Rich Lambert on Elder Scrolls Off the Record

tinythinker

Kudos to Mr. Lambert for taking them time for the interview last night. Didn't see it until today. There wasn't much new about anything coming out, and some answers were standard "no comment", yet he shared a bit about his own view of the game, its development, and how he likes to play. (BTW, some of us have had max rank characters on all classes a while Rich, you need to hurry up leveling that DK )

Some of the responses are the kinds of things that would be very helpful on the forums. I know there are toxic trolls and bitter players here. I get bitter sometimes, too. But if more devs took 5 minutes once per week to share a bit about what they really love about the game, how they play it, or what they think is commonly misunderstood, that would help a good bit with community relations (see this great example). Jessica, Kai, Gina, and the rest do a great job, but hearing more from the people who actually build the game is also necessary. Yes, there will be the usual flood of "what about this? what about that?" but those comments happen even without devs posting here.

The comments about cheating counter-measures, why the road ahead is kept secret, and so on were things we had already deduced. It was good to have them confirmed, but, "we know".

There will always be people who try to cheat, but honestly, knowing that "X disciplinary actions were taken this month for cheating" would help with confidence in what ZOS is doing, even if we are kept in the dark about the details. That, and please, consider listing here what is considered an exploit and having a link to people entering Cyrodiil after it is posted pointing them to it so they have no excuse not to know. If they click on accept, it means they take responsibility for keeping up with the list and the message doesn't pop up again. If they don't accept, they are booted back out of Cyro.

Yes, some people can't distinguish between "We're exploring this idea" and "OMG it's coming next week! What? It isn't? ZOS is a bunch of $%^& liars!!!" That is their problem. If they become disruptive in their over-eager ignorance give them a brief vacation from the forums. But many of us would love to offer early suggestions and feedback on ideas that are seriously being considered. Give a label for threads like "IF we did this, what would you think?" and let those who take every hint or suggestion as an eternal promise on the lives of your children wear their tinfoil hats and shout at their screens. The rest of us would love the occasional insight into what *might* be coming.

Yes, building and maintaining a game is hard. Yes, you and your employees are responsible for it even if the fixes are late or incomplete and that makes players mad. Yes, you are all super busy. That's all understood. But if we got a bit more from you guys, even just /lurks, /smirks, and /hmms, especially longer bits for 2-3 sentences or more that had the same enthusiasm and directness that some of these stream interviews had, the forums would give less of that feeling so often expressed that "devs don't care", "devs just do the minimum to take our money", or your personal favorite, "devs don't even play their own game".

Pop on by sometime and say "Howdy". Jess and Gina will keep the rowdy folks on a tight leash. In the meantime... could you offer some tips about completing VMA? Just send it in a PM

EDITED for grammar, terrible awful grammar mistakes

SienneYviete

No comment.

Anti_Virus

.....


I'll give you an insightful.

UltimaJoe777

Yeah I'm watching it now and just heard what is truly going on with Costume Dyes and ESO Plus. Well, I'm a subscriber as of Crafting Bags and, well...



Convenience is overriding more and more sense of accomplishment... I guess considering all the cheaters of every sort though on the grand scale milestones are no longer milestones huh? Well I for one refuse to use any dye I did not earn.

Lysette

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Yeah I'm watching it now and just heard what is truly going on with Costume Dyes and ESO Plus. Well, I'm a subscriber as of Crafting Bags and, well...



Convenience is overriding more and more sense of accomplishment... I guess considering all the cheaters of every sort though on the grand scale milestones are no longer milestones huh? Well I for one refuse to use any dye I did not earn.

Well, you can just use those dyes with ESO+, which you have accomplished in the game so far - that is not different from dyeing armor basically. It is not as if you will get all dye colors unlocked, you won't, you still have to earn each of those.

tinythinker

Lysette wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Yeah I'm watching it now and just heard what is truly going on with Costume Dyes and ESO Plus. Well, I'm a subscriber as of Crafting Bags and, well...



Convenience is overriding more and more sense of accomplishment... I guess considering all the cheaters of every sort though on the grand scale milestones are no longer milestones huh? Well I for one refuse to use any dye I did not earn.

Well, you can just use those dyes with ESO+, which you have accomplished in the game so far - that is not different from dyeing armor basically. It is not as if you will get all dye colors unlocked, you won't, you still have to earn each of those.

Yup, ESO+ people can only use the dyes they've unlocked, and Crown Store packs don't include rare dyes. They mentioned that on the last ESO Live.

UltimaJoe777

Lysette wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Yeah I'm watching it now and just heard what is truly going on with Costume Dyes and ESO Plus. Well, I'm a subscriber as of Crafting Bags and, well...



