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Kotaku's Superannuation: The Elder Scrolls Online has cost $200 million

Hyunashi

Member
I feel this will flop badly but I expect a good bit of initial interest especially with GW2 offering nothing new and the WoW expansion not coming out soon.

Of course the two big guns are going to be Wildstar and EQN, so good luck to the TSO team with retaining players when those 2 + WoW expansion hits the public.
 

Tacitus_

Member
I feel this will flop badly but I expect a good bit of initial interest especially with GW2 offering nothing new and the WoW expansion not coming out soon.

Of course the two big guns are going to be Wildstar and EQN, so good luck to the TSO team with retaining players when those 2 + WoW expansion hits the public.

If the next WoW expansion drops anywhere near the launch of this, it's going to be a massacre. Blizz seems to have gotten more aggressive with their release schedules so it just might happen.
 

Goron2000

best junior ever
I hope it doesn't flop and at the same time doesn't do well, resulting in service resuming as normal at Bethesda with the large single player RPGs
 

AlphaDump

Gold Member
ugh.... a close friend of mine has been working closely on this project for quite some time.

I watched E3 with him, and he was completely demoralized after seeing the other games, but in particular Destiny was the one that got to him the most. When they showed the trailer for Elder Scrolls he was almost apologetic....

then a few weeks later the delay was announced.
 

Minion101

Banned
considering how ridiculously well skyrim sold (despite the fact it wasn't that good) I don't think money is an issue for them right now

The people that like it really like it. It's still in the top 6 most played games on Steam and It continued to sell well for a long time due to good word of mouth.
 
I hope it doesn't flop and at the same time doesn't do well, resulting in service resuming as normal at Bethesda with the large single player RPGs

...

Look, it's not that hard. Bethesda Game Studio isn't making this game. They're probably working on either the next Elder Scrolls or Fallout now.
 

TheYanger

Member
From what I understand, some semi-significant design changes went into the ~2 week old build that the F&F is running compared to what was available as a on/off weekend beta affair previously. You no longer are locked into the "3 levelling tracks of questlines" and can play it more like a regular ES game. Plus that it's actually now running on what will become the live unsharded megaserver when the game launches. That said, I'm only speaking from over-the-shoulder second hand experience at this point.

Not intentionally being negative, but this 'miracle patch' shit has existed in every bad MMO a few months before launch ever. I'll eat my hat if they actually just did a complete 180 on the game less than 6 months from launch. Even if they could, it seems literally impossible for them to have changed what needed to be changed in so short a time.
 

Wickwire

Member
My brother sent me a trailer for the game and it looked wildly mediocre. I the only reason I could tell is was an Elder scrolls game was the argonian. I'm still having fun with skyrim and see no point this game
 

Jarmel

Banned
tumblr_ldddfi7AqE1qb1eb9o1_500.gif


So good. Bomba of the year confirmed.
 

Celegus

Member
Ouch. It's basically the giant corporation equivalent of a kid getting a $80,000 useless college degree that he'll never use or pay off (me).
 

ZaCH3000

Member
When will publishers stop killing the brand equity of star franchises with cash grab spin offs? Just make good games and get better at viral marketing.
 
Some of us in here is acting like the game's not gonna cost a single penny for Bethesda once it's finished. some MMOs costs are recurring lol
 

Aces&Eights

Member
Combat is basically pushing 1-10 on your skill tab and waiting for the awkward animation full of clipping to play out. You're locked in during these overly long animations, so it feels sort of like a pokemon battle. Only worse because it's not all that clear what your attacks are even doing.

Jesus. Please tell me you are joking.
 
I feel like this is going to be an even bigger bomb than SWTOR- that game at least had a lot of hype as being The Next Big Thing That Will Finally Kill WoW (primarily because it launched at what was arugably WoW's lowest point, quality-wise,) whereas nobody seems to give a fuck about this game.

So then, people learned nothing from SWTOR.

It's probably not that they learned nothing so much as that by the time SWTOR happened they were too far in to cancel it (or scale it back.) We all know now that investing tons of money and expecting a WoW level of success is a recipe for disaster, but the people who already made that bet before it became apparent pretty much have to ride it out and pray they don't get fucked too hard.
 

TheYanger

Member
I feel like this is going to be an even bigger bomb than SWTOR- that game at least had a lot of hype as being The Next Big Thing That Will Finally Kill WoW (primarily because it launched at what was arugably WoW's lowest point, quality-wise,) whereas nobody seems to give a fuck about this game.



It's probably not that they learned nothing so much as that by the time SWTOR happened they were too far in to cancel it (or scale it back.) We all know now that investing tons of money and expecting a WoW level of success is a recipe for disaster, but the people who already made that bet before it became apparent pretty much have to ride it out and pray they don't get fucked too hard.

SWTOR had a compelling early game which is really all people saw until reasonably after launch, where TESO is actually WORSE in the opening hour or two than it is once you get through the initial zones.
 

Alchemy

Member
No one I know that is big on the TES games really cares for TES Online. I'm a huge fan of the series, but what I love is digging through untouched caverns and dungeons on my own. I could see a local multiplayer option being decent, but an MMO really defeats what I love about the series.

And there is no way I'm subbing to an MMO now. The only game I would consider doing that for is WoW, mostly because I've sunk a lot of time into the game and will be interested in checking out the expansions as they come out. And that would only be for a few months. The last thing I want to do is drop $60 on an MMO only to play it for a month.
 
I'm not so sure this is going to be the colossal failure GAF thinks it will be. Elder Scrolls carries a lot of weight as a franchise, especially after Skyrim and it's shocking success with casual audiences. I mean look at Reddit, captions of Skyrim still regularly make the front page. It's insane.

