Is cross-play, or at least cross-save more on the horizon now?

Pirate69King

Everyone has seen the crossplay discussions at this point. I know about the difficulties mega servers impose, I know some players are concerned in a pvp sense when it comes to console VS pc and I understand the economy difficulties it may cause.

First I'd like to ask about the economy difficulties. Would it not be possible to limit console trading (with pc players) to slowly ease their understanding of the market prices and also their actual amount of gold into the pc economy (or vice-versa and I say this because warframe did a similar thing)

Next is pvp. Now I do not have the required experience in this area to make a full conclusion, however now that cosoles are getting add-ons that is an area of cross-play pvp nullified in terms of the argument of pc having the advantage. Then there's the discussion of Mnk(mmo mouse, better performance on pc etc.) vs controller and while I think like all games, pretty much, MnK is better but for eso I don't see how it could be the deciding factor to not implement crossplay. That's all I'll say on pvp as I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

And one quick question. Is cross-save just as complex to implement as cross-play?

All in all there's more to cover, however I think it's all been talked about so much in other posts I'd just be repeating old news. I just think in terms of 'next steps' for eso, cross-play or cross-save is important as it would very much breath fresh life into the community and largely increase player counts (of course because it would be merging the 3 platforms), and now with console add-ons coming is it just not possible because of mega servers, or is a there hope for at least slow work towards the future of eso having cross-play or save?

LunaFlora

very doubtful.

cross save is usually done with cross play, but no idea how it would work with ESO if ZOS is somehow able to do either.


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8282636#Comment_8282636
this link is to a forum comment about crossplay which includes a zos quote

sans-culottes

As a console player, I would be in favor of this. Frankly, just being able to link achievements and Crown store purchases to my old PC account would be nice. It’d make me feel less bound to a device and entertainment ecosystem I have no strong feelings about. I suspect this is unlikely, though.

HatchetHaro

I'd love to see cross-play in ESO, and I do think that the tech is possible. What makes it less feasible is the release schedule differences between PC and console, especially since both XBox and PS have longer approval processes. If cross-play is ever implemented, PC's release schedule would suffer, especially in terms of patches and bug-fixes, and console gameplay would contain more bugs since PC wasn't there to catch them first.

Cross-save is absolutely possible, like, right now. Different game builds can pull data from and save data to the same database; we have the PTSpocalypse from last year to thank for this revelation.

On the subject of M+K vs controller, I'm on PC, and I'm an end-game raider; some of the best players I know use gamepads. There are simply just very few situations where flick-shots and crosshair pinpoint accuracy are deciding factors in ESO's gameplay, so you'll find no skill gap between M+K and controller players.

DenverRalphy

I hope cross play never comes to exist in ESO. As a former PC player now enjoying life on the PSNA servers, I don't want that craptastic inflated gold/trader market from PC poisoning the PSNA server.

Not to mention that in every game that goes crossplay, the console side always gets the short end of the stick.

sans-culottes

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I hope cross play never comes to exist in ESO. As a former PC player now enjoying life on the PSNA servers, I don't want that craptastic inflated gold/trader market from PC poisoning the PSNA server.

Not to mention that in every game that goes crossplay, the console side always gets the short end of the stick.

It’s funny you would say that. I feel the opposite way. It’d give console players a way OUT of another kind of trap. It doesn’t help that consoles objectively already get the “short end of the stick” in the current paradigm.

jaws343

Market and PVP experience aside, the larger issue is account names and character names.

So, if they implemented this, who is going to be forced to change their names. PS players or Xbox players or PC players.

On console, our account names are literally our platform account names. I'm sorry, but I am not changing my nearly 20 year old account name to play crossplay on a game that implements it this late into the game's lifecycle because a PS player has the same account name.

Same with character names, are they just going to force players to rename.

And they will have to do something like that, because otherwise, you will certainly have people creating account/character names that match players on other platforms as a form of harassment.

Maitsukas

What about players that are multi-platform? Do they have to choose which platform has to remove ALL of their data (characters, housing, etc.)?

ghastley

HatchetHaro wrote: »

Cross-save is absolutely possible, like, right now. Different game builds can pull data from and save data to the same database; we have the PTSpocalypse from last year to thank for this revelation.

