The Elder Scrolls Online

Miele_sl said:

I thought MS was on a good path with Win7, then I saw Win8. My wife upgraded to 8.1 and everything was FUBAR, so she had to restore the system to 8.0. Fucking amazing. An OS for consoles to be used on PCs is... retarded?

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First of all you answered your own question. MS broke the fundamental features of its own OS with a service pack. Trying to figure out with KB does what so it doesn't FUBAR your system gives me flashbacks to Windows Me.

Second the reason why a Console OS is so amazing is because all of the hardware limitations are known and never ever change. It's why an API written for a console is far superior to that on the PC. I'm not saying you can't trim fat off an OS and make it more nimble so it boots faster and has less crap on it you wouldn't use for gaming but when MS is at the helm it seems to me a case of the Titanic. If their outlook on PC gaming did a 180 and they actually created an amazing DirectX then you will have my attention. Until then yeah retarded.

Denaut_sl said:

That would help, and client performance is absolutely an issue, but it is less of an issue than it used to be. The major problem with many players doing stuff at once near each other is the network traffic.

Edited to Add:To be a little more detailed, client and rendering issues are local and improve as processing power improves locally. These kinds of issues are also worked on by nearly all games and thus have more resources going towards them.

Too much Network traffic with a central server is generally an MMORPG issue on the other hand. This problem is a bit trickier for 2 reasons, 1 is that improving network speeds is an expensive infrastructure issue that goes well beyond the scope of even the entire gaming industry. The second reason is that network traffic is an N^2 problem. In that every player you add to a system where all players can affect each other (say a siege battle) adds network traffic by an increasing amount.

Now, lots of improvements have been made tech wise, and you can design a game around being light on network traffic. However, a classic sword and board game, without slower tab target style combat, is going to be especially high on the network traffic.

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Doesnt EVE manage okayish until you get into the hundreds of ships on each side of the fight range? At that point GW2 and probably all other MMOs have long broken down, what is CCP doing different? I have no clue about the programming magic side of the talk, but they used to buy pretty expensive hardware I think? EVE has less graphics requirements on the end user but what you are decribing is a bandwidth issue that they have to deal with just the same.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Doesnt EVE manage okayish until you get into the hundreds of ships on each side of the fight range? At that point GW2 and probably all other MMOs have long broken down, what is CCP doing different? I have no clue about the programming magic side of the talk, but they used to buy pretty expensive hardware I think? EVE has less graphics requirements on the end user but what you are decribing is a bandwidth issue that they have to deal with just the same.

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As far as I can tell a lot of that is because the game design. Semi-turn based Spaceship combat is VERY well suited on both client and server for large scale PvP battles. On the client side space ships generally have more simple geometry, texturing, and animations. You can even get away with more simple effects.

On the server side giving orders and activating auto-attacking weapons doesn't have to feel as punchy or immediate as a sword/board game. It is a bit more like commanding a ship than it is piloting one, which still feels good even if things slow down. The design inherently degrades elegantly. My understanding is that in Eve as battles get large the server actually slows game ticks down to allow network traffic to catch up and although it reduces the response time for everyone things still happen in the correct order and it doesn't feel awful due to the basic nature of how you play the game.

If a different type of game, say GW2, was running at half speed it would totally screw you up by wreaking havoc with your muscle memory. It wouldn't look good or feel nice to play because you would lose a lot of impact. That isn't to say it isn't possible, just that there are always trade-offs.

Generally speaking, increasing the pace of a game means reducing the number of players that can interact at once. Think of it this way, your major constraint is network throughput, so you end up with a budget measured in "Total Packets per Second." How you choose to spend those packets is entirely dependent on the game you want to make.

Ukerric_sl said:

Microsoft fails one OS every two: 98-good/ME-bad. XP-good/Vista-bad. Win7-good/Win8-bad. Wait until Win 9 (or whatever named they invent, if they ever do now that Ballmer is gone).

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Take it to theWin8 threadwhere you can both be told why you are wrong and why 8 is much better than 7

I thought they ran combat at full speed until a really huge engagement and when time dillation kicks in everything is at like a tenth the speed. But that's just from reading, I never did any big fleet stuff in EVE. Module timing and lag can be a bitch in small-scale EVE though, I agree that it probably doesnt feel as important once you line up 100+ ships per side. Ship movement is not as immediate as running around in a typical MMO as well.

How much of a pain for the server/bandwidth are all the trajectory/Velocity targeting/hit calculations EVE does compared to WoW/GW2 style either you're in range or not?

