The Furious Angels
FA Discussion => Off Topic => Topic started by: Tbone on August 09, 2013, 04:01:14 pm
-
Anyone else get invited to the stress test this Monday? Of course it is the one year anniversary for my girlfriend and I, so I will not be able to do it! Grr...
-
Nope, would be fun to see when it gets around more.
-
Lucky, SOB.
-
Lucky, SOB.
You must have missed the part where I said I can't do it. It's only three hours long and I'll be busy.
-
Well, if no one else wants it, and your willing to part ways with it (I'm sure you could use it hostage and get something rifty for it) I would be interested in trying it out.
Just throwing that out there.
-
I'm keeping it as it says it increases my chances of getting in the regular beta. So even if I don't get to do the stress test, it's likely I'll get reinvited to the regular beta.
-
I have been in the last 3 beta tests. I don't think they have one that is constantly happening. The servers are only up for a few hours a day, usually for two or three days until they release a new build of the game. Since that is the case I haven't been able to spend a whole lot of time with it to really tell you anything more than what you can see on any officially released videos.
-
The last three? Hopefully I'll keep getting invited back as well then.
-
My theory is, if you get invited, you will be invited back every test after. But that is just a theory, there may be other tests I haven't been included in since I was originally accepted.
-
Mine is an invitation to a stress test. It says "Stress tests help us prepare for a smooth launch, and we'll have larger tests as we scale up to full capacity. In return for helping us, participating in a stress test will increase your chance to be invited to a normal, longer-term session."
Has yours been "stress tests"?
-
I'm going to be in it. I've been invited to the last 4 beta tests, but every time something has come up so I've only had about 3 hours of play time in it. I'm pretty sure Kron1k has it right though.
-
Can anyone who's been in the beta comment on gameplay?
After I saw this thread I did some digging and the game struck me as Guild Wars 2 in the Skyrim setting. Combat seemed a little clunky and PvP was a direct WvWvW rip off of Guild Wars 2.
The positive notes are that the art looked amazing and the character customization (abilities and cosmetics) seemed exceptional.
-
Mine is an invitation to a stress test. It says "Stress tests help us prepare for a smooth launch, and we'll have larger tests as we scale up to full capacity. In return for helping us, participating in a stress test will increase your chance to be invited to a normal, longer-term session."
Has yours been "stress tests"?
I think this is the first stress test I have been invited to, the other times it was a focused test, like test the new starting area. The last one was for the new build that added the new compass system and I think they mentioned something then that they were using it as a stress test for the account creation system as well by inviting a larger than normal group.
-
Ok, I managed to clear my schedule for this evening, so I should get a chance to check it out.
-
The game looks better than I thought it would. Graphically it looks great. And it looks and plays a lot like an Elder Scrolls game, if not a little LESS clunky than an Elder Scrolls game. So far it does seem a little themeparky, but that may just be the starter areas. Combat flowed well and lent itself to first person, with aiming being taken into consideration.
It looks like they are doing another test on Thursday that I get to do, as well as inviting more people!
-
I took the day off from work to try and get over this cold I have. As a bonus, I'll be free for the Beta tonight. Anyone else participating and want to group up?
-
I just noticed on the beta forums that they have put testers into different groups and named them. I'm in the Nocturnal's Testers group, which is believed to be mostly MMO players.
-
I am in Arkay's Tester group, don't know what that means yet.
-
Your testing group should have its own forum. Perhaps they've figured it out internally, though the thread I'm looking at just has a question mark by your testing group 0.o
-
Just finished my second test. Got to level 6 in three hours (after getting booted twice to test the login servers).
Graphics are stunning. It's also very well optimized - no perceivable lag from the servers or from my machine. Combat is great in 1st person - left click to attack, right click to block, hold to do heavy attack, hit left and right to interrupt. 1-5 are special abilities from either your weapon type or class tree.
It is very theme park. They use phasing as well, in that as you complete certain quests, you find things have changed around you (burning village, castle under seige, etc.). This makes for a dynamic world. Other players don't have nameplates in this build, which actually does a good job of blending players into the rest of the world so that it's hard to tell how crowded a place really is. No perceivable lag from tons of players in one spot either.
