Rapid Development Cycle

ParaNostram

Honestly with the rate at which ZOS pushes out new content for ESO I genuinely wonder how long they can keep this up. It feels like they're running a marathon of 100 meter dashes. Honestly I'm very impressed with the amount of content that comes out and no MMO before has left me sitting down and thinking "holy butts, that's a lot of content." Is all content created equal? Not really, but all of this is leagues beyond what used to be considered acceptable content in an MMO. (everyone praises the Burning Crusade but who remembers that tedious senseless hell boar grind quest?)

So for one I would like to thank ZOS and their team for all of their hard work. For their faults, they took what was a poorly launched game and turned it into an MMO that beats even my memories of WoW. I'm happy and proud to play this game and pay my subscription every month. That is me personally though.

How about you guys? How do you feel about ZOS' development cycle for new content? I'm interested in your thoughts!

oranje_elf

I will praise ZOS development skills when they finally fix group finder as a part of their "rapid development cycle".

Though, knowing how hard it is to maintain and keep adding new features to such a complex project as ESO, I'd rather agree with OP.

zaria

Yes, its impressive, will be more impressed if they manages to keep the promised on chapter, two dungeon and one content expansion each year.

ParaNostram

zaria wrote: »

Yes, its impressive, will be more impressed if they manages to keep the promised on chapter, two dungeon and one content expansion each year.

My thoughts exactly. I don't know how they're going to do it. Hell, the quarterly content model already seemed incredibly ambitious in my humble opinion, but ramping it up to that level? Woo!

Vanthras79

In all fairness it is quite impressive, especially given the size of the studio. ZOS should really relish in their accomplishments (even though it did not produce some of the ideas that they had since Quakecon 2014--A couple of features that would really expand the game's possibilities for fun, but where shelved or placed on ye olde back burner).

ZOS did a great job thus far, and they can only make this game better.

Wifeaggro13

ParaNostram wrote: »

Honestly with the rate at which ZOS pushes out new content for ESO I genuinely wonder how long they can keep this up. It feels like they're running a marathon of 100 meter dashes. Honestly I'm very impressed with the amount of content that comes out and no MMO before has left me sitting down and thinking "holy butts, that's a lot of content." Is all content created equal? Not really, but all of this is leagues beyond what used to be considered acceptable content in an MMO. (everyone praises the Burning Crusade but who remembers that tedious senseless hell boar grind quest?)

So for one I would like to thank ZOS and their team for all of their hard work. For their faults, they took what was a poorly launched game and turned it into an MMO that beats even my memories of WoW. I'm happy and proud to play this game and pay my subscription every month. That is me personally though.

How about you guys? How do you feel about ZOS' development cycle for new content? I'm interested in your thoughts!

Lol have ypu played many MMOs? Even a tiny start up like Trion with a 3rd of the budget of Zos managed to put out the amount of content zos put out in 3 years in the first year for free .

anitajoneb17_ESO

Content ? What content ?
Last "new content" was august 2016 and it was 2 dungeons. Since then, One Tamriel (not new content, just new combat stats) and Housing (not new content, just new mechanics).
I'm not saying it's "bad", but there's nothing to be that impressed about.
Morrowind will be new content - but it's also something that forces you, literally, to buy the game again. So yeah...

I appreciate the effort put into stuff like the Jester Festival though. That kind of free, well-done extra makes a huge difference to me.

ParaNostram

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

ParaNostram wrote: »

Honestly with the rate at which ZOS pushes out new content for ESO I genuinely wonder how long they can keep this up. It feels like they're running a marathon of 100 meter dashes. Honestly I'm very impressed with the amount of content that comes out and no MMO before has left me sitting down and thinking "holy butts, that's a lot of content." Is all content created equal? Not really, but all of this is leagues beyond what used to be considered acceptable content in an MMO. (everyone praises the Burning Crusade but who remembers that tedious senseless hell boar grind quest?)

So for one I would like to thank ZOS and their team for all of their hard work. For their faults, they took what was a poorly launched game and turned it into an MMO that beats even my memories of WoW. I'm happy and proud to play this game and pay my subscription every month. That is me personally though.

How about you guys? How do you feel about ZOS' development cycle for new content? I'm interested in your thoughts!

