Were ESO's Developers a Little Naïve or just plain Arrogant?

Abigail

Did the developers think all the game's players would fall into a cookie cutter notion of how ZoS thinks the game should be played?

Yes, ZoS has hyped "play how you want," yet, abnormal builds are often nonviable or break the game, and failure to follow quest lines rigidly frequently puts players in precarious circumstances with regard to their level. In other words, explore a little, but don't diverge too much from questing.

Did ZoS think players would not want to focus on crafting or the economy?

Crafting was hyped quite a lot by ZoS; still, one can't help the notion the developers expected crafters to operate on only a marginal scale -- player-player trading and parochial guild stores. Players wanting to focus primarily on crafting and the economy are left out of ZoS's paradigm altogether.

Did the game's developers not anticipate gold sellers?

There seems to have been no foresight whatsoever in the bot problem potential or how gold selling, item selling, or power level selling would impact the game's playability and economy. I've said it elsewhere: ZoS's failure to recognize the potential problem and inability heretofore in dealing effectively with gold sellers has inadvertently turned ESO into a Pay-to-Win game.

Did ZoS really think they were developing a game that would thrive on its social aspects?

In the weeks leading to launch we heard about the emphasis on the game's social qualities as much, perhaps more than anything else. Indeed, encouragement of socialization was given as the carte blanche excuse for every development decision. Yet, ESO unilaterally has one of the worst communication systems in the MMO world. No ability to toggle chat bubbles on and off (because there are no chat bubbles). Phasing complicates players' efforts to team up and quest together. We've heard the game's developers, on more than one occasion, suggest the game's economic mechanisms are designed to forward the social aspect; notwithstanding the absence of a trade channel and clunky guild stores that do nothing to husband interactivity between players.

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The in-game technology of the Elder Scrolls is said to be based loosely on the Medieval (Dark Ages) Period -- think the fall of Rome, failure of trading and economic infrastructures, population and cultural decline, plagues and inquisition.

If ESO's developers had this period in mind they've succeeded admirably in achieving it. The game's economic system has almost been reduced to bartering ... and we even have our own black plague of sorts -- botting and gold selling.

Though many players will soldier on, some happily, I think Elder Scrolls Online has a very bleak future, all due to developer naiveté and arrogance.

And, now that I've had the temerity to criticize the game, let the inquisition begin.

Dustile

Did the OP think another QQ post was gonna help anything?

Lynx7386

I think that players have been spoiled by recent MMO's, that's what I think.

Every MMO has it's issues at launch. Gold sellers and botters -always- exist, no matter what the devs do to prevent it. The best they can hope to do is lessen the issue through administrational measures.

Cookie cutter builds -always- exist, no matter how well designed the skill system is, simply because that's how your modern gamer's mind works - they want to be the best, so they'll number crunch and theorycraft until they've got the best build, and then share that build on the web for others.

The economic system of the game could obviously use improvement, but an auction house is the exact opposite of the direction it should be going. Auction houses promote the simple minded attitude of instant gratification, and they create no link between the buyer and seller. Anonymous public auction house systems do not allow players who really want to focus on the crafting system to become well known or compete against other crafters' reputation. A better system is to allow dedicated crafters to set up their own stores in the game, not unlike pre-cu starwars galaxies.
Further, ZOS needs to show a crafter's name on any item they create, and allow crafters to make custom names for their items. Right now, any item crafted by another player does not say "crafted by such and such" it just says "crafted".

Social aspects are up to the players, not the game developer. They've given us an epic environment, they've given us a huge number of animated emotes (far more than most other mmo's at this point), and they've given us amazing character customization. Past that, it's up to the players to interact with one another.
The only real improvement to the social system at this point would be chat bubbles to help localize communication and conversations.



These things will be fixed with time. At the moment there are more pressing matters with regards to artifact bugs left over from beta, server load capacities, and balancing issues. Let them handle the major problems first, and we can get those quality of life improvements later.

Jeremy

Abigail wrote: »

Crafting was hyped quite a lot by ZoS; still, one can't help the notion the developers expected crafters to operate on only a marginal scale -- player-player trading and parochial guild stores. Players wanting to focus primarily on crafting and the economy are left out of ZoS's paradigm altogether.

