballs on the items/account upgrades.
I must disagree with the second 'first' impression chance, I will just say look at Marvel Heroes, it start so badly, and now it have won several rewards and even became game on the year, with it's second 'first' impression... I think Zenimax might manage along the way, but first it have to learn few very hard lessons.. right now I see Zanimax walking down exactly the same path as Marvel Heroes Online...
Initially no because it will bring in more people and get more console players too . But depending on the evolution of their cash shop the jury is still out on whether they will hurt the game in the long run. Most games start out with noble intentions on the cash shop but will it stay the course is still not something that can be ascertained now. The game is very solo friendly in fact I think I have grouped only twice for a dungeon and help on a quest. Of course I can get more groups but it is not at all necessary even to close the anchors. So the community in the game is not nearly as important perhaps if the game was more group orientated.
I think right now the community in ESO is very helpful and nice and I have had people send me cash for bag slots which I did not even ask for simply because I complained in zone chat that my bag was too small. That was a very nice gesture to me as a new player and it showed that people read chat and often do no say anything but show their care for a community with actions rather than words. Then another person from my guild spent time taking me about and helping me complete the group bosses. Again an example of how individuals can make a community better.
These days it is quite pointless to argue about how community deteriorates when a game goes F2P but since this is B2P it is better however the gaming community has descended into quite a selfish crowd so even subbed games do not exhibit the communities of old. So even that may not be a side effect of going B2P. I do not see much evidence right now that this decision will hurt ESO.
Marvel Heroes: the only solid numbers I could find were on Steam: 12,491 peak at launch; fell to c. 4k after a couple of months; rise to c. 7k with the relaunch a year later but fell back to c. 3k after several weeks. "Most improved" and other awards didn't translate, on Steam at least, into "more players".
A company can overcome a poor start: but it will be harder; cost more money; and even then the product may never achieve "what might have been".
One chance to make a first impression is the "rule". It is all about "customer resistance" - look it up if you have to but it is real. And it doesn't just apply to games. A poor first impression makes us less likely to buy something; it creates a "barrier to purchase".
This is Zenimax trying to overcome TESO's "barriers to purchase". On price: they have removed the subscription; they have reworked the product to, they hope, "make it more Skyrim like" (not ES like but the thing that sold many millions) and to counter the so-so PC launch they have re-badged it as Tamriel Unlimited - nothing at all like what we released last year; honest, ignore that first impression!
ESO was hurt the day there was the idea of ESO MMO. The business model , bad decision. The combat style, bad decision. The faction and race locking , bad decision. The story and quest mechanics , bad decision.
Elder Scrolls should have never been an MMO but rather a multiplayer game with exact same mechanics as Oblivion or Skyrim.
It couldn't be hard to make a coop Elder Scrolls game. Probably could be created using GMOD.
-I am here to perform logic