Lol have ypu played many MMOs? Even a tiny start up like Trion with a 3rd of the budget of Zos managed to put out the amount of content zos put out in 3 years in the first year for free .

I've played WoW from vanilla to pandaria, Runescape, Dofus, GW 1 & 2, some Ultima Online and I flirted with The Old Republic. That does sound impressive from Trion though, I might have to look into that thank you for bringing that to my attention.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Content ? What content ?
Last "new content" was august 2016 and it was 2 dungeons. Since then, One Tamriel (not new content, just new combat stats) and Housing (not new content, just new mechanics).
I'm not saying it's "bad", but there's nothing to be that impressed about.
Morrowind will be new content - but it's also something that forces you, literally, to buy the game again. So yeah...

I appreciate the effort put into stuff like the Jester Festival though. That kind of free, well-done extra makes a huge difference to me.

Well WoW had for a long time whenever they released new content only released new dungeons, nobody ever pretended that wasn't new content. The new dungeons are challenging and I still can't beat them regularly on their hardest difficulty so while they were just two dungeons, those two dungeons have some staying power.

I can understand your criticism of One Tamriel, but I feel as though perhaps some credit is due. It was a complete overhaul of the game making all of the content viable at any given time, thusly making sure the content isn't wasted. That takes a considerable amount of work and it was a bold move. It didn't create anything new, but it did make the game feel so much more like an Elder Scrolls game to me.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this though!

doggie

There is a lot of content in the game if you start from scratch. But the ammount they have added in 3 years is not all that. 4 Dungeons and a few zones. It's more expensive to add content in ESO because of the voice acting in many different languages, that other games don't have to cover.

That said, the game pulled from failure in 2014, where tthey sold few copies to today with one tamriel and more than 10m copies sold. Maybe we'll see more content in the future, more players to cover the cost today, than many of those DLC's in the past.

But looking at what's included with Morrowind, and the extent of resource reuse, and the price of the pack, I'm not that convinced I'll hang around untill Morrowind.

It's weird how much resources they put into making weapons and content that is available for a couple of days in the crown store just to milk a few whales, while basic stuff like dungeon finder is left broken for years.

zaria

ParaNostram wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Yes, its impressive, will be more impressed if they manages to keep the promised on chapter, two dungeon and one content expansion each year.

My thoughts exactly. I don't know how they're going to do it. Hell, the quarterly content model already seemed incredibly ambitious in my humble opinion, but ramping it up to that level? Woo!

I guess they use multiple teams, the dungeons are pretty independent and fairly fast to create. Require lots of balancing however Chapters take an year or more.

Rickter

i applaud their development speed but i worry that they are receiving too much pressure from Zenimax Parent Company and the players to pus hthis content out.

ZOS is a very small team. like 20 engineers/developers. Last i heard they had engineers sleeping on cots in the server rooms to maintain PvP server stability. so im sure its taking its toll on them.

I for one would like the content to slow down and the game stability perfected before moving on the next thing

ParaNostram

doggie wrote: »

There is a lot of content in the game if you start from scratch. But the ammount they have added in 3 years is not all that. 4 Dungeons and a few zones. It's more expensive to add content in ESO because of the voice acting in many different languages, that other games don't have to cover.

That said, the game pulled from failure in 2014, where tthey sold few copies to today with one tamriel and more than 10m copies sold. Maybe we'll see more content in the future, more players to cover the cost today, than many of those DLC's in the past.

But looking at what's included with Morrowind, and the extent of resource reuse, and the price of the pack, I'm not that convinced I'll hang around untill Morrowind.

It's weird how much resources they put into making weapons and content that is available for a couple of days in the crown store just to milk a few whales, while basic stuff like dungeon finder is left broken for years.

I'm sorry that's how you feel. Your criticism and feelings are valid though, wish we could have you stick around. We'll be here if you feel ESO warrants your time and patronage again.

Rickter wrote: »

i applaud their development speed but i worry that they are receiving too much pressure from Zenimax Parent Company and the players to pus hthis content out.

ZOS is a very small team. like 20 engineers/developers. Last i heard they had engineers sleeping on cots in the server rooms to maintain PvP server stability. so im sure its taking its toll on them.

