[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[Deleted]

I actually loathe the idea of "1 giant megaserver", they make it sound better than it actually is.

There will be a shitload of phasing/instancing which I really hate in MMOs. It was overused so much in GW2 that it just didn't feel like an MMO at all, not to mention the fucking endeavor it was just to try and get into the same phase as your friends so you can quest or run an instance, it's an incredible annoyance.

And as this is an Elder Scrolls game, you better believe whatever instancing system they have in place will be buggy as fuck.

[Edge-]

It was overused so much in GW2

I might have missed something...but other than each zone being a discrete instance, what was phased/instanced within the zones?

And the channel system isn't breaking up sections of the game by phasing/instancing. It's essentially just putting entire zones onto a different server, while still allowing you to migrate between channels in order to play with people, and chat across multiple channels of the same zone.

So in reality, it acts like a normal shard system would, but while allowing cross server chat and optional cross realm zones.

[Deleted]

I might have missed something...but other than each zone being a discrete instance, what was phased/instanced within the zones

Shards were the issue, i refer to shards as instances because they basically are. They were hardly discrete when 5 of your friends were in 5 different ones (in the same zone), we had to literally trick the system just to attempt to be in the same shard so we could run a dungeon.

[Edge-]

Shards were the issue, i refer to shards as instances because they basically are. They were hardly discrete when 5 of your friends were in 5 different ones (in the same zone), we had to literally trick the system just to attempt to be in the same shard so we could run a dungeon.

Ah, I refer to shards as servers, and the different instances as channels.

Yeah, GW2's secondary systems kinda still aren't that great, and at launch were absolutely abysmal (still no guesting feature). When the system actually works (Aion uses it, Champions Online uses it, and so do a number of other games), you can freely change channels in order to get in the same channel as groupmates. I remember some games even automatically switching you over to the group leaders channel when you entered a group.

[Deleted]

I just hope i'm proven wrong anyway and whatever system they put in place actually works/isn't a nightmare to manage. I love the Elder Scrolls series and actually don't mind the idea of it expanding into an MMO, I just wan't it to try and stay true to the series as much as possible. I was really disheartened when I heard about the faction locks :|

I'm just so cynical about every new mmo that is announced now after my experiences with following SWTOR for like 2 years before release only to find out the game is... well you know how it is.

[Zapgreen]

I just hope i'm proven wrong anyway and whatever system they put in place actually works/isn't a nightmare to manage. I love the Elder Scrolls series and actually don't mind the idea of it expanding into an MMO, I just wan't it to try and stay true to the series as much as possible. I was really disheartened when I heard about the faction locks :|

I'm just so cynical about every new mmo that is announced now after my experiences with following SWTOR for like 2 years before release only to find out the game is... well you know how it is.

I really hope ESO does well too, but honestly I'm going to be thrilled to explore Black Marsh either way. You have to take a game for what its worth, sure SWTOR bombed as an MMO, but it rocked as far as I'm concerned with the leveling and story. Even if ESO doesn't get the ~10m subscribers like wow, I'm going to have fun checking out the rest of Tamriel.

[btf]

just watched this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=8luBc0X3vIg and thought id give my views(and these are my views only as i have never pld an elder srcolls game)

21 reasons to play elder scrolls online - and my opinions of them

1 - first person done right
elder scrolls will give you a choice of either over the shoulder look or 1st person look, the narrator says it was a deal breaker for him, me, i think i like, and prefer, the over the shoulder look, but thats prob coz ive pld wow and swtor from a 3rd person look, this shouldnt be a deal breaker but it will give you the choice of how you view the world(and tbh, over the shoulder looks a bit strange imo, sort of "not right"...:-0, should be behind or 1st person)

2 - controls - exactly like wow and tor, asdw moves and mouse to look around(please correct me if i heard it wrong)

3 - stealing and moving crap - afaik, this looks like you can interact with almost everything in the world, although why you would want to is beyond me. Taking stuff for mats etc isnt new, DnD online has done it, as has Aion and prob 1-2 other mmo's, this will do it with a bit more style though...:-0 - this is prob just another way of grinding mats, i think what im saying is, why add it, if u can grind for the mats you need why have the option to steal when youll get what you need questing!!!

