To me the pre-order Bonus in both the Imperial and standard edition is terrible, this 'Play any race in any alliance' is going to ruin the some of the game-play in my mind. I love the idea of the imperial being able to play any race as Imperials as a race are not exactly skilled in anything specific as such which means they are more easily balanced. The PARIAA defeats the whole purpose of having factions since the majority of players will be able to run around in what ever race they want until new players begin to join after all the Pre-order and special editions have sold out.

Obviously it is too late for ZeniMax Online to remove this Pre-DLC, but its none the less a bad move on their part.

https://content.ebgames.com.au/website/images/detail/bannertesoPCstandard_v2.jpg

You can be a Principe player and refuse to play with races that don't belong to your faction. That would complicate things dramatically, but it is an option.

That sounds racist.

Sounds like Elder scrolls to me....

You can be sure it will have in the store the option to play as any race. Of course, paid for. And if the game don't do well financially, they will announce everyone can do it for free, to attract players back. One way or another, having races and politics split opens up for a whole rp level, I'm glad they got rid of this restriction, is not like all races born exactly in their majority of people's place.

I understand what you guys are saying, but they generated so much effort into the whole alliance thing

The developers did....this whole thing smacks of the publishers distorting the developers intended vision.

He might be the first online gamer RPing an racist

Oh wait, are the Goons still around?

But the alliance thing still stands tall. This can even help balance, so people won't be in an specific alliance just because the members are "pretty" like Aion.

I have to agree that it was probably somebody in Softworks upper management and not the developer that came up with this decision. I'm not angry with the publisher at all, I'm disappointed that they would go this route. The pre order bonus is so anti consumer and it's nickel and diming when you really get to it. To be fair the Imperial race is my only criticism and that's a big one IMHO. Everything else even any race within an alliance is fine although you could consider it roleplay breaking. The race though, crosses a line and it's one that I'm not going to cross.

I wanted ESO to succeed but I have my doubts that will happen.

It certainly still stands, but it doesn't create that decision of having to chose whether you'll have a faction that you love and possibly the race you want, or the race you want but have to settle with a alliance your not too fond of

Uh, what's sad? I just watched several minutes of the videos and they haven't actually said yet. They're busy talking about themselves. One is 40 minutes long.

A specific race just for pre-order after subscription and everything ? I thought subscription's purpose was to have all content unlocked, maybe i can overlook some pets and mounts that are not that much of a deal but... a WHOLE race and the ability to play in any alliance (this is a huge perk) as for me just a mortal subscription payer of 15$ those will be unavailable. Bonus treasure maps for those who pre-order is a P2Win in itself.

WTF Eso ? If you can do this day one i am expecting locked dungeons in 6 months or money for every update you make. I start to think ESO is a project just to chug a bunch of money fast in Zenimax Media's pocket and not a game made with passion.

Totally agree with Shoddy. This is a major step in the wrong direction, and a step against what some of the developers had promised long ago.

I sincerely hope ZOS is hurt enough by this to do something. Full price+sub+cash shop+premium race is just absurd and insulting.

As a long-time guild leader, and one with plans for TES:O, this makes me EXTRA sad that I can no longer in good conscience try and convince some of our more skeptical friends to play.

Zenimax Media Inc is just money grabbing. Content is cover under the sub fee. I want to be nick and dime to death, I can play a different game. I have faith in ESO, with moves like this, ZMI is pushing many people of the door.

//ZMI own ZOS, and BGS

BGS = Bethesda Game Studio

You raised a very good point. I didn't think of the treasure maps as pay to win when I bought the game because I didn't have the chance to test the maps in the beta so pretty much have no idea what they are about. Now I think of it is quite worrying. But they included it in the standard edition that you would have to purchase anyways, so not that bad.

Also true. It's like one big......arena.

Anyways, I don't like the concept but in the end I don't think it'll matter too much.

In short...

They dislike what they see as day 1 DLC, possible pay 2 win, and the precadent set for the subscription model + cash shop and future.

Elder Scrolls and racism are practically synonymous. I can't really think of one conflict in the game that is in no way racially charged.

I personally dont think that the extra mount/pet/maps are anything major, but that extra Race.. Luckily i was able to get preorder an Imperial Edition at Ebgames before they were completely sold out, but even so this is a massive kick in the gut for anyone who didnt check their email at just the right amount of time or didnt happen to go onto the website. For none Australian citizens, Ebgames is the AUS/NZ version and is owned by GameStop, and the imperial edition was stricly limited to Ebgames within Australia and New Zealand

So what would your stances be if the imperials were unlockable in-game?

I mean, you'll already reap the benefits of the increased cash injection pre-release, and then you get to unlock the race post-launch without spending the extra cash.

Isn't that sort of a win-win here?

I can see why they're trying it. Rumour has it the project budget has ballooned to $200m. So they need to make that back.

Either people will pay it or they won't. I paid for early access.

Sub fees pay for DLC -- not $$ extra for it.

I don't want to get too overblown with it, but the last part there should have been obvious from the get-go. This game is huge and requires a lot of money to make, and when I see this start happening before the game is launched it brings me back to SWToR. They are assuming a net loss for a while in hopes that down the line after they go F2P that it will turn a profit.