Massively, a sub-site of Joystiq that deals solely with MMOs, has done their annual award showcase. ESO was awarded "Most Likely to Flop".

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/12/19/massivelys-best-of-2013-awards/

Well, they got their prediction wrong since ESO won't be out til 2014.

That site is kinda a flop honestly haha. Its funny how many opinions come from that site that I find myself disagreeing with. That doesn't just include ESO related articles either.

This is all my opinion though. I realize that isn't the end all be all either.

Wow, I don't really take game journalism sites seriously, but some of those are horrible. I guess that's why I don't take them seriously, though.

If you read the reasoning behind their pick,

It's because the game has a lot on its shoulders.
One writer wrote that if it doesn't "set the world on fire" then some will consider it a flop.

None of the writers have truly valid reasons besides that this game has a lot to live up to.

I believe Zenimax has what it takes to deliver the epic game we expect.

Very good points and I agree with your last statement. That company as a whole is fairly talented. I am including Bethesda of course.

I don't think I would ever take that article or even that site seriously. "MMO of the Year: FFXIV" More like "Most Flawed Launch: FFXIV". EQ Next as the most anticipated? Hahahaha. To give FFXIV some credit, once you got past the bots, the queues, the character creation restrictions, the speed runs it truly is a good game, and now that most of those issues aren't around it probably is worth that title, it's just sad that that game gets nothing but praise from that site.

So because it's not going to be as big or successful as 'wow' it's going to flop? Amusing.

Eliot lambasts ESO for having a subscription model even though Final Fantasy has one too.

Its almost like all of them are completely biased or opinionated and don't really take reason into account. :-p

One person there had a rather good point: who is this game being designed for?

Elder Scrolls fan: they typically don't do multiplayer and will find it very jarring and frustrating to find a group of other people are there doing this quest at the same time they are, as will undoubtedly happen at launch and everyone is rushing up to level 50.

PvP regular: He is likely going to be forced into the quest-centric PvE in order to get to Alliance Wars in the first place since IIRC Alliance Wars is level-gated. If there is one thing GW2 did right it was let you go to PvP the instant you finished the tutorial quest, therefore giving the PvP players immediate access to what THEY had bought the game for. In this day and age gating the PvP for a game for ANY reason is NEVER good.

MMO regular: There has been a lot of people leaving GW2 lately because the endgame has devolved into a "been there, done that" shambles. MMO regulars are the people who want to spend the minimum amount of time in the transitional stage between character creation and endgame, or max level (which is where they consider the game to actually start). If too much focus is put on the leveling questing, there will be no endgame for them to look forward to (the 50+ and 50++ quests being just rehashes of what they already went through to hit max level, they won't want to do those). They are after dungeons, raids, and challenging group play. Also, note that some of the people in this group may NOT enjoy PvP, which is currently the only endgame being heavily advertised. Where's the PvE love?

Console player: They're already paying for their online service. The subscription for this game on top of that is going to be a huge deal-breaker for them as they would need to pay DOUBLE (give or take) the monthly fees (~10 dollars a month for Xbox Live being the baseline plus 15 for ESO). And when PC players don't need to worry about online service fees, consoles are going to think they are getting the short end of the stick and rightly so.

Looking at that, it's not looking very good for player retention already. The above represents pretty much 100% of the people who would actually consider buying this game.

I am this close (*holds index finger and thumb an inch apart*) to accusing them of being paid shills lol. Far more advertising going on than actual critiquing.

Wrong. There's still some of us who are adaptive human beings and don't regulate ourselves to only playing "things we're familiar with" or don't mind having to do things in order to do other things instead of not getting what we want immediately like children.

If only people could use this sense, if only..

Then you don't know how MMO player-bases work. Immediacy is increasingly in greater demand nowadays, the desire to reduce grind, being allowed to PvP whenever, these are all trends in the genre.

And all this is exacerbated by the subscription. A lot of players are going to be in the mindset of "I'm paying $75.00 up front and $15.00 a month more after that, I damn well better get what I paid for."

It seems then you, and many others, have not been following this game closely then.

How do they define flop? Because when this thing makes a billion dollars the week it hits consoles there will be plenty of happy people at Zenimax.

But then again, this is the internet so if something isn't exactly what I was 100% looking for then it must be a piece of garbage.

Also clearly no one plays different kinds of games because my game stack doesn't have GTAV, Madden and Civ Rev in it.

Then enlighten me. How will this game come to dominate the MMO market and defeat WoW as everyone is claiming it will when all the factors are currently against that happening?

It won't, nothing will surpass wows dominance, ever, does that mean ESO will be a flop? No, they are going with their own thing, taking in fan feedback and adjusting where they see necessary, doing it quite well actually, the biggest mistake they could make is try to imitate wow, if they do that, then it will flop. And I don't see many people claiming it will take over wow.

The facts show it's going to be a fun game, with its own uniqueness, maintaining a steady flow of customers (nowhere near wows amount), with regular content updates, if they do this right without changing things drastically to make it a wow clone, then it will do well.

Because 25 to 35 year old gamers love Elder Scrolls and, despite what the internet message boards tell you, it'll have 3 to 4 times the players on consoles that it will on PC.

Edited to add: Skyrim sold 20 million copies. Even if this only sells half of that it'll still bring in 650,000,000 of sales making it a huge success. Oh, and the likelihood it sells only half the copies of Skyrim is zero. You're looking at another billion dollar game like GTAV.

Why is WoW even being used as a litmus test? Is it not enough to let ESO stand alone on it's own merit?

People feel the need to say an MMO is a fail if it doesn't surpass wow, which is just ridiculous.

Because WoW is considered by many to be the bar. It was the most successful MMO ever released, and because of that a lot of people who will play this game will draw comparisons. ESO will never be able to stand on its own when so many of the players who will be looking to buy it come from the current "supreme" MMO. (Much as I hate to draw the comparison)

Here's the thing about MMO players: they are petty, they are entitled, and they are quick to judge. They are also the people that make up the majority of your user-base. Contention is just not in their nature.

I do hope ESO can overcome that barrier, but from what I've seen released so far the game is going to misfire. With so much of the advertisemant going towards the Alliance Wars and none going to the PvE that we will be going through to get there?

+10

If you're not first, you're last. - Reese and Ricky Bobby