Elder Scrolls Online

[India]

Forbes predicts Elder Scrolls Online to be the biggest gaming disaster of 2014 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/)

[Rhambuk]

personally never cared for the series so not surprised here.

[citizen1080]

Poorly written opinion piece with no research. Apparently Forbes lets just any retard write for them these days.

[Sirken]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

[Nocsucow]

ESO has been great I've done 3 beta sessions and I like it

[Rhambuk]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

Agreed, people have no problem paying for a game it won't ruin anything.

Reminds me of francis, $380 on candy crush in 1 month....

[Breeziyo]

sirken basically hit the nail on the head. every f2p mmo i see now i automatically assume is shit and riddled with pay2win or pay2not-grind-for-months

still think eso is going to flop though because the gameplay felt bad all around when i was in beta

[Nocsucow]

sirken basically hit the nail on the head. every f2p mmo i see now i automatically assume is shit and riddled with pay2win or pay2not-grind-for-months

still think eso is going to flop though because the gameplay felt bad all around when i was in beta

I'm not excited about the PC version I want the console version it will give them 4 extra months to fix what ever is wrong

[Tecmos Deception]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

That's my thoughts on subscription models. It would cost me $8 to go see a movie in my little midwestern city, with no popcorn/candy/pop, for 2 hours of watching a mediocre movie. Or I could pay twice that and be thoroughly entertained playing an MMO for an easy 40+ hours in the month.

[citizen1080]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

My thoughts as well. I would much rather sub than F2P

[nilzark]

$200 million budget! P99 still more fun. Go figure.

[Lune]

Hard to take this guy seriously when the very first sentence of the article rattles off four different console FPS's and "fantastic" in the same sentence. One of them is even published by Electronic Fucking Arts.

Funny that he would rail against the subscription model, considering this dipshit would need an Xbox Live subscription to play the console titles he listed online.

TESO has legitimate criticisms, but he listed none of them specifically.

[MrSparkle001]

This guy has no idea what he's talking about.

A further complication is that Bethesda isn’t exactly famous for releasing bug free single player games, so when they make the jump to an MMO, longtime fans are incredibly wary from the start, wondering if the game will even work at launch.He also says he's not a big PC MMO guy.

It's not a Bethesda game idiot, and before even saying that he says "I’m not normally a big PC MMO guy."

So the guy who wrote the article is not a big PC MMO fan, doesn't know who's developing the game and is basically just upset that the game will have a subscription. The entire article is pretty much about how he doesn't like the subscription model.

The one paragraph in the article with any substance is this:

While obviously any game is going to produce a wide array of opinions, the general feeling I’ve read across countless message boards and forums is that the experience is simply average. While it does feel like a traditional Elder Scrolls game, there’s little benefit to the actual MMO aspect of it. Most of the game is played in single player mode anyway, but because it is an MMO, it looks visually worse than its predecessor, Skyrim, in many ways.

Yeah it did feel a lot like single player. Single player with other people populating the world doing their own thing too. I like that. I actually dislike EQ's design where you are forced to rely on others to do anything, and most MMOs since EQ have featured better single player experiences. Why is ESO being criticized for that? Plus we haven't seen much at all of the end game which is where most players will wind up spending their time.

tl;dr: bad article is bad.

[Auvdar]

Bad article, didn't point out what's really wrong with ESO. Gameplay, the complete lack of immersion (at least for me, and most everyone who I played it with.), hell even the Lore has been butchered in a lot of places.

And to think this game won't go F2P after 6 months to a year is a pipe dream. The only good part of that article is the title :)

[Nips]

To be fair, what exactly is this guy supposed to write about? He can't comment on the actual gameplay of the beta so its gotta be a tough article to write.
And I can't believe they spent 200 million on that game... wow. I wonder how much skyrim or morrowind cost to make. If its even half of that 200 million I will cry.

[citizen1080]

Zenimax stated they have not spent 200m on the game

[Nips]

Zenimax stated they have not spent 200m on the game

I don't think 200m is completely implausible if you consider that it took 150 million to make SWG. I wonder why it costs so much to make these mmorpgs? I found a few different sources (idk about reliability), but they claim the cost to produce skyrim was only 5-15 million... crazy. Seems so risky to make these mmorpgs, I hope some of these companies are actually profitable with these things otherwise it seems like it'll be a dying genre if you consider the lack of success in the mmorpg world for like the last... whenever WoW came out.

[MrSparkle001]

I don't think 200m is completely implausible if you consider that it took 150 million to make SWG.

How much of that you think is licensing?

[joppykid]

This guy has no idea what he's talking about.





The one paragraph in the article with any substance is this:



Yeah it did feel a lot like single player. Single player with other people populating the world doing their own thing too. I like that. I actually dislike EQ's design where you are forced to rely on others to do anything, and most MMOs since EQ have featured better single player experiences. Why is ESO being criticized for that? Plus we haven't seen much at all of the end game which is where most players will wind up spending their time.

tl;dr: bad article is bad.

Funny thing is that the developers have said over and over they want it to feel like a single player game lol. this guy is clueless.

[Thugnuts]

I'm not a huge ES guy, but I ran around in Morrowind and Oblivion a couple years ago, just to have a peak. The one thing I thought to myself the entire time was "Gee, this would be better if it was multiplayer."

As for subs model for MMO, it's the best option. F2P/store games are all shit in my experience. I want to win by playing the game and defeating the mechanics in cooperation with other human beings, not by whipping out my fucking VISA card whenever I need an item upgrade.

That said, I do know one gamer who is adamant about never paying a subscription for a game he bought retail. He says that $15/month or whatever for unlimited play is greedy, but has no problem dropping $120 a week on booze and cigarettes.

[Millburn]

This game is going to hold peoples interest for 3 months max. About 6 months out it's going to start to go F2P. Calling it now.

[Swish]

My thoughts as well. I would much rather sub than F2P

F2P/store games are all shit in my experience.

Except League of Legends ;) ... but you're right!

[Shaakglith12194]

TESO won't fail because of the subscription model, it will fail because it's a bad game. Played a ridiculous amount of Morrowind and Oblivion (like 700-1100 hours, somewhere in that realm), and now I'm playing Skyrim...loved all those games. All they had to do was make Elder Scrolls 6 and allow co-op into each person's personal game world. But noooooooo, they have to fix what ain't broke. Won't even go into why it's a bad game. Agree with previous posters that f2p games are nowhere near as good as the subscription games, so the subscription won't matter because if it's a good game, people will pay it. I hear a lot of people who say that the combat is like Skyrim's, but the only similarity I saw was that Skyrim's combat was easier than the previous entries in the series. Kind of felt more like Age of Blownan, except with all the pvp when that game released, that game was actually fun. I get hooked on TES games, but this one was boooooooooring. Don't think I'll get invited to any more of the beta test since I gave some pretty negative feedback (it was constructive) on their beta survey. How the hell do you make the TES world boring? Like, how hard do you have to try to make that happen?

This game could kill the series. F2P in 6 months, a year max. Good job, Zenimax Online.

[Swish]

Tell me more about how WoW failed because it wasn't enough like WC3? So what if you played Morrowind and all the old games? For some kids out there, ESO might be their first MMORPG and they'll have nothing to base it against. We're old players, washed up, nobody tends to give a shit about us anymore. You can adapt, or play P99 until you die :)

Anyway, I'd rather pay in to ESO and see what its like than give EA money for stupid shit on BF4 with their "premium".

[Tecmos Deception]

We're old players, washed up, nobody tends to give a shit about us anymore. You can adapt, or play P99 until you die :)

Yeah :(

No more MMOs made for us :(

[MrSparkle001]

ESO is a 1st person MMO. That alone sells it for me. Yes you can play in 3rd person and in PvP you probably want to, but it has that terrible over-the-shoulder 3rd person view from Skyrim.

It's not trying to be like WoW and I like that. I'm burned out on WoW-style MMOs.

[Prismaticshop]

forecasting EQ's failure based on alpha and beta experiences would have been legitimate. Yet it was a success.

Give ESO a go the first 3 months then judge.

[Bamz4l]

sounds like yet another mmo that is going to have everyone sitting at end-game in a couple months, yet they don't even have plans for the end-game yet?? failure

[Rust1d?]

Played quite a few f2p games and they all suck. As long as the game is good, I do not paying the sub.

[Auvdar]

Just got my email invite for the next beta wave starting Friday. I guess all my negative critism towards them paid off... or they are desperate.

Will check it out for a few hours and see if anything has changed.

[Nips]

Got one too, yays. First pm can have it (if I ignore your PM its because you werent first and im lazy!)

[Auvdar]

They deleted the official beta suggestions/feedback forum, now you have to post stuff in game. This is going to do wonders for preventing bad word in mouth.

Maybe they will bring a new one up when beta starts,.. but to take the old one down seems fishy.

[Nips]

Think their best bet would be to just do away with the beta. When I played the game, it was pretty much bug free from my end. Seems like all that was missing was a few voice overs here and there.

[citizen1080]

Yea got another invite myself. Will patch up in the next few days. Apparently they have wiped the forums after each beta weekend so they can keep the feedback separate and know what's still an issue etc. They keep them for internal use however.

[MrSparkle001]

I got an invite too, but what's to test this time? I don't want to spend hours this weekend trying to get high enough level to test PvP. Unless they really altered some things I don't see a point in playing for any length of time.

[Auvdar]

I got an invite too, but what's to test this time? I don't want to spend hours this weekend trying to get high enough level to test PvP. Unless they really altered some things I don't see a point in playing for any length of time.

Not sure why they just don't put in a auto-level command to say 20 or so with appropriate gear so everyone can just jump into PvP to test it.

[MrSparkle001]

They might later. I think maybe they're more focused now on quest issues, itemization, skill bugs etc. I don't know though.

[Grimfan]

Game is sweet.

[Auvdar]

Yea got another invite myself. Will patch up in the next few days. Apparently they have wiped the forums after each beta weekend so they can keep the feedback separate and know what's still an issue etc. They keep them for internal use however.

Or to hide the negative threads to new people joining in the beta...

I've never been in a Beta that continually wiped forums each wave. Ever. Them saying they wipe the forums each wave to keep the feedback seperate and know what's still an issue is a cop-out. They know what's still an issue or not an issue, wiping the forums each time wouldn't help this.

I mean really, at least have an archive forum that beta testers can view. It would help current Beta testers a ton to see what issues people were having last time around so they can, you know, test them again now and see if they got fixed properly.

If you have a quality product, you don't have to hide behind deleted threads and a nazi strict NDA.

[Grimfan]

Or to hide the negative threads to new people joining in the beta...

I've never been in a Beta that continually wiped forums each wave. Ever. Them saying they wipe the forums each wave to keep the feedback seperate and know what's still an issue is a cop-out. They know what's still an issue or not an issue, wiping the forums each time wouldn't help this.

I mean really, at least have an archive forum that beta testers can view. It would help current Beta testers a ton to see what issues people were having last time around so they can, you know, test them again now and see if they got fixed properly.

If you have a quality product, you don't have to hide behind deleted threads and a nazi strict NDA.

These are more like stress tests, the real internal closed beta is probably a bit different.

[Shaakglith12194]

Looks like I also got another beta invite. I'll give it another try because I genuinely hope that this game will be good at some point.

Tell me more about how WoW failed because it wasn't enough like WC3? So what if you played Morrowind and all the old games? For some kids out there, ESO might be their first MMORPG and they'll have nothing to base it against.

WoW succeeded because vanilla WoW was actually a good game. WoW continued to be a solid game for years to come, with a creative force behind it instead of Generic Hacknslash Online. Wasn't the most creative stuff ever, but it was reasonably creative. TESO is dull and unimaginative. Another contributing factor for WoW's success is that it was the first MMO many people played, so it became their crack, like EQ is to many of us.

TESO may be the first MMO that many people will play, and it will hook them. I'm sure it was true of Star Wars: The Old Republic, as well. When a company decides to go with an established franchise rather than creating a new intellectual property, they are hoping to cash in on the popularity of the franchise. It's an unwritten agreement with the consumers that at least some elements of the previous entries in the franchise will be similar. With this franchise, the only thing that must happen is that it's in the fantasy world that we know and love. That's the bare minimum. People will buy it because of the name. This game has been in development for YEARS.

http://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2935/~/how-long-has-the-elder-scrolls-online-been-in-development%3F

Since 2007. A Kotaku columnist tweeted that development had cost $200 million thus far, but the tweet was soon deleted. At 60 bucks a pop, they need to sell approximately 3.33 million units to break even with their development costs. Who knows how much it's going to cost for the hardware and continued development costs, but that can probably be taken care of by subscriptions. It took WoW something like 3 years to have 1 million subscribers. Skyrim has sold like 14 million copies. TESO will not be released on consoles at the same time as it is on PC. Bad reviews for PC mean bad sales for consoles. Only time will tell, but Zenimax Online is taking a big gamble. A big gamble on a game that is so far very bad and way too easy to be a TES game.

[Auvdar]

These are more like stress tests, the real internal closed beta is probably a bit different.

So a game version, that hopefully is the same version that everyone in this 'stress test' is playing, is somehow magically better than what everyone else is playing?

Really?

[odiecat99]

ESO has been great I've done 3 beta sessions and I like it

Same here, its a good change.

[odiecat99]

Cause magazines are always true.

[burkemi5]

A big gamble on a game that is so far very bad and way too easy to be a TES game.

You had me until this. Too easy? Vanilla Skyrim is some of the easiest shit I've ever played.

[Grimfan]

Game is sweet.

[Shaakglith12194]

You had me until this. Too easy? Vanilla Skyrim is some of the easiest shit I've ever played.

What I've played of Skyrim thus far is also really easy (only logged about 4 hours of it so far). No argument there. Seems to have a decent story though, which is sorely lacking in TESO.

[Tradesonred]

To me its not that the sub model is bad, its that all the MMOs in recent years have sucked ass, no innovation wanna try to outWoW WoW, thats what failed i think, not the payment model.

[Bamz4l]

where u sign up for beta invite? I never get invited :(

[radditsu]

Am I the only one who doesn't want to play an immersive sandbox with global channels of Chinese gold farmers spamming it?

[odiecat99]

Signed up a long long time ago mate. I have a beta session this friday.

[fishingme]

For the most part i've always found comfort in sub based games because you know that they will always have updates/patches regularly. However starcraft has been pretty amazing.

[maximum]

Second (or third?) beta session this Friday. The last beta test (I thought) was godawful. I didn't see the endgame, but it didn't have any of the goodness of Skyrim.

[Orruar]

I know this won't be the popular opinion, but I prefer subscription model because it weeds out all the poor people. You get a pretty shitty population full of worthless human beings in F2P games.

[Tradesonred]

I know this won't be the popular opinion, but I prefer subscription model because it weeds out all the poor people. You get a pretty shitty population full of worthless human beings in F2P games.

Heil hitler brother

[burkemi5]

I don't understand how this game is being considered for the biggest flop of 2014 before people can even examine a finished product. I, for one, have enjoyed the betas, have friends who have enjoyed them, and fully intend on purchasing ESO.

[Grimfan]

I don't understand how this game is being considered for the biggest flop of 2014 before people can even examine a finished product. I, for one, have enjoyed the betas, have friends who have enjoyed them, and fully intend on purchasing ESO.

Game is sweet.

[bizzum]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

I remember when FFXIV did a sub model and did very well. Guy writing the article is a doofus.

[Grubbz]

BETA THIS FRIDAY YEAHHHHHH BOI. ALL CAPS INTENDED!

[karekiz]

For the most part i've always found comfort in sub based games because you know that they will always have updates/patches regularly. However starcraft has been pretty amazing.

There are plenty of Pay to Play games that don't fix bugs, don't keep making content fast enough, or have good support. I think it more depends on how well it sells initially and how many stick 3 months after launch.

[Auvdar]

Game wont even patch, Webget request failure :(

Going to give this game one last hurrah try before I make my final judgement. Expectations are extremely low, but I will give it one last try.

edit: Even the website is clogged. Big surprise, should of updated my patcher yesterday :(

[baalzy]

Well, if ESO ends up using the same stupid leveling system (I'm now level 15 because... I can jump really high?) and has the same shitty combat system as Skyrim... then that's why it will fail. Good story telling, good immersion, shitty gameplay.

[Grubbz]

TESO is fucking fantastic, its like EQ 2.0! Ill be paying full price and a yearly sub, later haters.

Cfuson001 add me in game, Argonian / Dragonknight.

[citizen1080]

Game wont even patch, Webget request failure :(

Going to give this game one last hurrah try before I make my final judgement. Expectations are extremely low, but I will give it one last try.

edit: Even the website is clogged. Big surprise, should of updated my patcher yesterday :(

I was getting the same error...then I realized the game folder was exceeding 50+ gigs on a solid state hard drive that only had 50 gigs available. Deleted the folder and reinstalled fresh last night. No issues today.

[Auvdar]

I was getting the same error...then I realized the game folder was exceeding 50+ gigs on a solid state hard drive that only had 50 gigs available. Deleted the folder and reinstalled fresh last night. No issues today.

Folder is sitting at ~29gigs, which is what it should be. Running Avast to clean up my system a bit. Tried running it in admin mode, no dice. Tried running the launcher from the program file itself, no dice. Hopefuly cleaning my system might get it to go. Otherwise I'll try a fresh instal.

[Auvdar]

pfft, just uninstalled and trying to reinstall.. still getting the Webgo request failed error.

[Grubbz]

Argonian / Dragonknight op combo..........

[Auvdar]

Finally getting somewhere by turning off windows firewall.. I hope.

[MrSparkle001]

Well I'm at 11% of the patch downloaded, after like two hours. No testing for me tonight. I should have remembered to pre-patch but it's no big deal, I'll just continue with my ACOK Warband mod which is superior to just about every other game so far.

[Lune]

I am really liking this beta build so far

[citizen1080]

Yea...only issue ive run into so far is some of the NPC's jaws shift as they talk lol...really odd looking.

Started on a diff faction this time so I don't get bored with same storyline. So far so good.

[FoxxHound]

Is it open? If so I will DL when I get off work.

[Grimfan]

It's a closed invite only beta if that's what you're asking, but if you got the invite the beta started at 6pm EST and runs through Sunday. The patcher for me and my girlfriend took about 6 hours because I don't think it's peer to peer.

[citizen1080]

Yea its still closed. But they have a pretty good pipeline. I was averaging 3 down.

[Grimfan]

Nice, it could have been something on my end then.

[Grimfan]

Game is sweet.

[Grubbz]

Right? this is amazing shit man. ADD me Cfuson001

[citizen1080]

Game is looking more and more solid. Not saying its the mythical Wow killer or the end all MMO. But so far it looks well worth 60 bucks and 15 bucks a month.

[Oleris]

anyone playing dominion? 15 sorc here. PM me for my name

[citizen1080]

Lvl 5 Nord Dragon knight - Pm me for name

[Grubbz]

Sent you a PM bro, would love to run with you on my lvl 6 Templar.

[citizen1080]

Replied...but I crashed and getting the 310 error trying to get back in. Hopefully back in game soon.

[anthony210]

You know there is still an NDA right?

[Grubbz]

So? we arent talking about any in game content? everyone knows the races and classes as there listed all over the net.

[odiecat99]

I am finally getting to download all the patches and stuff, always forget to D/L before bed.

When I get in-game I will post details of the content. I would like to duo with someone with a new toon.

Will try to post in-game info pros and cons ect., when I get everything set-up.

edit: my internet is ghetto tier cable only about 700KB/s DL ;)

[Grubbz]

Like someone above you posted, your not really allowed to post any info about the beta due to the NDA.

[Tradesonred]

Lost interest after an hour

WoW... just... WoW

Apparently, some people who gave it more time than i did say that it never gets better, sandbox wise. Youre just hopping from quest zone to quest zone which isnt elder scrolls to me. That thing is going to crash and burn so hard. Feels like something that was Dev'd hot on the heels of WoW to cash in but its like 8 years too late. I played like 2 hours and never logged back in.

Dont even feel like giving feedback because when you put this much time designing a game youre not going to scrap big chunks of it, its gonna be little tweaks here and there so no use in asking them "hey... what about a sandbox game, you know like an elder scrolls game?"

[Grubbz]

Funny you said that because everyone i know plans on buying it at launch. Biggest gripe from people is that its a subscription model. Who cares, $15 is less then 2 hours of work, if you cant afford that you shoulden't be playing an mmo in the first place.

[odiecat99]

Like someone above you posted, your not really allowed to post any info about the beta due to the NDA.

don't really care.. TBO

[Tradesonred]

Funny you said that because everyone i know plans on buying it at launch. Biggest gripe from people is that its a subscription model. Who cares, $15 is less then 2 hours of work, if you cant afford that you shoulden't be playing an mmo in the first place.

I dont think the sub model is something bad and if i did, this game is going to go F2P so fast its not going to be a problem.

