Vanilla before the One Tamriel

JameswRalston

I hate where this game has gone.
I miss actual player progression.
Where going Ahead was rough and going back was easy.
When dungeons could be solo only when your 3+ zones ahead.
Where going back to other lands had a purpose.
When craiglorn would gradually be more consistently playable.
When the champion system actually gave the most stats
When backtracking for world bosses meant seeing how much you’ve grown
Though any boss rewards was limited by level it would be a reasonable Xp and recipe method that took
intermissions with each clearing.
When it was possible to freely experience unique enemy types that were free from the average drone like behavior.
I miss the times where I could train infinitely in the Opening scene grinding away,
build up levels that would be open once I left the zone for anything after lv 12.

Why do players need to be stuck with the AI always being superior in Groups.
For the sake of progression wherever they go? That isn’t efficient enough!
There needs to be OG and OT zone instanced
“Original”
“One Tamriel”

Atleast providing a compromise for people to experience and travel as needed.
Double Storylines is fine.
Back then players needed to run three Avatars to unlock high end zones for the opposing locations.
Atleast that gave the best flexibility.

Most importantly please release the Base vanilla game for offline use no dlc no patches and open it up to allow (VR)free handed and systematic light and heavy optionns to use for attack’s then just put in Voice commands for skills
The natural restriction of buffs and combat will prevent unintended use

Just those two changes is all it takes to make the game function at entry lv.

Even limiting a light and heavy to have a full swing and:or time interval to impact would maintain balance with non VR timing

YstradClud

Be surprised if they still have the code. Blizzard didn't have it when people asked them to recreate Vanilla WoW.

JameswRalston

I still have the beta discs from 2014

mickeyx

Bro this is not world of warcraft. I doubt there is enough demand to justify the cost to bring you the vanilla version

SeaGtGruff

I wasn't playing the game before One Tamriel, so I don't know how it differed (beyond what I've read), but I imagine there are so many differences in the code that it would be impossible to have two separate instances like that-- assuming the original version of the code is even still archived at ZOS, which it might not be.

And if the original version of the code were still available, and the original game could be run on a separate server, there'd probably be no way for existing characters to be uploaded to it, hence players would need to start all over from scratch-- and then they'd probably be unable to access any zones and content added after One Tamriel.

So it will probably never, ever happen.

But as far as grinding the opening scene to level up before entering the rest of the game, can't you still do that? I was never able to experience the original opening, but I have definitely lingered in ESO:Morrowind's, ESO:Summerset's, ESO:Elsweyr's, and ESO:Greymoor's opening tutorials on some of my characters (according to when they were created) in order to acquire more experience and gear and loot before leaving the tutorial. And I've done the same in Coldharbour after starting the Main Quest. So I'm not sure what you might be referring to that's different from how it is now-- unless you mean the way the content is scaled for our characters' levels, such that leveling up in the tutorial used to have more impact on how easy the content is after we leave the tutorial?

Khajiitihaswares

mickeyx wrote: »

Bro this is not world of warcraft. I doubt there is enough demand to justify the cost to bring you the vanilla version

This.

ZoS does not have love like classic community gives to classic. They won’t go backwards. Plus they barely afford server infrastructure to handle current player loads.

VaranisArano

There were aspects of pre-One Tamriel that I liked:
The linear quest progression worked really well for storytelling because you couldn't miss stuff or do zones out of order.
The attachment to your alliance that formed through being immersed in their questlines and zones for the whole of your first character.

On the whole, I'm not as nostalgic for it as the OP.

I remember:
Not being able to quest with friends on different alliances
Not being able to meaningfully quest with friends who were substantially lower or higher level than me
Being locked into a certain progression by EXP - if I skipped ahead to experience a DLC, I'd have outleveled a number of base game quests by the time I got back
Hitting the artificial miss chance when my Stam Sorc was progressing "too quickly"
Practically empty Cadwell's Silver zones
Wandering around Craglorn as a Vet 4 player and realizing I'd have to get all my friends up to Vet 11 before we could quest there
Crafting mats being limited to certain zones (Look, my cotton zone was Eastmarch. White flowers on white snow = not a good time.)

And one aspect that I think ZOS handled pretty well: before One Tamriel, a lot of the game just became obsolete once you finished it. Old gear was outleveled and discarded. Old zones were only good for farming old mats and amusing myself by one-shotting previously tough enemies.

andreasv

YstradClud wrote: »

Be surprised if they still have the code. Blizzard didn't have it when people asked them to recreate Vanilla WoW.

JameswRalston wrote: »

I still have the beta discs from 2014

/facepalm

idk

Leveling up gets boring and to short to be able to get any enjoyment from being under lvl forthw zone.

