Hmm.. That poll looks legit. Looks like one man, one vote.mrmoneda_sl said:
492- yes.
664- no.
346- Could give a shit.
Besides, there's no way for a Massively poll to be fucked. Oh wait...Manipulatable polls are manipulated.
Massively_sl said:
The Elder Scrolls Online
- Thread starter Anomander Rake
- Start date
492- yes.
664- no.
346- Could give a shit.
Besides, there's no way for a Massively poll to be fucked. Oh wait...Manipulatable polls are manipulated.
Most of the points he advocates for do not necessarily depend on the validity of his inside sources.
Not really, but the guy hasn't been "wrong" about any other shittastic MMO's that we have discussed on this forum for the past decade. He still hasn't gotten all of his internets back from after the Vanguard debacle. The man deserves his reparations.
It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict that a bad mmo will be a bad mmo, but at least Ut has been consistent over the years. If you were in his shoes, sharing his insights on inner office drama, wouldn't it be fair to say that some of his insights couldn't be that far from the truth?
I used to work for a Starcraft 1/2 fansite a few years back and I heard some insider info about Blizzard's Project Titan. It doesn't mean I directly knew a guy that worked for Blizzard. Hell, it doesn't even matter if what I was told was 100% accurate either. What I heard then sounds pretty fucking accurate even now, simply because after being at least 6 years into development, we have seen absolutely nothing. That's what really matters. The rest is filler because we are gamers. Blizzard STILL doesn't have shit to show for their game yet. Maybe soon, but not yet.
80% of the time when you hear negative rumors about something, there's usually some truth to it. It's less about being a pussy about the NDA and it's more about making sure forum mods or people working on a salary don't have their livelihoods ruined over a bad configuration of 1's and 0's. The only time I didn't believe any game rumors was when that mouth breather Pendragon was involved (the previous Dota 1 community manager that went to go work for Riot on League of Legends.) If the town crier doesn't have an axe to grind, it's most likely true. Other examples of shit rumors were the leaks about SWTOR and leaks about office drama regarding Warhammer and Mark Jacobs. Who gives a crap if they were 100% true or not? Obviously something went down.
Paul Sage doesn't exactly have a stellar track record, so I buy it....
Whoops! Forgot to switch forum accounts! My bad guys!
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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I like pickles in everything. Everything.
Is it even profitable to retain subscriptions long term anymore? I mean... New players in MMORPGs these days have very diminishing returns after a certain level. Before cash shops, each subscriber was a steady flow of income every single month. $15+$15+$15+15... Etc etc.
NOW though, a subscriber downloads the game for either free or the box price, and now have a new opportunity to purchase additional digital items. It's a pretty well known fact that customers make purchases the most rapidly early on in their entertainment experience. So, spend tons of resources to hook them by level 10, get them to purchase a mount, a couple xp pots, a costume, whatever. So that new player's payment record looks like $60+$40+$15+$15...etc etc
So... Does it really make sense to focus on retaining a player for more than 2 months? You could be devoting the resources to the next expansion to quickly fleece them all over again...
*shrug*
Just keep in mind when it comes right down to it. Most companies aren't interested in making excellent player experiences. They are interested in making excellent investor experiences.
Vitality
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ESO is a subscription based model, but are actively choosing the short term retention development cycle. Seems a bit contradictory.
Contradictions in business and development models alone don't particularly make for great player experiences OR great investment experiences.
I take it the investors are just happy to ride the value of the IP at this point, much like SW:ToR, I can't really see any other angle to look at this from.
Do you always jump to conclusions and assume the worst even if you don't have access to all the facts?
The fact that the 0.181 patch didn't have an entry that said "Fixed a bug with mega server architecture causing severe lag in Cyrodil" is not an indication that ZOS is blowing it off and focusing on improving the starter areas.
All it means is that whatever is causing the lag problems in Cyrodil hasn't been fixed yet.
Vitality
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Do you always try and twist other peoples words to fit your vested interests?
I was speaking to the focus of the patch notes, which were most certainly not focused around any core gameplay development other than the tutorial zone with the exception of a few quality of life improvements and story line bug fixes.
This is not an assumption of the worst, simply an observation on the focus of their development resource choices.
Furthermore, you're being VERY selective with your contributions to the various statements I've made, I certainly am curious as to why.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Flake
Golden Knight of the Realm
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My mistake for just linking to that post, because the poll had nothing to do with my point. You stated ZOS "aren't being honest about what the game is ultimately about," but most of their marketing, and the media coverage they've received, point to exactly the opposite. I don't know how many people are truly confused about what ZOS' current focus seems to be, but if they are I don't blame ZOS for that.
Vitality
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I like the way you work it, no diggity no doubt, bout to bag it up. Hey yo hey yo hey yooooooo.
But yeah, cosmetic shop (although not implemented yet from what I could tell last weekend), could be something to what you're saying. If that's their target audience.
A bit hard to support credibility in cosmetic sales if your player base drops off the face of the earth after the first free month.
Speaking from personal experience: I've easily spent a gnarly amount of money on league of legends skins, because the meat is there for me as far as replayability/longevity and community (my friends). Epeen not withstanding. I'd need my friends (new or old) to stick around in order for me to deem ESO's cosmetics purchasable.
If they're going for GW2's model, I'm going to get a great chuckle.
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Pay no mind to Rescorla. If it isn't a post about Ut being wrong or a glowing review of ESO he will text rape you. INB4 anything he says in retaliation.
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In a brief search I just did it looks like there will be a vanity cash shop, but you're right I've read few of "There is" "There isn't" articles. So who knows.
Vitality
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I'm going to name my Dapper Mudcrab "Blackwulf Shillington" he's going to have a monocle.
He only comes out a couple hours out of the day and has a very strict gleuten free diet.
He only dates prominent female mudcrabs, partially because he grew up in the south, I've told him it's a little racist. His response was: "Taste is taste."
He doesnt take much lip, he considers most mudcrab to human interactions to be simple business transactions.
Sometimes I'll wonder if it was worth buying him in the first place.
IRL: I'm wondering if I should name my next cat Blackwulf
That's the exact one. It seems ZOS didn't anticipate entire raids or guilds intentionally allowing themselves to be defeated to manipulate the boards. The way to address that is then to have diminishing returns for players in the same large group or guild. It shouldn't be that so many players are worth zero right away, but that their AP worth decays with each kill and then slowly gets restored with time.
With all the data they have now, they should know the rate that players can accumulate AP under normal circumstances, without anything shady going on. They merely need to ensure that defeating associated players can't be used to gain AP at a faster rate. All the numbers are there, and it shouldn't be a lot of work to implement the math, since they already keep track of which players have recently been defeated.
This raises the matter that they might not actually intend on fixing that though, which imho will end up alienating players who aren't key figures in powerful guilds. The question is, will they be honest and tell Johnny GoodPK'er that he will never, ever be emperor or keep up a charade? This isn't cynicism talking. Their design for a player economy is unstable because it depends upon keeps that change hands often without dealing between big guilds. It is entirely possible that this is a feature, in which case they shouldn't tease players with dreams of things they'll never be allowed to accomplish.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
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it should be voter based. like once a month. vote for emperor.
Everyone on the server gets a vote. "maybe" slightly weighted for pvp rank.
would force players to interact as a server/faction. campaign, work together etc. in the end, a popularity contest for sure. but then, what makes you popular in a RvR game? active leadership, and public awareness right?
Everyone on the server gets a vote. "maybe" slightly weighted for pvp rank.
would force players to interact as a server/faction. campaign, work together etc. in the end, a popularity contest for sure. but then, what makes you popular in a RvR game? active leadership, and public awareness right?