Underlying question, are companies generally skimping on hardware for this for the sake of the bottom line? I remember a couple of years ago CCP was making a big deal out of their server structure.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I thought they ran combat at full speed until a really huge engagement and when time dillation kicks in everything is at like a tenth the speed. But that's just from reading, I never did any big fleet stuff in EVE. Module timing and lag can be a bitch in small-scale EVE though, I agree that it probably doesnt feel as important once you line up 100+ ships per side. Ship movement is not as immediate as running around in a typical MMO as well.

How much of a pain for the server/bandwidth are all the trajectory/Velocity targeting/hit calculations EVE does compared to WoW/GW2 style either you're in range or not?

Underlying question, are companies generally skimping on hardware for this for the sake of the bottom line? I remember a couple of years ago CCP was making a big deal out of their server structure.

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There are 2 different different things going on in a large scale Eve battle.

Network traffic goes up when players do lots of actions quickly. Server stress goes up when the server need to make lots of internal calculations. The number of players in a single battle depends on the bottleneck.

Correct me if I am wrong but in Eve most actions are commands and toggles. So you say go here, follow this, or orbit this and then you turn on and off weapons as you need them. This means that the server is making lots of calculations, but the network traffic is low (comparatively). What's nice about that problem is that it is more under your control than the network traffic. I am simplifying greatly here but you can throw hardware at the server being too slow, but if your network traffic is the bottleneck then a faster server doesn't mean much.

I am not exactly sure how the time dilation feature works, but it would help both network traffic and server stress. For Eve it is a really good solution because of the reasons I talked about earlier.

Character Progression: Be Who You Want to Be - YouTube

Character Progression Video.

Denaut_sl said:

Take it to theWin8 threadwhere you can both be told why you are wrong and why 8 is much better than 7

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It's definitely better on a technical level - stuff loads much faster and seems more stable. If their next OS guts are like Win8 and they go back to Win7 for the UI then it will be great.

Man0warr_sl said:

It's definitely better on a technical level - stuff loads much faster and seems more stable. If their next OS guts are like Win8 and they go back to Win7 for the UI then it will be great.

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UI is better too, way off topic though.

Utnayan_sl said:

Character Progression: Be Who You Want to Be - YouTube

I am to the point where watching shit like this makes my eyes bleed, and my ears fail to work after 5 minutes from listening to con artists.

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Curious why you are even watching videos about TESO, its pretty obvious what your thoughts are on the game, but you still watch and read all the info?

Hopefully it's just the "cant look away from a train wreck" aspect.

Utnayan_sl said:

Character Progression: Be Who You Want to Be - YouTube

I am to the point where watching shit like this makes my eyes bleed, and my ears fail to work after 5 minutes from listening to con artists.

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Yeah... I unsubscribed from their emails after this one. A game, that's only months away from release, gives me a 5min video stating roughly 'you level up skills the more you use them.' Get the fuck outta here. It's one thing to be vague or mysterious in your marketing, to keep some type of hype/allure up until release. After "enjoying" my time with a certain game's preview build, I can say there is not much there for me.

Maybe conditions changed during development or something. Wasn't the project rebooted a couple times iirc? Leaving out any of my opinions on the boring combat or input lag - cause that can be subjective I suppose. Let's just talk about the graphics. I know, it's a shallow thing to do, but if it's being released on next-gen consoles that's a huge selling point. They played it safe, like many devs do, who want to swing for the fences and have a low entry point for pc users. Skyrim sales did just fine. If your pc couldn't run it, too bad so sad. Now they're releasing a game that looks worse than Skyrim to next-gen systems. Once Bethesda releases ES6, they'll cannibalize their own market. Let's face it, ES fans (myself included) will jump for the next-gen ES game. It's going to look great, and it very wellcouldinclude co-op. How many folks are going to return to an inferior game that you have to pay a subscription fee for?

TLDR version - They had two choices, just from a visual perspective, to keep this game viable in the long-term that were not made.
a) console only - next-gen graphics treatment, controls for this game would be fine on a console
b) unapologetic next-gen for all - star citizen is not making any compromises, they're filling a niche. If this title was truly next-gen, they could have snagged 1~2mil subs on the pc from the franchise's name alone.

I have been a long time follower of the FOH forums so I figured why not finally join the insanity. I can remember shaking my head at Utnayan's campaign against Vanguard. In it's early stages, I was an admitted fan boy and I really wanted the game to deliver what was promised. In short, I had blinders on and pretty much disagreed with everything Utnayan said. Then I got to experience Beta 2 and instantly realized I had been an idiot all along. That beta/game was a train wreck just as much as the weekend beta I participated in two weekends ago for ESO was.

