I love this game!

StartledSimian · January 5

I love this game, and I'm so fed up of all of the moaning and complaining.

I get to roam around the beautiful landscapes of Tamriel doing quests and hanging out with my friends. There is plenty of co-operative content, new places and more things every few months, and an active enough community that you can still meet new people from all around the world!

I'm not usually drawn to MMO's, but I played Oblivion and then Skyrim, so then got drawn into this one too. What's more is that I can play this one with other people and socialise a little instead of sitting on my own in the study staring at the monitor in silence.

When I was much younger, I got fed up with my siblings playing football games on the Playstation. I wanted to play Spyro or Crash Bandicoot, but in the interests of playroom harmony I'd begrudgingly play a few matches. As I got older, I became more vocal about my dislike of the football games. My parents would gently suggest that I didn't have to play them if I didn't want to and reminded me of an ever-growing shelf of other games to play. I also shouldn't play games that make me miserable, otherwise they just become chores.

I guess my point is this, if you don't like playing this game, don't sulk about the place making everyone else miserable, go to your own proverbial shelf of games and pick something else that brings you joy. Life is hard enough without wasting so much time getting so wound up.

I love this game. It's great. ZOS have created an entire world from nothing, a massive glorious playground for us all to hang out in, and I couldn't be happier. I get to see my friends, slay some goblins, have a coffee and take a break from the day.

You know what's even cooler? This particular playground has been open for over ten years and they just keep moving the fences outwards to put in new slides and climbing frames...

How cool is that?!

Syldras · January 5

StartledSimian wrote: »

I guess my point is this, if you don't like playing this game, don't sulk about the place making everyone else miserable, go to your own proverbial shelf of games and pick something else that brings you joy. Life is hard enough without wasting so much time getting so wound up.

It's nice that you enjoy this game. I mean it. But as much as you are entitled to having your opinion, others are entitled to having theirs. If other people are unhappy with the game, they are allowed to voice that on this forum as much as you are allowed to voice being happy with it.

From my point of view, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions for things that could be improved is no negativity or nagging, but showing care for the game. Criticism, both positive and negative, is neccessary for improvement. If users are only insulting or outright vile or aggressive in their posts, that's different of course. But criticism itself isn't something bad.

If I read well thought out criticism, it doesn't make me miserable at all (Well, actually not even if it's not well thought out, because why would someone else's post influence my mood? If I don't like it, I don't read it, problem solved).

Even if I don't agree with everyone, I prefer to see a plurality of opinions on a forum.

thorwyn · January 5

It's great that you are enjoying the game. Other people would like to enjoy it as much as you do, but can't. That's why they are expressing their concerns while paying exactly the same money for their entertainment as you do.
So if you don't want to read critical opinions, ignore them. But please don't tell other customers what to do.

SilverBride · January 5

Syldras wrote: »

From my point of view, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions for things that could be improved is no negativity or nagging, but showing care for the game.

In an ideal world that is what would happen. But more often that not, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions is replaced with bashing and accusations.

colossalvoids · January 5

To add to Syldras point I agree with, it's a game in development so it's only natural to give feedback, argue and sound concerns. For your own mental safety though some some it's better to not pay close attention to that and being so wound up by its existence, for online games it's the natural way of things.

valenwood_vegan · January 5

Customers have opinions and they're gonna share them. Keep in mind that some who are dissatisfied are voicing such opinions precisely *because* they care so much about eso and want to see it succeed, rather than out of a desire to cause conflict.

There is valuable, constructive feedback provided on the forum, and sometimes zos even listens to it.

Sometimes they don't, which leads to a lot of frustration, but of course I would hope that people remain constructive and civil, even when providing negative feedback. People will be people though, we can't control how others think and communicate.

Also keep in mind that the forum community is made up of a tiny portion of the player community. Many never come on here at all and just enjoy the game without getting involved in forum drama. Ignorance can be bliss.

Anyway, thank you OP for sharing how much you enjoy the game, that's awesome to hear. I'd personally try to keep on doing you and enjoying it, and try not to worry that some complete strangers are voicing negative opinions on an internet forum.

SeaGtGruff · January 5

I think ZOS welcomes negative feedback because it helps them know what players like or don't like about the game.

But often things go beyond simply pointing out issues with the game and devolves into bashing ZOS, which doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to try to encourage others to bash on ZOS, too.

I don't need or want to have people trying to "influence" my thoughts and feelings about the game, or about anything else-- movies, books, TV shows, musical groups, etc.

