The Elder Scrolls Online

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Rescorla_sl

shitlord
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Utnayan_sl said:
This was my favorite.

The Secret World - - Blue Mountain - YouTube

Going through and finding out the history of the house. But you should know that this was only the drop in quest. There are many (many) investigative quests that lead here with various outcomes and cool ways to find them. For example, use the Oujia Board upstairs.

This particular one was fun as it went through various time zones and the entire atmosphere changed within the house.

If you are talking point/click game mechanics, hunt down items, etc - sure they are all the same right? Similar to how putting POI's on a compass doesn't mean it's not a disguised side quest system.

But the attention to detail just within this quest line took a lot of talent, with people that allowed their developers to rome free and make something fucking awesome and creative, while having access to assets which required that access. Look outside the window in the different time periods. Notice how they didn't even use the same model of car, or weather, or the inside of the house changed with age...

That is what makes a game atmospheric and fun from a story perspective.
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I did The Haunting quest last week. You click on a mirror and get teleported to a private instance (like TESO uses). Once inside the private instance, you perform standard WoW clone tasks to advance the quest (like TESO uses). Rinse and repeat for each major phase of that quest where you go to a different period of time. Overall it's a well written quest but fundamentally it is exactly the same as a typical quest in a WoW clone MMO. There was no unique gameplay during The Haunting that set it apart from any other MMO.

The quest involving a Quija board is one of the investigative missions that is definitely unique to TSW. It's obvious a lot of thought and effort were put into designing the investigative quests but I would be willing to bet 99% of TSW players used a spoiler website to figure out those quests. Funcom explicitly stated players would need to use the internet to investigate clues to solve the quests which is one reason there is an ingame browser.

With the Ouija board quest I was able to figure out the first clue and I found the car. I then clicked on the yellow highlighted object at which point the headlights started flashing. At that point I was stuck. Time to go to a spoiler site where I discover the lights were flashing in Morse code. What percentage of TSW players can translate Morse code? Probably well under 1%.

Pretty much every in investigative quest in TSW has some cockblock step in it like the morse code that is impossible for the players to figure out on their own.

There is no telling how much development resources Funcom devoted to creating the investigative missions in TSW. I'm inclined to believe they never expected anyone to actually solve them but put them in anyways for public relations purposes. Funcom has a shit reputation due to AO and Age of Conan so creating a unique type of quest never seen before in MMOs would earn them some praise. Well they earned a compliment from me but is it quality game design to create PVE content knowing hardly anyone will be able to figure it out on their own?
 
D

Dmitry

368
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Jackdaddio_sl said:
So given that, what exactly is better about TESO's form of WvWvW vs GW2's that makes that worth $15/month? I admit I'm completely out of my element comparing those two things as it's all just one big barn burning in both games imo.
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Siege warfare seems a bit better. It seems a smidge less zergy because of supply lines. Stealth and stealth detection make small group combat more fun. It has group roles so squad tactices seem better.
 
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Dmitry

368
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Rescorla_sl said:
I did The Haunting quest last week. You click on a mirror and get teleported to a private instance (like TESO uses). Once inside the private instance, you perform standard WoW clone tasks to advance the quest (like TESO uses). Rinse and repeat for each major phase of that quest where you go to a different period of time. Overall it's a well written quest but fundamentally it is exactly the same as a typical quest in a WoW clone MMO. There was no unique gameplay during The Haunting that set it apart from any other MMO.

The quest involving a Quija board is one of the investigative missions that is definitely unique to TSW. It's obvious a lot of thought and effort were put into designing the investigative quests but I would be willing to bet 99% of TSW players used a spoiler website to figure out those quests. Funcom explicitly stated players would need to use the internet to investigate clues to solve the quests which is one reason there is an ingame browser.

With the Ouija board quest I was able to figure out the first clue and I found the car. I then clicked on the yellow highlighted object at which point the headlights started flashing. At that point I was stuck. Time to go to a spoiler site where I discover the lights were flashing in Morse code. What percentage of TSW players can translate Morse code? Probably well under 1%.

