One Tamriel and the Alliance War

tinythinker

For those who don't have access to or who haven't been on the PTS since Update 12: One Tamriel went up, basically, if you start a new character you can play through the starter area like normal but when you get to the first major city (Davon's Watch, Glenumbra, or Vukhel Guard) you can open up the map at the wayshrine and go to either of the other two to start adventuring in another Alliance. That's part of the "go anywhere right away" aspect of One Tamriel. You can get to other zones mounted on or foot. You might even be able to go to the other Alliances from the starter island wayshrine and skip the rest but I forgot to check.

There is no explanation, though, in the game, for why you have such unrestricted movement. I would need to quest all the way though the main story of the five companions (no spoilers given below) on the PTS and talk to the person who used to send you to other Alliances to figure out what has changed in terms of Silver and Gold, but, in any event, apparently it's no big deal to have citizens or even soldiers (if you join the Alliance War) from a different Alliance just wandering undisguised in enemy territory.

Some players won't care about that, some will find it odd, and some will be annoyed. But essentially you are irrelevant to the war, and it is irrelevant to you, unless you travel to Cyrodiil by pressing L (or whatever it is console players press). I mean, NPCs will still talk about the war, and you will still be the champion of each Alliance you quest through, and while questing you will still foil the plans of other Alliances, but, apparently, everyone else will have a constantly shifting case of collective amnesia, unless there is something that comes up plot-wise much further along that retroactively explains how you can just go anywhere in a time of civil war.

In any case, it does raise a question in my mind, namely, "Why are we stuck with the Alliance we chose in character creation?"

Let me state I am not suggesting players should be able to purchase an Alliance War Allegiance Change Token in the Crown Store. But, we had the lead combat designer mention that many class changes over the last several months were due to people picking a class because it looked or sounded cool but then realizing it was really bad at or hard to play for a particular role (i.e. tank, healer, damage dealer). Fair enough. Maybe you even thought you wanted to be a tank but didn't like it and wish you could heal the party on your Dragonknight. So now you can. In the same way, after you get a chance to play as a particular race you may regret your choice at character selection. There is now a remedy for that in the Crown Store.

A choice could also be offered with regard to your (primary) Alliance. Let a player try out, if they wish, some or all of the story in each Alliance. But they are not yet assigned to one permanently in terms of the Alliance War when they first enter Tamriel. Upon reaching level 10, the player gains the option of visiting a recruiter and signing up to fight, enabling the L button (or whatever you use) to work. There is already a Covenant recruiter NPC outside the east gate of Daggerfall, for example, but he just says he needs more soldiers. The player could have a dialogue option added to that conversation to indicate a desire to enlist, including a red "this decision is permanent" kind of text prompt to make sure you don't make the commitment by accident. A similar recruiter could be placed outside of Davon's Watch and Vulkhel Guard for those wishing to represent one of those Alliances. All three recruiters would be present from the start, but the enlistment dialogue option would simply be unavailable prior to level 10.

In this way, you can if you wish get a feel for each Alliance story-wise prior to picking the one you wish to represent. Once chosen, the decision becomes irreversible. If you just want to play through your starting Alliance and enlist with it as soon as you hit level 10, you can. You don't have to explore the others (or even enlist at all). But this would give players the option to do so.

k9mouse

For me when I play silver and gold, I pretend that my char was made to the faction that I am doing quest in. On my EP char, when I was doing DC, I will pretend that my char was made in DC. Now I am in AD, and now my char is a AD one.

I wonder how One Tamriel will change the balance of players in PVP zones? Certain races are more popular than others, they more players will make those races now. Does that mean that other factions will get smaller in number of players in them?

UltimaJoe777

Just because we have enemies doesn't mean we can't go undercover to their homelands

Double agent yo.

tinythinker

k9mouse wrote: »

For me when I play silver and gold, I pretend that my char was made to the faction that I am doing quest in. On my EP char, when I was doing DC, I will pretend that my char was made in DC. Now I am in AD, and now my char is a AD one.

Oh sure. I'm not suggesting people can't have their own internal story. And as I said, some (probably most) people won't care about the change in mobility not having an story that explains it.

k9mouse wrote: »

I wonder how One Tamriel will change the balance of players in PVP zones? Certain races are more popular than others, they more players will make those races now. Does that mean that other factions will get smaller in number of players in them?

