Official Discussion Thread for "Reflecting on ESO's First Year"

Jitterbug

ArRashid wrote: »

Now, if only you'd manage to fix the animation canceling abusing that's in game since beta, that was annoying so many people that it emptied your servers last summer.


I mean, it sure is nice to have a block available when you need it, but it's REALLY BAD for it to cancel the animation of previous ability WITHOUT cutting it's damage.
That just means the only viable dps strategy is to tap block after every single action, otherwise you're kicked off groups for doing too small dps.

IF you block, your ability's damage should reflect that you're actually blocking and not dealing damage. I don't know how to do it (it's certainly easier said than done), but even healing the enemy back up for the damage you just dealt (or removing a animation cancelled DoT from enemey) after you cancel animation with block would be better than this, which in my head is just cheating which is destroying any fun of the combat system.

I think its fun gameplay tbh, can't explain why but there's an action element to weaving that I like.

bellanca6561n

This genre was created and continues to be sustained by true believers who live Rudyard Kipling's poem, If, even if they don't know it.

Some, like Paul Sage, operate from a deep reservoir of thought and calm. Others (won't name a name here but another of the veterans at the helm will know whom I'm referring to) throw chairs at speakers at conferences. Yet it's remarkable that it ever happened and continues to happen.

Few of you - very few of you - could go to work every day and do your best work while relentless under fire by people who possess little understanding of what you do. Yet that assault, and the intensity of it, remains an inverse measure of how well you're doing. When customers stop howling, your war, as a developer, is lost.

It's the first year, and every year, of an online game

Foxesz

Despite the fact I had to put ESO on hold after the first month due to the subscriptions, I returned two months before it went B2P. I will continue to support Zenimax and get myself ESO+ because they delivered a great game - of course with its flaws, like any other game - and I've had so much fun with it. From a roleplayer's perspective I've had a lot of fun too because of all the awesome lore and players I've met over ESO. I thank you for this Zenimax, you're doing a great job and I can't wait to see even more awesome changes come to the game! (perhaps making moving a bit less annoying for us RP'ers, he he)

Happy birthday and on to the second year!

SantieClaws

Been here since the beta stress tests.

Most strange and memorable moment was probably when a total stranger stopped me in a ruin in Rivenspire just after Xmas and I told me I looked just like his cat!

Great memories of all the guild events I have been involved in too.

Love the game though performance and random disconnections have been a real pain recently since B2P. Can't really play at all on Saturday nights as just keep getting booted off.

I guess you are working on these things. So I play when I can - good job I get up real early at weekends

Also this one would include one thing only as top of her list for the next year. The ability to trigger emotes with the UI hidden - would save this one so much video clip editing!

Wolfshead

Thank you ZoS for ESO 1st year i hope it will come many more keep up work even if i can nag on you i do for i care about the game

Xinz'r

You probably won't see this, but I want to thank you for bringing whole Tamriel to life with ESO. I bought ESO almost a month ago, and I still have that first-time-playing feeling. The game just keeps surprising me with it's story, lore inside it, absolutelly gorgeous landscapes etc. I played many MMORPGs, looking for one that would make me settle with it for good, but I always left it after a month or two, but now I think I finally found The One, and after every log-in to ESO I'm more and more sure about that.

Thank you ZOS and everyone working on ESO

Lambofgod6six6

Keep up the good work! The game is great!

Nefar

I just came back a couple weeks ago after I originally quit with in the first month of release. Though it does seem better, a couple of the issues that made me originally leave are still present. Latency issues in PvP and in certain places using siege weapons the camera control makes it impossible to aim. I can't hit when I can't see! The thread where the PvP lead pretty much admitted they don't know how to deal with the latency issue is not very encouraging either. I still love the idea of ESO but still not very impressed with it's playability or it's dependence on 3rd party addons to address poor UI/UX issues.

Tavore1138

Despite the bugs, the balance seesaw, the PvP lag and what sometimes seem like crazy choices that have made me rage on the forums... I have spent 111 DAYs of time on my character... Clearly they are doing something right.

Happy one year, I hope to be here next April too.

whiteboxx

Year later and you failed to deliver massive pvp fights.

Mpcolson

I was a BETA tester, a day one subscriber, and by month 2 I was a frustrated player struggling to complete ANY quest that wasn't broken it seemed.

By month three I had had enough and dropped. I waited for the game to be tweaked a little more before I was willing to be a paying player.

I came back a couple months ago and I have really enjoyed the game because now I can play PvE and actually get through the quests.

