By ALEXANDER PECHA
Arts Editor
I once wrote about the Elder Scrolls Online for this very publication. Back then I spent the better part of 700 words ranting and raving about how great the game was, however I formed that opinion based on 5 hours of gameplay which was just silly of me. When I finally got to sink my teeth into the game I found it to be very…eh. The combat, which was fun at first, got boring. The story hit a halt when I couldn’t advance on it because I wasn’t a high enough level, supposedly epic quests started to feel boring. In the end I just sort of gave up and got bored, this was mostly because I realized I didn’t want to pay 15 bucks to keep paying a mostly “okay” game.
However it turns out I may have cause to go back as it seems the Zenimax Online has regained some of its wits and decided to make The Elder Scrolls Online “Buy once, play forever” so to speak. That means that after you buy the initial game you don’t have to pay any form of subscription. On top of that if you already bought the game before this change you can just play for free.
I’ll admit, this excites me greatly. While I found the game to be “eh” or “okay” it’s hard to explain how much having to pay 15 bucks a month turns me off of a game. With The Elder Scrolls going more or less free to play, especially since I already bought the game, I’m actually fairly excited to jump back in. This is because it’s hard to enjoy a game when you know you’re paying 15 bucks a month for it; most of the time you’ll be playing it and be thinking “I have to get the max amount of fun possible from this game” since you always know, subconsciously, that you’re paying out the nose to enjoy this game.
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft gets away with this by being really, really good; whether its player versus environment, player versus player, crafting, in game politics, etc, World of Warcraft always does it best. However The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t have that advantage. It has good Player Versus Player and some decent questing and crafting but it doesn’t approach World of Warcraft’s heroin-levels of addictiveness.
But with The Elder Scrolls Online losing its subscription it becomes much more attractive a game. I’m more willing to pop in for a few minutes a day or perhaps a good solid day a week since I don’t have that mental gremlin whispering “15 bucks a month” in my head. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this thought, I fully expect that the community and player base of The Elder Scrolls Online will grow and expand due to this change.
To add some icing to the proverbial cake Zenimax Online is also adding a new system to the game that, honestly, should have been there since the start. That system is being able to steal things and murder NPC’s and have guards arrest and probably mercilessly kill you for it, that’s the Elder Scrolls way damnit! Zenimax Online went one step further though and is going to add the ability for players to be guards themselves and hunt down players who accrue enough of a bounty. This update will be in the game by the time it goes free to play and is 100% free to all existing and new players. Zenimax Online has also mentioned new adventure zones and dungeons that will be released around the same time to keep the end game going as well as a hinted new PVP zone in the Imperial City.
With the announcement that the game would be going free-to-playish Zenimax Online also announced that the game would be coming to PS4 and Xbox One in June, also without a subscription (minus console subscriptions like Xbox Live). This will bring the game to two whole new audiences which is a bigger deal than one might realize at first since the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, was a huge hit with the console crowd.
With the game going free to play dragging in old players, new systems and new adventures keeping existing players happy and expanding the game to consoles bringing in an entirely new crowd the future for The Elder Scrolls Online looks surprisingly bright indeed. For the first time since the game released I am genuinely excited to see what happens with the Elder Scrolls Online and plan on jumping in when it goes free-to-play, or perhaps even sooner if I grow impatient.
The ball is in your hands again Zenimax Online, don’t drop it so hard again please.
