Here are my thoughts on how to balance the Imperial Edition and Pre-Order bonuses to make everyone happy. FYI I have pre-ordered the Imperial Edition.

What I can see as for the Imperial Edition, what people don't like is that the imperial race will be locked out behind a paygate. My thoughts is that what if ZOS made it so that if you buy Imperial edition you will be able to play an Imperial AT LAUNCH. But after a certain time, a month, two months, 5 months? It will be available to EVERYONE. Of course they will have to compensate for this "loss" by giving us collectors one more pet, a title named "Collector", an exclusive in-game emote or anything that does not affect gameplay, but purely for show off!

As for the Pre-Order bonus, I get the impression that the thing people hate is that "PLAY ANY RACE IN ANY ALLIANCE" is only for those who are willing to pre-order. What if the people who pre-order get to choose any race in any alliance AT LAUNCH (again) and it will be unlocked by others at a certain point in the main story. Once again, give the pre-orderers (lol orderers) something cosmetic, like a tabard or cape with all of the factions logos on it with NO STATS ADVANTAGE.

Please tell me what you think of these ideas y/n and and why also if you have pre-ordered imperial, standard, or none.

And if you have any other ideas on how to make it better please write it, also tell me if there is some other bonus you think is to unfair.

dude its locked out behind a 1 PENNY paygate AND I have bought 3 Imperial Editions

I don't think it needs fixing imo.

I totallt agree with you, im going to order imperial too but just only because of two features, the mount for leveling fast and imperial crafting stuff.. i already choose my gender and class, im not going to change any faction, i will Aldmeri with wood elf and not gonna be an imperial so.. And your idea about tabards is very cool, I agree with that too..

I've bought he Imperial edition and I partly disagree with you.

I have no issues with the Imperial race being unlocked a certain time after launch; l in fact, I think that is a really god idea.

However, I don't want another **** vanity pet to compensate for it. I am sick and tired of cosmetic items that take up space in my bank that don't do anything useful; Neverwinter was full of them in the Hero of the North Collector's Edition. I would support a tabard or cape only if once added to the character it wouldn't take up space in my inventory and I had the option to turn it on and off without removing it from the slot it is in, much like a helm can be.

With bank and inventory space being laughably pitiful in the extreme, even when maxed, I just don't support another item that sits in your bank or inventory taking up room that could be better used for a crafting material or snacky piece of armour.

Well since I have the Imperial Edition I don't really think there is a problem with the rewards I get, but the problem is that a lot of other people do. Imagine if a guy (or gal) picks up this game a few months after launch because he saw his friend playing this game as a badass Imperial dude, but when he loggs in he cannot select the Imperial, and is all like "Hey, I wanted to play as an imperial" and the game just says "Well you should have thought about that (x amount of time ago), svcks to be you." This is an extremely bad move from their side as this is the exact thing why people are NOT going to look past the fact that you are paying subscription and not getting all of the games content.

Is fine how it is, people just need to stop crying and get over it. Everyone has the option to purchase the imperial edition or upgrade after release to the imperial edition.

I can make a sob story about a desicated turd on the sidewalk, doesn't mean it would be relevant.

Nice to have a supporter! Even if it's an elf... Haha just kidding with you

The guy logs in sees he cant play imperial but he can for just a small fee to upgrade to imperial edition, issue resolved.

There is no problem with it and similar Threads have been made so I don't see why yet another like them has to be made every day it seems.

Well I was just pulling ideas out of my "peeeeeeep" but you understand my point!

Ah if they changed it and gave us an exclusive imperial edition Bank and Inventory space upgrade maybe like an extra 100-200 slots each i might go for that.

The problems isn't really with the bonuses, but how this has been received by potential buyers. This game has probably lost a great deal of potential customers just by adding these payblocks for content, and if it doesn't change before launch it will take a lot of effort making them interested again.

I get what you're saying, but the whole idea of subscription is that you shouldn't have to do these type of things. And a lot of people will not think it is worth to buy the game since they would probably feel they can't trust that they won't have to pay more again for this kind of stuff.

I think people are misunderstanding what the Term 'Paygate' should mean.

Yes it may loose a few people, but who wants those whiners anyway? Everyone just expects everything to be handed to them for free now days, people need to svck it up and either fork over the money or stop complaining. If people aren't crying about exclusive content their crying about having to subscribe to the game for 15$ a month.

No matter how much I LOVE the sound of that I still think it's something a lot of people would rage about :/

Its noting but greed on zeni's part making you pay to play a race and im pretty dissapointed that they have done it like this, that being said no one is forcing you to buy the imperial edition.

Way I see it is you know the score before you invest any time or money into the game what so ever, if you dont like it / cant afford it then dont buy it - its not like they have implemented this after you have bought the game.

I also think some sort of dlc package will be available after launch unlocking imperials for the difference between standard and imperial edition price - so around ￡20 quid.

You may even see something like unlocking imperials after you reach max level on a standard race, which I would be fine with.

But yeah for the sake of 20 quid for a game I plan to play a long time i have gone with the imperial edition pre order.

I think they should leave it as it is. But make it so that regular players have access to this eventually anyway.

For example:

Once you hit max lvl you unlock Imperial race.

Once you hit max lvl in a faction, you can play that faction as any race.

Or something like that. Maybe also add quest lines that you have to do in order to unlock Imperials/faction stuff. (Just no "SWG Jedi-class 1000hours grinding" stuff please)

Besides the Imperials, faction spesific races is no big deal to us, because we will (probably) all get the pre order explorers pack anyway. Which is probably why you dont see much whine about it.

Im expecting to see alot more rage about that once the game launches, and some poor guy who just learned about ESO from his friend has no way of getting the explorer bonus pack.

Wow really? So the issue is people pay 15$ a month so they should get everything else free? They should just scrap the imperial edition since everyone has to pay a subscription so they should get everything in the game free.

That Defeats the Object of it being Exclusive.

1. Perks you pay money for should have ZERO advantage over other players in terms of combat/gameplay.

2. An entire racial skill line and experience rings that other players cannot have unless they pay extra money qualifies as that.

3. As such, the collector's edition of ESO crosses an ethical line rarely seen in other MMOs.

There is no balance issue with the IE. The horse is dead. Please let it rest in peace.

I kind of feel you on this one, it feels like this are the kind of people that would just complain about it anyway, but this is also the kind of people that will spam everywhere how disappointed they we're in the game and scare away even more, perhaps friendly and co-operative players from the game just because of bad reviews. Also the more players= more money = more content for us