Not sure I believe this but...

TBH if this was discussed and disclosed during a private guild summit the players should have been asked to sign an NDA or something which prohibits them acting on information learnt during it.
It's not fair if select players and their friends get inside information which helps them corner the market on items. This is how the CSM for EVE Online is supposed to function and the members are watched carefully to make sure they don't abuse information learnt during summits.

Dominoid wrote: »

Just as an FYI, these "meetings" are really conference calls. Also the "guilds" are from a wide range of players from hardcore pvp/PVE, casual leveling guilds, RP guilds, etc. Information available to me simply shows that new motifs are setup to be pages like Dwarven armor with no changes to existing motif structure. Also there is not a "research" component being added to motifs. The only time sink will remain finding them or farming gold to purchase them.

So I take it you are one of the people that take part in these conference calls? Can you tell us if you heard anything about motifs?

firstdecan wrote: »

I have two comments.

1 - it is not beyond belief that ZoS would add new motifs or change the way current ones work. If it takes longer to research cosmetic items, there's incentive to buy the instant gratification version from the crown store. ZoS still needs to turn a profit, the power and rackspace for their servers doesn't pay for themselves.

2 - Every response in this thread is based off of a third hand rumor. The OP 'talked to a guy' who 'talked to the devs.' There is no more substantiation of any of the claims made.

For those of us who have been here for a while, we know ZoS is doing everything they can to turn this MMO into a glorified Facebook game. They have been foregoing content to add more mindless repetitive timesinks to the game than anything else. Whether this rumor is true or not doesn't matter, if this pointless timesink doesn't come to fruition another one will.

I'm not entirely sure how to respond to you here. Your statement in 1, though true with regard to ZoS needing to turn a profit, does bring up a concern of mine and many other players. Should profit also mean that we the player not have fun? That seems a bit odd doesn't it? I pay a game designer in order that I get fun in return. If what they offer me is to pay them for a system that as a whole is not fun, that sounds a bit stupid doesn't it. Many games have done this in the past, and they are relying on addiction-based psychology. Its not that it won't work, but its a bad system. There is a reason that most f2p games have abysmal crafting systems. Take STO for instance. Their R&D system is nice, but they've made dollars part of the system thereby destroying it. SWTOR did something quite similar, although they attempted to correct it with augments and the like. I'm not entirely sure anymore if crafting is worth it in F2P games, they seem like the low lying fruit of customer pocketbooks. I must admit that I was not particularly happy to see motifs in the store for this very reason.

To your final point regarding MMO's into Facebook games, I must say you are correct. It would seem most MMO designers have grown excited about the facebook game phenomenon. They fail to understand that all games are time sinks, and that they might as well be fun ones. Beyond these dark thoughts, I must say that I'm still hopeful, but carefully observing ESO's f2p conversion with scrutiny. I do not think that I am alone in this. I've been a dedicated customer since the beginning of the game. The question is whether or not I will be willing to pay them, if they forget why customers like myself are here. STO forgot, so did others, and they no longer have my business. If MMO companies want loyalty, they should remember that they must earn it. At this point though I wonder if most MMO companies actually do care anymore.

1 - I actually like the pages. Searching for Dwarven pages is the only good loot/reward system in the game. They are rare, but not too rare, there's a reason why you find them where you do and they have considerable value without being relevant in a competitive setting.

2 - Adding new research timers just screams F2P. I suspect the motifs bought in the cash shop will cicrumvent this timer conveniently.

I don't see a problem with having pages for the new motifs.

I'm surprised anyone wants food and drink to stack, that would make them completely pointless as you'd have no choices to make.

Food/drink make builds much more flexible and help balance (particularly racial balance) a lot, it would suck if I just had to keep both buffs up all the time.

UrQuan wrote: »

Maybe they already do that, or something similar. If so, that's good. If they just always invite the same group of people, though, that's bad for the long-term health of the game.