So I say market this game like crazy and keep reinforcing that it's related to Skyrim and it will be somewhat successful in the short term. I do not think it will have any legs with a subscription model, so after they recoup some money, they had better be ready to go F2P.

But massive failure that will possibly bankrupt Bethesda and/or damage the ES brand? Not seeing it.

Yea I'm not going to doom and gloom on it. SWTOR eventually turned it's fortunes around somewhat, hopefully this does the same. It's not for me, but that's ok.
 

Macmanus

Member
I hope this is the nail in the coffin of WoW clone MMOs.

SWTOR eventually turned it's fortunes around somewhat, hopefully this does the same.

Wasn't TOR not that bad, but mostly just lacked end game content? Starwars is globally ubiquitous. TES is far more niche.
 

TheYanger

Member
I hope this is the nail in the coffin of WoW clone MMOs.



Wasn't TOR not that bad, but mostly just lacked end game content? Starwars is globally ubiquitous. TES is far more niche.

TOR was very wow clone, with a semi-neat levelling experience due to the class stories. If you took wow of say, 5 years ago and slapped a Star Wars skin on it, that's TOR. The game itself wasn't completely awful to play with that in mind, there just wasn't much reason to keep playing it. And of course, wow had improved a lot in the interim which is the real issue with these 'me too!' clones. You're aiming at a moving target, if you try to actually make your own style of game you don't have to worry about that part as much.

I honestly feel wow as it stands, for most classes, is about as deep as you can get hotkey based combat to be, There's not a lot of room to grow without a vastly different sort of combat. TES looks like it's different on the surface and more 'action-y' but the reality is you're just left with hotkeys, and a tacked on left click spam auto attack and right click block which is not all that exciting. Oh, and click both to interrupt the interruptable casts! That's no more engaging than Guild Wars or Secret World combat, but those games have other things going for them at least.

The main reason most hotkey based games feel shitty when it comes to combat mechanics is that they tend to lack depth. It took wow YEARS to get there, wow in vanilla was as rote as you could get, which was fine cause it was a new type of game for the time but now? it doesn't fly to have your game be so similar. You need complex resource systems, varied resource systems with different classes so that everyone can find one they like, and reasons to have decisionmaking during your combat. The days of 'hit these buttons on cooldown in this priority' have long since sailed in wow and games that ape that (TOR did for instance) just end up feeling old. There needs to be room to grow as a player and a reasonably high skill cap, which most of these games miss the mark on. A really really good wow player is VASTLY better at their class than the average. If I can memorize a basic rotation and perform 99% of optimally with little effort, your game is too simplistic, straight up.
 
I hope this is the nail in the coffin of WoW clone MMOs.



Wasn't TOR not that bad, but mostly just lacked end game content? Starwars is globally ubiquitous. TES is far more niche.

TOR was basically a good single-player game combined with a mediocre MMO.
 
I dunno just have a feeling this will be the biggest flop of 2014. I played the beta and I wasn't impressed or felt the need to play it.
 

Grief.exe

Member
Wasn't TOR not that bad, but mostly just lacked end game content? Starwars is globally ubiquitous. TES is far more niche.

The gameplay was dated and, outside of a couple classes, the stories were boring.

Mostly typical MMO tropes, kill 10 of these things, bring these here, but you get a poorly written cutscene at the end.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
NUMBERS

If they sell 7million (skyrim sold 10 in the first month) units with $45 revenue (consumer paying 60) a pop, they will have made a $115 million profit.

Month two, they make $105 million with no additional work, just on subs.

That's enough.

No, it's actually not enough, companies fund projects to earn a ROI, not just make $1 more than it cost them.

It's not easy to think of other projects they could have spent this $200 million on that will earn them more money. Hence, ESO was a bad decision.

And two things: running a MMO is expensive, so it's not just "no additional work." Two, many people buy these for the free month and then set them aside, especially if the game is bad.
 

UnrealEck

Member
I really wonder when we'll see the next WoW-quality MMO. I sort of wouldn't be surprised if it's WoW2 or Titan.
 

Jon Armdog

Member
Good lord, what a disaster.

I sure hope they at least did something about Elder Scrolls' awful combat system with all that money. If they are married to using the triggers, the obvious answer is just make an exact Dark Souls clone. Even better, I say journey beyond the triggers and emulate Dragons Dogma.
 
They already denied it in a way.

Update: ZeniMax responded and pointed me toward this satirical explanation from game director Matt Firor about the $200M budget.

Officially, ZeniMax told me to “keep looking in the upcoming days for an official statement about that, if it will ever come out.” Between these two items, I suspect my leg may be being pulled a bit, but good on them for having a sense of humor.
 

Nessus

Member
I really wish MMOs would move away from hotkey based combat.

It's pretty bad when Skyrim's combat looks great in comparison.
 
Heh, I should have made it clear that ZeniMax pointed that parody statement out to the forbes guy.

Update: ZeniMax responded and pointed me toward this satirical explanation from game director Matt Firor about the $200M budget.

Officially, ZeniMax told me to “keep looking in the upcoming days for an official statement about that, if it will ever come out.” Between these two items, I suspect my leg may be being pulled a bit, but good on them for having a sense of humor.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...st-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/
 
NUMBERS

If they sell 7million (skyrim sold 10 in the first month) units with $45 revenue (consumer paying 60) a pop, they will have made a $115 million profit.

Month two, they make $105 million with no additional work, just on subs.

That's enough.
Dude bro, you forgot server upkeep.
 
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