Announcement?

Cazzy

Just wondering - are we going to get an official word or announcement for ZOS regarding the latest IGN article?

For those who haven't read it: http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2016/06/15/e3-2016-the-elder-scrolls-online-to-receive-new-dungeons-customisation-and-housing-dlc

Speaking to IGN, game director Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop would arrive in August, while the much-requested addition of player housing would be added in "the first quarter of next year".
Developer Zenimax announced the content barrier-collapsing One Tamriel update and a console release for the Dark Brotherhood DLC at Bethesda's E3 showcase.
Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited Official Dark Brotherhood - Blood Will Flow Trailer
Firor says that Zenimax is aiming to release multiple, smaller DLC packs to cater to players who return to the game intermittently, creating something akin to 'episodes' for the game:
"It’s interesting to see what happens when you take away the subscription model away," Firor explained. "You don’t see a hardcore playstyle - like playing for six months and then quitting - we don’t see that. We have a lot of players who will play for two or three weeks because they want to get through a zone and then stop. Then they come back two months later for another month, because there’s no pressure to play all of it at once.
"Our DLC packs cater to that, because they’re smaller, bite-size chunks of story and associated quests."

I'm sure everything is true as IGN aren't known for false reports, but I thought we'd be told first - through official channels? Or at least immediately after.

Also, what Matt said about the audience ZOS are catering to (intermittent players) - isn't that a bit risky? I mean, some players leave due to bugs and lack of content. Offering "bite-sized" DLC may not be enough for those loyal fans. Of course it depends how small we're talking, I'm not expecting ZOS to work 24/7 for content when there's other things to be done. I'm just worried loyal, long-term fans aren't having their voices heard.

Any chance we can have reassurance and an official word regarding the article? Maybe a little something extra for us ESO buffs?

JD2013

5th topic on this article and growing!

BGruchallab14_ESO

Old News is Good news?.?.?.

Cazzy

JD2013 wrote: »

5th topic on this article and growing!

Good!

In all seriousness, I wanted to make sure the topic was taken seriously. Mine kinda throws it all together and asks for a response. The same but different (so it shouldn't get deleted)

BGruchallab14_ESO

Won't get Deleted, will just get Locked by the Devs

technohic

Personally; for all the "I quit" threads and posts going around; I find they are luring me back with One Tamriel and a barber shop. Housing is not a big thing for me personally but its kind of cool.

I would be more excited if they announced they finally figured out their servers and Cyrodiil and if I thought they would be less buggy but; meh. All MMOs have issues. Just a matter of which issues bug you most. Until there is a viable siege PvP game otherwise that isn't a Korean grinder, it will have to do.

Shadesofkin

"we don't see that"

My sub has never lapsed and I've never taken a break longer than 2 weeks, apparently they aren't looking hard enough.

Tiedän

Cazzy wrote: »

Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop

One positive tidbit: I hope this is referencing Murkmire!

GET HYPE!!

mtwiggz

Fix performance issues.
Fix latency issues.
Fix this "animation priority" change in last DLC, it's bad.
Actually balance classes and abilities.

Do these things then give us the aesthetic changes/content.

lolo_01b16_ESO

Shadesofkin wrote: »

"we don't see that"

My sub has never lapsed and I've never taken a break longer than 2 weeks, apparently they aren't looking hard enough.

Maybe accounts that played more than 4 weeks in a row become invisable. This would partially explain why only 6 out of my latest 50 and 0 out of my latest 20 bug reports are solved.

Enodoc

Tiedän wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop

One positive tidbit: I hope this is referencing Murkmire!

GET HYPE!!

Sounds more like they've taken the dungeon content they initially designed for Murkmire and have pulled it out to release separately.

Loralai_907

I agree, do not get too much hype yet. That doesn't sound like the original content idea to me.

I saw that article, and thought what the heck? I can't be the only one that has played long term, why are they saying this? The only thing I can come up with is it is now what they intend for the game. Which makes me kind of sad.

Birdovic

Enodoc wrote: »

Tiedän wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop

One positive tidbit: I hope this is referencing Murkmire!

GET HYPE!!

Sounds more like they've taken the dungeon content they initially designed for Murkmire and have pulled it out to release separately.

I call "Ruins of Mazzatun" and "Cradle of Shadows"

jeevin

Matt Firor doesn't understand that the players come back occasionally to see if the lag or bugs or broken elements to the game have been fixed. It's not that they want bite sized chunks to play, it's that they don't want to play a broken, laggy game.

Turelus

Enodoc wrote: »

Tiedän wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop

One positive tidbit: I hope this is referencing Murkmire!

GET HYPE!!

