With New World launching and taking a massive chunk of the player base, is the Elder Scrolls Online in trouble? This is the written post alongside a video giving my opinion on the situation.
Video Opinion
Intro
I think we need to have a real conversation about New World’s Impact on The Elder Scrolls Online. No this video isn’t a hit piece on ESO or New World. Both games have strengths and weaknesses and ultimately I cheer for people to enjoy video games. But as a hardcore ESO player, I’ve got to say I’m worried. In this post, I’m going to show you why I’m worried, what I think the problem is and what I think can be done. I know this post is going to be controversial, but if you’ve tuned into me for this long, you know I’ll keep it real, and that’s what we are going to do.
Make Take on New World
Deltia, did you try New World? Yes, I Played New World closed beta a few months before it became popular. I only ended up playing about three hours and didn’t care for it. It felt the game was a mix between Dark Souls and Ultimate Online. The very sandbox nature of being force to harvest nodes to craft your gear. The visual colonel pirate/jack sparrow’s theme with big mass hammers strapped to your back side. It frankly didn’t have any appeal to me. I’m not hating on the game, people can think and enjoy whatever they want, but within a few hours I knew this wasn’t a game I would sink 1,000+ hours in, so I moved on. What was interesting to me was, just as much as I didn’t like the game, people absolutely loved it. They loved the sandbox nature, the exploration, graphics, the feel and of course the combat. I’ll pass on New World but will try future games like Ashes of Creation, Baulder’s Gate 3, and so forth. But regardless of my likes and dislikes, is New World the next World of Warcraft (WoW) killer?
WoW KILLER ALERT!
I’m old enough to remember games like Wildstar which were going to be allegedly the next WoW killer. When I was playing Star Wars the Old Republic, every day in the fleet you’d have your typical salty PvPer sitting on top of the quest box shouting: “They are going to turn the SWTOR servers off after this game launchers.” In every MMO I’ve played, the “next” MMORPG is always the best thing. Well until a week or a month into launch and people come crawling back to their old game. History is the best indicator of the future and I wagered this would be the same with New World. Oh boy was I wrong on this one. In fact, according to CNET New world hit 700,000 concurrent players on launch day and peaked around 900,000 on Sunday of launch week. Almost a million concurrent players in a MMO, an MMO that focuses heavily on PvP I mind you.
New World was right there with the biggest games on earth and at least on launched showed the MMO genre wasn’t dead, far from it and MMO players were looking for the next big thing. And many streamers fled to cover this interest, I wasn’t one of them. No I’m not sharing this to be some high and mighty die on the sword ESO content creator and streamer, but because I saw a significant dip in my viewership, website metrics, you name it all down. And no I’m not a victim and I’m not telling you this for a pity party poor me Deltia this is what I observed which prompted me to dig deeper. Not to mention, PvP on PC North American Server felt dead, as in completely dead. I had some anecdotal evidence for this, for instance usually when I logging at 10 am EST I check Cyrodiil before my stream to see if there’s any action.
Normally the Aussies are finishing up and naturally EP is popped locked, DC 3 bars and the AD bow users are just getting up with 2 bars. Now, across the board a Grayhost server should be renamed Ghost-Host. 1 bar across the board, nothing going on, and it’s been that way for weeks. Meanwhile PC EU still has a healthy population, which is why I’ve been playing on that server more and more. I finally got fed up and went to check data that usually gages general overall interest and that’s twitch metrics via the site twitchtracker.com. What I saw next, shocked me.
Data Time
Well I went down the Twitch statistics rabbit hole and found some startling statistics as ESO isn’t likely to send me. I pulled this data on October 12, 2021, the date ironically ESO started a double XP event. The first thing that stuck out was just how far ESO had fallen in the rankings, not even in the top 100 streamed games? Where was New World? Number 5 and losing a lot of viewers. Also, if you look hard at this graphic what do all of these games have in common? Well minus just chatting? They have PvP, not only that they have PvP but you could argue that their primary game mode is PvP centric.
I want to hammer that home, PvP, player vs players, competition, destruction, blowing things up, swords, guns, sabers, whatever, PvP is popular. This isn’t an ethical video debating if that’s healthy or good, but it’s fact, people love PvP in games. Then when I looked at exactly where ESO ranked among other games, it was just ahead of software and game development and behind, wait” The Legend of Zelda breath of the wild.” Okay not to dwell here or beat up on ESO, but just pointing out my initial speculation that New World had a massive impact had both anecdotal and statistical information to back up my experiences. This begs the question: is The Elder Scrolls Online in trouble?
Is ESO in Trouble?
Do I think ESO is going to die like MMORPGs of the past? No, but let me be very clear: competition is good for the consumer. And overall the steep decline in viewership and overall interest could be the catalyst for Zenimax Online Studios (ZOS) to refocus their efforts and attract new and returning players back to ESO. How do I know this? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Elder Scrolls Online suddenly post New World launch decided to have a second community challenge? And that challenge led to 8 days of double XP?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all, and feel it’s exactly what the game needed during a super dull point, a shot in the arm, getting us closer to a much needed quality of life update 32. This is a sign, that ZOS is listening and trying to come up with ways to attract players to ESO and I imagine it’s just the start. Essentially, New World could be exactly the thing that is needed to spur change. So why then has the game been struggling with viewership and overall interest amongst the general gaming population? I think it’s a combination of 3 things.
