MMO or MSO

Xithian

Random points after perusing the thread

1.) The type of people to use all 5 guild slots for trading guilds deserve the anti-social experience they receive. I am not in a single trade guild. I interact with people socially to trade, in my primary guild. Priorities, get them in order.

2.) I don't know of a single MMO that has zone chat that does not have horrible zone chat full of trolls at some point of the day. Make a chat tab without it so you can easily toggle it off when the crap hits the fan. Most time you'll do better in /say or /tell to get to know the people you're adventuring with anyway.

3.) If you have another MMO that you think is better than ESO in all aspects, please for the love of the Eight go play it and stop bickering on the forums here. I don't mean that in a "gtfo" kind of way. Just play the game you like.


I'm not saying the game doesn't have problems. It does. Lots of them. I dropped werewolf because it's just completely broken. That's something I'd like them to fix. Complaining about the game not being social? That's antisocial people projecting. I quest with people, help random people in fights, have several awesome guilds full of other people that like to help. I craft for my guildies, I get things crafted for me by my guildies. Most of the time gold doesn't even change hands, and when it does it's just base material costs.

Xithian

zaria wrote: »

For me my main problem is that guild chat of the guilds are mixed together and I'm in two active guilds. I could join another guild but don't bother now.

Escape >> Settings >> Social

I believe that's where the color coding settings are. You can set each guild to a different color. Also you can make new chat tabs. I have one tab with everything, then I have one tab for each guild I'm in. The guild tabs have zone chat disabled and all guilds but that one disabled.

It makes it a lot easier to chat among multiple guilds.

flameweaver

There are times when this game feels like the red headed offspring of an out of control online co-op console game.
Hundreds of players running around, mostly in "headless chicken" mode does not an MMO make.
ZOS need to fix this, make the game's community work - especially for groups, especially for mixed phased groups and allow quests specific mobs to be seen and attacked, even if one or more players have already completed the quest. Otherwise this game always be a single player game, with zero community spirit.
Joining a guild helps, but guilds are not the be all and end all of MMO's. Being able to work together either to meet a short term or long term goal are at the heart of an MMO. For the most part this game's mechanics prevent that from happening.

Thunder

darkweed1977 wrote: »

This is probably the worst MMO I have played when it comes to community and for me it is more a MSO (Massive Singleplayer Onlinegame) than it is a MMO.

This is the most socially interactive MMO of any I've played. The open world PVE in ESO is extremely cooperative in nature, allowing players to truly, yet informaly, work together as a team. Having trouble with a quest, wait for more to show up.

Beyond just the general all encompassing cooperative open world PVE, there are sky anchors, public dungeons, world bosses, and even 4 player instanced dungeons. At level cap, Craglorn is promising some pretty entertaining grouped content when it arrives.

In every other open world MMO I've played, you might never see another player, and if you did it was adversarial in nature. In ESO, it benefits everyone involved to work together, and therefore is the most socially interactive MMO I've played, by quite a measure!

Now if you want to complain that the highly socially interactive gameplay of ESO can be a bit of a faceroll at times... OK, you've got a valid point. Yet, what MMO isn't a bit of a faceroll at times?

You can also play the entire game with a friend or friends. I have a character that I only play with a friend, it's been great fun. I've also met and grouped with quite a few random strangers that I'd informally quested alongside.

The instanced dungeons can be run with a varied mix of players as well, allowing for easier grouping that most other MMOs. Although I normally find myself matched with other players in a party that includes a tank, several times I've been in parties with 3 DPS and a healer and they went just as smooth, if not smoother, than the parties with a tank.

What ESO doesn't do is beat you over the head with forced grouping at every turn. That's a wonderful improvement to the MMO experience!

Just relax. Enjoy yourself. Play the game with the sole intention of having fun. If you really need more of a traditionally forced social interaction, join a real guild or start your own.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

d0e1ow wrote: »

knaveofengland wrote: »

well all mmos are made should say have to be made for most solo play ,reason most want it that way its called player greed .
the guilds shop in time I think will have a general shop/ auction place hope fully it be like runescape model .
so with most wanting solo leaves a problem ,for the team play , do you have henchies/mercs like in gw make more quests with team play ,make it all dungeons need a team , can go on but hopefully you get the point.
you can join a guild who does events , guild I am in every night does pvp and has ts so you can play as a team I can tell you this is probally what you need to do, if you need a invite I ask the to send you a invite just pm me in game uk time in the evenings

Guild Wars 2 doesn't seem to be afraid of its community. They released a patch a few months back with a world boss that you -could not- defeat without the rest of your group (we're talking over 100 other people from your server) performing well and getting it right. People whined, they moaned... on the forums.

