Expansion coming in 2017? (Random thoughts)

JD2013

Okay, so, sorry for my second thread of the day!

I have been postulating a lot, and I think it is highly possible that we may be getting a proper expansion in 2017. Hear me out.

So, I looked at the map for ESO, and I concluded that the Vvardenfell landmass is AROUND the same size as Rivenspire and Stormhaven, with a little chunk of Wrothgar in there too. I even tested it out by cutting and pasting. Here is the map:



Here it is annotated:



Given that we know Vvardenfell is in the files, and has been for a couple of updates, it leads me to wonder why they are holding onto it. What if they are releasing a Morrowind themed expansion in 2017? Morrowind also came with Clockwork City (With the Tribuneral expansion,) which is, thanks to a warning from an old friend at the end of Orsinium, going to be an important story point soon.

They also have switched their position in the beginning of proper expansions from a "no" to a "maybe" (I am sure I saw this in a couple of recent interviews etc.)

Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind coming in 2017? Full blown expansion with Vvardenfell and Clockwork City? It would certainly be good money for them, as we know, WoW expansions sell for the same price as a fully fledged AAA game.

Merely my thoughts, whether it turns out to be true or not!

jedtb16_ESO

new lands to discovery. interesting inhabitants and wild life to kill.....

where do i sign?

JD2013

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

new lands to discovery. interesting inhabitants and wild life to kill.....

where do i sign?

Wondering that myself! haha.

SHADOW2KK

Give me Vvardenfell, played many a hour on Morrowind way back when lol

JD2013

SHADOW2KK wrote: »

Give me Vvardenfell, played many a hour on Morrowind way back when lol

Agreed! It's definitely in the files!

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2016/05/datamining-vvardenfell/

SHADOW2KK

JD2013 wrote: »

SHADOW2KK wrote: »

Give me Vvardenfell, played many a hour on Morrowind way back when lol

Agreed! It's definitely in the files!

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2016/05/datamining-vvardenfell/

Aye, cannot wait lol

Elsonso

JD2013 wrote: »

Given that we know Vvardenfell is in the files, and has been for a couple of updates, it leads me to wonder why they are holding onto it. What if they are releasing a Morrowind themed expansion in 2017? Morrowind also came with Clockwork City (With the Tribuneral expansion,) which is, thanks to a warning from an old friend at the end of Orsinium, going to be an important story point soon.

They also have switched their position in the beginning of proper expansions from a "no" to a "maybe" (I am sure I saw this in a couple of recent interviews etc.)

Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind coming in 2017? Full blown expansion with Vvardenfell and Clockwork City? It would certainly be good money for them, as we know, WoW expansions sell for the same price as a fully fledged AAA game.

Merely my thoughts, whether it turns out to be true or not!

I am one of the people who thinks it possible that they are working on a major expansion to the game. DLC are great, but they just don't attract the attention like an Expansion. If they switch to F2P for the base game, roll up all (most) of the existing DLC into the base game, and then add a major off-world expansion that extends the base game main quest, you have something that attracts attention.

But, it is not Vvardenfell. It is too small, and too early. It is not time for an expansion, yet. Not with a vibrant quarterly update process still in place. If they are doing an expansion, we are talking years, not months. There will be signs and portents.

So, properly done, Vvardenfell should be huge, and I think it is "next in line", as far as zone DLC are concerned. Whether it is in Update 13 (Housing) or Update 14, dunno, but I will wager it will be one of the two.

I think they are using the development effort that was saved by not doing a big zone in Update 11 (Hist) and Update 12 (One Tamriel) to give them more time for Vvardenfell.

As for whether Clockwork City will come with a Vvardenfell DLC, by itself, or with something like a Murkmire DLC, I do not know. As a dungeon, or similar instanced area, it can be slipped in at any time, even with Housing.

Ravena

Loremaster said he's working on something big a few days ago and it has been keeping him busy which is why he hasn't showed up lately, I can only imagine it is Vvanderfell. I'd imagine they are paying extra attention to lore-ing the place up so as not to upset the [rather famously unforgiving] Morrowind die-hard fans. Housing wouldn't require that much out of the loremaster, methinks.

