The Elder Scrolls Online

Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Caliane_sl said:
GW2 was close. but I think it was undermined by hearts.
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Hearts were there because there's quite a lot of players who were brought into the MMO with the WOW experience. These guys need a direction. Something that tells them: get your ass here, there's something for you. Hence, hearths on the map.
And, the fact, doing events was just exp, karma, and cash. it needed something "more". Something more tangible. rare crafting mats maybe.
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Group-level events and end-of-meta events are what's interesting there. You do get tangible rewards because of the Champion/Boss chest.

What I think is missing is the fact that most events don't lead to those. That's why you get instead Queensdale "bus" touring the Champion locations in order.
 
rhinohelix

rhinohelix

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For me, I got exactly what I wanted out of this beta: I finally figured out the lockpicking game such that I could open all the chests I could find; I crafted a ton of stuff and feel like I have a good handle going into live; I played up the dragonknight to 10 and revisited templar as well. Really torn now between templar and sorcerer; I might just play each character through a different alliance. FTC really does make a difference in the game experience. I didn't think I would care but using it really allows you to see what is going on, which is either a boon or a curse, depending on what your "immersion" level can stand.

I think every character should either craft or befriend a crafter. It seems very much like the lacking itemization *could* be interpreted as a driver to encourage such crafting; it certainly did in my case make tons of difference between how my first character showed up in Ebonheart and how my dragonknight showed up at Orc Island: huge difference.

There seemed like a lot more folks having a Tuco-level experience with broken quests. I hopped around a few different characters and every zone I was in had people who were quest-blocked from advancing. Lag and loadtimes started out much, much better than the previous weekend but seemed like more and more people were complaining of lag and quest issues by the end, so it seems like more work needs to happen there as well. It really seemed that the longer into the stress test/ beta we went, the more the wheels fell off. Hopefully a fair amount of data for ZO to analyze and bring back fixes. It was odd to see people complaining of lag standing next to people who weren't having any issues at all.

I was afforded this opportunity because in Ebonheart, the "restoring order" quest broke at Rhavil's house. There was so much through traffic, I mean on the order of 5-10 players a min, several of us set up shop playing the /lute, the /drum, and the /flute. People coming in were told that Rhavil had left, his house was now City property, and this was the soft open for the Inn of the Lusty Argonian Wench. We stood in the coal pit while people tried to remember the words to "We didn't start the fire". A good time was had by all.

I think ZO has some well earned crunch coming up to get things ready for release, and although they haven't shown Gazillion-levels of responsive to customer feedback, they do seem to be pushing in the right direction on every front.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Caliane_sl said:
pretty sure that was 90% of the reasoning for GW2 cooking.
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Actually, cooking in GW2 is probably the most interesting of the recent tradeskill implementations because they took care of making it close to "real" cooking. It's got an interesting mix of low-level reagents and high level ones (how many tradeskills require reagents you find in a level 1 area for a max-level recipe?). Compare it to, say, Jewelcraft where it's a matter of "copy, paste 4 times, substitute reagent name, done".

It actually interferes with the leveling process more often then not.
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In any game where you produce a level-based equipment, but the speed of levelling and equipment acquisition means you're replacing each piece of gear every four hour, making it intricate and complex is wasted time.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

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Muligan_sl said:
It is surprising just how many people talk about SWG in crafting circles. I have always felt that SWG did a great job myself.
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Crafting = A Tale in the Desert. SWG is barely scratching it.

When A Tale in the Desert tells you there's a "mini game" for Gem cutting, you don't expect to get a block of random faceted junk, 3 different orientation of saws, and "craft what you can".
 
Zugarific

Zugarific

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The crafting would be a lot better if you didn't have to research the same traits over and over for every separate armor slot/weapon.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Cinge_sl said:
Does the teleport strike work on the z-axis? Like I see DKs pull people down from walls and even up onto walls, can a NB teleport up to them onto a target?

A melee NB could be fun and you can still use a bow for ranged fights if needed(all you really need is the big opening attack from sneak and later snipe).
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no. It doesn't. Well it does to a small degree. but not keep walls. There may or may not be exploits to this somewhere of course.
 
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asfastasican_sl

shitlord
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Ukerric_sl said:
Hearts were there because there's quite a lot of players who were brought into the MMO with the WOW experience. These guys need a direction. Something that tells them: get your ass here, there's something for you. Hence, hearths on the map..
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Let's be honest with ourselves though. Not many MMO's provide a world that's open ended or that's immersive enough to warrant that kind of exploration. I can't help but think that themepark MMO's are just a bi-product of a sad reality. That reality being that it takes too much effort, time and money to build a large expansive world that people could actually give a shit about.