All the PTS issue proved is that the database copy really is a copy.

SilverBride

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

luc76985

PCs & Consoles are not a good mix, but I would love to play with my fellow console-based friends.

sans-culottes

luc76985 wrote: »

PCs & Consoles are not a good mix, but I would love to play with my fellow console-based friends.

They seem to mix fine for lots of other games. FFXIV comes to mind. ZOS would just need to give consoles an autorun feature—and enable keyboard/mouse compatibility.

That these basic QoL features are lacking contributes to the second-tier experience consoles have been relegated to.

valenwood_vegan

I imagine if there is actual progress on cross-play, cross-save, etc we'll hear about it on the stream later this week.

Otherwise, they have given no indications that any further progress has been made beyond their previous statements to the effect that it's something they're thinking about, but it presents many technical challenges due to how the game and the megaservers were initially designed, and is not going to happen soon.

tomofhyrule

Oh, is it time for this thread again? We really should have a sticky for "cross-play/cross-save" so we don't have to rehash the same points literally every week.

• Yes, every other game does it.
• Yes, it would really be something ESO should look into because that's the way the times are going and it would help with low pops on consoles (particularly XBEU).
• No, it's not going to be easy.
• No, the economy is not a primary concern because things will stabilize very soon after
• No, addons are not a primary concern because consoles are getting some addons and then any potential cross-save would allow people to just go on PC and use addons that don't exist on console.
• Yes, the megaserver architecture is the main reason this isn't done yet.
• Yes, ESO has a different server architecture than other MMOs, which means any player on the same megaserver can interact but that also makes interaction between megaservers impossible.
• Yes, ZOS could totally figure out how to merge servers if they wanted to put in that time.
• No, they have repeatedly said it's not in the cards. At least not at this time.
• No, the accidental PTS debacle last year is not proof that it will work. Success stories don't usually end up with shutting the server down for 20 hours and temp-banning your beta testers for 11 days.
• No, the PTS copies are not proof it will be easy, since that's a wipe-and-reset.
• No, the initial console copies are not proof it will work since that was a blank server. That could be an idea for a start if they made a brand new mega-mega-server to be merged, but they never built a merger software
• Yes, it would be a good idea if they first tested with individual transfers, but even that would be tough and finicky. Once that is done without bugs, then they could start to consider something bigger.
• Yes, there will probably be some legalese also getting in the way. XB and PC are both under the Microsoft umbrella, but I doubt a company as greedy as Sony will enjoy any way of people being able to leave Sony (and stop paying the online fee to Sony) for something else.
• Yes, name overlaps will be a problem, and "oh just append something to the end of every character name!" is not an answer because TES is very RP-heavy, and RPers aren't going to be happy if their carefully crafted lore-appropriate name now includes "XBOX" in it. However, if they can invisibly do that (even make it so players can have the same name visually even if internally it's "CharName@PlayerID"), that would work.

Did I miss anything?

SilverBride

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

I'm not willing to risk losing my character's names, or losing my houses and other things I've acquired and worked hard for, or having our economy destroyed (the past year has been bad enough), or having different societal norms causing conflict (I've heard that on console players charge gold to bite players, but we do it for free on PC) for just a few examples.

PC is not preferred but it was the first option to play ESO, and players still have that option.

sans-culottes

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Oh, is it time for this thread again? We really should have a sticky for "cross-play/cross-save" so we don't have to rehash the same points literally every week.

