This game needs to be more like Ultima Online

Titansteele

You know what? People are just guessing here.

The business intelligence people at ZOS will have daily and trending reports on how many people play PVP & PVE in this game and those reports could provide facts, everything else is not even educated guesswork, its pure conjecture.
It is the worst kind of epeen waving in my opinion as it is fundamentally flawed.

I play both PVE & PVP, I spend more time in PVE than PVP but I like how I can jump into Cyro and after changing 2 or 3 skills on my build I can be an asset to the AD.

I firmly disagree that this game should be more like UO, stick to your promise of releasing content on a 3 month cycle and make balanced calls to listen to ideas from the community that are clearly popular and all will be well ZOS.

Tectonaut

Thecapeo wrote: »

The problem is how zones are one faction only. Though there's no reason why you couldn't have in-faction fighting really. And you can just make PVP a toggle. Heck, even DCUO had that. In some zones you could go into options and allow yourself to be PvPed. There would be a red icon over the heads of any players who had it enabled. And if you didn't feel like doing it you could turn it off at any time.

^^^^THIS^^^^
I needed to double agree. This idea would give everyone the ability to choose how they wish to play. If you don't wish to pvp, toggle it off and forget.

starkerealm

danno8 wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

Isn't the minimum to pledge $35? Would that not mean at best there are 100k people pledging? Or am I missing something?

You're forgetting the part where 3.5 million isn't enough money to bring an MMO to market today. I mean if you want to do a really stripped down retro style game with graphics that looked like they came fresh from 1999, you might be able to. To make something like ESO? You need something in the range of 20 times that. Hell, there were the disputed reports that The Old Republic cost 150-200 million to bring to market. While we don't have the real production budget for ESO, the best guess puts it at around 70-150 million (and yes, that's a huge spread). So... tell me again how 3.5 million is a sign that the money really is there?

CapnPhoton

If it had been open PVP in every zone, even with the option to opt out, I would not have gotten the game.

Masuimi

CapnPhoton wrote: »

If it had been open PVP in every zone, even with the option to opt out, I would not have gotten the game.

Why?

SantaOrc

12 years UO player here.
Stop dreaming ffs. (Complete)Open world PvP will not come to ESO.
The features that will be released before this game dies are very limited, because the money which is generated by sales and shop is very limited.
95% of "hear my cool idea"-Threads are [snip] like this, which isn't any more than vivid theory-crafting.
The whole game is disigned in a way which doesn't leaves ANY room for open world pvp beeing implemented in ANY financeable way.

I for myself may start playing this again once there is a kind of arena, since Cyrodil lag-zergs aren't fun.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

Dahkoht

starkerealm wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

Isn't the minimum to pledge $35? Would that not mean at best there are 100k people pledging? Or am I missing something?

You're forgetting the part where 3.5 million isn't enough money to bring an MMO to market today. I mean if you want to do a really stripped down retro style game with graphics that looked like they came fresh from 1999, you might be able to. To make something like ESO? You need something in the range of 20 times that. Hell, there were the disputed reports that The Old Republic cost 150-200 million to bring to market. While we don't have the real production budget for ESO, the best guess puts it at around 70-150 million (and yes, that's a huge spread). So... tell me again how 3.5 million is a sign that the money really is there?

Jacobs is putting in more than 2 million of his own money , also the money is continuing to grow. Next many don't like kick starting a game and will only buy at launch.

Here's the big thing though , Camelot Unchained is being designed from the ground up as a RvR game only. Period. No massive PVE zones that have to be designed and decked out the whole way and so on, there's a sprinkling of PVE mixed in but very little , mainly crafting.

Huge budget savings.

Here's the big savings , zero spent on dozens and dozens of instances cut scenes with paid actors doing silly expensive voice work. zero. Which is what I want , no instances for just me telling me a long winded story I've heard on the first three characters and so on.

Money is spent on actual in the mmo world RvR massive gameplay. SWTOR for example spent laughable tens of millions on the voice acting and cut scenes. Then people ran out of gameplay within a month at launch.

He's spending his budget wisely and making a niche old school true RvR game and many are looking forward to it in the mmo community.

Also Jacobs daily communicates tons directly with the backers and other mmo sites and has always been that way. When's the last time Firor has been here actually having conversations with the player base on an ongoing way ?

Here on ESO boards a /lurk is hailed as awesome communication.

CapnPhoton

Masuimi wrote: »

CapnPhoton wrote: »

If it had been open PVP in every zone, even with the option to opt out, I would not have gotten the game.

Why?

I have never been a fan of open world PVP. I want to be able to enjoy the PVE quest lines and adventure without getting jumped or seeing it happen to others around me. I would feel obligated to help, distracting me from the game progression.

The PVP element of the game where the factions are trying to take control of Cyrodill and the lore they create for it is good. This is one of the reasons I got the game. Even though I have not yet spent a lot of time there, this idea of PVP is appealing to me. If I wanna do it, I go there, if I want to enjoy the game lore I can stay home.