I for one look forward to meeting V-dawg again. Hope he is there.

And I suppose Sotha Sil deserves something as well. Even in Morrowind, we barely heard of him.

runagate

I just want to point out that the borders of Zones are a tad deceptive when considering the area that's playable. Look at Craglorn. Then click on Craglorn and see that the original Lower part plus the upper part leaves out a lot within the "border" of the zone as seen from the Tamriel map. Every zone has a decent chunk of unreachable mountains and such. I imagine that this will be more true for Vvardenfell than most other zones due to the type of terrain.

Elsonso

runagate wrote: »

I just want to point out that the borders of Zones are a tad deceptive when considering the area that's playable. Look at Craglorn. Then click on Craglorn and see that the original Lower part plus the upper part leaves out a lot within the "border" of the zone as seen from the Tamriel map. Every zone has a decent chunk of unreachable mountains and such. I imagine that this will be more true for Vvardenfell than most other zones due to the type of terrain.

Possibly. If you look at Rivenspire, I think we actually get to walk on about 50% of it.

jeo329

What about the other zone like craglorn murkmire I read something somewhere about that

WillhelmBlack

They're definitely busy with something. Hence the 100's of bugs and imbalances in the game atm and the lack of devs commenting on the 100's of bug and imbalance threads here on the forums.

Elsonso

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

They're definitely busy with something. Hence the 100's of bugs and imbalances in the game atm and the lack of devs commenting on the 100's of bug and imbalance threads here on the forums.

Short term, they are working on all the announcements and news items related to introducing Update 13. They have Gina locked in a room until the work is done. If it hits PTS shortly after, they are probably working on the initial PTS patch notes, too.

UrQuan

runagate wrote: »

I just want to point out that the borders of Zones are a tad deceptive when considering the area that's playable. Look at Craglorn. Then click on Craglorn and see that the original Lower part plus the upper part leaves out a lot within the "border" of the zone as seen from the Tamriel map. Every zone has a decent chunk of unreachable mountains and such. I imagine that this will be more true for Vvardenfell than most other zones due to the type of terrain.

Yeah, I would definitely expect that a large chunk of Vvardenfell would be unreachable terrain. I mean, there's that huge Red Mountain and all... Lots of the terrain is pretty hostile and unforgiving, so I would imagine large areas that are unexplorable.

nickreb17_ESO

isn't it 15th Morrowind anniversary next year on 1st of May? Seems like a good time for an expansion

Elsonso

nickreb17_ESO wrote: »

isn't it 15th Morrowind anniversary next year on 1st of May? Seems like a good time for an expansion

Hmm. I had never considered any Morrowind anniversary date ties, and this sounds like something that Bethesda would be very interested in.

So, yeah, I could totally see the Vvardenfell DLC being the Update 14 content in 2Q of next year. If Bethesda is driving this.

JD2013

nickreb17_ESO wrote: »

isn't it 15th Morrowind anniversary next year on 1st of May? Seems like a good time for an expansion

By George, you're right! It is!

mb10

That map is inaccurate. Best to use an ingame map because way more land is in ESO than on the image.

The covenent area looks absolutely tiny, isnt it almost or even connected to cyrodiil in the game?

Wrothgar, Hews Bane and The Gold Coast arent there so assuming its outdated too

NBrookus

Update 13 is apparently housing and a balance update, and much of the in-game housing assets are already there. Housing and crown crates will no doubt include plenty of revenue opportunities for ZOS and work for their artist staff, which of course if needed to keep the hamsters fed. Update 13 is no doubt in the test and polish stages; one hopes they found time for performance improvements and bug fixes in with the balance updating.

After the huge project 1T was, I would hesitate to expect another large DLC (a la Orsinium sized) immediately after. Perhaps Update 14 for a new big zone, and Update 15 is battlegrounds (also partially finished) plus some smaller PvE additions.

