Should ZOS look at other companies for inspiration for ESO?

Medivh50 · May 2015

I am pretty sure that ZOS has done this. All successful companies look at their competition and see what is working well and what is not, and what ideas can they incorporate into their own product. Love it or hate it Blizzard is the Big Cheese company when it comes to a successful and long lasting MMO. What features would you like to see ZOS adopt from the leading industry standard? I am not asking about complete game overhauls or content, but what little systems or quality of life features that WoW has would you like to see in ESO.

* One of the biggest things ZOS as copied from WoW, directly or indirectly, is the use of addons. That was hudge IMO.
* I would like to see item comparison in this game. When you hover the mouse over an item in your bag, you should see the info of that item and the info or comparison of the item equivalent that you are using. (there could be an addon that already does, I am not sure)
* ESO should have a toggable mini map. I understand that a lot of people would toggle it off but it should be built into the game, we should not have to rely on a buggy addon for this.

These are just some idea. What systems would you like to see integrated into ESO, not only for Blizzard but from other games as well. Remember, we dont want to completely change the game's mechanics

AngryNord · May 2015

Just look through the forums here, with the calls for flying mounts, everything made account-wide, insta-VR14-characters, etc - they may as well just merge with WoW

Heromofo · May 2015

Jusr type in search:

Improving On ESO

it will lead you to a series should give you an idea of what the community has been asking for.
Plus the addon deal from wow was a brillant addition too bad we cant have them on consoles.

Medivh50 · May 2015

Thanks guys for the info, I will look into that. I hear your pain about consoles, but how would that even be possible?

LameoveR · May 2015

Medivh50 wrote: »

* I would like to see item comparison in this game. When you hover the mouse over an item in your bag, you should see the info of that item and the info or comparison of the item equivalent that you are using. (there could be an addon that already does, I am not sure)

It's already here.

Heromofo · May 2015

Medivh50 wrote: »

Thanks guys for the info, I will look into that. I hear your pain about consoles, but how would that even be possible?

It's not lol the addons we use would have to be included into the game.

olemanwinter · May 2015

Absolutely. I've discussed with many of my guildies how in spite of everything Zos did right, it's almost as if they have learned nothing from all previous MMOs. You would think this was the first ever MMO in some cases.

There are things that were standard, day-1, with previous mmos that may never come to ESO, and these are common sense things.

What kind of business, or even what kind of artist, doesn't draw inspiration from both their predecessors and their current competitors?

Medivh50 · May 2015

I know that there is a lot of threads out there that are asking what new idea and things to improve the game, like item weight, usable items in the environment, but what quality of life or simple systems should ESO adopt from other games?

TheFamousMockingbird · May 2015

/consider would be a nice addition.

TheShadowScout · May 2015

Medivh50 wrote: »

* ESO should have a toggable mini map. I understand that a lot of people would toggle it off but it should be built into the game, we should not have to rely on a buggy addon for this.

Personally I love how the game does -not- have a minimap. And think anyone who really wants such an advantage ought to have to put up with some unreliable and buggy add-on... heck, personally I'd think minimaps should be against the rules anyhow, especially if they show "enemy" dots in cyrodil...
But I guess that's just me...

Gidorick · May 2015

I honestly think they should outright HIRE people from other companies as consultants... specifically for their server technology

Valen_Byte · May 2015

To answer your question, No.

They just need to get on with it. After a year of tweeks and fixes...just bring on the friggin content already.

Psychobunni · May 2015

There are a lot of missing MMO features that we get by with addons that 100% should be part of the game as an optional toggles. On this, they really, truly, need to stop listening to the "I'm here just bc TES" fans. Optional still allows those people to play the way they want, while includes UI options MMO players want. It's just good for business when trying to appeal to multi player types.

And yes, they should absolutely be looking at what draws players to other successful games and implementing some of it, doing a better job of it, or doing something different that completely negates it.

A prime example is selling/trading. They didn't want to do global AH, okay fine. But the system they implemented is beneficial only to some players/guilds. For people who just want to play the game and not an accounting game it's tedious and time consuming and requires addons just to deal with it quickly.....and players have been asking for adjustments since the kiosk system came to be......but silence from ZOS. It's like they have fingers in their ears "nananana I'm not listening"

I don't know, I'm with @Gidorick , yes they do need to hire some people from other successful mutli-player games. This game calls itself an MMO, which is supposed to be a living game that continues and gives you something to keep playing for however it really is "skyrim with friends" and has more of a one and done feel rather than replay and keep striving.