The world did not feel wide and open, but I was in the starter area. I didn't notice a big map that showed the whole continent or anything, but I didn't try zooming out.
All in all it already feels like a very well-put together game that successfully puts the core ES mechanics into an online environment. The question I have is what content will be left after your theme park ride of leveling up, and that's where we'll see if the game has sticking power (after all, you probably won't be able to mod it!). That, and if it will have Oculus Rift support!
-
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/21/the-elder-scrolls-online-will-require-a-1499-monthly-subscription-fee (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/21/the-elder-scrolls-online-will-require-a-1499-monthly-subscription-fee)
Waa waaaaaaaa
-
Did anyone honestly think the game would be free?
Seriously?
-
No, I thought it would be $60.
-
Well it will.
Every 4 months.
-
Actually it will cost $120 for the first four months. The game still costs $60 PLUS $15/mo the first month may be included, so maybe just $105!
-
Well in the end it may suck, but I wasn't hoping for free as most AAA titles don't take that route. :(
-
Well in the end it may suck, but I wasn't hoping for free as most AAA titles don't take that route. :(
Actually most have them had in the past few years. The two main MMOs left with a forced subscription model is WoW and EVE, which have both been around since 2004. It's been that long since a SUCCESSFUL MMO has stayed on a subscription model. Even SWTOR went F2P. GW2, Firefall, APB Reloaded, etc. etc. all F2P. Subscription just doesn't work 99% of the time anymore.
-
Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles, but that's just me. I would honestly prefer to pay for a game so I know it's going to be around a long time and have content at regular intervals.
I guess you can say the free stuff has been pretty ok, but you are always limited (in most cases) playing a FTP model.
Again, that's just me and it's only my opinion. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to games honestly. Meh.
-
Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles
The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term. It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless. When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.
Sorry Strod. Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.
I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now. They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features. Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it. From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.
I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed. From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things. That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.
-
Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles
The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term. It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless. When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.
Sorry Strod. Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.
I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now. They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features. Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it. From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.
I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed. From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things. That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.
From a economist perspective, the relative decrease in the consumer's income has reduced demand for the non-freemium models in the MMO market. Many gamers have found poor substitutes for large scale, well designed MMOs. This also has lowered demand, and therefore also reduced the consumer surplus in the models. As the demand is relatively inelastic at launch, the original purchase of the game generally includes the first month's fee, although companies camouflage this as a free month, which it truly isn't.
However, from the firm (ie Zenimax Online), they have a higher production cost, at least according to them, and I'm making an assumption (as all economists must to model situations) that they project a budget which out ways at least an initial freemium model.
I feel as most subscription based games will be following SWTOR's example, by starting out as a Sub Base with a free to play "freemium transistion" model in place for a point down the line where start up costs are no longer carried by the firm but rather the consumer via the voluntary subscription. For this example, Bioware's claim that SWTOR would be solvent at 500k subscribers, only exists after the sales of the two million subscribers at launch.
If I went a tad overboard, I found it interesting and just got out of my Econ classes.
-
Well I wouldn't consider those AAA titles
The term ""Triple A Title" is basically a bullshit term. It means so many different things to so many different people that it's worthless. When people use it what it comes across to me as a subjective term that they trot out to make a point they really don't understand.
Sorry Strod. Use something like "top subscribed games" or "top selling" or "most expensive to produce" or "fastest growing" or "longest lived" to make better points.
I think the gaming market is a lot like many other markets now. They give you a taste for cheap/free and if you really enjoy it they ask you to sub for the premium features. Many folks call this the "Freemium" model, while gamers use FTP to label it. From my perspective it's the future's model, not only in gaming but in many other markets.
I'm a lot less likely to commit my resources (time, money, effort) to something I haven't experienced and enjoyed. From market trends a lot of people think this way about a lot of things. That's what makes the FTP or Freemium models work.
