First of all.... It has been said already many times CORRECTLY here in this topic, there is a valid concern about the state of this game and its overall quality/ potential now that it is being developed for consoles and PC/MAC. I am primarily a PC gamer but, I have all consoles as well because I do have kids and like to play other games as well. Yes it is great that now Console users will get a taste of TESO content but, make no mistake, one if not all platforms will suffer from updates or content add ons. This was supposed to be an MMO, one that our guild of over 300 members can raid with, explore and even MOD as the years roll. MMO's are investments, not just monetary, they have such an evolution to them and as it was stated earlier, PC MMO gamers get minor updates like every week, big updates monthly and huge updates quarterly. That will not be the case now. I am having a hard time now convincing my guild that has been together since CoH and Vanilla WoW to jump on this bandwagon now. I am disappointed and i believe it to be rightfully so, as many PC gamers should be. No hate or disrespect intended.

As a PC gamer, every problem you list is avoidable.

There's no real reason at all to believe that the PC version won't get updates now. ESO is still an MMO updates and patches WILL happen. it will likely happen like every other MMO that is mutil platform, the PC version gets it first then it goes to the consoles. Also as Paul Sage confirms the game will be designed and balanced based on its platform. The PC version is still the same PC version that it was 48 hours ago. It now coming out on consoles doesn't change that.

Paul Sage was quoted just a few hours ago saying that PC/Mac version of the games will still be designed as if the game is Computer Exclusive and he said that consoles will be designed with consoles in mind. It won't be like in Skyrim where they basically built the game to run on consoles then ported that version over for PC users to play with.

Do you have link to the quote at all, not doubting you i just want to read it or hear it. This is better news and it is at least in part of what i asked for, a more in depth explanation and a response to the growing concern. I hate it when companies ignore public outcries like they never happened.

I kind of feel bad for Bethesda and Zenimax. They are basically suffering from the mistrust created by primarily EA, Activision, Sony, Microsoft.

I won't believe it before I see it, for all I know, he could be taking out of his ass.

I'm curious, because I keep seeing people on here saying that MMOs get minor weekly updates and major patches every month...Which MMO are you playing where they have a content development cycle that lets them push out an update every week? I know many MMOs have scheduled downtime for server maintenance, which is sometimes a scheduled weekly thing.

Furthermore, the next generation consoles are the closest to PC hardware architecture that they've ever been--Porting games between PCs and the consoles (except for the Wii U) will be much easier than ever, as the processors in the consoles are much more similar in design to PC processors. I expect that the default control schemes, versions of the same title on different platforms will be much closer in terms of behavior and stability than almost any previous title.

I know you weren't asking me, but IIRC, it was this interview with Adam Sessler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0BqW1JrHkQ

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/12/4421490/the-elder-scrolls-online-segregate-pc-xbox-one-and-ps4-players

For you people who wanted a quote.

some have not played the games that fathered this genre. they were very very community driven . its hard to explain a game that had less features archaic combat but was more fun and immersive. then compare it to a fully voiced eye dazzling groupfinder with story and millions of dollars in development and tell them the reason the aforementioned was better and richer in gameplay and immersion.you have every reason to be concerned. the dev resources for longevity will be extremely high after launch trying to support 3 platforms

No it won't be extremely high. They all share the same architecture. Each platform will essentially use the same code with slight tweaks for hardware/OS. It is no where near the amount of work it would take to port it to say a PS3.

and I trust what he says and believe thats the way it was developed. the concern is post alunch when zenimax is forced to cut staff and the board tells them, hey you missed your first quarter promise. which every mmo does. how will they support content production adding features post production. I dont see 3 separate platforms being a cost investors will allow them to support if the game does not crush ass right of the starting line. in all honesty no matter what pc is gonna be yhe lion share of revenue if this is a sub based revenue.if its B2p with a cash shop I doubt ill play.

Again, the cost to port this generation will be small. very little recoding is needed, thus very little dev time being needed.

Think we can safely assume they have a plan. All MMO Devs usually shed employees post launch. If we can trust that they have a plan for the various versions design then I think we can also trust that they have a plan in place on how the team will be divided up for each version.

The troubles have more to do with the networks. Closed networks like PSN and Xbox live are a problem for the MMO system. Sounds like both sony and microsoft are willing to compromise on their strict control system this time around though.

