[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[Gurluas]

I keep telling myself that it's still early and they might change their minds, especially if the pressure is strong enough. Stranger things have happened, after all, Mass Effect 3 got new endings when enough players complained.

But more likely they will just scrap more unique features and bring it closer to WoW/Rift/Tera and countless other sandbox MMO clones.

Indeed, except...Those are Themepark, not Sandbox.
Sandbox is what ESO should have been.

Themepark is like a joyride minus the joy, a rollercoaster on a set track, while a sandbox is well..A sandbox. You can build castles, make landscapes and so on.
The metaphors should make it pretty clear which one fits TES best.

The Rollercoaster can be fun a few times, but it makes you sick soon if you keep using it.
The Sandbox never stops being fun.

[fizzbob]

i got banned for being too awesome (again), moved, got a new job, and the same people are on here whining about how "teso isn't like tes"

the fact is that it's as much like TES as it can possibly be while remaining an ambitious MMO. it CAN'T be the RPGs (that are garbage without mods, btw) with a lot of people playing them

they are making an attempt to keep it as "real" as possible without sacrificing what makes an MMO like wow or rift successful

[zaxlor]

Indeed, except...Those are Themepark, not Sandbox.
Sandbox is what ESO should have been.

Themepark is like a joyride minus the joy, a rollercoaster on a set track, while a sandbox is well..A sandbox. You can build castles, make landscapes and so on.
The metaphors should make it pretty clear which one fits TES best.

The Rollercoaster can be fun a few times, but it makes you sick soon if you keep using it.
The Sandbox never stops being fun.

The Sandbox never stops being fun, provided you have any kind of imagination.

I think this is what sets sandbox games apart from others, along with how strong their in built and modding tools are. Minecraft on it's own is one of the most well known examples and there's fantastic things people make in it. There's also a load of crap stuff too, way more than any of the full scale Enterprises, Hogwarts or Game of Thrones worlds that ever get made.

I'd love ESO to be full sandbox, with crafting involving multiple supply routes with real towns full of real people, but that's too big an ask of the comunity. It's like that guy from EA saying "Yeh, 10 million people play WoW, that means 10 million people could play our game!". If you're trying to tap into the biggest slice of the MMO market, what do they all gravitate towards? Themepark mmos, with the slow drip feed of task-effort-reward.

[RoninaThorstone]

i got banned for being too awesome (again), moved, got a new job, and the same people are on here whining about how "teso isn't like tes"

the fact is that it's as much like TES as it can possibly be while remaining an ambitious MMO. it CAN'T be the RPGs (that are garbage without mods, btw) with a lot of people playing them

they are making an attempt to keep it as "real" as possible without sacrificing what makes an MMO like wow or rift successful

That's the thing. The way people define "MMO" is literally an MMO like EQ/WoW/Rift/Lotro/Swtor/War/Aion. Those are not the only type of MMOs and I would argue that attempting to make another at this point in time would be very bad. Both Rifts storm legion and WoWs mists of panderia are considered fantastic by not only their respective fan bases but of each others fan bases. I highly doubt there's enough free floating second generation EQ MMO players to fill another second generation MMO (Like, for real. There is no solid evidence that there's enough people to make another multi million player MMO of that type)

to make a truly ambitious MMO would be not NOT be like WoW and focus more on pleasing the TES fan base because the TES fan base will have a much higher retention rate than the EQ mmo fan base.

[Valeron]

i got banned for being too awesome (again), moved, got a new job, and the same people are on here whining about how "teso isn't like tes"

the fact is that it's as much like TES as it can possibly be while remaining an ambitious MMO. it CAN'T be the RPGs (that are garbage without mods, btw) with a lot of people playing them

they are making an attempt to keep it as "real" as possible without sacrificing what makes an MMO like wow or rift successful

here's the thing, I think most of us realize it can't really be skyrim online. But a lot of us were thinking, when they announced it, that it would be a fantasy sandbox since that is what the elder scrolls games are in essence. And so far it's not turning out to be like that at all. But we shall just have to wait and see.