True story, I was at a science fiction convention many years ago and was wearing a T-shirt I'd bought at a concert by a country rock group I was into at the time. Somebody stopped me to ask if the group was someone they should listen to, and I just shrugged and said, "That's something you'll need to decide for yourself."

I don't understand why so many people want other people telling them which products to buy or not buy, which games to play or not play, etc.

rootkitronin · January 5

SilverBride wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

From my point of view, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions for things that could be improved is no negativity or nagging, but showing care for the game.

In an ideal world that is what would happen. But more often that not, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions is replaced with bashing and accusations.

Is it really more often than not though, or is that just being pessimistic? I think more often than not it's a one-way conversation, and that creates its own issues. There is tons of constructive feedback and critique on these forums, far far more than there are bashing and accusations.

From what I've observed, a lot of the bashing and accusations stem from the lack of two-way communication, the frustration of having feedback and critiques routinely ignored, and to say nothing of the slew of changes implemented that no one wanted or ever asked for.

Regardless, I stand by the claim that there is far more healthy input from players on these forums than unhealthy.

SilverBride · January 5

rootkitronin wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

From my point of view, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions for things that could be improved is no negativity or nagging, but showing care for the game.

In an ideal world that is what would happen. But more often that not, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions is replaced with bashing and accusations.

Is it really more often than not though, or is that just being pessimistic? I think more often than not it's a one-way conversation, and that creates its own issues. There is tons of constructive feedback and critique on these forums, far far more than there are bashing and accusations.

From what I've observed, a lot of the bashing and accusations stem from the lack of two-way communication, the frustration of having feedback and critiques routinely ignored, and to say nothing of the slew of changes implemented that no one wanted or ever asked for.

Regardless, I stand by the claim that there is far more healthy input from players on these forums than unhealthy.

From what I've observed, there are more negative bashing posts than constructive critiques. We can't blame frustration for causing players to resort to bashing. No matter how frustrated we get we still have to reply in a civil manner and not make unwarranted personal accusations just because we don't get everything we ask for.

rootkitronin · January 5

SilverBride wrote: »

rootkitronin wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

From my point of view, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions for things that could be improved is no negativity or nagging, but showing care for the game.

In an ideal world that is what would happen. But more often that not, politely pointing out problems or making suggestions is replaced with bashing and accusations.

Is it really more often than not though, or is that just being pessimistic? I think more often than not it's a one-way conversation, and that creates its own issues. There is tons of constructive feedback and critique on these forums, far far more than there are bashing and accusations.

From what I've observed, a lot of the bashing and accusations stem from the lack of two-way communication, the frustration of having feedback and critiques routinely ignored, and to say nothing of the slew of changes implemented that no one wanted or ever asked for.

Regardless, I stand by the claim that there is far more healthy input from players on these forums than unhealthy.

From what I've observed, there are more negative bashing posts than constructive critiques. We can't blame frustration for causing players to resort to bashing. No matter how frustrated we get we still have to reply in a civil manner and not make unwarranted personal accusations just because we don't get everything we ask for.

Agree to disagree. The forum rules themselves leave little to no room for bashing, let alone personal attacks, so I'm puzzled as to where you claim all this is going on.

Additionally, to simplify all the frustrations into the statement "just because we don't get everything we ask for" is pretty dismissive and condescending.

For all the intense emotions surrounding ESO, people here are generally pretty civil.

NotNi.ya · January 5

its really nice that you love the game. however, the neagtivity you are seeing recently is because of a few reasons.

no communication from zos other than heavy handed moderation
frustration from the players that they are not being heard
people commenting on topics they dont understand or are even a part of (housers in pvp topics, pvp players on solo questing topics for example)
the bad performance that isn't being fixed

there's a lot of things that can be resolved by civil discussion between players and the dev/mod team but nothing happens and it doesn't help the divide and frustrations.

Zodiarkslayer · January 5

@StartledSimian
I love it too. I play as often as I can, but not all the time. I don't think that this is healthy anyways.

But, you are right. A very vocal portion of the player base comes to the forums to be complaining. Loudly.
And it seems things like politeness and manners are ideosyncratic concepts for a dishearteningly large portion of the forum participants.

Oceanchanter · January 5

@StartledSimian

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
We're on the same boat.

Like @valenwood_vegan have pointed out, we're a tiny fraction of players that are active on forums, providing feedback.
Some, like me, came here cause something have happened (the datatcenter power outage).
Some to ask a question.
Some to air their grievances.

But we had a reason in the first place.

It's only natural to feel the negativity reading about all sorts of things we weren't part of or have "wait, why is this a problem?" reaction.
People come for different reasons, from different walks of life, holding different things dear and important for them.