- No major updates or focus on PvP content when clearly the general gamer and MMORPG player has a lot of interest in this aspect.
- Complete gutting or overhauling of major system constantly like champion points, armor passives, hybridized gear sets. For the last year, every 3 months it’s a complete revamp and people get tired of completely reworking their builds only to be able to enjoy it for 1 month until the next major change.
- Blackwood chapter, specifically Companions as the main selling point behind the expansion was a complete flop amongst the general population. I forget they are even in game and rarely see them being used beyond overland story. ESO choose to focus on a small niche part of the game and not the broader community and it hurt their product.
If we look back at 2021 so far, what have we gotten? A few dungeons, a trial and companions. Compare that to Morrorwind Chapter, or heck even the Imperial City DLC which gave us two all time great dungeons white gold tower and imperial city prison along with Imperial City PvP Zone? 2021 has been lackluster compared to years past though the Rockgrove trial was a banger.
Deltia you are being salty hater at the game. No, in fact I only criticize things I like or love. Do you see me breaking down Fortnite’s latest weapon addition? No, I have zero interest in it thus I don’t give it any attention. I’ve made my YouTube channel, website, stream on Twitch focused on ESO and want to see the game do well so my business can grow. So what can be done?
The FIX?
I’m going to say this as politely as possible so we don’t have a Templar burial video 2.0 on our hands. ZOS I love you but for god sake you got to start focusing on PvP. You don’t need to hire a fleet of MBA grads to do a market analysis giving you data on whether or not PvP makes money. Look at the top games on planet earth, look at New World’s impact on your games PvP, economy and twitch, in the worlds of Todd Howard, PvP just works. If I’m being 100% honest with you, ESO’s end game went from becoming emperor in Cyrodiil to crafting writs.
PvPers need a highly functioning sandbox where we can create our own fun, luckily we have the best one out there, Cyrodiil, sadly it doesn’t work well nor is the population robust. I’ve heard they are working on it, and that cross play isn’t possible thought Destiny 2 just did and it and the game has never been doing better. Fine, if it’s not going to get fixed, why don’t we re-invent imperial city since that’s a dead zone too. The top part of IC or some new area, now becomes an instance based 15v15v15 intense battleground capture the flag/deathmatch hybrid. Put big incentives on the line, winners get 15 transmutes after a 30 minute match or mats or something.
And there needs to be some type of catch up mechanic to attract new players and allow them to perform at a high level quickly. When you start ESO you work on leveling to 50 and reach that only to find out you need to get 160 champion points in order to have long lasting relevant gear, only to hear that the max Champion Points is 3600 and that people have already reached the cap. Then you ask yourself, why even start?
Also put in some seasonal type of reward based on quarterly DLC where you get special prizes for BGs, Cyro and IC, dungeons, arenas, trials, heck even crafting writs. It resets every three months with new incentives to come back and farm and complete it. I’m going to say it out loud here and this will not be a popular take, ESO should have a yearly mass power reset, raise the level cap/gear champion point cap or some global reset where everyone has to start over again at an equal playing field.
DELTIA WHY would you do that and throw away all my hard work? Because the game is hemorrhaging players and you have very little new players coming in, am I right? An MMO is only as good as it’s population and without cross play ever coming, what’s the alternative to attract new players? Add another house, companion or dungeon? I think not.
Here’s how ESO end game looks currently you’re going to need to spend around 300 hours at least to be on a competitive playing field as me. Level characters to end the game, then max your guild skill lines, farm up scrying and collect relevant mythics, work on getting a master crafter, obtain all the relevant gear, find about 300 skill points, reach 1,500 champion points, do you want me to continue? Or I can go play some random shooter, click 5 buttons and within seconds I’m fighting on a somewhat equal playing field. What’s more attracted to you as a new player?
Summary
ESO is my favorite MMORPG of all time. I’ll never forget the first time I hit puncturing sweeps and Bleakrock isles on my templar. I’ll never forget getting emperor on my stam sorc for the first time. I’ll never forget completing dragonstar arena after a dying for eight hours solid. And I’ll never forget or regret the time I’ve spent in game with some of the coolest people from around the world. And I want this to continue, I don’t want to play another game or see ESO evaporate like MMOS of the past. And truthfully, I’m optimistic about it’s future. ZOS has already done something and reacted by creating a secondary community challenge which lead to Double XP? Is it enough? No, but it’s a start and hopefully this video will get their attention.
Maybe my ideas are crap, maybe there’s some gold there, but if you’re with me, please share this video, leave a comment and hopefully we can get some attention. Because if new world puts this game’s PvP population on its knees, what’s the next big game going to do? Thanks for reading and watch!
