Massively.com: Tamriel Infinium: An open letter to the creators of Elder Scrolls Online

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Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Business Models, Culture, New Titles, Opinion, Mac, The Elder Scrolls Online, MMORPG, Tamriel Infinium

Dear ZeniMax,

I understand that you are a new studio, but you stem from a studio with a long history of making good games. I understand that no game has ever been 100% bug free. I also understand that you are extraordinarily excited about bringing your game to the public. And I wanted to see Elder Scrolls Online as much as anyone. You're also a young studio, and I understand the feeling wanting to do things your own way. You want to make your individual mark on the world, but doing that at the expense of wisdom... well, I hope you can see where I'm going with this.

On Thursday, I spoke to many people about the console delay. I mentioned to most of them that my last Tamriel Infinium about the PC gamers actually being console beta testers was meant to be hyperbole. Although it was based on truth, I extended my logic beyond what I thought a studio would actually do. I didn't think that you were actually using the PC version that people are playing and paying for as a beta test. Clearly, that's the case since you will not release ESO in its current state to consoles.

I don't think all is lost. I believe you might be able to turn some things around. So here's my armchair developer's advice.

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TL;DR; Please make ESO F2P

please don't make eso f2p

ESO has it's warts and the whole guild store search UI is probably the one that irritates me the most, but I fail to see how the subscription model is somehow the root of all evils.  So you're saying that the people who have quit because of bugs that prevent you from completing quests  (or lag issues, or grouping issues, or whatever else there is to complain about) would all be happy if it was F2P and wouldn't complain? lol.

I don't think there is any one blanket fix that would make everyone happy.  I think it will take a few things to appease the angry masses or whatever.  The problem is that it's taking too long to get these things out.  Yes, I know back in the day, we all dealt with worse and walked 10 miles in the snow to the nearest commodore 64 and then sat in 500 person queue for 2 hours to boot.  That doesn't change the fact that expectations are far greater now and people have far far less patience with MMO's.  Nobody comes out with a perfect MMO, but the minute you put one out and start promising stuff, the clock is ticking pretty fast.

That being said, how bad are things financially with ESO?  Does anyone even know?  I know it's the internet so things get blown out of proportion but I get the distinct impression from these type of articles like the rats are fleeing the ship or something.  If so, I must be a particular lazy rat if I'm still on the boat lol. 

Breadbox or space age 64?  ... I remember the days of sharing games in a double cassette player, talk about loading screens ... Nothing better than watching the full range of colors that it had for awhile.

and Bentmer I think I'm the same lazy rat as you, still here and still having fun, despite the issues it has.

I didn't like when Rift went F2P and it didn't make the game better, actually it made it unplayable at the end with lag and disconnects whenever I tried to run a dungeon.

Financially, well they are up $15 the last time I looked at my bank statement and I bet they will get another 15 next month, besides that I have no idea. 

Apparently now-a-days when you make an MMO its supposed to be completely perfect and include all the best features of other MMO's. Anyways... I hope that ESO will improve over time (Just like most major MMOs). They have given a clear direction of where they are going and I am sure they will follow through. If they don't they are shooting themselves in the foot. 

Secondly the FTP argument is getting old. Since they announced  pay-to-play people went in an uproar. I have a feeling its mainly a lot of Elderscrolls fans not MMO fans who are making that argument. I've played a few Pay-to-win games and it sucks if you are cash poor. Oh you want to do this? Just give me some money and you can. Oh you want to be as good as that guy? Well he just gave us $50 for some gems in order to be that good. 

Going F2P after a game has released has ruined every game I was in and paying for - I have quit them all after they went F2P.  They might gain many players but they will also lose many.

GW2 is totally different since it was F2P to begin with., but since the release of ESO I play it once or twice a week with the family during events - about 5 hours total.  ESO gets all the rest of my gaming time - about 30-40 hours a week.  If I had limited play time - GW2 would be on the back burner all together.

I shall tell you that I still complain about bugs and report them in GW2 even though it is free and it is coming up on 2 year anniversary if my memory serves me.  Some of the bugs have been an issue for a long time.  It's not that I complain less about it - but I have given up on them fixing some stuff - not because it is F2P - but because I think they don't care. 

I personally haven't had the issues some players have complained about in ESO but I am still just below level 40 on my highest character but have been there since early start.  The only thing that might drive me away is going F2P or doing a massive Combat Update as did SWG (if they had left that game alone and just kept adding planets - I'd probably still be playing it).

To be successful, ESO just needs a good size group of core players - they don't need 7 mil subscriptions - and to keep on track with their vision as it exists.  If the "Now" generation will let them take a month or two to fix some issues it can be an absolutely marvelous game.  I'm retired and can well afford to give them the time they need.

Safe Journ.

» Edited on: 2014-05-13 15:13:49

I can see both sides of the argument. 

On one hand, every MMO has unrealistically high expectations and they over promise things that inevitably lead to some people being disappointed.  Without over-generalizing things, it also seems apparent that a lot of the people who complain about MMO's don't truly understand that MMO's will never be a finished product.  They evolve and level much like the characters in the game do.  There will never be a time when everything is perfect for every player.  Some things will change for the better, some for the worse and which part is better or worse often depends on your point of view.

However, I also have empathy for the opposite point of view too.  There have been launches that were near perfect in technical execution.  Rift not only knocked it out of the park when it came to bugs and performance, they were also extremely fast with customer service and initial content delivery.  Granted, they are the exception and not the rule but shouldn't all MMO's try to emulate the best example and not the average? 

Not only that but I sometimes question the argument that things were harder in older MMO's and that made them better.  In what other facet of life would that argument be valid?  If there are some aspects of a game that are not enjoyable to the vast majority of players, then getting rid of it doesn't make the game 'ez mode'.  I like to DVR stuff or watch things on Netflix because I can skip commercials.  Having to slog through 15 minutes of commercials for an hour of television doesn't make me 'old school', it just wasted my time.  I think that applies with games and MMO's in particular.  Not that I'm implying anything about ESO specifically but I'm just talking about the often voiced opinion that because we spent a lot of wasted time in older games doing things that weren't necessarily fun, we should be more tolerant of newer games if they have the same things in them too.

Anyways, I like ESO because it's a fun game.  I have experienced those game breaking bugs when quests bug out and I have to abandon them and re-do them 4 times.  Or when an instance resets when you're fighting the last boss and you have to re-do the whole thing.  I feel like a person has to spend way too much time searching for items in the guild store than is necessary.  Despite all these things, it's within my personal tolerance level of problems but I can't speak for others because we all are different in that aspect.  Plus, I figure if I stick around long enough, the people who quit first will give me all their loot and I can buy all the properties and put hotels on them.  Wait, which game are we talking about again?

Writer jumps to the conclusion delays are due to using the PC gamers as testers for a better console version.  Console program writing is very different (mostly because of Sony and Microsoft each wanting to run exclusive program setups.)  There are a number of possibilities beyond the conclusion being jumped to... and personally this makes me disregard this writer as somebody who will present opinion as if it is fact (a common problem with journalism.)
As for the FTP decision... I would not be opposed so long as they do a good job with FTP (Yeah, not easy to do, and most companies thus make a game PTW.)  Some do FTP well, but this article seemed like an excuse to push for FTP without considering the downside of what that could mean.  All the game needs is to have one of the horrible FTP implementations to completely kill it.
Some people just aren't happy... and that's fine.  However, I wish they would avoid trying to change things that haven't even been proven to be broken yet!