BisDasBlutGefriert

I remember when runestone nodes weren't all colored red in the wild and had a mix in them. They were colored as with what they held. Blue runestone nodes were always the hardest to find from what I remember.

Or when running up and down along a certain area to farm the high iron ore nodes. Since mining nodes were leveled with the level of the zone. Not with the level of your blacksmithing or character level.

I still remember the first time I ran into that lumber mill area full of trolls in the rift maybe (?). My character at the time was not leveled high enough to be in there, (15-25?)but I still wanted to explore that area to see the difference between the ESO skyrim and the other one. So I was in sneak mode till I turned the corner onto a porch and was spotted. Tried running, but didn't make it haha! Dead.

It was the sense and tenseness of "oh crap, if I get spotted, I'm dead". Hands sweaty, sneaking around laughing cause you have no idea how they didn't see you. Just don't get that anywhere anymore. That rush.

ArchMikem

I don't think the PC player base wants to relive their trauma with pre-nerf Doshia.

ClawOfTheTwoMoons

Vet ranks. Good riddance.

Khajiitihaswares

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Vet ranks. Good riddance.

God those were such trash... Hey you hit 50 ready for your next grind!

Then again champ system is kinda can see it being a way to push new players away once they hit 50 and see they need grind 810 champ points XD.

Anotherone773

Khajiitihaswares wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Vet ranks. Good riddance.

God those were such trash... Hey you hit 50 ready for your next grind!

Then again champ system is kinda can see it being a way to push new players away once they hit 50 and see they need grind 810 champ points XD.

I don't mind level grind when:
1. I feel like the next level, i worked for actually made the character better
2. It's not excessively grindy. Some games have excessive grind. Wow was really bad at grind when i played it many years ago. The levels from the most current xpack were meant to take months and months on multiple characters. It was tedious and mind numbing.

ESO i find to be one of the least grindy MMOs i have played but its also one of the least rewarding when you talk about the champion system.

Khajiitihaswares

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Khajiitihaswares wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Vet ranks. Good riddance.

God those were such trash... Hey you hit 50 ready for your next grind!

Then again champ system is kinda can see it being a way to push new players away once they hit 50 and see they need grind 810 champ points XD.

I don't mind level grind when:
1. I feel like the next level, i worked for actually made the character better
2. It's not excessively grindy. Some games have excessive grind. Wow was really bad at grind when i played it many years ago. The levels from the most current xpack were meant to take months and months on multiple characters. It was tedious and mind numbing.

ESO i find to be one of the least grindy MMOs i have played.

*Looks at crafting.*

Please walk yourself out. I got crafting research done and that is crap grind.

Vet Ranks were butt too. As well is champ point grind for new peeps. I already grinded it out so I am good. But It does show progress when there is stuff to do. If you finish said stuff then you are going be grinding mobs depending on players account and DLC's.

Luckily I think ZoS plans to revamp champ system since well I think they even realize the system is eh.

Danikat

Since I want to complete each zone as I'm going along, not just the main quest but the side quests, world bosses and everything else, playing before One Tamriel for me just meant constantly being overlevelled for everything I did. Combat was always so easy it was dull and quest rewards were useless because they were too far below my character's level. I used to pick which skill to start with purely based on which animation I wanted to see, knowing I'd be lucky to get through 2 hits before the fight was over.

I know it's like that for some people now, but at least there's ways to prevent it if you want to. (My current approach is to not use CP, and to stick to crafted gear.) Before One Tamriel the only way around it was to stop what you were doing and skip ahead to whatever random point in the story the game had decided you were ready for, then do it again when you out-levelled that.

It's not something I miss or would want to go back to. And for my other characters who aren't following the main storylines the ability to go between zones as needed is extremely convenient. I suspect part of the reason we never had festivals and special events like we do now before One Tamriel is they'd have needed a way to do it 3 times in 3 different locations or restricted it to only certain characters being able to participate.

It was strange at first when they changed it, and it took some getting used to (like working out what order to do side quests in now there's no level requirement to show the intended order) but once I got used to it I can't say I've ever missed the way it used to be or wanted to go back to it.

In theory I wouldn't mind them offering the option for players who wanted it if they could, but it's not something I'd ever do.

zaria

VaranisArano wrote: »

There were aspects of pre-One Tamriel that I liked:
The linear quest progression worked really well for storytelling because you couldn't miss stuff or do zones out of order.
The attachment to your alliance that formed through being immersed in their questlines and zones for the whole of your first character.

On the whole, I'm not as nostalgic for it as the OP.

