Elder Scrolls Online Team Hit With Layoffs

[Vivi22]

Give it another could months and it'll be what it was always destined to be: just another failed MMO. I don't think we can even blame WoW anymore since it's been bleeding subscriptions quite profusely for a while now. At this point the MMO's that are coming out are just bad games.

I wouldn't say the MMO's coming out are bad games (well, I would since I'm not a fan of MMO's, and most of them are incredibly poorly designed as actual games. WoW included. But that's not the point), it's that there are more than enough free ones that are just as interesting and well made as the subscription ones. And they're all making more money as F2P titles than they did using subscriptions.

Subscription MMO's is just a dead/dying business model. It's on it's last legs with the franchises that are established enough to get by on name recognition, and dead for everything else. Any company making a new MMO that banks on subscriptions making them money is just delusional.

ESO isn't trying to be a WOW killer. It's doing it's own thing. I don't understand why so many compare ESO to WOW. It's a completely different game with a completely different focus. ESO is focused on good quests, stories and exploration, and large scale, open world 3 way siege PVP. WoW is focused on raids and small scale 2 faction PVP.

WoW killer is probably the wrong term, but at this point, anything that still relies on subscriptions is either niche enough, and lean enough in development costs to make it (Eve Online), or it's trying to replicate the success that WoW had because their peak user base plus $15/month equals a license to print money.

But subscriptions are gradually dying off, and not without good reason. You can play any number of F2P MMO's now that are earning their keep that way, and are just as good/bad as any of the big boys depending on your taste for MMO's. It's remarkable that companies still try and follow that WoW model, even when their falling subscription numbers show they can't sustain it anymore either.

 

[MegaGame]

Did they final move the EU server to EU? I left the game after about 40 days, but was still reading on the differnt guild forum I was menber of, to see if any of the updates made it better, when they told they where not moving the server yet, 2 EU guild I was following went from 40-60 menbers on each night to be less then 10 online over about 2 weeks time.

ESO want to be an action mmo, but combat/controls react to slow, or did.
ESO want to give people freedom to build builds and classes they way, but then makes the game so if you dont use a good build and gear, you are ******.

ESO problem was that it try to be for the hardcores, the people that wanted a hard game, the people that wanted hardcore raiding, only 2 problems: first, not all that asks for this, actual knows what they are asking for, or they idea of this is WoW's hardcore raid standarts, the last one is, that those people that wants and knows what they ask for, is such a small group that you can't make enouge money to keep a server system a game like ESO needs running.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

 

[Sight Unseen]

ESO was a terrible attempt to make money by blanketing a generic MMO with a bit of an TES tinge to it, invented because they couldnt figure out how to make people pay sub fees for Skyrim. I hope it dies and burns in the bad-MMO layer of the hells where it belongs.

You've obviously never played it if you honestly believe that...

Did they final move the EU server to EU? I left the game after about 40 days, but was still reading on the differnt guild forum I was menber of, to see if any of the updates made it better, when they told they where not moving the server yet, 2 EU guild I was following went from 40-60 menbers on each night to be less then 10 online over about 2 weeks time.

ESO want to be an action mmo, but combat/controls react to slow, or did.
ESO want to give people freedom to build builds and classes they way, but then makes the game so if you dont use a good build and gear, you are ******.

ESO problem was that it try to be for the hardcores, the people that wanted a hard game, the people that wanted hardcore raiding, only 2 problems: first, not all that asks for this, actual knows what they are asking for, or they idea of this is WoW's hardcore raid standarts, the last one is, that those people that wants and knows what they ask for, is such a small group that you can't make enouge money to keep a server system a game like ESO needs running.

A few things to respond for you:

1. The EU server has finally moved to the EU as of last month, thankfully
2.They've improved the responsiveness of combat quite drastically. They've made weapon swapping smoother and more reliable, and added some more impact and visual cues for several abilities.
3. Any build can be viable to play for fun. I'm playing one character as a battlemage with a 2h sword and light armor, and a nightblade with a restoration staff... But if you want to play the competitive way, then OBVIOUSLY people will theorycraft it to death and find the combinations that give the most DPS/HPS and go with those builds. A game with as much class variety and build variety as ESO would be impossible to make everything equally viable, and why should it be? I play fairly casually and I do just fine with my strange and unconventional builds. I don't care what the top 1% are doing.