4 - voice acted dialog - SWTOR>all(thats all i have to say on the matter)

5 and 6 - combat and the stealth approach, no cooldowns - hmmm, tricky this one is, while i agree with the no cd, u have to have to have some cd between 1 attack and the next, and what about your chars special attacks?, surely that will have a cd...also stealth?, every class can stealth, not being funny but when did anyone imagine some1 in plate stealthing!!!!(and during the video it says "detected" and the npc's dont look like their blind, confused etc)

7 - combo attacks - pld a few games with these and could never get used to them, but thats me, in ESO youll be able to power each others attacks by the looks of it as the video shows you(mage powering a warrior blade)

8 - gorgeous gfx - this is really unfair saying this game has better gfx than what were used to, when wow first appeared it was top notch, now, a few years down the line, yes its gfx are behind but what do ppl expect - for example, if Titan is WoW2, then it will have the latest gfx and be just as stunning as anything out there so lets not go there with how games look, if u can use the latest gfx you will, which wow done all those years ago

9 - the whole world - been there done that(dont know what he was on about at 10.15 though...;-0)

10 - faction warfare - all mmo's doing it already, crowning your own emporer though, now thats new and any1 can be leader it seems, this does mean though that guilds with loads of ppl will get their members to vote for the player they want unless there are some rules against it

11 - sweet freedom - apparently you can either follow a quest line or just go out into the world and get quests as you find them, this i like, although i think following a certain quest line should reward you with items etc as it does in every other mmo i have pld, but every1 to thier own i guess


12 - books books books - lore in ESO, same as in wow and in swtor and prob a few other mmo's, athough in ESO prob a bit more in depth from the way he explains it

13 - the compass - im presuming this is just like any other map we see on any other mmo!!!(watch the video and youll see what i mean, no real expanation)

14 - lean ui - now this can only be good. Youll get 6 abilities, health, stamina, magica compass and a chat box(okay thats 5 but he said 6...:_0), lets face it, even now on the proper wow forums blizz is thinking of what they can do for the hunters who have far to many buttons/keys to press so this can only be good

15 - 14.07 = LOL, anyway - intellgent AI, mobs attack you differently depending on what class you are, should be good tbh, mobs can team up to fight players as well which can lead to some interesting combat scenarios

16 and 17 - highly customizable charas, self defined classes - mmo's are bringing this in as a standard now tbh, swtor has it, as does a few others, imo Aion had, and still does have, the best chara customizable around, in this game it seem you can be a mage wearing plate by the sounds of it, but tbh that seems strange, never in all of my years of playing games(even bk to DnD, the paper version) did i see a mage wearing plate!!!!!

18 - one server to rule them all - totally agree with this and this is where i think servers will be going in the future, not these many servers which wow has but youll have very few servers which are capable of having 50k+ and more ppl on them(the tech is coming guys, if not here already)

19 - playing with like minded players - hmmm, not sure, it says youll have to fill out a questionaire about how you like to play the game and youll be put on a server with like minded ppl, good idea but if you like pve and your mates like pvp well???? - hopefully u can just choose a server anyway

20 - epic large scale battles - this sounds cool, and reminds of when i watched my m8 playing DAOC with about 100+ charas all attacking the same keep(obv there werent as many ppl online back so servers could do it)

21 - kill cams - never seen them b4 so dont what they will do for ppl

now ive never pld an elder scroll game, and i prob never will and these comments are IMO only and do not, and should not effect any1 who has pld elder scroll games - now even though some of my thoughts seem to be a bit on the minus side this game does look good and, if priced right, and the balancing of sides right and without a lot of servers it could end up being a very good mmo, 1 which i may give a try to, even though ive never pld an elder scroll game

for once i would like to see an mmo which throws out the usual pricing methods they all seem to use - i sub to wow and swtor, both are roughly the same for the 6 month period in which i pay for, around £7.00-£7.50 per month, which is good imo, but id like to see an mmo going 1 step further, give us a cheaper rate and more ppl will think about subbing to a game, around £5-6.00 per month(for a 6 month period would be sound), its only a few pounds cheaper, but it goes a long way and could get you more subbys

the balancing of sides should be just that, an equal balance of all factions in the game, Aion had a +/-2% on all servers and tbh all games should follow that rule coz this worked really well as no servers had an advantage when it came to pvp

fewer servers the better now imo, swtor started with about 100 euro servers and now there down to 9, (3 each for english, french and german), although these are now full servers and the game is a lot more interesting and fun to play, it screwed up there reputation so bad there still trying to get over it, best thing to do is start with few servers and add another server IF u need it, youll only get slammed if u start with 20 mega servers and find you only need 5!!!!

[Tabbycat]

Blizzard really has no excuse with the whole lack of updated graphics with WoW. If I can mod up Morrowind (which came out 2 years before WoW) and get it to look a lot better than WoW, I don't see any reason why Blizz can't do it. Take the Goblins and the Pandarens, for example. When are they going to overhaul the rest of the races to catch them up in looks? The answer is they never will. The game is getting too old and characters are hitting 90 now. So updated graphics isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Oh, and for those curious - Running Morrowind with MGE XE and some texture packs:
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...psf515084e.png
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps70299958.png

OH yes, and the kill cams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npR1VtaFmXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WSD_npdaJ0

[Zapgreen]

3 - stealing and moving crap - afaik, this looks like you can interact with almost everything in the world, although why you would want to is beyond me. Taking stuff for mats etc isnt new, DnD online has done it, as has Aion and prob 1-2 other mmo's, this will do it with a bit more style though...:-0 - this is prob just another way of grinding mats, i think what im saying is, why add it, if u can grind for the mats you need why have the option to steal when youll get what you need questing!!!