• Yes, every other game does it.
• Yes, it would really be something ESO should look into because that's the way the times are going and it would help with low pops on consoles (particularly XBEU).
• No, it's not going to be easy.
• No, the economy is not a primary concern because things will stabilize very soon after
• No, addons are not a primary concern because consoles are getting some addons and then any potential cross-save would allow people to just go on PC and use addons that don't exist on console.
• Yes, the megaserver architecture is the main reason this isn't done yet.
• Yes, ESO has a different server architecture than other MMOs, which means any player on the same megaserver can interact but that also makes interaction between megaservers impossible.
• Yes, ZOS could totally figure out how to merge servers if they wanted to put in that time.
• No, they have repeatedly said it's not in the cards. At least not at this time.
• No, the accidental PTS debacle last year is not proof that it will work. Success stories don't usually end up with shutting the server down for 20 hours and temp-banning your beta testers for 11 days.
• No, the PTS copies are not proof it will be easy, since that's a wipe-and-reset.
• No, the initial console copies are not proof it will work since that was a blank server. That could be an idea for a start if they made a brand new mega-mega-server to be merged, but they never built a merger software
• Yes, it would be a good idea if they first tested with individual transfers, but even that would be tough and finicky. Once that is done without bugs, then they could start to consider something bigger.
• Yes, there will probably be some legalese also getting in the way. XB and PC are both under the Microsoft umbrella, but I doubt a company as greedy as Sony will enjoy any way of people being able to leave Sony (and stop paying the online fee to Sony) for something else.
• Yes, name overlaps will be a problem, and "oh just append something to the end of every character name!" is not an answer because TES is very RP-heavy, and RPers aren't going to be happy if their carefully crafted lore-appropriate name now includes "XBOX" in it. However, if they can invisibly do that (even make it so players can have the same name visually even if internally it's "CharName@PlayerID"), that would work.

Did I miss anything?

@tomofhyrule, respectfully, a sticky thread won’t resolve this because the issue isn’t just “rehashing old points.” It’s that the current state of platform separation is actively harmful and increasingly out of step with the rest of the industry.

Yes, the megaserver model presents a hurdle, but it’s not a unique or insurmountable one. Games like FFXIV, Warframe, and even Destiny 2 faced similar architectural challenges and managed to implement either cross-save or full cross-play with time, effort, and investment. That’s the whole point: this isn’t a casual patch. It’s a long-term infrastructure goal worth pursuing if ZOS wants ESO to thrive over the next decade.

The economy will normalize. Every MMO that merged shards or implemented cross-economies has seen some initial turbulence followed by stabilization. The idea that PC’s economy would “poison” the console market is hyperbolic, especially given that inflation and market manipulation already exist within servers.

As for the name collision issue, again, this has been solved before. Unique IDs can be tied to character names invisibly, and RP integrity can be preserved. This is a solved problem, not a game-breaking impasse.

The truth is that console players already get the short end of the stick: later patches, fewer UI features, worse support, and fewer customization options. Cross-play or cross-save would mitigate some of that disparity—not worsen it.

What’s actually “craptastic” is being told that your decade of progress is stuck on a closed system while the rest of the industry moves forward.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

I'm not willing to risk losing my character's names, or losing my houses and other things I've acquired and worked hard for, or having our economy destroyed (the past year has been bad enough), or having different societal norms causing conflict (I've heard that on console players charge gold to bite players, but we do it for free on PC) for just a few examples.

PC is not preferred but it was the first option to play ESO, and players still have that option.

I do not believe these things would happen with cross-platform play.

Edited to add: you might find some folks charging for bites, but that’s the exception to the rule. You also find ill-informed and/or opportunistic players attempting to sell bites on PC. Thankfully, such minor differences wouldn’t affect anything, as cultural norms wouldn’t suddenly be upended re: bites. Nor would houses, etc. be stripped away from players—we can safely set those concerns to the side. Were ZOS to consider cross-platform play, it would be very surprising indeed for them to include a caveat that all current players’ purchases, achievements, and so on will be removed.

This is to say nothing about the reverse of what you’re describing, which is to say the unideal experience console players have relative to PC players.

SilverBride

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

I'm not willing to risk losing my character's names, or losing my houses and other things I've acquired and worked hard for, or having our economy destroyed (the past year has been bad enough), or having different societal norms causing conflict (I've heard that on console players charge gold to bite players, but we do it for free on PC) for just a few examples.

PC is not preferred but it was the first option to play ESO, and players still have that option.

I do not believe these things would happen with cross-platform play.

I believe they could and I don't want to take that chance.

DenverRalphy

SilverBride wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

I'm not willing to risk losing my character's names, or losing my houses and other things I've acquired and worked hard for, or having our economy destroyed (the past year has been bad enough), or having different societal norms causing conflict (I've heard that on console players charge gold to bite players, but we do it for free on PC) for just a few examples.

