[Speculation] Blizzard's Response to ESO?!?

[Nobleshield]

ESO isn't positioned as a true competitor to WoW but an alternative. Wildstar on the other hand is positioned squarely as a "WoW Killer" (although not for me). So I doubt they are worried about ESO since it appeals to a totally different type of gamer.

Honestly I played both ESO and Wildstar a bit and neither appealed to me one bit (if they were f2p I'd likely check one or both out, but not as a paid sub), in fact I could barely last 20 minutes in Wildstar before I was basically like "What the hell is this?" and stopped. Just nothing that caught my eye or attention, with graphics more cartoony than WoW (although to be fair that's the intent). ESO I think it was more that I despise the controls on the PC; if I was playing on a playstation or something then I might have enjoyed it more.

[Azgraal]

I had the misfortune of touching the beta. I'm aware. Still, there's no reason for them not to time it for then if they're capable.

I too played the beta. It felt it was to Skyrim what Shivering Isles was to Oblivion: an expansion pack. Where sometimes you see other players clubbing skeletons around you...

I really felt i was playing Skyrim, and that pleased me as i liked Skyrim a lot. It just fell short of convincing me it can be a good, nay, even an MMO to begin with.

This being said, i enjoyed much more the time i spent on ESO than on Wildstar, maybe due to the Skyrim thingy i just mentioned.

[Nosdrone]

I don't know what people see in Wildstar and how it can seriously compete with WoW, despite all the latter's faults.

This is no provocation, please understand this. I honestly don't know, as for all that i've seen Wildstar looks so much like all those promising "new gen" MMO that generated a lot of buzz (mainly the asian ones) then failed to hold ground.

If you've played any of the betas, I don't know how people can be so excited for the game.

Take Ratchet and Clank, sprinkle some Clone Wars, add a little GW2, and voila: you have WildStar. The 'engaging' combat is really a matter of moving out of glowing shapes and such on the ground, and no matter what people say, I found myself using 3-4 abilities for the first 20 or so levels.

I personally enjoy the art style and goofiness, but there's no 'hooks' in the lore or backstory. I literally just ran around and shot shit for a couple days because the game told me to run around and shoot shit. Same old questing, very grindy, just meh all around.

It'll find a decent playerbase, but it's not the game for me. Should be about as successful as RIFT, as someone stated earlier.

[Steampunk]

Even as one of the biggest TES fans around... I don't think TESO is a competitor to WoW.

Wildstar on the other hand...

[RoKPaNda]

It's exactly like the promotional images and videos, Wildstar is what it was billed as. That's the point though and the reason the devs are trying to downplay the hype. Any missed expectations are not on the fault of Wildstar advertising it's on the player.

No it's really not. Haha. The promotional images and videos that they showed us long before the beta started, the images and videos that got people all excited about WildStar and about how fresh and exciting the game world was .... That's NOTHING at all like what was given to us in the beta. It's a huge empty world, the vast majority of things aren't even close to finished. If you look on the WildStar website now the screenshots they have are a more accurate representation of what the game is like, but the screenshots and videos that caught people's attention and generated hype originally? Totally different game. What we're getting now is generic trash and I wouldn't pay a dime for it, and I'm saying that to you as someone that was super excited for WildStar from the moment that I heard about it.

But yeah I'm sure that the WildStar devs would love to think that all the huge audibly soulcrushing missed expectations aren't their fault.

[Ninotchka]

Nobody has seen TESO endgame yet, so can't tell if that will hold me once I finish levelling. I was enjoying the levelling game enough to say that I'm going to keep it for 60 days. If there isn't big WoW news once I'm done TESO levelling and TESO endgame doesn't suck then WoW is going to have to, er, wow me to get me back.

[smokii]

tbh, i wonder if wildstar and ESO appeal to different generations of gamers

wildstar seems more appealing to the 15-30 age group

whereas ESO seems more appealing for those 30+

...says the 32 year old

i have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but that seems to be the vibe i get - i could be completely wrong, but i might be on the money

[Nosdrone]

i have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but that seems to be the vibe i get - i could be completely wrong, but i might be on the money

ESO is definitely a much more serious game than WildStar -- there's no doubting that. Like I said earlier, some people also prefer high fantasy to science fiction. Elves and cat people are much more appealing to them then robots and bunny people.

[Hb]

Another shitty game.. nothing will ever be more popular than WoW.

[smokii]

ESO is definitely a much more serious game than WildStar -- there's no doubting that. Like I said earlier, some people also prefer high fantasy to science fiction. Elves and cat people are much more appealing to them then robots and bunny people.

aye

it just makes me laugh how all the wildstar fans are like "it's the bestest game evar!!" with some even claiming it'll be a wow killer

whilst the ESO fans are just happy to have an online multiplayer elder scrolls game

[Puupi]

This whole thread explains in a pretty nice manner how can Beliebers exist.

[Belloc]

I don't know what people see in Wildstar and how it can seriously compete with WoW, despite all the latter's faults.

This is no provocation, please understand this. I honestly don't know, as for all that i've seen Wildstar looks so much like all those promising "new gen" MMO that generated a lot of buzz (mainly the asian ones) then failed to hold ground.