This game is fine for both casuals and hardcores alike. I'd actually say that the game is MORE catered to casuals because the leveling content is so awesome. The HARDCORE players all skip that and grind to VR 14 in a week to get to the "real game".

I'll stick with my awesome quest stories and beautiful zones TYVM.

 

[Sight Unseen]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

 

[faefrost]

At the end of the day they really only delivered a game that maybe a third of their fan base wanted. The PvP siege stuff makes it a nice targeted niche game. But for the actual Elder Scrolls fans or PvE MMO fans, it is at best meh, and for many pointlessly painful. They tried to serve too many masters in too many ways. I see the reduction of staff more as a retrenching of expectations. They may not be failing miserably, but they most certainly not succeeding even up to their least optimistic expectations.

Personally TESO was one of my more painful MMO experiences. Nothing about the game worked for me. I found it to be exceedingly unpolished and unrefined at launch day. I doubt if they could have patched in most of what was needed. like fun.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Funny. I hear from people who pop in from time to time that many bugs and issues since beta are still present, and there are still character rollbacks and exploits in PvP.

That doesn't sound so smooth to me. And throughout my time there, customer support was non existent. Like, literally. I never got to talk to anyone, half of my tickets went ignored (most were very constructive actual reports) and I never saw any employee post on the forum other than to warn someone who was ranting a little to hard.

I have no doubt the game will be around for awhile. I so wanted to enjoy it and still be playing it today, but there were too many major issues that were just left in there for way too damned long. Sorry, I'm not going to pay you to do your job at the pace of a drunken snail on a treadmill.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

Perhaps, but at this point what was a definite sell for me, has become a complete variable. Most of the word of mouth I am hearing doesnt bode well, which makes me want to investigate it further before I spend my money. Even more of a concern now is WHEN it comes out, which we still dont know yet, and what other games will be out at that time. Also, if I am going to have to pay $15 a month then it had best knock my socks off, or forget it. Trust me, I never let people make my decisions for me, but when you have this much noise about something, you would do well to at least investigate before strolling into something blindly.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I keep forgetting that this game even came out. Probably not a good sign.

I was super excited for it when it was first announced, but then when I heard you had to pay monthly for it (on top of a new console and the game itself), I quickly lost interest, but I kept it on the back burner. I figured maybe one day I'd give it a shot for like a month, maybe two. But seeing as I've heard absolutely nothing about it for six months (has it really been that long?), I think I'll just end up passing on it.

 

[Remus]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

Perhaps, but at this point what was a definite sell for me, has become a complete variable. Most of the word of mouth I am hearing doesnt bode well, which makes me want to investigate it further before I spend my money. Even more of a concern now is WHEN it comes out, which we still dont know yet, and what other games will be out at that time. Also, if I am going to have to pay $15 a month then it had best knock my socks off, or forget it. Trust me, I never let people make my decisions for me, but when you have this much noise about something, you would do well to at least investigate before strolling into something blindly.

This is the whole problem. You're letting others make the decision for you. If you look for faults you'll inevitably find them. It may be from people who haven't played the game since launch, if they played it at all, but hey, a bad game is a bad game right? Try the game for $20 - that's the price of 2 subs or a dinner at Ihop. Then come back and tell us if you think it's a shitty game. I think it's great! The graphics are beautiful - great desktop material, it's well optimized, my computer is 7 years old and is running it fine, and it scratches that adventure itch so very well that you can go back into zones you've well past outleveled and still discover new things to do. I don't know where people ever heard that there were rollback crashes. I've personally not had that happen since the game went live. When a new player asked "How do I get quests?" in zone chat, the answer was simple - go out and find them. This isn't a city/questhub-centered game. The wide majority of quests are obtained by going out and searching and a lot have at least a tangental connection to the main story. The PvP is great - you can easily level your character by lurking around Cyrodiil and questing/dungeon-delving when not in a siege group. PvP Campaigns can often fall into a pattern of gain/lose based on the active times of large PvP guilds. The campaign I'm on recently had an influx of players from 2 separate factions after my own faction had been dominating the map for a week. It keeps the PvP interesting as no one faction can hold the whole map for long before the other two decide to make an uneasy alliance and push them back.

This game isn't the simple cash-in that some people claim it to be. It's not a doorstop for the next single-player Elder Scrolls game. A different team was building the MMO, had been for years even before Skyrim was released, and ES games are largely generational anyway. You'll never see annual releases with Bethesda because that's not their business model. So to say that this game is preventing the next single-player release is simply untrue. Did the Final Fantasy MMOs prevent their next single-player release?