I love the art in this game, I love the various worlds and the depth of the environment. I think the look of the game is just jaw dropping in some places.

Now I have the ability to get online and not really worry that things are broken, I just go right along and discover things. I like the changes of the 1.6 patch and I can't wait for the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood to be added this new year.

I really think the game has a huge potential to be around for a long time, I have to say I wanted to play this game from the first time I read about it's development and now that they have smoothed out the rough spots I'm all in!

Keep working to matriculate the ball down the field... keep us wanting more DLC and expansions. Keep the community growing and let's shoot for a tenth anniversary down the line!

Jeremy

I would say the game has steadily improved since launch. So it's going in the right direction.

You really need to get your group-finding tool fixed though. An effective grouping mechanism is essential if you want to ever compete at the highest level.

bellanca6561n

wenxue2222b16_ESO wrote: »

The ability to trigger emotes with the UI hidden - would save this one so much video clip editing!

ESO Theater

There are others I'm told but I have emotes set to all of my keypad number keys.

Robbmrp

Hello @ZOS,

It's hard to believe that it's been 1 year for ESO and I look forward to many more. The graphics look amazing and will keep me playing this game for a long time to come. I look forward to the new areas that will be in the form of DLC and hope to see something really soon. I'm sure that you are all hard at work fixing/updating things so let us know what we can do to help out

Thank you all for everything that you do!

Trensharo

Got to level 7.

Then Quit.

Too boring, and console-oriented combat/controls make it unplayable for me on a PC (but I'm not buying it again on Console, cause it's just not fun to play). Please inject some fun into the game in later expansion. And the game's "art" is a bit depressing as well.

I went out and bought a PS4 after Playing this game. I'll check MMORPGs out after the action combat and other FADs wear off.

This game is also unplayable with friends in group due to the heavy instancing/phasing, and the fact that quests don't track properly with multiple people in the same party doing the same quest.

Disappointing in almost every way I could imagine. I wish I could get a refund.

Ifthir_ESO

I feel like it's been 2 years

Orchish

I'm a PvPer.... Still waiting for our first content update maybe next year we'll get the Imperial city. Maybe Although, a lag free Cyrodiil would be much more welcome than any new content by me.

nukeemstudiosub17_ESO

I can't express how pathetic this game has gotten. This skill level in PvP has dropped drastically since recent patches. No focus is ever given to PvP and fixing the bugs and issues. They simply add new PvE content while advertising massive scale PvP that is near unplayable due to lag or now boring as all h*** with the new siege wars update. You should have been honest with people and told them they were paying to play a game that is essentially still in beta.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Bashing]

Semfim

Man that Kipling poem killed me...

Back to business (and folks, if you can't handle long posts skip this one):

I was hyped to the max when I first heard of ESO. In my imagination a "play as you want" game type like the previous ES games (I played since Oblivion) applied to an MMO concept had the chance to be truly memorable. A MMO set in Tamriel? What could go wrong! All the different races, lore, geography, architecture, skooma, power players like DB, TG, FG and MG and... did I mention Skooma?

FIrst move was to haunt the Bethesda forums where there was some debate going on after any tidbit of info was released. Long after that ESO webbie was released (took your time there didn't you?). Beta testing began and I wasnt on PTS (you rascals - search YouTube for "Tom Waits hits on a chick" to see what I mean by that), so I had to wait for the test weekends and then I had my first experience of ESO. I was overwhelmed at first. Combat wasn't what I was used to as an MMO player and in single-player ES experience didnt kick in straight away. I got lost looking at skill lines, trying out stuff through the first area, and I loved it. Apparently it was all that I had wished...

Then a train ran over my delusional mirage of the "perfect game". Countless bugs that continued through to release. Bots, spammers and that lovely thing that was the relog to magically multiply items during the first months. I was only pve'ing then, as I'm a slow leveler and I like to pay attention to the story, but I heard about pvp issues and something about Cadwel. Hmm, I liked Cadwel in the tutorial, what could be wrong with the npc voiced by THE MAN? After I got to banish Molag Bal it hit me: you guys did a story loop hole with the sole purpose of having large amounts of content.

And that was when *** hit the fans! I know bugs are all too common at new games and MMO's even worst, so I could abide wiht that. Economy/social interaction busting problems? You weeded that out preety well. Imaginary reliving of alternative realities? Scottie beam me up!

So we were stuck with no RP imersion (like you advertised when comparing ESO to DAOC) as when you get your soul back you are suddenly a nobody. Nice move on prioritizing content btw... my first kill after Molag Bal was a mudcrab who put a better fight that a Daedric prince. On top of that an endless threadmill where you dont even pay attention to whats going on anymore. So thats a part of your fan base you alienated. Guess what? They left.