[fizzbob]

That's the thing. The way people define "MMO" is literally an MMO like EQ/WoW/Rift/Lotro/Swtor/War/Aion. Those are not the only type of MMOs and I would argue that attempting to make another at this point in time would be very bad. Both Rifts storm legion and WoWs mists of panderia are considered fantastic by not only their respective fan bases but of each others fan bases. I highly doubt there's enough free floating second generation EQ MMO players to fill another second generation MMO (Like, for real. There is no solid evidence that there's enough people to make another multi million player MMO of that type)

to make a truly ambitious MMO would be not NOT be like WoW and focus more on pleasing the TES fan base because the TES fan base will have a much higher retention rate than the EQ mmo fan base.

"like wow"

TESO at this point is as much like WOW as it is Rift, GW2, EQ and Aion. it shares nothing that is unique to wow (mainly because not much is unique to wow, blizzard has always taken what they liked and tried to improve it). it's not like wow but does share things with most other MMOs. that's good. they're ambitious because of the combat system and the massive PVP the game has been built around. ambitious because it seems to want to keep certain races separate IN A TIME OF WAR which has always made sense but not always been how people approached it. it's ambitious because for the past 5 years now, they've had a plan and have stuck to it since day one (from what we've been told) and instead of rushing TESO out to capitalize on oblivion's immense success, it's gonna end up spending an above average amount of time in development.

it will never have 10,000,000 subs, that won't be possible ever again. even if wow shut down to day no MMO would have 10,000,000 subs. the genre is stronger than ever, but instead of competing with a dying MMO that peaked at 100,000 subs, you're competing with multiple MMOs with 1,000,000+ subs.

TESO is for people who like TES and can stomach the internet, because you see the real internet in an MMO. it's fugly sometimes, it's competitive and that's not for a lot of people but the TES lore has a strong following and according to the alpha tests, it doesn't have the problems SWTOR had.

it's ambitious because it's trying to be what TES lovers think of but without sacrificing what a good MMO REQUIRES, like target soft locking, progression, competition, etc

as for the sandbox whining, you can't make a serious MMO and expect it to be high quality, successful and be a sandbox. to make a sandbox, you have to give control to the 12-30 year olds who will be playing it. to hell with that. i prefer a themepark MMO that is going to be as large as TESO is banking on being. it's like a football game with refs vs a game in the backyard where you call your own PI and holding (sandbox)

screw the honor system that people today will always abuse. eve has a tiny bit of sandbox-ness in it (less than people lead you to believe, you have a few options) and it can be pretty rough, it's very UNKIND to new players and has been successful but not on wow's scale

a big sandbox MMO can't work and never has

---------- Post added 2013-02-28 at 07:45 PM ----------

here's the thing, I think most of us realize it can't really be skyrim online. But a lot of us were thinking, when they announced it, that it would be a fantasy sandbox since that is what the elder scrolls games are in essence. And so far it's not turning out to be like that at all. But we shall just have to wait and see.

hell the RPGs are pretty shitty without mods. mods make them great, without them they're buggy pieces of shit. you know how long it takes to beat TES 3-5 combined? about an hour. what makes them great is the community and that same community will hopefully contribute to TESO in a positive way. since some of the best modders have left the scene because of the whiny fucks who can't install their mod properly and blame the modder, i imagine it being a lot more like wow and a lot less like utopia, but that's just online gaming these days

the RPGs are not sandboxes and NEVER have been though. the problem is you people don't know what sandbox means.
minecraft is a sandbox mmo


i can do without the giant cock-and-balls towers that seem to get built everywhere in minecraft
or the giant mammary gland hills in the distance

but mostly, people just don't know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to terms like sandbox because they're too stupid to google it

i just hope the depth of the lore translates and is explored in the game instead of the half-baked crap we've gotten the past 10 years from everyone else. fuck the kids with ADD

[Tackhisis]

There was not a single successful sandbox MMO. The players will abuse everything they can reach if not limited and controlled. So those who cries for 'sandbox' desire simply to grief and abuse the servers. Obviously, it won't work with 1 server, so one should realize that modern game won't allow 'sandbox' under any conditions.

[vizzle]

The only thing I'm hearing from fizzbob is wind. Wind feels nice but it passes by as soon as it comes because it's nothing. No bearing, no weight, no meaning. You're not saying anything I can see or I can dispute, except for the fact that it's wind.

the fact is that it's as much like TES as it can possibly be while remaining an ambitious MMO.