So a year after they nerf the world bosses to a stand there and spam 1 button and collect your loot, they actually decided to make something interesting. Im not sure that is exactly the stellar example you try to make it out to be, but at least they are trying to do something after making all the bosses a snoozefest. Hopefully we don't have to wait that long here before we get meaningful changes. Or at least people give Eso the same amount of time to fix their issues.

Thunder

d0e1ow wrote: »

They couldn't have made it so I wouldn't "phase out" from my boyfriend? The game -really- is anti-social. I mean, let's be honest, most MMO's these days aren't really big on being social because they don't want to hurt Curtis Casual's feelings,

It's funny that you ridicule Curtis Casual, but yet seem incapable of completing the relatively easy content solo in the rare and brief instances you'd be phased from a party member. Perhaps you're Cathy Carried?

Gohlar

Audigy wrote: »

Grouping works so much better here than in any other MMO before.

You know Zenimax is aware of the grouping issues, of which there are many, and is trying to fix them right?

Thunder

One thing I forgot to mention, ESO is only 1 month (and 2 days) old! The player base is very clumped up right now, and your encounters with other players seem more random the more people that are around.

Six months from now the player base will be much more spread out, and when you're leveling a new character then, the players you run into while questing will stand out more as individuals.

It's probably already true, I imagine if you started a new character today, rather than bumping into hundreds of random nameless people at every turn, you'd run into a lot fewer people and they will likely make a much bigger impression on you.

For that matter, with a much sparser population, grouping with others, even informally, will be of great benefit and you'll likely see people sticking together a lot longer. After you complete that public dungeon along side that solitary random stranger, it'd be in both your best interests to group up for some questing, and therefore much more likely one of you will extend a party invite to the other.

zaria

Spryt wrote: »

I don't mind having to do puzzles or get quest updates myself when in group.

One thing I find even more annoying is when others in group can update your quest. Like interupt your dialog early and start next step. Or when you get a quest to kill somone only to get it updated by some random person that isn't even in your group.

However this causes problems with phasing. I say the most important part is to keep group together.
Looks like things improves, now I tend to get a question with countdown if I want to join the quest execution or not. Grouped or not don't matter.

keylargo

darkweed1977 wrote: »

This is probably the worst MMO I have played when it comes to community and for me it is more a MSO (Massive Singleplayer Onlinegame) than it is a MMO.
The guilds I have tried to be in is only focusing on trade, which make me wish for an Auction house, but I will leave that as it is as that topic have already been all over the forum.

Players in this game are 99% running around soloing and yes it is good for people who just want to play the game on a casual basis that they do not need to be in a guild to do stuff, but then again, they do if they want more.

There are no community feeling, you do not feel you are a part of a MMO, except all the spam from gold sellers and bots running around. When you talk in chat, which I honestly don't do anymore, you get namecalling and bad mouthing. When you are running around in the world and help a player that is near death, you will not get even the smallest "ty" in say-chat. My experience with this game so far, is that I could easily just have played Skyrim with a lot of bots running around and not a MMO.

So for me, as long as the ingame community is so bad, I will probably enjoy the solo part of the game and then call it a day, like I would with every other Singleplayer game out there.

This pretty much sums up my experience.

Khandi

There are so many really great things about this game!

Unfortunately this game also comes with a lot of things that ~a lot~ of people find irksome. Grouping is one of those things, particularly if you have friends you like to play with that have more...or less...time to play than you do... because of the phasing issue. Which boils down to this: If you have someone you like to play with then you need to make alts to play when they cannot be online because otherwise things get jacked up six ways to Sunday.

And just to make fur and feathers fly....no centralized trading is a big issue for me. Trading Guilds are just cumbersome to deal with and I personally feel that it made it much harder to find a 'home'. I don't really care what you want to call it...call it Bob if it makes you happy but we need something that we don't have to join 5 'Big Box' stores just to find a deal.

Maybe it's just ZOS learning to walk, so to speak.

