How is the ability to play as, say, a Dunmer in the Dominion "fundamental to the balance of the entire game," especially in PvP, as opposed to playing as a Bosmer? What is the advantage playing as that Dunmer will give you? What does playing as an Imperial in any faction give you as an advantage over any other player who didn't order the CE?

Nah, don't get me wrong, you saying that means you're on the reasonable side of things.

People raging OMG P2W because of an exp boost need to check themselves.

It's a MMO. It have have elder scrolls in the title but it is a MMO first. I've never seen a MMO that didn't "bend" the lore or even the plausibility of the story when it suited the devs.

All the hate on these forums (this is not directed at you) over a CE with bonuses boggles the mind. I've never seen a MMO CE not offer some exclusive items or cosmetics. And yes a race is cosmetic unless it's racial is "kills all non imperial players in a 25 meter arc".

Some people really need to learn to relax.

Where do I mention the Imperial race in my post? I've done nothing but say that was a raw deal and a bad decision, but I will defend all of the other digital content items to my dying breath because they're nothing unusual and are at this point common and expected as pre-order and CE digital bonuses.

The race is another beast entirely, and whether you like it or not we're all entitled to our choice of buying it or not. I will be buying it because as far as the [censored] I've taken from game companies goes, this is actually quite low on the scale.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Which is [censored]. That screws over the people who stumble upon the game. I don't support that level of elitism. Btw, I have been following the game since well before most of this forum, hell before this forum existed. This isn't doing me any favors.

An exclusive skill line unique to that race. An example of something that could be true. A Dunmer Dragonknight could do some insane DPS because of the synergy in fire bonuses in the Dunmer racial line and the Dragonknight's fire oriented skill line. Essentially, a Pyro-Dragonknight build unique to the Dunmer that is somewhat resistant to fire. Such a build would require the other factions to develop unique counter measures based on THEIR skill lines, just as those new builds would require unique counter measures as well, and so on and so forth. Just an example though.

The Imperial is an unknown, but could have a skill line that makes them the best at one thing or incredibly useful in another, however the vast majority of the player base would be excluded from that. You also could have one faction with a huge amount of Imperials compared to the other factions, which could give them an advantage in some way. Hard to say what that is because we don't have details on what their abilities are afaik.

I haven't seen your opinion other than where you quoted me from and beyond. Seems like I was operating under an assumption in regards to the Imperials. Even so, are you saying you support the 'be any race in any faction' thing as a pre-order exclusive? Clearly that has problems as well, which I have already mentioned. You also tried to sweep that under the rug as insignificant in the post of yours I quoted.

As far as the buying it goes, I never imposed my purchasing prerogatives on anyone else, merely stated my opinion, so of course everyone is entitled to their choice of buying it or not, not really sure why you brought that up. As for me, I might just have to say, "Well, it has been fun guys, if similar decisions arise I will not be here to experience them. I don't like what this indicates about their payment models." Just because some guy stabbed you once, does not mean you should let another guy punch you in the face because it isn't as bad in comparison.

I retain with 99.9% certainty that "any faction, any race" won't remain a pre-order exclusive, there will be another way to obtain it somehow, or they will straight up make it a base part of the game after a period of time. Honestly, they don't even NEED to give people a pre-order incentive. If you're buying the game, you're buying it, what does it matter if you're buying it NOW or LATER? Its the same price and costs no extra.

Which is ultimately an assumption, even if it is a likely one, although I wouldn't know. This is the more minor thing imo though, the main problem are those Imperials and the fact that since I am paying with a subscription model, as far as I am concerned, the only acceptable paygates are for cosmetics that can be obtained in game with effort anyways, and maybe XP bonuses or whatever. So long as at max level, we are all more or less on an even keel.

I have to say I find it surprising as well. The MMO's I've pre-ordered (SWTOR for example) just gave early access and some [censored] item, but also made you pay 5 bucks more. It was the CE and Digital edition that gave the mounts and all that. Pre-ordering and getting early access, and maybe some vanity item is enough in my opinion.

Which everyone will still be, regardless of whether or not they have the option of being an Imperial. Every race has a racial skill line, and there is no reason to think that Imperials are getting a double-secret probation skill line.

It isn't even about them having a super skill line, it is about them having an exclusive skill line. Skill lines and racial abilites are a lot more important I this game than in most MMOs from what I can gather. Even small things can make a big difference in PVP.

And yet everyone will have access to their own racial skill lines, many of which will complement their playstyle. I'm sure there will not be a "PvP" race anymore than there will be a mage-only race.

I am still buying the physical CE for the physical items. I don't think I'd play Imperial anyway. This Imperial exclusive thing is indeed shady. I think the collector's editions should be aimed at collectors in the classic and very primary meaning: books, maps, figurines, etc.