From a economist perspective, the relative decrease in the consumer's income has reduced demand for the non-freemium models in the MMO market. Many gamers have found poor substitutes for large scale, well designed MMOs. This also has lowered demand, and therefore also reduced the consumer surplus in the models. As the demand is relatively inelastic at launch, the original purchase of the game generally includes the first month's fee, although companies camouflage this as a free month, which it truly isn't.
However, from the firm (ie Zenimax Online), they have a higher production cost, at least according to them, and I'm making an assumption (as all economists must to model situations) that they project a budget which out ways at least an initial freemium model.
I feel as most subscription based games will be following SWTOR's example, by starting out as a Sub Base with a free to play "freemium transistion" model in place for a point down the line where start up costs are no longer carried by the firm but rather the consumer via the voluntary subscription. For this example, Bioware's claim that SWTOR would be solvent at 500k subscribers, only exists after the sales of the two million subscribers at launch.
If I went a tad overboard, I found it interesting and just got out of my Econ classes.
You're right, and therein lies the issue. Starting with a high cost for the game ($60) and a premium subscription has become a red flag to savvy MMO gamers that a company is trying to make their profit quickly out the gate knowing that a lot of players will drop off after the first few months. The company waits for the numbers to drop and then turns to fremium to get them back.
The red flag is that there isn't really enough content to justify the premium subscription. The game is built to provide most of the interesting content up front with a lot of the "premium" features missing in the backend. By the time players reach the later levels/end game, the game has already got their $120 or so from you.
In terms of thinking of INVESTMENTS, as that's essentially what MMO players do is invest in a game, it's a poor investment to waste time and money into a game that isn't going to provide any value after the initial leveling grind.
F2P, or "freemium", works on the opposite model of creating a low entry bar to hook more players into their game and providing enough content and social atmosphere to keep those players around for a long time. Once a player is hooked, they'll gladly spend cash for various things as there isn't any other cost associated with the game. To go with this model, the gaming company has to be confident enough that their product will be able to hook a large player base.
For ESO, it's obvious that they are hoping to use their franchise name to get a large amount of customers to invest blindly up front (SWTOR had the same idea - Star Wars + Bioware). This will allow them to make their money back quickly. Once players drop off, which they know they will, they switch to f2p to get them back and start developing content for the long haul.
As a gamer, this means if you were smart, you'd wait for f2p. I think ESO is right in that enough people are obsessed that they are going to buy into it, but the reason it's a hot topic is because we're at the point now with MMOs that everyone KNOWS that they will go F2P as soon as that initial surge goes away, and so it leaves a bitter taste to those who know the game plan.
Honestly I can't blame ESO. They're right in that they can make that kind of money up front. It just makes me worried about where their focus is on the long term. I think it has the opportunity to be a good game and a good MMO, but if that will come into fruition before or after the f2p switch. It's also a risk for an MMO to start with a high sub as you run the risk of under-populating your servers to the point of no return. SWTOR is a good example where even going F2P hasn't given them the player activity that they possibly could have maintained by starting F2P.
-
Well the good thing about opinions is you can think they are bullshit, even mine and i don't have to care. ;)
I don't have to change my verbiage to make better points to you, because at the end of the day I don't care about making those points.
The game will have a Sub fee, in the furture maybe a FTP side model.
If you are going to play this on Xbox, good luck as you may have to also pay the 5$ gold fee on top of the game. They are trying to work that out, but who knows if they will actually get it.
-
Well the good thing about opinions is you can think they are bullshit, even mine and i don't have to care. ;)
I don't have to change my verbiage to make better points to you, because at the end of the day I don't care about making those points.
Oh you care.. you know you care.. :) So do I.. that's why I can't have a friend using BS verbage.. =p
-
Oh Mharz, what would I do without you.
I am cured! :P
-
New stress test this Tuesday.
-
Damn, Gmail has been auto-filtering out my emails, so I already missed a 6-hour non-stress test last Friday! I've been invited to the one on Tuesday as well.
-
I have an invite for this entire weekend. Anyone else?
-
I have an invite for this weekend as well. I won't be able to login until Saturday night. I'll be in Memphis on business.
-
My IGN is Tbown. I spent too much time customizing my character...lol
-
I have to work tomorrow, and then I'm on a two week trip for work. :/