He acts like adding a race is the only option for a kickass CE.

Fixed that for you.

It is another feature you don't need the imperial edition to do that. Just an standard preorder.

Note that this will also be available as an cash shop service later, this is not stated but pretty obvious.

The fun thing is that I have no problem with it, I see it as an special service for people who need it to play with friends while keeping their favorite race. The paywall keep people who don't have an reason out.

No it should not be expensive, say a dollar.

"The Elder Scrolls games are all about allowing the player to go where they want, be who they want, and do what they want. We feel that putting pay gates between the player and content at any point in game ruins that feeling of freedom, and just having one small monthly fee for 100% access to the game fits the IP and the game much better than a system where you have to pay for features and access as you play."
"Plus, players will appreciate not having to worry about being 'monetized' in the middle of playing the game, which is definitely a problem that is cropping up more and more in online gaming these days," he added. "The fact that the word "monetized" exists points to the heart of the issue for us: We don't want the player to worry about which parts of the game to pay for - with our system, they get it all."

Exclusive access to a playable race via your credit card is about as contradictive to this statement as you can possibly get. I guess I just can't understand why it's so hard for some people to figure out why other people are upset. I'm not freaking out, but I certainly understand why some people are. They have a valid concern here. It's about integrity.

I am not a long time ES fan. I am a long time MMO fan. I can tell you this is not standard. Fluff, mounts, trinkits, etc, are standard CE items. Exclusive access to a race is not. The only company that Ive seen do this in the past is PWE, and they have a very bad reputation for horrible cash shops and greedy over-the-top marketing.

Yep, pretty much this. The first clue as to why a lot of threads are getting locked tend to be in the closing posts and the moderator notes we've been leaving in these threads.

A couple more posts have been wished into the cornfield for being derogatory or insulting towards members to groups of members. Please do all be respectful and civil if you want to debate the issue.

From what I read, there is no new race. Imperials can be any race. And imperials can be any faction. So if you pre-order, it will simply allow you to be an argonian in the daggerfall covenant or a wood elf in the ebon heart pact. Ect ect. You'll still have to pick one of the 9 races, but you'll be able to pick ANY faction regardless of race. This is what it means when they say " play as an imperial". But if you chose to play a wood elf with the ebon heart pact, you will still be locked to that faction after you created your character. And they explain you being in that faction by saying, you're an imperial. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I understood from the pre-order FAQs.

Wrong. Pre-order and you will get the explorers pack that makes you able to join any alliance with any race. Buy the CE Imperial edition and you will get access to the Imperial race.

No. Free.

The Imperial race isn't standard in the game. That's always been known. You pay for the game in its standard form with the standard price. Extra things are extra.

The Imperial race is more then cosmetic, lets be honest about that. It will have unique bonuses that the other races won't have. It's also behind a paywall, in a collector's edition, in a game that's going to have a monthly subscription. That's about as anti consumer as you're going to get. If this game was F2P or B2P, it wouldn't be a problem but it's not and that's the issue. You pay 15 a month to get pretty much everything unlocked, not to suffer what other F2P games have and only have a portion of the content unlocked if you don't pay.

Everything else in the collector's edition is fine except for the Imperial race, to me that is crossing a line and it's very worrisome for the future of this company. I really hope Softworks doesn't pull this type of deal with Fallout 4. With New Vegas they tried preorders bonuses but due to the nature of the game you wouldn't be missing out on cosmetic/items. An entire race on the other hand, is a big deal.

Who cares. Who would want it if it was only cosmetic?

Its not like the racial bonuses will be across the board better than the other racials. If I had to guess based on past games, Imperial racials won't be that impressive.

Who cares, the reason why it's an issue is that you're putting something behind a paywall, in a game that we are paying full price for plus $15 a month. That's the problem, when you pay a subscription you expect to pretty much get everything and if there is a cash shop, it's just for vanity items like unique mounts for instance. With this, you aren't getting everything and a race is a pretty huge deal. I personally don't care about the other stuff, that fine to put in a preorder/Collector's edition and IMHO, I think using the rings of mara is going to be bad and ruin your experience however that's just MHO. A race though, is crossing a very dangerous line, one that I never thought this company would cross.

I have my doubts they'll change anything at this point but to me this is another dealbreaker that will do major damage to this MMO. ESO has a huge hill to climb and it's only going to get bigger and this doesn't help that out at all.

This people.

There are some people who will buy the CE regardless. It's only an extra 20 bucks. They could have made it good without adding a new race.

If they were really smart about it, they would have announced the CE and at the same time announced that Imperials would be playable for everyone (without buying the CE). Whatever extra CE sales they will gain by including the Imperials in the CE will be offset by the people who won't buy the game at all now. Think about it. For every 1 person who decides they are not going to buy the game because of this, 3 people have to decide to buy the CE instead of the standard version, just to break even.

If they had given the race to everyone at no extra cost, as they should have in a subscription based game, the reaction would have been a lot more positive and it would have likely resulted in more box sales overall.

Wait....what? Box price plus subscriptions is....free?

To me the Imperial race shouldn't even be a consideration for Preorder regardless of whether it's the regular or collector's edition. What they should have done is include it in the 1st update that includes the dark brotherhood but if you preorder the game (Either editions) you get the race a month earlier. To me that's much better then locking it behind a paywall in a game that we are paying 15 monthly for.

You see, that Would've been fine if they actually would have Said so instead of being ambiguous about it. But they didn't. You seem to have missed that announcement, which is the only genuine reason to why people are upset.
I don't care if it's 10/20/30 bucks extra. I get that if you pay extra you should also get something extra. But what I DO care about is that they announced something completely different.