I for one would like the content to slow down and the game stability perfected before moving on the next thing

Oh gods... I mean I figured it was bad but wow... They really work themselves to the bone don't they? I do hope ESO revenue can go into hiring on some more people because that is sounding borderline Konami level of work grinding people to dust...

Goodness... If it meant the team wouldn't have to do something like sleep in cots in the server room again I'll buy whatever (sensible) crown store item they want me to get, that sounds terrifying..

Emothic

I do agree to the rapid development in the past DLC's we have. However I believe that the new Morrowind DLC update is too soon, and should be pushed back at least another 6 months or at the most another year. This Morrowind DLC is almost compared to that of World of Warcrafts massive expansion release, though a bit smaller in scale, of which ESO is not ready for. The game is currently still experiancing "day one" issues that need to be prioritized and focused on first then any "large" expansion release.

The game is still issues such as: General UI errors, Dungeon Finder issues, Chat functionality issues, Combat Balancing (though it has greatly improved in recent updates, that is remain to be seen), and most importantly Server Stability/Crashing issues. These problems need to be delt with as much as they can before a whole new expasion with a new character, items, and so much more is released. Becuase if these issues are not addressed and implemented on before the release of this explasion, it will have very problematic concequences during and after it's release.

ParaNostram

Emothic wrote: »

I do agree to the rapid development in the past DLC's we have. However I believe that the new Morrowind DLC update is too soon, and should be pushed back at least another 6 months or at the most another year. This Morrowind DLC is almost compared to that of World of Warcrafts massive expansion release, though a bit smaller in scale, of which ESO is not ready for. The game is currently still experiancing "day one" issues that need to be prioritized and focused on first then any "large" expansion release.

The game is still issues such as: General UI errors, Dungeon Finder issues, Chat functionality issues, Combat Balancing (though it has greatly improved in recent updates, that is remain to be seen), and most importantly Server Stability/Crashing issues. These problems need to be delt with as much as they can before a whole new expasion with a new character, items, and so much more is released. Becuase if these issues are not addressed and implemented on before the release of this explasion, it will have very problematic concequences during and after it's release.

Very fair criticism. I know @Zaria and @Rickter expressed similar views. The rapid development of new content does seem to take effort away from those efforts. Seems like they're playing guitar with their hands and bongos with their feet at the same time trying to do both of these with their limited team at the pace they're going, and it shows. The bongo's have no rhythm (bongos being maintenance) but damn if those guitar solos get pretty sweet when the bongos don't distract from it

Edit: Did you like my musical analogy or did it make no sense? I like to have fun with language and imagery.

Turelus

zaria wrote: »

Yes, its impressive, will be more impressed if they manages to keep the promised on chapter, two dungeon and one content expansion each year.

No disrespect meant to ZOS but I honestly expect a business change model again in the next two years. They've changed their model almost every year at this point.

It seems they can't really find a model they're happy with and stick to it.

zaria

ParaNostram wrote: »

Emothic wrote: »

I do agree to the rapid development in the past DLC's we have. However I believe that the new Morrowind DLC update is too soon, and should be pushed back at least another 6 months or at the most another year. This Morrowind DLC is almost compared to that of World of Warcrafts massive expansion release, though a bit smaller in scale, of which ESO is not ready for. The game is currently still experiancing "day one" issues that need to be prioritized and focused on first then any "large" expansion release.

The game is still issues such as: General UI errors, Dungeon Finder issues, Chat functionality issues, Combat Balancing (though it has greatly improved in recent updates, that is remain to be seen), and most importantly Server Stability/Crashing issues. These problems need to be delt with as much as they can before a whole new expasion with a new character, items, and so much more is released. Becuase if these issues are not addressed and implemented on before the release of this explasion, it will have very problematic concequences during and after it's release.

Very fair criticism. I know @Zaria and @Rickter expressed similar views. The rapid development of new content does seem to take effort away from those efforts. Seems like they're playing guitar with their hands and bongos with their feet at the same time trying to do both of these with their limited team at the pace they're going, and it shows. The bongo's have no rhythm (bongos being maintenance) but damn if those guitar solos get pretty sweet when the bongos don't distract from it

True, on the other hand its various groups doing different stuff. the ones making dungeons are designers, coders fix bugs, not much coding for dungeons except perhaps some special stuff.
On the other hand homestead required plenty of coding changes.