This is what it seems like they are doing. The biggest problem I have is with the fact that it's done secretly.... the guild summit reports and recordings in October was great! It would also be nice if they could post a Summit Thread with the topic of discussion for that summit and allow players to submit questions/feedback to the summit. This way ALL player types can have a chance to be represented.

After that, the elitism it creates is irksome but that's more me being envious than anything else.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

firstdecan wrote: »

I have two comments.

1 - it is not beyond belief that ZoS would add new motifs or change the way current ones work. If it takes longer to research cosmetic items, there's incentive to buy the instant gratification version from the crown store. ZoS still needs to turn a profit, the power and rackspace for their servers doesn't pay for themselves.

2 - Every response in this thread is based off of a third hand rumor. The OP 'talked to a guy' who 'talked to the devs.' There is no more substantiation of any of the claims made.

For those of us who have been here for a while, we know ZoS is doing everything they can to turn this MMO into a glorified Facebook game. They have been foregoing content to add more mindless repetitive timesinks to the game than anything else. Whether this rumor is true or not doesn't matter, if this pointless timesink doesn't come to fruition another one will.

I'm not entirely sure how to respond to you here. Your statement in 1, though true with regard to ZoS needing to turn a profit, does bring up a concern of mine and many other players. Should profit also mean that we the player not have fun? That seems a bit odd doesn't it? I pay a game designer in order that I get fun in return. If what they offer me is to pay them for a system that as a whole is not fun, that sounds a bit stupid doesn't it. Many games have done this in the past, and they are relying on addiction-based psychology. Its not that it won't work, but its a bad system. There is a reason that most f2p games have abysmal crafting systems. Take STO for instance. Their R&D system is nice, but they've made dollars part of the system thereby destroying it. SWTOR did something quite similar, although they attempted to correct it with augments and the like. I'm not entirely sure anymore if crafting is worth it in F2P games, they seem like the low lying fruit of customer pocketbooks. I must admit that I was not particularly happy to see motifs in the store for this very reason.

To your final point regarding MMO's into Facebook games, I must say you are correct. It would seem most MMO designers have grown excited about the facebook game phenomenon. They fail to understand that all games are time sinks, and that they might as well be fun ones. Beyond these dark thoughts, I must say that I'm still hopeful, but carefully observing ESO's f2p conversion with scrutiny. I do not think that I am alone in this. I've been a dedicated customer since the beginning of the game. The question is whether or not I will be willing to pay them, if they forget why customers like myself are here. STO forgot, so did others, and they no longer have my business. If MMO companies want loyalty, they should remember that they must earn it. At this point though I wonder if most MMO companies actually do care anymore.

I appreciate your thoughtful response. Points 1 and 2 were made without regard as to desirability. Point 1 is that ZoS has to put things into the game that people will pay for, point 2 is that most of what people are responding to in this particular thread are unsubstantiated rumor. Of course, the B2P conversion was an unsubstantiated rumor until it wasn't, so......

The corollary \ rant is just my way of saying be prepared to accept the inevitable.

I agree with your stance on 'addiction-based psychology' being bad business. But outside of a subscription, what else is there to finance 'the game?' Any sales made must be based on utility or desirability. For a game, sales based on utility become P2W items, and sales based on desirability will have a higher appeal to addiction-based collectors (think cabbage patch kids or beanie babies). So, ZoS is stuck between creating an 'elite tier' in the game who can afford the P2W items or taking advantage of people who have that addiction-based collector mentality. Those are the only choices left when pay to play (a subscription) is taken off the table.

I would like them to fix stability in Cyrodiil, offer a few more PvP options, and reinstate the sub. I don't think that will happen though, so it's a question of whether ZoS goes the P2W route or the infinite time sink \ pay to collect route. For all we know there are plans for both, and they're simply experimenting to see which one keeps the game financed.

1) yes, i hate the "guild summit" but i am not against it. players "at the top" are not all as scheming as they are made out to be (i know because i tend to be one of them).

