Praise for Abah's Landing Design and Atmosphere

Sentinel

When ESO first launched, and indeed up until today, many of the first cities to be designed and explored by players were 'cookie cutter' per say; the cities design was as if a set of buildings were crafted before hand, and then copied and pasted within. There was hardly any variety in what one sees in a city such as Daggerfall; all the buildings look the same, and the NPCs blend with one another. One of the pinnacles of the TES franchise is the ability to find and explore these fantastic cities and experience the depth of culture within, and it seemed that the earliest designed zones and cities had not yet found the atmosphere that makes ESO part of TES.

Over the past six months or so however, we've been given proof of the growth of the artists, zone designers, and all others involved in crafting a new zone, city and culture for a DLC. Imperial City, when it first came out, seemed halfway out of the dark. The design and level of the city itself along with the sewer system was the most advanced and massive to date when it came out, and every scene was one that was unique, but also familiar. What true depth in culture and content the Imperial City lacked, the next city Orsinium prospered in. Orsinium was a city among a zone that had found an avenue to tell fulfilling stories, and give a glimpse at a culture not often recounted in the game. In essence, Imperial City was proof that the design team could craft a massive city, and Orsinium was proof that ZOS is able to tell narrowly focused, but in depth stories with it.With Abah's Landing, the pattern has continued once more, and the steps fall in place taking up the lessons learned through Imperial City and Orsinium to craft a massive city with a focus on the storytelling of the Thieves Guild.

Once again, however, we see something new provided with this city: we have been given the culture of a city without the need for a quest to spell it out; the city has shown, rather than told, about the vital aspects of its personality through its streets, the garb, the buildings, and its people. Abah's Landing is a truly Redguard city, but it is more than that, just walking through the streets allows one to see the melting pot that the city is, and how its inhabitants fit into it. There are separate districts, and unique architecture wherever one looks. There are few cookie cutter buildings, and even if they are numerous, they are melded in nonetheless to craft a believable city with believable inhabitants. In fact, when I was walking through it, I could think of few better designed Cities in TES to date (including single player games) that included so much variety and uniqueness in how it presents itself. In short, great job to all teams involved at ZOS!

I would characterize the growth of the teams at ZOS to be straying away from the easy paths of the average MMO, of crafting by copying and pasting with a shell to take up the players space, to following the paths of the TES game that involve a massive amount of thought and detail into every corner and aspect of a location.
A TES city and Zone must be many things,

1. It must contain quality variety to architecture and provide a feel of a massive city/zone without even needing said places to actually be massive (though it does help).
2. It must be able to tell a specific narrative in great detail that immerses the players into a story.
3. It must be able to provide a glimpse into the culture and atmosphere of a place without even needing to say a word (what a place acts like, and why it stands out).
4. It must be able to provide a glimpse into the beliefs, the bigotry, and the religions as well as their importance (what a place believes in, and why it stands out).
5. It must be contain a variety of hidden features, and secrets only for the character to discover, whether it is quests, objects, or anything else (what a place is hiding, and how hidden it truly is).
6. It must contain a variety of objectives and things for someone to do (all the things that one can do within a place).
7. It must contain a variety of choice in how actions are carried out, or on decisions that impact others (how one can use their character to mold the city rather than the city to mold the character).
8. It must contain many perspectives within an area, and for conflicts of interest to occur (for the city and its inhabitants not to be one sided).

That is simply my list of what is required to craft the best city for TES. At launch, I would say that none of the above were fulfilled in a quality fashion in any one city, however right now I can say this: Abah's Landing has taken the lessons of the past and acknowledged 1 & 2 to a full extent, and 3 to a great extent. As ZOS continues to progress and grow, I hope they continue to provide quality content to their players, and continue to fulfill more of the above objectives. The teams have gone quite far, and I applaud them. There is much further to go, and I am eager to see what the future entails.

(By the way, I would characterize the TES game Morrowind of having been able to Provide 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8, and so many of the ways ZOS can improve is to continue to move forward, while acknowledging what each TES game did best.)

What do you, as a community, think has been done best with this new DLC & city?

Taleof2Cities

Agreed on points 1, 2, 3 ...

NBrookus

Abah's Landing has a strong and immediate sense of place. Art department home run.