People can buy the "any race in any alliance" option, so if a race is popular it will show up more in all Alliances in the war. I always earn the slayer achievements for certain races faster no matter which side I am fighting for because there are some really popular PvP races that pop up in each faction. I do wonder though if people had a chance to sample each Alliance whether they would decide to fight for a banner other than the one they chose at character creation. Maybe they decide that the Dominion is dull or the Ayrenn is boring. Or they see what an Alliance does to members of another faction and decide to fight for someone else. That could cause a shift in population as well in Cyrodiil, but probably only a very small one.

tinythinker

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Just because we have enemies doesn't mean we can't go undercover to their homelands

Double agent yo.

True, but, walking around without a disguise while being the famous champion of an enemy Alliance isn't undercover. Again, many players won't care either way, and others will pretend whatever they wish. But considering that you end up foiling the plots of your home Alliance, you are kind of a crappy undercover agent

In any case, the point was that this got me thinking that now there is no reason to not let people choose who to enlist with after they reach level 10 if they decide they want to fight in the war.

UltimaJoe777

tinythinker wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Just because we have enemies doesn't mean we can't go undercover to their homelands

Double agent yo.

True, but, walking around without a disguise while being the famous champion of an enemy Alliance isn't undercover. Again, many players won't care either way, and others will pretend whatever they wish. But considering that you end up foiling the plots of your home Alliance, you are kind of a crappy undercover agent

In any case, the point was that this got me thinking that now there is no reason to not let people choose who to enlist with after they reach level 10 if they decide they want to fight in the war.

At first though you're not that champion... Also who says we can't use the alliances for our own plans to rule Tamriel as Emperor/Empress

Doctordarkspawn

S'very simple.

Guild membership. Guilds are inherently neutral and the guild dailies take you to all three alliances. And why wouldn't they? The guilds are neutral organizations working to what all three alliances can probably agree are the betterment of tamriel. Why would they stop a guy from the fighters guild from going to go do his job, take care of crap -for- them, likely do some random adventuring along the way and solving even more of their problems?

tinythinker

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

S'very simple.

Guild membership. Guilds are inherently neutral and the guild dailies take you to all three alliances. And why wouldn't they? The guilds are neutral organizations working to what all three alliances can probably agree are the betterment of tamriel. Why would they stop a guy from the fighters guild from going to go do his job, take care of crap -for- them, likely do some random adventuring along the way and solving even more of their problems?

Technically you don't need to join a guild to travel Tamriel in the new system but that's also a good story people can use. There are lots of possible stories explaining the new mobility, and many players won't want or need one, which is also cool.

ArchMikem

tinythinker wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Just because we have enemies doesn't mean we can't go undercover to their homelands

Double agent yo.

True, but, walking around without a disguise while being the famous champion of an enemy Alliance isn't undercover. Again, many players won't care either way, and others will pretend whatever they wish. But considering that you end up foiling the plots of your home Alliance, you are kind of a crappy undercover agent

When the update goes live, there are going to be players casually riding Ebonheart Pact War Horses in Dominion territory and vice versa. Apparently in order to make the playerbase happy, Lore and Immersion is getting chucked out the window.

tinythinker

ArchMikem wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Just because we have enemies doesn't mean we can't go undercover to their homelands

Double agent yo.

True, but, walking around without a disguise while being the famous champion of an enemy Alliance isn't undercover. Again, many players won't care either way, and others will pretend whatever they wish. But considering that you end up foiling the plots of your home Alliance, you are kind of a crappy undercover agent

When the update goes live, there are going to be players casually riding Ebonheart Pact War Horses in Dominion territory and vice versa. Apparently in order to make the playerbase happy, Lore and Immersion is getting chucked out the window.

Some players will create their own sense of immersion, but as far as the official story goes, ZOS apparently prefers a bit of a plot hole to not lifting the restrictions on players interaction in PvE. I mean, it would have been a small thing to write a little extra dialogue explaining the situation and giving an out that replaces the excuse used in the original story line, but honestly many players will probably not even notice the discrepancy.

tinythinker

From a different thread...

Enodoc wrote: »

Disappointed to see that there is absolutely no explanation given for why we are able to travel to other alliance territories and quest in each one without being recognised in the others as a Champion of one alliance. On its own, this wouldn't be an issue, but that now directly conflicts with the explanation given in Cadwell's Silver, which remains completely unchanged, and also conflicts with Messages Across Tamriel, where you are introduced to the other alliance leaders for the first time as the champion of your alliance, and met with distrust by those leaders whom you may have already been helping.

On that note, we were specifically told that “Silver" and “gold" versions of zones will be replaced by Cadwell quest storylines that you can do in any order you wish. This is not true. Cadwell's Silver and Gold have not been replaced, and you cannot do them in any order you wish; you still have to complete the Main Quest before you are given Silver, and you still have to complete Silver before you get Gold.