2) having the guild summit go under NDA would prevent these types of posts. i am fully against the NDA, because it would invalidate number one (above). if only a hand full of people are permanently in the know over others, then you see an increased chance of corruption- absolute power, corrupts absolutely....

3) looking to put the topic back on track- i am against the basic playable races on the page system. they are quite frankly, unworthy of it. i don't particularly care for the page system over all, but it gives players something to distract them from champion point grinding and they can be traded (don't be anti-social about it).

the guild summits are a means to gather and disperse information on a large scale at minimal cost and least restriction. if they put a post on the forums titled "we are making all motifs pages" they would get 1000 posts on the topic and 5 million completely off-topic and so they go with the summits. if this post is true, mind you not true in the sense of it WILL happen and just a gauge of the community, then say "yay" or "nay".

i say NAY. put em in the store for all i care, i still won't buy them. i need barbaric, but the set i want to use the motif on requires another 15 days of trait research. i won't buy it from the player and less so from the store- grinding it out is more beneficial in the long run. though why the hell would i buy something thats in a game that currently is all about grinding (sad but true). with the few "grinding distractions" they have in the game currently, they shouldn't add more crap to grind while grinding out a grind. they need a much better balance right now, not a increase on the grind side of the grind/distraction scale.

starlizard70ub17_ESO wrote: »

It seems like to me they're gearing up to make all motifs have pages to collect. I've gone through 2 charactors from VR 5 to VR 11, through all of Caldwells gold, doing all dungeons and searching through the inns, banks, palaces, etc. And ever since motifs appeared in the crown store, I have found exactly 0 motifs anywhere. I can't believe my lack of success is due to bad luck.

So I'm left with 2 conclusions here. Either they removed all motifs to change them all to pages, or they removed all motifs to force us to buy them from the crown store.

Weird, because I've found at least half a dozen common motifs since they went in the Crown Store, and I definitely haven't been farming them - mostly just checking backpacks I come across in the wild (ie. the ones that aren't owned and where the contents don't count as stolen). So I'm pretty sure the RNG gods just hate you.

firstdecan wrote: »

I appreciate your thoughtful response. Points 1 and 2 were made without regard as to desirability. Point 1 is that ZoS has to put things into the game that people will pay for, point 2 is that most of what people are responding to in this particular thread are unsubstantiated rumor. Of course, the B2P conversion was an unsubstantiated rumor until it wasn't, so......

The corollary \ rant is just my way of saying be prepared to accept the inevitable.

I agree with your stance on 'addiction-based psychology' being bad business. But outside of a subscription, what else is there to finance 'the game?' Any sales made must be based on utility or desirability. For a game, sales based on utility become P2W items, and sales based on desirability will have a higher appeal to addiction-based collectors (think cabbage patch kids or beanie babies). So, ZoS is stuck between creating an 'elite tier' in the game who can afford the P2W items or taking advantage of people who have that addiction-based collector mentality. Those are the only choices left when pay to play (a subscription) is taken off the table.

I would like them to fix stability in Cyrodiil, offer a few more PvP options, and reinstate the sub. I don't think that will happen though, so it's a question of whether ZoS goes the P2W route or the infinite time sink \ pay to collect route. For all we know there are plans for both, and they're simply experimenting to see which one keeps the game financed.

I think we're on the same wavelength here actually. I think there's another option, though it would still cost. I think the problem with subscriptions and MMO's is that many MMO's have done away with players creating the content. The reason I say this is that game designers are perhaps incapable of creating and selling content to keep their playerbase satisfied. This might be simply because they are underfunded as a whole, and have found that they can sell digital tsatskes to make up for the costs of producing their game. Their ability to sell these tsaskes has in turn caused designers to realize they can build a whole business model on digijunk, as opposed to releasing new content. It is my hope that they can find a way to fund the business through DLC. If they can fund through content then I'll be well pleased to pay them, otherwise I can go free along with the rest of the masses. I'm not concerned with the junk, and there's a reason I have something like 12,000 cartel coins I didn't bother spending on SWTOR. I don't need a cape, a space-leotard, or any other nonsense that were trying to sell in lockboxes or otherwise. The irony is in that game most of the uniforms they tried to sell were stupid looking, and most of the gear earned was stupid looking.