Xithian

Khandi wrote: »

And just to make fur and feathers fly....no centralized trading is a big issue for me. Trading Guilds are just cumbersome to deal with and I personally feel that it made it much harder to find a 'home'. I don't really care what you want to call it...call it Bob if it makes you happy but we need something that we don't have to join 5 'Big Box' stores just to find a deal.

I have heard tell of, in the future, being able to buy from guild stores outside of your own. I'm not sure where that information was introduced or how it would be implemented, but I think it would be a nice balance between having "local stores" and maintaining a global economy.

mutharex

Xithian wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

And just to make fur and feathers fly....no centralized trading is a big issue for me. Trading Guilds are just cumbersome to deal with and I personally feel that it made it much harder to find a 'home'. I don't really care what you want to call it...call it Bob if it makes you happy but we need something that we don't have to join 5 'Big Box' stores just to find a deal.

I have heard tell of, in the future, being able to buy from guild stores outside of your own. I'm not sure where that information was introduced or how it would be implemented, but I think it would be a nice balance between having "local stores" and maintaining a global economy.

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en-uk/news/post/2014/05/01/the-road-ahead---may-1?ref=home

"Guild functionality updates: guild store interface updates, customizable guild insignias, tabards, and guild ranks, and Guild Kiosks—guild stores open to everyone that are available to the highest-bidding guild."

It's actually a nice and long list of features (some already in 1.1), suggested read

Kyosji

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/05/01/the-road-ahead---may-1st?ref=news-list

Coming in Future Updates

Along with fixing bugs, combatting black market gold farmers, and balance tweaks, we have a long list of features and updates we’re working on that will be coming throughout 2014 and beyond. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming up. For most of these, we don’t know yet which update they’ll be in, but they’re under active development right now:

A system that allows grouped players to see each other even when they’re in different phases
A justice system—steal from and kill NPCs and deal with the consequences if you are caught
Migration of European Megaserver to our European datacenter.
Field of View (FOV) adjustment
Armor dyeing and tinting
Two new Veteran Dungeons: Crypt of Hearts and City of Ash
New region of Craglorn with a new Trial (the Serpent)
Increased ability to pick up items in the world
Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood storyline and quests.
Spellcrafting
Horse Racing
Dragonstar Arena—similar to Trials, but built for a group of four
Improvements to fishing
Crafting system improvements
Improved Looking for Group system
Better NPC facial animations
Guild functionality updates: guild store interface updates, customizable guild insignias, tabards, and guild ranks, and Guild Kiosks—guild stores open to everyone that are available to the highest-bidding guild.
Auto-leveling dungeons that level to your group leader
Awards when you repeat dungeons
Imperial City PvP dungeon

Xithian

Thank you guys for posting that. I tend not to look up those sorts of things.

My first reaction to "Highest bidding guild" was negative, but after thinking about it that means that the guilds that can afford the kiosk should be making a lot of money doing so, or they wouldn't do it. That also means that a trading guild will be made up almost entirely of sellers and not have half the slots taken with buyers. It might work... it might not. It will be interesting to see.

And amen to the phasing in groups thing. That'll quiet about 10% of the forum complaints in and of itself.

mutharex

Xithian wrote: »

Thank you guys for posting that. I tend not to look up those sorts of things.

My first reaction to "Highest bidding guild" was negative, but after thinking about it that means that the guilds that can afford the kiosk should be making a lot of money doing so, or they wouldn't do it. That also means that a trading guild will be made up almost entirely of sellers and not have half the slots taken with buyers. It might work... it might not. It will be interesting to see.

And amen to the phasing in groups thing. That'll quiet about 10% of the forum complaints in and of itself.

Yes, ZoS is aware of all the issues and working toward improvements. There is this silly concept that if one doesn't scream in the forum, he is a delusional fanboy who loves the game as it is. Almost as silly as the idea that ZOS doesn't fix bugs because they are lazy or something like that. But they are busy working at stuff, there is also a forum section dedicated to devs discussions

nirax

Khandi wrote: »

Maybe it's just ZOS learning to walk, so to speak.

thats all good and fine, but its still an AAA game with full budget, not an indie game. As MMO Vet (since 1998) i am just puzzled about the many mistakes and design issues that went in. Issues that were encountered, addressed and resolved in countless MMO´s years ago.
Joes interview with the PvP Designer in 2013 had retrospektive an interesting insight. Being asked what the main difference between ESO´s combat system and the one of other MMO´s would be he stated "blocking". Yes sure.