Tandor · May 2015

This is not WoW. Things like addons came from the ES games, which are the main inspiration for ESO, not from WoW. While there is undoubted scope for improvement, not least in respect of the trading system, I hope it never does become WoW or any other traditional MMO clone.

The whole concept of modding has been an essential part of the ES series and was critical to ESO, diehard ES fans would have been up in arms without it, therefore it was no doubt a conscious decision to keep to a minimalist default UI in the style of the earlier games and allow modders to provide addons for the additional features players might want.

That said, you don't need an addon for item comparison, it's already in the game. I don't use any addons and hovering the mouse over an item in my inventory shows both the item and its equivalent slotted item.

JamilaRaj · May 2015

Definitely. Zynga is obvious choice, the company knows how to run popular and successful MMOs.

Another company would be Gamblified. I read an article a few days ago about certain gambling tycoon who, after ban on slot machines, decided to invest some money into that company, which does exactly that: it takes a game and gamblifies it, i.e. enables players to make microbets (like microtransactions) and lose money much in the same way as they used to when gambling on slot machines. I find the plan astounding; instead of having slot machine on every corner, he will have it in every (kid's) smartphone.
Anyway, it seems to me like next gen monetization method and ZOS should not lag behind!

MercyKilling · May 2015

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Definitely. Zynga is obvious choice, the company knows how to run popular and successful MMOs.

Another company would be Gamblified. I read an article a few days ago about certain gambling tycoon who, after ban on slot machines, decided to invest some money into that company, which does exactly that: it takes a game and gamblifies it, i.e. enables players to make microbets (like microtransactions) and lose money much in the same way as they used to when gambling on slot machines. I find the plan astounding; instead of having slot machine on every corner, he will have it in every (kid's) smartphone.
Anyway, it seems to me like next gen monetization method and ZOS should not lag behind!

I sincerely hope this is sarcasm.

RazzPitazz · May 2015

Maybe from a technical point of view, but not for content.
Let them study other cases to see how certain things work (or were fixed) but don't take the content ideas.
If I want wow content, I can play wow. No more clones, there are enough of those already.

Gidorick · May 2015

rajaniemiorama_ESO wrote: »

Maybe from a technical point of view, but not for content.

I 100% completely agree with this @rajaniemiorama_ESO

Sausage · May 2015

Im liking where ESO is headed right now. Sure this game needs more content and improvements, but maybe the next year is it. My only concern really is that they realize new and casual are more important than top players, if you only look at top players, because they eventually kill your new and casual players, just like now, most of the population are new and casual players, those who have been here over 10 month or so, are rare.

What I really like is that theres still many tricsk they can do to keep the game going like..

- ES6 (We really need this, I hope its coming..)
- Pure free to play
- EA's Origin.

Its just waiting game now.

MercyKilling · May 2015

rajaniemiorama_ESO wrote: »

Maybe from a technical point of view, but not for content.
Let them study other cases to see how certain things work (or were fixed) but don't take the content ideas.
If I want wow content, I can play wow. No more clones, there are enough of those already.

Quality of life features?

City of Heroes chat system. You could highlight from chat to paste into address bar. Make your own private channels, with up to 250 members, iirc. Cape Radio was a decent channel to be in. Also, there was a global help channel that went across servers. Something like that should be here, but instead of cross server, cross faction.

CoH's grouping system. Also their adjustable difficulty system.

Let's not forget that was the game that pioneered user created content with the Architect system. (Which is so much better TO THIS DAY than the Cryptic game's version used in STO and Neverwinter)

Not that I'm trying to turn this game into that one...but the QoL features there were outstanding. Miles ahead of games TODAY. And it got shut down three years ago after an eight year run.

Glurin · May 2015

Yes, ZOS should look at other companies and MMOs for inspiration. No, ZOS should not look at other companies and MMOs for things to copy.

