This is how I see the seasonality of content releases.

Artem_gig · December 18

I see that many are perplexed and give examples of some completely absurd systems of seasonal updates, but it seems to me that everything is much simpler.

1. Yes, there will be no more chapters, but we will simply receive less content, but more often (during one season), so by the end of the year, it seems to me, we will still receive the same amount of content. It's just that now the content will be smoothly distributed throughout the year, and not released all at once.
2. What will happen at the end of the season? As has already been said, the content will not go anywhere. It seems to me that it will work the same way as with chapters. First, you buy a season for money, and when it ends (everything that was planned in it was released), it leaves the store for real money and goes to the crown store, where it can already be bought in full for crowns for those who did not buy the season at the beginning, or not buy at all if you have eso+.
3. Complication of ordinary locations. Many people don't like this, but many players have been asking for this for at least 5 years. I don't think they'll make it unbearably difficult, I hope they'll rather add more hp and damage to special attacks of enemies that can be avoided/interrupted (not talking about bosses), as well as increase the damage of traps and give them a debuff with disabling regeneration for 10 seconds.
4. Free updates. Yes, they were before. But never such a global one. Reworking locations is very good. But I would also like to know if we will get free new quests in these zones?

That's all I wanted to discuss, but I don't mind discussing it with you too.

Treeshka · December 19

I exactly think the same in terms of content acquisition method.

UNSeki · December 19

Some casuals are terrified of the "harder overland" thing before even getting any information on how they're gonna approach it. ZOS understands the majority of their playerbase are casual players and not tryhards, they're obviously not gonna turn the overland into a hellish sequence of Dark Soul bosses every fifty steps. As they said, they are looking into "experimenting with more zones like Craglorn (...), created exclusively for high-end group and soft-group content with associated gear chase", so these changes will most likely pertain to a few areas of increased difficulty and the rest of the overworld will remain largely the same. At most they're gonna increase the HP of a few enemies and give them a few extra interactive mechanics (snares, special moves, stronger elemental resistances etc.) to make the combat feel punchier.

Artem_gig wrote: »

4. Free updates. Yes, they were before. But never such a global one. Reworking locations is very good. But I would also like to know if we will get free new quests in these zones?

Exactly, that's one of the better aspects for me. I highly doubt they're gonna make us pay a second time for base game content, so these changes to existing zones will benefit everyone for free. Though if they do make new quests and local challenges, those would probably be purchased.

Danikat · December 19

I think the best case scenario is it's similar to 2015 and 2016, when they brought out different kinds of DLC and free updates on an irregular schedule. Probably nothing as big as Wrothgar, but also more varied than we've had the last few years.

We'll have to wait and see what it actually means in practice of course, but players have been complaining for a long time that updates are too predictable and repetative, so mixing it up isn't necessarily a bad thing.

DaveMoeDee · December 19

Artem_gig wrote: »

I see that many are perplexed and give examples of some completely absurd systems of seasonal updates, but it seems to me that everything is much simpler.

1. Yes, there will be no more chapters, but we will simply receive less content, but more often (during one season), so by the end of the year, it seems to me, we will still receive the same amount of content. It's just that now the content will be smoothly distributed throughout the year, and not released all at once.
...

Why would you expect the same amount of content? Seems very unlikely that we get anything close to a chapter's worth of new content.

The bigger problem is that the season quests need to be able to stand alone if they are sold individually at some point in the crown store. People need to be able to play a later season without playing an earlier season. This means abbreviated narratives. A bunch of new sidequests.

I will miss the approach of having a unifying quest line after finishing the chapter and the related DLC. I doubt they can do the same in an elegant way with smaller content spread across multiple distinct drops.

Servadei · December 19

I'm pretty sure it's just going to be the ESO version of Fallout 76 seasons. It is the same company that makes both games after all.

To put that into ESO terms, imagine something like Golden Pursuits combined with Endeavors.

Pelanora · December 19

If they spread out a story over seasons, I hope we don't get npc who explain everything to us that went before, and drive us nuts over a year, like they did over just one story in necrom.

Necrom really did drive me nuts. I'd never felt so much like a mindless puppet as I did in that story.

Syldras · December 19

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

The bigger problem is that the season quests need to be able to stand alone if they are sold individually at some point in the crown store. People need to be able to play a later season without playing an earlier season. This means abbreviated narratives. A bunch of new sidequests.
I will miss the approach of having a unifying quest line after finishing the chapter and the related DLC. I doubt they can do the same in an elegant way with smaller content spread across multiple distinct drops.

As someone who would enjoy more complex stories, this is indeed something I also thought about when I read the letter. I think some "seasons" might contain one shorter storyline with no side quests, like only one Mages Guild or Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild story. Focussing only on one topic. If it's well-written, that could be entertaining to play.

Or maybe another release could indeed be a collection of new singular quests for an old zone. Maybe "a part 2" to quests from the base game - although I'm not sure whether that would work so well for players who have played these zones 10 years ago and probably can't even remember many characters anymore.