Rickter

Turelus wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Yes, its impressive, will be more impressed if they manages to keep the promised on chapter, two dungeon and one content expansion each year.

No disrespect meant to ZOS but I honestly expect a business change model again in the next two years. They've changed their model almost every year at this point.

It seems they can't really find a model they're happy with and stick to it.

And there is nothing wrong with that. the MMO market changes so rapidly that fora company NOT to adapt would be foolish

doggie

A major problem for ZOS is that people actually don't have to quit the game(unless they have ESO+, which is a small minority prob).

In a traditional mmorpg there is a drop down box when you unsub where you can mark why you choose to do so. That list is then view by upper managment at the company, and if things like Broken Dungeon finder makes it to the top of the list then somehow that gets fixed when upper mang wants it to be fixed.

So they don't really know why people leave. They only see stats from crown store and what they do ingame. So they probably see things like 80-90% of playerbase complete a quest every day, mostly dailies that's why we're drowning in dailies.

The % of people that complete a dungeon is probably really low. That's probably because the dungeon finder is not working, players who like dungeons have moved on to other games, etc,etc..

If they had focused on dungeons that could probably have been a fairly big income for ZOS on top of the quests and world content.

anitajoneb17_ESO

ParaNostram wrote: »

Well WoW had for a long time whenever they released new content only released new dungeons, nobody ever pretended that wasn't new content. The new dungeons are challenging and I still can't beat them regularly on their hardest difficulty so while they were just two dungeons, those two dungeons have some staying power.

I can understand your criticism of One Tamriel, but I feel as though perhaps some credit is due. It was a complete overhaul of the game making all of the content viable at any given time, thusly making sure the content isn't wasted. That takes a considerable amount of work and it was a bold move. It didn't create anything new, but it did make the game feel so much more like an Elder Scrolls game to me.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this though!

I haven't pretended either that the 2 dungeons of SotH aren't new content. All I'm saying is... it's not much. The first "new content" after release was Lower-Craglorn. The 2nd was Upper-Craglorn. The 3rd was Imperial City. The 4rth was Orsinium. Along the way we also got the crafting writs mechanics, the undaunted dailies system, and the justice system. All this was great, new content/mechanics. It kinda set the milestone as to what we could be expecting in terms of "new content. Since then, the new content has become smaller and smaller. TG is nice and small, but has Maw of Lorkhaj. DB is nice and small and has nothing else. SotH has... two dungeons. And since then... nothing. In my opinion, the promise of quaterly content updates has been broken.

I understand that One Tamriel MAY have been a lot of work for the devs, but "selling" it to us as an "update" (even free) is laughable. One Tamriel is nothing else but a huge correction patch. It corrected the linear progression design that was a huge mistake in the first place and was the cause of the game's near-failure in 2014 and the departure of the former creative director. I know it's common practice in the software industry to describe bug patches as new features, but it doesn't make it true and I won't fall for it.

Housing is a great addition for those who enjoy it (I'm one of those). But it isn't a costly update in terms of resources. It cost them nothing design-wise, aside from the housing editor. The rest is re-use of resources already present in the game, houses or furniture.

I also feel that ZOS employees are working A LOT. But I also feel that there's a lot of work wasted for purely managerial or organisational causes. ZOS as a company is an incredible mess. Therefore I'm torn between being critical and being thankful.

KingKush

I do applaud them on the continuous and consistent content they have pushed out over the course of the last few years but I do wish they spent more time fixing the countless bugs, glitches, and out-right broken features still in the game; some even dating back to year 1.

DaveMoeDee

On what is the OP basing the claim of "rapid development time"? And compared to what? A lot of use here remember the log gap between Upper Craglorn and the next addition.

They don't only start DLC after the previous one is released. They work on them for much longer. If we are going to compare to other games, we have to compare the amount of content released, not the number of separate DLC sold, as ESO has a low level of granularity in their DLC while WoW bundles it all up in large expansions (not that I have ever played WoW). It is more rapid to release a lot of content after a year than to release 20% as much content after 3 months.