Publius_Scipio

I hope it's Vvardenfell. I know a few months back datamining seemed to reveal that it was somewhere in the pipeline.

I hope they make the zone as large as possible. Even if they split the island up in a north and south zone, I just hope it captures that feeling of being back in Morrowind (obviously 1,000 years before the events of Morrowind the game).

Say what you want about ZOS's game balance choices etc. But I think very few can say that ZOS's art and environments teams isn't top notch. I have no doubt Vvardenfell will be a great visual experience.

Acrolas

I'd still put Vvardenfell at Q3, with a Bosmer dungeon pack and a Clockwork City dungeon pack for Q2 and Q4 (conveniently used to upsell the Wild Hunt and Dwemer crates, respectively).

So long as it's 2017, they can still say it's 15th anniversary. But expecting ZOS to stick a hard release date on brand-new content is like expecting a horker to brush its tusks after dinner.

Elsonso

Acrolas wrote: »

I'd still put Vvardenfell at Q3, with a Bosmer dungeon pack and a Clockwork City dungeon pack for Q2 and Q4 (conveniently used to upsell the Wild Hunt and Dwemer crates, respectively).

So long as it's 2017, they can still say it's 15th anniversary. But expecting ZOS to stick a hard release date on brand-new content is like expecting a horker to brush its tusks after dinner.

No, if there is one thing ZOS can do it is meet a deadline.

Korah_Eaglecry

Its great that Vvardenfell will be added at some point...But I cant say that its introduction is any indication of a "proper expansion". Its just another zone that we knew we were going to eventually get when we first learned of Elder Scrolls Online. We've all known places like Vvardenfell and Western Skyrim would eventually find its way into the game as the only direction ZOS can take is to add to the map.

But theres been at least 2 other Zones we've also known about since Year 1 of the game that we have yet to see as well. Mirkmire and Clockwork City. We've known about those 2 Zones since we knew of Imperial City and Wrothgar. Their lack of appearance was never an indicator that we'd get an expansion and I havent seen anything in articles or press releases that would make me think expansions were the direction ZOS was headed. Especially considering the current climate of MMOs demands that Developers aim for quick out the door DLCs over long haul Expansions. Even games like Star Trek Online, which does an expansion every other year, still releases back to back content over the course of those 2 years.

Gilvoth

i hope there is an hidden trap door leading to a 1 room underground house for me in balmora.
i have been asking for morrowind / Vvardenfell since beta 2013,
i miss it [it was a addon mod i had in morrowind], and i need return home to Balmora.
i even made this thread about it.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/297527/please-let-me-have-a-hole-in-the-ground-for-house/p1

Publius_Scipio

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Its great that Vvardenfell will be added at some point...But I cant say that its introduction is any indication of a "proper expansion". Its just another zone that we knew we were going to eventually get when we first learned of Elder Scrolls Online. We've all known places like Vvardenfell and Western Skyrim would eventually find its way into the game as the only direction ZOS can take is to add to the map.

But theres been at least 2 other Zones we've also known about since Year 1 of the game that we have yet to see as well. Mirkmire and Clockwork City. We've known about those 2 Zones since we knew of Imperial City and Wrothgar. Their lack of appearance was never an indicator that we'd get an expansion and I havent seen anything in articles or press releases that would make me think expansions were the direction ZOS was headed. Especially considering the current climate of MMOs demands that Developers aim for quick out the door DLCs over long haul Expansions. Even games like Star Trek Online, which does an expansion every other year, still releases back to back content over the course of those 2 years.

Rumor amongst players is that Murkmire was scrapped for whatever reason, the two dungeons were salvaged and added as the Shadows of the Hist DLC.

JD2013

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Its great that Vvardenfell will be added at some point...But I cant say that its introduction is any indication of a "proper expansion". Its just another zone that we knew we were going to eventually get when we first learned of Elder Scrolls Online. We've all known places like Vvardenfell and Western Skyrim would eventually find its way into the game as the only direction ZOS can take is to add to the map.