That doesn't take dev time and require extra devs though. That simply requires money and negotiations for the most part.

just because the architecture is the same means nothing when your trying to maintain two seperate server structures for the same game worldwide.you know maitnenance is more expensive then the small team that actually produces the content after release.on top of that they neef to produce for two seperate UI. why do you think they added a full year to devolpment. the pc beta is in third phase!! they could have made a nov release for pc easily.the bought a full year more devolpment? no its to get it out for console and release it across all platforms for higher quartely sales.

I agree with you totally. but s did tor, they had millions behind them and some of the best in the buisness. we saw what happened when they missed their mark they completely disolved there studio . took all the content they were going to give the customers as part of the subscription. charged them for it and focused on making cash shop.items

I can't help but wonder how much of TOR's collapse was EA executives meddling in the studio's work. Though I suspect that even if TOR had been a massive success, EA still would have pushed for the cash shop, that company loves microtransactions.

Don't begin grating EA for BioWare's faults (mismanagement, arrogance, ignoring beta testers et al) there was many issues with SWTOR that you simply can't blame on EA.

There is some truth to what you say I was tester in TOR from phase 2, about 6 weeks into beta. But the post launch management was absolutely EA's fault . LOL by chance do you remember when they put high res texture packs in for one day in beta then promptly removed them 6 hours later. never to be seen again and have the community manager tell the paying community there was never high Res options for TOR only medium and low.

Maybe not directely. But Bioware as company went down the drain shortly after being acquired by EA.

I have no idea what you're basing this on. You're essentially arguing that both new consoles are identical low-end PCs (and identical to all PCs as well), and through the power of magical handwaving, there is no barrier or work involved. This is clearly nonsense, especially with people from Zenimax outright saying they will have to do separate versions, with separate programming for controllers and hardware, and entirely separate megaservers that will NOT interact in any way whatsoever.

The latter is the big and obvious point by the way- Zenimax has specifically stated separate megaservers- in that they can NOT or will not get the Xbox, PS4 and PC/MAC versions to communicate with each other, even on their servers (away from the user's local hardware) despite the blatant fact that they can do that with PC and Mac.

Whether or not you believe that the different version will take a minimal amount of work, it is quite obvious that Zenimax knows otherwise.

Bah. Bioware was going down the drain way back during Neverwinter Nights 1. Decent toolkit, but mediocre gameplay/story. And they ditched the toolkit and ramped up the mediocrity for every game since.

The biggest and hardest part of porting is the coding. Since the new consoles are x86 systems a crap ton more code can be shared. The changes for hardware and controls is very small in comparison (Infact the hardware of the system are all similar). Their reason for separate servers are more about control limitations of the consoles, not that they can't communicate.

It is not like the previous gen where developers essentially had to recode games into power pc formats to get them on consoles and then have to deal with each consoles unique tools (PS3 was notoriously hard to program for because of these things).

Your argument does nothing for the economic aspect of what Investor boards approve and don't. If Zenimax fails to meet their projections your going to get nothing Post launch. The main concern is extra money it will cost to maintain and produce for two different platforms. And it will be more money to do this no matter what you think.

The first 6 months are crucial for any MMO's longevity. and a steady flow of content after the first 60 days which is primarily balancing and bug squashing will make or break any massive budget MMO like TESO. you are leaving so many factors out of the pie here makes me think your just blindly defending a point, when in reality no one is attacking Zenimax for this. Hell the publisher is gonna make a absolute [censored] ton on sales for a dual platform MMO. Im guessing it will easily exceed TOR's 1.7 mil sales open. What most of us are saying is its going to be extremely hard for them to have a steady stream of content that is needed for a theme park MMO.

Not only that how in the world are they going to get features in that they promised would be in soon after Launch. that's a mammoth undertaking and a lot of us have serious doubts.

Every MMO will lose mass amounts of player after the first 30 days. To think you can prevent is folly. I"m not leaving anything out, I'm simply pointing out that it is much much easier to port to consoles with the new consoles that it was before. Sony and MS also seem to have a more open policy with getting content into their systems. I see people blindly hating on the decision without looking at it objectively. Nearly every issue is preventable, completely preventable and instead of people seeing that they just claim that it is impossible.

Again, features can easily be coded for each system along side each other. Once the UI and controls are put in place for the consoles, the coding is almost identical (all systems use x86 and similar style hardware). It will cost more money and maybe more time, but not like it would on the current gen systems (no need for entire teams dedicated for each system). Further they can push content in to the pc version while waiting on approval and so forth on the console versions.