Preyfar

Dahkoht wrote: »

SWTOR for example spent laughable tens of millions on the voice acting and cut scenes. Then people ran out of gameplay within a month at launch.

And a lot of the voice acting was really flat, the cutscenes had massive bugs and just didn't feel alive. But it did make for an interesting story and scenario. Sadly, the base game suffered.

ESO's base game was fantastic. Quests were bugged as hell, but it played right. I kind of wish ESO had more cutscenes, involved animations and whatnot... but at the same time, I enjoy it for what it is. We don't need celebrity actors. Tara Strong, John DiMaggio, Billy West, Cathy Weseluck and Jim Cummings could voice every single character in this game and I'd be just as happy. That and they're all amazing, but...

EDIT: It's also like Patrick Stewart being in Oblivion. He did a great job, but his role in the game felt about 5 minutes long... and then he died. That's a lot of money on a voice that's not in the game all that much.

Volkodav

I know in WoW you can challenge eachother to duels.I dont know if you can do that in ESO,but if not,it should be implemented for those who like to PvP.

Prof_Bawbag

Avenias wrote: »

At least star wars the old republic learnt from their complete *** by trying to mix and match the mmo aspect of the game and the single player heavy story telling of the game, by finally going back to the roots of what made the previous two old republic games, kotor 1 and kotor 2 great, a fantastic story with plenty of options on going forward. The current state of the game is catered for more mmo experience, with their bs boring mindless grinding ***, rather then actually trying to give the player a well made story experience. Dont forget what made elder scrolls great is its experience of enjoying the world, with tons of story content. The story contentn of this game is a joke in comparison to the other 5 elder scrolls game, especially the last 2, with their rushed half ass done story missions, bad writing, extremely limited options with hardly any consequence in your personal story line. To call it elder scrolls is an insult to the franchise.

Maybe I'm reading this wrongly, but are you saying both Skyrim and Oblivion had good stories with consequences? Oblivion had The Dark Brotherhood questline and that was that. No consequences though. The main story and the rest of the guild stories weren't memorable in the slightest. Again no consequences. As for Skyrim and speaking as someone who loves it (using mods), the story telling in that was shoddy at best. Anyone buying any TES game for great story telling are gonna be sorely disappointed and it's kind of missing the whole point to TES games.

Of course any BioWare game is going to have a tighter story, because that's what BioWare do. BioWare's issue is, they suck at creating open worlds, whereas Beth/ZOS don't. They just suck at story telling. I wouldn't expect any RPG coming out of the Beth studios whether they're involved directly or indirectly to be any great shakes in that particular department.

starkerealm

Dahkoht wrote: »

Jacobs is putting in more than 2 million of his own money , also the money is continuing to grow. Next many don't like kick starting a game and will only buy at launch.

That's still not even in league with the kind of money he'd need to develop the project.

We're not even talking about ongoing support. At 5.5 million you can't afford to do a game like Elder Scrolls Online. And, that's what the money we're talking about is for. That's money that's needed to actually make the game.

I realize Early Access titles may have muddied this a bit, but you need to actually make a thing before you can sell it. You can get people to give you money to help make it. But if that's not enough, you can't go on faith, and starve for the next four years while your dream comes to fruition.

And, as someone pointed out, 5.5 million is about enough to hire 11 developers for a year. That's not enough to get a full blown MMO off the ground and onto the market in a complete condition.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Here's the big thing though , Camelot Unchained is being designed from the ground up as a RvR game only. Period. No massive PVE zones that have to be designed and decked out the whole way and so on, there's a sprinkling of PVE mixed in but very little , mainly crafting.

All of that is irrelevant, because it's not what's being discussed. It's off topic.

The issue is that there is not enough of a market to support a triple A MMO on the scale of Elder Scrolls Online that appeals to that niche hard core PvP crowd.

There aren't enough hard core PvPers in MMOs these days. Maybe there never were. Games with segregated PvP and PvE environments tend to run around 5%-10% of players engaging in PvP on a semi-regular basis. (When they report those statistics.)

There are PvP niches that are well served. Competitive First Person Shooters, like Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Battlefield, ect.

Persistent PvP environments like Day Z or Planetside.

But, those are very different from trying to run an MMO. With different considerations, and different development perimeters.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Huge budget savings.

No. That would be like saying something like Terraria is equivalent to ESO, but cheaper. It's actually a different kind of game with a vastly different development setup.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Here's the big savings , zero spent on dozens and dozens of instances cut scenes with paid actors doing silly expensive voice work. zero. Which is what I want , no instances for just me telling me a long winded story I've heard on the first three characters and so on.

Which is great for you. Except, you're in the extreme minority here. That's not saying you shouldn't ever get what you want. But, at the same time you're asking for a kind of game that cannot exist today. There are people who want it, but not enough to actually pay for it.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Money is spent on actual in the mmo world RvR massive gameplay. SWTOR for example spent laughable tens of millions on the voice acting and cut scenes. Then people ran out of gameplay within a month at launch.