I find this hard to swallow once they start to remove minute details like first-person support and pickpocketing and the jail system. They remove shit that has no negative influence (with a few rules and limitations, there's nothing wrong with pickpocketing and jail) on the game and would only make the game more like TES than other MMORPGs. These are just things off the top of my head. A statement like this is so completely out there that I'd be afraid to say that about anything ever, and honestly the only thing it reveals is that you've gone so way over the edge about this that you've begun to resort to extremities and hearsay and other dev-speak bullshit.

TESO at this point is as much like WOW as it is Rift, GW2, EQ and Aion. it shares nothing that is unique to wow (mainly because not much is unique to wow, blizzard has always taken what they liked and tried to improve it).

Same thing I said above. All I'm hearing is wind right now. Can I get something solid?

they're ambitious because of the combat system and the massive PVP the game has been built around.

Good, finally, something to hold onto.

ambitious because it seems to want to keep certain races separate IN A TIME OF WAR which has always made sense but not always been how people approached it.

I don't see how putting up invisible walls is ambitious at all. It's a crutch and they're using it as a bandaid because they want to artificially increase lifespan of the game just by forcing you to make alts if you want to see the world, and I find it funny that anyone could view this as being ambitious. It's ambitious, sure, but in the negative sort of way, the way EA is ambitious in pushing their $$$-sucking schemes as far as they can before their glass house cracks. Keep races separate as much as you want, there's nothing new or exciting about that nor is there anything wrong with that, but prohibiting people from exploring the world isn't something they should be proud of. And really, it's only a rabid fanbase that can't see why they're doing it and instead think it's "being ambitious"...

it's fugly sometimes, it's competitive and that's not for a lot of people but the TES lore has a strong following and according to the alpha tests, it doesn't have the problems SWTOR had.

Especially that last bit. We going to start this insider information bullshit already? And even if a few Alpha players have been praising the game (which I believe undoubtedly), that means squat. TOR didn't see the problems TOR had, at least not most people, so why would TESO?

as for the sandbox whining, you can't make a serious MMO and expect it to be high quality, successful and be a sandbox. to make a sandbox, you have to give control to the 12-30 year olds who will be playing it. to hell with that. i prefer a themepark MMO that is going to be as large as TESO is banking on being. it's like a football game with refs vs a game in the backyard where you call your own PI and holding (sandbox)

When people say sandbox, nobody really means a complete 100% sandbox because that would just be lunacy. Minecraft is there for that. What we mean is something much more sandbox than WoW -- the game most people in this thread who are hoping for a new game have already quit because we're sick of that model -- ever achieved to be. TESO is failing to hit those marks. The TES games aren't completely sandbox but they are much more sandboxy than most other RPGs, and that's what players expected with TESO. While it would be stupid to expect something just as sandboxy as a SP-RPG, we were expecting more than what the announcements are currently revealing. Instead we're getting talk of progression and dungeons and other things (it's hard to clarify when so little is being revealed, which again is something people should be worrying about instead of praising).

i just hope the depth of the lore translates and is explored in the game instead of the half-baked crap we've gotten the past 10 years from everyone else. fuck the kids with ADD

What do you expect "the depth of the lore" to ever achieve for a game? How is lore ever going to carry a game? I love stories as much as the next guy, I read books every single day, but be realistic and realize that this is a different medium and stories are not the backbones of successful long-standing MMOs. Why? Because stories have no replayability. Once it's written and tasted, it's done, and players will ask one question: What now? I really hope devs aren't listening to people like you.

hell the RPGs are pretty shitty without mods. mods make them great, without them they're buggy pieces of shit. you know how long it takes to beat TES 3-5 combined? about an hour.

Yep, you and I are very different. I played Skyrim for several months without mods, happily (it was the first time I'd tried a TES game and I didn't want to bother figuring out how to even add mods). I was and still am fine with unmodded Skyrim, just because it's fun to play in a world that feels alive.

[Zeek Daniels]

I would rather have a theme park then a sandbox. And how are the TES games sandbox? Pretty sure i was walking around picking up quests and going to the locations quests mention and doing what the quests said only to return to the person who gave the quest and get rewarded. Pretty sure thats theme park.