The entirety of the buzz around Wildstar, from what I can tell, has been from people saying "The original WoW devs are working on it!" That's it. Without that incredibly misleading line, no one cares about the game.

[Lesane]

Even with their bullshit of the more expensive expansion that releases way later than it should, Blizzard still has nothing to fear from either WildStar or ESO.

[Nosdrone]

aye

it just makes me laugh how all the wildstar fans are like "it's the bestest game evar!!" with some even claiming it'll be a wow killer

whilst the ESO fans are just happy to have an online multiplayer elder scrolls game

The IP for ESO should alone draw more people to it -- the same way the FF IP drew people to FFXIV: A Realm Reborn. People enjoy playing in worlds that they already know and recognize. There's a reason why LotRO is still around and kicking after all these years: the love of Middle-earth.

I played 3 or 4 beta weekends on WildStar and couldn't tell you anything about the worlds I was playing on. One was a desert, uhh, and I shot a lot of things. Started out on a ship and ran around killing bunny people who were stealing vegetables.

No hook what-so-ever.

[Demonfetus]

Frankly, they just have to wait it out. They have Diablo 3 expansion and Hearthstone to keep people in the Blizzard universe, and they have a bit of a lull in WoW, so they're kinda laying low there. They also have early pre-orders to make sure people are reminded and come back to give WoD a shot when it comes out, even if they unsubscribe until then.

The best thing for WoW is for people to remain interested in the MMO genre in general - because blizzard knows that as long as other games keep being made that are going to inevitably fall short of what they have to offer, people will eventually tire of them and come back to WoW. Thus, people going to play things like ESO is actually a good thing for Blizzard.

In ESO's case, their fault is the same one that countless others have made before them - there's no end game. Leveling is fun, and there's "stuff" to do at max level, sure - PvP, master dungeons, etc - but compared to how Blizzard does end game, that is effectively zero content. Even other games that have made an earnest attempt to provide that sort of end game have fallen short due to the difference in experience/refinement that the dev teams have - SWTOR is a good example here - and ESO isn't even trying.

So TL;DR: Blizzard's answer to ESO? "Go play it. Have fun. You'll be back".

It is known! I unfortunately have to agree with this post. The few games who actually draw me from WoW are the single player games like Mass Effect, Skyrim, etc. Because they are refreshing and different from the MMO experience. When it comes to other MMORPGS's its always a dissapointment TBH. There is always something(or multiple things) terribly wrong. Lots of great potential wasted. When they make these MMOs they have to bring their A team if they want to succeed and take it serious. I feel like their B and C team is the one working on their MMOs, no offense to the developers. For example who worked on KOTOR vs SWOTOR? Who worked on Skyrim vs ESO? They also tried to convert the single player experience into MMORPG in one swoop. I think that might be proven a bad idea. Maybe converting Mass Effect or Borderlands or Gears of War into an MMO would be more effective. Although I think more fleshed out co-op would be superior. This leads me to think that Destiny might be the one with the biggest potential out of all upcoming games, because its more of a Borderlands meets mass effect combination rather than FULL SCALE MMORPG. I think the MASSIVE part should be rethought. Unless you are 100% sure you got a superior product to WoW you should stick to a tighter MEDIUM Multiplayer RPG. The most successful games at the moment are smaller scale multiplayer games with online persistence and community. MOBAS, CoD style shooters, Crafting & survival, Diablo clones. Hell even WoW is like that now. A basically single player/Co-op fleshed out scripted experience with instanced Multiplayer where you employ the core mechanics in a PVP or massive PVE competitive environment.

[valcrist]

Eso isn't good at all. I thought wild star would be blizzards biggest problem and it still might but I am in beta and I've been unimpressed by it and I was so excited to try it. It's boring, the combat is slow, questing and UI is archaic and it's really not a change from wow at
All.

[ShimmerSwirl]

How does this keep you playing content you have already done?

Cause you can mess around with a new class for a while, its like a new toy. All they care about is getting you to resub for the month of March so they can add you to the quarterly report as a active sub. If you cancel after that they don't care.

[McTurbo]

ESO isn't really in competition with WoW to be quite honest.

agreed, WoW has nothing to fear from ESO. read the threads about it.. it truly is as bad as people are saying

[roahn the warlock]

it really isn´t. it is Skyrim TESO in name only. Read the reviews. The people most disappointed with it are the people who wanted it to be Skyrim online.

Your comment is exactly the problem. Why pay a subscription to play a game online that is based off of, and worse, then the game you are playing. TESO takes away a lot of the great things about Skyrim, doesn´t add very much, and then throws $15 subscription on it.

played the beta, felt like skyrim to me. I am happy with it, sure it has problems, they are fixable.

and if I get patches every few months I will gladly pay the 15, as long as there is no pay to win shit like wow

[reemi]

ESO isn't really in competition with WoW to be quite honest.

Elder Scroll isnt a new game made by a random team located in an appartment with no budget...

Elder Scroll have already many fans, just check Skyrim... But, no it won't kill or destroy WoW, but it's a big challenger for them, it's the first mmorpg I pre-ordered since WoW.

I will play ESO, and if it's good as their other games, I won't play WoD.

It's only me maybe, but Blizzard are not trying to keep me playing WoW.