Any crossplay plans coming with the new servers changes?

KekwLord3000 · January 27

tomofhyrule wrote: »

A lot of people keep arguing that ZOS isn't doing crossplay because of the economies or the addons or whatever. It's actually a lot simpler than that:

It's physically impossible with the current server architecture

ESO, unlike other MMOs, runs on a megaserver architecture. That means that any player on a megaserver will be able to play with any other character on a megaserver, but that also means that server transfers are not possible.

I'm sure if this was easy, ZOS would have done it by now. However, we know that they can only copy data from one server to a blank server like they did when the consoles first appeared. Even the PTS every cycle will wipe the data clear and copy a server over from scratch.

If ZOS were to add something like that, they'd need to essentially make a brand new "crossplay" megaserver and then copy and merge all of the data, which would require the creation of a new tool specifically to do so. That definitely would be rife with conflicts and bugs - see what happened with the PTS debacle from last year. It's not impossible to do so, but it would take a lot of work.

One of the first things they could do to help though would be to create a "server transfer" service where only one data set is transferred from one megaserver to another. That of course would require a heavy investment and likely result in the transferred account losing some or all character names due to conflicts. But if they could get that to work smoothly, then they could possibly start to consider making a way to merge megaservers in the future.

Of course, this is implying that there would be no legalese as well. We know that PC and XBox servers would play nice since they both are under Microsoft, but I'm sure Sony's lawyers would not be happy about a way for people to stop playing on a Sony console and start playing on a competitor's system...

But Rich said it's not "impossible" and they are looking into it. It's not high on their priority list yes but it's not an absolute NO, so no it's not Impossible, just probably too complex and will require a lot of work to be done with a lot of debugging like that PTS chars leaked to PCNA.

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/eso-creative-director-says-his-answer-to-crossplay-has-changed-2483443/

KekwLord3000 · January 27

blktauna wrote: »

Currently ZOS is structurally unable to balance PVE separately from PVP and you imagine they can just wave a wand and change the structure they have to allow for the structural changes and DB consolidation needed for crossplay?

Not to be mean, but the ROI on that is way too small.

Then there's the whole dealing with SONY contractually and as we have no idea on the agreements already in place, that's another hurdle.

It's not about lack of skill ie they cannot solve pve and pvp separation like they can't solve lags, it's more of a direction issue like they don't want to have separate pvp and separate pve ie skills,sets etc I mean they slowly doing it with making sets only work against monsters or only work if battle spirit is up, it's still a very small portion of all the skills and sets but they are slowly changing their view seeing they cannot have PVE and PVP linked to each other and need a separate balancing.
But you are right any pvp pve balancing or crossplay is not about can zos do it, but is more "Is it financially worth it to do it" Let's not forget it's not an indie company their end goal is their share holders not Timmy that plays eso.

MJallday · January 27

Bokila wrote: »

Since all platforms received new servers, are there any intentions to implement any kind of crossplay/crosssave feature in the game? I know this has been brought alot and mainly the reason why it was not possible was "that is not how the servers are structured". Well, now that we have new servers across all platforms, will it be possible to implement any type of crossplay? Did they have that in mind when they added the new servers?
Eso EU Xbox PVP is dead for example and it would benefit from such a change, even if it would be done to PVP only since they are instanced based and i suppose it would be easier to be done.

EI Xbox PVP isnt dead. most of the weekend its been at least 2 bar and quite a lot 3 for AD/EP

its also 3 bar most evenings.

also, theyll never do x platform.

XSTRONG · January 27

SilverBride wrote: »

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XSTRONG wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Even with consoles now having access to add-ons I am not sure it's a good idea. The economies between the consoles and PC are very different. I'm not sure how well they would blend and not create conflict.

Then how would they deal with the voice chat that consoles have? I hope they never bring something like that to PC.

One way to get rid of the diffrent economies from servers are Zos making a Seasonal server with a server reset after each season.