10 - faction warfare - all mmo's doing it already, crowning your own emporer though, now thats new and any1 can be leader it seems, this does mean though that guilds with loads of ppl will get their members to vote for the player they want unless there are some rules against it

15 - 14.07 = LOL, anyway - intellgent AI, mobs attack you differently depending on what class you are, should be good tbh, mobs can team up to fight players as well which can lead to some interesting combat scenarios

16 and 17 - highly customizable charas, self defined classes - mmo's are bringing this in as a standard now tbh, swtor has it, as does a few others, imo Aion had, and still does have, the best chara customizable around, in this game it seem you can be a mage wearing plate by the sounds of it, but tbh that seems strange, never in all of my years of playing games(even bk to DnD, the paper version) did i see a mage wearing plate!!!!!

19 - playing with like minded players - hmmm, not sure, it says youll have to fill out a questionaire about how you like to play the game and youll be put on a server with like minded ppl, good idea but if you like pve and your mates like pvp well???? - hopefully u can just choose a server anyway

20 - epic large scale battles - this sounds cool, and reminds of when i watched my m8 playing DAOC with about 100+ charas all attacking the same keep(obv there werent as many ppl online back so servers could do it)

21 - kill cams - never seen them b4 so dont what they will do for ppl

3 - I love stealing in the one player games, clear out a house for no reason and not getting caught, then dump the crap in a barrel outside lol.

10. Sounds incredible that our best player is the emperor, I never was one for RP, but I will defend my king for sure (no desire to actually lead myself) will be interesting how that all plays out with faction balance I already sense though. EHP will almost undoubtedly have majority of the players simply for having Nords and Dark elves.

5 - Tanking shouldn't ever be boring if you the mobs are thinking like that, using combos and whatnot.

16. I'll probably wind up a standard sword and board warrior, or maybe a cloak and dagger light armored assassin, nothing out of the ordinary. battlemages/paladins/templars always were a popular play-style choice though.

19. sounds good in theory, but whats to stop me from saying I want to be in the server/phase with non-pvpers and then pvp the shit outta them. or stop a troll from joining a mature server/phase and trolling.

20. I can only imaging the emperor and his faction holding up in a keep while the other factions siege. Its gonna be wicked fun.

21. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml4tXUKm73o - basically when you get an enemy to where your next move will kill it, it'll cut away and show some bad ass execution, like the decapitation in the video, stealth kills sneak up behind and slit the throat and so on.

[Germ4npride]

Hopefully we get a beta announcement for this game in the next week or two. Kungen said on stream after doing his own research that THERE WOULD be a beta starting up in sometime in january.

[Deleted]

I know what my problem with this MMO is now..

It's the fact that it's an MMO. Now don't get me wrong, it's not the "oh no, they make Elder Scrolls into a MMO, how could they!" argument. It's that an MMO needs to be worth the time investment buuut, it's new, the news came somewhat suddenly and it's from somewhat obscure developers (Bethesda isn't involved in it). Add that even the bigger, much more hyped MMO's have completely plummeted (SW, Warhammer and whatever that asian one was) and it's not looking too good.

I can't help getting my hopes up on this one though. If they steer away from randoms/solo play and instead actually add player driven features like not letting some random with the biggest score or whatever to be the emperor but faction wide vote or something that actually promotes the massive multiplayer part. Ironically, that's what most MMOs are lacking these days. Player created content and interaction.

[Deleted]

Blizzard really has no excuse with the whole lack of updated graphics with WoW. If I can mod up Morrowind (which came out 2 years before WoW) and get it to look a lot better than WoW, I don't see any reason why Blizz can't do it. Take the Goblins and the Pandarens, for example. When are they going to overhaul the rest of the races to catch them up in looks? The answer is they never will. The game is getting too old and characters are hitting 90 now. So updated graphics isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Oh, and for those curious - Running Morrowind with MGE XE and some texture packs:
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...psf515084e.png
http://i1153.photobucket.com/albums/...ps70299958.png

OH yes, and the kill cams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npR1VtaFmXQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WSD_npdaJ0

They are constantly updating graphics in World of Warcraft. Just look at some screenshots from vanilla WoW and compare it to MoP. Only the models are a bit outdated but they're already working on them. I think WoW stills look 10x better than games like Rift or GW2.