[Lune]

Lost interest after an hour

WoW... just... WoW

Apparently, some people who gave it more time than i did say that it never gets better, sandbox wise. Youre just hopping from quest zone to quest zone which isnt elder scrolls to me. That thing is going to crash and burn so hard. Feels like something that was Dev'd hot on the heels of WoW to cash in but its like 8 years too late. I played like 2 hours and never logged back in.

Dont even feel like giving feedback because when you put this much time designing a game youre not going to scrap big chunks of it, its gonna be little tweaks here and there so no use in asking them "hey... what about a sandbox game, you know like an elder scrolls game?"

There is a lot wrong with the game, but it isn't really like WoW. I think maybe you're just defaulting to that as an easy way to bash the things you don't like, without actually being analytical and saying what they are.

You may want to note that though the progression from zone to zone is on the rails, I've found it fun to explore the countryside. You find quests that it does not point you toward, chests, skyshards that give skill points, resources, dungeons, etc.

[Grubbz]

^ said more then i needed to.

[Tradesonred]

There is a lot wrong with the game, but it isn't really like WoW. I think maybe you're just defaulting to that as an easy way to bash the things you don't like, without actually being analytical and saying what they are.


Elder scrolls: Large open ended sandbox world

WoW: Zone to zone quest hubs, faction specific zones

ESO: Zone to zone quest hubs, faction specific zones

[odiecat99]

If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Don't play the beta, don't spend your time worrying about it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that you need to bash a game that others may like. The betas are put in place to test servers at max load (specifically this one). User input/feedback will make this game even better. So if you hate the current build, give feedback.


TLDR; Some will love ESO, some will hate it. Deal with it.

[Tradesonred]

If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Don't play the beta, don't spend your time worrying about it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that you need to bash a game that others may like. The betas are put in place to test servers at max load (specifically this one). User input/feedback will make this game even better. So if you hate the current build, give feedback.


TLDR; Some will love ESO, some will hate it. Deal with it.

Im not bashing it, im criticizing it. I dont get this whole if you dont like it shut up thing.

[odiecat99]

If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Don't play the beta, don't spend your time worrying about it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that you need to bash a game that others may like. The betas are put in place to test servers at max load (specifically this one). User input/feedback will make this game even better. So if you hate the current build, give feedback.


TLDR; Some will love ESO, some will hate it. Deal with it.

Listen, I didn't say shut up, I said try to give your feedback to devs..

[Tradesonred]

Too late for "hey how about a sandbox" feedback unless they gonna scrap big sections of work already done, which i dont see em doing with the amount of money thats been pumped into this.

[odiecat99]

I guess.

[Lune]

Elder scrolls: Large open ended sandbox world

WoW: Zone to zone quest hubs, faction specific zones

ESO: Zone to zone quest hubs, faction specific zones

Quality logic there mate. Two things share some loose similarities and they are oh so much alike?

WoW: You collect experience to get to the next level, where you unlock new spells.

Everquest: You collect experience to get to the next level, where you unlock new spells.

Why are we playing this terrible WOW-like shitfest!?!?

I can understand that you wanted a world more like other Elder Scrolls and I get that, and that's a valid complaint. Likening TESO to WoW, however, is not.

[Tradesonred]

Quality logic there mate. Two things share some loose similarities and they are oh so much alike?

WoW: You collect experience to get to the next level, where you unlock new spells.

Everquest: You collect experience to get to the next level, where you unlock new spells.

Why are we playing this terrible WOW-like shitfest!?!?

I can understand that you wanted a world more like other Elder Scrolls and I get that, and that's a valid complaint. Likening TESO to WoW, however, is not.

Its not loose similarities, its trying to do what most other MMOs have tried to do since wow came out, emulating it for the most part and hoping the dollars will flow in. Its like that scene in groundhog day where Bill Murray is trying to recreate the night where he got the girl but cant get it right.

Its an outdated model for the most part. Ive tried to play Deus ex3 with all the rave reviews but i couldnt get into it because level by level feels so dated now that weve had a taste of open worlds.

Thats how ESO feels, a dated game. Instead of focusing on what makes ES great, the sandbox, they went along and made something most people are bored with by now. The go to quest hub A, move to quest hub B, then C model.

If that pleases you, ok thats not only wow thats used this. There, happy?

[Auvdar]

Its not loose similarities, its trying to do what most other MMOs have tried to do since wow came out, emulating it for the most part and hoping the dollars will flow in. Its like that scene in groundhog day where Bill Murray is trying to recreate the night where he got the girl but cant get it right.

Its an outdated model for the most part. Ive tried to play Deus ex3 with all the rave reviews but i couldnt get into it because level by level feels so dated now that weve had a taste of open worlds.

Thats how ESO feels, a dated game. Instead of focusing on what makes ES great, the sandbox, they went along and made something most people are bored with by now. The go to quest hub A, move to quest hub B, then C model.

If that pleases you, ok thats not only wow thats used this. There, happy?

A dated game with a 300mil dollar budget :(

Couldn't of said it better myself. If this was coming out in 2004, it would of been great.

[Millburn]

Seriously though, this game is only going to hold peoples attention for 3 maybe 4 months max. It'll be F2P before 2015 guaranteed.

[burkemi5]

The new beta is great, I am having a ton of fun. Highly recommend.

[Grimfan]

Its not loose similarities, its trying to do what most other MMOs have tried to do since wow came out, emulating it for the most part and hoping the dollars will flow in. Its like that scene in groundhog day where Bill Murray is trying to recreate the night where he got the girl but cant get it right.

Its an outdated model for the most part. Ive tried to play Deus ex3 with all the rave reviews but i couldnt get into it because level by level feels so dated now that weve had a taste of open worlds.

Thats how ESO feels, a dated game. Instead of focusing on what makes ES great, the sandbox, they went along and made something most people are bored with by now. The go to quest hub A, move to quest hub B, then C model.

If that pleases you, ok thats not only wow thats used this. There, happy?

I went on ahead and edited my posts that clearly broke the NDA, I'd rather not have any trouble come of it since someone made a post about it and I know the community here is pretty shitty and I could see them reporting me.

Here is what I will say, without breaking the NDA. One hour is not long enough to see what they are trying to do. This is an MMO, it isn't a normal game. The first few hours are devoted to learning the game. Sure, in classic EverQuest they didn't hold your hand. MMO's have evolved away from the plop you into the game with a note thing because that is what MUDs used to do way back in the day and they were trying to make a visual MUD. These games are advanced, and they have more sophisticated design.

You spent an hour exploring the game? Your opinion isn't even noteworthy. Try to get past your preconception that it should be an Elder Scrolls game and once you get past the first two starting areas and enter your capital city, I guarantee that you will find the game much more to your liking. In fact, you'll be super surprised with what you will find. I do not want to post any more because while I'm excited about it and I posted a ton earlier, I would really rather be in other beta weekends because I cannot get my hands on enough of this game at the moment.

[Freeport]

I am in beta. Love it. This game is far more promising than any mmo in the past 8 years. Get the fuck over it scrubs. It reminds me of eq in a way because it is very immersive.... First person mmorpgs have an advantage over 3rd person or god mode games alone...

[Oleris]

#2 in Cyro right now

[Grubbz]

Haters gonna hate bro. Its fun to hate on things in 2014, diden't you get the memo?

[FoxxHound]

Damn... Gonna have to wait :/

[Rec]

Every new mmorpg is going to kill everything then a few months into release we find out the game is dead.

[Millburn]

Every new mmorpg is going to kill everything then a few months into release we find out the game is dead.

This is exactly it.

I keep hearing everybody say how fun it is but I have yet to hear anybody talk about how satisfying it is. This is going to be a lot of fun for the first month or two and then it's going to rapidly lose its luster and after 3 to 4 months it's going to drop in population like every other MMO out there.

I'll eat my words if that doesn't happen because I really want a new solid MMO but I just don't see it with ESO.

[citizen1080]

It really is up in the air at this point. The majority of people who have commented on gameplay here have made to level 10, maybe. Most the naysayers didn't even make it that far.

The few people who have commented regarding the mid and end game have said its fantastic. There is a post regarding mid/end game in my old thread from last beta weekend.

My point is we haven't seen enough to really condemn the game to failure. In my opinion the beginning of the game is just fine. 1-10 may not be the most exciting gameplay I have had but its solid.

By level 10 in EQ you have a rusty sword, some cloth armor and are still killing orcs with a group.

Give it a fair shake before you shit all over it

[Grubbz]

Don't bother arguing with haters bro.

[Grimfan]

Might not be this way in release, and this will be the last nda breaking thing from me. Just did the last boss of a dungeon. We wiped once, and when we killed her two people died. Was a four person dungeon. We had a shitty composition, but the boss was actually challenging. Everyone had their own personal loot from each boss fight. Fun was had. Good time for all.

[Rec]

Your game is in trouble if you need a fair shake. UO, EQ, WoW did not need fair shakes. There was no question, everyone knew these games would be hits.

[Grubbz]

Theres a huge difference between people now and the people back when EQ and UO were top dog, ever since wow people have felt entitled to EVERYTHING.

Yeah i would love to see this generation of kids play everquest with AOL........ GL with that.

[JayN]

Rogean is the biggest gaming disaster in 2014 tbh lol

[Auvdar]

It really is up in the air at this point. The majority of people who have commented on gameplay here have made to level 10, maybe. Most the naysayers didn't even make it that far.

The few people who have commented regarding the mid and end game have said its fantastic. There is a post regarding mid/end game in my old thread from last beta weekend.

My point is we haven't seen enough to really condemn the game to failure. In my opinion the beginning of the game is just fine. 1-10 may not be the most exciting gameplay I have had but its solid.

By level 10 in EQ you have a rusty sword, some cloth armor and are still killing orcs with a group.

Give it a fair shake before you shit all over it

Except the 1-10 game in Everquest was fun..

Yes it's very easy to make a good judgement on how a game is going to be in the long run when the initial "hook" sucks.

And no one wants to play a FF13 type game either. Yeah sure the game gets ok after 20 hours of playing,.. but no one wants to slog through that first 20 hours to get to a generic game. Just like here, no one is going to want to get through generic to crappy early game just for the hope of seeing something great at the end. Especially when there are SO many other choices out there that don't suck early on.

[Auvdar]

And to add to the fact of "The late game is ok!" that I've heard before, do you know the attention span of the average MMOer these days? Any dev. with a clue knows you have to hook your audience early. When a majority of people can't even stand getting past lvl 10... that's a bad sign.

Hell even I got happily past lvl 10 in FF14 before it completely tanked and they had to revamp the entire game.

[BillyCranston]

I would have loved an online multiplayer version of Skyrim, but that's not what ESO is.

It's just another cookie cutter MMO, with a bad camera angle, and shit gameplay. Playing ES with other people should never be about having 50 people all attacking the same group of rats and bats.

[Sirken]

dunno what game some of u are playing. but one of my fav things about ESO is that its not like wow

[Auvdar]

I would have loved an online multiplayer version of Skyrim, but that's not what ESO is.

It's just another cookie cutter MMO, with a bad camera angle, and shit gameplay. Playing ES with other people should never be about having 50 people all attacking the same group of rats and bats.


Yep.

Honestly, I can't see how people would even think that a TES would make a good MMO. TES games are way to player centric and scripted about what you do that it would never work in a MMO setting with thousands of others trying to be "hero" or whatever you want to call it. A TES game would probably be awesome with a local co-op mode (iirc there was a mod being worked on for Skyrim that was going to allow this. Think it got scrapped sadly), but not as a MMO. They are just two very different games.

I swear if this game wasn't called an Elder Scrolls game it would of become vaporware before beta even happened.

Call it "Snowy lands of Go kill something" or whatever you want and no one would care. It would be seen as the generic broken pile that it is.

[Auvdar]

dunno what game some of u are playing. but one of my fav things about ESO is that its not like wow

Get quest --> go here --> kill whatever --> return --> repeat until all quests are used up then move to next quest hub and repeat. Yeah that's the WoW model.

Rather than the elder scrolls model which is short intro --> quick story mission to grab the ropes --> go do whatever the fuck you want.

[Tradesonred]

Elder scrolls one of my fave RPG series of all time, been gaming since 1980, and i didnt last long with ESO one 2 hour session friday and 30mins saturday. Its not what we expect from ES games, it just feels dated as fuck to do these retro quest on rails hubs. Its immersion breaking to ask characters to do good actions when you had settled on being an evil toon, and your option to be evil is to be stuck in that quest hub and not advancing in the game. MAAAAAYYBE if it was well done and you had many options to be evil or good, but it just feels cookie cutter.

[Tradesonred]

http://www.presseurop.eu/files/images/article/thumbs-down-2.jpg?1292948494

[Grubbz]

Warning gonna break the NDA because i am tired of noobs who played 1 hr and logged out and think they get an opinion on the matter.

Sorry but no.......... Even the elder scrolls game had a main quest line. There is a TON and i literally mean a ton of stuff to do. Don't feel like questing? No problem just go explore the world, collect gathering materials, work on tradeskills, if that doesn't interest you explore some dungeons and yes there are PLUNTY of optional dungeons and PLUNTY of optional side quests.

The first dungeon on the ebenheart side is called fire grotto and its not easy. The boss actually reqs teamwork, The loot is fair and the atmosphere is amazing.

You're never gonna talk us out of buying the game, its amazing and we will support it.


Haters gonna hate.

[MrSparkle001]

They closed the beta forums the same time they shut down the server. No feedback from me now. They left them open for a few days after the last session. I was ready to write another lengthy post containing all of my feedback from this weekend.

I summarize and go into detail after a beta session is over, after I've collected and organized my notes and thoughts (I keep notes as I test). It's not my style to constantly use /feedback ingame, giving short quips here and there and never really going into detail. I'd rather give my feedback in a forum post after the beta session is over. It lets me go into detail and it opens up my feedback to discussion and brainstorming which I find a lot more valuable than a bunch of very short /feedback submissions.

[citizen1080]

dunno what game some of u are playing. but one of my fav things about ESO is that its not like wow

Right?

http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/i-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills.gif

[Grimfan]

They closed the beta forums the same time they shut down the server. No feedback from me now. They left them open for a few days after the last session. I was ready to write another lengthy post containing all of my feedback from this weekend.

I summarize and go into detail after a beta session is over, after I've collected and organized my notes and thoughts (I keep notes as I test). It's not my style to constantly use /feedback ingame, giving short quips here and there and never really going into detail. I'd rather give my feedback in a forum post after the beta session is over. It lets me go into detail and it opens up my feedback to discussion and brainstorming which I find a lot more valuable than a bunch of very short /feedback submissions.

They send you a survey that has a couple boxes for you to fill out some feedback, don't worry.

[Grimfan]

Get quest --> go here --> kill whatever --> return --> repeat until all quests are used up then move to next quest hub and repeat. Yeah that's the WoW model.

Rather than the elder scrolls model which is short intro --> quick story mission to grab the ropes --> go do whatever the fuck you want.

We didn't play the same game if your game turned out like that. I did quests in whatever order I came upon them, explored every single spot that was available for each area that I got into, I spent two hours jumping across a rope bridge that isn't supposed to be crossed only to find nothing on the other side but I felt accomplished because I got somewhere probably only a handful of people had the patience to get to. I left the two starting zones feeling pretty competent with my handle on my class and my character and when I got into Daggerfall all that changed.

Suddenly, Werewolves everywhere, shit is going down, the everywhere I look a new mechanic opens up like horse stables etc. Crafting is super deep. There are location specific crafting benches that let you craft set items but only if you craft them in that area.

I go to areas, oh look a creepy fucking tower lets go down into it, what the fuck, there is a quest down here? Yes there is. Wow look at this QUEST HUB THAT NEVER EXISTED BECAUSE THERE ARE NO QUEST HUBS IN THIS GAME. You didn't play the game. You have no idea what you're talking about, and you didn't give it two shits of a chance. Two hours, one hour, whatever, that is not how long people play MMO's for and if you honestly think that I played WoW for one hour and said, "Well shit, this is the best thing I've ever seen." You are so wrong. It took me a good day to get fully into WoW and you know how they hooked me? The same way this game did. Every time I think I have it fully figured out? It throws me a curve ball.

WoW does not reward you for exploring the way this game does. You read a bookshelf and sometimes you get a level in one of your skills from it, that's about as Elder Scrolls as it gets. You go to a place on the map that has a skull and two swords on it and there is a mini boss for you to kill. You get an achievement, and a shitload of experience like you just did a quest. But did I get a quest to go there and kill that guy? I did not, I just found him.

There are public dungeons. I ran down to the docks and talked to a fisherman there because I was looking for assassins that were targeting the king from a quest in Daggerfall. I talk to him because you can talk to almost every NPC in this game and he tells me, "Hey look over there across the water at that cave entrance. Some dudes go in and out every once in a while, kinda weird if you ask me." and I go over there and check it out, and there are dudes that invite me in to join the festivities, of course in an Elder Scrolls game that means shit is about to go down and it turns out they spawned a minor daedric lord and you have to kill him.

At the core of this game, it is about exploration, digging deep and finding every secret that you can and making the most out of your journey. I don't know about you but I want to be playing it at the beginning and experience things before everyone ruins it.

My only bit of criticism that I would like for them is to let me change the channel I am in to something custom so if the channel I'm in is jammed packed I can move to another without relogging. That's the only thing I really want from the game so far. They still have a lot of bugs to fix though, and a long way to go before they release in a few months, but I have a lot of faith from being in the previous betas and seeing how far they have come in just a few months.

[Tradesonred]

So youre saying theres actually a point in the game where you get to a large open ended world like we are expecting from an ES game?

Because thats the core of the main criticism about the game

[Grubbz]

Yeah it was hard for me and a friend to play together, we had to keep warping to each other due to the channels being full.

[Tradesonred]

and lol @ no quest hubs

[citizen1080]

So youre saying theres actually a point in the game where you get to a large open ended world like we are expecting from an ES game?

Because thats the core of the main criticism about the game

And that is the criticism I don't understand. You wander around and find random quests everywhere. Seems pretty open to me.

Yes the main quest line points you to main cities...happened in skyrim too. And yes, there are more quests in cities because guess what...there are more fucking NPCs there. Also happened in skyrim.

I dunno I don't get it...and I realize nothing I say is gonna change certain peoples minds. They had them made up before they even saw beta and are going to stick to their guns. More game for me I suppose.

[Grubbz]

^ "More game for me i suppose" lol best quote ever.

[Tradesonred]

And that is the criticism I don't understand. You wander around and find random quests everywhere. Seems pretty open to me.

Yes the main quest line points you to main cities...happened in skyrim too. And yes, there are more quests in cities because guess what...there are more fucking NPCs there. Also happened in skyrim.

I dunno I don't get it...and I realize nothing I say is gonna change certain peoples minds. They had them made up before they even saw beta and are going to stick to their guns. More game for me I suppose.

Thats not what im asking. My grudge isnt that theres quests, its that its all fractured into small quest zones. The openness im talking about is not if you wander around, do you find quests? Its in relation to a large sandboxy open world.

Ill repeat my question, Is there a point in the game where you stop being in these hermetically sealed PVE bubbles to enter a section of the game, lets call it the true game, where its a large open ended world where you can encounter players from other factions while questing, exploring, etc... Did i miss this true game or it doesnt exist. If by level 10 or something you enter this large open world map i guess some of it can be forgiven, but it turned me off to such an extent that i didnt even push forward to see what else there was. I purchased Dragonborn over the holidays, its not like im a hardcore ES hater, ESO just doesnt feel like an ES game (The sandbox). Maybe later on, but not the first few couple of hours.

[Grimfan]

So youre saying theres actually a point in the game where you get to a large open ended world like we are expecting from an ES game?

Because thats the core of the main criticism about the game

Yeah so there are still restrictions keeping you in place from exploring areas you shouldn't be in, it cannot feasibly scale like an Elder Scrolls game where if you're level 1 you fight a level 1 dragon or whatever. But once you get off the islands and get to your capital city everything begins to open up. You have less direction and you are told where to go along your main faction quest, but you don't have to go there. If they tell you to go North, there are a dozen other things to explore in east/west/south. Do you understand what I mean? Yes it's finite, you can burn through that content, but that doesn't mean you certainly will. I played my character for 24 hours this beta weekend and got to level 13 almost 14 from exploring and doing all the things and I was still missing several areas that I could have explored.

[Grimfan]

Thats not what im asking. My grudge isnt that theres quests, its that its all fractured into small quest zones.

Ill repeat my question, Is there a point in the game where you stop being in these hermetically sealed PVE bubbles to enter a section of the game, lets call it the true game, where its a large open ended world where you can encounter players from other factions while questing, exploring, etc... Did i miss this true game or it doesnt exist. If by level 10 or something you enter this large open world map i guess some of it can be forgiven, but it turned me off to such an extent that i didnt even push forward to see what else there was. I purchased Dragonborn over the holidays, its not like im a hardcore ES hater, ESO just doesnt feel like an ES game (The sandbox). Maybe later on, but not the first few couple of hours.

