The fantasy MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online will have a cash shop where players can purchase costumes, mounts, and pets for the premium currency Crowns. There will also be things like EXP bonuses.
The transition to a Buy2Play system for The Elder Scrolls Online will result in a cash shop being set up where players can buy items. During a large Q&A session on reddit, the question arose about what exactly will be included.
The Crown store will contain “Cosmetic and Convenience” items, as Creative Director Paul Sage stated in a response. What lies behind this? And what does the future hold for The Elder Scrolls Online, which will soon be called Tamriel Unlimited.
Cosmetic items and those that save time
Cosmetic items, as we have seen in nice screens from ESO Live, are armor, mounts, and pets that do not directly affect the player’s strength.
Convenience items refer to something else. They include items that significantly ease leveling or gathering certain points. According to Sage, these will likely be available in TESO. This removes “barriers,” which is something players want. It is by no means the case that players will receive the best items or become “stronger” than others through this store.
It will not allow people to get the best items or become more powerful in the game than another player could achieve. I will say openly that some people feel ‘time-saving’ items are buy-to-win such as being able to gain experience faster. But our perspective is that removing time barriers is something players want, without providing an unfair advantage in power.
An additional significant part of the cash shop will consist of game content such as new zones with new quests, items, and style books.
Further details about the cash shop and the plans for TESO
Moreover, there was a flood of additional insights from the large Q&A session on reddit that provide important information about the direction in which The Elder Scrolls Online should develop.
In summary:
- The Dark Brotherhood or the Thieves Guild can be expected as DLC.
- Prices for DLC will be oriented towards standard prices.
- Items available in the cash shop will not become rarer in the “normal world” due to this.
- The same applies to EXP, which should not be artificially reduced so that the EXP bonus for premium players is stronger.
- The planned DLC, Orsinium, will primarily cater to solo players.
- The planned battlefields (ESO style) are still in an early phase.
- The new DLC should not be typically “level-bound”. Players should “scale up” to it. This will allow lower-level players to play together with higher-level players. The times when levels determined who could experience game content are over, according to Paul Sage.
- Among the costumes in the DLC store, there should be the skins of some of the most popular armors in the game that can then be used as costumes without actually owning the armor.
- New zones with their quests, items, and style books are typical content for paid DLCs; system changes, new talents, or balance changes are rather content for free updates. But it is actually still too early for such statements.
- The digital Imperial Edition should also be available for purchase in the Crown store. Players who don’t need anything else can then spend the crowns they receive monthly through ESO Plus.
The three most important questions regarding DLC and the cash shop, and thus the future of The Elder Scrolls Online
How “strong” will these so-called convenience items be?
Convenience Items: This is a term that every developer loves to use. The same argument that Paul Sage used here was also brought up by Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman regarding the cash shop of ArcheAge: Then friends can play together, even if one has more time than the other. In practice, it looked a bit different. However, this does not mean that this will be the case in TESO.
Under Paul Sage’s wording could fall not only EXP potions, but also “good starter items” or “decent endgame items,” all of which already exist in the cash shops of other MMORPGs that fall under convenience.
How will this work with content without level restrictions?
This is an interesting concept about which we currently know nothing, but it will surely have a huge influence on the development of The Elder Scrolls Online. “Scaling,” “mentor” – some games experiment with this. Are there also dangers that progress may become meaningless, whether you really feel the many hours in the Champion system… There are also positive sides; some consider a level system to be outdated and atavistic. But one should only sniff around the soup when it is on the table.
What is DLC, what is an update?
And this is the third major question: Will the Imperial City in Cyrodiil be paid or free? Is the spellweaving something for everyone or only for paying players? How do the priorities or the fans’ relationship with the game shift here? Some see Buy2Play very positively: They have to put in effort and deliver to earn money. There are negative voices and dangers with such a transition: “Well, they’ve already got the main part of my money, of course they’re not going to do as much anymore” or: “As a free-to-play player, you have the short end of the stick.”
Mein MMO says: It was a gigantic Q&A session on reddit with numerous answers. We have already created three articles from it.
The conclusion is likely: Even with so many answers, many questions remain open. Things will once again change in TESO. At the Guild Summit a quarter ago, there was already such a huge influx of information. Now, at the end of January with “Tamriel Unlimied,” the second one has come to us. It will be seen how everything will work in practice. There are many plans and ideas – just like last time – but little concrete information, not many data.
In contrast to other developers, Zenimax plays with an open hand and often talks about things that will come in months, maybe even years (they have even hinted at housing), which creates a strange phenomenon: There is always a TESO that you would rather play than the current one: the TESO of tomorrow.
Whereas this might not apply to everyone with the switch to a Buy2Play model.
To our report on the intricacies of the console port click here; with the future of The Elder Scrolls Online and the potential content drought until the release for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in June, we discuss in this article.