I remember:
Not being able to quest with friends on different alliances
Not being able to meaningfully quest with friends who were substantially lower or higher level than me
Being locked into a certain progression by EXP - if I skipped ahead to experience a DLC, I'd have outleveled a number of base game quests by the time I got back
Hitting the artificial miss chance when my Stam Sorc was progressing "too quickly"
Practically empty Cadwell's Silver zones
Wandering around Craglorn as a Vet 4 player and realizing I'd have to get all my friends up to Vet 11 before we could quest there
Crafting mats being limited to certain zones (Look, my cotton zone was Eastmarch. White flowers on white snow = not a good time.)

And one aspect that I think ZOS handled pretty well: before One Tamriel, a lot of the game just became obsolete once you finished it. Old gear was outleveled and discarded. Old zones were only good for farming old mats and amusing myself by one-shotting previously tough enemies.

This, I'm happy to play trough the game at launch. However its not something I want to go trough again.
Yes we can argue that the dpc zones should be harder and other changes but current game does not fit the launch one a bit.

LadyNalcarya

VaranisArano wrote: »

And one aspect that I think ZOS handled pretty well: before One Tamriel, a lot of the game just became obsolete once you finished it. Old gear was outleveled and discarded. Old zones were only good for farming old mats and amusing myself by one-shotting previously tough enemies.

This.
It was super frustrating to constantly outlevel everything while trying to clear all objectives. Overland is laughably easy nowadays, yes, but back then you could literally oneshot stuff with light attacks. Most dungeons were obsolete once you outleveled them. No loot, no challenge and no exp. You could even outlevel veteran dungeons, CoA2 was the only vr14 dungeon for quite a while.
I can't say that the game is in a good state now, but I'm pretty sure that 1 Tamriel saved it back then and I think that most people who praise pre-1T just look at it through rose-colored glasses.

SilverBride

I played at launch. There is no way I will ever play that way again. It forced veteran levels and grouping, while at the same time restricting the ability to play with the other 2/3 of the character population.

No thanks.

NoMoreChillies

would you like to go back to Templars unable to survive questing as well?

Vevvev

I loved fighting things higher level than me for the challenge, BUT I never really learned how to play the game till after the Summerset expansion came out.

Back when my DPS on dummies was 4-7k I remember one shotting a world boss in Glenumbra... Let that sink in for a moment. Do we -really- want to return to that?

Norith_Gilheart_Flail

I think there are more advantages now than what we lost.

But it really sounds like you're wanting an offline single player version as a tide over until next Elder Scrolls.

Iccotak

VaranisArano wrote: »

There were aspects of pre-One Tamriel that I liked:
The linear quest progression worked really well for storytelling because you couldn't miss stuff or do zones out of order.
The attachment to your alliance that formed through being immersed in their questlines and zones for the whole of your first character.

On the whole, I'm not as nostalgic for it as the OP.

I remember:
Not being able to quest with friends on different alliances
Not being able to meaningfully quest with friends who were substantially lower or higher level than me
Being locked into a certain progression by EXP - if I skipped ahead to experience a DLC, I'd have outleveled a number of base game quests by the time I got back
Hitting the artificial miss chance when my Stam Sorc was progressing "too quickly"
Practically empty Cadwell's Silver zones
Wandering around Craglorn as a Vet 4 player and realizing I'd have to get all my friends up to Vet 11 before we could quest there
Crafting mats being limited to certain zones (Look, my cotton zone was Eastmarch. White flowers on white snow = not a good time.)

And one aspect that I think ZOS handled pretty well: before One Tamriel, a lot of the game just became obsolete once you finished it. Old gear was outleveled and discarded. Old zones were only good for farming old mats and amusing myself by one-shotting previously tough enemies.

This there were some things I liked about Pre-OT like clear story progression

But the way the player base was split and how it made content irrelevant really decreased its lifespan.

I will wait to see what changes they see for champion points and balancing and then we can talk about overland difficultly

AlnilamE

I don't miss outleveling content by the third zone because I liked completing everything. If you were 5 levels above mobs, you would not get any loot from them at all.

And don't even think about taking a character that's still question to guild events. They'll just outlevel their content even faster.

I much prefer the freedom we have now, where the character level does not affect their questing experience.

Donari

SilverBride wrote: »

I played at launch. There is no way I will ever play that way again. It forced veteran levels and grouping, while at the same time restricting the ability to play with the other 2/3 of the character population.

No thanks.

Agreed. And that forced grouping? If your friend zipped off and did a quest or two without you, you were phased differently from them. So things would attack you in areas friendly to them, and they couldn't help you. You had to play in exact lock step or lose effective grouping. To this day I'm mostly a solo player in ESO in part because of habits learned back then.