[Remilia]

I would rather have a theme park then a sandbox. And how are the TES games sandbox? Pretty sure i was walking around picking up quests and going to the locations quests mention and doing what the quests said only to return to the person who gave the quest and get rewarded. Pretty sure thats theme park.

Single player isn't theme park, it's either linear or open world. TES fits the open world situation, where the game doesn't tell you to "go here and do this in this order!", where as TES series and the like are 'sandbox' / open world. These tend to be more free-form as you can do what you want whether it be serious or for shits and giggles.

[Valeron]

yes literally the elder scrolls aren't a sandbox, but I think you get the gist. An open world in which we can do mostly what we want. We make our own adventures, not have the developers tell us where we should go and when we should do it. If I want to build a house and grow potatoes all year long, well I should be able to do it no? yeah anyway, I know that this isn't that type of game

[OrcsRLame]

Personally, I'm gonna wait till I can play the damn game before I declare that the sky is falling or that this is the be all end all of mmo godhood.

[Luko]

Damnit. I had a decent contribution... then I played the "Colors of the wind" imbed. I've got nothin' now. Gunna go pop in a Disney movie.

[Dyros]

Personally, I'm gonna wait till I can play the damn game before I declare that the sky is falling or that this is the be all end all of mmo godhood.

One of the few intelligent remarks in this thread.

[Luko]

One of the few intelligent remarks in this thread.

Actually to those of us not giving into either of these extremes, what you quoted is simply a reiteration of every day routine. I assumed that was obvious from he way the discussions are handled. It is, however, unfortunate that the extremists usually bark the loudest.

[Deleted]

Indeed, except...Those are Themepark, not Sandbox.
Sandbox is what ESO should have been.

Themepark is like a joyride minus the joy, a rollercoaster on a set track, while a sandbox is well..A sandbox. You can build castles, make landscapes and so on.
The metaphors should make it pretty clear which one fits TES best.

The Rollercoaster can be fun a few times, but it makes you sick soon if you keep using it.
The Sandbox never stops being fun.

Oops, I meant themepark yes. Not sure why I listed them as sandbox.

That's basically what I meant, except that TESO isn't fully pushed into the narrow frame of a themepark mmo yet. It's somewhere in between. What I'm hoping for is that strong feedback from players will make them intrroduce more sandbox elements and make it more like a TES game. Not all themepark elements are bad so if some remain, so be it. But at the very least, I think player driven economy, first person view, all continent explorable by anyone and more dynamic world instead of quest and instance grinding is still possible.

Not sure how I feel about players becoming an emperor though. If they actually had some real power in the game, make laws etc. it would be great but if it's title only and your name goes into some stupid list.. that's just boring

[Drakhar]

I would rather have a theme park then a sandbox. And how are the TES games sandbox? Pretty sure i was walking around picking up quests and going to the locations quests mention and doing what the quests said only to return to the person who gave the quest and get rewarded. Pretty sure thats theme park.

I think you're missing the point...

One of the few intelligent remarks in this thread.

Yep, let's just sit on our hands and not discuss anything at all. I guess the only way this thread could have been "intelligent" would be if it had 152 fewer pages since no one has any commentary other than "derp let's wait and see what happens."

Hell, I'd rather laugh at fizzbob's ridiculous rants than have a thread of that. On a related note, 11/10 for your analogy vizzle.

[Worgoblin]

Anyone else not really care about PvE and will play TESO as long as the combat system and RvR is good? At this point in my MMO career (LOL?), I'm about 95% PvP and 5% PvE. If the RvR feels like a spirit successor to DAOC, I'm all in.

[RoninaThorstone]

Anyone else not really care about PvE and will play TESO as long as the combat system and RvR is good? At this point in my MMO career (LOL?), I'm about 95% PvP and 5% PvE. If the RvR feels like a spirit successor to DAOC, I'm all in.

Eh. I care about pvp and pve and rvr. But I agree with you about the good combat system.

Basically, I can only take eq/rift/wow/lotro/swtor/aion combat for so long. >_<

I can handle it in short bursts like raid nights but other than that... barf.

[Valeron]

Yeah the main feature that I was looking forward to was the RvR. But ever since camelot unchained was announced the enthusiasm for this game's rvr has waned a bit. I'm still looking forward to it though.