Pretty much every in investigative quest in TSW has some cockblock step in it like the morse code that is impossible for the players to figure out on their own.

There is no telling how much development resources Funcom devoted to creating the investigative missions in TSW. I'm inclined to believe they never expected anyone to actually solve them but put them in anyways for public relations purposes. Funcom has a shit reputation due to AO and Age of Conan so creating a unique type of quest never seen before in MMOs would earn them some praise. Well they earned a compliment from me but is it quality game design to create PVE content knowing hardly anyone will be able to figure it out on their own?
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Did you wander around looking at the changes in each time period and talking to people to get all the background? The background of that quest and the way they play with the timeline to reveal the story is like NOTHING in WoW. Seriously find me one quest in the history of WoW that has that kind of complexity. You are not giving fair credit to Ut just because you like to fight with him.
 
R

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
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Dmitry_sl said:
Did you wander around looking at the changes in each time period and talking to people to get all the background? The background of that quest and the way they play with the timeline to reveal the story is like NOTHING in WoW. Seriously find me one quest in the history of WoW that has that kind of complexity. You are not giving fair credit to Ut just because you like to fight with him.
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Huh? I already stated up front it was a well designed quest. Fundamentally from a MMO game mechanics perspective there is nothing in that quest that is unique. The story/lore just does a good job of disguising the gameplay and to keep you from noticing its standard MMO game mechanics.

There is a TESO quest in Stonefalls that essentially is identical to the The Haunting. You go back in time, interact with some NPCs and in the end are told the story of how Balreth (final boss in Stonefalls zone story line) became an abomination. To complete the quest you perform the same kind of WoW clone quest mechanics you performed to complete The Haunting. The only substantive difference between the two is one is standard swords and sorcery fantasy while the other is classic horror genre.
 
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Jackdaddio_sl

shitlord
727
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Rescorla_sl said:
There is a TESO quest in Stonefalls that essentially is identical to the The Haunting. You go back in time, interact with some NPCs and in the end are told the story of how Balreth (final boss in Stonefalls zone story line) became an abomination. To complete the quest you perform the same kind of WoW clone quest mechanics you performed to complete The Haunting. The only substantive difference between the two is one...
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...works.

The other you have to leave a message at the beep.
redface.png
 
J

Jackdaddio_sl

shitlord
727
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Dmitry_sl said:
Siege warfare seems a bit better. It seems a smidge less zergy because of supply lines. Stealth and stealth detection make small group combat more fun. It has group roles so squad tactices seem better.
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Thanks, I hope they do get their issues worked out. PvPers deserve a decent game these days and it would be nice if there was a place other than EvE and MOBAs we could all say that about.
 
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Wage

Molten Core Raider
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Jackdaddio_sl said:
I'm going to assume you didn't even get very far in GW2 after this statement or didn't actually play it. Those dynamic events are not part of the main game in GW2; they were the very definition of 'side quest' as you ran to do something else altogether. They aren't required for the storyline at all. They are just a public quest, which is exactly what the anchors are except a lot less sophisticated.
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Not sure how anyone could possibly call the dynamic events in GW2 "side quests". They made up the vast bulk of you leveling. Hell, the only quest was your personal story. You got one step pretty much every 2 levels, and that one step gave you about 10% of a level. That means you spent the other 190% grinding hearts and public events. You could do instances if you hated yourself too I guess. Even if you went to every zone in the game grinding hearts, if you skipped the public events you would be underleveled for the next stage of your personal story. I would guess most people anywhere from 50% to 75% of their characters total xp from public events. They certainly weren't just "side quests."
 
RobXIII

RobXIII

Urinal Cake Consumption King
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I've been keeping up with this thread, and have been on the fence. I admit I'm an MMO aficionado when it comes to that 'just launched' feel and the crowded race that comes with it. The one thing that just slightly puts me on the side of not buying it is the subscription. I see future me trudging through broken quests and dull PvE with maybe a bit of fun on the PvP side, only to realize my included free month is coming up, and to realize it's not worth a sub fee. I did the same in FF14. This is just me though, one man's opinion from past experience.