A lot of the issues could have been avoided if besides people with good or great ideas also MMO designers and game architects with MMO experience would have been hired or placed in the right positions.

Xithian

nirax wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

Maybe it's just ZOS learning to walk, so to speak.

thats all good and fine, but its still an AAA game with full budget, not an indie game. As MMO Vet (since 1998) i am just puzzled about the many mistakes and design issues that went in. Issues that were encountered, addressed and resolved in countless MMO´s years ago.
Joes interview with the PvP Designer in 2013 had retrospektive an interesting insight. Being asked what the main difference between ESO´s combat system and the one of other MMO´s would be he stated "blocking". Yes sure.

A lot of the issues could have been avoided if besides people with good or great ideas also MMO designers and game architects with MMO experience would have been hired or placed in the right positions.

As an MMO vet since 2001, I am relieved to see a game that doesn't feel like ten other games I've played before. I am an MMO junkie. I have tried probably 50+ MMO games spanning all genres. I've actually stuck with 10 or so long enough to consider myself having actually played them. There aren't all that many that are in a category all their own.

While ESO has its problems, I don't see anything that can't be fixed. I make frequent use of the in-game feedback and bug reporting.

Crumpy

Level 23 and only done 2 group dungeons as these were the only two i found.
And pvp... which should be called pwp (player walks to player) was just too, walky. Played the rest as a single player game

zaria

Crumpy wrote: »

Level 23 and only done 2 group dungeons as these were the only two i found.
And pvp... which should be called pwp (player walks to player) was just too, walky. Played the rest as a single player game

Join a guild and do dungeons with them.
Same for PvP, in guild PvP its standard to ressurect each other then killed so you tend up spending an faction of the time running back to battle.
In short random groups works far less than guild groups.

Crumpy

I'm in three guild already just so I can trade! Guess that's M right there

But, point taken, thanks.

Thesiren

FFXIV was actually the other MMO I was toying with starting when ESO launched. However, FFXIV doesn't have PvP at all, whilst ESO has open PvP, my favorite kind, so I chose ESO instead.

The "teaming with the chevrons" thing *is* annoying, though, as is the lack of even a faction-based AH. We'll see what happens.

Audigy

Grouping is one of those things, particularly if you have friends you like to play with that have more...or less...time to play than you do... because of the phasing issue. Which boils down to this: If you have someone you like to play with then you need to make alts to play when they cannot be online because otherwise things get jacked up six ways to Sunday.

Its right what you say, but also a bit funny as I remember that Phasing was praised in wow as it changed the world and all, but now at ESO its a bad thing for some people, a reason why ESO is a Single Player

Sometimes it seems like people rate not fair, how can something be ok at wow, but at ESO bad?

The idea of phasing is that players experience content based on the phase they are in, that's why its called phasing

If you play together with friends, you will all be in the same phase only if you might want to go back to help someone, you will have issue´s.

I honestly don't know how this could be done differently, especially with the look on other MMO´s where phasing works exactly in the same way. If ZO removes the phases so that players independently of their quest progress all sit at the same spot, then we wont have a dynamic world again and this is probably the next big "whine" by some people.

So ya, I really don't know how they can put everyone in the same phase, while still keeping the dynamic phasing system alive.

I think people make an elephant out of a Mosquito right now or maybe its just the lack of MMO experience so that its a huge "issue" but if people adjust I am sure they will see the reason behind phasing.

Catches_the_Sun

So now we're dog piling ESO, calling it a single player game. Yet, there are countless threads begging for Global Auction Houses & dedicated crafting material space? I'm convinced people aren't considering how the lack of an AH & limited inventory space (if you consider 250 slots limited) support socialization in ESO.

ESO compares favorably to other MMOs in terms of socialization. I have made several friends, am in a great Guild & socialize with some of the folks from the Trading Guilds that I participate in. I talk to different people every day, and have repeat Provisioner customers. The game mechanics support socialization in their current form.

As far as Guilds go, you can't join Guilds that throw out random invites or spam advertisements in the interest of increasing their numbers & then turn around and complain about their community. If you aren't getting an application or an interview before you join, then neither is anybody else. I would have low expectations for such a Guild. Good Guilds are still looking for good people to add to their ranks, but it will take some work on your part to find them.

