[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[Tabbycat]

Time for more Elder Scrolls lore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLSOcKHK3Fc

[mvaliz]

I keep getting disappointed every time I open this thread. Why do so many people have the urge to constantly make this into a TEO vs whatever mmo that's been released in the past. Seriously, enough with that.

Is it really too much to ask for, that this thread is used for info about the upcoming game..and nothing else?

If I wanted to read about wow or guild wars, I would use the appropriate sub forums for that.

...this entire forum is housed in a World of Warcraft Fan Newsite. I don't care what the URL says and what the Garfield-person says... you and I know it's all about WoW when it comes to these forums, with maybe a HINT of another MMO once every 2+ months on the front page. Hell man... they even have a dedicated forum for friggin' Hearthstone! Tell me how THAT is supposed to be a friggin' MMO!? If that's an MMO - then any las-vegas online casino could be classified as an MMO. :P

But on a more serious note... comparing MMORPGs is commonplace. If a new FPS comes out that features space marines fighting aliens, how can people NOT compare it to Halo or Gears of War?

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 01:15 AM ----------

TESO, besides the Final Fantasy franchise has from what I've seen the biggest following when it comes to RPG games that WoW cannot even touch.

Dude... I'm an ES fan and am looking forward to ESO, and even I don't believe what you wrote above. :P

Does it have a VERY sizable fanbase? absolutely, especially after Skyrim. Is the fanbase as big as Warcraft? Close, but not that close... is the fanbase bigger than Warcraft? No... not at all.

And you want to know another franchise that has a bigger following that WoW and Elder Scrolls COMBINED? Star Wars...

Want to know another one with a comparable fan-base to WoW? Diablo 3...

Don't judge an incoming sequel by its fan-base numbers. As D3 and SW:ToR proved - you CAN screw up a game regardless of your installed fanbase.

[Tabbycat]

The thing about Elder Scrolls is that even though it has a huge fanbase and even though Skyrim sold over 10 million copies, there are many Elder Scrolls fans who are... let's just say, less than thrilled about their beloved single player IP being turned into an MMO. Fortunately, ZeniMax Online has listened to the fans when they told them they were making the game too much like WoW wrapped up in a TES skin. So the game was changed for the better since it was announced back in May of last year. And they continue to make improvements based on feedback they receive about the game. I hope the game is hugely successful and forces the other big players in the MMORPG world to improve the quality of their own games.

[Valeron]

Elder Scrolls fans will be the games worst critic, especially going from single player games to an mmo. I also believe the payment model will be important here as well. If it is buy to play I imagine most of them will buy it. If it has a subscription there will be a sizable amount of those players who won't bother with the game.

[zaxlor]

Elder Scrolls fans will be the games worst critic, especially going from single player games to an mmo. I also believe the payment model will be important here as well. If it is buy to play I imagine most of them will buy it. If it has a subscription there will be a sizable amount of those players who won't bother with the game.

I'm thinking the same too. Making it a sub based game, would be great for the shareholders but such a big "screw you guys!" to the players of all past Elder Scrolls games. Fans of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim almost expect DLC now and clearly buy it, but it's always been a choice. You pay x amount for the main game, which gives you access to all content with no need to pay extra. Suddenly saying "Hey, you've brought the game, now give us extra because it's online!" just won't wash with the millions of people that have never needed to do that before.

Or maybe it will? Maybe fans will be so damn eager to play and keep playing the game that they'll fork over x amount of cash each month. I doubt it though. After the 30 day trial, most people are going to know if they're going to keep on playing. We all know server costs are minimal, we all know that online games don't need a sub to keep putting out content.

I really hope they have a buy-to-play model, with possibly a subscription in the form of Season Passes. I'm really not keen on them myself, since i'd never pay for something unless I know what i'm going to get (which most passes don't ever tell you up front). Either way, you'd be able to access 100% of the shipped gaming content and then for helping to support the game through constant monthly payments/donations you're given new content, or you just buy the extra content when you feel like it.

[Ebonheart]

...this entire forum is housed in a World of Warcraft Fan Newsite. I don't care what the URL says and what the Garfield-person says... you and I know it's all about WoW when it comes to these forums, with maybe a HINT of another MMO once every 2+ months on the front page. Hell man... they even have a dedicated forum for friggin' Hearthstone! Tell me how THAT is supposed to be a friggin' MMO!? If that's an MMO - then any las-vegas online casino could be classified as an MMO. :P

But on a more serious note... comparing MMORPGs is commonplace. If a new FPS comes out that features space marines fighting aliens, how can people NOT compare it to Halo or Gears of War?