Convenience is overriding more and more sense of accomplishment... I guess considering all the cheaters of every sort though on the grand scale milestones are no longer milestones huh? Well I for one refuse to use any dye I did not earn.

Well, you can just use those dyes with ESO+, which you have accomplished in the game so far - that is not different from dyeing armor basically. It is not as if you will get all dye colors unlocked, you won't, you still have to earn each of those.

According to what I heard Rich say it's going to make every single dye in the game available whether you unlocked it or not, at least for costumes. Can't really speak for Armor and Shields. I thought what it was going to be though was you need ESO Plus or Crowns to dye costumes period but no it's using crowns or ESO Plus to make every dye in the game available to them. I suppose as long as Armor and Shields are not involved it's fine more or less, but still...

If I managed to hear wrong then great but I guess we'll see... If it isn't so on PTS it could change if I'm not wrong.


Edit: Ok he clarified later in the video what I originally thought and ya'll just said so it's all good. Kind of made me think otherwise the way he spoke of it at first though lol

Phinix1

I agree, OP. ZOS get a a lot of flak from people who frankly don't know the first thing about what goes into making a game of ESO's magnitude. However regardless of the imperfections I still believe it is the best MMO on the market by a significant margin, and I do get the impression that the people at ZOS are genuinely passionate about their creation.

tinythinker

Phinix1 wrote: »

I agree, OP. ZOS get a a lot of flak from people who frankly don't know the first thing about what goes into making a game of ESO's magnitude. However regardless of the imperfections I still believe it is the best MMO on the market by a significant margin, and I do get the impression that the people at ZOS are genuinely passionate about their creation.

I get annoyed/frustrated, too. Found myself a new bug tonight (at least new to me). Toppling charge to an enemy running toward a resource (flag) causes me to seem for a second to zoom out of the world before a loading screen pops up. First time the game closed with a corrupt data message. Second time the loading screen was eternal

Still, people need to know how to deal with frustration. On the other hand, less dev talk/banter on the forums just makes it easier for people to think and say the worst about ZOS.

UltimaJoe777

tinythinker wrote: »

Phinix1 wrote: »

I agree, OP. ZOS get a a lot of flak from people who frankly don't know the first thing about what goes into making a game of ESO's magnitude. However regardless of the imperfections I still believe it is the best MMO on the market by a significant margin, and I do get the impression that the people at ZOS are genuinely passionate about their creation.

I get annoyed/frustrated, too. Found myself a new bug tonight (at least new to me). Toppling charge to an enemy running toward a resource (flag) causes me to seem for a second to zoom out of the world before a loading screen pops up. First time the game closed with a corrupt data message. Second time the loading screen was eternal

Still, people need to know how to deal with frustration. On the other hand, less dev talk/banter on the forums just makes it easier for people to think and say the worst about ZOS.

Honestly after seeing this video I cannot help but wonder how many other streamers the devs get together with... If you consider that it kind of brings light to the little amount of time they spend posting here, not to mention the lack of ESO Live feeds lol

BlackEar

People already agreed to the ToS. No need to add a link when entering pvp that people won't bother to read either.

Arthg

Bitter players are bitter because they love the game.
They're just fanboys without the rose-tinted glasses.

Vaoh

I watched the entire interview with Rich Lambert

@ZOS_RichLambert Awesome. Just awesome. I never knew you worked on Oblivion (my favorite TES game) and this interview was great!

There is a lot I could say, but to put it lightly, things truly seem to get better and better for ESO and you definitely make it possible! I've played since PS4 launch, and the sheer amount of progress made since then is astounding. Keep up the pace!

SantieClaws

Khajiit has perused about half of the interview so far.

This one hopes that the second half addresses all her concerns regarding fishing and the absence of balls of yarn from Tamriel.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

ItsGlaive

Phinix1 wrote: »

I agree, OP. ZOS get a a lot of flak from people who frankly don't know the first thing about what goes into making a game of ESO's magnitude. However regardless of the imperfections I still believe it is the best MMO on the market by a significant margin, and I do get the impression that the people at ZOS are genuinely passionate about their creation.

The only time I tend to give grief is if something is intentionally ignored without proper communication. "We're still looking into it" or "we've shelved it" goes a long long way. For instance:

• The current attempts to ignore the movement speed bug which was supposed to be fixed with the last major patch.
• The rest of the improved NPC animations previewed in 2014 - we've got eyes and mouths, where's the updated NPC body language?

In terms of grief over timing, I completely agree, the community has a habit of hearing "we're working on it" or "some time in the future" and taking it to mean that something is coming right away. Not healthy for them or for ZOS.