As far as I saw there isn't an area where you can mingle with others from different factions, but that might come in end game. For now all I saw were people in my own faction. It does have normal mmo zone progression though where you cannot get to places you're not supposed to go, in that way it is probably a bubble, but the bubble expands to about 10x the size of the other bubbles you were on if that makes any sense. And there are what looks like a good 5-6 bubbles for you to explore, and then you can go through other factions story lines as well from what they've said, but I don't have end game experience.

Honestly you might want to wait until it has been out a month to see/experience it, but I am going to get it right away. I want to get into the PVP and get really deep into the game.

[Tradesonred]

Yeah so there are still restrictions keeping you in place from exploring areas you shouldn't be in, it cannot feasibly scale like an Elder Scrolls game where if you're level 1 you fight a level 1 dragon or whatever. But once you get off the islands and get to your capital city everything begins to open up. You have less direction and you are told where to go along your main faction quest, but you don't have to go there. If they tell you to go North, there are a dozen other things to explore in east/west/south. Do you understand what I mean? Yes it's finite, you can burn through that content, but that doesn't mean you certainly will. I played my character for 24 hours this beta weekend and got to level 13 almost 14 from exploring and doing all the things and I was still missing several areas that I could have explored.

Shadowbane i thought was awesome because of that, because all the world was opened straight off the bat and all sorts of mob camps where available all over the map.

What was stopping them from using this model, which is the ES model anyway (althought since oblivion i think theyve used this sucky autolevel crap) instead of the onrails model.

Its unfortunate but theres a pattern of gaming companies losing sight of their core audiences, water down their gameplay to try to appeal to more people to make more money and it ends in disasters like X-rebirth where the end result is the core audience dislikes it because its way too "simplified" and doesnt appeal to not many people else either.

If i want to play a shitty watered down console game, ill buy a console. Me im sticking to companies who dont get too greedy and try to McOverextend and stick to making good pc games with depth.

[Grimfan]

Shadowbane i thought was awesome because of that, because all the world was opened straight off the bat and all sorts of mob camps where available all over the map.

What was stopping them from using this model, which is the ES model anyway (althought since oblivion i think theyve used this sucky autolevel crap) instead of the onrails model.

Its unfortunate but theres a pattern of gaming companies losing sight of their core audiences, water down their gameplay to try to appeal to more people to make more money and it ends in disasters like X-rebirth where the end result is the core audience dislikes it because its way too "simplified" and doesnt appeal to not many people else either.

If i want to play a shitty watered down console game, ill buy a console. Me im sticking to companies who dont get too greedy and try to McOverextend and stick to making good pc games with depth.

Normally I see concessions to the console crowd in the UI, but I am not really seeing it that much in this game. There are a few wonky things, but over all the UI feels fairly intuitive, especially after doing a few tests. It's different from the usual crowd though.

I don't really think games make concessions to consoles in actual game design, but I could be wrong. Sure, I could play it with a controller, and I did sometimes feel a bit suffocated by the fact that I could only have 5 abilities and an ultimate on my bar but I think it's something I could get used to.

But I cannot agree with people saying it is exactly like World of Warcraft because it is not. There is a sense of mysticism and wonder when I play the game and there hasn't been an MMO that I have beta tested (and I have tested a shitload of fucking games) where I went, "Man, I almost don't want to beta test this because I really just want the actual game to be out." Since probably... World of Warcraft.

[FoxxHound]

If anyone has/gets an extra invite/key; I could totally use one.
Please~

[MrSparkle001]

Ill repeat my question, Is there a point in the game where you stop being in these hermetically sealed PVE bubbles to enter a section of the game, lets call it the true game, where its a large open ended world where you can encounter players from other factions while questing, exploring, etc... Did i miss this true game or it doesnt exist.

No, it's like DAOC in that regard. You don't encounter the enemy factions in the PvE world and as of right now you can't travel to their maps.

This game is a mix of elder scrolls and DAOC, specifically Skyrim and DAOC (and to a lesser extent Skyrim and Rift, although ESO does have rifts now oh I mean anchors). If you liked both games like me you'll probably like this game. The criticisms people have about ESO are generally the same criticisms they'd have about DAOC so I'm thinking they never played it or didn't like it when they did.

The world is open once you reach the main map (which for Daggerfall is Glenumbra). I'm assuming it's not in fact the main map but rather the map containing the home city and the lower level content. There are probably more maps later on for higher levels. We only have access to content up to the low teens; there's 30+ levels of maps and content we are totally unaware of not including Cyrodiil.

You can explore and find quests but you better be the proper level for them because some of them are TOUGH. Not all are tough but some of them make you wonder why they chose such a low recommended level.

I can also almost guarantee that future expansion maps will have all three factions and PvE content mixed together including mixed cities. Tamriel only has so many areas before you start getting into things like different planes and oblivion and whatnot. I personally don't like the factions intermingling (I hated it in WoW) but that seems to be the way these games evolve now.

[Grubbz]

But I cannot agree with people saying it is exactly like World of Warcraft because it is not. There is a sense of mysticism and wonder when I play the game and there hasn't been an MMO that I have beta tested (and I have tested a shitload of fucking games) where I went, "Man, I almost don't want to beta test this because I really just want the actual game to be out." Since probably... World of Warcraft.


I felt the exact same way...

[Grubbz]

Just got the survey filled out, cannot wait to see how they improve an already great game.

[Nopsi]

funny that so many people here are complaining about the monthly payment method... EQ1 was at that base too, wasnt it?

i liked the 20 minutes gameplay, more wasnt available for me this weekend, i got stuck at The Prophet (get a Skyshard) and the Support responded today :rolleyes:

well, nvm, i will buy it, i will max lvl a few chars and try out some stuff - and then? well, let see :)

[Uteunayr]

Ah, ESO. Well, let me offer some reasons that I think this game is lackluster at best, and offers absolutely nothing to the MMO community, and even less to the TES community. This may not be something you agree with, and that's fine, but listen to my reasons. You may not weigh the same things with the same weight I do, and that can result in you still enjoying or liking the game, while I do not. For readers who have never played ESO's beta, or looked into the game's design philosophy, then consider how much these considerations are important to you.

Note, I start each paragraph from here on out with a brief phrase indicating what it is the paragraph is about. This is very long, but it focuses not on the payment model, but entirely upon gameplay, playstyle, and character progression. Don't read this if you don't want to read a very long, thought out critique of ESO as a game.

ESO v. WoW (Playstyle): Allow me to begin at the root that I hear many people shout, "this game is like WoW". This is not exactly true. In World of Warcraft, you are given 12-36 buttons that vary in function, which you use to survive and win in combat. This is not what ESO gives you. What you get with ESO is a combination of 6 possible abilities, one of which is an "ultimate", a very popular set up in more modern MMOs. In addition to these 6 possible abilities, you replace the auto-attack function with a left-click to attack, or hold left click to charge attack.

ESO v. WoW (Gameplay): This is fundamentally different playstyle, by which I mean the way that the player inputs their actions into the game world. However, what remains unchanged from the WoW structure is the gameplay, by which I refer to the way the world reacts and gives you things to act upon. Take an Orc Warrior in World of Warcraft, and as this Orc Warrior, you spawn into the Valley of Trials. From there, you do X number of quests, and then leave the Valley and move on to Sen'jin Village. Once you do X number of quests there, you move on to Razor Hill... And then the Barrens. By and large, these quests are brief parts of a greater whole.

WoW Gameplay, the Themepark: The WoW Style of This is the "themepark" model many refer to, as once you leave Sen'jin Village, you never have a reason to return there. EverQuest, prior to this, had an interconnected style, in which you would constantly double back upon yourself while exploring the world, to see things you have seen before, but new places within those same places (think about being a newb in Oasis, seeing the spectres, and returning there 20-25 levels later to kill them yourself). In this style, ESO is no innovation. It provides the same basic quest structure that WoW has made a standard in so many games. Even the more innovative MMOs out there do not offer a difference upon this system. You do quests, you exhaust the quests in that area, and then you move on to the next place to exhaust that. Instead of wandering around and exploring a world, you're being guided on a tour of the world, as a consumer, rather than just an explorer.

TES Gameplay, Questing in Skyrim: Now, this is what MMO players are likely used to, so this may be an issue to those of us (myself included) who abhor this style of gameplay, but TES fans are surely to find this the most atrocious. Take Skyrim, often considered one of the easiest of the TES games. Quests consume time. You get a quest escaping Helgen, and it guides you to Riverwood, which guides you to Whiterun. A good bit of time passes in this section. Next, you get the quest to go and find The Dragonstone. So you prepare, you get gold together, you buy what you need, you head out, run across the fields, fight a few things on the way for your safety, climb up the kills, get ambushed by bandits, break into Bleak Falls Barrow, ambush bandits, and on the way in, you find a guy wrapped up in spider webs. You free him, and he runs for it, and you chase him, kill him, and find a claw. What is this claw? What is it for? Does the game tell you? No. You pick up the guy's journal, and the claw, and continue onward in your quest. You get to a locked door after fighting through a few more puzzles and challenges, and you read the journal to break the puzzle of the golden claw, get inside the tomb, kill the top Draugr, and while doing so, you get imbued with the power of the Unrelenting Shout, as well as The Dragonstone.

ESO Gameplay, Questing in Skyrim: That is a quest in The Elder Scrolls. This is not what a quest feels like in ESO. One of the first quests I got as a Nord was to head north and find a guy. My compass pointed me to him, and I completed the quest, and got some cash. I then got a new quest to infiltrate bandits, and collect 3 pages. I did so in about 2 minutes, and completed the quest, got some cash. I then got a quest to go to the mine entrance, which took maybe 10 seconds. I completed that quest, got more cash, and went into the mine and killed something. I complete the quest, get some cash, and then went into an Oblivion Stone, kill two people, get teleported out, and complete a quest, and get some cash. And then I get a quest to go back out of the mine... Etc. You see what I mean. This isn't one grand adventure that you're embarking on. You are doing small iddy bitty things that do not equate to what a "Quest" is. This is what WoW questing is like, not what TES questing is traditionally like. Note, what I describe was delivered as the main quest, not a miscellaneous quest (as I have noticed some people say that the misc quests in Skyrim are also brief, but this isn't misc in ESO). Questing isn't as cumbersome, it isn't as epic, it isn't as rewarding, or as meaningful as it is to TES, or even EQ players who know what questing for something feels like in an Arthurian style.

ESO Character Progression: A closely related subject is character progression, something that I think is terribly disappointing as far as a game is concerned. ESO gives you, at character creation, 4 generic classes, which give you access to a small, select number of class skills, as well as weapon skills, armor skills, and the like. But these are unique to your starting class. As you progress, you unlock more advanced classes, which are similar to D&D's "Prestige Classes". However, these are rigid classes. So, if you begin as a fighter style (I forget the lore based name they assign to it), you are always that, and then just expand upon that style. You cannot, as is classic to the TES experience, switch up what you do, or blend things to make unique classes.

TES Character Progression: Although TES games like Morrowind and Oblivion both had classes, the classes were nothing more than pre-designed synergistic combinations of abilities. You were able to customize, instead of selecting a class, to take different combinations of abilities that, even if they were not synergistic, they were fun for you to play. So you could take Marksmanship, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Stealth, and Acrobatics. Why not? Sure, Heavy Armor may not fit, but fuck, it's a game! Have fun! In Skyrim, the new approach was to not offer any classes, and instead just drop the player into situations with numerous different paths to take (use the bow, use magic, use sword and board, use two handed), and give the player the chance to go in any direction they want. This is the inherent TES experience. This is what ESO lacks entirely.

An Alternative Based On a Past MMO: The sad truth is that this signifies to me that Bethesda is simply attempting to imitate other MMOs, rather than trying to innovate. And even in imitating rather than innovating, they do not even imitate a system that works best for their fans. Think about the TES Skyrim progression. As you level, you gain perk points. These perk points are rare, and so you may level up by doing archery, but you spend your perks in 1 handed as that's your focus, but you've capped it. The way you allocate your perk points defines the strengths and weaknesses of your character, in conjunction with gear. This does not lend itself to a game that gives you limited options to select based on class, if you want to keep the essential TES Experience... A game has offered a system that offer a reasonably TES experience to players in a MMO environment, and that game was one that came about before WoW's dominance, and one that is pretty much only known for the progression system it offered: SWG.

SWG Progression: In SWG, you had 250 skill points. All players had these, and you can never truly consume them, only have them tied up. So how it worked was simple. You are a blank slate. You have starting "professions": artisan, entertainer, medic, scout, marksman, or brawler. So, what do you want to do? Artisan branches into Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, Architecture, and Droid Engineering. Entertainer into dancer, musician, and the like. Medic into Doctor. And so on, and so on. When you decide to take a starting profession, the skill "Novice <profession>" ties up X number of skill points (15), so you now have 235 left. As you do things pertaining to your profession, you gain experience in the different aspects of your profession. When you get enough, you can get trained, which consumes the experience, and ties up more skill points. The idea is that you can combine anything you want up to 250 skill points. So, you want to be a Commando/Architect? You take Brawler and Marksman to branch into Commando (not taking the full tree in either Brawler or Marksman, only those needed for Commando), take Novice Commando, and everything in Commando, as well as take Artisan, and everything to become an Architect. But lets say you decide you don't want to do it anymore, you don't like being an architect. You can surrender your Architect skills, get back your Skill Points, and reinvest them in new talents.

How ESO can benefit from SWG: Imagine Skyrim's talent system, but expanded. One in which you can have, at any one time, 50 perks from the talent trees. You can work your way up One Handed and Destruction, or Two Handed and Alteration, and distribute your points to take both full trees. Or you can spread them over a wide range of different trees, and take less from each. The only restrain is you cannot go over 50 perk points. Decide you don't want to go Two-Handed and Alteration, but want to go Alteration, Restoration, and Heavy Armor? Delete your perks, freeing yourself from the 50 cap, and reinvest the perks elsewhere. This would let you have a system that is still inherently TES, but versatile enough to be MMO capable.

Conclusion: But ESO ultimately feels lackluster if you're a gamer like me that has played pretty much every MMO that has ever come out, and has become weary of the stagnation in MMO innovation that came about due to WoW's success. If you're looking for something brand new, something shiny, something awesome, ESO is not it. If you are not like me, and you can still take a great deal of fun from questing themeparks, and limited structured progression systems, then you will be more than happy with ESO. As for me, my only hope is with EQN. No, it will not be EverQuest as we know it, and while it doesn't offer that innovative of a progression system (basically the same as TSW, GW2, and other pseudo-horizontal progression systems), it does offer the first real, interesting chance for dynamic gameplay that is driven by the "adventure" grind, rather than a creature grind (EQ1) or quest grind (WoW, ESO, EQ2). This is primarily due to the idea of having NPCs form their own camps, and work in a more dynamic way, than having a strict structure that is necessary in both creature grind and quest grinds, as this creates a more randomized experience in which players can make their own fun, rather than being guided. So, that's why EQN is pretty much my only hope beyond P1999. I had hopes ESO would innovate, but I have not seen that, and although I thought it was likely they wouldn't innovate, I am highly disappointed that they didn't imitate something better than the WoW gameplay structure, and a similar character progression structure that mine as well be the WoW class and talent system. It is ultimately very sad.

[Lune]

^

I read your entire novel and I agree with most of it, some correct observations about the way their system works and how it might not appeal to us.

However, I need to point out that:

ESO Character Progression: A closely related subject is character progression, something that I think is terribly disappointing as far as a game is concerned. ESO gives you, at character creation, 4 generic classes, which give you access to a small, select number of class skills, as well as weapon skills, armor skills, and the like. But these are unique to your starting class. As you progress, you unlock more advanced classes, which are similar to D&D's "Prestige Classes". However, these are rigid classes. So, if you begin as a fighter style (I forget the lore based name they assign to it), you are always that, and then just expand upon that style. You cannot, as is classic to the TES experience, switch up what you do, or blend things to make unique classes.

...is mostly inaccurate. Each class has three subdivisions you can put points into to specialize in certain things. You can put your points into just one, two, or all three sections as you level. You're not really "unlocking" a new class, so much as you're using your points to build your own class.

In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way. I think pretty much every class has at least one tree that synergizes as well with magic/ranged styles as it does with melee.

Let's say you choose a Nightblade, which has a lot of rogueish choices that work well with a stealthy character. Well it just so happens that the assassination tree has a ton of abilities that just flat out increase the shit out of your killing power, and IIRC only one skill in that tree has anything to do with stealth. So you can make a Nightblade, put points into Assassination, Two-Handed swords, and Heavy Armor, and you have a warrior type character who is good at doing bursty damage and has some nice ways to counter healers and finish people off. Even more, you can put a point (or more) in Strife in the Siphoning tree and you have a warrior-type char with killing power who can lifetap and snare people.

There are a ton of different combinations that are surprisingly effective if you approach the skills creatively. Further, you can keep putting points into multiple weapons and multiple subdivisions in your class and switch around at will. From what I saw, you get enough points to where you can diversify pretty liberally if you want to.

Ultimately, the class sytem is TESO is something I really like; it's probably my favorite class system in any MMO or Elder Scrolls game to date. Otherwise, I share most of your other gripes.

(Last beta I played a Nightblade - Bow wood elf. Leveled bow, medium armor, and strife tree. Used the ranged utility snares/lifetaps/stuns/CC from strife to complement my bow skills. Next one I might try a Dark elf dragonknight flame wrath or whatever it's called. Light armor, destruction staff, and ranged fire abilities, amounting to something of a ranged fire mage with access to some neat DK skills.)

[Uteunayr]

...is mostly inaccurate. Each class has three subdivisions you can put points into to specialize in certain things. You can put your points into just one, two, or all three sections as you level. You're not really "unlocking" a new class, so much as you're using your points to build your own class.

In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way. I think pretty much every class has at least one tree that synergizes as well with magic/ranged styles as well as it does with melee.

Let's say you choose a Nightblade, which has a lot of rogueish choices that work well with a stealthy character. Well it just so happens that the assassination tree has a ton of abilities that just flat out increase the shit out of your killing power, and IIRC only one skill in that tree has anything to do with stealth. So you can make a Nightblade, put points into Assassination, Two-Handed swords, and Heavy Armor, and you have a warrior type character who is good at doing bursty damage. Even more, you can put a point (or more) in Strife in the Siphoning tree and you have a warrior-type char with killing power who can lifetap and snare people.

There are a ton of different combinations that are surprisingly effective if you approach the skills creatively. Further, you can keep putting points into multiple weapons and multiple subdivisions in your class and switch around at will. From what I saw, you get enough points to where you can diversify pretty liberally if you want to.

Ultimately, the class sytem is TESO is something I really like; it's probably my favorite class system in any MMO or Elder Scrolls game to date. Otherwise, I share most of your other gripes.

(Last beta I played a Nightblade - Bow wood elf. Leveled bow, medium armor, and strife tree. Used the ranged utility snares/lifetaps/stuns/CC from strife to complement my bow skills. Next one I might try a Dark elf dragonknight flame wrath or whatever it's called. Light armor, destruction staff, and ranged fire abilities, amounting to something of a ranged fire mage with access to some neat DK skills.)

I disagree. Each class has 3 subdivisions, yes, but other classes do not get those other subdivisions. So, you have the spellcaster catch all, and the fighter catch all, the two that I played extensively over a number of different beta weekends. The fighter catch all never had access to the spell tree the spellcaster catch all did to summon an imp. No matter what I could do to my fighter, he would never, ever be able to go down the spell line to conjure. This is not TES style, this is far closer to what WoW had for ages, with three subdivisions of each class in which you invest talent points into. Sure, you can put points in each, and as you put points in each, you unlock new abilities, and this is true of both games, but for all the illusion of choice, it always comes down to a rather simple minmax based on the broad class. In WoW, you were never able to make a Holy Warrior, unless you rerolled your Warrior into a Paladin, but then you're not a Warrior, and you better hope you enjoy Paladin more than Warrior if you wanted to be a Holy Warrior. Similarly, my fighter catch all in ESO couldn't access the talent trees that the spellcaster catch all could.

If you start a fighter, you're always a fighter, you just vary it upon a pre-designed theme, rather than one of your creation. You start a paladin, you're always a paladin, only vary slightly upon the theme. Similarly, you start a fighter catch all, you're always a fighter catch all, with variations upon that theme, never grabbing beyond. So I disagree when you say "In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way." Tell me if it has changed and you now have access to every single talent tree in the game for any class you pick. And then tell me what the heck the purpose of a class is if those options are there. The class servers only to constrain, and TES isn't about constrained options in progression.

You will never have the freedom to fully design a unique character in the game, as your choices are constrained to a limited subdivision of the basic catch all class. You are not given all the tools, you're given limited tools in which to design your character. You make a Nightblade, and you can put points into Assassination, but you cannot put them into something another basic class would get, to use those abilities. You are inherently playing a class with limited range, rather than having a grab bag of stuff to go for, which is traditional TES, and the style that TES is about.