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 01:15 AM ----------



Dude... I'm an ES fan and am looking forward to ESO, and even I don't believe what you wrote above. :P

Does it have a VERY sizable fanbase? absolutely, especially after Skyrim. Is the fanbase as big as Warcraft? Close, but not that close... is the fanbase bigger than Warcraft? No... not at all.

And you want to know another franchise that has a bigger following that WoW and Elder Scrolls COMBINED? Star Wars...

Want to know another one with a comparable fan-base to WoW? Diablo 3...

Don't judge an incoming sequel by its fan-base numbers. As D3 and SW:ToR proved - you CAN screw up a game regardless of your installed fanbase.

Well I should have been more specific. Sure when you include the regions in Asia WoW has a bigger fan base. However, in NA, The Elder Scrolls is probably much bigger. You only have to see the dedication that Modders put into their Mods, the sales of previous titles, and lore.

Star Wars does have a big fan base, but the fans are more of the movie and merchandise than the game IP itself. I am pretty sure, an average Star Wars fan wouldn't even know a Star Wars MMO existed.

Can't really compare much about Diablo 3. This just had a lost of hype going for it before its release. Probably the most hyped about game of this generation even more so than SWTOR.

I ain't judging an incoming sequel by its fan-base. Just wanted to make a point how loved the TES franchise is and its stayed true to its elements.

---------- Post added 2013-04-08 at 12:13 PM ----------

I'm thinking the same too. Making it a sub based game, would be great for the shareholders but such a big "screw you guys!" to the players of all past Elder Scrolls games. Fans of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim almost expect DLC now and clearly buy it, but it's always been a choice. You pay x amount for the main game, which gives you access to all content with no need to pay extra. Suddenly saying "Hey, you've brought the game, now give us extra because it's online!" just won't wash with the millions of people that have never needed to do that before.

Or maybe it will? Maybe fans will be so damn eager to play and keep playing the game that they'll fork over x amount of cash each month. I doubt it though. After the 30 day trial, most people are going to know if they're going to keep on playing. We all know server costs are minimal, we all know that online games don't need a sub to keep putting out content.

I really hope they have a buy-to-play model, with possibly a subscription in the form of Season Passes. I'm really not keen on them myself, since i'd never pay for something unless I know what i'm going to get (which most passes don't ever tell you up front). Either way, you'd be able to access 100% of the shipped gaming content and then for helping to support the game through constant monthly payments/donations you're given new content, or you just buy the extra content when you feel like it.

Elder Scrolls fans will be the games worst critic, especially going from single player games to an mmo. I also believe the payment model will be important here as well. If it is buy to play I imagine most of them will buy it. If it has a subscription there will be a sizable amount of those players who won't bother with the game.

Its unfair to say that a P2P subscription will fail. Sure it may not be very convenient but people are willing to pay if the quality provided is good.

I fear if TESO is "Buy 2 Play" it would turn out to be another GW2.

I mentioned a while back on the official TES forums regarding this topic; WoW being my first MMO, it was something new to fork out $15/month. However, I found the trade off to be much better for what I got then. Obviously I don't feel the same these days but it was completely worth it when I started.

Sure a lot of TES fans may not approve of the whole "P2P" model but if you actually see the market right now none of the B2P or P2P games can offer content a P2P can.

A lot of people I think feel entitled to certain things. I remember when "DLC" was something new and game developers started removing more and more stuff from their finished products to sell as DLC, people were pissed but still ended up forking out. Why? Cause the product was still good. It isn't any different from a P2P model.

The thing right now that annoys me the most is that the same people opposed to the P2P model are expecting a complete game with a lot of quality content and depth as well as a ton of end game content. Get it straight, you can't get both.

If this was another F2P game why even bother making the transition into an MMO, like there are not a ton of MMOs to choose from already. Clearly them believe what they have to offer is better than the products out in the market. I really can't see it being anything other than P2P. They may probably lower the sub fee to $9.99 or even $12.99 but it will still be a P2P unless they introduce a revolutionary pricing model that has not been done before. But its clear that will stay away from micro transactions.

[Valeron]

Its unfair to say that a P2P subscription will fail. Sure it may not be very convenient but people are willing to pay if the quality provided is good.

I fear if TESO is "Buy 2 Play" it would turn out to be another GW2.

.

You fear it will turn out to be another GW2? What's wrong with that?

I'm not saying a sub will make the game fail but it certainly will limit the audience, in particular the Elder Scrolls fans audience. MMO players in general will be ok with it I imagine.

[RoninaThorstone]

You fear it will turn out to be another GW2? What's wrong with that?

I guess setting record profits two quarters in a row for NCsoft was a bad thing.

[Ebonheart]

You fear it will turn out to be another GW2? What's wrong with that?

I'm not saying a sub will make the game fail but it certainly will limit the audience, in particular the Elder Scrolls fans audience. MMO players in general will be ok with it I imagine.