[Throren]

I think WoW stills look 10x better than games like Rift or GW2.

To each their own I suppose though I highly disagree, since when has this



looked better than this

http://0.tqn.com/d/internetgames/1/0/k/g/rift13.jpg

or this

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/back...Norn-in-LA.jpg

[Champagne Supernova]

Wonder if the races would have their own unique weapon/combat animations or atleast something to identify what faction the enemy is from.

Myself i'm tempted to roll a dual wield battle mage, hopefully the no cooldown thing would let me play as a port in and port out kinda mage. If i can't do that, i'll settle for good old staff : D I can't see how sneak type characters would work though, if they're going with the skyrim mechanic then surely other players would see you O.o interesting to see how that pans out.

[Deleted]

I think the only way to implement a stealth gameplay into an MMO with lots of players is some sort of camouflage ability that makes you invisible. Like that Nocturnal cloak you have in Skyrim.

The current stealth system would obviously not work in PvP because the other player can see you if you are crouching. Also I can´t see you deal 30x damage with daggers because that would obviously be too OP and everyone would run around as dagger assassin or even bow assassin (3x damage).

I don´t know how they could add that without it either getting too OP or not interesting enough for anyone to care. I love to play Skyrim as stealth archer so for me this system they currently have is great but that would not work for a MMO.

[Luko]

To each their own I suppose though I highly disagree, since when has this

http://images.mmorpg.com/features/62...andaria1_t.jpg

looked better than this

http://0.tqn.com/d/internetgames/1/0/k/g/rift13.jpg

or this

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/back...Norn-in-LA.jpg

Still shots don't mean anything in the world of an MMO. To this day, WoW's still the only MMO that satisfies me in the form of animation fluidity and smoothness of combat. GW2 looks better visually in just about every aspect (aside from running/walking) but rift makes me want to vomit every time I see it. The entire game looks horrible. It would't matter if the characters and the world were twice as good, with animations and movements like those, I still wouldn't touch it.

Yes WoW is an extremely dated, cartoony game, but it achieves what it set out for and has held static since the beginning, offering extremely smooth gameplay. ESO could just as well look like daggerfall to me and if it played anything near as smooth as WoW, I'd be satisfied. People are far too concerned with graphics these days.

[Tekkommo]

Yes WoW is an extremely dated, cartoony game, but it achieves what it set out for and has held static since the beginning, offering extremely smooth gameplay. ESO could just as well look like daggerfall to me and if it played anything near as smooth as WoW, I'd be satisfied. People are far too concerned with graphics these days.

Can't repeat this enough, gameplay is what matters and that is why WoW is so popular and why other MMOs have failed.

You could have the best graphics in the world, but if the gameplay is poor, it won't cut it as an mmo.

[Deleted]

Can't repeat this enough, gameplay is what matters and that is why WoW is so popular and why other MMOs have failed.

You could have the best graphics in the world, but if the gameplay is poor, it won't cut it as an mmo.

That´s why I love my TES games without those shiny graphic mods that you can find thousandfold on steam. I love the whole feeling and the graphics because they are the opposite of those graphic monsters like Halo 4 (not that I don´t like good graphics tho).

It just feels like a Elder Scrolls game with the vanilla graphics. I´d still prefer Daggerfall over those new MMOs because it still feels great to play that game.

[wdmshmo]

While I agree that game play is a key factor in MMO's, I can't play one for very long without a good story. I played WoW originally for the story, as the story started to fall off, (in my opinion) so did my interest in the game. Between the outdated cartoony looks, and the story that is a mockery of how they used to write, I just can't get into it.

Game play is very important, but so is Story. Graphics are still important, but as long as they're decent (smooth), people will ignore them. However, it's 2013.. I have fibre net and a great PC, great graphics are on my wishlist.

[Deleted]

Looking at all the previews since the announcement, it feels more and more like they missed a huge opportunity to make an MMO that truly embodies what the Elder Scrolls series is really about: The player can do whatever he or she wishes and go wherever he or she wants. Why couldn't they have opted for a FFA game where the players create the content within the confines of the game?

Say that we have the Empire, the Aldmeri dominion, Stormcloak rebellion etc (just a bad example) as an overlay, posing as the NPC factions which players can join and do quests for etc. Then have players create guilds with different functions, like bandits, mercenaries (see Fighter's Guild), players' own Thieves' guilds, Dark Brotherhoods etc. The possibilites would be endless and the only thing they would need to offer is what TES games offer normally: A large world with thousands of locations with dungeons filled with monsters and cool loot at the end. Leave the rest to the players, let the players generate rivalries between guilds that lead to wars etc. It would be awesome.