The Elder Scrolls Online

[Lothy]

Ye I can understand what u saying.

Do you think we meant to have a little flexibility with the game? I was thinking about it, the game is like 30gb client side and I can only guess what its like server side. So right now there is enough in the game to keep me going for a while and during that time I want to support them. I look at the empty room and I see a lot of potential and what can be done with it. So im happy to sub for a while and give them a chance to fix and improve. The only way the game can grow and become something is if we support them. I just worry that ppl play the 1st month see all the problems that every mmo has when launched and jump ship potentially ruining what could be an awesome game. SWTOR had this problem, but I reckon their big issue was the game was difficult enough and they were really slow on releasing content.

I want this game to succeed and im willing to support it as long as zenimax show progress.

 

[diabolus]

Ye I can understand what u saying.

Do you think we meant to have a little flexibility with the game? I was thinking about it, the game is like 30gb client side and I can only guess what its like server side. So right now there is enough in the game to keep me going for a while and during that time I want to support them. I look at the empty room and I see a lot of potential and what can be done with it. So im happy to sub for a while and give them a chance to fix and improve. The only way the game can grow and become something is if we support them. I just worry that ppl play the 1st month see all the problems that every mmo has when launched and jump ship potentially ruining what could be an awesome game. SWTOR had this problem, but I reckon their big issue was the game was difficult enough and they were really slow on releasing content.

I want this game to succeed and im willing to support it as long as zenimax show progress.

The thing is, it depends on what "success" means for Zenimax/Bethesda. Maybe they are quite happy selling 1 million box copies of the game at $60 a pop and whether you play it 1 month or 2 years doesn't matter (the sub cost being a "bonus" to them) . I wish i knew what is going on with the finances of MMO companies, and i don't mean the old MMO companies, the "new" generation of MMOs that fade out within a year. I really believe some corporate decided they want to cash-in on a game like Skyrim on a continuous basis, they probably did not care whether it is an actual MMO, as long as there is a reason to extract money from players as long as they are playing the game (this model is becoming a thing in all industries)

As we all know, Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim were all games that are STILL being played and i bet they wished they had means to still get money from us for playing it after all this time....and then we got TESO. I still don't believe they really wanted to make an MMO, but rather just a version of Skyrim which can be a subscription service. Similar to what EA pulled with SimCity.

Alot of the content and even assets most likely came straight out of Bethesda/Skyrim and they created a platform that allows multiplaying in a single player game. My guess is it did not cost THAT much more than it would have cost to make a single player Elder Scrolls V . So the real costs comes in with maintaining servers, and maintaining devs to now fix bugs in real-time as opposed to having a patch once every 3 months. Zenimax is already showing they are being cheap on the servers and i bet they also only got a small group actually working on the bugs. Hence why 90% of the conversation is still about bugs as opposed to making enhancements/improvements.

I was a somewhat disappointed with their "State of the Game" address as it only contained talks about bugs fixed and bugs going to be fixed. It is the kind of thing you say about a single player game , for an MMO i normally expect to hear what improvements they are planning or their plans to expand the game further (you know like their 6 month plan) .

So i am hoping they succeed too and can move on from chasing gold sellers and quest bugs and actually enhance the game. It genuinely love the world and theme. It is reminiscent of the good old Everquest days. I never was a big fan of these quirky scifi-fantasy themes found in WoW and now Wildstar, so i would definitely prefer ESO get their act straight rather than feeling obliged to join the crowds playing Wildstar etc.

 

[Lothy]

Very true, at the end of the day ppl want to make money 1st game later. Guess that's a fact of life really, we just hope the 2 are more closely balanced out.

I think a road map will still come, I think right now its all about dealing with current issues over whats to come

 

[diabolus]

And it took me exactly a month to hit lvl 50 and kill Molag Bal. Irony is, entire pre lvl 50 i was running around on my Sorceror with 2 pets and AOE'ing . The final fight? I killed him with my freaking healing staff (normal attacks). Pets useless, AOE useless, just me and a staff , kiting and blocking, haha. I didn't even use my ultimate.

The sad part, i'm now on the starter island of the Aldmeri Dominion as Veteran Rank 1, and getting my arse kicked by skeevers!

 

[Shrike]

At a stage where I am wondering if I should log in. I know when that stage comes that it is time to put the MMO I am playing away until later.

Cancelled before my sub kicked in. I am planning to buy myself a very nice mouse to play MMOs with, saving R200 towards that will certainly help.