I also find some of the other comments about the inner workings of ZOS absurd when they come from people who have never worked there. It is one thing to critique design choices or implementation, but to critique something completely opaque to you is quite presumptuous.

idk

Zos has not had a rapid development cycle. Considering in 3 years they went a full year without adding any meaningful content and currently in what will be a 10 month drought of meaningful content along with having approximately 1/2 of the premier end game raiding content most comparable mmos have @ 3 years we are not seeing rapid development.

We have seen good content, but not rapid development of content. Housing is not meaningful though it adds to the game. 1T was not even adding anything new.

Considering several DLCs worth of content is a normal expansion for an MMO and we have seen 5 DLCs in approximately 2 years time.

Rickter

doggie wrote: »

A major problem for ZOS is that people actually don't have to quit the game(unless they have ESO+, which is a small minority prob).

LOL FALSE!!

Please reference: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/333384/will-you-subscribe-for-the-double-bank-space/p1

Number one option: "I am already an ESO Plus Subscriber" 81% 273 votes


As for my previous stance on the content is being pushed out too fast. . then we have guys like this:

Giraffon wrote: »

I subbed the first year and then stopped. The new content was not being released fast enough so I decided to pay as it was released.

Katahdin

Rickter wrote: »

ZOS is a very small team. like 20 engineers/developers. Last i heard they had engineers sleeping on cots in the server rooms to maintain PvP server stability. so im sure its taking its toll on them.

If this is true, it's not good

anitajoneb17_ESO

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

I also find some of the other comments about the inner workings of ZOS absurd when they come from people who have never worked there. It is one thing to critique design choices or implementation, but to critique something completely opaque to you is quite presumptuous.

That one's for me
I'm basing myself on what I see.
Last example to date : Jester Festival is officially announced to last until 4/4/17 10AM EDT. But it's gone after the 4/3/17 maintenance. Gina has to apologize, ask if it's possible to turn it back on, waits for answers, keeps the community informed. Two hours later the festival is actually back on, until the anniversary event starts, as originally planned.
That is a typical INTERNAL organisation/communication issue that cost dozens of unproductive manhours to fix. And it shows. Stuff like that happens all the time, along with errors or missing stuff in patch notes, and many other things.
That's why I diagnose severe organisational issues at ZOS. Even the best and most devoted employees can't work properly if the entire environment is messy, information gets lost, decisions aren't spread among teams, etc. It's not a critique at anyone in particular (which is usually the biggest problem with general organisation : it's "noone's fault"). It's for the upper management to identify and act upon.

WalksonGraves

OP isn't joking? For 3 years in I expected more than a few raids and bugs as old as the game itself.

QuebraRegra

LOL! You know the WARDEN CLASS they're "adding" is a rehash that was already in the ALPHA right?

there's a lot of re-tread/re-hash, but I don't see a lot of "new" innovative content... YET.

Rickter

Katahdin wrote: »

Rickter wrote: »

ZOS is a very small team. like 20 engineers/developers. Last i heard they had engineers sleeping on cots in the server rooms to maintain PvP server stability. so im sure its taking its toll on them.

If this is true, it's not good

The big give away was at the Fallout 4 launch - the entire ZOS team got together for a group photo congratulating the launch of FO4 with thier pipboys on etc and it was a frighteningly small dev team

FlyLionel

I agree, further balancing is a must though. With Morrowind I expect almost an entire rehaul, my hopes are high. Have not been this excited since ESO was announced for console...and took an extra year to release lol. Couple monthes now.

rustic_potato

Compared to other MMOs the rate at which ZOS releases "content" is absolutely pathetic.

Wifeaggro13

rustic_potato wrote: »

Compared to other MMOs the rate at which ZOS releases "content" is absolutely pathetic.

I agree by three years AAA projects are 3 xpacs deep, level cap increases, new races,classes, a fully layered AA system, class specfic epic questlines,multiple adventure dlcs, a thriving end game community and expanding content. This resembles a single player game with dlc's that should have been sold piece meal for 4.99 or bundled at 29.99 . Clearly the wheels of corporate America are driving this mmo it's not even a game I consider developing anymore. Though I was excited for morrowind and it was hopefull. Now the meager game system enrichment has really just made it more of a single player dlc with a class.