 

[Sight Unseen]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

Perhaps, but at this point what was a definite sell for me, has become a complete variable. Most of the word of mouth I am hearing doesnt bode well, which makes me want to investigate it further before I spend my money. Even more of a concern now is WHEN it comes out, which we still dont know yet, and what other games will be out at that time. Also, if I am going to have to pay $15 a month then it had best knock my socks off, or forget it. Trust me, I never let people make my decisions for me, but when you have this much noise about something, you would do well to at least investigate before strolling into something blindly.

That's fair enough. Just don't let the anti-hype give you the wrong impression. I still really don't understand why there was such a hate parade around this game. Sure it wasn't perfect and sure it had a bit of a rough launch, but I think it's still a very nice game, and it was WELL worth the subscription to me.

If I can be of any help as an opinion from the other side of the table, feel free to send me a PM with any questions or concerns you might have. I might be a bit biased in the other way though because I really do love this game and I don't think it deserved most of the doomsaying and hate that have been floating around since 2 years before it even launched.

If you have anything you'd like to know about the game I'll try to answer as honestly as I can and with as little bias as possible. Just send me a message . That goes for anyone, not just you. Any questions feel free to ask me

 

[Sight Unseen]

I keep forgetting that this game even came out. Probably not a good sign.

I was super excited for it when it was first announced, but then when I heard you had to pay monthly for it (on top of a new console and the game itself), I quickly lost interest, but I kept it on the back burner. I figured maybe one day I'd give it a shot for like a month, maybe two. But seeing as I've heard absolutely nothing about it for six months (has it really been that long?), I think I'll just end up passing on it.

All of the flavour of the month haters and reviewers have moved on to Wildstar and other random MMOs to complain about. The dedicated core of the players are still around and playing though and they're not nearly as vocal as the "ERRRMAGEEHHRRD FTP IN 2 WEEKS OR LESS!!1123131!!!" crowd.

 

[walrusaurus]

Nothing spells long term success like firing the people that will make content for your MMO but you're still going to throw lots of money at it.

Or you know, maybe they're letting go of support staff and the bot banning crew now that they're no longer needed. The article never says what kind or how many people got let go, so it could mean only a handful of redundant positions got cancelled. I wouldn't go all doomsday preachy yet until more info surfaces.

Hopefully this is not some kind of domino falling preparing for the end for ESO, it's a nice little game, not as amazing, innovative, or awesome as they'd want you to believe it's no wow killer but people need to stop trying to build a wow killer and offer something different. I played the beta and I never subscribed because it's fun but not real fun. however I want this game to succeed I mean lots of MMOs change drastically in their first year. so it'd be nice to see this thing get a chance to become something rather than wither in the first stretch.

ESO isn't trying to be a WOW killer. It's doing it's own thing. I don't understand why so many compare ESO to WOW. It's a completely different game with a completely different focus. ESO is focused on good quests, stories and exploration, and large scale, open world 3 way siege PVP. WoW is focused on raids and small scale 2 faction PVP.

Probably stems from them copying the faction system and then locking people to said factions like WoW did. If it has hardlocked factions then it's pretty much always instantly compared to WoW from what I've seen. Plus people usually will compare it to whatever is currently biggest regardless I've experienced. Probably because it's easier to use for such a thing than say a random mmo thats obscure.

Its not so much the faction locking as it is that WoW is simply THE benchmark for MMOs. All mmos are doomed to be compared to it until something equally revolutionary takes its place. It was the same way with Everquest in the days before WoW. The reason you dont see such comparisons as often in other genres is because, sadly, the MMO landscape is much more stagnant. Since these games tare so ridiculously expensive, publishers are completely unwilling to take risks.

There are essentially two styles of AAA MMOs that get made: WoW style, and Guild Wars. Every major release of the last decade falls somewhere between the two of them. Hopefully someday a studio will take the risk and make something totally outside the box; till then it'll all be compared to WoW.

 

[Seracen]

It's funny how every company makes the same argument when their MMO starts to founder...

To be fair, there IS an inevitable reduction in staff, resources, and subscribers after the first few months of any MMO. Still, I think it speaks volumes to the failings of ESO that many of us (ie: myself and my friends) had our fill during the beta. I hope this game can become competent one day. As for now, it just seems like a soulless mimic, an "Elder Scrolls Lite."

