14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at ZeniMax Online and publisher Bethesda have not surprised the MMO community by announcing that The Elder Scrolls Online was moving to a free-to-play business model in the coming months, but it seems that the two companies are aiming to deliver a new experience that does not allow players with money to gain unfair advantages.
Paul Sage, the leader of the team working on the title, says that the new shop option is not designed to give gamers everything they might need to progress.
In an interview with Tamriel Foundry, he states, “When we talk about convenience items, what we generally mean is items which allow people to reduce the time it might take to acquire something they want. I think cosmetic items speak for themselves. We know there is a fine line, but there is also a line where we feel like if you buy something from the store it should have value.”
The community is interested in getting access to character slots, a way to move alliances and race changes in the shop, but the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online does not yet feature them, although it might be expanded based on suggestions from fans.
The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launches do not lead to shared accounts
The shift to a new business model for The Elder Scrolls Online is set to arrive at the same time as the MMO’s launch on the PlayStation 4 from Sony and the Xbox One from Microsoft.
But the company does not plan to offer a unified account for all the platforms and says that gamers should choose a platform and stick to it for entitlements and for downloadable content packs.
Paul Sage also says that the code for all the platforms is almost unified at the moment, which should mean that patches will be launched on all devices as close as possible.
On the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, the developers will still have to submit all updates to Sony and Microsoft for approval, which tends to take time.
The Elder Scrolls Online managed to exist as a subscription-based MMO for more than one year and it will be interesting to see how the title will evolve if more players get access to its world and the team has resources to add more elements to the universe for them to explore.