Then I tried PvP. I got to hand it you, all the cogs are in there! When you dont face folks that exploit any chance they can get, that is. One year past and loads of balancing later that is almost gone, so it should be flawless now! Except when the lag is so bad you smash buttons for 3 minutes just to see everything frozen around you then you're dead or kicked from server. Guess what? Or you kick in more servers to hold for the increase of population or they will leave too. Ah, and gold pledges, do you harbour both pvp and the top pve endgame besides trials on the same hardware? Everywhere else the game runs fine nowadays...

So, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I feel that the developers weren't to blame for this, and Im not even bothering to try and find if what I think is true, but for me money talked and ZOS walked. I remember the large financing that went through prior to the game. You knew the game would have lack of content to apease the hardcore player base (SWTOR at release end game bashing sort of thing) so you just scaled areas that were supposed to give characters different backgroounds, then you knew of the multitude of bugs and exploits that were in game at launch, but I bet the people who put millions of dollars in your hands wanted their ROI delivered ASAP. And so you did it. Great build of hype and loads of copies sold, you surely made break-even on that alone. It cost you a sub-based model though...

Now, not all is bad! The Champion System is fantastic. It should have been there from scratch to avoid the terrible grind to vr14. Atm there are also a wide variety of builds possible, not just magicka. Armors other that light armor are relevant too. Also, great job on the VR dungeons and scalability of content, its top notch. Can't speak about trials because I dont play that part of the game. Pvp is more-ish balanced and if you keep on going it will get even better (I guess it must be tough to balance and keep diversity when any small difference can make a huge inbalance). So.. you're getting there! Only wish you were launching like 1.7 will be and with diferentiated content per faction.

Don't get me wrong, I'm subbed since day one and still play more than my real life allows. You got a game that keeps on making me dream of ways to solve problems in my builds and loads of places where to test that. Thats 50% of it. The other 50%? Great people that make me come back everyday. I've had personal experiences in this game that have ranged from full blown laughter to really personal heavy stuff. I didnt think that existed in MMO's anymore, so you must be doing something right!

So, grats (and thanks) on not having it all just be vapour ware! Get your act together and we might be here to step on your toes again next year

Nic727

Happy birthday and can't wait to play on console and join this amazing community and developpers

See you soon!

hrdndv_ESO

Been a fan since Arena first came out. Played all the ES games and Fallout games all the way through. Played Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim all the way through this last year. I think Cyrodil was more fun in the Beta. I think the Justice system needs work. Where are the jails and prisons? Where are the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood and the Houses?

As to the current ESO -- it is fun. Just don't expect to play it like Skyrim. You can't max the crafts and then play the game in the best armor and weapons. And, overpowered players in PvP spoil casual play. Must you make so many things dependent on group play? Group play is fun but so often there is no one on line. Maybe now with more players that won't be such a problem. Otherwise, when all goes well and you can form parties --- ESO is a blast!

Many fine times. I never had the lag many players complained about. I didn't have the problems getting dropped either. Even in Beta. Just -- where is the rest of the game? It took forever to get the Justice System and it is incomplete. AARGH! Not to mention the missing guilds... oh well, maybe in another year???

Elloa

Once more, Happy Anniversary Zenimax! I've spend a wonderful year in ESO, and more even before that.

I could hardly share my best memories in game cause there is so many! Is it the first day of release where I played straight with 2 friends during 14 hours non stop? Is it my first Dungeons ( I love Dungeons so much) or when I tested Craglorn for the first time with Ziggs and discovered than Templar healer was the class I wanted to play? Is it those guild events, In Cyrodiil or the world, where I really felt that a friendship was blossoming between former strangers? Or this some very particular quest that moved me and toke me some tears (there is several quest that I'll never forget in this game) Or maybe it's when UPDATE6 released and my boyfriend played again and discover than this time, he got hooked by the game! Finaly I got him to play my favorite game!

Anyone else did notice that the illustration is a new and original one? It's really a wonderful artwork! Can we have it in the media as Wallpaper or something?

RVikary

Yay, happy anniversary indeed!

Well, since I only started playing in the end of January I have to say that my best memory was actually hearing about ESO going buy to play. A little while later I bought the game and started playing it because I was so anxious to do it. ESO was a game I was very enthusiastic about from the first time I heard it was being done, and I wish I had gotten into beta. Not having a trial version then, and needing to buy and pay for subscription was what kept me from trying, because I couldn't simply use other people's money on a game without knowing it would be worth it.