PC is not preferred but it was the first option to play ESO, and players still have that option.

While I agree with you and share the same stance on cross play, I can assure you that charging for bites is not the social norm on consoles. At least, not on PSNA.

fizl101

DenverRalphy wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

No crossplay, please. There are just too many negatives.

As a console player, I must respectfully disagree. I suspect many console players would support more options for interacting with a game that already favors PC players.

I'm not willing to risk losing my character's names, or losing my houses and other things I've acquired and worked hard for, or having our economy destroyed (the past year has been bad enough), or having different societal norms causing conflict (I've heard that on console players charge gold to bite players, but we do it for free on PC) for just a few examples.

PC is not preferred but it was the first option to play ESO, and players still have that option.

While I agree with you and share the same stance on cross play, I can assure you that charging for bites is not the social norm on consoles. At least, not on PSNA.

or ps eu

luc76985

sans-culottes wrote: »

luc76985 wrote: »

PCs & Consoles are not a good mix, but I would love to play with my fellow console-based friends.

They seem to mix fine for lots of other games. FFXIV comes to mind. ZOS would just need to give consoles an autorun feature—and enable keyboard/mouse compatibility.

That these basic QoL features are lacking contributes to the second-tier experience consoles have been relegated to.

No, PC players need to exist on a server just for PC players. They play differently, run millions of mods, and have faster hardware. They are also more prone to exploitation, cheating, and hacking. The playing field is so different that it LOOKS like a different game. You can watch PC players stream ESO running all of those mods. Or ask the guild traders what it is like on the PC server. And PVP is already an imbalanced mess - what do you think mixing PCs and consoles would do to that?
PCs and Consoles are like totally different ecosystems. Other than the population bump, mixing populations will not add value for either group.
That's my two cents.

redlink1979

Reminder: Rich Lambert already stated several times that crossplay isn't in ZOS plans, neither in short, medium or long therm.

Tandor

How exactly would cross-play work? If it involved console players opting to play on PC servers then that would impose a major additional burden on servers that are already straining, and how would those console players not opting in feel about being left to play on even quieter console servers?

Let's not pretend that it wouldn't just be one-way traffic. I can see some advantages for some console players, and some disadvantages for other console players. I can only see disadvantages for PC players, and a lot of difficulties and potential pitfalls for ZOS with no benefit at all for the console providers.

SilverBride

Thanks @DenverRalphy and @fizl101 for clarifying. I thought I read that once in a thread but was mistaken.

Orbital78

sans-culottes wrote: »

As a console player, I would be in favor of this. Frankly, just being able to link achievements and Crown store purchases to my old PC account would be nice. It’d make me feel less bound to a device and entertainment ecosystem I have no strong feelings about. I suspect this is unlikely, though.

You cannot do this between NA/EU, so I don't see how that would be fair for console/pc. Even your crown store purchases don't carry over, which is one of the reasons (besides ping) that I don't use EU.

sans-culottes

redlink1979 wrote: »

Reminder: Rich Lambert already stated several times that crossplay isn't in ZOS plans, neither in short, medium or long therm.

Tandor wrote: »

How exactly would cross-play work? If it involved console players opting to play on PC servers then that would impose a major additional burden on servers that are already straining, and how would those console players not opting in feel about being left to play on even quieter console servers?

Let's not pretend that it wouldn't just be one-way traffic. I can see some advantages for some console players, and some disadvantages for other console players. I can only see disadvantages for PC players, and a lot of difficulties and potential pitfalls for ZOS with no benefit at all for the console providers.

@Tandor and @redlink1979, I understand the skepticism, but some of these concerns may already be outdated or overstated.

For one, ZOS is actively working on addon support for consoles, which directly addresses one of the major arguments people have historically made against cross-play. This is public knowledge from multiple dev interviews and ESO Live segments. That’s not a minor move. It shows a clear intention to reduce the gap between platforms.

As for server load: PC NA is the most active megaserver by far, and even it doesn’t suffer from the population bottlenecks that plague PS EU or Xbox EU. Far from being a one-way street, cross-play would revitalize low-pop console servers and give players more options—especially for group content that currently struggles to queue. ZOS could easily use matchmaking flags (already used in PvP) to allow players to opt in or out of mixed pools, if that’s a concern.