SantieClaws

This is a city khajitt thinks she can really call home. Good job all.

Ra'Shtar

This is a really amazing post.

Wing

agreed, when I first got off the boat I was like "wow, this is a pretty big city" then I actually turned around and realized how far it went and was like "WOW, this is a big city"

I also love the verticality we are starting to get within cities too, its a lot of fun.

Kova

And it seemed so tiny on the map. Whoever is in charge of the compact design for this zone should be given a medal.The RP potential is through the roof, the texture and lighting is just immaculate.

And if you haven't fought the world boss near the southern shore, you are missing out. You need at least two people unless you want to go through 5 minutes of frustration and lucky RNG for AOEs, but it's really fun.

s7732425ub17_ESO

Kova wrote: »

And it seemed so tiny on the map. Whoever is in charge of the compact design for this zone should be given a medal.The RP potential is through the roof, the texture and lighting is just immaculate.

And if you haven't fought the world boss near the southern shore, you are missing out. You need at least two people unless you want to go through 5 minutes of frustration and lucky RNG for AOEs, but it's really fun.

Disagree. The playable area is pretty small. Most of the zone (delves, world bosses, scenic views) can be completed in under an hour. Coming from the giant zone of Orsinium to this tiny zone does not give a good feeling. It looks really cool, but it's tiny. The city is really nice, but I don't think this will be anywhere near as well received as Orsinium.

deleted008293

As soon as I arrived in Abah's Landing I was wow... woow... wooow... but then I asked myself where are the people? Where are the quests? Indeed that town looks awesome but I think it could be boosted tenfold. There should be characters that will jump on you and ask you to help move some crates. Perhaps some NPC should ask you if you want to go fishing with them. Maybe hunt something together? Perhaps steal a crate in a time limit and so on. Small micro quests. Oh... those quests should be regenerated once a month or so... but not daily.

I think there should be way more NPCs in a town. And I also think there should be a lot more side micro quests like fetch that talk to x, buy item, kill creature etc... Perhaps NPCs should tell stories as you pass by and you should be able to sit nearby and listen to the lore. Also quest markers should be updated and divided into 5 sections. micro quest, side quests (local story), main quests, guild quests, repeatable quests. Perhaps NPCs that follow a timeline too. You find it now in the market... later on the docks... later maybe in bed maybe nowhere.

What else... Cities oh... Most of them still looks awesome. But indeed since Orsinium and Abah''s Landing things went to the sky. Now i'm trying to imagine how grandeur a dwemer multi level city would look like with some shipyards to the top, airships roaming around, different city districts at different levels etc... We can only dream. After all to build a huge MMO world you will need not only artists but also unlimited resources. Imagine if each zone were twice as big as the ones we have atm... and each city will be as huge as Orsinium for instance. Artists will need much more time designing them, devs need also lot of time to program this and that etc... But us players would end up raging more. My game doesn't work. That doesn't work. City looks empty. Atm this game is already struggling on lots of player computers. Unless we want to end up with a loading screen for each city... its good as it is right now. Or the engine must be tweaked quite hard to make sure elements that aren't in your visual range in the next minutes won't load your CPU, GPU and Memory thus slowing you down. A much better streaming system. But it must be done such way you won't end up running through the world and the world around you isn't loading fast enough.

Not all cities were that bad. Maybe they weren't very atmospheric but they looked awesome. Not all were big enough but thats another story.
Davon's Watch, Ebonheart, Kragemoor looks a bit too small but doesn't look that bad. Ebonheart was by far one of my most favorite towns because its multicultural factions.
Mournhold is quite awesome huge temple, huge guild buildings, big city hall.
Stormhold... you can't ask that much from a mud city. If only were a little bigger.
Windhelm, Riften... nothing to say about. They are just perfect.

Dagerfall eh... few similar houses... nothing much... lovely town.
Wayrest now this is a city you can't avoid.
Shornhelm. Big, nice settings, looks unique.
Sentinel, Bergama, Kozanset... some of the most unique and lovely cities I ever seen. Alik'r was my 2nd fav zone after Stonefalls. Windhelm was another favorite city I loved to roam around.
Evermore, Hallin Stand. Evermore like Evermore... just another city on the same length with Daggerfall and Wayrest. As for Hallin Stand? After the Alik'r Cities I never dreamed to find an even better looking and awesome city.