I have played nearly every MMO available so I can stomach even mediocre games as long as there is something fun to do. I had absolutely no fun what so ever in ESO beta. B-b-but it's beta you say? It's like the same cycle over and over again. Say something remotely bad about your experience, someone says but it is just beta, see the finish product correct none of its mistakes, game hemorrhages subscribers and eventually goes free to play and then dies. We have seen this happen for the last 6-7 years. I am sick of it.

I have grown wiser over the years to identify MMO dev parlor tricks and ESO is as much a David Blaine magic act as it gets. So it kind of makes me laugh to see Blackwulf's fanboy war against Utnayan. Nevertheless it feels good to join this forum finally and discuss my favorite gaming genre. Even if it is going in the toilet.

Orien_sl said:

I have been a long time follower of the FOH forums so I figured why not finally join the insanity. I can remember shaking my head at Utnayan's campaign against Vanguard. In it's early stages, I was an admitted fan boy and I really wanted the game to deliver what was promised. In short, I had blinders on and pretty much disagreed with everything Utnayan said. Then I got to experience Beta 2 and instantly realized I had been an idiot all along. That beta/game was a train wreck just as much as the weekend beta I participated in two weekends ago for ESO was.

I have played nearly every MMO available so I can stomach even mediocre games as long as there is something fun to do. I had absolutely no fun what so ever in ESO beta. B-b-but it's beta you say? It's like the same cycle over and over again. Say something remotely bad about your experience, someone says but it is just beta, see the finish product correct none of its mistakes, game hemorrhages subscribers and eventually goes free to play and then dies. We have seen this happen for the last 6-7 years. I am sick of it.

I have grown wiser over the years to identify MMO dev parlor tricks and ESO is as much a David Blaine magic act as it gets. So it kind of makes me laugh to see Blackwulf's fanboy war against Utnayan. Nevertheless it feels good to join this forum finally and discuss my favorite gaming genre. Even if it is going in the toilet.

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Welcome to the boards, you fucking shill!

Just WAIT til release. It's gonna be a-mazing. You guys better preorder while you can. I know I'm already in line yesterday.

Erronius_sl said:

Hey guys, let's try to get this back on topic and discuss why TESO is a giant steaming pile.

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Why? Because it's destined to be a money grab game.

Zenimax suit 1: Hey, we need more money! Why haven't we made one of those EM EM OH's yet?
Zenimax designer 1: We have standards? We have pride?
Zenimax suit 1, 2, 3, 4: YOU'RE FIRED!
Zenimax suit 2: Now then, how is our next cash cow, er, EM EM OH coming along?
Zenimax designer 2: Good! We're about to drag our greatest IP through the swamps and pig shit lagoons to get you more money!
Zenimax suit 1, 2, 3, 4: Goood, goooooood.

Orien_sl said:

I have been a long time follower of the FOH forums so I figured why not finally join the insanity. I can remember shaking my head at Utnayan's campaign against Vanguard. In it's early stages, I was an admitted fan boy and I really wanted the game to deliver what was promised. In short, I had blinders on and pretty much disagreed with everything Utnayan said. Then I got to experience Beta 2 and instantly realized I had been an idiot all along. That beta/game was a train wreck just as much as the weekend beta I participated in two weekends ago for ESO was.

I have played nearly every MMO available so I can stomach even mediocre games as long as there is something fun to do. I had absolutely no fun what so ever in ESO beta. B-b-but it's beta you say? It's like the same cycle over and over again. Say something remotely bad about your experience, someone says but it is just beta, see the finish product correct none of its mistakes, game hemorrhages subscribers and eventually goes free to play and then dies. We have seen this happen for the last 6-7 years. I am sick of it.

I have grown wiser over the years to identify MMO dev parlor tricks and ESO is as much a David Blaine magic act as it gets. So it kind of makes me laugh to see Blackwulf's fanboy war against Utnayan. Nevertheless it feels good to join this forum finally and discuss my favorite gaming genre. Even if it is going in the toilet.

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You joined the insanity and I'll grammar nazi your arse right away: "its" is the possessive, it's means it is (rarely used as "it has").
Jokes aside, what baffles me is that good old Utnayan always finds somebody to fight with... given *his* level of insanity, even if I was against him, I'd know better than to argue