Fear of “what console players might do” to the PC economy or community mirrors arguments that people made when FFXIV or Warframe adopted cross-play. Those fears largely didn’t pan out.

And let’s not forget: many players already have accounts on both platforms. Cross-save would let us consolidate years of progress and purchases. That alone would improve retention and goodwill.

ZOS hasn’t promised cross-play, to be sure. But saying “it’s not on the roadmap” today isn’t the same as saying “it will never happen.” The technical and social landscape is shifting. Other MMOs have solved this. ESO can too.

DenverRalphy

sans-culottes wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Oh, is it time for this thread again? We really should have a sticky for "cross-play/cross-save" so we don't have to rehash the same points literally every week.

• Yes, every other game does it.
• Yes, it would really be something ESO should look into because that's the way the times are going and it would help with low pops on consoles (particularly XBEU).
• No, it's not going to be easy.
• No, the economy is not a primary concern because things will stabilize very soon after
• No, addons are not a primary concern because consoles are getting some addons and then any potential cross-save would allow people to just go on PC and use addons that don't exist on console.
• Yes, the megaserver architecture is the main reason this isn't done yet.
• Yes, ESO has a different server architecture than other MMOs, which means any player on the same megaserver can interact but that also makes interaction between megaservers impossible.
• Yes, ZOS could totally figure out how to merge servers if they wanted to put in that time.
• No, they have repeatedly said it's not in the cards. At least not at this time.
• No, the accidental PTS debacle last year is not proof that it will work. Success stories don't usually end up with shutting the server down for 20 hours and temp-banning your beta testers for 11 days.
• No, the PTS copies are not proof it will be easy, since that's a wipe-and-reset.
• No, the initial console copies are not proof it will work since that was a blank server. That could be an idea for a start if they made a brand new mega-mega-server to be merged, but they never built a merger software
• Yes, it would be a good idea if they first tested with individual transfers, but even that would be tough and finicky. Once that is done without bugs, then they could start to consider something bigger.
• Yes, there will probably be some legalese also getting in the way. XB and PC are both under the Microsoft umbrella, but I doubt a company as greedy as Sony will enjoy any way of people being able to leave Sony (and stop paying the online fee to Sony) for something else.
• Yes, name overlaps will be a problem, and "oh just append something to the end of every character name!" is not an answer because TES is very RP-heavy, and RPers aren't going to be happy if their carefully crafted lore-appropriate name now includes "XBOX" in it. However, if they can invisibly do that (even make it so players can have the same name visually even if internally it's "CharName@PlayerID"), that would work.

Did I miss anything?

The economy will normalize. Every MMO that merged shards or implemented cross-economies has seen some initial turbulence followed by stabilization. The idea that PC’s economy would “poison” the console market is hyperbolic, especially given that inflation and market manipulation already exist within servers.

It wouldn't work for ESO becaue ESO has a different market system. If you combined all platforms servers, you'd essentially be tripling the number of active guilds, yet the number of Guild Traders remains the same. There ratio of guilds to available traders is already pretty poor. Merge all the platforms and that ratio becomes absurd. Console guilds would be swallowed up because the PC market has tons more gold floating around and as a result the PC guilds would instantly control all the traders. Console guilds would literally become worthless overenight, and it would be impossible to recover.

Not to mention that console players aren't going to be thrilled about being instantly broke in game because the value of their gold just flushed down the drain, while PC players are instantly richer for it because their gold suddenly became a bit more valuable.

And believe it or not, there are a lot of console players who are very happy not having anything like the TTC screwing with their Trader market. I'm not going to debate the merits or pitfalls of the TTC here. But there are enough players who don't want to see it happen because they recognize the bad that comes from the good.

redlink1979

sans-culottes wrote: »

(...)

@Tandor and @redlink1979, I understand the skepticism, but some of these concerns may already be outdated or overstated.

For one, ZOS is actively working on addon support for consoles, which directly addresses one of the major arguments people have historically made against cross-play. This is public knowledge from multiple dev interviews and ESO Live segments. That’s not a minor move. It shows a clear intention to reduce the gap between platforms.