I'm not sure Cyrodiil can ever be super 'stable'. I'm amazed at how smoothly the game can actually run with so many actors running about on the stage like they do now, with so many effects, and such good graphics. I suppose that's one of the issues of MMO's, and likely the best advantage in playing the game would be to live as close to the server it is hosted on as possible.

UrQuan wrote: »

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

1) yes, i hate the "guild summit" but i am not against it. players "at the top" are not all as scheming as they are made out to be (i know because i tend to be one of them).

Personally I'm not overly concerned with that. There may be some scheming going on, or there may not. What concerns me is that the people "at the top" are unlikely to be representative of the overall game population.

naw, they tend to have the same concerns just from a different perspective. they still have to farm currency, crafting materials, motifs, etc. they won't demand more of a grind in these area types, since the "top" tends to spend more time in the end-game activities than the mundane grinds, groupers and soloers tend to be more into. thus they have less time to do those mundane activities, so if it gets too grindy they will never see these things and then puts a rift in the population even further, between those that do and those that don't. its one of the justification for "raid gear" quality items, since the raid gear outside of raids helps to speed up and streamline these grind activities. they also need champion points, to better their raid times/results, so they aren't going to demand they make champion points harder to grind out. players that tend to be farmers/sellers, will also not demand negative things like making item drops harder or more of a grind, since if they are they make less cash (this is their version of fun). the more these players have to grind something for raiding/profit/group, the less raiding/profit/group they do, the less raiding/profit/group they do the less they are inclined to play.

the only advantage they would have is front line knowledge, but since that is open to the public (not under NDA as mentioned), its only a matter of time before the public knows.

either way, breaking up the playable race motifs into pages is still a bad idea. you would be better off just leveling an alt to the bare minimum level for the gear motif that you want and just researching the traits you wish. as mentioned, they will have to improve drop sets (the raid sets imo), which won't give you the free will to choose the motif anyways.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

firstdecan wrote: »

I appreciate your thoughtful response. Points 1 and 2 were made without regard as to desirability. Point 1 is that ZoS has to put things into the game that people will pay for, point 2 is that most of what people are responding to in this particular thread are unsubstantiated rumor. Of course, the B2P conversion was an unsubstantiated rumor until it wasn't, so......

The corollary \ rant is just my way of saying be prepared to accept the inevitable.

I agree with your stance on 'addiction-based psychology' being bad business. But outside of a subscription, what else is there to finance 'the game?' Any sales made must be based on utility or desirability. For a game, sales based on utility become P2W items, and sales based on desirability will have a higher appeal to addiction-based collectors (think cabbage patch kids or beanie babies). So, ZoS is stuck between creating an 'elite tier' in the game who can afford the P2W items or taking advantage of people who have that addiction-based collector mentality. Those are the only choices left when pay to play (a subscription) is taken off the table.

I would like them to fix stability in Cyrodiil, offer a few more PvP options, and reinstate the sub. I don't think that will happen though, so it's a question of whether ZoS goes the P2W route or the infinite time sink \ pay to collect route. For all we know there are plans for both, and they're simply experimenting to see which one keeps the game financed.

