Possible underwater and/or water based zones?

WeerW3ir

Its the year of the dragons. The future could be brighter for eso, but lets not talk about that. Im making this topic in an interesting, new, and bright idea.

the continent of Pyandonea
- a manace and a treat for the altmer master race, but a bright and wonderful world where the Maormer living.

The island is covered mostly in dense rain forests which provides a habitat for the southern water spirits. It was also marshy, and full of insects. The Maormeri practice a powerful form of snake magic which they use to tame the sea serpents of Pyandonea for use as mounts and warbeasts.

Thats right! Jungles, water! all the glorious ideas. It would fit well the story*

craybest

i'm all for new, original and never seen before settings. let's hope they could make it look awesome.

GreenhaloX

It would be too much for ZOS's current server to handle. Need to fix and contain overland problems (for years) first.

TheShadowScout

Well, there are many fan depictions of Pyandonea - yet very little official info.

...so the best we really can say is "somewhere some ways south of the summerset isles"... and "somewhat around the size of the altmer lands", but that's it.

And since there IS so little lore about it... and no recorded lore saying someone actually -went- there and returned... combined with the maormer veing extremely xenophobic by all accounts... and defending their isle viciously... its kinda unlikely we might get to go there.
Not impossible, but unlikely.

...

A more likely expansion would be a "high seas" themed one... after all, there -could- be a great many places somewhere in between tamriel and pyandonea, much like Kenarthis Roost, yes? Places where maormer are around, but not pyandonea proper (to preserve that mystery, as the lore indicates) - a great many places that could be visited on some expansion storyline. Possibly dealing with a search for aldmeris, or just isle fiefdoms and high seas piracy? A set of small isles as one expansion, perhaps, travelling from one to the next by ship, but rather then one large region several small ones? It might be possible, yes?
And of course, it would be a neat place to also bundle with a maormer race unlock: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/422285/new-player-race-possibilities/p1

But there are other places too... for example... there is the remains of sunken Yokuda:

...which could make another good direction for an "high seas" themed expansion, and portray a completely new corner of TES lore as we follow the ancestry of the redguards, see whatever happened to those lands they left behind when they settled in hammerfell, see if any sinistral elves are left (though redguard lore says they killed them all), see if there are any yokudans who stayed behind (living or undead) and possibly compete with some other seafaring treasure seekers (maormer or possibly sea sloads considering their proximity) in the questing?

And then while we are in that region, there is also the isle kingdom of Thras, home of the sload whose cousins have been making trouble in Summerset... worth a return visit, right? Especially since they might be cooking up the next big disaster right now, who knows...

Both of those could also include "underwater" maps, if they get some mechanics for that... I would love that of course, maps where you have to swim from air pocket to air pocket, rely on potions of water breathing, or get a rare ring enchanted with the same... except for argonians who can swim through it all while laughing their scales off at all the other races!

Nemesis7884

i doubt the engine can handle 3d diving....amd while it is kinda cool the way its done in gw2...quite often youre happy when youre out of the water... i personally enjoy the verticality from gw2 a lot more...

BNOC

I'm pretty sure that water rendering is one of the most intensive loads out there and the most difficult to achieve to a high degree.

This would likely be too much to handle performance wise and probably too much work to even entertain.

It's much cheaper and performant to build zones as a base terrain and the use blocks similar to those that you get in housing to construct the environment.

xxthir13enxx

Pffft....everyone knows the world is flat

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Perfect reason for maomer playable race

Kiralyn2000

I'm trying to think of a game that had an underwater zone that wasn't awful.

Kagukan

As long as there is no underwater swimming. I hate that in MMO's.

Bluestat

No.

Austinseph1

Swimming would be a cool thing they could add to give more depth to zones, mostly for gathering or chests tho. I wouldn’t want any sort of combat past maybe light attacks

daemonios

Come on, we know the game is sinking, but that is just mean

More seriously, the engine supposedly doesn't deal with height very well, unlike Skyrim or Oblivion for instance where you could just jump in the water and move around with six degrees of freedom. Either ZOS would have to hack in support for free swimming and make it work on button-starved controllers, or at most you'd have some blueish shader over a fake ocean floor/river bed scene. Not to mention you'd need a deus ex machina to allow players to breathe underwater or face backlash for lorebreaking free underwater breathing ability for all.

All things considered, I'm not in any rush to see underwater gameplay. If it can't be done to a high degree of quality, don't bother. And I can't see it being done to any such degree of quality.

Yuffie91

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Perfect reason for maomer playable race

Don't think eso would ever introduce new playable races

StormChaser3000

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

I'm trying to think of a game that had an underwater zone that wasn't awful.

1. Subnautica.
2. BDO. The only content I didn't hate in that game before I eventually quit was sailing and diving.

SidraWillowsky

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

I'm trying to think of a game that had an underwater zone that wasn't awful.

My thoughts exactly... has it ever been done well? Not as far as I know.

Xerikten

no matter what is done you will complain and not like it.

p00tx

If they can legit handle the logistics of the server load with something like this, I think it'd be really cool. As long as they consult the lore-heads and keep it true to the game lore and don't go off on some weird tangent (plus maybe give us non-rping raiders something to play with), then heck yeah.

Katahdin

Underwater will never happen

They have already said the game engine can't handle it.

They will not rebuild the whole game on a new engine for it

Sylvermynx

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

I'm trying to think of a game that had an underwater zone that wasn't awful.

I really enjoyed Vashj'ir in WoW and Goboro Reef in RIFT. I didn't have any issues maneuvering or figuring out how to kill something where I needed to "think" in Z axis. I loved both of them. However, ESO doesn't have any ability to add stuff like underwater. You can't even dive a few feet in this game.... Engine limitation I assume from things I've read.

D0PAMINE

The game engine would explode.

Hapexamendios

Time to dust off my Argonian warden

Vanos444

Before they implement dive in this game. They must first invent flying....

zaria

Alligators in ESO can not swim.
In fact the only ones who can swim is players but its most absurd with the alligators.

Taleof2Cities

This is an ESO Live from 4+ years ago ... but an interesting discussion on the complexities of underwater exploration & combat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxigt8ipK1g

xxthir13enxx

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

I'm trying to think of a game that had an underwater zone that wasn't awful.

Super Mario!!!lol