Yes, you’re reading that right, I canceled my ESO subscription last week. The Elder Scrolls Online is a great game and anyone who is thinking of purchasing it for the consoles when it releases on June 9th I would still recommend them to do so. There is no denying that ESO is easily worth its initial investment but I can’t say with confidence that it’s worth the continuous investment.
I really enjoy ESO. I think it’s undoubtedly the best MMORPG on the market right now. That said I am starting to see some aspects that I just don’t agree with. It feels like the PC players have been completely swept under the proverbial rug while they focus on the console side of the game and my biggest reason for canceling is I don’t feel the game is worth my subscription fee at this time. Maybe it will be in the future, but not right now.
I understand the importance of marketing their console version. It’s a major revenue source for them. But to completely neglect the PC players isn’t something I can endorse by giving them my money. For the last four months, since the content related patch dropped, it’s been nothing but console information. Console this, console that. Nothing has been said about the PC version. Nothing has been spoken about Imperial City. This is something that’s going to be on both platforms anyways, but nothing has been published. Even Wrothgar, an entire DLC that is being released (most likely in the New Year *speculation*) hasn’t even been discussed. Why? Give us PC players something to nibble on, something to keep us excited.
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They’ve stated that once the console version is released they’ll be discussing the Imperial City and future content is much more detail. Well we have nothing at the moment so anything is going to be considered “much more detail”.
I know this article seems like I’m whining like a toddler because I’m not getting enough attention, but that’s not the case at all. If Zenimax wants people to give them $15 a month every month, they need to provide the value in content via actual game content or content on the website to keep us interested. In my last article I wrote about how Zenimax is secretly being transparent adding in images to the client so they get data-mined and we provide feedback on them. Which is fine, if the developers also commented on the forums to join in the discussion. If you go to the forums the only ZOS posts you’ll find are from the community team, rarely will you find one from an actual developer. I’m not asking for them to sit on the forums and reply to every thread they were tagged in.
I know they’re busy. But Brian Wheeler, the Lead PvP Designer, a person who controls everything to do with Cyrodiil itself (not class balancing) posts once a month, if we’re lucky. This is the guy who’s in charge of Imperial City, a feature that is more anticipated than any previously added content. He could be throwing in clarification posts to help people understand Imperial City. Even starting a thread where he’s discussing a small section of Imperial City. Obviously IC isn’t ready. Otherwise it’d be in the game right now. But Imperial City is HUGE, there must be aspects of it that are finalized, that he could be discussing now. Not in great detail mind you, but some would be nice.
At E3 I suspect they’ll be doing a lot of talk about IC and Wrothgar but why do we always have to wait for large conferences to get any sort of information. Save the big stuff for then, but throw us some small things in between.
Take a quick look at how Blizzard does it. They announce most of their extremely large news at BlizzCon, but throughout the year they are constantly throwing us tidbits of information. The content might be a year away from release but they’re still giving us information. IC has been discussed since Pre-Launch by the ZOS developers. It’s been hyped by the team, but since the game launched all information about IC has ceased.
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Like I said, it feels like the PC players have been swept under the proverbial rug while they allow the console to walk all over us for a while. What happens when the console version is released? Are they going to focus on both PC and Console at the same time? Why can’t they do that now? A nice 40% attention to PC and 60% attention to consoles would’ve been nice. I’m not even going to get into the fear I have with content being delayed longer for the PC market due to console patches having to go through an approval process with Sony/Microsoft first.
The other reason I canceled my subscription is because there is no added perk benefits month to month. If you own the game you get all of the content that is available for free. Nothing is locked behind a pay wall, you’re experience gain isn’t slowed down. You do get a 10% boost to your XP when you’re an ESO plus member but is that 10% really worth $15? The perks for being an ESO Plus member as of right now provide you with no substantial gain.
You get a 10% to XP gain, you get 1500 crowns every month, DLC access. The only aspect that would be remotely worth it right now is the 1500 crowns. However the items in the crown store aren’t anything but cosmetic items. Which is fine, but a lot of them (mounts specifically) are all the same just with a different colour added to it. The only unique items in the store are the ones that came out when the store was first launched in March and at the time we were all given a bunch of free crowns. So we don’t have anything to purchase right now, add in some unique items and perhaps the 1500 crowns may become useful.
As of right now, ESO is not worth the $15 optional fee. Perhaps when we see the first DLC drop and the price gets listed in the crown store, maybe then the fee will have some value. But until then, I’ll be keeping my money in my pocket.