But theres been at least 2 other Zones we've also known about since Year 1 of the game that we have yet to see as well. Mirkmire and Clockwork City. We've known about those 2 Zones since we knew of Imperial City and Wrothgar. Their lack of appearance was never an indicator that we'd get an expansion and I havent seen anything in articles or press releases that would make me think expansions were the direction ZOS was headed. Especially considering the current climate of MMOs demands that Developers aim for quick out the door DLCs over long haul Expansions. Even games like Star Trek Online, which does an expansion every other year, still releases back to back content over the course of those 2 years.

Rumor amongst players is that Murkmire was scrapped for whatever reason, the two dungeons were salvaged and added as the Shadows of the Hist DLC.

Apparently one of the Devs said at an ESO event that it's being reworked into a single player zone as opposed to Adventure Zone.

UrQuan

nickreb17_ESO wrote: »

isn't it 15th Morrowind anniversary next year on 1st of May? Seems like a good time for an expansion

Holy crap, you're right!

*fingers crossed hoping ZOS makes this happen*

UrQuan

mb10 wrote: »

That map is inaccurate. Best to use an ingame map because way more land is in ESO than on the image.

The covenent area looks absolutely tiny, isnt it almost or even connected to cyrodiil in the game?

Wrothgar, Hews Bane and The Gold Coast arent there so assuming its outdated too

It is an in-game map. It's the in-game map of The Aurbis with the in-game maps of the individual zones superimposed over it at the appropriate scale to fit on the map of The Aurbis. The only difference is that it's only the original zones that the game was launched with that have been placed on it.

The Covenant area that can be accessed in the game isn't even close to being connected to Cyrodiil. All of Craglorn is between those zones (to the West of Craglorn) and Cyrodiil (to the South-East of Craglorn).

The map is totally accurate when compared to the in-game map.

WuffyCerulei

I feel that Vvardenfell will be the same kind of DLC as Wrothgar: BIG. Compared to Hew's Bane and the Gold Coast, Wrothgar is the most immersive and fun of em all. With the sheer size of Vvardenfell, there's a lot to offer in it.

RebornV3x

Wll I think we've had some small DLCs recently like SOH and One Tam that went really that big or added a whole lot of new content so well probably see a big content release sometime after update 13 housing like Vvardenfell or Murkenmire

Publius_Scipio

JD2013 wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Its great that Vvardenfell will be added at some point...But I cant say that its introduction is any indication of a "proper expansion". Its just another zone that we knew we were going to eventually get when we first learned of Elder Scrolls Online. We've all known places like Vvardenfell and Western Skyrim would eventually find its way into the game as the only direction ZOS can take is to add to the map.

But theres been at least 2 other Zones we've also known about since Year 1 of the game that we have yet to see as well. Mirkmire and Clockwork City. We've known about those 2 Zones since we knew of Imperial City and Wrothgar. Their lack of appearance was never an indicator that we'd get an expansion and I havent seen anything in articles or press releases that would make me think expansions were the direction ZOS was headed. Especially considering the current climate of MMOs demands that Developers aim for quick out the door DLCs over long haul Expansions. Even games like Star Trek Online, which does an expansion every other year, still releases back to back content over the course of those 2 years.

Rumor amongst players is that Murkmire was scrapped for whatever reason, the two dungeons were salvaged and added as the Shadows of the Hist DLC.

Apparently one of the Devs said at an ESO event that it's being reworked into a single player zone as opposed to Adventure Zone.

That's interesting. I was under the impression the whole idea of "adventure zone" fizzled out with Craglorn (pre One Tamriel) long ago. Now we all know that going forward new zones are molded in the same way as Wrothgar. It's possible Murkmire was in development for a long time, put on the shelf for a while, and now they took it off and are reworking it for final release. It's quite possible.

I just hope Murkmire ends up being very unique, because we already have Shadowfen. Which DLC/zone will be the one that continues the main "prophet get your soul back" storyline of ESO?