[b.

I completely agree with you on this point. And have found myself wondering what was going through their minds too.

It's such a waste for them to design such an intricate and useful crafting system only to deny players the reasonable tools to take advantage of it. Though I am stubborn and have and will continue taking the time to collect at least enough materials to craft me greens and blues as I level up. But I'll be in the singular minority on that I am sure.

Hopefully they will address this shortly and before the console release so this game can be more successful. Because I'm sure this is going to be a turn off for many players if they do not.

qwertyburnsb16_ESO

It is unfortunate that despite all the talent that these studios that they will keep producing generic theme park style mmo's. Sure there is a market out there for it, but WOW seems to have the Lion's share of the player base. Look how ZOS continue to concentrate on an end game of dungeon raids including trials. Roller coaster after roller coaster. I suspect this is down to the money men rather than the designers? Self appointed experts that thwarted any attempt to be different.

There are other games out there and some big hitters about to be released that will at last eventually come away from the theme park. They will be either genuine open world and/or Sandbox and I'm sure they will change the map as far as mmo's go. They will go on to exploit a big untapped market.

Don't get me wrong I am enjoying the theme park that has been laid out, but in a few months time it will not be enough. There isn't an outstanding community as yet like we had in the days of SWG and certainly not the freedom to play as you want. Not to the degree I was expecting anyway as there is too many restrictions and limitations to all aspects apart from character build.

They could save this game though if the lore allows for a new continent to be discovered that could be a true openworld sandbox? Suggest they go play some sandbox type games and then go back to the drawing board.

dagnome

I disagree with about 85% of the communities reaction to the "economy". There is plenty of economy, via public chat, COD, guild stores/trading. Notice how every game with a form of AH just gets corrupted over time? The economy just becomes skewed due to farmers/bots and people end up paying 150% of true value for ridiculous items. I love the fact that they kept it slightly more tight knit, we have had people abuse the duping exploits (Fixed now thank you) so there's already corruption within the system. If we toss in an AH you'll see them peddle their exploited Mats and gear in wide eye of the public view. With the way the system is now, they are restricted to zone chats and annoying PM's to advertise their product which can be simply ignored.

That's my take on the matter.

@Abigal Calling a game development company Naive or arrogant simply because YOU don't like certain features or mechanics is just silly, if you know whats best then go do what most game developers do and start a garage development company and come up with something great yourself. They cannot appease every game on the market but I believe the number of you who complain and gripe about eso are greatly outweighed by those of us who enjoy this game.

KerinKor

@Abigail, you have several good points, especially on ZOS' apparent utter lack of any anti-RMT/hack defenses burned into their core server design, in spite of 15+ years history of RMT's infestation of MMOs.

As for crafting, this seems a case of the developer telling players what they want to do isn't fun so they'll not find it easy to do: this certainly has echoes of Blizzard's arrogant "we think this is/isn't fun so you will/won't too".

The problem with being social is neither I think, it's a sad inevitable consequence of their decision to implement a 'mega-server' solution, which directly created the problems Travel To Player so patently fails to solve in a useful way.

As for your ultimate question: I lean on naivety rather than arrogance.

They clearly intend ESO to be a TES game first and an MMO second, their post-beta-test session surveys always asked how you viewed yourself as the first question IIRC, and I think it entirely predictable the majority of beta testers were TES fans and said so, I actually said to me ESO was an MMO first and a game in the TES universe second.

For that category of player then some of the design decisions make sense: a guild-based economy, a UI which is just like Oblivion and Skyrim .. remember the outcry when Oblivion came out with it's console-centric design that jarred with the PC gaming experience of Morrowind? .. and with the same limited skill palette.

ESO is very much an on-line co-op TES in many respects and that's what I know a good chunk of those who pre-ordered the game are probably very happy with the game itself, even if they're pretty unhappy with the huge number of non-trivial bugs and the RMT infestation.

However, there's also a large number of players who are in the other camp, as the beta surveys put it, who think of ESO as an MMO first and foremost and its being part of the TES 'franchise' is of little consequence.