I think we're on the same wavelength here actually. I think there's another option, though it would still cost. I think the problem with subscriptions and MMO's is that many MMO's have done away with players creating the content. The reason I say this is that game designers are perhaps incapable of creating and selling content to keep their playerbase satisfied. This might be simply because they are underfunded as a whole, and have found that they can sell digital tsatskes to make up for the costs of producing their game. Their ability to sell these tsaskes has in turn caused designers to realize they can build a whole business model on digijunk, as opposed to releasing new content. It is my hope that they can find a way to fund the business through DLC. If they can fund through content then I'll be well pleased to pay them, otherwise I can go free along with the rest of the masses. I'm not concerned with the junk, and there's a reason I have something like 12,000 cartel coins I didn't bother spending on SWTOR. I don't need a cape, a space-leotard, or any other nonsense that were trying to sell in lockboxes or otherwise. The irony is in that game most of the uniforms they tried to sell were stupid looking, and most of the gear earned was stupid looking.

I'm not sure Cyrodiil can ever be super 'stable'. I'm amazed at how smoothly the game can actually run with so many actors running about on the stage like they do now, with so many effects, and such good graphics. I suppose that's one of the issues of MMO's, and likely the best advantage in playing the game would be to live as close to the server it is hosted on as possible.

i think the major issue with MMO designers today, is they try to please everyone too much. you can't please solo players, while pleasing grouper players, while pleasing raiders, while please farmers, while pleasing grinders, the list is endless. in business, anyone will tell you two things:

1) better, faster, cheaper- choose two but never all three

2) don't try to please everyone, as you will inevitably please no one.

craglorn is an example in ESO- it didn't please the solo players because it requires a group, it didn't please farmers because the nodes weren't diverse enough (*cough* nirn *cough*), it didn't please grinders because it isnt worth the time experience wise for the effort, it didn't please groupers/raiders because they didn't get better group/raid related gear. craglorn is heavy in an attempt to please all sorts of individuals but with no emphasis on one (which should have been the grouper/raider imo). now there are none stop complaints about resources, lack of groups, lack of new raid/group experiences/items, and other complaints where applicable. i mean really, if you can't solo at least SOME of the mobs in crag, you probably need to revise your character- which alienates the "individualist" or "out of the box thinker" and the casual player (those that simply don't have the time to keep up the required demands to play effectively there). it shoulda been BOOM group zone- don't like it tough, followed by BOOM solo content- don't like it tough, with a fair time between both (not too long, not to fast). within these pieces they could have pleased groupers, farmers, grinders, where applicable and able.

breaking up the motifs into pages, will please farmers and maybe grinders, but it won't please the grouper raider. on top of that, it really isn't necessary if the RNG is created to allow them to be rare, but not so rare you don't see them ever (making it a worthy cause for effort) and not so common they aren't worth anything- both financially (in the game and the crown store) and as far as the thrill of getting them.

UrQuan wrote: »

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

1) yes, i hate the "guild summit" but i am not against it. players "at the top" are not all as scheming as they are made out to be (i know because i tend to be one of them).

Personally I'm not overly concerned with that. There may be some scheming going on, or there may not. What concerns me is that the people "at the top" are unlikely to be representative of the overall game population.

naw, they tend to have the same concerns just from a different perspective.

That may be the case for a lot of things, but I highly doubt they'd have any perspective on some of the things that may concern new players. Are they going to offer perspectives on how the tutorial does or doesn't prepare you for the game? Are they going to offer perspectives on how intuitive it is or isn't to figure out how crafting works? The only way they'll be able to speak to any topics like that (which are vitally important to the long-term health of the game) is if they talk to a lot of new players who are experiencing those things for the first time. Most players "at the top" have their own group of friends and guildies who are also quite experienced in the game, so most of them are unlikely to have a lot of interaction with total newbies. Obviously that's not the case with all of them - there are going to be some who enjoy mentoring brand new players, and who will be able to report on the issues that newbies see. Most won't have that perspective, though, and if that means that the devs aren't getting the newbie perspective then that's a serious problem.

I doubt they are getting all their info from 1 channel though.

A lot of them seem to play the game.