You like the ESO system, I think it is among the most horrendous systems ever designed, as it takes one of the best RPG series out there, and corrupts it with the ghost of WoW progression in the worst possible way. It is truly an abomination. The only reason I label it as the most horrendous, even though I find it to be pretty much equivalent to WoW's earlier talent system, is that ESO follows in the legacy of TES, and that holds it to a higher standard. Bethesda should know better.

Horrible system. Absolutely atrocious.

[Lune]

I disagree that it is inaccurate, and here's why. Each class has 3 subdivisions, yes, but other classes do not get those other subdivisions. So, you have the spellcaster catch all, and the fighter catch all, the two that I played extensively over a number of different beta weekends. The fighter catch all never had access to the spell tree the spellcaster catch all did to summon an imp. No matter what I could do to my fighter, he would never, ever be able to go down the spell line to conjure. This is a bother to me, and just about anyone else who loves TES for the versatility it offers.

This is not how the class system works. You do not understand it. The classes are not "catch-alls". Your status as a fighter or a spellcaster is determined by a combination of your choice of weapon, armor, and class tree selections. There are numerous viable combinations for casters and melees within every class.

I don't think the fact that you want your fighter to be able to summon an imp for the novelty is speaking for everyone else who loves TES, especially when TESO is meant to include PvP/RvR. Personally, I am a fan of making choices that have consequences. If you really want to be a fighter that can make an imp, make a sorcerer, spec in Dark Magic for the abilities that synergize quite well with melee, use a two hander, and heavy or medium armor. Then grab your imp from conj tree. Congratulations, you've made your own class that uses the abilities you like, and it's probably actually fairly strong.

The alternative? Give everybody access to everything. Homogenize everybody. I think that would be ridiculous, and more WoW-like than anything else.

[Grimfan]

Not to mention you unlock new trees as you progress through the game and discover things. You meet a group of individuals called the Undaunted which have group/raiding abilities that you can put skill points into. There is a fighters guild and a mages guild which both have lines that you can go down with their own special abilities and ways to level those trees. Eventually you will have werewolf and vampire lines, they are already talking about the thieves guild and dark brotherhood and each player can join these factions and make use of their skills if they wish to do so and this feels really Elder Scrolls to me.

I don't agree with your initial long post either, I don't feel like the questing is the same as WoW. Yes, you get your hand held through some things, but quests and locations are in off the path areas. There are very few quests in the main hubs and a lot of your adventures will make you feel like you're actually exploring the game world rather than just being led through one area after the next.

[Uteunayr]

This is not how the class system works. You do not understand it. The classes are not "catch-alls". Your status as a fighter or a spellcaster is determined by a combination of your choice of weapon, armor, and class tree selections. There are numerous viable combinations for casters and melees within every class.

But that is how the class system works. You pick a class, and you get 3 talent trees unique to that class, and then a talent tree for weaponry/armor.

Please, tell me if I am wrong. Tell me that the class system doesn't limit you to three specific talent trees that no other class can get. Tell me that conjuration is not unique to the sorcerer, and that as the fighter catch all class, I can pick up conjuration style abilities. Skyrim would let me, Morrowind would let me, Oblivion would let me. That's what TES is like. Will ESO? Or will ESO require me to be a spellcaster first, so that I can get the conjuration abilities, and then put points into Armor/Weapons to make myself into a Wizard Warrior, but forego all the melee abilities that I would like (which are exclusive to the fighter catch all), because I wanted one magic ability that was exclusive to the spellcaster catch all. And if I instead started as a Fighter, and later on decided I wanted to try out conjuration, I'd be SOL without making an entirely new toon, beginning a game of alt-creation rather than character enrichment.

If you can tell me that that is completely inaccurate to what the reality of the game's classes are, I will ask you for your next beta to please record your character creation and progression process, and show the fact that someone who goes for the wizard catch all to have the spellcasting of conjuration can also use abilities that were previously unique to the fighter catch all.

I don't think the fact that you want your fighter to be able to summon an imp for the novelty is speaking for everyone else who loves TES,

That's just one of literally thousands of possible combinations that are unique and possible in Skyrim's system. Many people here have created an interesting and fun build. That is entirely curtailed by the sustem in ESO. No, my individual desire to play a fighter that can summon an imp doesn't gimp it, but the vast majority of people that love TES love it not only for its exploration and questing (which we agree is fucked up in ESO), but in the variations in choice you have. ESO does not have that in the least. It is not isolated to my one desire to play a fighter with conjuration. There are many combinations you could do in a more free system traditional to TES that ESO gimps.

especially when TESO is meant to include PvP/RvR.

SWG was a heavy PvP game, as it was pretty much the game's entire endgame. It managed just fine until SoE revamped the entire game to fit WoW, and then the numbers bled.

Personally, I am a fan of making choices that have consequences.

Choices have consequences, not determinism. In Morrowind, selecting a custom class and making yourself have major skills in One Handed, Blocking, Heavy Armor, Acrobatics, and Athleticism, didn't mean you absolutely couldn't do Conjuration, Alteration, Restoration, Destruction, etc. It meant that the consequence of your character creation is that should you choose to not do what you were created to do, it is a lot harder. In other words, your "class", your combination of primary and secondary skills, those leveled and progressed faster, because your character was naturally talented at those. That's a consequence if you seek to go beyond, but to fix the consequence, you don't have to reroll an entire toon.

And that's what WoW did, that's what this will do. You'll roll your toon over and over to build different styles, rather than exploring what your one character can do, and explore the consequences of slow leveling in doing things you're not talented at.

If you really want to be a fighter that can make an imp, make a sorcerer, spec in Dark Magic for the abilities that synergize quite well with melee, use a two hander, and heavy armor. Then grab your imp from conj tree. Congratulations, you've made your own class that uses the abilities you like, and it's probably actually fairly strong.

And then what about the heavy offensive melee abilities? My talent trees from being a sorcerer only gives me 3 talent trees, none of which include the heavy hitting melee styles. My talents are limited to those of the sorcerer. So, if I want to go this path, I need to entirely ignore two of my three talent trees, only focus on the conjuration one, and deal with that. That's a really shitty system to constrain your choice that much. So no, that's not "my own class", that's a single specced sorcerer, rather than a warrior that dabbles in conjuration.

The alternative? Give everybody access to everything. Homogenize everybody. I think that would be ridiculous, and more WoW-like than anything else.

Bullshit. Here you're just using language to try and get a knee-jerk reaction out of people. Homogenization is making two distinctly different things uniform between each other, you make them the same. That is not what the alternative is, otherwise everyone in SWG for the first two years under this system would be the exact same thing, as would TSW characters. Similarly, every player in Skyrim would be the exact same character, and every character in Morrowind and Oblivion would also be the exact same thing. But that's not what you see, you see a lot more creativity and interesting designs in those games, that are not equal, their strength is based on their synergy, even in the highest levels of difficulty.

Offering vast new options, leaving everything available to everyone, within constraints of how many toys they can take (250 skill points, maximum number of perks) is a far cry from homogenization. Anyone who has played any of these games knows that. To paint it in such black and white terms as you have (class or homogenization) is simply silly.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

I don't agree with your initial long post either, I don't feel like the questing is the same as WoW. Yes, you get your hand held through some things, but quests and locations are in off the path areas. There are very few quests in the main hubs and a lot of your adventures will make you feel like you're actually exploring the game world rather than just being led through one area after the next.

WoW quests were off the main path areas. The questing is remarkably similar to what it is in WoW. Explain what it is that makes ESO questing distinctly different from WoW. It still works in a themepark structure, it still works based on pumping out massive quantities of quests quickly, rather than making them epic. You say you disagree, but with what? That there are few quests in the main hubs? Play WoW now days, most quests are gathered while you do other quests, and are chained. It's the same thing. I just quit WoW a few months ago because of it, after operating and running a raiding guild for three years and leveling a server full of 90s (11x).

[Lune]

And then what about the heavy offensive melee abilities? My talent trees from being a sorcerer only gives me 3 talent trees, none of which include the heavy hitting melee styles. My talents are limited to those of the sorcerer. So, if I want to go this path, I need to entirely ignore two of my three talent trees, only focus on the conjuration one, and deal with that. That's a really shitty system to constrain your choice that much. So no, that's not "my own class", that's a single specced sorcerer, rather than a warrior that dabbles in conjuration.

If you examine all of the talent trees more closely, the Dark Magic tree synergizes with melee about as well as the other defensive-supportish trees you see in the other classes. You're welcome to take as many or as few points from both the Dark Magic and Conj trees as you wish.

There is a great deal of flexibility inherent in the class system. Just because it doesn't let you do anything doesn't mean it isn't still really flexible.

Other than that, we're only disagreeing about one thing: I like classes that feel and play differently, and I like to feel as though my choices are meaningful, because I gave up certain things to get what I have. You want to be able to customize every aspect of your character, and I understand that.

I'm not saying your way is wrong, or that it is bad. I liked that model in the other TES games too. I'm just saying my preference leans toward the TESO system as it currently exists for an MMO environment. And I'm reluctant to say that I speak for everybody on that, and you should be too.

And yea, I wish the world was more open and less on-the-rails.

[Uteunayr]

If you examine all of the talent trees more closely, the Dark Magic tree synergizes with melee about as well as the other defensive-supportish trees you see in the other classes. You're welcome to take as many or as few points from both the Dark Magic and Conj trees as you wish.

Yes, but is Dark Magic 100% identical to what I could take under the fighter tree? If so, that sounds homogenized. It would be better if I had the option to take Dark Magic, or something under the fighter tree. Dark Magic may synergize well with melee, but it is the only way you can delve down that path, when fighter offers a number of others. So, if you want to be a heavy fighter/dabbler in conjuration, you're SOL. There are plenty of other styles just like this in which your shit out of luck, and jolly well fucked from the class system. This is common in many games, but other games don't come from the background of TES, which is one of vast RPG freedom in character development.

There is a great deal of flexibility inherent in the class system. Just because it doesn't let you do anything doesn't mean it isn't still really flexible.

Classes are inherently anti-flexibility. They are rigid structures of progression, rigid structures of playstyle behavior. Just because you add some flexibility in a talent system (as EQ did with AAs) doesn't make it a flexible system. Absolute flexibility would lack any type of class, order, or structure, which is TES, but could not work in a MMO environment. That's why SWG is perfect for this, as it has a "class" system that offers rigid structure to skills, but allows flexibility in delving between the different abilities and skills of the different classes. It draws a middle ground, to be a mix between the rigid structures needed to balance a multiplayer game, and the flexible style common in TES that couldn't directly translate to a multiplayer environment.

Other than that, we're only disagreeing about one thing: I like classes that feel and play differently

I do not disagree with this. The classes do feel and play differently. My point is that playing a Sorcerer with heavy armor and a 2 handed weapon is not equivalent to playing a Warrior that dabbles in Conjuration, when Sorcerer and Warrior are base clases, and each has a number of abilities that are exclusive to the title "Warrior" or "Sorcerer". Each feels distinct, but just as you can't play a "Holy" specced Warrior in WoW, you need to go to a Paladin specced Warrior (either Retribution for offensive, or Protection for defensive), but when you do this, you get an entirely different playstyle that isn't a Warrior playstyle, which comes about from the other unique features that the rigid class structure pushes. If the rigid structure is more fluid, than your playstyle is entirely dictated by the synergies you build, rather than those inherent to the class structure itself.

and I like to feel as though my choices are meaningful, because I gave up certain things to get what I have. You want to be able to customize every aspect of your character, and I understand that.

Correct. I do not believe it is a good decision for a MMO to force you to reroll a character to experience different style of content. I believe that consequences and costs are valuable things, and TES has had that, in the leveling speed difference based on what your character creation permitted. But rather than make a max progressed toon reroll their character entirely when they want to try a Warrior dabbling Wizard, instead of a Wizard dabbling Warrior, in which the individual character, the main, ceases to be developed, let the player continue to develop the rich history of their character.

This is what SWG did, and actively encouraged you to delve and jump between a variety of professions, rather than making a new character every time. It gives weight to your name, it makes reputation matter (which in turn builds community, much how EQ did by making your name matter), it gives flexibility to character roles so that one of my raiders doesn't have to reroll from Paladin to Warrior because Paladin abilities got nerfed this patch (shit that I had to do, and had my raiders do, as a raid leader in WoW all the time). Once you finish being a One Handed/Blocking/Heavy Armor orc, what next? In ESO, you need to reroll, because you're at the end of your class limited talent selection. In TES games, you'd deal with having a much harder time mastering those other abilities, and simply pick up and start using the new skill you're looking into and keep your sword and shield on backup. In SWG, you'd surrender one of your professions, and take another one that seems fun, allowing you to continue to develop your character, and experience the game endlessly on your main.

I'm not saying your way is wrong, or that it is bad. I liked that model in the other TES games too. I'm just saying my preference leans toward the TESO system as it currently exists for an MMO environment. And I'm reluctant to say that I speak for everybody on that, and you should be too.

I'm not disagreeing and saying that you don't prefer the system you describe (as that would be silly), I am saying that the system you prefer is absolute shit. I say the same thing to people who prefer World of Warcraft. Sure, they may prefer WoW as a MMO, but it doesn't mean WoW is any less shitty of a game, any less garbage that survives as a game due to the community perpetuating itself, rather than through any real design decisions on the part of Blizzard.

I do not speak for everyone, I am suggesting that the sentiment I offer is going to be shared by a wide range of fans of TES, as well as fans of MMOs, who converge on this game at launch, play it for a bit, and once the honeymoon is over, are going to realize just how bad it is (presuming no major changes from the current beta information on the game). Just the same as what happened with TOR, GW2, TSW, etc. The game could be far more appealing if it imitated systems that flow better with it as a TES game, to keep TES fans involved, and it would appeal more to MMO fans if it offered any type of innovation on the standard, generic MMO model we see today being pumped out to extract as much money from fans as possible before getting abandoned.

[Grimfan]

I really hate the quote system but I think without it we cannot really have a discussion so I'll just try.

Yes, but is Dark Magic 100% identical to what I could take under the fighter tree? If so, that sounds homogenized. It would be better if I had the option to take Dark Magic, or something under the fighter tree. Dark Magic may synergize well with melee, but it is the only way you can delve down that path, when fighter offers a number of others. So, if you want to be a heavy fighter/dabbler in conjuration, you're SOL. There are plenty of other styles just like this in which your shit out of luck, and jolly well fucked from the class system. This is common in many games, but other games don't come from the background of TES, which is one of vast RPG freedom in character development.

The idea is that each character class has three different trees that are magic only. These trees are generally divided into three different properties, one being really unique to a class and the other two having a little overlap from what I have seen. For instance, Dragon Knight gets a tree that probably makes it better tanks than the other three, but you could probably build a different kind of tank type without too much difficulty. But yeah, they're not identical.

You ignored the fact that a lot of important and potentially character defining skills are actually found in game rather than given to you in the beginning. Because of the limited skill slots, and because the passives sometimes work for out of class skills, the ones that you start with might not even be potentially important. This means that there are builds out there that might be some from the Mages Guild, your weapon, and maybe one from the werewolf as well, and you might have a completely different playstyle with a Destruction Staff than say someone that is a Sorcerer, uses a couple skills from the dark magic line, a couple from lightning etc.

The builds for the first few weeks are going to be unique and deep and you might not even know what your group mates or pvp enemies are doing even from their gear/weapon. That is unlike WoW where if you are a Druid, and you meet a Paladin in battle you already know within about two minutes what each is capable of.

WoW quests were off the main path areas. The questing is remarkably similar to what it is in WoW. Explain what it is that makes ESO questing distinctly different from WoW. It still works in a themepark structure, it still works based on pumping out massive quantities of quests quickly, rather than making them epic. You say you disagree, but with what? That there are few quests in the main hubs?

So there are two different major quest lines in TESO, and if you wanted to you could just go straight down them and progress too fast, this is especially apparent depending on which faction you choose because I only noticed this for the first time when I went Aldmeri Dominion and was level 7 in a level 12 area because I didn't explore enough. Anyway one questline is your main story quest which is the "Epic" quest of the Elder Scrolls branch, it doesn't end whenever you leave the beginning area, the Prophet keeps talking to you for a long time, and eventually I'm sure you take the fight to Molag Bal as they've talked about it being the first multi-group instance.

The second long story-line quest is the intrigue within your capital city, both of the factions that I tried had really long quest lines that while they did give you rewards from quests in the middle of them, they were really part of the same line.

So there's that, you were talking about how quests were just short do this and do that, but I think that those quests have really long and enduring storylines and are pretty memorable.

As far as normal questing being different from what is in World of Warcraft, I quit WoW when Cataclysm came out, so they might have changed their design philosophy, but the way that I remember it in WoW is that you literally went to a quest hub and gathered 5-6 quests and went out and started doing them. Sometimes, and only in the areas that the quests sent you, you might find another quest or an item that gave you a quest. If you were really lucky and they felt like doing something interesting you might find something silly you could do for an achievement.

This is the same design that Aion took, the same that Rift took, the same that Tera took, the same that TSW took for the most part, the same that GW2 took with the exception of their public quests, the same that... do you see what I'm saying? The idea is that they have areas already planned for you to go to and your content is along those areas.

Since you've only played the beginning area of TESO I will try to keep my knowledge limited to that to put some perspective in it for you. If you decide in the Skyrim area not to save all the people that are moving on to the next area with you, you can do that. You can actually advance at a very quick pace out of the tutorial/noob island. This is because the main story quest does not take you to the spider caves, it does not take you to many of the off path areas in the lands of Skyrim. You can advance to the next area (presumably to never come back) without ever doing 90% of the content on the noob island.

The further you move on, the more apparent it gets that you need to start exploring and instead of only sticking to the main path where the game sends you, you need to start going off the paths and into the mountains to explore. If you did this in WoW or Rift, you MIGHT get an achievement for getting to some high place and jumping off, if you do this in TESO you get rewarded with experience, gear, sometimes skill points, etc.

Anyway I already explained why I feel their system is different. We can agree to disagree if you'd like though, you're really combative and I don't really feel like making this a fight or whatever.

If you don't play the game I don't really care, but comparing it to WoW is really just wrong, it's about as far as it gets from the WoW quest system and it is about as close as you can get to making a Elder Scroll MMO without making it a gigantic sandbox like a lot of people would enjoy. I think that a sandbox would be good too, and yes it is a theme park MMO and I am sure I'll get bored with that eventually, but at least it has some promising systems in place to hopefully keep my interest for longer than the other games you listed up there.

[innocent51]

Forbe's article is quite bad.
However TESO isnt a good game. Its hardly more than a sub-GW2 surfing on Elder's Scroll licence without adding anything new. Its (probably after FF14) the MMO with the least new ideas.

[Grubbz]

I don't even understand why people are trying to convince others one way or another about the game.

Some of us will be buying it, others wont, enough said.

[Uteunayr]

The idea is that each character class has three different trees that are magic only. These trees are generally divided into three different properties, one being really unique to a class and the other two having a little overlap from what I have seen. For instance, Dragon Knight gets a tree that probably makes it better tanks than the other three, but you could probably build a different kind of tank type without too much difficulty. But yeah, they're not identical.

And in that way, each class has a forced, distinct playstyle, rather than one that grows organically through your choices in a progression system, as is the case in every TES game. That's a bad TES system.

You ignored the fact that a lot of important and potentially character defining skills are actually found in game rather than given to you in the beginning. Because of the limited skill slots, and because the passives sometimes work for out of class skills, the ones that you start with might not even be potentially important. This means that there are builds out there that might be some from the Mages Guild, your weapon, and maybe one from the werewolf as well, and you might have a completely different playstyle with a Destruction Staff than say someone that is a Sorcerer, uses a couple skills from the dark magic line, a couple from lightning etc.

I do not ignore this, but it is irrelevant to the point. The point remains that there are talent trees that are exclusive to specific classes, which will force general playstyles upon a character, rather than making it an organic experience as is traditional in TES, and what TES fans are used to. You don't get that in ESO, and you will have to reroll your character entirely if you ever want to shift that core play style.

The builds for the first few weeks are going to be unique and deep and you might not even know what your group mates or pvp enemies are doing even from their gear/weapon. That is unlike WoW where if you are a Druid, and you meet a Paladin in battle you already know within about two minutes what each is capable of.

Until the min-max builds come out, which always happens anytime you have extremely limited options. What is the min-max in WoW in which you have classes with three unique builds? It will not be made different if you have extra talent trees that are shared (armor/weapons/quest ones, etc), because the class system will encourage a very specific style of leveling up, with specific armor/weapon/quest talents taken to maximize the output of the core class abilities. But that didn't happen in Skyrim. Sure, everyone can agree Blacksmithing and Enchanting are OP as fuck... But One Handed versus Archery? Destruction versus Sneak? Which is better? Which is the minmax? Or for a MMO comparison, Commando/BH vs Commando/Teras Kasi (SWG), or how about Elemental/Pistols vs Elemental/Shotguns (TSW)? Neither ended up the minmax in the end, because no one was restricted, and no one character had core, fundamental uniqueness that could not be changed after creation.