Ratzkifal

Do you also miss 99% of basegame sets being irrelevant?
Do you also miss not being able to play with friends that don't play as often as you do (outside of Orsinium, Hew's Bane and the Gold Coast)?
Do you miss not being able to dye your costumes and weapons?
Do you miss having to go to Cyrodiil just to duel with someone?

There are many things about the old ESO that were better, but unless you play PvP exclusively, I can't get behind why people would want to play the game pre-One Tamriel. The added features and quality of life changes they've introduced over the years outweigh the need for vertical progression, even if performance and arguably balance used to be better.

LadyNalcarya

Donari wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I played at launch. There is no way I will ever play that way again. It forced veteran levels and grouping, while at the same time restricting the ability to play with the other 2/3 of the character population.

No thanks.

Agreed. And that forced grouping? If your friend zipped off and did a quest or two without you, you were phased differently from them. So things would attack you in areas friendly to them, and they couldn't help you. You had to play in exact lock step or lose effective grouping. To this day I'm mostly a solo player in ESO in part because of habits learned back then.

And don't forget having to group with 3 other people that are at the same quest stage to clear Craglorn quests Not just because the mobs were tough, you just couldnt proceed because of levers/pressure plates that had to be activated at the same time.

Anotherone773

Khajiitihaswares wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Khajiitihaswares wrote: »

ClawOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Vet ranks. Good riddance.

God those were such trash... Hey you hit 50 ready for your next grind!

Then again champ system is kinda can see it being a way to push new players away once they hit 50 and see they need grind 810 champ points XD.

I don't mind level grind when:
1. I feel like the next level, i worked for actually made the character better
2. It's not excessively grindy. Some games have excessive grind. Wow was really bad at grind when i played it many years ago. The levels from the most current xpack were meant to take months and months on multiple characters. It was tedious and mind numbing.

ESO i find to be one of the least grindy MMOs i have played.

*Looks at crafting.*

Please walk yourself out. I got crafting research done and that is crap grind.

Vet Ranks were butt too. As well is champ point grind for new peeps. I already grinded it out so I am good. But It does show progress when there is stuff to do. If you finish said stuff then you are going be grinding mobs depending on players account and DLC's.

Luckily I think ZoS plans to revamp champ system since well I think they even realize the system is eh.

I didnt say crafting but i dont find any crafting to be grindy except jewelry. CP grind was easy. Researching is way easier now with the scrolls but also not that bad. For an MMO this game is not that grindy when i compare it to other MMOs.

Also i don't mind the grind here because i don't have a Type A personality and don't feel the need to get to max level max gear max everything as soon as its available to me. And in ESO, i don't need to grind to get somewhere because its necessary for me to do current content.

When i played WoW like a decade ago ( quit a few months after the Misty Kung Fu Panda Xpack) grinding out the current levels in the current content was soul shattering. Just to get one character up 5 levels took hours and hours and hours of grinding. Endless dungeon grind, endless petty quests grind it was so boring just to level 1 character and i had like 10. Because of the terrible way player levels were designed in WoW until you hit max level you couldn't do any end game content.

I played another browser MMO that was the worst grind of any game i ever played. It was called Last Chaos. With XP scrolls grinding on red mobs it took hours and hours power leveling to get one level and there were over 150 levels. The most grind of any game i ever had. In the end the grind is why i stopped playing. When you kill the same NPCS over and over in the same location for months on end, you just get tired of it.

The grind in ESO is a walk in the park compared to most MMOs i have played.

Iluvrien

I miss so many things. The biggest one might be the lack of level scaling.

A mudcrab immediately post your initial escape from Coldharbour posing the same level of challenge as after you’ve taken on multiple Daedric princes?

Pure insanity. Magical levelling mudcrabs!

UGotBenched91

I also miss some aspects of ESO before one Tamriel. Not all aspects but some. Mainly the sense of game progression. Yes, it’s great I can play with friends no matter the level or CP difference but any sense of world progression is gone. My level 15 character can go and defeat many of the worlds most powerful beings. I miss clearing zones and working towards the next dangerous encounter. I miss normal dungeons feelings like they were difficult. Now you can be half asleep, mash buttons, and the mobs just die in front of you.

While I enjoy this game I feel it lacks a lot of feelings of vertical progression in both over world and gear. After CP (150/160 whatever the magic number is) the progression just stops and it becomes just grinding for sets.

bmnoble

Never played it before One Tamriel did look into the game at release and every now and then after, didn't like the look of what I saw back then, finally got around to getting the game in late 2018 because it seemed like it would be more enjoyable than what I heard about the game in the first few years after release.

While things are far from perfect I still play the game, would I have bought the game if it stayed the way it was when it first came out? No, if it had stayed that way I would never have bothered buying the game, I doubt I would be the only one that felt that way.