I stayed so I could be a part of the in-game moderation discussion.
I enjoy ESO so much I don't want to lose everything over AI flagging my private convo for no reason.
Even if one comment makes a small push for the better, that comment is worth it.

When it comes to other concerns forum veterans have, like U35, dropping number of players, ongoing lore/drama on the forum...I simply see it as things as lore I wasn't a part of and I have no role to play there.

I came to such conclusion after airing similar comment to yours about U35.
Some people clarified to me they bring U35 up, even over 2 years later, so such messy update won't happen again.
And even if I barely noticed the update affecting me at the time, or that "it is what it is" when it comes to weird balancing choices, I do see why people want to avoid U35 2.0.

CatoUnchained · January 5

I used to love this game too and I still see more potential for ESO to dominate the MMO market than I see in any other game. But after years of seeing how things are managed, some of the communication directed at the ESO player base from one dev in particular, reading so many promises to do better that are never realized, I just gave up hope. I do feel like most of the thing that's holding ESO back in not the devs though, it's the upper management that never has to deal with customers. They only deal with their spreadsheets and profit margins and that's how they measure success, to the detriment of everyone who plays ESO.

Personally, I think the best thing for ESO would be for ZOS to sell the rights to the game to another developer that would actually follow through on the bug fixes and treat ESO like the MMO that it is.

CatoUnchained · January 5

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think ZOS welcomes negative feedback .......

Sorry, I had to stop reading where I cut off the quote. Even with all the feedback being posted recently and over the last decade about how this forum is moderated, you honestly believe ZOS welcomes negative feedback?

Rkindaleft · January 5

It’s fantastic you find the game great and nobody wants to take that experience away from you, but the people who are criticising the game on the forums aren’t doing it just because they feel like it. A not insignificant portion of the player base are legitimately concerned with the direction the game is heading and are being vocal about their concerns. They feel like if they keep quiet the experience *for them* isn’t ever going to improve.

Like I’ve been complaining about performance for 8 months because I’ve seen mine and other raid groups have a horrible experience rife with DCs and on and off rubber banding ruining the enjoyment of progging trifectas and hampering progress due to something completely outside of the players’ control. Then there’s some people worried about posting literally anything on the forums because of bans and overmoderation. Then there’s people who didn’t like what was said in the retrospective letter and are concerned about what 2025 holds and if we’re going to get a sharp reduction in content or not (again, nothing was explained as to alleviate some of these concerns.) It’s not unjustified to talk about those.

wilykcat · January 6

CatoUnchained wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think ZOS welcomes negative feedback .......

Sorry, I had to stop reading where I cut off the quote. Even with all the feedback being posted recently and over the last decade about how this forum is moderated, you honestly believe ZOS welcomes negative feedback?

They do allow negative feedback as long if it is constructive and not too harsh.

I enjoy the game and the forums too.

CatoUnchained · January 6

wilykcat wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think ZOS welcomes negative feedback .......

Sorry, I had to stop reading where I cut off the quote. Even with all the feedback being posted recently and over the last decade about how this forum is moderated, you honestly believe ZOS welcomes negative feedback?

They do allow negative feedback as long if it is constructive and not too harsh.

I enjoy the game and the forums too.

...and if it only happens once in a blue moon. Post negative feedback with any kind of regularity, even if it's constructive and well mannered, and their point system will guarantee an irreversible permaban sooner or later. This is how it works by design and why the design needs to be updated to be more fair and honest.

wilykcat · January 6

CatoUnchained wrote: »

wilykcat wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I think ZOS welcomes negative feedback .......

Sorry, I had to stop reading where I cut off the quote. Even with all the feedback being posted recently and over the last decade about how this forum is moderated, you honestly believe ZOS welcomes negative feedback?

They do allow negative feedback as long if it is constructive and not too harsh.

I enjoy the game and the forums too.

...and if it only happens once in a blue moon. Post negative feedback with any kind of regularity, even if it's constructive and well mannered, and their point system will guarantee an irreversible permaban sooner or later. This is how it works by design and why the design needs to be updated to be more fair and honest.

I don't think Zenimax wants their forums to be filled with negative backlash against their game, company, and other players. New future players may come to read these forums to see if they want to play the game or not, and if they see it's full of negativity then they may not want to play the game. Sometimes if there's nothing nice to say it's better off not said.

On the otherhand some negativity is a good thing as it can let Zenimax know of issues in the game so they can come up with a resolution to the problem. Sometimes the awnser and results come in ways that are least expected.

A permanent ban can be irritating to appeal but they are reversable (depending on what originally what its for). I had a permanent punishment from the world of warcraft forums reversed after appealing it 4 years later.