So when a season starts everyone starts from 0, and now when addons are coming to Console it would actually be a even playing field if comparing to PC.

I'm not understanding what a reset would do. If this means to reset everyone's gold to zero then this is a big huge NO from me.

On the seasonal server but eternal server will be untouched so people sitting on their Gold can still sit on it and count coins

I'm afraid I don't understand. What exactly is a seasonal server? Would it be a separate server from a combined crossplay server? If so then that would defeat the reason for having crossplay.

Season server = A server seperated from what you are playing on now "eternal server". A server reset before a new season starts means In Game economy problem solved and everyone starts fresh in the new season.

They can also if a system is popular put it into eternal realm.
All gold and stuff you have would still be in eternal realm.

Like Diablo, if they didnt have a server reset when a new season starts everyone would have endless amount of gold,mats,items but you can still hoard it in eternal realm.

Trejgon · January 27

When warframe was implementing their cross-play, they did one very important distinction that I don't see anyone in this thread making, they separated cross-play and cross-save as two separate features.

Alot of issues I see people raising in here, sounds like assuming that cross-play requires cross-save to also be a thing.
Following by Warframe example... it is not a requirement. Warframe started doing cross-play before they have finished figuring cross-save, and even afterwards, they released cross-save in waves where you had to sign into it.

While obviously there are architectural differences between games there, implementing cross-play functionality, without cross-save, and with between-platform trading disabled, sounds like a possibility that could sidestep and preserve all of the economical differences between the platforms. The only requirement there would be to start sync the updates between platforms, so all the platforms in the cross-play actually play on he same version of the game at all times.

That being said as far as external observer can tell, it would appear that the infrastructure itself and game engines has a number of quirks that possibly would have higher priority being addressed by the engineers than any form of cross-play, so here is that.

Bokila · February 20

Hey. Been a year or 2 since i posted this. Any news? Honestly i sank so much cash in other pc games that could ve easly been in ESO s pocket. Had a random thought of checking if it s worth coming back but if still no crossplay then see you next year.
Edit : Paid/free acc transfer would work aswell.

sans-culottes · February 20

Bokila wrote: »

Hey. Been a year or 2 since i posted this. Any news? Honestly i sank so much cash in other pc games that could ve easly been in ESO s pocket. Had a random thought of checking if it s worth coming back but if still no crossplay then see you next year.
Edit : Paid/free acc transfer would work aswell.

Right? Even a paid server transfer option would be an improvement. This would be me to ZOS:

Bokila · February 21

sans-culottes wrote: »

show previous quotes

Bokila wrote: »

Hey. Been a year or 2 since i posted this. Any news? Honestly i sank so much cash in other pc games that could ve easly been in ESO s pocket. Had a random thought of checking if it s worth coming back but if still no crossplay then see you next year.
Edit : Paid/free acc transfer would work aswell.

Right? Even a paid server transfer option would be an improvement. This would be me to ZOS:

Yeah, just made some quick research and no plans for crossplay. Last time they talked about it was like a year ago and nothing changed. Just sank another 50 euros into another MMO. Bye for now lol.

pecheckler · February 22

It's been 24 hours. Has Zenimax implemented cross-play yet?

Icy_Waffles · February 22

For me… I play on PS4. I am not getting a ps5 and do not want to restart on a pc.. I’ve been playing since launch on ps4.

sans-culottes · February 22

Icy_Waffles wrote: »

For me… I play on PS4. I am not getting a ps5 and do not want to restart on a pc.. I’ve been playing since launch on ps4.

For the record, the experience is much better on a PS5. It’d be a bit of a moot point if we could actually get our players off of that server. If it’d just be for one game, then it wouldn’t necesssrily be worth it. However, the PS4 is almost 12 years old. There are some definite, noticeable differences for this game alone.

That still doesn’t mean I’d not rather be able to somehow “unstick” myself from this platform. If ZOS offered me a lifeline, even in exchange for my hard-earned money, then I’d 100% gladly take that deal.