Sounds more like they've taken the dungeon content they initially designed for Murkmire and have pulled it out to release separately.

That or the Shadowfen dungeon has a vet mode now. That's DLC worthy content right?

Enodoc

Turelus wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Tiedän wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

Matt Firor confirmed that an Argonian Dungeon Pack and character customising barber shop

One positive tidbit: I hope this is referencing Murkmire!

GET HYPE!!

Sounds more like they've taken the dungeon content they initially designed for Murkmire and have pulled it out to release separately.

That or the Shadowfen dungeon has a vet mode now. That's DLC worthy content right?

Hmm..... that's theoretically the next one in line for getting a Vet version, right? Maybe the "Argonian Dungeon Pack" adds Vet Arx as part of the Base Game Update, and "Ruins of Mazzatun" and "Cradle of Shadows" as the DLC content.

ADarklore

Is anyone else concerned that, at surface level, ESO seems to be taking the DCUO approach to future content? This is disturbing to me because what it meant over at DCUO is that if you only played one type of content, which for me was solo content, you'd be left waiting several months before any content you actually enjoyed was added to the game, which was one of the biggest reasons I left DCUO. Since ESO has a majority of solo players, this is my concern because DCUO screwed over solo players with their "episodic" content releases... I don't want to see the same thing here.

Imagine... monthly we might get a new quest, maybe a delve, perhaps a dungeon... but no LARGE content like Orsinium... just pieces of content but nothing significant.

Does anyone else think the timing of this IGN article is a bit off... first he announces 'One Tamriel' and then announces 'small packs of content'... what this tells me is that the majority of their already small development team will be focused on One Tamriel while a tiny team works on content. Then how they shamefully 'blame' the shift on Casuals... they know darn well how much angst the term 'casual' brings to MMOs... they see it daily in their forums... and now if you don't like the new focus 'blame casuals' is seemingly their motto. Makes me believe they are trying to shift our focus away from ZOS itself, and instead focus our ire on 'casuals'... when in reality, our focus should be on ZOS and their apparently small team of developers who aren't enough to work on 'One Tamriel' and 'new content' at the same time. This of course would take us back to the first two years of ESO on PC... the 'waiting for content game' while ZOS finishes their game for consoles. Consoles are released, now we're back playing the waiting game while ZOS works on 'finishing their game' once again. *sigh*

Enodoc

I wonder if his comment has just been misinterpreted. I don't think this is really a change in the direction ZOS are taking with DLC, I think it's just restating what we have already known since the DLC model was first announced with TU.

Nifty2g

Firor explained. "You don’t see a hardcore playstyle - like playing for six months and then quitting - we don’t see that. We have a lot of players who will play for two or three weeks because they want to get through a zone and then stop. Then they come back two months later for another month, because there’s no pressure to play all of it at once.
"Our DLC packs cater to that, because they’re smaller, bite-size chunks of story and associated quests."

I see my signature is meaningless then, and to all the people involved, it's meaningless too seeing as we aren't getting content made for us and having it all scaled down and nerfed.

What's going on Zenimax?

Turelus

Enodoc wrote: »

I wonder if his comment has just been misinterpreted. I don't think this is really a change in the direction ZOS are taking with DLC, I think it's just restating what we have already known since the DLC model was first announced with TU.

TBH I normally take these kinds of interviews as fluff stuff to keep the investors happy. They're never actually interesting or insightful just a bunch of stoked up we're awesome and some random game information which turns out nothing like reported.

I should also say I am a hugely grumpy cynic...

Wollust

Oh come on guys we always knew that ZoS doesn't care about anything besides the casual playerbase.

No need to feel particularly offended now. At least Firor is for once being honest. I appreciate it. Kinda. I guess.

Junipus

Cazzy wrote: »

Firor says that Zenimax is aiming to release multiple, smaller DLC packs to cater to players who return to the game intermittently, creating something akin to 'episodes' for the game:
"Our DLC packs cater to that, because they’re smaller, bite-size chunks of story and associated quests."

That's their target audience because it's players who spend real money on new content, tend to buy the set packs for more crowns/money and aren't as vocal on the ongoing issues of bugs, cheats or exploits. They'll play the game for a week for the new content then leave to go play other games and not realise how broken this one is.

ADarklore

Enodoc wrote: »

I wonder if his comment has just been misinterpreted. I don't think this is really a change in the direction ZOS are taking with DLC, I think it's just restating what we have already known since the DLC model was first announced with TU.

