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

[shoc]

No they didn't. What's happening is that the people that do enjoy it can't handle that it's being called out as at best a niche MMO and at worst the biggest failure this side of Nar Shadaa (SWTOR). If you enjoy it that's fine but when critical consensus combined with a non existent hype train show you otherwise don't attack the majority of MMO players because they see it for what it is.

Consider the fact that, for the most part, Elder Scrolls is not in the slightest a selling point. People recognize the names Skyrim and Oblivion, most of my gamer friends couldn't differentiate Elder Scrolls from Scrolls of Lore or Scrolls, that game Mojang made. Heck, ESO hype is mostly nonexistant outside of their subreddit.

[Splatter]

No. That isn't true. All that is happening is a bunch of people telling eachother that they've a friend of a friend of an uncle's maid's best friend that said the game was bad.

People that actually tried the game highly enjoy it.

I tried it twice, tried to force myself to play to level cap (beta cap) and try out the pvp. I did not like it at all and it is the first MMO I will not be playing on release since Vanguard.

[MoanaLisa]

The only people who think it will be a 'Wow-Killer' are wow players. It always has been them spouting that annoying term. I think ESO will be pretty successful. That in the end is all that matters.

I love the hubris of Blizzard tho. With a few big mmos on the horizon they announce no new content for possibly nine more months.

Blizzard is making a bet that neither one of these are actively going to catch on fire. So perhaps it's a good strategy to wait it out. I think if that's true, it's bad for players but I don't believe that the late date of fall release for the expansion is based on marketing strategy. I think they're not as far along today as they thought they might be when they were at Blizzcon. Speculating about why that is can be pretty interesting. In either case, if the spring/summer MMO releases don't do really well and maintain a sustained buzz they'll have August/September largely to themselves to do their promotion. Meanwhile, people are probably signing up left and right for it to get to their new 90 and more than a few are going to spend some money between now and then anyway. Since one purchased 90 equals four months of subscribing I'm sure they'll manage. Somehow.

Blizzard's strategy in all of this seems to me to be pretty layered.

[Deadite]

What's happening is that the people that do enjoy it can't handle that it's being called out as at best a niche MMO and at worst the biggest failure this side of Nar Shadaa (SWTOR).

Yeah they only made $139,000,000 just from microtransaction last year. What a bunch of losers!

[Deleted]

This happens with every single MMO that is released. The WoW crowd starts trolling everywhere telling everyone that the game will be shit before they even tried it. It happened even with Wildstar long before any details even were known about that game. It already had forum threads full with posts: "the game is going to suck hard! My friend is in the super secret closed beta and says it sucks!"

It's why people should check these things out for themselves, because the general opinion just can't be trusted anymore today. If it's not WoW or CoD it'll be negatively received...

Seriously? Everyone here has tried it. And we all conclude that it sucks ass. You seem like a weirdo making up your own little world.

[Deadite]

Blizzard is making a bet that neither one of these are actively going to catch on fire.

I think they are gambling even more that that. They are going all in by the look of it. I think they hope that people will play and subsequently be sick off them by the time WoD rolls out. Pretty risky strategy if true.

[Lesane]

There'll also be PvE endgame content. Adventure zones, on which they'll release much more information soon(tm).

The MMO playerbase is merciless. If the PVE endgame content they have in mind is currently just a term/name and nothing more than that, while the game will release in a month they are doomed. That content should already be in the beta and getting tested. There were a few other MMO's that made the mistake of coming out without a good chunk of endgame content. Needless to say they didn't do very well past their first month. The more you preach about ESO, the more I'm getting Deja Vu's about SWTOR. And I actually did play SWTOR at the start. It wasn't that bad of a game really, although it had some huge technical issues and a lack of endgame content which made me not bother paying past the first month.

A lot of players will be coming from WoW and expect a similar standard. That standard is obviously not going to be met. WoW had the advantage of people not expecting a shitload to do at level cap, because there wasn't a game like it before and it was the first MMO for most of the players.

[Sorrior]

Wildstar is a niche sci-fi game just like WoW was a niche fantasy game that was never designed to have over 500,000 players. You think that the cultural saturation that Warcraft has now is from the RTS'? It's from an MMO that was supposed to be a small deal that no one thought would be a success, here we are ten years later.

Frankly I see either Wildstar or FFXIV inheriting the king title someday.

[MoanaLisa]

In my mind everyone that thinks ESO is a bad game is absolutely........ dumb. I can't understand it no. To me it comes across as just malicious intent, because no sensible person can be hating on this game.

I don't understand people who don't like Mozart either. But you know: opinions. People like different stuff. I tried the beta one weekend and decided I was better off just playing Skyrim. So, opinions.

[Deadite]

In my mind everyone that thinks ESO is a bad game is absolutely........ dumb. I can't understand it no. To me it comes across as just malicious intent, because no sensible person can be hating on this game.