There's a big difference between the two, and I think a lot of people have difficulty understanding that. Seems like every nine out of ten suggestions I see on the forums involves almost directly copying one feature or another from some other title. "Hey, I just had this great, totally original, 100% my own creation idea for improving dark anchors. They can spawn in random locations all over the zone and have the monsters come in waves. If nobody attacks the anchor then it sends mobs to nearby towns and sets up little outposts that you have to kill to get access to the quest givers and services there. Then we can also have events where a bunch of anchors open and once people close enough of them a big raid boss spawns and wanders around the zone."

Nerio · May 2015

Game studios are full of people who used to work for other game studios. You can rest assured that they're inspired by other companies because many of them used to work for them.

Peekachu99 · May 2015

For their UI and grouping tools, absolutely. Just copy what FFXIV does (for its LFG) and that would be fine. The auction system, everything from the individual kiosks to the unfriendliness of the menu navigation, needs a serious "look to someone who has done this better" kind of attention, too.

Destai · May 2015

It's always a good idea to look at other games to see how they've overcome problems encountered by many games. Many games have addressed problems like (I love my lists!)

1. Guild management (See GW2)
2. ease of storing/organizing crafting materials (See GW2)
3. reducing asymmetries and barriers to trade (Global auction house)
4. Grouping for instances (Group finder, see WoW)
5. Prolonging life of instances (lotro does this one well with its instance scaling. ESO needs to add much more in the way of instances)

In my opinion, they should be looking heavily at GW2 and WoW for the polish aspect of this game. GW2 in particular has been the trailblazer for b2p MMOs and can help point the way for a healthy development path.

Psychobunni · May 2015

Destai wrote: »

It's always a good idea to look at other games to see how they've overcome problems encountered by many games. Many games have addressed problems like (I love my lists!)

1. Guild management (See GW2)
2. ease of storing/organizing crafting materials (See GW2)
3. reducing asymmetries and barriers to trade (Global auction house)
4. Grouping for instances (Group finder, see WoW)
5. Prolonging life of instances (lotro does this one well with its instance scaling. ESO needs to add much more in the way of instances)

In my opinion, they should be looking heavily at GW2 and WoW for the polish aspect of this game. GW2 in particular has been the trailblazer for b2p MMOs and can help point the way for a healthy development path.

LOTRO on costumes/dyeability/hidden selections....wardrobe is stale in ESO. Heck they even gave up fixing the broken dyes on some of the costumes they sell

Even the cosmetics dept is lacking

Which leads back to what I said about implementing at least what others win at if you can't figure out how to do it better. But yea Gods don't give us less and expect us to actually pay for it.

olemanwinter · May 2015

Destai wrote: »

In my opinion, they should be looking heavily at GW2 and WoW for the polish aspect of this game. GW2 in particular has been the trailblazer for b2p MMOs and can help point the way for a healthy development path.

+1 for GW2 as a model of a polished game. I found it kind of boring, but it was very refined. Almost everything worked at launch and most features that we are still begging for were there at launch.

This game + GW2 quality = a much happier ole man.

dwtdwtdwt · May 2015

I want to be able to inspect other players gear/achievements/skills. Maybe. Possibly.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · May 2015

They don't even have to look at other games to improve the UI. They just need to read a book on UI design, or hire someone who did. Their default UI for banking and trading is really horrible: cumbersome, unclear and lacking in functionality. If I did't have Advanced Filters and Awesome Guild Store, half of my game time would consist of scrolling through lists.

Not being able to search for items by name in guild stores, or even sort items by name, comes across as a particuarly moronic design decision, but there are so many things wrong with the inventory UI that I won't even try to list them.

Area51Visitor · May 2015

this is impossible and will never happen.

In the engineering field it costs us a lot of money to recruit from other firms, and the results are not always as predicted; more often then not the system in place for the existing firm is so embed into the development process that it's simply better to continue as is.

hamon · May 2015

olemanwinter wrote: »

Absolutely. I've discussed with many of my guildies how in spite of everything Zos did right, it's almost as if they have learned nothing from all previous MMOs. You would think this was the first ever MMO in some cases.

There are things that were standard, day-1, with previous mmos that may never come to ESO, and these are common sense things.

What kind of business, or even what kind of artist, doesn't draw inspiration from both their predecessors and their current competitors?

arrogant or foolish ones