The problem with TOR ran far deeper than the budget. The money they spent on development wasn't what sunk them. They were budgeted by executive fiat from EA. The problem was, EA had wholly unrealistic expectations for the project. EA Corporate honestly believed that they could release an MMO and pull in 12 million subscribers, and topple WoW because those cutscenes and storytelling would lure people away from Blizzard.

When that didn't happen, and TOR became the fastest selling MMO in history while still failing to meet expectations, the coffers were emptied, and the ship was scuttled. If they'd held off on some of the slick presentation... the money still would have been pulled from them.

It's not that they ran out, it's that EA pulled the plug. And there is a huge difference.

Dahkoht wrote: »

He's spending his budget wisely and making a niche old school true RvR game and many are looking forward to it in the mmo community.

In a way, he's actually at risk of making the exact same mistake Bioware did. Thinking, "well, I'm bringing something new to the market that people can't get elsewhere, so they'll flock to me."

It could happen. But, MMOs are expensive to develop, and expensive to keep online. And they demand a considerable opportunity cost from their players. In the time it would take me to rank to 24 in the Alliance War (without using exploits), I could easily do completionist playthroughs of Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas, and, if I started right now, probably Fallout 4 before I maxed a single character's Alliance War skill lines.

What this means is, if I'm a hardcore PvPer, and someone comes along and says, "hey, I made a new MMO, you should check it out," but, all my friends are still in Cyrodiil, and I'm sitting on a high ranking character... I have to decide to chuck all of that work, to go over, maybe bring some of my friends with me, and start from scratch, back at the bottom.

This means, jumping ship between MMOs usually encompasses a much steeper threshold than a game like Day Z or Call of Duty, where most of your progression is on a moment to moment basis.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Also Jacobs daily communicates tons directly with the backers and other mmo sites and has always been that way. When's the last time Firor has been here actually having conversations with the player base on an ongoing way ?

Here on ESO boards a /lurk is hailed as awesome communication.

To be fair, almost anything can be hailed as an awesome communication on these boards. It's a voting system, someone's going to laugh at your joke, and give you an awesome eventually. Trust me, I've got over 600 of the things.

I get what the ZoS guys are doing. The ones that are lurking are looking at our arguments. It's kinda sharp really. We argue with each other, so that whoever loses blames the other forum goer rather than the people at ZoS. And, before you say that sounds cheap, or manipulative, it is actually kind of vital in today's environment. Where changing the reload speed of a weapon by two frames can result in death threats.

They'll /lurk. They're not going to come in here and slap you down and say, "no, bad puppy, no biscuit," because, even if that idea is bad, your next one might not be, and because if they do, you'll be less likely to continue contributing. Also, they do answer questions on the livestreams. Granted, not always the questions we want to hear, there is still a PR element to this, and they're not amateurs, but they do respond to community feedback. It's just not going to be as direct as someone who is the entirety of his own company.

starkerealm

Preyfar wrote: »

Dahkoht wrote: »

SWTOR for example spent laughable tens of millions on the voice acting and cut scenes. Then people ran out of gameplay within a month at launch.

And a lot of the voice acting was really flat, the cutscenes had massive bugs and just didn't feel alive. But it did make for an interesting story and scenario. Sadly, the base game suffered.

ESO's base game was fantastic. Quests were bugged as hell, but it played right. I kind of wish ESO had more cutscenes, involved animations and whatnot... but at the same time, I enjoy it for what it is. We don't need celebrity actors. Tara Strong, John DiMaggio, Billy West, Cathy Weseluck and Jim Cummings could voice every single character in this game and I'd be just as happy. That and they're all amazing, but...

EDIT: It's also like Patrick Stewart being in Oblivion. He did a great job, but his role in the game felt about 5 minutes long... and then he died. That's a lot of money on a voice that's not in the game all that much.

Hilariously, we've got Kate Beckinsale, Bill Nighy, Peter Stormare (yeah, Jorunn sounds like that guy from Fargo because he IS that guy from Fargo), Michael Gambon, Malcom McDowell, to say nothing of John Cleese. The voice cast is kinda crazy, when you stop and actually look at it.

wraith808

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

Most of us are just hanging in there with ESO Until Camelot Unchained comes out

LOL at the arrogance.

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

I am just hanging in there with ESO Until Camelot Unchained comes out

Fixed that for you.

any PVPer who has been in cyrodil since launch and knows the communty in all factions and spends times talking with most major PVP guilds knows that there will be an exodus of most pvp guilds. I am talking about pvp guilds that have been around since before ESO that have been pvping in many MMOS over the years. Many are already inactive, many have merged with other guilds or changed factions to balence things out but we all know where we will be when the unchaining comes.

And then they'll have the same arguments and gripefests on their forums. And all will be well again.

starkerealm

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

Most of us are just hanging in there with ESO Until Camelot Unchained comes out

LOL at the arrogance.

Pirhana7_ESO wrote: »

I am just hanging in there with ESO Until Camelot Unchained comes out

Fixed that for you.

any PVPer who has been in cyrodil since launch and knows the communty in all factions and spends times talking with most major PVP guilds knows that there will be an exodus of most pvp guilds. I am talking about pvp guilds that have been around since before ESO that have been pvping in many MMOS over the years. Many are already inactive, many have merged with other guilds or changed factions to balence things out but we all know where we will be when the unchaining comes.