You are on a wow fan site. It is hardly an impartial audience. They hate anything that is not wow/blizzard around these parts.

[MoanaLisa]

I think they are gambling even more that that. They are going all in by the look of it. I think they hope that people will play and subsequently be sick off them by the time WoD rolls out. Pretty risky strategy if true.

It's a pretty safe bet if there's not much to end game in either game. People will more than consume the game in under four months otherwise.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I've been starting to consider this as a factor into what Titan was and will be as well. They started it supposedly right around TBC/Wrath when the market still seemed like subs were the way to go and since then the market has drastically changed. I'm almost positive that they scrapped what was there not because it was sub-par but because it would not stand a chance in the current market and they needed to rework it so that it would.

Excellent point and would in fact be correct. Everything Blizzard have been doing for the past few years have been trying to get into the f2p market and when they announced that Titan was not going to have a subscription fee it was pretty clear as day why they rebooted the project (not to mention that the technology was getting old considering how many years they've been working on it).

[Nosdrone]

The MMO playerbase is merciless. If the PVE endgame content they have in mind is currently just a term/name and nothing more than that, while the game will release in a month they are doomed. That content should already be in the beta and getting tested. There were a few other MMO's that made the mistake of coming out without a good chunk of endgame content. Needless to say they didn't do very well past their first month. The more you preach about ESO, the more I'm getting Deja Vu's about SWTOR. And I actually did play SWTOR at the start. It wasn't that bad of a game really, although it had some huge technical issues and a lack of endgame content which made me not bother paying past the first month.

That was the biggest problem with TOR -- they didn't grasp just how 'hardcore' the MMO market is. They released a game based on story and folks spacebar'd their way to 50 in a matter of days. Once people realized that the endgame was buggy, broken, and untested, they bailed.

You have to launch with content (other than PvP) for people to do at max level, or they're gone. Period. It's happened time and time again.

[Deleted]

Yes, seriously.

Your general opinion sucks, in my book, because I'm highly enjoying the game and I'm going to be enjoying the fuck out of this game for at least months to come, while you'll be getting bored in Siege of Orgrimmar.

In my mind everyone that thinks ESO is a bad game is absolutely........ dumb. I can't understand it no. To me it comes across as just malicious intent, because no sensible person can be hating on this game.

Well your opinion is subjective. That means it's how YOU feel about it, and no one else. Everyone has their own subjective opinion. Most of the opinions about this game seem to be negative as you can tell in this thread. Just because there are so many ppl disliking doesn't make the game bad for YOU.

You just have to accept that preaching to us won't change our opinion. You better use your power and energy into something that's worth it instead of trying to sell ESO to people who don't want it.

Oh and months of SoO ? Well, if I get bored, I'll unsub. If I want to play I resub. Not that hard. No big deal either. It's always been like that. You have to be a little drama bitch if you whine about that fact.

[Traveler Voltin]

the likely response is:
ESO released
the next day Blizzard releases lots of info about WoD and gives beta date.

wait when is ESO being released anyway? i may be off in what i said depending on its actually release.

[Instructor Soki]

ESO isn't really competition to any established MMO aside from the first month.
I think the only MMO it'll be competing directly with is TOR.

[MoanaLisa]

You are on a wow fan site. It is hardly an impartial audience. They hate anything that is not wow/blizzard around these parts.

Please go and visit the video games forum if you think that's all that's here. I'll allow that people that post in any of the WoW forums are going to have their biases. But the site is a lot more than just that.

[MagicMedicine]

you mean copy pasting EQ gameplay? cuz that is some exquisite shit right there.

FTFY, by extension.

It's amazing how some people think WoW was in any way innovative at any point in it's history (and no, it's not successful because it was innovative). Advancement of genres happen slowly and incrementally, be that in games, music, literature, anything. Everything is copied from somewhere else and changed to taste. That's the way it works.

Also, IB4 "lol m8 i alphatested UO and id rather give my dog a bj than play something that isnt wow lol derp"

[Grush]

No. That isn't true. All that is happening is a bunch of people telling eachother that they've a friend of a friend of an uncle's maid's best friend that said the game was bad.

People that actually tried the game highly enjoy it.

Lol dude even Curse gave away 500k keys everyone and their mother played it, and I for one disliked it immensely as well as all my friends who enjoy WoW and my other friends immediately got turned off because it was subscription based.

[dashflash890]

As a current WoW player (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...shear/advanced) and I also already bought WoD digital deluxe, Honestly I don't like ESO that much but I will still be getting it same with Wildstar. Some of you other WoW players sure do talk a lot of Sh*t knowing you will be stuck with SoO and sitting in shrine for 8 months minimum. I will be coming back for WoD but I wouldn't call another game "crap" when you will be stuck playing the same old crap for almost a year. While me (it might not be "awesome") will be playing something new in the time being. And by the way. If anything ESO is more comparable to GW2 than WoW. From my beta testing observations. I