I don't think so... note Matt DID NOT say, "small DLC packs like TG or DB"... thus to me this means a new direction. "Argonian Dungeon Pack"... we certainly didn't have "Thieves Guild pack" or "Dark Brotherhood pack"... the 'dungeon pack' tells me they're going to throw us a couple of dungeons but nothing like TG or DB. I hope I'm wrong, but the fact that he talked about 'episodes' which certainly doesn't reflect TG or DB. But do you honestly believe that they have a large enough staff of developers that they can work on basically revamping the alliance zones AND work on new content similar to TG and DB at the same time?!?

altemriel

hmm, good info is that the barber shop is comming in August, but the Argonian dungeon pack, sounds weird, I wonder what that will be...why "Argonian"?

Might be that it will be located in some part of Black Marsh, hopefully the content will look at least a little similar to the Murkmire announcement videos...

As I remember, that originally Murkmire was supposed to come as an Adventure zone, similar to Cragorn. Which was pretty much a failure in terms that it is now only a grinding zone for groups...might be, that the content, which was supposed to be Murkmire, will now be splitted into separate smaller DLCs, smaller parts of Murkmire, which they now call "Argonian dungeon pack"

Idinuse

JD2013 wrote: »

5th topic on this article and growing!

inb4lock. Wait... who am I kidding >.<

ADarklore

altemriel wrote: »

hmm, good info is that the barber shop is comming in August, but the Argonian dungeon pack, sounds weird, I wonder what that will be...why "Argonian"?

Might be that it will be located in some part of Black Marsh, hopefully the content will look at least a little similar to the Murkmire announcement videos...

As I remember, that originally Murkmire was supposed to come as an Adventure zone, similar to Cragorn. Which was pretty much a failure in terms that it is now only a grinding zone for groups...might be, that the content, which was supposed to be Murkmire, will now be splitted into separate smaller DLCs, smaller parts of Murkmire, which they now call "Argonian dungeon pack"

I am hoping during this whole revamp for 'One Tamriel' that they revamp Craglorn to make the quests all soloable without multiple switches and perhaps because of their new 'we don't want to separate people from zones/content' policy that it also means we won't be seeing anymore "group only" zones.

Reverb

Sounds like those of us who subscribe and play daily aren't their target customer. We're not worth developing for (either bug fixes or new content). Putting development effort into attracting customers that play a little bit every now and then seems short sighted.

I don't actually have a problem with small, frequent DLC releases, it's just the phrasing used by Matt in that article makes cringe. Drawing former or "casual" players back in is important, but it needs to be done without being dismissive of those who are here day in and day out.

altemriel

ADarklore wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

hmm, good info is that the barber shop is comming in August, but the Argonian dungeon pack, sounds weird, I wonder what that will be...why "Argonian"?

Might be that it will be located in some part of Black Marsh, hopefully the content will look at least a little similar to the Murkmire announcement videos...

As I remember, that originally Murkmire was supposed to come as an Adventure zone, similar to Cragorn. Which was pretty much a failure in terms that it is now only a grinding zone for groups...might be, that the content, which was supposed to be Murkmire, will now be splitted into separate smaller DLCs, smaller parts of Murkmire, which they now call "Argonian dungeon pack"

I am hoping during this whole revamp for 'One Tamriel' that they revamp Craglorn to make the quests all soloable without multiple switches and perhaps because of their new 'we don't want to separate people from zones/content' policy that it also means we won't be seeing anymore "group only" zones.

I agree with you. and also I hope that Murkmire was not cancelled and it will come one day, as it looks really great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGANBTnrSHM

http://ladynerevar.tumblr.com/post/92632234189/elder-scrolls-online-murkmire-concept-art-again

Defilted

I find that this part of the interview is the most interesting

"Firor explained. "You don’t see a hardcore playstyle - like playing for six months and then quitting - we don’t see that".

I have played this game at least 3 to 5 times a week at 1 to 5 hour periods every week since XBOX launched on June 9th last year. I have subbed the entire time as well and still do.

Am I really alone and there is no one else out there playing the game like me? I see the same people online when I am online so I know this cannot be the case.

I know they have analytic data on the play times, and all other information meta's to look at. Do you really think the players like myself or players who are playing the game even more are the 1%?

Zheg

jeevin wrote: »

Matt Firor doesn't understand that the players come back occasionally to see if the lag or bugs or broken elements to the game have been fixed. It's not that they want bite sized chunks to play, it's that they don't want to play a broken, laggy game.

This needs to be printed out and taped to the back of all the bathroom stall doors at the ZOS office.

As an aside, I was hoping there was a different kind of IGN article being linked, it's probably one of the few things that could happen that would actually give ZOS incentive to change their moronic policies.

Sausage

I also would like to know what happened to Q4 update? So are we just gonna skip Christmas DLC.