Sure, in the first few weeks of WoW, people had "unique and deep" builds, but they quickly melted away into a minmax. You'll learn what others have, and you'll know within two minutes going against a sorcerer what they are capable of, as a minmax will always come out when you have rigid structures like class.

So there are two different major quest lines in TESO, and if you wanted to you could just go straight down them and progress too fast, this is especially apparent depending on which faction you choose because I only noticed this for the first time when I went Aldmeri Dominion and was level 7 in a level 12 area because I didn't explore enough. Anyway one questline is your main story quest which is the "Epic" quest of the Elder Scrolls branch, it doesn't end whenever you leave the beginning area, the Prophet keeps talking to you for a long time, and eventually I'm sure you take the fight to Molag Bal as they've talked about it being the first multi-group instance.

The second long story-line quest is the intrigue within your capital city, both of the factions that I tried had really long quest lines that while they did give you rewards from quests in the middle of them, they were really part of the same line.

So there's that, you were talking about how quests were just short do this and do that, but I think that those quests have really long and enduring storylines and are pretty memorable.

You mean that 30 quests have a really long and enduring storyline. Quests in ESO are the effective equivalent to a task in pretty much any game, or stages on a quest in Skyrim, but they are treated as distinct quests. Sure, the game has a "main questline" and "secondary questline", but this isn't something unique from World of Warcraft. In Cataclysm (the start of a new story arc), you get to choose your starting position (Hyjal vs Vash'jir), and the story that progresses from that leads directly into going to Deepholm, which builds upon the story of Hyjal or Vash'jir, depending on which you did. Upon finishing the Deepholm "quest line" of around 120 quests, the events that take place there necessarily lead you to Uldum, which in turn leads you to Twilight Highlands, culminating in the rise of the Bastion of Twilight, one of the main raids.

So, I see no difference between what you describe, and what WoW does. There is a vast difference between that, and quests the way EverQuest handles it, and in which TES handles it, in which you are not given thousands of micro-quests along the way, but are given general goals, and left to go about it your own way. You're not lead by the hand through areas, which is the feeling ESO gives through their questlines.

As far as normal questing being different from what is in World of Warcraft, I quit WoW when Cataclysm came out, so they might have changed their design philosophy, but the way that I remember it in WoW is that you literally went to a quest hub and gathered 5-6 quests and went out and started doing them. Sometimes, and only in the areas that the quests sent you, you might find another quest or an item that gave you a quest. If you were really lucky and they felt like doing something interesting you might find something silly you could do for an achievement.

The quest structure I describe above for Cataclysm was still true in Lich King, in which you selected your entry point (Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra). You gather a bunch of quests in the main hub there, your base, which guides you through a story which brings you around that area, which guides you to Dragonblight, which leads you to meeting the dragons, uncovering the truth of the infinite dragonflight, and seeing the betrayal of the undead when you try to break into Icecrown. With that defeat, you are given options to help others around the area, in the other zones of Northrend, which lead you into Icecrown. Once broken into Icecrown, you begin the assault, and the questline ends with the beginning of the raids.

But by and large, people became very disinterested because the quests are shit out upon you. It's the same thing ESO does, and with their current system, the same exact outcome is going to happen, in which people want to click quickly through any quest chat and rush to quest objectives to level up a new character, because their first character (a sorcerer) couldn't be what they wanted, so they had to reroll a fighter.

This is the same design that Aion took, the same that Rift took, the same that Tera took, the same that TSW took for the most part, the same that GW2 took with the exception of their public quests, the same that... do you see what I'm saying? The idea is that they have areas already planned for you to go to and your content is along those areas.

Yes, and these are all WoW clones as far as game design is concerned. TSW innovated only insofar as their progression system is concerned, but it remained an entirely run of the mill MMO experience founded in the WoW model. And it was boring as shit.

Since you've only played the beginning area of TESO I will try to keep my knowledge limited to that to put some perspective in it for you. If you decide in the Skyrim area not to save all the people that are moving on to the next area with you, you can do that. You can actually advance at a very quick pace out of the tutorial/noob island. This is because the main story quest does not take you to the spider caves, it does not take you to many of the off path areas in the lands of Skyrim. You can advance to the next area (presumably to never come back) without ever doing 90% of the content on the noob island.

That's fine, but this isn't much different, again. You can skip a healthy amount of content in WoW, which is what most people end up doing when faced with doing the same quest line over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, any time they want a different play style experience. The gameplay remains rigid, it remains unchanging. Heck, at least in EverQuest, doing a camp two different times will come out with two very different experiences on the grounds that there is randomization in your play style. Sure, you may have wrecked Charasis basement last time you were there, but this time you go, your charms break a toon, roots are getting broken, etc. The dynamic experience is built based on the random chances of play style in EverQuest. The dynamic experience in TES has always been the adventure of doing each part of the quest, and interacting with unscripted things (random giant attacks, random dragon assaults, random patrols, random stuff that doesn't happen twice in a row the same way). The dynamic experience in EQN (presuming we take what they say as absolutely true) is that the mobs do not settle in the same place twice, they act in different ways based on the dynamically changing environment based on the ways players interact with it. This is what WoW, TSW, WoW, ESO, GW2, and pretty much every MMO since WoW that has been too cowardly to try and innovate has lost. Two characters along the same path will have a significantly similar experience, as quests grant you a scripted, singular experience that does not vary along the same lines. When these quests are short, and quickly delivered as part of grander storylines, rather than being steps upon a greater quest, each step is delivered as a scripted follow up to the last to hold your hand and guide you from area to area. It is pathetic and patronizing. There's a reason TSW's only major feature many people took away from it was the Investigation quests, which make you go above and beyond this handholding in today's games.

The further you move on, the more apparent it gets that you need to start exploring and instead of only sticking to the main path where the game sends you, you need to start going off the paths and into the mountains to explore. If you did this in WoW or Rift, you MIGHT get an achievement for getting to some high place and jumping off, if you do this in TESO you get rewarded with experience, gear, sometimes skill points, etc.

Exploration rewards achievements, experience, loot, and side-quest that you would not otherwise find in WoW. This isn't different than a themepark in which you're brought area to area to explore that area, consume all the content, and then move on never to return.

Anyway I already explained why I feel their system is different. We can agree to disagree if you'd like though, you're really combative and I don't really feel like making this a fight or whatever.

Do not mistake being very outspoken and opinionated for combative. I am not emotionally invested in this conversation in the least.

If you don't play the game I don't really care, but comparing it to WoW is really just wrong, it's about as far as it gets from the WoW quest system and it is about as close as you can get to making a Elder Scroll MMO without making it a gigantic sandbox like a lot of people would enjoy. I think that a sandbox would be good too, and yes it is a theme park MMO and I am sure I'll get bored with that eventually, but at least it has some promising systems in place to hopefully keep my interest for longer than the other games you listed up there.

To say it is "as far as it gets from WoW quest system" makes me question how you're on a classic EQ forum, given that EQ is *significantly* further away from WoW than ESO is. Classic EQ is as far away from WoW's quest system as you get today. Lets see...

EQ is furthest away. EQ Live doesn't grind quests, but it does grind kill tasks to put a cherry on the top of the creature grind that is traditional to EQ camping, so I'd say Live is probably the next furthest away, tied with DAoC and SWG, both of which offered the "task grind" style of creature grinding. After that, I'd put ESO, TSW, TOR, and other quest grinding main-storyline games, and then put WoW, as there isn't one unified story, but broken up between expansion packs.

I will not be playing the game, and anyone who reads what I have written, and can identify with my position in regards to other games, they will heed my warning, and avoid the game as well. Others who identify better with your position, and believe that there is a difference between the quest-grind, themepark style in WoW and other games listed, and therefore ESO is also distinct, they will heed your advice. You encourage those like you to get into the game, and I discourage those like me from buying the game so that we can get beyond having the same damn MMO published year after year to continue the stagnation in innovation that has hit MMOs. Stagnation from WoW really is the only explanation as to how you have EQ, and then DAoC, and then SWG, and City of Heroes, and then hit WoW, and for the next decade, have nothing but rehashed ideas. I am amazed when people talk about how great and innovative WoW is with the new "Garrisons", meanwhile I just sit here and say that SWG did this a decade ago, EQ and DAoC both instituted guild halls. And that pretty much all the new "innovations" we see are rehashes of the same exact stuff, rather than steps forward. That's why my only hope is for the dynamic creature system and non-quest grind structure EQN is proposing.

[Grimfan]

I'm not going to stomp on any toes, but if you could re-read your post, and then make it a little easier to read by only referencing each quote once I'd appreciate it. For someone in academia it was very hard for me to slog through a post where each point was hit twice with different information. In fact, I only read it once because even though you changed your points a bit in the second part, but I'll touch on the last paragraph you wrote because I can't really get my head around the last.

I will not be playing the game, and anyone who reads what I have written, and can identify with my position in regards to other games, they will heed my warning, and avoid the game as well. Others who identify better with your position, and believe that there is a difference between the quest-grind, themepark style in WoW and other games listed, and therefore ESO is also distinct, they will heed your advice. You encourage those like you to get into the game, and I discourage those like me from buying the game so that we can get beyond having the same damn MMO published year after year to continue the stagnation in innovation that has hit MMOs. Stagnation from WoW really is the only explanation as to how you have EQ, and then DAoC, and then SWG, and City of Heroes, and then hit WoW, and for the next decade, have nothing but rehashed ideas. I am amazed when people talk about how great and innovative WoW is with the new "Garrisons", meanwhile I just sit here and say that SWG did this a decade ago, EQ and DAoC both instituted guild halls. And that pretty much all the new "innovations" we see are rehashes of the same exact stuff, rather than steps forward. That's why my only hope is for the dynamic creature system and non-quest grind structure EQN is proposing.

I think that ESO is actually a step backwards when it comes to quest design and exploration and I like it. It's not as open world as EverQuest, and I think that is partially because they probably couldn't justify that as good game design anymore. I love classic EverQuest, and part of it is the immersion and the fact that I rely on other people to do content. There's a bit of that in ESO, but it doesn't come close to EverQuest, and I understand your pain in this part. It also does not come close to an Elder Scrolls game, but because games like Skyrim are basically the exact definition of a theme park for one person, I don't think they could really do that.

I'll concede and say that the game is a lot like other MMO's in the way that it has some of the conveniences that others do. I will disagree however that the class system is a poor one, and that the 3 core abilities you get from your class will make that much of a difference when all is said and done when you build your character. Your playstyle will affect your class the most, and I don't feel that your beginning decision will make much of a difference.

I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy your experience with it, and I think that what I am saying is that people should give it more than two hours to see how deep it goes. I've never actually seen a game where there are crafting stations that you can discover by exploring non quest areas where you can craft specific set gear that has different abilities. I've honestly just never seen that. That doesn't mean it does not exist, but I've never seen it.

I'm excited to explore and get abilities out in the world rather than just handed to me all at once via the Elder Scrolls model where you are instantly able to do whatever you want if you have an inclination, yet at the same time I'm happy that no matter what class I can be a bow wielding healer/support class if I want, even if they do things a little differently.

Basically, what I am saying is I don't think you gave it enough of a chance, and I think there's a great game in there, it just takes some time to get past the starting areas. You're taking a first impression and blasting away at the game when you really have no idea what you're talking about and so many others are doing the same thing, and that is not something an academic would do in my opinion.

That is why I'm bothering to argue at all. Every comment here that has called the game shit has not taken enough time to play it. I also felt it was shit my first beta test, and then the next beta my girlfriend also got into it and it was suddenly a much better game playing with her. I had someone to adventure around with, and I saw more. We made an effort to get further into the game. The game does make a first bad impression though.

[odiecat99]

holy fuck
Get a room you two ! ♥

[Blink]

FUCK U FIGHT ME!!!

[Uteunayr]

I'm not going to stomp on any toes, but if you could re-read your post, and then make it a little easier to read by only referencing each quote once I'd appreciate it. For someone in academia it was very hard for me to slog through a post where each point was hit twice with different information. In fact, I only read it once because even though you changed your points a bit in the second part, but I'll touch on the last paragraph you wrote because I can't really get my head around the last.

It was a copy paste error since I was on my university computer, and I fucked up with it. I adjusted it, and cut out everything that was duplicated, I believe. The first many responses were duplicated once, and then the actual conclusion was duplicated. This occurred because when splitting up your quote, I had to copy your Quote text, but toward the end, I had copy pasted the entire page to save it just in case it got eaten when I went to submit. When I decided to add one final note, it slipped my mind that I had saved it (after revision), and I pasted what I thought was the quote tag.

I think that ESO is actually a step backwards when it comes to quest design and exploration and I like it. It's not as open world as EverQuest, and I think that is partially because they probably couldn't justify that as good game design anymore. I love classic EverQuest, and part of it is the immersion and the fact that I rely on other people to do content. There's a bit of that in ESO, but it doesn't come close to EverQuest, and I understand your pain in this part. It also does not come close to an Elder Scrolls game, but because games like Skyrim are basically the exact definition of a theme park for one person, I don't think they could really do that.

But Skyrim isn't anywhere close to a themepark. A themepark game is one that holds your hand and guides you from each tourist attraction, lets you see it, and then you move on to the next location, consume the content there, and move on to the next, and so on. Skyrim is closer to a sandbox, but it isn't as free as a "sandbox" technically would be, so it is best as an open world RPG, in which you are constantly going back to the same places over and over, you're experiencing the world in many different ways. Just like in early MMO design, you go to the Oasis of Marr multiple times while leveling up, and you don't simply exhaust the location by "finishing" it.

But yes, we can both agree it is a step backwards in terms of quest design, but I think WoW was also a step backwards in terms of quest design. We've been walking backward since EverQuest gave us meaningful quests that have a real feeling of accomplishment.

I'll concede and say that the game is a lot like other MMO's in the way that it has some of the conveniences that others do. I will disagree however that the class system is a poor one, and that the 3 core abilities you get from your class will make that much of a difference when all is said and done when you build your character. Your playstyle will affect your class the most, and I don't feel that your beginning decision will make much of a difference.

Your play style is shaped by the gaming environment and style in which you're played. No matter what you do, the play style of a Warrior Tank will never be the same as the play style of a Paladin Tank in WoW. Even with allowing different armor types, weapon types (and lets just forget that dual wielding is just spam left click, rather than left/right click, another terrible backward step for TES), a necessary play style will emerge.

I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy your experience with it, and I think that what I am saying is that people should give it more than two hours to see how deep it goes. I've never actually seen a game where there are crafting stations that you can discover by exploring non quest areas where you can craft specific set gear that has different abilities. I've honestly just never seen that. That doesn't mean it does not exist, but I've never seen it.

I played it for far more than two hours. I played an entire beta weekend, completing the first island entirely on each different class. I referenced to a quest I did in the first two hours, but I played far more than that. Since then, I've done a couple more beta weekends, but continued to do the fighter and sorcerer classes in those successive weekends. However, I have stopped.

WoW has a few instances of crafting stations that are in isolated areas, especially in Lich King for Death Knights and their Runeforging. SWG had some rather rare stations that you had to find to build stuff. I forget about Mandalorian Armor, but I think you had to use a crafting station down in Death Watch Bunker, which is in no way a main questing area/main exploration area.

I'm excited to explore and get abilities out in the world rather than just handed to me all at once via the Elder Scrolls model where you are instantly able to do whatever you want if you have an inclination, yet at the same time I'm happy that no matter what class I can be a bow wielding healer/support class if I want, even if they do things a little differently.

Yes, but your playstyle as a bow wielding healer/support class will be distinctly different for your class, and so if you want to change up how it goes, you must reroll your toon entirely, which subverts much of the community building that occurs when your name builds a reputation, which is a significant part of why good community develops. People didn't easily reroll alts in EverQuest from max level because of how damn long it took, and so name reputation mattered. SWG did it by giving you only one toon, and in both games, great community exists. Games since? Not that much.

Basically, what I am saying is I don't think you gave it enough of a chance, and I think there's a great game in there, it just takes some time to get past the starting areas. You're taking a first impression and blasting away at the game when you really have no idea what you're talking about and so many others are doing the same thing, and that is not something an academic would do in my opinion.

I think you took when I referred to a quest I did about two hours in, that I had played for only two hours. I am actually having difficulty finding where I wrote that part, as I am trying to make sure I worded it correctly. But I did not play for only two hours. I played significantly more, and hate the fact that I did, because nothing changed. At first, I thought, "Okay, starting area. I'll give it some time.", but it never improved. Let me know where I said it, and I'll make sure to adjust it. I couldn't find anything related to "Hour", "two", or "2" in my posts so far, all I did find was from my first response to Lune, which makes clear I have played a good bit.

So, you have the spellcaster catch all, and the fighter catch all, the two that I played extensively over a number of different beta weekends.

That is why I'm bothering to argue at all. Every comment here that has called the game shit has not taken enough time to play it. I also felt it was shit my first beta test, and then the next beta my girlfriend also got into it and it was suddenly a much better game playing with her. I had someone to adventure around with, and I saw more. We made an effort to get further into the game. The game does make a first bad impression though.

I'd dare to say that any MMO played with a close friend is made infinitely better, as it is the social relationship that is providing the quality of the experience, rather than the game itself. My buddy was working the entire weekend, so I was unable to play with him through it, so I judged the game solely by what it offered in terms of design as I have come to look and be critical of over 15 years of playing MMOs, rather than based on what I get out of social connections, which is something any MMO will provide.

[Grimfan]

Yeah, I do think that having her there made me want to play the game further than I had in previous beta tests. I think I only have about 60 hours in the game, both times that I got past the first two newbie areas I got to about level 15. The experience opens up dramatically and it would be easy to miss a whole lot, and that's where I feel like it doesn't hold your hand as much, and that's where I feel the game starts to gain a lot of charm as well.

I also did my first dungeon experience with the game. It was a pretty excellent one even though two of us did not have clear roles in the group and we just ran with it (I was a DPSy two handed tank and he was a more healing focus two handed tank). We ended up completing the dungeon without too much trouble even though we had a couple of deaths. We were different classes though, he was a Templar and I was a Dragon Knight, and although I had some support abilities I felt I was actually a worse tank than him which is interesting because I was playing the "fighter catch all" as you say. Although, I could have been a better tank than him potentially if I had put more perks into my armor passives.

The idea I'm getting at is that we both felt unique to me. We both took different routes to our characters and we could not have been any more different and I actually thought everyone in the group was the same way, very different. My girlfriend was playing a dual wielding nightblade with light armor that operated more like a mage than a melee fighter, and the last member was a mage that was both split between conjuration and dark magic and was a pretty competent ranged damage dealer. She had to switch to a resto staff for the last boss though to help out in healing.

I don't know how far you got though, but if you got to your capital city and you felt the game didn't open up any then it probably isn't for you, you're correct. Once I started unlocking new skill trees from different guilds and closing anchors randomly and finding public dungeons and quests that were not apparent on my map I was pretty excited. The crafting station was actually under a house that did not even have a quest attached to it or a map icon, we just randomly encountered it, and I could see myself going back there to craft that gear when I had the time.

I don't think it was you specifically that said two hours by the way, it was someone else in the thread, and I personally didn't get to liking the game until my first 20 hour weekend session, and then this last one was much more improved than that one and I ended up spending 25 or 26 hours in it and enjoyed all of them. Sorry if I offended you earlier about your previous post, I couldn't really read it and it was frustrating. You have great points, and I agree with you on MMO design. I think that, actually, Brad McQuaid's new game probably has the most potential to make an MMO that is more like what we all want. Sadly I don't think EverQuest Next is going to do it, but EQNext could honestly be the next World of Warcraft, so who knows. Content generated on the fly, destructible terrain, advanced AI... Brad's MMO could honestly be a relic by the time it comes out in the world that EQNext is going to be in.

I have also played pretty much every MMO that has ever come out, so I know your frustration. I just see a lot of potential in ESO, and I'll probably be disappointed to be perfectly honest. I have 377 hours in Skyrim as of writing this and have been working on another playthrough, so I also understand you wanting the MMO to be a lot more like an Elder Scrolls game as well, but I do think that it has a lot of potential to be a great game.

[Uteunayr]

Yeah, I do think that having her there made me want to play the game further than I had in previous beta tests. I think I only have about 60 hours in the game, both times that I got past the first two newbie areas I got to about level 15. The experience opens up dramatically and it would be easy to miss a whole lot, and that's where I feel like it doesn't hold your hand as much, and that's where I feel the game starts to gain a lot of charm as well.

I also did my first dungeon experience with the game. It was a pretty excellent one even though two of us did not have clear roles in the group and we just ran with it (I was a DPSy two handed tank and he was a more healing focus two handed tank). We ended up completing the dungeon without too much trouble even though we had a couple of deaths. We were different classes though, he was a Templar and I was a Dragon Knight, and although I had some support abilities I felt I was actually a worse tank than him which is interesting because I was playing the "fighter catch all" as you say. Although, I could have been a better tank than him potentially if I had put more perks into my armor passives.