In Aldmeri Dominion things were a bit different... here most cities look alike. I was hoping to see some cities up there in the trees. Multilevel gameplay. but not much to explore... just woods and ground levels with very few exceptions. Elden Hollow was awesome... But i wanted cities that span across lots of trees just like Silvenar City.
Rawl Kha, Dune, Arenthia were again nice and good. Small or large towns but good ones. Love em.
Craglorn's Cities were more like small outposts. Not very attractive. Also I skipped most villages around and other quest hubs.

So what all these cities miss except that they might not be that big and large? Atmosphere. They feel empty. We need more NPCs doing all sort of stuff. As for future cities in ESO I do hope to see some more and even better multi level cities. I want to figure out things like how to get there on the top of that building and not just circle it around but go a bit further away climb and trespass several buildings. Similar to Abah's Landing but even better. Maybe in Elsweyr we will finally explore some cities build on trees and around them. Or maybe some dwarven cities or other cities from another realms.

Also for the performance level there should be a slider in game options that will enhance or reduce the number of npcs and objects from a city. And perhaps tweak the players as well. Turn them on or off.

Kova

nordmarian wrote: »

As soon as I arrived in Abah's Landing I was wow... woow... wooow... but then I asked myself where are the people? Where are the quests? Indeed that town looks awesome but I think it could be boosted tenfold. There should be characters that will jump on you and ask you to help move some crates. Perhaps some NPC should ask you if you want to go fishing with them. Maybe hunt something together? Perhaps steal a crate in a time limit and so on. Small micro quests. Oh... those quests should be regenerated once a month or so... but not daily.

I think there should be way more NPCs in a town. And I also think there should be a lot more side micro quests like fetch that talk to x, buy item, kill creature etc... Perhaps NPCs should tell stories as you pass by and you should be able to sit nearby and listen to the lore. Also quest markers should be updated and divided into 5 sections. micro quest, side quests (local story), main quests, guild quests, repeatable quests. Perhaps NPCs that follow a timeline too. You find it now in the market... later on the docks... later maybe in bed maybe nowhere.

What else... Cities oh... Most of them still looks awesome. But indeed since Orsinium and Abah''s Landing things went to the sky. Now i'm trying to imagine how grandeur a dwemer multi level city would look like with some shipyards to the top, airships roaming around, different city districts at different levels etc... We can only dream. After all to build a huge MMO world you will need not only artists but also unlimited resources. Imagine if each zone were twice as big as the ones we have atm... and each city will be as huge as Orsinium for instance. Artists will need much more time designing them, devs need also lot of time to program this and that etc... But us players would end up raging more. My game doesn't work. That doesn't work. City looks empty. Atm this game is already struggling on lots of player computers. Unless we want to end up with a loading screen for each city... its good as it is right now. Or the engine must be tweaked quite hard to make sure elements that aren't in your visual range in the next minutes won't load your CPU, GPU and Memory thus slowing you down. A much better streaming system. But it must be done such way you won't end up running through the world and the world around you isn't loading fast enough.

Not all cities were that bad. Maybe they weren't very atmospheric but they looked awesome. Not all were big enough but thats another story.
Davon's Watch, Ebonheart, Kragemoor looks a bit too small but doesn't look that bad. Ebonheart was by far one of my most favorite towns because its multicultural factions.
Mournhold is quite awesome huge temple, huge guild buildings, big city hall.
Stormhold... you can't ask that much from a mud city. If only were a little bigger.
Windhelm, Riften... nothing to say about. They are just perfect.

Dagerfall eh... few similar houses... nothing much... lovely town.
Wayrest now this is a city you can't avoid.
Shornhelm. Big, nice settings, looks unique.
Sentinel, Bergama, Kozanset... some of the most unique and lovely cities I ever seen. Alik'r was my 2nd fav zone after Stonefalls. Windhelm was another favorite city I loved to roam around.
Evermore, Hallin Stand. Evermore like Evermore... just another city on the same length with Daggerfall and Wayrest. As for Hallin Stand? After the Alik'r Cities I never dreamed to find an even better looking and awesome city.

