ZeniMax Online Studios’ Matt Firor swung by the Elder Scrolls Online forums last night with two updates for fans, one on the upcoming DPC and the other on the state of the game’s tech.
For starters, Firor has clarified that the Fallen Banners DLC dungeons that accompany U45 will indeed by buyable with crowns, same as previous DLC.
“Because 2025 is a transition year between the old Chapter model and our new model evolution for ESO, this year (2025) will have some aspects of Chapters and some of the new cadence. Next year (2026), we will fully implement the new model, which we will talk about more this April,” he explains. “For now, please know that you will be able to purchase the Update 45 dungeons using Crowns (plus other ways) as well as access through ESO Plus membership. Due to the aforementioned transition, Update 45 dungeons will be available for purchase in the Crown Store after Update 45 console launch.”
The implication here is that eventually, this will change, though we don’t know exactly how. Either way, if you’re subbed, you still have access to the DLC freely, at least for now.
The second part of his letter addresses ongoing tech problems with the game as Firor apologizes for the frequency of those issues and ZOS’s vague method of addressing them. Essentially, he says the studio’s policy has been to address server issues that are within its control but not issues that are an external network problem – or a DDOS attack, which has apparently been happening more recently.
“Recently – especially over the last year – we have had a rising number of malicious network attacks against the ESO service. These mostly fall under the DDOS type of attack. When these happen, depending on the type of attack, we will initiate a mitigation strategy. I’m not going to get into what exactly we do to counter these, but each time the ESO service is under attack, players on the service experience lag, disconnects, etc. We have different types of mitigation to combat this, and some do a great job of protecting the service from DDOS traffic, but they can also introduce additional ping times when they are active, like many of you have been reporting. Malicious network attacks are unfortunately part and parcel of running an online service and the methods of attack are constantly evolving. Despite this, we will always strive to find the best mitigation strategy that has the least impact on player moment-to-moment gameplay.”
Firor concludes by pointing out that many companies avoid talking about DDOS attacks because it usually provokes more. “Part of why we have not publicly addressed this sooner is because by even just talking about malicious network attacks against ESO, we run the risk of incurring more of them,” he says. “This is why the standard playbook for internet companies is to not talk about them publicly – but this is information that I think you all need to know.”