The idea I'm getting at is that we both felt unique to me. We both took different routes to our characters and we could not have been any more different and I actually thought everyone in the group was the same way, very different. My girlfriend was playing a dual wielding nightblade with light armor that operated more like a mage than a melee fighter, and the last member was a mage that was both split between conjuration and dark magic and was a pretty competent ranged damage dealer. She had to switch to a resto staff for the last boss though to help out in healing.

I don't know how far you got though, but if you got to your capital city and you felt the game didn't open up any then it probably isn't for you, you're correct. Once I started unlocking new skill trees from different guilds and closing anchors randomly and finding public dungeons and quests that were not apparent on my map I was pretty excited. The crafting station was actually under a house that did not even have a quest attached to it or a map icon, we just randomly encountered it, and I could see myself going back there to craft that gear when I had the time.

But you see, the problem is anytime a game has a narrative to it as a MMO, it is offering a very specific experience. Even when it branches out, I didn't feel it branched out much more than WoW does. You reach Orgrimmar, and then you can go to a wide range of different locations to explore/level and progress. The number of places you could go became so difficult to know (due to the number), they ended up putting in (during cataclysm) a board that would tell you what areas are more or less appropriate for your level/range to help guide people through the options they have. But regardless of this, you're being fed a narrative that isn't yours.

That's why EQ, DAoC, and SWG are games I point to repeatedly here, as they are games that do not offer you a narrative. You make your story. You make your journey. You make your quests. You make your adventure. Your epic is your own.

So I play WoW, I play ESO, I play TSW, and everything I do, everyone has walked the same path. Some may not have explored it as much, delved into the lore as much, but that's the "WoW" narrative that you're delivered. That bothers me tremendously.

Games like EQ, DAoC, SWG, you're dropped into a huge world, and... now what? Who are you? Are you a great hero that will rise to kill Innoruuk? Are you someone who will one day kill your own god to rip his eye out? Are you an imperial or a rebel? Are you righteous or evil? These are things you decide for yourself when your character is not predetermined or treated in a specific way by a game narrative. When you drop into World of Warcraft, however, you're a peon-esque dude, you get a few quests, you work your way up into being the great hero, and now everyone even raids to kill the ultimate boss of the game. But that's not your narrative. That's the game's narrative. You are being told who you are. Why the heck would the Horde ever accept my character given the way I want my character to be? In EverQuest, guards will hate me if I act the way I want to act. In WoW, you're not getting your guards to hate you, ever.

It's just bothersome, because MMOs have succumbed to trying to deliver a game story, rather than putting the story out there, and letting you explore it. That's what MMOs were about. Story isn't shoved in your face in life. Story is nebulous, it's floating out there, it's in the background. You need to seek it out and find it. Puzzle it.

...and I personally didn't get to liking the game until my first 20 hour weekend session, and then this last one was much more improved than that one and I ended up spending 25 or 26 hours in it and enjoyed all of them.

Most games are over by 20 hours in. If it takes a game 20 hours to get good, I have issues. After the 5th to 6th hour of the game being not-good, I get pissed because I am wasting time. But for the sake of giving the game a fair shot, and MMOs are time intensive, I keep going. But my attitude is bad. Nothing changed, and it just felt increasingly more just like what leveling a toon in WoW is like.

Sorry if I offended you earlier about your previous post, I couldn't really read it and it was frustrating.

Like I said earlier, I am not emotionally invested. This is a conversation over the internet. I wasn't offended. I made a mistake, and I corrected it. There's nothing personal or offensive about correcting an error. If an academic finds someone pointing out their errors as offensive, they are more likely to get eaten alive, since pretty much everything we do is pointing out other people's errors.

You have great points, and I agree with you on MMO design. I think that, actually, Brad McQuaid's new game probably has the most potential to make an MMO that is more like what we all want. Sadly I don't think EverQuest Next is going to do it, but EQNext could honestly be the next World of Warcraft, so who knows. Content generated on the fly, destructible terrain, advanced AI... Brad's MMO could honestly be a relic by the time it comes out in the world that EQNext is going to be in.

EverQuest Next is one that I approach with skepticism as SoE has burned all of us too many times. However, the idea of a truly fully voxel created world, dynamically adjusting AI, and a new style of game play all sounds good. I am most likely going to buy it just for the sake of supporting an innovative game design to hopefully help encourage other game creators to break out of the WoW Paradigm.

I have also played pretty much every MMO that has ever come out, so I know your frustration. I just see a lot of potential in ESO, and I'll probably be disappointed to be perfectly honest. I have 377 hours in Skyrim as of writing this and have been working on another playthrough, so I also understand you wanting the MMO to be a lot more like an Elder Scrolls game as well, but I do think that it has a lot of potential to be a great game.

It has potential, but they have to change some very fundamental issues. When Bethesda goes for a talent based progression system for their characters, and their level system of quest grinding, it jabs at the fundamental TES experience. Now, if there was no alternative, I would accept it, and say "Well, they did what they could.", but the fact that a game like SWG has been out, and has shown a progression system that can give a fundamentally TES experience in a MMO setting... And yet they do not use it, instead favoring a bland standard progression system, I am bothered. It is lazy in my eyes. Regardless of if you agree with me or disagree with me about ESO, I don't think anyone can say that the current system in ESO is more TES like than would be a SWG + Skyrim style progression system. It would make the game feel more like TES, enough that I would enjoy the play style of the game enough to look past the game play being a quest grind. I could ignore the quest grind if I enjoyed the play style enough. I did with WoW, as I loved playing a Protection Warrior so much, it was simply fun, I could ignore hating quest structures. But when they completely revamped the class, I ended up quitting.

I am rambling now, so I am cutting myself off before getting onto a rant of my hatred for Blizzard and Ghostcrawler for what they did to Protection Warrior.

[Auvdar]

Slight derail, but I swear this is the only forum I have seen that has people who give this game positive reviews.

[Uteunayr]

Slight derail, but I swear this is the only forum I have seen that has people who give this game positive reviews.

Although I am avidly opposed to the game on many grounds, I will say that this likely has to do with the fact that people are more often vocal about negative responses to things than positive responses. People will more often go out of their way to say something sucks, than to say something was great.

However, what does tend to motivate people to write positive reviews is when something they like is framed in a negative light, in which case, it is time to stand up and defend it. In this case ,the article is calling ESO a disaster, and so those that like the game will stand up to defend it more often than they would if this was about ESO generally.

That's just a theory. May be totally off. I have no way of truly testing it, only suggesting it.

[MrSparkle001]

TES Character Progression: Although TES games like Morrowind and Oblivion both had classes, the classes were nothing more than pre-designed synergistic combinations of abilities. You were able to customize, instead of selecting a class, to take different combinations of abilities that, even if they were not synergistic, they were fun for you to play. So you could take Marksmanship, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Stealth, and Acrobatics. Why not? Sure, Heavy Armor may not fit, but fuck, it's a game! Have fun! In Skyrim, the new approach was to not offer any classes, and instead just drop the player into situations with numerous different paths to take (use the bow, use magic, use sword and board, use two handed), and give the player the chance to go in any direction they want. This is the inherent TES experience. This is what ESO lacks entirely.

Besides the fact that I didn't read anything about PvP I want to say that this is inaccurate. This last weekend I tested a sorcerer specced in bow and a dragonknight specced in two-handed. Those are universal skill trees, same as the armor skill trees, guild skill trees, the world skill tree, and if you want to count them the crafting skill trees (I don't count them, they're not for combat).

The traditional TES character skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to tank, melee DPS, bow DPS, magic DPS, summon, heal and stealth, but that's exactly what all my TES characters can do.

The characters I made this past beta were vastly different from the ones from the previous beta. Previous beta I mostly tested a two-handed summoning sorcerer concentrating on the summoning tree. This beta I tested mostly a bow-using storm calling sorcerer concentrating on the bow tree. The two couldn't be any more different, and the fun thing is the way I combined storm calling with bows is completely different from the way a nightblade or dragonknight or dark magic sorcerer would. I also tested a dragonknight concentrating on the two-handed tree. Any character in the game can concentrate on the two-handed tree but a dragonknight will perform different, and did completely outperform my summoning sorcerer who only had a few points in two-handed and many points in summoning. My bow storm caller outperformed them both, and now I wonder if a destruction staff storm caller would do even better or how much different a bow dark magic user would be.

The fact that there's only five slots for skills also means players will probably have very different abilities in PvP even if they're the same class and concentrating on the same trees. I quickly find myself starved of skill slots even though I haven't advanced many levels yet. When I finally get that new skill at level 20 in a tree, what existing skill do I bump to use it? Bumping one skill out of five means you have to adopt a different combat strategy and rotation.

I don't think I would like a character skill system where you could pick and choose from any of the skills ingame, or at least progress down any tree you wanted. I think it would downright lame to combine the dragonknight's draconic power line (it's tanking line) with storm calling or anything from templar.

[Uteunayr]

Besides the fact that I didn't read anything about PvP I want to say that this is inaccurate. This last weekend I tested a sorcerer specced in bow and a dragonknight specced in two-handed. Those are universal skill trees, same as the armor skill trees, guild skill trees, the world skill tree, and if you want to count them the crafting skill trees (I don't count them, they're not for combat).

The traditional TES character skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to tank, melee DPS, bow DPS, magic DPS, summon, heal and stealth, but that's exactly what all my TES characters can do.

The characters I made this past beta were vastly different from the ones from the previous beta. Previous beta I mostly tested a two-handed summoning sorcerer concentrating on the summoning tree. This beta I tested mostly a bow-using storm calling sorcerer concentrating on the bow tree. The two couldn't be any more different, and the fun thing is the way I combined storm calling with bows is completely different from the way a nightblade or dragonknight or dark magic sorcerer would. I also tested a dragonknight concentrating on the two-handed tree. Any character in the game can concentrate on the two-handed tree but a dragonknight will perform different, and did completely outperform my summoning sorcerer who only had a few points in two-handed and many points in summoning. My bow storm caller outperformed them both, and now I wonder if a destruction staff storm caller would do even better or how much different a bow dark magic user would be.

The fact that there's only five slots for skills also means players will probably have very different abilities in PvP even if they're the same class and concentrating on the same trees. I quickly find myself starved of skill slots even though I haven't advanced many levels yet. When I finally get that new skill at level 20 in a tree, what existing skill do I bump to use it? Bumping one skill out of five means you have to adopt a different combat strategy and rotation.

I don't think I would like a character skill system where you could pick and choose from any of the skills ingame, or at least progress down any tree you wanted. I think it would downright lame to combine the dragonknight's draconic power line (it's tanking line) with storm calling or anything from templar.

I'd point you to the long conversation that preceeded over the past 2-3 pages, I elaborate further that just because there are shared trees does not take away from the rigidity offered by classes, and it will create... You know what, just go read it. I must have written a novella at this point on the subject in this thread.

Further, in the post you are quoting, but further down, I address how a more TES skill system would work in a MMO environment, and that it was effectively implemented over a decade ago.

Again, this was all addressed in the past 2-3 pages of discussion, and I am not about to retype everything.

[Auvdar]

I mostly just wanted a co-op version of Skyrim.. Something that 4-6 people can join in on on the fly.

I never ever thought a TES game would make a good MMO. And I still don't.

[formallydickman]

I mostly just wanted a co-op version of Skyrim.. Something that 4-6 people can join in on on the fly.

I never ever thought a TES game would make a good MMO. And I still don't.

For reals, Lemme play 3-6 in either an Oblivion or a Skyrim type game and call it good. Don't need 300,000 assholes standing around my quest mobs.

[MrSparkle001]

I'd point you to the long conversation that preceeded over the past 2-3 pages, I elaborate further that just because there are shared trees does not take away from the rigidity offered by classes, and it will create... You know what, just go read it. I must have written a novella at this point on the subject in this thread.

Further, in the post you are quoting, but further down, I address how a more TES skill system would work in a MMO environment, and that it was effectively implemented over a decade ago.

Again, this was all addressed in the past 2-3 pages of discussion, and I am not about to retype everything.

No way am I reading all that. Crazy enough I got through most of that first post I pulled that quote from.

I never played SWG and know nothing about it other than they ruined it, but I stand my statement that a TES skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to do everything, and that's what TES characters do. My most played Morrowind character has high levels in just about every skill in the game. He's an expert marksman, swordsman, axeman, shield user, light medium and heavy armor wearer, caster, summoner, acrobat, healer, stealther, pickpocket - you name it he's an expert. There's no way in hell that should ever happen in a MMO.

I guess I should mention that when i say TES system I mean like Morrowind. I never played Oblivion and only dabble in Skyrim. Morrowind and Daggerfall are my favorites and I probably have 100x more experience with them than with Skyrim, maybe more. I only assume that in Skyrim we can also become experts at everything and not actually have to choose what we want.

For reals, Lemme play 3-6 in either an Oblivion or a Skyrim type game and call it good. Don't need 300,000 assholes standing around my quest mobs.

Who cares if they do (besides the current bug where it may not spawn). There's no such thing as camping. At least half the quests I did were completed with others and it didn't affect anything or take away from the experience or anything like that.

[Uteunayr]

Skyrim Online has some good promise, but sadly, it has issues with newer Nvidia cards, so I cannot actually test it.

[Grimfan]

For reals, Lemme play 3-6 in either an Oblivion or a Skyrim type game and call it good. Don't need 300,000 assholes standing around my quest mobs.

Yeah, I really dislike that about the game actually, it's my biggest problem with it. I'd really like to be able to just join my own instanced channel from number 1-20000 or whatever and play with friends there rather than be put in an overcrowded one with 300 other people. If they use the channel system, and TESO does to an extent, then I wish they would just let me switch whenever I want.

[Uteunayr]

No way am I reading all that. Crazy enough I got through most of that first post I pulled that quote from.

I never played SWG and know nothing about it other than they ruined it, but I stand my statement that that a TES skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to do everything, and that's what TES characters do. My most played Morrowind character has high levels in just about every skill in the game. He's an expert marksman, swordsman, axeman, shield user, light medium and heavy armor wearer, caster, summoner, acrobat, healer, stealther, pickpocket - you name it he's an expert. There's no way in hell that should ever happen in a MMO.

No, but you can still keep the versatility of the progression system in such a way that you can create a unique play style based on what you want to do entirely, without being funneled into rigid classes. You will not be able to be a Master of every profession, but there are effective ways to handle it. You said you never played SWG, but one thing that remains as the game's strongest contribution was its progression system.

SWG Progression: In SWG, you had 250 skill points. All players had these, and you can never truly consume them, only have them tied up. So how it worked was simple. You are a blank slate. You have starting "professions": artisan, entertainer, medic, scout, marksman, or brawler. So, what do you want to do? Artisan branches into Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, Architecture, and Droid Engineering. Entertainer into dancer, musician, and the like. Medic into Doctor. And so on, and so on. When you decide to take a starting profession, the skill "Novice <profession>" ties up X number of skill points (15), so you now have 235 left. As you do things pertaining to your profession, you gain experience in the different aspects of your profession. When you get enough, you can get trained, which consumes the experience, and ties up more skill points. The idea is that you can combine anything you want up to 250 skill points. So, you want to be a Commando/Architect? You take Brawler and Marksman to branch into Commando (not taking the full tree in either Brawler or Marksman, only those needed for Commando), take Novice Commando, and everything in Commando, as well as take Artisan, and everything to become an Architect. But lets say you decide you don't want to do it anymore, you don't like being an architect. You can surrender your Architect skills, get back your Skill Points, and reinvest them in new talents.

How ESO can benefit from SWG: Imagine Skyrim's talent system, but expanded. One in which you can have, at any one time, 50 perks from the talent trees. You can work your way up One Handed and Destruction, or Two Handed and Alteration, and distribute your points to take both full trees. Or you can spread them over a wide range of different trees, and take less from each. The only restrain is you cannot go over 50 perk points. Decide you don't want to go Two-Handed and Alteration, but want to go Alteration, Restoration, and Heavy Armor? Delete your perks, freeing yourself from the 50 cap, and reinvest the perks elsewhere. This would let you have a system that is still ((very much a TES like system, but offers enough constraint to be in a MMO)). Note I edited the (( )) area for clarity.

[MrSparkle001]

Yeah, I really dislike that about the game actually, it's my biggest problem with it. I'd really like to be able to just join my own instanced channel from number 1-20000 or whatever and play with friends there rather than be put in an overcrowded one with 300 other people. If they use the channel system, and TESO does to an extent, then I wish they would just let me switch whenever I want.


The only problem a lot of people in an instance causes (besides the current bug like I said) is that it will be harder to find chests.

[Skittlez]

No way am I reading all that. Crazy enough I got through most of that first post I pulled that quote from.

I never played SWG and know nothing about it other than they ruined it, but I stand my statement that a TES skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to do everything, and that's what TES characters do. My most played Morrowind character has high levels in just about every skill in the game. He's an expert marksman, swordsman, axeman, shield user, light medium and heavy armor wearer, caster, summoner, acrobat, healer, stealther, pickpocket - you name it he's an expert. There's no way in hell that should ever happen in a MMO.

I guess I should mention that when i say TES system I mean like Morrowind. I never played Oblivion and only dabble in Skyrim. Morrowind and Daggerfall are my favorites and I probably have 100x more experience with them than with Skyrim, maybe more. I only assume that in Skyrim we can also become experts at everything and not actually have to choose what we want.



Who cares if they do (besides the current bug where it may not spawn). There's no such thing as camping. At least half the quests I did were completed with others and it didn't affect anything or take away from the experience or anything like that.


You can't do everything in SWG and no combination of classes that I can remember were too powerful. SWG is a great example of how an MMO can stray from the norm in classing and still be successful. SOE did all the damage them selves. The game was incredible until they altered it for its 'difficulty that new players had'. It was all because they were having slow sales some time after release.

[Shaakglith12194]

It's just bothersome, because MMOs have succumbed to trying to deliver a game story, rather than putting the story out there, and letting you explore it. That's what MMOs were about. Story isn't shoved in your face in life. Story is nebulous, it's floating out there, it's in the background. You need to seek it out and find it. Puzzle it.

I think you hit the nail on the head in a lot of areas of your posts in this discussion. This one in particular resonated with me, because it seems like aside from WoW, the REALLY successful MMOs (Eve Online, EQ1, EQ2, SWG) put the story out there as background and let you figure out your own story. WoW and many games like it pretty much made you a spectator to the parade that was the story. You might be the one tanking Ragnaros today, but there was nothing special about your doing it. Lots of other people had done and would do the same thing, so ultimately, you could be powerful but you were insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The story would proceed as if you were never there.

On Live EQ, you could be famous, adding to the story by actually making the player's personal story and actions real in a meaningful way. There were legends in the old days and you could look at those people and say, "I want to be a legend like that dude." Hell, there are a few well known people on this server, though I think the legendary status isn't quite the same as it was on live, since the game is completely explored. You can go to freaking wikipedia and read about the sleeper being killed on RZ, is how real the player's actions could be. In Eve Online there are plenty of dudes who are famous. The player's actions ARE the story in that game. I have an issue of Game Informer that has a full-page interview with a guy who accidentally started one of the largest battles in the game's history. In EQ2 on Nagafen (back before the Odus expansion), there were dudes so badass at their class that when you saw them in the world, you knew you were probably going to die. They were good and they had a reputation for kicking ass. EQ2 isn't maybe the best example, but the point stands. Who is famous on WoW? Leroy Jenkins or the dudes that pvped that in-game funeral. They're famous because they made stupid videos. If the Leroy Jenkins video had never been made, nobody on that server would have even heard about that idiot. If the funeral pvp video had never been made, nobody outside of maybe half a dozen guilds would have known about it.

I've played quite a few hours of TESO beta and I'm very sad at what they've done to the TES franchise. Keep in mind, though, that it's not Bethesda working on this game. I think they're being consulted or have some hand/input into its development, but the studio is Zenimax Online. All they had to do was make Elder Scrolls 6 and add co-op. I'd pay $15 a month for THAT game if they just added some new stuff every few months.

It seems that the only MMOs worth playing are ones with new types of gameplay. Maybe Brad's new MMO will be good. I sure hope so. TESO isn't it for me, maybe I'll try it around this upcoming Thanksgiving when it's f2p. EQN looks like it's going to be crap. I've heard it's going to be 40 classes of dps with world destruction that lasts 5 minutes before it regenerates. I'll give it a try, setting the bar low so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. There's supposed to be a Warhammer 40k game coming out in the next couple years which sounds like it's going to be lots of fun.

Btw, am I the only one that thinks having only 6 abilities on your loadout is ridiculous? Hell, look at a level 60 warrior in EverQuest and between basic abilities, weapon procs, and clickies, they have more abilities available during combat than that! They don't even get spells, ffs!

[odiecat99]

Im glad most EQ (unlike eq2) Quests didnt give you Jack Shit for exp, it made you appreciate the adventure more.