When said like that, it sounds like PvPers are all magpies, mindlessly chasing after anything slightly shiny, only to be hit by a truck while fighting over a bit of plastic wrapper.

Uriel_Nocturne

starkerealm wrote: »

Dahkoht wrote: »

Jacobs is putting in more than 2 million of his own money , also the money is continuing to grow. Next many don't like kick starting a game and will only buy at launch.

That's still not even in league with the kind of money he'd need to develop the project.

We're not even talking about ongoing support. At 5.5 million you can't afford to do a game like Elder Scrolls Online. And, that's what the money we're talking about is for. That's money that's needed to actually make the game.

I realize Early Access titles may have muddied this a bit, but you need to actually make a thing before you can sell it. You can get people to give you money to help make it. But if that's not enough, you can't go on faith, and starve for the next four years while your dream comes to fruition.

And, as someone pointed out, 5.5 million is about enough to hire 11 developers for a year. That's not enough to get a full blown MMO off the ground and onto the market in a complete condition.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Here's the big thing though , Camelot Unchained is being designed from the ground up as a RvR game only. Period. No massive PVE zones that have to be designed and decked out the whole way and so on, there's a sprinkling of PVE mixed in but very little , mainly crafting.

All of that is irrelevant, because it's not what's being discussed. It's off topic.

The issue is that there is not enough of a market to support a triple A MMO on the scale of Elder Scrolls Online that appeals to that niche hard core PvP crowd.

There aren't enough hard core PvPers in MMOs these days. Maybe there never were. Games with segregated PvP and PvE environments tend to run around 5%-10% of players engaging in PvP on a semi-regular basis. (When they report those statistics.)

There are PvP niches that are well served. Competitive First Person Shooters, like Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Battlefield, ect.

Persistent PvP environments like Day Z or Planetside.

But, those are very different from trying to run an MMO. With different considerations, and different development perimeters.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Huge budget savings.

No. That would be like saying something like Terraria is equivalent to ESO, but cheaper. It's actually a different kind of game with a vastly different development setup.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Here's the big savings , zero spent on dozens and dozens of instances cut scenes with paid actors doing silly expensive voice work. zero. Which is what I want , no instances for just me telling me a long winded story I've heard on the first three characters and so on.

Which is great for you. Except, you're in the extreme minority here. That's not saying you shouldn't ever get what you want. But, at the same time you're asking for a kind of game that cannot exist today. There are people who want it, but not enough to actually pay for it.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Money is spent on actual in the mmo world RvR massive gameplay. SWTOR for example spent laughable tens of millions on the voice acting and cut scenes. Then people ran out of gameplay within a month at launch.

The problem with TOR ran far deeper than the budget. The money they spent on development wasn't what sunk them. They were budgeted by executive fiat from EA. The problem was, EA had wholly unrealistic expectations for the project. EA Corporate honestly believed that they could release an MMO and pull in 12 million subscribers, and topple WoW because those cutscenes and storytelling would lure people away from Blizzard.

When that didn't happen, and TOR became the fastest selling MMO in history while still failing to meet expectations, the coffers were emptied, and the ship was scuttled. If they'd held off on some of the slick presentation... the money still would have been pulled from them.

It's not that they ran out, it's that EA pulled the plug. And there is a huge difference.

Dahkoht wrote: »

He's spending his budget wisely and making a niche old school true RvR game and many are looking forward to it in the mmo community.

In a way, he's actually at risk of making the exact same mistake Bioware did. Thinking, "well, I'm bringing something new to the market that people can't get elsewhere, so they'll flock to me."

It could happen. But, MMOs are expensive to develop, and expensive to keep online. And they demand a considerable opportunity cost from their players. In the time it would take me to rank to 24 in the Alliance War (without using exploits), I could easily do completionist playthroughs of Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, New Vegas, and, if I started right now, probably Fallout 4 before I maxed a single character's Alliance War skill lines.

What this means is, if I'm a hardcore PvPer, and someone comes along and says, "hey, I made a new MMO, you should check it out," but, all my friends are still in Cyrodiil, and I'm sitting on a high ranking character... I have to decide to chuck all of that work, to go over, maybe bring some of my friends with me, and start from scratch, back at the bottom.

This means, jumping ship between MMOs usually encompasses a much steeper threshold than a game like Day Z or Call of Duty, where most of your progression is on a moment to moment basis.

Dahkoht wrote: »

Also Jacobs daily communicates tons directly with the backers and other mmo sites and has always been that way. When's the last time Firor has been here actually having conversations with the player base on an ongoing way ?

Here on ESO boards a /lurk is hailed as awesome communication.

To be fair, almost anything can be hailed as an awesome communication on these boards. It's a voting system, someone's going to laugh at your joke, and give you an awesome eventually. Trust me, I've got over 600 of the things.