I did have a lot of fun in PRX with Tuco and friends during GW2s launch, and it made that mediocre siege warfare seem fun, so if anyone's playing this for the PvP I recommend a great guild like PRX or it'll just be dull.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Cinge_sl said:
but events were also pretty minimal in regards to total content, the hearts, from what I remember were the vast majority of the content.
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Don't know. I've done probably a hundred hearts total, but thousands of events.

I remember a video showing a map of Queensdale's scripts, and there were about 1.5 times events compared to hearts on that map. The difference is that all the hearts are visible, all the time (even completed) so you tend to notice a lot of them while there are only a handful of events going on at any given time, and not all of them are labelled on the zone map.
I actually prefer phasing to GW2 style events. GW2 style events reset and are just done again. Phased quest change a area permanently for you, it won't ever reset for that character to some default state. I save a village from some demon invaders and when I am done the NPC guards actually control the village with villagers cleaning up, this will never change for that character
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and you will never have anything to do with that village ever again. It's saved, done, over, village is now a static backdrop that is now irrelevant to you. That's the true problem of static one-shot content - you do it once, and it's now useless clutter in the world. You can have your longer quest chain with the heirloom guy coming back, but it's merely delaying the inevitable: at one point, the village is dead, content-wise.

Oh, and another difference: you can't fail. It's a rare occurrence in GW2, and usually it's because you have a bunch of people passing thru and ramping the scale up, but not participating, but there are events in which you can fail. In a standard WoW-type MMO, since every quest in your quest line is usually mandatory to finish the area and move to the next, you cannot fail.

Basically, and it's obvious from the way it's setup: quest are your story (and the story of every other Savior of the Universe - as you witness every person having saved the village from the demons popping up). Events are the world. Singleplayers MMO vs Virtual worlds.
 
Cinge

Cinge

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Ukerric_sl said:
and you will never have anything to do with that village ever again. It's saved, done, over, village is now a static backdrop that is now irrelevant to you. That's the true problem of static one-shot content - you do it once, and it's now useless clutter in the world. You can have your longer quest chain with the heirloom guy coming back, but it's merely delaying the inevitable: at one point, the village is dead, content-wise.
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And with events, what I just did has zero impact. It's nothing, it resets no matter what to default state and you do the whole thing again. It's not a world when the thing you just did to save that area, repeats itself 30 minutes later. Sure the content dies as soon as you finish the quest chain, but I am not sure having what amounts to repeatable quest is the positive alternative. I think I would rather have visible impact on the world and move on, then the ability to come do that "mission, quest, event" for the 30th time.

As for failing sure you cannot in the usual quest based game with some exceptions(Guard x, escort y etc). In the end though the fail aspect of those and GW2 is merely a illusion, since "inevitably" each of those goes back to a default state to be re-done.

I enjoyed GW2 and put quite a bit a hours into it(yes a lot of that in WvW) but it was no more a virutal living world then any other quest based MMO, I just got questing with a different wrapper and some PQs that were expanded on quite a bit. It was fun, but not even close to being some new "messiah" of pve or ruining pve for every other game. It was treated just like a quest game, move from heart to heart, do the events when they popped(often multiple times), do the dungeons once to see them , try to complete the "map" and move to the next zone.
 
J

Jackdaddio_sl

shitlord
727
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Wage_sl said:
Not sure how anyone could possibly call the dynamic events in GW2 "side quests". They made up the vast bulk of you leveling. Hell, the only quest was your personal story. You got one step pretty much every 2 levels, and that one step gave you about 10% of a level. That means you spent the other 190% grinding hearts and public events. You could do instances if you hated yourself too I guess. Even if you went to every zone in the game grinding hearts, if you skipped the public events you would be underleveled for the next stage of your personal story. I would guess most people anywhere from 50% to 75% of their characters total xp from public events. They certainly weren't just "side quests."
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They are "side quests" in the way that they are not wholly germane to the story. They are pretty much stand-alone parts of experience just like questing hubs were. If you read my post in context to what esloan is saying:

esloan_sl said:
I know you can make that argument as far as anchors are concerned. But the anchors aren't the main part of ESO as the dynamic events were for GW2. The anchors are a side game.
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..they aren't the main part anymore than someone running dungeons constantly or grinding mobs in a spot or crafting was. Hell, I remember I could get 20 or 25 levels crafting and exploration in GW2 I think.