I have no problem at all with the imperial thing but I think that the any race anywhere facility is a little messy. I would have introduced this later on with a one toon per acount can be from anywhere policy. This would encourge the creation of alts

Its not perfect but it is gonna happen. Anyone who says they are not going to play TESO because of this were probably not going to play anyway because when you think it through its pretty trivial.

Having Imperials as the only race to choose aliance would be ok BUT only if they exclusivity for CE would be lifted after few(2 or 3) months.

Anyway - horse is great addition, every. single. MMO. got a mount for pre-ordering as reward. Also I think they should offer a little more for CE - more unique look items.

I can kind of understand being mad about the lore and such. It's just surprising me how much hate the CE is getting for including a race. I don't remember this much hate on the game forums for Star Trek online when they gave a race to people who got the colectors edition, or maybe it was life time sub can't remember. The point is it was a sub game at the time, and that race wasn't available until much later in the cash shop. Honestly the crappy way they handled the Klingon faction at the beginning is what I think caused it's downfall to F2P not what they were giving to people who were willing to spend more money.

But yeah there are a few games that pulled this crap, and this is the only one I remember seeing all this hate about it. Maybe I just have a selective memory I dunno.

You are using a straw man because you explicitly attributed a position to me that I do not hold, nor ever said anything to suggest I held.

I think they MAY have built race sensitivity into (some of) the dialog already. Note that though in the single player games there is race-sensitive dialog, it is a small minority of all the dialog. But even if they haven't, you seem to have missed my last point:

Between the choice of (a) ethnically pure regions (lore-breaking, have never been any) and ( race-blindness (ditto, though the extent to which player race was recognized by NPCs has always been minimal), which is less implausible? IMO, the answer is (a).

You have a different opinion, which I respect, but it is just an opinion... a preference. Not fact

Right. Except for every other sub-based MMO that charged the exact same monthly fee. But aside from all those, it's totally the most expensive thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G4CFCU0fWM

Force hits the Nail on the Head.

From a lore perspective it makes perfect sense to be able to choose where to play with your character limiting it to preorders will help to keep the "normal" races of that faction in the majority I hope... so I really have nothing against that whatsoever, actually I think its cool the way they did it.

Now as for the Imperials as a playable race, this is somewhat of a gray area I think, thing is if their racial passives are better then that of other races the Imperial Edition becomes a "must buy/upgrade to" and 90% of the people will run around as imperial. A unique combination of passives could potentially become also "too good"...

From a lore perspective though it makes perfect sense that some Imperial adventurer/hero whatever joins the other alliances and fights against the evil that his homeland has become.

So I am kind of split on that front lets see how the passives are before judging it is the best to do atm I think ^^

The poll needs a not enough information there to have an actually informed opinion vote on the imperials part

How old are you people? this is not a new concept for any MMO....pretty much ever, I can't think of a company that didn't put out some sort of collectors edition with pre-order perks to drive some sales. Many things in life aren't free get used to it, darn entitled hippies with your touchy feelings and no money cause you're too busy protesting anything that does earn money.

This poll is misleading and is clearly a White Knight thing. You will not get accurate polls with such questions.

The only reason people are upset is because there are P2W bonuses included in the Imperial edition, including increased Exp which is now mandatory for people who want to do world's firsts (its part of the MMO experience and community even if you personally don't like it or plan to do it), and new racial skills that other people will not have access to.

ZOS dropped the ball with these P2W crap.

"Oh, noes," says the man in the video. "The Rings of Mara are soooooooo going to totally ruin the whole World First Level Up race that is soooooooo important in MMOs. You can trust me on this, because I said so, even though I couldn't begin to tell you who the two people were in the running for World First To Level Cap in the last game I played."

Once again, "world firsts" only exist for the extremely small percentage of players who are willing to unofficially record them. Most people actually don't play games for bragging rights, and the minor XP gain has zero effect on other players.

Also, when you use terms like "White Knight", you kind of undercut your argument. Just a bit.

This isn't about me buying it or not, its about the principle that ZOS thinks its okay to now include what is effectively on disc DLC. Used to be that when a game launched you got all the content, whether it was aesthetic, superfluous, etc. you still got it. But now since people have become accustomed to it everyone is now fine with the blatant greed. Seriously, this CE does nothing to help you, you all realize that right? They could've included half the things in CE in the base game(which all game studios do, can't even think of a time when a launch game withheld races) and come up with other things to give. It should all be cosmetic, mount, pet, imperial appearance, fine, go for it. But a race is more than just a superfluous skin, for someone who roleplays or has played an imperial since Morrowind, this is a huge slap in the face. Why not make us pay for Dunmer, or Bretons? The simple fact is they saw an opportunity to make money off of our lack of knowledge and for some reason most of you(at least on these forums) aren't phased by this blatant and disgusting attempt to nickel and dime us. I'm curious, do you( the people that are fine with it) legitimately think this is an acceptable business practice or are you so [censored] starstruck by the game and ZOS that you will defend them no matter what?