I love that in EQ I can be a noob in a zone like feerrott and then come back mid to high 30s for spectres, then back again 46+ to raid.

I have always been a fan of that. Dont simply don't simply exhaust the quests line or the zone you are in.

this was a huge reason I hated world of crap craft was you just do your quest and you would move on and that was the end of it. I also hated the fact that it was instanced dungeons that s*** is wack know what I'm saying my n****

[Smedy]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

agreed, sub model is the only way, the pay to win is retarded

[odiecat99]

I also agree

[Uteunayr]

Im glad most EQ (unlike eq2) Quests didnt give you Jack Shit for exp, it made you appreciate the adventure more.

I love that in EQ I can be a noob in a zone like feerrott and then come back mid to high 30s for spectres, then back again 46+ to raid.

I have always been a fan of that. Dont simply don't simply exhaust the quests line or the zone you are in.

this was a huge reason I hated world of crap craft was you just do your quest and you would move on and that was the end of it. I also hated the fact that it was instanced dungeons that s*** is wack know what I'm saying my n****

Yes. When you're a noob in the Oasis, you have fun killing orcs and alligators while dodging around giants. Until you see that badass dude on the center island killing those really creepy spectres. Until you find that enchanter coming along and mind controlling the giants that have been fucking with you. And you think, "Holy shit. I want to do that one day."...

And then one day in the future, you've spent likely months leveling. And then someone says "Hey, you should try killing spectres or giants in the Oasis.", so you return there, and now you're the person killing those awesome things. Noobs look on and get motivated to level, thinking that one day they will do what you do.

That type of world design just doesn't exist in modern MMOs. It is really sad. You're more like a tourist in the WoW model, because you go to each place once, just to see and exhaust the experience of being there. With games like EQ, and SWG, you're not a tourist, you're someone that lives here. You interact here. You need to know how to get from Highkeep to Qeynos, because you're going to go by there a lot. It's a lot more like learning your neighborhood that you just moved into. The exploration is learning every knook and cranny, every trick to travel around, all the secret places any given area has in plenty. It isn't about consuming a quick experience and saying "Well, that's everything", it's about the complexity and beauty of making a place into your home.

[Dumesh Uhl'Belk]

That type of world design just doesn't exist in modern MMOs. It is really sad. You're more like a tourist in the WoW model, because you go to each place once, just to see and exhaust the experience of being there. With games like EQ, and SWG, you're not a tourist, you're someone that lives here. You interact here. You need to know how to get from Highkeep to Qeynos, because you're going to go by there a lot. It's a lot more like learning your neighborhood that you just moved into. The exploration is learning every knook and cranny, every trick to travel around, all the secret places any given area has in plenty. It isn't about consuming a quick experience and saying "Well, that's everything", it's about the complexity and beauty of making a place into your home.
Very much this.

I like to explore because I live somewhere. I need to use this land. I want to be safer and travel faster through it. I want to be able to help others traverse it safely. I don't want to uncover every nook and cranny of a totally safe environment guaranteed to be level appropriate that I will never come back to just to get a checkmark in my achievement log.

[Genedin]

Yes. When you're a noob in the Oasis, you have fun killing orcs and alligators while dodging around giants. Until you see that badass dude on the center island killing those really creepy spectres. Until you find that enchanter coming along and mind controlling the giants that have been fucking with you. And you think, "Holy shit. I want to do that one day."...

And then one day in the future, you've spent likely months leveling. And then someone says "Hey, you should try killing spectres or giants in the Oasis.", so you return there, and now you're the person killing those awesome things. Noobs look on and get motivated to level, thinking that one day they will do what you do.

That type of world design just doesn't exist in modern MMOs. It is really sad. You're more like a tourist in the WoW model, because you go to each place once, just to see and exhaust the experience of being there. With games like EQ, and SWG, you're not a tourist, you're someone that lives here. You interact here. You need to know how to get from Highkeep to Qeynos, because you're going to go by there a lot. It's a lot more like learning your neighborhood that you just moved into. The exploration is learning every knook and cranny, every trick to travel around, all the secret places any given area has in plenty. It isn't about consuming a quick experience and saying "Well, that's everything", it's about the complexity and beauty of making a place into your home.




Damn son. Every post you make fits the sentiment of most everyone I game with and probably everyone who plays p99. Problem is it's a niche market or at least the companies think so. They are all about getting people playing and since wow was so successful with the fastfood quest model they are copying that. I'm kind of hoping this will fail and show they mmo production companies (if there are anymore) that they need to change things.

[moklianne]

agreed, sub model is the only way, the pay to win is retarded

/agree

The problem is that everyone is afraid to use a sub model anymore. F2p has been around for a while and too many people will just refuse to play unless its free.

I'd like to see subs come back to MMO's. It'll keep some kids and griefers out.

[Grubbz]

/agree

The problem is that everyone is afraid to use a sub model anymore. F2p has been around for a while and too many people will just refuse to play unless its free.

I'd like to see subs come back to MMO's. It'll keep some kids and griefers out.


I thought the same thing till i resubbed to wow back in january......... Game was filled with kids and trust me, it was not worth playing. Makes me wonder how all these kids can afford a sub in this day and age.

[stormlord]

Meh, I think ESO - if it fails - will do so because the market for these kinds of games is near exhaustion and everybody is entrenched. It's hard to pull players from other games without cloning their game and it's hard to keep them playing if it's mostly a clone. People keep going back to their beloved bunkers where they play their favorite games and it's almost impossible to change them to liking something else. I think EQN is going in the right direction with its turn towards sandbox features because I think things are getting sour and overbaked. HOwever, I think a lot of this will be won on the social media sites and on portables and on consoles. Unless a game can be truly modern and appeal to many different audiences it's going to be shoved back in the dusty room with the cobwebs where all the entrenched gamers and doom fills the air.

On teh subject of F2p, one good thing about F2P is it allows you to test the game fairly well to see how well it runs on your system and whether it's stable or not. Still, the whole F2P thing is lame to me, since why should it be free?????? Why should someone else give me something for free, unless they think I'll keep playing and eventually spend enough money to make up for the time I spent F2P?

I think the real story behind F2P isn't playing for free but the micro-transactions. The micro-transactions are enabling these companies to make far more money from their wealthy players than they did previously. So if you have a player that's rich you can get them addicted and spending more than $15/month, more like $100/month or more. This allows you to make some of the game free to new players while also gaining more profit.

All you gotta understand is hte rich players weren't being fleeced properly before on the subscription model. Some of them boxed, but boxers are more technical and have the time for it and are fewer in number. There're a greater number of non-boxer casuals who can now be thoroughly molested. If 20% of our population has maybe 80% of the wealth then there's no need to hire a math wiz to figure out what it means.

[Uteunayr]

Damn son. Every post you make fits the sentiment of most everyone I game with and probably everyone who plays p99. Problem is it's a niche market or at least the companies think so. They are all about getting people playing and since wow was so successful with the fastfood quest model they are copying that. I'm kind of hoping this will fail and show they mmo production companies (if there are anymore) that they need to change things.

Well, before I write my response to this, I'd like anyone passing through here to check out Jim Sterling's amazing discussion on Survival Horror. Now, I know Survival Horror isn't the thing for everyone, but the point he makes about Survival Horror is something that is very similar to the "niche" market that we make up.

Note this is going to be a very long post, as I sort of just started writing about developers and niche markets, and then shifted into the single greatest reason why WoW was successful, and finally made some notes as to why I have hope for EverQuest Next, even if it isn't exactly the EverQuest we remember.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/8340-The-Survival-of-Horror

"This is an industry that would rather make no money, than some money. That would have nothing if it couldn't have it all."

"Another silly reason is based on this belief that the audience will be turned off and bored if you're not waving combat in its face like some massive swinging dick."

So, with that, I will respond.

Yes, the type of game we want is not the massive, wide spread game that will usher in a new era of gaming. Sadly, that's never going to happen. WoW was perfectly timed to catch the influx of gamers into the market that are more "casual" about their attitude toward gaming. Gaming isn't their sole form of entertainment, nor does it necessarily become their most dominant form of entertainment, and that's fine. For such people, a game like EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, DAoC, and the rest... These games do not work for them at all, because generally, you need to spend a great deal of time. Perhaps not all day, of course, but the majority of your entertainment time should be devoted to these experiences.

And when WoW was released, internet was reaching a point in which pretty much everyone had it, most people had a computer that could run it, and, most importantly, it was rooted in a game that had a huge fanbase on the basis of Blizzard among many gamers. So gamers were more easily able to get their friends into World of Warcraft, hence the boom of population to around 4.5 million in the first two quarters WoW was out.

Gamers could get their casual friends who now have computers, and now have internet. And because they could get them into it, and because the game is designed to be more easily consumed than the experience offered by EverQuest/SWG/DAoC, etc., WoW exploded in population.

Now, in this way, I am talking entirely from personal experience, rather than just theory about the growth of WoW in its market. I operated a guild in WoW for 3 years, and raid lead it to be in the top 3 of my server, so what I describe here, I know to be true, at least for my server. What you have is a population that perpetuates itself. You have 10% of the population quit, and then as they quit, they go on in their lives, but want to see their friends again. What is the best way? To play games with them. What game do the majority of their friends play? WoW. So they rejoin WoW, because it isn't about the game play, it isn't about the play style, it's about their friends being clustered in the game. So as that 10% return, another 10% quit, and continue the cycle.

We have seen steady increases, and since Lich King, steady decreases, as people are breaking into and out of this system.

The problem is, every game since then has been trying to recreate WoW, but no game that is created now will have the social, or economic temporal positioning to become WoW. You just can't. So what do you do?

Game developers have decided that if they can't have it all, they'll accept nothing. So they make WoW clones. They appeal to players on the grounds of "Star Wars > Warcraft", they appeal to "You're not in Azeroth anymore!", they do all this stuff to try and defeat WoW at its game, but they fail to realize that you can't beat WoW at its' game, because WoW doesn't have a game it is playing. It really doesn't. It is the people concentrated into one place. If you took the entire WoW population, transferred them to a new MMO, it doesn't matter how bad that MMO is, so long as all their friends are there. Even shitty content is made really, really fun when you have friends with you.

So, game developers keep seeking the Holy Grail, they keep seeking to supplant the population of WoW, which is fucking stupid.

There is a class of gamers out there who love MMOs. Who played old school EverQuest, SWG, DAoC, who remember what MMOs used to be before they all tried to be WoW. We are out there, we are starving for a game that will let us do something other than WoW.

Game developers now think that every MMO player will get bored if you don't give them quest, after quest to handle and deal with, rather than just letting them explore the world and progress in their own time.

We are a starved part of the market. We're not just a niche market, because there are many of us out there who want something better from the market, but the market isn't providing it because every game developer is going after their Holy Grail.

This is why my sole hope right now is for EverQuest Next. The developers have been talking, less along the lines of "Lets kill WoW!", and far more along the lines of "Lets make a game that appeals to a corner of the market, and we can make profit off of that.". SoE is now a company that, although they have betrayed us time and time again in trying to achieve the Holy Grail (look what they did to EQ and SWG to try and stop the expansion of WoW, the CU and NGE and shit), I think they have realized they can't. I think SoE has realized that if they make a great game that appeals to a small corner of the market, making some money is better than making no money.

Heck, EQ Live is still around, and still profitable. It may not be WoW profitable, but it is profitable.

So my hope is that SoE is making a game that appeals to our community, to this side of the market, while at the same time trying to reach out to the Minecraft/Rust style market to introduce them into MMOs. Those players know hard work, they know challenge. When you spend 40 hours building a mega fortress in Rust, or mining shit in Minecraft to build a great cathedral, you learn what it is like to "grind", to work to achieve something. That's a market that isn't looking for a "casual" gaming experience, and I think SoE realizes that if they can make a MMO that is interesting, and fun to our side of the market, as well as grab another market that respects challenge, and difficulty, that they can make another profitable game to add to their large selection.

The story of EverQuest has always been in the background, it is nebulous, its in the environment for you to go out there and find, rather than being consumed and then ignored. Mix this with a market of people who like to build stuff on a voxel style world... Well, it is easy to see how these styles are not mutually exclusive, and how it is plausible that there can be a profitable game like this. It brings together two markets that probably never would have met before now. Rather than grinding out quests on the world, the gameplay is something entirely new, something dynamic, something that can be challenging and unique enough for us (the p99 style players), while being dynamic enough for the Minecraft/Rust players that are used to constantly changing worlds.

I can only hope SoE has failed at killing WoW enough that they realized they need to stop trying that.

[Grimfan]

I think EverQuest Next is going to appeal to a different kind of community all together. Personally, I really want to believe in Pantheon, Brad McQuaid's new game. But if you look at Brad's kickstarter video you start to see some issues.

It's developed in Unity. There's no problem with Unity but it's a pretty outdated engine already. It's meant to be easy to develop in and isn't really what I would consider a solid MMO engine. Then, he says, "People beg me to take today's technology and re-make EverQuest." or something like that. The issue with that is that he projects his game sometime in 2017. Brad dude, if you're expecting a game like traditional EverQuest to still be a thing in 2017... we might have some issues. You're going to be living in a world with procedurally generated content, advanced AI, and destructible terrain. MMO's with vast open worlds and brand new things to constantly explore. The competition you'll be facing in three years is going to be... the future.

I don't see him doing any sort of future proofing, and I realize that is harsh of me. I honestly think we're on this edge where we're about to get a new World of Warcraft and it might not be everything we want, but it'll be better than ESO, it will be better than WoW and all the WoW clones out there, and it will be different.

This is why my sole hope right now is for EverQuest Next. The developers have been talking, less along the lines of "Lets kill WoW!", and far more along the lines of "Lets make a game that appeals to a corner of the market, and we can make profit off of that.". SoE is now a company that, although they have betrayed us time and time again in trying to achieve the Holy Grail (look what they did to EQ and SWG to try and stop the expansion of WoW, the CU and NGE and shit), I think they have realized they can't. I think SoE has realized that if they make a great game that appeals to a small corner of the market, making some money is better than making no money.

Yeah SOE is making the future of MMO's. That's why I am excited about EQNext. They're also future proofing it in a way by allowing players to generate content. They are picking an art style that ages well into the future. They are making a lot of smart decisions but they're also making a lot of decisions that players are afraid of. If you look at their roundtables they do believe in some very traditional WoW like MMO shit like faucets and sinks. But whatever, they are really making the future and even though I'll be playing ESO, I also anticipate that I will be playing the shit out of Landmark and when Next actually comes out, I'm hoping that will just be my game for the next 10 years or whatever.

But you can tell it's making other game companies panic, EQNext, that is. It's making them re-evaluate what a future MMO will look like, and that is brilliant.

[QuantumZebra]

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen



http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/tt248/cgutta2790/rk6cmb.gif

[moklianne]

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/tt248/cgutta2790/rk6cmb.gif

he says it'll fail cause of the sub model? thats pretty dumb imo. its things like pay to win, and station stores that ruin games.

15$ a month is less than 4$ a week. if you dont get 4$ a week of entertainment, then dont play it.

but personally i prefer sub model > everything else ive seen

Same here.

[Grubbz]

Awwwww yeah
http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/01/23/esos-voice-cast-announced

Anything with kate beckinsale in it via body or voice has my endorsement =)

[citizen1080]

Oh my

[Grubbz]

Seriously....... next beta....... 48 hr marathon....... who is with me!

[citizen1080]

Seriously....... next beta....... 48 hr marathon....... who is with me!

I'm out sadly...it's snowboarding season =)

[Auvdar]

Bumping this to keep all the ESO stuff (hopefully) in one thread.

I have to say, the game looks a TON better this time around. Voice acting is good. And the music is very easy on the ears.

But the combat... they really need to overhaul it. It's the most unresponsive, 'floaty' combat I've ever played in a MMO. And the terrible animations dont help anything (with the budget they have they couldn't hire motion captures?).

If they can fix the combat, I would be sold on this at this point. But it's just so downright terrible that it's hard to dredge through the game to get to the fun stuff.

[Sirken]

how are they gonna fix the preorder crap?

any race on any alliance makes me wanna die inside a little bit.

[Auvdar]

how are they gonna fix the preorder crap?

any race on any alliance makes me wanna die inside a little bit.

I forget the details, but I do remember they butchered some of the Lore with some of the races. (Something about certain races being ok with others etc. I'd have to google it.)

I guess with any race on any alliance you could muster up some kind of lore reason like "Well, I'm turning from my evil high elf ways to help out the Nords in Skyrim!" type of deal.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

how are they gonna fix the preorder crap?

any race on any alliance makes me wanna die inside a little bit.

Gonna make pvp kinda weird. You n'wah.

[MrSparkle001]

how are they gonna fix the preorder crap?

any race on any alliance makes me wanna die inside a little bit.

I originally thought so too but I got over it. In all the elder scrolls games I've played any race could do and accomplish anything, like in morrowind an argonian becoming head of house telvanni. It's not like the original three factions made any sense anyway.

It's only preorders that can do it and I think a lot of them will want to stick with their chosen race's original faction. It shouldn't be too bad.

I'm gonna be an imperial on live anyway and I'll definitely have an orc. I'm probably gonna play daggerfall covenant the most.

[Tradesonred]

Again for me the biggest prob is the non-sandboxyness of the whole thing. Getting stuck in a zone, forced to do quests to move on to next zone to me sucked so much i didnt even get the motivation to push through to see if there was a central area with a larger sandboxy area to explore. Which i dont think there is?

[MrSparkle001]

So far PvP in Cyrodiil is awesome. It's like a whole other game. The beginning PvE areas don't even compare.

[Lune]

So far PvP in Cyrodiil is awesome. It's like a whole other game. The beginning PvE areas don't even compare.

Yea I just screwed around in Cyrodil for the first time, 3 hours of my night disappeared in what felt like 15 mins

[Tradesonred]

So far PvP in Cyrodiil is awesome. It's like a whole other game. The beginning PvE areas don't even compare.

So what is there to do thats fresh and exciting for a 2014 game for the AvsA PVP. Cyrodil is like... a big central zone where all the races end up after the on-rails zone?

[MrSparkle001]

I took place in a large keep defense where there were lots of trebuchets, catapults, and ballistae on both sides firing, then they broke through and there was fighting in the keep and on the walls. I logged off after dying because I needed sleep so I don't know who won, but apparently we were getting double teamed for taking an elder scroll.

It felt like DAOC on a grand scale like I always wanted that game to be. In DAOC you really just bash keep walls, go kill the lord, run into other groups and have 8v8 PvP. No way in ESO. Many more players per keep battle, you can't see their names (at least yet, enemies have a symbol above their head and that's it) and there's lots of siege weapons used.

The difference between Cyrodiil and the main lands is like night and day. It feels like two different games. The very beginning of the game is sort of slow and feels like it's on rails, once you get to your main land it opens up considerably, then at level 10 you can start PvP. You'll suck and be ineffective but you can start it.

I can't wait to see the media reviews of this weekend's PvP. So far it's all been about the PvE and the reviews are mixed at best. PvE is generally lackluster in MMOs anyway, especially low level PvE.

[Kayso]

There were three in my family who were playing together last night for a few hours. We only made it to level 6 and just got to the third zone. A few questions for the people with more beta experience:

1. Does it ever open up and get more sandbox? Do you keep having to complete quests to move through zones?

2. When does the first dungeon come in? We're playing Dragon Covenant.

3. Does PvP only take place in Cyrodil?

4. Any raiding to speak of?

5. Any top end grinds necessary? Faction? Tokens for items? Mats for crafting? etc?

6. In terms of leveling to 50... I'm a nightblade. I'm putting all my points into assassination, dual wield, medium armor. Will I get to like level 30 and get stuck? Will i need to then go back and work on something I normally won't use -- like heavy armor -- in order to level to cap?

7. We're opening up shrines as we see them. Will there ever be any reason to go back to low level zones?

Appreciate any insight.

[citizen1080]

There were three in my family who were playing together last night for a few hours. We only made it to level 6 and just got to the third zone. A few questions for the people with more beta experience:

Some of my answers are from first hand experience...some are from what I have read/heard.

1. Does it ever open up and get more sandbox? Do you keep having to complete quests to move through zones? Once you get out of the starter zones it opens up and you have a lot more options

2. When does the first dungeon come in? We're playing Dragon Covenant.Level 11/12 is the first instanced dungeon for groups but there are craploads of open world dungeons that have bosses at the end with unique/special loot. I believe they are the torches on your map

3. Does PvP only take place in Cyrodil? at this point I believe that is the case but there is going to be world pvp as well.

4. Any raiding to speak of? High level multi group content is in or will be in at launch is what ive read.

5. Any top end grinds necessary? Faction? Tokens for items? Mats for crafting? etc? You harvest mats like any other game so I guess that's a grind. You grind cyrodil for tokens to buy mounts/pvp armor/other stuff. Not sure about pve token grind

6. In terms of leveling to 50... I'm a nightblade. I'm putting all my points into assassination, dual wield, medium armor. Will I get to like level 30 and get stuck? Will i need to then go back and work on something I normally won't use -- like heavy armor -- in order to level to cap?

