Elder Scrolls Online Beta

[Tbone]

I took the day off from work to try and get over this cold I have. As a bonus, I'll be free for the Beta tonight. Anyone else participating and want to group up?

[Tbone]

I just noticed on the beta forums that they have put testers into different groups and named them. I'm in the Nocturnal's Testers group, which is believed to be mostly MMO players.

[Avzeke (Khr0n1k)]

I am in Arkay's Tester group, don't know what that means yet.

[Tbone]

Your testing group should have its own forum. Perhaps they've figured it out internally, though the thread I'm looking at just has a question mark by your testing group 0.o

[Tbone]

Just finished my second test. Got to level 6 in three hours (after getting booted twice to test the login servers).

Graphics are stunning. It's also very well optimized - no perceivable lag from the servers or from my machine. Combat is great in 1st person - left click to attack, right click to block, hold to do heavy attack, hit left and right to interrupt. 1-5 are special abilities from either your weapon type or class tree.

It is very theme park. They use phasing as well, in that as you complete certain quests, you find things have changed around you (burning village, castle under seige, etc.). This makes for a dynamic world. Other players don't have nameplates in this build, which actually does a good job of blending players into the rest of the world so that it's hard to tell how crowded a place really is. No perceivable lag from tons of players in one spot either.

The world did not feel wide and open, but I was in the starter area. I didn't notice a big map that showed the whole continent or anything, but I didn't try zooming out.

All in all it already feels like a very well-put together game that successfully puts the core ES mechanics into an online environment. The question I have is what content will be left after your theme park ride of leveling up, and that's where we'll see if the game has sticking power (after all, you probably won't be able to mod it!). That, and if it will have Oculus Rift support!

[Tbone]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/21/the-elder-scrolls-online-will-require-a-1499-monthly-subscription-fee

Waa waaaaaaaa

[Strod]

Did anyone honestly think the game would be free?

Seriously?

[Tbone]

No, I thought it would be $60.

[Strod]

Well it will.

Every 4 months.

[Tbone]

Actually it will cost $120 for the first four months. The game still costs $60 PLUS $15/mo the first month may be included, so maybe just $105!

[Strod]

Well in the end it may suck, but I wasn't hoping for free as most AAA titles don't take that route.

[Tbone]

Well in the end it may suck, but I wasn't hoping for free as most AAA titles don't take that route.

Actually most have them had in the past few years. The two main MMOs left with a forced subscription model is WoW and EVE, which have both been around since 2004. It's been that long since a SUCCESSFUL MMO has stayed on a subscription model. Even SWTOR went F2P. GW2, Firefall, APB Reloaded, etc. etc. all F2P. Subscription just doesn't work 99% of the time anymore.

[Strod]

Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles, but that's just me. I would honestly prefer to pay for a game so I know it's going to be around a long time and have content at regular intervals.

I guess you can say the free stuff has been pretty ok, but you are always limited (in most cases) playing a FTP model.

Again, that's just me and it's only my opinion. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to games honestly. Meh.

[Mharz]

Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles

The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term.  It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless.  When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.

Sorry Strod.  Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.

I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now.  They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features.  Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it.  From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.

I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed.  From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things.  That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.

[Zooey]

Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles

The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term.  It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless.  When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.

Sorry Strod.  Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.

I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now.  They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features.  Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it.  From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.

I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed.  From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things.  That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.

From a economist perspective, the relative decrease in the consumer's income has reduced demand for the non-freemium models in the MMO market.  Many gamers have found poor substitutes for large scale, well designed MMOs.  This also has lowered demand, and therefore also reduced the consumer surplus in the models.  As the demand is relatively inelastic at launch, the original purchase of the game generally includes the first month's fee, although companies camouflage this as a free month, which it truly isn't.

However, from the firm (ie Zenimax Online), they have a higher production cost, at least according to them, and I'm making an assumption (as all economists must to model situations) that they project a budget which out ways at least an initial freemium model.

I feel as most subscription based games will be following SWTOR's example, by starting out as a Sub Base with a free to play "freemium transistion" model in place for a point down the line where start up costs are no longer carried by the firm but rather the consumer via the voluntary subscription.  For this example, Bioware's claim that SWTOR would be solvent at 500k subscribers, only exists after the sales of the two million subscribers at launch.

If I went a tad overboard, I found it interesting and just got out of my Econ classes.