As for playing with other people, do you Cyrodiil much? If PvP is your thing, find a Guild that plays organized PvP in Cyrodiil. That alone could keep you keyed up to play with your Guildmates for months or even years.

rdfarley89

I have had plenty of social interactions. No reason to group as everyone who hits a mob gets XP and loot. Many times I will encounter others on a quest, do an emote or say something and get a response and that leads to chatting. I wouldn't expect people to put in the effort first a lot of times you have to go out and try to talk to people yourself. And in FFXIV and GW2 it was the same way for me, and I enjoyed both of those games. Honestly id like to play both FFXIV and ESO but $30 a month is just too much for me.

d0e1ow

Thunder wrote: »

d0e1ow wrote: »

They couldn't have made it so I wouldn't "phase out" from my boyfriend? The game -really- is anti-social. I mean, let's be honest, most MMO's these days aren't really big on being social because they don't want to hurt Curtis Casual's feelings,

It's funny that you ridicule Curtis Casual, but yet seem incapable of completing the relatively easy content solo in the rare and brief instances you'd be phased from a party member. Perhaps you're Cathy Carried?

Oh, you're so cool. When did I say I needed him around because the content was hard? This game is not hard. Not in the slightest.

I want him around because WE PLAY TOGETHER. One more time: WE PLAY TOGETHER. Not "next" to each other". Not "across the world from each other". No. We play TOGETHER. Considering your low brow style of posting and inability to understand the concept of two lovers or friends playing a game that is supposedly designed to encourage co-operation per the genre name, it would not surprise me if you do not, in fact, understand the concept of "playing together." I'm sure your pillow keeps your warm at night.

Per my example: I don't even progress the story in FFXIV or one of my classes SPECIFICALLY so I can play it -with- him since he has less time than me. FFXIV doesn't phase you out of the entire world. It puts you in a 2 minute instance event every now and then, but the rest of the game is open to you and your friends. It's not going to just randomly phase you out or refuse to allow you to share quest progress like this game does. Even when you're not phase out... you might as well be.

Cut the crap. You knew exactly what I meant, but again, the ESO fanboys splitting straws and hairs and taking things out of context to excuse a blasphemous design choice in a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ROLE PLAYING GAME. This is an issue even the devs are admitting to fixing, yet you'd still attempt to come in here and blame players for drawing issue with it.

Fanboy.

Edit: And you know what? You're attitude about this... assuming that people in these games are just means to an end. Thinking that the only reason I'd want to play with my boyfriend is to "be carried." What a CRAPPY attitude to have about other people and other players. That kind of attitude is the cancer killing this genre. These games are about friendship, adventure, imagination, and bonds, not "PHAT LOOT LOOK BRUH". Caner. Killing. This. Genre. Go play Starcraft if you want a game that's hard.

Chili

Clam down, its just a game.

Xithian

@d0e1ow‌

You did see the part where they're working to fix that with the upcoming content, right? It's right at the top of the list even.

A system that allows grouped players to see each other even when they’re in different phases

Cause, you know, right now I picture you in a Steve-Balmer-like rage throwing chairs. Calm down.

d0e1ow

Xithian wrote: »

@d0e1ow‌

You did see the part where they're working to fix that with the upcoming content, right? It's right at the top of the list even.

A system that allows grouped players to see each other even when they’re in different phases

Cause, you know, right now I picture you in a Steve-Balmer-like rage throwing chairs. Calm down.

I'm not in a rage. I'm disappointed at the utterly terrible attempts of the people on this forum to crap down the throat of anyone who dares speak ill of their little game, even when it is of issues that the developers themselves are claiming need to be changed.

I also don't appreciate being personally attacked, but what I don't appreciate more is being taken out of context. When it comes to my writing, even on forums, I have a bit of an ego (can you tell?) and when people take me out of context, especially when they do it intentionally, I'm going to bite their heads off. You can all imagine me in a frothing rage over here if that makes you feel superior.

The pen is mightier than the sword however, and I've yet to see someone, short of maybe one individual, on this forum who has the capability of "out-posting" me as it were.

Crumpy

d0e1ow wrote: »

I've yet to see someone, short of maybe one individual, on this forum who has the capability of "out-posting" me as it were.

Now that's an ego. Congratulations.