There will be min/max builds just like any other game. But from my experience and what I have heard/read about higher levels you can make just about any combo viable. And at 15? you get a second quick swap weapon set which basically makes you a dual class. So you can equip a healing staff in your quick swap and go healer if need be..or sword and board to tank etc. Brings a shitload of utility to your character.

7. We're opening up shrines as we see them. Will there ever be any reason to go back to low level zones? Yes. Once you hit max level the level range and loot on all those open world dungeons bump up so you can go back and do them all over again with new loot.
Appreciate any insight.

[citizen1080]

Also. Not happy about this 45 minute queue

[Sirken]

Also. Not happy about this 45 minute queue

dat awesome super server technology

[citizen1080]

dat awesome super server technology

Yea, it has to be an artificial cap they implemented to test the queue system or something. I realize this is their main stress test prior to open beta but we are no where close to the population launch will bring. Maybe they only have a few shards active in their "super server" cloud.

[Grimfan]

I wanna state this because I had no idea until I started my playthrough this weekend, your weapon determines your class much more than your class does. What I mean by this is:

Weapon+Shield = Tank/Debuffer, you have a taunt in this line. None of the classes actually get a taunt. You also get a ton of mitigation.
Destruction Staff = Ranged damage + Debuffs, you get a great number of status effects and a decent amount of ranged damage.
Bow = Ranged Damage with some AoE, you don't get as many status effects with the bow but you get a little more damage it looks like.
Resto Staff = Healer
Two Handed Weapon = AOE damage dealer, you get a TON of AoE's, and the charge is insane. Two handed weapons are fun as hell IMO but a bit on the small scale when you start which is sad if you are an orc.
Two one handed weapons = A lot of single target damage. Your frenzy is awesome, and you get a lot of small attacks.

What this also means is that you have the potential to use and level all of them if you really want, which opens the game up even more for me. I think I'll probably be a DK no matter what because I like their skill sets, but I do believe I could be a DK healer and be pretty comparable to a Templar healer.

[LostCause]

cant even log in the game right after i get outta queue i get a eso error ...
def not my comp either only game that does this.


guess other ppl are getting this error aswell so i guess its not just me.

[citizen1080]

Havn't had much time to play this weekend, but enough to cement the fact that I have fun playing. Just bought 2 imperial copies.

[Grubbz]

Havn't had much time to play this weekend, but enough to cement the fact that I have fun playing. Just bought 2 imperial copies.

Yeah i ended up buying 3, 2 for my marine buddies and 1 for a family member.

[Lune]

Have done a lot of cyrodil and some dungeons now.

There's so many design decisions they've made that I disagree with on paper and I want to bitch about it, but I find myself having shitloads of fun and looking forward to playing more. Definitely some feelings I haven't felt since vanilla WoW, which caught me by surprise given how cynical I've become, especially about this title in particular.

If you find the Cyrodil keep zergs distasteful, there are places you can go for smaller scale pvp. Just had a three-faction skirmish in Cheydinhal; two ebonhearts tried to gank me while I was getting a quest, and two dominions rushed in to help me. One covenant bystander got dragged into it. Then more people started coming and by the time I died it was a full blown streetfight. Carnage etc.

Relatively high stakes too because it put me about a 5 minute walk away at the nearest dominion keep we had just captured. Could have been much further.

Often you'll get people skirmishing on the periphery of a large siege, and smaller groups fighting over mines/farms.

[stormlord]

Looks like it could be a good game if it stays away from the open world pvp or mechanics that're too punishing. But honestly... what makes this game look like it'll be as successful or more successful than previous titles like SWTOR or Rift or Warhammer Online? Those titles started out big but aren't as big anymore.

What I think could be happening is the mmorpg market is saturated and players can't move on from older games they're entrenched with. I do see an open window because WoW is aging a lot and this could open the door for somebody else. Diablo 3 has also not done as well and this could mean the makers of WoW won't rule the next generation. It'll have to be someone else that takes what WoW did and makes it even more friendly and expansive and professional, but I wouldn't expect dramatic increases in the population, unless the game somehow taps into the console market too - an MMORPG that's both desktop and console friendly.

It could be making the game even more accessible is not hte key to a winning game. Maybe it's something else? My opinion is it'll have something to do with console gamers and desktop gamers coming together. Up to this time, with games like WoW and many others, they've been exclusively desktop-based. This will change.

Also have to consider the widespread use of portables and notebook pc's over traditional desktops. That combined with the continued success of consoles means desktop computing is old hat.

Some evidence for my statements:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2068520/idc-pcs-decline-is-far-worse-than-expected.html

Anyway, ESO looks interesting to me, but I think it's just abusing the Elder Scrolls name. Evenso, it may be successful anyway. All commercial activities in some form or another are predatory.

Remember how WoW came from a long line of World of Warcraft games? That reminds me of ESO. The "Elder Scrolls" name also comes from a long line of Elder Scrolls games. I once heard something to hte effect "The past doesn't repeat but it rhymes." Maybe ESO will surprise and do something similar.

Look what WoW did. It relaxed the mechanics by reducing punishments. It added more quests and moved the grind to the end-game, thus moving it mostly out of sight of most casual players. It stylized the graphics to make them age slower. It reduced the system requirements so older systems are viable. It spent $80 million which was huge back then. Many of its makers were previous EQ players - or previous gamers in general. It added more instances, not just for convenience but to set itself apart from older games.

WoW became more accessible to casuals while still having content for 24/7 gamers. Will ESO do this?

[Kayso]

Looks like it could be a good game if it stays away from the open world pvp or mechanics that're too punishing. But honestly... what makes this game look like it'll be as successful or more successful than previous titles like SWTOR or Rift or Warhammer Online? Those titles started out big but aren't as big anymore....


I think Rift is a very good point to bring up as any new sub fee MMO emerges.

Rift launch was an overwhelming success. Other than not enough servers at launch, it was solid at release and played well. However, I think they were combining servers within a year and have gone F2P.

I played Rift at release. Enjoyed my ride to max level. Enjoyed farming half a dungeon set on expert level dungeons. Enjoyed killing a few bosses in both raid zones. Then, one day, I just never logged in again.

Isn't that ok? I'm just finally working on Bio Shock Infinite. I really like it, but I'll never play it again when I am done. If most people agree that BSI is a good game, why the standard that an MMO has to last 5-10 years in order to be a good game?

If my TESO experience goes just like my Rift experience, I'll be infinitely satisfied. And as far as the "success" of the game goes, as long as Zenimax doesn't loose so much money that we don't get another ES or Fallout sequel some day, who cares?

[Oogei]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC4GVM1kCnA

[liveitup1216]

I tried to give the closed beta a fair shake, but I was so bored. I like their class/skill system, but its poorly implemented. Be and do and wear anything you want, but you'll be subpar unless you follow the cookie cutter setups and bonuses that are built into the trees and races. (This is an assumption, as I don't truly know the impact of this at higher levels. Though this is rather moot since the whole "suffer early game until you reach the real endgame" development mentality is still shitty design.)

I can see myself doing the usual MMO flow: buy it, play it until you've ridden all the rides, then never log in again. If they pull that off I'd call it a success for Zenimax, though still a failure for the genre.

[Tecmos Deception]

Isn't that ok? I'm just finally working on Bio Shock Infinite. I really like it, but I'll never play it again when I am done. If most people agree that BSI is a good game, why the standard that an MMO has to last 5-10 years in order to be a good game?

If the time I spend leveling up, farming for tradeskills, grinding reputations, facerolling dailies, sitting around waiting on AFK/dumb people in raids... if that was all as fun as the campaign in a solid FPS then no, that MMO would not need to be running strong for a decade to be a "good game."

But that shit is not as fun as SP games. The ride in MMOs is generally not fun enough to only just reach the destination and then quit for good, or something along those lines. Half (or more) of the appeal in an MMO for me (and lots/most others, I'd wager) is looking back at what you've done in order to get to where you are. An MMO isn't worth the time if you spend a couple months playing to get to max level and a month pissing around on the same endgame mechanics that every post-wow MMO has at max level before you quit. You should have just played half-life again or something instead; it would have been more fun and cheaper/free.

[MrSparkle001]

Angry Joe is liking the PvP just like I knew he would:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I82pz60iGL0

[Kayso]

If the time I spend leveling up, farming for tradeskills, grinding reputations, facerolling dailies, sitting around waiting on AFK/dumb people in raids... if that was all as fun as the campaign in a solid FPS then no, that MMO would not need to be running strong for a decade to be a "good game."

But that shit is not as fun as SP games. The ride in MMOs is generally not fun enough to only just reach the destination and then quit for good, or something along those lines. Half (or more) of the appeal in an MMO for me (and lots/most others, I'd wager) is looking back at what you've done in order to get to where you are. An MMO isn't worth the time if you spend a couple months playing to get to max level and a month pissing around on the same endgame mechanics that every post-wow MMO has at max level before you quit. You should have just played half-life again or something instead; it would have been more fun and cheaper/free.

Other than in EQ, I never put in enough hours to get to the "top end" of a game. I quit EQ during early GoD when my guild was just starting PoT. At that time, looking back at what I "accomplished" did nothing for me other than make me sad thinking about all the time wasted. Spending that much time in a game isn't good for anyone.

That said, if it weren't for the hardcore players, the come and go casuals like myself wouldn't have any reason to ever play an MMO over a normal game. To the point you're saying that, I agree.

[MrSparkle001]

Funny, for me EQ was the one game I didn't want to reach the end game in. I just kept making new characters. The early levels were the most fun; the end game felt like a chore and sometimes a job requiring me to schedule time for. I no longer had the freedom to log in whenever I wanted and get things done in game and so low levels were what I played.

[Grubbz]

Angry Joe is liking the PvP just like I knew he would:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I82pz60iGL0



Funny how he went from "This game sucks" to "OMG IM PLAYING THIS GAME NOW"


Yup everyone will come play teso eventually.

[MrSparkle001]

Funnier how some people are now accusing him of being a shill for liking the game. One person actually said

No way that's your opinion, Joe. Doesn't sound like you truly believed it, more like they put $ on the table. I'll go with the comments here: this looks terrible.

It's like they're so prejudiced against the game for whatever reason they can't fathom that a reviewer would like it. It has to be because they're paid because why else would a reviewer disagree with them?

[citizen1080]

Funnier how some people are now accusing him of being a shill for liking the game. One person actually said



It's like they're so prejudiced against the game for whatever reason they can't fathom that a reviewer would like it. It has to be because they're paid because why else would a reviewer disagree with them?

It's the interwebs man...its where every spineless douche bag comes to shit all over what other people like, because they can, with no repercussions.

[stormlord]

Funny, for me EQ was the one game I didn't want to reach the end game in. I just kept making new characters. The early levels were the most fun; the end game felt like a chore and sometimes a job requiring me to schedule time for. I no longer had the freedom to log in whenever I wanted and get things done in game and so low levels were what I played.
Nice comments.

A lot of what you say is tied to grouping or guilds.

Have you played ESO or what?? I wonder how friendly its grouping system is. For example, how hard is it to get a group going? What happens if someone AFK's or isn't the right level or is gimp?

If games could make grouping more convenient like soloing it'd be a lot better.

One bad experience I had was in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Soloing was ok. But the moment I grouped I was forced to rush through places and really not knowing WTF is going on. At the end of it, you'd get your experience and rewards, but you'd be like WTF just happened? The problem is I could play at my own pace when soloing and enjoy it, but in groups everybody rushed and I couldn't stay interested. This is where single player games are just better. You play at your own pace and can smell the roses.

BTW I did have the chance to enjoy SMALL groups a few times, especially if they were new like me. They didn't rush as much. So we kind of figured things out together and I got to really feel like I was there. Smaller groups in general will move slower which allowed me to take in everytyhing better.

[Catilyn]

I've been a beta tester for the game for the past 8 months or so. Haven't been able to stay interested in playing it. I've tried about four times now, and I just can't play past level 10. It's boring and really shallow. I was in early closed beta for GW2 as well, and I didn't like it from the beginning either. I figured people would be enamored by it initially, but quickly lose interest, and that was largely what happened. I think similar with happen with ESO, but maybe I'll be wrong.

I've also been in Wildstar beta for the last year and don't like it either (do I like any game? lol), but at least that game has been fairly transparent with their development, so I think people know more of what to expect than with ESO.

[Kayso]

In MMOs I'm always in the middle of the pack. I'm usually in the middle on the dps charts. I'm very average in PvP.

I show up to the group on time. I have pots. I pay attention. I'm friendly. I learn encounters. I usually don't stand in the fire.

What I like about ESO is that it seems like a win is a win and no 28 year old virgin is going to parsing me afterword and suggesting I pick up this talent over that one.

[MrSparkle001]

Nice comments.

A lot of what you say is tied to grouping or guilds.

Have you played ESO or what?? I wonder how friendly its grouping system is. For example, how hard is it to get a group going? What happens if someone AFK's or isn't the right level or is gimp?

If games could make grouping more convenient like soloing it'd be a lot better.

I've been testing ESO yeah but I haven't grouped. There's no real need to at the lower levels, but you do have to group to do some of the dungeons.

In EQ I wound up preferring to solo when I could, partly because spending time lfg was annoying and partly because even though guilds helped with grouping it was equally annoying to have to schedule time to play because of a scheduled raid or whatever (this is not unique to EQ. Every MMO so far has been like this). No way will I EVER schedule specific times to play a videogame. If I have time and feel like it I'll play. I'm not going to schedule time to play at 9 PM PST to raid a dungeon with the guild; if I'm on I'm on and if not oh well. Maybe I just want to watch TV then or want to play something else.

I like the freedom to do what I want and go AFK when I want. Can't do that so easily when you're always required to group or certain content has set times you have to be there for. Then it starts interfering with real life, even if only in a small way.

[burkemi5]

The NDA was lifted today. Here's a nifty album from r/elderscrollsonline:

http://imgur.com/a/rU0d1#0

[Taluvill]

Anyone from this neck of the woods planning on playing ESO?

I played the beta for a good while and it is fun; The reactive combat is really cool, and the way they did the voice acting is really immersive. It's a good change from modern day mmo's and the direction is similiar but different enough from (awful) games like wow.

Couple of friends and I just wanted to see if we had any interest over here in getting together for a friendly guild over there? Always better to have some people you know to game with :P

[Oogei]

Dungeons look to easy, also not a big fan of 4 man groups

[Swish]

As long as there's Argonians, I'll be straight in there when its released!

[Grimfan]

Dungeons look to easy, also not a big fan of 4 man groups

Well, my first dungeon we ended up wiping on the boss because the mechanics were not very forgiving. Also I think it is the first time since EQ that I have fought a boss that actually made things happen to my screen. EQ had the screen going black thing, this boss turned my screen blue and made it look like it spawned adds. I think the dungeons are fun, chaotic, and they give you a good sense of teamwork if you cooperate properly with your groupmates.

I'll probably end up getting it and playing it with my girlfriend until end game and quitting more than likely, unless I find something really fun to do there.

[Lune]

Nice title change, Sirken confirmed member of Zenimax anti-defamation squad

In other news, my greatest beta moment was killing all three of these scrubs who were standing around flapping their dick beaters:

http://i.imgur.com/W2cPvLn.jpg

[Sirken]

Nice title change, Sirken

all i did was merge it into the other ESO thread because its dumb to have multiples.

[stormlord]

all i did was merge it into the other ESO thread because its dumb to have multiples.
If you want to mod just lock the one that was about ESO being forecast to be the worst failure in 2014. Obviously it had gone off track and started to be about ESO in general.

[stormlord]

Bumping this to keep all the ESO stuff (hopefully) in one thread.

I have to say, the game looks a TON better this time around. Voice acting is good. And the music is very easy on the ears.

But the combat... they really need to overhaul it. It's the most unresponsive, 'floaty' combat I've ever played in a MMO. And the terrible animations dont help anything (with the budget they have they couldn't hire motion captures?).

If they can fix the combat, I would be sold on this at this point. But it's just so downright terrible that it's hard to dredge through the game to get to the fun stuff.
Keeping it all in one thread is dumb because there're different aspects of certain topics. Threads are a miserable way to organize the different sub-topics in a given topic and weren't made for this function.

The other thread was about the forecast ESO would be a failure in 2014 because of its sub model. In general, the thread morphed to become how ESO might or might not fail. Then it became about ESO in general. It should have just been locked or the mod should have said to stay on the subject of the thread.

I don't think a general thread about ESO is the same thing as a thread about the forecast made about it. Cramming everything into one thread means the mods are too lazy to keep people from straying.

If I want to find threads about ESO I can use the search function.

[Kayso]

Why are you shitting up the ESO thread posting about how ESO threads should be handled? Shouldn't you follow your own advice and start a separate ESO thread about what should be posted where?

[odiecat99]

I liked my 4 beta sessions

imsayin'

[Sturgeon]

Is this game going to be worth it? Don't want to build a new machine only to come back to R99

[Uteunayr]

Is this game going to be worth it? Don't want to build a new machine only to come back to R99

Depends what you're looking for.

[HeallunRumblebelly]

God, I think I'm gonna buy it. For all my hating, I'll be there for early access, lol. As it turns out, if you play the solo portions in first person they're actually kinda fun. PVP of course is mandatory third, but still.

[citizen1080]

God, I think I'm gonna buy it. For all my hating, I'll be there for early access, lol. As it turns out, if you play the solo portions in first person they're actually kinda fun. PVP of course is mandatory third, but still.

Ill be able to reserve names on the first day of early access..and then i'm flying out to Hawaii for a week. I can't think of many better reasons to miss out on early access but it still sucks lol...

[Knuckle]

I'll be in the dominion with a group of friends, rolling as Knuckle Nord Dragonknight

[Randarn]

Sadly the f2p with stores is all about profit... the sub era is over...they just make more money when the player can buy aesthetic items. gw2, LoL. etc.

They govern to the masses and that's what they want these days. Casual playing with pretty outfits.

I say, bring on the VR....I'll pay pretty much anything lol.

[liveitup1216]

It's the shiniest turd we have available, so I'll be stomaching it until something better comes along. Just like always.

[citizen1080]

It's the shiniest turd we have available, so I'll be stomaching it until something better comes along. Just like always.

Funny, this is how I feel about our elections.

[Auvdar]

It's the shiniest turd we have available, so I'll be stomaching it until something better comes along. Just like always.

It's thinking like this that keeps getting us bad MMO after bad MMO. :(

[Lune]

It's the shiniest turd we have available, so I'll be stomaching it until something better comes along. Just like always.

It's thinking like this that keeps getting us bad MMO after bad MMO. :(

Agreed, although I'm not sure whether I can attribute this to MMO's actually being bad, or the jaded cynicism of an adult who has been playing MMO's for half his life.

Opiate users 'chase the dragon', trying to replicate their idealized perception of what it first felt like to get high, in spite of diminishing returns and tolerance. All MMO discourse, everywhere, invariably comes across like a bunch of heroin addicts arguing about why nobody can get a good high anymore. It's missing the point.

I'm fairly certain no new MMO, no matter how masterfully designed, is going to blow your socks off. You've lost the ability to have your socks blown off.

When one finally does come along, the mind-blowing is going to manifest itself as "Meh, this game is actually pretty fun".

You never catch the dragon. (http://youtu.be/OHbtcvk_KBs)

[citizen1080]

Agreed, although I'm not sure whether I can attribute this to MMO's actually being bad, or the jaded cynicism of an adult who has been playing MMO's for half his life.

Opiate users 'chase the dragon', trying to replicate their idealized perception of what it first felt like to get high, in spite of diminishing returns and tolerance. All MMO discourse, everywhere, invariably comes across like a bunch of heroin addicts arguing about why nobody can get a good high anymore. It's missing the point.

I'm fairly certain no new MMO, no matter how masterfully designed, is going to blow your socks off. You've lost the ability to have your socks blown off.

When one finally does come along, the mind-blowing is going to manifest itself as "Meh, this game is actually pretty fun".

You never catch the dragon. (http://youtu.be/OHbtcvk_KBs)

Qft

[Tecmos Deception]

I disagree. Imo a great, new drug will blow your socks off even if you've been using something else a lot and/or for a long time.

But new MMOs aren't great (or maybe even good); they're just new.


Can all of you honestly say that nothing has blown your socks off since your first MMO? EQ was my first, and yeah. OMFG. But WoW blew my socks off too, and I'm nostalgic about early wow (the content more than the mechanics) almost like with classic EQ. Eve blew my socks off too. A few other games were solid "good"s in my book... usually cause they'd have a few great features, but the overall game was mediocre at best (city of heroes, shadowbane are the ones I can think of atm, I didn't play DAOC or early SWG). And then basically everything else was "shitty" because even if there was a great feature or two, or a number of good features, the overall game was terrible (rushed releases and games not delivering on early promises being the biggest issues, probably).