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

[Alroxas]

Frankly I'm surprised that this pre-order of WoD comes this early instead of waiting till the first week of April (to compete against ESO). After all, Diablo 3's RoS is 2 weeks out and it seems that by opening pre-orders this soon, Blizzard would create a bit of competition between two of its own IPs.

However, traditionally Blizzard has countered the launch of other MMOs with something equally enticing in WoW to deflate the sails of their competitors. Which begs the question what Blizzard might be up to on the first week of April when ESO launches.

It would be too hopeful to think that 6.0 would arrive at the PTR in the first week of April but I would speculate that would be a very big counter to folks switching over to ESO.

/Discuss

[GrinnersGrin]

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

[roahn the warlock]

Its just far enough back to compete but remain under the radar. Anyone who thinks it is this early for any other reason is a fool. It's a underhanded business move to put a game up for preorder 8 months before release just so people buy it right before ESO comes out

[Wrathonia]

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

This. The closest current competition wow has is Wildstar.

[Schizoide]

WoD beta starting will likely be their ESO distraction.

[ShimmerSwirl]

The reason they are doing it now is to use the level 90 boost to encourage people to continue playing. We are in the last month of Q1, content is stale, there is nothing on the horizon. Blizzard is using the 90 boost to help their numbers for the quarterly report.

[Iseeyou]

Activision cant compete with eso/wildstar/eqn/gw2 china and starcitizen DMF module at the same time.

[Deleted]

hardly anyone will play ESO after 2 months

[roahn the warlock]

hardly anyone will play ESO after 2 months

Here I am, still playing Skyrim.

What is ESO? really big skyrim

[Iseeyou]

hardly anyone will play ESO after 2 months

Hello.

I will. And milions will do the same after all the independant press review the game 19/20 and put an end to fake/paid comments over internet.


See you in game.

[Nosdrone]

ESO and WildStar won't do anything to WoW. GW2 and SWTOR were (and are) bigger pulls than either of those games.

[Iseeyou]

ESO and WildStar won't do anything to WoW. GW2 and SWTOR were (and are) bigger pulls than either of those games.

Well you are wrong.

[Nosdrone]

Well you are wrong.

I'm not, but OK. GW2 is a sequel to a game played by ~6 million and SWTOR had the Star Wars license + BioWare.

WildStar is a niche science fiction game and ESO is another run-of-the-mill fantasy MMO. It will sell boxes because it's Elder Scrolls, but unless you PvP and/or like first person combat, the game won't stick for many.

[Deleted]

Hello.

I will. And milions will do the same after all the independant press review the game 19/20 and put an end to fake/paid comments over internet.


See you in game.

I will be swapping Azeroth for Nirn too!!

[Shamanberry]

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".

[Neemo]

The reason they are doing it now is to use the level 90 boost to encourage people to continue playing. We are in the last month of Q1, content is stale, there is nothing on the horizon. Blizzard is using the 90 boost to help their numbers for the quarterly report.

I got no beef with this. Instant 90 on another class on another server on the other faction.

- - - Updated - - -

Hello.

I will. And milions will do the same after all the independant press review the game 19/20 and put an end to fake/paid comments over internet.


See you in game.

Source?
/10char

[Azrile]

Frankly I'm surprised that this pre-order of WoD comes this early instead of waiting till the first week of April (to compete against ESO). After all, Diablo 3's RoS is 2 weeks out and it seems that by opening pre-orders this soon, Blizzard would create a bit of competition between two of its own IPs.

However, traditionally Blizzard has countered the launch of other MMOs with something equally enticing in WoW to deflate the sails of their competitors. Which begs the question what Blizzard might be up to on the first week of April when ESO launches.

It would be too hopeful to think that 6.0 would arrive at the PTR in the first week of April but I would speculate that would be a very big counter to folks switching over to ESO.

/Discuss

Blizzard has said, and their track record proves that they do not move launch dates around based on competition, not even from their own games. During an expansion, Blizzard puts patches out every 4-6 months, obviously they are almost always going to get within 2 months of the launch of another game... it is almost impossible not to.

But ever since AOC and Warhammer, Blizzard has shown that they do stuff when it is ready. Blizzard easily could have rushed their expansion to beat Warhammer, instead, they launched a few months after.

I think people like to speculate about this stuff and can´t seem to realize that Blizzard is constantly doing promo type stuff, and some of it is always going to hit around the same time as a new game. As AOC, Warhammer and Star Wars have shown, those games don´t need Blizzards help to fail hard.

Also, I think Blizzad is much less worried about TESO then they were about Star Wars. Teso is getting terrible press and the core skyrim fans hate it. They took away the best parts of Skyrim and added the worst parts of MMOs. Nobody is going to be happy. The MMO crowd is going to find lack of endgame content and progression, and the skyrim fans are going to find lack of exploration and roleplaying. it is just a shallow MMO with a terrible combat system. Will be f2p long before WoD is released.

[MrLordDariusCrowley]

Ignore it?

[Azrile]

Here I am, still playing Skyrim.

What is ESO? really big skyrim

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.

[l33t]

Blizzard have nothing to fear out of ESO (except Zenimax's awful artists and modelers would suddenly infiltrate Blizzard's ranks). ESO is a failure worse than SWTOR was. You'll see.

Here I am, still playing Skyrim.
What is ESO? really big skyrim

Here I am, still playing Morrowind with mods. What is ESO? Really big abomination, that has nothing to do with true ES gameplay.