If we were able to do them "in any order you wish", they would both be given at the same time. If the story is to make sense, even if the Cadwell quests themselves do not unlock until later, the reasoning needs to be given as soon as you can enter the other alliance territories, which is now right at the beginning of the game.

Even if ZOS doesn't want to give their own explanation for why characters are so mobile in the context of being an Alliance champion in the midst of a civil war, it looks like the old dialogue and quest mechanics have been left in place and could be confusing to new players.

And again, I recommend that it would make sense to let players choose which Alliance to fight for after they hit level 10 in the new system being put out. If there is going to be flexibility then use it to give players a more informed choice. With Update 12 they can play with/make friends with people of different Alliances and try out the questlines in different Alliances right out of the Wailing Prison. No need to lock them into a forced choice at character creation.

Beardimus

I do get what you ate saying here, I only part 'rpg' it stuff like that I do like to make sense, I worried about silver / gold till I got there and its part explained. Not the best reason buy it covers it.

It's really confusing then if there is no lore / side story to cover it. I mean I'm EP and early on in the questline you have a shindig with convenant forces so immediately a blue would.need yo be a traitor, but then go back to DC land and fight the fight.

With all the million lines of lore books written in the game im suprised there's not a line to cover this huge simplification of the game...

Why not leave it the same but let all home alliance zones scale then let you move on after your alliance quest ends. Who knows

Erelah

I think in this discussion you are ignoring the gaping plot hole pre Tamriel One of the alliance war. Why does a player ever get crowned Emperor? To me it makes a lot more sense if Emperor <player name> travels through all the Tamriel. After all in the alliance war we are not fighting for the head of the Pact, Covenant, or anyone else. For some reason the player is crowned Emperor.

I do not see the NPC armies fighting either just a great number of adventurers not under the control of anyone. So in returning to the original question from a LORE standpoint how does the player travel around? They hop on a merchant ship and lacking 21st century technology of a customs with a finger print ID system, or facial reorganization software they are let into each zone easily. Even in the 4th era it is difficult to catch zone one crossing over the boarders.

tinythinker

Beardimus wrote: »

Why not leave it the same but let all home alliance zones scale then let you move on after your alliance quest ends. Who knows

A lot of players complained about not being able to play with their friends in other Alliances. Some thought an Elder Scrolls game should let you go where you want when you want. And then there was the issue that a high level player rarely went back to low level zones because you got little xp, no challenge, and low level players got mad if you one-shot the mobs. Opening up the game was the solution to all three issues.

The problem with it on the PTS is that the story wasn't adjusted. As Enodoc wrote, *if* there is going to be an explanation about being able to go where you want during the war, it has to come at the beginning now. Leaving the old explanation in an having it come way later in the game no longer makes sense.

tinythinker

Erelah wrote: »

I think in this discussion you are ignoring the gaping plot hole pre Tamriel One of the alliance war. Why does a player ever get crowned Emperor? To me it makes a lot more sense if Emperor <player name> travels through all the Tamriel. After all in the alliance war we are not fighting for the head of the Pact, Covenant, or anyone else. For some reason the player is crowned Emperor.

That's a vanity thing. It doesn't mean that lore-wise the player-character is actually accepted by all as the Emp. It's propaganda by their Alliance since they managed to surround the Imperial City. Mechanics-wise it's an achievement and a goal for PvPers.

Erelah wrote: »

I do not see the NPC armies fighting either just a great number of adventurers not under the control of anyone. So in returning to the original question from a LORE standpoint how does the player travel around? They hop on a merchant ship and lacking 21st century technology of a customs with a finger print ID system, or facial reorganization software they are let into each zone easily. Even in the 4th era it is difficult to catch zone one crossing over the boarders.

Except that you aren't just anyone. You become your Alliance's Champion, and even the other monarchs have heard of your legendary exploits, which is why...

they let you visit them and propose the meeting on Stirk despite the fact that you are considered a dangerous foe.

So why is the greatest Champion of an enemy Alliance becoming the confidant and the Champion of a different Alliance? And foiling the schemes of their original Alliance? Why are they not recognized right away and why would they be trusted? This is a much bigger plot hole that the Emp stuff.

Even if they change it so that you can do Silver and Gold in any order like they said they would, and players do a bit of each Alliance at a time, the incongruity doesn't go away unless some explanation is given after you leave the Wailing Prison similar to what you are given in the current story for Silver and Gold.

Aquanova

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

k9mouse

Aquanova wrote: »

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

My guess is databased keys is blocking ZOS from doing that.