 

[diabolus]

At a stage where I am wondering if I should log in. I know when that stage comes that it is time to put the MMO I am playing away until later.

Cancelled before my sub kicked in. I am planning to buy myself a very nice mouse to play MMOs with, saving R200 towards that will certainly help.

Yea, sadly, i can't see myself grinding the veteran levels. I mean it is 45 levels per faction , now it is 3 veteran levels per faction... No new skills, nothing to aim for and a massive grind combined with a spike in difficulty... More fun to roll alts.

Either way i still got me some time, but i feel I've seen most of what this game has to offer, not sure why one would subscribe for once you hit veteran. It is not like there is any real economy or the type of enjoyable repeatable content.

 

[Cronus086]

Yea, sadly, i can't see myself grinding the veteran levels. I mean it is 45 levels per faction , now it is 3 veteran levels per faction... No new skills, nothing to aim for and a massive grind combined with a spike in difficulty... More fun to roll alts.

Either way i still got me some time, but i feel I've seen most of what this game has to offer, not sure why one would subscribe for once you hit veteran. It is not like there is any real economy or the type of enjoyable repeatable content.

Are you guys playing by yourself of with mates? I'm still a low level noob, lvl33, i think and i'm still enjoying it. I really hope i get to at least reach VR, lol. So far real life has been stopping me from actually putting in a decent amount of game time.

 

[diabolus]

Are you guys playing by yourself of with mates? I'm still a low level noob, lvl33, i think and i'm still enjoying it. I really hope i get to at least reach VR, lol. So far real life has been stopping me from actually putting in a decent amount of game time.

It is very difficult to level with friends in this game. Dungeons is about all pve content there is for groups right now.

Yes, you can play with friends but you must be on the ball, same faction, similar level, same quest phases. It is not uncommon to end up in a situation where your group mate is just one step ahead of you in a quest chain (and all the quests are long chains) and you simple can't see them. Or you are left stranded to fight the final part of a quest (i.e. the bosses) alone.

Hell the other night i wanted to give out free vamp bite to guildies, I couldn't, no one could reach me (different factions)... Fail.

So i was playing with ad hoc players mostly (people who are in the same phase as i am). I must admit, at the higher levels in areas with no other players, the content is seriously hard. In coldharbour (last 5 levels) i quite often had to wait for other players to survive the content, because the mobs are quite hard solo (those elite harvesters especially, with the healing balls floating towards them, imagine having to solo them as "trash mobs" )

 

[Clive Woofer]

At a stage where I am wondering if I should log in. I know when that stage comes that it is time to put the MMO I am playing away until later.

I hit that point a while back and stopped logging in when I had 10 days sub left. I realised I was only playing it because I felt obligated to do so because of the sub. The moment I realised this I decided to call it a day. It's not that I didn't enjoy the content but leveling one DK to 50 was fun and it doesn't seem like my Sorcerer alt on the Ebonheart Pact is going to do content that's a lot different to what I've already done.

If the game goes F2P I'll definitely play it again, but for what it offers it really isn't worth the cost for me at the moment.

 

[Clive Woofer]

It seems they gave everyone 5 days of free gametime for the unexpected server downtimes. That's nice of them.

 

[GazWorks]

Yep think I'm done too, had a fun time and I think the game gets too much flak I suppose that's the line you walk when you try to appeal to two very different groups of gamers. I was mainly playing with friends and just exploring slowly did everything as a group, but the month is done and I'm not interested in spending R180 a month on a sub. Doesn't make sense i'm too busy with other things.

 

[Lothy]

sad to see u guys talk like this...

Myself and my mates are still loving this game a lot and there is still so much left to do.

Maybe the game will be better for u guys a few months from now after the game has stabilized, more content and the EU servers are infact in the EU.

 

[diabolus]

sad to see u guys talk like this...

Myself and my mates are still loving this game a lot and there is still so much left to do.

Maybe the game will be better for u guys a few months from now after the game has stabilized, more content and the EU servers are infact in the EU.

Yea, i can do with better latency, especially now that i'm spending more time in Cyrrodil.

I decided i'm sticking to my Veteran character ,rather than level an alt. I feel the class abilities of the other classes are not -that- spectacularly different from my current sorcerer play style. Chances are half of your bar will consist of weapon & guild related spells as opposed to class specific abilities.

Also, amusingly, i've found the veteran phase of content (i'm on Kenrathi Roost, starter island for Aldmeri) more interesting because there are far less players and require more of your attention. Any given mob can kill you, especially a wrong pull or aggroing too many. All the places i've been to so far on my VR char (and i've been in the same places on lowbie alt ) had all the mobs up, chests are everywhere, crafting resources are everywhere, public dungeons you might find 1 other player (making this quite a nerve wrecking experience).