Ukerric_sl said:
Crafting = A Tale in the Desert. SWG is barely scratching it.

When A Tale in the Desert tells you there's a "mini game" for Gem cutting, you don't expect to get a block of random faceted junk, 3 different orientation of saws, and "craft what you can".
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Everytime I hear the word flax, I think of A Tale in the Desert. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.
 
BubbySoup

BubbySoup

Golden Knight of the Realm
125
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Well, I just pre-ordered. I've no idea why, guess I am just after an MMO to play and am bored of the current crop. I can't even look at WoW I'm so burnt out on it, don't have the time for EQ99, done SWtOR as much as I want & none of the others interest me or I have played them and got bored/didn't like.

As much as I hate some of the glaring issues with this game, it is a nice looking MMO and towards the end of last night I did enjoy my travels through the various zones and got to experience some PvP which, on the surface looked fun (although I think melee are going to have it tough, but what's new). I just need to accept it's going to hold my hand through 1223423 quests which I need to do in the right order and that I have to play the game how they want me to rather than how I want to.

Sooo, roll on my 3 day early access! Sign me up for one of the dumbasses who bought into this /le sigh
 
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Gecko_sl

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BubbySoup_sl said:
I just need to accept it's going to hold my hand through 1223423 quests which I need to do in the right order and that I have to play the game how they want me to rather than how I want to.
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Except you really don't. There are public dungeons, elite mobs, anchors, and other things to do. The problem is people are playing it like WOW or GW2<WOW with hearts>, instead of exploring, grouping and just killing stuff.

Z.O. does need to show a more polished experience in the next beta or I might cancel my pre-order. I respect those who dislike the design, and I'll be glad to argue if it's a good or bad MMO, but one thing that is not really debatable is that the weekend beta's are a buggy mess.
 
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Fingz_sl

shitlord
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I bought GW2, played to max and never touched the game again. I suspect I'll do the same with ESO or maybe I'll wait til it goes f2p.
 
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Dmitry

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BubbySoup_sl said:
Well, I just pre-ordered. I've no idea why, guess I am just after an MMO to play and am bored of the current crop. I can't even look at WoW I'm so burnt out on it, don't have the time for EQ99, done SWtOR as much as I want & none of the others interest me or I have played them and got bored/didn't like.

As much as I hate some of the glaring issues with this game, it is a nice looking MMO and towards the end of last night I did enjoy my travels through the various zones and got to experience some PvP which, on the surface looked fun (although I think melee are going to have it tough, but what's new). I just need to accept it's going to hold my hand through 1223423 quests which I need to do in the right order and that I have to play the game how they want me to rather than how I want to.

Sooo, roll on my 3 day early access! Sign me up for one of the dumbasses who bought into this /le sigh
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It's cool. I am in almost exactly the same boat except maybe I still like a couple of MMOs enough to play them. The on-rails stuff has got to go. I had a ton more fun when I was tooling around with a couple of other random people in a group in one of the public dungeons than I did following the golden exclamation points.

When i was in Daggerfall, there was not enough diversity and danger to the overworld stuff. It feels like I am in a suburb. Suburbs are not traditionally dangerous places where one finds adventure.
 
Selix

Selix

Lord Nagafen Raider
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Zugarific_sl said:
The crafting would be a lot better if you didn't have to research the same traits over and over for every separate armor slot/weapon.
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I am not disagreeing with you but I think this is supposed to "encourage" you to invest in only 1 or 2 professions at the most.
 
BubbySoup

BubbySoup

Golden Knight of the Realm
125
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Gecko_sl said:
Except you really don't. There are public dungeons, elite mobs, anchors, and other things to do. The problem is people are playing it like WOW or GW2<WOW with hearts>, instead of exploring, grouping and just killing stuff.
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Well, I got put off exploring from stumbling across out of phase stuff a few times because I hadn't done some prerequisite stuff. Maybe I just got unlucky or it was server lag or some such, I dunno but it meant I assumed I just had to follow the quest trail. Also, I came into this game blind, knowing nothing about it and the only ES game I have played is Skyrim. I'm just off to Google where the public dungeons are as I didn't even know they existed and I also need to look up what anchors do - are they like the rift events in Rift by any chance?

This is welcoming news if it means I can take a break from the shockingly pedestrian quests.
 
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etchazz

Trakanon Raider
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BubbySoup_sl said:
Well, I got put off exploring from stumbling across out of phase stuff a few times because I hadn't done some prerequisite stuff. Maybe I just got unlucky or it was server lag or some such, I dunno but it meant I assumed I just had to follow the quest trail. Also, I came into this game blind, knowing nothing about it and the only ES game I have played is Skyrim. I'm just off to Google where the public dungeons are as I didn't even know they existed and I also need to look up what anchors do - are they like the rift events in Rift by any chance?