That someone choses to make public quests the sole way of leveling because they are poopsocking to 50 is their choice, but if speed isn't a factor for most people they nothing more than a side quest and when that NPC runs up to you and yells 'help' but you've already helped his ass five times already, you can pass him buy.

Anywho, I'm all GW2 talked out. I haven't even logged into it for four or five months. I only discussed it because esloan seemed to have a weird fixation on it while talking about this game.
 
D

Dmitry

368
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Jackdaddio_sl said:
They are "side quests" in the way that they are not wholly germane to the story. They are pretty much stand-alone parts of experience just like questing hubs were. If you read my post in context to what esloan is saying:



..they aren't the main part anymore than someone running dungeons constantly or grinding mobs in a spot or crafting was. Hell, I remember I could get 20 or 25 levels crafting and exploration in GW2 I think.

That someone choses to make public quests the sole way of leveling because they are poopsocking to 50 is their choice, but if speed isn't a factor for most people they nothing more than a side quest and when that NPC runs up to you and yells 'help' but you've already helped his ass five times already, you can pass him buy.

Anywho, I'm all GW2 talked out. I haven't even logged into it for four or five months. I only discussed it because esloan seemed to have a weird fixation on it while talking about this game.
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You didn't play a lot of GW2. It's a fundamental principle that ou can level to 80 crafting. If you were powering up you would craft. You can level to 80 in a few hours. Next fastest would probably zerging in WvW.
 
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Ender4212

Golden Knight of the Realm
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I'll just leave this here regarding addons. There are full notes out there for those interested.

- Locked down access to Unit information and ability cast functionality.
- Locked down access to combat events so that only your own outgoing spells can be monitored with any level of detail. Incoming damage and healing from spells have been restricted to only showing the value and not the name of the spell, type of damage or healing, or who is casting it.
 
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mrmoneda_sl

shitlord
142
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Ender4212_sl said:
I'll just leave this here regarding addons. There are full notes out there for those interested.

- Locked down access to Unit information and ability cast functionality.
- Locked down access to combat events so that only your own outgoing spells can be monitored with any level of detail. Incoming damage and healing from spells have been restricted to only showing the value and not the name of the spell, type of damage or healing, or who is casting it.
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Amusingly (to me anyway) I think that second change hurts PvE lovers more than PvP lovers, but the clamoring for restrictions were mostly for "fair" PvP.

Mmmm, schadenfreude.
 
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Menion_sl

shitlord
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First take away is that they gutted the API completely. Needless to say, there is MUCH rage happening on the PTS forums right now.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Dmitry_sl said:
Annnnnd they nerfed farming mobs in public dungeons... bummer... that was just about my favorite thing.
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I love this one.

Please note that we found the underlying cause of the broken quest issues that showed up in last weekend's beta test, and we're currently working to fix them.
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Like the last 3 times they were fixed.

Good luck with that.
 
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Jackdaddio_sl

shitlord
727
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Dmitry_sl said:
You didn't play a lot of GW2. It's a fundamental principle that ou can level to 80 crafting. If you were powering up you would craft. You can level to 80 in a few hours. Next fastest would probably zerging in WvW.
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I did an Elementalist, Ranger and Mesmer to max. I think I did 4 crafting classes to max to. I know that I got all those up to that in about 5 months or so from what I remember but I certainly wasn't speeding through the content at all and did the WvWvW sparingly.

All I know is I stopped playing GW2 right after the first Xmas event and never logged back in again, so my memory on the fastest way to level is definitely hazy, but I wasn't the one arguing about which way was fastest to poopsock it. That was those other two guys who replied. My point was the public questswere optional, not a integral part of the story which they were saying but just another leveling vehicle. The equivalent of those being anchors in TESO, however poorly done.
 
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