Turelus

This is why a lot of companies do dev blogs from department leads, because it gives them a chance to speak to the community and connect a bit better.

I really like listening to the Devs talk as they're fun and good people, sadly they're locked in rooms and only standard news is allowed to be released outside of ESO Live.

ItsGlaive

Turelus wrote: »

This is why a lot of companies do dev blogs from department leads, because it gives them a chance to speak to the community and connect a bit better.

I really like listening to the Devs talk as they're fun and good people, sadly they're locked in rooms and only standard news is allowed to be released outside of ESO Live.

We had these initially. They were called 'road ahead' articles and we got one roughly every month/six weeks. Then they stopped. Then some time later the fortnightly ESO Live started, then they stopped other that when there's a DLC to promote :P

SantieClaws

Khajiit would also share her own thoughts on announcing the future.

For example this one is very pleased for One Tamriel - finally many friends can fish with this one. What is this though? Khajiit feels bad that she cannot fish with others now. Right now. So maybe she waits and does not fish so much now and waits to fish later.

Knowing of the good things to come sometimes distracts from the good things already in the present.

That was too much of the thinking for so early in the day. A drink and a nap will soon clear the mind again.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Turelus

Xabien wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This is why a lot of companies do dev blogs from department leads, because it gives them a chance to speak to the community and connect a bit better.

I really like listening to the Devs talk as they're fun and good people, sadly they're locked in rooms and only standard news is allowed to be released outside of ESO Live.

We had these initially. They were called 'road ahead' articles and we got one roughly every month/six weeks. Then they stopped. Then some time later the fortnightly ESO Live started, then they stopped other that when there's a DLC to promote :P

I enjoy ESO Live and watch them, but I do feel it doesn't really get information out in the same way Dev Blogs do. Witch a Dev Blog you can have each division lead talk about what they're doing currently or what they have done for the next update.

Jar_Ek

Not everyone has the time to watch an ESO Live. A summary of key points on the forums would be really nice.

Also it would be very, very, very nice if the devs took the time to explain the reasoning behind major changes. This does not need to be a discussion. An example of getting it wildly wrong from a PR perspective is the sorcerer Q&A thread which did not answer questions or really provide any reasons. In fact all it did was incite more anger.

tinythinker

BlackEar wrote: »

People already agreed to the ToS. No need to add a link when entering pvp that people won't bother to read either.

Not everyone knows which things ZOS considers an exploit. Not everyone uses the forums and currently there is no post with a list. Making it known that there is a list and that players are responsible for knowing what's on it takes away any excuses.

Elloa

Jar_Ek wrote: »

Not everyone has the time to watch an ESO Live. A summary of key points on the forums would be really nice.

Also it would be very, very, very nice if the devs took the time to explain the reasoning behind major changes. This does not need to be a discussion. An example of getting it wildly wrong from a PR perspective is the sorcerer Q&A thread which did not answer questions or really provide any reasons. In fact all it did was incite more anger.

That's why you need to watch my ESONews serie!

Turelus

tinythinker wrote: »

BlackEar wrote: »

People already agreed to the ToS. No need to add a link when entering pvp that people won't bother to read either.

Not everyone knows which things ZOS considers an exploit. Not everyone uses the forums and currently there is no post with a list. Making it known that there is a list and that players are responsible for knowing what's on it takes away any excuses.

That's why I keep saying to them they need to do something like this: https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/204873262-Known-Declared-Exploits

However in order to declare them they have to be ready and willing to back it up by policing it. Which hasn't been their great strength so far.

There is a whole cheating/exploits thread from ZOS where a lot of this is debated.

tinythinker

Turelus wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

BlackEar wrote: »

People already agreed to the ToS. No need to add a link when entering pvp that people won't bother to read either.

Not everyone knows which things ZOS considers an exploit. Not everyone uses the forums and currently there is no post with a list. Making it known that there is a list and that players are responsible for knowing what's on it takes away any excuses.

That's why I keep saying to them they need to do something like this: https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/204873262-Known-Declared-Exploits

However in order to declare them they have to be ready and willing to back it up by policing it. Which hasn't been their great strength so far.

There is a whole cheating/exploits thread from ZOS where a lot of this is debated.

Yeah, I've seen that thread, I was just replying to some things Rich said the other night as his view on these things is revealing.

Jessica said they are thinking about a list along the lines of the one you linked, but I have no idea what is going on with that concept for ESO or if/when it will be implemented.

As to policing, players need to have a role in that. If you stream, record and share the vid with ZOS. Even if you don't, screen caps can be effective as well. If players had more faith something would be done, more of them would help document cheating. A lot of it comes down to a credibility issue on the part of ZOS with regard to this kind of thing.