Its got no end game content. Its best a casual MMO with shiny graphics and I still couldn't get into it after giving it a try.

[Edge-]

Its got no end game content. Its best a casual MMO with shiny graphics and I still couldn't get into it after giving it a try.

WoW is a casual MMO FYI, that's why it's so successful. Personal taste is irrelevant in this instance. Someone implied that GW2 has bombed or that there is something wrong with its business model, but the data we have access to shows the game doing well and the business model has been widely praised.

[Deleted]

New "Ask us anything" up ... some very interesting stuff

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en...variety-pack-3

Fast Travel kind of confirmed
upscaling to maxlevel in pvp zomes

[Strah]

I recently read that there are no raids in ESO. Is that true? Does the dev team have a plan to keep those hardcore PvE players interested in end-game content with something that will take the place of a raid? – By Ernesto Eusebio

The problem here is the definition of the word “raid,” which means different things to different people. When we said we won’t have “raids,” we meant that we won’t have raids in the traditional sense of the word—we’ll have our own way to get large groups together. There will absolutely be large-group PvE activity in the game, but we’re not ready to talk about those systems yet. We have mentioned adventure zones in the past, but we won’t go into details until those systems are finalized.

Welp.
They're probably going to implement the same "large scale pve" system like gw2, which is atrocious.
Looks like it's Wildstar for me then.

[RoninaThorstone]

upscaling to maxlevel in pvp zomes

Mmm.
Sounds better and better.

[Ebonheart]

Welp.
They're probably going to implement the same "large scale pve" system like gw2, which is atrocious.
Looks like it's Wildstar for me then.

I think you are looking too much into it. They have not even gone into details into their systems neither have they explained what "Adventure Zones" are.

If you call it raiding currently in WoW the state it is in, then please, I'll take adventure zones any day. Raiding currently isn't very engaging or immersive. You would have to be brain dead to raid in its current state just going through the motions of playing out your rotation, the same 3-4 spells over and over. I enjoyed raiding at one point, but I can only recall my experience since Firelands, Dragon Soul and recently. I often remember myself just staring at the screen going numb doing the same rotation over and over. The only think that I found fun was trying to stay competitive on the DPS meters.

Blizzard are so confused on their own direction that they can't seem to settle on single design. Lets take healing for example, in Cataclysm they brought about the "trinity" system. Each healer had 3 main heals depending on the situation. You had a "flash", "normal" and a "greater" heal. You had to be smart and attentive to your resource while choosing the heal to use depending on the situation. It was different from WTLK where healers had infinite mana and you get away spamming flash heals all day. I like the new system and thoroughly enjoyed healing. It received a lot of backlash cause you now had to think and not mindlessly spam.

Then now in MoP every healer is stuck with a fixed mana resource, there isn't any design to healing. If you don't spam your big heals, tanks get eaten up or people die. They are now moving away from their previous design.


Even if you take the stats currently at realmpop.com with a pinch of salt, you have around 18million + characters in North America alone, however only 2 million of all those 18 million+ are at level 90. And then you only have a fraction of that 2 million that actually even raid. From personal experience on realms that I've played on, during T14, people gave up mid way cause they couldn't be arsed to put any effort into raiding. They simply called it.

[Strah]

I think you are looking too much into it. They have not even gone into details into their systems neither have they explained what "Adventure Zones" are.

If you call it raiding currently in WoW the state it is in, then please, I'll take adventure zones any day. Raiding currently isn't very engaging or immersive. You would have to be brain dead to raid in its current state just going through the motions of playing out your rotation, the same 3-4 spells over and over. I enjoyed raiding at one point, but I can only recall my experience since Firelands, Dragon Soul and recently. I often remember myself just staring at the screen going numb doing the same rotation over and over. The only think that I found fun was trying to stay competitive on the DPS meters.

Blizzard are so confused on their own direction that they can't seem to settle on single design. Lets take healing for example, in Cataclysm they brought about the "trinity" system. Each healer had 3 main heals depending on the situation. You had a "flash", "normal" and a "greater" heal. You had to be smart and attentive to your resource while choosing the heal to use depending on the situation. It was different from WTLK where healers had infinite mana and you get away spamming flash heals all day. I like the new system and thoroughly enjoyed healing. It received a lot of backlash cause you now had to think and not mindlessly spam.

Then now in MoP every healer is stuck with a fixed mana resource, there isn't any design to healing. If you don't spam your big heals, tanks get eaten up or people die. They are now moving away from their previous design.