I get what the ZoS guys are doing. The ones that are lurking are looking at our arguments. It's kinda sharp really. We argue with each other, so that whoever loses blames the other forum goer rather than the people at ZoS. And, before you say that sounds cheap, or manipulative, it is actually kind of vital in today's environment. Where changing the reload speed of a weapon by two frames can result in death threats.

They'll /lurk. They're not going to come in here and slap you down and say, "no, bad puppy, no biscuit," because, even if that idea is bad, your next one might not be, and because if they do, you'll be less likely to continue contributing. Also, they do answer questions on the livestreams. Granted, not always the questions we want to hear, there is still a PR element to this, and they're not amateurs, but they do respond to community feedback. It's just not going to be as direct as someone who is the entirety of his own company.

*applause*

Thank you for this.

Wolfster

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

Tholian1 wrote: »

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

I'd be happy if they just had separate PvE and PvP servers. Keep your PvP whines and skill and class changes out of my PvE, thank you.

Agree, but I think they would have to charge for the PvP server to support the low population that is interested in such a thing.

again more people assuming that the PVE crowd is the larger population. Whether you want to admit it or not ESO is not fully a PVE or PVP game, they are both equal parts of the game. Proof is in the pudding with this upcoming patch and the other half of the justice system ( if we ever get that now, considering people went berserk at the idea of pvp happening in the open world, even though the justice system pvp is completly consensual )

I think it's generally based on empiricism. It's a social game, most people are members of several guilds. Most people know a handful of active PvPers. Most people probably know a few ex-PvPers dissatisfied with the state of Cyrodiil. It's not an assumption, it's an observation. The fact that the PvP community is so much more tight-knit than the PvE community likely alludes to it's limited size.

There's an equally plausible argument that IC and the (incomplete with no date for PvP features) justice system are an attempt to shore up the PvP game which has dwindling player engagement. And by extension it's reasonable conjecture that future development in PvP gameplay is dependent on the success of IC with the wider player base who are not presently engaged in the PvP aspect of the game.

If this us-vs-them attitude spills into IC, which is dependent on the PvP engagement of generally non-PvP players for success, then it might well bring an end to meaningful PvP development in the long-term as PvE becomes the vastly more profitable player base and the logical area for investment. Especially if the OP stipulation that there is a mass PvP exodus on the horizon is correct.

So your assertion that PvP is an equal component of the game to PvE, instead of an approach that PvP is a large minority activity that would benefit from wider engagement, could actually be a factor in the decline of the gameplay you want to promote.

Lava_Croft

While Ultima Online is exactly the kind of simulation I would desire, I do not think both ESO itself and the target audience post-B2P are a good fit.

Wolfster

Arato wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

$3.5 million is a not even a shoestring budget when it comes to development of an MMO. Building an MMO from the ground up is like a 5 year process. That $3.5 million will hire a team of like.... 7... maybe.

My flaky memory tells me that SWtoR had a $200 million budget.

starkerealm

Wolfster wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

$3.5 million is a not even a shoestring budget when it comes to development of an MMO. Building an MMO from the ground up is like a 5 year process. That $3.5 million will hire a team of like.... 7... maybe.

My flaky memory tells me that SWtoR had a $200 million budget.

150-200 million. With rumors that it might have actually been has high as 300m.

JD2013

The thing is, everyone has a different idea of what a perfect game is.

They'll take all the ideas that they have in their head from other games, write out a very long forum post about what constitutes their perfect game, what they want added to the game they are currently playing and wish that said game is more like X game or had everything like Y game.

But here's the thing . . . Imagine what this game would be like if the developers added every little thing that every person on this forum. If they catered to every single whim and idea that every person on here wanted.

Then imagine that those ideas turn ESO until ESO was UO/WoW/EQ/TOR etcetera.

Then what happens when these people go and play another game? We are left with all of the game mechanics that they wanted, whilst they move on to a new game. And they start suggesting ideas to implement in their new game to make their new game more like X game or to have Y game's mechanics.

And so the circle continues. The circle of turning every other game into clones of X game or Y game because every game just has to have mechanics of other games.

Wolfster

JD2013 wrote: »

The thing is, everyone has a different idea of what a perfect game is.

They'll take all the ideas that they have in their head from other games, write out a very long forum post about what constitutes their perfect game, what they want added to the game they are currently playing and wish that said game is more like X game or had everything like Y game.

But here's the thing . . . Imagine what this game would be like if the developers added every little thing that every person on this forum. If they catered to every single whim and idea that every person on here wanted.

Then imagine that those ideas turn ESO until ESO was UO/WoW/EQ/TOR etcetera.

Then what happens when these people go and play another game? We are left with all of the game mechanics that they wanted, whilst they move on to a new game. And they start suggesting ideas to implement in their new game to make their new game more like X game or to have Y game's mechanics.

And so the circle continues. The circle of turning every other game into clones of X game or Y game because every game just has to have mechanics of other games.