RavenRoxie

Honestly, I am not one who normally gives a flying Mr.Potatoe Head about the eso "lore" and all that. BUT, I agree with the OP. I have not had a chance to get on PTS just yet, however my brain hurts just thinking about all this, where the alliance war is concerned.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of being able to go wherever, whenever. But, the lack of story to all this just makes it confusing imo.. I almost expected them to do sort of like wow does with one tamerial... Like, yeah you can go to enemy territory but you better sneak the hell around or you might get ganked. But, this whole everyone loves one another and everyone can skip through all the trees together holding hands is um..... speshul. Perhaps I am missing something here though... But, I do think if they are going to let enemy alliances hang out together there should be some sort of story behind all this. Great, extreme changes in our world usually come with a story. Eso should be the same.

UltimaJoe777

Aquanova wrote: »

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

It's not about faction change, it's about the official lore making sense with One Tamriel.

tinythinker

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

It's not about faction change, it's about the official lore making sense with One Tamriel.

That lore/story confusion is part of it. The other part, the Alliance faction issue I raised, is simply this: if we can visit any Alliance at level 3, then let people choose the one they want to fight for at or after level 10.

New players choose a faction before they can play the game, and prior to One Tamriel, could only experience their faction first and PvE with others from their faction (except for recently allowing mixed dungeon groups). Now new players can go anywhere, meet and team up with people from any Alliance, and learn about the lore/story of each Alliance right out of the gate. Hence, I am all for picking a side in the War and sticking with it, but now that new players have a chance to make an informed choice, give them that choice.

As for the lore issue, as I and Enodoc mentioned, it leaves an unnecessary gaping plot hole. The original excuse for Silver and Gold was simple and you could just go "OK, sure...whatever". But that excuse no longer makes sense in the new context, especially if it doesn't pop up until you compete the original storyline. If ZOS wants to remove the old story, OK. If they want to keep it, OK. If they want to replace it, OK. But any story ZOS is going to offer explaining why player characters can go anywhere at anytime needs to come, at least in part, at the beginning of the game since total mobility also now comes at the beginning

UltimaJoe777

tinythinker wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

It's not about faction change, it's about the official lore making sense with One Tamriel.

That lore/story confusion is part of it. The other part, the Alliance faction issue I raised, is simply this: if we can visit any Alliance at level 3, then let people choose the one they want to fight for at or after level 10.

New players choose a faction before they can play the game, and prior to One Tamriel, could only experience their faction first and PvE with others from their faction (except for recently allowing mixed dungeon groups). Now new players can go anywhere, meet and team up with people from any Alliance, and learn about the lore/story of each Alliance right out of the gate. Hence, I am all for picking a side in the War and sticking with it, but now that new players have a chance to make an informed choice, give them that choice.

As for the lore issue, as I and Enodoc mentioned, it leaves an unnecessary gaping plot hole. The original excuse for Silver and Gold was simple and you could just go "OK, sure...whatever". But that excuse no longer makes sense in the new context, especially if it doesn't pop up until you compete the original storyline. If ZOS wants to remove the old story, OK. If they want to keep it, OK. If they want to replace it, OK. But any story ZOS is going to offer explaining why player characters can go anywhere at anytime needs to come, at least in part, at the beginning of the game since total mobility also now comes at the beginning

Problem with that is it completely destroys the purpose of any race, any alliance. Not THAT big a deal to those who purchased Imperial Edition and didn't have to purchase it from the Crown Store but still...

timidobserver

Fortunately for me, I don't really care about lore, I agree that the way they did it makes no sense. Rather than making it an unexplained game mechanic change, they should have had some kind of story changing event(like Wow Cataclysm) that justifies the change.

The idea in this thread is decent, but allowing a faction change/selection system will not work unless they have cutoffs based on population like GW2 to keep things balanced.

tinythinker

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

So basically OP your asking for "Faction Change"

I been asking for this for over a year now. Idk wtf is stopping them.

Lore? No, all the factions exist on a Pangea like super continent that one race or Faction could literally walk from one end of to the other.

Secondly, their are mixed races in all the factions so restrictions based on race are not valid.

I suspect they will eventually allow this in a future update but why the heck not now with this update?

It's not about faction change, it's about the official lore making sense with One Tamriel.

That lore/story confusion is part of it. The other part, the Alliance faction issue I raised, is simply this: if we can visit any Alliance at level 3, then let people choose the one they want to fight for at or after level 10.

New players choose a faction before they can play the game, and prior to One Tamriel, could only experience their faction first and PvE with others from their faction (except for recently allowing mixed dungeon groups). Now new players can go anywhere, meet and team up with people from any Alliance, and learn about the lore/story of each Alliance right out of the gate. Hence, I am all for picking a side in the War and sticking with it, but now that new players have a chance to make an informed choice, give them that choice.