I've also beefed up my stealth (vampire passive + medium armor passive) so i can sneak at full speed with a very low detection rate. This makes running around Cyrrodill doing quests quite a pleasure (entire enemy zerg ran straight over me and didn't notice) , Likewise with alot of Veteran content. Pre lvl 50, you'd just AOE through all these mobs, now it seems more useful to sneak past ... the VR xp on the mobs relative to what i require to go up a rank does not seem to tell me it's worthwhile killing mobs (pre 50, it was quite useful for leveling purposes to kill everything).

So methinks this game will squeeze some more time out of me, i am definitely not aiming for VR10 at this stage, my goal is to unlock more skill points (i only got like 115 skill points now, and there are apparently at least 300) , as i feel i still don't have enough points to fully flesh out my character.

I'm also considering doing some crafting , now that i am at a relatively "stable" level (my gear won't be changing that much methinks). Since i've done absolutely 0 crafting, there's a huge part of the game left for me still.

 

[GazWorks]

sad to see u guys talk like this...

Myself and my mates are still loving this game a lot and there is still so much left to do.

Maybe the game will be better for u guys a few months from now after the game has stabilized, more content and the EU servers are infact in the EU.

It's like I said I enjoyed it quite a bit and questing with friends was fine despite some annoying bugs. I just don't want to stick to playing one game forever and MMOs suck up so much time which is both a good and bad thing. The other side of the coin was apart from the sorcerer I had no interest in the other classes so every time I rolled an alt I would get bored so quick, but then again I couldn't play my sorcerer solo either as I would get bored super quick without the social aspect.

 

[Clive Woofer]

It's really not that the game is bad, but that there's not enough content, or variety in content, to keep me occupied long enough to pay to level a second character. I started a sorcerer on Ebonheart Pact after I hit 50 with my DK and I was pretty much doing the exact same content I did in the Daggerfall Covenant, just with different NPCs and new locations.

The questing isn't interesting or varied enough to warrant the price tag, imo. I tried PvP too and it really isn't all that much fun. You can solo, in which case you're going to get mauled by ranged players or you can join a zerg, in which case you stand around and spam attacks. Meh.

I'll definitely play again if they improve the content and/or it goes F2P.

 

[Stefan9]

It is very difficult to level with friends in this game. Dungeons is about all pve content there is for groups right now.

Yes, you can play with friends but you must be on the ball, same faction, similar level, same quest phases. It is not uncommon to end up in a situation where your group mate is just one step ahead of you in a quest chain (and all the quests are long chains) and you simple can't see them. Or you are left stranded to fight the final part of a quest (i.e. the bosses) alone.

Hell the other night i wanted to give out free vamp bite to guildies, I couldn't, no one could reach me (different factions)... Fail.

So i was playing with ad hoc players mostly (people who are in the same phase as i am). I must admit, at the higher levels in areas with no other players, the content is seriously hard. In coldharbour (last 5 levels) i quite often had to wait for other players to survive the content, because the mobs are quite hard solo (those elite harvesters especially, with the healing balls floating towards them, imagine having to solo them as "trash mobs" )

Very easy to stay on the same quest phase while playing with friends if you use mumble and communicate

Had more issues lately with quests updating for us for people not in our group killing the quest mob. Should really not be updating when no in our group has engaged the mob...

 

[Lothy]

I rolled an alt I would get bored so quick, but then again I couldn't play my sorcerer solo either as I would get bored super quick without the social aspect.

LoL I still don't understand this...

@clive

"It's really not that the game is bad, but that there's not enough content" Also something im battling with. From what I understand u have access to all the dungeons with a hard mode. Also as questing goes what many different ways can u ask to do a quest. What u said about DC area with different NPCs and locations can be used for any game or movie for that matter.

What im trying to find out is what will make a ground breaking MMO for u guys. Cause im 100% sure that this same conversation will be had for Wildstar and probably any MMO that comes out.

 

[Shrike]

LoL I still don't understand this...

@clive

"It's really not that the game is bad, but that there's not enough content" Also something im battling with. From what I understand u have access to all the dungeons with a hard mode. Also as questing goes what many different ways can u ask to do a quest. What u said about DC area with different NPCs and locations can be used for any game or movie for that matter.

What im trying to find out is what will make a ground breaking MMO for u guys. Cause im 100% sure that this same conversation will be had for Wildstar and probably any MMO that comes out.