For these folks the aspects that I've just said I can see appeal to a TES 'fan' are not what they expect an MMO to offer. I won't rehearse the arguments about an AH, for example, but all you have to do is read the complaints to see where the complainers are coming from: TES fans in general support the lack of an AH, the others can't see how the TES fans can possibly argue the guild-based economy is usable.

So, I think naivety drove many of the decisions that are highly contentious, and perhaps the one thing ZOS were most naive about was being able to provide a game that appeals to both 'camps', when those camps are in many way diametrically opposite in their likes and dislikes.

Nikolas

Actually I think that this game has the best crafting system i ever encountered on an MMO. Also I think that, even though the "play as you want" is not completely true, this game has MORE options to play as I want than any other MMO I tried. Hope you find what you are looking for on your next game, but it's kind of naive to think that this game will change just because you posted your thoughts

Trouvo

Nikolas wrote: »

Actually I think that this game has the best crafting system i ever encountered on an MMO. Also I think that, even though the "play as you want" is not completely true, this game has MORE options to play as I want than any other MMO I tried. Hope you find what you are looking for on your next game, but it's kind of naive to think that this game will change just because you posted your thoughts

completely agree with this post, I love the crafting, I love the market, i really enjoy the game, it isnt completely what i was dreaming of for ESO but it is still a much better MMO than most i have played recently

Turial

Was the OP arrogant in posting this thread or just naive?

Yes, very much so.

Meogi

*eyes the bait*

*bites*

Ok, so overall I think ESO is a great MMO because of the TES lore and the feeling I am not handheld and spoon fed through out the game. I need to explore abilities, review what goes well, and adapt to different kind of encounters (and I do belong in the casual group, I can't take any game serious enough to treat it as a second job/relationship ).

There are some weird design choices, like the guild store being gated behind PvP keep ownership, if you want to flog your wares to non-guildies, and also if you are on the search for an item, you must enter Cyrodiel (I haven't noticed that specific tip yet).
The guild store is not optimal right now, it does not, as someone here put it enhance player interaction. I cannot see in the mail I get with my cut, who purchased my stuff? Even in the MMO-that-shall-not-be-named this info is present.
Finally, the search function, oh the such function...

On player interaction and role play, with a game filled with lore, and we must either put ourselves on mute for anyone, and have our chat window for "say", "yell" and "emote" only (perhaps "whisper" too), or we are spammed with /zone and -who got that idea at ZOS?- five guild chats?

Teaming up has a few issues, it's clunky when questing together. There is no warning on choices.
I teamed up with a nice Argonian fellow the other day, and

we had the choice to kill the baddie or save our loved one

so we are there, in the quest dialogue, and we don't know that there is a choice, and there is no chance to reach out to each other.
Such design choice is likely designed for use when there is some sort of external chat function available. I know that the console players apparently will have an in-game voice chat, but we don't on PC, and I am not sharing, willy-nilly, my Skype ID with people for 60 minutes of questing.

When I decided to purchase the game, I tried the game in three sessions of stress beta test.
I thought I would miss a minimap, I don't.
I thought, I would miss an AH. I do miss a better sales option, but I am happy to be part of a game that thinks out of the box. Just develop the idea and improve it. There is always room for improvement.
I do miss chat bubbles. A lot.

I have a lot of add-ons installed. Some are for fun, like Tamriel Time, TiEmote and Khaijiit speak, but others are -for me- bitter needed: Guild Store Search and the Sales History. The rest are fluff, and are just there to enhance my experience (like a clock, one of my most beloved things in the MMO-that-shall.. etc, was the alarm function , so I remembered the pesky RL chores).

Abigail

Thank you to those who responded reasonably.

My frustration, like that of many others, is not borne in hatred for the game or disinterest in Elder Scrolls; quite the contrary. In truth, I quite like the game and since Arena I've adored Elder Scrolls' lore. Like many of you I put much of my online gaming life on hold during the last year and a half, contenting myself with any and everything ESO.

Under other circumstances I should have arisen today, yesterday, the day before ... and ESO would be the first thing on my mind. I should be chomping at the bit to get in and play the game. But I am not. Therein lies the problem.

Likely, I will go on playing ESO, at least until something better comes along. I am very disappointed because I typically play an MMO for years and I simply cannot see myself doing that here unless fundamental changes are made, and soon.