Also nobody wants old-school. Everyone wants to recapture their first MMO experience but when it comes down to it all the corpse-running, gear loss, level loss and underdeveloped, onerous mechanics have died for a reason. The best PvP game ever IMO is Dark Age of Camelot. The PvP was always a blast for me, I spent weeks in the frontiers. However I'm never going back, DAoC is a relic, and the gameplay would be tired and frustrating.

You can't build the next generation of games on the last generation of player's nostalgia.

Uriel_Nocturne

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

Tholian1 wrote: »

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

I'd be happy if they just had separate PvE and PvP servers. Keep your PvP whines and skill and class changes out of my PvE, thank you.

Agree, but I think they would have to charge for the PvP server to support the low population that is interested in such a thing.

again more people assuming that the PVE crowd is the larger population. Whether you want to admit it or not ESO is not fully a PVE or PVP game, they are both equal parts of the game. Proof is in the pudding with this upcoming patch and the other half of the justice system ( if we ever get that now, considering people went berserk at the idea of pvp happening in the open world, even though the justice system pvp is completly consensual )

Considering that only 13.7% of people on PS4 have earned the rank of Recruit, and a similar percentage of people on the One have recruit; that's still over 80% of the population for two of three playable platforms that are pure PvE players.

I'd say that's safe to assume that ESO has a vastly larger "pure PvE" population than it has a "hardcore PvP" population.

Another thought:
Aside from aberrations in the metric (like Ultima Online where the whole game is a gankfest, griefers paradise...), MMO's are (by a vast majority) populated with far more PvE-only players than they are with "hardcore PvP" or "even mix PvP/PvE" players. In fact companies bank on the PvE crowd to fund their revenue streams much more than the PvP crowd.

Like someone else said in here: Leaving an MMO for another MMO, after spending more than a month or two in the game, requires quite a bit more thought than leaving your A-typical FPS behind. There's significantly more effort and expense put into developing a character in an MMO (where that same character can be active for years across many Expansions). In an FPS, it's expected that every year or year-and-a-half you'll have to start over from the bottom. In an MMO, leaving one game where you have taken great care and pains to carefully build a character during your rise to end-game activities, just to start another game (that your friends may not follow you to) at the bottom of the "totem pole" requires the player to give up quite a lot in terms of personal time and expenditure on the game he/she is leaving.

The companies the develop MMO's realize and understand this. It's this dedication to a game (subbed, B2P, F2P, it doesn't really matter) that promises and fulfills a steady stream of revenue to the development company and publisher. Meanwhile, PvP-purists are well known to "hop" from new game to new game like Magpies that see a new shiny thing every forty feet or so.

Thus, MMO's are developed for a vast majority of PvE content/activities, but try to include at least some PvP to try to keep the PvP minority intrigued. But anyone who tries to argue that the PvP MMO populace is as equally as large as the PvE MMO populace is deluding themselves.

These companies realize who generates more sustained revenue (PvE), and looking back across the history of pretty much every MMO ever, one can easily see that MMO's have always been vastly more populated by PvE Gamers than PvP Gamers.

JD4WD

+1

I'm in favor of open world PVP but I don't see it happening in ESO. I've played UO since '98 and still occasionally play on free servers today. That is the longest that I have ever played any game and I notice a lot of UO vets are the same. I think that says a lot about a game when it can keep your attention for over 15 years. One of the most appealing aspects to open world pvp in my opinion is the thrill of knowing you could be attacked at any minute while outside of town. It adds a sense of excitement rather than mindless zerging. Don't get me wrong, Cyrodiil PVP is fun, but it does get repetitive.

I completely understand the folks that do not want to partake in PVP, everyone has their own style and entitled to their own opinion. That's why it would be necessary to design a system that people can opt out of if desired. One way to appease the more hardcore PVP crowd in lieu of open world PVP would be to add dueling, and maybe 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, arenas.

I will say, ESO is the first game since UO that I have been completely addicted to and have spent this many hours on. I was skeptical on playing an MMO on a console at first but I am really happy with my purchase.

Dahkoht

For those saying "no one" wants any old school games.

Pillars of Eternity and its reviews and sales differ in opinion ,for example, publishers for years tried to say no one would buy a Baldurs Gate style game. They were wrong.

I've enjoyed it far more than something like the Witcher 3. Far more in depth and fun. Personal preference , and glad they make it and that Wasteland 2 was made in the same vein. It's better to me than most of the *** AAA games have been for the past decade.

"Next Generation" can often be something trying to reinvent the wheel that doesn't need reinventing.

Game tastes are different for everyone , but don't assume "no one wants DAOC" because you wouldn't like it.

If an EQ server up through Velious with DX 11 graphics launched tomorrow or DAOC before TOA with the same I'd never login to any of these current "next gen" games again.

I just prefer real death penalties , less bland class balancing , travel meaning something and so on.

There's plenty of people who do like the mechanics of first gen mmos.

Just glad that as indie developers are making smaller scale games for certain audiences is taking off , there looks to be more options for players of different tastes.

And nothing wrong with ESO not being this type of game either , just get people need to not tell others that "no one" wants their style of gameplay preference.