As for the lore issue, as I and Enodoc mentioned, it leaves an unnecessary gaping plot hole. The original excuse for Silver and Gold was simple and you could just go "OK, sure...whatever". But that excuse no longer makes sense in the new context, especially if it doesn't pop up until you compete the original storyline. If ZOS wants to remove the old story, OK. If they want to keep it, OK. If they want to replace it, OK. But any story ZOS is going to offer explaining why player characters can go anywhere at anytime needs to come, at least in part, at the beginning of the game since total mobility also now comes at the beginning

Problem with that is it completely destroys the purpose of any race, any alliance. Not THAT big a deal to those who purchased Imperial Edition and didn't have to purchase it from the Crown Store but still...

Or ZOS could only allow you to sign up with another Alliance if you are the wrong race by purchasing either "any race, any alliance" or a race change. Honestly, though, One Tamriel is already breaking down any real Alliance differences that still persisted anyway between choosing one Alliance over another, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that "race by faction" restriction lifted anyway. But if they want to limit those differences to the Alliance War but make them count, I have some ideas...

tinythinker

timidobserver wrote: »

Fortunately for me, I don't really care about lore, I agree that the way they did it makes no sense. Rather than making it an unexplained game mechanic change, they should have had some kind of story changing event(like Wow Cataclysm) that justifies the change.

The idea in this thread is decent, but allowing a faction change/selection system will not work unless they have cutoffs based on population like GW2 to keep things balanced.

Yeah, I mean, some people won't care about lore, but, at the same time, even if you are just trying to follow/make sense of the story there should be some kind of consistency and a brief explanation of what the Oblivion is going on.

I get what you mean about faction imbalance, but that can happen now anyway. I don't disagree with you, but I think another way to spread people out is to implement faction pride measures as mentioned in my comment just above this one.

Adernath

tinythinker wrote: »

Yeah, I mean, some people won't care about lore, but, at the same time, even if you are just trying to follow/make sense of the story there should be some kind of consistency and a brief explanation of what the Oblivion is going on.

I get what you mean about faction imbalance, but that can happen now anyway. I don't disagree with you, but I think another way to spread people out is to implement faction pride measures as mentioned in my comment just above this one.

I totally agree with you. IMO they should not let you move freely around to other alliances if you joined the alliance war.

I'd prefer more faction pride, and I know a game made in 2004 who made it right ...

Enodoc

As I alluded to in the PTS thread, I don't see much of an issue with the lore of these things individually. It makes sense that "a citizen" is not bound by Alliance borders. The issue comes when you apply the new changes to the lore that already exists, which is what they have done. You then have conflicting logic between how those story quests are introduced, and how you have been playing the game.

Skinzz

Well the game is getting filtered down to casual/convinience status and i wouldnt be surprised if alliance/class change is coming up next... good by eso. 80% of the people i play with are pretty much gone now.

Mojmir

Why does there have to be an explanation? Your in a fantasy world, make one up.

Enodoc

Mojmir wrote: »

Why does there have to be an explanation? Your in a fantasy world, make one up.

Why do so many people (including ZOS) think this is a valid solution? Anything made up by a player is non-canonical. The only way the official, canonical story can be recorded (either by in-game historians for the purposes of future lore, or by real-world information sites for purposes of game documentation) is if that official story exists. The official, canonical story cannot be written right now, as it contradicts itself and makes no sense.

americansteel

Enodoc wrote: »

As I alluded to in the PTS thread, I don't see much of an issue with the lore of these things individually. It makes sense that "a citizen" is not bound by Alliance borders. The issue comes when you apply the new changes to the lore that already exists, which is what they have done. You then have conflicting logic between how those story quests are introduced, and how you have been playing the game.

ESO has broken lore many times progressing through the quests.

no one in auridon would know that my nord templar was slaughtering elves in the 3 banners war unless i told them,

there are bretons and altmer in the EP zones

orcs and dunmer in AD

nords in DC

no one is bound by borders unless you have a uniform on.

one tamriel should should have been here since launch, choose a faction for the pvp aspect.

Mojmir

Enodoc wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

Why does there have to be an explanation? Your in a fantasy world, make one up.

Why do so many people (including ZOS) think this is a valid solution? Anything made up by a player is non-canonical. The only way the official, canonical story can be recorded (either by in-game historians for the purposes of future lore, or by real-world information sites for purposes of game documentation) is if that official story exists. The official, canonical story cannot be written right now, as it contradicts itself and makes no sense.

cause it's a video game, BTW the company who makes the game can dictate whatever lore they want. Some people take gaming waaaaay to serious.