You might be right there. I personally am always looking for something that can measure up to the nostalgia of my first MMO sessions 13 years ago, well it feels like that.

I have really enjoyed the last few new MMOs released such as RIFT, Secret World, GW2 and even Neverwinter. ESO just felt.... lacking compared.

I have returned periodically to those MMOs for a month or so and probably will do so again in the future, but ESO? Doubtful. All I can do is try and articulate why I feel that way, no guarantee that I will be hitting the mark from a personal perspective. Just be assured that my opinions are not on autofollow to my ennui (listlessness, boredom) but I actually try and find what I don't like by posting here ;-)

Will have to see if WS gives me the same

 

[GazWorks]

What im trying to find out is what will make a ground breaking MMO for u guys. Cause im 100% sure that this same conversation will be had for Wildstar and probably any MMO that comes out.

Definitely going to be variations on the flavour of it, but yeah the same conversation will happen undoubtedly.

You might be right there. I personally am always looking for something that can measure up to the nostalgia of my first MMO sessions 13 years ago, well it feels like that.

This seems so silly to me. Not only were you a different person 13 years ago, but the industry was different 13 years ago too. The chances of you capturing that same feeling are slim to none. A large portion of that probably has to do with the people you played with and the mentality towards MMOs you held at the time. Both of which has more than likely been altered with the passing of time. MMO hopping is literally and attempt to cling to the past in genre that's moved forward? Granted MMOs are incredibly guilty when it comes to iteration over innovation, but still if you compare a modern MMO to an old one(or even current WoW to old WoW) they have changed dramatically.

 

[diabolus]

LoL I still don't understand this...

@clive

"It's really not that the game is bad, but that there's not enough content" Also something im battling with. From what I understand u have access to all the dungeons with a hard mode. Also as questing goes what many different ways can u ask to do a quest. What u said about DC area with different NPCs and locations can be used for any game or movie for that matter.

What im trying to find out is what will make a ground breaking MMO for u guys. Cause im 100% sure that this same conversation will be had for Wildstar and probably any MMO that comes out.

I think a big[ger] problem with ESO's content is its repeatability & replayability. I think ESO actually launched with a crapload of PvE-linear-quest content, which is great quantity wise, but average in terms of memorability. It is thus still content that people will burn through in 1-2 months and won't be playing ever again. There's no reason for me to return to any previous zone once I'm done with the main quest line and got the skyshards. There is no reward anymore by going there.

Of course no other themepark MMO i know of has solved this problem either, not even WoW. I am hoping the idea is that at some point, the entire world will be scaled to your level, implying Zenimax does not need to add new zones, they can have a Skyrim like experience where quests lines are simply added into existing zones, but that remains to be seen (like their promise of adding Thief's guild/Dark Brotherhood) ....

So that alone will be quite groundbreaking for an MMO, it's actually ironic, since that is exactly why Skyrim is still popular. It's not that Skyrim have any special unique quests or caves/temples/dungeons that are different , it's just that at any given moment the entire map is available for content and even your own character will always have something to improve.... it feels open and sandbox like.

WoW actually created an "endgame world" which is pretty much what i described above, except instead of utilizing all the zones you level through, they added "mini games" in the form of Dailies/Battlegrounds/PvP Arenas/Raids with different difficulties/AH/Crafting which all link into each other to form this open ended "grind machine" of content to improve your character with. That makes people log in for more. So despite releasing new zones once in like 2 years, this endgame is designed like Diablo ..there's always one more upgrade or improvement or "gate" to unlock.

Now for me personally, i'm over the "mini games" , and Wildstar unfortunately for me, seems to follow this formulae. That good part for Wildstar is of course, the mini-game thing tends to have much more longevity to it than straight quest content. I am 100% certain, the "leveling game" in WS will be stock standard, people will enjoy building up their character and they'll race through the content in a month and then it will about all these Dungeons/Raids/Crafting/Economy/PvP treadmills that will keep the game going, if THOSE are good, the veterans stick around, which in turn encourage more players to level up to join them.

ESO, got no mini-game thing going as far as i'm concerned, and the alternative is to have a sandbox, where the entire world is open and exploitable and your character continues to have growth options. ESO does not have that either...

I still maintain, ESO is pretty much formulated to be a single player RPG and they would have been better off simply shipping this game as Elder Scrolls VI .... i mean Skyrim's world is tiny in comparison, ESO got content coming out of your ears, imagine what expansions and addons in the single player version of this could have done?