I used to be in a guild with SW:G dev while playing SW:G. I was a player rep and talked to this guy 2-3 times a week in game as a Dev on the test server then talked to him 5 days a week on teamspeak as a person lol. Had no idea until after he quit SOE and moved to another company. He used to listen to all our ranting and crazy crap all the time.

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

ahstin2001nub18_ESO wrote: »

1) yes, i hate the "guild summit" but i am not against it. players "at the top" are not all as scheming as they are made out to be (i know because i tend to be one of them).

Personally I'm not overly concerned with that. There may be some scheming going on, or there may not. What concerns me is that the people "at the top" are unlikely to be representative of the overall game population.

naw, they tend to have the same concerns just from a different perspective.

That may be the case for a lot of things, but I highly doubt they'd have any perspective on some of the things that may concern new players. Are they going to offer perspectives on how the tutorial does or doesn't prepare you for the game? Are they going to offer perspectives on how intuitive it is or isn't to figure out how crafting works? The only way they'll be able to speak to any topics like that (which are vitally important to the long-term health of the game) is if they talk to a lot of new players who are experiencing those things for the first time. Most players "at the top" have their own group of friends and guildies who are also quite experienced in the game, so most of them are unlikely to have a lot of interaction with total newbies. Obviously that's not the case with all of them - there are going to be some who enjoy mentoring brand new players, and who will be able to report on the issues that newbies see. Most won't have that perspective, though, and if that means that the devs aren't getting the newbie perspective then that's a serious problem.

newbie player resources:

1) zone chat
2) guilds
3) forums

they have options, new players aren't that stupid, to not figure out the game unless they ignore the tool tips, and fail at trail-and-error, or have no awareness to their environment. yes, end-gamers do have probably more experience having to put up with the endeavors of fresh meat players. there are a lot of times where in my raiding guilds, we have had to refashion and educate newer, inexperienced, ignorant, and worse stupid players that simply need everything explained to them- sometimes to the point we just boot them since they simply don't get it and won't. common "points of ignorance" does get pushed into conversation via forums or (in ESO: guild summits) because if a point of ignorance comes up all the time it gets annoying. they will complain in the summit about how there is no tutorial for red zones during combat and it finds its way into the tutorial if the developers take the time to do so. new players will also complain with regard to inadequate information, so i fail to see how the end gamer is really supposed to care about that part of the game. don't put so much stock in new players being the only life-blood of a game. they aren't.... its a combination of factors that make a game thrive.

since its too far off topic, i won't further respond to this topic....

The bold part is exactly the problem. If the experienced players don't care about the experience of people who are brand spanking new to the game and just started playing (which many obviously don't), then they're not going to pass on anything about what that experience is like. They probably have no idea. And obviously new players aren't the only lifeblood of the game - I would never say that or even imply it. They are absolutely vital to the long term health of the game though. More specifically, their first impressions of what the game is like are vitally important. Those first impressions determine whether a new player will stick around. If first impressions are bad, there won't be enough new players who stick around in order to make up for the inevitable attrition of experienced players (it happens even if all the needs of experienced players are being catered to: experienced players may stop playing for real life reasons, because another game popped up that interests them, or whatever reasons that may be entirely unrelated to how much they enjoy this game). When that happens, the game population starts dwindling.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

So, you say they are adding another process to make crafting research take more time and be harder and more expensive? That would be a strange move in a situation where the game is in desperate need of more players. New customers already feel hopelessly behind in the research process, the VR grind and the CP race, and now ZOS would be making it even harder for those people to become competitive in crafting? I think a change like this would be another nail in the coffin for the PC game, and with the character transfers to console it's going to create a large gap between a small elite of players at level cap and everyone else who starts the game at console launch -- a gap so large that it will seem pointless to try to catch up.

I sincerely hope they are not doing this.

I just thought I would point out that Motifs are a time-sink only for finding them, not for researching them. Traits are the huge research time sink. That being said, I don't mind if the new motif styles are found one page at a time like the Dwemer.