Prof_Bawbag

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

Tholian1 wrote: »

Akavir_Sentinel wrote: »

I'd be happy if they just had separate PvE and PvP servers. Keep your PvP whines and skill and class changes out of my PvE, thank you.

Agree, but I think they would have to charge for the PvP server to support the low population that is interested in such a thing.

again more people assuming that the PVE crowd is the larger population. Whether you want to admit it or not ESO is not fully a PVE or PVP game, they are both equal parts of the game. Proof is in the pudding with this upcoming patch and the other half of the justice system ( if we ever get that now, considering people went berserk at the idea of pvp happening in the open world, even though the justice system pvp is completly consensual )

Considering that only 13.7% of people on PS4 have earned the rank of Recruit, and a similar percentage of people on the One have recruit; that's still over 80% of the population for two of three playable platforms that are pure PvE players.

I'd say that's safe to assume that ESO has a vastly larger "pure PvE" population than it has a "hardcore PvP" population.

Another thought:
Aside from aberrations in the metric (like Ultima Online where the whole game is a gankfest, griefers paradise...), MMO's are (by a vast majority) populated with far more PvE-only players than they are with "hardcore PvP" or "even mix PvP/PvE" players. In fact companies bank on the PvE crowd to fund their revenue streams much more than the PvP crowd.

Like someone else said in here: Leaving an MMO for another MMO, after spending more than a month or two in the game, requires quite a bit more thought than leaving your A-typical FPS behind. There's significantly more effort and expense put into developing a character in an MMO (where that same character can be active for years across many Expansions). In an FPS, it's expected that every year or year-and-a-half you'll have to start over from the bottom. In an MMO, leaving one game where you have taken great care and pains to carefully build a character during your rise to end-game activities, just to start another game (that your friends may not follow you to) at the bottom of the "totem pole" requires the player to give up quite a lot in terms of personal time and expenditure on the game he/she is leaving.

The companies the develop MMO's realize and understand this. It's this dedication to a game (subbed, B2P, F2P, it doesn't really matter) that promises and fulfills a steady stream of revenue to the development company and publisher. Meanwhile, PvP-purists are well known to "hop" from new game to new game like Magpies that see a new shiny thing every forty feet or so.

Thus, MMO's are developed for a vast majority of PvE content/activities, but try to include at least some PvP to try to keep the PvP minority intrigued. But anyone who tries to argue that the PvP MMO populace is as equally as large as the PvE MMO populace is deluding themselves.

These companies realize who generates more sustained revenue (PvE), and looking back across the history of pretty much every MMO ever, one can easily see that MMO's have always been vastly more populated by PvE Gamers than PvP Gamers.

I agree. Most people I know that play the game opt for the co-op aspect in PvE, rather than touch the pvp on a regular basis. The simple fact of the matter is, a large percentage of people enjoy playing these types of games with others, not against others.

I can only speak for myself, but I can hold my own in PvE, even when i enter group dungeons where the enemies are scaled beyond that of my current level, yet I really suck playing against other players in these types of games. I will never be good enough to enjoy pvp, because i have zero desire to learn the ropes and the min/max involved in doing so. I have no issue admitting that. It's just the way it is. I don't mind difficult and challenging games and I really enjoy difficult and challenging encounters in ESO, however, dying over and over again at the hand of other players is not my idea of fun.

starkerealm

Dahkoht wrote: »

For those saying "no one" wants any old school games.

The problem isn't that no one wants them. The problem is that MMOs, as a genre, are much more financially intensive. So, while there's enough people out there to justify the release of Pillars... and yes, I'm a backer of that and Wasteland 2. There aren't enough players who want these specific "old school" features in an MMO to pin the entire budget on it.

Full open world PvP is a big turn off for a lot of MMO players. Again, something like 90%-95% of the playerbase are primarily PvE players. So the hard part isn't getting someone to sign off on developing it. It's in finding enough customers to keep the game going this time next year.

Dahkoht wrote: »

I just prefer real death penalties , less bland class balancing , travel meaning something and so on.

A lot of those got dropped by the wayside because, ultimately, there's a fine line between a game dragging content out to keep you paying fifteen bucks a month, and just wasting your time or screwing around with you to slow you down.

Severe death penalties are an example of that. There's a legitimate argument to be had that Dark Souls' death penalty is just the game screwing with you. It doesn't actually make the game harder. You lose all of your unused XP/resources on death, but you can go recover them. It just screws with you for dying, and tells you to waste more time.

It's not automatically harder than a game that just knocks you back to a checkpoint (at a mechanical level).

Same thing with prolonged travel time. If I've got 35min to play the game, then, I don't want to spend all of that staring at my horse's shank. When I was 15? Living at home, and had all day to screw around on the computer? Yeah, I probably would have agreed with you. But, now, when I honestly have a hard time budgeting enough time for dungeon runs some days... that's just BS.

Uriel_Nocturne

starkerealm wrote: »

Dahkoht wrote: »

For those saying "no one" wants any old school games.