So, let's try this:

A quick search on faction/ race lock complaints/questions/concerns

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1484140-cross-faction-pve/?hl=%2Block#entry23263637

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1482853-eso-factions-seriously/?hl=lock#entry23232886

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1483951-my-top-questions-about-teso/?hl=%2Brace#entry23252418

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1478349-does-50-and-50-make-sense/?hl=lock

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1371540-the-elder-scrolls-online-what-do-you-want-to-see/?hl=race#entry20724005

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1484212-faction-race-combinations/?hl=%2Brace#entry23257099

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1483917-races-and-zones/?hl=%2Brace

On this list, I only went 3 pages out of the maximum search results of 20, which means there were substantially more threads that I do not have access to, and probably more than a dozen I haven't put here. I'd say that concerns were alleviated by developers with this announcement.

Deleted a few more posts. Don't demean or otherwise be derisive or dismissive of other members and their opinions.

Here is the shortest version for people who still dont get it.

Is there Imperial race in the game....YES

Will EVERYONE be able to get it..... NO

COULD everyone play it if Zenimax wanted them too...YES

Does everyone pay 15 bux a month...YES

End of argument.

Buying the CE of the game doesnt give you magical game no one else has access to. You do have the standard game. That is were the defenders are coming from. But what they get caught up in is that the people who bought it paid more to get it. Which is exactly the point that the critics are saying. Why should ANYONE have to pay more for something in a subscription based game? Just because you chose to and dont see a big deal doesnt make it right. Either EVERYONE should get to play Imperials or NO ONE should. It is really that simple. Since theyre in the game, and I suspect they ALWAYS had them and had this planned all along, then EVERYONE should be able to play them if you buy the STANDARD version of the game.

Then that gives some incentive to get a collectors edition. So if you want to gate the Imperial Mount behind a CE fine. Add in the ring, add in the ability to craft Imperial appearance armor too. Or gate some Imperial based fluff behind the CE it actually give more people a reason to get the CE.

But they chose the easiest most direct route. They unleashed a pre order bomb with zero explanation and all speculation and let peoples minds wander where they would. I am sure a lot of people who spent the extra 20 bux want the Imperial passives and traits to be massively OP. because that woudld further justify the extra money. They really might not think the ability to play a race no one else can or may never be able to is a big deal. I doubt it but some might be that naive.

I just know I have seen a lot more negative abut this than positive. And the ones who are most positive were going to buy ANY collectors edition they put out there. So from a marketing stand point this was a disaster. So people can spin it all they want, but it was a mistake.

I did some slight editing, assuming they release imperials eventually for all (which, I personally think they will)

There are a lot of positives to take away from this as well. Zenimax listen, and they're making that very clear.

We complained about the absence of first person combat, the absence of Imperials, and the forced factions.

They may not have addressed some of those issues perfectly, but they damn well made sure to address them. Chances are they realized that giving us the Imperial race would be good for the fans, but due to the extra development involved they'd need to charge extra. Hence, Imperial Edition. All things weighed up, positives and negatives, I'm okay with this. I hope most of you are too, in time

After moderation:

Okay, the nice version.

I respectfully disagree. "Anything good" as you put it is game content which is being withheld behind a paygate. Something ZOS explicitly said they would NOT do. This in itself isn't a big problem, but when you take into account the sub, full retail cost, and a cash shop, it's NOT okay.

"everything for free" Anyone who plays TESO will be getting NOTHING for free. There is the cost of the CE, the retail box cost, the monthly sub, the cash shop. Where is this free part?

There are lots of mmo's that DO offer free things to their players. People seem to get offended if TESO is compared to anything, but mmo's have been around for a while. Why has the expectation for what an mmo should do fallen suddenly? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't mmo's have developed into better games over the years? The WoW had years to develop isn't a good excuse anymore. The "WoW had content behind paygates (read: DLC)" doesn't work.

Show me ONE, just one, mmo that had a full retail price, a montly subscription AND held back an entire class of character behind a CE. Just one.

Thats their own fault for making a 200 million dollar game with a Micky Mouse landscape that is going to be instanced every time you turn around.

Had they had the ability to make a fully accessible world without having to go through a loading screen every time you switched zones they could have done it in a much different and much more friendly MMORPG manner.

Had they allowed ALL the zones to be traveled between by ALL players regardless of race, level, alliance then what? Better game? Of course. They could have still kept it all PvE and walled the PvP in like they have now, but as it stands the whole world is walled in.

So them allowing every race to play in any alliance isnt some big coup, it just is another easy way out for them to do something they probably didnt have the know how to do the right way. So that addition has multiple negative connotations.

Was in no way, shape, or form anything related to faction locks. Loading screens do not have anything to do with the topic, mickey mouse zones have nothing to do with faction/race locks, and my links are for general information.

Will it cost money or not? If so then what is positive about that? If it doesnt then they hosed the people who DID spend extra JUST to get that perk. So again not positive.

You guys do your hardest to make a case but there is none.

No matter how you slice it no matter what they do or do not do some segment of the player base who all play the same game for the same sub fee is going to feel, if not outright get, screwed over.

This is all BEFORE the game even releases. So dont start playing the speculation game because with ammo like this all the guys who think this game will be about on the level as SOE and EA in terms of cash grab greed have so much more ammunition than the people who think this is a 'one time thing' crowd has it isnt even a fair fight.