This is welcoming news if it means I can take a break from the shockingly pedestrian quests.
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the real hook of TES was that you could literally do whatever you wanted, play the game however you wanted, go wherever you wanted. if they would have stuck to that formula for this MMO, it would have been epic. the linear, mandatory quest line bullshit in MMO's needs to go. put less quests in MMO's, but make them more elaborate, meaningful, and a lot more rewarding, and not something that's required in order to progress in the game. in other words, make quests something you want to do, not something you need to do.
 
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Creslin

Trakanon Raider
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I had some fun leveling in cyrodil pve stuff. Its kinda nice to level in cyro because it scales you up and me as a lvl 16 could group with my lvl 30+ friends.

Overall the game is ok I think, some shit like charge constantly bugging really annoyed me but I guess I will just not slot charge abilities til thats fixed. Game seems better than most recent mmos and I absolutely love the skill system and the fact that I dont have to worry about spamming abilities. The targeting is a little wonky but not that terrible, its not a bad effort at fps targeting but they definitely need to make it smoother. Part of that is the fault of the spell animations, they could have used a beam that connects your staff to the target immediately and then charges up and applies the damage when the cast finishes to make it feel less disconnected for cast time spells. The animations just need to be reworked so that they make it clear who your character is targeting with a spell and also that even tho you moved your targeting reticle your character is still focused on hitting the original target.
 
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Felmega_sl

shitlord
563
1
etchazz_sl said:
the real hook of TES was that you could literally do whatever you wanted, play the game however you wanted, go wherever you wanted. if they would have stuck to that formula for this MMO, it would have been epic. the linear, mandatory quest line bullshit in MMO's needs to go. put less quests in MMO's, but make them more elaborate, meaningful, and a lot more rewarding, and not something that's required in order to progress in the game. in other words, make quests something you want to do, not something you need to do.
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This. We need less quests. Running 20 ft to tell someone something is NOT epic. Its time filler and its garbage. Quests need to be something that happens between killing mobs, not the other way around. Searching for Skygems, exploring for xp, and dungeons among other stuff, could be the rest
 
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Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
etchazz_sl said:
the real hook of TES was that you could literally do whatever you wanted, play the game however you wanted, go wherever you wanted. if they would have stuck to that formula for this MMO, it would have been epic. the linear, mandatory quest line bullshit in MMO's needs to go. put less quests in MMO's, but make them more elaborate, meaningful, and a lot more rewarding, and not something that's required in order to progress in the game. in other words, make quests something you want to do, not something you need to do.
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The ONLY reason TES games like Skyrim and Oblivion were open world sandbox that allowed you to go anywhere you wanted at whatever level was because the vanilla game auto scaled every mob you faced to whatever your current level was. Players were able to complete the main quest lines in both of those games without ever advancing their character past level 1.

That obviously is not possible in a MMO.

If you played those games with player made addons that were "overhauls" (ex. Oscuros Overhaul for Oblivion) then they became a lot less sandbox because some areas required you to be a certain level otherwise you would likely get insta-gibbed.

I really don't understand the complaints about questing either. Skyrim and Oblivion were chock full of quests that guided you all throughout the game world. If you completed the main story line quest as well as the quests from the professional guilds, you were guaranteed to get sent to all the major POIs on the map at some point. Seems to me ESO copied that design aspect of the TES single player games pretty much 100%.
 
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Creslin

Trakanon Raider
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Rescorla_sl said:
I really don't understand the complaints about questing either. Skyrim and Oblivion were chock full of quests that guided you all throughout the game world. If you completed the main story line quest as well as the quests from the professional guilds, you were guaranteed to get sent to all the major POIs on the map at some point. Seems to me ESO copied that design aspect of the TES single player games pretty much 100%.
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Prolly because MMOs do a poor job of hiding the grind. Skyrim had a grind that lasted a fraction of the time an MMO does, so they could hide it well behind stories. The side quests were truly side quests, you could either do them or not, or do them at your leisure. In an mmo they force you through all that tedium.

For some ungodly reason MMOs feel the need to force you through long chains of boring quests. I honestly don't know why personally, the game would still be good if the story part of the leveling was shorter, WoW stands on endgame alone now, I am not sure why other games don't mimick that.
 
Xaxius

Xaxius

Lord Nagafen Raider
531
147
Rescorla_sl said:
That obviously is not possible in a MMO.
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Actually, it's completely possible to have the same progression in TES games in a MMO. Saying otherwise is just another example of giving the developers a pass for being lazy. Using Darkfall, Ultima Online, and (to a degree Guild Wars) as a baseline you could build a MMO based on skills development and acquisition that is level agnostic.
 
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