Now I see my mistake and do wish I had started then, even with all the ups and downs that I heard about on the way.

I hope to continue playing for a long time and that ESO continues this awesome with such a great community.

One request though: Market! Please! Being a former EVE Online player, the idea of such a limited market with the guilds makes me feel like there is something huge missing from the game. And also, more costumes! I love them!

Deome

First stable release of my DataDaedra addon. ESO gave me the impetus to finally become an addon developer, and an early crash course in publicity. Believe me, ZOS, I understand your pain!

After spending the first 9 months coding and working with other addon developers, I finally reached V1 last month. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just starting to make my favorite memories of play.

I will admit, the provisioning hireling always cheered me up. "This one finally tried some molasses, and now wonders what the rest of the mole tastes like."

And finally, I remember how I justified the purchase of Imperial Edition to myself--adjusting for real dollars/inflation, the $80 Imperial Edition is half the price I spent on Super Mario Bros. 3, and thus an absolute bargain.

FOR THE PACT!

Trensharo

Deome wrote: »

First stable release of my DataDaedra addon. ESO gave me the impetus to finally become an addon developer, and an early crash course in publicity. Believe me, ZOS, I understand your pain!

After spending the first 9 months coding and working with other addon developers, I finally reached V1 last month. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just starting to make my favorite memories of play.

I will admit, the provisioning hireling always cheered me up. "This one finally tried some molasses, and now wonders what the rest of the mole tastes like."

And finally, I remember how I justified the purchase of Imperial Edition to myself--adjusting for real dollars/inflation, the $80 Imperial Edition is half the price I spent on Super Mario Bros. 3, and thus an absolute bargain.

FOR THE PACT!

This game launched with a subscription, so the $80 Imperial Edition certainly wasn't half the price you spent on Super Mario Brothers 3. Between the $80 and $15 a month subscription, the game cost Day One purchasers almost $20.

And for fun factor the current game certainly isn't worth the same price as something like Dragon Age: Inquisition or The Witcher 3... It may be in the future, but it isn't right now (at least to me).

If there was a way to give my license back and get a refund, I'd probably be pursuing that option right now.

Tosfoy

Happy birthday, Elder Scrolls Online

-Samuel

Nhilandra77

1 year already? time flies.

I must admit though, im surprised there is no special event, no free giveaway. no thank you for the continued support and money of the customers, except words on a page. feels kind of cheap to me to be honest

Xevothian

This game has truly made some memories!

EQBallzz

I have been here since the early stress tests. I was a huge supporter of the game even when it was getting much bad press early on. Sure, the game had issues and problems but I had confidence they would be resolved. Even in it's lackluster state I was happy to pay a sub because I felt like the base product was good and I felt like I knew where it was going because I trusted what ZOS was saying. After all, it was made clear to everyone that this was a subscription game because it was the only payment model that could support the game they were making and any cash shop or in-game distractions that took you out of the ES experience would be contrary to that goal. That was enough for me and I was willing to keep paying so long as the game was on the good path. I stood up for the game and tried to put it in a positive light even as all my in-game friends slowly dwindled away to nothing.

Fast forward to the lies about B2P, the lies about tracking XP, the CP conversion debocle, the in-game advertising, the "limited time" cash shop sales, the nerfing of XP gain coupled with looming cash shop XP pots, the cash shop motifs, the dumbing down of all content difficulty, the complete lack of *any* content for 8+ months, the inability to fix PvP lag or numerous long standing bugs, the utterly broken blind bidding system for guild traders...the list literally goes on and on.

ZOS has turned me from what some would call an ESO white knight into a cynical critic. It's just sad that all the stated goals about the game direction have so quickly devolved into what it is now. I used to pay a sub because I believed in the plan and I trusted the team taking us there even if the game was plagued with growing pains. Many of the early issues are resolved but I don't pay a sub now because I hate where this game is headed and ZOS has completely lost my confidence. The game is no longer on the good path.

I won't congratulate ZOS on a happy 1 year anniversary because it's not that happy for us PC players. Maybe the experience will be better for console players but I wouldn't hold my breath. I will congratulate them on the first 6 months. Even with the issues it was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't know all the reasons behind the drastic change in course but the first 6 months were great and I was excited to see where the game was going. Not so much anymore.

SlappyThePoptart

I'm new to the game, but I've had more fun in this than in any other game (excluding the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, I never compare those as I see them as the best games ever.) and can never stop playing. It is minimized right now