Well, to be honest, I think pandering to the people without money is not a good business plan for any company.

Half of console users? A whole lot of PC users?
That's very misleading.

Like my good ol' Bros say .. See you at launch

The payment model is more or less irrelevant to be honest. If the game is great, has plenty of depth, good content and is getting rave reviews people will flock to it and play it regardless of the payment model. If its crap, then it will get what it deserves... although then people will say "see I told you the payment model was a bad idea"

Changing their sales so people who don't want to pay can play seems like a bad idea.

Pay what they are asking and you can play. I know the 50 cents a day is to much for you, but for some of use, it is fair.

I like how they throw out the 50 cents a day to try and make the 15 a month seem reasonable.

Pandering to people with less money you mean? I would think it's a great business plan. Who cares where the money comes from, as long as it comes.


"Oh noes! your to broke to play! LAWLS!" I can afford to play. You'll be seeing me in my chosen platform of choice in worldchat, commenting about how this game needs to be f2p. Don’t think you having an easier time of paying for things will spare you my opinion.

The High Elves are coming out strong today. Good thing I have thick skin.

That is the business model for every company.

Maybe they could have. From ESO i expect organic gameplay,with no butchered options , artificial limitations, and no real money into game currencies conversion. If those expectations are met i will happily pay for the service.
I haven't played GW so i wont comment on it's model, but since zenimax decided this is sub based i expect them to deliver product that can justify it.

It really isn't a question of whether the ￡0.25 a day is too much for me - and I find it quite funny that your only resort is to dismiss me as being potentially poor and thereby uneducated - it's a question of value for money. It may only be ￡0.25 but I ask myself - why spend that ￡0.25 on a game not giving me ￡0.25 per day's worth of content by their own reckoning when I could spend it on a few other games.

It is not changing it so that people who don't want to play the game can't - there are many long term TES fans who absolutely can't wait for this game and would have been launch days customers - it's changing it so valid customers who would have given them far more revenue than the niché market that is happy with sub fees won't play. Think about it, Skyrim was the 4th mot popular game and the most popular RPG in 2011 - bought in numbers that could rival COD - and all of those players, seeing as how TESO is on consoles, were no doubt happy to pay ￡40 or even a one off fee of more to play this game and give it a go as their first MMO, but will now be driven off in favour of that niché revenue stream of MMO players - and this game won't be able to survive on them alone.

I've deleted at least a dozen posts in this thread already. Abusive and rude posts will be deleted when we catch them, and warnings will be handed out.

When people mention it's 50 cents a day, about 30p here I think, I feel like that would be my preferred payment option, paying a small charge for 24 hours of gameplay, since then if I don't play for a day or for a week, I won't be paying for a service I'm not using.

I'd rather have an awesome P2P MMO with 3 million players than a crappy B2P / F2P MMO with 11 million players.

Ain't that the [censored] truth

You know, I find it funny how people on the internet seem to use "ADD" as an insult and refer to a "ADD crowd" as the source of all evils in the gaming world.

Except that, of course, it's not funny at all. More like offensive. I seriously doubt that a collective of people with a clinical disorder is big enough to make any difference in anything, and I'm completely sure that having ADD (that's concentration problems) doesn't have anything to do with buying stuff in game shops. Neither with playing Call of Duty or bad games in general, as people on the internet frequently suggest. So, please, just think before you write that kind of things.


About the topic that we are debating here (now directing to people in general), until they unveiled that it's going to be P2P, I was following the news on the game very closely and I was really eager to plau it. I have been playing TES games for years and I enjoy a lot Tamriel's lore, so TESO looked very attractive to me. But I am not willing to pay 15 bucks every month. Why? Because I have other things to do and I cannot dedicate enough time to playing to make up for the cost. My studies take time, and in my free time I like to do other thousand activities in addition to playing games. And, of course, I like to play more than a game at a time. If I could buy the game and, eventually, the expansions, and play whenever I wanted without any extra cost I would buy the game. Don't tell me that it's not a viable model, because GW, wether you like the game or not, it has been a great succes. In my opinion, the model that they are following is definitely the way to go.

Amen.

I didn't say 11 million players make the MMO bad. The F2P / B2P is what makes the MMO bad.

I agree. This should remain civil.

GW2 might be a viable model, but not for ZOS. Sorry.

Cant see how, it's working for GW2. Some players dont like it, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. See link I posted earlier for how GW2 is continuing to grow. It releasing content as often as it does, in small chunks instead of larger ones, proves thet they are active, that they are growing, full steam ahead.

Still dont see how it's not a viable model. Just because you dont want it to be viable?

If a Model works, it works.

It should be a binary state. They are both fantasy worlds. Both MMO's, I'm not seeing how it cant work. I AM seeing how it can hurt ESO. Less players mean less interaction. Tons of time can be spent not playing a game, but enjoying the people around it, I.E RP.


Will ESO work if it were f2p? Yes, because they would gain more players then they would lose

Will it work p2p? Maybe, if content is EXCELLENT. If people do not get bored. If they churn out content like GW2 does, but better. If the servers do not feel empty, and the people refrain from having High Elf tendencies.

Keep the convo between you two, really.

Sorry but a unscientific unofficial polls on a thread that does not have all of the fans for TES is not a true measurement of who supports or does not support the game. There is some out there who did not want the game as a MMO in the first place and I am not one of them. I wanted the game to be a B2P not F2P or P2P.

No console players will not have to pay double for Xbox 360 or PS3 but they are not developing the game for these platforms. I don't think anyone knows yet about Xbox One or PS4 if they will require a pay account to use the console.

My understanding of free market and my agreeing with it are two separate matters.

Read my statement again. I said it was viable for GW2. However, ZOS does not find that model viable for them. This in not my opinion. This is ZOS' opinion.

See, we both agree P2P can work.

You are right the polls mean nothing. However, ZOS has decided this is the best plan for them. So, hopefully you will try the game out. It just might be worth it.

But, why wouldn't it? You get a lot of cash for the game sells, which would be HUGE and then for each expansion. It looks pretty profitable to me. As I have said, I won't buy it because the very simple reason that if I ded, I would be incapable of making up for the price each month, and I don't want to feel "pressured" to play it and stop other daily enjoyments in favor of online gaming. I'm sure that they are many, many more in my situation. P2P is slowly but inexorably dying, or at least that's the impression I get with what WoW is experiencing. Why not use a more accesible, blooming model from the beginning? If they start P2P and then they switch to F2P (which I don't find really appealing, having the world capped) or B2P I find that somehow the public would get a image of humiliation (sorry, I can't find a better word...) from the company, and that would make the game not perform as well as it would have had they started with other model.

Honestly, I find it logical that they want to make money. It's a company, and the product seems marvellous. But yet, I find that P2P is a kind of greedy model.

If you do not agree with the free market system, that might be where we are having a problem.

Don't ask me. Ask ZOS.

I agree with ZOS. I am willing to pay ZOS. I'll get to play ESO. That is all I care about.