Even if you take the stats currently at realmpop.com with a pinch of salt, you have around 18million + characters in North America alone, however only 2 million of all those 18 million+ are at level 90. And then you only have a fraction of that 2 million that actually even raid. From personal experience on realms that I've played on, during T14, people gave up mid way cause they couldn't be arsed to put any effort into raiding. They simply called it.

Wow was dead in my eyes since the end of wotlk. I did try cataclysm and mop, i did not like it the way i did vanilla,tbc and wotlk, most likely because the rotations and the mechanics have become somewhat too complicated and not worth the effort. Bosses like KJ and LK weren't really hard tactics-wise, but they were enjoyable as hell, unlike current bosses IMO.

But yeah, you mentioned staying competitive on the damage meters - that's the thing i probably enjoyed the most in raiding, where you min-max your character and do your best at the bosses just to beat your bro. And i do enjoy instanced raiding, at least i did in vanilla/tbc, where there were attunements, and best pve gear was actually good for anything, not just killing those instanced bosses nobody but your raid sees.


Hell, i can't even consider pve in any other game but wow just due to damage meters now. The only thing it's fun for me and thousands of others is due to competitiveness, and apparently TESO will not have that. Most likely it won't have damage meters, due to casuals crying about elitism and the other thing would be most "classes" being able to get the skills of other "classes", essentially promoting fotm specs.

[vizzle]

I don't know how the hell anyone can even expect raiding in the WoW-sense when it comes to this game; you guys aren't thinking this through. Look at raiding, now look at Skyrim, and look at WoW raiding again. How would you even do that? WoW raiding is built around numbers and cooldowns and perfect timing, and the encounters are so tightly tuned that the best players in the world can wipe at 0.0001% of a boss' hp. WoW is amazing when it comes to how tuned the encounters are relative to player performance.

But how would you do that with Skyrim? The combat is real time. You swing your sword and you block. There is no "character will do X damage in X time" because there is no consistency with your damage. In Skyrim (and I'm using Skyrim as a base here because it's the latest TES game) you just fight and dodge and try to kill things before they kill you. There is no "tightness" with that gameplay, not in the WoW-sense. That doesn't make it bad, but it does mean having the same raids as a hotkey MMO would be silly to expect.

[Tackhisis]

But how would you do that with Skyrim? The combat is real time. You swing your sword and you block. There is no "character will do X damage in X time" because there is no consistency with your damage... There is no "tightness" with that gameplay, not in the WoW-sense. That doesn't make it bad, but it does mean having the same raids as a hotkey MMO would be silly to expect.

The character in Skyrim does (at least) X damage in Y time because the weapons in Skyrim have a fixed damage amount and fixed swing speed. It is exactly the same system for every game since Baldur's Gate, and if there are no "the same" raids it is due to developers laziness or ineptness.

[Flaks]

The character in Skyrim does (at least) X damage in Y time because the weapons in Skyrim have a fixed damage amount and fixed swing speed. It is exactly the same system for every game since Baldur's Gate, and if there are no "the same" raids it is due to developers laziness or ineptness.

Don't push your personal perspective of what would be a great MMO on to developers. I'd argue that's part of the reason that a lot of companies haven't been as successful as they could have been. Because they put what players were saying before what they thought was best for their own game. And that's never a good call because consumers really don't know crap about these things.

What they've done so far is amazing. If the questing experience is even mildly comparing to that of any Elder Scrolls game then that in itself is a success. The pvp seems exceptionally promising. And small group pve content outside of questing also sounds pretty good. "Raiding" doesn't have to be what we've been seeing for the past decade and a half. It can be so many other things as long as it's executed well.

[OrcsRLame]

The character in Skyrim does (at least) X damage in Y time because the weapons in Skyrim have a fixed damage amount and fixed swing speed. It is exactly the same system for every game since Baldur's Gate, and if there are no "the same" raids it is due to developers laziness or ineptness.

Dps has 3 factors, not 2. Attack speed and average damage per hit are the easy ones. Time on target is what throws a wrench into the whole system.

It's very unrealistic to expect close to 100% time on target in a combat system like the one TESO has. Time on target will vary wildly based on many factors. In wow, time on target is much more predictable.

For example. If someone does 10 average damage per hit, attacks 1 time per second and has 100% uptime, then they'd do 10 dps over a period of infinity. If you cut the time on target by 50% though, you cut the dps by 50%. Balancing around time on target is inherently flawed in a game that promotes blocking and dodging as core mechanics, and you're inevitably penalized for doing anything but balls to the wall dps, which is not how the game is intended to be played.

[Tackhisis]

If the questing experience is even mildly comparing to that of any Elder Scrolls game...

Questing experience in any Elder scroll game consists of two kinds of quests: "go fetch" and "go kill". It is incredibly primitive by comparison with most others RPGs. Are they going to implement the real RPG quests, because what they had so far was rubbish?