The problem isn't that no one wants them. The problem is that MMOs, as a genre, are much more financially intensive. So, while there's enough people out there to justify the release of Pillars... and yes, I'm a backer of that and Wasteland 2. There aren't enough players who want these specific "old school" features in an MMO to pin the entire budget on it.

Full open world PvP is a big turn off for a lot of MMO players. Again, something like 90%-95% of the playerbase are primarily PvE players. So the hard part isn't getting someone to sign off on developing it. It's in finding enough customers to keep the game going this time next year.

Dahkoht wrote: »

I just prefer real death penalties , less bland class balancing , travel meaning something and so on.

A lot of those got dropped by the wayside because, ultimately, there's a fine line between a game dragging content out to keep you paying fifteen bucks a month, and just wasting your time or screwing around with you to slow you down.

Severe death penalties are an example of that. There's a legitimate argument to be had that Dark Souls' death penalty is just the game screwing with you. It doesn't actually make the game harder. You lose all of your unused XP/resources on death, but you can go recover them. It just screws with you for dying, and tells you to waste more time.

It's not automatically harder than a game that just knocks you back to a checkpoint (at a mechanical level).

Same thing with prolonged travel time. If I've got 35min to play the game, then, I don't want to spend all of that staring at my horse's shank. When I was 15? Living at home, and had all day to screw around on the computer? Yeah, I probably would have agreed with you. But, now, when I honestly have a hard time budgeting enough time for dungeon runs some days... that's just BS.

Agreed.

When I was younger and playing Everquest and Runescape, I had all the time in the world to spend... in the world, because school was my only responsibility. Hell, when summer break came around every year? I could easily blow 12+ hours per game session.

But like many people who cut their teeth on those games, we're older now. We have infinitely more and more complex responsibilities.

I need to almost schedule time to get into the game. While I loved those "old school" features in MMO's back in the day, I also loved them because I had time to do them. Realistically, that's the same reason other gamers my age loved them as well.

But we're all pushing 40 (I'm 38) or past 40 years old now, and the vast majority age group for MMO's is the 35-45 age range. Those same people who were kids/teenagers when MMO's first became their own "thing"/genre.

My nostalgia says "yes, bring back all of those old school mechanics! I have such fond memories of them!!"

My real life job and real life wife say "He'll be on later, and he doesn't have time to spend 1 1/2 hours of his two-hour window traveling by horseback".

For many MMO Gamers, it's just not feasible mechanics anymore.

danno8

starkerealm wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

Isn't the minimum to pledge $35? Would that not mean at best there are 100k people pledging? Or am I missing something?

You're forgetting the part where 3.5 million isn't enough money to bring an MMO to market today. I mean if you want to do a really stripped down retro style game with graphics that looked like they came fresh from 1999, you might be able to. To make something like ESO? You need something in the range of 20 times that. Hell, there were the disputed reports that The Old Republic cost 150-200 million to bring to market. While we don't have the real production budget for ESO, the best guess puts it at around 70-150 million (and yes, that's a huge spread). So... tell me again how 3.5 million is a sign that the money really is there?

Err, I was agreeing with you. I was pointing out how few people had pledged, even in a best case scenario. Unless your quote was meant for the guy I quoted.

Uriel_Nocturne

danno8 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Cervanteseric85ub17_ESO wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Olivierko wrote: »

A issue that comes to mind when considering open world PvP for ESO would be the fact that ESO isn't an open world game, the world is quite large and there's loads of zones that are greatly under populated than others due to each alliance has each zone differently instanced.

The problem actually exists at a more finite level. There are far too many potential choke points for griefing. Because of the quest structure, you're going to need to be at specific points.

Combine that with party synergies. And, you'd end up with stuff like the Cyrodiilic Zerg Balls macroing newbies to death. Which would just cripple the population.

Ultima Online has a playerbase south of 100k players. You can't sustain a game like ESO on a population that small. There are players who would pay to play a game like that. But there aren't enough to sustain a modern AAA MMO's production budget.

Tell that to the 3.5 million dollars that have been pledged to Camelot Unchained.....and CU is a pure RvR ( large scale PVP for those that dont know ) in the purest sense. This game will be 100% pvp all the time from the moment you start your character. The devs for this game have even stated that there will hardly be any NPC's, everything will be player made and player run. So you might want to do a little searching before making such a false claim. PvPers have a very large and active community despite what you think.

Isn't the minimum to pledge $35? Would that not mean at best there are 100k people pledging? Or am I missing something?

You're forgetting the part where 3.5 million isn't enough money to bring an MMO to market today. I mean if you want to do a really stripped down retro style game with graphics that looked like they came fresh from 1999, you might be able to. To make something like ESO? You need something in the range of 20 times that. Hell, there were the disputed reports that The Old Republic cost 150-200 million to bring to market. While we don't have the real production budget for ESO, the best guess puts it at around 70-150 million (and yes, that's a huge spread). So... tell me again how 3.5 million is a sign that the money really is there?

Err, I was agreeing with you. I was pointing out how few people had pledged, even in a best case scenario. Unless your quote was meant for the guy I quoted.

Just by reading the quote-chain, I think it was meant for Cervantes.