BTW: not hopping on the F2P bandwagon...as I feel that would be stupid for ESO. However, I am wholly in support of B2P (with REASONABLE microtransactions). Somewhere between GW2 and what SWTOR is now. I think Secret World has a decent balance...although I am a poor judge of such things (my methodology is often at odds with standard practice).

 

[Quadocky]

I play ESO. Its a very modern game, good for people who like MMOs without too much MMO in em.

Its sad to hear about layoffs in any case. It happens way too often in relation to video games.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

Perhaps, but at this point what was a definite sell for me, has become a complete variable. Most of the word of mouth I am hearing doesnt bode well, which makes me want to investigate it further before I spend my money. Even more of a concern now is WHEN it comes out, which we still dont know yet, and what other games will be out at that time. Also, if I am going to have to pay $15 a month then it had best knock my socks off, or forget it. Trust me, I never let people make my decisions for me, but when you have this much noise about something, you would do well to at least investigate before strolling into something blindly.

This is the whole problem. You're letting others make the decision for you. If you look for faults you'll inevitably find them. It may be from people who haven't played the game since launch, if they played it at all, but hey, a bad game is a bad game right? Try the game for $20 - that's the price of 2 subs or a dinner at Ihop. Then come back and tell us if you think it's a shitty game. I think it's great! The graphics are beautiful - great desktop material, it's well optimized, my computer is 7 years old and is running it fine, and it scratches that adventure itch so very well that you can go back into zones you've well past outleveled and still discover new things to do. I don't know where people ever heard that there were rollback crashes. I've personally not had that happen since the game went live. When a new player asked "How do I get quests?" in zone chat, the answer was simple - go out and find them. This isn't a city/questhub-centered game. The wide majority of quests are obtained by going out and searching and a lot have at least a tangental connection to the main story. The PvP is great - you can easily level your character by lurking around Cyrodiil and questing/dungeon-delving when not in a siege group. PvP Campaigns can often fall into a pattern of gain/lose based on the active times of large PvP guilds. The campaign I'm on recently had an influx of players from 2 separate factions after my own faction had been dominating the map for a week. It keeps the PvP interesting as no one faction can hold the whole map for long before the other two decide to make an uneasy alliance and push them back.

This game isn't the simple cash-in that some people claim it to be. It's not a doorstop for the next single-player Elder Scrolls game. A different team was building the MMO, had been for years even before Skyrim was released, and ES games are largely generational anyway. You'll never see annual releases with Bethesda because that's not their business model. So to say that this game is preventing the next single-player release is simply untrue. Did the Final Fantasy MMOs prevent their next single-player release?

You kinda missed the point that I made that I DONT let people decide things like this for me, but that when I hear alot of complaints it warrants investigation. Also, I cant play it yet, I still have to wait for it to come out on the Xbox One.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Yeeeeeeah.... at this point, this game is fizzling more than a Monster Energy drink. Thats a shame, too, because I was REALLY interested in it at one point. Once they finally launch it on consoles, which I now have serious doubts too, I am seriously doubting that I will be picking this up now.

Confirmation bias is a *****. That seems to be what most the naysayers are relying on here. It's a good game and well worth trying out to see for yourself. Especially if you can buy it cheap on amazon or elsewhere.

Perhaps, but at this point what was a definite sell for me, has become a complete variable. Most of the word of mouth I am hearing doesnt bode well, which makes me want to investigate it further before I spend my money. Even more of a concern now is WHEN it comes out, which we still dont know yet, and what other games will be out at that time. Also, if I am going to have to pay $15 a month then it had best knock my socks off, or forget it. Trust me, I never let people make my decisions for me, but when you have this much noise about something, you would do well to at least investigate before strolling into something blindly.

That's fair enough. Just don't let the anti-hype give you the wrong impression. I still really don't understand why there was such a hate parade around this game. Sure it wasn't perfect and sure it had a bit of a rough launch, but I think it's still a very nice game, and it was WELL worth the subscription to me.

If I can be of any help as an opinion from the other side of the table, feel free to send me a PM with any questions or concerns you might have. I might be a bit biased in the other way though because I really do love this game and I don't think it deserved most of the doomsaying and hate that have been floating around since 2 years before it even launched.

If you have anything you'd like to know about the game I'll try to answer as honestly as I can and with as little bias as possible. Just send me a message . That goes for anyone, not just you. Any questions feel free to ask me

Thank you!!! I appreciate that!