In Aldmeri Dominion things were a bit different... here most cities look alike. I was hoping to see some cities up there in the trees. Multilevel gameplay. but not much to explore... just woods and ground levels with very few exceptions. Elden Hollow was awesome... But i wanted cities that span across lots of trees just like Silvenar City.
Rawl Kha, Dune, Arenthia were again nice and good. Small or large towns but good ones. Love em.
Craglorn's Cities were more like small outposts. Not very attractive. Also I skipped most villages around and other quest hubs.

So what all these cities miss except that they might not be that big and large? Atmosphere. They feel empty. We need more NPCs doing all sort of stuff. As for future cities in ESO I do hope to see some more and even better multi level cities. I want to figure out things like how to get there on the top of that building and not just circle it around but go a bit further away climb and trespass several buildings. Similar to Abah's Landing but even better. Maybe in Elsweyr we will finally explore some cities build on trees and around them. Or maybe some dwarven cities or other cities from another realms.

Also for the performance level there should be a slider in game options that will enhance or reduce the number of npcs and objects from a city. And perhaps tweak the players as well. Turn them on or off.

I liked that you weren't unrealistic in your expectations. Doing a lot of that would take considerable time and asset management, and a lot of people think it's as easy as drag and drop these days.

Kudos for you.

Sentinel

@nordmarian Indeed!

I'm most prospective about the way future cities will be handled, as it is easy to tell that Abah's Landing and Orsinium were created painstakingly on a thin balance of content and performance. Going off your first paragraph however, I would reason that of all of the 'tes-reasons' I'd listed before, #6 is the one most needed to be tackled in the next DLCs (more objectives and things to do, however minor). My list in place also is not intended to be a "ZOS, make it happen", but more of a "this is where you can try to go next". I cannot think of a single TES game that fulfills all the elements I listed singlehandedly, as every TES game did one of the features (or more), differently. All ESO needs to do is really find the right balance between depth, content, performance, and visuals.

My post having been weighing the progress of the teams at ZOS, I think they've done a fantastic job so far, and I hope that if nothing else, they keep up the good work.

deleted008293

Done right even the most insignificant change can be awesome to have if not it will only be a waste of time and may push away players. So far TG DLC is one step further in the right direction but in my opinion and yours ofc that city alone feels a bit dull. It needs even more atmosphere.

Design of cities in the old zones isn't that bad but isn't very good either... If they are too small they doesn't bring much gameplay and doesn't look too majestic either. But at that time we couldn't get too much. Bigger cities zones and delves would mean we wouldn't even have half of the zones we have now. There are performance issues to be traced too. But design alone isn't enough. Also... atm we have to keep cities on the same level as the other ones in game. Scale wise. It would be a bit strange for example to go in an Argonian village bigger than the orc capitol city Orsinium for example.

What matters more is atmosphere. Some cities have some more some less. I want to see people hauling crates, perhaps around a fire, entering buildings, chatting, etc... but thats a lot of planning and tbh a pvp player wouldn't appreciate the effort.

It also matter gameplay elements and even more than atmosphere. Its one thing to have a grid like city one a single level and a whole new game to have multilevel and maze like towns. I don't care much if there are 50 houses but only 10 models. It cares how they are arranged. Usually the bigger the city the better.

Some cities are surrounded by walls and towers. It would be awesome if we could enter them. Just look at Windhold.

Perhaps thats why I suggested dwemer cities here. Althrough they don't fit in the current timeline, we can have a DLC that take place in the past. So we enter a portal and we end up somewhere in the past and get some insights of dwemer architecture at work. Clockwork City I think it will be a dungeon like city. My hope is to see a city both underground and above ground built on several levels, featuring lots and lots of areas, some airships around etc... and some huge mountains in the Far Horizons. It doesn't have to be on Tamriel so lore won't be affected much. It could feature some conveys and lots and lots of automatic processes like crafting, hauling etc. Enhancing all of the Tamriel right now in one step might be a waste of time but doing that for further content? It will work magic. And you could also get and upgrade small portions of other zones in the process. Many things must be tracked during development and even the smallest improvement could be a disaster on long therm if it will arise problems elsewhere.

Pangnirtung

My impression after playing for a few days?

It's sooooo small.

It will be super crowded when it goes live.

deleted008293

The city or the zone?