As for server load: PC NA is the most active megaserver by far, and even it doesn’t suffer from the population bottlenecks that plague PS EU or Xbox EU. Far from being a one-way street, cross-play would revitalize low-pop console servers and give players more options—especially for group content that currently struggles to queue. ZOS could easily use matchmaking flags (already used in PvP) to allow players to opt in or out of mixed pools, if that’s a concern.

Fear of “what console players might do” to the PC economy or community mirrors arguments that people made when FFXIV or Warframe adopted cross-play. Those fears largely didn’t pan out.

And let’s not forget: many players already have accounts on both platforms. Cross-save would let us consolidate years of progress and purchases. That alone would improve retention and goodwill.

ZOS hasn’t promised cross-play, to be sure. But saying “it’s not on the roadmap” today isn’t the same as saying “it will never happen.” The technical and social landscape is shifting. Other MMOs have solved this. ESO can too.

Add-ons on consoles doesn't mean crossplay, it just means Sony and Microsoft are willing to allow 3rd parties apps on their machines.

sans-culottes

redlink1979 wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

(...)

@Tandor and @redlink1979, I understand the skepticism, but some of these concerns may already be outdated or overstated.

For one, ZOS is actively working on addon support for consoles, which directly addresses one of the major arguments people have historically made against cross-play. This is public knowledge from multiple dev interviews and ESO Live segments. That’s not a minor move. It shows a clear intention to reduce the gap between platforms.

As for server load: PC NA is the most active megaserver by far, and even it doesn’t suffer from the population bottlenecks that plague PS EU or Xbox EU. Far from being a one-way street, cross-play would revitalize low-pop console servers and give players more options—especially for group content that currently struggles to queue. ZOS could easily use matchmaking flags (already used in PvP) to allow players to opt in or out of mixed pools, if that’s a concern.

Fear of “what console players might do” to the PC economy or community mirrors arguments that people made when FFXIV or Warframe adopted cross-play. Those fears largely didn’t pan out.

And let’s not forget: many players already have accounts on both platforms. Cross-save would let us consolidate years of progress and purchases. That alone would improve retention and goodwill.

ZOS hasn’t promised cross-play, to be sure. But saying “it’s not on the roadmap” today isn’t the same as saying “it will never happen.” The technical and social landscape is shifting. Other MMOs have solved this. ESO can too.

Add-ons on consoles doesn't mean crossplay, it just means Sony and Microsoft are willing to allow 3rd parties apps on their machines.

Nor did I say that. I did say, though, that this has been one of the most common issues people cite. See for instance:

luc76985 wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

luc76985 wrote: »

PCs & Consoles are not a good mix, but I would love to play with my fellow console-based friends.

They seem to mix fine for lots of other games. FFXIV comes to mind. ZOS would just need to give consoles an autorun feature—and enable keyboard/mouse compatibility.

That these basic QoL features are lacking contributes to the second-tier experience consoles have been relegated to.

No, PC players need to exist on a server just for PC players. They play differently, run millions of mods, and have faster hardware. They are also more prone to exploitation, cheating, and hacking. The playing field is so different that it LOOKS like a different game. You can watch PC players stream ESO running all of those mods. Or ask the guild traders what it is like on the PC server. And PVP is already an imbalanced mess - what do you think mixing PCs and consoles would do to that?
PCs and Consoles are like totally different ecosystems. Other than the population bump, mixing populations will not add value for either group.
That's my two cents.

As to the idea that people wouldn’t welcome a more organized, centralized tool for searching auctions—color me skeptical. But we’ve had lots of discussions about that in the ESO economy threads.

Tandor

sans-culottes wrote: »

As for server load: PC NA is the most active megaserver by far, and even it doesn’t suffer from the population bottlenecks that plague PS EU or Xbox EU. Far from being a one-way street, cross-play would revitalize low-pop console servers and give players more options—especially for group content that currently struggles to queue. ZOS could easily use matchmaking flags (already used in PvP) to allow players to opt in or out of mixed pools, if that’s a concern.

I'm not sure about your premise, but the reason PC NA doesn't have the same pressures as the EU servers is because the NA population is spread across different time zones whereas the EU servers have much less variation in their players' time zones. This is reflected therefore in player concurrency.